Dear Thing

by Julie Cohen

  ‘Romily, breathe,’ said Claire. There were tears in her eyes. ‘Keep calm and breathe. You’re doing so well.’

  The baby. The baby was nearly here. The baby that had changed everything, that would change everything again.

  The contraction came. Romily pushed. Claire held her. And the midwife said, ‘Here he is!’

  Romily sagged on her hands and knees and Claire supported her. Behind them, she heard a snuffle and a hiccup, impossibly high-pitched and small. And then a wail.

  She looked over her shoulder. The midwife held the baby. He was all red legs and arms, hands splayed, dark hair and an open mouth. He cried, the strongest sound she had ever heard.

  ‘Here he is,’ said the midwife again, ‘a lovely and healthy baby boy. He looks great. Couldn’t be better. I’ll help you lie on your back, Mum, so I can hand him over and you can have a cuddle while I finish off.’

  Romily shook her head. Her eyes were closed.

  ‘Give him to Claire,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, are there two mummies?’ said the midwife brightly. She picked up a towel from the ones Claire had scattered around and partly wrapped the baby in it. His eyes were half-open; his nose was a smudge. He looked like Ben sometimes when he was waking up in the mornings.

  ‘No,’ said Claire, unable to tear her eyes away. ‘There’s only one mummy. He’s Romily’s baby.’

  ‘I’m a surrogate,’ said Romily. ‘I don’t want to hold him. Please, give him to Claire.’

  ‘I can’t hold him,’ said Claire. She knew just how he would feel, this crying, squirming, beautiful baby. Strong and alive and real and only minutes old. If she held him, even for a moment, she would believe he belonged to her. His warm, smooth skin, still too loose for his body, his damp hair, the skinny limbs, the papery fingernails.

  ‘Please,’ said Romily. Something hot and wet, a tear, landed on Claire’s arm. Romily had her eyes closed, her head averted. Claire was still supporting her.

  ‘Well, somebody needs to take him,’ said the midwife. ‘I have to deliver the placenta.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Claire, every fibre of her body wanting to.

  ‘If I hold him, I’ll want to keep him,’ said Romily. ‘Don’t make me.’

  ‘He’s yours.’

  ‘No.’

  Behind them both, the baby cried for his mother. It was the most wonderful, the most terrible, sound in the world. The first few minutes of life could set the tone for everything that followed. Claire knew. She’d read the books. This baby had been thrust into a cold, confusing world and he wanted comfort, warmth, the person who loved him the most.

  ‘Romily,’ she pleaded.

  There was a knock on the door, a triple rap. Romily raised her head.

  ‘Ben’s here,’ she said. ‘Thank God.’

  Claire jumped up and opened the door. He was frantic, wild-eyed, unshaven, in running clothes. He grabbed her shoulders. ‘I just got your message. What’s happening? Are they all right?’

  ‘Everything is all right but we need you to take the baby.’ She pulled him into the room. She heard Ben gasp at the sight of his son, wrapped in a white towel, in the midwife’s hands.

  ‘Is this Daddy, then?’ the midwife asked. For the first time, a note of exasperation was in her voice.

  ‘This is Daddy,’ said Romily, her eyes closed again. ‘He’ll take the baby.’

  Ben held out his hands. ‘Is it— is he— oh.’

  Claire watched as the midwife gave him the baby. The awe on Ben’s face, the way he instantly cuddled the bundle to his chest.

  ‘Oh,’ he said again. He stroked a finger down his son’s cheek and the baby stopped crying and instinctively turned his head towards it. Claire could feel the softness in her imagination, the downy hair. She backed up so that she was pressed against the door. ‘Hello, little one,’ whispered Ben. It was by far the loudest sound in the room. ‘Hello, my little boy.’

  In the periphery, the midwife was busy with Romily again. They had a murmured conversation and the midwife helped Romily to her feet and to her bedroom. The real world was here, with Claire’s husband holding his child. The baby gazed up into Ben’s face; she could see that his eyes looked like Ben’s.

  The baby clothes were still on the sofa, along with the bag of bottles. The midwife was in the bedroom to help. Everyone was safe, they were happy. No one needed her.

