The Baby Group (46 page)

‘And what about you?' Natalie replied. ‘When I came in with Freddie you barely glanced at us because you were too busy having “a bit of fun” with Gary. I was hopeful, too. Hopeful that the woman coming to stay was my mum, a mother who might make me feel safe and loved for once.' Natalie stopped herself. She had expressed out loud feelings that she hadn't truly admitted even to herself. She still felt the need – grown-up woman and parent that she was – to have her mother's reassurance that everything would be all right. And she still longedto believe her unquestioningly, just as she had when she was a little girl.

Sandy leaned closer to Natalie, her tone urgent as she tried to make her daughter understand. ‘Darling, I wanted to be like that with you. I wanted to rush up to you and hug you – but there always seems to be this wall. Except for that night, the night that Freddie got me in the eye. I thought that maybe there was a moment then when the barrier was down and you were going to tell me what was happening to you. Just for a second it felt like you wanted me. Look, I know you've got all sorts of things to worry about, Natalie, I'm not blind – I just wish you felt that you could share them with me. But you didn't. I felt so hurt and angry that I had a drink and then another and another. Not a motherly thing to do I know, but a human one.' Sandy paused. ‘The funny thing is that I don't think I'll ever stop learning to be a mother. There'll never be a cut-off point when I'll suddenly understand everything and know how to make it all right between us. But I
do
want to try. I
do
want things to change. I want you to be my Moonbeam again. My precious girl.'

Natalie opened her mouth but Sandy went on, holding up her hand. ‘Look, I've been stupid and selfish and I am ashamed of it. Especially letting you find me so drunk. I'm sorry, Natalie. I truly am.'

Natalie looked down at the counter top. She couldn't think of anything to say. She couldn't think of anything to think. Her brain was numb trying to take in what her mother was telling her.

‘You had a difficult childhood,' Sandy went on. ‘You probably went to too many schools, and I probably had too many boyfriends. Perhaps you never had a chance to feel settled and secure in one place. And you never knew your father, that's a hard thing to deal with. I know that sometimes you can miss something you've never really had just as much as something you've lost. But you have to understand, I didn't do it to hurt you, I did it because I was trying my best for you.' She smiled weakly. ‘And look at you, you've turned into a very wonderful woman, which I know you think is all down to yourself but which I hope has a little bit to with me as well.'

‘It wasn't that bad,' Natalie said quietly. ‘I don't know, maybe it's since I had Freddie – but I've started to remember things, nice things that I hadn't thought about in years.'

‘Really?' Sandy asked hopefully. ‘Do you remember how we used to walk along the beach for hours, collecting pink stones? Because you only liked the pink ones.' Natalie nodded slowly. ‘Or when I made you that play costume out of one of my old frocks, all purple and sparkles it was – do you remember how you loved it? And how every year until you were about fourteen I made you a birthday cake, always bigger and better and stranger than the last. Do you remember that castle cake? I made it with ice cream and it melted all over the place before we could eat it? '

Natalie kept her gaze steady on the worktop, seeing that day over again in her head. She smiled when she thought about her and Sandy covered in melted ice cream.

‘And I was always there to put you to bed,' Sandy told her. ‘I was there to make you breakfast, and when you got back from school. I did my best for you, Natalie. And maybe my best wasn't good enough for you, but it was all I had to give. That and the fact that I love you, so much. So I'm asking you, now you're a grown woman and a mother yourself, to try to understand that I miss you, darling, I miss my little girl.'

Natalie looked sideways at her. Sandy had said all the things that she wanted to hear, all the things that she had longed to hear for many years. But she felt so sapped of energy that it was a struggle to respond the way she felt she should, the way she
wanted
to. If there was one thing she had learnt recently, though, it was not to let any opportunity, however slight it might seem, slip by untaken.

‘It's been a long day, Mum,' she said slowly. ‘I'm so tired. I saw Freddie's dad this morning, arranged contact for Freddie. It's taken everything out of me. I feel weary all over. My head hurts, my body hurts and my heart hurts.'

