‘Tiffany, you were amazing,’ Natalie said, not for the first time. ‘My blood ran cold. I just froze. I had no idea what to do. And you remembered all that baby first-aid stuff. You were incredible. So calm and in control.’
‘You were,’ Meg agreed. ‘I’m so proud of you, which I know makes me sound like I want to be your mum and not your friend, but I’d be proud to be your mum and I’m very proud to be your friend.’
‘Me too,’ the others agreed, making Tiffany squirm and shift on the uncomfortable cafeteria chair.
‘Wasn’t that special,’ she mumbled into the zip of her parka, as if she was just some awkward teenager and not the amazingly clever and brave hero that the others had seen in action a few hours ago.
‘It was special,’ Jess said, approaching the table a little warily. ‘It wasn’t just special, it was amazing. You didn’t just save Jacob’s life, you saved mine too.’ She looked literally washed out, every scrap of colour drained from her face and every ounce of energy spent on her son.
The others looked at her, each of them unable to ask her how things were going, afraid to hear bad news.
‘The doctors said that Jacob is stable now,’ Jess said, partially answering their worries. ‘Lee is with him, he arrived a while ago. He told me to come and get us acup of tea, get some fresh air. I didn’t want to leave Jacob, he’s so little and they’ve got him in this great big cot and he’s supposed to have an oxygen mask on but it’s too big, so either Lee or I have to hold it as near to his nose and mouth as we can.’ Jess’s voice wobbled on the last word, and she looked up at the strip lighting and made herself smile. ‘I mean, he’s smiling and waving his legs around and charming the nurses, but I look at him and I see the way he looked when I found him and I think about how different it might have been and I . . .’ She bit her lip and heaved in a deep breath. ‘Lee said I needed some fresh air and a Mars bar.’ She smiled wanly at the group. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here but I’m really glad you are. And . . . look, I’m really sorry about before, I –’
‘Please don’t be sorry,’ Natalie implored her.
‘I was out of my mind with worry,’ Jess told her.
‘But you were still right,’ Natalie said. ‘Who are we, who am I to know what you should and should not worry about? I dismissed your fears when if I had listened to them properly I could have helped you. I thought I was building your confidence but really I was helping to undermine it.’
Jess shook her head. ‘That’s not true. I made you feel bad about something that . . . is normal. You are normal to be and act the way you do. I’m not. It’s not normal to constantly fuss and worry and fret.’
‘But you were right to,’ Meg said.
Jess pulled a chair over from an adjoining table and sat down heavily. ‘I wish I wasn’t. I wish that I had been wrong to worry so much. But now I do have something to be anxious about and funnily enough, now I know what it is, now I can face it and deal with it, I don’t feel afraid any more.’
‘What happened?’ Frances asked her.
‘They say that it doesn’t look as if he had a cold after all. It is a bacterial thing, which in turn set off an asthma attack, his airways got inflamed and narrow. When I laid him down for that nap, mucus got lodged in his airway and he didn’t or couldn’t cough it out.’ Jess was still for a moment, facing once again the horrific alternative reality that had been only a hair’s breadth away for her and Jacob that morning. ‘Tiffany did exactly the right thing. She cleared his airway and got him breathing. He’s had oxygen and Ventolin and his breathing has eased now. They’re keeping us in tonight and maybe tomorrow and he’ll need medication and monitoring for the foreseeable future, but with the right management he’ll be fine.’ Jess looked as if she couldn’t quite believe it. ‘He’s fine.’
‘I’m so relieved,’ Natalie said.
‘The paediatrician said he’d probably had asthma for a while. She said it’s quite common in young babies and that when he had that “snoring” it might have been a wheeze after all, only it stopped by the time we brought him here.’ She lifted her chin a fraction. ‘I knew it was something serious. I knew it.’
Tentatively Natalie reached across the table and laid her hand on the back of Jess’s.
‘Mother’s intuition,’ she said. ‘We should have listened to you. I’m sorry, Jess.’
