The three of them were in the café on the top floor of the department store that Cecily Fox had found so much less disappointing than her daughter, and where Tina had told Dan that he might be on the way to becoming a father. It was the first time Tina had seen Natalie and Lucy since meeting Matilda back in the summer. Back then, it had still been possible for her to get away without disclosing her pregnancy – although Lucy now claimed she’d suspected something at the time. This time, William’s due date was less than six weeks away, and her bump was keeping her a distance from the table.
They had got together, at Lucy’s suggestion, to ensure Tina bought a cot, plus a short list of other items. Not for the first time, Tina was grateful for Lucy’s willingness to organize other people’s lives for them. It wasn’t as if anyone else was champing at the bit to go shopping for babygros and nappies and a car seat with her. Dan would have come if she’d asked him, but buying baby stuff together struck her as much too couply, and anyway, she suspected he wouldn’t have been much use. Her mother, who was the other obvious candidate, hadn’t exactly washed her hands of the whole business, but still sounded hurt and sad whenever Tina spoke to her, and was keeping her distance.
The shopping was now done and would be delivered sooner rather than later, at Lucy’s insistence, and they were sitting next to a window with a decorous view of Chelsea. They were surrounded by women. At the table next to them, a mother and daughter were discussing an acquaintance whose Caesarean had been followed by unstoppable bleeding and a life-saving hysterectomy. Despite the gory subject under discussion, they were both, like the rest of the clientele, cheerfully feminine, and sported nicely groomed hair, pretty earrings and jolly sweaters.
It struck Tina that neither of her friends quite fitted in. Lucy’s floral shirt was creased, and she smelt faintly of cigarette smoke; the dark shadows under her eyes gave her a louche, night-owl look, and she’d stopped wearing her wedding and engagement rings. Natalie, meanwhile, seemed to have made an almost deliberate lack of effort with her appearance, as if she didn’t want to put temptation in anybody’s path, and thought this could be avoided by hiding away in a shapeless black hoodie, wearing no make-up and scraping her hair back from her face.
And as for Tina herself . . . she would have welcomed the chance to disappear, as she had once accused all expectant mothers of doing; but instead her vulnerability seemed to make her conspicuous. Could strangers somehow tell that she lacked a male protector? Did she give off an unconscious signal that she was undefended and alone? When other women sized her up, she was reminded of the time in adolescence when she had begun to attract the attention of men. There was an unnerving implied aggression in such assessments, and she would have much preferred to be invisible.
‘I can’t believe you work ten minutes from here, and you’ve never so much as set foot in the baby department until now,’ Natalie said.
‘That’s because she’s been in denial,’ Lucy commented.
‘It would be great if denial worked as a kind of natural anaesthetic during labour,’ Tina said. ‘You know, mind over matter. This can’t be happening to me, ergo I can’t feel it. I don’t suppose it does, though.’
‘Personally, I think if you describe anything as natural, it’s a way of saying it’s not all that great,’ Natalie said. ‘People bang on about natural childbirth, but what’s natural about choosing to suffer more pain than you have to? How about natural tooth extractions, or natural amputations? Abscesses and gangrene and septicaemia are all natural, but that doesn’t mean you want to experience them.’
‘I’m sure Tina will have a perfectly straightforward delivery,’ Lucy said warningly.
‘Personally, I’m seeing the chance to try some new drugs as one of the few potential upsides of the birth experience,’ Tina said. ‘I don’t imagine I’m going to get that many more opportunities to try out new mind-altering substances, especially not ones that are provided by the state.’
Natalie giggled, but Lucy said, ‘Tina, I hate to say this, but has it occurred to you that you might just not be taking this seriously enough? Have you been to any antenatal classes?’
‘I don’t have time, and anyway, I don’t want to be the only single mum in the group. Everybody’ll think I’m after their man.’
This time Natalie didn’t laugh; she looked away, towards the view of cold, dank, wintry Chelsea, and Lucy said, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, you’re paranoid. Nobody’s thinking about things like that, given the circumstances. So who are you going to have with you at the birth? What about the fathers?’
