by Lulu Taylor
Laden with crested carrier bags, she texts Dan.
Where are you? I’m coming to visit! Tell me ward etc.
So excited, can’t wait to meet them. xxx
Dan doesn’t reply at first, and she wanders up and down the Brompton Road, eyeing up the shop windows, wondering whether to waste an hour stocking up for the new season. At last, her phone vibrates, and she finds his answer.
Actually today not so good. Maybe tomorrow?
O exhausted. x
She stares at it in disbelief, then feels a prickle of irritation. She has assumed that she’s allowed into the inner circle, one of the privileged few, as close as family. After all, I spent enough bloody time in Olivia’s kitchen, all those hours listening to her going on.
She’s been assiduous at cultivating her friendship with Olivia and, actually, is genuinely fond of her now, not something she expected to feel at first. Of course, there will always be a distance between them, but Francesca has been surprised at the way she can split herself in two: one half liking Olivia and enjoying the hours chatting and laughing together, and the other rather remorseless in her desire to win the battle that’s been raging between them for years, ever since Dan brought her into their lives. It is hard not to warm to Olivia, and there’s nothing personal in Francesca’s desire to be close to Dan. Olivia is in the wrong place, that’s all, and needs to be shunted firmly aside so that things can be as they’re supposed to be.
Now she feels as though Dan has rebuked her. He is shutting her out. She’s been relegated to the status of ordinary friend. A surge of anger rolls through her, but she’s used to controlling her feelings, and she quickly manages to suppress it. Fine. I can wait.
She stands on the pavement, the wind lightly whipping her hair up, and taps out another message:
Yes, of course she must rest. I’ll come by tomorrow.
Then she heads back to the flat, weighed down by the expensive baby gifts in their layers of white and gold tissue.
But the next day, Dan texts to tell her that they are not allowed visitors. The babies are in special care. It’s nothing serious, but there’s a little issue with breathing that they are confident will be sorted out. Francesca, anxious, tries to call but she can’t get through, having to leave a message on Dan’s answerphone instead. She spends the day drifting round the flat, worrying about the babies. She is constantly on edge, feeling involved but somehow completely marginalised. These children are closely connected to her – my babies – but no one will acknowledge it. Dan won’t acknowledge it. She feels a pang of uncertainty. She realises that she has not really believed that he can wipe her contribution out of his mind, and actually convince himself that she had nothing to do with it.
The thought makes her stop in front of the long, narrow window with its view over the leafy London square. Could he? Could he really?
She blinks out into the afternoon, hardly seeing what’s in front of her. Not once has it occurred to her that they actually might never speak of it again. She’d thought their agreement was almost a kind of etiquette, a necessary stage in the evolution of this new part of their relationship. But now she sees that it’s a possibility.
He wants it forgotten, just like all the other things he doesn’t want to think about. He’s always relied on her docility but now she’s struck with a sudden sense of her own power. Can I let that happen? Will I?
After all, he owes her something. He has to acknowledge that. She won’t be treated like nothing.
She’s absorbed in this idea when her iPad chimes with an incoming Skype call. She comes to, remembering that of course it’s Sunday, and that’s when the children contact her. She goes over to answer it, suddenly feeling that she has something exciting to impart to them. Then she remembers: she can’t tell them about the new babies. She can’t tell anyone.
She sits down, positioning her iPad as she answers the call. Olympia’s face, bright and smiling, appears on the screen, and calls out, ‘Hello, Mama!’
There she is. Her daughter, healthy and beautiful. Francesca feels a rush of love for her.
‘Hello, darling! How are you? How is school? Tell me all about it.’
Two days later, Francesca has to return home and she has still not seen the babies. There are meetings and commitments she must get back to, and the babies are still in special care in the hospital. It’s impossible to get hold of Dan, and he isn’t replying to her texts, except to say that his phone is off in the ward and he’ll be in touch. Then he tells her that Olivia has been discharged, and the babies will be home at the end of the week if all goes well.
