The Baby Group (10 page)

‘Thanks, babe.' Jess felt a brief sense of lightening as she walked away from her partner and son for a few precious responsibility-free moments.

‘No worries,' Lee said, gazing down at Jacob's angry face.

And he means it, Jess thought to herself as she turned the hot tap on full blast. He's not worried at all.

Chapter Six

Natalie could not stop laughing. There was something about fifteen or so women and two men sitting in a big circle on a dusty floor singing ‘Row, row, row your boat' whilst doing the actions with babies who were either asleep or looked utterly bored that was very, very funny and which made her laugh so much she had to stop and catch her breath between fits of giggles. But it was the marching around to ‘The Grand Old Duke of York' with babies that couldn't even roll over, let alone march, that made her practically hysterical.

‘This isn't a joke, you know,' Steve said, despite chuckling along with her as they marched to the top of the hill and down again. ‘It's really good for them, music and singing. It stimulates all of their senses.'

Baby Music had been Steve's idea. Just as everybody had been on the point of leaving Meg's and saying how nice it was and that they must do it again sometime, he had suggested they set a date.

‘I'm taking Lucy to a baby music class in that place down by the park, it starts next week,' he said. ‘Why don't we all meet there next if you like?' And before Natalie knew it she had been half press-ganged and half volunteered herself for yet another new and strange life experience, and found that she was even a little depressed that she had to wait a week before they were due to meet at the class.

The still so new and yet seemingly timeless life that Freddie and she had enjoyed for the eleven or so weeks before falling into the baby group was, Natalie began to realise, rather small and constricting. Her mostly solitary experience of early motherhood hadn't made her unhappy or especially depressed, but she had underestimated the importance of a peer group in making one feel normal. It was a relief and a pleasure to hear the stories and thoughts and worries of the others at Meg's house, and to know that her experiences were not unique.

So as she had walked home that morning she had found herself wishing that the baby music class wasn't quite so far away, and that there wouldn't be a whole week of sleep-deprived wandering around Stoke Newington trying to avoid Gary Fisher and his apprentice and wondering if it was possible in the twenty-first century for a modern human being to lose the ability to communicate through language.

She needn't have worried, because the week had passed quickly. While she had assumed that contact with the others could not be made until a specific time, rather like keeping an appointment or waiting the allotted number of days after a date to suggest another one,others in the group did not.

Tiffany was the one she saw almost every day of that week. She had tagged along with Anthony the morning after coffee at Meg's house and while Gary had been mid-apology about the girl's presence, Natalie had whisked her off to the kitchen for a chat and a coffee. Gary had stopped apologising for her after that. In fact, he told Natalie in passing as she handed him a mug of tea one morning, he was glad to see that Tiffany had a new friend. Without exception all her schoolfriends had abandoned her as soon as the novelty of a new baby wore off and the reality set in.

Natalie was glad for herself that she had a new friend because, perhaps surprisingly, she liked Tiffany. She liked listening to her stories of the complicated and frankly terrifying school social scene that she was temporarily excluded from. And Tiffany was a mine of information about baby related things, like getting Freddie on to solids and how to help him with teething. She was funny and clever and always seemed relaxed around Natalie, not the shy and acutely self-conscious girl that she had been at Meg's.

It might have been because Tiffany was so mature that they got on as well as they did. Or possibly because Natalie was perhaps a little immature, but either way they had a lot in common.

That Friday Meg had called Natalie out of the blue and asked her if she wanted to meet her for a latte at the French patisserie on Newington Green. It had been a guilty conversation conducted in a low voice and Meg went to great pains to stress that it was not a baby group meeting, just friends having a coffee together. When Natalie jokingly asked her if she needed a password to meet her at that particular coffee shop, Meg confessed that she was feeling guilty for not asking Frances to come. She told Natalie with commendable reluctance that fond as she was of Frances, the advent of their two babies in such close proximity had forced them together on a far more regular basis than she had been used to. Frances seemed to visit her every day. And as sweet and nice as Meg insisted Frances could be, she was sometimes a little wearing.

