‘Do you think he’s dead?’ ‘Did he have a bit on the side?’ ‘It’ll be hard to find another man willing to take on a girl with three little ’uns, won’t it?’ My skin grew thicker by the day, and I learned to let insensitive comments fly over my head.
It was my supervisor Selena I had the most in common with, despite our obvious differences. She was a well-spoken, educated, bleached-blonde slip of a girl who didn’t really belong there. At twenty, she was the only young single parent in the shop, and proud of it. The father of her four-year-old had abandoned her as soon as she told him she was in the family way. But it hadn’t put her off going it alone.
She’d turned down a place studying economics at Cambridge University and was working like a trooper to feed and clothe her boy, something I related to. So I spent more time with her than the others. And I didn’t care if it was favouritism or because she thought there was more to me than checkout number seven’s chief resident, but she spoke to our deputy manager, who soon promoted me to organising float changes and working out staff rotas.
More money and longer hours meant I had to rearrange our family life. A bossy but coordinated Paula made sure that she and Baishali took it in turns to babysit Emily during the day, and pick up the boys from school in the afternoon.
‘We’re going to do everything it takes to help get you back on track,’ said Paula. ‘Aren’t we, Baish?’
Baishali nodded. When Paula was in ‘organise everyone’ mode, nobody disagreed with her, least of all Baishali.
And when I finished work, I’d take over and finish the nightly routine, until they were bathed and in bed.
Then, when the house fell silent, I’d open a bottle of red and begin my second and third jobs.
30 October
By the time summer had given way to autumn, Simon dominated my thoughts that little bit less.
I began an ironing service for my busy neighbours who didn’t have the time to work, look after a family and make sure their clothes weren’t creased. I charged by the basket-load and spent a good couple of hours a night surrounded by other people’s shirts and blouses on hangers around the kitchen.
I made savings where I could, buying own-brand supermarket food and the kids’ toys and games from charity shops, cutting my own hair and walking or catching the bus. I’d cinched my financial belt so tightly that it pinched like a corset. New clothes were a necessity but bloody pricey for a one-parent family, especially when they grew out of them so quickly. I decided it would be much cheaper if I made them myself.
But the idea of picking up a needle and thread again scared me to death.
For much of my married life, I’d earned a little extra money doing alterations to clothes for our friends. A turned-up hem here or a zipper replacement there had progressed into making clothes for the kids to play in, a few skirts for myself, and then bridesmaids’ dresses for my friend’s wedding.
It was impossible not to think about those dresses without images of Billy flooding my mind. Of course, I knew that my sewing hadn’t been to blame for that day’s horror – I alone was to blame for that, no matter how Simon or Paula had tried to persuade me it was an accident and no one’s fault – but I’d packed away my sewing machine and materials as though they were cursed. Now, though, I had to face it: making clothes was the only practical skill I had and I needed to put food on our table. My supermarket wage was enough to cover the bills and the mortgage, but left very little else.
I downed half a bottle of red for Dutch courage before I grabbed the material I’d bought from the market. Then I picked up my pinking shears and rustled up school shirts and trousers for James and Robbie.
Each bouncing bobbin, each foot on the pedal and each rattle of the machine’s engine brought that day back to me. Since Simon had vanished, I’d tried my best to put it out of my mind.
And my children needed me in the world more than I did. So I held my pain deep down and ploughed on. By the time I finished I was three sheets to the wind, but I’d done it. And if I did say so, the results were indistinguishable from – all right: superior to – the store-bought garments we could in no way afford.
Word of mouth soon spread amongst the school-gate mums that I could save them a small fortune by making their kids’ clothes too. And soon, half the children running around the village seemed like they were dressed in something I’d sewn.
When my friends asked if I’d make clothes for them too, a lightbulb switched on in my head. It could be the answer to my financial woes, so I gave it a bash. They arrived on my doorstep with armfuls of fabrics and torn-out cuttings of outfits they’d seen in magazines and hoped I could copy. On instinct I found I could replicate even really tricky designs without much of a problem. And it gave me the confidence to suggest my own twists and ideas.
The supermarket students, who didn’t earn enough to buy what they saw pop stars wearing, began spending some of their wages on things I’d create for them for their favourite nightclubs. Even Selena, whose circumstances precluded anything like a social life until her son Daniel was older, took advantage of having a friend who could whip up a shoulder-padded jacket in an evening.
It wasn’t long before all my nights found me holed up in the dining room and hunched over a sewing machine with only a bottle of wine to keep me company. I didn’t have time to stop and think how my eighteen-hour days might be affecting my health.
28 October
It hurt like someone was kicking me in the stomach over and over again. Even lifting my arm to stack the last box of cornflakes on the supermarket shelf winded me.
My stomach had ached on and off for most of the day. But I had painful cramps and I knew it wasn’t my usual time of the month. Eventually I had to admit something was wrong. I struggled to catch my breath as I left the pallet of boxes in the aisle, headed to a toilet cubicle to unbutton my dungarees and examined what was making my groin feel damp. I panicked when I saw lots of blood in the front of my knickers.
I clocked off and slipped out of the warehouse doors clenching my tummy, and half-walked, half-stumbled a mile and a half to the doctor’s surgery. The cramps were getting worse as I waited for Dr Willows, and almost as soon as I lay on the bed, I felt a popping inside me. Then I leaked more blood as she helped me to the toilet. And when the pain became too intense, I fainted.
‘You’re having a miscarriage, Catherine,’ Dr Willows explained slowly when I woke up. ‘The pains you’re feeling are contractions in the uterus. They’re dilating your cervix to get the foetus out. There’s nothing we can do but let your body do what it has to do.’
I struggled to get a grip on what she was saying. How could I be pregnant? Was my motherly instinct now so rotten that the only time I felt my baby inside me was when it was dying?
‘But I’ve been having my periods,’ I argued.
‘It can still happen, I’m afraid.’
‘How far gone am I?’