  ‘Oh Claire,’ said Ben. ‘Look at him, darling.’

  But he didn’t look up, wrapped in his world of two.

  Claire opened the door and slipped away. Outside, the rain had turned into snow.

  44

  Milk

  ROMILY WAS ALONE. She sat propped up on pillows in her bed, the duvet pooled around her waist, with The Jam in the CD player to mask the silence and the whooshing sound of the breast pump.

  She was fine. She was a little sore, and very tired, but the midwife had checked her out thoroughly and she was absolutely fine. She had lain on the bed listening as the midwife had talked with Ben about the baby – how healthy he was, how beautiful, how they should care for his cord and when he should have his first feed – all the advice Romily had probably been given in the moments after Posie was born and which she couldn’t remember now because she’d been too drunk with sudden love for her daughter to take it in. And then she had heard the front door closing after the midwife and Ben coming to her room, carrying the baby.

  She’d jumped off the bed and closed the door before he could get there. ‘I can’t see him,’ she said through it.

  ‘He’s perfect, Romily.’

  ‘He’s not mine.’

  ‘Claire’s left. I don’t think she wants to see me.’

  Romily leaned her forehead against the door. ‘You have to take him away, Ben. Please.’

  There was a pause. Through the flimsy wooden door she could hear rustles of clothing, a tiny faint grunt. She spread her hand on the door as if she could reach through it, through the few inches, to touch them both.

  Ben walked away. She listened to him gathering things in the front room, talking in a soft voice to the baby. She imagined Ben wrapping him up warm in the clothes Claire had left. And then the front door shut behind them and there was silence.

  She had not been alone, never fully alone, for thirty-seven weeks. Even before that, even when Posie was not with her, even before Posie had been born, she had carried a sort of image of Ben around with her every minute. She had held him in her heart, a fictional version of her best friend who could be hers in some way. Even though it had hurt her; even though it would hurt those she cared about; even though it had driven other real people away.

  Now she couldn’t carry him any more. Not even a version of him that would never exist. She had lost Ben and his son in one fell swoop, in one last push, in one birthing.

  Romily sat in her bed and worked the breast pump. Her hand was beginning to ache, but so far nothing had come out. Mammals were built to feed their children with their bodies. It was a defining characteristic. Any horse could do it; any antelope, any mouse. Giving birth activated the hormone prolactin, which stimulated milk production. It was stimulated more by an infant’s sucking motion, which this pump, of rubber and plastic, had been specially designed to emulate.

  It was not the same.

  When Posie had been a baby, it would only take one cry and Romily’s breasts would be leaking. The front of her shirt would darken in wet patches of milk. Not even a cry; a sniffle, or the way she turned her face, when stroked, to root. The way she opened her mouth at the scent of milk when Romily held her. The tiniest movement or sound was enough to prompt Romily’s body to hold her close, skin to skin, and nourish her.

  Romily closed her eyes. She felt as if she’d barely opened them today. She thought of those small sounds, through the door. She thought of the small head, with its downy dark hair – she knew, without looking, that it was dark – nestled in the crook of his father’s arm. The unfurled mouth, the squashed red cheeks, the toothless
gums. The scent of his skin, still pungent from her womb. Her hands ached from pumping, her arms ached from not holding him. Her dear thing.

  The milk wasn’t coming. On her lips, she tasted salt. The bottle was sealed, safe and sterile, but Romily still turned her head aside so that when the milk did come, it would not be touched by her tears.

  The CD had finished playing a long time ago. Only a few drops of milk had come out, what the midwife had called the colostrum, but it was something. It would be good for the baby. She put the bottle into the refrigerator next to the strawberry jam. The midwife, kindly, had put the towels into the washing machine, so Romily hung them up. She put in her father’s blanket to wash. Half an inch of snow sat on the windowsill. Outside, all was silent. It would be a white Christmas.

  If she thought of the snow, she would think of the long queue of cars that had stopped her getting to hospital. She would think of the shoppers waiting in traffic, she would think of Claire driving in the other direction, she would think of Jarvis and Posie on a delayed train, she would think of Ben shielding the baby’s face from flakes of snow. She would think about being alone, about being drained and empty.

