The Museum of You Page 22

  He drove home and made a list of the things he was leaving there, before returning to the hospital with the other stuff. Becky worked her way through the carrier bags. It should have been like Christmas. That’s how he’d imagined it. But the more things she unpacked, the more worried she looked, and when he showed her the list – the Moses basket, the rocking stand and the various clothes he’d left behind – the extent of the expense dawned on her, along with an understanding of where the money had come from.

  Colin told him to fuck off on the phone the following morning. ‘April Fool’s was last week,’ he said. He called back in the evening. ‘Meet me at the bus stop outside,’ he said.

  They sat beside each other on the yellow bench seat. Colin opened the carrier bag on his lap to reveal a six-pack of Stella, and Darren accepted a drink.

  ‘You know what condoms are for, right? Here’s a clue, they’re not for making balloon animals.’

  ‘Ha-ha.’

  ‘Is Becky okay?’

  ‘Yeah. Tired. A bit shocked.’

  ‘And the baby?’

  ‘Yeah. Tiny. You wouldn’t believe it.’

  ‘Everything’s all right with you two?’

  ‘Yeah. Course.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  They drank and Darren waited.

  ‘There’s no reason why she’d keep it a secret? She’s not scared of hospitals or anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So the baby was doing summersaults and Becky was getting bigger and she just thought . . .’

  ‘Neither of us thought anything.’

  ‘You’re still having sex though, right? I mean, surely you must have noticed –’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘If I ask something, do you promise not to lamp me?’

  ‘I wouldn’t fancy my chances.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s yours?’

  ‘Course I am.’

  ‘And Becky didn’t know.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘All right then,’ he said.

  The meeting ended awkwardly, Colin managing to simultaneously appear sorry and largely unrepentant about everything he’d said.

  The next day, he turned up at the hospital with a jumbo teddy and a bouquet that was so ridiculous it wasn’t allowed on the ward and had to be belted into the passenger seat of Darren’s car.

  How could someone not know they were pregnant? He found it hard to believe. It was bloody ridiculous. But he should have noticed, too. And he hadn’t. People were sometimes surprised by babies, weren’t they? Years of watching Coronation Street with Mum had certainly left him with that impression. Not many people seemed to make the discovery at such short notice, but even that wasn’t entirely unheard of. The midwife told him that Becky’s wasn’t the first denied pregnancy she’d seen. And by ‘denied’, she didn’t mean that Becky had necessarily known, it was just the name they used when the mother was unaware of, or unable to accept, a pregnancy. She sounded so reasonable and assured. Becky could have misinterpreted the physical changes, she explained, and that made it a bit easier to believe. Despite what he’d said to Colin, he had wondered – a horrible feeling, doubting her. He’d got no idea why she’d need to lie; he loved her and there was no way he’d have pissed off at the news of a baby.

  He went over it again and again, looking for signs. They’d been decorating the third bedroom in the evenings and on his days off. Becky had been walking carefully, head stiff, like something might slosh out of her if she moved too much. She’d had back pain, but they’d been standing on ladders, painting ceilings and crouching over skirting boards. She’d put on a bit of weight, but it wasn’t surprising, because they’d eaten a lot of takeaways while sorting out the house. She’d had indigestion. He remembered her crunching her way through rolls of those chalky tablets and glugging that pink stuff that settles your stomach. It never occurred to him to wonder if she might be pregnant.

  There was a meeting before they were allowed home, to make sure they were ready. There were questions about Becky’s childhood and how she felt about pregnancy in general. They asked what he thought of the baby and whether he smoked. It felt like an exam. The people asking the questions were apologetic. It was important, they said, in such circumstances, to monitor the attachment between parents and baby. Darren didn’t mind the questions. The protocol helped – it couldn’t be that unusual, he thought, if there were rules to follow and lists of questions to ask.

  Later, one of the midwives escorted them to the car, insisting, despite his protestations, on carrying the car seat Dad had recommended and paid for. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t carry the baby himself. It felt like the midwife was making sure she didn’t come to any harm while on hospital property. He drove home like a learner, hands at ten to two, ducking the speed limit, hardly able to believe they were allowed to transport such a teeny human.

  Mrs Mackerel pounced as soon as they unfastened the car seat. ‘Welcome HOME!’

  ‘Where would we have been without you?’ he said and thanked her again, which had her beaming.

  ‘Isn’t she GORGEOUS? What a SURPRISE! Have you THOUGHT of a NAME?’

  ‘Not yet.’ He answered for Becky, whose skin looked grey in the daylight.

  ‘She’s so SMALL. Are you WORRIED? Well, DON’T be. You’ll be FINE. You’re GREEN behind the EARS, but it’s the same for EVERYONE in the BEGINNING.’

  ‘We should go in now,’ he said. ‘Don’t want her to get cold.’

  As they stepped into the hall the clocks went off, a welcome-home fanfare. He closed the front door and they were a family.

  Becky was in pain. Although the baby was small, she’d arrived quickly, ripping skin and tissue as she burst into the world. He’d seen the stitches. Becky had shown him in a fit of despair. Look. They weren’t at all as he’d imagined: more like a series of knots than the neat lines his mum had made with her sewing machine.

