Babies in Waiting (37 page)

But of course that doesn’t happen, and I drag myself out of bed and gather up my baby. Every morning, James gets up and looks at Harry and me, propped up on the pillows, cuddled together, and he says, ‘Ah, that’s the life.’ And I think . . . is it? Is this my life?

This past week was really bad. Gemma kept coming round . . . she came Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I know she means well and she’s trying to help, but when she’s here, I have to get dressed. I have to talk to her. And she makes me eat. That’s another thing. I’ve always had the sweetest tooth, and it got worse during my pregnancy. I put on way too much weight, I know. But now, I’m not interested at all. If Gemma wasn’t around pushing sandwiches at me and making me eat biscuits and drink cups of tea, I wouldn’t eat at all. I just don’t think about it.

Things are bit better when James is home in the evenings and over the weekends. He loves spending time with Harry, and he makes us get out of the house and do things. He takes us out shopping, or out for lunch, and he invites friends around, or his parents, or my dad. Our weekends are very full and busy, and they should be the most fun, but . . . well, it’s hard to explain. Do you ever feel like everyone else around you is living in full-colour high definition, and you’re living in a slightly fuzzy, black-and-white VHS version of the same world? Maybe not. Maybe it’s just me.

I know what you’re thinking . . . what an ungrateful cow. Harry’s a miracle baby, probably one in a million, and probably my only chance at being a mum, and here
I am, thinking miserable thoughts. Every day he grows and changes, and I know I should be beside myself, watching each new development, cherishing every moment of his babyhood. But I’m too busy wishing I could go back to bed and sleep. Or not so much sleep as lie very still and not have anyone ask me for anything.

And I feel guilty. I feel guilty about everything. I feel guilty about being a grumpy, rotten wife to James and a joyless, grumpy mum to Harry. I feel guilty about Harry’s colic and the fact that I can’t fix it. I feel guilty about his traumatic birth and the fact that I failed utterly at having the wonderful hypnobirth I wrote about in my birth plan. I feel guilty about my unscrubbed bathroom and unhoovered carpet and unwashed dishes, and the fact that all Gemma seems to do when she comes round is my housework. I feel guilty for hating Gemma a little bit for already being back in her jeans, and for having Millie, the perfect baby who never cries and is beautiful. I feel guilty for hating all my other friends for never coming to visit, and I feel guilty because I never ring them either, and secretly, I don’t want to see them anyway. And most of all, I feel guilty because while I know all of this is wrong and I shouldn’t feel like this, I don’t know what to do about it. Every day I promise myself that tomorrow will be better. It’s just the baby blues, and soon my hormones will sort themselves out. But there’ve been quite a lot of tomorrows, none of them better. I’m in a very much light-free tunnel right now.

It wasn’t until she got beyond the first few weeks that Louise realised what a dream world she’d been living in. She’d lost all sense of time, and spent hours just sitting holding Peter, often forgetting to get dressed properly or eat regular meals. He tended to be very wakeful at night, so the days often drifted by in a haze of exhaustion. Gradually, as she mastered breastfeeding and she and Peter established a routine of sorts, she started to emerge from her trance. It made her smile to think back on it . . . for someone usually so sharp and on the ball, she’d developed a first-class case of baby brain. Brian did his best to help, making meals and keeping the flat relatively tidy. But when Peter was three weeks old, he told her he’d been offered a week of consulting work in London, and Louise found herself alone in the flat all day for the first time.

She was sitting on the sofa late on the Wednesday afternoon, cuddling Peter, when she heard a text tone. Her mobile was lying on the coffee table in front of her and she checked it, but there was no message. Besides, the
tone she’d heard was not the one she had set on her phone. She looked around and couldn’t see another phone lying around, so she felt between the sofa cushions and found a small, cheap phone, the type you buy with a pay-as-you-go SIM card. She’d never seen it before. Brian, like her, had a smart phone, so she knew it wasn’t his, and no one had been to visit for days. She clicked on the message icon to see the text that had come through on the phone. ‘Missing u, sexy man, Lx’, it said. The message had come from a mobile . . . there was no name saved in the phone for the number, and in fact no names in the directory at all. She opened the inbox, and there were about fifty texts, all from the same number. There were no messages from anyone else.

