by Maeve Haran
‘Bella, angel, I can’t believe I missed it.’ Nigel, despite his huge bulk, looked close to tears.
‘There wasn’t much warning. They gave me an epidural and it all happened so quickly.’ The small head bumped off her breast. ‘Here, you take him a moment.’ She held out the small scrap of humanity to Nigel. The baby surveyed his father through inscrutable dark blue eyes from under a tuft of black hair which stood up like a cockatoo. ‘Look at that, he’s got a natural Mohican!’
Laura wondered if she could have a hold too, but didn’t want to intrude on this precious moment of intimacy. She glanced at the still-smiling nurse. ‘Will he have to go to special care?’ She tried not to picture him covered with tubes and deprived of cuddles.
‘We don’t consider this premature. We may keep mother and baby in for an extra day or two but otherwise he’s no different from any other newborn. He’ll be fine.’
Laura almost laughed out loud with relief.
‘Here, Grandma, have a hold.’ Nigel suddenly held the baby out to her.
Laura held her grandson tightly against her chest, supporting his head with one hand as the memory flooded back of doing the same with Bella and with Sam. But with her own children the joy had been tempered by anxiety and the fear of her own maternal incompetence.
What she felt for her grandchild, standing here today, was pure, powerful, delirious love.
‘You should have seen him, he was so incredibly adorable!’ Claudia brandished the photo she’d taken of Laura and the baby in Ella’s direction. ‘Laura’s in seventh heaven. She’ll be an amazing grandmother. The second of us to be a granny. Amazing or what?’
‘We’ve put it off long enough. In another era we’d all be dead,’ Ella replied testily from her kitchen table, knee deep in lilies, freesias and bright green euphorbia, where she was arranging sample bouquets and centrepieces for Claudia to take back to Surrey and show Gaby.
‘Ella, you’ll never guess what’s happened with Simon and the Sperm-digger. The baby’s stillborn and she’s still got to give birth.’
‘Oh my God, what a terrible thing. I never thought I’d say this, given the misery she’s caused—’
‘They’ve caused,’ corrected Claudia.
‘. . . they’ve caused. But a stillbirth is the most tragic thing to have to go through. And don’t say “Tough shit, they deserved it.’
‘Ella,’ Claudia grinned, ‘I wasn’t going to.’
‘I bet you were thinking it.’
She went back to the flowers. ‘How long is Bella in hospital for? I don’t suppose Gaby would begrudge a few blooms if I made Bella up a bunch for when she gets home?’
‘Forget what Gaby thinks. It’s her mother who’s paying. God, Ella, I don’t know what’s come over that girl. I’m looking forward to the honeymoon more than they are because it means it’ll all be over. Two whole weeks of peace. By the way, the oddest thing. When I was in the hospital I saw Sal there. You don’t think she’s ill, do you, and not telling us? Only she has been rather elusive lately. It might explain why we haven’t seen her.’
‘Sal? Sal couldn’t keep a secret if her life depended on it. She must have been visiting someone. Is she coming to the wedding?’
‘She says she is but she’s been very odd about arrangements lately. Laura definitely is. And, amazing though it seems, Gaby and Douglas have told us to invite anyone we like to the do in the evening.’
‘Now that is generous.’
‘Most of his family’s stuck in Australia so he’s not got that many coming from his side. It’s going to be quite a bash.’
‘It’s going to be a lovely occasion,’ Ella agreed. ‘Just what we old boots need, a bit of romance to cheer us all up. Remind us life is full of possibilities, not just memory loss and hip replacements.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Claudia, thinking how shocked they’d all feel if they knew how she’d spent the morning. In a champagne bar with a man who wasn’t her husband.
CHAPTER 23
‘Would you all like to come and stay with me for a day or two while Nigel gets everything sorted out?’ Laura offered. ‘I don’t suppose he had time, what with you being rushed into hospital.’
