{"id":7083,"date":"2017-02-11T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T11:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=7083"},"modified":"2017-02-11T14:53:02","modified_gmt":"2017-02-11T13:53:02","slug":"condition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=7083","title":{"rendered":"Condition"},"content":{"rendered":"

My next door neighbour is a Jehovah Witness, and sometimes she puts their leaflets through my door. I like the pictures on the front, crudely-drawn waterfalls and rainbows, the human figures all decked out in national costumes. Inside it\u2019s stuff about Jesus coming any day to smite us, with comments in the margins by Shelia: Too true!<\/em> she\u2019ll write, and, on a section on other religions, How mistaken they are!<\/em> It\u2019s Shelia\u2019s bugbear that the Catholics lied to her for thirty odd years before she discovered the truth. She used to go to chapel everyday and recite Latin she didn\u2019t understand, and no one ever offered her a lift home if it was raining. \u2018The Catholics really led me up the garden path,\u2019 she says darkly. She doesn\u2019t have much time for Muslims or Jews or atheists either. Like many religious people she\u2019s not at peace with her compatriots. You know she\u2019d be jubilant at seeing most of us go to hell in a handcart.
\n              Our other neighbour, Irene, lives upstairs, with her husband. He\u2019s bed-bound after two strokes although Irene says it doesn\u2019t really bother him, he was never a sociable man. He\u2019s happy as long as he has his crisps and his beer, she says. Every so often they have arguments that last all night, although I can never make out what they\u2019re saying. I think they both like a drink. A few weeks ago I was coming out the Toryglen Asda when I noticed her weaving in front of me down the road. She stumbled and a bottle of vodka rolled out her bag. I ran after it, and handed it back. \u2018That was close!\u2019 I said.
\n              \u2018It\u2019s for my friend,\u2019 she said, shoving it into her handbag, embarrassed. It was on the tip of my tongue to say, Why, is she an alcoholic too? just to lighten the mood, but of course I didn\u2019t.
\n              Irene works in the laundrette round the corner, and she gives me a discount when I go in to do my washing on Sunday night. Sometimes we sit and have a cup of tea together. She has twin boys about my age, and she tells me about their jobs and their girlfriends, the high jinks they get up to. \u2018Oh, they\u2019re a pair of characters, so they are,\u2019 she says, shaking her head. It\u2019s the only time she laughs, and it changes her big, plain, harried face. She tells me about her fight with the council to get re-housed in a ground floor flat, and about her sister who lives in Spain, her plans to take a holiday there someday. She says I\u2019m the only person who listens to her problems.
\n              Since mum died, I\u2019ve hated Sundays, and I look forward to going to the laundrette because it means that the day is nearly over. There\u2019s a few of us regulars now: a scooped-out old man who sits in his vest; a refugee family whose three little children run around wild; and a young Asian guy with very bad acne. Last month he brought in an old portable telly for the refugee family, and the next week they brought in some biscuits to thank him. He passed them around. That got the ball rolling, and I brought in some chocolates the week after. It\u2019s our kind of routine now, although none of us speak the same language. We have our own code of smiles and rolling eyes at the weather, and putting our thumbs up to say we\u2019re fine, or thanks, or we\u2019re finished with the tumble drier now.
\n              Everyone starts to leave about eight, and I usually wait on to talk to Irene. Sometimes she\u2019s not in a chatty mood. She\u2019ll get out one of her Mills and Boon\u2019s and hardly say a word.
\n              \u2018Is that a good one?\u2019 I\u2019ll say, and she\u2019ll say, \u2018Och, they\u2019re just pure rubbish,\u2019 turning the page with a secretive, hoarding look.
\n              I like the no-beating-about-the-bush literalness of the titles: The Desert Prince\u2019s Proposal<\/em>, Virgin Midwife<\/em>, Playboy Doctor<\/em>, Saying Yes to the Millionaire!<\/em> All the men on the front covers have long hair, I\u2019ve noticed, which is odd because it\u2019s quite unfashionable now for men to have long hair. They\u2019re always in a cinch with the heroine, who has a modest section of cleavage or leg exposed, and the background features extreme weather and something a bit exotic like a palm tree. It seems sad that our most private dreams and desires are just the same as everyone else\u2019s, that they can be packaged up and articulated so comprehensively.