She scrolled through, reading some of the messages. Some were affectionate, quite a few were variations on ‘missing you’, and one or two were downright filthy. From the anatomical detail in one of them, Louise knew that the sender had definitely seen Brian naked, and from a certain angle. But who was the mysterious ‘Lx’? She read a few more messages, and then she found one that read, ‘Em & Char miss u too’. Em and Char? Emily and Charlotte? Brian’s daughters? Louise laughed out loud, startling a dozing Peter. Brian was having a clandestine text affair with his own wife!

An hour or so later, Brian came home. She heard him running up the stairs and hastily unlocking the door. He called a quick hello and went straight to his room. She could hear him rummaging around, looking for something.
She sat calmly on the sofa, with Peter in his bouncy chair beside her. After a few minutes, he came out of his bedroom, looking stressed.

‘Looking for this?’ Louise asked, holding up the phone. Brian started to bluster.

‘Ah, there it is! It’s er . . . my work phone . . .’

‘A text came through for you. Which of the executives is it who’s “missing you, kiss-kiss”?’

‘Louise . . .’

‘Oh my God, Brian, you’re such an idiot! Do you thrive on having some kind of secret life? I’ve been
begging
you to get on with your life, and here you are hiding it from me like I’m some kind of jealous harridan! It’s Lisa, isn’t it?’

‘Er . . . yes.’

‘Are you . . . thinking of getting back together?’

‘It’s early days . . . we’re talking, that’s all.’

‘Would you move back up north?’

‘Well . . .’ She could see he had something to say, but he was too nervous to say it. He hated surprises, and she’d really put him on the spot.

‘Brian, for heaven’s sake! I can see you’re up to something. You don’t owe me fidelity or eternal love, but you do owe me a bit of honesty.’

‘The consulting work I’ve been doing . . . well, it’s for an affiliate company of Barrett and Humphries. They want me to go back to Leeds and take a management role. It’s a kind of sideways move from where I was before. I’ve not said yes because of you and Peter. I know you need me . . .’

Louise laughed so hard that Peter jumped and started to cry. She shushed him, and standing and holding him, she said, ‘Brian, stop right there. With all the love in the world, we don’t need you. You’ve been a great help, but we’ll be fine. I always planned to do this on my own.’

‘I’d like to see him . . .’

‘Whenever you like.’

‘And I’d like to give you money for his upkeep. We can draw up a formal agreement.’

‘How does Lisa feel about that?’

‘Well, she agrees that I have to take responsibility for him. She doesn’t want to meet him, not yet, anyway. But she understands.’

Louise got up and impulsively hugged Brian.

‘Well, I never thought I’d say it, but I think we may have the best possible outcome for this funny old situation,’ she said. ‘Bri, I really do wish you all the best. I hope you’re very happy.’

‘You too, Lou,’ he said, patting her back fondly. ‘Now, shall we take this small boy out for some dinner?’

‘I’d like that.’

They enjoyed an early dinner at the local Italian restaurant, then, once Peter was settled, chatted long into the night. Brian had decided to head back up north within a fortnight. For the first time since he had arrived on her doorstep, things felt easy between them, and Louise felt an enormous sense of relief that Peter might be able to have a good relationship, if a little distant, with his dad.

The next day, Louise couldn’t help chuckling over the
whole story. It really was absurd, Brian sneaking around behind her back, romancing his own wife. It occurred to her that Toni would find the story hysterical. She felt quite bright and full of energy . . . maybe Toni would like to meet her for brunch or lunch, and they could take the babies for a stroll. She rang Toni’s mobile, but it went straight to message, and the disembodied voice told her that the voice mailbox was full and that she couldn’t leave a message. How odd, she thought. She dialled again, and got the same thing. She didn’t have a home number for Toni, so she sent a text saying ‘Your phone’s being odd, can’t leave a voicemail. Ring me!’ After an hour or so Toni hadn’t rung back, so she dialled one more time. This time, Toni answered, her voice husky and confused, like she had been asleep.

‘Hey, Toni, it’s Lou. Sorry, did I wake you?’

‘Hmm? What? Er . . . no. I don’t think I was asleep.’

