The Antenatal Group

by Amy Bratley

  ‘Yes, please,’ she said, standing and smiling sweetly when Alan kissed her cheek, his hand finding the small of her back and stroking it, sending a pleasing shiver up her spine. As she took the water, she registered a couple arriving through the revolving door who must have been in their teens, or only just out of them. The girl was Asian, with light-brown skin, long, glossy, black hair tied in a loose knot on top of her head, enormous dark-brown eyes and a tiny gold dot in her nose. Her baby would be beautiful. She had a fabulous figure, which suited pregnancy. She wore a chunky cardigan over a generous cleavage and pair of harem pants with a crotch that ended up just above the knee, and battered white plimsolls. Charity-shop chic, thought Katy. I could never pull that off. Designer: yes; charity shop; no.

  ‘Hi, I’m Rebecca Harris. I’m here for antenatal classes with Ginny,’ she heard the girl say to the receptionist. ‘This is Lenny.’

  Lenny sniffed the orchid on the reception desk.

  ‘That’s me,’ said Lenny. ‘Howdy.’

  Katy ran her eyes over Lenny as discreetly as she could. He was carrying a guitar and yawning ostentatiously. She stole a look at Alan and they exchanged exasperated expressions. Surely no more than nineteen, Lenny wore shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow, a waistcoat, brown trousers that nipped in a little at the bottom and a hat over his wavy golden-brown hair. Underneath the hat, he had a handsome wide-open face and a cheeky grin, which, she realized, he was aiming in her direction. She felt suddenly naked under his gaze. He looked like he was on the pull. What a nerve! But there was something about him she felt instantly drawn to. He was confident and self-assured – admirable qualities. She gave him a brief smile in return, feeling flustered. She never quite knew how to behave around handsome male teenagers. She sighed. A part of her still felt as though she was twenty-one and welcomed the appreciative smile Lenny was giving her. It was deserved. She’d earned it. Another part of her reminded herself that she was actually twenty-nine and soon to be a mother. From her bag, her phone beeped again. She picked it up and, seeing another furious message from Anita, tossed it back in and groaned.

  ‘Anita’s on my back again,’ she said under her breath to Alan, rolling her eyes.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Tell her to go jump. You’re having a baby!’

  Katy flashed him a smile but, inside, she felt saddened. Not so long ago, Anita and Katy had been best friends. They’d had a brilliant working partnership when they’d launched their company, Spotted. Not any more.

  I’ll be in soon, she texted, her fingernails clicking on the keypad.

  Turning her head towards the door, Katy saw another couple enter. The woman was frowning and she wore a green coat. The man, equally serious, skin pale as milk, followed behind. At the same time, the midwife, Ginny, who was running the antenatal class, opened the door of the classroom and let out a gentle peal of laughter at nothing in particular. Katy blinked. Ginny, marmalade-dyed hair whipped into an incredible beehive, her eyes accentuated by eyeliner that winged out in cat-eye style, wore a navy-blue wiggle dress, white belt and navy-blue wedges. On her wrist she wore an oversized charm bracelet that jangled as she moved, and a necklace to match, which she fiddled with as she spoke. Katy didn’t have a clue how old she was. She looked to be in her mid-twenties – but hadn’t the blurb said she had four kids and years of midwifery experience?

  ‘Wow,’ she whispered to Alan. ‘I was not expecting her to look like that. Hardly an earth mother, is she?’

  Katy caught Rebecca’s eye. They smiled at one another. She was obviously thinking the same thing about Ginny. Weren’t midwives supposed to be dumpling-shaped women who wore flat, rubber-soled shoes and blue smocks and had humbugs in their pockets? Apparently not.

  ‘Okay, mums and dads to be,’ Ginny said with a warm smile. ‘You all look absolutely lovely. We’ll make a start in five minutes.’

  Katy pointed towards the toilet and whispered to Alan, who was gawping at Ginny.

  ‘I think I should check on that girl quickly,’ she said. ‘She’s been in there a while.’

  Chapter Three

  ‘Anywhere here will do,’ Lexi said to the cab driver, as they pulled into the Birth & Baby car park. ‘Bollocks. I’m going to arrive late. I’m never late for anything.’

