The Baby Group

by Rowan Coleman

  Jack looked uncertainly at Natalie and then glanced down at the buggy very quickly.

  ‘But if you’ve got company,’ she added uncertainly, looking back up at the window.

  ‘Company?’ Jack repeated the word as if he didn’t really know what it meant. He was looking at Natalie with that same puzzled expression again. He must be wondering why on earth I don’t just go away, she thought, feeling almost sorry for him.

  ‘A guest,’ Natalie prompted him, hoping to stop him looking at her in that way.

  ‘Oh!’ Jack shook his head. ‘No, that’s Mishka, she’s not a guest, she’s Minnie’s cleaner. She’s actually a concert harpist but Minnie employs her to keep her going between jobs.’ A flicker of something like curiosity passed over his face. ‘Did you think I had another conquest up there?’ he asked.

  Natalie shook her head. ‘None of my business,’ she said with a shrug.

  They stood there for a moment or two longer and Natalie wondered if they had now spent more time like this, miserable and ill at ease, than they had lying happily in each other’s arms.

  ‘You brought the baby with you,’ Jack said, finally acknowledging what couldn’t be ignored. He looked pale, Natalie thought, and she wondered if it was because of the sight of her and his progeny or if he really didn’t feel well. She found herself hoping it was because of her.

  ‘I thought you should have a chance to meet him,’ she said, holding the buggy’s handles so tightly she could see the whites of her knuckles. ‘If you wanted to.’

  ‘I see,’ Jack said, biting at his lip.

  Natalie took a deep breath. ‘Jack, I think I behaved badly the last time we met and I hoped you might . . . let us come in and that we could try to . . . resolve things, somehow.’ She smiled tentatively at him. ‘I don’t want to leave things the way that we did. It didn’t seem like the right ending for us.’

  Jack hesitated before nodding at last. ‘I thought that too. I’m glad you came back with . . . the . . . you know – baby.’

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key on a piece of parcel string. ‘Mishka should be on her way out any minute, so you go in,’ he said, handing Natalie the key. ‘I’ll get you a coffee. Are you allowed coffee – if you’re . . . ahem . . . you know, feeding him yourself ?’

  Natalie nodded, repressing the urge to smile. ‘I let myself have one real cup a day,’ she said.

  ‘Fine,’ Jack went on. ‘Well, you go in and I’ll be in in a minute.’ He indicated the buggy. ‘You can leave that in the downstairs hallway.’ He took a couple of steps before turning back. ‘I meant the buggy not the baby. You can bring the baby upstairs if you like.’

  Natalie nodded again, fighting the irresistible urge to giggle that only the hysterically tired and emotionally confused can truly know. She held the keys tightly in her fist, so that she could feel the metal digging into the flesh of her palm, hoping it would somehow focus her mind. At least Jack was letting them in. And he had said she could bring Freddie upstairs. It was going well so far.

  Mishka was indeed on the other side of the door as Natalie unlocked it. She seemed utterly unsurprised to find a strange woman with a baby on Jack’s doorstep, and Natalie couldn’t decide if it was a good or a bad thing. The young woman had paused for a moment to admire Freddie so that by the time she left Natalie quite liked her, even though she was tall, slender, blonde, talented and Russian. Natalie found that she liked anyone who liked her son.

  Minnie’s flat looked even nicer in the bright sunshine of the spring morning. It had long sash windows that Natalie hadn’t noticed before, and from the tiny galley kitchen a direct view of the museum. Minnie had to be fairly minted, Natalie thought, to own such a prime piece of property. Or perhaps she had inherited it and had lived in it all her life. The place did have that feel about it. An antiquated Formica kitchen with one of those squat cream enamelled 1950s cookers, and as Natalie nosily pushed opened the bedroom door she saw dark wooden 1930s art deco furniture that looked as good as new. The book-lined living room looked as bright and breezy by day as it had seemed warm and friendly by firelight. Natalie sat down with Freddie in her arms in the wingback chair by the now cold fire grate. Freddie was wide awake, as if he knew something important was afoot, his huge black eyes as bright as buttons as he took everything in.

