Authors: Rowan Coleman
“Actually,” Steve said thoughtfully, “it could work out for the better. My business is picking up and if you’re at home I could afford to take on more commissions. Perhaps with a bit of a push at bringing in jobs, we can all be at home together; you might have to cut down on your exercise equipment and self-help books, but it could work.” He set the cup down on the windowsill and kissed
Jill on the cheek. “I’m not saying I won’t come along to the baby group every now and then, though. I’m practically one of the girls.”
“Good,” Jill said happily. “Thanks. Thanks for listening. If there is ever anything important you want to say to me…”
“Actually, there is one other thing,” Steve said rather seriously, grabbing her hand as she began to move away. “Darling, you know that I love you…” he began with a slow smile.
“But?” Jill asked him, returning his smile.
“But I bloody hate green tea. Any chance of a coffee? I don’t mind instant.”
N
o, his arm goes in that bit,” Natalie said, as Jack attempted to get one of Freddie’s legs into an arm of the romper suit.
“But how do you know?” he said, furrowing his brow. “How can you tell arms apart from legs?”
“Do you mean on the romper suit,” Natalie asked him mischievously, “or the baby?”
Jack smiled sideways at her. “Ha, ha,” he said.
It had been a pleasant and surprisingly relaxing morning. First they had bathed Freddie. It had been almost unbearably touching to see Jack holding her little boy so tenderly in the tepid water, his hands actually trembling as he supported Freddie’s head and neck, clearly worried he might hurt him somehow. And it hadn’t helped that Freddie had yowled his head off throughout the whole experience, only calming down once he was out of the bath, dried, wrapped in a blanket, and drinking from his bottle.
Natalie had nearly embarrassed herself because she had auto
matically reached up the front of her top and unhooked her nursing bra, but then she remembered that Jack was watching her, and, hot with discomfort, she had hastily hooked herself back up and led him downstairs to the kitchen to show him how to warm a bottle of milk. She held Freddie for a few minutes until he had settled and then passed him, bottle and all, to Jack. The baby’s eyes half closed in pleasure and contentment, one creased hand grabbing onto his ear as he sucked.
“He likes milk, doesn’t he?” Jack whispered, smiling as he held his son. “Look at him, so happy. What’s that in there then?” He nodded at the bottle. “Is that cow’s milk or that formula stuff? Could I buy it from any shop?”
“Um,” Natalie grimaced, sorely tempted to lie. “It’s, um, you know, baby milk, it’s my milk from my…er, from me.”
“Really?” Jack exclaimed, looking at her breasts with naked curiosity. “How do you get it out of them and in the bottle, is it like milking a…” He stopped himself sometime after the nick of time had packed its bags and left town.
The pair of them looked at each other for a stunned moment.
“Forget I just asked you that,” Jack said. “I actually can’t believe I did. I wasn’t trying to be a senseless, tactless, juvenile…honestly I am just…well, interested and very stupid. Can you actually believe that you went to bed with me? If you’d had more than two or three conversations with me, it would never have happened!”
Natalie smiled, glad that he could acknowledge so easily what had taken place between them, but also reading it as a sign that he had moved on, if he was ready to joke about it. She was not ready—she was not nearly at the joking stage.
“I have a special pump,” she explained. “I use it when I know I’m going to miss a feed. When you have him I’ll put the bot
tles all ready in his bag, all you’ll have to do is warm them like I showed you.”
“Right,” Jack said and then, “Natalie?”
“Yes?” Natalie waited.
“This is brilliant being here with…”
It was then, no doubt utterly relaxed and at peace, that Freddie peed on Jack’s lap.
She had vigorously attempted to sponge Jack’s trousers herself while he held on to the baby, but backing away from her he offered to swap Freddie for the cloth, half turning from her as he cleaned up as best as he could.
“Sorry,” Natalie said, for the fourth or fifth time. “It’s my fault, I forgot the nappy after his bath.”
“It’s fine. I never thought I’d hear myself say these words, but I actually don’t mind that he peed on me.”
