Three Angry Women and a Baby

by Kerrie Noor

  “I can’t even cough without my stomach feeling like it’s going to rip open,” croaked the young mother.

  The nurse threw her a look.

  “I have a low pain threshold,” she said.

  “Pfff,” said the nurse.

  “Seriously, I do. My mother said she couldn’t even tap me without me screaming—combing my hair was a nightmare.”

  “Well, you’ll need to get out of bed soon,” said the nurse, “before the ward round.”

  The young mother tossed the tablets down. “Until these babies kick in, I ain’t moving.”

  “Don’t let Himself hear you say that. He’ll be around here getting you to do sit-ups,” said the nurse.

  “Himself?” I muttered.

  “The consultant.”

  “That Polish git,” muttered the other mother mid drawer rummage. She was tiny, with matchstick legs and whisper-thin arms. She looked like one puff of wind would have her over and another would keep her down.

  She looked up, catching a “no” from the nurse.

  “Well, thank fuck for that.” The tiny one grinned at me. “I mean, what sort of wanker talks about cars when you’re having a baby? I could have thumped him . . . in fact, I had to hold the ol’ man back . . .”

  The nurse interrupted. “It’s the head consultant, he has a thing about sit-ups.”

  “Sit-ups?” said the tiny one. “Jesus, haven’t done one in years—how am I do them with all these stitches?” She looked at me. “Won’t they split?”

  The nurse muttered something about internal stitching.

  “Aye, but they’re still stitches, still rip,” said the young mother.

  “Hardly,” muttered the nurse.

  The tiny one pulled at her handbag. “You’ve seen my fags?”

  “Take mine,” said the younger mother.

  The nurse threw a look. “No leaving the room until the ward round has finished.”

  She made to leave and then stopped.

  “And don’t let him hear you talk about fags.”

  “As if,” muttered the young mother.

  We looked at each other. The two chuckled, followed by an it hurts stomach clutching.

  “Can’t even touch my toes, let alone sit up,” muttered the tiny one.

  They giggled again, then caught sight of my face. I wanted to cry and was having a hard time hiding it.

  “Was it rough?”

  “First time?” said the tiny one.

  I gulped. “I knew it wouldn’t be a breeze, but . . . well, the pain.”

  “The first is the worst, you get used to it,” said the tiny one.

  I watched her lift her baby like an expert.

  “First? You’ve had more?” I said.

  “Three,” said the tiny one.

  “Two,” said the young mother.

  “You don’t look old enough to leave school,” I muttered.

  I began to drift . . . then I heard my name being called with the annoying urgency of my mother.

  “Sheryl, you awake?”

  Ignoring her, I kept my eyes closed.

  “She’s knackered,” muttered the tiny one.

  “Best not to wake her,” said the younger mum.

  Shake, shake . . .

  “Sure you’re not awake?” said Mum.

  Then she stopped. I heard her move across the room . . .

  “Is that yours?” she said.

  I opened one eye. My mother was cooing over the tiny mother’s baby, and if I had a cup of tea, I would have nearly choked on it.

  I eased myself up, as Mum moved on to another baby, tickling her cheek. A habit she had taken to ever since I discovered the blue “yes” line on the pregnancy test.

  The nurse appeared with a cup of tablets for me. She helped me sit up as Mum scurried over and looked into the cup.

  “Iron? That’ll block her up, and that’s the last thing she needs.”

  I closed my eyes. God, I was tired.

  My mother didn’t budge.

  “When’s she due for a feed?” she said.

  I shrugged.

  “Can I feed her?”

  I sighed.

  “What’s her name?”

  I told my mother that as Steven was a writer, he could name her; after all, he did it all the time.

  “She’s not a character in a book,” snapped Mum. “I hardly think some American gunslinging outlaw of a name is what we are looking for.”

  I shrugged again.

  “She’s your daughter, you should name her.”

  “Plenty of time,” said the tiny mother with a look at me.

  “Aye,” nodded the young mother.

