The Baby Group

by Rowan Coleman

  Natalie smiled at her second unlikely new friend of the day.

  ‘If you’re sure,’ she said, looking at the address.

  ‘Positive. We can start our own renegade baby group!’

  ‘She was in a proper bad mood once you left,’ Tiffany said, appearing at Natalie’s side as the class turned outside. ‘I thought I was the one who was always in trouble. That was well funny.’

  Meg smiled brightly at the young girl.

  ‘That’s a lovely baby,’ she said to Tiffany. ‘How long have you been looking after her?’

  ‘Since she was born,’ Tiffany said, immediately defensive. ‘I’m her mum.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Meg looked mortified. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought you were her nanny . . . you look far too . . . slim to have had a baby!’

  Hastily Natalie introduced Tiffany and Meg to each other. ‘I only just met Tiff tonight too,’ Natalie told Meg, wanting to put Tiffany at her ease. ‘She’s my electrician’s apprentice’s girlfriend and current motherhood guru.’

  ‘Oh how lovely!’ Meg seemed to have a boundless enthusiasm for pretty much anything. ‘Well, Tiffany, come round tomorrow to mine for coffee. Natalie’s got the address. I’d love to have you if you don’t mind a messy house – you’d be very welcome.’

  Tiffany chewed her lip as she looked at the two older women whose worlds were so utterly different from her own.

  ‘I don’t know . . .’ she said. Her confidence and composure seemed to wane briefly and her soft, not yet adult features looked uncertain. Natalie had to resist the compulsion to hug her. That was another new thing that had started to happen since Freddie’s birth: maternal urges. Of course, Natalie had expected them to come with maternity, but she hadn’t expected them to extend past her own baby. Still, somehow she thought Tiffany wouldn’t appreciate being mothered just then.

  ‘Come on.’ Natalie found herself coaxing the teenager. ‘You may as well. You said I need a baby group, and Meg’s had four kids so she must know something useful.’ Still Tiffany hesitated. ‘You can come round to mine with Gary in the morning and we’ll go together if you like.’

  Natalie was not sure why she was quite so keen to get Tiffany to come with her, except that perhaps for the first time in what seemed like ages Tiffany made her feel like a grown-up again. Not because she was so young, but because she didn’t treat her as if at the same time as giving birth to Freddie she had also delivered her brain.

  ‘Well, OK then,’ Tiffany said, eventually. ‘It’s not much fun being stuck in the flat on my own all day I suppose, and I did promise Gary I wouldn’t go out in the van with him again.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Meg said, and without warning she kissed Natalie on both cheeks and enveloped both Tiffany and Jordan in a surprisingly affectionate hug that made Jordan squeal with delight.

  ‘I’d better get back,’ she said happily over her shoulder as she hurried away. ‘My husband hates being left alone with the kids for too long – they drive him utterly mad!’

  ‘She’s a bit weird,’ Tiffany said frankly as they watched Meg rush off into the night.

  ‘Yes,’ Natalie agreed. ‘But sort of wonderful too.’

  All the lights were blazing when they got back to the house, and the radiator in the hallway was creaking and clanking into life. Gary Fisher emerged from the basement just as Natalie shut the front door behind her and Tiffany.

  ‘Learn anything?’ he asked her.

  ‘Not a thing,’ Natalie said. ‘But Tiffany did.’

  Gary nodded, his forehead wrinkling with an expression of mild surprise. It was obvious he was amazed that Natalie seemed to get on rather well with Tiffany.

  ‘Well, you’re sorted for tonight,’ he said, nodding generally at the electric crystal chandelier that sparkled above their heads. ‘I’ll need to get parts in the morning so I’ll be here around ten-ish. I’ve left you a quote on the desk in there –’ He gestured towards the living room. ‘You might want to look at it before I buy those parts.’

  Natalie, whose arms were aching from carrying the baby for so long, shook her head.

  ‘If it needs doing, it needs doing,’ she said, walking into the living room, relieved to see that the baby chair was still on the table where she remembered leaving it. She carefully eased Freddie into the padded seat and he immediately began to cry.

  ‘Um, the thing is,’ Gary said as Natalie peered into the baby kit bag, looking for a clean nappy and cream, ‘I’d appreciate it if you looked at the quote, Mrs . . . um, Natalie, because I want us to be very clear about what I’m charging you. It’s quite a lot. You might need to OK it with your husband . . .’

