The Baby Group

by Rowan Coleman

  ‘I’m afraid so, Nat,’ Alice said heavily. ‘Suze said she was having a fag break when this tall, skinny guy sat down next to her on the bench and asked her if she knew the time. Anyway, he asked her all sorts of questions about herself, told her he’d just got back from a year in Italy, staying with family near Venice . . .’

  ‘Bastard!’ Natalie yelled, causing Gary to pause for a second before resuming his wire pulling. She lowered her voice before adding, ‘Sorry, it’s just that I can’t believe this, Alice, I can’t believe what you are telling me. Of all the women in London he’s got to hit on he chooses somebody I know!’

  ‘Maybe it was just the law of averages,’ Alice said tentatively. ‘I mean, if he chats up enough women in one particular area then sooner or later you were bound to know one of them . . .’

  ‘So what happened then?’ Natalie asked her reluctantly.

  ‘He said he had to go to a job interview but asked her if she’d like to go for a drink with him sometime. He wrote down his name and phone numbers on a piece of paper and gave them to her. She said his hand was trembling as if he was really nervous.’

  ‘That’s his trick,’ Natalie growled. ‘That’s how he draws you in, by being all vulnerable and sexy at the same time.’

  ‘It wasn’t until after he’d gone,’ Alice continued, ‘and Suze read his name that all the pieces started coming together, and she thought he could be the Jack Newhouse. The one who got you pregnant and then disappeared. She called me and asked me out for lunch. She told me what I’ve told you and gave me the numbers. She said she thought you could use them.’ Alice waited.

  ‘Well?’ she said when Natalie remained silent.

  ‘Well what?’ Natalie asked her.

  ‘You have to face up to this, Natalie, you know you have to. You can’t pretend that this hasn’t happened.’

  Alice paused, clearly waiting for Natalie to agree with her. When Natalie remained stubbornly silent Alice went on anyway.

  ‘You have a chance to contact him now and tell him about Freddie.’ Alice finally stated the obvious. ‘It’s a chance you have to take.’

  ‘Why now – doesn’t this just prove what kind of a man he is?’ Natalie demanded. ‘I haven’t seen or heard from him in thirteen months and ten days,’ she said, instantly regretting that she had let slip that she knew exactly when it was that she last saw the man she professed to be so uninterested in. She hoped vainly that Alice wouldn’t notice, and pressed on with complaining. ‘Things are going well, Alice. They are steady and stable. Why should I do anything to change that?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Alice replied, her voice heavy with sarcasm. ‘Let me think . . .’

  ‘Alice, this isn’t funny!’ Natalie exclaimed.

  Gary looked up at her this time. She smiled at him and rolled her eyes. Realising that she still had her coat on and that Freddie was still zipped up securely in his warm suit, she tucked the phone under her ear and began to make her way upstairs.

  ‘I don’t think it is funny,’ Alice said as Natalie moved out of earshot of her electrician. ‘But even if you could manage to avoid him for the rest of your life, which seems unlikely, you still have to tell him. Take the moral high ground. I know it’s uncharted territory for you, but I think once you’ve done it you’ll feel relieved.’

  ‘Or,’ Natalie suggested optimistically, ignoring Alice, ‘we could relocate the business to Birmingham. I’ve always liked Birmingham.’

  ‘Natalie, be serious.’ Alice’s normally smooth and level tone rose slightly, which was about the only sign she ever gave that she was properly angry and not just annoyed. Natalie didn’t want Alice to be properly angry with her. Despite her teasing and ribbing of her old friend it was important to her that Alice thought the best of her. She needed to be in at least one person’s good books to feel good about herself, and Alice had always been that person since they had met over women’s control-top pants. Although she had suddenly acquired a wealth of new friends, Alice was the one Natalie was certain still to be friends with in a hundred years’ time, because Alice loved her exactly the way she was, foibles, tics and all. And even if Alice did sometimes get quite cross with her, Natalie loved her back with exactly the same steadfast loyalty.

  ‘You make calling him sound so simple, let alone telling him . . .’ Natalie complained miserably. ‘Like I can ring his number out of the blue and say, “Hi, Jack, remember me? No? Oh well, the thing is I’ve recently had your baby!”’

