by Tony Parsons
‘There’s no reason why you can’t look stylish and sexy when you’re pregnant. From Here to Maternity wants you to show off that bump with pride.’
Jessica glanced down at herself.
‘Don’t worry.’ The assistant smiled. ‘The bump will get bigger, I promise you. So you’re around three months, I guess?’
‘Not quite, actually.’
‘Would you like to try it on?’
Why not? Jessica was part of the club now. And even if her normal clothes still fit her, there was no reason on earth why she should not start preparing her wardrobe for the coming months. She always did things a bit early.
She left work to have a baby before she was pregnant. She told the world about her pregnancy before she reached three months. And now she was shopping for maternity clothes when she was still only a size ten. And this was because Jessica couldn’t wait, she just couldn’t wait to hold her baby, to start a proper family, for everything to be okay again.
She was in the changing room, still fully dressed, when she felt the wetness in her shoes. That’s what she didn’t understand. The wetness was in her shoes. That’s why she didn’t realise she had started bleeding. Because the only sensation was the wetness in her shoes.
The fear rising, Jessica started to remove her clothes and that’s when she saw the blood. All that blood. On her hands, on the unbought dress. She felt the panic flood her heart.
There was all that blood and the wetness in her shoes and the dress with flowers still in her hands, somehow flecked with red.
My lovely baby.
Ten
At first he thought she was his wife.
There was something about the curve of her face, the set of her eyes that for just a moment made Paulo think, there she is.
From the other end of the hospital corridor, it was an easy mistake to make, what with his nerves still jangling from the mad drive, and with this terrible need to see her. But it was one of the sisters. It was Megan. Sipping a cup of coffee she didn’t want. Waiting for him. She looked up as he ran towards her.
‘Is she all right? Is she all right?’
‘Paulo, Jessica’s going to be fine, okay? But there’s been a lot of bleeding. They have to do what’s called an ERPC.’
He struggled to understand her. How could this be happening?
‘It’s standard procedure. Very straightforward. An ERPC is a short operation. Nothing to worry about. It means evacuation of retained products of conception.’
‘But she’s going to be okay?’
‘Yes, Paulo. I promise you Jessica’s going to be okay.’
‘And the baby’s going to be okay?’
Megan stared at him, took a breath. ‘Paulo – Jessica lost her baby.’
‘What?’
‘Jessica had a miscarriage.’
‘A miscarriage?’ He shook his head, looked away, struggling to grasp it. ‘Our baby’s gone?’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘But – she’s having this operation, isn’t she?’
‘The ERPC is just – it’s to clear out the uterus. We – they – can’t leave anything inside Jessica. Because that can lead to infection. We have to wait for a few hours before she can be given anaesthetic.’
Paulo seemed to unravel before her eyes. ‘We lost the baby?’
‘You and Jessica will have a beautiful baby one day.’
He shook his head again. How could this be happening? ‘But what did we do wrong?’
‘You didn’t do anything wrong. I know this is a terrible thing. But it happens every day. One in four pregnancies –’
‘Where is she? Where’s my wife?’
Megan indicated the door behind her. Paulo nodded, wiped his eyes with the palm of his hand, and went inside.
Megan took out her mobile phone and, ignoring the withering looks from a couple of passing nurses, called Cat yet again, and again got nothing but the metallic voice of the woman on the answer machine.
My lovely wife, he thought.
The room was lit by nothing but the buzzing bar of fluorescent light behind Jessica’s bed. But even in this sterile twilight, Paulo could see it all written on her face. The loss of blood. The grief. The exhaustion. And on top of it all, the terrible weight of the lost life.
She was propped up on pillows, but seemed to be sleeping. Paulo pulled a chair close to the bed and took her hand. Then he buried his face in the covers of the hospital bed, sobbing into the starched sheets, choked with grief.
‘Sorry,’ Jessica said.
‘You have to use a condom,’ Cat said.
The boy smiled, and tugged at the edge of his woolly Justin Timberlake hat. ‘But I want to feel myself inside you.’
He reached for her and she lightly held his wrists. ‘Well, you can feel me through a condom, or tonight you’ll be feeling nothing but your fist.’ She smiled, friendly but firm. ‘Your choice.’
‘I’ll see what I can find,’ he grumbled, and went off to wake up his roommate.
He had taken his shirt off as soon as they walked into the flat. Perhaps he thought his tanned, pumped-up torso would take her mind off his peeling, shagged-out accommodation. Now she was alone, she suddenly felt out of place. There were takeaway pizza boxes and stacks of dirty laundry and the remains of a spliff in an ashtray. She had gone home with him to wake up her body. But did she really want it to wake up here?
They had met in a club frequented by the kitchen staff of Mamma-san. She had admired his hat. They had danced. She had asked his name and soon forgotten it – Jim? John? – then been too shy to ask again, and not caring anyway.
They had necked – ridiculous, Cat thought, kissing like a couple of teenagers, but nobody looked twice at them. Conversation had been minimal, their shouted introductions and small talk drowned by the music, but that was okay too. She was tired of talking.
