Time Out

by Emma Murray

  And don’t talk to me about other people, Jen, because they all have the potential to harm my child. A thug might pull out a knife and try to stab her. Or the postman, who I’ve had a right go at for knocking too loudly every bloody morning, might decide this is the house he wants to mail bomb. Or a terrorist might mow her down in our local shopping mall. Don’t you see, Jen? I am plagued by the non-stop nagging guilt that I am in the wrong job. I have been made head of security for this beautiful little girl but nobody has given me the training. All in all, I am FAILING my baby, Jen. Did you know that? Your best friend from the age of six, who has never failed at anything in her life, is flunking out, and worst still, she can’t talk to anybody about it.

  The thoughts raced but the words stuck in my throat. I knew she could never understand. In the end, Anna’s tired wailing brought the call to a swift conclusion. I told Jen I’d call her later, but I never did. After the Jen disaster, I felt an overwhelming compulsion to find some like-minded people – some proof that I was not the only one who was struggling. In short, I needed the type of group that would sit around and bitch about their partners. Despite my initial dislike of the antenatal crew, I decided in desperation to attend the next meeting: the three-week baby meet-and-greet. Maybe they weren’t as bad as I had first thought. How wrong I was.

  7

  London, Four Years Ago

  When I arrived at the gloomy church hall, Tania and Maddie were already there with their babies. Tania’s baby boy is called Heath, and Maddie’s little girl is called Gardenia. Both of them were happily breast-feeding. There was no sign of Odette. I would find out later that she had hot-footed it back to France for the birth and hadn’t been seen since. I forced myself to smile a greeting and then spent the rest of the time feeling like the new girl at school who didn’t know anyone.

  To me, it seemed as though they both had it all worked out. Each of them had read every single baby book on the market, competitively swapping baby tips. Tania, who had no more qualifications than the rest of us in motherhood, would say things like, ‘I find Gina a miracle worker when it comes to the sleep routine,’ while Maddie would parry, ‘Really? I have to say Gina didn’t work for me, but Tilly’s advice was invaluable.’ And so on. Their babies were only waking once in the night – the ultimate badge of honour for new mums. They had cracked the parenting code and had been awarded the holy grail of mostly uninterrupted sleep.

  When I dared to venture how tough breast-feeding was, Tania cooed sympathetically, while laying a nurturing hand on my shoulder, which I instantly wanted to bat away, while Maddie cried, ‘Persevere! It’s the best thing for your baby – the greatest gift a mother can give.’ To which I replied, ‘I think the gift of sleep is probably more valuable,’ and they cooed and clucked and exchanged sympathetic looks, bonded together in the knowledge that they had got it right and I had got it wrong.

  But maybe I was being too sensitive. Fine, they had the baby thing sussed, but what about their partners? Surely, there were moments where they wanted to drive a stake through their new-daddy hearts too?

  ‘Oh, Giles has been so fantastic,’ Tania gushed. ‘He loves being a dad. Totally obsessed with Heath!’

  Maddie’s response was so similar that I dare not bore you with it.

  And then they brought up Bea, and I started to feel a flicker of hope. Had they seen her? How was she doing? But all they wanted to do was bitch about her: how rude she had been in the antenatal class, and imagine just walking out like that…

  I ignored them until they stopped.

  ‘So, what’s Anna’s sleeping pattern like?’ Maddie asked, nodding at Anna’s flickering eyelids.

  ‘Non-existent,’ I said, hoping a short response would shut her up. But it didn’t end there. In an effort to ‘cure’ Anna’s ‘poor sleeping habits’ Tania announced grandly that the rest of the coffee meeting should be devoted to finding ‘sound sleeping strategies’ to help ‘poor Saoirse’ deal with her ‘challenging baby’. That’s when I finally had enough.

  Channelling Bea, I stood up and said with just the right amount of sarcasm, ‘But Anna is in a routine. She wakes up five times a night without fail. She’s regular as clockwork. As a shit sleeper, she is bang on cue.’ As their mouths fell open, I got up, flicked my hair and pushed Anna’s pram out of that stupid, echoey church hall for good. I made a decision never to see those two smug cows again. It was hard enough that they had triumphed where I had failed.