She had shown him how to change a nappy next, which he had mastered with an ease that made him puff out his chest with pride. It was the romper suit that had stumped him.
“The thing is,” Natalie said, chuckling because Freddie was, “he isn’t made of rubber, you can’t bend him in any direction you like, even if he does appear to enjoy it.”
Jack knelt back and looked down at the baby wriggling on the rug with one arm and one leg in the garment.
“Maybe he’s grown out of this one,” he said.
“Since yesterday?”
“It’s possible, I hear babies grow very fast,” Jack said, grinning at her.
She picked up Freddie and within a few seconds had him expertly buttoned into the red suit.
“He looks like a tomato. What do we do now?”
Natalie looked at the rug. She had shown him all the things she
had planned. They had set a time for the visit to begin but not for when it should end. Still, if Jack wasn’t ready to go, that suited her, she liked having him with her, in fact she loved it. It made her foolish heart sing.
“We could take him to the park for a walk?” she offered.
His answering smile nearly knocked her off her feet.
“Espadrilles,” Natalie said out loud before she knew it.
“Pardon?” Jack looked perplexed.
“I just wondered if you’d ever thought about wearing espadrilles,” she said slowly.
“Can’t say I ever have,” Jack said, frowning and smiling all at once.
“Didn’t think so,” Natalie mumbled hopelessly as she followed him out of the front door.
The daffodils were out, their bright shining heads bobbing in the breeze as Jack pushed the buggy and Natalie walked at his side. To anyone else, she thought, they must look like a couple, proud of their firstborn. As they walked on in silence she found herself smiling at every passerby, a complicit smile that said, “Yes you’re right, we’re a happy family. A happy, loving family.”
It was a fantasy that was hard not to indulge in.
“So, have you got a boyfriend?” Jack asked her suddenly.
“Me, who, me?” Natalie panicked. She hadn’t expected him to ask her a question like that.
“I just wondered if you were seeing anyone,” Jack said. “I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.” But still he did not retract the question.
“I have no boyfriend,” Natalie said simply. “No time to, even if I wanted one.”
She worried that she had emphasized her single status a little too much—she didn’t want to sound desperate.
“Right,” Jack said, looking in the other direction so she could only see the back of his head. “Well, it’s none of my business.”
They had almost completed a circuit of the park when Jack suggested they find a café and have lunch. Of course they stopped at the very one where Natalie had told Meg and Jess all about her fake husband’s parenting skills, and she had imagined what it would have been like to have Jack at the birth. She never would have believed that only a few weeks later she’d be sitting with him in the same café. It was miraculous, really. She couldn’t hope for better than this, it would be greedy to wish for more. Still, she did.
Jack sat with Freddie on his lap, letting his coffee go cold safely on the other side of the table as he admired the son that he found so endlessly fascinating. It was warm inside and a faint waft of baby wee emanated from Jack’s trousers. He didn’t seem to mind it, though.
“So, what do you think?” he asked Natalie.
“What do I think about what?” she asked him in return.
“Do you think things will work out between us?” There was a second when Natalie’s heart almost stopped and her misunderstanding of the question must have showed in her expression because Jack added hastily, “Parenting Freddie, I mean.”
“Oh.” Natalie tried to hide how much of an idiot she felt. “Oh, well, yes, then. Yes, it’ll work out.” She made herself smile at him. “It will work out fine.”
“Good. Good. It would be good to see Freddie regularly. And you,” Jack said, mumbling almost into his scarf.
Sandy was sitting in the living room watching TV when the three of them got back from the park.
Natalie knew this was a moment that could not be avoided.
“Mom, this is Jack, Jack—Mom,” she said, as Jack appeared in the living room holding Freddie in his arms.
“Oh, right,” Jack said, his face blanching white. “Oh, um, hello there, Mrs…. Miss…Natalie’s mom.”
