Authors: Joanna Kavenna
*
‘More juice?’ her mother was saying to Calumn, holding up his cup while he shook his head. And Brigid was trying to grasp the pain she had felt, hold it close. She longed for pain, more pain, a still more direct and inescapable pain. That was just one of the small perversities of her state. And now her mother was talking about the floor in her kitchen, how she needed it re-tiled, how the tiles she wanted were so expensive, while Brigid thought about how she craved pain, a pain which would drag this pregnancy to an end. This was how you became glad about labour. It was the only possible release from this discomfort, this enslavement to the overgrown body. You longed so urgently for release that you accepted agony, welcomed physical distress. She smiled, as she thought how absurd it was, that she was nursing this pain to herself, feeling friendly towards it.
*
‘I have various things I should do, sorting out the house and making sure I’ve sent away all my copy-editing,’ she
said. ‘And a friend of mine is coming round for coffee quite soon. But of course you’re very welcome to stay. You might like to play with Calumn.’
‘Who’s your friend?’
‘Stephanie.’
‘Stephanie?’ said her mother, imperiously. A stranger! And she the gatekeeper, the guardian of the front door! It was that sort of expression, thought Brigid.
‘Yes, a former colleague, from school.’
Her mother was peering into the fridge, rustling through the bags of mouldy vegetables. ‘Your fridge is rather empty,’ she said. Calumn was behind her saying, ‘Rid-rid-ridd-rid.’
‘Well, I haven’t been to the shops for a while. Calumn, come over here, sweetie, let’s have some milk. A cup of milk?’ He put out a hand, took the milk.
‘I remember when I was pregnant with you, I was so busy in the final days,’ said her mother. ‘I made two months’ worth of meals and put them all in the freezer. Labelled them all. Lasagne. Shepherd’s Pie. Fish Pie. Rhubarb Crumble. All in labelled containers. I was determined not to be caught short after the birth. I cooked for days and days, hour upon hour. I wasn’t quite as big as you, but still, it was a major undertaking. I dragged myself around our kitchen, without all these labour-saving devices everyone relies on these days, and morning to dusk I cooked. And when I’d put the last container in the freezer, I felt the beginnings of labour.’
‘Very precise timing,’ said Brigid, though she had heard the story before.
‘So precise. My body knew it could let itself go. I had finished the cooking. And we ate so well after the birth.
Not too well, naturally, because I wanted to lose my baby weight as soon as possible. But your father, God rest his soul, ate well. And I had enough. I always think when I look at photos from that time, how slim I was, even just after the birth,’ said her mother, who was far from fat now but had perhaps sagged a little in recent years. Age had dragged her skin down, though there wasn’t much flesh on her bones. She was a handsome elderly woman, Brigid supposed. Carefully set hair, dyed a blonder shade of white. High cheekbones, tastefully applied make-up. She wore pastel shades which suited her well enough. Well-cut trousers, low shoes. She was small but she held herself well. She had shrunk in recent years, but she wasn’t bent-backed. She was cleaning the surfaces with a regal air, as if she rarely had to stoop to such work but was doing it for her daughter.
‘Don’t do that, Melissa will clean tomorrow,’ said Brigid.
‘Nee-nar nee-nar,’ said Calumn, racing out of the room, and Brigid’s mother went to fetch him. There was a cry as he was retrieved and the kitchen door was shut behind him.
‘Thanks Mum,’ said Brigid.
‘You shouldn’t be carrying him around in your state. Not a big boy like you, Calumn. Such a big strong boy! Can’t Patrick take some time off work?’
‘It’s very busy at the moment. Besides, he’s saving it up for when the baby’s born. He’ll only get a couple of weeks.’
‘What does he do all day in that office anyway?’ said her mother.
‘Well, somehow he passes the time,’ said Brigid. ‘The hours pass and then he comes home again.’
The doorbell rang again, and Brigid waddled off to answer it. Stephanie was on the doorstep, with a baby in a pram, a tiny grub-like creature, its eyes shut, occasionally making little grumbling noises and sucking its fingers. The grub was called Aurora, but really it was a pre-human, with its furry body, its asymmetrical skull. It was still foetal, with its jerky little movements, its utter dependence on the mother, everything involuntary, unmeditated. It hardly needed a name, it was still so clearly an extension of its mother.
‘Oh, how beautiful she is,’ said Brigid, kissing Stephanie, adoring the baby for the requisite amount of time, picking up a little finger and holding it, careful not to wake her.
Calumn was trying to peer into the pram.
‘Gently, gently, Calumn,’ Brigid said. ‘Don’t wake the baby.’
‘Bah bah bah,’ said Calumn, loudly. The baby stirred but didn’t wake.
