by Carmen Reid
She began to feel even more miserable. What the hell were they going to do for the rest of the day? Just babysit and argue. Nothing was fun any more, just effort.
Chapter Thirty-four
BELLA WAS STANDING in front of the bathroom mirror, nervous as hell, trying to apply make-up properly – for work. She couldn’t believe it had come round so quickly. It was already Friday. And was that a hint of double chin? Good grief.
Nanny Joanne was out for a stroll with Markie, and Bella was heading for the office.
She’d decided to go in for an afternoon catch-up session with everyone before she moved straight into the work at Danson’s on Monday morning.
She saw her hand trembling as she applied mascara and she had a dry feeling in her mouth. She couldn’t decide if she was nervous or excited. She was looking forward to seeing everyone again and hearing the gossip. If only she could shake the guilt and anxiety about leaving her baby.
In the bedroom, she changed into one of the new, size bloody 14, suits and shirts she’d bought yesterday in the two hours Joanne had forced her to go out of the house and leave Markie alone.
She put on the dark knee-length skirt and white shirt, no point wearing the jacket, it was 27 degrees outside. God her bust was enormous. A post-partum bulge sat uncomfortably below the waistband of her skirt. She looked like every other out of condition mum and it made her deeply depressed.
She put on stockings and her highest heels, shocked at how excruciatingly uncomfortable they were, but in her eyes it didn’t make up for the lumps and bumps. At least her hair was gleamingly clean and neatly put up. She decided on diamond earrings for morale, and she’d put on red lipstick in the car.
OK, almost ready to go. Bella looked through her briefcase, untouched for two months. She poked about inside. Everything she needed was there and ah ha, in the zip-up compartment at the side was a packet of Marlboro Lights and her gold lighter. Suddenly she felt as if she was looking at the answer to her prayers.
She picked up the bag and ran down to the garden. Perching on the edge of the iron table she pulled out a cigarette and lit up. The smoke filled her mouth and touched the back of her throat, oh yes . . . yes . . . yes, she’d definitely missed these more than sex. She spent a few dreamy moments enjoying every breath of smoke then finally stubbed the last inch of cigarette out with her heel on the lawn and went back into the house to pick up her bag, car keys, jacket.
Right, she thought, checking herself out in the hall mirror, this was it. Goodbye maternity leave, hello working mother.
She shut the front door and locked it, feeling a momentary panic about whether or not Joanne would have remembered her keys. Oh shut up, she told herself, are you trying to become the most neurotic woman on the planet? Of course Joanne has her keys.
She walked to the car enjoying the click of her high heels on the pavement and the clunk as she opened the car lock. She clambered in awkwardly, totally unused to the skirt, and damn, smudged oil onto her leg. Automatically she leaned over to the glove compartment and popped the button.
A pile of nappies cascaded to the floor, followed by a baby bottle full of water, a squeaky toy and a dummy. For a moment she had to blink very hard, but the tears were averted.
No, there was not a single pair of stockings left in the drawer. She re-examined the smudge. Well, it wasn’t so bad, she could live with it.
She fired up the engine and drove out into the street. It felt good to be driving on her own again, without a bump or a baby. Actually, it felt brilliant. She dodged into the traffic, put on her sunglasses, buzzed the roof down and flicked through her CDs. Girl guitar rock with the volume up loud.
It was of course Kitty she saw first when she walked out of the lift and through the double doors into the office.
‘Hi,’ Kitty, in something fluorescent green, mouthed silently with a big smile, waving excitedly, because she was on the phone.
No-one else was in the reception area and for a moment Bella couldn’t decide whether to knock on everyone’s doors or go into her own office.
She decided to check out her room first.
She pushed open the door and was amazed to see Hector sitting in her chair with his feet up on the desk as he chatted on the phone. The room smelled like a café, so obviously he was using her coffee machine too. Coffee!! She’d somehow forgotten about coffee and spent her entire maternity leave drinking tea.
Hector’s eyebrows shot up when he saw her.
‘Actually,’ he said into the receiver, ‘something rather urgent has just come in, I’m going to have to call you back. Sorry. Bye then.’
