The Antenatal Group

by Amy Bratley

  ‘Did you have the nuchal-fold test?’ asked Ginny. Mel nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It showed low odds for having a baby with chromosomal abnormalities, but I think the extra anxiety from the anomaly test is awful.’

  ‘I didn’t have the test for Down’s,’ Rebecca said. ‘Because I want to love the baby no matter how it turns out.’

  ‘I had it,’ said Katy, ‘because I’d rather be pre-warned, whatever the issue might be. Make a choice based on information.’

  ‘It’s all a very personal experience, but, often, you don’t know how you’re going to feel until it happens,’ asked Ginny. ‘So, let’s hear from someone else. Erin, are there any concerns about your C-section birth you’d like to flag up?’

  Erin felt the blood rush to her scalp. She tucked her hands between her knees and rubbed her lips together, as if in thought.

  ‘Nothing much,’ she started. Actually, that’s not true.’

  She glanced at Edward, who was staring back at her, his eyes dark and shiny as beetles.

  ‘I worry about—’ she said, feeling her heart beat in her chest.

  Everyone was looking at Erin expectantly. They were her audience. Now was her chance to tell everyone what was really going on in her head and in her heart. Fleetingly, she imagined standing on a chair and announcing herself to the crowd, telling her secret to them all. ‘Hello, I’m Erin. I’m thirty-six years old, and two years ago, I—’ No, she told herself. None of them would understand. They would judge her. Think ill of her. Pity her. This was a secret she would keep buried deep, a secret she would have to keep tightly wrapped at the very core of her heart.

  ‘I worry about—’ she said, blinking slowly. ‘I worry about—’

  Edward grabbed Erin’s hand and squeezed it. Everyone was looking at her.

  ‘I worry about how long it will take me to recover from the operation,’ she said flatly.

  Edward’s shoulders dropped. He looked away, and Erin felt drained of all energy. She could have told the truth. Instead, it was still all her burden, locked up in her heart. While Ginny addressed her question, Erin disappeared again into her thoughts. For the rest of the session, while Ginny talked, through a haze of memories, Erin listened, though she knew it all. Every last piece of information was already imprinted on her mind. She said nothing else. There were no words.

  Chapter Six

  Walking – or waddling, to be accurate – to her flat on the corner of Bedford Street after the antenatal group had finished, past the blancmange-pink-painted shopfront of Brighton Flea Market on Upper St James’s Street, with its pink neon sign in the window throwing light over a collection of old-fashioned biscuit tins and an art deco vase, Mel automatically looked up to the large sash window of her living room, expecting to see Leo. Ordinarily, when she came home from work, he would be waiting by the window, only to wave then disappear when he saw her, to open the front door and give her a welcome hug. The thought made her gulp. Leo was a romantic, thoughtful person. He’d previously told her he’d sometimes stay twenty minutes by the window waiting for her to appear. Why then had he said he didn’t want the baby?

  ‘I don’t get it,’ she mumbled, feeling her legs throb and ache after the hours of sitting down at the antenatal class. She blushed, remembering her tears, wishing she’d been able to hold on to them until she’d been alone.

  What must those women think of me, crying like that? she thought, shaking her head. What a mess.

  It was a perennial problem. She’d never been able to swallow tears. Ever since she was a small girl, if she wasn’t laughing inappropriately, she was crying too easily. It was as if her emotional-response gauge had been wrongly wired. It was only recently that she’d been able to convey anger without crying. Too many times in her life she’d been furiously angry, only to feel her lip quiver uncontrollably and the balance of power tip in her opponent’s direction when the first tear slid helplessly down her cheek. It had been one of last year’s resolutions: have an argument without getting emotional; talk about a serious subject without laughing. Not that she’d achieved either: when the sonographer had told her there were white marks on her baby’s heart she’d chewed her lips until they bled to stop herself laughing. No wonder Leo had left. She was clearly nuts. Fumbling around in her bag for her key, wishing it was yesterday and that Leo would be there to open the door and smile and steer her towards their warm double bed, she heard Mrs Lelani, in the ground-floor flat, moving around behind the door.

  ‘Mrs Lelani,’ Mel called through the letterbox, ‘could you let me in, please? I can’t find my keys.’