Jess shook her head, dismissing the need for an apology.
‘They said that most babies grow out of it and that now we know, we’re prepared. We’ve got to give him an inhaler whenever he has a sniffle. He’ll have a check-up every couple of months.’ Jess suddenly stifled a sob. ‘I don’t know why I want to cry now,’ she said, brushing away tears.
‘Relief, I expect,’ Meg said. ‘I feel like having a weep myself.’
‘Or is it because you know that I’m hosting the baby group next?’ Natalie asked her. ‘That’s enough to make me want to cry.’
‘You’re an idiot,’ Jess said, although she did manage to raise a watery smile.
‘Oh, much more of an idiot than you can ever guess,’ Natalie said. And she made up her mind then and there. These people who had started out as random acquaintances had become her friends, the kind of friends she’d never thought she’d need or want. But over the last few weeks she had found a solidarity with each of them that was both refreshing and, yes, comforting.
She cared about them and their families and she thought they cared for her too. And if they did, then they deserved to know the stupid truth about her stupid life. No more excuses or setbacks.
The next baby group, Natalie decided. That was when she would tell them, come what may.
Chapter Thirty-two
The intervening time between the last, fateful meeting of the baby group and the day that Natalie was finally about to host it had been happily quiet and mostly uneventful. In fact, Natalie thought, the best word to describe herself, her feelings and thoughts in those days was tranquil. After the sudden storm that had swept away that bright and sunny morning at Tiffany’s flat, she felt that she could see her life all the more clearly. All her petty problems and silly stories seemed utterly irrelevant and pointless now. All that mattered was that she had Freddie, and Freddie had Jack in his life.
She had even found a peaceful way of managing her feelings for Jack. She had decided to simply enjoy them quietly, secretly. She would take pleasure in his friendship and his relationship with Freddie and let her own feelings ebb and flow over her, hopeful that one day the sharp pang of want she experienced whenever she heard his voice or saw his face would be washed away and in time smoothed into a round pebble of friendship. However, she did expect this to take quite a long time, so she was hopeful that Jack would not date anyone else, let alone fall in love, for at least fifty years or so. It was a faint hope, Natalie realised, as she thought about that encounter that Jack had had with Suze in Soho Square, the one she should not know about and rather wished she didn’t. But at least knowing that Jack was interested in and even approaching other women helped her to put her situation into perspective. Otherwise his warmth, his sweet smiles, the pleasure he seemed to take in Freddie’s and, yes, her company too, could have been seriously misconstrued. No, it was better like this, to admire him from a safe distance. Natalie supposed she would have to cross the bridge signposted ‘Jack in Love with Someone Who is Not Me’ when she came to it. Or more likely jump right off it.
Jack had called her a few days after his visit, which had taken her entirely by surprise. Why she was so shocked Natalie didn’t know, but the sound of his voice so suddenly in the shell of her ear made her trip and tumble over her words for a moment.
‘Um, oh? Jack!’ she exclaimed. ‘Well.’
‘Well?’ Jack responded uncertainly. ‘Is this a bad time? Have you got guests or . . . a guest?’ His tone loaded the last word with a meaning that she could not fathom.
‘No, no – not at all – it’s just that I wasn’t expecting you to call,’ she told him hurriedly.
‘I don’t know why it should be a shock. After all, I hardly ever expect anybody to call and they do and I’m not surprised then. Maybe it’s because I spent so long waiting for you to call me after we got back from Venice that now you actually are here it will take me a while to adjust to you as a person contactable by telephone.’
‘This is a bad time,’ Jack stated, clearly taking her ramblings as a dig at their messy past.
‘No!’ Natalie exclaimed, perhaps a touch too desperately. ‘No, Jack, it’s not a bad time, it’s just . . . oh look, I’m still getting used to having you around in our lives. I didn’t mean to get at you. I didn’t mean to say any of that stuff, I just didn’t know how to say what I wanted to say which was, “Hello, Jack, nice to hear from you. How are you?”’
