Just Between Friends: Page-turning fiction to curl up with in winter 2020

by Rosie Nixon

  Although he was still putting in the extra hours where he could, I understood why. In fact it got me thinking differently about Jason’s motivation for all the overtime and late nights he did at work during my pregnancy. He must have felt such a pressure to earn more money once he knew we were to become a family. He had told me that his request for a pay rise had been declined; maybe it had dented his pride more than I realized. It can’t have helped when my dad kept sending us a few hundred pounds by bank transfer. I didn’t have a big issue with it – it was Dad’s version of a baby shower after all – but Jason had taken it personally; he saw any offer of help as a slight against his ability to provide for his family and it took me a while to convince him that we shouldn’t just send the money back. But now I saw things differently, I understood that his strong need to provide for his family was as innate as my desire to carry our child.

  Because I was awake so much at night – Joni was still asking for a feed every three hours on average – I’d taken to sleeping when she did in the early evening, knowing I’d be awake again at eleven-ish to give her a dream feed and then every few hours through the night. According to Tara, it was a good idea to start getting into some kind of routine about now. Jason had considerately started sleeping on the sofa in the living room or in the nursery to allow me to feed her without worrying about waking him up. Or he would use the opportunity to work late again. We both agreed that he might as well use this time to clock up some overtime, and that we could take turns with the night shifts over the weekends. It felt as though we were really sharing the load.

  But one evening, when I began to fill him in on my day as I often did when he’d been on a long work shift, he appeared distracted.

  ‘Joni loved sitting on my lap on the swing in the park today,’ I told him.

  ‘Sweet,’ he said, not taking his eyes off the TV and shovelling some stir-fry into his mouth.

  ‘And I successfully managed the routine – she took her naps like clockwork. I just hope this will eventually translate into sleeping for longer stretches at night,’ I went on.

  He didn’t register what I said, making me feel like the world’s greatest baby bore.

  ‘And then she did some one-handed cartwheels all around the playground.’

  Nothing.

  ‘I was thinking, Jason, that I would like to sleep on the sofa tonight,’ I continued, more loudly. This wasn’t something I had said before, so it at least got his attention. ‘Okay with you?’ I added, although, from my tone, it was pretty clear I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

  ‘Are you feeling okay?’ He momentarily looked up from his dinner.

  ‘I’m just tired,’ I said. ‘The nights of broken sleep are catching up with me.’

  ‘Sure,’ he shrugged, as if it were no biggie. ‘Although I’ll have to be up and out early tomorrow.’

  I had read about the fourth trimester and, although coming to the end of it, I knew my hormones might have had something to do with me feeling sensitive today. But Jason definitely wasn’t engaging with me like normal and I wondered why.

  That evening, when I made up my bed on the sofa in the living room – Jason having already gone to bed, in anticipation of getting some shut-eye before Joni’s night feed – I noticed he had left his phone on the coffee table. Ordinarily I would have just moved it into the kitchen and put in on charge for him, but this evening something compelled me to take a look.

  I scrolled through his WhatsApp messages. There were several work threads to do with applications and technical terms I couldn’t understand. Plus a thread with Peter, in which Jason had been querying the overtime he was to be paid this month.

  There were some chats with his mum and sister, mostly containing photos of Joni, and their cooing comments back. Jason’s enthusiasm to pass on some of Joni’s developments with them was encouraging; it showed he was genuinely embracing being a new dad.

  I moved to his text messages. There was nothing of interest, except one that he had sent to an unknown number, just a series of digits against which there was no name.

  Okay, this evening. Let’s talk.

  That was all it said. It had been sent a week ago and whoever it was intended for had not replied.

  I tried to brush it off, but there was something about this mystery message which made my heart rate quicken.

  Then I was distracted by an alert on my own phone. It was from Will. He had noticed an advert in the window of a local pottery shop about sessions for ‘baby imprints’ and discounts for groups. He posted a photo of the ad to the group.

