Babyface

by Fiona Gibson

  Ben wriggles excitedly as I feed his limbs into the padded pants. In the pool he bobs gently, supported by a duck-shaped inflatable seat. He flicks water experimentally. As the other babies join him, he busies himself by tweaking the duck’s beak. Remarkably he is behaving as if this pool, crammed with unfamiliar babies, is our ordinary bath at home.

  Each child appears on the monitor in turn, except Ben. He frowns intently, stroking yellow plastic, until a crucial part of his baby brain reminds him that he’s not here to wallow in warm water, but to work. He looks up, wide-eyed and grinning, as if the unwieldy camera, sliding slowly toward him on a track, is a bulbous, milk-filled teat. “Oh!” says the golden-maned woman. Ben’s face fills the monitor in an advert not for Little Squirts gunk but parenthood itself: look what you can make if you put your mind to it. Even if you don’t. One little slip-up, and here’s the result.

  Ben blinks at the camera. The lone father sets down his Daily Mirror. There’s silence, then a ripple of applause. “Fantastic,” says Jackie, scooping Ben out of the water and wrapping him in a yellow hooded towel. “You have a little star on your hands.”

  It’s over so quickly, this happy scene that even Jonathan couldn’t complain about. I’ll tell him tonight. We’ll have dinner and wine and afterward, I’ll say something like, “Jonathan, I haven’t been completely straight with you. Ben and I—we’ve been…” He’ll look cross for an instant, and say it’s the deceit he has trouble with, not the modeling. Couldn’t I have told him? Did I really think he’d fly off the handle over something so trivial? But he’ll understand that I’d only wanted a change, some respite from Beth and her floury kitchen. I’ll hug him, relieved to have brought everything out into the open. We’ll go to bed, and he’ll climb on me and off again, the way he does these days, like it’s a task to cross off the list:

  Veg from market

  Buggy tire

  Wedding rings

  Sex

  And we’ll get on with planning the wedding. Nothing flashy, bit of a wine bar buffet. We’re married already, really. We have a married food processor and married sex. We might have been together for decades. As for the modeling, Jonathan will allow Ben to continue if it makes me happy. Next time—there’s bound to be a next time—he might even come along too.

  “You’ve done what?” rasps Eliza.

  “Ben’s done an ad,” I repeat, my voice lurching as the cab jolts over speed bumps. “Marcus said he was a star. A natural. Soon he won’t be getting out of his cot for less than ten thousand quid.”

  She laughs bitterly. “I didn’t think you’d take it this far. Only used Ben in my shoot to get you out of the house.”

  I didn’t expect this response. I assumed Eliza, scornful of stay-home-mothers, would be glad that I’d snatched a little glamour, even if only via my son’s dazzling good looks.

  “Greg, your photographer, recommended him to an agency,” I start to explain.

  “He’s with an agency?” she splutters.

  “It’s just one little ad,” I say huffily, “that’ll probably be shown in Japan or something.”

  “What? On national Japanese TV?”

  “I don’t know. I forgot to ask.”

  Strapped into his seat, Ben sleeps in a haze of synthetic raspberry. I’m worried now. What if the modeling thing escalates out of control? If he starts demanding star treatment, batting away substandard food? He might get ideas above his station. Even demand a new mother. “What does Jonathan think?” Eliza asks.

  “He doesn’t know.”

  “There you are,” she snorts triumphantly. “You know how he’ll react. How much is Ben getting paid for this?”

  “Not much,” I say. In fact, I don’t know how much. I haven’t asked. It hardly seems important.

  “You should have found out,” she rattles on. “It might be child exploitation. Didn’t you sign some sort of contract?”

  I open the yellow box on my lap; it’s adorned with pink squiggles and contains the entire Little Squirts range. Our thank-you present. Raven refused to get into the pool. She wore the swimsuit, but smeared melted Rolos all over the front. They didn’t get a goody box.

  “I’m not doing it for the money,” I say lamely.

  “Then why are you doing it?”

  I fondle a tube of Little Squirts shampoo: a nourishing blend of kiwi and papaya, because we care about your baby as much as you do.

  “Not for the money,” I snap.

