by Carmen Reid
Susan’s voice came back, calm and controlled. ‘Don’t have a girlie fit on me, Bella. Yes, half a million pounds is at stake here, I can’t take a risk. Hector told me on Friday you didn’t seem to be ready to come back yet. He said you were tearful, leaving early, unable to attend key meetings. And there’s some senior exec there you have a problem with, apparently.’
Bella was distraught, the little shit had completely stitched her up.
‘Go home and think this over for a day or two if you like,’ Susan continued before she could challenge Hector’s version of events, ‘but I’m sure you’ll see I’m right. I’ve got lots of work to keep you busy with, I can’t let you risk our reputation by sending you out to clients before you’re back to full strength.’
Bella could not believe what she was hearing. She was being demoted to Hector’s position and he was waiting in the wings to snatch up her job. Her prized job, the one she had fought so hard to get.
‘I should have been promoted after my work with Merris, Susan,’ she said, surprised at how calm she suddenly felt. ‘Instead, you’re going to demote me because I’ve had a baby.’
‘I’m not demoting you,’ Susan cut in.
‘If you make Hector the number one on the Danson’s job, you’ll leave me with no option but to resign.’ She realized she was deadly serious.
‘For Christ’s sake, Bella, don’t be so melodramatic. You’re obviously tired and postnatal, don’t do anything you’re going to regret.’
Bella was speechless with anger.
Susan spoke again, angry too now: ‘Resign! Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you’re not going to resign. This is your dream job, the one you were born to do, you’re not going to sit at home pureeing carrots, you’ll go up the wall.’
There was a long pause, then Bella began to speak, only recognizing the truth of her words as she said them. ‘You know what? I am going to resign. It’s not ridiculous. Leaving my two-month-old baby alone all day with a stranger is ridiculous, thank you for helping me to see that.’
There was a long silence on the line, then Susan stormed: ‘Bella? Bella? Don’t even think about putting the phone down now, Bella. If you hang up, your job here is finished. I mean it, I will not renegotiate with you . . . Bella?’
Bella held the phone away from her ear and clicked the end call button.
She stared at the little hung-up phone symbol on the green screen in disbelief.
Her message symbol was flashing, so she called it up and looked at a wonderfully inappropriate text note from Don: ‘Dn’t let the bugrs get u dwn. Luv u D.’
Christ. She dangled her car key in her hand and wondered what to do. She couldn’t face going back home just yet, she needed some time to think. She decided to head over to the café beside their old flat.
During the fifteen-minute drive she replayed Susan’s words over and over: ‘You’re obviously tired and postnatal’ . . . ‘You’re not going to sit at home pureeing carrots.’ She was so furious, it was hard to drive straight.
But she had resigned. She felt her stomach lurch at the full implications. No more Danson’s, no more Prentice, no more Chris, Kitty, no more big salary. But on the other hand no more leaving Markie behind . . . well, for the moment. God, she needed to think this through.
In the café she drank a succession of lattes and smoked her way through five cigarettes. It didn’t really make things any clearer, but she felt calmer in a sort of caffeined up, nicotine buzz kind of way.
OK, she’d resigned from Prentice, she would take a couple of months off to be at home with Markie full time, then she would get another job. Hell, she could still take up Merris on his offer; well, if he had a company left to run. She shuddered at the thought of the phone call from Mitch.
Suddenly she really wanted to speak to Chris about all this, so dialled him up on the mobile.
His reaction to the news was a hardly surprising: ‘What?!!!!’
‘I had a bit of a run in with Susan this morning,’ she explained. ‘And anyway, I’ve left.’
‘Bella! What the hell happened?’
‘All I wanted was to do the Danson’s work from home. I thought that would be perfectly feasible. But she said she’d give Danson’s to Hector and give me “other things” to do.’
‘Oh God . . . so you took the huff?’
‘Chris!’ Bella felt very defensive. ‘I was really insulted she didn’t believe I could do it. And she was offering the contract I won to that creep. He phoned her up on Friday and told her I wasn’t up to it.’
‘Jesus,’ Chris let out a long sigh. ‘But are you happy about this? Do you really want to leave?’
‘I didn’t feel I had any choice, Chris. I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it. I just want to be with my son right now.’
‘Look . . . maybe you need some time off, time to think this over,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you leave it a few days then phone her back? I’m sure something can be worked out. Bella . . .’ Chris was almost pleading with her now. ‘You don’t really want to leave, do you?’
All at once Bella felt exhausted, far too tired to deal with all this, so tired she just didn’t care any more.
‘I don’t know Chris,’ she managed. ‘You’re right, I’m not in the best frame of mind to make any decisions. I need to go home, get some sleep.’
‘I’ll phone you. Take care.’
‘OK thanks, you know, you’re a really nice guy,’ she added.
‘Thanks, bye, bye,’ said Chris.
‘Bye,’ she answered.
She had to get home. She paid up and headed for the car then drove back, wondering what the hell she was going to tell Don.
As she let herself into the house, she could hear Markie’s desperate cries coming all the way from upstairs but also the TV on in the sitting room. She walked in and saw Joanne lying on the sofa watching breakfast television.
