by Zoe Deleuil
‘What do they think you’ve got? Paul said it might be a virus.’
‘I don’t know. Pneumonia and some kind of flu. I’m really achey.’
‘Right. Well, I’m on my way back. Paul said the baby is having bottles now, so I’ll be able to help with that, and he will still go to work, and come and visit you.’
‘I will try and express milk too, so he can still have that. Look, I need to go now. Speak soon, okay?’
‘Get some rest. The baby will be fine, Simone. I promise you.’
16
In the morning, another doctor appeared at my bedside, with a few students wearing plastic aprons and face masks trailing her. She wasn’t wearing a face mask, as if she alone was immune to illness, elevated far above the germs and viruses of mere mortals.
‘So the tests have come back. Influenza and pneumonia,’ she announced in a crisp Eastern European accent. ‘It’s a bad strain going around.’
Again I thought of the baby’s face, his worried expression and wrinkled brow as I coughed. I thought of how breathless I had been, how quickly it had developed from a sore throat into something more. Somehow he had known, and communicated it to me.
‘The flu can be dangerous for postpartum women and their babies. We can’t let you go home until you are completely well. And you must keep a mask on every time you leave this room. This is a ward full of very sick people.’
Later, Paul visited, alone. Rachel had returned, he told me, and was looking after the baby. He seemed less tense, unpacking a brand-new breast pump and books and extra food for me, telling me proudly about his newly established bottle schedule and perfect sterilising technique. I wanted to ask him if the baby was missing me, but how could he tell?
That night, I couldn’t sleep, so I asked the nurse for a sleeping pill. She had a sidekick with her, a student nurse who eyed me with suspicion as I talked to the nurse. Later, the student returned with my pill and set it down on the bedside table in its white plastic cup.
‘Should you be taking these? You’re a mother with a young baby,’ she said, affecting a casual tone. ‘And you’re expressing milk. Won’t this go into the baby’s system?’
She seemed furious. Maybe she was right. But I remembered my decision to be less of a docile pushover, to take better care of myself. I knew that with the porters crashing around in the kitchen next door and with the heart patients snoring all night in the nearby ward, I would not get any sleep. I’d lie there and think about the baby – what was he doing, was he upset – and if I didn’t sleep properly it would take me longer to get better, and get back to him.
‘It won’t go into the baby’s system because he’s not here with me, and that’s why I can’t sleep,’ I replied.
‘I don’t know if I’d be taking anything, if I were you.’
‘Well, you’re not me,’ I answered back, drawing on all the times I’d witnessed stern mothers address cheeky little girls, or been that cheeky girl getting told off myself. Mostly, as a mother I felt like a fraud. But now I felt the power of using my voice to stand up for myself.
She was silent, and I felt strangely exhilarated as I took the pill from the cup and put it in my mouth, poured some water and swallowed it, then turned my back on her.
That night I dreamed of a long hallway in some old creaky hotel, somewhere temporary and unloved, where many people had passed indifferent nights and left nothing of themselves behind. The walls were lined with lamps, but they were dim. Anyone looking at them in daylight would assume they worked, would have no reason to question their functionality, but at night, as I wandered alone down this hallway, they did nothing. They gave off no real light at all.
The next morning my door opened and there stood Rachel, looking immaculate in grey jeans and a blue-and-white striped shirt, a grey coat – my coat – over her arm, and my scarf wrapped around her neck. As she was about to step into the room a nurse rushed over to her and handed her a face mask.
‘You need to put this on before you enter,’ he told her. ‘It’s an infection zone.’
‘Oh.’ Rachel took it from him, but fumbled with it and appeared unable to work out how to wear it, so eventually he put it on for her.
She came in and shut the door behind her, then removed it immediately. ‘You’re not that sick anymore, are you?’ She put it down on a chair, and rearranged her hair in the reflection from the window.
‘I do feel better, but the doctors want me to stay in until I’m a bit better. Maybe another few days. They said they want me completely well since once I get home I’ll be looking after the baby again. Where is the baby?’
