The Girl in the Scrapbook by Carolyn Ruffles (reading women TXT) 📕

effort to stay quiet, to keep it private between the two of them. Instead, he would take vicarious delight in making a lot of noise, calling out what he was doing to her, loudly vocalising his pleasure. She felt like his trophy, a possession to be used as a means of impressing his new mates. It was as if he was saying, ‘Hey guys. I’ve got a hot wife and we have great sex every night.’ Meanwhile, she learned to ignore the sexist comments and leering looks from his two cronies. When John was too busy jamming with the guys to go gigging with her, she got a job in a bar.

Then she found out she was pregnant. After the initial shock, she glowed with the joy of it. It would mean a fresh start for them both. Maybe they would have to postpone their pop ambitions for a while and John would have to get a proper job but they would make it work. For a few days, she hugged the secret to herself, wondering how best to tell him. She needed somewhere quiet, away from everyone else. Eventually she decided on a picnic for just the two of them and lured him out with the promise of cans of beer which she had bought specially. It was a beautiful, warm September day and they sat together on a park bench. When he was mellow from the food and the alcohol and had his arm round her shoulders, she told him her news.

He reacted with cold fury. ‘How did that happen? You said you were on the pill.’ He withdrew his arm and moved away from her.

‘I was. It must have been after I had that sickness bug. Do you remember I told you we needed to use a condom too after that but you wouldn’t listen? You said it wouldn’t matter.’ She was defensive, trying to placate him.

‘Well, you’ll have to get rid of it. How do you expect to get a record deal if you’re up the duff?’

It was at that moment she realised their relationship was over, although it actually took a few more months to unravel. ‘How do you expect to get a record deal when you spend your days hanging about with those so-called mates and smoking dope?’ She was angry too now.

‘Ah, here we go again. Nag, nag, nag – that’s all you do these days. I don’t need this.’ He leapt to his feet and strode away.

‘That’s right, you run away. Oh, go to hell!’ she shouted at his departing back.

Much later, when she had returned to the flat having cried out all her frustration and unhappiness, he had ignored her and she had lain alone on her mattress, listening to the usual cacophony of life on Heygate estate – babies crying, men shouting, people arguing and, beyond the blanket, her husband getting stoned with his friends.

Things had only got worse after that. Sometimes John would nuzzle up to her, ask after her health, sigh that he was a moron and that he would do better. Then, when her defences were lowered, he would begin cajoling her.

‘It’s really not a good time to have a baby, Grace. Hell, I’m only twenty and you’re barely seventeen. Let’s get settled first.’

‘You want me to have an abortion,’ she said flatly.

‘It would be best, babe. Surely you can see that.’

‘I’m not doing it. I want this baby.’

Then, once again, his anger would erupt. ‘Well, I’m not looking after it. You want a baby, you’re on your own.’

‘Fine.’

This would be followed by a stony silence which lasted for a few days until the whole cycle began again.

When she was six months pregnant, he told her that he and two of his mates were leaving, heading off on a six-month tour. While she had been working in the bar, they had been doing gigs as a three-piece band and now they had been signed up as a backing act for a new band called Jargon who had been getting rave reviews. She never saw him again.

Meanwhile, she stayed at the squat with the other two men, Wayne and Jacko; she had nowhere else to go. Jacko, with his long, greasy hair and unwashed clothes, was harmless enough and when John had abandoned her, Wayne had been genuinely kind. He had steered clear of her when John had been around but, since then, had become a much needed, if unlikely, friend. He told her he had been thrown out by his stepfather when he was sixteen and had slept rough for a while until he had hooked up with Jacko, who was already living in the squat. Since then, he had managed to get the occasional labouring job but had lost it, just as quickly, when he failed to turn up for work after a late-night session.

‘I know I need to get myself straightened out,’ he'd told Grace, ‘but then I really need a drink or a smoke, you know, just to take the edge off, and, before I know it, I’m completely out of it.’

They had supported each other and Wayne had now been working for two, whole weeks without mishap. Jacko had moved on, bored now he had no one to get stoned with so it had become just the two of them.

Grace’s pregnancy had meant the involvement of health officials who, in turn, contacted social services. A sharp featured woman called Linda Galloway visited the squat unexpectedly when Jacko was still there and the pungent scent of dope hung in the air. She told her in no uncertain terms that she couldn't expect to bring up a baby living as she did and that she should get help for her drug addiction before she harmed the baby.

‘But I don’t do drugs!’ Grace had wailed. Linda Galloway did not believe her. The next time she visited she brought with her officials from the adoption agency, a man and a woman. They were kinder but insistent that