She didn’t
think
she was asleep? What a strange thing to say, Louise thought. But she pressed on. ‘Listen, there’ve been some . . . developments in my situation. I wondered if you and Harry fancied brunch and a walk and a gossip?’

‘Oh . . . thanks, but we can’t.’ Louise felt a first twinge of concern. Toni didn’t sound like herself at all. She was vague and dreamy, and her voice had a flat, dead quality that Louise had never heard before.

‘Listen if today’s not good, how about tomorrow? Or any day this week? It’d be great to meet up,’ said Louise persistently.

‘Thanks, but no. We don’t go out.’

‘What do you mean you don’t go out?’

‘Harry and me. We don’t go out. It doesn’t work for us, so we stay home.’

‘Can I bring Peter round to yours then?’

‘Probably better not,’ said Toni.

‘Toni, are you okay?’

‘Fine,’ said Toni, sounding anything but fine. ‘Look, I’d better go.’

‘Okay,’ said Louise uncertainly. ‘Listen, there’s something funny going on with your phone . . . I rang and it said your mailbox was full. Maybe let your service provider know there’s a fault?’

‘I don’t think it’s a fault. I just haven’t listened to my messages. Listen, Lou, thanks for calling, but I really have to go. Bye.’ And she was gone.

It was all very worrying. Louise scooped up Peter and held him close while she walked around the flat going over the conversation in her head. She was pretty sure that it wasn’t because Toni was angry with her: their last few meetings had been friendly and warm, and she’d felt their relationship was back on track. No, something was very wrong with Toni. About half an hour later, Brian came home, and in the spirit of their new, easier relationship, Louise told him about her conversation with Toni. ‘Sounds to me like your friend might have post-natal depression,’ said Brian.

‘Do you think so?’

‘Lisa had it with Charlotte. She wouldn’t leave the house, cried all the time, didn’t want to see anyone. Sounds like
Toni’s going through something similar. You want to get your friend some help,’ said Brian.

Cradling Peter against her shoulder, she sat down at her computer and went onto the baby website to look up post-natal depression. There were several articles, and on the forum there was a big group for sufferers of PND, with thousands of members, as well as smaller ones for each birth month: there was already a September PND group which had forty members. If that was what Toni had, she certainly wasn’t alone.

Some of the things she read in the articles suggested Toni was a prime candidate, like the fact that she’d had reproductive issues, then a difficult birth. Her lethargy, her lack of interest in going out all pointed to the possibility of post-natal depression. But what to do with that thought? She was certain that if she rang Toni again, assuming Toni even answered her call, she wouldn’t be open to a discussion that she might be mentally ill. She wished she had a way to speak to Toni’s husband . . . James, was it? But she’d only met him briefly at the awful lunch party that Brian had gatecrashed, and she had no way of reaching him. It was a real problem. She really had only one way to get the message to James. She didn’t like doing it, but her concern for Toni overrode her misgivings. She popped Peter in his bouncy chair and began to type an email.

Subject: Toni

Dear Gemma,
I’m sure you’re surprised to see an email from me,
and I hope, reading the subject line, you’ll at least read it before you junk it. I know you and I have little to say to one another, but I am very worried about Toni. I know you and she have got close in the last few months.

I just spoke to her on the phone and she sounded very down indeed. I tried to arrange to see her, but she won’t go out and won’t let me go round to see her. I’m worried she may be suffering from post-natal depression. I’ve looked up symptoms, and many of them seem to fit her behaviour. Have a look and see what you think.

(Here she copied and pasted a number of web links)

I don’t expect to hear back from you, but if you’re in a position to speak to Toni’s husband, or even to suggest gently to her that she might want to look for help, it would be a good thing.
Best,
Lou

Louise hit Send before she could have second thoughts. Gemma was just a kid, and a judgmental one at that. But she cared about Toni. She had to just hope and pray that Gemma would do the right thing.

A few days later, she got a call from Adam. When she saw his name come up on her mobile she couldn’t control the little rollercoaster-swoop feeling she got in the pit of
her stomach, but she hoped she had managed to sound calm and cheery when she answered.

‘Ah, Mr Harper! To what do I owe this pleasure?’

He sounded a lot less confident. In fact, he sounded quite hesitant. ‘Er, hi. Um, well, I hope things are going well with Junior . . .’