The Baby Group

by Caroline Corcoran

I am burning up, suddenly, and the nurse looks concerned.

  ‘Sit down for a second,’ he says. ‘I think you need to calm down. Let me get your friend. She can wait with you right?’

  And he nips out to the waiting room to speak to Emma, then comes back to take me out to her.

  It was summer then too, with the same sweat that’s a constant in this heatwave, the same sterility. It’s too much. The feeling that I will be sick, and it will keep coming and I won’t be able to stop it.

  ‘What’s going on, babe?’ Emma asks gently as I sit back down next to her holding Poppy and the room starts to spin again.

  And after years of trying to keep myself closed, it’s like I’m losing the battle. It’s like I’m breaking open, and the world is exposing me with its online videos and its threats and its panic attacks and its tears, which are streaming now, so fast down my face that they bounce onto my chest.

  It’s happening again.

  Emma holds my hand in her palm and I try to take deep breaths, over and over, until finally I manage it and I start to calm.

  It’s hospital and all it reminds me of, yes. But it’s also an inability, since the trauma of the video, to deal with any type of stress without freaking out, jumping to the worst-case scenario, my body hammering and convulsing and gasping, showing me clearly, visibly, that things are not okay.

  ‘We’re going to be here for a while,’ says Emma, Poppy and Seth playing now with the hospital toys on the floor below us. The scratchy sleeve of her jumper itches my arm and it strikes me then how she is always covered, as much of her as possible, even though it’s the hottest day of the year and the nylon must be torturous.

  ‘If you want to talk, it’s not a bad time to do it?’ she continues, hesitant, watching my heaving breath slow, feeling my whole body tremble gently. She looks shocked. I try not to show this side of me.

  How lovely it feels to have somebody squeeze my hand.

  I blink away a new onslaught of tears.

  I don’t deserve this kindness. All the ways I’ve judged you, Em.

  She is right. It is a good time to talk. But I can’t bear the pity and just in time, a second pair of arms is around Poppy and Ed is here.

  ‘Oh thank God,’ I say as he scoops her up, looks at her head, cuddles her. Despite everything, seeing him here brings a swell of relief.

  ‘How are you, sweetheart?’ he asks Poppy. She chomps on her dummy.

  Then he turns to me, still holding her.

  ‘It’s not the same, Scarlett,’ he says, sitting down next to me with Poppy cuddled up in his lap and I am grateful that he knows without me saying it. I fall into him. ‘You’re okay. You’re safe. I’m here.’

  Ed knows how I am with hospitals, even if we don’t talk much about why. He saw me hyperventilate at every scan appointment we had when I was pregnant with Poppy. He saw my eyes wide with panic even through the agony of labour as we arrived that night on the maternity ward. He saw me beg a doctor to let me go home though it was too soon after Poppy was born because I couldn’t cope with the alarms going off; with footsteps moving at speed through corridors.

  ‘It’s not serious,’ I say. ‘We just need to get her checked over.’

  I am appreciative, at least, that he knows where I have gone. That although he can’t feel my sweat and may not have noticed my chest heaving unnaturally under my T-shirt, he knows. That he is acknowledging that this happened to me, which he does rarely. That he still cares, even if he didn’t come and find me last night, or ask where I had been until the early hours, alone.

  ‘Breathe, Scarlett,’ he says quietly, holding Poppy in the seat next to me. ‘All you have to do now is remember to breathe.’

  Finally he turns to Emma who is looking the other way, trying to give us space, when a busy hospital waiting room means we only have millimetres.

  ‘I’m glad Emma was with you,’ he says, smiling. ‘Nice to see you again too, Emma.’

  They haven’t seen each other since NCT classes over a year ago. He shakes her hand then, as Ed always does and it makes me laugh, like his formality used to.

  He kisses me again, and I remember his smell, and inhale it deeply and think if I can just hold on to that smell then it’ll be okay.

  Later, Ed holds my hand as we sit next to Poppy behind a curtain while a doctor looks her over. We don’t mention last night. Something has superseded all of that.

