(aka Bike) Part 2040 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad
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During the drive to Neal’s house we had to put up with him declaiming that the baby had damaged his marriage and Phoebe putting him right.
“Bloody kid, if I’d known what problems it would cause, I wouldn’t have let her stop the pill.”
“No sex you mean?” challenged Phoebe.
“Yeah, if you wanna be crude about it.”
“Just remember big bro, it was sex that got you in this mess in the first place.”
“Hang on, it was her stoppin’ the pill was the problem. I shouldn’t have let her.”
“You shouldn’t have let her?” Phoebe was almost as hot and bothered as I felt. “What gives you the right to decide what someone else does with their body? Or is it a case of women as chattels?”
“What d’ya mean?”
“We’re sentient creatures in case you hadn’t noticed, we control our own bodies, we’re not a man’s property.”
“What you on about?” he looked bemused.
“I think Phoebe is questioning the statement you made about allowing Gloria to stop taking the pill–presumably it was a joint decision?”
“Yeah, we agreed before’ and that she’d be the one to look after contraception until we wanted a kid. She decided she wanted a kid and I said she could have one.”
“So kind of you,” was Phoebe’s sarcastic rejoinder.
“What d’ya mean, I let her do it, didn’t I, and look where it’s got me.”
“I think it’s simply a case of the language you’re using that Phoebe is taking issue with.”
“Don’t she speak English, then?”
“Better than you, you oaf.”
“Please, Phoebe, name calling won’t help anything.” I glanced at Neal, “Men and women use language differently and obviously have different perspectives on certain issues.”
“You tryin’ to tell me I’m stupid or somethin’?”
“Yeah,” chipped Phoebe from the back seat.
“No, I wasn’t,” I continued, “but because you’re stating just your side of the situation, it sounds a little condescending.”
“What?” he gasped going very red in the face.
“However, it’s only because a woman would have said, we decided I’d stop the pill, we wanted the baby, instead of just the one side, if you see what I mean?”
“Yeah, I’m not that pissed.” There was moment’s silence as he mulled over what I’d said. He was being a totally condescending twat, but telling him so wouldn’t have helped any, so I was trying to stop Phoebe ramping things up. “Yeah, we made the decisions between us, not just me.”
“Exactly, as I thought you had.”
“Yeah, we’re a team,” he said clenching his fist and shaking it.
“That wasn’t what Gloria seemed to think,” offered Phoebe trying to puncture his balloon.
“What d’ya mean?”
“She said she was very tired with the baby and that you’d both got upset and she was worried about you.”
“Yeah, she does get tired.”
“Caring for a new baby is hard work, I’ve done it.”
He looked at me initially in astonishment then he remembered I’d taken on baby Catherine. “Yeah, you took on that girl who killed herself, her baby, didn’t you?”
“Yes, and I don’t regret a single moment of it, except the tragedy of the rest of her family.”
“Don’t think I could do that, look after someone else’s kid.”
“Why not, they have exactly the same needs as your own would.”
“But they’re not your flesh and blood, are they?”
“No, they’re defenceless, innocent and very vulnerable children who need someone to help them regardless of whose responsibility they are. We’re all to some extent responsible for the children of this world, helping them to reach their potentials, to grant them the basics of food and shelter and the right to education.”
“So is that why you did it–out of duty?”
Ouch. “Not entirely. I’ve always liked children and I ended up looking after Mima and Trish purely by chance.”
“I thought they were wished on you?” piped Phoebe from the back seat.
“Mima was dumped on me but we bonded so quickly and I didn’t want to surrender her to social services because I thought I could give her more love than a children’s home.”
“Bloody right there,” was Neal’s opinion, “Just turn ’em into petty criminals if they go to a home.”
“I don’t know if it’s that bad,” I tried to keep it neutral rather than a party political broadcast for UKIP.
“Oh it is, I was in school with a couple of the blighters and they were trouble.”
“That’s right tar everyone with the same brush,” quipped his sister.
“I’m only sayin’ what I saw in school.”
“I ’spect they were gay and gypsies as well, were they?”
“Nah, but they were both coloured.”
“I’m not trying to make excuses because I wasn’t there, but there is quite a lot of discrimination against ethnic minorities, even now.”
“Look those two were evil, okay? They threatened to kill some old woman’s cat if she didn’t pay them every week.”
“Did she pay?”
“Yeah until her daughter found out about it.”
“What happened?”
“She stopped payin’ ’em and the poor pussy passed on.”
“What, they killed her cat?” gasped the younger Allen.
“I reckon they did, but the cops couldn’t prove it.”
“The buggers!” exclaimed Phoebe.
“Yeah, they were probably into that as well in a children’s home,” Neal replied dismissively.
I wanted to slap him, he was still applying generalisations based upon minimal evidence, much of which if examined critically would probably prove to be pure conjecture and a pretty one sided one at that. We were saved by arriving at his house.
“Oh so you decided to come home, then?” was Gloria’s opening salvo.
“I wish I bloody well hadn’t, I only did ‘cos Cathy more or less insisted.”
“You’ve been drinkin’, I can smell it on your breath,” the bombardment continued.
“So what, I’m over eighteen.”
“You wouldn’t know it to hear you talk.” If she was laying down a barrage prior to an attack, she couldn’t have done a better job with a battery of artillery.
