Who Wants You With Baggage?
Are you sure, love?
Helen placed her hand gently atop her mothers and smiled.
Mum, I love him. And he loves me. Well marry, and well be all right. Well be a family, all right?
Her father pushed aside his half-eaten shepherds pie and gazed out of the window, his brow furrowed. The pause that followed was only seconds long, but to Helen it stretched endlessly.
Youre only nineteen, he said at last. You ought to be thinking about your degree, about getting a proper career. Not about weddings.
Ill manage, Dad, Helen replied, her voice calm, though her heart twisted with longing to prove herself to make them see what she saw. James has a job, Im at university. We arent asking you to support us. We just want to be together, to be a family.
Her father shook his head but said nothing.
They didnt approve, Helen saw it in her fathers pressed lips, in how her mother nervously straightened the napkin beside her plate. But neither did they stand in her way. Perhaps they remembered too clearly what it was like to be young; perhaps they knew that forbidding her would only make her more determined.
The wedding came in May, simple yet so warm that Helen would recall it, years later, as a gentle blanket wrapping around her heart. No grand hotel reception for two hundred, no limousines, no releasing of white doves. But they were happy.
They spent their honeymoon at Brighton. Only a week, as James couldnt get any more leave from the office, nor did they have much money to spare. Yet those seven days formed a magic bubble, sheltering them from reality. They woke late, ate their breakfasts on the narrow balcony of their little guest house, looking out to the sea, wandered the promenade until dusk, sharing fish and chips from a paper and kissing as if tomorrow would never come.
And then real life began. None of the romance and glow, only the honest routine. A one-bedroom flat rented on the outskirts of Reading, draughty in winter, with neighbours overhead whose footsteps rattled the light fitting. James left for work at seven, Helen dashed off to lectures, evenings found them both tired, heating up leftovers for dinner and falling asleep the moment their heads touched the pillow.
Yet even in the exhaustion, there was something right about it. Something true.
After six months, Helens parents phoned and asked them to visit that weekend. All the way across town, Helen wondered whether something had happened, her mind spinning through scenarios, from the ominous to the absurd. Once they arrived, they were sat at the kitchen table, offered a cup of tea, and then a thick envelope was nudged towards them.
This is for you, her father said, staring past them. For a flat. Even if its only a one-bed, at least itll be your own. You neednt keep paying to live in someone elses space.
Helen stared at the envelope, her hands rigid, tears prickling at her eyes.
Dad she began, but he waved her off.
Go on, just take it. Call it a belated wedding present.
A month later, they found their place: a little flat on the third floor of an uninspiring block, not much more than the size of a generous classroom. The kitchen barely fit a table, the loo and bath were squeezed together, the windows looked out onto a patch of grass and faded benches. For some, it would seem nothing special. For Helen, it was a whole universe. She picked out the wallpaper herself, negotiated with the workmen, hung the curtains, and filled every windowsill with flowers from the Saturday market.
The following year, when Helen started her third year at university, she was struck with a strange feeling of illness. At first she thought shed eaten something off; then wondered if she just overdid it with revision. She bought a test, more out of a sense of duty than expectation.
It showed two pink lines, clear and unmistakable.
Helen sat on the edge of the bath, staring at the little bit of plastic that had just overturned her world. Third year. Degree to finish in two years. Theyd barely got their feet under them Why now?
James came in from work, instantly sensing something wrong. She handed him the test in silence, unable to find words.
He looked at it for a long minute, then raised his eyes. What she saw in them took her breath away.
Were keeping it, he said quietly, but with resolve.
James, Im in my third year How can I?
Were keeping it, he repeated, taking her trembling hands in his. Take a year out. Ill work. Well manage. This is our baby, Helen.
She pressed her face into his shoulder and wept from fear, from uncertainty, from hormones, perhaps. And maybe from joy, too, running up among all the worry like grass forcing itself through the paving stones.
She had no trouble arranging her year out.
Little Michael was born in March, while patches of old snow still stained the city streets and the air hinted at coming spring. Seven pounds, three ounces, fifty-one centimetres. Helen looked at the tiny bundle in her arms, at his wrinkled red face, and felt almost unable to believe it was real that this was her son. Hers and Jamess.
Her happiness felt so enormous she thought her heart would burst.
But, slowly, things shifted, quiet as the first frost one day its still warm, the next your breath turns to mist.
James started coming home later. First half an hour, then an hour, until she gave up counting. Hed step inside, hang up his coat and sidestep Michaels cot, not even glancing in. Once, he would scoop Michael up straight away, kiss his head, blow raspberries into his belly. Now it was as though the baby didnt exist.
You could at least say hello to your son, Helen burst out one day.
Jamess expression twisted, as if shed said something improper.
Hes asleep. No sense waking him up.
Michael was not asleep; he lay watching his father with enormous brown eyes, a mirror of Jamess own. But James didnt notice, or didnt want to.
Then came the comments: at first offhand, easy to write off as a misunderstanding. Helen told herself she was imagining things.
Youre going out in that? he asked one morning, eyes flicking up and down her jeans and jumper.
Whats wrong with it? she asked.
Nothing, I suppose. He didnt finish his sentence, but his expression said the rest.
It got worse no longer hidden as hints.
Do you even bother to look in the mirror? he snapped one evening as Helen changed for bed. Youve gone to seed. Looks like youre fifty, not twenty-two.
