Helen was okay until the home birth, when the woman poohed on the carpet as the baby emerged. The midwife just scooped it up without a fuss, but the Frenchwoman’s image from that school day Biology lesson was re-burned in Helen’s mind bigger and brighter than ever, like a digitally remastered film.
They thought there was nothing left to see until the Caesarean-section delivery of a breech baby, which looked like an explosion in a mince factory. Helen screamed and hid her face behind a cushion, saying she could not watch any more, and Janey turned it off and put Emmerdale on instead.
‘I think we’ve seen enough now,’ she said. ‘Whose bloody idea was this?’
‘Yours,’ said Helen, still from behind the cushion. ‘Why didn’t we listen to Carol?’
Elizabeth couldn’t say anything; she continued to sit there looking stunned and rather grey. No one could go through that and live!
‘Look,’ said Janey, about to spread her ‘end justifies the means’ theory. ‘You have to keep your eye on what we’ll have at the end of it all–a lovely little baby.’
‘But to get from this’–Helen pointed at her massive fundus–‘to that stage, we have to go through one of those.’ And she pointed at the video.
‘Well, it’s going to have to come out somehow!’ said Janey, sounding far braver than she felt.
‘I don’t think I can,’ said Elizabeth.
‘You’ll have to, love–we all will,’ said Janey, patting her bump. ‘Put it this way, it’s a bit late for us to back out now!’
Still traumatized, Elizabeth slotted the key in the door and walked into the cold silence. This is what it will be like coming home with my new baby, she thought. There would be no welcoming committee popping champagne corks, no mum pushing her down onto the sofa and getting her a nice cup of tea, and no one to have switched the fire on if the weather had turned.
Cleef stretched up and yowled a sleepy hello and she smiled gratefully. She sat down in the rocking chair and he jumped up and perched comically on the top of her bump.
‘At least you’ll be here for us, sweetie,’ she said, and gave him a good old scratch under his chin that had him purring like a Mercedes engine. She needed to ask John if he would feed him for her when she went into hospital. She wondered, too, if she dare ask him if he would pick her up and bring her home afterwards, so she wouldn’t have to take the baby’s car seat in with her. She did not want to ask him this favour, but she was going to have to, because there was no one else–she couldn’t exactly ask Janey or Helen.
Her head fell forwards into her hands as if weighed down by her thoughts. There were so many little things still to orchestrate and gadgets to unpack and work out how they operated–the baby surveillance monitor that John had brought in his Santa visit, for instance, and the steriliser–and how the hell did you strap a car seat in anyway? It had taken her an hour to work out how to collapse the pram to get it into the car (even following the instruction leaflet) because she and the baby would need to go shopping together not long after they came out of hospital. The enormity of a simple bit of shopping in the future seemed as big as organizing a military operation to invade Australia. She had stocked the freezer up until it was groaning, but she would need fresh milk, and vegetables, and some fruit…Her brain was bursting with it all but at least she could make sure Cleef was covered.
John’s mobile clicked onto answerphone when she rang. Probably out with his bird.
‘Please leave a message…’
‘Hello, John,’ she said, trying to master the unwanted waver in her voice, ‘it’s Elizabeth. I’m just trying to get organized and I wondered if you would do me a favour when I go into hospital. Will you call in and feed Cleef for me? Once a day will be fine if you leave him some biscuits out as well and change his water. I’ll give you a key when I see you next, if that’s okay. Thanks, bye.’
She knew he would help, but then a thought infested that surety. Suppose he was going away on holiday somewhere–with his new woman? He must be ready for one, with all that hard work he had been doing, and that’s what couples in love did in summer. What would she do then? The questions just got too big for her head and she didn’t fight back the tears when they came. She wondered if they would ever stop.
She met Janey and Helen the next day for herby tea and a laboured look around the shops to make sure there was nothing any of them had forgotten to buy. However, considering they had more or less bought up Mothercare, Babyworld and Sanitary Towels ’R Us between them, it was hardly likely.