He put the phone down, stood up and smiled at her, holding out his hand. ‘Hello, Bella, welcome back,’ he said, ‘I do hope you’ll forgive me for using your office while you were away.’
‘And my coffee machine,’ she cut in, noticing how well dressed he was; he was obviously sharpening up big time.
‘Oh no, is that yours too, I am sorry,’ he replied. ‘Makes wonderful coffee, though. In fact, would you like a cup?’
‘Piss off, Hector!’ She was trying to joke off the irritation she felt at finding a usurper in her office space. ‘You just moved yourself in, the moment my back was turned!’
There was a small silence and she began to wonder what else of hers he’d moved into.
‘I’m looking forward to Danson’s,’ he said. Hell, she had totally forgotten Susan’s decision months ago that she would have to take Hector along with her on the job.
‘Oh yes,’ Bella managed to say.
‘The project manager on Danson’s side was at Cambridge with me. I’ve had lunch with him to talk about it, sounds very interesting.’
This was even worse news.
‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Who else is in today?’
‘Oh hasn’t Kitty buzzed everyone for you?’ Hector asked.
‘Yes,’ came Kitty’s voice from the door.
‘Hello Mummy,’ she said holding out her arms to Bella. As Bella hugged her, she could see Susan and Chris coming out of their offices to greet her.
‘Hello, darling,’ said Chris when it was his turn. He squeezed her in his arms and kissed both her cheeks.
‘Hello. Well done,’ said Susan and for a split second they stood facing each other without moving, then Susan leaned forward and gave her a dainty hug and peck on the cheek.
‘So,’ said Susan, ‘tell us all about him. Is he cute and adorable and I hope you’ve brought pictures.’
Well, this was an unexpected show of interest.
‘Well, funnily enough . . .’ said Bella opening up her bag, and everyone laughed.
She’d been very restrained and had only brought an envelope of about ten pictures.
‘Oh he’s gorgeous,’ said Kitty.
‘Lovely eyes,’ said Susan. ‘Looks like you, Bella.’
The boys were more sheepish.
‘I’m sorry, he looks like Chairman Mao in this one,’ said Chris holding up a photo of Markie’s face.
‘Chris!’ Kitty smacked him on the arm.
‘So, Susan, has anyone got any work to do or are we adjourning to the pub?’ asked Chris.
‘We are adjourning,’ said Susan.
‘But it’s only two o’clock,’ Bella reminded them. ‘I want to do some work!’
‘But this is a very special day,’ said Chris. ‘We’ve got our hot shot back.’ He put his arm round her and added, ‘And can I just say, fantastic breasts.’
Another round of laughter.
So the office phones got diverted to Kitty’s mobile and they went to the pub across the road for drinks and work gossip and a bit of baby gossip too. She didn’t want to make their eyes glaze over, so stuck to horrific labour details served with a slice of humour.
‘And then, when I’m in the most pain you can experience without passing out or dying or something, Don and the midwife – Declan – start discussing which match they thought was the best they’d seen that week. Was it the Man U last minut
e equalizer or the Bayern Munich v. InterMilan championship decider?’ she joked.
‘And pretty soon after that I gave birth to something the size of a sofa. All I can say girls is “don’t try this at home” – next time I’m doing the drugs.’
She sipped her white wine and soda and drew heartily on her fifth cigarette. She felt relaxed and civilized and back to normal, as Don had told her she would.
But by six o’clock, she was feeling twitchy about Markie and Joanne. This was the longest Markie had been without her and her breasts were enlarging by the minute. Chris had barely been able to keep his eyes off them. They were starting to feel hot and sore: it was time to go home.
She said fond goodbyes and headed for the car feeling happy and light-headed. This was going to work, it was going to be fine.
When she got back home at 6.45 p.m. Markie was asleep and Joanne was straightening up the kitchen. ‘Hi,’ said Bella, plonking her bag and keys down on the kitchen table. ‘Give me the full run-down.’