  Incidentally, the day after that disastrous meet-up, David bumped into Giles, Tania’s husband, on the Tube. Giles told David that he and Tania hadn’t slept since the baby was born, and had to hire a night nanny to get them through the nights. All this ‘sleeping through the night’ stuff was bullshit. Tania hadn’t cracked the code, she had faked it. She was that girl in school who pretended to get her period or lose her virginity first just so she could lord it over her impressionable friends. And I had fallen for it hook, line and sinker. But rather than feeling angry about the pretence of it all, it had made me feel sad and hopeless. Is that what everyone did, then? Make up some bullshit story about how great they were at parenting to hide the fact they were struggling? Was I the only idiot that was upfront and honest about how tough I was finding it?

  I retreated further into my isolation. I ignored all the baby-group meet-up emails and trudged around the narrow streets with Anna every day, trying to get her to sleep. I had the world’s most exciting and cosmopolitan city on my doorstep and it had shrunk to the size of half an acre. If I ventured any further, I would feel threatened. I started to shop online rather than face the ordeal of the supermarket. My biggest fear was Anna crying in public. Crying attracted attention, and I couldn’t bear it. Every tut or glare decimated my confidence.

  Prior to having Anna, I had enjoyed the anonymity of London life. It was the antithesis of Ireland, where two degrees of separation can get a little bit claustrophobic. It was liberating to know that nobody knew or really gave a shit about you. You could walk onto the Tube one day dressed as a half-alien half-human playing the banjo and the most you might get is an impatient rustle of the Metro newspaper. But put a baby into the mix and the invisibility cloak no longer exists.

  Whenever I was out in public, I felt as though people were watching and judging, waiting for me to slip up. It took me three days to work up the nerve to take four-week-old Anna on the bus, a simple ten-minute ride to the local shopping centre. I had timed it with the precision of a hitman. I had just breast-fed her and changed her nappy, and if I hurried, I would be back at home in time for her next feed. The thought of breast-feeding in public was terrifying.

  When I got on the bus it was packed. I was so anxious that I must have bumped the wheels of the buggy into half the passengers there, trying to get to the space where you could park your buggy. Two minutes later, Anna started to cry – her hungry cry. Shit, I had only just fed her. I began to panic. There was no way I was getting my tits out on the bus. I pressed the red stop button several times with shaky fingers. I had to get off the bus and feed her. With every glance of annoyance from my fellow passengers, my anxiety grew. The bus didn’t stop. I pressed the button again and just as Anna’s screams and the tuts from the passengers reached fever pitch, the bus finally pulled over. I manoeuvred the buggy towards the back door – except there was no back door. This bus only had one door for entering and exiting and it was right up at the top by the bus driver.

  And so as other people were trying to get on the bus, I was trying to get off. There were red-faced apologies from me as I tried to squeeze the buggy past all the passengers standing in the aisle, and copious amounts of swearing from them.

  But then something miraculous happened. A voice rang out, an oddly familiar voice. ‘Move the fuck out of the way. There is a lady here trying to get her baby off the bus, you utter pricks!’ And there was Bea, standing tall at the entrance of the bus in all her Amazonian glory, her baby strapped to her chest. As if sensing there was little point in argui
ng with her, the grumbling passengers started to part ways and let me through. As I moved closer to her, I dared not look her in the eye for fear I would burst into tears.

  Bea took one end of the buggy and helped me off the bus. Miraculously, Anna stopped crying and my heart rate started to slow. But as soon as Bea went to get back on the bus, I burst into tears. I couldn’t help it. I needed someone to talk to. Bea took one look at me and gestured to the bus driver to carry on.

  Feeling silly and awkward, I brushed away my tears and peered at Bea’s little baby strapped to her chest.