\n              My dreams are often about mum. In my dreams she is doing something quite ordinary\u2014washing dishes, sitting at the old kitchen table\u2014and I\u2019m not surprised to see her. Sometimes, since I\u2019ve found out that I\u2019m pregnant, babies are muddled in, and even my baby\u2019s father. Once I dreamt that we\u2014all three of us\u2014bumped into her in an American supermarket, a huge neon-lit supermarket. She is wandering the isles, looking fretful. She says, \u2018Thank Goodness you\u2019ve arrived, no one here speaks my language.\u2019 We go into a cafe and she eats cream cake after cream cake, dabbing her mouth delicately after each bite. She used to do this in real life, a gesture so strangely innocent and hopeless that I\u2019d have to turn away. In the dream I say, \u2018Don\u2019t be ashamed.\u2019 The baby is crying and when I press him against my chest he stains my shirt with blood.
\n              \u2018I\u2019m not ashamed,\u2019 she says. \u2018Whatever gave you that idea?\u2019 and she gives me a smile of such recognition that I wake up, bereft. <\/p>\n

Tonight, the streetlights outside the laundrette aren\u2019t working so it is completely dark outside. I walk home with my washing in one hand and my keys in the other. Irene\u2019s advised me to keep them at the ready to jab any potential attackers in the eye. My footsteps sound loud and lonely, and I\u2019m glad when I get inside. I put on the gas fire and make a cup of tea. The man in the flat across the road still has his curtains open. He has some sort of easel on his desk, and he sits there every night. I can see the top of his head, and the calm arc of his arm as he moves his pencil across the paper. I always feel reassured when he\u2019s there. I didn\u2019t have any curtains for a few months after I moved in, and now that I do, I can\u2019t draw them in case he takes it as a slight. I put away my laundry, and wash the dishes. When I come back, the easel man is gone and his light\u2019s off. There\u2019s a white moon above the rooftops, and the stars have come out, trailing silver streams.
\n              I have a shower then sit down to read the pamphlets the doctor gave me. I\u2019ve got my first scan tomorrow, and want to be prepared. After a while the words begin to blur, and I find myself looking at the pictures. One shows a tiny foetus, uncurling in numbered stages like Darwin\u2019s man; another of a smiling blond couple. The woman holds her hands tenderly underneath her stomach, as if cradling a gigantic egg. I try to imagine myself like this. It\u2019s amazing how many pregnant women I\u2019ve noticed since I found out about my own condition. They\u2019re everywhere, and not a healthy glow or Madonna-ish peacefulness between them. They look uniformly worn out, even the married ones. I lie back on the couch and press along my stomach. I can\u2019t feel a thing.
\n              We only slept together once, Tom and I. It was the night of his leaving party at the library. He worked on the third floor, in the archives, so I didn\u2019t see him very often. I used to try to arrange my break to coincide with his, or make up excuses to go upstairs with a request. I knew\u2014everyone in work knew\u2014that his girlfriend had left him for his brother. They\u2019d been saving up to go travelling, and now Tom was going alone.
\n              Although I spent a lot of time thinking about him, we\u2019d barely spoken until he sat beside me at the party, near the end of the night. \u2018Do you like this song?\u2019 he said. It was The Cure\u2019s \u2018Pictures of You\u2019, and when I said yes, he said he knew I\u2019d like it, that he liked it too. Then he said, \u2018Sorry, I\u2019m drunk. Ignore me,\u2019 and I said it was okay, I was drunk too. We talked about music for a while, and then books we liked. He told me the different places he was planning to travel to. He hadn\u2019t planned a strict route for himself. He wanted to be free and easy, change course whenever he fancied. \u2018Won\u2019t you be lonely, though,\u2019 I said, \u2018travelling around yourself?\u2019 and he said he didn\u2019t mind his own company. \u2018I suppose I\u2019m a bit of a lone wolf,\u2019 he said.
\n              We walked back to his flat through echoing, empty streets. He was going on Sunday, had already gotten rid of most of his things. He said it was liberating to be free of material possessions. We sat against the wall in his bedroom and he told me about his ex-girlfriend, how he still loved her, how he couldn\u2019t get over what had happened. It was like a nightmare he couldn\u2019t wake up from. And I told him about my mum\u2014it was the first time I\u2019d really talked about her since she died. I said it felt like there was wall between me and other people now, and he said he could understand that feeling, that he had felt something like that too. We finished our cups of coffee, listening to the Johnny Cash CD he\u2019d put on. A bus passed outside, its headlights sweeping over the floor. He yawned, and said it was getting late.
