The Baby Group (15 page)

Natalie had expected Steve and Jill's place to look more or less exactly like Meg's, a huge sprawling Victorian mansion, only probably tidier and decorated in more of a contemporary style. She was almost right, except that it was one of three apartments that the house had been converted to in the nineties.

Whereas Meg's house was all quirky little rooms, pantries and parlours, Steve's place was open-plan, polished wood flooring and flat white walls. The main living space included a stainless steel state of the art kitchen at one end and Steve's draftsman's table at the other.

‘Livework space,' Steve said, melding the two words into one as he showed Natalie in. ‘That's what it's all about these days. Multi-purpose living.'

‘Multi-purpose living!' Natalie replied. ‘I'm impressed. It's hard enough to find any purpose to living at all when you've only had three hours' sleep and your jeans don't fit you any more.'

Natalie winked at Jess, who was sitting quite gingerly on the edge of a long orange sofa with such a low back and arms that to lean on it would be to take your life into your own hands.

‘Look at you,' she said to Jess. ‘You look great, not a bulge or a spare tyre to be seen. I want to be you.' Both Jess and Natalie were surprised by how sincere she had sounded, Jess because she was convinced that she must be the least attractive adult here and Natalie because she had never wanted to be anyone but herself before in her entire existence. Even when her life was at its most difficult and unsatisfactory in her twenties, she had always rather liked being herself.

‘You don't want to be me,' Jess exclaimed with a laugh. ‘I'm a total neurotic. I had us all up in the night because I thought Jacob was wheezing. I made Lee take us to casualty! Two hours, we were waiting for. In the end the doctors said he was snoring.' She held up her thumb and forefinger. ‘I felt about
this
big.'

Jess cringed as she thought back on the events of the previous night, which since daylight had arrived seemed like one of the tangled and backwards stress dreams that she was frequently prone to these days. Except it had really happened.

She had woken with a start and for a while she couldn't understand why. Jacob hadn't been crying and for once she didn't need to visit the bathroom. And then she heard this noise, a long, thin, rattling whistle that was coming from Jacob's cot. There was a beat of silence and then the sound came again.

‘Lee!' Jess prodded her boyfriend sharply in his ribs with her elbow.

‘What!' he moaned. ‘'Syour turn.'

‘Lee!' Jess elbowed him again. ‘Wake up.'

Reluctantly Lee sat up, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

‘Listen,' Jess said intently. She was wide awake now and every muscle in her body was braced for disaster.

‘Oh yeah,' Lee said groggily. ‘He sounds like a dolphin.'

‘He's
wheezing
,' Jess said anxiously, feeling her own chest tighten reflexively. ‘Do you remember I told you I had asthma as a kid, it was pretty bad. I had to go to hospital once.' She gripped Lee's forearm. ‘I think he's having an asthma attack.'

‘He's snoring,' Lee said, flopping back down onto the bed.

‘He's wheezing,' Jess said. ‘I'm sure of it. Do you know how long a baby can go before getting brain damage if it's not getting enough oxygen?'

Lee sat up again, sighing heavily as he kissed goodbye to any slim chance he had of sleep that night.

‘What do you want to do?' he asked Jess resignedly.

‘We have to take him to A & E.' Jess was already out of bed with the light switched on as she pulled her jeans up over her pyjama bottoms and reached for a jumper to cover her top half. Blinking in the sudden glare, Lee followed suit, and roused by the shock of electric light Jacob began to cry.

The rest of the night was a blur of street lights and hospital smells and bad instant coffee. Jess had cried when the triage nurse had told her she would have to wait, because she was certain that her baby couldn't wait that long to be seen. With every passing second she imagined something worse that might have caused the noise. It hadn't helped when Lee innocently pointed out that now Jacob was awake he had stopped snoring and perhaps they could all go home?

‘I expect you of all people to care about what happens to our son,' Jess admonished him tearfully.

‘I do care,' Lee told her. ‘I was trying to comfort you. I mean look at him. He looks OK.'

It was true, Jacob was now alert and sitting in his dad's lap. He was looking around him at the busy waiting room, his eyes bright with curiosity at all the strange sights and sounds.

