Olive

by Emma Gannon

  “Man, I love having a pompously huge stroller. It’s like having a massive lawnmower; everyone immediately moves!”

  “How are you?” Isla asked, hugging Bea.

  “I’m good! He’s fast asleep,” she said, nodding down towards the stroller. Bea had recently given birth to her first child, Andrew. He was in the land of Nod, wearing a bunny hat. Butter wouldn’t melt.

  “Congrats, Bea,” Jacob said, putting his arm ’round her. “He’s bloody gorgeous.”

  “I’ll go get you a drink, Bea.” I stood up.

  “Just a lemonade please, love; I’m breastfeeding.”

  When I came back out with Bea’s lemonade, baby Andrew was wide awake, and Jacob was gently swinging him from side to side in his arms. The baby was gazing up at him adoringly, and occasionally taking a swipe at his face with a tiny finger, which made Jacob laugh. I loved it when Jacob laughed, the joy in his face exposed these deep crow’s-feet lines around his eyes, which have become deeper every year of knowing him. I always thought his wrinkles looked sexy, while mine were a sign of time running out.

  “Here you go, Bea.” I passed her the fizzing plastic glass.

  “Thanks, babe. Look how amazing your boyfriend is with babies!”

  “Very cute,” I said, trying not to roll my eyes.

  “I wonder who’s going to be next then?” Cec said, putting her sunglasses on her head.

  “Well, Ol and Jacob have been together the longest,” Isla said.

  “That doesn’t mean anything, though,” I said quickly.

  “I just need to meet someone first,” sighed Cec.

  “You will, babe. C’mon, flirt some more with those hot lawyers at your work,” Bea said. “It’s probably you next, Isla.”

  “God, I hope so! I’m due an egg checkup soon,” Isla said optimistically. Mike squeezed Isla’s knee then and tucked her hair behind her ear.

  “You will all be great mums,” Bea said.

  “I’m so excited for us to have one of our own one day, Ol,” Jacob whispered, smiling at me adoringly, his finger being held on to tightly by baby Andrew. I took a massive gulp of white wine and offered a half-smile as a big black ball of darkness started to knot in my stomach.

  “My friend’s baby is the cutest baby in the whole world, which made me realize I don’t want kids. If meeting the BEST baby in the world can’t change my mind, nothing will. Unfortunately, when I phrased this to my friend I just said, ‘Your baby makes me want to not have kids.’”

  Sofie Hagen, Twitter, July 2019

  10

  2019

  A week or so later, hungover again to high hell after a few too many at the pub with Col, I message Cecily to see if she fancies a visitor. We haven’t heard from her for a while on the group, but maybe if I just offer to come to her, it’ll be easier. I am dying to meet Oscar. I also just read this article about “The Loneliness of Being a New Mum” and how being at home on your own all day can start sending you a bit loopy. Cecily is an extrovert, after all, and has never been someone who likes having solo time. She never spent any time alone in her bedroom at university and always needed someone to chat to around the house. I couldn’t bear the idea that Cecily was cooped up with only some goo-goo-gah-gah noises and a few podcasts to keep her company.

  When I arrive, there’s a note on the plant pot outside that says, “Let yourself in, Olive!” I open the door and hang up my scarf. As I walk into the kitchen, she is sitting in a vintage rocking chair, wearing a pair of stained jogging bottoms and smiling sheepishly at me. I go over and hug her as she can’t move; she just puts her finger to her lips to warn me not to be loud. Oscar is asleep in her arms. Her usual swan-like demeanor seems a lot more ruffled. It’s like everything that was once stuck together by superglue is dangling by a single thread. She looks exhausted.

  “Oh my god, it’s so good to see an adult!” Cec whispers in a hiss, balancing his tiny little head on her forearm. I lean down to kiss her on the cheek.

  “Ohh, Cec, he’s precious,” I whisper back. “I like his little hat.”

  “Come through to the lounge and you can hold him when he wakes up.”

