Larger Than Life

by Adele Parks

  ‘No, it’s a boy,’ chips in another woman. She’s licensed to comment by the fact that sticky twins are clinging to her legs. ‘Stand up,’ she barks. Silently and stupidly I comply. ‘Look, she’s carrying a lot of weight on her bottom – “A lazy boy is all behind”, they say.’

  Do they now.

  ‘No,’ disagrees the first woman, with conviction, ‘a boy bump is neat and all upfront. Nobody could describe that bump as neat.’

  I sink back into my chair and a prayer that they will argue it out together without requiring any more input from me. I close my eyes and hot tears sting my lids.

  This is worse than potholing. This is hell.

  Bored by the guess-the-sex conversation (after all neither of them can emerge triumphant in the immediate short term), the first woman turns back to me. ‘Are you using the microwave?’

  I wonder if this is a trick question, but before I can work out the punchline I hear myself answer truthfully, ‘Yes.’

  ‘But what about the radiation and the foetus!?’ she screams, and the odd thing is the other customers look at me as though I’m mad. I furiously blink back the tears; the dull headache is starting to pound. Bang, bang, bang.

  ‘And I can see that you have your hair highlighted,’ she adds accusingly.

  My hand automatically reaches up for my head. I hate admitting to this at the best of times. ‘Yes. I was feeling rather dowdy,’ I mutter in explanation. The truth is that I look so crap at the moment that there is a serious possibility that my child will find the placenta more aesthetically pleasing than its mother. Having my hair highlighted was an attempt to stop the rot.

  ‘But what about the chemicals?’

  ‘Chemicals?’

  ‘Do you want to poison your baby? They can be born with such horrible deformities if you’ve highlighted your hair and injected all those horrible chemicals into your system. You might as well inject heroin into your eyeballs.’

  Thank you for that. Bang, bang.

  ‘Do you swim?’

  I nod, assuming this at least will earn me Brownie points and somehow distinguish me from Hannibal Lector. All the maternity books advise gentle exercise and, whilst I have been forced to abandon my hour-and-a-half, high-intensity aerobic workouts (big shame that my personal trainer never forgave me for vomiting on the stationary bikes), surely the effort I make dragging myself to the baths every week or so will be regarded as a good thing.

  Wrong.

  There is a collective sharp intake of breath by all the women in the chemist’s (all of whom, I suddenly notice, have buggies and babies and rolls of post-natal fat).

  ‘You shouldn’t be swimming, think of the damage the chlorine can do. Would you consider drinking bleach?’

  Yes, if I have to listen to any more of this nonsense.

  The hammering inside my head is escalating and I really have to concentrate to hear what the bump woman is saying. I seriously doubt that it’s worth the effort. She goes on to give me her qualifications for offering this advice. ‘It’s my third. All Caesareans. Look.’ And before I have a chance to object she whips her jumper up and trousers down and flashes her scars at me. What to say?

  Nothing.

  Pregnancy seems to be a rite of passage to a club, and all the other members (mums and mums-to-be) think that we’ve bonded naturally, just because we’re in this club together. And whilst I concede that listening to Penny’s illuminating little facts about pregnancy wasn’t altogether irritating – in fact it was interesting – her information was accompanied by a roast lunch by way of an incentive. I no more want to share my gynaecological details with a complete stranger than I want to go to war, which, I might add, seems to be a very close analogy for childbirth if these women are to be believed. This isn’t the first time a complete stranger has taken it upon herself to share her battle scars. Last week in Café Rouge I met a woman in the queue for the loo who insisted on showing me her stretch marks, and there was another woman at the checkout in Marks and Spencer’s who was determined to share more information than necessary about her problems with incontinence. Marks and Spencer’s, not Netto!

  It’s repulsive.

  On the other hand, who else am I going to play with? Sam only wants to talk about veil lengths; she and all my other childless friends and acquaintances are running ahead in their open-toed, kitten-heeled shoes, dashing into wine bars and designer-boutique changing rooms – I can’t keep up. I’m not even sure if I want to. Where as the bump woman would like nothing better than to discuss pelvic-floor exercises.

