When she got to Bella Madden’s she half expected to see Richard loitering nervously outside, but there was no sign of him. She rang the bell and he came to the door to let her in.
‘You know what, I kind of wish you’d given it another quarter of an hour,’ he murmured as they walked along the cool flagstone-floored corridor to join the class.
They stepped into the hushed conservatory, and she immediately saw what he meant. The other couples had arranged themselves in a loose semi-circle on the floor, and were looking at some bright, shiny, laminated pictures that Bella had cast down in front of them.
All of the images showed the same couple – a weary bearded man and a pregnant woman in a chevron-patterned leotard and leggings? bracing themselves against each other in a variety of testing and profoundly unerotic positions.
‘Ah, Natalie,’ Bella said carryingly. ‘Great that you’re here, Richard was just saying he might have to sit this one out. These are positions for labour, showing how the man can support the woman, whether you’re in hospital or at home. So would everybody like to take one and give it a try for five minutes, and then swap round?’
Natalie spotted one that didn’t look too gymnastic, and involved the woman leaning over a sofa while the man rubbed her back. She grabbed it and turned to Richard. He smiled at her resignedly.
‘Well done. I should be able to manage that,’ he said under his breath, and dragged a beanbag over to a corner so they could practise as unobtrusively as possible.
Bella Madden was a celebrity midwife – that was to say, she’d delivered the babies of a couple of well-known media personalities, and had grateful signed photographs to prove it. Bella herself looked like Everygran with a thyroid problem; she had curly, stiffly set iron-grey hair, and slightly protuberant, mud-coloured eyes. She was always dressed in readiness for a birth, in comfortable slacks and tops in pastel polyester, in case one of her clients called.
Unlike her students, she was never disgusted, or defensive, or afraid; she spoke about pregnancy, labour and birth with robust enthusiasm. She was both experienced and knowledgeable, but the real source of her authority was her complete lack of embarrassment.
Each class followed a pattern. After the introductions and how-are-you-alls, there was usually some kind of demonstration in the first half-hour, perhaps involving pictures or gynaecological models. A group discussion exercise followed, to lighten the mood and encourage bonding before the mid-session coffee break. The second half usually involved the sharing of empowering medical information, intended to dispel any fears raised by the first.
Natalie hadn’t yet made a direct overture of friendship to any of the other women – she usually preferred to watch and wait, and let others make the first move. Anyway, she suspected that her favourite, the one she was most interested in watching, was the one least likely to buddy up with her.
At the first meeting Bella had asked them to introduce themselves and suggest some way that other people could remember their names. The woman sitting next to Natalie said, ‘I’m Adele. Like the illegitimate dancer’s daughter in Jane Eyre, the one Jane teaches, the silly little vain girl who likes pretty dresses.’
Natalie had always loved Jane Eyre – it was her favourite book – and found this instantly memorable. (She and Richard had failed to come up with any neat ways for people to remember them.)
At thirty-two, Adele was the baby of the group, and she was good-looking, in an unhealthy way – she was pale and often looked tired. Still, Natalie admired her Slavic cheekbones, suggestive mouth, heavy dark-blonde hair, and thin, expressive hands.
Adele was sometimes thoughtful, sometimes flamboyant; she alternated between preoccupied silence and little outbursts that left everyone slightly uneasy. Unlike all the other women in the group, she was unmarried. Her partner, a quiet, stoic older man called Marcus Pryce, rarely spoke, and listened to her without showing any obvious sign of discomfort or embarrassment. Was this acceptance or detachment? Natalie found it impossible to tell.
The group’s due dates were scattered throughout April, with Natalie second to last, followed only by Adele. But the day after the positions-for-labour exercise Natalie was sitting at her desk at work, eating the first of her sandwiches, when an email from Adele turned up. The subject line was Paris.
Paris Pryce. Beautiful baby boy born South London Hospital this morning weighing 8lb 3oz.
How could that be? The night before, she’d been trying to imitate the chevron-leotard lady just like the rest of them, but less than twenty-four hours later, Adele had somehow had her baby.
