The Birth of Love

by Joanna Kavenna

  ‘Dah.’

  ‘That’s right, sweetie. I’m taking your bowl and spoon. And now I’m putting them in the sink. There’s the sink, that’s right’ – as Calumn pointed at the sink.

  *

  She cleared up some of the mess though not much of it, just enough to keep things reasonable and not entirely sordid, and then she wiped Calumn’s mouth, though he bucked against her.

  ‘There we are,’ she said, stroking his hair. ‘All clean. Good boy.’

  And Calumn turned to her and with his arms outstretched, kissed her wetly on the chin.

  ‘Thank you, sweetie,’ she said, kissing him back. ‘How lovely, a kiss for Mummy.’

  *

  ‘… let’s turn to the next …’ said the radio, and then Brigid felt a deep pain within her, harsh now, quite searching, asking her if she was ready to go through the whole thing again. The pain stabbed at her, severely and in this questioning way, and then it receded. A contraction, if ever I felt one, thought Brigid, but still she was superstitious and tried to dismiss the thought. But it must be. She was contemplating the real possibility that this was labour when she heard the doorbell. She said to Calumn, ‘Come on sweetie, let’s go and see who’s at the door.’ She wondered if it was Stephanie, arriving early; Stephanie who had gone through five years of IVF before she conceived. A walking miracle, she called herself. More likely, it was her mother already. Hastening to her, with something to say. So Brigid lifted her son down from his chair and set him on the floor. He grabbed at her trousers, wanting to come up again, but she kissed him and tousled his hair. ‘Come on sweetie, have to hurry. It’s the doorbell.’ He raised a hand and put it into hers.

  *

  Brigid opened the door and greeted her mother, who was looking particularly small and determined, her hair newly dyed, her skin creamed with some expensive unguent, her jewellery sparkling and everything about her expressing a firm resolve that try as the universe might to upset her she would prevail. She was carrying a lot of plates and bowls, in plastic bags, each of them neatly capped with a piece of tinfoil. These she thrust into Brigid’s hands.

  ‘Several meals,’ she said. ‘I thought you would need them.’

  ‘Thanks Mum, that’s really amazingly brilliant of you,’ said Brigid, brightly, taking care to smile. She took them into the kitchen and stacked everything carefully in the fridge. A procession followed along, her mother and her son. ‘Hello darling,’ her mother was saying to Calumn, kissing him and rubbing his fat hands. ‘Darling boy, aren’t you looking nice in your red trousers. What lovely red trousers! Come and kiss your old grandma …’ Calumn burbled back, flung his arms around her neck. No idea at all, thought Brigid. He has no idea at all. Assumes adults are consistent, uniformly kind. One day he would realise – or would he? – that there were certain ambiguities, that his grandmother was a complicated woman, giving with one hand, taking with the other, that his mother was herself a wary daughter, and that Calumn was a battleground. Across the battleground of this small boy they mounted their respective campaigns, attacked and retreated, or suffered an uneasy truce. Calumn never noticed. He only saw a smiling woman who plainly loved him. It was his simplicity perhaps, it helped others to become simple too.

  *

  ‘I made you and your mummy lunch, yes I did … I made you and your mummy a lovely yummy lunch,’ her mother was saying to Calumn. ‘A delicious lunch, oh we’ll have a lovely lunch.’

  Brigid made more tea, while her mother settled herself into a chair and said, ‘Oh, what a funny little boy you are!’ and Calumn clapped his hands and said, ‘Gan gang gan gan.’

  ‘Gran, gran,’ said Brigid’s mother. ‘That’s what I am yes! I’m your gran, yes I am.’

  ‘Hilabsnroortshammablapa,’ said Calumn, turning circles.

  ‘What’s all that? What on earth is all that?’ laughed Brigid’s mother. ‘Good Lord. What an amazing word, not a pause for breath at all.’

  ‘Mewirddeeteo.’

  ‘Absolutely, dear little boy. Absolutely, I agree entirely. Thank you dear,’ said Brigid’s mother, as Brigid put the tea on the table. ‘Dreadful weather isn’t it, all this rain? They say it’s global warming on the news. Hotter and wetter summers. It’s like a rainy season, really. I find it so sad. So sad that poor Calumn will be growing up with these horrible wet summers. Poor little boy. When I was a child the summers were so beautiful and ceaselessly hot. Bright blue skies, little wisps of cloud. It was the same for you too. I remember spending every day with you in the garden, John too after he was born. Endless blue days. And the evenings were balmy and long. Then you had a proper cold autumn. Even in October you were cold, and you knew that winter was really on its way. But it was a proper year with seasons. I like seasons. Don’t we like seasons, Calumn? We like a nice hot summer, don’t we? Yes we do!’

