5
At first, when Spike left for Australia, she would rush home from work to check whether he might have changed his mind and sent her a card, a message on her ansaphone, an email, anything. But as each day passed, there was nothing. Finally, she sent him a “Hi, how are you?” type of email – which bounced straight back with a message stating the address was no longer valid. She tried a text. Number discontinued. In the end, she called Elspeth. They had an awkward conversation where Elspeth informed her… that Yes, Spike had arrived safely in Australia, and that No, she couldn’t give Polly his phone number, but she’d let him know that she’d called.
As weeks crawled by, she tried to stay chipper, even though she felt as if someone had shoved a large fist deep inside her solar plexus, grabbed a bloody handful, twisted, and then ripped it out. Like Magua from The Last of the Mohicans , she might have told someone. But didn’t. So determined was she to appear chirpy and to hide her shame. She knew she wasn’t fooling Mel, but at least Mel had the sense not to let on.
When not at work, she’d mope around her house – watching reality television and writing poetry. Really bad poetry involving sea journeys. ( Why sea and not planes? Makes no sense .) She read sad books; and developed a fascination for eels after reading about their plight online. She signed an online petition against the Severn Barrage Scheme – a proposed concrete monstrosity for harnessing the biggest tides in the UK, but which would have the detrimental effect of blocking the path of the returning eels. It made her cry; their determination to find their way home. She cried at soppy films on the telly. At animal rescue shows, and she couldn’t bear to watch the news.
Neither Donna – her assistant at the shop – nor Mel had ever seen her like this. They each kept a watchful eye on her. ‘Wanna come downtown with me and the girls tonight?’ tried Donna.
‘Fancy coming to the Watershed? Catch a movie? Cary Grant season’s on,’ tried Mel.
Then came the morning when a postcard finally arrived on her doormat; landing, as all postcards do, picture-side up. She bent to collect it, knowing with a miserable sixth sense just who it was from and what was to come. The picture displayed an impossibly blue sky over Sydney Harbour. Her heart flapped about like a newly landed fish as she turned it over and read:
Dear Polly, I’m sorry it had to end the way it did. At the risk of sounding like a right eejit – I want you to know that what we had was like a perfect painting. And you wouldn’t want to keep returning to a perfect painting to give it a touch-up every now and then, would you? For fear you’d spoilt it. Do you see? What I need to say, and what I hope you will understand, is – please don’t try and contact me again. It’s for the best. Spike x
She tore the card in two. That was that then. A kiss-off postcard. Well, he’d made his position crystal clear and she was damned if she was going to cry. ‘Fine,’ she announced to herself. ‘Fuck him.’
But deep down she didn’t feel that way at all. Deep down in those secret places, she felt ripped. Cut. Cast adrift. And yes, abandoned, with a hurt she’d not felt since she’d realised her mother was no longer coming home. Not ever. It was all she could do to not drop to her knees and keen like the Cornish fisherwives of drowned men.
*
Polly was right off her food. She couldn’t even stomach Jammie Dodgers. She would retch – even vomit – at the smell of coffee, strong perfume, or for no particular reason at all. At first, she put it down to Spike’s leaving.
‘Cheer up,’ Mel said on the day when Polly finally realised she wasn’t only nauseous from a broken heart.
Her friend had popped round for a girlie night in – just the two of them – and was emptying a whole bumper packet of Kettle crisps into a bowl. Polly had her gimlet eye on them, sure she was about to hurl any moment at their disgusting oily-crispy stench.
‘With any luck, he’s been kidnapped by Somali pirates,’ Mel said.
Polly burst into tears. Big ploppy ones. In between the sobbing, the hiccupping and the nose-running, she nodded at Cap’n Jack, who now resided in her sitting room – all tall and handsome. ‘You shouldn’t d-diss pirates…’ She reached forward for a handful of tissues from the box.
Mel came in for a hug, but she waved her away. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Honestly, I could kill him.’ Mel flopped backwards on the sofa, regarding her friend as Polly’s sobs calmed to sniffles.
‘See? Better.’ Polly lifted her head, eyes all blurry and mascara-smudged. Then, before she knew it, she was thrusting her hand in front of her mouth, up on her feet with a ‘S’cuse me,’ and dashing off to the kitchen where she vomited into the sink, bile burning the back of her throat.
‘You being sick in there?’ called Mel.
‘It’s all right. I’m fine. Put that DVD on, will you, and I’ll be with you in a minute.’ Bloody bug .
