Babies in Waiting (32 page)

She went into town a few times to have lunch with Simon, who was very excited about the birth and looking forward to being there. Every time she met him, she came back laden with more bags of gifts for the baby.

‘I wish you lived closer,’ he said one lunchtime, handing over a Mothercare bag full of tiny vests and socks.

‘I wish
you
lived closer,’ Louise replied. ‘I certainly won’t be able to afford a flat in your posh neighbourhood any time soon.’

‘Much though I love my nephew-to-be, I’m not relocating to yummy-mummy Surrey, thanks very much.’

‘Well, I’ll just have to bring him round every weekend to put sticky fingerprints on your glass coffee table.’

‘I can’t wait. I can’t wait to meet him and see his little fingers,’ said Simon, squeezing her hand.

‘You know, I think you’re broodier than I am!’ Louise laughed. ‘You should have one of your own.’

‘Well, I just have to meet Mr Right, settle down, get
approved to adopt . . . I should be a dad around the time that I retire. Nope, I’m afraid carrying on the Holmes line is all down to you.’

‘And Rachel, if she’s lucky.’

‘Not likely to happen now, what with the latest development.’

‘What development? Rachel’s not talking to me at the moment.’

‘Didn’t she tell you? She found out quite a while ago. She’s gone into early menopause.’

‘But she’s only thirty-five!’

‘What can I tell you? Seems her eggs have passed their expiration date.’

‘Well that explains it, I suppose.’

‘Explains what?’

‘She came round to the flat and met Brian. And when she worked out he was married, she really lost it. She pretty much implied my being pregnant made a travesty of her whole life and everything she dreamed of.’

‘Harsh.’

‘Well, I wasn’t very nice back. I’ve got quite a bit on my plate, in case you hadn’t noticed, so I basically kicked her out and we haven’t spoken since.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Simon.

‘Oh dear? That’s all you can come up with?’

‘Well, I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I thought you and Rachel could really help each other. I mean, Lou, you’re living down here in the sticks, you have no support structure, no grandparents to babysit. I live an hour away
and work full-time . . . I’m going to do everything I can, give you all my spare time and as much money as you’ll let me, but I was hoping you and Rachel could fill a need in each other’s lives. She’d get a baby to cuddle, and you’d get help when you need it.’

‘Well, that all sounds lovely, but she hates me. I don’t see how it’s going to happen.’

‘She doesn’t hate you. She’s just in a lot of pain right now and she lashed out. But you know what she’s like. She’ll find it so hard to come to you and apologise. I’m afraid you’re going to have to be the big sister in this case and try and make the peace.’

‘I know. And I will. Not because I want her to be my free babysitter, but because she’s my sister. I just have to solve the Brian problem first, though. She’s not going to want to come round and be the doting aunt with him sprawled all over the sofa.’

‘What’s happening with Brian?’

‘Well . . . nothing. He arrived, told me I’d ruined his life . . . seems I ruin a lot of lives . . . and sat down on the sofa. It’s been weeks and he’s hardly moved. He’s improved a bit . . . he goes out once a day now for a coffee or a pint, but he’s not
doing
anything. And in between wanting to push him off the balcony, I suppose I do feel guilty, so I tend to leave him to it.’

‘Are you . . .’

‘What? Together? In love? Having sex? None of the above. Separate rooms, no physical contact. And let me tell you, now I’ve got everything unpacked, I’ve realised that that
flat is really very small. It’s bloody small. Definitely not big enough for a heavily pregnant woman and a six-foot-four bloke who is always underfoot. And God knows what it’ll be like when the baby arrives.’ Louise sighed and took a big sip of her water.

‘Well, he’s going to have to do something, isn’t he? He has to get a job, surely. The man has families to support!’

Louise snorted, spluttering water all over the table. ‘Oh dear, Si, I so need you in my life. Every time I think my life is a mess and a tragedy, you find the comedy and I think I might just make it.’

When she got back to the flat, Brian was in his customary spot on the sofa, tapping away at his laptop. As soon as she came in, however, he slammed it shut.

‘Hello, there,’ Louise said, trying to keep her voice pleasant. Since he’d been kind to her on the day of her fight with Rachel, she had been trying to be nicer to him, although his habits still grated on her intensely. ‘Been busy?’

