‘Funny you say that. Shona just said the same to me last weekend. About something else.’
‘Shona was right. Anyway, don’t worry yourself about the nippy mums. They’ll be all over you. They just love you, Jamie!’ I rolled my eyes.
‘Of course they do,’ he said with a wink and we both laughed. It was good to be talking to him like that, without any … misunderstandings.
‘I wouldn’t mind taking her though. It wouldn’t be a problem for me at all. She’ll look really, really cute in her ballet costume!’
‘Come with us, then,’ he said, looking me straight in the eye.
I hesitated.
‘Look, I know you don’t feel … I know you don’t want …’ He started fumbling, and blushing. I just wanted to rescue him.
‘It’s ok, seriously …’
‘What I mean to say is, we can be friends. Like we used to be when we were kids. I … I want you in my life. Even if not the way I’d like it to be … I still want you in my life.’
‘What’s for dinner?’ piped Maisie from her den. We both jumped.
‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t cook for you today … I’m afraid there is no dinner!’ I said, grateful for the interruption. We were straying onto dangerous ground.
‘No problem, really, you don’t have to do that anyway.’
‘But I want to. I enjoy cooking. It’s just that today …’ I shrugged my shoulders.
‘Oh, I know what you’re trying to say – no food in the cupboards.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve been so busy, with the opening and then the orders coming in …’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll bring some stuff down from the shop tomorrow.’
‘You don’t need more work.’
‘It’s no hassle. Seriously.’
‘Thanks. I always keep some money in here, help yourself.’ He stretched to reach a biscuit tin on the top shelf.
‘Daddy! I’m hungry!’ The blonde top of a head appeared from behind the sofa, followed by a wee face.
‘Chinese?’
‘Naughty!’ I smiled.
He laughed. ‘Sorted then. Now, where’s that menu …’ Jamie started rustling in a kitchen drawer.
‘By the way, I haven’t heard from Shona in a while. I texted her to ask her what she thought about those classes, you know, a mother’s opinion – I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Not at all, she’s the official authority on all things girly,’ he answered, taking out a stash of menus and brochures. ‘It’s in here somewhere …’
‘Thing is, she said she’d call me and she didn’t. It’s not like her, especially where Maisie is concerned. Do you know if something’s up?’
‘Well … I’m not sure. I think she … I think she might have stuff going on right now …’
‘I see.’ Jamie
knew
, but didn’t want to say. ‘Well, tell her I’m always there for her if she needs to talk, or if she needs a hand or something …’
‘Will do. There it is. The one and only Glen Avich Golden Palace. What would you like?’
So here I am, standing in front of the mirror in my Marks knickers and bra. Unmistakable, the signs of pregnancy. Bigger boobs, for a start, all veiny and swollen and a bit painful. Shiny hair, glowing skin, but blue shadows under the eyes – due to tiredness, morning sickness or sleeplessness, or all of the above. And the bump, the tiny bump that is not quite a real, proper bump yet, but it’s too big, too tight and solid to be just too many cream cakes.
The first time I got pregnant it was like a train had hit me. I was constantly sick, couldn’t keep anything down, couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t even think. My brain had gone. Honestly, it was hell, so much so that I had to remind myself constantly why I was going through all that, that there was a prize at the end of it. The hormones made me moody, low and incredibly irritable. I cringe when I think of the time I harassed a shop manager in Kinnear because they weren’t packing my frozen goods fast enough! Me, the usually mild mannered, extra polite Shona, who had been brought up to never, never, never be rude. Worse was to come when I screamed at Fraser for two hours solid, all the way down to the Borders where we were going on holiday. The poor man must have feared for his life, two weeks stuck in a cottage in the middle of nowhere with a woman possessed.
