by Amy Bratley
It was instinctive, this need to be at work, thought Katy, walking as quickly as her slowly healing scar would allow. Some women found their meaning when they had a baby. Katy’s meaning in life, she decided, was work.
‘Stay at home and be with Rufus and me,’ Alan had said that morning when Katy had told him about her decision to go into work for a few hours. Anita says she doesn’t need you.’
But Katy wasn’t going to abandon what she loved. She wasn’t going to be made to feel ashamed about wanting to work despite only just having had Rufus, and had ignored Alan and Anita. She’d known this was what was wrong all along. She was just missing work, wasn’t she? Being in control was what she was best at. As she walked through the bustling town, her legs felt like jelly and, when a police car sped past with its siren blaring, she nearly jumped out of her skin. She pulled her jacket round her and tried to remember if she’d emailed that production company who’d called, looking for an old-fashioned swimming pool in a garden, before Rufus was born. She’d thought of one near Haywards Heath that would be perfect and was determined to make sure the deal went ahead. She’d have to explain to Rebecca at some point. Arriving at the office, Katy began to feel tired. She was met by the receptionist, who said Anita would not be in until the afternoon. She gave her a meaningful stare, which Katy didn’t understand.
‘I think she has an appointment,’ she said, pulling a face.
‘What?’ said Katy. ‘An interview?’
The receptionist shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Sorry, it’s not my place to say. But, you know, this is a small office, and everyone knows. Must be horrible for her, knowing you’ve had your new baby, but, well, you know, we’re all entitled to make our own decisions.’
Appointment? Katy frowned. Own decision?
‘I see,’ she said, realizing. Anita was having an abortion. She waited for the news to affect her, but she felt only numb. She nodded knowingly at the receptionist and excused herself. Anita had never wanted a baby; Katy was unsurprised.
‘I’ll just be a few hours,’ she said. ‘Then Alan wants me home.’
‘Ahhh,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t have come in at all. Rufus is what? Three or four weeks old? He’ll miss you!’
Katy forced herself to smile then went into her office, where she turned on the computer and scrolled down her emails until she found the client she wanted to contact. Images of what Anita must be going through flashed into her mind, interspersed with the sounds of Rufus’s cry ringing out in her head. Whatever she did, she couldn’t shake the images of his birth from her memory. The panic she had felt when the consultant explained that Rufus was in distress had been profound. Now, sitting at her desk in her small, sun-baked office, something was happening to Katy, but she wasn’t sure what. She rested her hand against her chest. She was palpitating. Sweat formed on her brow and, though she was hot, she began to tremble as if she were freezing. There was a ringing in her ears and a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. An email popped into her inbox from the swimming-pool client. She opened it and read that Anita had sorted out the swimming pool weeks ago. Closing her eyes, Katy tried to breathe but felt as if someone had their hands around her neck, deliberately trying to choke her. I should be with Rufus, she thought, her hands shaking violently now as she dialled Alan’s number. I want to be with Rufus. I should be with Rufus. I want someone to help me. Alan’s phone rang out four times before he picked up. She opened her mouth to speak, but he got in there first.
‘Lexi?’ he said. ‘Sorry, I had to ring off because Rufus puked on me. So, what’s up?’
Katy held the phone away from her ear, too shocked to speak. Lexi? Alan and Lexi? How had this happened? Don’t jump to conclusions, she told herself. Without saying a word, she put the phone down again and rested her head on the keyboard of her computer. On the back of her eyelids she saw images of Alan and Lexi, then Rufus, minutes after he was born. She hadn’t known if he was alive or dead. She hadn’t been able to hold him for four days. She rocked her head from side to side, pressing her face into the keys, aware of the sharpness of their edges on her skin. Why was she feeling like this? What was wrong with her? She should be with Rufus. He needed her. Why was Alan speaking to Lexi? She wanted to hold her baby in her arms, but would he ever forgive her for not loving him as much as she thought she would? Her mobile began to ring – it was Alan calling – but she covered her ears and closed her eyes, blocking out light and sound.
Chapter Thirty-one
‘Oh,’ sad Mel wistfully, putting her coffee cup down. ‘Look at that blissful scene.’