  ‘He’s lovely,’ I said, and even though nobody ever gives a shit about anyone else’s baby but their own, I really did think Harry was a particularly lovely boy: huge blue eyes and perfect skin, just like his mum. You just knew he was going to be a looker when he was older.

  Bea glared at him, and said in her strident tones, ‘His name is Harry, and let me tell you that he wasn’t so fucking lovely at four o’clock this morning, or indeed the other five times he woke up.’

  I can’t really explain it – perhaps it was the honesty and the swearing – but I had another surge of emotion. She fished around in her changing bag and handed me a baby wipe.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, wiping away the tears. ‘You must think I’m a fucking nutcase.’

  ‘Not at all,’ she said, putting her hand on my shoulder. ‘You’re just exhausted, the same as all of us new mums.’

  ‘A few days ago, I asked my husband for a divorce,’ I confessed, weepily.

  She cocked her head on one side, then looked down at her watch and announced, ‘Right, come on then – we’re getting pissed.’

  It was 11 a.m.

  Bea guided me to a pub I had never seen before. It was empty and grotty – perfect for the situation. Bea marched up to the grumpy-looking bartender and ordered us a bottle of Prosecco. As the bubbles settled in my stomach, I told her everything: how I felt totally out of control; how I was failing as a mother; how I had no fucking idea what I was doing; and what a loser David thought I was as a result. I told her about all David’s weird habits and how hard he was to live with, and how I didn’t want him around me any more. I even told her about Jordan, David’s slutty boss, who I was pretty sure had a crush on him. I have never told anyone else about Jordan.

  To this day I have no idea how long I ranted on for, but I do remember that Bea sat there and listened, and that both our babies mercifully slept for most of it.

  When I had finally run out of steam, Bea set down her glass of Prosecco, adjusted her glasses and began.

  ‘You think you’re a shit mother,’ she said.

  I nodded vigorously.

  ‘Is your baby neglected, deprived, or starved?’

  I shook my head emphatically.

  ‘Do you ever hit or shake your baby?’

  ‘No!’ I said, shocked. ‘But in my darkest moments, I can think of places I’d rather be,’ I confessed, ashamedly.

  ‘Like where?’ she said.

  ‘Prison,’ I replied, just as she was taking another sip.

  Bea spat out some of her drink.

  ‘Prison? Why?’ she laughed, grabbing one of Harry’s wipes to mop her face.

  ‘In prison you get to sleep, and you get your meals cooked for you. I would kill to have someone else make my food,’ I said dreamily.

  ‘Well, maybe you’ll get there after all!’ Bea quipped.

  Another thought occurred to me.

  ‘Hospital!’ I said, brightly. ‘A nice relaxing stint in bed, but it would have to be the right sort of injury to keep me there for a couple of weeks. Nothing too serious.’

  Bea looked thoughtful.

  ‘Broken limbs would be too inconvenient…’ she said, brow furrowed.

  ‘Yes, definitely no broken limbs,’ I replied gravely, delighted she was playing along. ‘Like some sort of mystery disease that is totally curable but takes at least two weeks in hospital to treat.’

  Bea nodded vigorously.

  ‘And have you given much thought to shorter breaks away from your screaming baby?’ Bea said, in the manner of a concerned interviewer on a morning chat show.

  ‘I have indeed, Bea,’ I replied, enjoying my role of interviewee. ‘I can safely say, I’d rather go to Ikea on a Sunday, have six root canals done at the dentist, and have an MRI a day rather than be with my newborn baby 24/7.’

  Bea laughed until she cried, and suddenly I felt better than I had in ages.

  The bartender chose that moment to come over, tutting noisily as he cleared away our glasses, clearly disapproving of our daytime drinking. For once, I didn’t give a shit about the judgement.

  Bea continued to cycle through the rest of my woes. She told me that David was probably feeling just as lost, clueless and out of control as I was. She told me to stop being so possessive over Anna and to give David a job.

  ‘Men need to feel useful. Get him to do something that involves just him and Anna. Put him on bath-time duty every night,’ she ordered, taking a large draw of Prosecco.

