Perfect Daughter

by Amanda Prowse

‘I’m just saying it’s the most natural thing in the world, isn’t it?’ He repositioned his gown, which had slipped down his arms.

  ‘Doesn’t feel natural right now.’ His wife sighed. ‘It feels like hard bloody work! Don’t reckon I could go back to work in the fields!’ She puffed.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about that, girl. You’ve got me.’ He beamed. ‘I’ll go to work and bring you whatever you need. That’s my job, to look after you, and I always will, always.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘I’m a footballer.’ Pete beamed with pride at the midwife. The novelty of talking about his new role as the star striker for Weston-super-Mare AFC still hadn’t worn off.

  ‘Oh God, here we go, I can feel it coming again!’ Jacks pushed her bottom down into the mattress and leant forward. With her teeth gritted and her eyes once again tightly closed, her face got redder and redder with the exertion. ‘Oh! Oh shit!’ she managed, breathless now.

  ‘That’s it! Breathe, my love! You are doing great, Jacks! Breathe!’ Pete puffed with bloated cheeks and lips pursed. All inhibitions now gone, he was lost in the moment. As he gripped her hand and squeezed her shoulder in support, he wasn’t thinking about his footballing career; he was her husband, about to become a dad. The two of them weren’t simply recent school-leavers now; they were grown-ups, new parents.

  ‘Don’t leave me!’ she shrieked.

  ‘I won’t! I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here. We’re a team, you and me.’

  ‘Not just now, we’re not.’ She sighed. ‘Don’t leave me! Not ever!’

  He looked her in the eye. ‘I won’t. Ever. I love you.’

  She stared at her husband. ‘And I love you, Pete, I really, really do! I love you!’ She sobbed.

  ‘You do?’ he asked, beaming with joy.

  She nodded. ‘I do! Oh God! Oh God!’ She panted the words. ‘It’s really happening. I can feel it!’

  ‘This is it!’ Cath said. ‘The head is crowning. Nearly there! Come on, one big push for me, Jackie! Nearly there!’

  And then, in a matter of seconds, after a guttural shout that seemed to come from deep inside, they heard the sound of crying. It was a stuttering call from new lungs. Cath lifted the baby girl and placed her on her mum’s chest, still attached by the umbilical cord that had been her lifeline for the last thirty-nine weeks.

  Jacks lay back against the pillow with her small, wet child on her chest, kissing her damp head as her little fingers flexed in the air and her tiny mouth sought her mother’s skin.

  ‘She’s… she’s so beautiful!’ Pete managed through his tears. ‘Hello! Hello, my little girl,’ he whispered as he kissed her head with its soft covering of down.

  ‘Can someone go and tell my mum and dad?’ Jacks asked.

  ‘Sure.’ Cath smiled. She walked down the corridor and into the waiting room. Ida and Don both stood up, side by side, desperate for news. ‘Hello, Granny and Grandpa! You have a beautiful granddaughter. Mum and baby are both doing well.’

  Don turned to his wife and pulled her towards him. Reaching up, she held him close, enjoying the moment as she inhaled the scent of the man she loved, the man she had always loved.

  ‘Fancy that! Our clever girl, eh?’ Don whispered into her hair, kissing her scalp.

  Meanwhile, the cord had been cut and the baby had been checked. She was perfect.

  The obstetrician washed his hands in the little sink at the side of the room. ‘Have we got any names yet?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Jacks nuzzled her new daughter with her mouth and nose. ‘This is Martha.’

  The doctor wandered over as he dried his hands, smiling at the little family who were huddled together, staring at each other in wonder. ‘Well, hello there, Miss Martha. Welcome to this funny old world!’

  Jacks felt her tears flow again at his words. ‘Hey, Martha, I’m your mum. Yes I am, I’m your mum and I am so pleased to meet you. We’ve been waiting for you, your dad and me, and we already love you so, so much.’

  ‘We do,’ Pete confirmed. ‘We really do.’

  He beamed at his wife. ‘You are the cleverest woman in the whole wide world!’ He kissed her firmly on the cheek. ‘That was amazing. Just amazing. I can’t believe we did it, can’t believe what you did! You were brilliant.’ He kissed her again. ‘I’m a dad, Jacks! Can you believe it? I’m a dad!’

  ‘You are, Pete. You’re Miss Martha’s dad.’ She smiled at her husband.

