‘Yes and he’s selfish and arrogant and . . . condescending!’ she managed to get out between gulps of air.
‘He’s a stinking pig,’ Meg hollered happily.
‘A scumbag!’ Frances added, the tears streaming down her face. For a while the laughter continued as they looked at each other, not needing a reason to laugh any more, needing simply to laugh.
‘He’s an idiot,’ Meg said a little more seriously as the effects of the hysteria began to wear off.
‘A bloody idiot,’ Frances agreed, her giggles subsiding too. ‘Someone who didn’t see what a wonderful life he had until it was almost too late. Or perhaps even is too late.’
‘But I still love him,’ Meg said with a wistful sigh.
‘Me too,’ Frances added. ‘The bloody, bloody prick.’
As Tiffany opened the flat door to her mother, she peered over her shoulder behind her as if she thought that Janine might have been followed.
‘I thought I’d come over for a cuppa,’ Janine said. ‘Hope you don’t mind me dropping in?’
‘Of course not – but it’s Saturday?’ Tiffany said questioningly. ‘How did you get out without Dad knowing?’
‘I didn’t,’ Janine said, taking Jordan from Tiffany’s arms and kissing her plump cheek. ‘I told him, I said, “I’m going to see my daughter and my grandbaby now, do you have a problem with that?” ’
‘And did he?’ Tiffany asked her, her eyes wide.
‘He did,’ Janine said. ‘He’s probably still shouting now, but that’s all right. We couldn’t go on like we have been, Tiffany. I’ve been your mum all your life and I’m not stopping now, not for anything. And it might take longer with your dad but we’ll bring him round too eventually, I promise you. He is an idiot, but he’s not cruel. He doesn’t mean to be.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ Tiffany said, putting her arms around her mother and her daughter.
‘Now then,’ Janine said, patting her daughter’s cheeks lightly. ‘Are you going to make me that tea?’
Steve was leaning over his drawing board when Jill brought him a cup of green tea.
‘Darling, you know that I love you . . .’ Jill began. Steve looked up and smiled at her, waiting for the ‘but’, but it didn’t come. ‘And you’ve been amazing with Lucy, looked after her so well, taken her to your little baby group – you’ve been just brilliant . . .’
‘But?’ Steve asked her. ‘What have I done? Is it because I haven’t been showing Lucy the flash cards? Look, Jill, I know you are keen for her to get on, but I was thinking she’s only a baby after all, and maybe that book you read wasn’t completely right about teaching children to read before they are one. Maybe we should just let her be a baby.’
‘That’s not what I was going to say!’ Jill exclaimed. ‘And anyway I ditched that book weeks ago. All I was going to say was that I was doing this custody case the other day, a really nasty one. A father trying to get two small children from the mother, because she was depressed and not coping very well after he left her. And I looked at her, this woman so fragile and so seriously in danger of losing her children, and I missed Lucy so much that for a second I couldn’t breathe. I knew what I was doing for that woman was good and right and that I was helping another mother stand up for herself, but at the same time I realised that I just wanted to be a mother too. I wanted to enjoy the privilege of having her every day and not just for a few hours in the middle of the night. I want to take her to Baby Music and swimming and all the other fun things you and that group get up to, I want to see her grow and change in front of my eyes.’ She put an arm around Steve’s shoulders. ‘I didn’t realise it would be so hard for me to go back to work – but it is, and I’m just not ready, not yet.’ Jill bit her lip anxiously. ‘Steve, I want to give up work and join the baby group.’
Steve looked up at her.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked her. ‘I mean, if you want to, well, of course you can. It’s just that it will be hard. You earn a lot of money. And my income is growing, but there will be quite a long gap before I make up the difference. I might not ever make it up.’
‘I know,’ Jill said with a shrug. ‘Is it too much to ask?’
Steve shook his head and setting down his pen, put his arms around Jill’s waist and pulled her into a hug.
‘Don’t be daft,’ he said. ‘How can a mother wanting to spend more time with her baby be too much to ask?’ Releasing Jill from the embrace, he picked up the cup of tea she had brought him and sipped it, trying not to make a face.
