The Push

by Claire McGowan

  Alison raised her eyebrows at Diana, whose face remained still. ‘Who’s Chloe?’ She was having trouble keeping track of all these people.

  ‘My daughter, of course. My other daughter, I mean. From my first marriage.’

  The teenager, then. Why did some people have children coming out of every pore, and she had none? ‘And how old is Chloe?’

  ‘Fifteen. She’s at Beeches.’ Alison looked blank. ‘You don’t know Beeches? Oh, you must not have children then, you’d know otherwise.’ Alison stared very hard at an ugly ceramic lamp, thinking how easy it would be to swing it against the wall and smash it. ‘It’s very exclusive. Chloe’s doing very well there, such a shame she’s been ill, lost a whole term, but we’re making sure she doesn’t fall behind.’

  Diana was taking neat notes. ‘What was she ill with?’

  ‘Glandular fever, poor thing.’ That used to be called the kissing disease, when Alison was young. She wondered what this Chloe was like, how it would be having a mother like Monica.

  ‘Is Chloe about today?’

  ‘No, she’s at drama club. Very important to keep up with hobbies, ahead of UCAS applications.’

  ‘Alright, so your family is you, Chloe, your husband . . .’

  ‘Ed, Ed Dunwood. He’s a very successful trader, you know.’

  ‘Right, Ed, and the new baby.’

  ‘Isabella.’ Monica smoothed her dress over her legs. She’d had a recent gel manicure, and her highlights looked fresh. Weren’t new mothers supposed to be dishevelled? ‘There were four babies here as well, if we’re being completionist about it. And the twelve adults.’

  ‘Thirteen if you count your daughter,’ said Alison, just to get a reaction, and Monica twitched. Weird. Was she superstitious? Alison’s mother was, of course, but she was Irish, it was to be expected. Salt flung over the shoulder, magpies counted, sign of the cross when passing a church or ambulance. Alison wouldn’t have imagined it here, in this middle-class haven.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Could you tell us a bit about the antenatal group?’ said Diana. ‘How did you hear about it, for example?’

  ‘Oh. I saw a flyer somewhere, in a cafe I believe.’

  ‘There weren’t other groups about?’ Alison had been wondering about this. Wouldn’t someone like Monica, with all her money, want to go to a more prestigious group, an expensive, accredited one? With people more like her?

  Monica smoothed her dress again. ‘Personally, I think it’s nice to meet a variety of people. It was such a lovely diverse group.’

  ‘What can you tell us about Chloe’s father?’ Diana was diligently writing all this down.

  Monica’s mouth puckered. ‘What relevance does that have?’

  ‘We have to investigate any possible conflict, anyone with a motive for violence.’ With so many people present, that was going to take a while.

  She sniffed. ‘He doesn’t have much motive for anything, Thomas. Lives in Hong Kong with some much younger Chinese girl. Pregnant, apparently, though I suppose they can just get a nanny out there, no need for him to even think about changing a nappy. Of course, he’s forgotten all about the child he already has. Poor Chloe.’

  Alison crossed him off the list. It was pretty tenuous anyway – she imagined from this brief meeting with Monica that the man was more than happy to get away from his ex-wife, never mind being jealous enough to come here and cause trouble. ‘What was your relationship like with the victim?’ she said. Diana frowned at her; perhaps victim was not the right word, if no crime had been committed.

  ‘Well, it was fine, I mean we didn’t really know each other, any of us. Just through the group. That’s all.’ Alison waited a few moments, something she found to be very effective with nervous people. ‘Just a terrible accident. We’d had the balcony steam-cleaned the week before – I do hope it wasn’t slippery, or anything like that.’

  Alison was about to ask another question, but she heard footsteps in the hallway and a middle-aged man came in, very red in the face to match his trousers. ‘Who’s that blocking the drive?’ Loud, entitled voice.

  ‘Police,’ said Alison, giving him her best Bolton stare. ‘Mr Dunwood? We’ll need to talk to you too.’

  She was gratified to see his expression change. ‘Oh, er, of course, no problem. Did Monica offer you a drink? Tea, water?’

  ‘She didn’t,’ said Alison pointedly. ‘I’d love a tea in fact. Milk, no sugar.’