  Don sat forward in the lounge chair, rubbing his hands. ‘Shall I make a fire? Is she warm enough?’ He bent over the carrycot and stared at his sleeping granddaughter. ‘Will you look at her? One week old and already a proper bobby-dazzler!’

  Jacks smiled at her dad, unsure if being a bobby-dazzler was a good thing. ‘No! It’s not cold, she’s fine, Dad.’ She grinned, happy in the afterglow of childbirth and feeling very clever at having produced such a beautiful child. As if on cue, Martha lifted her fists and with a red angry face let out a little cry.

  ‘Someone knows it’s teatime,’ Pete commented from the table, where he was studying the back pages of the newspaper.

  Jacks felt her nipples tighten and her milk begin to trickle. ‘Yep, come on, let’s get you fed.’ She carefully lifted her baby girl from the cot and carried her upstairs to her old room.

  Her mum scurried ahead of her and placed two extra pillows by the headboard. ‘Do you want a blanket?’ she asked, hands clasped at her chest, desperate to help in some way.

  ‘If you like, Mum. Then come and chat to me if you want?’

  Ida nodded and reappeared with the pink candlewick bedspread, which she tucked over her daughter’s legs. She perched awkwardly on the end of the bed, looking away as Jacks pulled the press studs on her maternity top and released the flap of her nursing bra. Jacks noted the way her mum kept her body turned until Martha was latched on and the muslin covered most of her breast. It made her smile that her mum and dad were so prudish, even when it came to feeding the baby. She suspected it was an age thing. It suited her fine; she didn’t particularly want them seeing her body and had absolutely no interest in seeing theirs.

  ‘She’s adorable, Jackie.’

  ‘She is.’ When it came to her little girl, there was no room for modesty; Martha was, in her opinion, the most perfect child ever created.

  ‘And Pete seems to have taken to it.’

  ‘He has, he’s wonderful. I express milk and he does the night feeds, everything. Don’t know what I’d do without him.’

  ‘Well, doesn’t look like you will have to do without him. He’s not about to go gallivanting off anywhere.’ Ida shook her head, her tone and choice of words as close as she could get to mentioning Sven’s name and what he’d done.

  ‘Martha’s lucky,’ Jacks said. ‘She’s got the best dad in the world.’

  Ida raised an eyebrow. ‘I thought you had?’ she said, her tone clipped.

  ‘Well, yes, of course, but I reckon Pete will shape up to be as good as my dad.’ Jacks stroked her daughter’s head as she guzzled.

  ‘We can only hope!’ Ida clenched her teeth.

  ‘It takes a lot to be a good dad. I think support is the most important thing,’ Jacks said. ‘Don’t you?’

  Ida considered this. ‘I think a happy mum makes a happy dad, a good dad. A dad that considers the family unit as a whole, doesn’t exclude anyone.’

  ‘Or maybe it’s a mum that doesn’t let herself be excluded.’ Jacks held her mum’s eye.

  Ida stood and arranged the curtains before walking to the door. ‘If only it were that easy.’ She smiled and left Jacks alone to feed her baby girl.

  Ida heard Don and Pete shouting at the TV as they watched the match together; they were making a racket. She trod the last step as the telephone in the hallway rang.

  ‘Hello?’

  There was a beep before she heard the voice and when it came through, the voice had a faint echo, as though it was a long, long way away.

  ‘Mrs Morgan?’

  ‘Yes?’<
br />
  ‘This is Sven…’ She heard him swallow. ‘I’m—’

  ‘I know who you are.’

  There was a pause. ‘Can I speak to Jacks? It’s important.’ He sounded in a rush.

  ‘No, you listen to me, this is important. Jacqueline doesn’t want to talk to you. She is with her husband at the moment—’

  ‘Her husband?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Didn’t you know? She married Pete Davies, a lovely, lovely boy.’

  29

  Jacks woke as the sun crept through the gap at the top of the curtains, a full twenty minutes before her alarm. She tussled with her dressing gown in the dark, alerted by the sound of vomiting that was coming from the bathroom. Was Jonty not well?

  She hurried across the landing and stopped at the open door. There, sitting on the floor, was Martha! Back home after two months away that had felt like a lifetime! The poor girl was retching and groaning as she vomited into the toilet bowl, but Jacks could only feel a swell of happiness at the sight of her. My little girl. She’s here, she’s home!