Joanne turned round to her, open mouthed.
‘Well, you’re fired,’ Bella said simply.
‘There’s nothing I can do with him to make him feel better, I’ve had to leave him to cry himself to sleep,’ she said by way of explanation, quickly getting to her feet.
Bella was white with fury, but controlled. ‘I don’t care,’ she said. ‘It’s not what I would do and I need a nanny who will do things my way, or Markie will never be happy.’
Joanne’s face flushed, she picked up her bag and her jacket. She looked up at Bella, obviously wanting to say something before she left the house.
‘You should have bottle-fed him from the start. The situation you’re in now is unfair on him and unfair on me,’ she said in a raised voice.
‘Thank you, Joanne,’ Bella said grimly, ‘you can go now. I’ll settle up with you through the agency.’
Bella stood rooted to the spot in the sitting room until she heard the furious slam of the front door, then she ran upstairs to her son.
He was lying on his back in the cradle beside their bed. His face was red and creased with howling and his furious fists were waving about in the air.
God, how could Joanne have left him like this? Bella scooped him up and slumped onto the bed. Propping pillows behind her back, she hurried to feed him.
Afterwards, they both fell into a doze.
Bella was woken by the trilling of her mobile. Gently she laid Markie in his crib and ran out into the hall. Hell, where had she put it?
The trilling stopped and then the house phone rang.
Aha, she knew what was coming next.
She ran back into the bedroom to pick up.
‘Bella?’ It was Don, sounding anxious.
‘Yes.’
‘Is everything OK? I couldn’t get you on your mobile so I just tried this number on the off-chance.’
‘Everything’s fine,’ she said. ‘I’ve resigned from my job and fired the nanny, otherwise everything’s just fine.’
Don swore. He’d been able to tell from her weird tone of voice that this was not a joke.
‘OK,’ he said, very tense now. ‘What happened?’
Bella gave him a sketchy outline of her quarrel with Susan, then Joanne’s dismissal.
‘Right,’ Don said. ‘I can come back this evening, I think I probably should. There are obviously a few things you need to talk through.’
It was the right answer. ‘Thanks, that would be really good,’ she said.
He promised to be home by seven.
‘Drive safely,’ she pleaded, imagining him bowling the Jeep all the way down the fast lane of the M6 in his rush to get home.
Don was surprised to come back to such a peaceful house: he’d worked himself up into a state about Bella on the drive home. He’d expected to find her hysterical and on the verge of suicide with a screaming baby in her arms. Instead, she was snuggled up on the sofa watching TV with Markie asleep at her breast. She’d had a bath and her damp hair was coiled up on her head.
They kissed hello. She smelled clean and flowery and milky, whereas he was unshaven, grubby and reeked unmistakably of the greasy café he’d spent the afternoon in.
‘You look incredibly calm,’ said Don, sitting down on the sofa beside them, ‘I was expecting you both to be having tantrums.’
‘I am very calm,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘I need to take some more time off to be with Markie, then I’ll have no problem finding another job.’
‘Well, OK,’ he answered. ‘You seem to have made up your mind. Don’t you want to keep a slot open with Prentice? I’m sure you could patch things up.’
‘Maybe, but not right now. I’ve got a point to make to Susan.’
‘Right . . . and that point is?’ He felt irritated by her now.
‘That she can’t have everything her own way.’
‘I wonder who else needs to learn that lesson,’ he said quietly.
Bella rounded on him. ‘Just fuck off, Don. This is my life. I’m allowed to make my own decisions.’
‘Of course you are, Bella,’ he retorted. ‘I just don’t want to see you toss your career away for a few more weeks of playing the good mother.’
‘What the hell does that mean?’ she asked furiously.
‘You worked your arse off to get that job and you loved it. I can’t believe you’ve just thrown it away over a petty argument.’
‘Petty? She won’t let me work from home. She won’t let me be here with a two-month-old baby who needs me.’
‘She said you could work from home, just on different stuff,’ he reminded her.
‘She was going to give Hector my job!’ Bella shouted and Markie woke up with a start and began to cry.
‘Oh well that’s a perfectly logical reason to resign, wounded pride,’ Don replied.
‘Just fuck off,’ Bella said, for the second time. ‘And go and have a shower, you smell revolting.’
Don stormed out of the room and Bella was left feeding Markie again so that he could settle back down into sleep. She was very hurt and angry. She’d taken a huge step, albeit without any forethought, and she needed Don’s support. He’d always supported everything she’d done before, made her feel confident and understood and fantastic. Now, she felt unsure and damn furious with him.
Don, standing under a hot, soapy shower, was in no better a mood. He’d been away for two days and quite frankly wished he hadn’t bothered coming back. He was nostalgic for the homecomings they used to have. He remembered eating takeaways in bed and fantastic sex. Their relationship was now turning into everything he’d dreaded about married life, everything he didn’t want – rowing, screaming baby, chaotic home, sexual frustration.
For the first time ever, he felt bored with Bella. She had always been so much fun – interesting, daring, outrageous. This was all so mundane and now stressful as well. Just how the hell did she think they could afford the mortgage without her salary?