  Diana was frowning again – these younger officers didn’t drink tea at the houses of suspects, thinking it compromised them in some way, but Alison was parched and hot and more than likely not pregnant, and she was going to take her small comforts where she could get them. ‘So, Mrs Dunwood. Please tell us in your own words everything you can remember.’

  The day of – Monica

  7.58 a.m.

  It had to be perfect.

  Perfect, it seemed to Monica, was a fairly clear concept. It meant spotless, like a properly cleaned kitchen. It meant flawless, like an expensive diamond. It meant above reproach, which was something she strived to be, every day. Unfortunately, her latest cleaner, Marisol, did not seem to share the same vision. It was almost eight on the morning of the party, and Monica was standing by the sofa in the living room, which she had lifted up by one end to show the dust underneath. She was briefly proud of her upper-body strength. ‘Not good enough, do you understand? No es bueno.’ Marisol, a stoical woman from Ecuador, looked confused.

  ‘I’ll talk to her.’ Chloe had come into the room, walking silently in her bare feet. Monica hated that. Not just the footprints of sweat left on her marble floors, but the fact that she never quite knew where her daughter was. Chloe let off a string of Spanish to the cleaner, and Monica was briefly shocked at how good she was, especially given she’d missed a term of school.

  ‘Did you explain?’

  ‘Mum, you pay her for two hours a week. It’s not enough time to clean this massive place. And hello, it’s less than minimum wage.’

  Monica sighed. Yes, she could afford to pay more for cleaning, but that wasn’t the point. She offered market rate, and still the results weren’t what she wanted. ‘Well, just tell her it needs to be perfect for the party later.’

  Chloe sighed deeply. ‘You’re really going ahead with this? Are you kidding me?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t we have a party?’ It seemed obvious to Monica – a chance to celebrate the end of the group, the arrival of the babies. Or most of them, at least.

  ‘Er, because of everything that’s going on? You really want people round here, watching?’

  ‘We have to act normal if this is going to work.’ And having parties was normal for Monica. Every time she had something done to the house, or bought a new plant or rug or picture, it didn’t feel real until someone had come round to admire it. And the antenatal group was a whole new group of people to dazzle and wow with her new five-bedroom house and spacious garden, her art collection, her rich husband.

  And her daughter. Well, Chloe didn’t quite fit into the perfect vision either. She’d have to be carefully managed, or perhaps even kept out of sight. Monica turned to the gilt mirror on the wall (antique, French, eighteenth century) and examined her body. High and full and firm, her stomach flat again. Everything looked fine. It hadn’t been much fun looking fat again, of course, wearing maternity clothes for the first time in fifteen years, but at least this new baby was a chance to start over. Get it right this time, with the right husband, not the corrupting influence of Chloe’s father, who was best forgotten. Monica did not allow herself to think about him, as with many things.

  Walking through the house, she whisked small specks of dust from furniture, stooped without difficulty to pick up a thread from the floor. Her mind went to the antenatal group, the odd mix of people who’d be descending on her soon. Anita and Jeremy clearly had money – Monica had been on the waiting list for that handbag for a month – but Anita seemed so nervy and timid, and no wonder. Buying your b
aby from America must be so shameful. Then there was little Kelly, a scared scrap not much older than Chloe, her boyfriend not even around. Chavvy, of course. She hadn’t been invited, for the best since she’d lower the tone – not to mention the unfortunate thing that had happened to her. Although it would be fun to see how dazzled she’d be by this place, the new rockery, the glassed-in balcony. At least the boyfriend wouldn’t come and wear his jeans round his bum, like they all seemed to nowadays.

  Then there were the lesbians. She didn’t have a problem with that sort of thing, but they were so very open about it now. In Monica’s day there were polite euphemisms, like her aunt with the spinster friend she went on coach trips with. The pregnant lesbian, Cathy, was surprisingly pretty for one, with long shiny hair. Feminine. The other, well, Monica didn’t get it. Did they want to be men, was that it? Couldn’t they do that nowadays, if that’s what they wanted? She wondered how they had managed the pregnancy, and thought vaguely of turkey basters and beakers, felt queasy. Surely if you chose that kind of lifestyle, you sacrificed having children. The poor thing would be mocked at school for having no dad, two mothers. It wasn’t fair really.