‘He’s at the nurses’ station. I left him there as I thought it would be safer than in here.’ She looked at me blankly. ‘I got the bus here. The driver was going so fast.’ She shook her head, quietly fuming as her eyes met mine for a moment.
‘Do you think you could bring him in? Even to the doorway?’
‘I don’t think so. We don’t want him getting sick.’ She stared at me, as if daring me to challenge her.
I had to look away at once; they were so cold, nothing in them at all that was warm or giving. My dream came back to me – a lamp that gives off no light was the phrase that had lingered – and I wondered if it was about Rachel. She presented herself as a saint, rushing back here, writing to Paul about how much she wanted to help me, how hard she was working, and yet alone – just the two of us – it all fell away and her lack of emotion was frightening.
She had exhausted me, worn me out, dragged me across London in the freezing winter until I’d ended up here and now she was standing over me, dismissing my situation, dismissing me. And she was looking after my baby while I was here.
You’re not that sick.
You’re not that tired, are you?
Or was I imagining it?
A long silence passed between us, until I spoke again.
‘How is the baby?’
‘He’s fine, absolutely fine. Not upset at all. We’ve been having a lovely time when Paul is at work.’
She said this casually, but it hurt. Was he really fine? Did he know the difference between Rachel and me? Who could say? He was everything to me, but maybe I was nothing more than a generic, milk-dispensing blob to him. Maybe he could attach himself like that to anyone.
‘Glad it’s all worked out so well for you,’ I said quietly, my voice trembling slightly. She didn’t give any indication of having heard. Her eyes, though, were no longer meeting mine, and again I sensed her anger. She was going home to look after my baby, I reminded myself. I thought of her taking him to that bathroom, spending so long in there. I couldn’t antagonise her. Not while I was in here.
‘Anyway, thanks for being here, and helping out,’ I said. ‘It’s really lucky you’re here, what with Paul not having anyone to leave the baby with.’
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘It’s not like it’s particularly hard, looking after a baby.’
She always made her cattiest comments in an especially sweet tone, I realised, and it took me a moment or two to register their strangeness, because her delivery was deceptive. And then the moment when I could have questioned her, or stood my ground and disagreed, was gone. Right now, though, it wasn’t a good idea to be getting into fights with her. I needed her on my side, on the baby’s side.
‘Oh, Rachel, before I forget … if you go next door there’s a bottle of milk I expressed. Can you take it with you and give it to the baby?’
‘Where is it, again, exactly?’ She said this in the same confused little-girl voice she’d used when the nurse asked her to put a face mask on, as if something huge and complicated was being asked of her.
‘Next door. There’s a little kitchen, right next to this room. It’s in the fridge. The nurse put it there for me earlier.’
I had expressed milk for an hour, staring at a few black-and-white pictures of the baby that Paul had printed out for me at work, and managed to fill the bottle almost to the top line. If she took the
bottle home with her and heated it up a little before giving it to him, maybe in some way he would know I was still close, that I hadn’t disappeared for good.
‘Oh. Okay.’ She seemed put out, like I had asked her for an enormous, unreasonable favour. ‘Anyway, I guess I’ll get going.’
She left, closing the door behind her. Did she think I should abandon breastfeeding altogether, rather than make her and Paul shuttle milk back to the baby? My milk supply seemed to be dwindling, without the baby there feeding through the night, so I might have to stop anyway, if I didn’t get home soon.
Later, Justice came in and told me he had found the bottle in the sink, opened and lying on its side, empty.
‘I don’t know how it happened,’ he said, apologetically. ‘You’ll have to make some more.’
That night after dinner I got out my pump and my photocopied pictures of the baby, and began again. I texted Paul. I wish I could see the baby. I really miss him.
He replied immediately. I know, but we can’t risk him getting sick. He’s fine here. Rachel is taking such good care of him. A few seconds later a photo appeared of Rachel on the couch, smiling at the camera, my baby in her arms.
