Waiting, Queuing and Clutching

The waiting room was filthy, yellow matt paint decorated with indiscernible skid marks. I had queued for an hour in the rain, clutching a visiting order that would entitle me to spend 15 minutes with my husband.

I was uncomfortable. Despite only being six months pregnant, my belly was huge. She lashed about inside me. She always did whenever I sat still for more than a few seconds.

I looked at the people around me: a big, black guy, massive feet in boat like shoes; a couple, probably mother and father; a woman with frazzled, permed, blonde hair. Her kid was nuts. She grabbed him at one point, trying to stop him running around. He wriggled free of his coat. She was left holding fur trimmed green nylon.

The toilets were worse than the actual room, but the baby was pressing on my bladder so I had to go. Returning to my grey, plastic moulded chair, I watched the trickle of people being admitted to the visiting area. Every once in a while the door opened. A screw, standing on the other side, shouted out a surname. Corresponding people stood and shuffled across the scuffed vinyl. The door shut.

Crazy kid started to kick off. At first his questions were mild, “Where's my daddy?”
“In a minute love,” his mother replied, brushing bleached, straw hair from her agitated face.
After a few more opening and closings of the door his enquiries became more excitable. “Where's my daddy?” he screamed.
“Not long now, come and sit down,” she said, offering her arms and lap.
“No! I want my daddy.”
“Shhhhhh.”
“I want my daddy,” and with that he ran at the shut door, shoulder first. The hefty wood repelled him. He bounced backwards. Undeterred he tried again with the same result. He stopped for a moment and studied the door. He kicked it. He started pounding on it with his fists. The door opened.
A po-faced screw looked down at the three year old boy. “Stop it!”
“But I want my daddy.”
“Tough shit.”
The door shut again.
The child began to hammer on it, with his feet, his hands, his head. The mother tried to gather him up, but he was wild and screeching “I want my daddy, I want my daddy, I want my daddy.” Everyone else in the waiting room sat silently. I bit my lip.

“L______.” That was me. The screw smirked at my burgeoning belly. I ignored him.

The visiting room was also yellow, with a grey floor. Formica tables were organised in neat lines. I saw Matt. He waved and smiled. I tried to. The Women's Royal Voluntary Service were running a hatch cafe in the corner, providing teas and coffees, plus a few uninteresting biscuits, crisps and such like.

Two steaming polystyrene cups rested on the table between us. He took hold of both of my hands. I remembered what Martin had told me, “Don't cry. Don't let him see you crying. At the end of the visit you walk out of there. He has to go back to his cell. Don't make him take the memory of you crying with him”

“So, how's things?” I said, the question running out of me in an exhalation of breath.
“Apart from my fucking trousers, things are great.”
“What's wrong with your trousers?”
“Put your hand under the table.”
I did as I was told. He guided it to his flies, which were open, instantly revealing an erection. I flicked my eyes from side to side, not really knowing what to do. I tried to pull my hand away, but he gripped my fingers and squashed them together.
“Bloody broken.”
“What's broken?” I said in confusion. It did not seem broken to me.
“My flies.”
“Oh,” and I laughed.

Once a month I saw him, while he was in Wandsworth, but we wrote every day, and I made sure everyone he knew had his prison number (MW1054) and address. As my pregnancy progressed it became more and more difficult. Wandsworth was some 200 miles away from where I lived. Although I had a car, the round trip of eight hours took its toll. Fortunately, we had a friend, a good comrade of Matt's, who lived in Oxford and he invited me to stay and drove the last leg of the journey.

As I approached my delivery date I wondered what would happen. Matt had put in for transference to a local prison and his application was accepted. The day before the baby was due he was moved. I did not know where he was. They take them on a round trip, picking up other prisoners along the way. First he went back to Brixton, then to the Scrubs. I panicked. How could I have a baby if I did not know where its father was? It was bad enough he was not going to be there at the birth, but surely I should at least be able to tell him when his child had been born?

A guy, from the Trafalgar Square Defendants' Campaign, eventually found out that Matt was being held in Winson Green, or shortly to arrive there. I was shocked. I could see the Green from my kitchen window. It was extremely odd to think that he was in there and I was out here. I told our friends. A massive, and incredibly bizarre, campaign swung into action, posters were made (“Free Matt L______ Political Prisoner”) and they were stuck to every vertical surface, 1,000s of them. A picket was organised. Dozens of people turned up to stand outside the prison. I was amazed. For the first time I did not feel like I was on my own. All these folks. They understood. They were willing to support me. It was at this point I realised that what Matt had done, not only in the riot, but also, by pleading self defence in the resulting court case, mattered. People thought a lot of him.

I managed a few hours on the picket, but hefting around an extra stone in weight, hanging off my front, soon exhausted me. I was taken home. I did not want to go. What if he arrived and saw everyone except me? Damien persuaded me. Apparently, it was my job to safely deliver. Everyone knew that. I went. Matt arrived some 45 minutes later, to rapturous applause. He was travelling by coach, so had seen all the posters. The screws at the front desk even said “Oh, so you're Matt L____”. I think it probably gave him a boost.

Unfortunately, I had hung onto the baby for so long that I was totally unable to let go. My delivery date came and went. I huffed and puffed through the next two weeks. They took me in for an induction.

