Excerpt
from Springfield Road | February
'Just so she’d hold me safe, for just a little bit longer.'
It
was a bitterly cold day in February when my mother was rushed to
hospital to have the new baby, prematurely. I remember being excited
to have a new baby sister or brother, but I was desperate for my
mother the ten days or so she was gone. My mother had miscarried a
baby before this new child and so I was very afraid to see my mother
broken like that again, to find my mother in darkness, her eyes red
from crying. There was a depressing darkness and a stuffy warmth in
her bedroom that day and I never forgot it.
My
brother and I were left to fend for ourselves. We went to and from
school as usual and helped ourselves to cereals and toast. The house
was empty without her, silent and loveless. The idea that this could
be permanent was too horrible to contemplate. After school I shivered
and waited, sitting on the back doorstep in the gloomy dusk, fearing
the worst, waiting for my stepfather’s car to light up the drive.
There
were complications with the birth. We had a new sister, but she was
premature and she came out fragile, tiny and blue. She was in an
incubator and there was a blood transfusion. This was all I knew and
a horrible dread consumed me. During those long, dark February nights
I steeled myself for the possibility that my mother might die. In the
books I loved to read this happened all the time, the stories of Hans
Christian Anderson, Brothers Grimm and Charles Dickens were filled
with stories of orphans whose mothers died in childbirth.
I remember waiting, always waiting, for news, for my mother to come home
safe or for Paddy to come to let me in after school and to pass time
I started walking, blowing on my cupped hands to keep them warm. It
had started getting dark and was spitting with rain when I knocked on
Mrs Sharkey’s door. I wanted to be less pitiful, but the sight of
her kind face and the gush of warmth at the open door made my eyes
hot with tears. She was wiping her hands on a tea towel and I could
see she was about to say she was busy and about to send me away. I
was hungry and cold and as my eyes filled I looked away and down at
my shoes.
What’s
wrong? she asked and
I looked at her and then down again into my upturned coat collar when
I felt my lip quivering. Through a blur of hot tears I saw her face
change and she asked me inside. I was grateful but awkward because
this time it wasn’t a game, this time I felt I needed her. Once
inside I began to cry, regurgitating the things I had been told but
didn’t fully understand. I told her that my new sister was smaller
than a doll and that she came out blue and had to have a blood
transfusion. She’s
in an incubator and my mum’s really ill and...and what if…?
Mrs
Sharkey put her arm across my shoulders and listened and assured me
that my Mum would be all right. She made me dry my eyes with a
handkerchief, then took out a pot and heated milk to make her special
milky coffee. She made me a ham sandwich – the most delicious
sandwich I had ever eaten, neatly cut into four quarters, on moist
white bread with creamy butter and soft pink ham that was ever so
slightly salty. I found it difficult to eat carefully and with all of
my manners. I was self-consciously hungry and I ate too fast and the
sandwich stuck in my throat. I tried to sip hot coffee to dislodge
it. Mrs Sharkey watched me. She told me to take my time and that I
could stay for a while and get warmed up. Then she walked to the
corner cupboard in the kitchen and her grin made me chuckle as she
said her lovely catchphrase Cakey?
Mrs
Sharkey asked if I would like to warm up by the fire and led me into
the living room. I thought I must be a very trustworthy person to be
allowed to sit in the proper front room and eat my cake and drink my
sweet and creamy coffee. I felt shy and awkward, I hadn’t sat in
there before, our chats were always at the kitchen table or by the
back doorstep. Mrs Sharkey told me to take my shoes off to warm my
toes and this embarrassed me, making me feel like I was really
welcome to stay for a while longer. I was grateful and in no rush to
sit on the cold doorstep at our house anymore. I fumbled nervously
with my laces, acting as though I had somewhere else to go in a bit,
acting as though I thought she was the one who might want some
company - because asking for comfort when you really need it can be the
hardest thing.
The
blue glow of the electric fire was warm and inviting. Mrs Sharkey
switched all the bars on high, until they glowed orange and ginger
beneath the coals. I took my shoes off and, suddenly aware of my odd
grey boy’s socks, I tucked my cold feet under me. She put a tartan
blanket on me, she had bought it on a caravan holiday she’d had in
the highlands of Scotland, she said. The room had two armchairs but
we sat side by side on the big green sofa. There were lace curtains
and doilies on the glass coffee table, my coffee cup sat neatly on a
Cork, Ireland
coaster. She told me about Ireland and about her family pictured in
gold and silver oval frames above the mantel piece, she told me the
names and ages of all of her nephews and nieces that lived in the
long ago and the far away.
As
Mrs Sharkey explained her family tree I pretended to go to sleep for
a joke and I snored loudly. Mrs Sharkey played a lovely game with me,
she pretended to be offended. She said
Oh
how rude to fall asleep when I’m in the middle of telling a story…
I
pretended to sleep and snored on and she held me, I was enveloped in
her warm bosom, and pillowed in her arms. Then she pretended to fall
asleep too, and snored even louder. With our eyes clenched shut, we
peeked at each other out of one eye and then belly laughed, as we
whistled, snorted and made pig snuffling noises together Well,
well, what a big snore for such a little girl, she
said, blowing a raspberry on my neck to wake me up making me laugh
and wriggle.
With
Mrs Sharkey holding me by the fire, we became still and gentle.
Eventually I let myself go and drifted off for a little while. I was
so comfortable in the glow of the fire, the soft heat of her arms, I
fell into a lovely warm haze. Just so she’d hold me safe, for just
a little bit longer.
***
When
they came home, my mother and sister were fine after all. My mother
once told me that she had had nightmares in the hospital and got up
to sleepwalk the halls in the night, dragging her drip along with
her. We sat on the bed and whispered, watching my newborn sister
sleep. Jo-Ann was very small, a living, breathing doll, with black
silky floppy curls. I measured her against my Tiny
Tears doll and Jo-Ann
was smaller. Her skin was the colour of my palest inner wrist and she
had a penny plastered over her belly button. Sometimes in the
evenings when my parents were watching television I risked sneaking
into their bedroom to her cot-side. I wound up her lullaby toys and
soothed her when she cried. I liked the way she grabbed my finger
with her tiny hand. I sang to her, Goodnight
Mister Moon, come again and see us soon…
Jo-Ann cried a lot, but when I was with her she’d go quiet and it
made me feel as though I was her special one.
Just wanted to share this February memory and a good hug on such a grey day....
Happy Birthday to my beautiful sister Jo!!
My sister Jo-Ann was born with Williams Syndrome. It is a relatively rare developmental disorder and means she has moderate learning difficulties. Jo was born with a number of missing genes on chromosome 7, only one person in 20,000 is born with WS. But there is more to her than her than this and I can never hope to fully capture the energy and infectious laugh of my sister Jo-Ann, but I hope to try, and this will be published in OTHERS, a new book which has been successfully crowdfunded and published by my trail blazing publishers Unbound, with all net profits going to refugees and stop hate charities.
OTHERS will be a collection of essays, stories and poetry on the theme of being 'Other' - I will be joining other-others in a spectacular line up that includes Leila Aboulela, Gillian Allnutt, Damian Barr, Noam Chomsky, Rishi Dastidar, Peter Ho Davies, Louise Doughty, Salena Godden, Colin Grant, Sam Guglani, Matt Haig, Aamer Hussein, Anjali Joseph, AL Kennedy, Joanne Limburg, Tiffany Murray, Sara Nović, Edward Platt, Alex Preston, Tom Shakespeare, Kamila Shamsie, Will Storr... #Wetickother #othersbook
LONDON, MARCH 2018
