From Here to Maternity

by Kris Webb

  Andrew didn’t seem convinced, but Ben arrived with more coffees as I finished speaking. Max was a topic I always avoided around Ben, not wanting him to feel he had to take sides, and I was sorry now that I’d mentioned his name.

  ‘So what do you think of Max’s news?’ Ben asked.

  The others looked at me inquiringly so I filled them in.

  ‘Max is going to live on a goat farm in the country?’ Andrew asked incredulously.

  I smiled. ‘Not exactly. He’s done a deal with his company to work four days a week and he’ll spend the other day and most weekends out there. He’s really fired up about it all. He’s taken a couple of weeks holiday to sort everything out before he heads back to the States to pack.’

  ‘What do you think about it?’ Anna asked quietly.

  I couldn’t be bothered being anything but honest. ‘I don’t know, really. He seems keen to see Sarah, which I guess is a good thing.’

  ‘C’mon, Sophie, don’t be modest. It’s not just Sarah he’s been showing an interest in,’ Debbie piped up. ‘I don’t think he bought Manchetti cheesecake for her benefit.’

  Sometimes I wondered why I ever told Debbie anything. It would be more efficient to just cut out the middleman and take out an ad in the newspaper.

  Anna looked at me intently. ‘Do you think Max wants to get back together?’

  ‘It’s not like that,’ I hedged. ‘He is Sarah’s father, after all, and it’s perfectly natural that he’d want to be around.’

  My feelings about Max were still all over the place and I was reluctant to expose them, but these people were my good friends and they were obviously concerned. ‘We had some great times together but it was all over a long time ago and I’ve come to terms with that. I don’t know … I mean, he didn’t even call until Sarah was over two months old. I can’t suddenly flip a switch and pretend he didn’t let me down.’

  Ben hesitated for a moment and then said, ‘I guess you never know what’s going on in someone else’s head, do you? At least you’re not seeing anyone else, so that’s one less complication.’

  At this, Debbie looked gleeful and I glared at her, hoping for once she’d use a little tact and not tell everyone about David.

  ‘Enough about my relationships,’ I said briskly before temptation overpowered Debbie’s very limited discretion. ‘We haven’t had a man paraded past us for ages. Don’t tell me the amazing Debbie has hit a flat spot?’

  Now it was Debbie’s turn to shift uncomfortably. ‘It’s not a flat spot,’ she said. ‘I’m just taking it easy.’

  Having known Debbie since primary school, I knew that where men were concerned ‘taking it easy’ wasn’t a concept she understood.

  ‘And another thing,’ I continued, warming to my ‘attack is the best form of defence’ tactic. ‘I could swear that I’ve seen you wearing that shirt before. Would I be right in thinking that was part of last year’s Donna Karan summer collection?’

  Debbie squirmed again. ‘Well, yes…’ she admitted. ‘But it’s really comfortable and it seemed silly to give it away when it still looks as good as new.’

  Everyone’s eyes widened at this statement. At the end of each season, Debbie ritually bundled up the clothes she’d worn for the previous few months and dropped them into the St Vincent de Paul shop around the corner from her flat, which I was convinced existed solely on her donations. Six months ago she would have regarded any suggestion that she wear a shirt for two seasons in a row as akin to heresy.

  There was definitely something different about Debbie these days. Quitting her job and focusing her energies on something she wanted to do had changed her, and maybe she didn’t feel she needed constant male company and up-to-the-minute clothes any more.

  But not even the topic of Debbie’s love life and fashion choices, and a fresh injection of caffeine, could raise the spirits of the gathering. After desultorily staring into our coffees for another ten minutes, we paid the bill and headed our separate ways, Karen looking as though she was more than happy to be leaving our suicidal ranks for the infectious happiness of her children.

  * * *

  The following Monday night, Debbie called an emergency business meeting at my place. Fortified by takeaway Turkish pizza and a bottle of red wine we tried to look at the situation dispassionately.

  ‘So basically we’re in deep shit,’ Debbie summarised. ‘We have four thousand books which we’re going to have to pay for before they’re shipped on Saturday, designer bills for the pages that aren’t even printed yet, and nowhere to sell them.’

