60

BEX

So Mum never wanted me. She planned on aborting me. Flushing me down the toilet like a dirty tampon, like a piece of shit.

She knew that I knew, that I’d heard the row between her and Dad. The next day I couldn’t meet her eye and whenever she tried to reach out to touch my shoulder or give me a cuddle I pulled away like she disgusted me. She tried sitting me down and talking about it, but I said I didn’t want to hear. I told her I couldn’t listen to her empty words. She begged me, really, properly begged me, asked me to try to understand what had been going on with her at the time, how she felt she needed more from life, how she didn’t want to be trapped, how she thought she might have a different kind of future. But I met her pleas with a blank stare and cold eyes.

At night, in bed, I kept thinking about how she might have done it. Obviously, she hadn’t gone to a clinic, but why had she tried to do it herself? I’d heard of women using knitting needles, gin, hot baths, even throwing themselves down the stairs. But that seemed like ancient history. How many times had she tried to rid herself of me? Had her heart leaped with joy every time she bled, hoping that this was the moment she’d start to lose the baby? Did she sit on the toilet, looking down into the bowl, willing the white ceramic to be streaked with blood? How old had I been when she had attempted to kill me? A few weeks, a few months? And how had she felt when she realised that she was going to have to keep it … keep me?

I studied the photographs of an embryo at differing stages of development in my biology textbook, tracing my fingers over the images: a mini Alien monster at four weeks, eyelids and ears forming at eight, two inches long at twelve, fingerprints on toes and fingers at sixteen, sucking its thumb at twenty, and a good chance of survival if the baby had to be born prematurely at twenty-eight weeks. I felt tears sting my eyes when I thought of myself curled up inside her, feeling all safe and secure swimming around in the warm sac of amniotic fluid, until she tried to do everything in her power to dislodge me. What had made her want to do that? What lay behind her decision? Did she realise she didn’t love the man she went on to marry, my dad?

All these questions and more fizzed through my head, until I was sickened by the thought that she might have hurt me in some way. I’d read about babies being born with various syndromes after their mothers had drunk too much or taken drugs. But could her attempt to abort me have left me … I don’t know … damaged? I was good at school, so it obviously hadn’t hurt my intelligence. And that’s all that most people seemed to worry about: whether you could pass exams. Neither Mum nor Dad had done any education after leaving school. Mum had wanted to be a teacher, but had met Dad during her A levels. They’d started to go out, she’d got pregnant, tried to get rid of me, that didn’t work, so they’d ended up getting married. End of story.

Except it wasn’t. As I lay in bed, festering in the heat of a summer’s night, I started to think of a different kind of life, a life away from them. I let the word ‘divorce’ play around my mouth, imagining what it would be like if they split. They were clearly not suited to one another. And then they had their own problems. Dad with his violent temper, and Mum with her drinking. But did I really want to have to spend time with either of them? A father who would beat me at any opportunity, or an alcoholic mother who had tried to abort me? I realised that if I told anyone about what was happening at home – a teacher, say – the social services would get involved and I would be taken into care.

I started to imagine a number of different scenarios. Mum and Dad in our old banger of a car, fighting, the argument getting out of control, Dad lashing out, Mum hitting back and accidentally hitting the steering wheel so the vehicle careered off the road, smashing into a tree at top speed, causing the death of the two passengers. Mum contracting a devastating terminal illness – liver cancer, a result of her heavy drinking – and Dad dying of a heart attack. Mum committing suicide, tablets washed down by vodka or white wine, and Dad falling off a ladder while painting the guttering outside a house. Unfortunately, all these depended on chance or circumstance, or simply waiting to see if the passing of time resulted in their deaths. But what would happen if Mum died and I was left with Dad, or Dad passed away and I was trapped at home with Mum? If I did nothing, I could be stuck with them for ever, or at least until I was eighteen and I could move out, go to university, which seemed like for ever.

Was there another way? I knew Dad was a jealous bastard. He didn’t trust Mum. He still believed that she’d been having an affair with Mr Jarvis. Each night that sweltering summer I played a game in my head. What would happen if …? I’d start the sentence and then see what happened next, moving around the figures of Mum and Dad and Mr and Mrs Jarvis like pieces on a chessboard.

Occasionally, I’d stop myself, tell myself that the game wasn’t a nice one, but then I’d be tempted by the delicious prospect of it and I’d start plotting again. What would happen if …? What would happen if …? What would happen if …? My English teacher always said I had a wild imagination, that I should allow it to take flight.

Now here was my chance to shine.