Back After the Break

by Anita Notaro

  One evening Lindsay finally spoke about being pregnant, explaining that she hadn’t planned it. Mandy said she couldn’t imagine not having an abortion in Lindsay’s situation, and Gail wistfully said she couldn’t imagine being pregnant at all. They were an odd little threesome.

  The weeks passed and Lindsay got bigger and suddenly everyone knew and they were kind to her. Lucy worried about her standing a lot but Lindsay assured her she was fine and didn’t want to be treated any differently, and Carlo kissed her and put his hand on her stomach and called her bambino.

  Tara and Debbie came over for a weekend and got a shock when they saw her in the new, stretchy black dress that showed off her swollen stomach. It was the first time she’d worn it and it felt funny to be showing off her bump, declaring to the world that she was pregnant when she hadn’t really declared it to herself. She was tanned and looked healthy, although she still suffered from serious heartburn and was constantly exhausted – but had given up moaning about it.

  Tara was enchanted by the place and didn’t want to leave and Debbie bemoaned the lack of talent in the village. The other two grinned at her when she wondered about a Chinese takeaway or fish and chips on the way home from the pub the first night.

  ‘Get a grip, girl. You’re in the sticks, for God’s sake,’ Lindsay told her and the other two fell around the place laughing and Lindsay suddenly wanted not to be sober. She was fed up to the gills drinking sparkling water.

  Her sister Anne came down one weekend, leaving the family behind and she had tears in her eyes when she saw her baby sister.

  ‘Are you sure you’re OK, you look very big all of a sudden?’

  ‘I’m fine, I’ve checked in with the local doctor here in the village and he’s keeping an eye on me and I’ve been to a gynae once since I got here – a colleague of my own guy in Dublin. But I had to travel sixty miles to see him, so I’m not keen to do that again. Everything’s normal and I’ll be back home about six weeks before the birth and I’ll go back to my regular guys then.’

  They talked a lot about babies and Anne offered to take him or her for as long as necessary until Lindsay organized herself.

  Miriam Davidson constantly sent presents to her younger daughter but wasn’t very good at talking about things.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  EVERY FEW WEEKS they had a practical or written exam. The latest was to do with baking – all about flour and yeast and methods – and Lindsay revelled in it while everyone else dreaded it. Her results so far had been excellent and this one was no exception.

  They moved on to international flavours the following day and Carlo really came into his own, showing them how to cook pasta properly – ‘the water for pasta should be as salty as the Mediterranean sea’ – how to anoint it with a few, carefully chosen ingredients – ‘coat it, don’t drown it’ – and blindfolding them and making them taste ten different types of cheese, until they could tell good parmesan purely from the smell and texture. They learned about the importance of seasoning, using pure flaky sea-salt crystals and freshly cracked pungent black pepper, tasted the difference in salad dressings by dipping their fingers in before they coated any leaves and bit into whole chillies to feel the heat. They gathered mushrooms at dawn and picked courgette flowers at dusk and sipped wine around the barbeque at midnight and became more obsessed with food every day.

  Lindsay felt like bawling when she realized it was their final week. She didn’t want to leave this haven and knew Charlie would have to be bribed to get into the car for the return journey.

  On her second last morning as she walked for miles along the beach in her bare feet she suddenly felt a dull pain in her stomach. She was at least a mile from home and she headed back slowly, trying not to panic, not knowing what to do because she hadn’t even attended an ante-natal class, never mind read a book. She had just arrived back at the cottage when her waters broke and so did all hell.

  Afterwards she couldn’t really remember the sequence of events, just knew she screamed and someone came running. Lucy called the local doctor, who was out on call in a remote part of the county and he suggested they drive her to hospital immediately.

  Carlo swerved along the windy roads in true Italian style and Lucy sat in the back with Lindsay holding her hand and telling her everything would be OK. The pains were coming faster now and Lindsay couldn’t ever remember feeling so frightened. Lucy wanted to ring her family but she wouldn’t let her, didn’t want anyone near her while she was like this.

