Please note: this piece contains some strong langauge.
Cottonwool-head was setting in and my arrogant optimism was starting to pinch. I was still as strong, and certainly as able, as I had been before Eilidh. I wasn’t going to be a pissing statistic, a victim of the stretched body, a mucus-membrane minor mother.
Before Eilidh, I used to stop on the way up to Nairn at least once, never fully appreciating the “comfort” aspect of my comfort breaks. I’d take a little stroll to stretch vital emergency stop tendons and alleviate deep vein thrombosis. I’d take a power nap. Definitely have a cup of tea.
Since Eilidh, I had learned to balance, wobble, and blag my way about. I annoyingly learned that I couldn’t reach my knees with a baby strapped to my chest, and I couldn’t sit down the way I needed to, to get the job done. She might roll off the changing table. The floor was wet and covered in trucker’s cholera footprints and meningitis spittle. I ultimately learned to drive for three and a half hours without stress-stops.
Leaving Nairn each time was hard. My 35ft haven needed cleaned and set up for paying guests each spring and although I was a month later this time, I had even managed to wash and rehang the curtains while Eilidh slept. I couldn’t wait to show her our beach.
I was secretly sore, tearful, raggedy-haired, dry-skinned and only sleeping half of my head at a time, like a dolphin, or a swift, but nobody was getting to throw that news-confetti around. I was coping bloody well, thank you very much, arseholes. Speaking of which…
I had crawled endlessly along roads I no longer recognised. Dug up, a bit over there, piles of sand, cones and cones and cones. The future would just be a set of perfect empty dual carriageways with hovercars throwing their sewage onto the finished project.
Eilidh was due a feed at home half an hour ago, but thankfully the warmth and rhythm of the car agreed with her and her little eyelids fluttered, as I stroked her minute chest beside me. My tiny child, my little ball of innocence. Little did she know how terrified I was of her just suddenly ceasing to live. I wanted to her to breathe, always. I wanted all sharp objects to be away from her, always. I had watched her heartbeat on a monitor every night. My baby.
My guts had started screaming passing the Dalwhinnie roadworks. Clackerbag-bawjaws-bawjaws-clackerbag. I cursed the rhythmic burst road. I cursed the cup of tea I had before I left. I yearned for the juice in the cool bag. Every lay-by had eyes. I wasn’t up to squatting yet. I’d never get back up. The belly shelf would split and my stitches would look like a teddy tumble dryer victim.
Did Pitlochry have toilets? Of course there were actual toilets, but ones I could actually use? I’d probably piss myself or double over in agony getting out of the car and then a fox would run off with my baby. Not stopping in Pitlochry.
Perth. I could stop in Perth. I used to stop in Perth to get munchies and petrol. Baby seat, trolley, parent and child space, sweaty dusty skin, smokers outside breathing leprosy on me, my child contracting pneumonia from their vile breath. Maybe I could waft a paper…
The trundling and meandering teetered to a stop, with Perth in sight. I thought of astronauts and how they coped in their incontinence pants. Ebay, Nasa pants, twenty grand. Maybe not. Fortunately, Eilidh had the best, most absorbent, soft, bottom-soothing nappies known to mini-mankind. They were everywhere, teasing me. Each door pocket, the open glove box, in her bag in the footwell. She could go all night with one of those on and not noticed if she flooded it.
I gave myself some seatbelt slack and gifted it to my guts, pulling it as far away from my belly as possible. I pulled my stretchy waistband as far up as possible, almost under my boobs. That felt worse. Maybe all the pee had filled my stretched cavities and my organs were drowning. I was wearing a kind of dress top anyway. I was wearing slip on shoes. If I gently shimmied, I could actually take my jeans off…
My eyes drifted around the car, trying to be inventive. Men could pee in bottles. It just wasn’t fair. I could just piss the seat. It was my car. I had a carpet shampooer in the boot. I could sit on my coat and piss through it then jam it in the car window to drip-dry like a flag of shame. I needed one of those puppy training pads, like the ones they had in the hospital for me to mum-spill on. My eyes drifted again to the nappy in the door pocket.
I unfolded it and quickly harked back to my primary school estimating and measuring lessons. My bum was kind of like a lunch tray. It might hold a litre. I had some shimming left in me. This might work. I didn’t even have to be quick about it. I could release gently and slowly. Give the blue gel crystals a chance. I might even be rewarded with that nice chemical “baby-just-pished” smell. Silver linings, silver linings.
Success. After another trundle, I grabbed a yellow bag and put the four stone nappy, and my got-in-the-way-when-I-braked underwear safely in and tied three knots. Half the weight, twice the woman, my jeans were back on in a blink and Eilidh was none the wiser. She would never have to tell it to a professional.
Hello cool bag, my chilly friend. Hello fizzy lemonade with a twist of lime. I cracked the seal and drank.
I stroked Eilidh’s chest again, a little sigh escaping her tiny mouth.
‘Cheers, darling,’ I whispered.