There isn’t time to visit now. She sends a massive bouquet to them at home, and briefly considers trying to bluff her way into the hospital as family, to see the babies that way. But she quickly dismisses that idea – the chances are she’d be discovered, and Dan and Olivia could be there at any time. She doesn’t like to picture how they would react to her arrival and attempt to get to the babies.
I must be patient. I’ll have to wait. I’m good at that.
She leaves the bags of baby presents in the hall of the flat, waiting for her return.
Chapter Eight
‘No lifting. I mean it. None at all.’ The midwife looks sternly at Olivia. ‘Promise?’
‘Well . . .’ Olivia is confused. ‘I mean . . . how heavy are we talking about?’ She has a vision of Dan having to lift her knickers out of the drawer. Pick up a spoon. Pass her a tissue.
‘Nothing baby-weight, that’s for sure. When they get home, you let your husband do all the lifting for at least a fortnight. Those muscles of yours need to knit back together, and if you stretch them too early, you’ll do lasting damage.’
Olivia nods. She feels weak and the idea of merrily lifting anything so heavy as a saucepan seems impossible anyway. But what she mainly feels is empty. Even though her breasts are full and swollen with milk, her nipples stiff and sore, and her body is heavy with fatigue, she is hollow. The babies are gone. Her bump, once so full and ripe, is a sagging pouch with only blood and water in it, and her heart yearns for the tiny bodies she was able to hold close to her for only a day before they were taken away. She is expressing milk whenever she can with the big pump lent to her by the hospital, filling bags of breast milk that can be bottle-fed to the babies. She longs to have them latched on to her, sucking out the nourishment she can offer, but as they’re in their incubators, monitored by machines, this is all she can do for now, getting them what they need while she maintains her own supply.
Dan comes in, back from the shops with a bulging bag of groceries. She looks at him gratefully. She doesn’t know what she would do without him.
‘Everything all right?’ he asks anxiously, seeing the midwife.
Olivia nods. ‘It’s fine.’
The midwife gets up and puts on her coat. ‘She’s doing very well. And I hear the babies are coming home this week.’
‘We hope so.’ Dan accompanies her to the door and holds it open for her. ‘Thanks for coming by.’
‘That’s all right. I’ll see you again in a couple of days.’
As soon as she’s gone, Dan turns to Olivia. ‘Are you ready to go?’
They’re going to the hospital. When they’re not there, as close as possible to the babies, life is empty and meaningless. The only good thing is that they’re sleeping deeply, recovering their strength. No doubt that will change when the babies are home.
Olivia hauls herself up out of her chair and Dan rushes over to help her. ‘I’m so weak,’ she says, and tears spring to her eyes. ‘I’m not used to this.’ She wants to sob. She’s happy and miserable at the same time. She’s in love with her babies and agonised to be away from them, but she also knows they’re being cared for. It’s hard to fight the powerful sense of thwarted longing and the misery it brings.
‘Hey, it’s okay. We’ll be with them in a short while. I’ve parked the car right outside, sod the traffic warden. Come on, darling. You’re doing so well.’
>
She sniffs. ‘I’m not sure about that. I’m a mess.’
‘Don’t be daft. You’ve had a major operation and you’re working like anything to keep the milk going.’ He looks at the large pump in the corner. ‘You’d be on that all day if you could.’
‘Have you got the milk bags from the freezer?’ she asks quickly.
‘I’ll put them in the cold box now. Then we’ll get going.’
‘Thanks.’ She watches, full of love and gratitude as he hurries to get the milk. She’s loving seeing him like this: desperate to care for her, full of love for the babies, doing whatever he can to help. This is a different stage in their lives together, a new challenge for both of them, and he is rising to it in every way he can. They’re a family now. There are tiny helpless people in their lives, whose needs must be put first. She’s always wondered how they’ll cope, now that they’re so used to their childless life, so set in their ways, so accustomed to pleasing themselves.