Adele didn’t appear at the next class to shed light on this, nor at the next, but sporty Jessie Oliver, who had emerged as the unofficial group leader, reported that Adele had given birth entirely naturally, in five hours from start to finish, and with no pain relief whatsoever.
This news generated a frisson that struck Natalie as being charged with both jealousy and admiration. She wasn’t sure whether the reaction was a response to Adele’s fabulous birth experience, or to the strange fabulousness of Adele herself.
In the taxi on the way home she said to Richard, ‘It was funny the way all the women talked about Adele during the coffee break today, wasn’t it? It reminded me a bit of being out with Tina when someone famous would come into the bar, and everybody sat up and took notice. It’s like Adele’s the celebrity of antenatal group.’
Richard glanced at her warily. ‘I suppose she is the sort of person that people pay attention to.’
‘Good heavens! Do you know, you’re actually blushing – I do believe you fancy her!’
Richard adjusted his glasses. ‘Just because I can see how other people react to her, doesn’t mean I feel the same way,’ he said. ‘She seems a bit unpredictable to me, and maybe lacking in the common sense department. If you ask me, Paris is a silly name, especially for a boy, and I have a feeling it was probably her idea. You’re not thinking of making a particular friend of her, are you?’
‘I don’t think she’s the least bit interested,’ Natalie said. ‘She probably barely knows who I am. I’m just gutted that she’s gone and done it. She was meant to be after me. It means I’m probably going to be the last.’
Richard squeezed her hand. ‘It’s not a race.’
When they got home he ran her a bath, and made some pasta which they ate while listening to the special compilation of Mozart and Brahms they’d bought to play to Matilda, because babies at her stage of gestation were meant to be able to hear quite clearly from inside the womb.
But it didn’t lull Matilda; she kicked and thrashed around as if she was wholly fed up of being cooped up inside. It didn’t entirely soothe Natalie, either.
The course of sessions with Bella came to an end, the pace of arrivals quickened, and the couples started taking it in turns to host meetings. Natalie and Richard went to a gathering at the Olivers’ flat in Herne Hill, which had wall-mounted bikes and an abandoned dumb-bell by the sofa. The small sitting room was filled with proud, exhausted, relieved parents and newborn babies. Natalie felt like a convict who had not yet been vouchsafed a release date, while all around her were former fellows who had already been reprieved.
The rest of that week crawled past. Every day was Groundhog Day, a day Natalie hadn’t planned for and didn’t know what to do with; the leisure she’d so looked forward to turned out to be an anxious limbo. How the hell was she ever going to muster the energy to give birth? She had not so much slowed down as ground to a halt.
Her due date finally arrived: 27 April – Tina’s birthday. Natalie sent a card, but decided not to call – just for once, Tina could ring her. But there was no response. Clearly there was no real reason to remember the date, either for the sake of a fading friendship, or for failing to become her first child’s birthday.
A midwife examined her and said it would not be possible to give her a cervical sweep; she was so far from beginning to dilate she hadn’t even softened up. Natalie imagined her cervix shut
up tight, unyielding, stubborn and petrified. No way is that thing coming through here. Nature doing its damnedest not to let nature take its course.
The next antenatal group meeting was due to take place that evening at Adele’s Battersea mansion flat. Over her solitary lunch in the silent house, Natalie realized that she couldn’t bring herself to go.
She would be the only one who hadn’t yet had her baby. She was about to be overdue. She was heading straight for the cascade of interventions that the woman who wants a natural birth must at all costs avoid.
She rang Adele and left a message saying she was very tired and couldn’t make it.
The next morning the phone rang and she didn’t recognize the number. She picked up, thinking it might be a midwife or hospital administrator.
It was Adele.
‘I just wanted to see if you were OK.’
So out of the five other women, it was Adele who had volunteered for the job of following up on Natalie’s absence.
‘Yes, I’m fine, just a bit fed up waiting,’ Natalie said.
‘We missed you,’ Adele said. ‘I’ve got lots of food left over from last night. Why don’t you come for lunch?’
‘Oh no, I don’t want to intrude.’