Bella and baby were being discharged today and Laura was thinking of the spartan flat with its Blu-tacked posters and unappealing bedroom. She knew she mustn’t convey any sense of worry or disapproval. Also she remembered from when she’d had her own babies that these first few days were a crucial time when you felt as if you were in a bubble of family intimacy when the outside world didn’t exist, and she didn’t want to spoil that for them. Posh people, she remembered, had maternity nurses who arrived on Day One, took the baby from you to get it into a routine and gave it back a month later. It had seemed like a shame to Laura. But her daughter’s lifestyle was the polar opposite from that.
Bella shrugged. ‘What do you think, Nige?’
‘I think it’s a great idea.’ Laura was getting to like her giant son-in-law substitute more and more. Despite his scary image he was always sensible and reasonable.
They piled into Laura’s car, with Bella and the baby in the back and Nigel in the passenger seat.
Last night Nigel had been given a lesson in bathing him. One of Laura’s enduring images would be of this huge man tenderly holding his tiny baby, as if he were the most precious creation in the entire universe.
The weather was smiling on their homecoming. Brilliant sunshine lit up the streets, bringing happy looks to the faces of the grumpiest Londoners. ‘You’ll be able to sit out on a rug,’ Laura pointed out. ‘Such a lovely time to have a baby. They say summer babies are happy and more confident.’
‘Won’t you have to go back to work soon?’ asked Bella.
‘Yes, later today,’ Laura conceded, sorry to miss out on the baby, yet glad she could give them the time they needed to be alone. ‘I’ll do a big shop first so you have everything you need. Nice for you to have some space for yourselves anyway.’
As she opened the front door, Laura had to move a big pile of post. In spite of the sunshine and the happiness of the occasion her spirits sank at the sight of another letter from Simon’s solicitors. She wasn’t going to bloody open that now and let it spoil everything.
TomTom was as thrilled as ever to see them, meowing wildly, and almost tripping them up.
‘Will he be all right with the baby?’ Bella asked anxiously.
‘I’m sure he will. We could get a net, though, if you want, that’s what all babies had in my day.’
‘The days when you used to leave babies at the bottom of the garden to cry for hours on end?’
Laura almost repeated her own mother’s dictum that it was good for the lungs but thought better of it. The modern granny kept her lip buttoned on the subject of childcare. God alone knew what the thinking was now anyway. It seemed to change every five minutes from feeding on demand to old-fashioned discipline. The realization suddenly struck her that her daughter was now a mother and would have to work such things out for herself.
And I’m a grandmother! That thought was equally amazing.
‘Now, what do you want me to get you?’
‘Don’t fuss, Mum. I’ll just order some stuff from Tesco. I’m part of the online generation, remember.’
‘OK. I’ll be off to work, then. I’m doing twelve till four. Any more thoughts about names yet?’
She knew this was a touchy subject but everyone at work would want to know.
‘If he’d been a girl it would have been easy,’ Bella replied. ‘There’s Siouxsie from Siouxsie and the Banshees, Candia from Inkubus Sukkubus or even Amy of Evanescence. But boys’ names . . .’ Bella sighed at the challenge of picking a suitably Gothic boy’s name. ‘We thought about Robert from The Cure, but at the moment we’re veering towards Aaron of My Dying Bride.’
‘Right,’ Laura replied faintly. Whatever had happened to Roger and Andy? She supposed it could have been worse. Marilyn after Marilyn Manson, for instance. ‘See you la
ter. Just text me if you need anything.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ Bella’s sudden smile lit up her pale face chasing the anxiety away, ‘you’ve been brilliant.’
Laura stored away these precious words to take out and enjoy later.
Babies were big news at LateExpress and everyone, led by an enthusiastic Mrs A, crowded round Laura wanting to see the picture on her phone.
‘Aaah, he’s maximum gorgeous,’ cooed Mrs A. ‘And a boy too. No messing about having to have three girls till you get your boy like my sister-in-law.’
Mrs A, despite her years in the UK, had not yet picked up the etiquette that decreed girls to be at least the equal of boys.
‘What name will he have? Have they decided yet?’
‘Maybe Robert or Aaron, but they’re not absolutely sure yet.’
‘Tell them Noah,’ advised Mrs A. ‘There are three Noahs in my son’s class, one Muslim, one Christian and the other British National Party. Very good name for tricky modern world.’