Eight, nine days passed, and finally the doctors said I was well enough to go home. It had happened gradually, the shift from bedridden to feeling almost normal.
On the last night, Paul brought the baby in to see me, and I could finally feel his solid weight in my arms, sniff him, bury my face in his neck and kiss his smooth cheeks. He accepted my affection with good-natured patience, fitting himself into my arms as snugly as he could.
Justice was back for the night shift, and when he saw me saying goodbye to Paul at the door of my room he came over and took the baby out of my arms, cuddling him and delighting in him with me, while the grandfatherly coronary patients looked on from their beds. Everything felt normal again, all of a sudden.
The next day, Paul left work early and came to pick me up. Dressed in my own clothes and filled with good intentions, I took Paul’s hand and left the ward.
17
As we stepped into the dark, overheated apartment, I saw Rachel’s bag and my scarf on the hook by the front door.
‘You’re back!’ Rachel came to greet us, holding the baby against her shoulder with one arm.
‘I am.’ I smiled at her, fighting a wave of exhaustion. ‘It’s so good to be home.’
Still she held onto the baby and I wanted to snatch him away, but instead made myself slow down, take off my coat, go to the bathroom, wash my hands and splash my face with warm water to get rid of the chemical film of the hospital. What exactly was I supposed to do with a baby, again?
I made myself smile again as I went back to the living room, where Paul was watching the news and Rachel was sitting on the couch, the baby in her lap. I sat down beside her and held out my arms until she gave him to me. He was heavier, and it felt strange and cumbersome, having to hold him upright. I sniffed his head and all I could smell was Rachel’s perfume, which made me feel irrationally betrayed. She’d dressed him in new clothes, ones that Paul’s mother had given us, and he looked different, too, bigger and sleepier and more boyish. After ten days of being mostly on my own, reading, dozing and staring out the window, I’d somehow lost the will to care for him, as if the feverish passion that had kept me needing him close at all times had been diluted by our separation. When I put him down on the couch beside me, exhausted by his weight after only a few minutes, Rachel was right there, almost as if she’d been anticipating it.
‘Here, give me the baby,’ she said in a brisk tone, picking him up. ‘You’re finding it hard, aren’t you?’
That small smile again, that sweet voice, the quiet sound of those tinkling silver bangles. As she held him, I saw that she had slipped into her role as his mother in my absence. And even though I wanted to look after him, I had lost the drive. My milk supply had dwindled and my arms felt too weak to hold him for long. The nurse had warned me that it would take time to build up my muscle tone again, but I hadn’t believed her until I’d done something apart from lying in bed.
Sitting on the couch, I listened as she ran him a bath and washed him and dressed him and cooked us all spaghetti for dinner, and the whole time she and Paul chatted easily, like the close cousins they were, but also like a married couple looking after a baby. The strange tension between them seemed to have loosened.
‘Here, Simone, have this,’ she said, handing me a mug of herbal tea. It smelled sweet, almost smoky, like roses and something else.
‘What is it?’
‘It will help you sleep. I can get up with the baby.’
I didn’t want to miss those small night hours, though, now that I had caught up on sleep, when it was just me and him together in the darkness. Feeding him, lying with him in the quiet, stroking his forehead and revelling in the simple fact of his existence. Just the two of us, awake in the night village as the whole city slept around us.
‘Have a little,’ she said encouragingly, and I did, and soon afterwards I was tilting forward in my chair and sleepwalking towards my bed.
When I opened my eyes again it was dawn, and I’d somehow slept the whole night without waking. Paul dozed beside me, but as I rolled over to face the cot I sensed an absence, a lack of warmth where the baby should be. Reaching out, my hand met not the rise and fall of his back, but a cool flannel sheet. Forcing myself to wake up fully, I got out of bed, and went first to the living room. Empty. Rachel’s door was closed, and I felt like an intruder as I pushed it open. On her bedside table was a half-empty bottle, and in the bed, curled up against her, was the baby, relaxed and deeply asleep, his mouth half open. The lamp by her bed was on, so I could see her clearly, lying on her side, one arm under him and the other circling his head, exactly the same way I slept with him.