  ‘Language!’ grinned the cabbie, shouting over his blaring heavy-metal music and catching her eye in the rear-view mirror. ‘You know, your baby can hear everything you say.’

  ‘I think he has his hands over his ears right now,’ muttered Lexi, grinning at the cabbie in return in the mirror.

  She called her baby ‘him’, but she didn’t know what she was expecting. Either would be amazing. Lexi caught sight of her reflection and did a double take. Christ, does that big, puffy face belong to me? She sucked in her cheeks and raised her chin. She’d let herself go way too early. In her experience, most women waited at least until the baby had been born. Then exhaustion flattened any vague desire to look nice. But pregnancy had ruled Lexi’s appetite. The baby had made her hungry for white bread. Since a few weeks into her pregnancy, she could eat a farmhouse loaf a day, if she allowed herself, spread thickly with butter. Plain if it was warm and fresh from the bakery near work. Now she felt she resembled three big lumps of uncooked dough, belly and two breasts, only just kept in check by the swathes of material in her red maternity wrap dress. Not that she minded. Apart from the heartburn and the water retention, she had never felt so feminine, with hillocks all over. But what was with her hair? It had thickened up so much she could barely get a comb through it; mad topiary came to mind. Every cloud had a silver lining, though. Maybe the extra weight had inflated the wrinkles on her face, but her skin was incredible. Airbrushed amazing. She might have put on three stone already and have a hairstyle more suited to something on an Alan Titchmarsh show, but her skin was iridescent. She wondered if that was why the cabbie kept staring at her in the mirror. She hoped it wasn’t because she’d slept with him in a former life.

  ‘Okay, love,’ he said, hitting the brakes much too hard and making Lexi lurch forward. She slammed her hands against the back of the passenger seat, to protect her bump. The cabbie gasped and whipped round, his face screwed up into an apologetic wince.

  ‘Jesus!’ Lexi said cheerfully. ‘The baby nearly came out of my mouth!’

  ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Sorry. Bit heavy-footed on the brakes there. It’s these new boots, I can’t feel the pedals.’

  ‘That’s reassuring,’ said Lexi, fumbling in her purse for cash. Mercifully, the driver clicked off his Guns N’ Roses album, which had been playing on a loop. He turned to face her and she saw that he had a gold tooth halfway down the right side of his mouth and his hair was longish and straggly and held back by a headband. On his forearm he had a winged-heart tattoo with a space for a name, which had been filled in with black ink. Love hurts.

  ‘Is this your first baby?’ he asked.

  ‘Yep,’ said Lexi. ‘My first and probably my last.’

  The cabbie nodded and Lexi warmed to him, for at least pretending to be interested. The expression on most of her male colleagues’ faces when she talked about her pregnancy could be described as that of wholehearted uninterest.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he said. ‘Are you enjoying it?’

  Am I enjoying it?’ asked Lexi, stopping to think. ‘There’s a question I don’t know how to answer.’

  She gazed into the middle distance. In all seriousness, it was difficult to put her feelings into words. The magnitude of what she was doing, as a single woman, never left her, but having a baby was something she just had to do. She’d always wanted to be a mother. She had so much love to give and wanted to prove to the world (and herself) that not every Mason woman was as mean-spirited as her own mother. She knew she could do a better job. She had to do a better job. And, since she’d turned thirty-five, she had felt almost hypnotized by the biological, primeval need to be pregnant. It had got to the point where she could hardly lo
ok at a pregnant woman without jealousy carving her up. And when she heard a baby cry, she felt hollow. All she’d needed was a sperm – one kindly, liberal-minded, intelligent, handsome sperm to get it together with one of her eggs. But, without being in a relationship, this was a tall order. So, single and babyless, she’d had to take action. Now, thirty-six weeks pregnant and only a few weeks from becoming a mother, a role presumed to be instinctive yet clearly so complex, a role she just had to get right, she thought she’d feel a constant tremor of panic at the prospect. Instead, she felt oddly serene.

  ‘Yes,’ she said decisively. ‘I’ve enjoyed eating for two, at least. Bread. I can’t get enough bread. Funnily enough, I never used to like it much before.’

