Mother's Story

by Amanda Prowse

  Jessica shrugged, feigning ignorance. The reality was they had beautiful names under consideration. She still favoured Bethan Rose and Leo Anthony Maxwell. She smiled, knowing that it would be one of these two that would become familiar to her mother-in-law, a name that would dance from her mouth as she regaled her book club and choir with all his or her latest achievements, which no other child had ever quite managed with the same degree of aptitude or brilliance.

  Margaret pushed her specs further up her nose and walked over to the board. ‘Adolph? Surely not, Jess! And what kind of a name is Kourtney?’ She turned to her daughter-in-law, confusion and disgust clouding her face. ‘That’s not a real name, is it?’

  ‘That’s in homage to Polly’s favourite Kardashian,’ Jessica clarified.

  ‘What’s a Kardashian?’ Margaret enquired. It was clear that whatever it was, she didn’t want her first grandchild named after one.

  ‘You know what, Margaret, don’t worry too much about names. Matthew and I have it all under control. I am just letting Polly and the girls have a bit of fun. She’s spent a week selling marquee services and is thinking of becoming a party planner; I think I’m her guinea pig!’

  Margaret’s shoulders visibly relaxed. Evidently the prospect of having to introduce Tupac or Miley to the wider family had not appealed.

  The front doorbell rang. Jessica walked slowly down the hallway and greeted her mum, who stood there nervously, peering ahead into the kitchen, wondering what shenanigans Jessica’s mates would be getting up to. She had never been to a baby shower before.

  Jessica noted her freshly applied lipstick and her liberal application of perfume. ‘Come through, Mum!’ She placed her hand on her mum’s back and pushed her along. Coral shrugged her arms from her coat and adjusted the locket that sat on her chest with pictures of her babies inside.

  ‘Okay, everyone! It’s time to play Measure the Cervix!’ Polly held up a large watermelon with a hole cut into the front.

  Jessica looked at her mum’s face and was worried that she might actually faint. ‘Would you like to come and see the crib, Mum? We can leave them to it. You too, Margaret.’

  Margaret and Coral followed her out of the kitchen; neither needed the invitation repeating.

  ‘Where’s Matthew?’ Margaret asked. She was, as ever, disappointed that her son wasn’t on hand to fuss over.

  ‘He’s up the pub with Jake. I couldn’t let him anywhere near this. I did take him to my antenatal class, though. I’ve only been to a couple – it didn’t really feel like my thing,’ she confessed, ‘but at least I was better than him. God knows what he’s going to be like at the birth. Every time the course leader said the word “vagina”, which she did a lot, Matthew sniggered and giggled like a twelve-year-old. He’s absolutely hopeless.’

  Coral tutted as though her daughter had sworn.

  ‘Think I’m rather with Matthew on that one.’ Margaret rearranged her pearls and started up the hallway.

  Jessica walked ahead, holding the banister and lumbering up the stairs, one step at a time. She had gained significant weight and was no longer nimble. She paused at the top and drew breath; her fatigue bloomed even after the smallest amount of exercise.

  ‘All okay, darling?’ Margaret looked concerned. Jessica liked the new warm tone with which her mother-in-law addressed her, as Matthew pointed out, she was now the goose that was carrying the golden egg.

  ‘Oh yes, fine. I get so exhausted, even walking up the stairs. Ridiculous really!’ She chuckled and rubbed her bump.

  ‘No, not ridiculous, and all very normal. Everything will settle down, you’ll see. But maybe not until it’s been born and then you get a whole new level of exhaustion!’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s something to look forward to!’ Jessica laughed. ‘Mind you, the tiredness isn’t the worst thing. I am so constipated! I’ve tried everything, but apparently that’s quite normal too. And my horrible stretch marks, and the fact that I wake every half an hour trying to get comfy. All normal, apparently! So why does it all feel so very abnormal?’ Jessica curled her lip.

  ‘Welcome to motherhood!’ Margaret laughed.

  The nursery sat at the back of the house, with a lovely view beyond the sash window to the courtyard garden.

  ‘Oh, Jess!’ Coral gasped. ‘This looks lovely. It’s a good-sized room.’

  Jessica smiled, pleased with the compliment.