‘Well, you can't like everyone all the time, heh, Tiff?' Natalie had asked the sixteen-year-old as the three of them sat in the café a little while later.

Tiffany had shaken her head and sunk her chin into the zipped-up neck of her parka. She didn't say more than three words the whole time that Meg was there. The girl whose company Natalie had enjoyed so much seemed to have vanished.

When the weekend had come, when other people's husbands and families were home and Gary and Anthony had packed up until Monday, the house seemed very quiet. This time, however, after the bustle of the week and the promise of more entertainment in the days to come, Natalie had been able to enjoy the temporary peace and quiet alone with Freddie.

She did have the strangest feeling though, some hidden instinct that made her feel somehow as if this time was a haven, the quiet before the coming storm.

Now, as Baby Music reached its tumultuous crescendo, Natalie was practically crying with laughter as Meg threw herself into ‘Incy Wincy Spider' with the energy and drama of an opera singer, whilst her toddler spun like a top in the middle of the room and Frances frowned with faintly irritated concentration as she tried to get little Henry's tiny fingers to do the actions.

When the four of them made their way outside after the group was finished, Natalie was in the best mood she had been since before she was pregnant. It struck her that when you were out of the world of work and more or less out of touch with your old single or childless friends for the first time ever, finding new friends was almost as challenging and difficult as it could be finding a boyfriend. Natalie was beginning to realise that it had been a stroke of luck that she had met Meg and Tiffany on the day the electrics went wrong. In fact, her dangerous wiring was possibly the best thing that could have happened to her because now she knew Jess, Steve and even Frances too.

Because of them her life had taken on a new and reassuring dimension. Her universe had shrunk until its limits were pretty much the four walls of her house, an occasional trip to the Turkish grocers and the frequent but usually flying visits from busy Alice. But in the few days since Natalie had met these new people, she had begun to see a slightly different reflection of herself whenever she looked at them.

She was not to any of them the Natalie the rest of the world knew: the complicated, sometimes foolish and always restless woman who had only ever successfully channelled her energies into one thing prior to Freddie, her underwear business. And she was definitely not the woman who got herself impregnated by a philanderer for whom she stupidly harboured some muddled feelings. To them she was sensible, straightforward Natalie. She was Mrs . . . well, whatever. Married to a lovely steady man, with a lovely baby boy and a lovely house. Natalie liked that vision of herself. She felt wrong for liking it, determined as she always had been to be her own woman all her life long and not care if she had a man or not. She did have to admit, though, that in certain circles a husband could be a very useful accessory.

But it wasn't only her imagined home life that Natalie was enjoying, she was heartened by the beginnings of new friendships. For the first time in her life she was comforted to know that she was not unique and that her experience of parenthood was just as challenging and as difficult as other people's. Indeed, it seemed to her that under the circumstances she was making a pretty good job of it, considering that she was a beginner, and despite her inescapably distinctive circumstances she was enjoying every minute of it.

‘That floor was very dusty,' Frances said as she came out a little after the others. ‘I told the woman. I said she should contact the cleaners and complain but she was very rude . . .'

‘I wonder what happened to Tiffany and Jess,' Meg mused, leaning against the black steel railing that surrounded the pond and looking down at the gathering of ducks and geese that seemed noisily hopeful for some kind of snack.

‘Well, I can clear up one of those mysteries,' Natalie said, watching a figure in a long black coat jogging towards them behind a buggy. ‘There's Jess now.'

‘Has it started?' Jess asked breathlessly as she drew up alongside them, her cheeks flushed and her hair wild with static.

‘It's finished, love!' Natalie said with a chuckle. ‘You've got the time wrong, you dippy mare!'

Everyone laughed except Jess, whose face fell like a stone.

‘Oh no,' she said, with a distinct wobble in her voice. ‘I can't believe it!'