  One of the grubby kids sneezes, and the bump woman slowly bends down to dig out a tissue from her bag and then dig out the snot from the child’s nose. He doesn’t appreciate her devotion and starts up an almighty wail. My brain splinters with pain.

  I feel my life is over.

  I have two choices right now: I could cry and scream and rant and rave, I could stamp my feet and kick and scratch (a little like the snot-nosed kid is doing). Or I could call Libby.

  I reach into my bag and pull out my mobile. After all, with so much commotion I’m not sure my tantrum would even be heard in the chemist’s.

  30

  I briefly tell Libby about my day, then I start to sob down the phone that I’m sick of trying and can’t try any harder and yet I don’t seem to be good enough as I am. It reminds me of a conversation I had with Jessica when I was seven and stranded at Brownie camp. Confused about how to make a washing-up-bowl stand from twigs and unsure of the genuine demand for such a product, I rang her in tears and begged her to pick me up. For the record, she didn’t. She believed grubbing about with creepy-crawlies and having to ration loo roll was character-building.

  Luckily Libby has experience with seven-year-olds.

  ‘I’m not sure how I’ll manage. I’m fire-fighting on too many fronts. I’m sick of trying. Trying to be what Hugh wants in a partner. Trying to be what Kate and Tom want – or at least will tolerate. Trying to be a patient and good friend, which I’m failing miserably at – I recently told Sam that I didn’t give a toss if marrying in August was reputed to be more fortuitous than marrying in, say, May, as per some dodgy old wives’ tale. Trying to be thin is a battle I’ve lost. I’m also defeated in my battle to try to be attractive, witty or coherent. How am I ever going to handle this enormous pitch when I have this enormous body?’

  Somehow, despite my sobbing, Libby manages to get the gist of what I’m saying. She immediately says she’ll put the kettle on and that I’m to come straight round to hers. I don’t need any further persuasion, but I’m delighted when she tells me that Millie is at her grandparents’ for the evening.

  Libby lives in Earls Court, in the top-floor flat of a Victorian terraced house, above various transient yet consistently pleasant Australian travellers. Her flat is tiny, but whilst there’s not much space there is lots of life. She greets me with a hug, which isn’t very London but is very her, and I feel better for it. I follow her through to the skinny kitchen at the back of the flat, trying not to trip on the numerous piles of stuff that litter every surface. There are magazines, Millie’s shoes, comics, crayons and toys, yet-to-be-unpacked shopping, piles of washing (needs to be washed, needs to be ironed, needs to be put away). The flat is cluttered with half-completed creative endeavours (knitting, tapestry, tile mosaics – Libby’s; paper-tissue butterflies, splatter-paint pictures and cardboard models of HGVs – Millie’s). There are dozens of Millie’s works of art pinned to the fridge, the freezer and any available cupboard door. There are coloured fairy lights hung on every wall, as though Libby and Millie celebrate Christmas all year round. Then there are the books, the most impressive collection of books I’ve ever seen outside a library. The books are integral to their home. They crowd the shelves, tables, windowsills, the TV top and the sideboard. They are scattered randomly on the floor and are stacked neatly in piles in the loo, under the settee, on the stairs. Added to this there are the surprise stores – books in the kitchen cupboards, the
cutlery drawer and on the shelf where she keeps tinned spaghetti and cornflakes. There are thousands of books, quite literally.

  I’m feeling a bit shy after my histrionics, so I try to make general conversation to lighten the mood. ‘Have you read them all?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes,’ says Libby, ‘why else would I have them?’ I don’t tell her that my shelves are mostly stacked with lifestyle magazines. The books I do have are made up of: 50 per cent I have read, 2 5 per cent that I keep meaning to read, and 2 5 per cent that I feel I should read. Libby has worthy books discussing theology, politics, history. There are poetry books, literary books, books about music, travel, law and biology. There are dozens of novels, every Whitbread and Booker contender since the year dot, and her shelves also boast the odd sexy, trashy novel, which, I think, shows a certain amount of quirky independence.