The plan was that my eldest sister, Paulette, and Matt's mother, Sarah, would be my birthing partners. In the event, that went sort of pear shaped. A truly horrible doctor fisted me at 9.00pm. I screamed. He explained he was attempting to perform a cervical sweep. The midwife threw him off the ward. Of course, I knew that a baby's head was shortly to emerge from my rather small vagina, however, I was not prepared for a fully grown man's hand to be introduced in such a violent manner. I started to bleed. I was given Valium and told to sleep.

Lying in my hospital bed I felt so lonely. All the other mothers had troupes of people surrounding them, happy foil balloons bouncing away, bottles of bright fizzy stuff, cards with congratulatory pictures. I had nothing, except for “Saturday Night, Sunday Morning” and it was a Monday.

I awoke the next morning with sharp pains gouging at my belly and cunt. I could not speak. I could not catch my breath. Every inch of my being was with that pain. There was nothing except that pain. The world was edged in black and in the middle was that pain.

They took me down to the delivery suite. “Can we call anyone?” Matt's mother had promised to be there at 9.00am, but she was not. I gave them my sister's work number. An hour later, in desperation, I phoned Craig, the guy I shared a house with. He arrived within five minutes. He helped me as I clawed along the wall. I did not want to sit down. I did not want to lie down. I wanted to walk, but every two minutes an agony I cannot describe robbed me of my legs.

He did not want to help. This had not been the arrangement. I wished Matt was there. He could hold me up. He would. I could lean on him, in the corridors. He would not mind if I had to grunt or scream. He knew what to do with me. I did not have to speak to Matt. He just knew.

The walls were green. There was a midwife in latex gloves. She kept telling me to relax. I wanted to kill her. She gave me some drugs. The clock on the wall looked weird, always telling the same time, or a different time. A car alarm sounded in the car park. The noise got all stretched. I thought for a while that it was the song of my vagina, bleeding in and out. My sister arrived. She mopped my brow. Matt's mother arrived. I was mad with her. I wanted my sister. Mother arrived. She caught me at a bad moment.

“Fuck off!”
“Darling ...”
“FUCK OFF. I HATE YOU.”
“I just ...”
“FUCK OFF, BITCH, FUCKING FUCK OFF.”
“Me and your father will be in the waiting room.”

“I told them,” my sister said.
“That Matt's in prison?”
“Yes.”
“What did they say?”
“Not much.”
“Are they angry?”
“What do you think?”
I thought they probably were.

She came, after eight hours of painful pushing. I had my foot on Paulette's shoulder. From her face I could see that everything blew her away. She understood the privilege and enjoyed it, encouraging me and comforting me.

When they gave me the baby I looked at her. She was a skinned rabbit, all pink and raw. Her hands made these mad movements, indiscriminate air grabs, all pointy fingered and desperate. The nurse put her to my breast, grabbing my nipple between her thumb and forefinger. I felt a vague surge of embarrassment and disgust. The baby's mouth was on me. Suckling piglet. Very pink.

Tired, I wanted to go to sleep, but people kept coming in the room. My sister's husband, wearing a horribly loud Hawaiian shirt. I swore at him. I did not mean to. Words kept coming out of my mouth, as if all the pain had been stored up into expletives. Mother and father poked their heads around the door. I crawled back in the bed, my feet scrabbling against the sheets. Underneath me everything was wet. Blood was beginning to crust over my thighs and make my skin stiff. I felt curdled.

They took me back up to the ward. I was blurred. Some women said “Congratulations,” I just looked at them. I wanted to lie down. I wanted a cuddle. I wanted Matt. The baby was put into a fish tank and wheeled to the side of my bed. She was quiet. I sat propped up staring at her. “My baby, this is my baby.” She moved her head. Her hand was jammed up against her face. I pulled the covers down and looked at her body. Her legs wiggled. Her big toes stretched out from the rest of her feet. Pink. I touched the top of her thigh. Soft. My baby. I did not understand how this thin thing had come out of me. One minute we were fucking, the next he was in prison and a whole other human being was here.

Suddenly I was surrounded by nurses. They hauled me to my feet. A wheelchair arrived. I was taken to the bathroom. Shaking. Everything shaking. In the shower. Water. They peeled my gown off me. Cool water. Hot between my legs. I looked down. Blood pooled at my feet in large clots and angry streaks. I was crying. A nurse had hold of me, around the waist. She was stroking my hair. “I want Matt. Where is he? I want my husband.” I crumpled. They could leave me in the shower, on the floor, with the tiles. No more. Nothing else left to give. Empty. Soft belly. Something had left me.

Matron walked in, all breasts and navy blue. “Now now, perfectly understandable. You're not the first woman to have a baby and you won't be the last. Stand up so we can wash you. There's a girl. Legs straight. Lean against the wall.” I could feel her hands on me. “The special soap nurse, the lavender one. That's right. We've got you. That's right. That's right. Let it out.” She was in the shower with me, getting wet, keeping me standing. “It's alright. You'll see. It'll be alright.” She wrapped me in a big towel. I slumped down into the wheelchair. She pulled my head onto her chest. “A good night's sleep. It'll all look different in the morning.”

Read more!