Would you turn back time if you had the chance?
Would you run away or stay?
Like the smoker who thinks his time is up,
Then gets news of a clear X-ray.
His promises to God are forgotten then,
He dodged another bullet,
He continues to play Russian roulette,
Trigger finger poised to pull it.
Cross the line, step into the abyss,
Now there’s no going back,
You’ve lost control, you’ve gone too far,
There’s no defence, so attack.
You are no longer you, and you no longer care,
Join the ranks of the depraved.
One thing is sure from this moment on,
The pathway ahead is paved.
But would you change things if you could?
Can you see where it all went awry?
Would you not do that thing that set this course?
Would you really even try?
The past can’t be changed, but the future can,
Starting right here, right now,
You don’t have a lifetime to turn it around,
And no one can teach you how.
Bradford, July 1981
Christine squinted as her eyes met the bright July sunshine, and shuffled awkwardly down the front path to the car waiting in the road. Of all the cabbies in Bradford who could have picked them up, today of all days, it just had to be Imran. Imran who, in the absence of a female to leer at, would probably chat up a pot plant.
‘Lovely day for it, innit, ladies?’ he shouted conversationally, as Christine clambered awkwardly into the back. He had no choice. He was currently competing with a warbling Shakin’ Stevens, because, as was usual, he had his car stereo turned up loud enough to wake the dead.
Not to mention the soon to be born, Christine thought wretchedly, as the next contraction began to build. It was like a giant elastic band, gripping vice-like around her middle, and the panic began engulfing her again. Why hadn’t anyone told her how much it would hurt? Her own mum, for instance. The thought made her tearful. She’d never felt pain like this in her life. Ever.
‘Lovely day for what?’ her friend Josie snapped, as she climbed in beside her and slammed the door. ‘And, Christ, Im, turn that frigging shit down, will you?’
Imran beamed at the pair of them through the rear-view mirror. ‘Keep yer ’air on!’ he said. ‘I was only being friendly. Anyway,’ he added, leaning forward to turn the volume down a fraction, ‘where we off to today, girls? Somewhere nice?’
‘St Luke’s Hospital,’ Josie snapped. ‘And put your foot down as well. Seriously,’ she added, as Christine began to wail. ‘Or there’ll be more than our Christine and bloody Shaky making a racket. Get a move on! She’s already trying to push!’
It was only now, having twisted a hundred and eighty degrees in his seat, that Imran seemed to understand what was happening.
‘You’re about to have a baby?’ he yelled, wide-eyed. ‘A frigging baby?’
‘No,’ Josie deadpanned. ‘She’s about to have a wardrobe, you idiot. Now bloody move it!’
Christine sent up a silent prayer of thanks that Imran didn’t seem to need telling again. He shoved the car into gear and they squealed away down the road towards the hospital, the strains of ‘Green Door’ filling the air in their wake.
It was only a three-minute drive from Christine’s home to the hospital, but, in her terror, and with the lurching caused by Imran’s panicked driving, every yard felt like twenty. That was the main problem, she decided through the fog of increasing agony. That it felt as if a wardrobe was exactly what she was having. How could a baby, so small and soft, feel so enormous and full of edges? More to the point, how was she ever going to get out of Imran’s taxi and up to the maternity ward in one piece? She felt as if her whole body was trying to turn itself inside out; that if she moved so much as a muscle she’d rip in two.
But get out she must; they were now outside the maternity unit entrance and Josie, who’d leapt out and come round to open the other door for her, was tugging at her arm and trying to coax her out of the car.
‘C’mon, mate,’ she was saying. ‘That one’s dying down now a little, isn’t it? Which is why we have to get you in, before the next one comes along.’
Not for the first time, Christine was grateful to have Josie here to help her. Calm, capable Josie, who’d not batted an eyelid when Christine’s waters had broken and flooded the kitchen floor, because she’d done all this herself two years back, having her Paula. Who was nothing like her mother. Who was there for her. Who was her friend.
And Josie was right about the contraction, which was why it hadn’t even been a question. The pain was dying off as quickly and as decisively as it had come. Gripping her belly, Christine shuffled her legs round and onto the pavement.
‘You and all,’ Josie said, sticking her head back into the car as Christine tried to climb out of it.
‘Me?’ spluttered Imran. ‘What you on about, woman?’
‘You,’ Josie told him. ‘Assuming you’ll want paying. Come on, out. I need you to help me get her inside.’
Christine privately agreed. Josie was tiny. There was nothing of her. And though Christine had never dared to ask, she imagined that was why her friend’s nickname had always been Titch. And there she was, like a whale, a great lumbering whale. And with the shakes now. She felt woozy and unsteady on her feet.
‘Me?’ Imran said again. Then he shook his head firmly. ‘Sorry, love, but I can’t be doing that. S’pose someone sees me? They’ll probably think I’m the fucking father!’
‘You wish,’ Josie replied in disgust. ‘Mate, she doesn’t go near your type.’
‘Mate,’ Imran parroted. ‘I don’t go near hers. No offence, love,’ he added, as he came round to the kerbside. He grinned and his fabled gold teeth both winked at her in the sunshine. ‘Come on,’ he coaxed. ‘Let’s be having you before the little bleeder plops out in the road.’
Christine cringed with shame and embarrassment as the two of them dragged her none too gently from the parking bay to the maternity-ward entrance, the words ‘your type’ going round and round her head. She loved Josie – couldn’t manage without her, truth be told – but she wished she would shut up for once, because what she was saying to Imran was really too close to the bone.
Up until now, she had kept the paternity of her unborn child a secret. Told anyone who asked to mind their own business. But the time had come now. She’d be keeping her guilty secret no longer. In a couple of hours – probably less, given how her insides were feeling – everyone would know who the father of her baby was. Or they’d make an educated guess. And they’d be right.
The Maternity Department at St Luke’s sat at the furthest end of the huge sprawl of hospital buildings, and seeing the familiar entrance calmed Christine a little. A place she’d never once so much as glimpsed before the nightmare had happened, it had become something of a sanctuary for her over the past few months – a safe place where no one ever