It was ridiculous in retrospect. Her
entire life from aged 10 onwards had been devoted to ‘get thin
quick’ schemes and nine short months were dominated by manic
efforts to transform herself into a generously proportioned elephant.
To no avail She gained precisely one and half stones and did not
acquire the bloom of the models in the Mother and Baby magazines.
You can’t always get what you
want.
As the second trimester slipped
into the third, the lack of general interest from her nearest
and dearest in what would now be universally termed as her bump
was disappointing.But she found that she did not care – much.
An interesting new development was her enthusiasm for teaching.
Everyone at Oaks Haven – including
Andrew Penn, was delighted that she intended to come back and her
fifth form threw a surprise party for her in the school library. They
had made cakes and savouries and had knitted bootees and matinee
jackets. Her sixth form presented her with a copy of Richard
Ellman’s biography of Oscar Wilde. The thought of returning to
a promotional post was truly exciting. She would have a marriage, a
baby and a career. And all the Truscott/Chase/Nicola and
the kiddies/ Hunt / Cleghorn/Chudleigh/Donald and Gillian and
Eric dissatisfactions could be sidelined.
Oscar Wilde was remarkably
perspicacious.
To love oneself is the beginning of
a life-long romance…….
Month six was accompanied by birthing
preparation and she had a choice of the customary hospital
classes conducted with chilly efficiency by a Nurse Ratched
figure, or alternative sessions in a Community Centre run by the
Dorlich Branch of Birth and Baby Bond. The latter was
strongly recommended by Gillian, who was National Secretary of The
Bond and had written various incomprehensible papers about
perineums and dilation. She was a firm advocate of
natural childbirth minus gas and air; pethidine and (perish the
thought) epidural injection; predicting a grisly outcome for women
who succumbed to these evils:
Of course you’ll want to go to the
Bond classes; drug-free labour is best for baby by the by – you’re
a bit on the small side – is it growing properly?) and all they
want to do in hospital unless you’re VERY FIRM is to drug you up;
cut you up and whip it out so they can re-use the suite. And some
doctors are gung-ho with the scissors and it can wreak havoc with
your sex life….. (winking at Donald).
The Dorlich Baby Bond sessions
were run by women who spoke like the Chudleigh matrons and dressed in
Indian cottons from the Adini label. She joined a small group
of six and nobody was overtly unpleasant, but after the second
session, she gave it up.
Everyone else was accompanied by
Daddy, in the cloying words of Course Leader Hannah, and the
Daddies were full participants, pushing and breathing
beside their respective Mummies.
In fact, some of them were rather
better at it, she reflected – and it did seem a shame that it would
be Celina rather than Ned for example, who would be
called upon to take centre stage when the time came.
Paul refused to accompany her:
Oh really darling – I mean – can
you see me on the floor with my legs in the air? (an unfortunate
comment in the circumstances). You’ll have to be a brave little
soldier and go to the front on your own – and anyway, I’ve got
fencing class at Chudleigh. It was a blessing really and an
excuse to do what she liked best – read about it from the safety
and sanctity of her own front room.
Gillian was caustic; questioning her
full commitment to this pregnancy, especially in light of the
appalling news that she had decided to continue with her job. Donald
had been an absolute stalwart, attending every birthing class,
and had gone beyond the call of duty by taking the reins as Treasurer
of the Picks Norton Branch.
Of course, David and Susan had been
dearly wanted children… (glancing at Paul).
They were sitting in Gillian’s new
cane armchairs in the Picks Norton conservatory, sipping pre-dinner
drinks. Paul (with bare feet and frayed jeans) was sitting opposite
Donald (in light sports jacket and deck shoes). Good old Doz
(laughing) quite the trooper weren’t you – all that
panting and blowing with the girls!! You must have felt terribly
deprived when Gilly had Caesars –
And that was the end of that.
She assembled piles of babygros and
sleep suits; cot sheets and blankets. The pram, a carrycot/stroller
hybrid, took pride of place in the hallway. And they bought a dog.
Her mother regarded the acquisition of
Splosh; (a retriever /saluki cross masquerading as a red
setter) as the pregnancy equivalent of sunstroke.
Everybody knew puppies were prone to
extreme expressions of jealousy – such as biting newborn babies and
even killing them. She did not expect to preside at a funeral before
the christening of her first grandchild.
But Splosh, with his floppy ears;
feathery back legs and boundless energy was, as the Prince of Wales
would later observe in reference to his second wife: non-negotiable.
She had never taken to the standoffish
cat Perdita, and Splosh was the perfect excuse to make Conyham
Crescent a cat-free zone. He chewed her father’s slippers and
slept on the marital bed – sometimes in the marital bed and
a household with a dog and a baby on the way was a family.
