by Katey Lovell
May
Chapter 33
The early summer sunshine blazed through the windows, the natural light that filled the room a relief after months of relying on the glare of strip lighting that usually filled the office. My workmates had gone to town decorating the staffroom, with pink and white balloons strung up from the ceiling, and banners stuck to the walls.
Spices from Marcie’s chilli filled the air and everyone was in high spirits, singing along to the cheesy eighties playlist Jane had instructed Alexa to play. Even Mr Archer was up dancing to Culture Club, much to everyone’s amusement.
“Phew, Marce, this is even hotter than last time.” The roof of my mouth was aflame but even so I couldn’t stop myself from adding more of the potent chilli to my jacket potato. “It’s good though. Whatever you put in it makes it moreish.”
Marcie tapped the side of her nose with her index finger. “Secret ingredient. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
“You’re killing me anyway,” Kath spluttered, water streaming from her bloodshot eyes. “I can hardly breathe.”
“Oh, come on,” said Jane, dryly. “After what you were telling me about the weekend I don’t think you can make any comments about not being able to breathe.”
I was aware my expression was puzzled, but all became clear as Jane continued.
“She’s been telling me about her latest squeeze. Pat? Paddy?”
Kath shook her head. “Parky. Gabe Parker.”
“No,” I exclaimed, my fork hanging in mid-air as I took in the information. “Gabe Parker the electrician? I went to school with him. He was in my English class. All the girls fancied him. He won a national competition, something to do with woodwork, I think. Good with his hands.”
“He still is,” Kath said with a mischievous grin.
“What’s that got to do with my chilli?” Marcie asked.
“Not the chilli, breathing,” Kath corrected. “He’s into ties and gags.”
“I don’t know if I want to hear this. He went out with my sister for a while.”
“Maybe it’s a new fetish, I don’t know.” Kath waved her hand dismissively. “All I can say is that he’s very inventive when it comes to finding uses for cables.”
I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that nugget of information, so was full of relief when Vernon Archer bellowed for everyone to quieten down so he could say a few words.
“Ah, Sophie.” He smiled wistfully from underneath his bushy moustache. “Sophie, Sophie, Sophie. Where to start? You first arrived with us as a temp and didn’t know what you were doing…”
I grimaced, colour flushing to my cheeks. During my first month I broke the photocopier four times and cut off callers when trying to transfer them to the right person. If I hadn’t have needed the money I’d have quit.
“…but with Marcie as your line manager and the experience of Kath and Jane…”
“Less of the experience, makes me sound old,” Kath quipped with a laugh.
“…Kath and Jane’s support,” he corrected, “you quickly became a part of the company, which is why we offered you a permanent contract. You’re the baby of the work family, but now you are leaving us to have a baby of your own.” He looked almost misty-eyed. “So from all of us here at Archer and Perkins I would like to wish you the very best for your maternity leave. Here’s a little something from all of us.”
He held out an envelope as everyone clapped.
“Make sure you bring the baby in to see us,” said Dionne, one of the senior partners. “I want baby cuddles. It’s a long time since mine were that small.”
“Rest when you can,” advised Jane. “When my two were little I’d sleep when they did to catch up on the hours I missed during the night.”
“Take all the drugs they offer. You’ll need them.” That was Daisy from accounts.
As everyone tucked back into their jacket spuds and chilli and sipped at the Prosecco I’d brought in to celebrate (the non-alcoholic “no-secco” I’d bought for myself being surprisingly good), Mr Archer turned up the music and went back to his dad-dancing.
Daisy’s words rang in my ears. The birth loomed large in my mind. Every night I’d wake in a cold sweat from nightmares where the baby would get stuck in the birth canal, or the one particularly weird dream where I’d given birth to a puppy. Up until this point I’d managed to put thoughts of labour to one side, instead focusing on the fun side of pregnancy – planning for baby’s arrival and imagining how it would feel to hold this precious little person, half me, half Max, in my arms.
Forcing myself to smile, I accepted hugs and best wishes from my colleagues, thanking them for the gift voucher they’d contributed to.
Daisy was hovering in the background but all I wanted to do was go and talk to her about giving birth. The antenatal classes had all been very positive, talking about the benefits of hypnobirthing and massage as well as covering the pain relief that was available to women during labour. I’d been lulled into a false sense of security.
Eventually, I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Daisy.” I sidled up to her. “You said I should take all the drugs they offer during the birth.”
“Definitely. Our Lori was back to back and weighed 10lb 4oz.” I looked at Daisy’s slim build, wondering how on earth she’d managed to grow a baby that size. “It was like trying to blow a bowling ball down a pea shooter,” she added, the lovely imagery causing me to clamp my pelvic floor muscles together. “They started me off on a TENS machine.” She laughed bitterly. “As if that was going to do anything. Then they gave me gas and air but that only took the edge off. I was begging for an epidural and it was the best thing ever. Couldn’t feel a thing. Didn’t stop me being ripped to shreds down below though. Had a third-degree tear and lost a lot of blood.”