She leant on the draining board to catch her breath as she thought of how Christmas was fast approaching, and how she wished she could curl up into a ball and hibernate the winter away. But it was the busiest time of year for any shop owner. Christmas with all its jolliness and ho-ho-hos. Donna acting as skittish as if she were one of Santa’s reindeer, prattling on about how she and Jase (her latest boyfriend) were going to go away – ‘For a proper dirty weekend, mind. Four-poster bed, Christmas tree, the lot!’ Polly had put on a brave face, pretending she was well and truly over Spike. ‘Sorry,’ Donna said, but she’d assured her all was fine and hunky-dory. Kidding no one, of course.
Normally she loved Christmas – but this year, it was doing her head in. She couldn’t face Christmas Day at Suze and Brian’s in Devon. Her dad had invited her over to his, as well. No way, José.
The only way out was for her to pretend to each that she was going to the other’s (she wouldn’t be found out as Suze and Jeff weren’t on speaking terms), and then she could shut out the world. Just her, some ready-made meals and crap telly.
Polly wiped her mouth with a few sheets of kitchen roll and returned to the sitting room. Lately her stomach had become all bloated from some wheat allergy or something – lactose? Maybe she had irritable bowel syndrome. She’d stopped taking the pill (what was the point?) and her periods hadn’t settled down yet – but that was to be expected. She’d had some spotting, that was all. And her boobs were sore – which must be down to changes in hormones. Hardly worth bothering the doctor with. He’d only say it was stress. Stress? She thought of the horrible humiliation of her friends asking whether she’d heard from Spike and how, in the end, they’d stopped asking altogether. She still wasn’t sure which was worse: the asking or the stopping.
As she entered the room, her friend looked up from where she’d been fiddling with the television and DVD player. ‘Polly? You’re not – you know?’
‘What?’
‘All this throwing up.’ Mel rose to her feet. ‘Bloody hell, Poll. You don’t think you’re pregnant, do you?’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ she answered. ‘I can’t be.’ And they both stared at each other.
On the day that baby Rowan arrived, Polly at first thought her stomach cramps were caused by a bad curry, because she wasn’t due for another three weeks. She’d been up and down all night, wondering whether or not to wake Mel and insist she call a doctor. Now, a little after 04.00 am, she’d taken two ibuprofen tablets, but, if anything, the pains were getting worse. Weird pains, coming in – whoooah – waves.
Slowly she entered her spare bedroom and shook her friend awake.
‘What? What!’ Mel sat bolt upright, rubbing her eyes. ‘Where’s the fire?’
‘I think I need a doctor,’ said Polly.
Five minutes later, a dressed Mel had joined her in the kitchen, where she was making a pot of tea. ‘Bloody hell, Polly. You look dreadful.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Hadn’t you better change out of your nightie?’ (Giant T-shirt, more like!)
‘After I’ve had a cuppa.’
Mel had stayed over following their girls’ night in with wine (sparkling water for Polly), curry and a DVD of Mamma Mia . What a revelation Meryl Streep had been, thought Polly, who now loved her. Once Meryl did that mid-air split-jump in the middle of singing Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’, she was a converted fan. Priceless.
‘So,’ said Mel, as she stretched and yawned, rubbing at her forehead and dishevelling her short blonde hair. ‘What’s up?’
‘It’s just…’ Polly gripped the side of the table. ‘Oh no. Nnnnnnnuhhh.’ She looked up at Mel. Scared. ‘What the fuck did they put in that jalfrezi?’
‘It can’t be that. I had it too, remember? And I’m just fine.’ She began to rub her friend’s back, low down. ‘Does that help?’
‘Noooo. Nnnnnhhhhhhh. Oh bugger,’ as another wave hit. She doubled over, one hand on the table, the other on her bent leg.
‘You sure it’s not the baby?’ said Mel.
‘No, it can’t be. I’m only thirty-seven weeks. Nnnnnnnnnnhhhhh. Oh shit!’
Followed by a Splat!
Then a ‘What???’
And a Gush.
They both stared in disbelief at the big flop of fluid splattered on Polly’s quarry tiles. From between her legs.
Polly stared. Bloody hell. ‘What’s that? Have I just weed myself?’
They both peered more closely at the watery fluid, which appeared to be tinged with something. Was that blood? It was definitely not wee, and it smelled sort of animal.
First, Polly looked at Mel, then Mel looked at Polly, then they both said, ‘Oh fuck.’
‘I’ll get your overnight bag.’ Mel sprang into action. ‘Just as well I insisted you pack one early, wasn’t it?’
Polly would have thrown her a yeah-no-shit Sherlock look, but right at that particular moment she was experiencing the urge to bear down.
*
‘Blimey,’ said Mel. ‘She looks just like ET.’
Polly couldn’t care less. As far as she was concerned, her baby was the most beautifullest baby in the whole wide world. Even at three weeks early, she was the wriggliest, squiggliest baby on the ward. But Polly didn’t care. High on hormones and love.
