SHIRLEY
Birmingham, 1981
The cracks. If I don’t step on the cracks in this pavement then all will be well, all will go according to plan. If I don’t step on the cracks then the gods will smile down on me, I will be the lucky one, I will succeed in my mission. But it’s hard to monitor the progress of my feet when I’m ducking beneath the branches of a weeping willow. I spit the leaves from my mouth and wrestle the fronds that stick to my coat, hoping against hope that the soles of my shoes haven’t made contact with the cracks underfoot.
Free of the tree, I look up to the sky. All I can see is bunting. There really is no escaping it today. Every street in this neighbourhood is criss-crossed with red, white and blue triangles flapping in a breeze I cannot feel. I wonder if the residents have kept these decorations locked away since the Silver Jubilee. Four years seems a long time to keep something in a drawer on the off chance, yet so few of them look brand new.
Did people really do that four years ago?
‘Oh don’t put them in the bin, Marjorie. We might have a royal wedding in a few years. Stick them in the bottom of the sideboard instead. I feel another street party coming on.’
‘Whatever you say Gilbert.’
I very much doubt it.
Some mums and dads are in the middle of this street, starting to arrange trestle tables. I see a little girl, red faced, crying in a deck chair. She is wearing a bowler hat covered in tin foil. Sellotaped onto the tin foil is a cut-out of the happy couple, Charles and Diana. But that little girl is looking anything other than happy. I know how she feels.
The next time I look down – I will spend a lot of time looking down today, avoiding eye contact, it’s the only way – I see a bandy legged crow strutting towards me. He seems as unimpressed by the day’s events as the little girl. I shoo him away with a jab of my right foot.
I know that time is running out. I hasten. If I don’t do this quickly, soon the streets will be full and I will be noticed. I cannot afford to be noticed, not after all my intensive planning. Today is the climax of everything I have been working towards for so long and I must not screw it up. I have practiced for this day so many times, now I need to come good.
I have had umpteen elocution lessons. I now sound so different you’d never guess it was me. All trace of my accent has disappeared. Well, when I want it to. And today it is imperative.
My father’s car is a Jaguar. And he drives it rarther farst.
The man in the moon came down too soon.
Yes. You would hardly know it was me.
And today I don’t want anyone to know it’s me. If anyone stops me, or asks me the time, I have to sound convincingly un-me. I’m even thinking in received pronunciation. That’s what the elocution teacher told me this new accent is. Received pronunciation. RP for short. It suits me, too. It lends me the air of a lady. And till today is over, I need anyone who sees me to see someone other than me.
You know, this old lady’s coat I’m wearing suits me. The pinched waist accentuates my bust and the A-line drop is very forgiving on my thighs. Burgundy is not a colour I’d usually choose but then I wouldn’t normally be wearing a chestnut wig either. It looks good on me, whoever ‘me’ is today. Again, the neutral lipstick isn’t normally my kind of thing. But then there’s nothing normal about what I’m about to do. In fact, this is a very abnormal thing.
I chose this city because it is nowhere near my home town and I have no links to it, but I’ve grown to like it over the last few weeks. I wasn’t sure how to proceed when I first arrived, but then I saw her. And somehow I knew she was my destiny.
I’m no midwife, but as soon as I saw her I knew she was days from dropping. She was waddling along outside Birmingham New Street station. When she got on a bus, I got on too. When she got off, I followed suit. She lived in a nice area. Semidetached houses, wide roads, weeping willows, the works. The sort of place where mothers leave their babies outside the front door in prams all the time. It could be any area in Britain. She lived in a nice house on the corner of two roads. Across the road from the house was a bus stop. It turns out nobody seems to mind if you sit at a bus stop all day, watching. Everybody just thinks you’re waiting for a bus. And from said bus stop you have a wonderful view of the back garden.
Four days ago she returned from the hospital with her husband – he must be her husband, the area is too well-to-do for illegitimacy, plus they’re both wearing wedding rings – and a plump baby in a carrycot.
Three days ago she started leaving the baby out in the back garden in a pram in the sunshine for twenty minutes at about ten o’clock. The baby seems as good as gold. Not a peep out of her.
I am of course hoping this is a regular thing.
I am of course hoping she is out there today.
What sort of parent leaves their child unattended outside their house? It’s like an invitation to abduct. She may as well stick a big sign in the pram. An arrow pointing downwards.
PLEASE. TAKE MY BABY.
Honestly, the everyday habits of the suburban mother never cease to amaze me.
And today is a most excellent day. No-one will give two hoots about me, all eyes will be on their television screens. Today is not royal, it is regal!
I turn from this street to the next, the bunting is sparse now. I wonder if her road is republican – no trestle tables here.
I reach the bus stop and look across the street.
My heart sinks. There is no pram there. I feel a panic rise in me as I lower myself onto the pebble-dashed seating. I have to try and be calm so I can think rationally.
If it isn’t going to happen today, it will happen one day.
I just really want it to happen today.
I look again at the house. Quite a new build. Mid-seventies maybe. Windows not too big, this is good. And the road we’re on is on a slope. It was meant to be the perfect site. A hop over the wall, or a push through the back gate that leads to the back path to the garage. Either would do. Lots of greenery to hide behind. A welcoming house. Nothing foreboding here. A perfectly pleasant house. An inviting house.
A woman ambles up and sits next to me. Shit. This is not part of the plan.
She’s about my age. She has been crying. Why is everyone so sad today? It’s meant to be a day of national celebration, for God’s sake. I look away. I don’t want her to remember me tomorrow. ‘Oh yes, there was a woman in a burgundy mac at the bus stop.’ I just want to blend into the background. And actually it’s good that she’s in some sort of distress. Maybe someone she loves has just died. Perfect. She’ll be in no mood to remember me if that’s the case. Yes, crying at the bus stop, today, right at this moment. This can only be a good thing. In fact, it can be a most excellent thing.
Eventually a bus comes and she gets on and it drives off. And as it sails out of view I see something magnificent. The pram is now in the back garden.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
I stand. I cross the road. And I head to the back gate. I open it as quietly as I can. I can hear pop music floating out from the open back door. I will have to be quick. As I approach the pram I hear raised voices. Heart in my mouth, I quicken my pace.