Unfiltered

by Sophie White

  ‘What time are we heading in to meet yer one?’ Jim eased closer along the bench and took Dash, slinging him onto his shoulder for a bit of winding.

  ‘Four p.m. in Brooks Hotel.’ Shelly tidied away the baby paraphernalia so that she’d be ready for the call from the court clerk.

  It was still impossible for her to see Polly as @__________. Even though it was a matter of public record now.

  Shelly felt bad for Polly. At first, sure she’d been angry but that had rapidly given way to pity. To that end, she’d decided to attend the hearing and, should Polly be found guilty today, which seemed likely, Shelly would have the opportunity to deliver a victim impact statement. Obviously, she wouldn’t be condoning Polly’s actions – she’d endangered Georgie and terrorised Shelly – but she was sick more than malicious and Shelly wanted to try to appeal to the judge before he or she handed down their sentence. It wasn’t strictly allowed for people to reference their own personal feelings towards a defendant in such a statement but, if Shelly could just get across that Polly needed compassion not punishment, then she’d be happy with that. Poor, poor Polly. From reading the online coverage of proceedings, it seemed her family hadn’t attended court even once.

  ‘Shelly Devine?’ The clerk emerged from the throng of people milling in the hall. ‘The defendant has been found guilty. Would you come this way for the reading of your statement?’

  ‘Honeys, I’m home!!!!’ Liv’s voice from the hall was jubilant. ‘Every “i” is dotted,’ she called as she navigated the hall’s obstacle course of Millie’s travel system, rubbish awaiting transportation to the bin and the unending laundry that migrated through the house, apparently of its own accord. ‘Every reference is Harvard-approved, every image is credited, the bloody thesis is out of my life. Even if it is sham-fucking-bolic, I don’t care. It’s over.’

  In the kitchen, Ali was in a state of exhaustion so acute that the sound of someone, even Liv, in a good mood was causing her actual physical pain.

  Just. Be. Calm. She. Is. Just. Excited. She. Deserves. This. Ali held Millie – as she had for every second of this stupid fucking day so far – and jigged in time to each word as she thought it.

  Liv came in pulling on the complicated stretchy sling that she’d completely gotten the hang of and Ali still couldn’t be bothered with.

  ‘How is my baby?’ Liv cooed, hurrying over to take Millie and slip her into the cocoon of the sling.

  ‘She’s being a little cunt today.’ Ali stormed back over to the onion she’d started trying to chop at exactly 10 a.m. that morning, more than eight hours earlier.

  ‘Ah, Ali. Don’t say that! She is just a baby – she can’t help it. Leave that. Amy’s on her way. She’s gonna bring Thai. Please go lie down. Have a shower. Just give yourself a rest for a bit. I’ve got her.’

  Ali threw the knife and the onion in the sink and stalked out of the room, down the hall to the shower.

  Why does Liv have to be so nice all the time? Millie is objectively being a cunt today. And most bloody days. Just fucking agree with me. That’s all I want.

  She knew that she was being a brat and that Liv was not the person to take it out on but equally … fuck EVERYTHING.

  She ran the overhead shower, stripped off her clothes and sat in the chilly bath underneath it. She watched blood snake towards the drain between her feet as the water pounded down on her from above.

  When would the blood stop? It had been a month. When would any of this feel normal? Her body felt rearranged and her whole middle section was gelatinous while her tits grew and shrank with milk throughout the day. But it was the climate inside her head that was really disturbing. She’d known – or thought she’d known – that having the baby would be a headfuck, but nothing could’ve prepared her for the terrifying anxiety, random bouts of rage, glimmers of exquisite joy and bottomless sadness that took turns invading her day and night.

  What is wrong with me? Calling Millie a cunt, what kind of a fuck up does that? She whimpered as tears poured down her face and pooled with the milk now streaming from her breasts. The boobs were very sensitive to Ali’s emotions. It was yet more Motherland strangeness. Beneath the sound of the shower, she thought she could hear Millie crying, though she was plagued by the sound of baby cries, real or imagined, day and night. She reached up to turn off the shower and strained to hear.