  ‘Actually, Mr Fisher,’ Natalie said smartly, as she produced a nappy and some wipes from the bag, ‘I earn my own money, which I am confident will be more than enough to cover your bill so I won’t have to ask anyone for permission.’ She gave him a sharp smile and snatched up the piece of paper he had left for her on the desk and read it. Freddie’s cries reached a crescendo.

  The bill was about three times more than she had imagined it would be but she was determined not to be fazed by it. Even if there had been an electrician as equally good and reliable as Gary Fisher apparently was waiting right outside the door at that very moment and who was prepared to knock fifty per cent off his quote, there was no way she would have taken it. It had become a matter of honour to appear to be totally underawed by the cost.

  ‘Oh, is that all?’ Natalie said with studied nonchalance. ‘Do you want a cheque now?’

  ‘Um, no,’ Gary said awkwardly. ‘I’m sorry if I offended you, Mrs . . . Natalie. I’ll get out from under your feet now. See you tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll see you in the morning, Tiffany,’ Natalie said. ‘And thank you, Mr Fisher.’

  ‘No trouble,’ Gary replied, looking like a schoolboy who was in a great deal of trouble.

  Natalie watched her newly appointed electrician and his curious entourage leave with a mixture of irritation and regret. It was nice to have the house full of people and noise again. She didn’t realise how lonely she sometimes felt until she was on her own again. Normally her own company and Freddie’s didn’t bother her at all, but just then she wished she had another adult in the house. Most of her problems were minor: the wiring, the tiredness, and even the nipples that felt as if they had been sandpapered would eventually go away. Natalie knew that and although those things contributed to her weariness, she wouldn’t let them get her down for too long. It was that one problem, that one big problem that kept raising its handsome head. What to do about telling Jack, if anything at all.

  It was only just past seven and she hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, but a sudden wave of demanding exhaustion overtook her, and as Freddie had dropped off Natalie knew she had to try and sleep while she had the chance. As she climbed the stairs with Freddie weighing heavy in her arms, dribbling on her shoulder, Natalie had to stop for a moment as the pure joy and adoration that she felt every time she looked at him threatened to bring her to tears once again. It was impossible for her to regret that weekend with Jack Newhouse, because she didn’t regret Freddie. In fact, she rejoiced in his existence minute by minute. But she did regret the storm of emotions that had been battering her psyche ever since she realised Jack had taken her in completely and, what’s more, left her pregnant. She was a sensible woman of the world, a clued-up woman. God knows, not only had she been around the block a few times, she’d made some pretty comprehensive maps along the way. So what did it say about her, Natalie Curzon, that she had fallen so easily for what turned out to be just another set of cleverly crafted lines? And worse still, what did it say about her that when she did sleep, Natalie often dreamt about those few days with Jack and would catch herself waking up and wishing they were real?

  Mercilessly, with some baby anti-bedroom sixth sense Freddie woke up just as they reached the top of the stairs. As Natalie walked the length of the bedroom floor on a loop, willing her darling to drop off again, she thought h
ow very much simpler it would be to really have a husband like the one she had told Gary she had. A nice, dependable, sensible husband, someone you knew where you stood with, the kind of man that Natalie would normally have run away from at one hundred miles an hour.

  As the clock on the bedroom wall turned through midnight and into the early hours of another day, Natalie tried to think what her imaginary husband would be like.

  And for some reason he looked an awful lot like her electrician.

  Chapter Four

  Natalie decided to take cake to Meg’s house by way of celebration. She had got herself and Freddie through another night alive and relatively unscathed and she had made a decision to buy cake. Those were two good enough reasons to merit a celebration, Natalie thought. And besides she was looking forward to a social occasion that didn’t involve her and Freddie and their house. It wasn’t the kind of occasion she would have chosen but, she supposed, cocktail parties weren’t de rigueur with new mums. And anyway, just the prospect of getting out of the house had lifted Natalie’s spirits. It wasn’t until she cheered up that that she realised she had been feeling rather down.