I became slightly cheerier when the morning sickness subsided and I could eat again. The colour came back to my cheeks. Then came the first kick. I’ll never forget the feeling: a flutter, like a butterfly or a bubble going ‘pop’ inside me. That was the first time I felt that she was there, my baby, that we were
together
. I started chatting to her and I knew when she was sleeping, when she felt like having some exercise, when she wasn’t comfortable and wanted me to move. She’d tell me all that, with kicks and movements and … well, telepathy. I know, it’s not telepathy in the literal sense, it’s just that she seemed to speak to me without words. In any case, however it happened, I knew.
Labour was … How can I put this? Well, when it’s your first baby and you’re talking to women who’ve been through all that already, they say something along the lines of: ‘Yes, labour is a bit sore, but you forget all about it and you have your lovely baby in the end …’
It’s all a pack of lies. It’s not ‘a bit’ sore and you don’t forget about it – that’s just a conspiracy started by women to preserve the human race. Labour is
hell
. It was a day and a half of pure, endless agony and I did not forget a thing. Neither did Fraser, who nursed a mangled hand – the one I was holding on to for dear life – for a few days afterwards. He tried to wiggle free but I didn’t let him.
‘Darling, do you mind … could you release my hand for a wee minute … ouch!’
‘Do you think that’s painful?’ I screamed at him. ‘YOU DON’T KNOW PAINFUL! YOU BASTARD … AAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!’
Funny thing is, when a friend of mine who was expecting her first asked me about labour, guess what I said? ‘Well, it’s a wee bit sore, but you forget it and then you have your lovely baby in the end …’ and so the conspiracy continues, and the human race doesn’t come to an end. And though I didn’t forget the pain, the end result was so amazing, so incredibly joyful, that I couldn’t wait to do it all again.
Alison Elizabeth Boyd was gorgeous, all tiny and scrunched up and soft, with eyes that were two dark pools of otherworldliness. I had been in love with her since I knew she was there, then I had fallen for her all over again when she started moving. But when she was born, it was different. It was like a wave of the most intense love I had ever felt in my life. It was a tsunami, really. I was breathless with it. I held her and didn’t put her down for about six months.
‘I didn’t know love until you were born,’ I whispered to her one night when we were alone, tears of pure emotion rolling down my cheeks. Those moments you’ll never, never tell anyone about. Like when I used to take her babygro off and her vest and nappy, and let her kick on a towel on our bed, just to enjoy the sight of her pink, soft, perfect little body, and feel that if I died there and then, it’d have all been worth it just for that moment.
It was bliss. And it was terror. All my radars were up, watching for dangers. When she was in my arms, her delicate head could have hit something. For the first few days, I froze every time I walked through a door. Her bath could have been too hot or too cold. I could have nipped her by mistake while changing her nappy, with those frightful adhesive things at the side of it. And worst of all, she could have stopped breathing in the middle of the night. The world around us was full of dangers and I had a painful, physical need to protect her. I felt so fiercely protective that I could have
growled
.
It took me a couple of years to relax a bit and by then, I was pregnant again, with Lucy. My feelings for her weren’t less intense but they were entirely different. A lot less painful, a lot less frightened. Lucy slotted into our family without a bother, a happy, settled baby who ate and slept and hardly ever cried, and Alison loved having a sister.
A few years later came Kirsty, the baby of the family. I suppose I should have been a bit blasé about it all by then but Kirsty blew me away, with her black hair, like my dad’s and like Jamie’s, and her sweetness, her sheer … Kirstyness. And that was it. Our family was complete.
And then you came.
My college brochures and forms are in the paper recycling, and you are growing, silently, waiting to land and turn my life upside down.
I’m scared. I worry that a baby who comes like this, unplanned, unexpected, might end up being … less wanted. And I can’t bear to want one of my babies less than the others. I can’t bear the thought of not being blown away by all the things you’ll do – the first step, the first word – like I’ve been with the girls.
I’m scared I won’t love you as much, as naturally and easily as I do your sisters. Jamie thinks that’s impossible. That’s your uncle Jamie, you’ll like him, he’s great. As for your dad, well, he doesn’t know yet.