Lexi and Rebecca turned their heads to see what Mel was pointing at. There, on the table next to theirs in the café, were a couple of women in their early twenties talking over a cooked breakfast, a pile of papers on the table waiting to be devoured, nothing and nobody to hurry them. All three women sighed.
‘Those were the days,’ said Rebecca. ‘Have you seen that lot over there? That’ll be us soon enough.’
Lexi and Mel turned their gaze to the other side of the café, where three mums and their toddlers and newborns were sitting, attempting to have a coffee. One of the toddlers had thrown the sugar packets all over the floor, another was opening them and tipping sugar into her mouth and the third was having an enormous lie-down tantrum on the floor. Their mothers, also trying to juggle newborns, looked knackered: haphazard hairstyles, jogging bottoms, plates piled with chocolate cake.
‘Wow,’ said Mel. ‘It’s hard work, isn’t it? No one actually tells you it’s going to be quite this hard, do they? They sort of laugh and say “Enjoy your last days of freedom,” or something equally ambiguous. I can’t believe what breastfeeding was like. I’m so relieved I’ve gone on to bottles. Now I can share the load with Leo and he can prove his worth, plus, my nipples can recover.’
‘How are things with Leo?’ asked Rebecca.
‘I’m still pissed off with him,’ replied Mel. ‘Because of the timing more than anything, but I’m trying to be adult about it and understand his side of it.’
Lexi and Rebecca shook their heads.
‘It’s not been easy for you,’ said Lexi. ‘That was one hell of a surprise.’
‘Hmm,’ said Mel. ‘It certainly was.’
‘How are you finding it, Lexi?’ asked Rebecca. ‘Must be tough not having a man to be completely unreasonable to in the middle of the night! Lenny is getting it in the neck at the moment. I can’t help but take out my tiredness on him, especially because I found a pair of earplugs under his pillow. The arse has been sleeping through Elvis waking but not telling me he’s been wearing earplugs!’
‘My God!’ said Mel. ‘Grounds for divorce! What are these men like?’
‘Maybe I’m better off without one,’ Lexi said. ‘Actually, I’m okay – though, obviously, completely knackered.’
The three women had met so that Mel could talk to Rebecca about the design of her wedding invites but also so they could decide what to do about Katy. So far, Rebecca had come up with the idea of a massage, Mel had thought she could do an exercise class with her and Lexi thought professional help might be the way forward.
‘You know what?’ said Rebecca, standing. ‘I’m going to have to change Elvis in a minute, and there’s no baby-changing room here and the toilet’s locked today for some reason. I think I’ll have to head off.’
‘Yeah,’ said Lexi, with a sigh. ‘I need to get Poppy off to sleep, and I suppose I should put a wash on if I want to wear anything clean ever again.’
‘My flat needs sorting out,’ said Mel drearily ‘Plus, I should hoover. How completely dull.’
At that moment, Poppy started to cry and Lexi lifted her out of the buggy and put her in the sling instead, then began to do knee bends. Mel glanced around the café at the other women there: shoppers with bags, workers with their laptops, women chatting – women who seemed so completely free without their buggies and babies and changing bags around their necks, tethering them to the home. Mel s
ighed and looked at her watch. It was almost noon.
‘How about a spritzer by the beach?’ she said, lifting her eyebrows. ‘There’s a café bar there with baby-changing. Go on, just this once.’
Rebecca’s and Lexi’s eyes lit up.
‘Yes!’ Lexi said. ‘What a great idea. Did you ask Erin and Katy today?’
Mel nodded. ‘Katy said she had to go into work,’ she said. ‘And Erin was taking Hope to see a friend in Norwich. Why don’t we call Katy again and see if she can come down for a quick break? Something tells me we’ll have to be quite persistent with her.’
The women started to walk along through the Lanes.
‘Do you think she’s ill?’ said Mel.
‘Alan came to see me,’ said Lexi, ‘and said she wasn’t doing very well at all, so yeah, I think she could be.’
The other women nodded and sighed.
By the time they had reached the café on the beach, the babies were asleep after the walk. The sun came out and they ordered three white-wine spritzers.