  We both just sit in silence staring at Oscar sleeping for a bit. Watching his little chest go up and down. I am mesmerized; I sit watching him breathe his tiny little breaths. He then opens his small, crusty eyes really slowly. Drifting in and out of sleep, showing us the whites of his eyeballs and closing his eyelids again. He eventually properly wakes up and looks around the room suspiciously.

  “Aw, he’s taking everything in,” Cec says proudly. “God. Olive, I feel a mess.”

  I look around and see there are diaper bags, bottles, muslins, baby wipes everywhere. Her house is normally minimal and tidy. She is sitting in the middle of the mess. Of course it would be a state—I am just shocked to see Cec’s house like this for the first time. It’s like a baby shop exploded everywhere.

  “Do you want me to do anything?” I ask. “Clear away a few bits?”

  “Thank you. If you could chuck all that shit on the floor into that big basket, that would be amazing. I can’t really bend over very well at the moment.”

  “Of course!”

  Cec rocks back and forth in her chair, shushing Oscar.

  After I’ve finished tidying up a bit, Cec asks me if I want to hold him. He looks tiny. He looks like a small alien with massive eyes—to me, he doesn’t even resemble a human yet. My stomach starts to tighten with nerves. I’ve had so many dreams where I lose or drop babies. This was an opportunity to not fuck up.

  Cec very slowly hands me Oscar. His body is like a small, warm hot-water bottle. He curves like a contented baby kitten in my arms, and I gently rock him and do all the stuff I’ve seen other people do countless times. His legs are like little drumsticks; his cheeks are like tiny hamster pouches, with his little tongue poking out involuntarily; and even his dribble is sort of cute. I wipe his mouth with a muslin cloth that has cartoon giraffes on it and touch his flaky little head. Cecily is smiling. He suits you. He likes you. You’re a natural. Ha, look! He’s gravitating towards your boob! All the comments that I normally attract when holding someone else’s newborn. Oscar is so small and so helpless, drooping in my arms like a little sack of flour, and yet I feel an emptiness from deep within. Holding a new baby is like a new test every time. “Will I now, finally, maybe, feel something?” I’d think. Whenever women shouted, “Aw, what a cute baby! My ovaries! They just twitched!” I would think there was something incredibly wrong with me because my ovaries have never twitched. There was no desire. Not even a slight, mild ache. Holding Oscar now, in this moment, my ovaries make no movement at all. Maybe they’re washing their hair or out for the day.

  I cuddle him, and what I do feel is love. The love I feel for this baby is because he’s an extension of my best mate, a mini Cecily—he has her blue eyes and the exact shape of her ears. A baby is a symbol of a fresh start, new beginnings, and some new hope for a messed-up world. They make you forget about politics, the news, the chaos the grown-ups have brought about. Something new to fall in love with.

  “So . . . how the fuck are you? How is everything? How is your downstairs department?” I say, stroking Oscar’s dry little head, while Cec rearranges her boobs inside her feeding bra. “Whoops, shouldn’t swear in front of the baby, should I?”

  “I’m okay. Bit sore. A layer of skin came off my nipples today. Clean off. Ouch. And I’m tired, of course, but on the mend. He is so lovely, isn’t he?” She looks slightly broken, but she’s beaming too.

  Oscar was starting to get a bit heavy on my arm. Would it be considered rude if I gave him back to her already? I decide to err on the side of caution and hold him for a bit longer.

  “I’ll tell you, though, Ol, I’m so happy to see my feet and my fanny again,” she says.

  “So, what was it . . . like? Popping out a baby?” I as
k, reaching for a Hobnob. A few biscuit crumbs fall on Oscar’s head and onto the perfectly clean white onesie he is wearing. I flick them off with the back of my hand.

  “Don’t look so terrified,” Cec laughs. “You know you’ll be fine . . . if you ever do.”

  “Thank you for saying ‘if.’ Most people say ‘when.’”

  “Well, exactly,” Cec says, rubbing Oscar’s back as he flops forwards like a miniature drunken old man.