  Then the Asian couple. She hadn’t spoken much, probably he dominated her at home, poor thing. She’d heard that some Muslim women couldn’t see male doctors, even in an emergency. Perhaps they’d gone private for the birth.

  The fifth couple were also odd – the woman much older than the man, well, the boy really. He was a handsome lad, but he was tongue-tied and awkward like everyone under thirty nowadays. The woman, who called herself something aggressive, like a toilet cleaner, was nothing special to look at. Jax. Clearly, she’d had a difficult pregnancy, oozing and loosening all over, red in the face and swollen. How had she attracted such a handsome boy? Money, that must be it.

  What a strange assortment. Did no one do things the right way any more, a man and a woman of the same age or ideally the man a little older, who got pregnant as nature intended? That was the trouble, she thought to herself, crumpling a dead petal from the floral display in the hallway (delivered fresh every five days). Nobody did anything properly any more. Corners cut all over the place.

  Jax – ten weeks earlier

  On Wednesdays, I left work at four – thank you, flexitime – and I went to visit my mother in Orpington. I didn’t know why, since neither of us got much out of it, but it was what you did. Aaron had offered to go with me at the start, but I loved him too much to put him through it. And I couldn’t stand the way her eyes followed him round the room, as if he might nick one of her Royal Doulton figurines.

  I parked outside, my heart sinking at the familiar shape of the house, the fake bay windows and scrubbed-clean red brick. I might as well have been fifteen again, trailing to the door with a heavy heart, waiting to hear what I’d done wrong now. I am thirty-eight, I told myself. I’m having my own baby. I have a house, a good job, a man who loves me.

  The nasty email had followed me all week, and each morning I’d been anxiously tensed for another. I’d told Dorothy to send anything strange straight to me, but there was nothing. It must have been just one of those random horrible things.

  Even the sound of Mum’s doorbell annoyed me. I could feel her irritation too as she tap-tapped to the door. She always wore high heels, even though there was no one else at home. ‘Did you have to park so near the hedge?’

  ‘It’s OK, I didn’t clip it.’

  ‘I know what you’re like. World’s worst driver!’

  Of course I was. A bad driver, a bad student, a bad daughter. ‘How are you, Mum?’ I dragged after her into the kitchen, an expanse of clean marble. She was so slim, so tiny she could fit into size-eight jeans. I was a whale beside her. I looked around; there was nowhere to sit except for some uncomfortable high stools at the breakfast bar. I’d never get on to one of those. On the wall, prominently displayed, was a picture of my father. He looked frozen, stopped in time. He’d died when I was twelve, heart attack at work, right at the culmination of the war between me and my mother that had been building since I was seven, leaving me alone with her, in this house.

  Goosebumps stippled me, and I had to remind myself again that I was thirty-eight, pregnant, independent. I could stop visiting her any time. But I wouldn’t, because she was my mother and I’d already lost one parent and I had no siblings. Sometimes I imagined them, my ghostly allies. She’d lost three that I knew of before me, to stillbirth or very late miscarriage. I had to remember that. I had to make allowances.

  She was talking. ‘Oh, it’s been such a nightmare. Next door are having building work done. You know the ones. Foreign.’

  ‘They’re not foreign, Mum, they’re British.’ What she meant was they were Asian. I changed the subject. ‘We had our first antenatal class at the weekend.’

  That amused her, as I knew it would. ‘I never heard the like, really. Paying to be told common sense! What kind of things do they teach you – don’t leave the baby alone with knives?’

  ‘Well, it’s kind of what to expect at birth, how to look after the baby, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Load of rubbish. We never had anyone tell us how to do it, and we were fine.’ The irony of this took my breath away for a moment. I suppose in the eighties, you were doing a good job as a parent if your child had all its limbs intact and most of its blood inside its body. There was no awareness of the emotional damage you could do to a baby, like a bomb thrown into a kindergarten. ‘And what are the other people like?’

  ‘Mum, can we sit on the sofa? I can’t get up on these stools.’

  She raised her eyebrows (threaded weekly). ‘Really, Jacqueline, there’s no need to stop exercising just because you’re pregnant. You don’t want to gain even more weight, not at your age.’