‘I’m good,’ he said. ‘Work’s good, I’m looking for my own place, so it’s been a good few days. And you?’
Natalie paused; she wanted to tell him all about Jacob and Jess and everything that had happened at Tiffany’s flat, but she didn’t know if she should. It was difficult negotiating her way around this new relationship. They had been fleeting lovers, now they were co-parents, but she didn’t think they could actually call each other friends yet; they were more well-intentioned acquaintances, one of whom happened to be madly in love with the other. ‘It’s been a busy week,’ she said eventually. ‘Trying to get my head in gear, you know.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Jack said easily. ‘It is really weird, I felt nervous dialling your number. And I called because I caught myself not calling. I caught myself thinking don’t phone too soon, mate, you don’t want to let on what a great time you had. And then I realised that I hadn’t been on a date, I’d spent time with my son and that actually I do want him to know how much I enjoyed spending time with him, and that I do want to do it again really soon and that this is no time to play it cool, even if he is just a baby and hasn’t got a clue who I am yet. And I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind if I called between visits to find out how he is.’
It had taken Natalie a moment or two to readjust her psyche to suit the tranquil mode she had recently adopted, because for most of the time that Jack had been talking she had let herself believe that he was actually talking about her. She had briefly forgotten that he was referring to Freddie, which made her feel first stupid and secondly self-centred. Both were traits that she had been guilty of in the past and ones she wanted very much to leave behind now.
‘Of course you can call about Freddie any time you like!’ she said with overcompensating, overblown verve. ‘What’s to stop you?’
‘I don’t want you to think I’m trying to take over his or your life,’ Jack said. ‘I mean, you don’t need me hanging round you all the time, stopping you moving on . . . getting on with things, I mean.’
I do, I do, I do need you actually, Natalie had thought to herself, but she bit back the rebellious words and managed to reply dryly, ‘You’re right, Freddie and I do have a pile of invitations asking us to cocktail parties and premieres on a daily basis.’
She listened happily to Jack’s chuckle. ‘Look,’ she went on. ‘I want you to see him as much as possible. I really want that for him.’
‘Natalie, can I ask you something?’ Jack said tentatively.
‘Of course,’ Natalie replied on an inward breath.
‘Is my name on his birth certificate?’
‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘It’s funny, it never occurred to me to leave it off. I suppose I must have always wanted him to have something of you, whatever happened.’
‘I’m glad.’ Jack sounded as if he’d been holding his breath too. ‘Look, I was wondering what you think. Do we need solicitors to make some kind of formal arrangement between us? Should we find out about it?’
Inexplicably, irrationally, Natalie’s heart sank at the perfectly sensible suggestion.
‘Well, yes, OK,’ she said, unable to disguise the heaviness in her voice.
‘I know what you mean,’ Jack said, although she hadn’t actually expressed any opinion. ‘Getting lawyers involved seems a bit clinical, a bit formal. Not especially friendly.’
‘But it is something we will have to do, I suppose,’ Natalie said. ‘Make it legal.’
‘Yes, but not yet,’ Jack said. ‘After all, we’re still just getting to know each other, right? And I won’t run away. I absolutely promise you that I will never leave him.’
After Natalie had put the phone down a few minutes later she had sat for a long time and thought about everything that Jack had said. He was never going to leave Freddie, he’d said – he’d promised. And she believed him, a belief that made her rejoice for her son, but frightened her too. What if, without the benefit of distance and absence, she never got over Jack? What if she spent the rest of her life, seeing him and missing him all at once?
Now, though, the morning of the baby group had arrived and Natalie had to focus on the present. She had to prepare, to get ready for this literal moment of truth.
There had been talk about postponing it, as Jacob had come home from hospital only two days earlier. But Jess said she wanted to come, even if Jacob would be staying at home with Lee on this occasion. She said an hour or two out with her friends was just what she needed.