  As she waited for Mrs Lelani, a lady in her sixties who had lived in the flat for thirty years and had introduced Mel and Leo to Brighton gems, she looked past the neighbouring white houses, many with ‘To Let’ signs outside them, and, taking a deep breath of air, towards the seafront, to the Brighton Wheel. Yesterday, she hadn’t realized how lucky she was. She’d had a family in the making – something she’d always privately considered the ultimate accolade – the sea on their doorstep, a lovely flat with big old windows and high ceilings and proper floorboards, hope in her heart. What had gone wrong?

  ‘Melissa?’ Mrs Lelani said, peering out from behind the safety chain before releasing the door. ‘Melissa, what’s going on? I saw Leo with a suitcase and a cardboard box this morning. He said he was moving out. He was so agitated with the box – I think it was giving way at the bottom – he barely gave me the time of day I’ve never seen him like that. He was so rude! Melissa, are you moving out? Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been in crisis about it all day. I thought I was going to see you bring home the baby. I thought I was going to be able to hold the baby. I’ve bought him a sleepsuit with frogs all over it! I’m an old lady, I get excited about these things – oh, and there was a French woman here for you. I don’t know who she was, probably a saleswoman, but she said she’d come again—’

  The news that Leo had been back to the flat and taken a suitcase and box silenced Mel. She didn’t understand his haste or his reasons why. Up until now she’d been hoping that he’d been in a bad mood, or felt nervous, or something easy to explain. She’d thought that he’d probably come home after he’d finished the day at work and say he didn’t know what he had been thinking of. She stepped in through the communal front door and on to the red Persian carpet runner that climbed the wooden stairs up to her own flat. Catching sight of her reflection in the enormous gilt mirror that hung ostentatiously in the dark corridor, Mel clocked that her eyes were red and her skin much too pale. Realizing that Mrs Lelani had stopped talking and was watching her, waiting for a reply, she blinked.

  ‘You’re not old,’ Mel said, softly, a little stunned. ‘And I’m not moving out. Leo . . . Leo . . . Leo . . . Leo is . . . he . . . Leo has—’

  ‘Spit it out then, dear!’ said Mrs Lelani. ‘Leo is what?’

  ‘Oh, Mrs Lelani,’ Mel said. ‘I’ve had a horrible morning.’

  Mrs Lelani looked deeply concerned and flung open the door to her flat, indicating that Mel should go inside. Always dressed in deep-coloured velvets or ornate brocade, jewellery and high heels, hair dyed black and pinned up, face made up with pale powder and red lips, Mrs Lelani seemed highly sophisticated, despite the slightly shabby furnishings of her home.

  ‘Good grief, just come in, will you?’ she said. ‘I’ve had an awful morning, too. First, Leo with his silly box. Then I had to make an appointment for a colonoscopy, which I’m dreading. I’ll be asking for pethidine. Will you be having pethidine? Take whatever you can get. Then I had to phone my ex-husband, and we arranged to meet for coffee but he didn’t show up! I waited forty minutes before I left a message on his phone telling him never to bother me again. Now I’m worried he’s dead in a gutter somewhere. And that couple in the top-floor flat? Good grief, they’re going to bring this house to its knees. What on earth do they do up there?’

  ‘Zumba,’ Mel said. ‘They both teach it.’

  ‘I
s that some kind of fetish thing? Good heavens. But, honestly, Mel, sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have a normal life. Boring, probably, but even so, I’d love to give it a try. What happened with your morning then, dear child?’

  Mrs Lelani’s Maine Coon cat, Marie Antoinette, barged past Mel’s legs as she was ushered into the flat. Mel felt instantly boiling: the heating was always turned up full blast and a pot of soup or stew was continually simmering in an orange Le Creuset pan. The hob gave off fragrant smells of nutmeg and cinnamon which permeated through the ceiling and Mel’s floorboards and into her flat. Marie Antoinette, now sitting on the living-room rug, proceeded to kick up one of her legs and unselfconsciously lick the fur around her bottom.

