1975

Wagons roll at about the same time every Monday. By ten in the morning, mothers in the village are on their way to the baby clinic, some in search of reassurance, several as part of a fashion parade and to demonstrate how well they are losing their baby-weight, others to fill a gap created by a hiatus in career. The making of friends who are in the same bracket is a comfort when life becomes so monotonous and lonely.

I go because I feel guilty. The secret I hold fast to my chest is a burden I must carry alone, because few would believe me and fewer still would attempt to understand my ridiculous predicament. I am not a normal mother. I make few friends, invite no confidences and, were it not for Mrs Battersby, no one at all would have any concept of my position. Mrs Bee lives next door with her daughter and son-in-law. She wears a wrap-around flowered apron, makes wine from improbable kitchen debris, believes in red flannel, and cleans shoes with the inner side of banana skins. She is a relic and I am glad to know her.

The side door opens suddenly and loudly as it crashes into the wall. 'Anna?'

'In here.'

She waddles into my living room and places a bottle of her deadly parsnip wine on the coffee table. 'Eeh,' she wheezes. 'Aren't they bonny?' She refers, of course, to the twins. They are propped in the pram, one at each end, clean, clothed and angelic. 'Yes,' I reply. My girls are pretty. They are healthy, rosy-cheeked, excellent feeders, and strong-limbed. One is stronger than the other, but it's only a matter of differing birth weights. I have to believe that. I'd like everyone else to believe it, too.

Sharing a bed with a man whose sperm count is low allowed me to cease to expect motherhood, but my status altered radically long after I decided that childlessness was fine. I worked with children, and eventually harboured no wish to produce any of my own. Children complicate life; motherhood has destroyed mine.

'And they've made you look younger, an all,' announces the ageing Manchester immigrant. Years earlier, she followed her daughter down the East Lancashire Road and settled here, in Hesford, a satellite of St Helens. 'Nobody would ever think you were forty,' she says.

Forty? I feel eighty, and then some. The days grind along relentlessly while I feed, clean and watch my twin jailers, while I launder their clothes and prepare food for their father, a man I can no longer pretend to love. That is probably my own fault, because everything is my own fault. I am arrogant, self-indulgent, exhausted, worried and clinically depressed. This wonderful old lady has me down as 'mithered', and she is only too correct.

Mrs Bee has placed herself in an armchair. 'He's reading again,' she announces with the air of a speaker at a summit conference.

'What's he reading?' I ask. The 'he' in question is her son-in-law and my erstwhile boss. He owns the patience of a saint, which is probably just as well.

'A book.' She spits the four-letter word from her throat as if clearing it of phlegm. The presumably wise head shakes despairingly. In her opinion, no good ever came of books. She has lived her whole life without indulging in them, as she has been too busy doing. Doers have no time for reading, radio, television or theatre. Which is a pity, because she might have made a hilarious comedienne. 'Book about psychology,' she snaps.

I am trying not to smile. Wanting to smile is a new sensation, yet I dare not indulge the need. 'He's a head teacher, Mrs Bee. He has to read in order to keep up with the system.'

'System?' she cries. 'System? A damned good hiding and bed without supper's what they need, not bloody books. Mind, it is a thick one. He could use it as a weapon, I reckon, when some of the little buggers kick off at playtime.'

There is no cure for Mrs Battersby, and I am glad about that. She is a ray of light in an otherwise dark sky, but I am lucky, as she radiates sporadically in my house. Paul and Jenny next door live a life that is constantly illuminated by this woman, and they often look drawn and tired. When in full flood, the old woman might even register on a Geiger counter, and radiation sickness could become a distinct danger.

'Pity you didn't move here earlier before having them.' She inclines her head in the direction of the pram. 'You could've made friends. Mind, you'll happen meet a few gradely folk at yon clinic.'

I doubt that. The conversation is embedded in projectile vomiting, pyloric stenosis, brands of baby formula, rashes, colds and teething. On a good day, some quiet revolutionary might mention Coronation Street or the price of salmon, but such subjects usually receive a premature burial under layers of nappies, some disposable, others of the terry towelling variety.

'You miss your job,' announces Mrs Bee. 'You thought you'd get away without kiddies, didn't you?'

I nod.

'Have you thought about one of them opers?'

Rooting about in the depths of my handbag in search of keys, I ask her to repeat the question. 'An oper. Mind, they sometimes turn out to be no opers, them girls from abroad. They can be all spaghetti and no English. That builder up Tithebarn Road got a pole.'

Anyone else might have got lost somewhere along the way through Mrs Bee's meandering, but I am used to infant schoolchildren, so I manage to navigate the misty path. 'A pole? Do you mean a Polish au pair?'

She nods rapidly. 'That's what I said, isn't it? An oper. I think she were a Pole, any road. She were all funny sausages and red hot tea with no milk in it. She fair scalded one of the kids before she left. I said to our Jenny, "She'll never last, because all she knows is yes, no and disco." I were right. Three or four months later, she forgot the word "no", finished up pregnant and on her way back to somewhere with about twenty letters in its name, mostly zeds, exes and the odd Y. You don't want one of them, do you?'

I don't care, but I daren't say that. A nanny might be a good idea. A nanny would come in with no pre-knowledge and no opinions about my situation. Like me, she would learn the hard way and become my witness. Help in the home is affordable, as I intend to divorce him only when I am back to normal. Normal? I wish he'd go. I wish he'd go now, and to hell with normal.

'You'll be all right, you know.'

I look at her. The grey, frizzled hair is thinner than it used to be. She once showed me a wedding photograph, and she has been beautiful, with long, dark hair and very surprised eyes. 'I suppose I shall.'

'Lass, it's trowmatic, is giving birth. And you've had no mam to show you how to fettle. Some women don't take straight away. But tell me, Anna, what would you do if somebody harmed them two twins?'

My answer is automatic. From deep within my animal core, the words arrive. 'I'd kill.'

Again, the steely head nods. 'At your age, most women's kids are coming into their teens or twenties. Babies is very tiring. Two coming at once is more than twice as bad as one, if you get my meaning, like. None of it's your fault, love. You got caught that little bit later in life than most folk, and it's hard. But you'll get by.'

'Yes.' I move my pram towards its launch pad near the front door.

'Will I get my coat and come with you?'

This time, my smile arrives properly. I am imagining her rattling round the clinic, chest wheezing, fingers prodding babies' limbs, advice on gripe water and goose-grease...