  Will: Could be a fun activity to do together – create crockery for ourselves or gifts for relatives?

  Susie was the first to respond:

  Ooh yes, have been meaning to create some imprints – they look so cute. Count me in if we can make it Tuesday to Thursday – we’re having a long weekend away! Xx

  We had asked Tara to be Joni’s godmother and she had accepted, so this appealed to me as the ideal little gift for her.

  Me: Sounds good. Joni and I would love to come x

  Lucy: Sure. Lx

  Helen had gone strangely quiet on the thread and was the last to respond late that evening with the final yes. A date was set for the following Tuesday.

  In the end, I didn’t sleep any better on the couch as I would have done in bed. I still found myself waking every few hours when I heard Joni stir and Jason clank around in the kitchen making her bottle. It was as though I was tied to Joni with an invisible string. It wasn’t easy, but I resisted the temptation to get up and see whether Jason needed any help; he would have to work things out for himself.

  But when he left the house at 7 a.m., I crept back into our bed to be close to Joni.

  Later that morning, on a call with Tara, I mentioned the text message.

  ‘Honey, it could have been to do with any number of dramas at work,’ she reassured me. ‘It might even have gone to a wrong number, because of the lack of response. But if you’re that worried, why don’t you just ask him?’

  ‘And let him know I’ve been snooping on his phone? No, I couldn’t. He’d be so cross, and rightly so,’ I replied. ‘But I suppose you’re right, it’s probably nothing.’

  ‘You said things have been so much better recently – one off-evening coupled with sleep deprivation doesn’t help perspective, believe me,’ Tara continued sympathetically. ‘So please don’t over-think it. What I would prescribe, is some pampering time. It’s so hard to ever relax properly when you’re in the same house as your baby, so why not book yourself a spa treatment somewhere lovely, when Jason is around to look after Joni one Saturday? You bloody deserve it. Seriously Aish, if you’re not careful you’ll turn into a martyr otherwise.’

  I remembered I had a massage voucher given to me by my agent as a baby present, at The House of Elemis day spa in town. As luck would have it, they had an appointment free on Saturday morning. If there was a woman in London who deserved a massage right now, surely it was me, I told myself as I booked myself in. But that night I struggled to sleep. The text played on my mind. Call it female intuition, something didn’t feel right.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Aisha

  Saturday 7th August

  At 5.30 on Saturday morning, unable to get back to sleep after Joni had been awake for the past hour, I meticulously prepared a list for Jason and put it on the kitchen table. Last night, he’d only seemed to be half listening as I briefed him to use the freshly expressed bottle of milk within the hour and to remember to take another out of the freezer a couple of hours later.

  Right on cue my boobs tingled; the thought of Joni being hungry made my breasts fill rapidly. I took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. I knew that Jason was more than capable of keeping our baby alive, so surely nothing could go too wrong in just half a day. Could it?

  More pressing was a serious concern about how I was going to get through a massage in about an hour and a half’s time with rock-hard breasts. The
thought of it didn’t feel very relaxing at all.

  I distracted myself from worrying about Joni and opened up my laptop for a quick scan of my emails. After leaving me to enjoy motherhood for a few months, my editor seemed to think it was okay to start emailing me about work again. Such is the life of a freelancer – no one expects you to stay out of the game for long, and they don’t seem able to leave you alone, even if you wanted to. There was an email about a new book project. The deadline for initial thoughts was in a month’s time; I was going to have to start carving out some time for it in the evenings if I had a chance of getting the commission. I sighed. That meant I was going to need to count on improved support from Jason if I had a hope in hell of pulling off being a working mum. Either that or we would have to start looking into childcare – although the thought of dropping Joni off at a nursery at such a tender age felt unbearable, not to mention impractical as I was still breastfeeding and intended to keep it up for at least six months. We would need to discuss other options, all of which were bound to be expensive. I closed the laptop and left the house, leaving Jason muttering to Joni about a trip to the park.