  ‘Marie Antoinette, please! I do not know where to look! Mel, you must ignore her bad manners. Sit down, dear,’ Mrs Lelani said, pointing to the couch, an old red leather Chesterfield nestled into the bay window. ‘Let me get you a drink. I could do with a vodka, personally, but it’s only midday and I’m a slave to etiquette. You mustn’t, of course. Peppermint tea?’

  Mel sat down on the Chesterfield and felt the silvery sun warm her back. She rested her hands on her bump, rubbing it slightly and feeling what she thought must be an elbow or a knee jutting out. Mrs Lelani handed her the tea in a porcelain teacup and saucer decorated with tiny blue flowers and offered her a plate of lemon-curd tarts. Mel, realizing she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, took two of them and ate ravenously.

  ‘We were on our way to my antenatal group this morning,’ she began, in between bites, ‘when Leo decided he didn’t want to come in with me and that he, in fact, didn’t want to have a baby at all.’

  Mel raised her eyebrows to emphasize horror and Mrs Lelani swallowed noisily. She put down her teacup so heavily, Mel worried it would crack.

  ‘What tosh,’ she said without missing a beat. ‘So is that why he’s gone off clutching his suitcase like Paddington Bear? With you almost eight months pregnant? Good heavens! What did you say to him?’

  Mel shrugged and shifted in her seat so she could raise her legs up a little.

  ‘I didn’t really say anything,’ she replied. ‘I was completely taken aback. He said he wasn’t the right person to be a dad.’

  Mrs Lelani threw her head back and laughed. ‘He’s obviously scared,’ she said. ‘He’s scared he’ll be hopeless.’

  Mel shook her head and leaned forward in her seat.

  ‘I can’t see why he’d be scared. It’s not as if he’s going to look after the baby anyway. I’m the one giving up work, while he carries on.’

  ‘Do you think there’s another woman involved then?’ said Mrs Lelani matter-of-factly.

  ‘You’re the second person to say that today,’ said Mel, hugging the cushion, running through all the females he knew. She couldn’t see him going for any of them. ‘He says not. But I guess I don’t know anything for sure.’

  Mrs Lelani reached down, picked up Marie Antoinette and placed her on her lap. ‘In my husband’s case, there was another man involved, by the way. Don’t rule that out,’ she said, stroking the cat so firmly its long and lustrous fur went completely flat. ‘Yes, that was interesting.’

  Mel communicated her sympathy with an upside-down smile. She’d heard the story of Mr Lelani, who had decided five years into their marriage that he was gay but wanted to stay living as husband and wife. Mrs Lelani declined that offer but had seen him every week for coffee because she still loved him and he still loved her.

  ‘You know, a friend of mine, Ellen, came home to find her husband trying on her silk underwear,’ Mrs Lelani whispered. ‘She was terribly understanding about it all, but, quite frankly, I don’t know how she didn’t fall about the place laughing. Hugh is a mountain of a man! Over six foot tall and at least sixteen stone, bald as a coot but with a great big Captain Birdseye beard.’

  Marie Antoinette, now looking like a seal, fled her lap and ran out through the cat flap.

  ‘Look,’ said Mrs Lelani, unperturbed. ‘You can always rely on me to help you while Leo does his growing up. And you have lots of friends, don’t you? How about those women at the antenatal group? My mum friends became my absolute best friends, I have to say.’

  Mel nodded, and tears slipped into her eyes. She didn’t want to think of a future without Leo in it.

  ‘They were fine,’ she said, wiping the moisture away. ‘But I was too busy crying to really notice. They seemed friendly. Oh, God, that’s my mobile ringing. Jesus, what’s the time? I should be at work by now.’

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Lelani. ‘You’re in no mood for the office. You should stay here and watch a film. It’s a Wonderful Life always cheers me up. I could make some soup and we could watch it together. There’s a box of peppermint creams needs eating up, too. I’m sure your baby would love them.’

  Mel smiled and fumbled at her bag until she located her iPhone. Realizing the number was her office number, she answered it quickly, cringing when she heard her boss’s irate voice demanding to know where she was and why she wasn’t at her desk working on a logo design for a sports-shoe client they were presenting to at five p.m.

  ‘You’re the star of this agency,’ her boss said. ‘I’m relying on you, Mel.’