I could imagine how she felt as the colour drained from my cheeks. Why had I ever thought I’d be able to cope with the pain of giving birth? Daisy’s hard as nails and she needed everything they could offer her, what made me think I would be able to manage with a few deep breaths and positive thoughts?
“Sounds nasty,” I eventually managed, my mouth dry with anxiety.
“It was horrific. Matthias fainted when he saw how much blood there was. Out cold on the hospital floor. It took two midwives to scoop him back up.”
There was something in Daisy’s tone that I couldn’t decipher. Was she taunting me? I didn’t think she was. We’d had our differences in the past but there had never been any spite.
“It was worth it all, of course. Lori is an absolute darling. Did I show you the picture of her from the gymnastics exhibition?” She pulled out her phone and scrolled, before thrusting the phone in my face.
Lori’s pudgy face smiled out of the picture, the gap where her two front teeth had fallen out reminding me of one of Fagan’s boys from Oliver! She was standing with her leg out to the side, a bright white streak of light breaking up the shot where the flash had reflected off the shiny purple leotard.
“She’s growing up so quickly, she was just a baby when I started working here.”
“They really do. Blink and you miss out on so much. My mum laughs at me for all the updates I post on Facebook but I don’t want to miss out on anything. It seems two minutes since I was bringing her out of hospital, but she was six last month. Six! I can’t believe it.”
There wasn’t much difference in her voice as she spoke about Lori to when she spoke about the trauma of giving birth. That’s when it hit me what it was that I’d heard in her tone. It was pride.
Five o’clock rolled around quickly. My inbox was empty, my desk clear from the usual files that cluttered it.
“It’s never been so tidy in here,” Marcie joked. “If it’s going to be like this when you’re on maternity leave, I could get used to it.”
I knew she was only teasing, my organised chaos being something all three of the women who I shared an office with found frustrating.
“It w
on’t be the same without you.” Kath clicked her mouse to close down her computer, the loud whirr of the system switching off followed by a decisive ping. “Who will I talk about Married at First Sight with if you’re not here?”
“Maybe you can get Marcie and Jane to start watching,” I said with a smile, knowing full well that neither of them enjoyed reality TV.
“Unlikely.” Jane laughed. “But I agree with Kath, we’ll really miss you. Don’t be a stranger, we want to get to know your daughter.”
“You won’t be able to keep me away, I’ll want to be showing her off.”
“Come here,” Marcie said, opening her arms wide. “Group hug.”
And as the four of us wrapped our arms around each other, laughing at how much space my bump took up, I didn’t feel the joy of escaping work that I’d expected. Instead, I felt quite sad.
Chapter 34
“She’s talking nonsense. Do you really think people would go on and have second, third, fourth children if it was as bad as all that?”
I’d summoned Iris to the house after Daisy’s conversation the previous week. The only thing I could focus on was that the baby had to come out, and soon. Pain wasn’t my strong point. I’d cried my eyes out when I had my ears pierced, and that was as a twenty-year-old.
“I guess,” I replied doubtfully.
“It hurts, I’m not going to lie and say it doesn’t. And some births are more difficult than others.” She paused to reach for a chocolate orange cookie from the plate in front of her. Thank heavens for the little bakery down the road.
“She mentioned third-degree tears. I didn’t even know what one was until I googled and now I wish I hadn’t.”
“But you have to remember there are thousands of births every day where things run smoothly. Have you written up a birth plan?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. The midwife keeps telling me to do it but I don’t know what I want.”
“Do you know what you don’t want?”
Iris’s logic made sense. Why hadn’t I thought of it that way?
“I don’t want to be induced unless it’s absolutely necessary, and I don’t want to be lying on my back unless I choose to be. When the baby arrives, I want me or Max to be with her the whole time, even if she needs to be taken to another ward.”
“See? You’ve already got ideas of how you want things to go. Write it down!”
My friend whipped a notepad out of her handbag with a flourish and passed it across the table to me, along with a stubby pencil.
“Isn’t a birth plan meant to be more detailed than that?”
“Your birth, your birth plan,” Iris replied firmly, before biting into the biscuit, quickly whipping her hand up to her chin to catch the crumbs that accompanied the snap as it broke.
Half an hour later I had a page full of notes about what I did and didn’t want, everything from being open to the idea of an epidural if necessary to Eva Cassidy playing (her voice has always been a balm and if there was any time I needed comfort I figured it would be when trying to push out a baby).
“Do you feel better for writing down what you want?” Iris asked. “I remember writing my birth plan when we had Jude and Dana and afterwards I felt really…” she paused as she tried to conjure up the word, ‘…empowered, I suppose.”
She looked at her daughter before reaching down to gently stroke the mottled skin of her cheeks.
“That’s exactly it. I can’t control how the birth will go, but this makes me feel stronger.”
Strength was what I needed. The extra time on my hands since my last day at work had led to me overthinking everything. Where most expectant mothers cleaned their house from top to bottom in a nesting frenzy prior to the birth, I was worrying myself sick over not only the birth but how I’d function on minimal sleep.