‘I don't want you to comfort me,' Jess told him crossly. ‘I want you to worry too.'

And then as they had waited, the sleeping drunk who had been sitting opposite them had let out a long loud rattling snore and Jacob had laughed. It was his first genuine laugh and his little shoulders shook as a real chuckle gurgled up from his tummy.

‘Did you see that?' Lee exclaimed with delight. ‘He laughed! Our little kid laughed, do it again Jakey, go on, son!'

And sure enough as the inebriated man snored again Jacob laughed.

‘He can't be that ill, can he?' Lee said as he grinned at Jess. ‘Not if he's laughing?' And Jess had been unable to be worried for those few moments as she watched Jacob's face light up with laughter. She got the feeling that as long as he was smiling everything would be all right.

It was then that they had finally been called in to see the paediatrician. They were out again in less than fifteen minutes.

‘Well, it's impossible to know for sure if he had a wheezy chest before, but I'd say probably not because it is clear now,' the doctor said after listening to Jacob for a few minutes. ‘He hasn't got a cold or a fever, his oxygen levels are good. I don't think he's had an asthma attack. Sounds like he might have been snoring.'

‘That's what I said,' Lee said triumphantly, belatedly realising that probably wasn't the best response when it came to staying in Jess's good books.

‘Did you have the central heating on?' the doctor asked.

‘Yes,' Jess said anxiously. ‘But only a bit – I'm worried about it getting too hot or . . . too cold.' She trailed off, suddenly aware of how foolish she must seem. A typical overanxious, first-time mother, wasting everybody's time.

‘Central heating causes a lot of bunged-up noses,' the doctor told her with a weary smile. ‘Which in turn causes snoring. You do have a family history of asthma so you should keep an eye on him, but I don't think you have anything to worry about this time.'

‘I'm sorry to have bothered you,' Jess said meekly.

‘Ah well, better to be safe than sorry,' the doctor replied, glancing sympathetically at Lee. ‘And try not to worry so much.'

‘The thing is, how are we supposed to know?' Natalie asked Jess after she had recounted her tale. ‘How do we know what it sounds like when a baby snores? We don't. We have no precedent. I would have done the same thing.'

‘You wouldn't have,' Jess said.

‘Well, no I wouldn't,' Natalie admitted. ‘But only because you are a proper mum who even thinks to worry about things like that. It never crosses my mind that anything is ever going to be wrong with Freddie. I sort of think he's indestructible.'

‘It's official then,' Jess said with a weak smile. ‘
I
wish I were
you
.'

‘I've got us snacks,' Steve said, gesturing at a table of what looked like seeds and possibly pulses. ‘I know you like cake, Natalie, but Jill's got us on a special diet. It'll change in about two weeks. We'll only be eating carbs again, or bananas. Or oily fish. She's a big fan of diets, is Jill.'

‘Couldn't you tell her that you don't want to go on the diet with her?' Natalie suggested.

‘Well, I could,' Steve said with an affectionate smile. ‘But she's a barrister. Very hard to argue with.'

When Frances arrived with Henry, Natalie was disappointed to see she did not have Meg, James and Iris in tow.

‘Where's Meg?' Natalie asked Frances before greeting her, which a second after she had opened her mouth she realised was probably something of a faux pas, particularly where prickly Frances was concerned.

‘Ill, apparently,' Frances said as if Meg was being terribly rude by being unwell.

‘Oh dear.' Natalie glanced at Jess. ‘I might go and see her later, do you want to . . .'

‘She doesn't want visitors,' Frances said, her voice taut with incredulity. ‘She told
me
to leave!'

‘
Did
she?' Natalie was surprised. Telling someone to leave didn't sound like Meg at all. The woman was patience personified and she was always putting everyone before herself. ‘She must be really ill then.'

‘Do you think so?' Frances said, seeming to brighten up a little.

‘Oh yeah,' Natalie reassured her. ‘I mean, you're probably her closest friend. If she spoke like that to you she must be feeling
awful
.'

‘Oh dear,' Frances said, her edges seeming to soften as she considered Natalie's comment. ‘Poor Meg. She did look awful actually . . .'

‘Green tea anyone?' Steve said, producing a Japanese tea set steaming with the aromatic brew.