  Cecily fiddles with her nursing bra again, and I’m amazed and filled with pride at how quickly my friend is getting the hang of it all. My friend, a mother! It seems like only the other day that we were in diapers ourselves. My pride for Cecily turns into a tinge—and then a full-on wave—of sadness. She has been so understanding about the Jacob breakup, but there’s only so much I can divulge when she’s struggling with a newborn. I’m not sure she really understands how lonely I am feeling, just like I can’t truly “get” all the stuff swirling around her head right now either.

  Cec moves Oscar to the diaper-changing table.

  “So come on, you have to tell me your birth story.”

  “I mean, it was absolutely mental. No one prepares you for what birth is really like. Yeah, it hurts like hell. But it’s also, I don’t know, the most natural thing? The midwives have delivered thousands of healthy babies. I read lots beforehand, the classic books and some online forums and stuff. I had an idea of all the different ways it could go. I had a ‘birth plan,’ but it sort of just goes out of the window. Oscar was in an awkward position, so I needed a bit of ‘help’ with forceps. I’m pretty confident two nurses had their full hands up my vagina as well. Did not see that one coming.”

  “That must have been scary?” I ask, chomping on another biscuit.

  “Yeah. God yeah. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. But who does? You just know it’s gotta come out of you somehow. You’re in safe hands. It was scarier when I had to bring him home . . . the amount of times I’ve put my ear next to his mouth just to check . . . he’s such a bloody quiet sleeper. It’s annoying and terrifying.”

  “I don’t know how you do it—I’m already such an anxious person,” I say.

  “I remember the nurse plonking him in my arms, and I was just thinking ‘WTF is this?’ ” Cec says. “I know it sounds weird, but even after I gave birth, I thought why is someone handing this baby to me? I was so, so out of it. Like, how is this little thing mine?”

  “Wow, Cec.” My eyes widen in admiration.

  “I just concentrated on keeping calm because I gathered it would hurt more if I was stressing. I’ll tell you something that I think is bullshit, though. This whole ‘you forget the pain!’ malarkey. There is no way I’ll ever forget the pain. I know some women who think about the pain every day.”

  “Yeah, I think we are all sold that lie,” I say.

  Cec puts Oscar down for a nap in his Moses basket.

  “A woman called Charlotte delivered Oscar, and I think I might send her some nice bits from Anthropologie.”

  “That’s a lovely idea.” I pause.

  Oscar was looking so sweet, but I couldn’t help but think babies were also like little vampires. Sucking the nutrients from your bones and brain cells. Obviously not something to say out loud to Cec.

  “And how was Chris; was he helpful through it all?”

  “Hmm, I suppose,” she sighs. “You know what he’s like, Ol. Not always the most compassionate man in the world. He did his job and got me to hospital at least.”

  “I would say his ‘job’ is to do more than that, Cec!”

  “Yeah, well. I think we both know I was always going to be the one doing most of the work. I don’t think he especially wants his life or career to change,” she says.

  “I’m sure you don’t want your career to change that much either!”

  “Yeah. I’ve been reading all these blogs and articles about equal parenting . . . but there’s just no way that’s going to be Chris and I.”

  We look down at Oscar in silence. He blinks slowly and stretches out his little hands.

  “Well, I’m here if you ever need help or a babysitter.” It came out of my mouth, and I sort of mean it, but the idea of being left alone with a baby also petrifies me.

  “Anyway, sorry about the state of the house,” she says, looking around anxiously. It’s the second time she’s apologized about it.

  “Cec. Don’t be silly! Maybe you could get a cleaner?” I suggest.

  “I could do. I just hate it being so chaotic and disordered. You know what I’m like; I hate feeling like I’m not in control. I could have a word with Chris about helping out around the house, I suppose.” She laughs abruptly.

  I can sense her frustration already, being strapped to Oscar in that rocking chair all day.

  “It’s crazy how quickly people expect new mums to ‘snap back’ or ‘get back to business as usual,’ ” I say.

  “God . . . I know. You’re telling me. I’m feeling the pressure already, honestly. My boss emailed me a congratulations, but I can tell he has loads of stuff he wants to ask me about,” Cec says, frowning.

  “I remember when Julie, the fashion editor at .dot, came back to work after maternity leave, people just said, ‘Welcome back! Congrats, Julie!,’ gave her a bottle of wine, and then shoved her towards a new desk and computer login and just expected her to get back to it like nothing had happened.”