‘Just come round. You don’t have to stay long. It would be nice to see you. I made pavlova, and hardly anybody ate it.’
There was almost nothing Adele could have said that would have been more persuasive. Eating had become Natalie’s primary, indeed almost her only, source of physical pleasure – yes, there had been an attempt at sex the other night, with poor Richard toiling under the obligation of trying to induce labour; but that had been inconclusive on both sides, and so hardly counted.
Also, she could never bear to spurn a gesture of friendship. If Adele, with a three-week-old baby, had found the energy to make pavlova, then Natalie had a moral duty to at least give it a try.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll be there at one.’
As she hung up she felt unexpectedly purposeful.
This was what she needed. This was distraction. This might even be fun.
When she got to the mansion block where Adele and Marcus lived, she took a moment to lean on the marble reception desk and catch her breath. She had regretted her decision to walk almost as soon as she’d set off. It wasn’t far, but she’d been trudging along for more than half an hour.
‘I’m here to see Adele Lowe,’ she told the concierge.
‘Fourth floor,’ he said, inclining his head towards the lifts; his eyes moved over her without registering her presence. She was reminded of what Tina had said: The bigger her bump, the closer she is to vanishing.
The lift had a mirror in it. No wonder the concierge hadn’t paid her much attention: she was big-bellied to the point of sexlessness. She tried to ignore her reflection from the neck down and concentrated on smoothing her hair.
When she stepped out Adele was coming along the hallway towards her. Her hair was loosely bundled back, and she was wearing a man’s plaid shirt, paint-splattered jeans and flip-flops; the red varnish on her toenails was thoroughly chipped, as if she’d applied it in a concession to feminine grooming, then decided to make a point of neglecting it.
She held out her hand and, almost without hesitation, Natalie took it. Adele’s touch was dry and cool, and somehow unembarrassing, so Natalie only briefly worried about the potential stickiness of her own.
‘Come on in,’ Adele said, and led her towards number 21. The door was wide open and beyond it was a corridor, painted white and decorated with dark wooden carvings and large framed prints of monochrome photographs: women’s noses or bare shoulders next to rotund bits of sculpture, a feathered mask next to a high-heeled dance sandal, a lone tree on a stark cliff edge, that kind of thing. All very arty.
Natalie followed Adele into a sleek kitchen that appeared to have been designed by someone who thought storage solutions were the key to domestic bliss. The only item standing on the glossy white worktop was a gleaming kettle. It was an unfriendly triangular shape, the lid a sharp peak. There was an immense array of cupboard doors, all shiny and cherry-red, devoid of handles and unmarked by fingerprints.
Richard liked tidiness, and Natalie, who was inclined to clutter, had got used to putting things away, but surely this was extreme.
‘Take a seat. Do tuck in, everybody brought stuff and we’re never going to get through it all,’ Adele said, gesturing towards the table in the centre of the room. Made of pale, solid wood, it looked to Natalie like a giant chopping-block on legs, spread with a madwoman’s midnight feast: breadsticks, strawberries, Kettle chips and taramasalata vying with fudge brownies, prosciutto, tabbouleh and Adele’s pavlova, which had, indeed, barely been touched.
Natalie started spooning tabbouleh on to a white plate. She felt Adele’s eyes flicker over her featureless, bone-obscuring fatness, but carried on helping herself anyway.
The baby wriggled vigorously inside her, then was still.
‘Where’s Paris?’ Natalie asked between mouthfuls.
‘Asleep. He sleeps almost all the time – it’s fantastic. I’ve managed to get so much done.’
Like what? Natalie thought, but didn’t ask.
Adele sat down opposite her and popped a strawberry in her mouth, sucked, and swallowed delicately.
‘So how are you?’ she asked.
Natalie shrugged. ‘One way or another, by this time next week it’ll all be over.’
‘You’ll be fine. I mean, it’s excruciating – I could never have imagined being in so much pain. It’s animal. The sound of women giving birth!’ Adele gestured expansively with both hands. ‘But you feel very alive. It’s very dramatic.’