  Just knowing that she had something to do the next day had helped her get through what had become another typically gruelling night. And, although it had been filled with crying from both of them, confusion from one of them, regurgitating from the other one and a muddled sleepless small-hours’ kind of despair and imaginary-husband related hallucinations, it hadn’t been that bad.

  It was more of a good kind of bad, the kind of bad that Natalie could cope with for the rest of her life if necessary, even if she never slept, ate or had sex again, after all she had done more than her fair share of all three in her time.

  She had just about dragged a brush through her hair and pulled it back into a knot on the nape of her neck when Gary Fisher and his crew of two and a half arrived, one of whom was sporting a pink fake-fur gilet over a skinny-rib top that left a good three-inch gap of her flat tummy showing above her jeans.

  Natalie couldn’t help openly staring at her.

  ‘Why are you in such good shape?’ she asked her baldly.

  ‘Don’t know,’ Tiffany said. ‘It’s probably cos I’m young.’

  ‘Oh,’ Natalie said, who had thought up until that moment that she was young. ‘Well, pull that top down, you’ll catch a chill.’

  Making the decision about what kind of cake to buy was not quite as triumphant, particularly as there were only two types in the Turkish grocers, one being Jamaican ginger cake and the other Cadbury’s chocolate mini-rolls.

  ‘Oh I don’t know,’ Natalie said, scrutinising the two candidates. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Not bothered,’ Tiffany said with a shrug, making Natalie wonder exactly why it was she was so bothered. Natalie glanced up at her and noticed that she was leaning so far backwards that she looked like she might unbalance both herself and Jordan in an attempt to peer around the corner towards the darker back end of the poky store.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ Natalie asked her, forgetting for a moment her preoccupation with cake.

  Tiffany righted herself.

  ‘There’s this woman round there just staring at tinned tomato soup. Not looking, just staring,’ she said, keeping her voice low. ‘Like she’s in a coma or something.’ She bent back with enviably pain-free ease and looked again.

  ‘Still at it,’ she confirmed. ‘Like a statue. Do you think she’s all right?’

  Natalie half wanted to point out to Tiffany that it was rude to stare at mad people, but after being made to feel so ancient earlier that morning she held her tongue. Deciding to take a leaf out of Tiffany’s book instead, she peered round the corner herself. Standing with her profile to them, a blonde-haired, quite presentable-looking woman was indeed staring fixedly at the canned goods.

  ‘It might be a petit mal fit, like you get with some kinds of epilepsy,’ Tiffany whispered.

  Natalie glanced sideways at her and wished she’d stop surprising her with knowledge and insight, it was quite unnerving. She turned back to the woman.

  ‘She looks familiar,’ Natalie said quietly to Tiffany. She edged a little closer, pretending to need a tin of peas, until she could look properly at her face. She recognised her immediately.

  ‘Hello,’ Natalie said brightly, making the woman jump. ‘How are you?’

  The woman blinked as if she had just woken from a dream.

  ‘It’s Natalie,’ Natalie prompted her. ‘I was in the cubicle opposite you at the hospital, you came in the day after me. It’s Jess, isn’t it? Do you live near here? I live over the road – how are you getting on with little . . . ?’ Natalie peered at the bundle in the buggy. All she could see was a glimpse of a tiny blue hat.

  ‘Jacob,’ Jess said. ‘Absolutely fine.’ She smiled at Natalie, who got the distinct impression that Jess had had to force every single muscle into the appropriate position to assume the expression.

  ‘You think that you’re going mad, don’t you?’ Natalie said instinctively. ‘One minute you’re thinking about fish fingers, the next you’re crying or . . . standing about looking all vacant. But apparently it’s the same for everyone. Even her.’ Natalie nodded at Tiffany who had edged a little nearer. ‘And she’s young and thin.’

  Jess’s smile seemed a fraction less fake.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, looking suddenly bashful. ‘I’m fine – really. I just completely forgot why I came to the shop, that’s all!’

  ‘Was it for cake?’ Natalie asked her. ‘We’re, or I should say I’m, trying to buy cake to take to this other woman’s house for a sort of informal mums’ meeting.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘Why don’t you come along too? I’m sure Megan – that’s the woman I’m buying cake for – won’t mind.’