‘Oh . . .’ he said vaguely. ‘Yeah . . . checking out the job market, you know . . . just in case . . . well, just in case.’

She was fairly certain he hadn’t been trawling a job site . . . that wasn’t how you found work at his level anyway. But if she’d caught him out watching porn, it was quite sweet that he was so embarrassed.

‘I picked up some nice steaks for dinner on my way back,’ she said. ‘And Simon’s bought the baby another twenty outfits.’

‘Splendid! Good!’ said Brian, jumping up. ‘Why don’t I nip out and get something nice for pudding then? And one of those grape-juice cooler things you like. Since you can’t have wine.’

‘That’d be nice,’ she said, surprised. It was the most proactive thing he’d done since he’d arrived on her doorstep. Nevertheless, she couldn’t help noticing that he took his laptop through to his bedroom and pocketed his mobile before he left.

The next day, she was shopping on the high street, wondering why it took so damned long to get anywhere and whether once the baby was born she’d walk normally again, rather than rocking from side to side like an obese duck. Her mobile rang and, with a swooping-rollercoaster feeling in her stomach, she saw Adam’s name come up. It was his UK mobile number, which must mean he was back from his travels. She took a deep breath and answered. ‘Mr Harper. Home from the high seas?’

‘Ms Holmes. Not dropped the bairn yet?’ He sounded like he was outside somewhere. She imagined him standing on the driveway outside the farmhouse.

‘No, still waddling around.’ Why, oh why, did his deep, soft voice tie her insides in such a knot? It was crazy. She didn’t trust herself to say anything more without her voice trembling and giving away how much his call had shaken her, so she stayed quiet, waiting to hear why he had rung. When he spoke again, his voice sounded uncertain.

‘I thought . . . well, now I’m back, we should meet up to er . . . catch up.’

‘Were my handover notes okay? Do you need more information?’

‘No, the handover was fine, and, may I say, you did a fantastic job. Sales were up, costs seem to be down a bit. You ran my company better than I do myself.’

It was good to hear, Louise thought. She might be messing up every other area of her life, but at least she could still do a good job. But Adam wasn’t finished. He dropped the jokey tone, and his next words were quiet and serious.

‘Lou, I think there’s unfinished business . . . between us. I think we need to meet to . . . resolve things.’

Now that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. It sounded all too final. All too much like he wanted to close this chapter of his life and move on. She knew there could be no future, not after she’d let him down by letting Brian move into his house, but she wasn’t ready to hear it. He deserved her honesty, though. She walked to a quieter corner of the shopping precinct. ‘Adam, my due date is a week away. I’m enormous and uncomfortable. The few friends I had in Surrey are blanking me, my sister won’t speak to me and I have to deal with the mess I’ve made of Brian’s life. Do you mind if I take a rain check?’

‘I don’t want to see you to yell at you, Louise. I was furious with you for letting that guy live in my house without telling me, that’s true. But I don’t know the full story of what’s going on with you and him. I also don’t know what I feel about this, about you, about anything, because I haven’t actually seen you since the morning I
left for the Tall Ships Race. Can we just have coffee? Or decaff tea? And talk? Not have a big serious conversation, just a face-to-face chat, as colleagues – or friends. It’s been a long time.’

Louise spied a bench and sat down. There was a long silence, and then she said, ‘I think so.’

Adam’s voice sounded raw when he spoke again. ‘If you think so, can you answer me one question?’

‘The answer is no. Brian and I are not together, not in any way. I haven’t slept with him since the night I got pregnant and I’m not going to.’

‘That wasn’t the question, but thank you for that. It’s this. I’m on the other side of the walkway, standing outside Boots. I rang you because I could see you. The question is, can I come over and sit on your bench?’

With hindsight, I should maybe have found out what kind of day James had had at work on the Monday before I launched into my hypnobirthing speech. If I’d known they’d lost a major account and one of the junior designers had been made redundant, I might have picked a different day, or at the very least poured him a big glass of wine before I started talking. But I didn’t know, and I’d been sitting at home all day practising my exercises and thinking about it, so I just launched in as soon as he came through the door.

‘I should have told you on Saturday, but I didn’t. I need you to come to the next three sessions of the hypnobirthing course. I can’t do it without you.’

‘What do you mean, you can’t do it without me?’

‘Well, you’re the birth companion. You have to do all the readings, and say the affirmations for me, and do the massage.’