  Then Natalie heard the door shut downstairs and Jack’s footfall on the stairs.

  She braced herself. She was here to tell him that despite everything, if he wanted to be in Freddie’s life she would welcome it. Whatever he might say in return she needed to know that she had given this her very best shot at success, and that for once in her life she hadn’t let complacency or fear ruin everything.

  ‘So,’ Jack said as he appeared in the room, filling it up with his presence. He sort of leant around the baby, giving him a wide berth as he handed Natalie her coffee. ‘Is that all right?’ he asked her, looking at Freddie. ‘To have a hot drink right next to him?’

  Natalie shifted Freddie over onto her right knee and held her coffee in her left hand, desperate for it to cool so she could mainline the caffeine. Her mind felt fuzzy and muddled and her skin tingled with tiredness. She felt like she used to when she had been out clubbing all night, only without the booze and carefree fun. She blinked a couple of times to focus her vision and wondered if coming to see Jack after so little sleep had been the best idea. But if not now, then when?

  Jack sat down opposite her on the settle, took two custard tarts out of the paper bag he had been carrying and put them on two plates on a tiny table which he positioned between them. And then without touching either one he leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees again, and looked at Natalie.

  ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he said.

  ‘You are?’ Natalie asked him, feeing a swell of hope rise in her chest.

  ‘Yes,’ Jack said emphatically. ‘Like you, I was feeling bad about what happened between us that night. It was all so intense and difficult to take in. We found out so much about each other in such a short time. I behaved badly, thoughtlessly. I didn’t appreciate how my news might affect you.’ He dropped his head briefly. ‘I’ve thought about that evening a lot since then and I want you to know I’m sorry. I suppose I must have had this idea that you were sort of in suspended animation while I was away, that your life wouldn’t have changed at all. But it has.’ He nodded at Freddie who was staring at him in total fascination, just waiting for Jack to smile at him, when he would return the expression automatically with his wide, all-embracing grin that seemed to invite the whole world to be his friend.

  But Jack did not smile.

  ‘Your life has changed a lot,’ he went on. ‘And so have you. I should have realised that because I’ve changed too.’

  Natalie felt the bubble of hope that had risen in her chest pop and melt away.

  ‘Have you?’ she asked, not really wanting an answer.

  ‘During my illness I thought a lot about that weekend. I built up this imaginary version of you that isn’t real at all.’ Jack’s voice was tinged with sadness. ‘Do you understand what I mean?’

  Natalie nodded, forcing herself to look him in the face. ‘Yes,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘I do. I thought about you too, except I couldn’t decide if you were the lost love of my life or an evil womaniser.’

  ‘And now?’ Jack asked her, with an edge to his voice that she could not interpret.

  ‘Now.’ She looked at him thoughtfully, his lean, taut features so familiar and yet so strange. This was her opportunity to be completely honest with both herself and him. Did she love him? Did she want him? Was it truly this man that she longed to be with?

  The answer her heart gave her was not the one she had been hoping for, and when it came to it she found it was not the one she could share with Jack.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said instead, because it was easier. ‘I can’t know, can I? Like you said, we’re practically strangers.’

  Both of them
were quiet as they let the moment pass into history.

  For the first time since they had met Natalie allowed herself the thought that perhaps all Jack and she were ever meant to be to each other were ships that had passed in the night. It was a realisation that made her feel suddenly terribly sad, as a long unspoken but closely held hope was finally extinguished.

  All she could do now was to try to make the best of things for her son.

  ‘Jack,’ she said, careful to keep her voice steady. ‘I want to explain why I behaved the way I did. I was upset when you didn’t call me after Venice. I was so sure that you would. It was a real blow to my ego and to my heart, I suppose, when you just . . . vanished. When you didn’t call I thought that you hadn’t liked me at all, I thought you’d used me, or maybe you thought that the expensive hotel and trip to Venice should have been enough of a pay-off and maybe it should have been. But I let myself think it was more than that, something I never usually do. When I realised I was wrong, I felt like an idiot.’ Natalie laughed, despite how she was feeling inside. ‘I had planned to get over you and forget you entirely within about eight weeks, only after six weeks I knew I was pregnant, which did throw a massive spanner in the works.’