  The doctor kept in contact with them by phone and they seemed to be travelling at lightning speed so that everything became a blur, on the outside as well as inside her head. It was a nightmare of pain and fear and dread.

  The hospital had a wheelchair waiting and she was suddenly in a white room surrounded by strangers and lights that hurt her eyes, but compared with the pain that wracked her entire body it was nothing. They kept telling her not to push and she wanted to push more than she’d ever wanted to do anything else in her life. She felt she wasn’t in control and that was the most scary thing. She could hear a disembodied, strangled voice screaming at the nurses to get the baby out of her body and was shocked to realize it was her own. They were all very kind but nobody told her what was happening and they kept asking if her family were on the way and she felt that must mean she was going to die and would have been relieved to do so. She didn’t care about anything except that she was roaring like a mad woman and kept begging them to give her something for the pain, so that she could logically make a decision about what to do next.

  ‘It’s too late for that, but don’t worry, it won’t be long now.’ A pair of bright green eyes held her hand and sponged her face and she felt she was going insane. Nobody had told her it would be this bad.

  It got worse and went on for hours. Her throat was hoarse from trying to scream and all she could see was a big tent and her toes dangling in mid air, steel contraptions and worried faces. After what seemed like about three days they told her to push and she clawed like an animal, her eyes bulging and the sweat ran in floods down her back and suddenly it all eased and she knew the greatest feeling of relief, and someone said ‘It’s a boy’ and she felt absolutely no emotion.

  They handed her a tiny bundle. At first she was afraid to look, and when she did she saw the ugliest, pink, wrinkled prune and fell in love. Like all her love affairs it didn’t last cause they took him away again almost immediately, explaining that because he was premature they needed to put him into the special baby unit where they could examine and monitor him. They promised to talk to her later.

  ‘Is he OK?’ She was suddenly terrified.

  ‘We just need to keep an eye on him, don’t worry.’

  But she was worried and realized that she’d probably never stop, at least until he was about twenty.

  Then they stitched her up like a chicken and cleaned her like a baby. She asked what day it was and they laughed and told her it was still Thursday. She’d been in hospital for only five hours.

  Carlo and Lucy came in then and all three of them cried, and they promised to mind Charlie and bring in her things later. Lindsay phoned her mum but it rang out, her sister’s answering machine was on, Debbie was out of the country and Tara was in court. Typical! She left messages asking them all to ring her and knew she had to tell someone fast, so she tried Colin and he answered on the second ring and she burst into tears and scared the hell out of him.

  ‘Lindsay, please, just tell me what’s wrong.’

  But she couldn’t stop crying and it was the perfect release although she didn’t know it yet and all the pain of the last nine months came out in a single enormous gush.

  ‘I’m in hospital.’

  ‘Are you OK? Is the baby OK?’

  ‘He’s ugly.’

  He clearly thought she was mad but decided to humour her.

  ‘Don’t worry, he’ll be gorgeous; babies aren’t ugly.’ There was a slight pause. ‘How do you know it’s a he?�
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  ‘I saw him and he is definitely ugly but you were right. I love him.’

  ‘Oh my God, when? Are you OK? Is he OK? Lindsay, please, you have to stop crying and tell me what happened.’

  So she did and he whooped for joy and so did she.

  ‘I’m a bit worried about him, he’s in the special baby unit because he’s premature, but they’ve promised to talk to me soon.’

  ‘But he’s going to be all right?’

  ‘Well, I only saw him for a minute or two, but he was all there. Oh Colin, wait till you see him, he’s gorgeous. I’ll send you a photo.’

  It seemed like ages before they came to talk to her, explaining that he would have to remain in the unit for some time.

  ‘But he will be fine, won’t he?’

  Even though they were quick to reassure her, they pointed out that the first twenty-four hours were the most important, explaining that all his organs would be checked and he would be monitored for jaundice and closely watched in case of infection.

  ‘Can I see him?’

