There She Goes:

I felt the baby kick for the first time this morning.  She (I know, somehow it’s a she) was reminding me of her existence as I the radio was shifting gears, up from the emergency broadcast system and into something bland, apolitical, quite beige on 6Music. Lauren Laverne was talking in an unusually earnest style, announcing this week’s sessions by Hot French Dad’s, Coastal Fatalities and The Taste Of Plums. 

It’s been a matter of fact for the last few weeks that I am pregnant, so the kicking was no surprise.  The fact that I’ve got another soul, kicking inside me like a little bird still disturbs me.  My cat Behemoth sits on the duvet.  Licking my face, green eyes staring back at me.  Love me, it says.  Love me. 

It reminds me of Gabriel.  Needy and greedy at the same time. 

I’ll make a cuppa, in a minute.  Today is going to a busy day.  I’ve got to nip down to Limey, pick up our Bernie.  There will be two of us in the house for a while.  She’ll get on my nerves, I’ll get on hers.  Then, there will be three of us.  She’ll be telling me where she reckons I went wrong.  I’ll be telling her where I think she went wrong.  Then she’ll tell me to fuck off.  Then she’ll offer to make me a cuppa.  Before she left, for Devon - to move in with that blurt – I told her she was ‘giving up her power to a man’.

Well, I can fuckin’ talk, can’t I?

I’m looking out of the window at Orbital Sandra.  She must be an arl biddy and she is still putting the bins out.  Too old for a task that might not even happen today anyway.  The soldiers have gone, but no-one knows when the bins are going to get emptied.  She places them against the wall, which has the word ‘#Anfieldverse’ sprayed on it.  This is new graffiti, red paint shining with the morning dew.  The old stuff, is like Egyptian hieroglyphs.  Memories of a more magical, simpler time.  When people in power made sense, in a way: whether you agreed with them or not.

Something is aching and twanging.  And it’s not the baby.  I wonder where he is now, Gabriel? Wonder if he knows, in his darkest, happiest, quietest moments – he’s going to be a Dad?

I live in the shadow of football grounds.  When The Unravelling happened (that’s what they’re calling it these days, sounds like something goths would listen to), football was cancelled.  Which pissed off the Liverpool fans and was a source of quiet relief to The Bluenoses?  When they couldn’t pay the player’s wages, the rarest, most talent and expensive beasts went abroad.  Football stopped, the grass turned into wildflower meadows and they became Helipad1 and Helipad2. 

 I was volunteering in the local food bank when I met Gabriel.  Not the best start to a relationship, when you meet the love of your life (if he is that) stacking tins of beans.  He poked his head in.  A youngish lad, with green eyes, clad in urban camouflage. Another followed through, then another and another and another.  Weapons pointed at the floor, but it still made me feel a little uneasy.  These were called CROW’s (Combat Recruits Of War – skinny Scottish kids from the war of independence, given three meals a day, a gun and a licence to use it).  They were looking for someone called Cheesy Carl, labouring under the assumption that everyone in Liverpool knows each other and is aware of each other’s whereabouts. 

If I could preserve that point – pack in it ice, take a photo of it – whatever.  I could work out that was the start of our romance.  If you want to call it that.  I mean, we didn’t have a date as such.  There was no shy corner of a recommended restaurant.  Certainly no book recommendations (did he even read?).  No flowers, no mixtapes.   No basically, there was a build-up, an explosion and then nothing.  It wasn’t a relationship.  It was a gas explosion and I am still climbing out of the wreckage. A white-walled room, with frosted glass windows and strip lights.  Sometimes, I dream of that room.  Sometimes, I want to go back to that draughty, womb like space. 

It was heaven, in a way.

Captain Trundle called by the next day alone. He asked me to call him Gabriel.  Which was good really, as Captain Trundle was too formal.  Plus, it sounds like a character from a Thomas Hardy novel.  I got to know him better, over cups of tea.  He was from Glasgow; he talked about football a lot at the start. I remember the first touch, a friendly hand on my shoulder as he left one day on some pretext. I’m not even sure what it was.  He walked through the door, into the back jigger and into the early darkness of a September afternoon.  I think then I knew.  And I don’t have to explain to anyone else what I knew, because we’ve all been there, haven’t we? 

That point where you know where your heart is in the hands of someone else.  And there is no way back, even if you wanted to. 

And so, it continued.  A touch here, a little touch on the hand there.  A hand on the shoulder.  For a lad from Barlinnie, who kills people for a living: he’s got hands like a little boy.  I can’t remember what he said, but I remember what happened next.  He angled his head and kissed me.  An open mouth on an open mouth.

 And things were never the same after that. They never are, really. 