Your sisters are away for a sleepover and I’ve prepared a lovely dinner for your dad and me, so we can get a bit of peace and quiet, and talk. About you, of course. Oh, here he is.
The keys turn in the door, his steps are up the stairs. He comes in and looks at me, standing in my underwear.
‘Hi … sorry, I’m not dressed yet …’
‘Oh my God …’
‘What?’
‘Oh my God …’
‘WHAT?’
‘You’re pregnant!’
He’s standing there with his mouth open. For heaven’s sake, SAY something!
‘How … how did it happen?’
Oh God. He’s not happy.
‘What do you think?’
‘Yes, well, I know but … you’re on the pill … oh, who cares!’ and he smiles, and he holds me, and he strokes my hair and says, his voice muffled into my neck, ‘I love you.’
All my fears disappear in one big swoop and I know I’ll love you, my darling little unborn baby, as much as the others. But not like the others. You’ll have your own special kind of love, like they all do, the one that only you and I share.
Just please, please, let’s skip the morning sickness this time.
FAR AND AWAY
I thought and thought and thought about it. Then thought about it some more. To leave Maisie behind was not an option, four months away from her would just be unbearable.
I could take someone with me, like Emily suggested, someone that could look after Maisie and help her with her schoolwork as well. Obviously, Eilidh was out of the question, too awkward with all that had been going on between us. I didn’t know anyone else but I didn’t think it’d be difficult to find someone to take the job. A four-month tour of Australia, looking after an easy-going, sweet five-year-old would appeal to many people.
I knew I was going to miss Shona but we’d be back just after the birth. As for being away from Eilidh … well, that’s why I wanted to go, really. I couldn’t shake off my feelings. This arrangement we had … to meet every night when I got home and every Saturday for the dance classes … it was getting impossibly hard for me. Like some sort of torture.
After our talk, she’d started putting two mugs out again and there we were, sitting on the sofa with Maisie at our feet, and I could smell her scent and feel her as she occasionally brushed against me, and I felt like a hand was squeezing my heart. I’d speak to her, and it wasn’t enough. I’d see her, and it wasn’t enough. When we talked, I never wanted us to stop talking. When I was with her, I never wanted to part. I wanted to hold her in my arms and never let her go. But nothing, nothing could ever be enough, because I wanted to kiss her, and touch her, and make love to her. I’m not ashamed to say it, why should I be?
What happened to me? Only a couple of months ago I couldn’t allow anyone in. I was determined it would just be Maisie and me. I resented Gail coming into our lives; I just didn’t want her there.
And then, Eilidh arrived and she
destroyed
all my walls, just brought them down, turned them from stone to pebbles to sand, and I was … exposed.
Her blue eyes, her hair that is just the colour of chestnuts, a dark and warm and shiny shade of brown, her creamy skin with a hint of amber, maybe her Jewish ancestors? Her voice, her laughter, the way she walks and stands, so small and vulnerable and yet somehow strong. Like she has a backbone of steel, yet she doesn’t know it. All of it, all of her, was all I could think about. She haunted me. My heart soared whenever I saw her and then it sank when she had to go. I lived for the moments we spent together.
I
had
to go to Australia. It was the only way. It’d just be torture to keep going on like this. I never thought I’d want to leave Scotland but somehow, Scotland and Eilidh were merging, they were turning into the same thing, into all that is home to me.
‘Hello, it’s Jamie McAnena here, can I speak to Emily, please?’
‘Speaking. How are you? I hope you have good news for me.’
‘Well, I’ve decided to go for it.’
‘Oh, I’m so pleased!’
‘But I don’t have anyone to come with me and look after Maisie, as yet. So that has to work out before I can give you a definite yes.’
‘I might be able to help you with that. I spoke to my niece, Emma. She’s a primary teacher, she just qualified last July, and is doing supply in different schools. She’s thinking of teaching abroad, Singapore maybe, but she’d be happy to take four months out to tutor Maisie and look after her. She’s a lovely girl, she’s only twenty-one and she’s great, though I know I’m biased!’