‘Teddy Sanderson sent me some flowers yesterday,’ said Helen, picking the angelica diamond off her meringue.
Four giant owls’ eyes rounded at her as if they were on a diet and she was a mouse covered in clotted cream.
‘What did it say on the card?’
‘Hope you’re feeling well, would you mind if I called you?’ She was smiling like a happy lunatic with no cares in the world except what to smile at next.
‘You like him, you do,’ said Janey.
‘You’re right, I do,’ said Helen.
‘What–like as in fancy?’ asked Elizabeth.
Helen mused for a few seconds. ‘Yes, I think I do. He’s been on my mind more than I imagined he would.’
‘Could you snog him?’
‘Oh, most definitely,’ said Helen, with no hesitation whatsoever.
She had imagined that scenario already and found it a very pleasant one. It had gone quite a bit further than kissing in her fantasies but she was not going to admit it to anyone. Sometimes friends were too close to tell everything to–she had discovered that fact a long time ago. She had got too used to holding her secrets close.
‘Oooooooooo,’ said Janey.
‘Oh, come on. It can’t go anywhere, can it, really?’ said Helen, dismissing their excitement with a wave.
‘Why not?’ said Elizabeth. ‘You’re both single, you’re gorgeous, he’s rich, you’re not a gold-digger, you’re the perfect age for each other, he’s handsome…I think he’s exactly your type and you have to be his; he’d be mad not to fancy you. Need I go on?’
‘Oh, stop it,’ said Helen, whilst inwardly agreeing that, yes, he was her type, far more than Simon ever was. She could see that now with the wonderful gift of hindsight.
‘You heard from you-know-who?’ asked Janey, right on cue.
‘The barest communication via his solicitor,’ said Helen. ‘We have a buyer for the house. I’m getting the deposit back and eighty per cent of the equity.’
‘Wow, that’s good, isn’t it?’ said Elizabeth.
‘I haven’t asked him for maintenance and he hasn’t asked for access to the baby.’
‘Oh sod, that’s not so good.’
‘He never did want the baby. I know that now, so I’m not shocked,’ said Helen with a loaded sigh, ‘but I feel so incredibly sad that my little girl will never share the sort of wonderful days with her father that I did with mine.’
Life with Simon seemed a million light years away, almost as if they had happened to someone else. She had not realized how cold and unhappy her marriage to him had been until she stepped out of his shadow and into the sunshine once again.
‘I still think you and Teddy might get together,’ said Elizabeth, hoping this was an appropriate thing to say in the circumstances. ‘Why do you say it can’t go anywhere?’
‘The reason why it can’t really go anywhere is because I’m heavily pregnant with someone else’s child, if you hadn’t noticed,’ said Helen, with a little laugh.
‘Not all blokes are pregnant-women-hating bastards,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I can see him and you with a little daughter walking in the park. He’d make a lovely step-daddy. He’s even called Teddy, for God’s sake. If that isn’t the most perfect name for a husband for you, I don’t know what is.’
Janey laughed and had a big bite of bun. Her torturous indigestion had gone and her bump had seemed to drop three feet overnight, which took the pressure off her digestive organs and
transferred it to her pelvis. Win some, lose some, she had thought at that, with a smile of resignation.
‘What about you and John then?’ Helen threw back.
‘What about me and John?’
‘Well, you seem very friendly. I mean, he went to the hospital with you, didn’t he, so I hear?’
‘Oh aye, has Mouth Almighty there been gossiping?’
‘Yep!’ said Janey.
‘Well?’
‘He’s a friend,’ said Elizabeth. ‘He was only ever a friend.’
Janey and Helen threw each other a colluding glance, which Elizabeth caught.
‘What?’ she demanded.
‘Rubbish,’ said Janey.
‘Rubbish what?’
‘You were in love with each other. Still are, by my reckoning.’
‘You rubbish!’
‘You rubbish!’
‘Oh, come on, children,’ said Helen. ‘Elizabeth, grow up and listen.’