  Talk about a guilt trip. Mel thought about her job. It was true that she was probably the best designer at the agency; she’d recently won them a mobile phone poster series commission that would bring in thousands of pounds. They’d already hinted that they didn’t want her to take too much maternity leave. Her childless boss had even said he thought twelve weeks should be enough. Mel had remained silent, having no real idea of how she would feel afterwards. And what now, with no Leo on the scene? She could hardly leave the baby to fend for itself.

  ‘I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,’ she said.

  Mrs Lelani put another lemon-curd tart on Mel’s plate and pantomimed that she should tell her boss she couldn’t come in. Smiling gratefully at her, Mel put her phone back in her bag and told her that she had better get to work.

  ‘I’ll leave the peppermint creams outside your front door,’ Mrs Lelani said.

  Mel laughed and accepted a hug from her landlady, who smelled of expensive perfume mixed with soup and lemon.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about the rent if it becomes difficult – if Leo doesn’t come back,’ Mrs Lelani said kindly. ‘You’re more of a daughter to me sometimes than my own daughter, out there on the other side of the world working as a cowgirl, of all the things to do with your life. Why did I kill myself taking her to ballet lessons all those years? People are born a certain way, aren’t they? Anyway, if Leo doesn’t come home soon and you find yourself alone, you’re absolutely not alone. I’m here in body and spirit. Try not to worry.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Mel, her voice quivering. ‘What would I do without you?’

  Chapter Seven

  Friday was usually the biggest and booziest night for Lenny, Rebecca and their friends. It had originally been a Thursday, but when Lenny started to put on a regular night at the Pig and Whistle for local bands and DJs to play, everyone saved their cash and waited until Friday to get lashed. It had been a Friday when Lenny and Rebecca had first got together and a Friday, Rebecca had worked out, when they had been reckless with contraception and conceived. Stupid not to have been careful. But Lenny had seemed so exciting, so lawless, compared to her strict family that she had been carried away by the thrill of it all. Where she came from, a tiny village on the Welsh and Herefordshire border, kissing a boy at a bus stop and experimenting with a puff of cannabis had earned her a reputation as a disreputable whore. Everywhere she went in the village, there was a tut waiting to sting her. She didn’t much care what those conservative, narrow-minded tutters thought of her, but her parents, both doctors, wanted the family to be highly regarded in the community and so insisted Rebecca behave like a nun. Coming to Brighton had been like being released from a convent. Here, even in their small top-floor flat, she felt free. She could be ex
actly who she wanted to be – get her nose pierced, wear clothes her mother would hate, listen to loud, shouty music, even stick her bare bottom out of the window if she wished. No one in Brighton gave two hoots that she was pregnant by but not married to a boy who played guitar in a band, took drugs, told her he wanted to fuck her on the pier, worked in a vintage-clothes shop and said he would rather die than get an office job. Nobody cared if he licked pistachio ice cream off her nipples with the curtains wide open. She had never felt so alive.

  ‘That was gold,’ Lenny said after they’d made love on the futon in their flat, in the spoons position. ‘Your breasts are amazing now you’re pregnant.’

  Rebecca moved to sitting and lifted her long black hair off her shoulders and into a loose knot on the top of her head. She felt Lenny’s appreciative eyes all over her and felt like a giant peach, all pregnant and ripe and delicious.

  ‘I’m sure there’s a compliment in there somewhere.’ She laughed, and held her satisfyingly full breasts in her hands. ‘I hope they stay like this. They feel like water bombs. Do you remember those?’

  ‘Except those ones are full of milk,’ said Lenny. ‘Are you going to start wearing those weird pads in your bra soon?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Rebecca. ‘Doesn’t put you off me, though, does it?’

  ‘No way, babe,’ said Lenny. ‘You are hot.’

  Since getting pregnant, Rebecca’s breasts and Fridays had changed somewhat. She couldn’t handle how embarrassingly and boringly drunk all her friends got on the Friday blow-out, so she stayed in while Lenny – not wanting to let down his devoted fans – partied until the early hours. Before he left, they always made love, and Rebecca, having done a course in massage when she moved to Brighton, would rub Lenny’s shoulders and back afterwards.