How Do You Like Me Now?

by Holly Bourne

  ‘What. The. Hell. Is. That?’ Tom steps over my efforts on his way to the kitchen.

  I stare down, dismayed. The Babygros just won’t peg onto the ribbon stiffly. They’re kind of dropping forward in a chaotic row. Tom laughs and puts his hands on my shoulders. ‘It looks like there used to be babies inside but they were vaporised away or something,’ he says.

  ‘That’s exactly the look I was aiming for,’ I reply. ‘The remnants of genocide.’

  He laughs harder and bends over and nuzzles his head into my hair. He obviously finds this endearing.

  ‘Tor, I’m actually quite afraid. What did you do with the babies?’

  ‘Stop it! I’m copying the instructions but it’s just not working.’ I hold out my iPad to show him the craft page and that makes him laugh even harder. After five solid minutes of ripping the piss (‘maybe stick with books, not babies’) Tom peels himself away to the kitchen.

  ‘You’re not helping,’ I mutter the moment he leaves. I sigh long and loud. Everyone’s arriving in an hour and I can’t have this Babygro massacre hanging over the sofa. I unpeg the clothes and think of what else to do. Maybe I can thread the ribbon through them and hang them up that way? I shove the ribbon through each arm of the Babygros, pegging each sleeve so they don’t slide into each other. This will work, this will totally work.

  ‘Voila!’ I hold them up to Tom. He stares at my upgraded creation then leans forward onto his knees and laughs harder than I’ve seen him laugh in years.

  ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘Tor … Tor … Oh my God …’

  ‘What?’ His laughter is contagious and I giggle even though I don’t know the joke yet.

  ‘It … it … it looks like you’ve crucified the Babygros … oh my God … oh my …’

  I take another look and the threading of the Babygros has, indeed, created a … ‘biblical’ look. Their arms stretch out painfully while the chests slump forward. I’ve crucified a Babygro. I did not know that was possible. ‘I’m going to go to Hell,’ I say. ‘I’m the least maternal woman in history and I’m going to go to Hell.’

  Tom kneels down next to me and lifts up a Babygro. ‘Father forgive them,’ he booms, making it speak. ‘For they know not what they do.’

  We collapse into giddy shared hysterics. We lean our heads together and laugh until we’ve sprained our stomach muscles. We do love each other. We do find our way back to each other, every time. I mush my lips into his neck, inhaling his smell that I know so well. He buries his head into my hair. We unclasp from one another and turn our faces so the tips of our noses touch. Tom smiles and it reaches his eyes. He moves a thumb across my cheek. ‘I love you, Tor.’

  Oh, my smile. How it grows.

  ‘You never say it first,’ I say, because he doesn’t.

  ‘I do!’

  ‘Rarely.’

  I wrap my arms back around him again and squeeze so hard. ‘I love you too,’ I whisper, clutching on to him, clutching on to this moment.

  Tom stands abruptly. ‘I need to get out of here before all the hysterical women arrive,’ he says. ‘When’s it safe to come home?’

  I pretend I’m not upset that he broke off the hug. ‘Six.’

  ‘I might be later than that. There are two games on today.’

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Cool.’

  ‘Save me some caterpillar.’

  ‘I will.’

  He squeezes my shoulders again and then he is off to go and find his coat and scarf and gloves and hat and everything else you need to leave the house at this time of year. I slip the Babygros off their ribbon and artfully drape them around random spots of our living room. They look a bit ‘Salvador Dali melting clock’ but it’s better than nothing. Tom comes in to collect his keys from the kitchen counter.

  ‘Much better,’ he says, examining my handiwork. ‘Right, I’m off. Have fun, gorgeous.’

  ‘I don’t know if “fun” is the right word to use about a baby shower.’

  He smiles, but this one is not his real smile. ‘Just don’t get all broody and then start a fight with me when I get home, promise?’ He says it like it’s a joke but it is not a joke. It’s a command.

  Tom has left before I have the chance to tell him as much.

  *

  ‘Sorry I’m early,’ Amy says, as her toddler, Joel, shoots through my front door like a Tasmanian devil. She kisses me on both cheeks, which is quite impressive considering she has her baby, Clara, in one arm and a giant bag in the other.