Sandy pursed her lips and folded her arms under her breasts, and for a second Natalie had the terrible feeling that her recently reformed mother was going to lecture Jack on the correct use of contraception.
Instead she said, “You look like you need a good feed. You should stay for my paella.”
“Um, thanks. But I…” He looked at Natalie. “Well, I could if you like?”
“Don’t mind,” Natalie said, all too aware that she sounded about fifteen.
“Well then, that’s settled,” Sandy said, standing up and rolling her eyes at Natalie. “I just need to pop out to get a few bits. Give you two a bit more time together…with Freddie.”
It was late when Jack finally left, almost midnight.
He had come upstairs with Natalie and rocked Freddie to sleep after his eleven o’clock feed.
“I like your mom,” he said quietly. “She’s really nice.”
“Yeah,” Natalie said, thinking how stunned she had been that the three of them had passed the evening together so pleasantly. Not so long ago it would have seemed like an impossibility. “She
is
nice, isn’t she?”
She sat on the bed in silence and watched in the half-light as Jack swayed back and forth on his long legs with Freddie in his arms, trying to lull him off to sleep. He was humming something under his breath and it took Natalie a while to work out that it was a low version of “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
“He’s asleep,” Jack said suddenly, standing completely still. “What do I do now?”
“Just lower him into his cot,” Natalie whispered. “Slowly and carefully, try to maintain body contact with him for as long as possible.”
Jack followed her instructions to the letter and laid Freddie down in his cot.
Instantly Freddie started crying.
“Don’t worry. It usually takes me four or five goes.”
It was actually the third attempt that was successful. Natalie held her breath as she and Jack stood side by side by the cot and watched Freddie sleep. She had known fewer moments in her life that had been so happy and so perfect and so excruciatingly painful all at once.
“I suppose,” Jack whispered slowly after some time, “I had better go now he’s asleep.”
He looked at Natalie in the half-light for a moment, as if he were waiting for her to say or do something. But she could not even dare to guess what he might be waiting for. So she waited, frozen to the spot, until he dropped his gaze and walked out of the bedroom.
At the front door Jack hesitated, looking up and down the road as if he wasn’t sure which way he should go.
“Thanks for today,” he said.
“Thank you,” Natalie said.
“Natalie, look, I”—Jack bit his lip and rocked on his heels—“you’ve made this really easy for me, you didn’t have to.”
“I know,” Natalie said. “But I wanted to, because you wanted to and because I think you’ll be a great daddy for Freddie.”
Jack nodded. “That means a lot,” he said.
“To me, too,” Natalie replied.
“I’d better go then,” Jack said. He leaned forward and brushed his lips against her cheek.
“Same time next week then?” he asked her.
“Same time next week,” Natalie said. And she watched him walk down the street toward the green until he disappeared into the night. The place where his lips had touched her skin vibrated with heat.
H
ow are things with you?” Natalie asked Meg as they arrived together for the next baby group meeting at Tiffany’s high-rise building.
“It certainly is imposing, isn’t it?” Meg said as they looked up.
“Steve will love this,” Natalie said. “I bet you that he says, ‘post-industrial modernity,’ within five minutes of arriving.”
Meg smiled. “I’m not bad,” she said, as Natalie pressed the number for the flat and they waited for Tiffany to buzz them in. “I talked to Robert. I was very calm and quite controlled. I told him how it had to be if I was going to give him another chance. Frances has been a great help, she really has. I think somehow this has brought her out of herself.”
“And how does it have to be?” Natalie asked her, as the buzzer sounded noisily and she pulled the door open, waving Meg, James, and Iris through first.
“On my terms,” Meg said, holding the door from the inside
for her and Freddie. “And I told him that I’d let him know when I had decided. He cried. Twice,” she added, biting her lip as Natalie pressed the call button on the elevator.
“He cried!” Natalie burst out. “Good. I’m glad he cried. He should cry over what he’s done. I don’t know how you can even think of having him back, Meg, I have to say it. I’m sorry—I
am
trying to understand.”