  The nurse wheeled in my daughter, her face scrunched with an I’m just about to wail look. Mum’s face melted. She slid her finger into my daughter’s palm and muttered, “Baby Bea.”

  Baby Bea blinked at my mum, who, with a girly gasp, scooped her up and began to tell her stories of dragons with an expression that had me annoyed enough to forget my aches.

  “We shall fight them on the beaches”—Mum laughed—“in the castles and on the sand.”

  I pulled a face . . .

  “What’s up with you?” she said.

  “Nothing.”

  “She’s tired,” said George, appearing in the doorway.

  “Tired? You slept all morning. Come sit up, Baby Bea is gorgeous.”

  Mum bustled in a way that made me want to slap her.

  The tiny mother threw me another comrade look. “It’s her first,” she shouted, “give her space.”

  Baby Bea started to cry.

  My nipples stung like they had been rubbed with sandpaper.

  The nurse looked at the wet marks on my gown, ushered Mum and George out, and pulled the curtain about us. Her face softened as she held the baby close to my chest.

  “Mums, huh?” she said.

  A tear trickled down my cheek. She pulled a tissue from somewhere and handed it to me.

  “If you feed her yourself, no one can interfere.”

  I muttered an “it hurts.”

  “You’ll soon pick it up,” she whispered. “Don’t worry.”

  I slid my daughter onto my breast, braced myself, and cried. All I wanted was for Steven to take me home.

  Over the past nine months, my breasts had taken on a life of their own, expanding into sizes I had no idea existed. They swamped me, catching everything I ate like a drip tray. And as for trying to dance with them . . . well, that was something I did in private without a mirror.

  My new larger-than-life bras didn’t help either. They were more like parachutes than underwear, with straps the width of a table leg ingraining bra strap marks on my shoulders. No lace or frilly bits, just little pockets for my nipples to peek out of for feeding. I felt like a cow.

  Of course, in the hospital, trying to contain them was not easy for a novice mum like me. They flopped about like plates of jelly, and when the nurse suggested I may not have enough milk, my mother erupted.

  “Enough milk? She’s got a dairy in there.”

  Next thing I knew, I was on a milking machine watching a milky substance fill a clear bottle.

  At least it doesn’t hurt.

  The nurse appeared to check things and, with a smile and swoosh of curtains, left.

  I stared at the “breast is best” poster—a small-breasted mother looking serenely at her newborn like a Catholic Madonna—and wondered, If Steven saw me now, would he ever suck on my nipples again?

  Chapter Six

  Homecoming

  Motherhood is as natural as making cheese.

  When I arrived home from the hospital, I looked at myself in the mirror and cried. My eyes were puffy, my hair was limp, and my stomach had betrayed me . . .

  I still looked pregnant.

  For nine months, I had pictured myself sitting by a sunlit window feeding my baby like a serene Madonna, bonding like denture glue.

  Nobody told me it would hurt.

  That my b
reasts, with nipples the size of beer mats, would have minds of their own, and that the whole “baby latching onto my nipples” thing would require an entourage of nurses to navigate behind a curtain that flapped open at the mere whiff of a trolley passing.

  I just assumed I would know what to do—that the baby would attach as quickly as a bath plug in a plughole. Baby Bea, however, seemed to have the aim of a drunk playing darts for the first time with the wrong set of glasses; getting her to attach was as plausible as my mother balancing on a tightrope.

  One crusty old nurse tried to encourage, claiming that breastfeeding was a “piece of piss” and “the best thing since Thatcher’s dementia.”

  “Your womb will squeeze back to the size of a walnut,” she said, “while all your bottle-feeding friends will be coughing into their TENA Ladys.”

  I plonked myself on the couch with exhaustion. TENA Ladys were the last things on my mind; my breast, full of milk, ached. It would soon be feeding time—yet again.

  Steven was all gooey with being a father; I wasn’t in the door five minutes and he was texting pictures, that is until Baby Bea whimpered a cry, then Steven was fussing like a mother hen.