  In reference to David’s neat freakery, she told me to start laying boundaries in the same way I had when I had first moved in with him.

  ‘He has regressed because a tidy house is the only thing he can control. Give him back some control by acknowledging how chaotic life with a new baby is and share that feeling together,’ she said, sagely.

  I knew she was right – about all of it. I had to stop thinking of David as being ‘fucking useless’, as I had told him, and start involving him more with Anna. I also knew I had to have a serious chat with David about the obsessive tidiness. I had got through to him before and I could do it again.

  But Bea wasn’t finished yet. ‘About Jordan…’ she began.

  I stiffened. Even when someone else said her name it made me feel a little sick. Noting my reaction, Bea corrected herself. ‘Would “Jordan the slut” be a more accurate moniker?’ she said.

  I smiled. Yes, Jordan the slut was much better.

  I won’t go into it, but a few weeks into our relationship, when I thought we were the most loved up, David had gone on a date with Jordan, who then was just a girl from work. He only told me about it after we were married. David insisted nothing had happened between them. They had gone out for dinner, and that was it. When I asked him why he had done it, he told me that he just wanted to see ‘what else was out there’ before he committed fully to me. He told me that after the date, he knew that I was the one for him. It sounds trivial but the whole episode bothered me, and still does, especially as Jordan is now David’s boss.

  Bea looked thoughtful. ‘Listen, you have to move past the Jordan-the-slut thing,’ she said. ‘It was a long time ago. If he says nothing happened then you have to believe him.’

  I nodded. I knew she was right. I couldn’t bring up Jordan every time we had a row.

  I let out a huge sigh of relief. All my problems had just been put into total perspective by someone I didn’t even know. It was then I realised with a bit of a jolt that Bea knew everything about me and I knew nothing about her. I was mortified. There was nothing worse than someone going on about themselves all day. I determined to correct the balance immediately. This is what I learned about my new friend.

  Bea was from Cape Town in South Africa and worked as an events manager for a South African beer company, which she planned to return to as soon as she finished her maternity leave. She lived in a two-bedroom duplex with Harry just a few streets away from me. As we ploughed through our second bottle of Prosecco, I drunkenly fired all sorts of questions at her, to which she responded in her refreshingly direct manner.

  ‘How do you look so fantastic?’ I slobbered, admiringly. ‘I feel and look like shit.’

  ‘Because I have a full-time nanny called Maria,’ she said. ‘I do the nights and she does the days.’

  ‘You’re sooooo lucky,’ I replied, grabbing her shoulder and shaking it, just to emphasise how lucky she was.

  ‘Well, I don’t pay for her,
’ she said. ‘My mother covers all the fees.’

  My mouth dropped open. Bea was the luckiest person I had ever met.

  ‘Ha! Don’t be too envious,’ she replied, evidently registering my shock. ‘The only reason she’s paying for the nanny is because during a particularly sleep-deprived moment, I threatened to put Harry up for adoption,’ she laughed. ‘My mother is also a health freak and a member of the “breastapo”. She is barely talking to me since I decided to give Harry formula from the get-go.’

  This led to a juicy if belated post-mortem of the antenatal group meeting where we had first met. Bea was thrilled to hear that Tania was also having a hard time with her baby and not surprised in the least that she had pretended otherwise. ‘The judgemental mothers are always full of shit,’ Bea said, reflectively.

  But as much as I was enjoying the gossip, there was something I really wanted to ask Bea. As it was personal, I was hesitant to cross any lines and jeopardise our budding friendship. Prosecco bottle number three soon niftily removed those boundaries.

  ‘So, tell me,’ I whispered, conspiratorially. ‘Who’s the baby daddy?’

  Bea stiffened, gave a tight smile, and put her glass down.

  ‘Sorry, sorry, totally none of my business,’ I said, cringing. Why had I used the term ‘baby daddy’? I had never said anything like before that in my life!

  Bea softened and smiled. ‘Don’t worry, it’s just a topic I don’t like to discuss.’

  I apologised again and hoped she didn’t hate me.