‘Don't worry,' Natalie said lightly, quickly putting an arm around Jess's shoulders. ‘It wasn't that big a deal – you didn't miss much, honest.'

‘But we
really
wanted to go,' Jess said, getting quite heated. ‘We'd been looking forward to it; it was going to be the highlight of our day.'

Natalie and Meg exchanged glances. It seemed to Natalie that even in her hormonal state Jess was over-reacting just a little.

‘I'm so stupid,' Jess went on miserably, apparently determined not to let herself off the hook. ‘I can't believe how stupid I am – and now I've missed our meeting!'

‘Stop worrying! Baby Music will be there next week,' Natalie said firmly, deciding she needed to rescue Jess from her own distress. ‘And as for our so-called meeting, well, that isn't over until there has been coffee and cake, especially cake.' She glanced up at the sky, which was fairly clear for once. ‘Who fancies a walk around the park on the way to the café?'

Meg and Frances nodded.

‘Can't,' Steve said, ‘I've got some work to do. When are we meeting next?'

The five looked at each other and shrugged.

‘What we need is a regular date,' Frances said, fishing in her bag and producing a small black diary and a pen. ‘How about every Wednesday? We could go to Baby Music first and then have a coffee for half an hour afterwards, which would mean the meeting would be over by . . . midday.'

‘Or . . .' Jess began and bit her lip before she could finish the sentence.

‘Or?' Natalie asked her encouragingly.

‘You might think it's a bit too soon to see each other again, but there's this baby aerobics group on this Friday at the sports centre that I thought might help me get back into shape . . . You exercise with your baby, I think it's supposed to be quite . . . fun.'

Natalie looked at Jess's face. She'd said the word ‘fun' as if it was a word from another language. It was obviously something she desperately needed.

‘Brilliant idea!' Steve said, making Jess feel quite pleased with herself. ‘Count me in.'

‘But that's a Friday,' Frances said. ‘That's
two
meetings in one week.'

‘That's OK,' Meg said. ‘We can treat this week as a getting-to-know-each-other week and there aren't any rules, after all. The more the merrier I say.'

‘Yes you do,' Frances said, looking down at Henry in his pram with an unreadable expression.

‘Aerobics,' Natalie said dubiously. ‘Does it have anything to do with leotards because I'm not sure any of you want to see my arse in Lycra.'

‘You can see my bottom from the moon,' Meg said with a chuckle that drew a look of disapproval from Frances.

‘I think it's time I went,' Steve said, looking a little pink. ‘I'll see you there on Friday.'

The four women watched Steve go.

‘He's lovely, isn't he,' Meg said.

‘He is,' Natalie agreed. ‘But I wouldn't shag him.'

‘That's it,' Frances said smartly as the others giggled. ‘I'm going home. Goodbye.'

‘Frances!' Meg called out after her half-heartedly. ‘Don't go – come for a coffee.'

‘No thank you,' Frances said stiffly over her shoulder as she wheeled Henry rapidly into the distance.

‘Did I offend her?' Natalie asked Meg. ‘I was only joking.'

‘Frances is a funny old stick,' Meg said. ‘She's basically a very nice woman but very hard to get to know. I have no idea how she ever let anyone close enough to her to actually marry her, but her husband Craig is lovely and he obviously adores her.' Meg shuddered, possibly against the cold, but probably not. ‘I don't think I could be married to her though, it would be like walking a tightrope with no safety net every day.'

‘However, you
are
married to her brother,' Natalie said as they set off. ‘They're not at all alike then?'

Meg thought about Robert. He must have come home last night after she had fallen asleep. She dimly remembered feeling the weight and warmth of him suddenly materialising next to her in bed and then sometime later when she had got up to see to Iris she had seen his shape under the duvet. He was in the shower when she had been getting everyone's breakfast. He'd been out of the door, shouting his goodbyes down the hallway with his skin still damp before Meg could even offer him a cup of coffee.