Elizabeth looked as if Helen had just slapped her.
‘We read your letter, so you see, we know,’ said Helen, adding a limp, ‘Sorry, but we did.’
‘What letter? Know what?’
‘The one you wrote after you sent John away at that wedding all those years ago.’
Elizabeth coloured. ‘You went snooping in my house?’
‘No,’ corrected Janey. ‘You left it out on the table–well, under a tea-towel. It wasn’t like it was in a drawer. We thought it was your drawings, so you see, we opened it for a look and then discovered it by accident.’
‘You didn’t chuffing read it by accident!’ said Elizabeth, feeling as if she had just been emotionally stripped naked in front of her friends.
‘We tried to head him off at the pass,’ said Janey, ‘to tell him for you, but he’d upped and gone with that fluffy gonk.’
‘You what?’
‘We chased him to the airport,’ said Helen. ‘I think we missed him by half an hour.’
Elizabeth was open-mouthed with annoyance or shame or indignity or what, she wasn’t sure. ‘I can’t believe you read my letter!’ she said.
‘I can’t believe you felt that about John Silkstone and let him go,’ said Janey.
‘If you’ve got a second chance with John, you should take it,’ said Helen. ‘You would be a fool to let him go again.’
‘Listen, that was then and this is now,’ said Elizabeth, still red-faced. ‘Anyway, he’s seeing someone.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know who she is! I haven’t asked him.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘I just know.’ Elizabeth stiffened up her spine bravely and tried to look unbothered. ‘Good luck to him anyway, he deserves someone.’
Janey and Helen both gave a sympathetic sigh.
‘You don’t really feel like that, do you?’
‘Yes, of course I do. We’re friends, nothing more. It’s too late for anything else.’
‘It isn’t, Elizabeth.’
‘It is, Helen. We’ve both moved on from those days. We’re happy being just good friends.’
‘Really?’ This from Janey.
‘Yes, really. Anyway, you said it yourself when we were arguing about that rocking chair. He isn’t going to look at me again, is he, after last time? Friends, that’s all either of us wants.’ Or can ever hope to be.
‘That’s a shame,’ said Janey. She had become increasingly sure that there was more to it than friendship: all the stuff he had done for Elizabeth and bought her, the way he had looked at her in the hospital. Then how quick he had been to react when she came over a bit wobbly and how genuinely concerned he had been for her. Although he had always been a very caring bloke.
Just a friend? thought Janey and Helen together. Maybe so. Awwww no…what a shame!
Seven years on, Elizabeth still had the letter wrapped in tissue in her drawer. She had written it on the night when she had come home from Janey’s cousin’s wedding, when she could not get his face out of her head after telling him to leave her alone for good. Why couldn’t she just take his love? Why did she have to throw it back at him? She had taken out her sketch-pad and pen and sat at the kitchen table.
I’m sorry for what I said, I didn’t mean it, but you know what I’m like, John. I didn’t think I could ever love anyone. I didn’t know what these feelings were until I knew I’d lost you tonight, then it was too late. I know you won’t have me back and I don’t deserve you. I don’t know why I did what I did. I’m screwed up, I’m stupid, so bloody stupid…
She never sent it, of course. He had a chance to be happy with someone who adored him and you could tell by the way Lisa looked at him that she thought the absolute world of him. It wouldn’t have been fair to wreck that by telling him her heart was still ajar for him, because he would never have left her then. Lisa would be a lot less emotional maintenance for him than she ever would be.
Over the years, she had stamped down so hard on those feelings she’d had for him: how she loved being with him, how much she looked forward to seeing him, how much she wanted him, only to find that it hadn’t made the slightest bit of difference. They were all still there. As the letter was preserved in tissue, her feelings were as fresh in her heart as the day she wrote the words down on paper. If only she could have let him know how she felt before it was too late, if only she hadn’t been so warped and twisted by her past.