‘Anything’s got to be better than hanging round waiting,’ Natalie said, and wondered if this was true.
‘How are you?’ she went on. ‘How’s the breastfeeding going?’
‘It’s good,’ Adele said. ‘It takes up a lot of time – hours and hours! But you can find ways of getting on with things.’
‘What, like watching box sets of Friends?’ Natalie said.
‘I don’t watch television,’ Adele told her. ‘I never had one before I moved in with Marcus.’
‘Really? How long ago was that?’ Natalie said, feeling rather daring, as it was the first time she had asked Adele such a direct personal question, on a subject only indirectly related to maternity.
‘Six months ago. We’ve only known each other for a year,’ Adele said.
‘Gosh. That sounds very whirlwind.’
‘It was reckless,’ Adele said. ‘I don’t think Marcus ever expected to share his flat with a baby and a painter. If he had he wouldn’t have chosen white carpet.’
‘Oh, you paint?’
‘I do. Yes. As much as I can.’
‘Is any of your work up on the walls?’
‘No,’ Adele said, and something about her expression stopped Natalie from asking why not.
Natalie attempted some small talk about the other members of the antenatal class, but made little headway; Adele didn’t appear to feel obliged to keep the conversation going, and seemed to be happy to sit by quietly while Natalie ate. She gave Natalie a fresh bowl for the pavlova; Natalie tucked in, and then looked up to see Adele watching her with a mischievous smile – the first time there had been any suggestion of teasing in the other woman’s behaviour.
‘You like to eat, don’t you?’ Adele said.
‘I’m not usually this much of a pig,’ Natalie said. ‘I’ve just been ravenous ever since I got pregnant.’
‘You’d be wonderful to paint,’ Adele said. ‘Lots of flesh. Like a Lucian Freud. You should be reclining on a sofa like an odalisque.’
‘Well, like I said, there isn’t usually this much of me.’
‘Have you got photographs?’
‘God, no.’
‘You should get Richard to take some.’
‘I don’t think Richard would want to photograph me,’ Natalie said.
>
‘Why not?’
Natalie shrugged. ‘I can’t say I blame him.’
Adele stood up and started moving dishes into a cavernous fridge. ‘Come through to the living room and I’ll draw you.’
‘Oh! No, it’s very nice of you, but I should be getting back.’
‘You can keep your clothes on, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
‘But I’m wearing a tent.’
‘Take it off then.’
‘But I’m covered in stretch marks.’
Natalie had never been particularly proud of her body, but at least prior to pregnancy it had been free of scars. Now pink lashings snaked across her hips, breasts and thighs, textured like pastry pulled to the point of rupture.
‘Imperfections are what make people interesting,’ Adele said.
She closed the fridge and walked off without looking back, and Natalie found herself following her.
She sat for Adele for twenty minutes. The time passed slowly, as it does when one is required to be still, but not tediously; the experience was too novel, too intimate and too gratifying.
Natalie lay on the sofa in the sitting room, naked, propped up on cushions, one arm curved around her jutting belly, which was hard, moon-white and smooth as stone. She had never undressed fully in front of another woman, yet she had not felt awkward or embarrassed. Weirdly, she had felt proud – proud of her own daring; and, stranger still, she had felt relieved.
She had slept badly for weeks now, and was comfortable enough to doze, but Adele’s eyes, darting from Natalie back to her drawing and back to Natalie again, made that impossible. It was an impersonal process, scientific, analytical, almost mechanical. Of course it was flattering. How could it not be? To be worthy of such scrutiny, to merit recording? Each glance was an affirmation, and Natalie’s skin tingled and glowed as if emerging from obscurity into the cumulative caress of dozens of pinpricks of light.
An hour later, carrying a rolled-up tube of sugar paper secured with masking tape, Natalie stepped into the back of the taxi Adele had called for her.
She felt drunk, or drugged. She’d spent the morning asleep; when the alarm had gone off she’d resisted the summons to wakefulness for as long as she could. She’d been resentful, groggy, sedated. Now she was still out of it, but she didn’t feel at all like sleeping.
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