  ‘It is simple,’ Alice told her. ‘It might be hard to do but it is simple. He is Freddie’s father. He has a right to know, just as Freddie has the right to know his father. You haven’t even been able to tell him up to now – he vanished after that weekend, and the way he left things was sort of up in the air . . . but now you actually have his numbers.’

  ‘I have someone’s numbers.’ Natalie was insistent. ‘We don’t conclusively know if is the same half-Venetian Jack Newhouse.’

  ‘Natalie, don’t stick your head in the sand!’ Alice exclaimed. ‘It has to be the same Jack. And you have to call him. Think of this as a sign from above if you like, I know you like those.’

  ‘If it is him, then it’s not a sign,’ Natalie said. ‘It’s proof. Proof that I got myself impregnated by a prick both figuratively and literally.’

  ‘Nobody’s disputing that he behaved badly – but don’t you think that it’s time to do the grown-up thing?’ Alice sighed. ‘You know, the kind of thing a parent does?’

  Natalie thought about the last time she had seen Jack. He had been sitting in the back of a water taxi where he’d dropped her off at Marco Polo airport. White collarless shirt unbuttoned at the throat revealing his warm, lightly tanned and, if Natalie remembered rightly, slightly salty-tasting skin.

  ‘I’ll call you,’ he had said. Usually Natalie prided herself on knowing when a man meant what he said. At the time she was sure he really did mean to call her, she’d been so idiotically happy at the thought of seeing him again and perhaps even – who knew? This might be the one romance that didn’t drift apart and might actually turn into something. When he disappeared without a trace she felt like a fool, but worse than that it hurt her. It hurt her in the place where her heart was. She supposed she’d had this ridiculously romantic idea all along that the man she finally trusted, the man she finally fell for would be worthy of that honour, or at the very least want it.

  She had been totally wrong. She had to deal with that and move on.

  So as soon as Natalie knew she was pregnant and that the baby had to be his because nobody she’d met since had seemed anything like worth the effort of being with, she never once thought about trying to contact him. She put the prospect of having any kind of real relationship with him in the past, gone and irretrievable even if his baby was slap bang in the very middle of the present, and would be for every single moment of every day for pretty much the rest of her life. What Alice didn’t seem to understand was that almost the only way Natalie could deal with Jack Newhouse and all the associated issues he had left her with was if he were far, far away, both in reality and metaphorically. If he was here it would be much, much harder to pretend that she didn’t still want him, or at least want that version of him that had taken her to Venice.

  But Alice was right, Natalie thought, as she stroked the cheek of her son, which sloped down at exactly the same angle as his father’s – she was a parent now. Parents didn’t put themselves first. Parents didn’t do what was easy. They did what was best. And it wasn’t best to deliberately keep a child from his father without a really good reason, and Natalie didn’t think that heartbreak, jealousy and general bitterness counted.

  ‘You’re right,’ she told Alice at last. ‘I know you’re right.’

  ‘I knew you’d see sense,’ Alice said, her voice warming again. ‘So are you going to call him?’

  Natalie sighed. ‘I will,’ she said. ‘I suppose I have to.’ She took a pen and pad out of her bedside drawer and wrote down
the two phone numbers that Alice gave her.

  ‘Anything going on in the office that I should know about?’ Natalie asked, hoping that some complicated distraction might mean that Alice needed her help.

  ‘Not really,’ Alice said. ‘Selfridges have reordered. The new Web manager is brilliant. That warehouse and supply company she found are doing really well. I’ll be biking samples of the winter range for you to OK later on today. Everything is fine with the business, Natalie. All you need to worry about is yourself and Freddie.’

  ‘If only,’ Natalie said to herself as she hung up the phone, ‘that was true.’

  After putting Freddie in his cot she made her way down to the kitchen, hoping to find some more cake. Instead she found Tiffany in Anthony’s arms, crying her heart out. She didn’t even notice Natalie come in.

  Natalie looked enquiringly at Gary, who was pouring boiling water into a teapot that she had forgotten she even had. He pressed his lips together for a thoughtful moment before nodding in the direction of the garden. Natalie followed him outside.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, spreading his hands out, palms up. ‘She turned up all upset and I didn’t think you’d mind if she had five minutes with Anthony. Apparently she’s had an awful morning.’