Sandy nodded. ‘I can see that in your face,' she said gently. ‘If you wanted to tell me about it . . .'

Natalie shook her head. ‘I've heard everything you said and I'm glad you've said it. And I know that it's not all you, I know it's me too. For some reason, when I'm around you I become a person that I don't like very much. And I don't want to do that any more . . .' She looked at her mother, and she knew there was one last thing she had to tell her now, while she had the chance.

‘I went to see Dad once, you know,' she said. Sandy's eyes widened but she didn't speak. ‘I was fifteen, maybe sixteen. I'd been going through your stuff as usual, looking for make-up to steal, and I found my birth certificate. Place of birth Brighton, and the name of my dad. I know you told everybody he'd died, but although you never actually said it to me we both knew that was just a story for your public. I used to dream about him – daydreams, imagining what he would be like. Tall, dark and handsome, I suppose, all the clichés. Clever and kind and sad because he'd lost his daughter and didn't know how to find her.' Natalie paused. ‘And when I saw his name, I thought that at last I had the chance to find him. So I got on the train and went to Brighton. I went to the first phone box I saw and looked in the book. There were three M. Davies who could have been him. The first one was about ninety-two, the second one was very kind but said he'd never known you and that he lived with his mother and the third one . . .' Natalie paused as she steeled herself to recollect. ‘Well, that was him. That was Daddy. His wife answered the door. I was a bit surprised, I didn't expect him to have a wife, and I could see kids' wellingtons in the hallway. I asked to speak to him, said I was the daughter of an old friend and . . . suddenly there he was. He wasn't very handsome, Mum, I thought he would have been better-looking. He was a bit short, going bald on top. Portly, you know. I think he had my nose, or rather I had his I suppose.

‘“Hello, Dad,” I said, and I remember my voice was so tiny it was nearly lost in the rush of the traffic. “It's me, Natalie. Sandy's daughter.” His face,' Natalie went on, staring into the middle distance as the memory replayed itself before her eyes. ‘I'll never forget it. He just looked horrified. It was a cold day and wet and I didn't have a proper coat or umbrella of course, so I was soaking and shivering. But he just stood there, staring. All he said was, “Go away, I don't want you round here. I have a wife, I have a daughter. Go away, you're nothing to do with me.” And he shut the door in my face.'

‘Natalie,' Sandy said, her voice low. ‘I honestly didn't know.'

‘How would you know, I never told you, did I?' Natalie said. ‘The first man to ever reject me. I expected so much of him, Mum. I expected this amazing reunion, that he'd fling his arms around me and tell me how he'd hoped one day I would turn up. But he couldn't wait to see the back of me. I was his child, part of him, and he wanted nothing to do with me. That hurt me. It made me furious with him, but mostly with you. I blamed you for choosing that man as my father. I still do, I suppose. It is still painful. I couldn't help but think how different our lives could have been. Like the other kids at school with the normal mothers, and the brothers and sisters and – the dads. Our life stopped being an adventure for me on that day. All I could see were the things that I didn't have. I blamed you. I didn't have anyone else to blame.'

‘I'm sorry, Natalie,' Sandy said, her voice wrought with emotion. ‘I'm sorry I got it so wrong for you.'

Natalie looked at her mother and attempted a smile.

‘You didn't though, did you? Like you said, you did your best. I suppose I've always known that, but it wasn't enough to stop me from being angry. It's hard to stop. It's hard to let go of feelings I've had for so long, even if I know they don't make any sense.' Hesitantly Natalie reached out and put her hand over her mother's. ‘But I want to. I want to try to stop being angry with you. I want to be close to you, Mum. I want to tell you things. I want you to tell me about this Keith Macbride and what his intentions are. But I don't think that you and I will change just like that. It will take time, and hard work probably, but we could try. We could try to start to be friends again.'

‘I'd like that,' Sandy said simply.

‘Mum,' Natalie said with sudden urgency. ‘I'm scared. I'm so caught up in everything that's happening at the moment. I'm trying so hard to keep myself focused and hold it all together for Freddie, but sometimes I'm scared I won't be able to. That I'll go and do something really stupid and mess it all up again.'