‘He was fine,’ said Joanne. ‘He’s not really happy with the bottle yet. He drank a little milk and spent some of the time feeling unsettled, but he fell fast asleep about an hour ago. Don’t worry, we’re getting used to each other and it’s going to be OK.’
‘Thanks,’ said Bella. ‘Thanks for doing the kitchen. Do you want a drink or something? I’m going to have a glass of wine.’
‘I’m fine,’ Joanne answered. ‘I’ll be off if that’s OK with you? Do you want me here a bit early on Monday, as it’s your first day?’
‘That would be great. That’s very kind of you. About 7.45 a.m. would be perfect.’
‘OK, see you then. Bye, Markie,’ she said leaning over the carrycot.
‘Bye Joanne,’ said Bella.
She poured out the wine then stood over her son’s cot. He was curled up on his side fast asleep with his little fists bunched up close to his mouth.
She couldn’t resist picking him up. He stirred, turning his head instinctively to her breasts, so she undid her blouse and bra and he latched on and began to drink, not even opening his eyes.
She stroked his cheek tenderly. He was just perfect, and this was going to work.
Chapter Thirty-five
HECTOR AND BELLA were in a glossy little office buried in the heart of the Danson’s Corporation having a celebratory coffee. They had just pulled off a very slick presentation together and felt they deserved to pat themselves on the back.
The Danson’s job would be fun, provided Hector wasn’t too major a pain in the arse. It was a healthy, profitable company just wanting to trim back costs, get some fresh ideas and step up turnover. The kind of thing Bella could wrap up in two months, tops, but still very lucrative for Prentice and Partners.
‘You look tired,’ Hector said.
‘Tired? Ha! Tired is for wimps.’ She inhaled the steam coming from her coffee. ‘I’m just going to have to get used to functioning on this level of sleep deprivation. I went to bed at 9.30 p.m. last night. I was up at 12.30, then 3 a.m., then got up at 6.30. Only women are tough enough to take this on a nightly basis.’
‘Are you missing the baby?’
‘Markie? In a funny way, no,’ she answered. ‘Because I don’t associate him with work at all. But when I think about him, then I just want to be with him. It’s like when you’re first in love, you know, when you want to hold someone and look at them and be with them and make them smile all the time and watch them sleeping. Yeah, I’m obsessed.’ Shut up now Bella, she told herself.
‘Hmmm,’ Hector answered.
‘Anyway,’ she said, trying to snap back into work mode. ‘This morning went really well. I think they love us.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘This should be a nice easy one for you to get back into the swing of things.’
‘I’m not out of the swing of things!’ she exclaimed.
‘So what new ideas are we going to hit them with then?’ he asked.
As well as all the usual cost-cutting and evaluation, she wanted to tackle the levels of stress and poor communication in the company with lots of ‘touchy-feely’ stuff . . . a shorter working day, breakfast stations, informal brainstorming meetings, parental leave and even a crèche.
‘Are you sure you’re not letting the baby get to you here?’ Hector asked.
‘No,’ she told him. ‘I’m not the only person in the world with a child, you know.’
Hector didn’t make any further comment, so Bella outlined the first round of data to be analysed.
After several hours of steady work, it was obvious she was going to have to deal with the excess milk now starting to leak out of the zeppelin-like breasts sitting in front of her. She was also going to have to phone home, she couldn’t hold out any longer.
‘I’m off to pump out breast milk for a bit,’ she told Hector. ‘I hope you don’t think that’s too weird.’
‘Right,’ he said.
Perched on a chair in the ladies’ loo, she undid her bra and cupped the pump over a solid, throbbing breast. She squeezed the trigger steadily and watched the pale, bluey-white milk spurt out into the bottle.
Of course she was thinking about her son as she did this. She wondered what he was doing right now, was he asleep, curled up in a dear little huddle? Was he looking round, flickering smiles? Or was he drinking out of a bottle, wishing he could cuddle up and feed from his mummy? With that thought she felt tears prick the back of her eyes. God, she did really miss him.