\n              \u2018Should I go home?\u2019 I said. \u2018Are you tired?\u2019
\n              And he said he was tired but he\u2019d like me to stay, if I wanted to stay.
\n              I read the pamphlets again, properly, trying to absorb all their information. But my mind wanders and I start thinking about prams and money and work, and I feel suddenly light-headed. I brush my teeth and put on my pyjamas. Just before I get into bed there\u2019s a ruckus outside my window. I turn off the light and peek out the curtains. At first it looks like two men wrestling each other, then I see that one of them is trying to hug the other one. But I love you John Paul<\/em>, he keeps saying, while John Paul shouts to leave him alone, and finally strides away. His boyfriend stands in the middle of the road and screams, John-Paul, John-Paul, don\u2019t do this to me please John-Paul. John-Paul<\/em>. He sits on the pavement, covering his face with his hands. But after a while he gets up and walks in the opposite direction and then it\u2019s quiet again. <\/p>\n

I arrive at the hospital early, and spend twenty minutes trying to find the outpatients entrance, then the antenatal clinic. I give the receptionist my name, and walk through to a tiny waiting room. It\u2019s strange to suddenly come upon so many women in such varying states of pregnancy, like a production line halted in mid-flow. I take a seat next to a middle-aged woman with veins all over her cheeks, obviously an old hand at the whole business. Her bump seems to continue on from her chest with no interruption, giving her body a dense, authoritative look. In the corner, two children are throwing toys about while their mother says to stop it, this is their last warning, she\u2019s warning them, she won\u2019t tell them again, a litany that goes on and on until her name\u2019s called. When she gets up I see she\u2019s wearing her jeans unbuttoned, with just a scarf round her waist to hold them up. She looks utterly careworn, and walks with her head down. The middle-aged woman beside me, who\u2019s been sighing in audible disapproval, says to the women next to her, \u2018You wouldn\u2019t catch mine getting away with that.\u2019 As if to confirm there\u2019s no flies on her either, the other woman says, \u2018I only need to tell him once, and he knows he better quit.\u2019 She bends down and ruffles her little boy\u2019s hair, in apology. \u2018He\u2019s a good wee man though, aren\u2019t you,\u2019 she says. Her stomach is obscenely large, and her skinny legs dangle from under it like pieces of rope.
\n              For the next fifteen minutes I listen as they exchange horror stories about the appalling and inventive things that nature wrecks on pregnant women. Varicose veins, stretch marks, leakages, haemorrhoids. Unless you\u2019re a celeb you can kiss your figure goodbye. Then there\u2019s the NHS, whose doctors are a bit too knife happy for the middle-aged woman\u2019s liking. They ripped her sister open like a fish, and she\u2019s never been the same down there since. I\u2019m gripped. Much to their surprise I even chip in with my own story about a woman I work with being sewed up with a surgical swab inside her.
\n              First the middle-aged woman is called, then the skinny one. Alone now, I feel dazzled by it all. It\u2019s too much to take in. I take out my notebook and write, Buy Palmer\u2019s Coco Butter<\/em>, and underline it. Finally my name\u2019s called, and I follow the midwife into a tiny room. I fill in my medical history, and she asks me how I\u2019m feeling. I say fine, a bit sick in the morning sometimes. She writes down my blood pressure then says, \u2018Now, this is the exciting part.\u2019 She rubs the ultra sound wand over my stomach, telling me to watch the screen.
\n              \u2018Now, here\u2019s what we\u2019re looking for,\u2019 she says, pointing to a white-ish mass of shadow, curved like a broad bean. \u2018That\u2019s the heart,\u2019 she says. \u2018That\u2019s his or her little legs. There\u2019s the nose, the jaw, that\u2019s its little arms. Do you see the arms moving?\u2019 I shake my head. \u2018There,\u2019 she says, pointing. \u2018Can you see it now? It\u2019s a lively wee thing.\u2019
\n              She asks me if I want any print outs\u2014they\u2019re two pound each\u2014and I buy one, then change my mind and ask for two. \u2018Better safe than sorry,\u2019 she says. She hands me some paper towels, then draws the curtains. \u2018Any questions?\u2019 she says, and I say no, I don\u2019t think so. She says to make another appointment for a twenty week scan, and hands me more leaflets to read at home. Then I\u2019m outside again.