Perhaps we’ll manage very well. After all, the babies are so wanted. But . . .
She looks out of the window at the cold wintery day, feeling far from her mother and sister. She wants them now, to be with her and share all of this. She thinks of the hot Argentine sun, and the memory of her nephews, gurgling on a rug in the cool shade, their fat little limbs bare and kicking in the warmth.
She shakes her head. I won’t think about that now.
‘Come on,’ Dan says, holding up the cool box. ‘We’re all ready. Shall we go?’
In the hall, they brush past the huge bunch of flowers Francesca sent. It was too big for anywhere else but the table there. They ought to be beautiful but Olivia doesn’t like them. Her taste is for wild flowers, not manicured hot-house blooms in sheaves of cellophane. The heads of the lilies are already dropping rusty pollen, and one leaves a smear on the back of Dan’s coat as he brushes past them. Olivia sees it but doesn’t have the strength to wipe it off. Her focus is only on getting to the babies as fast as possible.
Later, in the hospital, she feels complete. She’s with them. They’re all together. She can hold Stanley but Beattie is still confined to the incubator, a tiny mask over her nose and mouth as the machine helps her to breathe. Olivia cuddles Stanley, patiently manoeuvring her nipple into his mouth, encouraging him to latch on and suck, while Dan stands next to Beattie’s perspex cot. Her tiny fingers are wrapped around his large one, and he’s gazing down at her with awe and love.
Look at these amazing babies. They’re still a unit – ‘the babies’ – but day by day, they’re dividing into two individuals.
Already she’s grown to know Stanley’s dark blue eyes, liquid and blurry, gazing up at her, the shape of his mouth and the flattened button of his nose. His scalp is covered in a fine dusting of dark hair and he has long fingers. Beattie’s fuzz of hair is lighter, reddish, almost invisible, and her eyes are nearly always scrunched closed. She is longer than her brother and her skull is narrower.
Who are you, little babies? Who’s there, inside you, waiting to come out?
Stanley starts sucking, and she feels a rush of pleasure to be nursing him. Her nipple tingles and she thinks she can feel a gush of milk into his tiny warm mouth. This is what she has longed for, waited for. And now it’s hers.
Dan is watching her, his expression soft and loving. They’ve come together into this new world, equally amazed and overwhelmed.
‘So,’ she says with a smile, ‘which one do you think looks like you?’
He laughs, and gazes down at Beattie and the tiny row of fingers curled round his. ‘Who knows? They look like themselves.’
‘Yes.’ She gazes down at Stanley and the regular movement of his jaw as he pulls and sucks for her milk. ‘That’s it. They’re just themselves.’ She had thought she would feel ownership, but instead she feels only responsibility – they are in her care, but they don’t belong to her. They are themselves.
The nurse comes up to check the readings on the machine monitoring Beattie, greeting them cheerfully. ‘So, you’re off home at the end of the week!’ she says. ‘Isn’t that nice?’
‘Yep,’ Dan says. ‘We can’t wait to get them home.’
‘It’s a miserable time of year, though, isn’t it?’ she says, marking on the chart hanging on the side of the incubator. ‘I expect you won’t want to go out much.’ She smiles over at Olivia. ‘Just snuggle up and stay warm at home.’
Olivia nods. Warmth is what she craves. She looks over at Dan, and wonders when she’ll tell him what she wants.
Later. When I’ve worked it out for myself.
Chapter Nine
Francesca is pretending to read a magazine in the sitting room, but she isn’t taking in a word. Instead, her mind is whirling with the impact of what happened in London. Walt comes in, chortling, just off a telephone call and returning from his study. He’s merry and pleased with himself, congratulating himself on the deal he’s worked out.
When he sees her, he exclaims, ‘We got the place for a song, Frankie! I mean it – just under three million for a place like that? You can’t get a decent London flat for less.’ He sinks down in the armchair opposite her.