  ‘I mean, they don’t need much space when they’re little, do they? I slept in a drawer until I was a couple of months old, waiting for my sister to outgrow the cot.’ Coral glanced at Margaret, seeking acknowledgement for the shared confidence.

  Jessica looked around the room. She had taken a lot of time choosing the right shade of white: not too clinical or cold, but just the right tone to act as a canvas. A natural linen roman blind sat halfway up the window; its bottom edge was decorated with a fat band of grey-and-white gingham ribbon and an appliqued pale grey rabbit with one ear flopping over his eye.

  ‘We’ve tried to keep it quite neutral and then when we know what we are getting, we can add colour in, like a pale pink cushion on the nursing chair or their initials on the wall in blue or whatever. I think we’ve got just about everything.’ Jessica scanned the hand-painted off-white nursery furniture. The little wardrobe with its dinky hangers waiting for their contents, the changing station already packed to the gunnels with nappies, wet wipes, powder, sore bum cream, hand-sanitiser, nappy bags and a neatly folded pile of tiny white vests and linen squares.

  ‘Look at these!’ Jessica pulled open the top drawer of the chest and removed a pair of white socks. She laid them in her mother-in-law’s flattened palm. ‘I can’t believe there are any feet in the world tiny enough for these socks. They make my heart melt!’

  ‘I remember thinking the same when I was having you.’ Coral smiled. ‘Granny Maxwell knitted you a little matinee jacket and I held it up and thought she must have made a mistake; maybe she’d knitted a doll’s version. I mean, let’s be honest, she was going slightly loopy by that stage.’ Coral shook her head at the memory. ‘But then when you were born, it swamped you. You were so tiny and beautiful. It was a lovely time in my life, when you were a baby. The loveliest and the happiest.’

  ‘Oh dear, sounds like it all went a bit downhill after that!’ Jessica joked, aware that there was more than a grain of truth in that.

  ‘Not downhill exactly. I’ve been very lucky, in some ways. But I do think about those years, with Danny little and you a baby. I remember tucking you both in every night and feeling like I was too lucky.’ She drew breath as if to stem an outpouring of grief, a neat trick she had mastered.

  ‘I think it is a special time. I know that when Matthew was tiny, that was the last time Anthony properly loved me.’ Margaret toyed with the sock in her palm. Moments of emotional revelation like this were rare.

  ‘Oh, he loves you, Margaret! Of course he does.’ Jessica felt slightly awkward at the role reversal.

  Margaret nodded. ‘Oh I know, and I can’t imagine things being different, not now. Too much water under the bridge and all that. But it was certainly different after Matthew was born. We were both utterly, utterly besotted with him. Still are. I think Anthony found it difficult to love more than one person, or maybe I just wasn’t used to sharing him. I don’t know.’

  ‘God, and there was me hoping this baby would bind us even closer.’ Jessica felt the sudden pooling of tears. They had been hovering much closer to the surface than usual in recent days, ready to roll at the smallest provocation.

  ‘Oh, Jessica, don’t cry! It will be wonderful. You and Matthew are a different kettle of fish. I can see you are best friends.’ Margaret shook her head. ‘Isn’t that right, Coral?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Coral thumbed her little girl’s hand.

  ‘Anthony and I were never as close as you two. In fact, Matthew is the one perfect thing we did right. Don’t ever doubt what you are doing, Jess. You are going to make wonderful parents. I
think we just loved Matt so very much and every decision we made, every plan, every thought was all about what was best for him. I would not change one single thing. I really wouldn’t. But it did mean that as a couple we got a bit lost. We are parents first and foremost, but we used to be lovers first and foremost. I know some couples manage to retain all that, but not us.’ Margaret straightened and replaced the sock in the drawer, next to its identical twin. ‘Goodness me, I don’t know how we got on to that!’ She bristled. ‘You have done so well in here, you know.’ She ran her fingers over the hemmed fabric of the Roman blind. ‘These are a good idea, aren’t they? Very practical. Were they expensive?’

  Jessica shrugged. She didn’t know. Compared to what?

  ‘I think I’ll go and powder my nose.’ Margaret left the room. Jessica turned to her mum. ‘Think we’re all a bit emotional, Mum.’