‘You're saying that because you're tired,' Sandy said, resting the back of her hand against Natalie's cheek. ‘There's a bottle of milk ready in the fridge, isn't there?' Natalie nodded. ‘You go to bed, darling. That stew will simmer for hours yet, it should be perfect when you wake up. You sleep and I'll watch Freddie.'

‘Is it really just because I'm tired?' Natalie asked her. ‘Or because I'm rubbish?'

‘Go to bed,' Sandy told her. ‘I'll be here when you wake up.'

‘Whoopee,' Natalie groaned, but as she trudged up the stairs and fell onto her bed, for the first time in a long time she was kind of glad to know that.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Jess watched the rapid rise and fall of Jacob's chest as she lay beside him on the bed.

He didn't have a temperature, she had checked with the strip thermometer a few moments ago, and he was sleeping, although every now and then he coughed a little dry cough that made him screw up his face.

She felt the tension rise in her chest as she watched him, and laid her head gently on his chest. The speed of his heartbeat increased the rate of her own and she felt herself on the edge of panic.

Babies' hearts beat very fast, she reminded herself sternly, it's perfectly normal. But even before she had finished the thought she had called out to Lee who was in the next room watching
Soccer AM
.

‘What's up?' he said when he came in a minute or so later. He was never one to respond instantly to a request to come away from the TV, unless he thought it was a genuine emergency.

‘What do you think of him?' Jess asked, nodding at Jacob. ‘Does he look OK to you?'

Lee knelt down beside the bed and looked at his son.

‘He looks fine,' he said, a little impatiently because he was missing his favourite show.

‘His heart is beating very fast,' Jess told him, even though she knew exactly what Lee would say.

‘We've been through this, remember? Babies' hearts do beat very fast,' Lee repeated what she had just told herself. ‘It's normal.'

‘But what about his breathing?' Jess had to voice her nagging worry that not everything was quite right. ‘Do you think he's breathing faster than usual?'

Lee stared for a bit longer at Jacob's chest. ‘He looks the same as ever to me,' he said.

And when Jess looked at Jacob she saw that he did seem to be breathing regularly again, the dry persistent cough had stopped.

‘Maybe he was dreaming,' Lee said. ‘You know, like a dog?'

Jess gave him a look that sent him out of the room and back to his beloved show.

She lay beside Jacob, drawing her legs up underneath him and encircling him with the curve of her body, watching the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest until she too was asleep.

Natalie knelt on the rug in her living room with the contents of Freddie's baby bag laid out before her, together with the larger items she used on a daily basis while looking after her son.

She was trying to prepare for Jack's visit, which was less than twenty minutes away. She was trying to be organised and methodical because she thought it was better than the alternative, which involved her running around the house screaming.

So she had decided to lay out everything that Jack would need to learn about basic Freddie care, arranging all the equipment by use.

Changing mat, bottom cream, wipes and nappies.

Baby bath, baby soap, hooded towel, blanket and talc.

Bottle tops, steriliser, and breast pump. And then she put the breast pump back in Freddie's bag. He might have to give Freddie milk but he didn't have to know exactly how it got in the bottle in the first place.

Sandy leaned against the door frame, looking down at her daughter.

‘Is this the way to do it?' she asked Natalie tentatively. ‘Maybe you should just let the visit happen instead of trying to plan it like a military campaign?'

‘Yes,' Natalie said thoughtfully. ‘Yes, that would be one way of handling it, but I need to feel I'm in control of this, Mum. If I'm in control of
this
,' she gestured at the rug, ‘then I'm in control of
me
.'

‘OK,' Sandy said without further questioning. ‘Then you'll need to show him how to dress him too. I'll go and sort out some Babygros and things before I make myself scarce.'

‘Thanks, Mum,' Natalie said. Amazing, she thought, how this meaningful dialogue works so much better than trading insults and screaming at each other. It was only a shame it had taken them twenty years to work it out.