  Nothing.

  Sighing, she’d pulled herself out of the bath onto the bathmat before she noticed she hadn’t introduced so much as a drop of shampoo or soap into that bleak wash.

  She slipped across the hall to her room, paranoid that Millie would smell her on the wind and start demanding another feed. It was seriously annoying being the food source for another person, like being hunted by a tiny, adorable cannibal in your own home.

  She sat on the bed and tried to relax. This was her few minutes to herself. I should sleep or tidy up. Do something, she thought as she picked up her phone to scroll through pictures of Millie from earlier that day. She really was a divine baby, if a bit demanding – though if she was a total pushover, Ali supposed, that would be boring. It was mad: when she was home alone with the baby all day, all she wanted was for someone to come and take her away for a few minutes’ reprieve. But in a very irritating catch-22, anytime anyone actually did, Ali wasn’t at ease until she had her back in her arms.

  The phone pinged. Mini.

  Erasmus and I are going to stop in after the Arts Council meeting this evening. Liv said she’d include us for dinner. How are you doing since this morning? Any naps?

  Mini and Erasmus. Ali shook her head, smiling slightly, pleased with the distraction – even one as bizarre as her mother and her assistant getting together. And Mini was clearly happy. Mini was also the only one with the tolerance for in-depth analysis of Millie’s non-existent sleep patterns. She messaged without fail every morning to get a breakdown of the night before. It was extremely gratifying to report Millie’s impervious-to-sleep ways even if Mini said little more than how difficult it was. You just needed someone to agree with you, Ali had realised. Someone to witness the struggle and say ‘Yes, it’s hard.’ Ali texted back:

  Great, see you then. PS What’s a nap? FML

  Ali straggled around pulling clothes from various piles on the floor and Millie’s bassinet, which mocked her from the corner, having been used exclusively for laundry-storage since the baby’s arrival.

  ‘She just doesn’t power off, does she?’ Sam had marvelled at about 1 a.m. the night before, as they paced between rooms handing the squalling baby back and forth. He was coming over at least five nights a week, sharing the night shift and then going home at stupid-o-clock to get ready for work. Ali didn’t know how he was managing. And he wasn’t flying into irrational strops and calling Millie a cunt. Then again, he wasn’t being battered by hormonal storms on the daily. He was being himself, though keeping his distance, and Ali tried not to think too much about what was going to happen with them. Every now and then, it felt like old times between them. If they were laughing at something Millie did or if Ali caught him looking at her in a certain way, a tentative thrill of hope would swell inside her but then he’d return to his polite standoffishness and Ali’d slump, resigned to the fact that maybe some things just couldn’t be salvaged. And maybe I’m only in love with him right now because he’s a source of reliable childcare, she mused. If Pol Pot was willing to share the nights, I’d probably start fancying him too.

  Crying had started up in the kitchen and Ali’s boobs ached in response.

  She put her still-wet hair in a towel and made her way back to the fray, glancing darkly at the room beside hers that they’d lovingly prepared for Millie before she arrived and disabused them of all their rosy notions about what exactly a newborn would tolerate when it came to sleeping arrangements.

  Now, it was the room where Sam occasionally slept over though this was rare. Ali suspected it was at his therapist’s advice – terrible when the boy you like starts ‘work
ing on themselves’. Ali sighed, entering the kitchen and rescuing Liv from the wailing Millie.

  Dinner cheered Ali up no end. She fed Millie while practically inhaling her green curry.

  ‘It’s mad how nihilistic you can get when you haven’t eaten in a few hours,’ she remarked.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Erasmus responded vaguely and Mini, Liv and Amy looked over expectantly, but it appeared he was done talking. Stepping from the role of Mini’s full-time assistant to part-time lover had done nothing for his confidence and he still seemed terrified of Mini and everything else in life. Liv was convinced they were a dom and a sub and loved speculating on who was which.

  The sound of the front door and Sam bashing into every item between it and the kitchen distracted them all from Erasmus’s awkward silence.