  ‘And I’ve got nowhere to leave Sarah when I go back to work,’ I added flatly.

  At about three that morning I’d finally faced the fact that as no one seemed willing to leap in to fill Handley Smith’s shoes, I was going to have to go back to work very soon. My boss was delighted when I called him with the news, which had at least given my ego a much-needed boost.

  However, my next call was to the local childcare centre, whose administrator calmly informed me that their waiting list was currently twelve months long. A series of panicked calls to other centres in an increasing radius from my house hadn’t found anywhere with a waiting list of less than four months.

  Unless I could somehow do a deal with my boss to work from home, I was going to have to try to find a private child minder until a place in a childcare centre came up. Between those costs and the interest on my credit card, I figured I’d be lucky to have enough money for Saturday coffees.

  I tried to find something positive to say about the situation, but failed. ‘If we could just move some of the books, at least we’d be able to cover our costs and be back to where we started before we came up with this ridiculous idea.’

  ‘By the way,’ Debbie said, ‘Andrew gave me that article he was talking about in Financial Review. The chain of stores he was talking about is House Arrest. The guy’s name’s Peter Davies apparently.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, disappointed. ‘I called them again today, just on the off-chance I’d get someone other than the nasty receptionist. No such luck. She is obviously under strict instructions not to put anyone selling things through. She just told me to put it in writing and they’d get back to us within six to eight weeks. We’ll have starved to death by then.’

  ‘Talk about forgetting his roots,’ Debbie scowled. ‘You’d think that if he really did open his own shop because he couldn’t get any retailers to talk to him, he’d have a bit more sympathy for other people starting out.’

  The way Debbie was slugging back the wine showed how disheartened she was. At this point I wished I could join her and get outrageously drunk. The way things were going, I probably wouldn’t even be able to afford to do it once I’d weaned Sarah. Now that was a cheering thought.

  Debbie spoke again. ‘Maybe he doesn’t know that the receptionist is such a Rottweiler. What about if we try to contact him directly? We must be able to find out where he lives.

  ‘Hold on,’ she said suddenly. ‘Remember Victor? He’d be able to give us this guy’s home address – even if he isn’t listed.’

  Victor was an undercover detective Debbie had seen for about three weeks last summer. I had always had my doubts about him, but when he got horribly drunk one day in a Bondi hotel beer garden and started boasting to anyone in earshot that the police rules didn’t apply to him, even Debbie knew it was time to move on.

  ‘Well, Deb,’ I said, ‘there are a couple of things wrong with that plan. One is that Victor is a psychopath and it was a miracle he didn’t plant some evidence in our flat so that his team could raid us in the middle of the night for kicks.’ I looked at her meaningfully until she nodded reluctantly. ‘And the second thing is that it’s illegal.’

  ‘All right, all right. It was just a thought.’

  We sat in silence for a while.

  ‘This might seem like a bad idea…’ I began. ‘But if this guy really does start work at five a.m., maybe that’s when we should call him. Surely the Rottweiler c
ouldn’t be there then?’

  ‘Well anything’s worth a try,’ Debbie said. ‘Better still, maybe we should actually go to his office and show him the mock-ups? The article said that this guy refuses to pay city rents and so their head office is in some little building in Kingsgrove. It’s not like we’ll have to get through security.’

  ‘You think so? Wouldn’t that have the opposite effect and irritate him?’

  ‘Maybe. But at least he’d remember us.’

  ‘I guess…’ I said doubtfully.

  ‘Look,’ Debbie interrupted, ‘we’ve both got our life’s savings riding on this. I’m not going to let it all go just because we don’t want to be rude. What have we got to lose except some dignity?’

  ‘All right,’ I surrendered, knowing better than to try to oppose Debbie when she’d made up her mind about something. ‘When do you want to do it?’

  Suddenly Debbie was very efficient, and at least moderately sober. ‘Okay, here’s the plan. Five o’clock tomorrow morning. We’ll meet here. You bring all the samples, I’ll bring all the paperwork.’