  Poppy has stopped being sad and is now finding the whole thing quite the adventure, shrieking and hiding and laughing. Ed and I look like a couple, it strikes me, all of us together look like a unit. We haven’t looked like this for a long time.

  The doctor turns to us, hands me Poppy.

  ‘You can take her home,’ she says. ‘All looks fine. It’s going to be a nasty bruise but she’ll recover. Kids do. It’ll knock you harder, probably.’

  She looks at me pointedly.

  ‘You okay, Mum?’

  And I can’t even get irritated by the thing that usually irritates me: someone who is not my child calling me mum.

  I nod. Who cares, I think, who cares.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, picking up Poppy. ‘Thank you.’

  Was that a squeeze of my hand from Ed?

  Barely palpable but something.

  In the car on the way home, Poppy falls asleep and I take a picture of her and post it on Cheshire Mama with a brief story about what happened. And after that there is that peace that parents experience when their child sleeps in the car. Just you two. Nowhere to go. Bit like a date night; the nearest you’ll get for a while.

  I turn to Ed.

  ‘Poppy is okay,’ I say. ‘Can we try to focus on that? On her?’

  He is silent but a minute later, at a traffic light, he reaches over and holds my hand and I squeeze and hope hard, in a way that is almost like a prayer.

  21

  Scarlett

  10 June

  ‘Are you cheating on me?’ asks Ed, as I kick off a bright pink trainer. I’ve done 6k powered by the giddiness of thinking that my marriage might make it after all. Our perspective has shifted, I thought, powering up a hill. The video seemed like the biggest thing and now it doesn’t. Now it seems like the smallest thing, compared to our child and our family.

  But now this.

  I plummet. ‘What?’

  I think of how paranoid I have been lately that he is cheating with all the gym visits and nights out and how I’ve wanted to ask the same question but never have.

  ‘Are you cheating on me?’ he asks, one leg crossed over the other knee, slipper dangling off his foot. The picture of comfort in our home, as he accuses me.

  I sit down in my leggings and marvel at the speed at which you can alter your feelings towards people who mean the most.

  Two minutes ago I wanted a long life with Ed. I wanted to hug him, curl up on the sofa with him, run marathons with him. I thought we’d found our route back.

  Now, I’m back at the dead end.

  I feel violent, like I could walk over to the drinks trolley in the corner of the room, take a bottle of vodka and smash him over the head with it.

  At this moment I don’t believe that I loved him ten minutes ago. I only believe the emotions charging through me now.

  ‘So what we said last night meant nothing then?’ I say.

  We had slept in the same bed when often lately, he’s been in the spare room. Kissed before we went to sleep.

  He sighs.

  ‘Look at this from my perspective,’ he says. ‘If you’re cheating on me, it’s not something we can ignore. Whether Poppy bumped her head or not.’

  ‘Why would you think that though?’ I rage, sadness that looks like anger. All of these emotions trying on each other’s clothes and dressing up as each other.

  I tell myself to calm down and remember that Poppy is sleeping. But I can’t make myself feel any of the logic.

  Ed reaches for the phone next to him and hands it to me.

  It’s a text message, from an an
onymous number, telling him that they have been sleeping with me.

  I stare at him.

  ‘If someone sends that, I have to ask,’ says Ed. ‘It’s a simple yes or no, which funnily enough you haven’t given yet.’

  ‘You think it’s fair,’ I say, trying to steady my breathing, again, to ward off another panic attack, another moment where all control is lost. ‘To take the word of an anonymous stranger over your wife. Would you have asked if the video hadn’t happened?’

  Ed wobbles. I see it.

  Who is doing this to me? Who hates me this much? Videos, comments, lies to my husband.

  ‘I’m not taking their word over yours,’ he says, more gently. ‘I’m just trying to get your word in the first place.’

  I stand up.

  ‘I’m going for a shower, Ed. But if you really need me to answer, then no. I’m not sleeping with any man. I’m currently battling this living hell with the video and I haven’t got the motivation to shave my legs let alone sleep with somebody else.’