  She would not think of the snow. She turned on the lights on the tree and went back to bed.

  As soon as she’d pulled the duvet up around her, she heard a key in the door. ‘Romily?’ called Jarvis. Posie didn’t say anything but Romily knew her footsteps, knew her movements, felt her in the deep instinctive part of her that made milk, that had no words, where there was love.

  ‘Mum?’

  Her daughter’s face was flushed. There were flakes of snow in her hair. She still wore her wellies and her coat. Romily opened her arms to her and Posie came into them and Romily held her. Her cold skin, warming. Her child-smell and the beating of her heart.

  ‘I love you,’ Romily told her. ‘I am your mother and I love you.’

  ‘Are you okay? Have you had the baby?’

  ‘I’m fine. I’ve had the baby. He’s with Ben. You can see him soon.’

  ‘The train was delayed. We ran from the station. I was scared, Mummy.’

  Romily held her. She rocked her and she breathed her. She had been so small. Now she was so tall and clever and tender. Romily kissed her forehead.

  She felt Jarvis watching from the doorway. She held her hand out to him and silently, he climbed onto the bed with them and put his arms around them both.

  45

  A Piece in the Puzzle

  WHEN THE DOORBELL went, she nearly didn’t answer it. She was busy, anyway, using a small brush to paint the edges and corners of the room that was a spare bedroom again, with a half-full tin of paint that she’d found in the back of the shed, left over from decorating the downstairs loo. It was a sort of indeterminate blueish slatey grey with the name of Providence Harbour, and Claire had chosen it because it was not sunshine yellow, and because it seemed to have the most paint left in it. And because she could not sit still, and because she kept being drawn back to this room, stripped of its furniture and its hopes.

  Painting, as always, had its own momentum: you finished doing one edge, and then you couldn’t resist doing the next, and the next. The fiddly bits around the window and the light switches were particularly satisfying, and Claire was stooping on the floor, doing the last stretch above the skirting board, when the doorbell rang.

  She could not imagine who it was. No one had rung her or texted her since she’d left Romily’s flat. She glanced at her watch: 9 a.m. Somehow it had become the next morning after the baby’s birthday without her noticing it. It had seemed like for ever and like no time at all, without other people to measure it against.

  The doorbell rang again. It could be the postman, she supposed. No, it was Sunday. Maybe it was her mother, who had somehow sensed that Claire needed her, and come. Hope surged at the thought and made Claire stand up, push her hair behind her ears and go downstairs, still holding the paintbrush.

  It was not her mother; it was an unfamiliar woman, her hair scraped back from her forehead and trapped in a plait, her face stretched in a smile. She held a big vase of flowers. ‘Phew, the roads are a bugger out there. Delivery for Claire Lawrence?’

  Claire took them, using her wrist to keep them steady as she held the paintbrush. They’d sent her flowers? Ben? As a sort of consolation prize for not becoming a mother?

  ‘Wish someone would send me a bunch of these,’ said the delivery woman cheerfully. Her chuckle faltered when Claire didn’t respond at all. ‘Well, anyway, have a nice day.’

  Without bothering to shut the door to keep the cold air out, Claire put the bouquet on the hall table. She shoved the paintbrush under her arm, unmindful of the stains on her clothes, and opened the tiny attached envelope.

  Thank you so much for being there for me. I couldn’t have done it without you. I hope you liked your song. Max

  Incredibly, Claire smiled. He’d noticed. He’d remembered. Two days late, maybe, but he was a teenager. Even with his father there, even with the parental attention and approval he’d always wanted, Max had thought of her, too.

  She was not irrelevant.

  Holding the card in her hand, she walked out through the open door without a coat. The air was fresh and cold. Snow lay over the garden, broken only by the footsteps of the delivery woman. It clung to the branches of the trees in a soft filigree.

  In this moment she was not a wife, nor a mother. She was a person, a piece in the puzzle.

  She remembered Romily’s hand clamped on hers so hard it hurt. She remembered breathing with her, answering the door for the midwife. Seeing that small head emerging. She remembered the baby, perfect and beautiful, calming in his father’s arms.