  ‘Hello, it’s OK. I’ve just finished setting up.’

  ‘Mummy? MUMMY? Where are all the toys?’ Joel’s voice demands from the living room.

  ‘I TOLD YOU. TORI DOESN’T HAVE ANY TOYS,’ she shouts back. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I did warn him you wouldn’t have any. He’s used to there being a box of them around everyone else’s houses because they have children too.’

  I grin through my teeth as I take her coat and plop it onto the bed in the guest room. I close the door behind me, as I’ve done with every other door in the flat – the passive-aggressive way of letting parents know their children are not allowed in.

  Joel’s already poked his finger into Colin’s arse when I get to the living room. ‘Sorry Tor. They’re just so obsessed with chocolate at this age. Can we cut him a small piece, please? To keep him going?’ And before I can say no, and that Dee’s not even seen it yet, Amy lifts the knife, cuts a slice, wraps it in kitchen roll and rewards her child for his bad behaviour. I smile and do not say anything because you are not allowed to say anything to parents about how terrible their children are. Especially, particularly, if you do not have children yourself. This is the rule.

  ‘Gin?’ I ask, watching every single crumb of chocolate cake falling out of Joel’s mouth onto my cream carpet.

  ‘Tor! I can’t! I’m breastfeeding.’

  ‘Oh. You were drinking at the wedding, so I thought …’

  ‘That was a pump and dump day. Can I have a cup of tea?’

  ‘Of course.’

  I leave Amy with her baby propped on her knee and her toddler ruining my carpet and put the kettle on. I’m worried I won’t have enough milk if everyone wants tea instead of gin. I’ve only got about a pint left. It never occurred to me people wouldn’t want gin. What does pump and dump mean?

  ‘I like your Babygros,’ Amy calls after me. ‘They’re … umm … cute.’

  I stick my tongue out as I tip in the teabag and add water. ‘They were supposed to be baby bunting, but it didn’t quite go to plan,’ I call back.

  ‘Oh, cute! I’ve made that before. It’s a bit tricky at first, but I got the hang of it.’

  I stick my tongue out again. ‘Yeah, I guess. I don’t know. I’ve just been soooooo busy with my career I only had time to make it this morning.’ When I arrive back with a milk and two sugars, I’m surprised to find my living room full of things I did not buy. ‘What’s all this?’ I ask, looking at bags of nappies and baby food and stacks of things and wool and stickers.

  ‘Oh, I thought it would be fun if we played some games.’ Amy holds out the nappies and tubs of baby food. ‘Can you help me pour the baby food into the nappies so it looks like poo? Then we can make Dee eat it and she has to guess the flavour. Isn’t it hilarious? Do you have a spoon?’

  I’m holding the nappies dubiously just as Clara starts howling. Amy coos and tucks down her jumper and pulls out her engorged breast. I try not to watch as her giant red swollen nipple misses and hits Clara’s eye. I never, ever, want my nipple to look like Amy’s nipple looks right now. Like an udder. Oh my God, it’s actually an udder. I’ve never thought of it like that before. ‘Come on, Clara. Be good for Mummy. I know you want it. Come on, come on.’ There’s a waa and then a silence and then a suckling. Clara has successfully attached. I’m about to go and retrieve a spoon when I hear Joel say ‘Whoops’. He has the biggest grin ever on his pudgy face and Colin Caterpillar’s chocolate arse is now all over my carpet.

  ‘Oh n
o! Joelly. That’s not how we eat, is it? Sorry Tor. I’d help but …’ Amy gestures towards her suckling baby. ‘You don’t mind getting a cloth, do you?’

  I smile through my gritted teeth and think things can’t possibly get worse. ‘Of course, Amy,’ I say. ‘I’m on it.’

  Things have got worse.

  Nobody wants gin. Gin was a stupid idea. Everyone is either breastfeeding or trying to lose weight since they stopped breastfeeding or are still pregnant or look at me in horror and say, ‘It’s only the afternoon, I have to put the kids to bed yet.’ I have to leave the flat in the carnage of three toddlers, five babies, twelve mums and a very very very fat but very very very happy Dee to get milk from the corner shop. The pizza, at least, is going down well. And Joel now has Bonny, and Sara, some primary teacher’s daughter, to keep him company. This mother understands how to deal with toddlers and has set up a hula-hoop filled with toys and set them the task of staying inside the hoop. They’re delighted and sit quietly with books, which is totally brilliant as it gives everyone the calm needed to talk endlessly about their babies.