  I follow Libby through to the kitchen whilst she gathers up the necessities for a comfortable evening debrief. I watch her efficiently pull together teapot, mugs, biscuits, milk and sugar, and put them on a tray. Her crockery doesn’t match, but is a hotchpotch of brightly coloured hand-painted affairs. They look great, comfortable, inviting, which makes me wonder why I spend time combing the shops for the exact replacement cup or matching milk jug when a piece of my Conran crockery gets chipped. Would the world draw to a halt if my crockery didn’t match?

  The window is open a couple of inches allowing, if not fresh air, then certainly the noise of the street to seep into the flat. I can hear an irate driver rowing with a traffic warden and, in the distance, a pneumatic drill. They are digging up the Cromwell Road again. It’s spring, the season of fertility and promise, but only according to the calendar. April is having an identity crisis; it thinks it is January. Everything is still extremely bleak. The rainfall has been record-breaking, the freezing temperature ball-breaking.

  Libby leads me through to the sitting room, where she has set up an ironing board, surrounded by yet more piles of clothes. She doesn’t seem bothered or embarrassed by the mess. Nor does she appear to be fazed by my outburst; she says nothing about my hysterical phone call. I, on the other hand, am horrified. It’s hardly accepted behaviour in front of someone you’ve met only once. I head towards the tatty, squashy settee, which is positioned close to the fireplace, and I fall into it. The clock ticks and the iron makes a swishing sound as it lets off steam. I’m here for the same purpose; despite this, I’m mute. Libby’s question wasn’t a difficult one. Did I enjoy Wales? It should be easy enough to answer and yet I’m struggling. The shame is overwhelming. I know I’ve said too much to pretend I was simply joking when I called from the chemist’s. I said I couldn’t cope. Me who’s always coped, no, excelled. I wonder if I can blame my hormones?

  ‘So did you enjoy Wales?’ Libby asks again.

  ‘Mostly.’

  ‘Did you and Hugh manage to relax?’

  I’ve already noticed that Libby never opens her mouth without carefully considering the effect of every word she intends to utter. She looks out of the window as she asks me this question but she doesn’t take her eyes off me whilst I reply – an interrogation technique that creates the impression that she is omnipresent and omnipotent. She’s somewhere between a god and a librarian; it’s not just the books. She reminds me of the type of librarian who knows when little boys are looking up pictures of breasts in medical books or swear words in dictionaries. Finally she fiddles with the temperature dial on the iron, giving me the opportunity to consider how truthful I want my answer to be.

  My shame starts to recede as my desperation to talk honestly takes over. ‘It seemed to be a temporary solution to my constant fatigue, if not to our bickering.’

  ‘What are you bickering about?’

  ‘Anything. Nothing.’

  It’s odd, that first row in almost fourteen years, which happened just before we went to Wales, has turned out to be a watershed; now we seem to do little else. However positive and productive I intend my conversations with Hugh to be, we always end up squarely in the middle of a fight. We fight about anything and everything – his lateness, my tiredness, his selfishness, my lack of sex drive, Becca’s alimony, whose responsibility it is to sort out child-care, who put the empty milk carton in the fridge. Yet, whilst the arguments are always about something different, they are all the same – pointless, directionless, bitter and remorseful. If the first trimester were to be summed up in one word, it would be ‘puke’; for the second, it would be ‘hostility’.

  ‘We are having one or two difficulties,’ I confess to Libby. ‘my hormones are… unreliable.

  ’ ‘Ah.’

  ‘The maternity books are full of laughable understatements. Apparently, I may expect to feel “occasionally teary or cross”.’

  ‘In fact you’ve been rendered less reasonable than Attila the Hun,’ suggests Libby.

  ‘Exactly.’ And I laugh despite myself.

  It’s as if, when I conceived, a small particle of anger, no greater than the size of a grain of sand, got trapped in my body and it is gathering velocity and volume with each passing day; only the foetus is growing more heartily and ferociously. Now, five months into the pregnancy, the grit of sand is about the size of a cannon ball and twice as explosive. Suddenly, I’m so bloody angry. I’m furious with everyone and everything. I’m blisteringly furious with Hugh for something new every day. But, besides that, I’m cross with my female friends who’ve lost interest and contact since I became pregnant. I’m enraged with my male friends, who were previously a source of harmless flirtatious fun, for ignoring or abusing me now. Both the stupid women in the chemist’s and their unruly, imbecilic children incense me. Christ, if I were one of my friends I’d have crossed my name off my own Christmas-card list by now.