  Lexi was well practised at being flippant about her pregnancy. It was easier than all the explaining she had to do. It didn’t need an award-winning psychologist to deduce that she wanted to deflect people’s attention. The driver laughed and she gave him a smile.

  ‘Okay, I’m getting that pleasantries aren’t your style,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to pick you up afterwards to take you back to the office?’

  Lexi groaned. A social worker on the children’s team for the local authority, she had a mountain of work left to do before she went off on maternity leave in a week’s time. Though she loved her job, she wasn’t going to miss the long hours, high stress and excessive workload she had to cope with on a daily basis. She’d worked until midnight every night the previous week trying to deal with new referrals, dragging herself to bed, only to wake up once she’d gone to sleep to write lists of things that needed to be done before she left. It was a 24/7 job.

  ‘No, thanks,’ she said. ‘I’m not going back in today. Anyway, here is your money. I’d better get inside.’

  ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘So what is it that you do, Mrs—?’

  Lexi laughed.

  ‘Ms Mason, but I prefer Lexi,’ she said. ‘Are you always this interested in your customers? I’m a social worker. I work mostly with children and young people.’

  The cab driver looked impressed.

  ‘Can’t be easy work when you’re that pregnant?’ he said.

  Lexi thought about her job. It was hard work at any time, no matter that she was pregnant. But, yes, the driver had a point. Sometimes, when she’d trekked across half of Brighton to visit a family who needed support – and they had deliberately avoided her, or were hostile towards her – she felt more pissed off now than she would have done before. Her caseload was ridiculous. There wasn’t enough time in the day to devote all the energy each young person required. Working with children who had massive problems in their lives just wasn’t a job you could drop at five p.m.

  ‘I’m only interested because I’m writing a script,’ blushed the driver. ‘It’s about a cabbie and the women he meets in the back of his cab.’

  ‘Thriller?’ Lexi said, her eyebrows raised. ‘Does one of the women end up dead in the boot? The pregnant one?’

  He snorted.

  ‘Romance,’ he said. ‘Happy ever after. Tin cans tied to the bumper at the back of the cab rattling along the pavement as the sweethearts drive off into the sunset.’

  ‘Fantasy then,’ Lexi said, not missing a beat.

  He laughed again, and Lexi, deciding she liked him, gave him a tip.

  ‘Good luck with the baby,’ he said, giving her a look that lasted just a few seconds too long to be meaningless. Lexi wondered if he’d sussed her out already. No – she dismissed the thought. Impossible. It must be her breasts. They had inflated into hot-air balloons.

  ‘My name is Gary. Here’s my card. If you need a cab to take you to hospital, I’ve got plastic sheets I can put down, just in case it all kicks off en route, flashing lights – the lot. Expect your other half has thought of that, though . . . has he?’

  Lexi accepted the card and sighed. Other half. What other half? Why was the world obsessed with measuring people in terms of their relationship? Halves, singles, couples, threesomes – it was one of society’s preoccupations. Maybe she should have SINGLE tattooed on her forehead just to get it out the way, or wear a placard with a list of FAQs on it.

  ‘Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind,’ she said as she climbed out of the cab. She slammed the door and waved, watching the cabbie leave and clocking his hand extended out of the window, saluting as if he were an old friend. Turning towards Birth & Baby, she caught sight of another pregnant woman, with shoulder-length auburn hair contrasting beautifully against her long apple-green coat, waiting just outside, her partner taking her hand in his. The sight of them made Lexi’s heart skip a little faster, and a rush of acid shot into her throat. She swallowed uncomfortably, closed her eyes and counted to fifteen. Ten was never enough. That rule could be applied to most things in life, especially hot, sugary doughnuts from the pier. She often grabbed a bag on the way home from work, for a carbohydrate boost.

  ‘Right,’ she said, speaking to her bump. ‘Here we are at antenatal class.’

  Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a bottle. Unscrewing the lid and tipping the contents of the bottle into her mouth, she winced as the liquid hit the back of her throat. Resting one hand on her bump, she took another big sip and sighed.

  ‘Gaviscon,’ she said, looking at the almost empty bottle of indigestion remedy. ‘I’d be lost without you. Right, let’s go inside.’

