“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.”
“I’ll do it,” Steve volunteered from the doorway.
“That was amazing, Tiffany,” Meg said, on the breath she felt that she had been holding in for hours.
“You saved his life,” Frances added in awe. “You knew what to do.”
“I did, didn’t I?” Tiffany’s voice trembled. “I think I’m going to cry now.”
Natalie reached out and put an arm around both her and Jess.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay, you don’t have to worry now.”
Jess snapped away from her in one sudden shocking movement.
“Don’t you tell me not to worry,” she said accusingly to Natalie, her voice low with fury.
“I only meant…” Natalie began.
“You’re just like the rest of them, you’re worse,” Jess was shouting, her voiced raised above the chorus of babies. “Always telling me I worry too much, always saying I’m overreacting, I’m being too anxious. So bloody smug and so bloody perfect. Acting like you know it all, like you know my child better than I do. ‘Put him down in the cot,’ you said, ‘don’t worry so much,’ you said. But if I’d kept him with me this wouldn’t have happened, if I had kept him with me he would have been safe.”
“Jess, you’re in shock.” Meg touched her on the arm but she recoiled, cradling Jacob to her chest, his plump fist beating at her shoulder.
“Just leave me alone, all of you!” she cried, her eyes hot and dry. “None of you know what it’s like to lose a child. None of you know what it’s like to hold your dead baby in your arms! I do!”
The others looked at each other, all horror-struck except for Natalie, who hung her head.
“Jess,” Meg began. “We had no idea…”
“She did,” Jess said, stabbing a finger at Natalie. “I told her, I trusted her, and all she did was tell me not to worry so much.” She paused for breath and rested her forehead against Jacob’s.
“Don’t tell me not to worry,” she went on, the power but not the fury drained from her voice. “Don’t you tell me anymore that it will be all right, because you don’t know that. Nobody knows that.”
There was a hammering at the door and Steve showed two paramedics into the room.
“Jess, look”—Natalie struggled to know what to say—“I’ll come to the hospital and wait…”
One of the paramedics took Jacob carefully from Jess and laid him on the bed before checking him over.
“We’d better take him, to be on the safe side,” he said to Jess. “Okay, love?”
Jess nodded.
“Do you want to bring a friend?” the paramedic asked her.
“No, I don’t want them anywhere near me,” Jess said. The paramedic wrapped a blanket around both her and Jacob and led them out of the flat.
“She’s had a shock,” Frances said thoughtfully a few minutes later, when they had all retrieved their babies and mostly calmed them. “And she’s frightened and angry. But not at you, Natalie, she just lashed out at you.”
Natalie shook her head, holding Freddie close to her chest so that she could feel the heat of him against her skin.
“No,” she said. “I mean, yes, she said it because she was angry and in shock, but she was right, too. I am always telling her not to worry. I am always telling her everything will be all right. I do always treat her as if I think she’s a little bit crazy for not being more relaxed with Jacob. And I knew that she had lost two babies before. She’s right to be angry with me. I’ve been crass and insensitive and told her all along that she was seeing problems where there were none. She should blame me.”
“Nobody could have guessed what would happen when she put him down for a nap,” Meg said. “You couldn’t see it coming.”
“Jess would have,” Natalie said with a shrug. “If I hadn’t distracted her, belittled her worries.”
“If that’s what you’ve done, then we all have,” Steve said. “We’ve all let her down.”
The group didn’t speak for a while until eventually Tiffany said, “So what do we do now?”
“The only thing we can do,” Natalie said immediately. “Be good friends, be friends who won’t let her down. Go to the hospital and wait.”
They waited in the hospital cafeteria for two hours, without going to the desk or trying to find out what was happening. They didn’t think it was their place to do so. All they knew was that they wanted to be there for Jess whether she knew it or not. So they drank tea and waited, and they watched, waiting for a glimpse of Jess.
“Tiffany, you were amazing,” Natalie said, not for the first time. “My blood ran cold. I just froze. I had no idea what to do. And you remembered all that baby first-aid stuff. You were incredible. So calm and in control.”
“You were,” Meg agreed. “I’m so proud of you, which I know makes me sound like I want to be your mom and not your friend, but I’d be proud to be your mom and I’m very proud to be your friend.”
“Me, too,” the others agreed, making Tiffany squirm and shift on the uncomfortable cafeteria chair.
“Wasn’t that special,” she mumbled into the zip of her parka, as if she was just some awkward teenager and not the amazingly clever and brave hero the others had seen in action a few hours ago.
“It was special,” Jess said, approaching the table a little warily. “It wasn’t just special, it was amazing. You didn’t just save Jacob’s life, you saved mine, too.” She looked literally washed out, every scrap of color drained from her face and every ounce of energy spent on her son.