‘You make me sound like a gay couple’s surrogate. There’s only one.’
‘Well, yes, but you don’t yet know who he is, do you?’
‘Actually, yes, I do,’ Tina said.
Now she had both her friends’ full attention.
‘Without going into sordid details,’ Tina went on, holding up both hands as if to ward off too much scrutiny, ‘it came to light that there was only really one potential candidate after all. Someone I know from work. He’s called Dan. Dan Cargill. He’s not really awful or anything, but we’re not together, obviously.’
She had broken the news to Dan back on one of those balmy September afternoons when the leaves are on the turn, but the skies are blue and cloudless; at her suggestion, they had met for a walk on Hampstead Heath.
Dan had looked both cornered and unfathomably pleased. He had asked her how she could be sure, and she had told him she had been involved with a married man who had only revealed that he’d had a vasectomy after he’d found out she was pregnant. He had said, ‘What the hell kind of relationship was that, when you didn’t even know he’d had that done? What a bastard.’
‘Is Dan single?’ Lucy wanted to know.
‘For goodness’ sake,’ Natalie said, ‘why haven’t we met him?’
‘Look, don’t start thinking of him as some kind of love interest,’ Tina told them. ‘I made the decision to go through with this on my own, and that’s how I plan to carry on. He seems to be interested in seeing the baby when he’s born, so we’ll see how it goes.’
‘Is Dan going to be your birth partner?’ Lucy asked.
‘Ladies,’ Tina said, drawing a circle in the air with her hands and then bringing them together as if to silence an orchestra, ‘back off. Nobody’s going to be my birth partner. I’m not having one. I certainly don’t want Dan watching me scream and swear and shit myself.’
‘Well,’ Lucy said, ‘what about us?’
‘How can you? Natalie’s got a baby, and you’ve got two children to look after.’
Lucy rolled her eyes. ‘Look around you. Do you see them? We are capable of doing things without them, you know.’
‘Yes, but that’s only because they’re with their fathers, by prior arrangement. And it’s taken for ever to sort out,’ Natalie objected. ‘Plus Richard’s already texted me once asking when I’m going to be back. Lucy, don’t look at me like that. I’m just being realistic. Anyway, I don’t think I’d be much use. I’m very squeamish, remember?’
Lucy sighed. Suddenly she looked very tired, and seemed to have run out of fight.
‘This conversation isn’t over,’ she told Tina, and then, in a further admission of defeat, went off to the counter to buy another cup of coffee.
‘Do you still see much of your antenatal group friends?’ Tina asked Natalie. ‘There was one you really got on with, wasn’t there? I’ve forgotten her name – Annie, or something like that.’
‘Oh. Adele. No, not really, not any more.’
‘So much for making lots of great new friends through antenatal classes. Go on then, tell me, what was it like?’
Natalie looked shocked and guilty, as if she’d been caught out doing something dreadful. What on earth did she think Tina meant?
‘Giving birth, I mean,’ Tina added quickly.
‘Ohh . . .’ Natalie looked momentarily relieved, and then thoughtful. ‘You do realize it’s different for everybody,’ s
he went on, picking her words carefully. ‘I was induced, so it was all quite artificial.’
‘Natalie, for a recently practising press officer, you are not a very good liar,’ Tina said. ‘But it can’t be that bad, on balance, or women wouldn’t choose to do it more than once, would they? Are you going to have another one?’
Natalie folded her arms and looked away and mumbled something non-committal. Clearly not a question she was happy to answer. Maybe they were trying already, and nothing was happening?
‘Look, I just want to have some idea of what I’m up against,’ Tina said. ‘Is it like breaking a bone, for example?’
‘I wouldn’t know, I never have.’
‘Really? You are a cautious beast.’
Natalie sighed. ‘I suppose I am.’