‘But it’s not what you wanted, is it?’ Jill asked him. ‘You love being with Lucy too. I don’t want to force you back into an office job you’ll hate.’
‘Actually,’ Steve said thoughtfully, ‘it could work out for the better. My business is picking up and if you are at home I could afford to take on more commissions. Perhaps with a bit of a push at bringing in jobs we can all be at home together, you might have to cut down on your exercise equipment and self-help books but it could work.’ He set the cup down on the window sill and kissed Jill on the cheek. ‘I’m not saying I won’t come along to the baby group every now and then, though. I’m practically one of the girls.’
‘Good,’ Jill said happily. ‘Thanks. Thanks for listening. If there is ever anything important you want to say to me . . .’
‘Actually, there is one other thing,’ Steve said rather seriously, grabbing her hand as she began to move away. ‘Darling, you know that I love you . . .’ he began with a slow smile.
‘But?’ Jill asked him, returning his smile.
‘But I bloody hate green tea. Any chance of a coffee? I don’t mind instant.’
Chapter Thirty
‘No, his arm goes in that bit,’ Natalie said as Jack attempted to get one of Freddie’s legs into an arm of the Babygro.
‘But how do you know?’ he said, furrowing his brow. ‘How can you tell arms apart from legs?’
‘Do you mean on the Babygro?’ Natalie asked him mischievously. ‘Or the baby?’
Jack smiled sideways at her. ‘Ha, ha,’ he said.
It had been a pleasant and surprisingly relaxing morning. First they had bathed Freddie. It had been almost unbearably touching to see Jack holding her little boy so tenderly in the tepid water, his hands actually trembling as he supported Freddie’s head and neck, clearly worried he might hurt him somehow. And it hadn’t helped that Freddie had yowled his head off throughout the whole experience, only calming down once he was out of the bath, dried, wrapped in a blanket and drinking from his bottle.
Natalie had nearly embarrassed herself because she had automatically reached up the front of her top and unhooked her nursing bra, but then she remembered that Jack was watching her, and, hot with discomfort, she had hastily hooked herself back up and led him downstairs to the kitchen to show him how to warm a bottle of milk. She held Freddie for a few minutes until he had settled and then passed him, bottle and all, to Jack. The baby’s eyes half closed in pleasure and contentment, one creased hand grabbing onto his ear as he sucked.
‘He likes milk, doesn’t he?’ Jack whispered, smiling as he held his son. ‘Look at him, so happy. What’s that in there then?’ He nodded at the bottle. ‘Is that cow’s milk or that formula stuff? Could I buy it from any shop?’
‘Um,’ Natalie grimaced, sorely tempted to lie. ‘It’s, um, you know, baby milk, it’s my milk from my . . . er, from me.’
‘Really?’ Jack exclaimed, looking at her breasts with naked curiosity. ‘How do you get it out of them and in the bottle, is it like milking a . . .’ He stopped himself sometime after the nick of time had packed its bags and left town.
The pair of them looked at each other for a stunned moment.
‘Forget I just asked you that,’ Jack said. ‘I actually can’t believe I did. I wasn’t trying to be a senseless, tactless, juvenile . . . honestly I am just . . . well, interested and very stupid. Can you actually believe that you went to bed with me? If you’d had more than two or three conver
sations with me it would never have happened!’
Natalie smiled, glad that he could acknowledge so easily what had taken place between them, but also reading it as a sign that he had moved on, if he was ready to joke about it. She was not ready – she was not nearly at the joking stage.
‘I have a special pump,’ she explained. ‘I use it when I know I’m going to miss a feed. When you have him I’ll put the bottles all ready in his bag, all you’ll have to do is warm them like I showed you.’
‘Right,’ Jack said and then, ‘Natalie?’
‘Yes?’ Natalie waited.
‘This is brilliant being here with . . .’
It was then, no doubt utterly relaxed and at peace, that Freddie weed on Jack’s lap.
She had vigorously attempted to sponge Jack’s trousers herself while he held onto the baby, but backing away from her he offered to swap Freddie for the cloth, half turning away from her as he cleaned up as best as he could.