  ‘Oh, Atticus didn’t sleep, didn’t sleep at all for the first six months. I thought I was going to go crazy.’

  ‘Oh, my Evie was like that. Except she had silent acid reflux so we didn’t get her to sleep through until nine months.’

  ‘Look at her sitting up already. She’s very advanced for her age. I know every parent thinks that, but she really is very advanced for her age.’

  ‘Have you registered with a nursery yet? Oh, yes, it’s never too soon. Especially not for the good ones in London. I signed up Bonny when we got our three month scan.’

  I keep trying to make eye contact with Dee, but she is inundated with advice and adoration and attention. Her massive bump is the altar and the women throw themselves onto it. They hold it and rub it and tell her what a very good size it is. They drink tea and offer her advice on everything, from how to sleep with the bump, to telling her she will not sleep again for six years, to how to lose the baby weight. For women so worried about baby weight, they are all eating a lot of Colin and pizza. I was worried I’d over-ordered but almost everything’s gone. The mothers are easily divided into two categories weight-wise – the ones who have ‘taken it too far’ and got too skinny again too quickly, and the ones who have gained a bit too much weight than is considered healthy. Neither win. I stand against the wall and marvel at the sting of jellyfish comments whipping around my flat.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know how you have time to go to the gym. I can’t leave Clara, she just cries and cries without me. What can I say? I’m an attachment Mum.’

  ‘I’ve cut out sugar. It’s not just for me, but the kids too. It can get into the breast milk, did you know?’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t breastfeed. We tried. But she wouldn’t take. Yeah, I know. I worry about allergies too, but it’s not like I didn’t try … Bottle feeding is good because it involves the father too. He didn’t feel so left out which can happen with breastfeeding. So actually, it’s really bonded us as a couple. You hear, don’t you? How it can impact a relationship in the early months but not us. Every cloud, eh?’

  A gravelly voice next to me. ‘Do you have any more gin?’

  I spin and smile at the woman asking the question. I think her name is Sandy – I remember Dee telling me about her. She’s the assistant head at Dee’s school and her favourite colleague.

  ‘Yes! Someone else who is drinking gin,’ I whisper. ‘Come this way. Make me feel better about my life choices.’ I steer her into the kitchen where it’s just far enough away to talk freely.

  ‘I’m Tori, by the way,’ I hold out my hand and she shakes it. ‘I’m Dee’s best friend.’

  ‘I’ve heard all about you,’ Sandy replies, smiling. I really like her outfit. She’s got a floaty see-through blouse on with dark skinny jeans and proper good boots. ‘You’re all Dee talks about in school. You’re the writer, right?’

  I shrug and pour us both a large measure of gin. ‘Yes, I guess I am,’ I say.

  Sandy takes the gin and tonic gratefully and clunks half of it back without even damaging her red lipstick. ‘I’ve not read your book I’m afraid. I feel I’m a bit too old for it.’

  I like how she’s come out and said it. That she hasn’t pretended she’s read it, which lots of people do. ‘I’m too old for it too now,’ I laugh and take a big slurp of my drink. I’m allowed the calories because I’ve not had any cake.

  ‘How old are you?’ she asks.

  ‘I turn thirty-two next week. You?’

  ‘Thirty-eight.’

  I check her hand and see there is no ring on her finger. No diamond someone saved up for so it can be posted online and other people can judge it. Given to her in a way that demands a narrative so you can tell everyone exactly ‘how he did it’ over and over until someone else gets engaged and it’s not your turn any more. We drink our drinks in companionable silence and listen as the conversation filters around the corner. It’s moved on to working arrangements now.

  ‘Well, I’m lucky that they let me back three days a week.’

  ‘I just couldn’t make the cost of childcare add up.’

  ‘The thing is, there’s no more important job than being a mother.’

  ‘The early years are so key. You’ve got to be there.’

  Sandy has finished her drink. She holds out her empty glass. ‘Can I have more gin?’