“He’s behaved like a jerk,” Meg said, thinking of her and Frances’s name-calling extravaganza with a smile. “But he’s still here. He wants to come back. He wants me and the children, not her.”
Natalie looked skeptical as they got into the elevator.
“Just don’t forget exactly how much of a jerk he has been,” she said. “That’s all I ask. He might be crying now, but what about when he’s got his feet back under the table? I really respect your values, I actually admire you, more than you can know. But you don’t
have
to have him back, you know, it’s not compulsory. You’d be fine without him.”
“I know,” Meg said. “I don’t feel it yet, it’s still all too soon and too raw. But I do know that one day in the not so distant future I would be strong enough to be without him. But the thing is, I don’t want to be without him. That hasn’t changed.”
The elevator pinged and the doors slid open. When they got outside Tiffany was waiting for them with Jordan dangling in her arms, impatient to be free.
“Hi,” she said anxiously. “Thanks for coming a bit early like I asked. I wanted to know if I’d got it all right.”
“If you’ve got cake,” Natalie assured her, “I don’t really see how you can get it remotely wrong.”
Tiffany’s flat looked very nice and she told Natalie as she followed her into the kitchen that her mom had helped her get it
ready; she showed Natalie a large brown teapot containing seven teaspoons of tea, waiting to be filled with boiling water.
“My mom lent me this. One per person and one for the pot, my nan used to say,” Tiffany said, peering into the teapot. “Is that right, or is it one of those old wives’ tales?”
“I think you need at least seven,” Natalie said. “I like my tea strong.”
Next to the teapot Tiffany had placed two plates of Mr. Kipling’s French Fancies, arranged on paper napkins.
Natalie smiled.
“It looks stupid, doesn’t it?” Tiffany asked her in dismay. “You think it’s funny.”
Natalie laughed. “Don’t be an idiot, Tiff. I was smiling because you’ve got French Fancies. I bloody love those!” She put her arm around Tiffany’s slender shoulders and gave her a little hug.
“You look very well organized.” Natalie glanced into the sunny sitting room, where Meg was showing James the view. Tiffany had borrowed four dining chairs from her neighbor and had somehow acquired a red and white striped deckchair, too. She had set them out in a big circle, including the beanbag, ready and waiting for their occupants. In the middle of the circle there was a coffee table that Natalie was certain she had last seen in Janine’s conservatory, topped off with a white lace runner.
“So, you and Janine are seeing a lot of each other,” Natalie said.
“Yeah, she’s round more and more.” Tiffany wrinkled her nose. “Is it too much, that lace cloth thing? Do I look like a little girl playing tea parties?”
Natalie shook her head. “Not at all,” she said, even though it wasn’t exactly true. “You’ve got enough chairs for everyone, play mats out for the babies to roll on. And cake!” She looked thought
ful. “Actually, will you come over a bit early before my turn and organize mine for me, too?”
Tiffany smiled. “So it’s all right then?”
“Of course it is,” Natalie reassured her. “It’s perfect.”
Jess was the next to arrive, along with Steve, whom she had met on the bus.
“Hi,” she called, as she parked her buggy on the landing outside the front door. “I’m glad it’s such a lovely day. I nearly didn’t come. Poor Jacob can’t seem to shake off this cold. We were both up what seemed like most of last night. He’s all stuffed up and can’t sleep, bless him. I thought the fresh air might help.”
“Brilliant place, Tiff,” Steve added, appearing behind her with Lucy in his arms. “This is where it’s at, you know. Streets in the sky. Post-industrial modernity.”
“Told you,” Natalie said under her breath, digging Meg in the ribs.
Natalie looked round at the random group of friends that she had somehow acquired as they compared babies and chatted. It was such a relief to be here with them all. They made her feel as if she was on an even keel again, a calm sea at last, even if it was just for an hour or so; it was a break from the ups and downs of her other life.