  Jonathan shows up at around nine, whiffing of old wine. He’s been out for a drink with Billy. Their nights out generally happen after three cancellations (by Jonathan) and leave him exhausted from the effort of trying to unfriend his oldest mate. It’s the opposite to befriend. It happens when someone likes and needs you too much. “I don’t know why he insists on this old drinking buddy thing,” says Jonathan, draping his rain-speckled jacket on a chair. “I’ve never been anyone’s drinking buddy. I’d rather be home with you.”

  He lands on the bed like a worn-out cushion. “Have you eaten?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “Could you rustle something up?” This throws me. I don’t rustle; Jonathan does. I survive on snacks—plus whatever Jonathan cooks—and barely think about meals. “Perhaps,” he says carefully, “you could start picking up a few bits during the day.”

  “What kind of bits?” I ask.

  “Food,” he says, giving me a sharp look. “You know—for meals. Seeing as you’re home all day.” He steps out of his trousers, aligning each leg’s creases on the hanger. “All I mean is, maybe you could knock up the odd pasta sauce. If you have a spare moment. During the day.”

  He rubs his forehead as if trying to erase wrinkles. Since his promotion to team leader, Jonathan’s clothes have become looser, his cheeks concave. He has started to bring home convenience meals, which he picks at. One evening, instead of presenting the usual fresh combo—a fig and Parma ham salad, say—he microwaved a ready-made thing called an ocean pie that leaked margarine as it heated.

  “You’re saying I have acres of time?” I blurt out. “Big, empty days, when I could be whipping up fancy sauces and freezing them?”

  He unbuttons his white shirt slowly, casting it into the wicker linen basket. He shrugs on a mottled gray T-shirt that droops at his shoulders. “I know you’re busy,” he says quietly. “I’ve been calling you all day—your mobile’s always switched off. I don’t want to keep tabs on you, Nina, but it would be nice to know where you are.”

  “Why did you want me?” I ask cautiously.

  “I wondered if you’d managed to sort out the venue. If the Fox can do the cold buffet with a poached salmon centerpiece. You know—for our wedding.”

  “I forgot. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

  He gives me a quick look, strides into the living room and busies himself with Ben’s tickly belly. “Time’s running out,” he reminds me.

  “But it’s three months away.”

  Ben is failing to respond to Jonathan’s raspberry-blowing endeavors. Our son lolls, head flopped to one side, shattered after a hard day’s modeling.

  “Yes, and people spend years planning a wedding. There’s a lot to think about.”

  I wish he’d give up, stop rasping on Ben’s bare belly; I’m scared he’ll detect a fruity whiff or a glimmer of glamour and stardom.

  To Jonathan, of course, he’s the same old Ben.

  “I thought the wedding wasn’t meant to be a big thing,” I say to myself, chalking Call Fox with several underlines on the kitchen noticeboard.

  Now officially in charge of food preparation for my entire family, I decide that it’s unnecessary to cook from scratch every evening or even produce anything hot. Limoncello, the new deli that’s appeared in place of the terrifying dentist’s where you wouldn’t want to open your mouth, let alone have anyone rummage about in it, is the answer to our culinary quandary. It’s staffed by cheerful drama student types with affluent teeth and navy-and-white-striped aprons. I purchase ham, salami, ready-ma
de salads and flour-dusted loaves weighing half a ton. Surely, if all the main food groups put in an appearance—protein, carbs, a scattering of leaves—nothing dreadful will happen to our bones or eyesight. And I won’t have to cook per se, just assemble.

  It works. Having meals put before him is such a novelty for Jonathan that I gain several thousand Brownie points. “Great salami,” he says, tucking into my first offering. “Wonderful salad, Nina. Is this lamb’s lettuce?” I nod, adding that we will eat from Limoncello from now on. We’ll live simply, like the Italians or French with their enormous families and joke-telling grannies, clustering around vast kitchen tables. We might even have wine in the day.

  “Funny you mention big families,” he says. “There’s no rush. It’s not like your biological clock thing’s going off just yet. But I was thinking…”

  A scrap of salami sticks in my throat. Maybe I should have peeled off the stringy outer layer. What’s it made of anyway? Pig gut or indigestible plastic? “Can’t have Ben being an only child,” he continues. “I’m one, you’re one. Look how we turned out.”