  Natalie was surprised by his apology.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ she assured him. ‘Not at all – but what’s wrong?’

  It was terrible to admit it, but she felt immensely relieved that some other drama had bowled its way into her day, making it at least temporarily impossible for her to call either of the numbers that Alice had given her.

  ‘Well, from what I can gather, her mum and dad came round to the flat this morning, she was just on her way out to meet you, she said.’ Gary raised an eyebrow slightly as if he still couldn’t work out what a thirty-six-year-old woman was doing hanging around with a sixteen-year-old kid, which was fair enough, Natalie thought, as she hardly knew herself. ‘Well, she let them in of course; she misses them, especially her mum. After all she’s only a child herself really, for all the front she puts on. They said they wanted to talk about the baby. Tiff hoped they’d come round to make the peace. She built her hopes up. But it turns out they just wanted to get a look at Jordan. Apparently her dad said . . .’ Gary paused, a look of disgust on his face. ‘That if she was light-skinned enough to pass for white Tiffany could come back and they’d say no more about it.’

  ‘Oh God, that’s awful!’ Natalie exclaimed, hugging her arms around her as a sudden chill swept up the lawn. ‘Poor Tiffany.’

  ‘The poor kid had to throw them out herself and her dad’s a big bloke, determined too. In the end a neighbour gave her a hand. She came straight round here with the baby.’ Gary took a step closer to her, lowering his voice even though they were in the garden. ‘You don’t mind, do you? I expect it’s the last thing you need at the moment.’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind,’ Natalie said. She glanced through the French doors to where she could see Anthony hugging his girlfriend, gently kissing her hair and whispering some constant consolation. ‘She’s very strong to stand up for herself and Anthony against that. Very strong. I mean, I complain about my mum, God knows, but next to Tiffany’s parents she’d be up for Mother of the Year. I don’t know if I would be able to be as strong as Tiffany.’

  ‘Oh I don’t know,’ Gary said. ‘You seem pretty strong to me, managing here all on your own.’

  Natalie glanced at his face, taken aback by the first non-formal thing he had ever said to her. Her scrutiny made Gary look uncomfortable again.

  ‘I don’t do badly for a little woman, do I?’ she said with a touch of irony.

  ‘I’m just saying, when my daughter was born there were two of us, more than two really, we had grandparents, aunts, uncles – the lot. But still me and Haley struggled. For about six months we felt like we were walking zombies, I don’t know how we did it. So the fact that you are doing it all on your own more or less, your husband away and not really any family about – well, I think that is quite impressive.’

  For a moment Natalie was stunned into silence by the compliment. She hadn’t expected Gary Fisher to be actively thinking about her and what kind of person she was. But as he had, it was good that his conclusions were positive. People were often irritated, intimidated, annoyed or exasperated by her, but very rarely impressed. It made a nice change, and she was so pleasantly surprised that she had to remind herself not to be disappointed that her fake husband was already married, because this Gary was real Gary, not fantasy Gary. They were two entirely different men, especially considering one of them was pretend.

  Natalie stopped that train of thought before she drove herself completely insane.

  ‘So it got better at six months, did it?’ she asked him cheerfully, because he looked embarrassed that he had said anything at all. ‘What about the terrible twos and threes? You’ll have to sit down and go through every year with me up until – how old is your little girl now?’

  ‘Eight,’ Gary said, breaking eye contact with her.

  ‘Eight! You’re an expert,’ Natalie said warmly. ‘Will you throw in some parenting tuition with the work you’re doing for me?’

  ‘I’m not an expert,’ Gary said flatly, his smile closing down. ‘I don’t see her now.’ His head dropped and Natalie wondered if she should give him a hug or something as he looked so sad, but somehow she thought he wasn’t the kind of man to appreciate an unsolicited hug from customers.