  ‘Must have been a bit of a sod,’ Jack said, pressing his lips into a thin serious line.

  Natalie nodded.

  ‘It was a bit,’ she said. ‘But I wasn’t angry or upset about the pregnancy; I was happy, amazingly happy. I had everything in my life I needed to cope: money, a home, work, friends.’ She tipped her head to one side. ‘And a mother who I sort of need in a sort of unhealthy co-dependency way – but that’s another story. Anyway, I knew I wanted my baby, come what may. I thought it didn’t matter who his father was. I thought if I never saw you again that he and I would be absolutely fine. Only I did see you again. And I won’t try to just cut you out of his life. Not if you want to be part of it.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Jack said slowly. ‘I understand completely why you didn’t tell me about him. It’s probably a better reason than mine for not telling you about my cancer. While I was behaving like a coward, you were acting like a hero. I was scared but more than that,’ Jack took a deep breath, ‘I was embarrassed.’

  ‘Embarrassed?’ Natalie asked him, with some confusion.

  ‘Yes.’ Jack looked abashed. ‘I still am a bit, to be honest, even though I’ve come to terms with it now. But when I met you I was just about to have a ball cut off. And I didn’t like talking about it. In fact, it was my general reluctance to discuss my testes with beautiful ladies that nearly got me killed. My GP is a woman. I waited and waited to ask her about the lump. I was really lucky they caught it in time.’

  ‘I see,’ Natalie said slowly, although she clearly didn’t.

  ‘Yes, I know you think I’m an idiot but I wasn’t especially rational at the time. I was worried that after the operation I’d feel emasculated, or that I’d repulse you or any woman. I thought, who’d want a one-balled man?’

  Natalie tried to stop herself smiling, but she couldn’t.

  ‘I don’t know how to break this to you,’ she said, her mood briefly lightened. ‘But a pair of testicles is not the most important requirement in a lady’s list of must-haves when it comes to a prospective partner.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Jack asked her, with a wry smile. ‘Anyway, I didn’t know where I’d be after the surgery and the treatment. I felt for a while that the disease would castrate me, that I’d have no sex drive. I felt weak and pathetic and I . . . I cried a lot. I realise now that I didn’t know you at all, Natalie, but I did know that I didn’t want you to see me that way.’ He paused. ‘Maybe if, if you had come and told me about Freddie, if I’d known that you were having my baby, things might have been different. Except the fact that we had a child wouldn’t have really changed anything else, would it? We would still have been virtual strangers, still not knowing anything about each other. It still would have been one of the worst and most irrational ways to start a relationship.’

  The smile that had started on Natalie’s lips faded.

  ‘That’s true,’ she said. For a moment neither of them could look at the other.

  ‘I don’t know what you think about me, Natalie,’ Jack went on. ‘But one of the things I have been for most of my adult life is a coward. I run away from things that scare me. Like the final exams in my biochemistry degree. I studied for three years, aced paper after paper but the thought of the exams did my head in, so I didn’t take them. I never passed my degree. And women, it’s not that I was afraid of commitment, it was more that I was afraid of making a commitment to a woman and then realising a few months or years down the line that she was the wrong one. I thought it was better to be careful. So I didn’t really get very involved with anybody until . . . well, I suppose I can’t really say I got involved with you.’

  Jack sighed and shook his head as if attempting to dislodge a particularly unhelpful thought. ‘Then there was the cancer. I ran away from that for a long time too. Didn’t get it checked out for months, waited and waited for the bloody thing to go away on its own, and once I had the diagnosis, I ran away again – with you that time. And then from you; from you and how the cancer might make you see me. So you see, I am a terrible coward. I’m weak, I’m not the kind of man who could be a good father. Or at least I haven’t been.’ He moistened his lips. ‘I’ve thought about nothing except you and the baby since the night you told me about him, and I realised – I’ve got my life back now and I don’t want to live it like a coward, Natalie. I want to be brave, I want to face life and live it – the good and the bad.’ Jack suddenly looked very young. ‘It’s just that being brave is a bit scary.’