She didn’t want her baby to be like her and miss his chances if love came calling. She wanted him to run towards it with open arms and embrace it and feel it fill up his heart and his soul. She would bring her child up with gentleness and affection, learning to trust when it was right to do so. There would be no life of fear and confusion and ridiculously pitched independence for her child, no feeling that he wasn’t worthy enough to be loved.
There was a message waiting for Elizabeth when she got home. It was from John saying that of course he would look after Cleef and he had taken it as read anyway that he would be official catsitter. He asked if she was okay because she sounded a bit down and could she give him a ring back and let him know. Then he said had she made any plans for her birthday on Monday because he wanted to pop in and say ‘hi’ and bring her a card up. He didn’t say anything about taking her out for it. It was too late for that to happen now. He had other stuff going on in his life. Other people to think about.
She didn’t ring back.
Chapter 48
The baby woke Elizabeth up with a ‘Happy Birthday’ kick in the spine and he was as active as if he was holding his own celebratory party for her and had invited a few mates around. She tried to get back to sleep but Michael Flatley inside her wasn’t having any of it, so she went downstairs for a slice of heavily buttered granary toast and some olives. At least her craving was a pretty low-key affair. She didn’t have to embarrass herself with a compulsion to go into McDonald’s and ask for a haddock and gorgonzola McFlurry.
Janey and Helen’s cards arrived on the doormat; they knew Elizabeth liked getting nice post, so had sent them to her via Royal Mail even though they were meeting for her birthday lunch anyway. She had a card from Terry Lennox and the girls at work too. There was a note in the envelope from Nerys to say that Julia had run off to lose herself in London. Even Laurence had totally distanced himself from her, after pulling one last string to get her a job torturing students in a training centre. No doubt her penchant for married men would eventually kick up another scandal and another well-connected Laurence would bail her out. It was a shallow existence but that type would always prize stolen shags from bored husbands above the simple pleasures of friendships and real love, of which they, sadly, had no concept.
There was also an offer of a cut-price hearing aid and the thrilling news that she was ‘only one of a few special people in her area to be selected for a big money prize draw’. She didn’t feel very special; the three cards looked lost on the great big wooden mantelpiece.
She still had not rung John back. It hurt
so much to think that he had moved someone else into the space in his heart that she had taken for granted belonged to her. How stupid she was not to have seen it coming! That’s why his visits had slowed down these past weeks. Not that she blamed him, though; he was a bloke with a lot of love to give out, and she was the fool who had turned it down just once too often.
She had scrubbed away thoughts of him by mopping at the floors and cleaning down the skirting boards with the burst of mad energy that visited her. Elizabeth had always liked cleaning, but this was different; this was not down to her own compulsions, this was Mother Nature stirring up her hormones with a floor mop in preparation for the new arrival in the house. She had got on her hands and knees and cleared out drawers and cupboards; she had even managed to take down all the curtains, wash them, peg them out in the sunshine and put them back up again the same day. They had needed doing as well; there were enough cobwebs trapped in the folds at the top to tart up a haunted house. She had taken care on the ladders but felt invincible going up them, although she realized later that it was not on her list of ‘wisest things to do whilst being thirty-six weeks’ pregnant’. She also knew that if she didn’t burn up the extra energy she would never get to sleep in a million years. If the baby didn’t keep her awake, the tormenting thoughts whirling round in her head of John Silkstone with another woman would.
She slipped on a cotton dress that had looked so enormous when she bought it that she, Helen and Janey could have got in it and danced the Bump, but now it was getting tight on the bust and the ties at the side were let out to their loosest. Not that she felt blobby fat, for her stomach was as hard as iron, the skin drum-tight across it, not at all the soft, flabby cushion she had once imagined a pregnant tum would feel like. It was an effort to get into the car these days without an enormous shoehorn as the baby protested at being pressed into the steering wheel, but if she moved her seat any further back, her legs would not reach the pedals. Elizabeth kissed her hand and pressed it onto her stomach, hoping he would feel the sentiment filter down.
The Yorkshire Pudding Club Page 31