  Coral nodded. ‘I think so. I don’t tell you often enough, Jess, how very proud I am of you. Matthew is a wonderful catch, a professional man.’ Jessica knew her grandparents had wanted more for her mother than to marry the salesman with the chirpy manner. ‘You have this lovely home, a wonderful kitchen, a good car and he absolutely adores you.’ At this Coral clapped.

  Jessica didn’t want her achievements to be measured by what her husband had acquired in terms of cars and a designer kitchen but knew that it was how her mum and dad gauged success. She was torn. ‘I really love him, Mum.’ This was the truth. ‘We’re a good team, always have been. He puts up with me and I make him laugh; it seems to work.’

  Jessica thought of their evenings spent laughing over a bottle or two of wine, dancing around the kitchen or scrabbling for the best spot on the sofa and snuggling up to watch a crappy movie together under a soft blanket. ‘I don’t think things will change that much after the baby arrives. We are going to do it together and I’m determined not to become one of those couples who can’t stay out past half past six and that walks into the pub like a human game of Buckaroo, weighed down with bags, bottles, toys and a bunch of nannies in tow, just in case.’ She smiled at her mum. ‘We plan on letting this baby become part of our lives, not having it take over our lives completely – if that makes sense.’

  ‘Oh, it makes perfect sense, my love. And sounds wonderful, very sensible…’

  ‘I feel a “but” coming on.’ Jessica folded her arms and sat them on top of her rounded bump.

  ‘But it’s absolute rubbish.’ Coral laughed. ‘One look at that little face and you will do like the rest of us and fall in love. It’s as if there is this balloon of love that fills you up so completely, there is no room for anything else. What that child wants and when they want it become the most important things in the world. You’ll see.’

  Jessica smiled at her mum. She couldn’t wait for it all to happen. ‘I’ve got something to show you.’ She opened a drawer and removed a framed picture, holding it close to her chest. ‘It’s your grandchild.’ She beamed.

  ‘There you are!’ Polly barged into the nursery, interrupting them. ‘Phew, don’t blame you, hiding up here. I’ve had about as much ribbing as I can stand: they are all going on about my new man, taking the piss. Excuse my French, Mrs M.’

  Coral sniffed.

  Jessica looked at her friend, who was clearly enjoying the ribbing. Polly and Paz were spending more and more time together and things were going great.

  ‘So what do you think of our picture?’ Jessica briefly flashed the image at her mate before handing it to her mum.

  Polly squinted over Coral’s shoulder. ‘I can’t really make anything out!’

  Jessica found Polly’s honesty irritating. ‘What do you mean? Of course you can!’ She pointed at the image. ‘Look, that’s clearly the face and the tum and you can even make out a little nose!’ She purred.

  Polly took the frame from Coral and, holding it up to her nose, squinted hard. ‘No. I can just see a blob thing. Oh, wait a minute… is that it?’ She placed her finger on a dark shadow.

  ‘No.’ Jessica pulled the picture from her friend’s grip. ‘That is my bladder.’

  ‘Oh! I was just going to say how much it looked like you!’

  ‘Bugger off, Polly.’ Jessica decided to ignore her friend. She beamed as she looked at the outline of her baby. She ran her fingers over the image and smiled at her mum, whose face was flushed with happiness. She couldn’t wait for July the twenty-seventh.

  ‘Anyway, enough! We are wasting precious time.’ Polly clapped. ‘I came to tell you we are just about to play “The Worst Godmother in the World”. We all have to give a truthful reason why we can’t possibly be considered for the post. I thought I stood a good chance with my drug arrest and everything.’

  ‘Oh, Polly!’ Coral squeaked and tutted, hoping Margaret hadn’t heard.

  ‘Never charged, Mrs M, never charged!’ She wagged her finger. ‘Anyway, it’s a bit irrelevant. I think Gwen’s going to win. Apparently she accidentally left her young cousin on a ferry bound for the Isle of Wight!’

  ‘Oh, the poor child!’ Margaret gasped, having heard the tail end of the conversation from the hallway.

  ‘I know, right?’ Polly nodded. ‘They got him back though. Bit shaken, but unharmed.’

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t thinking he might be harmed, I just pity anyone that has to go to the Isle of Wight. Horrible place.’

  Polly and Jessica fell against each other in giggles.

  ‘Oh for goodness’ sake, you two!’ Coral reprimanded them and they laughed even harder, just as they had been doing since they were small.