\n              It\u2019s one of those bright, cold winter days, all the buildings and trees standing out in sharp relief against the sky. The landlord\u2019s arranged for a plumber to come up at five to fix the bathroom tap, so I have five hours to fill. I decide to walk into town and get the bus back from George Square. I walk past empty streets with nothing on them but waste ground and lock-ups, then rows of scrappy shops with their owners staring out the windows. Buses begin to go by, and women carrying their messages home. And after a while I begin to feel, not happy exactly, but buoyed up by the whole solid, unnegotiable fact of the world, with the blue sky and pavements and traffic light signals that go on and off even when no one\u2019s waiting. When I get to George\u2019s Square I go in to a caf\u00e9 and have a coffee and a bun, and listen to the radio playing quietly in the background. I take out the scan photos and look at them hard, trying to work out if I feel anything. It doesn\u2019t seem real, and I wonder what other women feel in this situation. I walk through Argyle Street, over the bridge, and past the job centre, the air stinging my cheeks. It feels good, and I try to hold onto that. Just as I reach the top of my street, it begins to rain, and I go into Sommerfield<\/em> to buy milk and biscuits to offer the plumber. The bathroom tap\u2019s been dripping for months, and I\u2019m always worried I\u2019m going to flood the woman downstairs. I wake up at night, worrying.
\n              I\u2019m just going out the exit when I see him. The easel man from across the road. We\u2019re walking almost in tandem. He\u2019s tall and thin and serious looking, like a missionary. A blueish vein runs down his temple. Even though it\u2019s raining his eyes are fixed ahead. I\u2019ve never seen anyone visit him, I\u2019ve never even seen him go outside. Sometimes he gets up from his desk and stretches, looks around his room. He\u2019s always alone. I decide to say something to him. I\u2019ll regret it if I don\u2019t. It\u2019s on the tip of my tongue\u2014Nice day for ducks<\/em>, I\u2019ll say\u2014when the lights change. He\u2019s already in front of me, crossing the road. <\/p>\n

The woman next door has put another Jehovah Witness leaflet through my door. This one has people of different ages and nationalities on the front, grouped together on a tropical island, smiling. Inside I read that after Armageddon and the destruction of the wicked, my dead ones will live. They will rise up. Yes, those sleeping in death will be brought back to life!!<\/em> I throw it in the bin then put away my shopping. I\u2019ve an hour before the plumber arrives. I look through the fridge and notice I\u2019ve got a bit of fish that Irene might be able to use. The sell-by date\u2019s not till Wednesday. I put the scan photo in my pocket, then lock the door and walk upstairs. There\u2019s no answer for a few minutes. She\u2019ll be worried it\u2019s a burglar or a rapist. I open the letterbox and shout, \u2018It\u2019s only me, Irene.\u2019 After a few minutes the door half opens and she says, \u2018Oh, hello.\u2019
\n              I say I was wondering if she could use a bit of fish. Haddock. I say it\u2019s going to go to waste.
\n              \u2018Actually,\u2019 she says, \u2018I\u2019ve already got my tea in for tonight.\u2019
\n              \u2018It\u2019s not off till Wednesday,\u2019 I say.
\n              \u2018I\u2019m not a big fish fan,\u2019 she says.
\n              \u2018Oh well, just thought I\u2019d ask.\u2019
\n              \u2018Thanks anyway,\u2019 she says.
\n              I keep standing there and she says, \u2018Well, I\u2019d better get back to his Highness.\u2019
\n              \u2018It\u2019s just, you\u2019ve got to be careful in my condition,\u2019 I say.
\n              \u2018Oh, right\u2019 she says, vaguely. Maybe she\u2019s drunk again.
\n              I walk down stairs, and put the fish back in the fridge. Outside, the rush hour traffic has started–.people hurrying along the pavement, the buses idling as they wait for passengers to get on and off. It\u2019s still raining, but so finely it only shows as it falls pass the street lights. I think of Tom, of the morning I walked him to the bus station and he wrote my address down inside his copy of The White Goddess<\/em> so he wouldn\u2019t lose it. And maybe he will write one day, who knows; maybe he will. I think about what I\u2019ll write back. Dear Lonewolf, I\u2019ll write. And in the meantime, I put my forehead against the window, and watch the lights go on, one by one, in rooms across the street.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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She has published many stories in magazines and anthologies, and is just finishing her second collection. She teaches Writing and English at Anglia Ruskin University.","url":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?author=171"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2PuXo-1Qf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7083"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7083"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7286,"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7083\/revisions\/7286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}