The others looked at her, each of them unable to ask her how things were going, afraid to hear bad news.
“The doctors said that Jacob is stable now,” Jess said, partially answering their worries. “Lee is with him, he arrived a while ago. He told me to come and get us a cup of tea, get some fresh air. I didn’t want to leave Jacob, he’s so little, and they’ve got him in this great big cot and he’s supposed to have an oxygen mask on but it’s too big, so either Lee or I have to hold it as near to his nose and mouth as we can.” Jess’s voice wobbled on the last word, and she looked up at the strip lighting and made herself smile. “I mean, he’s smiling and waving his legs around and charming the nurses, but I look at him and I see the way he looked when I found him and I think about how different it might have been and I…” She bit her lip and heaved in a deep breath. “Lee said I needed some fresh air and a Mars bar.” She smiled wanly at the group. “I didn’t expect to see you here, but I’m really glad you are. And…look, I’m really sorr
y about before, I—”
“Please don’t be sorry,” Natalie implored her.
“I was out of my mind with worry,” Jess told her.
“But you were still right,” Natalie said. “Who are we, who am I to know what you should and should not worry about? I dismissed your fears when if I had listened to them properly I could have helped you. I thought I was building your confidence but really I was helping to undermine it.”
Jess shook her head. “That’s not true. I made you feel bad about something that…is normal. You are normal to be and act the way you do. I’m not. It’s not normal to constantly fuss and worry and fret.”
“But you were right to,” Meg said.
Jess pulled a chair over from an adjoining table and sat down heavily. “I wish I wasn’t. I wish that I had been wrong to worry so much. But now I do have something to be anxious about, and funnily enough, now I know what it is, now that I can face it and deal with it, I don’t feel afraid anymore.”
“What happened?” Frances asked her.
“They say that it doesn’t look as if he had a cold, after all. It is a bacterial thing, which in turn set off an asthma attack, his airways got inflamed and narrow. When I laid him down for that nap, mucus got lodged in his airway and he didn’t or couldn’t cough it out.” Jess was still for a moment, facing once again the horrific alternative reality that had been only a hairsbreadth away for her and Jacob that morning. “Tiffany did exactly the right thing. She cleared his airway and got him breathing. He’s had oxygen and Ventolin and his breathing has eased now. They’re keeping us in tonight and maybe tomorrow, and he’ll need medication and monitoring for the foreseeable future, but with the right management he’ll be fine.” Jess looked as if she couldn’t quite believe it. “He’s fine.”
“I’m so relieved,” Natalie said.
“The pediatrician said he’d probably had asthma for a while. She said it’s quite common in young babies, and that when he had that ‘snoring’ it might have been a wheeze after all, only it stopped by the time we brought him here.” She lifted her chin a fraction. “I knew it was something serious. I knew it.”
Tentatively, Natalie reached across the table and laid her hand on the back of Jess’s.
“Mother’s intuition,” she said. “We should have listened to you. I’m sorry, Jess.”
Jess shook her head, dismissing the need for an apology.
“They said that most babies grow out of it and that now we know, we’re prepared. We’ve got to give him an inhaler whenever he has a sniffle. He’ll have a checkup every couple of months.” Jess suddenly stifled a sob. “I don’t know why I want to cry now,” she said, brushing away tears.
“Relief, I expect,” Meg said. “I feel like crying myself.”
“Or is it because you know that I’m hosting the baby group next?” Natalie asked her. “That’s enough to make me want to cry.”
“You’re an idiot,” Jess said, although she did manage a watery smile.
“Oh, much more of an idiot than you can ever guess,” Natalie said. And she made up her mind then and there. These people who had started out as random acquaintances had become her friends, the kind of friends she’d never thought she’d need or want. But over the last few weeks she had found a solidarity with each of them that was both refreshing and, yes, comforting.
She cared about them and their families and she thought they cared for her, too. And if they did, then they deserved to know the stupid truth about her stupid life. No more excuses or setbacks.
The next baby group, Natalie decided. That was when she would tell them, come what may.
Thirty-two
The intervening time between the last, fateful meeting of the baby group and the day that Natalie was finally about to host it had been happily quiet and mostly uneventful. In fact, Natalie thought, the best word to describe herself, her feelings and thoughts in those days, was tranquil. After the sudden storm that had swept away that bright and sunny morning at Tiffany’s flat, she felt that she could see her life all the more clearly. All her petty problems and silly stories seemed utterly irrelevant and pointless now. All that mattered was that she had Freddie, and Freddie had Jack in his life.
