CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I was just seventeen when I found out I was having a baby. Still a child myself, really.
I was in the first year of a business studies course at college. And I was terrified.
Since the art course and then finding out that Claire was having Joel’s baby, I’d been a complete and utter emotional mess. I’d dealt with it by staying out of their way as much as I could and spending most of my time with Mum at Bogg House, the rented property in the country where we’d lived since I was twelve.
I knew the dilemma Joel was facing. I could see it in his pale, strained face and the helpless way he’d look at me on the rare times we met when Claire wasn’t around.
On one occasion, he’d cornered me to tell me he was so sorry. ‘If it wasn’t for the baby, Rhona...’ he’d murmured, and my heart had ached for him, seeing the greyness of his complexion and his obvious confusion. He was clearly a man on the horns of a dilemma, and I wasn’t going to make things worse for him. So I’d nodded and smiled, showing him I understood – while inside, I felt as if I was slowly dying.
The days passed by in a miserable daze and I went through the motions of going to lectures and doing my coursework.
The day I realised I was pregnant, though, changed everything.
The knowledge that I was carrying Joel’s baby sharpened my focus. And I knew I had to make some tough decisions.
I told Mum everything and just as I’d thought, she was surprised initially but endlessly supportive, saying she was going to devote herself to looking after me and the baby.
What I didn’t want was Joel and Claire finding out I was pregnant. Joel especially. Before long, I’d start to show and then he’d find out the truth – that he was going to be a dad twice over.
Every time I thought about that, I knew it couldn’t happen. It was all such a mess. On the course, Joel had told me he didn’t love Claire any longer, but was that really true? When he’d found out she was pregnant, he’d been really happy about it. It was his chance to have the child he really wanted and I couldn’t ruin that for him. If Claire found out we’d slept together on the course, she’d be furious. Their family unit would be destroyed and she might even prevent him from having access to their baby.
I’d seen the truly spiteful side of Claire recently. She was still barely speaking to me. I knew she was capable of making Joel’s life a misery.
So, drowning in waves of panic and dread, I came up with a plan.
I told Claire and Joel that I’d landed a job in the art department of an advertising agency in Liverpool, so I was moving up there the following week.
I caught the desolate look on Joel’s face as he and Claire waved me off for the last time. He asked for my address in Liverpool and I told him I’d text it to him, without having any intention of doing so. Beneath my stiff-backed demeanour, I was actually breaking down inside.
When I arrived back at Bogg House, I fell into Mum’s arms and sobbed for a long time.
Next day, I steeled myself to get on with my new life. As a single mother.
Without Joel . . .
*****
During the pregnancy, I stayed at home, out of sight.
I’d texted Joel to tell him I was cutting off all contact with him and Claire, for the sake of my sanity. I wished them well. And then I got a new sim card for my mobile with a new number so he couldn’t keep in touch.
My despair at losing Joel and the shock of being pregnant soon gave way to a sense of gratitude and quiet joy, knowing that I was nurturing a brand new life inside me. My instinct was to remain cocooned in my safe space, with my lovely mum as my protector, and lose myself in my painting.
Mum would shoo me out into the garden for sun and fresh air, and she even encouraged me to try growing vegetables in the back garden, but on the whole, I didn’t miss not going out. As an only child I’d always been a bit of a loner, happy in my own company.
I spent a lot of time in my bedroom, poring over the scan pictures, marvelling at the little seed that was growing inside me day by day, and dreaming of what my baby’s face would look like. I couldn’t wait to meet her.
I missed Joel. Even more when I heard through the grapevine that he and Claire had moved – to Somerset, over a hundred miles away.
But knowing he admired my art inspired me to be ever more creative. When I was lost in my latest painting, I felt close to Joel. So painting became my comfort blanket.
One day, Mum suggested we should decorate the room we’d decided would be the nursery. So we spent a whole afternoon stripping away the wallpaper and looking at paint shades.
The next morning when I woke, I wandered into what would be my baby’s nursery and I lay down on the single bed in there, propped against the pillows. I looked around me at the empty walls and a vision came to me of being in a peaceful meadow surrounded by fields and flowers, with bees and birds flitting among the trees. Just the sort of place I’d take my daughter when she arrived so I could show her nature in all its glory.
My heart was beating excitedly as I got off the bed.
I would make it a reality now so that when the baby came, a countryside meadow would be the first thing she saw every morning when she woke up!
So I painted my vision onto the walls and when finally I invited Mum in to see what I’d been doing, she was so amazed, she couldn’t speak for a moment.
At last, sniffing back tears, she chuckled, ‘I’m sure Linda won’t mind.’
It was only then that I remembered our landlady, Linda, who’d been a good friend of Mum’s for years. I should have asked Linda for her permission before I rushed ahead with this!
‘We can always paint over it if she hates it,’ I said.
Mum smiled. ‘I can’t imagine anyone hating it. It’s so beautiful. In fact, I think Linda’s going to love it.’
I sank down on the bed.
Would Joel love it?
I had a feeling he would, and tears pricked my eyes, thinking of him.
‘Linda thinks your art is good enough to sell,’ Mum reminded me. ‘And I agree with her.’ She glanced around again at the room’s colourful transformation, shaking her head in amazed wonder. ‘You’re so talented, my love.’
I smiled, flattered that Linda thought I could make a living out of my painting, even though I knew I wasn’t that good! Linda was just being nice, although she did genuinely seem to like the paintings I’d given her. Mum said she wouldn’t have hung them on her living room walls if she hadn’t rated them highly – she’d have put them up in the downstairs loo!
Three months later, my daughter was born.
And a week after that, I lost my wonderful mum.
The papers reported that she was getting married. Wrongly, of course.
Yes, Mum had been on her way to the registry office, but it wasn’t to get married. She’d been going to register my baby’s birth when a drunk driver came out of nowhere and mowed her down as she was standing at the side of the road, waiting to cross.
I never painted again after that.
I didn’t have the heart.