I suppose you’re expecting a list of who did what and where.  I respect my own privacy too much to give you what you’re looking for, you dirty bastard.  Let’s just say a) It was it enough to get me pregnant and b) I didn’t know you could have so much fun on cardboard boxes. 

Is that enough for you?  Probably not.  Tough shit. 

This kind of furtive intimacy, under strip lights continued for a few months.   No, I wasn’t careful.  Who does? An ex used to say ‘a hard dick has no conscience’.  Which is why I dumped him.  But when you really love someone – and I think that’s what it was – rational thought goes out the window, in favour of some kind of Panglossian spirit.  The end (whatever that may be) is not considered.  There is just, now and then. 

And it’s more then, than now. 

I woke the following morning to the sound of slamming doors and heavy diesel engines.  Leather boots on broken glass.  I looked out the window to see military trucks being packed.  Not at leisure, but at haste.  In the background, I could hear church bells.  It was then, I saw Gabriel waving his crew of CROW’s into the truck.  They ran across the road, like khaki clad children: obedient, devious at the same time. 

He’s leaving.  I thought.  The bastard.  I ran downstairs.  He never told me he was leaving.  They never do, blokes do they?  At this point, I’m running down the stairs in a pair of old slippers, pacing to get the door as quickly as I can.  I open the door, to see the truck revving and moving down the street. 

‘Gabriel!’ I’m shouting now, like I’m in a Tennessee Williams play.  Louder, that little clutch at the back of the throat. ‘GABRIEL!’ Full throated, with italics and capitals. 

Too late. The truck turns the corner, one in a line of many.  And they’re gone.  I slump onto the doorstep; the sheer emotion of a few moments has worn me out.  I cry like a toddler.  And in that instant, Orbital Sandra is running across the empty, lonely, street.  She picks me up, hold me close and says:

‘Come in love.  I’ll make you a cuppa’. 

It takes more than one cuppa.  It takes three, with a tot of gin in the last two. Over the space of a morning, that the whole thing comes tumbling out like dirty washing. It’s the first time I’ve confided in someone for a long time.  It’s a weird, sort of scary feeling. She asks me for my plans and I say I don’t know. I look away, the sunlight is breaking through the clouds. 

‘Of course’ says Orbital Sandra ‘Now Liverpool is a country-‘

‘What?’ I’m questioning the validity of this sentence.  I’m running through scenarios and thinking that Orbital Sandra, this Scouse matriarch is away with the mixer.  But now: The Unravelling is over.  Each council in the UK is an Independent state.  A government is in charge and negotiations with the EU will begin imminently.  It’s a lot to take in, on top of a lot to take in.

‘Best get yourself checked out’ says Orbital Sandra.  ‘The last thing a nice girl like you wants is to be up the duff in a different country’.  She takes a sip of tea. 

I was up the duff.  A pregnancy test, just about in date at the back of the bedside drawer; gave me a clue.  And then a visit to the Doctors.  In the midst of the human wreckage of the last few years.  It was confirmed then.  I’m gonna be a Mum.  Citizen of an old city, carrying the citizen of a new country. 

And then, when I got home, I’m looking through the cupboard for something to eat.  I’m rifling through packets and boxes, that may or may not be in date.  The phone beeps.  It’s a messenger. 

Bernie: Coming home 2Moz.  OK to stay with you?  

And at that moment, it’s all plans and questions.  Part of me is relieved she’s not staying with that blurt.  And then part of me realises, we’re exactly the same. We’re both coming down from a broken heart.  We’re two halves of the same soul.  God alone knows what’s going to happen. 

A few short messages confirm that she’s coming next week.  I clear out the spare room, fresh duvet and a pile of books I think she’ll like.  I try to source the ingredients for a healthy diet for a guest.  Which isn’t easy, I can’t even source a healthy diet for a pregnant woman.  I try my best, but there’s at least one afternoon a week with crap daytime telly and bad ice cream. 

I’m leaving the house, at the crack of dawn.  A winter’s morning.  Only the street lights to guide me to the bus stop.  The floodlights are on at Anfield.  Maybe there’ll be football soon.    I checked the timetable yesterday and Orbital Sandra assured me that it was twice a day, no service on Saturday or Sunday. 

Before I know it, I’m at Lime Street.  Standing by the ticket barrier, holding a coffee.  I’m watching one of the few trains to come in, watching the hordes of people being marshalled onto the platform.  And there she is, my big sister.  Holding a red rose, singing along to There She Goes.  As loud and as proud as I am. 

We’ve been separated by hundreds of miles and we’re still separated now by twenty feet of concourse.  I don’t know where Gabriel is.  And I know, I will love him till I die.  But there is a question mark growing inside me.  The only certainty at this moment is my sister.  And as the song comes to an end, She Calls My Name. She Calls My Name, the crowd sings. 

And it’s then, I know what love is.