He came back with a packet of three, scratching the eagle tattooed on his biceps, and she realised she wanted to go home. Her body definitely needed waking up, but she thought she would let it nap for a little longer. And there was something else, although she knew it was crazy.
If she was going to wake up her body, she sort of wished it could be with Rory.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But I have to go.’
‘Why?’
She shrugged helplessly, and remembered a line she had once learned under grey Manchester skies.
‘Desire makes everything blossom; possession makes everything wither and fade.’
‘What?’
‘I just got my period.’
She was afraid he might turn nasty, but he just took off his woolly Justin hat and shook his shaved head. He even called her a minicab.
‘You modern girls make me laugh,’ he said as she was leaving. ‘You don’t know what you want, do you?’
She couldn’t argue with that.
The next morning, when she had breakfast alone in the Starbucks at the end of her street, Cat thought – it’s easy to meet someone. But how do you meet someone who doesn’t wear a woolly hat unless it’s a bit chilly outside?
How do you meet someone good?
Then Cat switched on her phone, and listened to Megan’s messages, and turned her face away from the boys and girls who had not yet gone to bed, so they would never guess that she was nothing like them.
Paulo drew the curtains, and double-locked the front door, and shut out the world.
He went into the living room and checked on Jessica. She was still on the sofa with her feet up, idly leafing through one of the glossy magazines he had bought her.
‘I’ll make us something to eat,’ he said, and when she looked up at him and smiled, her face drained of all colour, he felt his eyes and his heart filling up again. He was going to have to stop doing that.
‘What do you fancy, Jess?’
‘Anything,’ she said, shaking her head, still smiling.
He went into the kitchen and began searching through the freezer for something t
hat would make her strong. Meat sauce and pasta, and maybe a little green salad if there was anything in the fridge. Some red wine. He wanted to make a good meal for his wife.
People thought he loved her because of the way she looked. And of course that’s how it begins, he thought. But there was a quiet kind of bravery about Jessica, she wasn’t as fragile as she seemed, you could see it in the way she lifted her face when every instinct must have been telling her to look down and hang her head.
She raised her chin when she looked at you, and he thought of that simple gesture as he cooked their dinner, occasionally going to the door of the other room to make sure she was okay. And every time he appeared in the doorway, Jessica would look up from her magazine and smile, lifting her chin, the way she always did, and he would smile back at her.
They didn’t need to say anything.
When the meal was ready, he came into the living room with a tray containing two steaming plates of spaghetti, two side salads made of limp lettuce and squashy tomatoes, and a bottle of the best wine they had in their rack.
‘Speciality of the house,’ Paulo said. ‘The famous Baresi Bolognese.’
He was afraid that she would tell him she wasn’t hungry, but she dropped the glossy magazine and rubbed her hands.
‘Do you want to eat at the table or on our laps?’ she said, swinging her legs round so she was sitting on the sofa. He looked at her bare feet and felt a pang of longing.
‘What do you want?’ he said, placing the plates on the coffee table. He began uncorking a bottle of Barolo. You’re meant to let it breathe, he thought.
‘I’m happy here,’ Jessica said.
‘Then let’s have it here.’
So they sat in front of the television eating their dinner, sipping red wine and talking about what he had to do at work the next day.
The doors were locked, all the curtains were drawn, they were safe and warm and well fed, and it was almost as if there were just the three of them left in the world.
Jessica and Paulo and their unimaginable child.
‘What’s that song you keep singing?’ Jessica said.
She was sitting at the top of the stairs. At the bottom, Chloe was on her hands and knees, huffing and puffing towards her as if climbing her own private Everest while Naoko followed close behind, ready to catch her daughter if she fell. As Chloe slowly scrambled up the stairs, grunting through the Hello Kitty dummy she had stuck in the side of her mouth, throwing her little arms high above her head in a swimming motion as she dragged her pink knees onto the next stair, Naoko sang to her in Japanese.
Maigo no
Maigo no
Koneko-chan.
Anata no ouchi wa dokodesuka?
‘It’s a really silly nursery rhyme.’ Naoko smiled. ‘It’s about a policeman, who happens to be a dog, right, and he finds this lost kitten.’
‘She loves it.’
It was true. Chloe had been in a cranky mood all week, with a large tooth pushing its way through her sore gums, and only a few of her favourite things soothed her.
She liked chomping hard – definitely not sucking—on her Hello Kitty dummy. She liked the climbing-the-stairs game. And she liked this lilting Japanese song.
Chloe never tired of the things she loved. She wanted them endlessly repeated, and was ready to kick up a fuss if her orders were not obeyed. Naoko and Chloe had come to the house every day that week. In their different ways, Jessica and Naoko were lonely. Alone all day with Chloe, Naoko craved adult company, while being around Naoko and Chloe seemed to salve some raw wound deep inside Jessica. The arrangement suited all of them. Naoko could have a conversation that didn’t consist of baby noises. Jessica was happy to have company in a house that would be silent until her husband came home.
Jessica would keep Chloe amused while Naoko mashed up her food – the milk was being phased out and she was on solids now, but squashed to the kind of chewy pulp that four teeth could accommodate. Jessica could change her, bath her, persuade her to have a little afternoon nap. The only thing that Jessica couldn’t do was sing the special song. But she felt that she almost knew the words by now.