‘I guess all we can do is encourage her to get some help,’ said Lexi distractedly. ‘I think it’s taking its toll on Alan.’
‘I think it takes its toll on everyone to some degree,’ said Mel. ‘Don’t you?’
Lexi widened her eyes and took a sip of her drink. She leaned back in her chair and lifted up her sunglasses.
‘It’s the lack of sleep that gets you,’ she said. ‘But I’ve wanted Poppy for so long, I’d probably not care if I never slept again.’
Rebecca and Mel smiled.
‘I love Elvis so much,’ Rebecca said, ‘but I miss my old life. Definitely. I miss the way Lenny and I used to be together. Now it’s all – obviously – about Elvis. And Lenny seems to think that, because I’m at home with Elvis, while he’s slogging his guts out at the vintage-clothes shop, I’m not really doing anything. He comes home and says, “What’s for dinner, babe? Did you have a relaxed day?” I mean, he has no idea. But on the whole, I’m pretty much blissed out. How about you, Mel?’
Mel leaned into the buggy to check on Poppy. She looked up and smiled.
‘It’s good when she’s asleep,’ she said, before cracking up laughing. She opened her mouth to speak again, but Rebecca got in first.
‘I know what you’re going to say,’ she said. ‘You’re going to say you don’t mean it and you love her to bits. I think we can be honest with each other. Yes, we love our babies – but it’s bloody tough sometimes! At least we all understand.’
‘Let’s drink to that,’ said Lexi, and the three women clinked glasses. ‘At least we all understand.’
Chapter Thirty-two
‘Do you think this will be enough?’ asked Erin, laying out dozens of wooden skewers lined with bright chunks of red, green and yellow pepper, courgette, mushrooms and onions. They smelled fresh, like sunshine. She was in the kitchen preparing food for the barbecue she’d invited all the antenatal-group mums and their partners to. Though she’d planned to wait until the babies were a bit older, the weather forecast had been so good for this weekend she’d organized a last-minute get-together.
‘Maybe I should do more salad,’ she said, scanning the kitchen surfaces, on which stood an enormous salad of endives, walnuts and blue cheese, a bowl of green and black olives glistening in chilli oil, a plate of avocado and tomato sliced up together, a beetroot and carrot salad, and a massive fruit salad for pudding, plus a meringue, which she had yet to stuff with fresh cream and berries. Then there was the salmon and chicken marinating in the fridge, and sausages to serve in buns.
‘Oh, isn’t this exciting?’ she said, sipping a small glass of rosé as she worked and turning up the volume on the radio a little better to hear Haydn’s Symphony No. 4 on Classic FM. ‘A party for you gorgeous babies! I’m beginning to feel like my old self all over again.’
Lying in a pink bouncer seat dressed in a Katvig sleepsuit with a red apple on the front and kicking her little feet, Hope tried out one of her new smiles. Erin smiled, laughed and clapped all at once. Hope’d been an early smiler, starting at five weeks. Edward had at first insisted it was wind, but Erin knew better. Hope was full of joy at being alive and couldn’t wait to smile. Could there be anything more wonderful than the first smiles of a tiny baby? Sky-high happy, that’s how Erin felt when she looked into Hope’s perfect face. She bent down and stroked her cheek.
‘Look at you,’ she sighed. ‘You are the most beautiful little girl, with the whole of life ahead of you.’
Hope started to cry a little bit, so Erin dried her hands on her apron and unclipped her from the seat. She picked her up and stood at the open French doors of the kitchen, smelling the roses which clung to the fence just outside. Their scent was amazing, almost ambrosial. She looked up at the clear blue sky, watching a seagull flapping his big wings as he flew. A gentle breeze blew on their faces and Hope blinked her eyes in response. Erin stepped outside and walked her around the garden. She kissed Hope’s cheek.
‘It’s just the breeze, Hope,’ she said. ‘Let me sing you a song.’
She began singing ‘Summertime’ and, as she sang, she felt tears filling her eyes.
‘One of these mornings,’ she sang, ‘you’re going to rise up singing. And you’ll spread your wings and you’ll take to the sky—’
Just then, Edward walked outside into the garden and put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Why are you crying?’ he asked.