Maybe things had gone, if not wrong, not exactly right with Jack, but there were other parts of her life that were starting to fall slowly into place. An improving relationship with her mother was one of them, and her baby group friends another. Natalie knew that now things were a little more steady, she had to tell them about the real Jack and the fake Gary. It was the next, the last task on her list of brave and grown-up jobs to do. She just wasn’t sure how she would ever begin to explain herself.
“There are boys in hooded sweatshirts down there,” was the first thing Frances said when she arrived with Henry in a sling and
her handbag practically welded under her arm. “I didn’t like the look of them at all.”
“Oh, they’re always there,” Tiff said, as she peered out of the kitchen window.
“Honestly, Frances,” Natalie said, happy to be hypocritical, “don’t be such a bigot, they are perfectly nice young men. They gave Freddie back his toy that he dropped the other day.”
It was clearly not enough to satisfy Frances.
“Well, I think we should all leave together,” she said. “Safety in numbers, after all. Or we could send Steve out in his trunks again,” she added, to general amazement. “That would send them packing.” It took a second or two for everyone to understand that Frances had made a joke, but the instant they did there was much laughter and Frances glowed with pleasure.
A little while later, as they all sipped their tea, Frances leaned toward Meg, who was kneeling on the floor with James and Iris, and said, “Robert has left his job. He phoned them yesterday and sent the letter today. He told me to tell you he hopes that makes you happy, so I’m telling you, but I told him that I thought not sleeping with another woman might have been the best way to guarantee that.”
The others in the group exchanged glances and raised eyebrows. It wasn’t that Frances had changed, exactly, it was more as if she had loosened some invisible stays that had been constricting her inwardly and now she could finally breathe.
Meg’s smile was fragile. “Well, I’m happier than I would have been if my husband had gone back to work with that woman, that’s for sure,” she said with a small shrug.
“I’ll make certain I tell him that,” Frances said stoutly. “But I’m worried about how you are going to manage without his money coming in.”
“Somehow,” Meg said. She smiled round at the group. “Look, you’ve all been so good to me, really supportive, and it’s meant a lot, it really has. But please, I don’t want to talk about me today. I want to talk about all of you and the babies, and forget about me for an hour or two. Could we do that, please?” She looked at Jess, who had the back of her hand on Jacob’s forehead as she rocked him.
“How’s Jacob doing?” she asked her.
“Not so good,” Jess said, with a little frown. “His fever has gone, but he’s so stuffed up he can’t feed or sleep, poor mite.”
“Looks like he’s nodded off now,” Natalie said, lowering her voice. Jess looked down at Jacob. His eyes were closed at last, his lashes brushed the tops of his apple cheeks, and his little mouth was a wide-open O.
“Do you want to put him in Jordan’s cot?” Tiffany offered. “I just changed the sheets this morning.”
“Um.” Jess looked down at her son, who weighed heavy in her arms.
“Oh go on, Jess,” Natalie prompted her, seeing how tired she looked. “He’ll only be in the next room, he’ll soon let you know if he’s not happy, don’t
worry
! Give yourself that rare treat when you actually get to drink a cup of tea and eat cake simultaneously.”
Jess smiled. “Okay then, thanks, Tiff,” she said, and she followed Tiffany into the bedroom.
“So,” Meg said, as Tiffany and Jess came back a moment later. “Who’s got anything interesting to tell us? Steve?”
“Well,” Steve said. “This might be my last baby group.” The women made gratifying sounds of dismay. “Or at least my last one on my own,” he added, when he was sure they would be disappointed if he left. “Jill is leaving work. She’s going to take her maternity leave after all and I’m ramping up the amount of free-lancing I do. It means we’ll be feeling the pinch but we’ll have
more time together, and Jill will get more time with Lucy, which is what we both want. I told her that you were a great bunch of people, great friends, even if you don’t respect a man’s Speedos.”
“It’s not the Speedos we don’t respect, Steve,” Natalie teased him gently. “It’s the man.”