  I think of Cora and her affair. It’s true. Every action needs the impetus to be bothered, first and foremost. I walk out of the room and peel my damp clothes off. I lock the door and step into the shower and look down: I was telling the truth about the leg shaving.

  I grab my razor, hack at my calves angrily without changing the blade so that there is blood eventually, quite a lot of it.

  I think about the man in the coffee shop, and how he looked at me, and how close I came. I haven’t. But I could have, Ed, and you’re pushing me closer.

  Would I even feel guilty? Ask those changing feelings. It would depend on the day.

  I hack more.

  I step out of the shower and pull a towel around me, then head straight into the living room, leaving damp footprints in my wake and two trails of blood, trickling down the backs of my calves. I wipe, cursory, every now and again but blood on the carpet no longer seems the disaster it would have a few months ago.

  Ed is still sitting, watching golf, phone in his hand.

  He glances at the damp marks I am leaving, winces.

  ‘Any other messages?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes actually,’ he snaps, holding up his phone. If I was expecting reticent, I’m not getting it. ‘Same guy.’

  He leans his head backwards. Puts his hands behind it.

  ‘Scarlett, I’m not trying to be a dick here, but what do you expect me to do? Ignore it?’

  I laugh one of those mean, horrible laughs that shouldn’t be called laughs at all. We should get a different word for those.

  I don’t have an answer, to any of it. I want to erase and wipe and travel back in time. I think again about deleting the blog after what Mitch said, how maybe that would make me less of a target. But it’s too late. Any damage it’s caused has been done. And I feel petulant too. Whoever this is has taken everything else, my job, my confidence, my happy marriage. Cheshire Mama was one thing for me. Why should I let them have that too?

  ‘Sleep in the spare room tonight, Ed,’ I say, weary, as I walk out of the room to bed.

  I think about the feelings I had last night as we sat alongside each other, the only people in the world who understand that Poppy is the centre of the world’s axis.

  United, like we had been when she arrived, gloopy and noisy and spindly.

  I lie in bed for hours before sleep comes, going over my conversations with Ollie, with Mitch. Is there anyone else who could have done this? Any other answer? Bring me evidence, said the lawyer, and I vow to myself that somehow, some way I will. I can’t let life keep continuing to slide away from me like this. Ten minutes later, I hear Ed slowly close the spare room door. Eventually, sleep comes.

  Anon

  When I weep for a man who is slipping away from me, Scarlett holds on to hers. And that seems so bloody unfair.

  I think she and her husband might even be getting back on track; she sent a message to the group the morning after Poppy came out of hospital saying things were good between them, that she thought they would be ok.

  Greedy Scarlett, breezing around getting what she wants. Even now, after what I have done to her.

  So I take matters into my own hands.

  Ed’s number, I have, from a dormant NCT group chat we had set up, never used. Instead, the all-female one became the constant for questions, reassurance, pictures of your nipple up close in your baby’s mouth.

  But his number comes in handy now. From my other phone of course; the pay-as-you-go one.

  Hey, mate, I write, getting into my new laddish persona. What next? A chat to Ed about the footy scores? Oh wait, no. He’s a golf man. I’d need to do quite a bit of research to be up to speed on that; not my natural territory. Man to man, I thought you’d like to know that I’m sleeping with your wife.

  He doesn’t reply, though I can see it has been read.

  I’m kind of irritated. Craving something. Wanting to move things on.

  Me again, I say, ten minutes later. If it helps you piece the dates together, we were together while you were away for work last Tuesday. She invited me round to your place.

  Handily, I’m in the know on Ed’s schedules. A quick scan back through messages from Scarlett gifts an easy timetable. We share a lot of minutiae.

  I nearly start to tell him things I know about his house – of course I’d spent enough time there – but stop. I don’t want Scarlett getting close to the truth by working out who has been to her house lately.

  So I sit back.

  Wait.

  Told you I’m a lot more patient than Scarlett.

