Stephanie Torrance

Listen to Stephanie read her story:

Content Warning

infertility

They always talk about the prolapses, you say. And the tearing. You don’t want to hear any more about the degree of tearing. 

Oh, was yours just a one Sara? That’s lucky. Mines was a four. The doctor said he’d never seen one like it, my legs were near blown clean off. 

You take a drag of one of your Nana’s Benson & Hedges Gold and immediately cough it all back up because since you’ve been trying, you’ve been trying to live this life of pious purity. 

For the baby. 

For the baby who doesn’t exist yet. Who has never existed. Who is unlikely ever to exist. So now you’re ranting at an octogenarian outside an All Bar One on a Saturday lunchtime after three glasses of prosecco while you’re bleeding. Again.

And Linda. Fucking Linda, you say. Who’s not even your Real Cousin. Linda who got knocked up on her first try and who has spent the last hour joking about how devastated her husband was that the conception period wasn’t just that bit longer so he could get more goes in. Linda who turned to you and said, 

What about you and Jess? When are you gonna have one? 

Linda who looked at you through thick Russian Minks as you sat there pulling at a dress you didn’t want to wear. The dress your Mum made you borrow because everything you own is too butch by her standards for a baby shower at All Bar One which means that it didn’t come from Zara. 

Someone else at that table has surely told her by now. Auntie Christine, who isn’t even your Real Auntie. Or Sara who saw you at the clinic. You don’t know how to answer her because she doesn’t know about the fight you and Jess had last night about your big failure. How she listed off the injections and the hormones and the time off work and the bleeding. Linda doesn’t know that last night when Jess said maybe I should have a go? you almost said yes. But then you knew that if she did and it took right away, you’d hate her just enough until she left you.

And Mum. Fucking Mum, you say, who got pregnant at fifteen by the village arsehole and commiserated the news by smoking twos on the way home from school off of Auntie Christine, who again, isn’t even your Real Auntie. Mum who only told your Nana when her water broke all over the kitchen floor. Mum who is sitting there in the All Bar One with the prosecco going on about how small you were, and how she didn’t need a single stitch afterwards. Who drained her third glass dry and said she’s not saying that she recommends smoking in pregnancy, she’s not saying that but she’s sure that’s why the baby just slid right out.

You smoke your Nana’s Benson & Hedges right down to the chalk. You know it’s a baby shower, you say, you know that. But you don’t understand why they need to talk about being in labour all of the time. 

And your Nana. Your lovely Nana, who is standing there with her Benson & Hedges Gold and her freshly done perm. The one she gets done once a month with her widow’s pension. And you think about how it doesn’t actually make much sense that she was one and done at thirty-five when she got married at nineteen. How the lines of grief that litter her face existed long before your Grandad died. 

She leans forward and picks a bit of ash off your blazer.

You’re jealous of a prolapse, she says.

Aye, you say, I’m jealous of a prolapse.

She takes the last puff of her cigarette leaving a ring of pink lipstick on the tip and stubs it out next to but-not-actually-in the bin.  

You done? She says as she puffs up her big fake fur and checks that her clip-on earrings are still on properly. Then she takes her perfume out her bag and gives the air two big skooshes before walking through it.  

And you’re not sure if she means done with the cigarette, or your rant, or your life but you say, aye Nana, I’m done.

Right, she says, fix your face. 

So you fix your face and you follow her back inside.

Stephanie Torrance is a queer working-class writer from Aberdeen. She won the Jericho Writers First 500, and the Book Edit Writers’ Prize. She was shortlisted for the Paul McVeigh Residency and has an MA in English Literature. She lives near Glasgow with her partner and two overfamiliar cats. Find her @stephanie.torrance on Instagram.