She had even found a peaceful way of managing her feelings for Jack. She had decided to simply enjoy them quietly, secretly. She would take pleasure in his friendship and his relationship with Freddie and let her own feelings ebb and flow over her, hopeful that one day the sharp pang of desire she experienced whenever she heard his voice or saw his face would be washed away and in time smoothed into friendship. However, she did expect this to take quite a long time, so she was hopeful that Jack would not date anyone else, let alone fall in love, for at least fifty years or so. It was a faint hope, Natalie realized, as she thought about that encounter that Jack had had with Suze in Soho Square, the one she should not know about and rather wished she didn’t.
But at least knowing that Jack was interested in and even approaching other women helped her to put her situation into perspective. Otherwise his warmth, his sweet smiles, the pleasure he seemed to take in Freddie’s and, yes, her company too, could have been seriously misconstrued. No, it was better like this, to admire him from a safe distance. Natalie supposed she would have to cross the bridge signposted JACK IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE WHO IS NOT ME when she came to it. Or more likely jump right off it.
Jack had called her a few days after his visit, which took her entirely by surprise. Why she was so shocked Natalie didn’t know, but the sound of his voice so suddenly in the shell of her ear made her trip and tumble over her words for a moment.
“Um, oh? Jack!” she exclaimed. “Well.”
“Well?” Jack responded uncertainly. “Is this a bad time? Have you got guests or…a guest?” His tone loaded the last word with a meaning that she could not fathom.
“No, no—not at all—it’s just that I wasn’t expecting you to call,” she told him hurriedly. “Maybe it’s because I spent so long waiting for you to call me after we got back from Venice that now you actually are here it will take me a while to adjust to you as a person contactable by telephone.”
“This is a bad time,” Jack stated, clearly taking her ramblings as a dig at their messy past.
“No!” Natalie exclaimed, perhaps a touch too desperately. “No, Jack, it’s not a bad time, it’s just…oh look, I’m still getting used to having you around in our lives. I didn’t mean to get at you. I didn’t mean to say any of that stuff, I just didn’t know how to say what I wanted to say which was, ‘Hello, Jack, nice to hear from you. How are you?’”
“I’m good,” he said. “Work’s good, I’m looking for my own place, so it’s been a good few days. And you?”
Natalie paused; she wanted to tell him all about Jacob and Jess and everything that had happened at Tiffany’s flat, but she didn’t know if she should. It was difficult negotiating her way around this new relationship. They had been fleeting lovers, now they were coparents, but she didn’t think they could actually call each other friends yet; they were more well-intentioned acquaintances, one of whom happened to be madly in love with the other. “It’s been a busy week,” she said eventually. “Trying to get my head in gear, you know.”
“I know what you mean,” Jack said easily. “It is really weird, I felt nervous dialing your number. And I called because I caught myself not calling. I caught myself thinking, Don’t phone too soon, mate, you don’t want to let on what a great time you had. And then I realized that I hadn’t been on a date, I’d spent time with my son, and that actually I do want him to know how much I enjoyed spending time with him, and that I do want to do it again really soon, and that this is no time to play it cool, even if he is just a baby and hasn’t got a clue who I am yet. And I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind if I called between visits to find out how he is.”
It had taken Natalie a moment or two to readjust her psyche to suit the tranquil mode she had recently adopted, because for most of the time that Jack had been
talking she had let herself believe that he was actually talking about her. She had briefly forgotten that he was referring to Freddie, which made her feel first stupid and secondly self-centered. Both were traits that she had been guilty of in the past and ones she wanted very much to leave behind now.
“Of course you can call about Freddie any time you like!” she said with overcompensating, overblown verve. “What’s to stop you?”
“I don’t want you to think I’m trying to take over his or your life,” Jack said. “I mean, you don’t need me hanging round you all the time, stopping you from moving on…getting on with things, I mean.”
I do, I do, I do need you, actually, Natalie had thought to herself, but she bit back the rebellious words and managed to reply dryly, “You’re right, Freddie and I do have a pile of invitations asking us to cocktail parties and premieres on a daily basis.”
She listened happily to Jack’s chuckle. “Look,” she went on. “I want you to see him as much as possible. I really want that for him.”
“Natalie, can I ask you something?” Jack said tentatively.
“Of course,” Natalie replied on an inward breath.
“Is my name on his birth certificate?”
“Yes,” she said simply. “It’s funny, it never occurred to me to leave it off. I suppose I must have always wanted him to have something of you, whatever happened.”
“I’m glad.” Jack sounded as if he’d been holding his breath too. “Look, I was wondering what you think. Do we need solicitors to make some kind of formal arrangement between us? Should we find out about it?”
Inexplicably, irrationally, Natalie’s heart sank at the perfectly sensible suggestion.
“Well, yes, okay,” she said, unable to disguise the heaviness in her voice.
“I know what you mean,” Jack said, although she hadn’t actually expressed any opinion. “Getting lawyers involved seems a bit clinical, a bit formal. Not especially friendly.”
“But it is something we will have to do, I suppose,” Natalie said. “Make it legal.”
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