‘Ssssh, Calumn, very gently. Speak quietly, ssshhh,’ said Brigid.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Stephanie. ‘But can we bring the pram into the kitchen? Just so I can push it backwards and forwards, make sure she stays asleep as long as possible?’
‘Of course,’ said Brigid. ‘Just wheel it along.’
‘Aren’t the wheels wet?’ said Brigid’s mother. ‘Shouldn’t you dry the wheels?’
‘Don’t worry about the wheels,’ said Brigid, before Stephanie could bend down. ‘Don’t worry at all. I don’t care about them.’ And she started pulling the pram through the door, while Calumn bounced along beside it, saying, ‘Bah bah,’ and making the baby twitch and stir.
Stephanie sat down in the kitchen, the pram beside her, moving it backwards and forwards, the wet wheels making a swooshing sound on the kitchen floor. ‘Is she sleeping well?’ said Brigid’s mother. ‘Calumn, darling, don’t grab the side of the pram.’
‘No, not really,’ said Stephanie. ‘Up every two hours to feed, then feeds for an hour, that sort of thing. But I hear that’s pretty usual.’
‘Oh yes, absolutely normal,’ said Brigid’s mother.
‘Breastfeeding is a nightmare of course,’ said Stephanie. ‘I hadn’t realised what a complete nightmare it was. Brigid you were so good, you never told me how ghastly it is, how painful, how desperately you think, “God, why not just give the poor little brute a bottle,” but then the health visitors treat you as if you are Satan for even suggesting it, and so for some reason you carry on.’ She laughed, vividly, showing her teeth.
‘I’m sure I told you many times how tough it was. I must have, I moaned bitterly to Patrick,’ said Brigid.
‘How long do I have to do it to earn my little gold badge, “Good Mummy”? How long, please tell?’ said Stephanie. She was looking pretty good, thought Brigid. Flushed cheeks, from pushing the pram along, and her hair was still glossy and thick from pregnancy. Auburn, streaked with grey, curling over her shoulders. She was striking certainly. At school she had a reputation for saying outrageous things. She sometimes swore in front of the pupils. Teaching
Romeo and Juliet
, she said things like, ‘Romeo and Juliet simply fancy the bloody pants off each other,’ while her pubescent class tittered and blushed.
‘I breastfed both my children for a year,’ said Brigid’s mother. ‘Twelve months each. Then I stopped. I was happy
to stop when I did. I felt I’d done the best I could for them.’
‘A year, Mrs Morgan. That’s amazing,’ said Stephanie. ‘That’s so amazing. God, I’ll think I deserve a bloody medal if I get to three months. I told Jack that the World Health Organization recommends three months. He never reads anything so he doesn’t know any better. Also men never discuss these things with their friends, do they? They don’t sit around having earnest conversations about whether breast is best, or do they?’
‘I don’t think Patrick does,’ said Brigid. ‘But he definitely thought breastfeeding was important.’
‘Oh yes, Jack says that. But where has he got that from? I just don’t understand,’ said Stephanie, kicking off her heels, causing Calumn to wander over to look at her feet. But he was shy and wouldn’t touch them. And they were strange, thought Brigid, trying to imagine – as she often did – what Calumn saw, how things appeared to him. Gnarled bent toes with glistening nails at the end. Soft skin and hard nail. He stood over them, pointing at the shining nail polish.
‘Yes, my toes,’ said Stephanie. ‘Where are your toes, Calumn?’
Calumn looked up at Stephanie’s face, smiling coyly, then gazed down at her feet again.
‘How are you feeling in yourself?’ said Brigid to Stephanie.
‘Oh, pretty trashed. Big weeping Caesarean scar, that sort of loveliness. Can’t imagine I’ll ever get back to normal. I’m just trying not to think about it.’ Stephanie was wearing a loose orange dress, still in her maternity clothes, so you couldn’t really see what she looked like. Underneath, Brigid imagined she was bloated, still carrying piles of weight.
That was how she had been. And her face had been so full and fat, like a girl’s. It made her look improbably well on all the post-birth photographs. She was wallowing in agonised surprise but she looked like her teenage self, puppy fat on her cheeks. Stephanie took a sip of tea. ‘Anyway Brigid you’re looking great. How are you feeling?’
‘Fine,’ said Brigid. ‘A bit bored. A bit impatient, but then apprehensive at the same time. You know, you’ll remember it so well.’ And in pain she thought, trying to shrug off a rising surge, moving so she was facing away from them, crossing to the sink and running the tap. As the water ran she breathed. The pain rose. It was nothing, she knew. This pain was nothing compared with the pain to come. Later she wouldn’t be standing around thinking about the varieties of pain. She would have her head down like a dying animal, simply trying to endure. But now, she stood by the sink, pretending to wash her hands, wondering how long it was lasting and whether she should start to time the contractions.