‘Affirmations? I thought you said this wasn’t weird and New Age.’

‘It’s not! It’s not at all! But if you’d read the book, you’d know that. You haven’t read even a page of it, have you?’ I felt ready to burst into tears.

‘Listen, Tones, can you wind your neck in and let me get my coat off before you launch into a full-scale drama?’ said James, and there was no mistaking the crossness in his voice. I didn’t mean to start crying, honest I didn’t. But I sat there on the sofa while he put his stuff down and went to the loo and got a drink, and the tears just started leaking out.

I think I said in the beginning that I’ve always been a bit of a cryer. Well, pregnancy seems to have magnified that sevenfold, and I’m now officially captain of the weepy team. James just doesn’t know what to do, and I can’t understand why. To me, it seems perfectly simple. If it’s not your fault, put your arms around me. If it
is
your fault, ask if you should put your arms around me and then do what I say. James usually manages it quite well, but that Monday night was obviously not a good day for him, because he just got really exasperated. ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ he said, furiously. ‘What have I done wrong now?’

Well, that would make you cry more, wouldn’t it? It would make anyone cry more, especially if they were the size and shape of a hippo and worried about having a horrendously painful birth experience because their husband wouldn’t do the affirmations.

I just sat there and sobbed for about five minutes. I could practically hear the steam coming out of James’ ears. Eventually, he sat down next to me and took my
hand, not as gently as he usually would, but as if he was really trying. ‘Stop crying, Toni, and tell me what’s wrong,’ he said, trying to keep his voice calm. ‘I can’t do anything if all you do is howl.’

I managed to hiccup that it was the hypnobirthing and that if he was negative and unsupportive I couldn’t do it, and he sighed deeply.

‘Toni, my love, I’m going to make you a cup of tea. Then I’m going to take the book into the bedroom to read about this hypnobirthing’ – I could hear him trying not to say it in a sarcastic way – ‘and then when I come out we’ll have a calm, rational discussion about this. But I can’t have a fight with you about something I know nothing about.’

He did exactly as he’d promised, and he came out of the bedroom forty-five minutes later with a notepad full of notes and questions. I had drunk my cup of tea and then done a visualisation where James and I were walking around a park, holding hands and laughing together, and not sniping at each other like a pair of mean old monsters. I felt better and calmer, and the baby had stopped kicking a tattoo on my ribs. It always knows when I’m upset and seems to get agitated too. I hope it doesn’t mean we’re going to have a neurotic mad child who flies off the handle all the time like its mother.

‘So what do you think?’ I asked tentatively.

‘It’s not as flaky as I thought it would be, but I don’t like some of the weird “Imagine you’re in a forest” stuff. But if you want to do it, I’ll do it and I promise not to take the piss.’

Well, that was as fair as I could hope for. We sat down then with my course notes, and we did some of the exercises. Doing them with James, some of them did seem a bit silly, and we totally got the giggles doing a thing where I had to pretend I had a silver glove of endorphins on my hand. Jenny had told us to choose the techniques that worked for us, so we chucked the glove in the bin, if you know what I mean, and tried some others. I loved the massage and the stroking, and, if you don’t mind my being a bit graphic, it actually made me a bit horny, so we gave up practising and instead we had sex on the sofa, which when you’re as pregnant as I am is no mean feat. And when you’re having to shag a woman as pregnant as I am, and you still fancy her (or at least say you do), then you should get a medal or something. Or that’s what I told James. And he laughed, and stroked my head, and then fell asleep and snored a bit, which in its own way was very sweet.

He came to the hypnobirthing session on the next Saturday, and I swear he was the best birthing companion there. If they were giving hypnobirthing birthing-partner prizes, he would have got a gold star. But then Jenny made us do the silver-glove thing, and James had a coughing fit and had to leave the room, and I said I would lie on my side in the meditation pose, which meant I got to giggle away silently to myself until James came back.

After the session we went out for dinner, and held hands and laughed and talked, and for the first time since I got pregnant things felt the way they used to between us. It
was a funny feeling, sort of bittersweet, because while I was very excited about the baby coming, I couldn’t help remembering all the rows we’d had since I found out I was pregnant, and I wondered whether nights like this, where James and I could talk and talk over a pizza, just the two of us, might never happen again, or not for a very long time.