  ‘Anyway, I’d better get on,’ he said. He looked back into the kitchen where Tiffany was now sitting at the table, wiping one eye and then the other with the sleeves of her top pulled down over her knuckles.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said to Natalie, who was not quite sure what he was thanking her for, and then he headed back inside. She stayed outside for a moment longer, watching him exchange a few words with Anthony. His apprentice placed one hand momentarily on Tiffany’s shoulder before he followed Gary upstairs.

  The real Gary wasn’t as normal and as average as she had first thought, Natalie realised as she headed back inside to see Tiffany. She couldn’t really work him out, which made him suddenly quite interesting to her. She had assumed that he was more or less two-dimensional, the kind of person you can read in an instant, but there was something else there too. Hidden depths as her mother would say, but hiding what?

  ‘OK?’ she said to Tiffany as she walked in. She shivered in reaction to the heat of the kitchen after the chill of outdoors. ‘Fancy some tea? Gary’s made a pot. I think he must have time-travelled here from 1948. Who makes pots of tea any more?’

  ‘My mum does,’ Tiffany said, propping her chin on the heels of her hands. ‘She makes a pot of tea and she sticks this hideous tea cosy on it and does up a tray with biscuits. Not nice ones, but those horrible pink ones that taste like cardboard. My mum loves those. She thinks she’s so . . .’ Tiffany searched for the right word, ‘decent, but how can she be when she and Dad won’t have anything to do with me or Jordan because Anthony’s black?’ She looked up at Natalie and shrugged. ‘I don’t get it,’ she added weakly.

  Natalie sat down and poured out two mugs of dark brown tea; the pungent scent hovered in the steam for a moment.

  ‘We’re not supposed to get our parents,’ she said eventually. ‘I have a theory that it’s to aid the evolution of man. Because if we got our parents and wanted to live the same way as they have lived and think and feel the way they do, then the world would never change or move on. It’s a good thing you don’t get your mum and dad, trust me. By not getting them you’ve given yourself and Jordan a head start at growing up.’

  Tiffany’s mouth curled into a small smile.

  ‘Are you saying I’m not grown up?’ she challenged Natalie lightly. Natalie looked unapologetic.

  ‘Tiff, I’m not grown up and I’m thirty years old . . .’

  Tiffany raised an eyebrow.

  ‘OK, thirty-six years old,’ Natalie went on. ‘I have a son, an actual human life de
pending on me alone to exist, but I still feel the same inside as I did when I was your age. I have another theory . . .’

  ‘Another one, seriously?’ Tiff teased. ‘You don’t look like the theory type.’

  ‘Oh, and what type do I look like then?’ Natalie asked her, briefly diverted.

  ‘The mental type,’ Tiff said, with another twist of a smile.

  ‘Well, I am that type,’ Natalie was forced to concede. ‘But I do have a philosophical side too. And this theory is a good one. I think we all keep growing up until we die. I don’t think there’s ever a time when suddenly you feel totally confident and in charge and know exactly what to do in all situations. I think we will always be frightened and stressed and unsure and confused pretty much for ever.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Tiff said flatly, dropping her forehead onto the table top with a light bump. ‘Thanks for that.’

  Natalie smiled.

  ‘It’s a shame you missed Baby Music,’ she said after a while. ‘It was hysterical. It’s amazing what normal, sane adults will do because it’s allegedly good for their kids.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ Tiffany said. ‘I don’t know about the baby group any more. I mean, it’s not really me, is it?’

  ‘What?’ Natalie exclaimed. ‘What do you mean it’s not you? If it’s me it’s you, let me tell you, because none of that stuff is really me – especially not Baby Music.’

  ‘No, it’s different,’ Tiffany said. ‘I’m a kid living in a one-bedroom council flat in a tower block. Look at your home – look at Meg’s! What about when it’s my turn to have the baby group round? We haven’t even got a sofa. We sit on a beanbag. We have to take turns.’

  ‘No one cares about that stuff,’ Natalie tried to reassure her.

  ‘I do, I care,’ Tiffany told her. ‘It’s embarrassing. You’re all proper grown-ups with proper lives, husbands and mortgages and all that shi— stuff.’

  ‘Yes, well, that might be true, but we are all mums with babies – that’s all we need to have in common,’ Natalie persisted. ‘And anyway, without your mum around you need the company of old women. It will remind you that being older isn’t always wiser.’