  ‘Yes of course, just give us another half-hour because the doctor is still with him, then you can spend as much time with him as you like.’

  Then suddenly everyone seemed to phone back at the same time. Her mother cried, the girls snivelled, and she laughed and felt strong. Debbie was in Paris but her mother, Anne and Tara insisted on travelling down together that night, and they were all so happy when they saw she was OK. Her mother held her very tightly and Anne and Tara cried again. She did a great impersonation of John Wayne as she walked with them to the special unit where they were keeping her little boy under observation. They had to look at him through the window, and there were more tears but they were happy wet ones. And everyone thought he was gorgeous, especially his mother.

  ‘What’s his name?’ Anne asked immediately.

  She looked at him for a long moment and was about to shrug her shoulders when it came to her.

  ‘Freddie.’ She beamed and they all looked surprised, horrified even, judging by her mother’s face.

  It was late when they left to find a hotel and Lindsay immediately went back down to the unit to see him. The nurse on duty talked to her and warned her that he might change colour often and that his breathing or heart rate could be uneven.

  ‘Talk to him, touch him, don’t be afraid.’

  ‘What’s the tube in his mouth?’

  ‘It’s a feeding tube. Later you can express some of your own milk if you want to.’

  She sat with him for ages, talking to him, telling him how much she loved him, willing him to get strong. She asked to hold him and he seemed so frail and she prayed to God not to punish her because she had been so utterly stupid in thinking she could ever not want him.

  When she finally returned to her room she couldn’t sleep even though she was knackered. She kept worrying about Freddie. One of the nurses brought her tea and made her comfortable and she asked for the newspapers and flicked through them for hours, trying to kill time but not really concentrating, so it took her a minute or two to take in the content of an article headed TOP TV STAR QUITS IRELAND FOR NEW LIFE AND NEW LOVE. She stared at it for a minute, saw the picture of Chris and closed her eyes quickly, afraid of what she was about to find out. When she opened them again it was all still there, and on the night her baby was born she learned that his father was leaving Ireland to take up a contract in America, which, although only for one year, was reputed to be worth a million dollars and, as if that wasn’t enough, she read that one of the reasons he had decided to take up the offer was because of his stunning twenty-four-year-old actress girlfriend Lauren Berkin, whom he was expected to marry in the spring.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  THE NEXT NIGHT, as she sat up in bed feeling lonely for Chris and hungry for her baby, a giant bunch of lilies with legs walked into her room, with a grinning Colin behind them.

  He hugged her to death and she held on to him for dear life, then he kissed her hair, eyes, nose and mouth and she cried like the big baby that she was.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ he told her in between kisses and she believed him because she needed to.

  ‘How did you get here? You’re always doing this to me,’ she said with a watery smile.

  ‘I got the first flight I could. I couldn’t wait to see you, and him.’

  ‘Come on, I’ll show you,’ she said, as if they were discussing a puppy.

  They arrived just as the nurse was changing him and he looked tiny but not as shrivelled and he waved his arms and legs frantically and shook his fists at them.

  ‘Isn’t he absolutely beautiful?’ she asked, and he gave the only reply possible to a brand-new mother.

  ‘He’s the most gorgeous baby I’ve ever seen.’

  She put on her gown and went inside and held him up to the glass so that Colin could get a good look at him.

  ‘Meet Freddie,’ she mouthed to Colin as she held the tiny little body in her arms. He burst out laughing.

  ‘It’s absolutely right and he’s beautiful,’ he told her as soon as she came out.

  ‘I’m not sure the others are as certain but I don’t care. I know Freddie isn’t really right for a baby but I think he’s going to grow into a perfect little Freddie. Sort of like Dennis the Menace.’

  They stayed for a while gazing at him, and then went back to her room, and he went out and got some decent food and they had a picnic on her bed, talking and watching TV. Much later she showed him the article about Chris and he looked troubled but didn’t really say anything. She changed the subject but after a while he asked if she would consider telling him before he left the country.