‘Well done, darling.’ She likes seeing his pleasure, even if the project has left her cold. Walt always has had infectious happiness. It was one of the things she most liked about him. The pleasure he takes in life warmed something in her when she thought she was dying. She remembers what it was like when she first got together with Walt and that wonderful feeling of being brought back to life. He resurrected her when her plans for her career had collapsed and everything had begun to fail. She thought that her life was over, and that she was whirling down a plughole towards darkness and despair. Walt brought her back into the light and made her feel whole again. He also offered her a life in which she no longer had to rely on herself for success. He would give her the trappings: the houses, the clothes, the cars. She would be a wealthy woman. Everyone would have to be impressed by that. They would notice her, and admire the way she had guaranteed herself a life they all aspired to: comfortable, safe, pleasant. And she found, almost to her surprise, that she loved Walt too. He was so straightforward and plain, the antidote to the young men she’d been surrounded by for the last few years. He lacked their preening intellectual competitiveness, and concentrated on the hard work that would bring the kind of success he valued. Money was part of it – what was success without it? – but making his mark in the world was just as important, and something in Francesca responded to his simple creed. There was nothing pretentious about it. It made sense. And his love restored her. After he made love to her, she would cry happy tears because she could feel herself reawakening a little more each time.
But she never could resist the dark addiction of her feelings for Dan. They came back to get her eventually: all that longing and need and desire. The bond between them that she felt was unbreakable, the irrefutable sense that they were supposed to be together. All of it gradually killed off her love for Walt and pushed her further and further away from him.
Walt looks over at her now. ‘I want us all to go over to England, once the kids are back for the holidays. We’ve gotta show them the house. It’ll be exciting.’
Francesca remembers that place – the dust and dirt and lack of anything that might offer any comfort at all. ‘But . . .’ she says weakly, ‘there’s no electricity.’
‘Not in the main part of the house. But there are parts of it where we can stay. We’ll be perfectly fine.’
She can tell that he’s got his rose-coloured spectacles on. He’s used to five-star hotels, not roughing it in a caretaker’s cottage. Well, he’ll learn.
‘Are you happy?’ he asks, an almost anxious look in his eyes. Her approval matters. She remembers that he has always looked up to her in that way. It helped rebuild her confidence.
‘Of course. Very happy. You’re right. It will be exciting. You’ve always wanted a country house.’ She smiles and it fades on a sigh.
Walt frowns. ‘You seem a bit low, Frankie. You’ve not been yourself since you got back from London.’
‘No, really, I’m fine.’
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
She nods. The house hardly seems to matter now. All that concerns her is what Dan told her when she was finally able to visit.
The babies had been home well over a fortnight when she arrived in a whirl of largesse, with those stupid baby clothes. And there they were – two tiny creatures wrapped up in blankets, asleep for almost the entire time. Only occasionally did they open their eyes, sleepy, limpid. They were so unformed, a fuzz of almost invisible hair on their soft skulls, their eyebrows only faint shadows, no real shape to their plump faces, each with the same large turned-up nose, and pink, cupid-bowed mouth. Even so, she was astonished by their reality. It was more incredible than she’d expected to see them. In fact, it was hard to take her eyes off them, and she held each one in turn until Olivia grew restless and put out her arms to take them back. All the while, she searched the tiny faces for signs that they were a mixture of herself and Dan, absorbed in examining their features, hair colour, eyes, anything that might give a clue, but it was impossible to see anything. She remembered how Frederick and Olympia had been the same as infants: little doughy bundles, beautiful to her but – now that she could look back at the photographs – really like any babies.
But look at these little ones . . . they’re gorgeous. Special . . . Her heart twanged as she held each one, something deep in her responding to them. She barely heard anything that Olivia said to her.
Then Olivia took the babies away to nurse them and put them to bed. Francesca watched them go with a kind of hunger inside her she hadn’t felt for a long time. As soon as Olivia was gone, she turned to Dan with a joyful expression, her eyes shining. ‘Oh, Dan, they’re amazing.’