  Natalie watched him, this man she had thought of as so strong and even dashing, so dangerous to know and a real heart-breaker, and found with some amazement that it wasn’t that constructed version of him that she was drawn to after all. It couldn’t be, because all the feelings she had had for that distant and shadowy man of mystery were still present for this utterly vulnerable stranger. The more he told her the more she admired him, the more at last she really understood him. He was an ordinary man who’d been badly beaten and buffeted by life, and was still in recovery. He wasn’t what she had thought he was at all, and yet Jack was exactly the man for her, because in the end it had been none of those artifices that she had fallen for in Venice. It had been the core of him, the heart, and that was still there.

  Jack looked at Freddie, who catching his eye bounced up and down on Natalie’s knee excitedly. Jack was the one adult who hadn’t instantly poured smiles and attention all over him, and he was trying his best to rectify the situation by being especially charming.

  ‘It seems to me,’ Jack went on, ‘that little fellow is here in the world now and he is part of me, and if you’ll let me I do want to be part of his life. I don’t want to run away from my son. I might not be very good at it but I’m going to try my best to be his father, the best one I can be.’

  As he spoke, his words caught in his throat and he dipped his head for a moment, until the threat of tears had subsided.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said with a shrug. ‘You see, once I got past the whole running for the hills impulse I realised that it is sort of like a miracle. I didn’t know if I’d be able to father children after treatment. I was trying to get used to the idea of never being a father and then suddenly –’ He gestured at Freddie.

  Natalie smiled at him, wishing more than anything that she could just go and put her arms around him.

  ‘Can I . . . could I have a go at holding him?’ Jack asked, interrupting her thoughts. ‘Can I hold Freddie?’

  For a second Natalie felt her arms tighten reflexively around Freddie’s tummy and then she relaxed her fingers.

  ‘Of course you can,’ she told him gently.

  Jack looked nervous.

  ‘I need to support its, I mean his head, right?’ he said, looking at Freddie like he was a bundle of particularly unstable dy
namite.

  ‘Well, no, he can do that on his own now,’ Natalie said, looking down at her son who was leaning forward in her lap, his arms outstretched to Jack. ‘But it’s usually best not to dangle him by his legs or anything like that.’

  Jack’s mouth twitched with the promise of a smile. ‘I remember I liked your sense of humour.’ He paused. ‘You were joking, weren’t you?’

  Natalie laughed despite herself.

  ‘Yes, I was, Jack,’ she said. She was confused. She had never felt so happy and yet so sad at the same time before. It was a difficult mix of emotions to control and she felt that she might burst in the attempt.

  ‘You know what,’ she said. ‘I think you are actually quite a nice man.’

  ‘Am I?’ Jack said. ‘Really? Is that good?’

  ‘It’s good for Freddie,’ Natalie said. She and Jack stood up together and then, finally, she transferred her son into his father’s arms.

  Once there Freddie’s features became still as he looked up at Jack with a solemn but curious expression.

  Jack looked down at Freddie in exactly the same way.

  ‘He actually does look like me,’ Jack said in amazement. ‘Isn’t that weird? I mean, friends and family with babies are always going on about how they are the dead spit of somebody or other and I’ve looked at them, these babies, and I’ve thought – nope, they all look the same to me. Fat, pink and squashy. But I look at him and I can see myself in him, and you too. It’s the weirdest feeling. It’s . . . God, it’s amazing, Natalie.’

  As Jack smiled down at the baby at last, Freddie’s face erupted into a returning grin, and expression of pure delight.

  ‘He smiles!’ Jack exclaimed happily. ‘Look, he smiles and he’s a baby – does that make him advanced? What else does he do? Does he crawl yet, or talk?’