  ‘Dah,’ said Calumn, smiling. Then he grabbed a saucepan – left on the floor for his entertainment – and smashed it on the tiles.

  ‘Oh, that’s a bit loud,’ said Brigid’s mother. ‘Really too loud, Calumn.’

  ‘Rowd rowd,’ said Calumn, and then he wailed when the pan was taken away from him. ‘Have some more apple,’ said Brigid, trying to bribe him. ‘Yummy apple, would you like some, sweetie?’

  ‘Nnnnnear,’ said Calumn, with his eyes shut.

  ‘OK, sweetie, don’t have any apple. But let’s be a bit quieter. Hush hush, a bit quieter, please.’

  ‘AHHHHGANNNGANNNNNGANNN,’ said Calumn, in his loudest voice.

  ‘It is bad,’ said Brigid, trying to speak over him, while her mother smiled as if to say that she understood, that it was impossible to be a perfect parent, she understood that Brigid was doomed to fail. ‘It is bad about global warming. Calumn, do you want a banana instead?’

  ‘Neeeearrr.’

  ‘I don’t think he wants it, Brigid. Now, have you been speaking to your midwife? What’s her name?’

  ‘Jenny.’

  ‘Yes, her.’

  ‘I have regular appointments with her, yes.’

  ‘Why don’t you call her up today? See if she can’t speed things up for you?’

  ‘Thanks Mum, but really Tuesday’s not so long away,’ Brigid said loudly, confidently, even though she didn’t believe it. Just then the pain surged within her and she gritted her teeth. She turned away and fumbled in a cupboard. Breathe, she thought. Remember to breathe. Oblivious anyway her mother was continuing, determined to convince her.

  ‘I think you’ve been very heroic and so on, yes Mummy has been a heroine hasn’t she Calumn, but I think we should let her have her new baby now, shouldn’t we? So we can all meet it, so Calumn you can see your new friend, yes you can … Mummy hasn’t wanted to let the baby out yet because she likes having it in there so much. But perhaps now she might let it out. Perhaps she’ll let the doctors help her soon. Won’t that be exciting?’

  ‘Shall I pour you some tea, Mum?’ said Brigid.

  ‘Oh let me do it, dear. Really, you should go and lie down. Come on Calumn, you and I will pour Mummy a cup of tea, yes? Shall we? And would Mummy like some pineapple with it? Is Mummy having her pineapple?’

  ‘Mummy has eaten quite enough pineapple, thank you,’ said Brigid. ‘Not that it helps.’ Her mother was busy with the teapot, smiling periodically at Calumn, who was holding onto her trouser legs.

  ‘It’s true, isn’t it Calumn, that pineapple seems not to have helped your mummy. So now she needs the nice doctors, that’s what Grandma thinks. That’s what Grandma thinks, though Mummy doesn’t believe Grandma. Poor Grandma!’

  *

  So Brigid bridled, even in her weakened state. Even as another pain threatened to evolve, she bridled. She was exhausted and irritable; certainly she felt she could neither surrender fully to her mother nor could she stand firm against her. Anyway her mother had innumerable strategies and was clearly in a better state to marshal her victories. She was staring blankly at her mother, thinking about what she would say, how she would neu
tralise the latest line of enquiry, she was phrasing something when she felt the pain again, deep, rising to a peak and then breaking and receding. She remembered this, this rhythm of pain; she had once lived a day to this rhythmic rise and fall.

  *

  ‘More juice?’ her mother was saying to Calumn, holding up his cup while he shook his head. And Brigid was trying to grasp the pain she had felt, hold it close. She longed for pain, more pain, a still more direct and inescapable pain. That was just one of the small perversities of her state. And now her mother was talking about the floor in her kitchen, how she needed it re-tiled, how the tiles she wanted were so expensive, while Brigid thought about how she craved pain, a pain which would drag this pregnancy to an end. This was how you became glad about labour. It was the only possible release from this discomfort, this enslavement to the overgrown body. You longed so urgently for release that you accepted agony, welcomed physical distress. She smiled, as she thought how absurd it was, that she was nursing this pain to herself, feeling friendly towards it.