  The Tube journey from Clapham Common to Oxford Circus should have taken thirty minutes maximum. Sometimes, if you timed it right at Stockwell, it could be done in twenty. But everything seemed against me today. There was some issue at Stockwell, meaning the station was closed so I had to continue to Elephant and Castle and then get the Bakerloo line to Oxford Circus. I kept looking at my phone to check the time. I was going to be late, no question. When it turned eleven o’clock, the time of my appointment, I was only at Charing Cross. The Tube was busy and hot; it was making my heart beat faster.

  When I finally surfaced at Oxford Street, I was a whole ten minutes late for the appointment already, and it was still about a ten-minute walk to the Elemis spa. I checked my phone, half hoping Jason had been frantically trying to call me, so I had a legitimate reason to explain why I was late – maybe they would take pity on a frazzled new mum. It didn’t help that my breasts now felt like watermelons. I felt another surge of milk, just thinking about this. I was glad I was wearing breast pads because they would certainly be leaking any moment. I stood in the middle of a crowd of people waiting to cross the road. Everyone looked so purposeful. Eyes fixed ahead or focused on their phones. People rushing along the pavement. Why was everyone so busy? Shoppers and tourists were moving around as though they didn’t have a second to waste. I had been living a relatively sheltered life in recent weeks, pottering around the flat with Joni and straying no further than the Clapham area, from coffee shop to the common; from one supermarket aisle to the next.

  I had almost forgotten about the world beyond, the always on the move, hectic pace of city life. It had not slowed at all. I felt disorientated, like I didn’t belong here any more, like I didn’t know who I was. I felt sweat appear on my forehead and my breathing quicken as I debated sprinting down to Elemis to see whether anything could be salvaged of my appointment, or whether to just call them and cancel it. I looked across the street to the big store opposite – if I cancelled, I could spend a whole hour browsing Topshop instead. At any other time of my life, this would have been my idea of heaven. Not any more. I didn’t know what size I was now, and it seemed pointless picking out clothes that would be suitable for breastfeeding when I’d only be doing it for a limited time. And I couldn’t think of a single impending event that I needed a dress for. I had lost my former identity. The only thing I knew for certain was that I wanted Joni. I needed to feel her warm body next to mine. Only she could provide the comfort I craved in this moment.

  A suited man pushed past me briskly, nearly knocking the handset from my palm.

  ‘Hey!’ I called out, but he had rushed off without even noticing.

  All I wanted to do was get home and cuddle my baby. Ouch – another shooting tightness in my boobs. I tried to stop thinking about Joni, but I couldn’t. There was no way these mammaries were going to last an entire massage, I’d be paranoid about spurting milk before the lights went down and that wouldn’t be enjoyable at all. For anyone. I called the spa and cancelled the appointment. Thankfully they didn’t charge me for wasting their time – they took pity on the new mum who sounded utterly lost in her home city.

  Realizing I now had absolutely no reason to be in the centre of town, I decided to call it a day. I waved at a black cab and within seconds I was being driven back to Clapham. The traffic was heavy so it took longer than it would have done by Tube but I was quite happy to sit there, feeling like a voyeur and marvelling at how London life was carrying on while I felt so disconnected from it.

  When I reached the flat, I was surprised to see Lucy standing in the street with her pram.

  ‘Aisha!’ She seemed startled to see me too. The cab had pulled up beside her, a few doors down from our place, and I got out to pay the driver through the passenger window. Perhaps I had given her a shock.

  ‘Lucy – hi – I haven’t forgotten we’re meeting, have I?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ she shook her head, ‘I was just passing. I was on my way to Boots.’ She paused. ‘My… steriliser broke, and I was going to get a new one. And then I thought I’d see if you were home.’