Maigo no
Maigo no
Koneko-chan
Anata no ouchi wa dokodesuka?
‘The kitten can’t tell the cop where she lives or what her name is,’ Naoko said, as Chloe ran out of puff near the top of the stairs, and began roaring with frustration. ‘All she can do is cry.’
Maigo no
Maigo no
Koneko-chan
Anata no ouchi wa dokodesuka?
Oucbi o kitemo wakaranai
Namae o kitemo wakaranai.
Meow meow meow meow
Meow meow meow meow!
Naite bakari iru koneko-chan.
Inu-no omawari-san
Konatte Shimatte.
Woof woof woof woof
Woof woof woof woof!
Chloe got her second wind and scrambled up the last couple of stairs. Jessica snatched her up and kissed her fiercely on her cheek. As always, the newness of the child shocked her. That heartbreaking mint-fresh milkiness. Jessica held Chloe on her lap and Naoko sat beside them. There was an easiness between them now. They were real friends at last.
‘Tell me what it means,’ Jessica said.
‘I’ll try,’ Naoko said, and translated the song with a smile on her face.
Being lost, being lost – you dear little kitten.
Where is your home?
She doesn’t know where her home is.
She doesn’t know what her name is.
Meow meow meow meow
Meow meow meow meow
She only keeps crying.
But the dog cop is lost too.
Woof woof woof woof
Woof woof woof woof!
‘I guess it loses something in translation,’ Naoko said.
‘Not at all,’ Jessica said. ‘I didn’t expect the dog to be lost too. So they’re both lost – the man and the woman.’
‘Well – the dog and the cat.’
‘It’s lovely, Naoko.’
They sat there for a while not feeling the need to talk, waiting for Chloe to catch her breath and indicate that she was ready to return to base camp and attempt another ascent.
Then Jessica said, ‘I saw my baby. She was in a little creamy-coloured sac. A tiny, tiny thing. But a real baby. They tell you it’s not a real baby yet, and that’s just not true. She was a real baby – I saw her. Among all that blood. She didn’t have a name. And I don’t even know if she was a she. Might have been a little boy. I don’t know. But there was a real baby inside me, and now it’s gone and this is what they don’t understand when they talk about having another baby and how you ought to snap out of it and not take it so hard – I’ll never have that baby again. That baby’s gone. They don’t understand that. The doctors, the nurses. They think you’re crying for yourself. They don’t understand that you’re crying for the baby who will never be born. For that baby.’
She looked at Chloe wriggling in her mother’s embrace, growling to herself, anxious to be free. Ready to play the climbing-the-stairs game again.
‘Michael’s having an affair,’ Naoko said.
It was all she had to give her.
Jessica stared at Naoko.
‘How could he do that to you?’
‘It’s not me he’s done it to. It’s our family.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The woman wrote to me. I would show you the letter but I’ve thrown it away. She’s pregnant.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘If you saw her, you would think she was too old for all that. It’s the woman where they work. The woman on the front desk of the showroom.’
Jessica had seen Ginger, and she had always thought, she must have been quite a looker once upon a time.
‘He swears it’s over. Says she’s left the firm. Promises on his mother’s life he’s never going to see her again. But how can I believe a word he says?’
&nb
sp; Naoko lifted her baby up and buried her face in her neck. Jessica knew that she was smelling it too – that impossible newness. It took your breath away. How could anything be that pure and unspoilt?
‘It’s not easy to walk away when you’ve got a kid,’ Naoko says. ‘It’s her life too. It’s her family I’d be breaking up.’
Jessica watched Naoko carry Chloe to the bottom of the staircase and carefully place her on the carpet. Then she came back up the stairs and sat next to Jessica. Chloe grinned up at them, amused at the prospect of climbing the stairs without a chaperone.
‘It’s okay,’ Naoko said. ‘She’s not going to fall. She’s good at it now.’
‘Da,’ Chloe said, pointing a finger the size of a match-stick at her mother and Jessica. ‘Da.’
It was her first word, her only word. Michael insisted it meant daddy, but he was wrong. It meant look at you. It meant what’s all this? It meant this is a funny old life. It meant everything, and would do so until Chloe learned her second word.
‘What’s going to happen?’ Jessica said.
‘I don’t know,’ Naoko said. ‘Michael says it’s over and I want to believe him but I think he’s lying. I could ask him to leave but then Chloe grows up without a father. Or I can let him stay and then I know I am living with a husband who prefers going to bed with someone else. Either I lose or my baby loses. So I don’t know what happens now.’
Jessica and Naoko sat on the stairs together, and as the baby began her ascent of the staircase, they started singing the song she loved so much, Jessica hesitantly following Naoko’s lead, as they watched Chloe’s determined little face and the evening gathered around them.
Maigo no
Maigo no
Koneko-chan
Anata no oucbi wa dokodesuka?
The two women laughed as Chloe crawled up the stairs towards them, her angel eyes shining, her new teeth gleaming, and never tiring of the game.
Part two:
a family of two
Eleven