  ‘What about Sarah?’

  I couldn’t help but notice my friends had a tendency to assume Sarah would be fine left in her crib with a TV remote control and a packet of chips.

  ‘Um … Well, let’s bring her. She proves we’ve really done our market research. Plus she’s very cute. No one could be mean to her.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  When the alarm went off the next morning, I couldn’t believe I’d actually let Debbie talk me into this.

  Swearing, I dragged myself out of my warm bed. I’d fed Sarah an hour and a half ago, and thoughts of leaving her with a stranger so I could go back to work to pay off a huge creditcard debt had kept me awake ever since.

  Feeling rather like a criminal, I had a sudden desire to don a black catsuit and balaclava. Instead, I pulled on the black trousers, boots and grey knitted polo-neck I’d left out the night before having spent fifteen minutes pondering the dress code for an early morning gatecrashing of a successful businessman.

  After all these months, I had come to the conclusion that there was only one unbreakable rule of motherhood. Never, ever wake a sleeping baby. As I looked at Sarah peacefully asleep in her crib I almost decided to call Debbie and cancel this ridiculous escapade.

  The situation was desperate, I reminded myself, and once I was ready, I reluctantly picked Sarah up and carried her out to the car. She stirred and let out a cry as I gently lowered her into the baby seat. I froze and thankfully she settled back to sleep.

  What on earth was I doing? Much as Debbie protested that we were just being assertive, what we were about to do was pretty close to stalking. By the time Debbie pulled up, looking even less thrilled about the situation than I did, I had decided to call the whole thing off. One look at her set face, however, and I knew there was no getting out of it now.

  ‘This had better bloody work,’ she grumbled as she bundled herself into my car.

  There were some faint fingerprints of light creeping across the sky as we pulled up outside a building sporting the House Arrest logo. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed when I saw the top floor was lit.

  ‘Well, at least it looks like someone is here,’ I commented.

  Debbie didn’t even respond and I looked at her. Her gaze was fixed firmly on a bakery three shops down. Lights were on in there as well and I could detect the unmistakable smell of coffee and hot bread drifting through the cold air.

  ‘Wait here,’ she ordered and disappeared into the darkness.

  Less than five minutes later she returned bearing half a dozen coffees and a bag full of warm bagels and croissants. It smelt wonderful, but I wasn’t in the mood for a picnic.

  ‘Deb, we hardly have time to stop for breakfast. Let’s just go inside, get humiliated and leave. We can eat after that.’

  ‘Sophie, have a little faith. I have a plan. There are very few human beings in the world who can resist the smell of coffee and fresh bread, particularly at this indecent hour. At least if we come bearing gifts, he might hesitate before he throws us down the stairs.’

  In the absence of any better plan, I agreed with her.

  Thankfully the door at the bottom of the building wasn’t locked, so, laden down with our provisions, samples and Sarah, who by some miracle had stayed blissfully asleep during her transfer to the baby sling, we trudged up two flights of stairs. I couldn’t help but think that Peter Davies might not be so cavalier about his security after this morning.

  Putting the bakery supplies on the reception counter, Debbie hesitated and then rang a buzzer attached to a sign saying ‘Please ring if desk unattended’.

  There was a rustle from behind a partition and then a face appeared around the corner. ‘Hello?’

  Feeling particularly silly, I stood frozen to the spot, but Debbie stepped forward. ‘Peter Davies?’

  The face nodded suspiciously – clearly he was not used to unannounced visits at this hour.

  ‘Mr Davies, my name is Debbie Campbell and this is my colleague Sophie Anderson. We have a product we believe would work really well in your stores and we’d like to show it to you.’

  Obviously deciding that we weren’t axe murderers, the man stepped forward. He was about fifty, with the lean, wiry body of a long-distance runner. He didn’t look pleased by the interruption.

  ‘And you decided that,’ he checked his watch, ‘five-thirty in the morning was the best time to catch me in a good mood?’

  I almost turned and ran out the door, but Debbie stood her ground. ‘No, Mr Davies, I don’t believe five-thirty is a good time for anybody. We came this morning because we really believe our product should be in your stores, but we can’t get past your receptionist during conventional hours.’