  ‘How’s Hugh’s dealing with it?’

  ‘I mentioned to Hugh that our recent rows could be a result of my hormone imbalance and he commented, “Thank fuck you’ve finally realized as much, you really should do something about it.”’ I feel a bit disloyal repeating Hugh’s words out of context. A bit.

  ‘He’s entirely a new man,’ mutters Libby.

  ‘Jessica, somewhat more helpfully, swears that vitamins will restore some calm.’

  ‘She’s right, you should mention it to your midwife.’

  ‘I did and, quite surprisingly, instead of simply confusing and terrifying me with talk of crown – rump length, effacement, chorion, alpha foeto-protein, Mittelschmerz and the like, she agreed with Jessica and has given me a prescription.’

  ‘Progress,’ says Libby cheerfully.

  ‘Suppose,’ I mutter grimly. ‘But I was collecting the prescription when I called you, and I wasn’t particularly calm then.’

  ‘You. have to eat them, not keep them in your bag. It is normal, you know, to feel…’

  Whilst Libby is searching for the right words I beat her to it. ‘Fucked off.’

  ‘Yes,’ she admits.

  ‘I’m just no good at it.’ And for the first time since I arrived I lock eye with Libby. She doesn’t flinch, but meets my confession head on. She stays silent but her gaze oozes empathy and understanding. The tiny brown flecks in her otherwise blue eyes tell me it’s OK to be honest. Even if honest is abominable, vulnerable or unfashionable.

  I carry on. ‘I’m tired and emotional. I’m spotty, my hair is falling out, and I’m fat.’

  Libby demonstrates her integrity by not rushing to assure me that my face hasn’t changed at all, or that, from the back, I don’t even look pregnant.

  This is undoubtedly a good thing.

  Although I wouldn’t have minded just a tiny smidgen of insincerity, simply to cheer me up.

  ‘It isn’t a competition,’ she says. I cast her a withering look. Her naivety is unprecedented.

  ‘It is. Everything is.’

  ‘But you are looking forward to the birth, aren’t you?’

  ‘Huffing and puffing?’ I ask incredulously.

  ‘No. I mean actually having a child, bein
g a mother.’

  I could bluff. I could summon up ‘the voice’ and repeat for the millionth time that I’m ‘thrilled, absolutely thrilled’, but that wouldn’t be the whole story. I stare at the crumpled tissue I’m gripping in my hand. It’s heavy with my snot and tears, an unromantic testament and a timely reminder of my recent hysterics.

  ‘I’m terrified,’ I reveal. I stir the Earl Grey and watch the leaves dance with the water in the cup.

  ‘Of?’

  Deep breath. Plunge. ‘All of it. The ugly pregnancy, the ugly labour and being a mother. I’m not “thrilled, absolutely thrilled” as much as “terrified, absolutely terrified”.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Pregnancy is too big for me. It’s too much of a challenge. I don’t like the small bladder, the large stomach, the vomiting, the breathlessness, or the isolation. And motherhood? More small bladders, fussy stomachs, more vomiting, breathless tantrums and isolation. I’m just not sure I’m up to it.’ She stays absolutely still and her inertia pushes me to add, ‘It scares me, being needed that much. I’m scared of the dependency.’

  Libby comments sensibly and gently, ‘they don’t stay in nappies for ever.’

  But even the sensibleness of her tone doesn’t stop me pointing out, ‘I don’t even know which nappies. Presumably you’ve seen the bewildering array available on supermarket shelves. Towelling, disposable, waterproof, recycled, maxi, mini, freedom, newborn, front-loaded, back-loaded, super-absorbent, elasticated legs, and all of the above come in about twenty different sizes.’

  I’m on a roll. All the anxiety, fear, self-doubt that I’ve been bottling up for weeks, no, years, comes tumbling out.