  I felt nothing.

  “Do you want me to bring her over?” said Steven.

  “Guess so.”

  Steven watched, fascinated, as Baby Bea and I fumbled to attach. Finally, she closed her eyes and began to suck. I waited . . . once Baby Bea got into the rhythm, the pain subsided.

  “It’s a miracle,” he said.

  “You would think,” I muttered.

  As soon as she was fed, he whisked her off to the library with a “you could do with a rest.”

  A couple of hours later, he was back loaded with coins. In Scotland, older folk always leave coins with a newborn—bad luck not to.

  Steven laughed. “Look,” he said, “we’ve made a fortune. We should have more kids.”

  When I didn’t laugh, he offered to make a coffee.

  He didn’t even bat an eyelid when I said “decaf” or mutter an “I know” when I said “breastfeeding.”

  Instead, Steven, with great intensity, frothed some milk, sprinkled chocolate on the froth, and handed me a cappuccino in my favorite cup.

  “Biscuit?” he said.

  “This is fine,” I muttered.

  “Cheese and oatcakes?”

  “Not just now.”

  “Not even with tomato?”

  “No.”

  “How about some soup?”

  I adjusted Baby Bea to the other breast and shook my head.

  He began talking about teaching Baby Bea to ride a bike and use a drill.

  I almost smiled. Steven handled a drill like it was alive and about to bite him: switching it on with a jump, like the noise was the last thing you’d expect.

  “You can’t even use one,” shouted Mum, crashing open our door with her wheelchair.

  She circled the room.

  Steven watched with a disheartened look, muttering something about a house available that would take Mum a morning to drive to, while Mum, not listening to a word, began an incompressible speech about rest, babysitting, and getting back on the horse after a fall.

  She looked from Steven to me as if we agreed with her.

  I could hardly follow her train of thought.

  “Mum, I haven’t sipped my coffee yet, and you’re talking of horse riding.”

  “It’s a figure of speech,” said Mum with a queer look at Steven. “You know what I am on about, don’t you? Don’t want to let the moss grow and all that.”

  Steven, with a queer look back, said nothing—his usual response when Mum confused him.

  Beatrice wheeled herself to my side and cooed at Baby Bea.

  “Any time your mum needs some horse riding”—she winked at Baby Bea—“you and I can play stories.”

  She looked at me. “I’m here to help.”

  “Help? You just put her off her feed,” said Steven.

  “I make coffee, don’t I, Sheryl?”

  “No,” I said.

  Steven, without a word, lifted Baby Bea. He had the same expression on his face he used to have years ago when he first started working with Mum, a sort of “marking my territory” expression that, at the time, stopped me in my tracks.

  “I am off to the co-op,” he said, “in search of the elderly folk and coins.”

  He jumped into the car with a confidence new to him, while Mum continued on about moss growing and horse riding.

  “I take it you’re talking about sex,” I said, flopping back onto the couch.

  Mum never talked of sex without mentioning animals of some sort. When she gave me “the talk,” it started with cats and things swinging between their legs—like any teenager would look there.

  When I first told Steven about the “sex talk,” he laughed his head off. He was as keen on cats as dogs, being that both were in some way reasons for his fear of driving.

  Steven used to hate driving; in fact, he would do anything rather than drive. But he was desperate for a baby like me, and as soon as I was throwing up in the bathroom, he was there with a towel and digestive. Then, when the pregnancy test said “yes,” he vowed to “take care of the two of us and start driving again.”

  “I need to get over this whole too-scared-of-traffic thing,” he said. “I mean, how will we get you to hospital?”

  The hospital was only ten minutes away.

  He practiced every day, fine-tuning his reverse parking. He manned up to dogs and cats that had terrorized his early driving years, stooping to pat rather than dodge. He even took tips from Mum, which had not only her but just about everyone we knew choking on their coffee.

  No one took driving tips from Mum. Most spent their time thinking up excuses for not going in the car with her.

