Page 22 of Statistically Speaking
“The usual way,” I reply, realizing that she is wondering if the baby was the product of anything more sinister than a teenage girl making a mistake. “A party and vodka.”
“Ah. A tried-and-tested method. What about the dad?”
I have, of course, thought about him over the years. Wondered if he is out there, living a parallel life, going about his business unaware of everything that happened after he left.
“I didn’t really know him, Margie. I don’t think it could be more of a cliché—just one of those stupid things that teenagers do. I didn’t even know his name. Nobody else in our gang really knew him either; he was just visiting. After, when I found out—when everyone else found out as well—I did ask around, in case. I mean, I don’t know what I’d have done about it, but nobody else knew how to find him either. We weren’t quite as connected on social media back then. He was known as D—quite the man of mystery.”
“Maybe his name was Derek and he was too embarrassed to say?”
“Maybe, who knows? All I remember is he said he was staying with some relatives, and we met him in the park riding his bike, and he hung around with us for a bit. He wasn’t at our school, and he was from the North somewhere, which seemed like a million miles away back then. He was cute, and I was drunk, and—well, these things happen, right? I felt so stupid when I found out I was pregnant. Like such a cliché. But he was... he was one of those boys, you know? The ones with the cool clothes and the swagger and the Zippo lighter and the confidence. The ones that make you feel so special when they pay you attention, like the sun’s come out?”
“I do know, exactly. We’ve all had boys like that in our lives, and they’re usually the ones that make us do stupid things.”
“Yeah. Well. I did. I never thought he’d be into me, and when he was, at that house party, I just—God, I suppose I was just pretty needy back then. I was in a decent enoughfoster placement at the time, but I never felt like anyone actually wanted me around, really. That little bit of attention from someone was all it took for me to stop being the sensible kid and start being the one who rushed headlong into sex—for the first time. And we used a condom. Even now, it sounds silly—but I’ve always had this sense of injustice about it, for being so unlucky!”
She laughs, and I have to join in. I sound petulant, after all these years. All the way through my pregnancy I felt like wearing a badge that said, “We Used a Condom, Honest!”
“So he never knew about it?” she asks. “He never knew that you were pregnant?”
“No. Strange, isn’t it? That he’s a dad and doesn’t know it? He’s probably better off. I don’t think it would have changed anything—he was a kid too.”
She nods and says, “So you were all on your own with it. That must have been so hard, Gemma—and obviously there is a lot of stuff I don’t know about you. But that’s just stuff. I know the really important things—I know you’re kind and thoughtful and you don’t do anything without thinking it through. Apart from maybe the vodka incident. So I also know that if you did this, you did it for all the right reasons—you did it for the sake of the baby.”
I feel tears sting at the back of my eyes, and it is a sensation I am not overly familiar with. I am not usually one of life’s criers, but something about her small speech turns me liquid. I’m not sure she’s right. I’m not sure that I’m kind, or thoughtful, and over the years I have questioned my motives over and over again.
“I don’t know, Margie. Sometimes I think I did—that I wanted her to have a better life than I could give her. A betterlife than I’d had up until that point. But then sometimes I wonder if I was just being selfish, if I couldn’t actually face the fact that it would mess things up for me even more, and take away any chance I had at changing things.”
“Is there any reason it can’t be both? They’re both perfectly good reasons, aren’t they? You were a child yourself—you deserved better as well.”
I sip some Baileys and wipe away some tears, and think about what she’s said. She is, I think, right—it can be both. Yet for some reason I always yo-yo between the two, unwilling to accept the complexity of it all.
“If you were my daughter, Gemma, I wouldn’t want your whole future to be derailed by that one mistake. If you’d wanted to keep the baby, I’d have helped you do that in a way that meant you could still chase your own dreams. But from what you say, you didn’t have that option—so you did the best you could at the time. For both you and the baby.”
“I wish you had been my mum,” I say miserably, feeling guilty even as the words leave my mouth. “It wasn’t her fault,” I add quickly, as though I’m trying to make up for it. “She was ill. She’d had me young, on her own, with no family to help her either. Maybe that was the only thing we had in common. But she couldn’t cope, she couldn’t look after me, and it was bad sometimes. Sometimes it wasn’t, and I do have happy memories of her, but—well, not many. And then I wonder if I’m any better—we both gave up our children.”
“I’m sure she did her best, babe, and I’m sure she loved you. But maybe you also put your baby up for adoption to break that cycle, eh? Because you wanted her to grow up in a different environment, with people who made her feel safe and cherished, like all kiddies should be?”
“Yes. And I think she did.”
Margie stares at me and takes off her specs, perching them on top of her hair. She’ll be looking for them later and forget where they are.
“How do you know? Have you tracked her down?”
“No. Yes. I’m not sure.”
“Right,” she says. “Well, that clears everything up. Have a drink, take some deep breaths, and get it all off your chest.”
She fills up my glass, and I pick it up with trembling hands. This confiding in people lark is a lot harder than I thought; I’m not at all sure why it’s so popular.
“Well, I haven’t looked for her, no, although I’ve wanted to every day since. And now something weird has happened. You know that girl Katie from my class, the one I told you about?”
“I do. Suffragette Katie. You seemed very taken with her.”
“I was. I am. What I mean is, even before anything else happened, I liked her a lot—you just feel more of a connection with some students than others, and I thought she was going to be one of those. But then I met her mum, totally accidentally, at the yoga class.”
“You met her mum at the leisure center?”
I feel a brief flash of impatience as Margie struggles to keep everything straight, and remind myself that even though I have thought about little else for days now, this is all new to her.
