4th August 1977: The first time since Nan had been born that I’d gone farther than Spanish Green’s village shop. I’d saved the money for the bus and the train fare a few pence at a time from the housekeeping you gave me, hiding it away in an empty custard powder box. I took Nan (three months and four days old) in the Silver Cross pram, and I was more proud of that baby carriage than I was of the baby. I’d bought it mail order with the little bit of money my aunt had left me. It was a shiny black boat on high white wheels. There was a satisfying pop when I pressed the cover in place, a firm click when the arm mechanism of the hood was locked, and a small bounce from the suspension when I walked. I put lipstick and mascara on for the first time in five months; my back was straight and my head up. I wore my platform sandals, a pair of flared patterned trousers with a comfortable elasticized waist, and a 1940s blouse with a floppy bow at the neck, which I’d found at the village hall jumble sale. I was ready for London. I pushed the pram down the road to the bus stop and let Mrs. Allen coo over the baby, tell me how glamorous I looked, and ask whether I was off somewhere exciting.
“To see my best friend, Louise,” I said.
The bus driver helped me on with the pram and the other passengers smiled and didn’t mind that we were blocking the aisle. At the train station, I stood on the platform as the 9:37 came in, and realised, with the same feeling as if I’d turned up a day late for a school exam, that the pram wouldn’t fit through the carriage door. I contemplated leaving it and Nan on the platform and stepping onto the train without her, but Nan and I, and the Silver Cross, spent the two-hour journey bumping around in the guard’s van amongst the bicycles, guitar cases, and oversized boxes. As the train pulled out of the station, Nan began to cry. I jogged the pram, pushed it to and fro, and picked her up. She cried harder—her eyes crimped shut, face red, and mouth open. She was normally a good baby, contented. Through Winchester and Basingstoke I paced up and down the dirty swaying van, moving her from one shoulder to the other, patting and stroking. She didn’t stop wailing. At Woking I changed her nappy and at Clapham Junction, in front of a group of Boy Scouts with bikes, I undid my blouse and hefted one of my enormous breasts out from my bra. I saw it anew—a huge white udder, larger than Nan’s head. She was having none of it, she carried on crying, her little body tensed and her head thrown back. The boys stared at me as I cried with her, wiping under my eyes, my fingers black with smudged mascara. When the train pulled into Waterloo, we were both sobbing.
Louise met me on the platform. Her hair had been set and she wore a camel-coloured suit, buttons up the front of the jacket, high heels. Her eyebrows had been plucked and her bosoms were tiny.
“My God, Ingrid,” she said, gawking at me, hair bouncing. “What the bloody hell happened?”
“I’ve had a baby, that’s what!” I shouted at her, rocking the pram and making Nan bawl louder.
“I can see that.” She glanced inside and with a sharp “Come on, then,” strode off. I followed on behind, looking sadly at her neat bottom in her fitted skirt.
She’d kept the flat after I left, and when we’d negotiated the Underground, the narrow street door, and the stairs up to the third floor, Nan was still crying. The smell, the light, and the furniture were the same, and a wave of nostalgia washed over me for the life I could have had. I didn’t let it show. Louise had thrown a patterned cloth over the sofa, a new rug was hiding the ripped lino, and she’d put a vase of flowers in the centre of the table. She lit a cigarette.
“I thought we could go out for lunch,” she said over the noise of Nan mewling. “I reserved a table at Chez Alain.”
I took my hand from inside my blouse and stared at her.
“Don’t worry,” she said, smiling. “My treat.”
“With the baby?”
“I’ve got a job—research assistant at the House of Commons. I started last month. It’s amazing.” She took a lipstick out of her handbag and applied it, looking in the mirror over the gas fire.
“But I thought you were going travelling.” I lifted my breast out of my bra and latched Nan’s whimpering mouth onto my leaking nipple, and finally her noise changed to wet sucking.
“This opportunity came up and it was too good to miss.” Louise’s voice distorted as she stretched her lips. There was a tightness in my chest at the memory of the rebuke she’d given me when I’d gone back on our plans. “I bet you haven’t been to a restaurant in weeks,” she said. “It’ll do you good.” Her reflection in the mirror held the lipstick out to me. I shook my head.