  *

  ‘I have various things I should do, sorting out the house and making sure I’ve sent away all my copy-editing,’ she said. ‘And a friend of mine is coming round for coffee quite soon. But of course you’re very welcome to stay. You might like to play with Calumn.’

  ‘Who’s your friend?’

  ‘Stephanie.’

  ‘Stephanie?’ said her mother, imperiously. A stranger! And she the gatekeeper, the guardian of the front door! It was that sort of expression, thought Brigid.

  ‘Yes, a former colleague, from school.’

  Her mother was peering into the fridge, rustling through the bags of mouldy vegetables. ‘Your fridge is rather empty,’ she said. Calumn was behind her saying, ‘Rid-rid-ridd-rid.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t been to the shops for a while. Calumn, come over here, sweetie, let’s have some milk. A cup of milk?’ He put out a hand, took the milk.

  ‘I remember when I was pregnant with you, I was so busy in the final days,’ said her mother. ‘I made two months’ worth of meals and put them all in the freezer. Labelled them all. Lasagne. Shepherd’s Pie. Fish Pie. Rhubarb Crumble. All in labelled containers. I was determined not to be caught short after the birth. I cooked for days and days, hour upon hour. I wasn’t quite as big as you, but still, it was a major undertaking. I dragged myself around our kitchen, without all these labour-saving devices everyone relies on these days, and morning to dusk I cooked. And when I’d put the last container in the freezer, I felt the beginnings of labour.’

  ‘Very precise timing,’ said Brigid, though she had heard the story before.

  ‘So precise. My body knew it could let itself go. I had finished the cooking. And we ate so well after the birth. Not too well, naturally, because I wanted to lose my baby weight as soon as possible. But your father, God rest his soul, ate well. And I had enough. I always think when I look at photos from that time, how slim I was, even just after the birth,’ said her mother, who was far from fat now but had perhaps sagged a little in recent years. Age had dragged her skin down, though there wasn’t much flesh on her bones. She was a handsome elderly woman, Brigid supposed. Carefully set hair, dyed a blonder shade of white. High cheekbones, tastefully applied make-up. She wore pastel shades which suited her well enough. Well-cut trousers, low shoes. She was small but she held herself well. She had shrunk in recent years, but she wasn’t bent-backed. She was cleaning the surfaces with a regal air, as if she rarely had to stoop to such work but was doing it for her daughter.

  ‘Don’t do that, Melissa will clean tomorrow,’ said Brigid.

  ‘Nee-nar nee-nar,’ said Calumn, racing out of the room, and Brigid’s mother went to fetch him. There was a cry as he was retrieved and the kitchen door was shut behind him.

  ‘Thanks Mum,’ said Brigid.

  ‘You shouldn’t be carrying him around in your state. Not a big boy like you, Calumn. Such a big strong boy! Can’t Patrick take some time off work?’

  ‘It’s very busy at the moment. Besides, he’s saving it up for when the baby’s born. He’ll only get a couple of weeks.’

  ‘What does he do all day in that office anyway?’ said her mother.

  ‘Well, somehow he passes the time,’ said Brigid. ‘The hours pass and then he comes home again.’ The doorbell rang again, and Brigid waddled off to answer it. Stephanie was on the doorstep, with a baby in a pram, a tiny grub-like creature, its eyes shut, occasionally making little grumbling noises and sucking its fingers. The grub was called Aurora, but really it was a pre-human, with its furry body, its asymmetrical skull. It was still foetal, with its jerky little movements, its utter dependence on the mother, everything involuntary, unmeditated. It hardly needed a name, it was still so clearly an extension of its mother.

  ‘Oh, how beautiful she is,’ said Brigid, kissing Stephanie, adoring the baby for the requisite amount of time, picking up a little finger and holding it, careful not to wake her.

  Calumn was trying to peer into the pram.

  ‘Gently, gently, Calumn,’ Brigid said. ‘Don’t wake the baby.’

  ‘Bah bah bah,’ said Calumn, loudly. The baby stirred but didn’t wake.

  ‘Ssssh, Calumn, very gently. Speak quietly, ssshhh,’ said Brigid.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Stephanie. ‘But can we bring the pram into the kitchen? Just so I can push it backwards and forwards, make sure she stays asleep as long as possible?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Brigid. ‘Just wheel it along.’

  ‘Aren’t the wheels wet?’ said Brigid’s mother. ‘Shouldn’t you dry the wheels?’