  ‘It will be fine,’ he said. ‘It happens to women all the time, doesn’t it?’

  There was another tear, one they hadn’t stitched, higher up. It would heal by itself, the midwife explained. In the meantime, Becky moved slowly and cried when she had to pee. They’d told her to pour a jug of warm water over herself as she did it, but she couldn’t coordinate the urge with the pouring. He tried to help.

  ‘I’ll pour,’ he said, pretending to be posh as he knelt beside the toilet.

  She said she was ready and held the slack, empty nest of her belly out of the way, but when he poured she couldn’t do it. ‘Hurry up,’ he called, which didn’t help. She ran a bath instead, then stripped from the waist down, climbed in, peed and got out.

  He knew it was hard. He also knew women all over the world had babies every day. And they fed them and changed them and loved them. So it was hard, yes, but it was also doable. People did it all the time, didn’t they?

  ‘We should take the baby to Peacefields,’ he said. ‘Everyone will want to see her. And they’ll be missing you.’

  ‘Maybe next week,’ she said.

  He returned to work, leaving the house reluctantly, hurrying home the instant he could. When he got back after his second shift, the baby was listless. Her skin seemed loose. He picked her up and she sagged, little legs dangling like skinny drumsticks.

  ‘Don’t disturb her,’ Becky said. ‘She’ll wake when she’s hungry.’

  ‘When did you last feed her?’

  ‘This afternoon.’

  ‘When, though? I think we should wake her.’

  They’d given them a book at the hospital. A sort of instruction manual for pregnancy. Most of it was irrelevant, but the last chapter was about newborns.

  ‘Small babies mustn’t go more than three hours without feeding, otherwise there’s a danger of dehydration. Told you,’ he said, cross with Becky for not knowing something he hadn’t really known himself.

  He set an alarm. Every three hours he lifted the baby out of her basket, changed her and passed her to Becky to be fed.
Before he left for work he made sure the alarm was set for the next feed. Within twenty-four hours the baby looked better, but he kept setting the alarm, just to make sure.

  There was such an enormous amount of shit for Becky to put up with: the stitches and the soreness, the constipation and the peeing arrangements. He hadn’t expected the bleeding. She showed him the blood collecting in the nappy-like sanitary towels; it was coming out in chunks, like liver. And he hadn’t counted on the state of her nipples. Everyone said breastfeeding was beautiful, natural. He’d never imagined that it might hurt. The midwife said Becky wouldn’t bleed if she latched the baby on properly, but she couldn’t get the hang of it.

  ‘You’ve got no idea how much this hurts. It’s like needles in your balls – imagine that.’

  ‘It shouldn’t hurt,’ he coached as she struggled. ‘Is she latched on properly? Is her head tipped back enough? I should be able to see her nose. You have to relax.’

  She endured one humiliation after another; she leaked milk, and blood and tears. She was so brave and good. God, he loved her.

  Mrs Mackerel came round with a bunch of daisies.

  ‘Becky doesn’t LOOK RIGHT,’ she said as she left. ‘Has she got some of that POST-MORTUM depression?’

  ‘It’s just baby blues,’ he replied, parroting the words on the website he’d found. ‘She’ll be better in a few days.’

  ‘You know when someone dies and you wake up in the morning and there’s a moment when everything is okay?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And then it dawns on you.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And everything is ruined.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘When I wake up and remember her, that’s how I feel.’

  ‘No you don’t,’ he said. ‘Don’t be silly.’

  He bought flowers. Nice ones from a proper shop. Chose them himself. Pinks and whites with some of that fluffy stuff – ‘baby’s breath’, the florist called it. That’d cheer her up, he thought.

  When the midwife came, he covered for her.

  ‘How are you getting on, Becky?’

  ‘She’s doing really well, aren’t you, babe?’

  How could he say otherwise? Becky covered for Jim and Maureen, always casting their actions in the best possible light. That’s what she would expect of him, so he did it, newly aware that loving someone for herself involved also loving her when she was not herself.

  ‘We should take the baby to Peacefields,’ he said. ‘Everyone will want to see her. And they’ll be missing you.’

  ‘Maybe next week,’ she said.

  Becky leaned against the worktop, vague and preoccupied. His words seemed to float past her. He asked again, determined to be patient.

  ‘What do you think? We’ve got to choose.’

  He’d lifted the Moses basket off the stand in the lounge and carried it through to the kitchen, where it lay on the floor beside him while he made tea. The baby was entering the restless stage before waking: her limbs were twitching and she made an occasional mewl. Becky eyed the basket with a wariness that made him uncomfortable.

  ‘Daisy,’ she said.

  ‘Hmm, I don’t know.’

  ‘Rosemary.’

  ‘Not bad. I think –’

  ‘Clover.’

  He glanced at the yellow tub on the worktop, at the bunch of white flowers from Mrs Mackerel, at the herb tray on the windowsill.

  ‘Are you just saying random stuff? Working your way round the room? You are, aren’t you? God, Becky. I’ve got an idea, how about Toaster? Eh? Daisy, Rosemary, Clover! You want to name her after margarine?’