Bella was wondering exactly the same when the phone rang.
It was Tania, but Bella could feel only mildly enthusiastic.
‘Hi, how’s it going?’ her friend asked.
‘Well. . . I quit my job today.’
‘Really? You’ve had a better offer? You cow, you better not be earning more money than me.’
‘Ha ha. No, I’ve decided to stay at home for a couple of months, look after Markie and get a new job after that,’ Bella explained.
‘Oh my God! Now I’m really shocked!’ Tania laughed. ‘What are you going to do all day? And what will you live on?’
‘The answer to your first question is a fuck of a lot,’ Bella was frosty now. ‘And I’m going to live on my savings,’ she lied. ‘And my husband, if I still have one. It’s only two months, for God’s sake, just no shopping for a few weeks.’
‘How boring,’ Tania groaned. ‘I wanted to ask you over on Saturday, just you and me. We could have a girlie good time, shop, drink cappuccinos, maybe go for a massage or something. I’ve had such a stressful week, and I want to talk to you about Greg.’
‘Tania,’ Bella cut in, ‘I’ve got a small, breastfeeding baby, I can’t spend a day without him. Anyway I don’t want to,’ she huffed.
There was no response from Tania, so Bella said: ‘I’m sorry. Why don’t you come over? I’ll make you lunch, then we can take Markie to the Heath and have a long walk.’
‘God, Bella, you’re in danger of turning into a surburban housewife,’ Tania joked.
‘Well at least I’m not some sad Bridget Jones,’ Bella snapped. ‘Why don’t you just phone me back when you’ve grown up?’ With that she slammed down the phone.
She threw herself back down on the sofa and lay looking at her son asleep in his carrycot.
Good going, she told herself. At this rate I’ll have no career, no husband and no friends. A little part of her also thought, So what? My son loves me, I just want to be with him.
She stroked the little fuzzy head.
Chapter Thirty-eight
BELLA STOOD UP very slowly to move her sleeping baby from her arms into his bed. She put him down with tiny, careful movements, but as soon as his head touched the mattress, he woke and began to cry.
She let out a curse of frustration. Damn, damn, damn. For the third time, she was going to have to sit down and put him back on her breast until he fell asleep, then try and move him. She felt furious with him. Why couldn’t he fall asleep without a nipple in his mouth? Why wouldn’t he leave her alone for just half an hour so she could do something for herself, clear up the breakfast dishes, take a shower, lie on the sofa in peace. She needed to be left alone, just for a few minutes.
He was so tired, she knew she should just put him down and let him howl until he fell asleep, but she couldn’t bear to do it. He had cried and cried and cried the times she had tried before and in the end she had always given in, picked him up and comforted him with her breasts again.
Every single one of the plethora of babycare books she had surrounded herself with recently had advised her that feeding a baby to sleep was a bad plan, but it had become too entrenched now. Markie was four and a half months old. This was how he went to sleep, morning, noon, night, middle of the night. She didn’t know how she could break the cycle. The fact that it was all her fault made her feel even worse about it.
She picked the baby up roughly. ‘Damn you!’ she shouted. He cried even harder with fright.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she soothed him up against her shoulder and felt like crying herself.
She lay on the sofa and put Markie beside her so that he could latch on. He had barely swallowed a few mouthfuls before he had fallen asleep again. His lips smacked as they broke off from her nipple and to her infuriation, the noise woke him up and he quickly started to suck again.
Finally, ten minutes later he fell soundly asleep. She didn’t dare to move him. If he woke up again, she was in danger of shaking him, smacking him or doing something that she would have found just unthinkable before. Now, with a thousa
nd tiny frustrations heaped on her every single day and night, she knew anyone could hurt their child, if they were pushed far enough.
And she was very close to that line. She was absolutely exhausted. Every day, she was functioning on just six or seven fractured hours of sleep, she had dark double bags under her eyes and her skin looked grey. She had just enough energy to get through the day and nothing in reserve. She had taken on way too much. She was doing all the baby care, all day long, all the breastfeeding, day and night. Don was there to cook her dinner some evenings and he helped out at the weekends, but otherwise, she was totally unsupported.
Right now, she just couldn’t see a way out of the situation. She couldn’t bear to get any childcare sorted out while she wasn’t working because of guilt at the expense and because she still hated the thought of handing Markie over to anyone after the last experience.
But she knew she wasn’t going to get any aspect of her life back together until she had some time and some energy.
And what the hell was she going to work as anyway?? She couldn’t be a part-time consultant. It wasn’t that sort of job and even if she could think of a way of going part time, she might as well throw her ambition in the bin.
Where was the solution?? All these questions and anxieties were whirling round her head in such an unanswerable frenzy, it was beginning to make her very depressed.
The day before, she’d made the mistake of thinking company would cheer her up and she’d met Mel and Lucy for lunch in the City but the obvious gulf between what she once was and what she’d now become had just depressed her even further.
She’d turned up at the smart restaurant in Don’s jeans and a shirt, with a changing bag on her back, lugging a baby in a car seat. Mel and Lucy were in exquisite designer suits, with Fendi bags, kitten heels, long nails and tiny mobile phones.