  Jess looked rather shell-shocked by the invitation and a little bit panicked. Natalie sympathised. She knew that sometimes she had days with Freddie when the thought of doing anything as impulsive as popping out for a loaf of bread seemed impossible. Jess’s look of terror made it seem as if Natalie’s invitation was to stand blindfolded in front of a firing squad.

  ‘Um . . .’ she said.

  ‘Only if you don’t have something already on,’ Natalie said, with a wry half-smile. ‘Like washing Babygros or sterilising something.’

  Jess relaxed a little and she almost laughed.

  ‘Well, I suppose I could tear myself away from folding tiny socks . . .’ she said. ‘Would your friend mind, do you think?’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so,’ Natalie said, with a nod of her head. ‘Now, which do you prefer, ginger cake or chocolate mini-rolls? Oh, let’s go crazy and buy both.’

  ‘James, darling, don’t chew Gripper’s bone – there’s a love,’ Meg said, swiftly retrieving the dog’s toy from the mouth of her two-year-old.

  ‘Why you’ve even got a dog I don’t know,’ Frances said, wiping down Meg’s kitchen surfaces with the kind of enthusiasm that Meg found simultaneously intimidating and irritating.

  As predicted, her sister-in-law had been cleaning since the moment she had arrived this morning. The first thing she had done was to scrub the kitchen table that had still been covered with the detritus of a typically chaotic breakfast for six. Once that met with her approval she put baby Henry’s car seat right in the centre of the table, as if she had somehow created an exclusion zone for him that Meg’s unruly and presumably unhygienic rabble could not breach. Then she had started on the floor; she had brought her own mop.

  It wasn’t that Meg wasn’t grateful for the help. She was. It was just that she had asked her sister-in-law round simply for coffee and a chat, and that was partly under duress from Robert. She had not asked her to disinfect her entire house. Worse still, Frances hadn’t even asked if Meg minded if she cleaned and mopped and scrubbed, so even though Meg was sure it was unintentional, she found Frances’s ‘help’ really quite insulting. But there was no point in saying anything to her. Meg had learnt that from personal experie
nce over the years.

  Frances was incapable of being in the wrong or taking any kind of criticism. Even the slightest hint that you might not approve one hundred per cent of everything she said or did brought out her hackles. Like the time Meg had innocently mentioned that she’d read an article about how long it takes a woman to become fertile again after several years of taking the Pill. All Meg meant to do was to offer some kind of comfort or explanation as to why Frances was not getting pregnant immediately, but instead Frances had taken it very personally, as if Meg had somehow accused her of deliberately spoiling her own chances of becoming pregnant. And Frances was very scary when she was cross, which meant that Meg had somehow found herself apologising abjectly for something she was fairly certain she hadn’t done. She had endured the hurt looks and occasional sniffs from Frances for the rest of the night with good grace. It had been harder to keep quiet during Robert’s lecture about tact and diplomacy on the way home.

  She had done it, though.

  Robert always said that his little sister wasn’t frightening, just determined. Meg secretly thought that was a polite term for downright terrifying. Even so, she had a soft spot for Frances. She could see that Frances was motivated by the urge to do what she thought was the right thing, even if she had the tact and diplomacy of a very angry rhinoceros. So the best thing to do, Meg decided, was to try hard not to be offended and be glad that she had a clean kitchen floor for however brief a hiatus.

  Meg noticed that Gripper was attacking Frances’s mop just as enthusiastically as Frances had cleaned the floor. She shooed the large poodle out into the back garden hurriedly, hoping that Frances had been too intent on removing limescale from around the taps to notice.

  ‘Anyway, Gripper was Robert’s idea,’ Meg reminded her sister-in-law, answering what was probably a rhetorical question. ‘You must remember, he brought her home one night and said he thought it would be good for the kids to have a pet? I was as shocked as anyone. He’d always said absolutely no pets up until then – I don’t know what changed his mind. Alex and Hazel going on and on, I suppose. I have to admit I wouldn’t have chosen a poodle myself. I’d have gone for something a bit more cuddly and stupid.’ Meg smiled indulgently. ‘That dog is far too clever for her own good. Do you know she can open the fridge? But Robert said they don’t shed hair so that was that. And the kids love her.’ Meg looked out of the back window at her largely unkempt garden where Gripper was making another bid to be the first poodle to dig her way to Australia.