The Baby Group (19 page)

Natalie was horrified to hear her mother use almost exactly the same tone with Gary as she just had. Sort of drunken and lecherous with a definite edge of needy desperation.

‘Ah no, I really have to go and feed the . . . fish. I've got fish.' Natalie heard Gary mumble a succession of hurried and worried excuses as she left the heat of the kitchen and felt the cool sobering air of the hallway soothe her blazing cheeks.

‘I can't believe that I've just made a pass at the help,' she said to Freddie as she lifted him out of his cot. ‘I mean, he's not even my type really. I don't even fancy him and he certainly wouldn't fancy me at the moment. The Blob from the Fat Lagoon, that's what I am, little man.' She unhooked her nursing bra and put Freddie to her breast, desperately wishing that she could somehow undo the last few minutes of her life.

What
had
she been thinking? She had not been thinking clearly at all, that was the problem. The wine had temporarily magnified her unresolved feelings about Jack, and for a minute or two there she had wanted somebody, anybody who was not Jack, to want her. It couldn't have backfired worse. When she had touched him Gary had looked as if the thought of her advances had shrivelled his manhood entirely.

‘Perhaps it wasn't as bad as I think,' Natalie muttered, settling back in the feeding chair. ‘I mean, perhaps I didn't come off as a sleazy desperado, just as a friendly employer.' She remembered her hand on the back of Gary's neck and the mortified look on his face.

‘Oh, who am I kidding,' she said to Freddie. ‘It wasn't as bad as it looked. It was worse. It's my mother's fault. She's only been here five minutes and already she's turning me into her. She's a witch, Freddie. Your “Nana Sandy” is a witch.'

Natalie looked down at her son who had stopped suckling and was fast asleep, his tiny mouth a newly opened rosebud. ‘This has got to stop. I'm not just me any more. It actually
does
matter now what sort of trouble I get myself into. I might not feel like a grown-up but I have to act like one.'

Natalie put the palm of her right hand over her heart. ‘From now on I, Natalie Louise Curzon, absolutely promise you, Freddie . . . um . . . Mercury Curzon, here and now, that I will
not
turn into my mother and I
will
break free from the cycle. I
will
be the kind of mother you are not ashamed to have pick you up from school. I
will
buy a faux-fur gilet and a polo-neck top. I will
never
either have sex or attempt to have sex ever, ever again. And . . .' Natalie took a deep breath. ‘I will deal with Jack Newhouse in a mature and rational way for your sake. I
will
be a good mother to you, Freddie Mercury Curzon, this I solemnly do swear. I absolutely
will
be the very best mother you can possibly have, considering you've got me.'

Natalie raised Freddie's forehead to her lips and kissed him gently, breathing in his scent as she did so and finding that small oasis of peace that was always present whenever she and Freddie were alone and relaxed like this.

‘What I'll do is just go downstairs,' she told her son in a whisper as she laid him neatly back in the cot. ‘And act as if nothing happened. Like that time I accidentally had sex with the silk salesman in the stockroom. Then we can both forget about it and everything will all be fine again.'

But just as Natalie was at the top of the stairs she heard the front door gently closing as Gary made his escape.

‘He's gone,' Sandy said, appearing at the bottom of the stairs.

‘I can see that,' Natalie said irritably.

‘The thing is, darling,' her mother called up as Natalie turned on her heel, deciding that now was a good time for the oblivion of sleep, ‘if you're going to have a fake husband it's probably not a good idea to try to get off with your real-life electrician. Do you see?'

Natalie would have happily slammed her bedroom door shut, except for the fear of waking Freddie.

Somehow a really quiet and careful push did not achieve nearly the same satisfaction.