Paul and Splosh became inseparable and
the dog would sit on Paul’s greatcoat in The Falcon – an accepted
member of their social set. Her husband considered himself to be the
very model of a dog-owner (there are no bad dogs, only bad
masters) but she deplored his method of dog- toilet training
which consisted of alternately rubbing the dog’s nose in its faeces
and administering a blistering kick to its side.
He had been caught in the act when she
stumbled into the kitchen at dawn, having been woken from sleep by
canine whimpers and squeals.
Splosh cowered next to the cooker and
she thrust her pregnant stomach between him and Paul, screaming at
him to kick her next.
For God’s sake don’t be so WET
- he’s got to learn - unless you want to be treading in shit
every morning? And anyway, he has learned now, haven’t you?
(scratching the dog’s ears as it
licked his hand).
As it turned out, he had. There were no
more ‘accidents’ and man and dog continued to enjoy a
relationship of mutual devotion.
But she had not liked it. And when
she later discovered Splosh happily chewing his way through Paul’s
prized first edition of the Beckett novel, ‘Molloy’, she took
its companion ,‘Malone Dies’, from the shelf and gave him that
too.
Months seven, eight and nine crawled
along; punctuated by heartburn and a slight recurrence of the
original morning sickness. She started her maternity leave and mused
about child care.
State nurseries were virtually
non-existent and her idea of childminders was derived from lurid
Victorian pot-boilers about baby-farming or kitchen sink stereotypes
of curlers, fags, wet nappies and a general patina of neglect and
grime.
The obvious solution was to employ a
properly trained nanny – someone who would look after her baby in
its own home while she was at work, and make themselves scarce when
she returned. Cherry Peabody, aged 22, sporting a distinction in
her child-care and nursery nurse course, fitted the bill and she felt
tremendously efficient to have made these arrangements before even
experiencing a contraction.
As month nine began, contractions were
to the fore; in theory if not in practice. Now that she had declared
UDI from The Birth and Baby Bond, she felt free to book an
epidural in advance – and did.
She banned Paul from the birth.
It was going to be a nasty experience
she could tell. She had no desire for her husband to see her trussed
up like a chicken and possibly doing something unmentionable like
losing control of her bowels at a key juncture. She did not
see how marital relations (which had taken a nosedive anyway, due to
her Hunt/Cleghorn/bookseller demons) could ever be resumed following
such an occurrence.
No.
Her idea of the perfect birth was to
endure nobly ( assisted by the pain-dispelling epidural) and then to
greet Paul with babe in arms, from the vantage point of a freshly
plumped hospital pillow, glowing with health courtesy of Clarins,
Chanel No 4 and Timotei.
That was the plan.
In reality, the baby was two weeks
overdue and she was admitted to hospital for a pessary induction. It
was horrible – all of it – and when she emerged from the other
side – she understood why all her friends had discussed their
pregnancies but not the births.
Honesty was not only not the best
policy – its practice on the subject of childbirth would lead to
the elimination of the human race because no woman alive would
subject herself to such torture voluntarily.
The hours of waiting for the pessary
to take effect were passed by a re-reading of Malcolm Bradbury’s
campus novel, The History Man. She had loved it on
publication because it reminded her of university days at Dorlich and
now the onset of labour was punctuated by the escapades of Howard
Kirk; Flora Beniform and the anally retentive student. She
was transferred to the Delivery Suite just as Barbara Kirk
concluded the novel by attempting suicide at her own party.
Suicide seemed the preferable option
during the following hours when, amidst screams, she was informed by
her anaesthetist that she was one of the unlucky 10% for whom
epidurals did not work.
Nothing else worked either, including
pethidine; gas and air and even the baby monitor which broke,
eliciting controlled hysteria when it was assumed that the baby’s
heart had stopped. Paul was telephoned at Bunter’s where he was
wetting the baby’s head in advance of its birth, assisted by
the Truscotts and Percy.
He arrived in the Delivery Suite to
view his wife; legs akimbo in stirrups, screaming all the swear words
in her vocabulary, plus some gas-and-air-induced imprecations about
Frances Hunt and Aiden Cleghorn.
Vanessa June was born at 9 am after
a thirty-six-hour labour. She was placed in an incubator and thence
in a cot at the bedside of her mother on the ward.
The baby had mild jaundice, and
breastfeeding was painful due to a touch of mastitis in her left
breast.
She had booked to stay for a week –
which was a relief because her parents had arrived and she suspected
that once at home, she would revert to being the child as usual and
her mother would transform into a larger than life Mummy/Grandma
rolled into one. At least in hospital she was indubitably the
mother and was called Mum by the nurses in case she was in
danger of forgetting it.