  “Hahaha. Yup.”

  “It was like the whole office was totally ignoring the fact that she had just pushed something out of her body, and that her whole life had changed forever. We were welcoming back a whole new Julie with a new set of challenges, but no one ever really said anything.”

  I wondered what the birth had been like for poor old Julie. Birth stories had become a bit of a fascination for me. And every single one put me off more. The gory realities of it all! I noticed, from all the birth stories I’d heard over the years, that yes, they are all entirely different, but also there is always a moment where the mother says, “I’m probably not meant to say this . . .” Like they are breaking some sort of moral maternal code by feeling a certain way: “I’m probably not meant to say this, but I wish I could give the baby back, ha ha ha!”

  “So anyway, how is work, Ol?” Cec asks, stroking little Oscar’s cheek in his Moses basket.

  “Really good, thank you! Writing some interesting articles, got some traveling coming up. No complaints really.” Obviously I don’t tell Cec that I’ve been mining online “mum forums” for scary stories for my “Millennials & Motherhood” article. One woman had such bad postnatal depression that her husband had to hide all the kitchen knives; another said her husband popped out to get some milk, and by the time he came home, she had practically delivered her own baby; another said the doctors held her organs while they did a C-section. It makes me shudder to think about. It all sounds so barbaric.

  I get the sense that Cec might have stuff she needs to do before Chris comes home from work, so I start to say my goodbyes, and we have a big long hug.

  “You’ve got this, Cec, and we’re here whenever you need us—okay?”

  “I know you are, Ol. Thank you.”

  I sit on the Tube home, feeling exhausted from just watching Cecily look after OAP. It reminded me of school, when I was given an egg to look after for a month. Mine was called Eggy. It was supposed to teach us how to look after things. Our classroom was quite unruly, and we always forgot to water the classroom plants or feed the pet hamster. The challenge was to not break the egg and return it at the end of the month, when we’d be asked to give a presentation on the most challenging bits. I drew a smiley face on mine and dropped and smashed it on day two. Sorry, Eggy.

  I think about all the extra stuff my friends must have to worry about now that they’re mums. The rows and rows of mental filing cabinets stuffed full to the brim with extra
information: bottles, school uniform, potties, diaper bags, toy gadgets, shopping lists, dentists, revision, doctors, parents’ evenings, the distant family members of Peppa Pig. The list is endless. I already feel I have too much stuff overloading me, weighing me down, keeping me up at night. When I get home, I pour myself a huge glass of wine and close my eyes to focus on my breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

  My mind wanders back to the other day in the office, when I was discussing with Colin how wild pregnancy seems to be, after the announcement that someone in the royal family was pregnant again and the whole internet erupted with gossip and opinion. I’ve never understood the mania and obsession that surrounds news of another person’s pregnancy.

  “When people are having a baby, I can’t help but think of those little squishy alien toys, you know the ones? Like, having an alien toy inside you, growing and swishing around in your fluids,” Colin had said.

  “Ha! I know the ones. It is all a bit alien,” I said.

  “I honestly shudder at the thought. I mean, soz, I know I’m a guy. But still. Imagine casually growing teeth in among all your organs.”

  “Yeah. A little ball of hair and teeth and ears, just growing slowly, in there,” I pointed to my tum.

  “I can’t,” he said, covering his mouth dramatically.

  “I can’t either,” I said.

  Thank god for Colin.

  I down another huge glass of wine, push the empty wine bottle under the sofa, and crawl into bed.

  11

  2004

  Bea and I were going through an Avril Lavigne phase—it was all about pretending to own a skateboard, wearing heavy makeup, dark nail polish, and fingerless gloves for no reason. We would sing her lyrics very seriously from the top of Bea’s bunk bed, staring out at the walls covered in Polaroid pictures. Everything felt intense: every text exchange with a boy, every film ending, every friendship blip. All handwritten notes needed to be saved in a box, every train ticket, all tickets to gigs were stuck on the wall. Everything was a memory, being stored into its own filing cabinet.