  ‘Don’t get a new one – we have a spare,’ I offered, remembering the pressure I had put on Jason to order all the items from Maggie’s list, forgetting I’d already bought one online with money sent by Dad. I noticed that she looked nice, her hair neat and with subtle make-up on. ‘Come in for a cuppa if you like, Jason’s home with Joni. Would you believe I was meant to go to a spa today but,’ I felt a little embarrassed saying it, ‘I chickened out. It was so busy in town and I missed Joni. I just wanted to get back to her. How silly is that?’ My voice trailed off.

  ‘Not silly at all, I can’t imagine anything worse than being in the middle of town right now,’ she said, making me feel better. ‘I’d bubble wrap myself some days, if I could.’ She smiled, but didn’t move.

  ‘So do you want to come in for a cuppa?’ I asked.

  ‘Perhaps I could pop in quickly, just to pick up the steriliser…’ She seemed to falter. ‘Then I’d better head off.’

  The flat was disarmingly quiet when I opened the door. I’d half expected Jason to fail at keeping Joni’s routine, and that, unable to resist the urge to play with her in any waking hour, she’d be cooing on her jungle gym when I got home.

  ‘Where’s Joni?’ I asked when he came down the stairs to greet me.

  ‘Sleeping soundly, as instructed,’ he said proudly. He kissed me tenderly on the forehead. ‘She’s just fed. Come and see. You’re back early?’

  When Lucy appeared behind me at the door too, he seemed surprised.

  ‘I just bumped into Aisha as she got out of the cab,’ Lucy said quickly, taking the words out of my mouth.

  ‘I said Lucy could borrow our steriliser. We don’t need two. Okay with you?’

  ‘Yeah, of course,’ Jason replied.

  ‘Great. Please stay for tea,’ I said, rattled by Jason who was not being particularly friendly towards Lucy.

  As he was asleep, Lucy left Albie in his pram by the front door and I made us tea in the kitchen. Jason didn’t stick around to say more than ‘Hello’. But I knew he could be funny about people and as my first impressions of Lucy hadn’t exactly been overly positive, perhaps he was clinging on to that. He could be quite protective.

  And maybe he was just being sensitive, leaving us to it when our conversation turned into a full-scale mum-to-mum chat about breast pumps and when it was safe to stop sterilising all the equipment that went with it. Poor Lucy told me she had been suffering from mastitis too. No wonder feeding had been so painful for her recently. The extra make-up today was an attempt to make herself feel better. ‘Believe me, I’m tired and pale underneath,’ she confessed.

  I had just offered to crack open some Hobnobs when we were distracted by the sound of Albie beginning to stir downstairs.

  ‘I’ll head of
f.’ Lucy stood up. ‘I’m sorry I’m not the best company today. But I’ll see you next week, at the pottery shop.’

  ‘Yes, such a cute idea, it will be nice to do something crafty. I’m really looking forward to it.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll show us all up with your artistry!’ she teased and moved towards the stairs.

  ‘Oh – don’t forget the steriliser!’ I exclaimed. ‘I’ll just grab it for you.’

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Lucy

  Tuesday 10th August

  In the pottery shop, I focused on choosing my colours, opting for a blue, green and white combo for a plate for Oscar’s birthday, and then I got to work on my design. A hush fell as everyone concentrated, broken only by noises of frustration when something went wrong with their brush stroke, or they struggled to get a good baby hand or footprint onto their ‘masterpiece’. The babies were remarkably well behaved.

  ‘Oscar’s going to love that!’ Will exclaimed as I somehow managed to cajole Albie into producing two reasonably recognizable little blue foot prints on the plate.

  ‘I think he will,’ I smiled.

  The truth was that Oscar had been sleeping in his office on and off over the last week and I was having serious doubts about whether we could get through this rocky patch. I was doing my best to give him some space, so he might come around, but it was hard. It was taking all my energy not to cave in and tell him everything. There had been a couple of moments lately when the secret had risen inside me like a towering wave and I had wondered, if I chose to surf it, whether I would come out by the shoreline, or drown. It felt as though I had partially lost him anyway. Did I have much more to lose?