“You’re only jealous ‘cos you can’t.”
“Yeah, well breast feeding the baby is more important than self gratification.”
“Oh bugger off, I’m goin’ to bed,” he nodded at Phoebe and me and staggered up the stairs.
“Where was he?”
“He was in work.”
“At the uni?”
“Yes.”
“What for?”
“You’d have to ask him that,” I tried to distance myself from their situation, it really
wasn’t my problem. “Anyway, this young lady has college tomorrow, so we’d better get back.”
Phoebe was about to correct me when she realised I was making up an excuse to leave before we got embroiled or worse took sides.
“Yeah okay, thanks for bringin’ him home.”
“You’re welcome–don’t be too hard on him, he’s struggling with the whole idea of parenthood and it’s taking him a little time to adapt, Simon did for a while.”
“Yeah, he’s not a bad sort really,” Gloria conceded.
We hugged and air-kissed and left.
“They both need their heads banged together,” huffed Phoebe sitting with her arms folded and a pout on her face.
“They have some adapting to do and it is hard with a little one.”
“You mean they need to grow up?”
“I’m not sure what I meant,” I lied, I wasn’t going to give her any further grist for her mill and it was too late to get into heavy discussions about this sort of thing.
Comments
Only Glo and Neal can choose
what to do next. Hopefully, now they will both listen to the other.
May Your Light Forever Shine
Neal seems a bit of a throw back for a Western male
... as he is so clueless as to what taking care of a baby is like.
I can understand how a Neanderthal Middle Eastern or other highly patriarchal male being pissed about not getting his due but Neal always seemed more balanced in the past.
Centered on his own needs, that one.
Kim
Into the Jaws of the Dragon!
Tally ho! After a couple of his comments it seemed like a good idea to open the door and push him out. I absolutely can not imagine such unbridalled selfishness and imaturity. Oh, well, I have probably forgotten mine.
Gwen
Think that Cathy
needed to read them both the riot act, though that is really not her style
Goddess Bless you
Love Desiree
Hmmmmmmmm..........
Anybody see Cathy ending up with another child out of this? I expected it some time back, but maybe now is the time for her to acquire another one.
Dallas
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Our daughters
Both had two mothers which made the sleep deprivation really humorous. When I was fired for being 50 years old, we had to shift from Mommie providing fresh milk on demand to trying to feed Aiyanna expressed milk. Aiyanna wanted nothing to do with that if it was not fresh no way. Because of my medications I COULD NOT BREST FEED boo hiss. One evening my wife came home to find Aiyanna and my self reenacting the dining room scene from the Hellene Keller story Miracle Worker. I had purchased 5 different bottle types 6 different nipple types. I had tried every combination of milk temperature bottle type and nipple [ including my own }. I was crying Aiyanna was crying hungry and hating me. My wife took over and I passed out in bed.
Neal needs to grow a pair and help the mother of his children.
Huggles
Michele
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book
They have..
They have some "growing" to do anyway. Whether it's up or together (or apart) or whatever only time (and our author) may tell.
Phoebe has some growing to do (as do we all)...
Thank you for including that bit of education...far to often people say things in a unilateral way without really thinking about it (they also use stereotypes when not needed too.)... You hit several of my pet peeves today. (No, I do not have a pet poltergeist named Peeves!)
Thank you,
Annette
You would have to
say that the long term prognosis does not look good for Gloria and Neal. Resorting to drink just because things are not going your way is a recipe for disaster, Neal certainly need to think more and realise that being a parent can at times be very hard work, Especially if it is one person taking the brunt of responsibilty , Maybe when he sobers up and looks at himself in the cold light of day he might start to change his ways... But i would not hold my breath waitng!
Kirri
So Tragicaly Real
Gosh, Angharad, this chapter was so accurately, tragically real life, I have seen exactly that attitude in new Dads feeling deprived when their good lady wives have their new-born first baby to look after, and are all sore and ripped from trying to push a camel through the eye of a needle, so to speak. Nature is sometimes so unfair, all the new Dad has done it seems, is "wet the baby's head" as it goes in "Lad-Speak", then staggers in, too drunk to be able to it anyway, and poor wee laddy is refused his nightly bonk, and he thinks that HE is being treated badly? It really annoys me.
I've had to listen to many new dads complaining about their wives neglecting them after the baby is born. I think it would help if all these men were required to be present and enlisted in helping with the birthing, which these days is almost exclusively done in a hospital. IMHO it would be better done at home, with the expectant father being fully involved. After they actually witnessed what giving birth is like for their darling wives, I reckon a lot would want only one child. I've known midwives who have thrown the father out of the room, they behaving as though it is they and not their wives having the contractions, making more fuss than the brave young women who is actually going through it all. The more macho they are the worse they are at this time.
Men!
Dear Angharad, I should have not been surprised at all, after more than 2000 episodes, but somehow I was really impressed by the accuracy of your observations of the typical new father post partum response. You really are a Very Special Person. Thank you.
Briar
Steer clear of 'domestics' ...
is a good policy to adopt unless it seriously impinges on one's own wellbeing. (Like neighbourly rows intruding on one's own space, or peace.)
How old was Neal getting married? Boys aren't usually much ready for marriage until about thirtyish.
Still lovin' it.
Bevs.