  His expression changed slightly. ‘Susan does have a tendency to be overly protective,’ he admitted. ‘But,’ his face became stern again, ‘that doesn’t give you the right to just waltz in here whenever you like. How did you know I would be here, anyway?’

  I thought it was probably time I gave Debbie a hand. ‘We saw the article in Financial Review. It said you started work early. And,’ I added, as he didn’t respond, ‘we brought you some coffee and bagels.’

  He hesitated. For a moment I was certain he was going to tell us to leave, but then his gaze rested on Sarah. ‘All right, you’d better come in. And call me Peter. Mr Davies is too formal for this time of the morning.’

  It wasn’t exactly a warm invitation, but at least he hadn’t kicked us out. We followed him to his office, which was surprisingly small, and covered with posters promoting the London Marathon. Debbie and I exchanged glances. This guy made Andrew look unmotivated.

  ‘I didn’t know what kind of coffee you drink, so I bought every kind I could think of,’ Debbie began, pushing the tray towards him. ‘Take your pick.’

  As he selected a latte, I pulled our samples out of my bag. I figured we had less time than it took to drink a coffee in order to convince him. To add to the pressure, I could see Sarah starting to stir.

  ‘Our product is baby books,’ I began and saw him grimace. ‘Baby books that are designed for real people,’ I hurried on. ‘Not books that have storks and cherubs all over them.’

  I passed him a vibrant pink book and followed it with a green one. ‘The concept is that people buy a cover and the pages and they then mix and match whatever pages they want. Christenings might be relevant for some people, naming ceremonies for others.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ he said, nodding as he flipped through the mocked-up pages. ‘Do you have at-cost prices?’

  Debbie handed him her file. While he looked through it, Debbie and I chose our own coffees and sipped nervously. None of us touched the bagels.

  ‘And how soon could you have them delivered?’ he asked, still reading.

  ‘The covers are arriving in three weeks.’ I couldn’t see much point in hiding the truth. ‘The pages could be printed by then
too.’

  That got his attention.

  ‘You’ve ordered the products and are still looking for distribution? That was brave.’

  Neither Debbie nor I responded. Brave wasn’t the word I would have chosen.

  Peter put the file down and looked at us. ‘Look, ladies. This isn’t how I do things. I have twenty outlets and people to source products for me. I don’t get involved with decisions about small product lines any more.’

  My hopes, which had started to build as he read through the file, vapourised. Another knockback, I thought.

  ‘But…’ Peter interrupted my vision of Sarah and me queuing for soup and bread at the Salvation Army, ‘I actually think these look great and I admire your energy. The coffee and bagel bribe didn’t go astray either. So if you’ll reduce your price to give me fifty-five per cent of the retail value, I’ll buy five hundred of them. If they sell I’ll take more.’

  He scribbled a name and number on a piece of paper and pushed it across the table. ‘Call this person later today to sort out the details.’

  ‘Sorry, Peter, we can’t do that,’ Debbie said calmly, ignoring the piece of paper in front of her.

  I looked at her incredulously. This man was offering us money and as far as I was concerned we should just take whatever he was prepared to give us and get out of there before he changed his mind.

  ‘We can absorb the price drop, but only if you take one thousand copies,’ she continued.

  Peter pursed his lips and scribbled some numbers on the pad in front of him. ‘All right, I’ll take nine hundred,’ he said, a faint smile playing across his face. ‘Deal?’

  ‘Deal,’ Debbie replied, scooping up the piece of paper and then standing and holding out her hand.

  I smiled in what I hoped was a businesslike manner as we left, resisting my urge to hug him for saving my daughter and me from poverty.

  ‘Yes!’ I punched the air as we reached the stairwell. Nine hundred books at the lower price meant we wouldn’t quite cover the costs of importing the covers, but if I could swing a longer credit period for the printing and artwork fee, I would only have to borrow money for a couple of weeks. And if we could sell some more books to House Arrest or someone else, then maybe we could actually make some money too. The feeling of relief that rolled over me made me light-headed.