“Mom’s going to meet Anthony properly next week,” Tiffany said. “She’s coming for tea, poor Anthony’s about to have an anxiety attack!” She laughed. “Dad knows and he’s going nuts but Mom doesn’t care—she’s suddenly gone all hardcore. She said she told him it was about time he dragged himself into the twenty-first century and realized what a small-minded idiot he was. Dad threatened to throw her out as well, but she told him he wouldn’t last five minutes without her. He knows she’s right.”
“And what about you, Natalie?” Meg looked at her. “What have you been up to?”
This was the moment, Natalie thought. The ideal moment to tell them. She had to be as honourable and as straight with them as they were with her.
“Well, actually,” she began, taking a deep breath. “There is something…”
“Oh, hang on.” Jess leaped to her feet, making Natalie jump. “I need a wee, just wait a minute. I don’t want to miss anything.”
Natalie closed her mouth as her friend headed toward the bathroom.
A second later a scream tore through the flat.
“Jacob!” Jess shrieked, as Tiffany raced into the bedroom, followed closely by Natalie.
Natalie saw Jacob’s head as she peered over Tiffany’s shoulder. For a second he looked as if he might be sleeping. But he was terribly pale, and terribly still, and there was a frightening bluish tint around his mouth and nose.
“Oh God,” Jess’s voice was shaking as she picked him up. “He
feels cold, he feels really cold. Oh God, oh Jacob, wake up, wake up now…”
“He’s stopped breathing,” Tiffany said, her voice surprisingly clear and calm. “It can only have been for a minute, if that. It was only a minute ago we put him in the cot.”
“Oh God, my baby!” Jess’s cries began to reach a heartrending crescendo. “Oh Jacob! Jacob!”
“Give him to me,” Tiffany pleaded, but Jess held him closer to her chest.
“No, no, no, no, please no.” Jess stood there rocking Jacob in her arms, shaking her head. “No, not again.”
“Jess, listen, give him to me,” Tiffany said, firmly. “I went to a class about baby CPR. Let me have him. I know what to do, it’s important.”
“Jess, let Tiffany have him,” Natalie urged, and as Jess released her son, she collapsed into Natalie’s arms. The baby’s legs flopped lifelessly like a doll’s as Tiffany took him, his arms swinging at his sides.
The room was silent.
“Wake up, Jakey!” Tiffany bellowed as she tugged at his arm quite firmly. “Wake up, baby!”
“She’s hurting him,” Jess whimpered, her fingers digging into Natalie’s arms. “Don’t hurt him, please!”
“It’s all right,” Natalie murmured, her tense and frightened tone not managing to convey reassurance. All she knew was that she remembered nothing useful about that first-aid class, and if she couldn’t, then why should a teenage girl?
“Right.” Tiffany’s young face looked tight and pale, she took a breath. She sat on the edge of her bed, put Jacob on his tummy over her forearm, and angled his head down.
She slapped him hard twice between his shoulder blades with the heel of her other hand.
“Oh my God!” Jess shrieked, struggling to pull out of Natalie’s arms, but Natalie held her back. “Stop hurting him!” She broke free and fell on her knees in front of Jacob. There was a second of deathly silence.
“Sorry,” Tiffany said quickly, and then she hit him again.
And then Jacob coughed. Once, twice. Jess gasped and Tiffany looked amazed as she hit him with the heel of her hand again, one firm bang between his shoulder blades. A thick blob of green mucus flew out of his mouth.
And suddenly Jacob was crying. He was crying hard and gasping for breath, the color returning to his cheeks almost immediately.
“Jacob!” Jess cried and silently Tiffany put him into her arms. “Oh my God, Jacob.” She looked up at Tiffany, tears streaming down her face. “How can I ever thank you? You saved him.”
Jacob howled, his cry wonderfully loud in what had been total silence. One by one, five other babies who had been perfectly quiet for those few terrible moments joined in, until the flat was filled with a life-affirming din.
“We need to call an ambulance,” Tiffany said, her voice shaking. “We need to check him over properly. It might happen again or he might have been starved of oxygen.”