Natalie wrinkled up her nose. ‘Now, Steve,' she said. ‘I think we all know a baby group wouldn't be a baby group without one of these.' She plonked the now ubiquitous Jamaican ginger cake on his perspex coffee table. ‘And have you got any coffee? I don't mind instant.'

The aerobics class didn't go quite as well as Baby Music.

It was as if everyone was just a little bit off kilter, literally in Natalie's case as she fell over trying to do one of the exercises, landing hard on her back to save Freddie from getting squashed by her weight, a fall which shot an intense spasm of pain up her spine. Steve, she supposed, wasn't quite as relaxed as he was at Baby Music, because he was the only man and despite his best efforts not to care about it, he obviously did a little.

He had been waiting in his jogging bottoms and T-shirt as Natalie came out of the ladies' changing room. She and Freddie had been the first to emerge because she hadn't technically changed, she had just turned up pre-prepared in her loose jersey trousers and long-line T-shirt, not realising that other people were going to bring actual exercise wear to the class. She had expected it to be nothing more than a laugh, just like Baby Music, so when she found Steve clutching Lucy to his chest and trying to look anywhere rather than at the women leaving the previous aerobics class she was privately glad that someone else was as uncertain about this as she was.

‘They are all going to think I'm a letch, aren't they?' Steve said under his breath, nodding at the other women who were waiting with their babies for the class to begin.

Natalie laughed. ‘Don't be daft,' she said. ‘All women think you are fabulous. They all fancy you because you are here with your baby. Ironically a man with his baby is perhaps one of the most attractive sights to a single or indeed married lady.'

‘Really?' Steve looked alarmed, eyeing the gradually increasing group of ladies now with some trepidation. ‘Jill would kill me if she thought anyone fancied me,' he said with charming anxiety.

‘No she wouldn't,' Natalie reassured him. ‘We like our men to be fancied. What we do not like is for them to fancy others. That is when you risk wandering into the realm of sudden and violent death.'

Steve laughed, his cheeks pinking up a little.

‘Seriously though, Natalie,' he said. ‘You're a gutsy kind of woman aren't you, quite like a bloke really?'

‘Really?' Natalie said, glancing down at her capacious breasts in mock dismay. ‘Is that how you see me?'

‘No,' Steve said, now turning a lovely shade of cerise. ‘What I mean is that out of all the girls in the group you're the one who I get the impression has known the most men . . .'

‘Oh I see,' Natalie said with theatrical haughtiness as she struggled not to laugh.

‘
No
, I don't mean like that,' Steve hurried on, his complexion now more of a deep fuchsia. ‘I meant to say that you are a woman of the world, so if you were a bloke what would you think of me? Would you think I was weak for being at home with Lucy, would you think I was failing as a man?'

Natalie attempted to consider the muddled question as she looked at Steve, who now most resembled an overripe strawberry being flambéed.

‘I think,' she said after a moment, ‘that you are stronger than most regular men. After all, here you are in the middle of a lot of ladies in Lycra, with your baby girl in your arms because you want to give her the best babyhood you possibly can, regardless of stereotypes and what is expected. That takes real guts.'

Steve smiled, his colour calming. ‘Would your Gary ever do anything like this?' he asked her.

‘Well, he couldn't,' Natalie told him with conviction. ‘But only because he's busy building very complicated structures practically with his bare hands and brute strength alone.' She paused and then added before she knew what she was saying, ‘But seriously, Steve, I'd give anything to have Freddie's dad with me. Anything.'

It was the unexpected sting of tears behind her eyes that made Natalie suddenly have to turn away from Steve and the other members of the baby group as they finally emerged ready for action from the changing room.

Ever the gentleman, Steve, probably assuming that she was missing her husband, stood between her and the others while she took a second to compose herself. Natalie hugged a wriggly Freddie a little closer to her chest and took a deep steadying breath. Why was it, when she had spent so long rigorously making herself get used to the idea of bringing up Freddie on her own, that every now and then a feeling like that one would overtake her and practically drown her in longing? It had to be because she now knew that Jack was back in London. He was close, really close, but still almost impossibly out of reach.