Lucy returned to the table, and Tina said, ‘Can I ask you both a favour? Could you keep it under your hats about Dan, at least for the time being? It’s just that other people in the office don’t know, and we’re trying to keep it under wraps, just for now at any rate, to give us a bit of a breathing space. Plus, I haven’t told my parents yet. I’m worried my dad’ll get his address and go over with a shotgun. It’s kind of easier to keep everybody in the dark.’
‘Who would I tell?’ Lucy said. ‘I seem to spend most of my life talking to four walls at the moment.’
‘And I may be a lousy liar, but I promise you, I’m very good at keeping quiet,’ Natalie said. The smile she gave Tina was almost conspiratorial.
Tina had hoped that the John Lewis trip would awaken her dormant nesting instinct, or at the least enable her to feel prepared. But somehow, even when she had a kitten-patterned changing mat, a pile of bedding and the components of the cot lurking in the tiny second bedroom, the flat still didn’t feel like somewhere a child was going to live. She did manage to pack her hospital bag, but it took her longer than she thought because handling and folding the tiny babygros left her feeling so out of her depth she started crying, and then it was difficult to stop. It was like assembling the costume for a part she was going to have to play even though she didn’t know what it was, or even when or where the performance was due to begin.
She’d been all for working right up until Christmas Eve, but Jeremy had told her he’d prefer not to have her wandering around like a disaster waiting to happen and then making an unseemly mess on the carpet. So she had arranged to start maternity leave in mid-December, although she’d still have her column to file every week; the work Christmas party would be her swansong.
The prospect of spending time at home, alone, in the depths of winter, did not appeal. Sure, she could file all her old bank statements, sort out her childcare and kit out the nursery – but what then? And as for Christmas . . . She wasn’t into Christmas at the best of times. Justin had always spent it with his family, and she had always spent it with hers – back in Barnes, with her parents, trying to avoid the subject of why she hadn’t gone to Mass. She was a Scrooge who refused to give her spare change to carollers and wouldn’t give house room to so much as a table-top tinsel tree. Christmas Past was unsatisfactory, Christmas Present was terrifying, and as for Christmas Yet to Come . . . well, maybe she would learn to enjoy it, for the baby’s sake, but that prospect still seemed far off.
Perhaps Lucy had been right and she should have gone to antenatal classes, and summoned up the energy to inveigle some other new mothers into a maternity-leave friendship fling. It was silly to be shy after she’d revealed so much about herself to the readers of the Post, but in a way, the column made it even harder to go out and hawk her social wares in person. All anybody had to do was type her name into a search engine, and then come to their own conclusions, which might very well not be favourable. And besides, pretty much everybody else would be part of a couple. And it would be like being back at school; seeking friends out of necessity, rather than choice.
Perhaps, too, she should have accepted Lucy’s offer of companionship at the birth, but it was just so embarrassing. How the hell would she ever be able to look Lucy in the face again? She’d considered asking her mother, but Cecily had elegantly pre-empted her by making it very clear that she was very happy to come and help out after the birth . . . judiciously making no mention of before. Or during.
Dan raised the subject of the birth a couple of weeks after she’d talked to Natalie and Lucy about it, after a stroll round Richmond Park. They’d met up outside of work several times during the course of the autumn, for weekend walks – it was a chance to talk without having to worry about being overheard by colleagues. She was careful to avoid inviting him to her flat, and politely declined when he suggested lunch at his place. After all, they weren’t dating, they were just meeting. The conversations they had while strolling along were mostly polite, getting-to-know-you chit-chat – as if the baby was an invisible chaperone, keeping them from any untoward behaviour.
So she now knew that he was originally from the West Country, though he’d dropped the accent and refused to demonstrate it for her; he’d once been heckled off stage during an attempt at stand-up at Leeds University student union; his brother was a radiographer and thought it was hilarious that Dan had a degree in philosophy and worked for the Post; his best friend from home was in the army; and he had only just managed to stop smoking, even though he’d been trying, on and off, ever since his dad had died of lung cancer a couple of years ago.
They had not, however, talked much about the baby. He broached the subject in the tea-house that had been Bertrand Russell’s childhood home; he had a slight catch in his voice, and she could see that he had steeled himself to say his piece.