‘It’s those words in the song,’ she spluttered. ‘I can’t bear the thought of Hope taking off and leaving home.’
It was true. Erin didn’t want to let Hope out of her sight. She was the most precious package ever to exist. And Erin knew she would get even more beautiful as she grew. Those tiny strawberry-pink lips would get sweeter still and, when she was grown, every man would want a taste. That shock of blonde hair would grow long and tumble beautifully around her features, causing people to turn and stare. She was going to be star-quality beautiful, Erin just knew it. Talented, too. Yes, Hope would be a dancer, just as she had been, but far more successful, far more bold.
‘I want us to live together for ever and I want to lock all the doors,’ she said.
Edward tried not to, but he couldn’t help himself. He burst out laughing, holding his stomach he was laughing so hard. He threw his arms around Erin and held her tight. ‘You’re unbelievable,’ he said. ‘You won’t be saying that when she’s a moody teenager, slamming the bedroom door in our faces.’
‘I will,’ she said, acting hurt. ‘Of course I will. This is love at its most unconditional. I would, quite literally, do anything for this girl.’
Edward kissed Erin on the lips then checked his watch. They moved back into the kitchen, where the symphony was still playing on the radio. Erin placed a sleepy Hope back into the chair and kneeled on the kitchen floor to rock her. Edward looked around at all of the food. He rubbed the back of his neck, and Erin realized he was nervous. It had been a long time since they’d entertained friends, she reflected. In Norwich, they often had people over for dinner, or had parties in the garden, with music and dancing and alcohol. Since Josiah had died, years of their lives had passed by without them entertaining at all. But this was the start of something new. Erin liked the women she’d met. She was worried about Katy, and that was part of the reason for having this get-together. She wanted to make sure Katy was okay, and for them all to be better friends. Finally, her and Edward’s new life in Brighton was getting off the ground. All those promises she’d made to herself about getting her old self back were coming good.
‘You know they’ll be here in a couple of hours,’ Edward said, pushing bottles of white wine, rosé and beer into the fridge. ‘I’d better do something manly with the barbecue.’
Erin glanced at Hope, who had now fallen asleep in her bouncy chair. She pulled a blanket over her and tucked it in around her legs to keep her warm. She watched Edward’s back moving under his white shirt as he worked and hummed along to Classic FM.
&nbs
p; ‘Why don’t you do something manly with me first?’ said Erin, pulling him towards her. It was the first time she’d initiated sex in months. The first time since she’d found out that she was pregnant for the second time. The first time she’d actually felt like making love with her husband in over a year.
‘Where?’ he said quietly, his lips trembling. In the background, the symphony was reaching a climax, the first violin soaring ever higher.
‘Here?’ Erin said, pushing aside the bags on the kitchen table and laying down a blanket she’d found for the garden.
Their first kiss was tentative, embarrassed. The second was more relaxed. The third was passionate and uplifting, as Erin realized when her hands moved to Edward’s zip, in more ways than one. While Erin and Edward leaned over the table together, two muted violins played on the radio and the spring breeze blew on to their naked skin. Hope slept peacefully. Life was beautiful.
Rufus didn’t like his car seat. Even though it was the best money could buy, he bawled from the moment he was strapped in until the moment he was released.
‘We should have walked,’ said Katy, in a monotone, as Alan swung round the corner towards Erin’s house. Rufus’s cry filled the car.
He indicated and slowed down to park, behind Erin and Edward’s Golf.
‘You need to take it easy,’ said Alan through clenched teeth. He was trying to be patient, but his voice was spiky with anger. Katy knew he was at breaking point and that soon he would not be able to hold his tongue. Though some distant voice warned her not to push him any further, because he was already overloaded – she knew that – something in her wanted him to break, so that she could see he was fallible, too, that he sometimes failed. Perhaps if he broke, she would be instantly mended.
‘Don’t cry, Rufus,’ called Alan, craning his neck to see his son. ‘We’re here now. Let’s get you out of that little prison.’
Katy tutted and shook her head. She opened the car door and began to climb out. ‘Don’t say that,’ she said. ‘He’ll refuse to go in it at all if you tell him it’s a prison.’