  She wasn’t the baby’s mother. But he existed, in part, because of her. He had been conceived because she wanted him. She had helped him to be born. She had given him to a person who would love him and keep him safe. Even her failures had led, ultimately, to his birth. Wasn’t that part of creating life?

  And he was out there, somewhere in this vast quiet and calm. He was healthy and he would grow. He was a new, complete person. He was a marvel of the world, like this innocent snow.

  He wasn’t hers. But he existed.

  Claire cupped the card in her hand and she smiled upwards to the sky.

  The battered green Golf braked and skidded a few inches on the drive. The back door opened almost before it had stopped and Posie jumped out and ran across the snow to Claire. ‘He’s so gorgeous!’ the little girl cried, barrelling into her and wrapping her arms around her waist. ‘You have to see him, Auntie Claire, it’s just incredible!’

  Claire put her hands on either side of Posie’s face and lifted it. ‘You must be so excited about the baby.’

  ‘He can hold your finger and everything, and he has funny toes just like mine!’

  Claire’s smile had faltered, but it came back at this, the simple reminder that the baby had toes. ‘You’re a wonderful big sister, do you know that?’

  ‘I know! I’m going to do everything with him. I’m going to teach him how to read.’

  The passenger door opened and Romily climbed out. Claire couldn’t help it; she immediately looked past her to see whether Ben was driving the car; whether the baby was in the back seat. Instead she saw Jarvis’s blond hair.

  ‘How are you doing?’ Romily asked her. Even wrapped in her navy duffel coat, she was noticeably slimmer than the last time Claire had seen her.

  ‘Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?’

  Romily shrugged. ‘The birth wasn’t the difficult bit. As you know.’

  ‘How is the baby?’

  ‘Ben says he’s doing really well. He’s been sleeping and he’s fed a bit, too.’

  ‘Ben says?’

  ‘Romily won’t go over to see them,’ said Posie. ‘I think it’s silly. But Jarvis took me over to the flat last night.’

  Claire’s heart thumped. ‘The baby’s with Ben in his flat? They’re not with you?’
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  Romily shook her head.

  ‘He— I haven’t heard from him,’ Claire said.

  Romily held out a canvas shopping bag to Claire. ‘That’s probably because you left your mobile at my flat. It’s been ringing nonstop. Don’t you ever answer your landline?’

  ‘I …’ She couldn’t recall if the house phone had rung at all. She couldn’t say she would have heard it from upstairs if it had. She was still trying to process the information that Ben and the baby weren’t with Romily.

  She glanced at the bag. ‘It’s not just my phone in here.’

  ‘No. There’s a Cool Bag with expressed breast milk.’

  ‘She uses this icky pump-type thing,’ said Posie. ‘It looks like a loudhailer with a bottle attached. Jarvis says it reminds him of what you attach to a dairy cow. There isn’t that much milk coming out right now, but Romily says that’s normal because the baby ate so much when he was inside her that he doesn’t need lots, he just needs little bits of the good stuff, and later on there will be plenty of milk.’

  ‘Posie,’ said Romily, ‘I dare you to make a snowball without Jarvis seeing and then get him to wind down his window so you can throw it at him.’

  ‘Yeah!’ cried Posie and ran off back towards the car.

  ‘The baby isn’t with you,’ said Claire. ‘You’re not breast-feeding him.’

  ‘No, I’ve been experiencing an intimate relationship with a plastic pump.’

  ‘Why— why aren’t you together?’

  ‘Ben doesn’t love me. He loves you.’

  ‘But he said—’

  ‘I don’t know what he said. But any fool, including me, can see that Ben and you are meant to be together.’

  Claire stared at Romily. Her cheeks were flushed with the cold; she looked as if she had probably been crying. ‘Ben would have stayed with you,’ Claire said. ‘He wouldn’t have left you, not after you’d just had his baby.’

  ‘He doesn’t love me.’

  Claire hesitated, not able to believe it.

  ‘I was stupid to fall in love with your husband,’ said Romily. ‘And I did deceive you, Claire, about how I felt about him. I’m sorry about that. I never meant you and Ben to split up because of it. I never meant for anyone to know.’