He was mine. I was allowed to take him back. But I felt like I was disturbing something private. Asleep, Rachel looked defenceless; some tension that was usually there in her face was simply absent. As I moved closer I saw something on her bare inner arm, the one that was curved over the baby’s head. Three words, spelled out in flowing black copperplate. I leaned in to read them, holding my breath.
Only you return
How had I never noticed her tattoo? Was it a line from a poem? Not wanting to wake her, I gathered the sleeping baby into my arms and took him back to my bed. His hair smelled of her perfume, but I’d give him a bath later and wash it away.
A few hours later, the baby woke beside me and within minutes Rachel was at the door, a bottle of formula in her hand.
‘Here, Simone,’ she said. ‘I’ve warmed it up already. He’s been loving it. You can see how much weight he’s gained with some proper food in his belly.’
‘I’m going to stay in bed with him,’ I told her. ‘And try and get the breastfeeding going again.’ My voice wavered as I said it, knowing she found breastfeeding distasteful and would far prefer to give him a bottle.
‘You need to rest, Simone. Give me the baby,’ she said with brisk impatience, as if I were being childish, and wasting her time.
‘He’s happy here, Rachel.’
There was something like despair in her eyes as she looked back at me, and I felt nauseous, dizzy. Why did she have that effect on me?
Eventually she walked away, had one of her long showers, and left the house.
I stayed in bed for the next two days, feeding him and, on the advice of kind anonymous women on the internet, drinking rooibos tea and eating oatmeal to boost my milk supply.
As for Paul and me, we would get through this, I reassured myself. We were going through something huge together and he had not let me down, not in any big way. Right now, he knew that I needed to focus on the baby, and he needed to support all of us and he was doing that by going to work every day. We were both doing our best and for now, that was enough.
When I felt stronger, I slipped out of the house one morning with the baby in a carrier and walked to Moorgate Stati
on, where I caught the train to Whitechapel for Baby Rhyme Time at the library. It was way too soon for the library from the baby’s point of view, I knew that, but I wanted to be around some adults, and Rhyme Time was my best bet. As I walked along the high street I saw, across the road, a familiar figure standing before the grey, stained façade of the Royal London Hospital: Jennifer. She was dressed for the street, in a long, belted coat and leather boots, dwarfed by the scale of the hospital. Behind the Victorian façade was the blue cube of the new wing, so massive it blocked the sky. A building that could swallow you up, that you might go into one unremarkable day and never come out of again.
She saw me and smiled as I crossed the road and walked towards her.
‘Oh, hello, Simone!’
I always pictured her in her office, an inside person, surrounded by pictures and flowers and lamp-lit, mellow warmth. It was disconcerting to see her on the street.
‘How are you?’ she said. ‘I was wondering about you. A woman came into the museum last week with a baby, and I’m sure it was yours. Was someone else looking after him?’
‘A tall woman with dark hair?’
‘Yes. I was so sure it was your baby – I recognised the pram. She said he seemed frightened, so she brought him in to settle him.’
‘He was frightened?’
‘No. He wasn’t at all. He was asleep.’ She looked puzzled. ‘Are you alright?’
‘I was in hospital. I had the flu and then I ended up with pneumonia.’
‘That sounds terrible. What rotten luck. You look like you’ve lost weight.’
‘I’m much better now. The woman you saw, the one who’s been staying with us, she took care of him. It was lucky that she could help.’
‘She did seem incredibly fond of him. Let me give you my number. If you ever need to call. Call anytime.’ She pulled out a pen and a notebook and scribbled her number down.
‘Thanks. I gestured to the hospital entrance, not wanting to intrude but wondering why she was there. ‘And how about you? Are you alright?’