  ‘Oh, Martha!’ she gasped. ‘Are you okay, love?’

  Martha shook her head. ‘Mum…’ was all she managed before the next bout hit.

  Jacks sat on the floor behind her daughter, resting against the bathtub as she rubbed her back, just as she had over the years whenever she was ill. She pictured Martha as a little girl, her knobbly spine inside a nylon nightie with a Disney princess on the front.

  ‘Do you remember when you wanted to be called Kida after the girl from that Disney Atlantis movie?’ she asked.

  Martha nodded.

  ‘And you wouldn’t answer to anything else for weeks. I’d stand there yelling up the stairs, “Kida, your tea’s ready!” Neighbours must have thought I was mad.’

  ‘Thank you for not changing my name like I asked you to,’ Martha mumbled between groans.

  ‘That’s okay.’

  Martha leant forward, propelled by the violent sickness that gripped her. Jacks scooped her daughter’s long hair into a ponytail and held it in her palm while nature took its course. Finally, Martha rocked back on her haunches and Jacks handed her some loo roll to wipe her mouth with. She threw a towel over her trembling legs. Martha’s bump was impossible to ignore now.

  ‘I feel horrible. My boobs hurt and I’m still really sick.’ Martha turned and placed her head on her mum’s lap. It was as if she had forgotten they were warring.

  Jacks stroked her hair away from her face and cooed soothingly.

  ‘It’s so tough, Mum. I know I need to study, but I feel so sick.’

  ‘It usually passes, love, and they say it can be a sign of a good strong pregnancy.’ She remembered her own bouts of morning sickness, trying to be ill in silence, not wanting to alert anyone into thinking that something was amiss. And Pete turning up at school and giving her a packet of water biscuits. He had smiled at her as they’d whispered in the corridor; Martha at that point was still their little secret. That was what they had agreed, until he could book the Register Office and silence the gossips.

  ‘Dad said I should come back, that it was making you sad, and I don’t want that.’

  ‘I didn’t hear you come back. I’d have stayed up if I’d known.’

  ‘Dad said Gideon can stay on the sofa some nights and that I can go to his when I want. And I do want to be with him all the time,’ Martha mumbled, ‘but I can’t because I’m still at school and I don’t want to upset you and I know you don’t want me to see him. But he’s this baby’s dad and I don’t want him to miss out on anything and I love him. I need him, Mum. I really do.’

  Jacks closed her eyes and whispered to her little girl. ‘I know. And it will all be okay.’ She thought of how much harder things would have been without Pete’s strong arms and kind words to soothe her every night. ‘These things have a funny way of working out.’

  She heard a short laugh from the landing and looked behind her to see Pete standing in his pyjama bottoms and his vest. ‘Now you know my secret. It’s what you say when you can’t think of a solution.’

  She smiled at her husband. ‘I bloody can’t.’

  ‘We’ll do it together.’ He smoothed her head.

  Jacks reached up and kissed his calloused palm. ‘Like always.’

  Jonty appeared and sat on the floor behind his dad and closed the door behind him. It was a second or two before he asked, ‘Why are we all in the bathroom?’

  And they all laughed, even Martha, who managed a giggle despite her nausea.

  Jacks dropped the kids at school, happy to learn that Martha had not missed a day in the last few weeks. There was a lively atmosphere in the car, everyone clearly enjoying the return to normality. She watched how Martha placed her school bag over her neat little bump. Her daughter’s embarrassment made her sad.

  ‘Only me, Mum!’ she yelled as soon as she got back home. ‘Up in a sec!’

  She was grateful that Ida had slept in, giving her and the kids time to chat. Even Pete seemed his old self. In fact, no, better than that; he seemed happier than he had in an age.

  She placed the bowl of porridge on her mum’s tray and climbed the stairs.

  ‘Morning! It’s a lovely brand-new day! Martha is home. Can you believe that? She’s finally home.’ She delivered the tray and drew the curtains. ‘Thought we’d go for a wander today, what do you think? A nice stroll and a bit of fresh air, do us the world of good.’

  Jacks showered and changed her mum, wrapped a soft blanket around her legs and pushed her mottled feet into her shoes that fastened with Velcro. As she pushed Ida out on to the street and popped the double-knotted carrier bag into the wheelie bin on the way out, Angela from next door was coming through her gate.

  ‘Morning, Ange.’

