I was feeding Sarah one morning a couple of weeks later when the phone rang. On several previous occasions I’d tried unsuccessfully to reach the ringing phone on the other side of the room by shuffling towards it with a still suckling Sarah clutched to my chest. However, I had now learnt to bring the cordless phone with me when I sat down to feed her.
‘Hello,’ I said, tucking the phone between my left ear and shoulder as I swapped Sarah, who had finished one breast and was still demanding more, to the other side.
‘Sophie, it’s Max,’ said the voice.
I jolted upright and dropped the phone on Sarah’s head. Nothing could distract that child when she was really hungry, though, and she continued determinedly with the task at hand. Grabbing the phone with my free hand, I held it back to my ear. Despite everything, my first reaction on hearing his voice was pleasure. We’d had so many good times over the years – it was impossible just to put them all aside.
‘Sophie, are you there?’ Max was asking.
‘Yes, yes, I’m here, Max,’ I said, feeling this wasn’t exactly the best time to go into a detailed description of why I’d dropped the phone.
‘So . . . how are you doing?’ he almost stammered.
I understood his discomfort. There wasn’t exactly an established protocol for what to say when you call your ex-girlfriend to whom you haven’t spoken for nine months and who has just had your baby.
‘I’m fine, Max,’ I answered.
Unsure as to whether Max wanted to know how Sarah was, I hesitated. Deciding to take a middle line I said, ‘We’re both doing really well, Max. Sarah’s wonderful.’
‘That’s great, just great,’ he said.
The silence seemed to last forever.
‘What are you still doing up, anyway?’ I asked eventually. ‘It must be the middle of the night for you in America.’
I’d never managed to get the time difference sorted out, but I knew that if it was a sociable time in Australia it was the opposite in San Francisco.
‘Actually, I’m not in the States, I’m in Sydney. I’m just here for a couple of weeks for a pitch.’
Knowing that he wasn’t talking to me from the other side of the world shouldn’t have made a difference, but it did. As I tried to think of something to say, Max spoke again, obviously trying desperately to come up with what he thought was appropriate small talk with the mother of a young baby.
‘So, do you still feel tired from the birth? I’ve heard some pretty awful stories.’
I didn’t quite know how to respond to that. Was I still tired? I couldn’t remember what it felt like not to be tired – it was just situation normal. ‘Um, yes, I guess. Sarah wakes up two or three times a night but you just sort of get used to it.’
‘Sophie, can you hear that noise your end too?’ Max asked suddenly.
The drawback to talking on the phone while I was feeding Sarah was that she made huge gulping and slurping noises. These noises were obviously audible on the other end of the phone, as my callers frequently made tactful comments like, ‘Oh, so Sarah is there too, is she?’, or in the case of close friends, tactless comments like, ‘God, that child is a guzzler!’
Unable to face explaining the source of the noise to Max in this already uncomfortable conversation, I replied in what I hoped was a convincing manner, ‘What noise? Oh, you must be hearing the washing machine in the next room.’
‘Right,’ Max replied dubiously.
Trying to think of a way to change the subject, I struggled to remember what people talked about when they didn’t have babies. Of course – people with lives worked, it was all coming back to me.
‘How’s work?’
‘Work’s great. Except for the fact that everyone except me talks strangely, it’s all pretty much like being in the Sydney office.’
‘Don’t ruin it for me,’ I joked. ‘Tell me it’s incredibly glamorous, that you have a personal stylist, lunch with Nicolas Cage every week and play squash with Sean Connery every second Tuesday.’
‘No,’ he replied and I could hear from his voice that he was smiling. ‘Sean and I play lawn bowls on Thursdays – he’s not as young as he once was, you know. And Nic likes his privacy so I’m really not at liberty to tell you about that.’
I laughed. ‘And how’s the Incredible Hulk enjoying the change?’
The Incredible Hulk was our nickname for Max’s boss, Barry, who was one of the mousiest men I’d ever met and who had been transferred to San Francisco at the same time as Max. Being stuck next to him for an entire dinner was the ultimate torture; every conversational gambit was met with a single word or, if you were really unlucky, a nod.
Max and I had long ago decided that no one could be that boring and that this was in fact just a false persona for a superhero – kind of like Clark Kent but less interesting. Adding fuel to our theory was his claim he was highly allergic to any form of shellfish. We had become convinced that this was not an allergy at all, but the trigger to his miraculous transformation into superhero form and that one mouthful of oyster soup would result in his skin turning green, his muscles rippling and stretching, and his conservative Oxford shirts tearing down the middle.
Unfortunately, neither of us had ever been brave enough to test this theory (as to get it wrong would have meant a dead dinner guest) so we had no real proof either way.
‘Barry was sacked about six months ago – no one quite knows why. I’ve actually been promoted to his job,’ Max said.
‘Wow, that’s great news!’ I enthused and then, not wanting to seem like a total uncaring witch, I added, ‘Although I guess not for Barry.’
‘No, I guess not – but maybe he’s off keeping another company safe in a galaxy far, far away,’ Max replied.
I couldn’t help but laugh. One thing Max and I had always had in common was a sense of humour no one else appreciated.
‘And how’s Debbie?’ Max asked, clearly unwilling to give up the topic of mutual acquaintances and friends, which was a big improvement on our earlier stilted efforts at conversation.
‘Oh, you know, Debbie’s Debbie. She just broke up with another guy last night – something about his choice of aftershave.’
There was another long pause and, deciding to make things easy for Max, I tried to wind the conversation up. ‘Well, I guess I should go . . . ’
‘Sophie,’ Max said abruptly. ‘Could I see you?’