  I gritted my teeth. ‘Even so.’ Reluctantly, she showed me to the living room as she began to twitter around with cups and saucers. I was strictly on the decaf, no caffeine that might harm the baby, no matter how tired I felt.

  ‘So go on then, who else is on your course? All ancient, I imagine?’ She was avid for the gossip. ‘I don’t know what it is with these women now, leaving it so late.’

  ‘One woman is forty-four, yeah.’ Mum loved nothing more than an example of a woman doing a terrible job as a mother. Again, the irony seemed to escape her.

  ‘Oh. You’re not the oldest, then.’

  Thanks, Mum! ‘No. There’s a twenty-two-year-old though. Quite a range.’

  She sniffed. ‘Common, then. Where is this group? Can’t you go to a nice one?’

  ‘Well, it’s a mix, isn’t it, that’s kind of the point.’ I quite liked that, the fact that we had nothing in common except our babies. Not that we all had babies. ‘There’s one woman adopting, from America.’ I felt a bit guilty throwing poor Anita under the bus, but it would take the heat off me.

  Mum practically hooted. ‘She’s not even pregnant?’

  ‘No, her baby’s over there, with this other woman.’

  ‘It’ll end in tears, mark my words. What’s to stop this American woman holding on to the baby?’

  ‘I don’t know. Would someone do that?’

  Another hoot. ‘You’re too naive, Jacqueline.’

  There was a short silence, during which she looked like she might sit down, but then darted to the kitchen to get a cloth and wipe up a small drop of tea I’d spilled pouring it from the pot (which had leaked since 1998 but which she wouldn’t replace). ‘Do be careful.’

  ‘Aaron’s doing well at his new job,’ I volunteered. Mum never asked after Aaron, but I kept on plugging away. Sometimes I felt like his PR woman.

  ‘I suppose he’s the youngest father there.’

  ‘There’s another young one, but he didn’t come yesterday.’

  ‘No surprise there. She’ll be on her own with that child, mark my words. What does a man in his twenties want with babies?’

  I sipped my weak tea, wondering if she thought of these things to hurt me, or if she was just
very good at it. ‘Aaron’s really committed. He’s got all the books and everything.’

  ‘Yes. Well.’

  I knew better than to rise to her bait, but sometimes she just pushed me too far. ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, darling. You know I don’t like to interfere.’

  ‘Don’t interfere then.’

  ‘It’s just . . . Darling, he’s very young. You have to be prepared that he might not stick about, when the baby comes. All the dirty nappies and screaming – he’ll want to be out with friends, won’t he?’

  I counted to ten, held the tea in my mouth until it burned. ‘I really don’t think he will. He’s not like other twenty-four-year-olds. He had to grow up fast.’

  She sat down opposite, taking a dainty sip from her coffee. ‘I just don’t want to see you hurt, Jacqueline. That’s all. I don’t say these things to cause trouble.’

  Sure you don’t. It was a struggle to bite my tongue, change the subject. ‘Mmm. So how’s the book group?’

  ‘Oh goodness, you won’t believe this, but Louise actually suggested we read a chick-lit novel this time? I said, Louise, I think you’ll find this is a club for serious readers. If you want to read trash do it on your own time.’ I wondered if Mum would have been kicked out of the book group long ago if they weren’t all so scared of her, and she didn’t have the biggest living room. I let her catty commentary wash over me, wondering if things might get better when the baby came, when I was a mother myself. Or if they would just be a new person for her to terrorise. The thought of the email rose in my solar plexus again. She must never find out about it.

  Jax – nine weeks earlier

  The next time we went to the antenatal group, Anita had baked. Gluten-free vegan Bakewell tarts, each individual one glistening and perfect. I wanted to groan at the way women did this, forced ourselves to do extra work, make things nice for everyone. Men wouldn’t even notice if we stopped; we did it for and to ourselves. I also knew that I would eventually end up baking something myself, resenting every second, just because I’d feel bad otherwise. I saw Kelly’s eyes flicking nervously to the tea table as well. There had been a flurry of group emails over the week, about hospitals and sleeping positions and antacids and nurseries, so much so that I’d already muted them. Who had the time to read all that?