Laura smiled. ‘I’ll pass it on. But at the moment I’m trying not to dish out too much advice.’
‘Good policy,’ endorsed Mrs A. ‘Let them make their own mistakes. Then you can tell them “I told you so” when everything goes wrong.’
When her shift finished Laura decided to take home some basic supplies – nappies, wipes, milk and some pesto and pasta. She could always keep it if it wasn’t needed.
She could hear Robert/Aaron crying even before she got out of the car, that primitive, penetrating wail of the newborn baby genetically designed to terrify the parent into never abandoning it.
Bella, pale and distraught, was on the sofa in tears.
‘Why won’t he stop crying, Mum? I’ve fed him till my nipples ache and changed him and burped him and he’s still wailing the house down.’
Laura put down her shopping. ‘Would you like me to drive him round in the car for a bit? I always found that worked with you, that and putting you on top of the washing machine.’
‘You put me on the washing machine?’ Bella demanded, horrified.
‘In your baby seat. Yes. The vibration sent you to sleep in no time.’
‘It didn’t strike you as dangerous?’
‘We never worried that much. I used to put a duvet on the floor in case.’
‘Thanks a lot.’
The screaming, which had stopped for a moment, lulling them into temporary relief, started up again at double volume.
Bella dissolved into tears again.
‘I’ll take him,’ Laura said firmly.
She carried the baby seat out to the car and carefully strapped him in, suddenly conscious of how precious he was. Curiously, she couldn’t remember feeling this scared at driving her own children. She’d bowled happily along with them, music blaring, singing along with Bruce Springsteen or The Eagles. Laura was grateful that though childcare philosophies might have changed, the capacity of the combustion engine to lull infants to sleep had not.
In five minutes he was fast asleep, issuing happy little snuffles of content.
Laura drove round for another fifteen minutes, gauging corners and distances with the skills of a Jensen Button, so that she didn’t have to slow down too much or stop at red lights, and risk the baby waking.
Once she got back, Laura knew the greatest challenge lay in how to stop the car and get the baby seat out in one smooth, seamless movement without waking him.
Bella was fast asleep on the sofa, a copy of Grazia magazine still clutched in her hands.
Laura put the baby seat gently down beside her and went to make herself a cup of tea. Miracle of miracles, he was still asleep.
Half an hour later the crying started up again, finally waking Bella from her slumber. She, too, began to cry. ‘God, Mum, I don’t know if I can do this, I really don’t.’
‘Yes you can.’ Laura lifted the baby onto Bella’s chest. ‘All those classes about giving birth and no one tells you the hard part begins afterwards. You think it’ll go on forever, but it doesn’t. He’ll soon settle down.’
Bella found her nipple and attached the screaming baby. A moment’s blissful silence ensued. Until he fell off and had to be reattached.
‘Breastfeeding’s worse than childbirth, if you ask me.’ Bella sighed. ‘You keep worrying if he’s had enough, and if he hasn’t you know he’ll wake again in five minutes. It’s like living with a Middle-Eastern interrogator, only he wants milk, not information.’
Laura laughed. ‘I remember.’
‘How long does it last? I’m already suffering from sleep deprivation.’
‘Not too long, but it feels like an eternity.’
‘Thanks, Mum. How was work?’
‘Fine, they all wanted to see pictures of the baby. Mrs A thinks you should call him Noah. Apparently it’s acceptably global in our complex modern world.’
‘Noah,’ Bella repeated. ‘Noah. I like Noah, actually. It feels solid. Makes me think of that wooden ark I had when I was little. I loved that toy. I’ll see what Nigel thinks.’
‘Where’s he got to by the way?’
‘Up a ladder fixing luminous stars to the ceiling. But he says he’s going gangbusters and should be finished by tomorrow or the next day.’
‘That’s great.’ Laura suppressed a pang at the knowledge that the little family would soon be off. But how long would she have a home to offer them? The letter from Simon’s solicitors still sat on the kitchen table giving off the malodorous glow of bad news.
‘I need the loo,’ Bella announced. ‘Here, you take him, Grandma.’