‘Sorry,’ Natalie said, for the fourth or fifth time. ‘It’s my fault, I forgot the nappy after his bath.’
‘It’s fine. I never thought I’d hear myself say these words, but I actually don’t mind that he peed on me.’
She had shown him how to change a nappy next, which he had mastered with an ease that made him puff out his chest with pride. It was the Babygro that had stumped him.
‘The thing is,’ Natalie said, chuckling because Freddie was. ‘He isn’t made of rubber, you can’t bend him in any direction you like, even if he does appear to enjoy it.’
Jack knelt back and looked down at the baby wriggling on the rug with one arm and one leg in the garment.
‘Maybe he’s grown out of this one,’ he said.
‘Since yesterday?’
‘It’s possible, I hear babies grow very fast,’ Jack said, grinning at her.
She picked up Freddie and within a few seconds had him expertly buttoned into the red suit.
‘He looks like a tomato. What do we do now?’
Natalie looked at the rug. She had shown him all the things she had planned. They had set a time for the visit to begin but not for when it should end. Still, if Jack wasn’t ready to go that suited her, she liked having him with her, in fact she loved it. It made her foolish heart sing.
‘We could take him to the park for a walk?’ she offered.
His answering smile had nearly knocked her off her feet.
‘Espadrilles,’ Natalie said out loud before she knew it.
‘Pardon?’ Jack looked perplexed.
‘I just wondered if you’d ever thought about wearing espadrilles,’ she said slowly.
‘Can’t say I ever have,’ Jack said, frowning and smiling all at once.
‘Didn’t think so,’ Natalie mumbled hopelessly as she followed him out of the front door.
The daffodils were out, their bright shining heads bobbing in the breeze as Jack pushed the buggy and Natalie walked at his side. To anyone else, she thought, they must look like a couple, proud of their firstborn. As they walked on in silence she found herself smiling at every passer-by, a complicit smile that said, ‘Yes you’re right, we’re a happy family. A happy, loving family.’
It was a fantasy that was hard not to indulge in.
‘So have you got a boyfriend?’ Jack asked her suddenly.
‘Me, who me?’ Natalie panicked. She hadn’t expected him to ask her a question like that.
‘I just wondered if you were seeing anyone,’ Jack said. ‘I’m sorry, it’s none of my business . . .’ but still he did not retract the question.
‘I have no boyfriend,’ Natalie said simply. ‘No time to, even if I wanted one.’
She worried that she had emphasised her single status a little too much – she didn’t want to sound desperate.
‘Right,’ Jack said, looking in the other direction so she could only see the back of his head. ‘Well, it’s none of my business.’
They had almost completed a circuit of the park when Jack suggested they found a café and had lunch. Of course they stopped at the very one where Natalie had told Meg and Jess all about her fake husband’s parenting skills, and she had imagined what it would have been like to have had Jack at the birth. She never would have believed that only a few weeks later she’d be sitting with him in the same café. It was miraculous, really. She couldn’t hope for better than this, it would be greedy to wish for more. Still, she did.
Jack sat with Freddie on his lap, letting his coffee go cold safely on the other side of the table as he admired the son that he found so endlessly fascinating. It was warm inside and a faint waft of baby wee emanated from Jack’s trousers. He didn’t seem to mind it, though.
‘So, what do you think?’ he asked Natalie.
‘What do I think about what?’ she asked him in return.
‘Do you think things will work out between us?’ There was a second when Natalie’s heart almost stopped and her misunderstanding of the question must have showed in her expression because Jack added hastily, ‘Parenting Freddie, I mean.’
‘Oh.’ Natalie tried to hide how much of an idiot she felt. ‘Oh, well, yes then. Yes it’ll work out.’ She made herself smile at him. ‘It will work out fine.’
‘Good. Good. It would be good to see Freddie regularly. And you,’ Jack said, mumbling almost into his scarf.
Sandy was sitting in the living room watching TV when the three of them got back from the park.
Natalie knew this was a moment that could not be avoided.
‘Mum, this is Jack, Jack – Mum,’ she said, as Jack appeared in the living room holding Freddie in his arms.
