TAKE HIM HOME AND ENJOY HIM
‘Take him home and enjoy him.’
The words echoed through the hospital corridor, bouncing off the walls hitting me hard and fast like a squash ball.
I wanted to scream.
Where did I go wrong?
I packed up smoking as soon as the blue line appeared on the test kit I’d bought on my way to school that morning. I reached into the bottom of my bag, fished out the squashed packet of Silk Cut, lit one, took a long drag and promised the baby and myself it would be my last. Mum was standing at the kitchen sink, peeling potatoes when I got home that afternoon. I walked over and put my head on her shoulder. She turned her head and kissed me.
‘Mum—I’m pregnant.’ To my surprise, there was no shouting, no hysterics, and no lecture, just a look of concern and possibly exhaustion followed by;
‘Oh, Claire!’
While my classmates sipped from Coke bottles laced with vodka, scotch or anything alcoholic at the end of term disco, I clutched a bottle of mineral water feeling just as woozy. I was already throwing up at regular intervals and had no trouble convincing my friends that my water bottle had contained vodka and lemonade.
George I called him.
Gorgeous George. Born 9th February 1996
The date made history. I was familiar with the phrase: He came into the world with a bang. For George, it was true. Canary Wharf was bombed forty minutes before my little man made his difficult journey into the world.
MAY 1996
I’d been asked all the usual questions at George’s routine six-week check-up, but a few weeks later, I was back in the surgery answering the same questions all over again.
‘Is he smiling?’
‘Was it a normal delivery?’
If the doctor considered being strangled on his way out normal, then yes, it was a normal delivery, but somehow it didn’t seem normal to me.
‘Is he feeding okay?’A question mark was placed beside that one. He was still very slow, sometimes taking a couple of hours, rolling the teat—chewing rather than sucking.
‘Any major concerns?’
‘Yes—No—Oh—I don’t know. I’m not sure.’
Say it, just say it!
‘I think there’s something wrong with him. His head is still really wobbly.’
‘Okay, let’s take a look.’
I undressed him down to his nappy and laid him on the couch. He wasn’t our usual GP but a supply doctor, who happened to be a paediatrician. I sensed something wasn’t right when he held George’s hands and pulled. His expression changed. He looked puzzled.
‘Hmm. I think to be on the safe-side, I’m going to refer him to a consultant paediatrician at Guys. I don’t think there’s any major cause for concern, but I’m not entirely happy with his head control.’
‘No major cause for concern’. Then why—just two hours later—was a health visitor knocking on our door?
It didn’t sink in right away. She was a cheerful African lady with a thick accent, whose words came out in one melodic sentence.
‘Hello, Claire. We-ava-bed-for Jodge.’
‘A bed?’
I knew her. She lived upstairs to Nan with her two boys. One of them had shimmied down the drainpipe into Nan’s back garden one day. He held a piece of cardboard up at the window: HELP I AM BEING HELD PRISONER. It’s a wonder he didn’t fall and break his neck. Nan told him she’d break it for him if she caught him in her garden again.