The words hit Helen like a punch. She stood there, in her old nightdress, unable to breathe. Yes, shed put on some weight after Michael, hadnt yet got her figure back, but how could he say that?
James, I havent long had the baby Her own whisper sounded pathetic to her.
You had the baby a year ago. A year! Other women snap back to normal in three months, but you
He broke off, waving a hand in dismissal, and left the room. Michael woke, wailing in his cot.
Sorted him out, will you! James shouted from the kitchen. Hes always at it! No wonder I cant sleep!
Helen lifted her son, holding him close, pressing her face to his soft hair as tears ran down and soaked into his head. Michael slowly quietened, comforted by her warmth. Helen just stood in the dark, rocking them both.
She had no one to turn to. Well, she did her parents. But every time she picked up her phone to call her mum, she pictured her fathers face. Youre only nineteen. You should be studying. Theyd warned her. Told her so. And shed thought shed known best that love conquered all.
So what now? Go back, admit they were right, confess shed ruined her life with starry-eyed foolishness? Helen played out the scene in her head, saw her mothers tears and her fathers stony silence, and put the phone away again. Youve got yourself into this mess, Helen. Youll have to get yourself out.
One afternoon Helen took Michael out for his usual walk. She did a circuit of the nearby green and ended up at the little park under the thinning trees. While rummaging for a wet wipe in her bag, she realised shed forgotten his snack.
She hurried back.
She let herself in, thinking shed just nip in, grab Michaels fromage frais, and head back out. But in the hallway she saw a strange pair of shoes: red patent heels, not her size.
Her legs took her deeper into the flat, though her mind screamed at her to turn around.
The bedroom door was ajar.
She saw enough. More than enough. Another woman, in her bed, her sheets. And James didnt even try to move, to cover it up, to make excuses.
He looked more annoyed than guilty, as if Helen were an irritating fly.
What did you expect? he said, all scorn. Look at yourself. Am I supposed to just put up with this? Im twenty-five, in my prime, and I come home to a wife who well, youve let yourself go.
Helen stood in the doorway, holding the frame for support, her legs threatening to give out. The other woman wrapped the duvet around herself and stared fixedly at the wall.
Get out, Helen said, her voice low and hoarse, foreign even to her own ears. Get out of my flat. Now.
The woman hastily began gathering her clothing. James watched with half a smirk.
Dont start going hysterical, he muttered after the woman left. Its not the end of the world. It happens to everyone. This is just how things are.
How do you mean, normal? she said in disbelief.
Yeah what, you think your granddad never strayed? You think its just me? Half the blokes do it. And their wives put up with it, because who else would want them especially with a kid in tow. He pulled on his jeans. Whos going to want you, Helen? With a kid hanging around? So cut the drama. Enoughs enough.
Helen didnt remember how she managed to get to the hallway, or how she zipped up Michaels anorak, or called a taxi, or told them her parents address. All she remembered was staring out of the window all the way there, as her hand absentmindedly patted her sons back, feeling nothing but scorched emptiness.
Her mother answered the door. She took one look at Helen and understood. She simply stepped forward and wrapped her arms round her, tight as when Helen was a child and came home sobbing with scraped knees.
Mum, I Helen began, but her mother shook her head.
Later. All in good time. Come in.
Helens father stepped out of the kitchen. He took in the sight of his daughter and grandson, and his expression turned hard.
Whats happened?
Helen told them. Haltingly, through tears, fumbling and stumbling over details the insults, the coldness, the red shoes in the hall, the taunt: Who wants you with baggage? Her father listened in silence. When she had finished, he took his coat from behind the door.
Come on.
Where? Helen asked, bewildered.
To him. He glanced at Michael. Leave Michael with your mother. Lets go.
James answered the door with a look as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
Helens father entered the flat, surveyed the scene, then turned to James. His voice was low, but the force of it made Helens skin prickle.
Heres whats going to happen. Youre going to pack your things and get out. This is my daughters home. We bought it, with our own money. Youve no place here any longer.
James tried to bluster about his rights, about joint property, but Helens father cut across him.
Rights? Lets talk about rights like how you treated my daughter. How you humiliated her. Bringing strange women into her home. If youre still here in half an hour, Ill call the police. And believe me, Ive got the money for proper solicitors you wont know whats hit you. Now get out.
James packed his bag and was gone, saying not a word. Helen watched the door close behind him, her heart thudding.
Why didnt you come home sooner? her father asked when they were alone.
I thought youd warned me. I thought youd say it was my fault.
He turned to her, a gentleness shining in his eyes that made her throat ache.
Youre our daughter. My girl. Dont you see? You can always come home. Always. No matter what.
Helen stepped forward and pressed her face to his shoulder, as she had when she was little. And she cried for a long, long time, letting all the pain of the past months flow away.
Two years later, Helen sat on the rug in her little flat, watching Michael carefully stack his colourful blocks. Her degree, completed by correspondence with honours lay on the sofa beside her. Her phone blinked with a notification: the latest child maintenance payment had arrived.
Michael grinned up at her, his smile heartbreakingly reminiscent of James. But it didnt matter anymore.
Mummy, look! Tower!
I see, darling. Its a beautiful tower.
Sunset poured golden light through the window, bathing the room in a gentle, hopeful glow. Helen smiled at her son.
Everything had worked out. Not quite as she once dreamed, but all the same it had worked out.