  He looks up from his plate, smiling hopefully. I yank a strip of salami rind from between my front teeth. “We turned out okay,” I say bravely.

  After three weeks of deli cuisine, Jonathan suggests that we expand our repertoire. He eases the buggy through Saturday morning market crowds, apologizing each time he grazes a shin or ankle. Most of the stalls offer tie-dyed trousers and wraparound skirts made from sari material and other ethnic garments to suggest that your passport enjoys regular outings. Most of the shoppers have a hung-over air and are fit only for flicking through racks of scratched vinyl, and eating. Nearly everyone seems to be scoffing something. A bleary-eyed boy bites into pita bread, dolloping hummus onto Ben’s soft leather bootee. We shove our way out to the quiet terraced streets, having managed to buy only a brown paper bag of organic radishes.

  Too far from home, Ben starts bleating. “Let’s stop and give him his bottle,” I suggest.

  Jonathan eyes a patch of grass bordered by haggard rose bushes and chipped black railings. “What, here?” he says. “It’s not very—”

  Ben roars his requirement for liquid refreshment. We park at a cast-iron bench graffitied with If You Want To Do It With Melissa Call… The number has been scribbled out in fat black marker pen. Jonathan’s arm rests protectively around my shoulders. The small play area is entirely grassed, apart from a cracked concrete rectangle beneath the boat-shaped climbing frame, ensuring a serious head injury should your child tumble off. “Is there anywhere you’d like to go?” Jonathan asks.

  I look up at the maisonettes clustered round the park, their balconies tumbling with lobelia. “We should head home. Ben’s nappy smells serious and I forgot to bring a spare.”

  “No, for our honeymoon. We’d better book something soon. Any ideas?”

  How strange that we’ve arrived at mum and dad-ness, yet have never actually been anywhere together. We haven’t had time for holidays or even jaunts to the country like Beth and Matthew. They’re away this weekend. Just the two of them. Shropshire. Couple time, Beth called it; vital for retaining one’s intimacy. Reluctantly, she’s weaned Maud off the breast. Bosoms like concrete for the first few days, and milk squeezed out in the shower to whirl down the plughole (“What a waste!” she lamented. “But it’s worth it. I’m reclaiming my breasts. Actually, and it’s probably no coincidence, Matthew’s become interested in sex again, like he’s remembered I’m a woman.”).

  With the bottle drained, Ben nods off on Jonathan’s lap. “Where’s hot in December?” I ask. West Indies. Yes, the West Indies. White sand. Bikini. No, perhaps not bikini. A silvery one-piece with cutaway sides. I’ll have to work on those sides. Forget pelvic floor squeezes. I’ll do sit-ups. Crunches, they call them, which sounds dangerous. Start with ten a day and work up to twelve, maybe thirteen.

  It occurs to me that I have no idea of Jonathan’s preferences in terms of countries. I can’t imagine him in swimming trunks. It’s me who takes Ben to the pool; we still brave it once a week, despite the Ranald humiliation. And the sun: Jonathan’s skin wasn’t designed for it. I wonder if he’s ever taken a holiday. He’s never shown me pictures or talked about places he’s visited. “Where did you go,” I ask, “when you were a kid?”

  “Scotland,” he says, “every year. A farm that did B&B. They got to know me and Mum over the years. They sent Christmas cards. If we went early enough they’d take me out to the fields and I’d feed the lambs with a bottle. Mum watched from the fence, scared I’d be bitten.

  “They had a games cupboard,” he continues. “Cluedo, Mousetrap, and that one with the spikes you pull out of holes and the marbles drop down.” I imagine Jonathan and Constance agreeing that it didn’t matter about the rain; there was always the games cupboard with everything just how they’d left it. No wonder she finds me difficult to be around. When there’s only ever been two of you, a newcomer sticks out awkwardly with her big mouth and walloping backside. Maybe a family functions more simply and happily when there’s hardly anyone in it.

  “Did anyone else ever go,” I ask, “on these holidays?”

  Jonathan dabs Ben’s dribbling nose with the monogrammed cotton hankie he always keeps in a pocket, waking him instantly. Ben squirms crossly, backing away from the big, wiping hand.