Breathe and breathe, and now the pain peaked and began to ebb away.
*
‘No, my brain has already been wiped. I’ve forgotten pregnancy already,’ Stephanie was saying.
‘It’s nerve-racking for Brigid, because she’s so overdue,’ said Brigid’s mother.
‘Not nerve-racking because of that,’ said Brigid, grimly. ‘Anyway, I’m not necessarily overdue.’
‘You can always get the little swine induced anyway,’ said Stephanie in her matter-of-fact way. ‘I went for an induction. But then I had my gross Caesarean, so don’t do anything I did.’
‘A friend of mine’s daughter had a very successful induction the other week,’ said Brigid’s mother, looking irritated. ‘It was over in a few hours, and she hardly needed any pain relief.’
‘Lucky her,’ said Stephanie, wrinkling her nose. ‘There’s always one, isn’t there?’
‘More than one,’ said Brigid’s mother.
‘How’s Jack adapting to fatherhood?’ said Brigid, with Calumn tugging at her trousers. ‘Hello sweetie,’ she added. ‘How are you? How are you sweetie? Do you want a drink?’
‘Neaaarrr,’ said Calumn. He was restless and she knew he really wanted to go outside. But she stroked his hair, tried to calm him.
‘He’s very proud. Keeps emailing photographs of Aurora to everyone. Very doting. Not so keen on the sleepless nights of course – who is? But you know, he’s pretty smitten. Rocks her to sleep, puts her in the bath; the man even sings to her. And he rushes home from work and cooks dinner – can you believe it, he actually cooks dinner every night?’
‘Well that’s very nice of him,’ said Brigid’s mother. ‘Lots of men wouldn’t do that.’
‘I think he was so amazed by labour. He tried to get down and dirty, help me to push, that sort of stuff. But often he stood there watching, as if he just couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Not wanting to stress you out, Brigid,’ said Stephanie, flexing her toes and laughing. The baby stirred again, briefly opened its eyes, then settled back to sleep.
‘Mum, do you want to take Calumn for a walk?’ Brigid said, thinking how much she wanted to talk to Stephanie on her own. ‘You could take an umbrella? Or maybe he’d
like to hear a story?’ She wanted to confide in her friend, tell her how weary she was feeling, how she thought she was in labour, how there was a weight upon her, crushing her so she could hardly breathe and then she felt as if her mother had come to observe her, to spectate at her annihilation, she wanted to say all these things and listen to Stephanie laughing them off. ‘Can’t be that bad! Just let her make Calumn’s lunch and ignore her!’ She wanted Stephanie to be outrageous, ‘Oh mothers, I never see my mother. Callous witch that I am!’ She wished she could just ask her mother to leave them for a while. Come back in an hour, she wanted to say. Or in a day. Come back later, much later.
*
‘Oh no,’ said her mother. ‘I think he’s fine here, with his mummy. Aren’t you, Calumn?’ Calumn nodded back, and so Brigid’s mother settled in, watching Brigid and Stephanie as if they were enacting a bad play, which she had bought her ticket for and might as well see to the end. And Brigid was too polite and didn’t insist. Useless, she thought to herself. You are useless.
‘How’s Patrick?’ asked Stephanie.
‘Oh, fine. Busy at work. Wants to change his job.’
‘It’s a good job, he’s very lucky,’ said her mother.
‘Of course, Mum,’ said Brigid. ‘We’re all very lucky. But he still feels like a change.’
‘I always thought Patrick’s life was rather glamorous,’ said her mother. ‘Always forging contacts, making deals or whatever it is he does.’
‘I think that’s fine for a few years, and then it palls a bit,’ said Brigid.
‘It’s a perfectly good job,’ said her mother.
Now Brigid looked down and saw that Calumn was curled at her feet, playing half-heartedly with a stuffed toy. He looked listless and she felt a surge of love and pity for him. Poor Calumn, conjured into existence only to be ignored, that was how she felt when she saw him at her feet, uncertain and somehow sad. ‘Calumn, sweetie, how are you?’ she said. ‘Do you want to play a game?’ It was still raining outside, or she would have suggested they all went into the garden. ‘Do you want to play with tins?’ He lifted his head and smiled at her a little. Always he forgave her. He smiled and stood up, bashed her knee in an affectionate way. ‘Let me,’ said her mother, and took some tins from the cupboard. Now, at least, she went to work immediately. A pile of tins appeared on the floor. Calumn sat down by it. Even though he had done this a thousand times, perhaps even more, he applied himself to the business of knocking down and reassembling the tins.