  ‘No, I couldn’t do that to him now, he’d think I was trying to stand in his way.’

  Colin shook his head. ‘If my son was lying in a special baby unit I’d want to know before I made any major decision about my life.’

  ‘But there’s nothing wrong with the baby, it’s not as if he’s ill or anything, he’s just small and they’re keeping an eye on him.’ Lindsay didn’t like where the conversation was heading and Colin sensed it and backed off.

  ‘OK, I won’t mention it again.’

  ‘Look, if he contacts me again I promise I’ll try to talk to him, all right?’

  He nodded, knowing he wasn’t going to win.

  When he left, Lindsay took the old newspaper clipping out of her purse, the one with the photo of Chris and herself together, the ‘dynamic duo’, then she walked down again to Freddie and showed him his dad. Lindsay stayed for hours, holding and stroking and singing to him.

  Next day, Colin went shopping in Galway and spent a fortune on Freddie, buying him his first pair of jeans and a tiny, exquisite denim jacket and anything else he could lay his hands on. He also got some stuff for Lindsay – a beautiful black cashmere sweater and some sexy T-shirts and a lacy bodice and a pair of amazing black leather trousers, the softest she’d ever seen.

  He had to fly back to New York that night but promised to see her again soon and was already planning Freddie’s first trip to the States.

  Tara and the others had taken Charlie and most of Lindsay’s stuff back to Dublin from the cookery school by the time Lindsay was discharged from hospital, but Freddie had to remain in the unit. They explained that he wouldn’t be discharged until somewhere between two and four weeks of his due date. His body temperature had to remain normal in an open crib, he had to be taking adequate calories and he had to be steadily gaining weight. Lindsay worried about him constantly and booked into a small hotel nearby so that she could spend all her days with him. She was able to feed him herself and he made good progress, everyone assured her.

  To her surprise her mother came to stay for a few days and she looked after Lindsay while Lindsay looked after Freddie and it was an important time for all three of them.

  Debbie came straight from her trip and she too was besotted by Freddie and had brought him the most gorgeous coat from Paris along with lots of smellies
for his mum.

  ‘Imagine, I’m a mother.’ Lindsay smiled at Debbie. ‘It feels very strange. As if I’m not really ready for it.’

  ‘Listen, darling, I’ll be auntie Debs to him. How ageing is that?’

  Eventually, the hospital pronounced themselves happy with Freddie’s progress and she was allowed take him home.

  Tara arrived to meet them and couldn’t believe how much he’d grown.

  Freddie slept all the way back to Dublin, watched by an over-anxious mother and besotted aunt.

  When she arrived at the house, it looked fantastic. Anne, Debbie and Tara had spent the previous day cleaning everything and the windows sparkled. There were flowers everywhere, in tubs, window boxes, on the patio and in her favourite jug on the kitchen table. It seemed like years since she’d last been here and she could never have imagined that her life would change so completely in the space of a few months.

  They sat in her kitchen that evening, afraid to bring him outdoors even though the evening was mild and he was well wrapped up and the girls barbequed and they drank champagne and toasted Freddie, who was blissfully unaware of all the attention.

  Anne insisted on staying the first night and kept the baby in her room so that Lindsay could rest. She expressed some milk and had her first night’s sleep in months, with no tossing or turning or retching or worrying and although she felt guilty and didn’t want to be without him, Anne insisted she needed the break and she fell straight asleep and didn’t remember anything else until ten-thirty next morning.

  Anne departed to see to her own brood and her mother arrived with a car full of groceries, nappies, baby potions, lotions and more flowers. Lindsay made a light lunch while Miriam Davidson played the doting grandmother, which, surprisingly, seemed to suit her.

  Next day Lindsay sent an e-mail to Jonathan Myers asking him to call her at home and he was delighted when she told him her news and more flowers arrived. They arranged to talk again in about a month. Freddie’s early arrival had given Lindsay much-needed time that she otherwise wouldn’t have had.