  “Who was there to go?” he asks.

  “Well, your dad.”

  “All Mum has ever said is that there was someone. Obviously there was someone. But he wasn’t available for her. That was her line. I never thought to ask any more.” I want to ask more, to know everything. Why does he do this: offer only fragments of information? Maybe that’s all there is to tell. “I wonder if they’re still alive,” he says. “That couple, the Brodies, at the B&B.”

  “You could look them up. Would your mum have their number?”

  “We could go,” he says. I wonder if this is a joke. I think about countering with Mexico. Eliza is in Mexico. The idea is to have the model diving in diaphanous dresses and shoot the whole thing underwater. “I’d like to show you,” he adds, “and Ben would love it. Feeding the lambs.”

  “There won’t be lambs in December,” I say, feeling sick.

  “Mum would be delighted,” he adds. I am on the brink of vomiting. “What I mean is, Mum would love it if we went.”

  I’m so relieved I hear myself saying, “Then why don’t we go?”

  Jonathan kisses me with unexpected force. Ben yowls, alarmed at this public display of affection. “Kerplunk,” says Jonathan. “That’s the game with the sticks. Wonder if it’s still in that cupboard?”

  13

  Involving Grandma

  As a fashion stylist Eliza is concerned about my wedding attire and has thoughtfully stolen the last six issues of Confetti magazine. Its editorial offices are one floor up from hers, nabbing the best views. “Under-worked ponces,” she announces. “How hard can it be, bunging out four issues a year? ‘And what shall we cover this time? Oh, I know. Wedding dresses. Honeymoons. Dainty shoes. And some sort of quiz: does he have husband potential or is he a lying, scheming ratbag?’”

  I’ve left Ben at home with Jonathan. On my first night out since giving birth, I’m lying on my belly on Eliza’s carpet, an autumnal swirl of rust and bile that you could be sick or even die on, and everything would blend in. Eliza’s cat meanders in, eyeing me suspiciously.

  Dear Natalie, Penny of Droitwich has written to Confetti’s problem page. Should I write the names of the individual people I am inviting on each invitation, or can I just put their names on the envelopes?

  Clearly Penny isn’t getting out much. I wonder how long it might take for her prospective husband to discover he has made a hideous error of judgment and start going on too many overnight conferences.

  Dear Natalie,

  I plan to personalize the ribbon to tie my bouquet and have taken calligraphy classes. What sort of pen should I use?

  Chloe, Saffron Walden<
br />
  Dear Chloe,

  I wouldn’t advise writing on ribbon—it might come off and stain your hands, especially if they’re sweaty with nerves on the day. Luckily several mail-order companies are happy to print ribbon with your own personal wording.

  Natalie—help! My bridesmaids will hold pink rosebud posies but what should the page boys carry?

  Sally, Dumfries

  You’re right to assume that boys won’t want to carry flowers. How about satin ring cushions? They’re light, easy to hold, and perfect for keeping little hands occupied.

  What would little boys do with those hands, I wonder, without miniature cushions to clutch? I’ll have to watch it, Beth warned, when Ben’s old enough to investigate his private parts. “Boys are always delving down there,” she shuddered. “Fumbling, can’t leave the thing alone.” As good reason as any, she said, to keep them bound up in nappies for as long as possible. Access denied.

  “You don’t want anything too fitted,” says Eliza, joining me on the carpet. “You won’t enjoy yourself, sucking in your stomach all day.”

  The sole source of light is an anglepoise lamp which dangles lazily, casting a creamy oval onto a speckled Formica table. Eliza’s furniture appears to have been acquired from skips; precarious shelving, right angles not quite right, immense stacks of dusty magazines. There’s a heady smell, pulpy and thick. Somewhere in the flat, bad things are happening in a fruit bowl.

  “You don’t want to think about your belly,” Eliza continues, examining a picture of a frightful wedding gown that appears to have been constructed from doilies. “You want loose but not tenty—something you can put on and forget.”

  “You’re right,” I say. “I was thinking of a duffel coat.”

  She sighs, spreading out pages ripped from Confetti. Hot look for the modern bride: sleek and simple with ruffles at the neck and shoulders, lending a dandy edge. “How do you feel about bare arms?” she barks.