She handed the temporarily peaceful bundle to Laura, who sat on the sofa cradling his head and breathing in the milky new baby smell. It hardly seemed possible that this could be Bella’s baby.
She kissed the top of his downy head, overcome by a wave of sudden, overwhelming protectiveness, and looked down into his unfathomable inky blue eyes. ‘Hello, baby. Welcome to the world.’
When the doorbell sounded she jumped, so deeply was she communing with the new generation. Nigel must have given up on his wallpapering efforts. She stood up, still cradling the baby in her arms.
But the person who stood on the doorstep was Simon.
He was wearing an overcoat with the collar up even though it was a balmy night of early summer, as if he wanted to disappear into its expensive depths and never be seen again.
‘Is that . . . ?’
She was about to say, ‘Your grandson’, but corrected herself; she wasn’t sure why. ‘Bella’s baby. Yes.’
‘Can I come in?’
Laura hesitated. She knew Bella hadn’t forgiven her father. ‘It’s a bit difficult. Bella’s here for a few days while they sort out the flat.’
‘And she doesn’t want to see me.’ His tone was bleak.
‘She found it hard to forgive you for leaving.’
The bleakness erupted into what Laura could only call desperation. ‘Laura, I made such a mistake. I must have been bloody mad. And then there was the baby to think of and I was obligated, locked in, even when already I wanted to get out. Forgive me, Laura, please! The thing is, I want to come home. I genuinely, utterly, totally want to come home.’
If she hadn’t been holding the baby, Laura might have slapped him.
In her private despair she had sometimes fantasized about this moment, when he begged to come back and start again, but Laura knew in that instant that she had changed. She was stronger now. She was angry.
‘No, Dad, it isn’t as easy as that.’ Bella must have come back into the sitting room without either of them hearing her. She took the baby from her mother’s arms. ‘We’re going upstairs.’
‘Bella . . .’
‘Just saying you’re sorry doesn’t make it all right.’
Simon stared after her.
‘What about Suki?’ Laura asked. ‘She must be devastated. You can’t just leave her to deal with the stillbirth alone.’
She thought Simon was going to cry. ‘She says it’
s all my fault. Something to do with my ageing sperm. She’s gone home to her mother in Shropshire.’
Laura had a brief image of sperm in wheelchairs and Zimmer frames like some bizarre cartoon. If it wasn’t tragic it would have been funny.
‘Let’s drop the divorce,’ Simon begged. ‘Keep the house. Sam and Bella will come round eventually.’
‘But I won’t, Simon. I’m going to put the house on the market as soon as Bella leaves. Start again. Find a flat with room for Sam if he needs it.’
‘But what about Bella?’
‘Bella will be fine. She has a home and partner of her own. She’s a survivor.’
‘Telling me.’
She wasn’t sure even now if his sorrow was for anyone but himself.
‘Time you went, I think, Simon. I’ll keep in touch through the lawyers.’
He looked as if he might argue. Instead he straightened his collar, pushed his hands deep into his pockets and turned away.
Laura watched the door close on almost twenty-six years of her life. But this time it was she who was closing it, and she knew she would come through. She wasn’t so sure what would happen to Simon. And for once she didn’t care.
Gaby opened the back door to look for the sample flowers Ella had brought down for her. It was the most glorious day. The sun streamed down on the patio and high, fluffy clouds danced about in a bright blue sky.
‘There’s nowhere in the whole world like England when the weather’s like this,’ Gaby sighed, suddenly full of good humour and love of mankind. ‘I just hope it stays this way for the wedding.’ She retrieved the flowers and held them in a bridal pose.
It was a stunning arrangement. Ella had come up with the striking combination of cream calla lilies mixed with crème de la crème roses, secured with looped aspidistra leaves, glossily green and striped with white, the whole thing tied up with cream satin ribbon.
‘What do you think?’ Claudia asked.
Gaby put her arms round her mother’s neck. ‘I think it’s gorgeous. Tell Ella I love it. It’s a perfect bride’s bouquet and I love the stripy aspidistra leaves. And is she happy making four mini-versions for the bridesmaids?’