Natalie had rehearsed on several occasions and usually in front of the mirror, the speech that would reveal her deep, dark and murky secrets to the baby group. When she detailed the truth about her fake husband, and about exactly how Freddie was conceived (well, not exactly how), and even about her son’s fledgling relationship with his still strange and worryingly wonderful father, she had to admit that her secret sounded, well, less shocking and rather more silly than she had hoped.
Still, she was looking forward to unburdening herself just the same. There was the slight risk that they might all turn on her and she’d end up with no friends at all. But Natalie had decided that there was no point in having close friends – best friends – if you couldn’t be truthful with them.
Sandy helped her prepare for her friends’ arrival by going to the shop to buy the cake.
‘Do you want me to go to that lovely patisserie?’ she asked Natalie. ‘Get lots and lots of lovely pastries and things?’
‘Thanks, but that would be far too sophisticated,’ Natalie said. ‘We do cake, preferably shop-bought.’
‘Shop-bought cake it is,’ Sandy said with a shrug, winking at Freddie as she headed out. Natalie looked at the space where her mother had been standing a moment before and found herself smiling.
Recently Sandy had been quite nice to be around. She hadn’t driven her to instant apocalyptic fury for almost a week, and Natalie was discovering that if she didn’t jump down her mother’s throat at the slightest provocation, sometimes Sandy would have something quite sensible or interesting to say.
Occasionally Natalie found herself missing their old sparring sessions, but she was fairly sure that once she and Sandy had moved out of this intermediary stage they’d be able to fight happily once again, only this time without the great dark fear that they really did hate each other overshadowing everything. Like any relationship, the one between Natalie and Sandy would require work, effort and many small adjustments before they got it exactly right.
Similar rules applied in her attempts to manage whatever weird sort of relationship she had with Jack. He was due for his second visit the following day, and Natalie didn’t doubt that it would be just as emotionally challenging as the last one. But if she could stay tranquil on the outside then she was making some progress, no matter what storm might rage inside.
Natalie was surprised when the doorbell rang a few minutes later, and supposed it must be her mother with plenty of cake but no key.
‘It must be the Alzheimer’s again,’ she said as she swung the door open, but it wasn’t her mother who stood before her. It was Gary.
‘Gary!’ Natalie said with an air of pleasant surprise, as if she had just remembered that he existed. He smiled at her, looking very hands
ome in his tight khaki T-shirt and jeans, and she wondered at the fact that she had let him slip so easily from her thoughts with that torso. How on earth had it come to pass that a skinny, lanky man had captured her heart so firmly when this one hadn’t?
‘I was in the area,’ Gary said. ‘Thought I’d drop in, see how you are and . . .’ He looked down at his feet a little coyly. ‘I, er, needed to talk to you about something.’
Natalie stood aside and let him in rather hesitantly, hoping that he wasn’t going to ask her out again or declare his undying love for her, because she had no idea what she would say to him if he did.
‘How’s the wiring?’ he asked her, not quite able to look her in the eye.
‘Well, everything is working,’ Natalie said with a shrug.
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Gary said.
They stood looking at each other for a few seconds, both remembering the night they had spent together.
‘You look well,’ Gary said eventually.
‘Thank you,’ Natalie said, smiling at his non-compliment. ‘So do you.’
Gary nodded, his hand on his hip. He bit his lip and looked like what he was about to say to her would be embarrassing and difficult. Natalie braced herself.
‘Look, Natalie . . .’
‘Gary, don’t,’ Natalie interrupted him, placing her fingers lightly on his lips. ‘Don’t say what you’re about to say.’ She moved a step closer and rested her hand on his forearm. ‘That night we had together, it was great and it meant so much to me it really did, but don’t say you want more from me because I just don’t have it to give, Gary. I’m stupidly in love with Freddie’s dad, remember? I don’t even think I could have sex with you again, even if you are a very good lover. Because I can only think about him, and I know it’s stupid. And besides, you are a lovely man. A really fabulous, kind man with a really amazing body and you deserve more than to be just used for sex . . .’
The Baby Group Page 38