‘I’ve been thinking about the birth. I know you said you didn’t want me around – just wondered if you’d had second thoughts?’
He looked guiltily relieved, but also slightly crestfallen, when she told him she absolutely definitely didn’t want him there.
‘I think I’d prefer to leave you with happy memories of my perineum – if, that is, you remember it at all,’ she said.
And then she broke her private vow not to drag him into the kind of things that an expectant father might do for someone he actually had a relationship with.
‘But there is one thing you could do for me . . .’ He began to look nervous. ‘You could come and put the cot together. You men are all genetically predisposed to be handy with an Allen key. Aren’t you?’
He smiled and replied, ‘So I don’t get to see you give birth, but you get to laugh at me as I struggle with a flat-pack. Well, I guess that’s a fair enough exchange.’
They arranged an evening for him to come round, and she found herself looking forward to it. Even more surprisingly, she started to tidy up the flat a bit. And, some days in advance, to start planning what to cook.
When the agreed day came round she woke early from a graphic and really quite convincing erotic dream, and couldn’t quite shake off the part Dan had played in it. But even then, she didn’t consciously decide to attempt to seduce him. It wasn’t until she had left work, and was on the train back to Clapham Junction, that the vague hypothesis – could she? Would he? – occurred to her. She immediately told herself it was ridiculous – she was due to have his baby in a month’s time, for heaven’s sake – but still, the notion did not entirely disappear.
She’d left the office in good time – early enough to get home, jump into the car, drive round the corner to Freddlestone’s and pick up some good steak before it closed. When she got back home again she let herself in and slowly mounted the four flights of stairs to the top landing.
There was much about her future that was difficult to imagine, but the role those stairs would play was already clear to her; she was bound to suffer endlessly from the Sisyphean torment of carting wailing child and pushchair from street to flat and from flat to street, and rue the day she’d turned her nose up at the garden flat in the same building. She’d told the estate agent, as if it was something to be proud of: I don’t garden! Of course she didn’t. She was
a career girl with a complicated, secret love life, or had been. Grubbing round in a designated square of earth was a pastime for the settled, and, until now, settling had never appealed.
She would have to move. She would have to bloody move, on her own, with a baby, and it would be hell, and despite her desire to remain independent she would doubtless end up begging for help from Dan or her parents or her friends. But there were so many other hells to get through first there was no point worrying about that one.
Time to focus on dinner. She’d settled on stir-fried beef in oyster sauce: quick, meaty, exotic, not too heavy. She bashed the meat with a rolling pin – always a good way to relieve a bit of nervous tension. Then she seasoned the meat and left it to marinade, and went to choose her outfit.
She knew what not to wear – no leggings, no scary maternity tights, nothing with elasticated panels; Bridget Jones in her mummy pants was as Brigitte Bardot in her heyday compared to Tina in her stretchy-sided jeans. But what was the magical outfit that might tempt Dan to regard her as an early Christmas present in need of unwrapping, despite the fact that her belly was now, by quite a margin, her most conspicuous feature?
By the time her doorbell rang she’d settled on a sweater dress with bare legs and felt slippers. Maybe he’d think she looked cuddly. She left her hair in a pony-tail. She could always take it out later.
She buzzed him into the building and he made it up to the entrance to her flat a few minutes later, slightly out of breath. Maybe he’d started smoking again, on the sly. He handed over a bottle of fizzy cordial and a bunch of lilies. (Lilies? Wasn’t that rather funereal? Was he trying to tell her something?) She thanked him and led him up to the attic.
She stuck the flowers in the sink and put the cordial in the fridge, which still looked like a single girl’s, apart from the fact that half the booze was alcohol-free. Otherwise it was almost empty, apart from the end of a loaf of bread, a sliver of cheddar, milk, Dr Pepper, and the pak choi for tonight’s date, if you could call it that. Soon, no doubt, it would also be accommodating breast milk and jars of orange baby food. The single mother’s fridge.
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