  ‘Hey.’ He waved and stooped to kiss Millie’s head, then reversed rapidly, clearly remembering what she was currently suctioned to. He straightened up and gave Ali his patented cringey thumbs up. ‘I’m just gonna do the bins.’

  Ali returned his thumbs up and shook her head as he turned and threw himself into the changing of the bins.

  ‘Do you want some dinner?’ Ali asked, hyper-aware that the others were all holding their breath and watching the exchange with intense interest.

  ‘Yep, whatever’s going.’ He bustled back out, heaving a black sack with him.

  ‘Can you all please be normal?’ Ali hissed, when the front banged behind him. ‘I get it you’re all rooting for us and that’s nice but, look, he’s made it clear, he wants boundaries. I’m respecting that. We’re co-operating.’

  ‘Ali’s right.’ Amy took charge. ‘We’re never gonna make this work without a proper strategy …’

  ‘Amy!’ Ali laughed in spite of her irritation and exhaustion. ‘Please stop engineering everything.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Amy held up her hands and forked some noodles into her mouth. ‘Old habits,’ she mumbled.

  ‘So’ – Mini turned to her – ‘what is your plan now with the Instagram revelations, Amy?’ Mini was interested in Amy – Mini had apparently told Erasmus if he wanted them to have a relationship, he would need to move on as her assistant. And he had gamely resigned and was on the hunt for another job.

  ‘Well. I’m keeping an eye out for new opportunities and Liv and I are hoping to take a bit of a trip soon. I’m pretty much all wrapped up with Shelly – she’s pivoting to serious actress mode, which is great. She had a meeting with an agent that went really well. She also spoke up for Polly this afternoon at the sentencing and it seems to have worked. Well, kind of. Shelly said the judge was annoyed about her trying to advocate for the defendant – appara it is not the done thing at all. But he did listen, and Polly got a four-year suspended sentence provided she complies with all the treatment they’ve ordered her to undergo.’

  ‘Amazing.’ Sam had caught the last bit as he came back in, grabbed a plate and began piling it with rice and curry. ‘You’d think after everything she’s put Shelly through, Shelly would want her punished.’ He sat down beside Erasmus even though, Ali noted, it was much more of a squeeze by the wall and there was plenty of room beside her and Millie’s boob buffet.

  She looked down at her food sadly – bloody hormones – her recent pep suddenly drowned out once more by the reality of their situation. It wasn’t all happy Modern Family. Liv and Ali would go off and leave her with the baby. Erasmus and Mini had their sub-dom play. Sam would get a girlfriend. And she’d be stuck here being tortured by this tiny human she made herself.

  ‘Polly was sick. She was a victim of her disease,’ Ali said, and she watched with horror as tears dropped to her plate. Oh God, not more crying. It’s just been a hard day. Ali, keep it together.

  On cue, Millie spluttered at her nipple and, when Ali sat her up – probably too quickly – she barfed all over Ali’s chest.

  ‘Oh, vom away, Millie,’ Ali quipped. ‘I only spend every waking hour producing it for you!’

  Ali stood and waved off help from the others. She didn’t want them to see her upset again.

  ‘It’s all cool.’ She painted on a smile and hurried down to the bathroom to clean them both up. Afterwards she paced her room, jigging Millie to try to soothe her indignant shrieks but it was futile – she was into her nightly scream-a-thon now. From 8 p.m. to the early hours, it was like a wall of screaming with little to no let-up. Each day, Ali was convinced it couldn’t be as bad as the night before and each evening Millie seemed determined to prove it could.

  Ali’d spent many a night pacing and swaying and googling:

  ‘Two-week-old won’t stop crying …’

  ‘Three-week-old won’t stop crying …’

  ‘Four-week-old won’t stop crying …’

  What was most unnerving to Ali – apart from the fact that the internet was apparently useless when it came to knowing how to stop a newborn crying – was the search bar offering its own suggestions like:

  ‘Four-month-old won’t stop crying …’

  And

  ‘Fourteen-month-old won’t stop crying …’

  Christ, will there be no end? Ali felt like howling along with her baby.