‘Oh, right,’ Jack said, his face blanching white. ‘Oh, um, hello there, Mrs . . . Miss . . . Natalie’s mum.’
Sandy pursed her lips and folded her arms under her breasts and for a second Natalie had the terrible feeling that her recently reformed mother was going to lecture Jack on the correct use of contraception.
Instead she said, ‘You look like you need a good feed. You should stay for my paella.’
‘Um, thanks. But I . . .’ He looked at Natalie. ‘Well, I could if you like?’
‘Don’t mind,’ Natalie said, all too aware that she sounded about fifteen.
‘Well then, that’s settled,’ Sandy said, standing up and rolling her eyes at Natalie. ‘I just need to pop out to get a few bits. Give you two a bit more time together . . . with Freddie.’
It was late when Jack finally left, almost midnight.
He had come upstairs with Natalie and rocked Freddie to sleep after his eleven o’clock feed.
‘I like your mum,’ he said quietly. ‘She’s really nice.’
‘Yeah,’ Natalie said, thinking how stunned she had been that the three of them had passed the evening together so pleasantly. Not so long ago it would have seemed like an impossibility. ‘She is nice, isn’t she?’
She sat on the bed in silence and watched in the half-light as Jack swayed back and forth on his long legs with Freddie in his arms, trying to lull him off to sleep. He was humming something under his breath and it took Natalie a while to work out that it was a low version of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.
‘He’s asleep,’ Jack said suddenly, standing completely still. ‘What do I do now?’
‘Just lower him into his cot,’ Natalie whispered. ‘Slowly and carefully, try to maintain body contact with him for as long as possible.’
Jack followed her instructions to the letter and laid Freddie down in his cot.
Instantly Freddie started crying.
‘Don’t worry. It usually takes me four or five goes.’
It was actually the third attempt that was successful. Natalie held her breath as she and Jack stood side by side by the cot and watched Freddie sleep. She had known fewer moments in her life that had been so happy and so perfect and so excruciatingly painful all at once.
‘I suppose,’ Jack whispered slowly after some time, ‘I had better go now he’s asleep.’
He looked at Natali
e in the half-light for a moment, as if he were waiting for her to say or do something. But she could not even dare to guess what he might be waiting for. So she waited, frozen to the spot, until he dropped his gaze and walked out of the bedroom.
At the front door Jack hesitated, looking up and down the road as if he wasn’t sure which way he should go.
‘Thanks for today,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ Natalie said.
‘Natalie, look, I . . .’ Jack bit his lip and rocked on his heels. ‘You’ve made this really easy for me, you didn’t have to.’
‘I know,’ Natalie said. ‘But I wanted to, because you wanted to and because I think you’ll be a great daddy for Freddie.’
Jack nodded. ‘That means a lot,’ he said.
‘To me too,’ Natalie replied.
‘I’d better go then,’ Jack said. He leaned forward and brushed his lips against her cheek.
‘Same time next week then?’ he asked her.
‘Same time next week,’ Natalie said. And she watched him walk down the street towards the green until he disappeared into the night. The place where his lips had touched her skin vibrated with heat.
Chapter Thirty-one
‘How are things with you?’ Natalie asked Meg as they arrived together for the next baby group meeting at Tiffany’s tower block.
‘It certainly is imposing, isn’t it?’ Meg said as they looked up.
‘Steve will love this,’ Natalie said. ‘I bet you that he says post-industrial modernity within five minutes of arriving.’
Meg smiled. ‘I’m not bad,’ she said as Natalie pressed the flat number and they waited for Tiffany to buzz them in. ‘I talked to Robert. I was very calm and quite controlled. I told him how it had to be if I was going to give him another chance. Frances has been a great help, she really has. I think somehow this has brought her out of herself.’
‘And how does it have to be?’ Natalie asked her as the buzzer sounded noisily and she pulled the door open, waving Meg, James and Iris through first.
‘On my terms,’ Meg said, holding the door from the inside for her and Freddie. ‘And I told him that I’d let him know when I had decided. He cried. Twice,’ she added, biting her lip as Natalie pressed the call button on the lift.
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