  ‘Morning, ladies. How are you, Ida?’

  ‘She’s great.’ Jacks answered on her mum’s behalf. ‘How’s Jayden doing?’

  ‘Getting big! He managed to sit up last night. You probably heard the champagne corks popping and the trumpet fanfare – Ivor went nuts! You’d have thought that child had won an Olympic gold from watching his dad.’

  ‘Ah, bless.’ Jacks laughed. ‘Maybe he will one day, who knows!’

  ‘God, you sound like Ivor. He’s already googled flights to all the major capitals of the world and tried to work out how much it might cost for us to get to them in 2032!’

  ‘That’s hilarious! What’s Jayden getting a medal in?’

  Angela tutted. ‘The hundred-metre sprint, of course.’

  ‘Of course!’ Jacks laughed. ‘I like his confidence and his planning. And why not? Who knows what course his little life might take?’

  There was an awkward silence while both women considered Martha’s altered course, how excited they had been when she got her offer from Warwick.

  ‘Jacks, I hope it’s okay, but I wanted to drop these off for Martha.’ Angela lifted her arms to reveal a Moses basket, a stack of white vests and tiny babygrows and a couple of sleep suits.

  ‘Oh, Ange!’ Jacks stared at the paraphernalia. It made it real, this was stuff for a baby. Martha’s baby. ‘That’s so kind of you. She’s busy at school, her exams kick off next week.’ She took the items into her outstretched arms.

  ‘Oh God, rather her than me. Tell her good luck in case we don’t see her.’ She pointed at the Moses basket. ‘Jayden’s grown out of so much stuff, but if Martha doesn’t want any of it, no biggie, just tell her to pass it on or give it to the charity shop, whatever. Just thought she might be able to make use of it.’

  ‘Thank you, Ange. She’ll be touched.’

  ‘No worries! Better get back, his lordship’s in his high chair in the kitchen, probably redecorating the walls and ceiling with his juice cup!’

  Jacks returned inside and stashed the basket and clothes on top of the cardboard boxes in the hallway.

  As she pushed the wheelchair to the seafront, she shared her thoughts with her mum. ‘That was nice of Ange to bring those thi
ngs in for the baby, wasn’t it? Makes it quite real, though, the fact that a little girl or boy is going to fill out those clothes,’ she said. ‘I don’t know, Mum, you think you know where you are headed and then something comes along and the rug is pulled out from under you. Things change so quickly. That’s what I’ve struggled with.’ She swivelled the chair round a corner, avoiding a pothole. ‘I thought Martha’s path was set – I thought mine was. And I suppose, if I’m being honest, one of the reasons I’m so hurt is that I saw my life improving too. I loved the idea of going to stay with her while she was at uni, seeing her with her gang of new mates. I was excited. But what she says is right – it’s her life, isn’t it, not mine. And Gideon does seem sound, supportive. What you’d call a lovely boy!’

  Ida raised her left hand and pointed forwards.

  ‘Oh, giving me directions now? I see!’ Jacks laughed. ‘Okay, let’s wander up the pier. We haven’t done that for a while, have we?’

  Jacks pushed her mum’s chair up on to the wooden planks of the Grand Pier and trundled slowly down the iconic walkway. Ahead of them, the island of Steep Holm glistened in the sun, and with Worlebury Hill to the right, it was a beautiful sight. Lovers walked arm in arm on the flat sands, and further along at Uphill Beach dogs yapped and fetched sticks and balls in the distance.

  ‘You warm enough, Mum?’ Jacks bent forward and retucked the blanket over Ida’s arms. They carried on, past the funfair, where she caught sight of Richard Frost at work with a spanner on one of the machines. She chortled to herself.

  She parked Ida’s chair next to a bench and sat looking out over the vast expanse of water, breathing deeply and enjoying the peace and quiet, which was broken only by the shrill screech of scrounging seagulls.

  ‘This is where you used to come with Dad, isn’t it? After dancing the night away at the Grand Atlantic all those years ago. I used to love looking at the pictures of you both all done up, you in your red lipstick, looking like a proper film star! And Dad in a bow tie.’ Jacks tutted. ‘Those were the days, eh? I bet you miss him. I know you must. I do, still, every day.’

  Jacks looked over at her mum. She thought they might do exactly as Lynne Gilgeddy had suggested: have a nice cup of tea and split a tea cake.