“I can’t believe you’ll be going through this in a matter of weeks,” Iris said. “I loved giving birth. My body knew exactly what it needed to do. It’s completely amazing.”
“Were you nervous? In case it wasn’t as smooth second time around, I mean.”
“Not really,” she says, tightly wrapping both hands around her mug. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d have loved it if I had another complication-free birth, but the main thing was that both me and Dana were safe and well. Anything else was a bonus.”
I compared Iris’s outlook with Daisy’s – the two were worlds apart. Daisy had approached it as though she was going into battle, wanting as many reinforcements as possible. Iris, on the other hand, was able to go with the flow. Neither was right, neither was wrong – they were just two different people with different views on childbirth. I was somewhere in the middle, not as relaxed as Iris but keen to go into it with an open mind. Part of me wanted to push my body to its limits, see exactly what it was capable of, but I wasn’t scared to have drugs if needed. Having faith was what was important, trusting in the process.
My deep thoughts were interrupted by the chiming of the doorbell.
“I’d better see who it is,” I said apologetically, although Iris didn’t seem bothered as she waved me away and reached for a second biscuit.
The postwoman was obscured by the enormous box on the doorstep.
“Delivery!” she chirruped.
“You must have got the wrong house. We’ve not ordered anything this big.”
“Sophie Drew, number five Anderson Green.” She tapped the address label on the parcel authoritatively.
My heart dropped as the realisation hit home. Another “surprise”.
I considered not accepting the parcel. If I didn’t sign for it then the delivery couldn’t be completed which would send a message to whoever was sending the packages that I didn’t want or need them.
Curiosity won out though, and I found myself scrawling an illegible signature onto the woman’s tablet with the lid-end of a Biro.
“Enjoy,” she said, as she walked back along the drive.
The box was almost as tall as me and twice as wide. Getting it over the threshold and into the hallway was a struggle, especially as my bump had grown significantly over the past week. There was no finesse in my manoeuvres, and I could feel the stickiness under my armpits from the effort.
“Is everything all right?” Iris appeared in the hallway, biscuit in hand. “Woah.” She took a step back when she saw the size of the box. “What’s that?”
I shrugged. “No idea. Nothing I’ve ordered.”
My friend pulled a grim face. “Another parcel from your unwanted admirer?”
“I don’t know. I suppose Max could have bought something and not told me about it.” My voice wasn’t very convincing. “Although I don’t think he’d dare.”
“Soph, he pretty much bought a house without telling you, don’t underestimate him.”
“You’re exaggerating. He’s really good with money, since we moved we’ve got a spreadsheet for all the bills. He wouldn’t make a big purchase without telling me, I’m sure of it.”
“You’d better open it and see what’s inside.” Iris chewed on her biscuit. “You can’t leave it there, it’s blocking the hallway.”
Tackling the package was an effort. The brown parcel tape alone was a humongous task, gripping, as it was, onto the box for dear life. Even with Iris to help it took five minutes to defeat the layer of cardboard.
“How many women does it take to open a cardboard box?” she joked, stepping aside as I opened the box. It was like a wardrobe as I peeled the doors back.
“Probably less than two if they had a pair of scissors.” I’d laughed, trying to see what the bubble wrap sheath was protecting.
Between the pair of us we managed to wiggle the contents out, leaving the carcass of the box standing empty alongside what looked like a badly sculpted ice statue.
“What even is it?”
“I don’t know,” I answered drily, “I can’t see through the five-inch-thick bubble wrap without my X-ray specs.”
“Ha-ha.” Iris retorted by sticking out her
tongue. “You could always,” she paused to gasp in mock horror, “open it. Or is that a radical idea?”
That was my cue to become the one pulling faces. “Very funny.”
“Go on then.” She picked at the end of a piece of Sellotape that was keeping the protective wrap in place. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
It was like unwrapping an Egyptian mummy, rolling the packaging so that it was in a long cylinder, ready to reuse. It would be great for packaging up my Etsy sales.
“Let me see,” Iris exclaimed, her excitement on a par with a small child on Christmas morning. “No way. No freaking way.”
“It’s a high chair.” I took in the details of the wooden frame. Yes, it was a high chair but it looked like a work of art. The pale pine lines were modern yet had a classic, timeless style, and although in many ways it was simple it shrieked expensive.
“It’s a Cavanagh Worcester,” Iris replied, her voice breathy. “My absolute dream high chair. We nearly got one for Jude but couldn’t justify it, even though they hold their value on the resale sites. They’re not cheap, even second-hand.”
“I’ve never heard of them. Should I have?”
My hand skimmed the cool wood. It was silky smooth, a flawless piece of design and impeccable quality.
“They’re an Australian company, that’s how I know about them. Huge over there but not as popular here yet. It’s only a matter of time though, they’re opening a distribution centre here in the UK. Jessie’s mum was telling me all about it.”
“But who would send me this? It’s not even like I’ll need it any time soon. It’ll be six months before the baby starts on solids.”
“If someone was sending me Cavanagh Worcester high chairs, I wouldn’t be complaining.”