My heart skipped a beat. But after the initial feeling of elation that he should want to see me, I realised nothing had changed. I was now a package that included Sarah and there was no point in my seeing Max, given that there was no place for her in his life. I refused even to think about the possibility that I still wasn’t over him. As my father always said, ‘What’s done is done’ and there was no going back now.
‘I don’t know, Max,’ I hedged. ‘It’s pretty hard for me to get out without Sarah.’
‘I want to see both of you,’ he replied firmly.
My mind whirled as I tried to figure out exactly what this meant. ‘Sure,’ I managed to get out, trying to play it cool. ‘Why don’t you drop around some time?’
‘What about now?’ he asked.
‘Now?’ I echoed, looking around at the profusion of baby rugs, vomit cloths and rattles, and down at my very unglamorous attire.
I was unable to think of an excuse quickly enough and before I knew it the words, ‘Sure, come around’ had somehow made their way out of my mouth.
Thankfully Sarah had dropped off to sleep while she was feeding, so after I had given Max the address and hung up, I dumped her unceremoniously into her cot, calculating that I had about twenty minutes before he arrived.
After throwing off my clothes, I jumped into the shower and, with one hand, lathered my hair, which hadn’t been washed in days. With the other hand, I swiped soap across my body. The possibility of shaving my legs crossed my mind, but I quickly abandoned that as too ambitious given that I didn’t even know where my razor was. In record time I leapt out of the shower and grabbed the hair dryer, more to dry my hair than to attempt any great styling. After all, I didn’t want Max to know that I’d had a shower especially for his visit.
Throwing open my wardrobe doors, I wondered desperately what to wear. Karen had sternly warned me to put my jeans at the bottom of the cupboard and not to even think about trying them on for at least six months after Sarah was born. However, this was a crisis, and after all they’d always been a bit baggy before I became pregnant. With one hand I grabbed the jeans off the hanger and stepped into them while the other hand kept flicking through the possible tops. Suddenly I stopped what I was doing and looked down. Not only would my jeans not do up, I couldn’t even get them over my hips.
This was a matter of serious concern. However, I didn’t have time to wallow in depression and after a quick look at my watch I grabbed my white three-quarter maternity pants and a bright pink shirt.
Somehow I had always been under the impression that the moment my baby was born I would be able to relegate my maternity clothes to the bin and start wearing normal clothes again. Wrong. I was still wearing all my elastic-topped trousers, although I was now able to wear normal shirts (with the notable exception of the figure-hugging ones), which had helped my sanity slightly.
My emergency house-cleaning technique – aka throwing everything into the cupboard and shutting the door – allowed me to get the place looking in reasonable shape in under five minutes and I had just thrown the last toy under the sofa when the doorbell rang. I pushed my hair back behind my ears, took a step towards the door and then paused, turned back and grabbed a book off the shelf, which I put half opened on the sofa. I didn’t want Max to know that the most intellectual thing I’d managed to read since Sarah was born were the change table instructions.
Max stood on the doorstep looking exactly as he had when I’d last seen him.
The first thing that hit me was a feeling of familiarity – almost as though the last year hadn’t happened and he was just picking me up to go to one of our old breakfast haunts. That feeling was quickly replaced by the realisation of how much my life had changed since those days and how much Max had missed.
‘Hi,’ I greeted him nervously. After hesitating for a second, I stood back and invited him in.
Looking as apprehensive as I felt, Max stepped inside and looked around.
‘This place is great, Sophie,’ he said. ‘It must be nice finally living by yourself.’ He realised what he’d said as soon as it was out of his mouth and smiled apologetically. ‘Sorry, it’s kind of hard getting used to the fact that you’ve got a baby.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I answered. ‘I still struggle with the concept myself.’
‘You look terrific,’ he said. ‘I didn’t really know what to expect, but being a mother obviously suits you.’
‘Thanks,’ I replied. ‘It’s not always easy, but so far the good bits far outweigh the bad.’
The stilted conversation lapsed and I tried desperately to think what to say to this man with whom I’d spent two years. As I was frantically considering and discarding topics, I noticed that Max was looking at me strangely. My first thought was that I’d forgotten to do up the zip on my trousers in my mad rush to get ready, but a quick glance established that this was not the case.
With a flash of horror I realised why Max was staring. I was so used to rocking back and forth with Sarah in my arms that I was still doing it, even though she was fast asleep in her bedroom.
Get it together, I told myself fiercely. Max was going to think that I’d lost my mind if I didn’t manage to act slightly normally.
‘Sarah’s asleep,’ I said, in case he thought I had just shut her away in a cupboard. ‘Would you like to see her?’ I added tentatively.
‘Yes, I would, very much,’ Max replied.
I led him up the stairs, opened Sarah’s door and stepped back. Max stood in the doorway looking at the cot for a moment and then walked slowly across the room. He didn’t say a word, just gripped the edge of the cot and stared at his daughter, who was fast asleep, both her arms flung up beside her head. Her long dark lashes rested on her cheeks, and with her loose dark ringlets she looked the spitting image of Max.
I hadn’t realised before I had Sarah that everyone who sees a new baby is desperate to determine who it looks like. The fact that Sarah looked like a smaller and (I hoped) more feminine version of Max and not at all like me had caused great problems for my visitors, who had flailed around desperately looking for some feature of Sarah’s which they could attribute to me.
After what seemed to be a very long time, but was probably only a couple of minutes, Max loosened his grip, turned and walked back down the stairs into the lounge room.
I followed him down, but before I could say anything Max blurted, ‘Look, Sophie, I’ve got to go, I’ll give you a call.’
Speechless, I watched him practically sprint out the door and down the path. I frowned, trying to figure out what exactly had gone wrong.