‘She’s gorgeous,’ cooed Daisy, Polly’s friend and close neighbour.
‘You think all babies are,’ said Mel. ‘Her face doesn’t look so squished and angry today.’
‘Honestly, Mel. All babies look like that. Now, give me the gory details,’ said Daisy, who’d given birth to her own daughter Morwenna just twelve days before, and was at the eager-to-share stage.
‘You should have seen it!’ said Mel. ‘Like a bloody horror movie!’
‘Never mind all that,’ said Suze, who’d claimed the chair by the side of Polly’s hospital bed. Suze oozed elegance and glamour from her carefully coiffed-within-an-inch-of-its-life pixie-short hair to her painted toes in designer sandals. She was as thin as a whippet, and proud of it too. When Polly was young, one of her mother’s favourite tricks was to breathe in hard so she could then reach both hands up and under her ribcage. Which just looked wrong, Polly thought, wondering why on earth she should be thinking of that now.
‘What are you going to call her?’ Suze was saying. ‘How about Poppy? Poppy’s a lovely name…’
‘Poppy?’ said Mel, turning to Suze with an exasperated look. ‘Are you mental! You can’t have a Polly and a Poppy.’
‘I do wish I’d called Polly Poppy now. What do you think she should call the baby, Brian?’
‘Is up to Poll, Suze. She’s the one to decide.’ He was leaning his arm on the back of Suze’s chair, his bulk taking up more than his fair share of room.
‘How about Blossom?’ continued Suze.
‘Blossom?’
But Polly had zoned out, as her nearest and dearest continued to squabble until the nurse came and shooed them away, leaving Polly exactly where she wanted to be, in her own little bubble of just her and the baby. Her baby. She’d done it all alone. Without Spike. ‘See? We don’t need men, do we, baby?’ She kissed her daughter’s tiny head, still with its cradle cap and faint animal smell. ‘Rowan,’ she whispered to her baby, who stared up into her face with big button eyes. ‘Rowan. Welcome to the world, baby.’
Polly was chauffeured home in Brian’s roomy car with the comfy leather seats, and ushered into her house, where a “Welcome Home Polly piles and piles of stuff. She was too tired to do anything other than go straight to bed.
But there were unforeseen complications. Polly haemorrhaged and was rushed back to hospital, taking Rowan with her as she’d mild jaundice and couldn’t latch onto the breast properly so cried and cried.
Her mum took the opportunity to swoop in and buy Polly’s house outright, as well as a shop in the arcade in Clifton Village, complete with a flat upstairs. All without consulting her. ‘Better to have some of your inheritance now than when I’m dead and buried,’ she’d insisted. ‘You need financial security now you’re a mum.’ Polly had been too weak to resist.
Back home again, and she was sitting up in bed, like a miser protecting a bag of gold, as she held onto Rowan in an uncertain world, where all had changed and people tiptoed around her.
Her father, who’d arrived with wife Gillian in tow – much like the bad fairy to the ball – puffed himself up (how strange, she thought, how it had taken a baby to bring out the protective father in him) as he said, ‘Don’t you think you ought to tell Spike?’
For that one single moment, everything stopped, and then jumped on again as Suze demanded, ‘Why? He was the one who buggered off.’ She glanced across at her daughter. ‘I know it’s all rather scary. Being a Mum…’ ( How would you know? Polly could have quite easily said.) ‘…but, well, you’re not alone, darling,’ continued Suze. ‘We’re all here for you, aren’t we?’ as she turned to the gathering of Mel, Polly’s dad, Gillian and Daisy, who were all grinning away and nodding their heads.
‘I’m tired,’ said Polly. ‘So very tired.’
‘C’mon, let’s let her get some sleep,’ said Daisy, passing her own peacefully slumbering baby, Morwenna, to Suze to hold. ‘Here,’ she said to Polly. ‘Let me take Rowan for you so you can sleep.’
But on reaching out her arms, Polly insisted ‘No!’ with a fierceness that surprised them all, making them back off. ‘I know you’re trying to help, but baby stays with me.’
And so they placed little Rowan in the Moses basket right next to Polly, said they’d pop back later and quietly closed the bedroom door behind them.
‘Just you and me, kid,’ said Polly, as she gazed down at her sleeping child, wondering if you could burst from love, as she took in each and every soft feature of her baby’s face, bending across to smell her intoxicating baby smell and to marvel at how, even at this stage, she had the look of her father.
Satisfied that her child was sleeping, Polly closed her own eyes and was soon in a land where the bong tree grows, back on board a pea-green boat, where the rise and fall of tides rocked her to sleep in its arms.