  ‘Don’t worry about the wheels,’ said Brigid, before Stephanie could bend down. ‘Don’t worry at all. I don’t care about them.’ And she started pulling the pram through the door, while Calumn bounced along beside it, saying, ‘Bah bah,’ and making the baby twitch and stir. Stephanie sat down in the kitchen, the pram beside her, moving it backwards and forwards, the wet wheels making a swooshing sound on the kitchen floor. ‘Is she sleeping well?’ said Brigid’s mother. ‘Calumn, darling, don’t grab the side of the pram.’

  ‘No, not really,’ said Stephanie. ‘Up every two hours to feed, then feeds for an hour, that sort of thing. But I hear that’s pretty usual.’

  ‘Oh yes, absolutely normal,’ said Brigid’s mother.

  ‘Breastfeeding is a nightmare of course,’ said Stephanie. ‘I hadn’t realised what a complete nightmare it was. Brigid you were so good, you never told me how ghastly it is, how painful, how desperately you think, “God, why not just give the poor little brute a bottle,” but then the health visitors treat you as if you are Satan for even suggesting it, and so for some reason you carry on.’ She laughed, vividly, showing her teeth.

  ‘I’m sure I told you many times how tough it was. I must have, I moaned bitterly to Patrick,’ said Brigid.

  ‘How long do I have to do it to earn my little gold badge, “Good Mummy”? How long, please tell?’ said Stephanie. She was looking pretty good, thought Brigid. Flushed cheeks, from pushing the pram along, and her hair was still glossy and thick from pregnancy. Auburn, streaked with grey, curling over her shoulders. She was striking certainly. At school she had a reputation for saying outrageous things. She sometimes swore in front of the pupils. Teaching Romeo and Juliet, she said things like, ‘Romeo and Juliet simply fancy the bloody pants off each other,’ while her pubescent class tittered and blushed.

  ‘I breastfed both my children for a year,’ said Brigid’s mother. ‘Twelve months each. Then I stopped. I was happy to stop when I did. I felt I’d done the best I could for them.’

  ‘A year, Mrs Morgan. That’s amazing,’ said Stephanie. ‘That’s so amazing. God, I’ll think I deserve a bloody medal if I get to three months. I told Jack that the World Health Organization recommends three months. He never reads anything so he doesn’t know any better. Also men never discuss these things with their friends, do they? They don’t sit around having earnest conversations abou
t whether breast is best, or do they?’

  ‘I don’t think Patrick does,’ said Brigid. ‘But he definitely thought breastfeeding was important.’

  ‘Oh yes, Jack says that. But where has he got that from? I just don’t understand,’ said Stephanie, kicking off her heels, causing Calumn to wander over to look at her feet. But he was shy and wouldn’t touch them. And they were strange, thought Brigid, trying to imagine – as she often did – what Calumn saw, how things appeared to him. Gnarled bent toes with glistening nails at the end. Soft skin and hard nail. He stood over them, pointing at the shining nail polish.

  ‘Yes, my toes,’ said Stephanie. ‘Where are your toes, Calumn?’

  Calumn looked up at Stephanie’s face, smiling coyly, then gazed down at her feet again.

  ‘How are you feeling in yourself?’ said Brigid to Stephanie.

  ‘Oh, pretty trashed. Big weeping Caesarean scar, that sort of loveliness. Can’t imagine I’ll ever get back to normal. I’m just trying not to think about it.’ Stephanie was wearing a loose orange dress, still in her maternity clothes, so you couldn’t really see what she looked like. Underneath, Brigid imagined she was bloated, still carrying piles of weight. That was how she had been. And her face had been so full and fat, like a girl’s. It made her look improbably well on all the post-birth photographs. She was wallowing in agonised surprise but she looked like her teenage self, puppy fat on her cheeks. Stephanie took a sip of tea. ‘Anyway Brigid you’re looking great. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Brigid. ‘A bit bored. A bit impatient, but then apprehensive at the same time. You know, you’ll remember it so well.’ And in pain she thought, trying to shrug off a rising surge, moving so she was facing away from them, crossing to the sink and running the tap. As the water ran she breathed. The pain rose. It was nothing, she knew. This pain was nothing compared with the pain to come. Later she wouldn’t be standing around thinking about the varieties of pain. She would have her head down like a dying animal, simply trying to endure. But now, she stood by the sink, pretending to wash her hands, wondering how long it was lasting and whether she should start to time the contractions.