  Evening bled into night and nothing seemed to console Millie. Mini and Erasmus had left soon after dinner and, although Liv had valiantly hovered at Ali’s elbow making suggestions on how best to soothe Millie, Ali’s obvious irritation eventually drove her away and she and Amy had retreated to bed.

  Ali knew Liv meant well, but every time she tried to adjust Ali’s winding position or suggest a different strategy, all Ali heard was how wrong she was getting it. Her only solace was that Liv was not lactating and, at least in that area, Ali wasn’t a complete failure.

  At 1 a.m. Sam appeared at the door and eased it closed behind him. Only then did Ali realise she still had her hair up in a towel since before dinner. Oh well. It was the least of it really. She was covered in breastmilk and baby vom and was pretty aware that her humongous sanitary towel reeked and needed changing. She was too wrung out to care at this point. The fucks she had left to give had long left the building by the fourth week of motherhood.

  Without even a word exchanged, Sam and Ali did the baby handover and Ali waded next door to collapse for a few hours’ oblivion on the bed Sam had just vacated. He always put her pillow on the bed for her before she went in. It had a Jurassic Park cover and smelled like her shampoo. And every time she swapped his back and buried her face in his smell. Exhausted tears leaked from her eyes and she didn’t even really know why. She was just so tired. And afraid she was doing everything wrong. And tired of being afraid she was doing everything wrong.

  At 4 a.m. her phone alarm buzzed, still in her hand, and she heaved herself up from what felt more like a coma than traditional sleep. She saw a WhatsApp from Sam:

  Please sleep more if you can. I can give her a bottle. You need the rest. We’re fine.

  God love him, they did not sound fine. Through the wall, Ali could hear the baby’s rhythmic cries, which sounded oddly like grinding machinery. Anyway, even if she could go back to sleep, her boobs wouldn’t have it. Her tee shirt was soaked and her chest throbbed.

  Why does no one talk about how moist motherhood is? She ducked into the bathroom to pee and caught herself feeling actual nostalgia for a time – any time! – when she was just not moist. Not even happy or warm or comfortable. Just not covered in fluids. It was such a simple longing …

  She changed the sanitary pad but couldn’t source a dry tee shirt. What was the point anyway? She’d just be moist again after the feed, when Millie would presumably hurl the whole thing back up on her. The fecking waste of breastmilk killed Ali more than anything.

  She pushed the bedroom door open to find Sam trapped in an elaborate sway that seemed to involve some kind of full body figure-of-eight motion.

  ‘It’s sort of working.’ He grinned over at her. The sky outside was beginning to lighten and Ali caught herself thinking she’d never forget him there like th
at, doing middle-of-the-night cardio to appease their baby.

  ‘How do babies get us locked into these annoying rocking scenarios?’ Ali mused as she settled herself on the bed and accepted the proffered Millie, who clamped immediately to her left boob.

  ‘They’re conniving,’ Sam replied plainly, sitting on the bed.

  Ali snorted. ‘Yep.’

  It was the end of his shift. Usually he went back to his house at this point. He was staring at Millie gorging away.

  ‘Does it feel crazy?’

  ‘No.’ Ali thought for a minute. ‘Or not the way you think it would. It feels like relief – a bit like a sneeze.’

  ‘It’s so mad that you made her and now you feed her. It’s amazing.’ He shook his head and Ali felt a twinge of panic that he was about to get up and leave.

  ‘Well, it’s amazing for fleeting moments,’ Ali agreed. ‘But she was being a total cunt all day today TBH.’

  ‘Oh my God, I know. What is with that?!!?’ He mugged as if they were having a bitching session about some annoying mutual in the group chat and Ali, relieved, burst out laughing.

  ‘Like you couldn’t have a better life, you little ingrate,’ he jokingly admonished Millie.

  ‘Yeah.’ Ali grinned at the baby. ‘Seriously, what problems could you possibly have?’

  At this, Millie paused in her feed and seemed to regard them both warily. Her little knees drew up and her face scrunched, preparing to cry.