  22

  Scarlett

  13 June

  The house, in the middle of nowhere in the Peak District, is messy with clothes and food strewn everywhere, but we don’t care. For once, we’re not responsible. We’re teenagers again. It’s someone else’s problem.

  Emma is shrieking, drunk on a few gin and slims as she is not a big drinker.

  ‘I thought we were going to go to a spa!’ she slurs, then giggles. ‘What happened to the spaaaaaa?’

  I have my long legs propped up on a sofa that is not mine and am in old baggy leggings and bare feet. I have a glass of warm supermarket red wine in my hand. I am on my phone, posting a picture of Poppy I took yesterday, trying to keep up more regular traffic on Cheshire Mama’s Instagram.

  I laugh at Emma.

  ‘Remember the spa you found was a bit … well, shit?’ I say, laughing. ‘We came here instead. I found it on Airbnb.’

  Then, we planned to go walking but bad weather and being shattered made us abandon that too.

  ‘We could get the bus into town?’ says Emma, smoothing down frizz at her temple that keeps popping up ten seconds after she does this. It’s about the tenth time. ‘Have a potter around the shops?’

  Everyone ignores her or rolls their eyes. That’s what happens to Emma when she suggests things like potters or cheeky pizzas.

  There’s a Chinese takeaway menu floating around somewhere and Emma, perpetually dieting, is talking romantically about fried noodles.

  Beyond that, we’re just going to drink and not think about anybody else, and that’s the point of being here.

  Someone puts a Sonique song on I like on Spotify and I stand up to dance to it and wonder why no one is acknowledging that this is one of my favourite songs but then I remember that no one knows which songs are my favourites, yet. As I dance with my eyes closed, Cora says something about a group shot.

  ‘Yes!’ says Asha. ‘A group shot. I’ll get my phone.’

  ‘I meant tequila,’ says Cora, deadpan, and the next minute I am roaring with laughter and downing one tequila then a second from a bottle that I did not know anyone had brought.

  After that, my memory gets blurrier.

  A third slips down, I think.

  I talk a lot. I know that.

  Next thing, I’m waking up in a double bed next to Cora and my eyes are sticky with mascara. My mouth is claggy with a lack of water and the remai
ns of a thick, spicy Asian sauce.

  The usual thing happens.

  Whereas before I might stir gradually, since the video I wake like somebody at war. I am on high alert, grab my phone, check what I’ve missed, if other disasters have befallen me while I slept. It’s worse when I’ve been drunk and have taken my eye off the ball for longer.

  This morning, I grab my phone from this Airbnb’s shabby-chic bedside table.

  As soon as I’ve checked my messages to make sure that Poppy is okay, I realise that what I am worried about, today, is not on a phone.

  Instead, I think – what did I tell my friends last night? What did I share?

  I glance at Cora, gently snoring with an expensive eye mask on and her make-up removed. Next to her on her bedside table sit a messy pile of five tubs of creams I know all cost over £100, two of which have the lids off. She was definitely drinking last night – even steering the shots – but from the evidence, clearly not in the state I was.

  I get up and walk down the hall in bare feet on cold wooden floors. I shiver. I open cupboards and drawers and eventually find a chocolate cupcake with half a Crunchie on top of it in a Cora’s Cupcakes branded box and I eat that for breakfast in two bites.

  I put the kettle on and lean against the work surface.

  The thought that buzzes round my brain constantly comes to the surface again. If not Ollie and Mitch, who? I have a meeting with the lawyer next week but he has been clear: the website operator has taken it down and it’s not appeared anywhere else. Strand one. For strand two, getting whoever did it, the best – the only – way to move this on is to get some evidence, so we can hand that over to police.

  As I wait for the kettle to boil, Asha comes in holding two coffees.

  She is in leggings and a hoodie and out of breath.

  ‘Went for a walk,’ she says. ‘The only way I could think of to shift the hangover.’

  She nods towards her coffee cup.

  ‘Wish I’d got up in time to get my order in,’ I mutter, opening cupboards to locate a pot of instant.

  ‘Good news,’ she says. ‘It’s yours. Got an extra one, for whoever was up first.’