Work felt surreal, like it was no longer the real thing, but an elaborate game, a way to spend time before getting back to reality. Markie was reality for her now, not coming up with money-saving schemes and gimmicks for some multimillion-pound organization.
She rinsed her gadgets, packed them into the black bag and dialled home on the mobile as she walked back down the corridor.
‘Hello.’ Bella heard Joanne’s voice, then listened closely and could hear Markie crying in the background.
‘Hello, Joanne, it’s Bella. I wanted to see how everything was going.’
‘Well, he’s a bit unsettled. He’s barely taken anything from the bottle all morning and now he’s hungry and tired.’
‘Oh dear,’ Bella’s heart sank to her shoes at the sound of the pitiful wailing in the background. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked Joanne, not sure herself what would be best.
‘Well, I think I’ll take him out for a bit. Hopefully, he’ll fall asleep then feel more like drinking something later when he’s had a nap.’
‘OK, just phone me if there’s anything I can do,’ Bella said, but she felt helpless.
‘Don’t worry about him,’ said Joanne. ‘We’ll get settled down and into a routine soon.’
‘OK . . .’ she tried not to sound as anxious as she felt. ‘OK, I’ll try and be there about six-ish. See you later.’
‘Yeah, bye,’ said Joanne, hanging up.
She kept a brave face through lunch with Hector and several Danson’s execs, but by the afternoon, time was dragging and she was desperate to go home.
At five, she told Hector she was going to have to go: ‘I’ll take some of the sheets with me to do on the computer later and I’ll be on my phone if you need me, but I really need to go, it’s Markie’s first day,’ she explained.
‘Yes, of course,’ he told her. ‘It’s a shame though, I’m meeting my friend, you know Peter Garvy, for a drink after work, and he’d hoped you could come.’
‘No, drinks after work are going to be out of the question for a while, tell him I’ll do lunch this week,’ she answered, trying to firmly squash down the feelings of guilt this conversation was inducing.
Hector’s friend was not the trainee she’d expected, he was one of the senior members of their liaison team at Danson’s. She really did not want Hector having cosy little meetings with him while she was seen to be leaving the office at five. Shit. But she had to go.
Once she was in the car, she told herself to get a grip. She was the senior pers
on on this job and she remembered her fighting talk to Chris when she was pregnant. She’d aimed to up her day rate so people wouldn’t want her hanging round their offices for too long. She and Susan really needed to have that talk about her promotion to partner or, at the very least, a pay rise.
She hadn’t spoken to Don all day, so speed-dialled him on the mobile.
‘Hello,’ he answered almost immediately, sounding terse and stressed as usual.
‘Hello, Don, it’s me.’
‘Bella. Hello, what can I do for you?’
‘Don! It’s my first day back at work. Aren’t you going to ask how it’s going?’
‘Oh God! I’ve been really busy, hon. I’ve been in court on the Mitchell trial.’
‘Oh.’
‘How is it going?’ he asked.
‘Well, fine for me, but I don’t think Markie is having a very nice time. When I phoned at lunchtime, he was howling his head off and he hadn’t drunk anything all morning.’
‘He’ll be fine,’ Don said. ‘Try not to worry about him.’
‘I’m heading home a bit early to see him,’ she said.
‘OK. Why don’t you sort yourself out for dinner? I’m going to be late, about nine, ten-ish.’
‘Right. I might not see you then, I might be in bed,’ she said, feeling annoyed about this.
‘Let’s speak later hon, I’ve got to go.’
‘OK, bye then.’
After a frantically impatient drive home, through snarled-up roads, Bella ran up the steps to the house, desperate to see her baby. She opened the front door and could already make out his wailing.
Rushing into the sitting room, she found Joanne cradling her son who was red-faced and inconsolable. She scooped him up into her arms and plonked herself down on the sofa. As she struggled with her buttons and bra hook, Markie was already quietening down and had turned his head towards her to drink.
Only when he’d latched onto her breast did he open his eyes to look at her for the first time.
‘Has he been like this all day?’ Bella asked.
‘I’m afraid so. He had a good long sleep in the afternoon, but he’s been crying almost non-stop since four.’