  ‘It’s butter.’

  ‘Butter? Oh, that’s all right then!’ He strode to the fridge, tugged it open and glanced at the contents. ‘Tell you what, let’s call her Stella. That’ll make a good story when she’s older.’

  He slammed the fridge shut and carried on, racking his brain for edible names. He knew he was being a dick but he couldn’t stop.

  ‘Olive – too posh. Sherry? Come on, what do you think?’

  When she replied, her words came out slowly, as if uttering them was the most enormous effort. ‘I. Really. Don’t. Care.’

  ‘All right, all right.’

  She looked like she was about to cry. He knew she cared, underneath.

  ‘So let’s have one of yours.’ He considered her suggestions: Daisy and Rosemary were girly, names he’d never have chosen, not in a million years. ‘How about Clover? It’s not bad, actually – sounds nice, soft. She’ll be the only one in her class, won’t she? I think it suits her. What do you think?’

  ‘If you like,’ she said.

  The baby – Clover – started to cry. He lifted her out of the basket and passed her to Becky. It was years later, when Clover was learning to write, that he noticed the word love hiding in the middle of her name.

  He was adaptable, a veteran of abandoned plans. But Becky seemed to be grieving the loss of hers. There was something steely in her that resisted a change of course. Something broken, too, he noticed, a crack in her characteristic optimism. And he began to see how, despite her persistence and patience, Jim broke her heart, as did her mother and the dad she so carefully remembered – her whole fucking family broke her heart and, if he didn’t act, he could see how he might join them.

  A four-pack of Boost bars. Her favourite treat. Wrapped in shiny paper and ribbon.

  ‘This should give you a boost,’ he said.

  She would have laughed, before. At the very least, groaned.

  He drove round to Dad’s and asked if he would mind writing a cheque for a steriliser. Although he was on board with breast is best, something had to give.

  Becky leaked through the breast pads as she bottle-fed Clover, soaking her T-shirts with circles of milk. She still cried during feeds. Now it was guilt.

  ‘We should take Clover to Peacefields,’ he said. ‘Everyone will want to see her. And they’ll be missing you.’

  ‘Not yet,’ she said.

  Clover was sick on Becky after every feed. It was funny, a coincidence that had the potential to turn into a running joke, like Colin getting sprayed when he opened bottles of fizz, or the way half-drunk autumn wasps always dive-bombed Dad. It was one of those things, that’s all. But Becky took it personally – she was taking everything personally. He began to wish Clover would be sick on him, just to level it out. Once or twice he winded her especially vigorously, goading her gag reflex.

  The sick got in Becky’s hair and she didn’t have time to wash it every day, so she started tying it back in a plait. It made her look different, older. Like a mum. He was used to it down; even for work she only ever tied up a piece from the front, always leaving the back part loose.

  ‘I must be feeding her wrong,’ she said.

  He tried to help, watched as she did it, making suggestions: perhaps if she held Clover differently, sat straighter, was more relaxed.

  ‘You do it,’ she’d say. ‘You’re better at it.’

  He went to the library on his way home from work. Once he’d registered and received his ticket, he grabbed a small stack of novels from the Romance section. He was about to present them for stamping when it occurred to him that it might be good if there were some babies in the books. The covers were child-free, but that didn’t necessarily mean the stories were. He found a chair and made himself at home, flicking through the last pages of each book. A couple ended in weddings, one in a very steamy sex scene – he rearranged the pile on his lap – another with news of a pregnancy. The characters fell in love and then what? What came next? Perhaps the next part of the story was not appealing to the writers; he hoped it was appealing to women in general, and to Becky in particular.

  He gave up searching and took the stack of books to the desk. ‘These aren’t for me,’ he explained. ‘They’re for my girlfriend.’

  The woman nodded. She didn’t care and her expression indicated that she only half believed him. He could feel hea
t creeping into his cheeks and around the back of his neck.

  And after all that, Becky didn’t read them.

  The midwife’s visits ended and the health visitor made an appointment.

  ‘Tell her how you feel. She’ll know what to do.’

  ‘She won’t take Clover away, will she?’

  ‘Why on earth would she do that?’

  ‘If I say I’m not looking after her properly.’

  ‘You are looking after her properly. You’re just worried. You’re very worried. And tired. That’s what you’ll tell her.’

  ‘What will she do?’

  ‘She’ll talk to you. And then you’ll feel better.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Yes, that’s all she’ll do. Promise.’

  ‘But if that’s all, how will it help?’

  He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything.

  The health visitor said she needed to wash her hands, but he was on to her: she was checking up on them, seeing whether the bottles were sterilised and the dishes washed. They were: he’d got wise to the midwife’s hand-washing and had made sure everything was tidy.

  He was on a late that day and wanted to give them some privacy, time to have a proper chat, so he waited in the kitchen with Clover, enjoying the chance to hold her while she slept. But after a while curiosity got the better of him and he tiptoed through the dining room and into the hall, where he could hear them talking.

  ‘– questions we ask. Is that okay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And are you having any difficulty sleeping?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Feeling anxious or worried?’

  ‘Sometimes.’