  Mum drives like there is a fire and she’s the only fireman. She has as much patience and understanding as a toddler.

  No one can take a corner like she can; as for swerving, she swears by them, claiming that it keeps everyone on their toes. My mother has written off more cars than McDonald’s has hamburgers. She knew all the police by name, and if it wasn’t for the fact that she was in a wheelchair and old enough to be their grandmother, I am sure she’d be fined within an inch of her life.

  Which is why George now drives, and she sits in the front telling him whichever gear he is in is the wrong one.

  George is the sort of driver who eases himself into a car like it’s an armchair. He never moans about people forgetting to use their indicator, despite Beatrice attempting a toot with the horn. Instead, he cheerfully waves to everyone, treating long journeys like a safari ride, stopping to take photos of “the wildlife”. . . which keeps Mum in total huffing mode, claiming that sheep and the like were “hardly buffalo.”

  I looked at the empty Baby Bea space. I was a mum with no idea how to do anything and, thanks to my own mum, a good idea what not to do.

  I stared out of the window with a flat sense of Shouldn’t I feel something? as Helen pulled up in our DIY van.

  Chapter Seven

  Helen

  Jealousy trips you up when you least expect it.

  My mother was never one for “mollycoddling,” as she put it; she was more a “get on with things” sort of person. A cough got better with fresh air, and there was nothing a bit of starvation wouldn’t cure when it came to upset stomachs.

  When she first noticed me running to the loo to throw up, she, assuming it was something to do with drink, said little apart from “One too many, Sheryl?”

  After a week of this, she changed and began to offer herbals and rich tea biscuits. She brought me packets of both, telling me to “get a few down in the morning, before the sickness kicks in” and began to tell me to “take it easy.”

  When Helen joined my business, Mum was dubious. I had just found out I was expecting, and she was in panic mode about me scaling ladders while pregnant. The last thing I needed, according to her, was to train someo
ne who was as “wobbly as a plate of jelly.”

  And Helen could be wobbly. She drove like she didn’t deserve a car space, let alone space on the road. Every time a police car siren went by, she panicked thinking it was her; she wore guilt like a cloak.

  Mum said it was living with him that did it, the “constant criticism—she’s a nervous wreck, do you really want her helping?” But as we worked together, Mum began to warm to her.

  We fixed leaky roofs, dug drainpipes, and installed a new kitchen. Helen was as helpful as Steven’s back rubs and as kind as he was, reassuring me that the heartburn would go away and my body would shrink back to its normal size. She rarely got angry, loved helping people, and had all the time in the world for old folk, even when they jumped the queue.

  Mum began to wave her up for coffee and entertain her with quirky “Sheryl stories,” which, Helen, to give her her due, listened to with a noncommittal face.

  By the time I was six months pregnant and “blooming like a beached whale,” Mum’s conversations revolved around Helen, which Helen seemed oblivious to and I was completely fed up hearing.

  As I spent more time getting my breath back, easing myself out of the van, or reminding my foggy brain with lists, Helen slowly took over, finishing things before I had even had a chance to start them. I mean, she wasn’t a know-it-all like her older sister or bossy like the youngest. Helen was nice, efficient, and quiet, and she always talked to me like we were a couple of blokes; mummy stuff rarely left her lips.

  Helen was . . . well . . . annoyingly good. In fact, I couldn’t bleeding well fault her.

  Soon, the only thing Mum wanted to talk about was Helen, her “bad egg of a husband,” and her marvelous ability to fix things without one swear word.

  In Mum’s eyes, any man that drove about in a personalized number plate was the equivalent of a gangster. Henry’s four-wheel drive with HEN69 really got up her nose, that and the need for a stepladder to get into it . . .

  Even when I tried to change the subject, she still continued on about Helen and her arsehole of an ex.

  Once Mum was so intent on finishing her story she followed me to the loo, shouting outside the toilet door how Henry had called Helen a “half-wit” at the butcher’s.