Vanessa was a long baby with extremely
big hands and tapering fingers (like meat hooks, announced Paul ).
It was difficult to say whom she resembled if anybody and she only
started to feel like a separate person as opposed to a body part
that had miraculously become external ( like a heart or a pair of
lungs ) when she overheard a nurse mention the baby’s name in
conversation with the doctor.
Her parents visited daily – as did
Paul – although in the devoted Daddy stakes, he was already falling
short. Bonnie Corner, in the next bed; an experienced mum of three,
was surrounded by flowers and gifts from her husband as marks of
gratitude for the safe arrival of baby Joshua. Admittedly Ian Corner
resembled an albino rabbit of middle years with squinting reddish
eyes – but a present was a present and Bonnie had them and she did
not.
Apart from a cheap tin of talcum
powder courtesy of Ursula who took a quick look at her new sister and
then started fidgeting and whingeing to be taken home.
Lynne came up trumps on her fleeting
visit – although true to her word, Aunty Lynne was never an
option:
Here (depositing two bottles of
Moet et Chandon on the bed) this is for both of you. No,
not you! (pointing at Paul). If she’s anything like her
mother she’ll like this and she’ll get it through the breast
milk. Nothing like starting early!
And she had cards and flowers from her
teaching colleagues and Betty.
Two days before she was due to go home,
Paul missed Visiting Hour. He had not mentioned a prior engagement
and failing death, she could think of nothing that should take
precedence over time spent in the company of his wife and new
daughter.
On departure day, he was early,
brandishing the brown corduroy carry cot and a white baby gro for
Vanessa. She changed her baby’s nappy and looked at her husband.
He looked amazing.
Gone was his usual garb of ill-fitting
jeans; frayed shirt and tattered combat jacket. He was wearing a
sharp grey suit with matching waistcoat and a crisp tailored shirt
fastened at the wrists with gold cufflinks which on closer
inspection were mini compasses. His shoes were narrow, pointed,
grey lace-ups and his hair was shaped and layered.
Her first thought was that he was a
bastard because he had obviously indulged in an exorbitant sartorial
splurge and had neglected to buy her anything for being virtually
ripped asunder in the course of giving birth to his child.
Her second thought was that he was a
bastard because the clothes were reminiscent of the Cleghorn/Hunt
wardrobe – and where the hell had he been last night?
When his opening gambit was: I’ve
got something to tell you, her second assumption was in the
ascendant and she wondered who would look after Vanessa if her mother
was imprisoned for murdering her father.
It was not infidelity but it was a
betrayal of another nature.
He had got a new job.
Without saying a word, he had applied
for the post of Head of Department at a fee- paying boys’ school.
He had been interviewed for the post two days ago and that was why he
had gone missing at visiting time. It was a highly academic
establishment with no boarding component and habitually knocked the
spots off Chudleigh for Oxbridge places. And it was in Northern
England – almost another country.
So that was my surprise! exclaimed
Paul with a merry laugh. Of course your Mum was in on it – I
had to swear her to secrecy And now we’ll have our own home and our
fresh start and it’s all you’ve ever wanted isn’t it?!
She asked what her father had said
about it.
Well, not much – but you know, he
never does, does he? Eric was thrilled of course – and Doz and
Gilly were jealous! It was almost worth it for that!
She fiddled with the nappy pin. She had
got the hang of disposables in hospital and the idea of switching to
Terries and nappy pails at home was not appealing. But at the rate
Vanessa was excreting, she would get through a pack of disposables in
a day….
What about my job?
What? enquired Paul, You
know, I think I can see a bit of Lilias in her. Around the eyes….
My job. I was going back to a scale
post. And they’re expecting me. And I arranged all my maternity
leave. And we’ve got Cherry for Vanessa…….
Oh – well not to worry darling! It
was a grotty old dump anyway wasn’t it?
And everyone on the staff seemed a
bit bonkers – like that drunk who pissed himself at Necker’s –
remember?
You’ll be able to spend time with
this little one – and pick something up later when you’ve shopped
around. Absolutely no rush whatsoever – and we won’t need a nanny
to start with because you’ll be at home, won’t you?
He was a bastard.
You bastard! You fucking nasty,
selfish arsehole bastard! You swine! You FUCKING PIG!!!!
She had screamed at the top of her
voice and was quickly surrounded by a posse of nurses; one whom she
recognised from the Delivery Suite.
Now come on Mum – we can’t have
you upsetting the babies can we? Mum’s a bit overwrought (glancing
sympathetically at Paul) and Mum used a bit of BUILDERS’
LANGUAGE before baby made an entrance, now, what about a nice sweet
cup of tea?
And she drank the tea and went home as
a married woman; daughter; mother and dog-owner without a career.
Because you can’t always get what
you want.