Chapter Eleven

It had taken Natalie a long time to leave the house the next morning. It wasn't because she wasn't ready in time. Despite only getting to sleep just before three, she was up at seven again and in the shower shaving her legs, plucking her eyebrows and washing her hair with enjoyable thoroughness, knowing that there was somebody else in the house to see to Freddie should he wake early after his busy night. Natalie decided that today was going to be fun because it was the first day she had been out anywhere without Freddie since his birth, and as much as she loved him she knew she would relish her few hours of freedom. Indeed, she thought, as the first signs of spring seemed to take the edge of the cold, she felt like a butterfly escaping from its grungy cocoon and spreading its glorious wings in the sunlight.

Dressing had not been quite so freeing, though, and she had approached her wardrobe with considerable trepidation. After all, today was a Saturday shopping trip to town. Such an expedition was not to be undertaken in jogging bottoms or milk-stained sweatshirts. She had to wear proper clothes, clothes with seams not necessarily containing Lycra. But would any of her proper clothes still fit her? That was the question that had threatened to dent her determination to enjoy the shiny new day, that and the prospect of having to buy clothes one, possibly even two, sizes bigger than she was accustomed to.

It was possible, Natalie supposed, that her pre-baby figure had not been as magnificent as she remembered it, but even if she was looking back with rose-tinted spectacles she was still finding it hard to feel quite the same love for her physical self these days. No wonder poor Gary wanted to run a mile from her literally heavy-handed advances.

As the thought popped unbidden into her head, a wave of excruciating embarrassment passed over Natalie. Still, she had vowed to herself and to Freddie that she was going to put the incident behind her, move on and be a proper adult. And this time she was determined to do it.

She had been here before, well not exactly – she'd never made a freakish rebound-from-a-relationship-that-barely-even-happened pass at a handyman before – but she certainly had embarrassed herself now and then at wholly inappropriate moments. Like when two years ago at the funeral of a long and trusted warehouse employee she had (fraught with grief, she later argued) asked a slightly younger but extremely good-looking man back to her place for drinks and perhaps a little fooling around.

Yes, it
had
been embarrassing that the young man had turned out to be Bob's grandson, and yes, the whole of the warehouse staff were scandalised for several months, even if they all laughed about it now at Natalie's expense. She had accepted it with good grace, knowing her punishment for such a heinous crime was that she was doomed to be teased about the incident until the end of time itself or when Bob's grandson turned twenty-one – whichever came first.

That
surely
had to be worse than lunging at Gary. Except that unbelievably her motives weren't quite as honourable as they had been with Bob's grandson. Because it wasn't so much that she wanted Gary – or at least she didn't think it was – no, she was certain that it had a lot more to do with the fact that she wanted to forget the spectre of Jack Newhouse.

Natalie forced herself to remember her promise to Freddie again. She might want to forget Jack but she could not. She had to face him. Just not today. Today was going to be a fun day, she reminded herself, even if it killed her.

She opened her wardrobe doors and looked at the row of neatly hanging clothes from another lifetime and wondered which of them might possibly fit her. She was determined to pre-select exactly the right garment. She was resolute that she would not try on anything that she would have to take off again because she could not get it over her thighs. Subsequently it took her several minutes to select, perhaps optimistically, a pair of wide-legged trousers and a top that didn't have buttons with the potential to gape over her cleavage. She held her breath as she gingerly pulled on the trousers, and discovered after the brief celebration of doing them up that it was probably a good idea to try not to breathe out ever again. The stretch top was better; Natalie was pleased to see that her deepened cleavage actually looked quite fetching in it. A hip-covering long jacket followed and then she examined herself in her full-length mirror. On the highly unlikely off chance that she might meet the love of her life whilst out on her mission to save the sexual lives of Jess and Meg, she thought she would not scare him off completely. At least not with her clothes on, anyway, and as she had sworn to never ever take them off in front of a man again she didn't have to worry about that.

So she was feeling relatively good about herself by the time she found her mother in the kitchen.

It all went downhill from there.

As she walked in Sandy hung up the phone quickly without bothering to say goodbye to the person on the other end of the line.

‘Who was that, your dealer?' Natalie asked her, only mildly interested.

‘Just a friend . . . from Spain who is watering my plants while I'm away,' Sandy said slowly, as if she were considering telling Natalie more.