  Four hours later, the kitchen was still awash with cava, a baby-shower gift from Matt’s parents, and pale pink and blue streamers. The floor was sticky underfoot and mountains of wrapping paper crowded the kitchen table and mingled with the remains of the cake. Jessica and Matthew decided to shut the door on the mess and deal with it tomorrow as they retreated to the sitting room.

  ‘Did everyone have a good time?’ he asked.

  ‘I think so. It was very noisy – I bet Mrs Pleasant wishes she had accepted her invite and not had to listen through the wall!’

  Jessica clambered onto the sofa. This was her favourite time of the day: early evening, when she could lie against her man and talk through things, knowing that her bed awaited her.

  She was working on an idea that she wanted to submit to the agency. She stretched her legs out on the cushions and rubbed her feet together. ‘You should have seen your mum’s face today, it was priceless. She turned to Polly and said, “What is a Kardashian?” Oh God, I wish you’d been there!’

  ‘I’m glad I wasn’t, don’t think I’d have coped with the Measure the Cervix game, although Jake would have loved it.’

  ‘Oh, don’t! Polly did suggest getting Paz in to read our cards. I drew the line at that one. She’s left loads of her stuff here – her black yoga bag full of sweaty kit, a box of books and a large plant. I’ve shoved it all under the stairs.’

  ‘Christ, she’s not moving in, is she?’ Matthew bit his fingertips in mock terror.

  ‘No! I think maybe she’s storing things here to get a step closer to moving in with Paz.’

  ‘Don’t know who I feel more sorry for. She’s stitching him up, planning his future, even though they’ve only just met. And God help her, the bloke’s a nutter.’

  ‘Matt, remember, we are going to give him the benefit of the doubt until we know him better.’

  ‘I am.’ He nodded. ‘But he’s still a nutter! I mean, Toe-Paz…’ He shuddered.

  ‘We should think about names.’ Jessica grinned up at her man, knowing he found this too tricky to consider after a glass or two of wine.

  ‘No need, I am still sold on Phil after Phil Parkes.’

  ‘Ain’t gonna happen.’ Jessica shook her head. ‘But I do like Leo and Noah or Joe, for boys.’

  ‘I like Noah too, but it’s a no-no.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Guy at work’s just got a Noah, so that’s out.’ Matthew shrugged.


  ‘Guy doesn’t have the monopoly on Noahs!’ she protested.

  ‘True, but he and I have this unspoken competition thing going on. We’re similar ages and abilities. He is definitely the biggest threat to my promotion and he plays golf, which I don’t.’

  ‘So?’ Jessica was struggling to see what this had to do with picking their child’s name.

  ‘Magnus plays golf and Guy’s always talking about bloody grand slams and bogies…’

  ‘Urgh! Bogies!’ Jessica knew it was childish, but laughed anyway.

  ‘The point is, he makes it his thing because it excludes me and he got Noah first and he’d only rib me over it.’

  Jessica bit her thumbnail. ‘So that leaves Leo or Joe?’

  ‘Joe Deane sounds a bit two syllabley – Leo Deane’s better.’

  Jessica laid her head on her husband’s chest. ‘Good. I like Leo best. He’ll be strong, lion-like.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Matthew liked the sound of that. ‘And for a girl?’

  She sighed. She’d given it a lot of thought but tried to make it sound casual, like they were choosing together. ‘I rather like Bethan, Beth, Beth Deane. It’s a great name. There was a girl in my class at primary school called Bethan and I wanted to be her, she was lovely.’ She blinked against his shirt and waited for his response.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you aren’t her, I’m glad you are you!’ He kissed her hair. ‘How about Lilly? Lilly Deane is good.’

  ‘Lilly Deane sounds a bit like a music-hall act: “And now, all the way from the streets of Bow, it’s the famous Lilly Deane and her musical spoons!”’ She laughed.

  ‘Oh no, I don’t want Lilly Deane to be a spoons player; I want her to be a supermodel!’ Matthew declared.

  ‘No you don’t! You want her to be a botanist or an artist.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Yes!’ she shouted.

  ‘So you like Lilly?’ he pushed.

  ‘I do, but only Lilly the botanist.’ She smiled.

  ‘I’ve always thought Lilly was a cool name, like Lily Cole or Lily Allen.’