  I smile at her as I take it and replenish. ‘I like you,’ I tell her.

  ‘I don’t normally drink like this, just so you know. I just find these things … tiresome. I’m surprised Dee had one to be honest.’

  ‘It was my idea,’ I say. ‘I thought I would make it different but it got hijacked.’

  Sandy giggles. ‘I can tell. Don’t get me wrong, I like children. And I know a couple of really great kick-ass mothers, but …’ Sandy’s teeth clink against the rim of her glass ‘… I just can’t help overhearing conversations like this and thinking “men don’t have these conversations”, and feeling like there’s something weird going on.’

  I’m nodding so hard, I’m liking this woman so very much. ‘We should probably go and rescue Dee actually,’ I say. ‘She made me promise I wouldn’t leave her alone for more than five minutes.’

  We find her blindfolded and being force-fed baby food out of nappies. Amy shrieks so hard my eardrums almost burst while half the room film it on their phones.

  This is followed by a bracing photocard game of ‘Porn or Labour’. At which point, Dee, bless her, politely claims she needs a wee and stays weeing until the game is finished. I go and check on her and she gives me a hug. ‘Tor, if one more person tells me how awful labour is and I kill them, do you mind if I get blood all over your cream carpet?’

  We return in time to see what the ball of wool is for. Cutting off lengths of it to wrap around and guess the size of Dee’s bump. The only game in history where women can openly comment on and guess the size of a woman’s stomach.

  Finally it’s time to open presents and Dee oohs and ahhs at the Babygros and other useful things that are explained to her by mothers. ‘We couldn’t live without ours’ is said so many times. By the end, you can hardly see her over the mountains of delicately dyed tissue paper, towers of nappies and plastic things that help with something-or-other, and lots of framed shit off NotInTheShops that is covered in storks.

  It gets to the time where I start passive-aggressively looking at the clock, but nobody notices because they’re too busy asking Dee when she plans to get her bikini wax.

  ‘Her what?’ I ask. I start aggressive-aggressively picking up the mugs so all these women will get out of my house before Joel makes another stain on the carpet.

  ‘You have to get a wax before labour,’ Amy tells me, like I’m stupid.

  ‘That’s an actual thing?’

  Dee nods at me in a way that says ‘don’t worry, we’ll talk about this later’.

  ‘But … but …’
r />   Olivia sways her baby gently to try and get it to sleep. ‘You don’t want the doctors and midwifes to see your pubes!’ she says. ‘I got mine exactly a week before my due date. That’s what I’d recommend, Dee, just in time.’

  ‘What would have happened otherwise?’ Sandy asks, swaying gently because she’s drunk four gins. ‘They’d have shoved your baby back in and refused to deliver it until you’d got a landing strip?’

  I start laughing and grip Sandy’s arm in appreciation. ‘Oh my God! I always thought the landing strip was for men going down on you but it’s for … it’s for …’ the laughter has me in its grip now. ‘But the landing strip is for the baby so it knows where to come out!’ I dissolve against the wall.

  ‘I’m not getting a wax,’ Dee tells the room. They gasp even louder than when she said she was considering a home birth. ‘You’ve all spent today telling me I’m definitely going to shit myself during labour. Shit is worse than pubes, I reckon. So I may as well save myself forty quid and spend it on the therapy I’ll need for PTSD from the terrible childbirth I’m apparently going to have.’

  Sandy and I are the only ones who are laughing now, by the way.

  We muddle through the resulting awkward silence. And, at the very least, it encourages everyone to get up and thank me and leave my house. Dee hugs me exceedingly tight when it’s time to say goodbye.

  ‘Thank you Tor.’ We can hardly reach each other over her bump.

  ‘You sure you don’t want to stay and hang out?’

  She shakes her head. ‘I’m overdue my third nap of the day. I have to get at least five in before bedtime.’

  I kiss her cheek. ‘I’ll drive over tomorrow and drop off all your gifts. You don’t want to be without that chapped nipple relief cream.’

  ‘You’re kind sometimes, aren’t you?’

  *

  Amy Price has shared a photo:

  HAPPY BABY SHOWER DEE! Gin and chocolate cake and presents – oh my! Can’t wait to welcome this one to the mummy club x x x x x