  Moving toward the Sixties-style building, which looked as if it had recently been renovated, Lexi felt her baby kick reassuringly in her belly. She had been here several times during her career as a social worker, accompanying pregnant teenagers who needed extra support in the community. But this time, she was here for herself, which made her feel excessively excited but surprisingly nervous. As she approached, the woman with the auburn hair glanced at her, a solemn expression on her face. They exchanged hellos then, pushing open the door into Birth & Baby, Lexi glanced around the waiting room at the pregnant women and their partners already there, noticing an attractive young couple, and a blonde woman coming out of the toilet with a dark-haired woman. Moving to the reception desk, she stopped dead on hearing a voice she couldn’t fail to recognize and took a sharp intake of breath. The distinct Australian tones of Alan Nicholls. A blast from the past. No, Alan Nicholls was more like a bomb from the past. ‘Blast’ made her think of a gust of wind, or a record turned up too high . . . She sucked in her breath and looked in the direction of the voice. There, in a colourful striped shirt, looking the spit of Colin Firth as Darcy, she saw him. Him. The blood drained from her face and she felt sick.

  ‘Shit,’ she muttered. ‘Oh fuck. Fuck. Fuck!’

  She stood stock still, her feet apparently glued to the floor, her stomach flipping and her heart leaping, breathless. Come on, Lexi, she told herself. You’re tough. You’re a social worker. You’ve picked yourself up and brushed yourself down on countless occasions. Don’t let a man you slept with once – well, lots of times during one night – reduce you to a quivering wreck. Not knowing whether to run or stay, she almost fainted when he turned and looked at her. Their eyes locked. She lifted the corners of her mouth into a smile while her face glowed with heat and her legs wobbled. Broken images ran through her mind: his hairy torso, empty bottles of wine, a wild-mushroom omelette, her heart being squished by his big toe like a cigarette butt in gravel.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, his eyes widening then breaking out into a smile. ‘Lexi?’

  She watched him gulp, like a stork swallowing a whole fish, then take a step towards her, before changing his mind and standing still. He raised his hand in a wave then dropped it down.

  ‘Lexi Mason,’ he said. ‘How the hell are you?’

  Lexi had thought about this moment, oh, about one million times. After everything he’d told her about his life, about his deepest feelings, after every X-rated position he’d seen her in, after the tears he’d spilled on her shoulders, she’d expected more. More action. More emotion. More guilt.

  ‘Hi, Alan,’ she said, trying to
sound calm and collected, though inside she was praying for a meteorite to plummet through the roof and wipe her out.

  ‘Wow!’ said Alan, grabbing a slim curly-haired woman by the elbow and swinging her at Lexi in a Strictly Come Dancing manoeuvre. ‘Katy, meet Lexi Mason. Lexi’s an old friend of mine. Lexi, this is Katy. My wife. My pregnant wife! How are you, Lexi?’

  Old friend. Ha! Old friend whose pink lace lingerie you removed with your teeth. Old friend who unashamedly cried with joy when his head was wedged between these here breasts! Katy smiled politely at Lexi, ran her eyes over her from top to bottom, then registered Alan’s flushed cheeks. She raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Wow, your bump is far more impressive than mine,’ Katy said, all innocently, a lock of blonde hair falling perfectly over her enormous eyes. ‘But I know some women retain tons more water than others, don’t they? Do you know what you’re having?’

  ‘A baby hippo perhaps?’ said Lexi with a forced laugh, though she felt deflated.

  ‘Hope not, for your sake,’ said Katy with a false smile.

  For all the abuse she took as a social worker from disgruntled parents and teenagers or overworked colleagues, at this moment her thick skin had well and truly disintegrated. She felt twelve years old again, crushed by the pretty girl. Thanks, Goldilocks, she thought, rallying, briefly imagining herself snipping off those golden ringlets with her kitchen scissors. At this point all she could do was fiddle with the card the cab driver had given her. She pulled out her mobile phone and pregnancy notes and wafted both vaguely in the air.

  ‘Er,’ she said, ‘excuse me, but I have to make a call and book a cab, I have a midwife appointment later, and it’s on the other side of town—’

  What was she saying? Lexi’s hands were clammy, and the pregnancy notes slid out of her fingers and dropped on to the floor, the contents landing in a fan of paper across the carpet. She caught sight of her most private details and blushed boiling red.