‘And?' Natalie asked her.

Sandy thought for a moment and then shook her head. ‘And I've asked them to drop the crack off at the back door, is that all right with you?' she quipped with a sunny smile.

‘Ha, ha,' Natalie said mirthlessly, and then a frown slotted between her eyebrows. ‘You are joking aren't you, Mum?'

Sandy tipped her head on one side and examined her daughter. ‘You look well,' she said as Natalie poured herself a coffee.

Natalie took a deep breath and counted from ten backwards and then forwards for good measure. But still she could not stop herself from asking the inevitable question, ‘What do you mean,
well
?'

Sandy looked perplexed. ‘I mean you look . . . well,' she said, gesturing with her unlit cigarette as she sipped her coffee. ‘What else would I mean?'

‘You couldn't just say “nice”, could you.' Natalie felt her insides wind up a notch tighter with every word. ‘Or even “good”. You have to say something cruel.'

The rational part of Natalie's brain was telling her that she was being a little hypersensitive, not to mention a touch unreasonable but when it came to her mother Natalie seldom heard the rational part of her brain.

‘I'm sorry, dear.' Sandy spoke gently, as if Natalie was still about six years old. ‘I really don't see how “you look well” is cruel. I mean it's not as if I told you you look fat is it?'

‘
Well thank you very much!
' Natalie bellowed at her mother.

‘What have I done?' Sandy said guilelessly. ‘And anyway, I thought you said your weight problem never bothered you,' she added.

Natalie sat down on a kitchen chair with a thump and began counting backwards from one hundred until she realised there was no number high enough to calm her fury.

‘Right,' she said bitterly. ‘That's it. I can't go now.'

Sandy looked deeply perplexed.

‘What on earth do you mean?' she said. ‘Honestly, Natalie, what kind of mother are you going to be if you can't take a joke – you are far too highly strung for your own good . . .'

‘Joke!' Natalie spluttered in amazement. ‘And anyway I am NOT highly strung.' She forced herself to keep her potentially hysterical tone in check. ‘In any case I am not going out and leaving my infant son with you. It would be like leaving a bunny rabbit in a cage with a crocodile. I'm going to give Freddie the chances you didn't give me and one of those is the chance to grow up without being totally messed up by you!'

Sandy took a deep drag on her cigarette before remembering it wasn't lit and dropping it on the table.

‘You are being ridiculous,' she told Natalie. ‘And I know why – you are under a lot of pressure, love. Hasn't it occurred to you that I of all people might be able to understand what you are going through? We are a lot alike, you and I . . .'

‘We are not alike,' Natalie said, her voice so low with barely restrained fury that Sandy did not register it.

‘You're frustrated being stuck in here day after day!' Natalie's mother went on. ‘Go out and have a break. After all, I brought you up, I'm sure I can manage a baby for a couple of hours.'

‘Brought me up!' Natalie exclaimed. ‘Well, yes, if you call checking me in and out of a record number of hotels, schools and caravan parks for fifteen years bringing me up – then I suppose you did!'

‘Not this again.' Sandy sank back in her chair and dropped her head.

‘I'm not having you do the same thing to Freddie as you did to me,' Natalie said, slamming her palms down so hard on the table that they stung for several seconds.

‘I don't know what you think I did to you, Natalie,' Sandy said, leaning across the table. ‘But I can tell you that what I
did
do was my very best. I was only a kid when your dad got me pregnant. A single mother back then didn't have a lot of options – not like today – but at least I kept you. At least I didn't put you up for adoption.'

‘I wish you had,' Natalie said under her breath.

‘Well . . .' Sandy bit her lip, and waved her hand across her face, unable to find anything to say. Natalie knew she had got under her mum's usually impenetrable defences and at once felt a mixture of triumph and guilt.

‘Whatever you think of me as your mother,' Sandy managed to say after a while, ‘you have to acknowledge that even I can't ruin a baby's life in the few hours you'll be out.'