Chapter Four

Natalie decided to take cake to Meg’s house by way of celebration. She had got herself and Freddie through another night alive and relatively unscathed and she had made a decision to buy cake. Those were two good enough reasons to merit a celebration, Natalie thought. And besides she was looking forward to a social occasion that didn’t involve her and Freddie and their house. It wasn’t the kind of occasion she would have chosen but, she supposed, cocktail parties weren’t de rigueur with new mums. And anyway, just the prospect of getting out of the house had lifted Natalie’s spirits. It wasn’t until she cheered up that that she realised she had been feeling rather down.

Just knowing that she had something to do the next day had helped her get through what had become another typically gruelling night. And, although it had been filled with crying from both of them, confusion from one of them, regurgitating from the other one and a muddled sleepless small-hours’ kind of despair and imaginary-husband related hallucinations, it hadn’t been that bad.

It was more of a good kind of bad, the kind of bad that Natalie could cope with for the rest of her life if necessary, even if she never slept, ate or had sex again, after all she had done more than her fair share of all three in her time.

She had just about dragged a brush through her hair and pulled it back into a knot on the nape of her neck when Gary Fisher and his crew of two and a half arrived, one of whom was sporting a pink fake-fur gilet over a skinny-rib top that left a good three-inch gap of her flat tummy showing above her jeans.

Natalie couldn’t help openly staring at her.

‘Why are you in such good shape?’ she asked her baldly.

‘Don’t know,’ Tiffany said. ‘It’s probably cos I’m young.’

‘Oh,’ Natalie said, who had thought up until that moment that she was young. ‘Well, pull that top down, you’ll catch a chill.’

Making the decision about what kind of cake to buy was not quite as triumphant, particularly as there were only two types in the Turkish grocers, one being Jamaican ginger cake and the other Cadbury’s chocolate mini-rolls.

‘Oh I don’t know,’ Natalie said, scrutinising the two candidates. ‘What do you think?’

‘Not bothered,’ Tiffany said with a shrug, making Natalie wonder exactly why it was she was so bothered. Natalie glanced up at her and noticed that she was leaning so far backwards that she looked like she might unbalance both herself and Jordan in an attempt to peer around the corner towards the darker back end of the poky store.

‘What are you looking at?’ Natalie asked her, forgetting for a moment her preoccupation with cake.

Tiffany righted herself.

‘There’s this woman round there just staring at tinned tomato soup. Not looking, just staring,’ she said, keeping her voice low. ‘Like she’s in a coma or something.’ She bent back with enviably pain-free ease and looked again.

‘Still at it,’ she confirmed. ‘Like a statue. Do you think she’s all right?’

Natalie half wanted to point out to Tiffany that it was rude to stare at mad people, but after being made to feel so ancient earlier that morning she held her tongue. Deciding to take a leaf out of Tiffany’s book instead, she peered round the corner herself. Standing with her profile to them, a blonde-haired, quite presentable-looking woman was indeed staring fixedly at the canned goods.

‘It might be a petit mal fit, like you get with some kinds of epilepsy,’ Tiffany whispered.

Natalie glanced sideways at her and wished she’d stop surprising her with knowledge and insight, it was quite unnerving. She turned back to the woman.

‘She looks familiar,’ Natalie said quietly to Tiffany. She edged a little closer, pretending to need a tin of peas, until she could look properly at her face. She recognised her immediately.

‘Hello,’ Natalie said brightly, making the woman jump. ‘How are you?’

The woman blinked as if she had just woken from a dream.

‘It’s Natalie,’ Natalie prompted her. ‘I was in the cubicle opposite you at the hospital, you came in the day after me. It’s Jess, isn’t it? Do you live near here? I live over the road – how are you getting on with little . . . ?’ Natalie peered at the bundle in the buggy. All she could see was a glimpse of a tiny blue hat.

‘Jacob,’ Jess said. ‘Absolutely fine.’ She smiled at Natalie, who got the distinct impression that Jess had had to force every single muscle into the appropriate position to assume the expression.

‘You think that you’re going mad, don’t you?’ Natalie said instinctively. ‘One minute you’re thinking about fish fingers, the next you’re crying or . . . standing about looking all vacant. But apparently it’s the same for everyone. Even her.’ Natalie nodded at Tiffany who had edged a little nearer. ‘And she’s young and thin.’

Jess’s smile seemed a fraction less fake.

‘Oh,’ she said, looking suddenly bashful. ‘I’m fine – really. I just completely forgot why I came to the shop, that’s all!’

‘Was it for cake?’ Natalie asked her. ‘We’re, or I should say I’m, trying to buy cake to take to this other woman’s house for a sort of informal mums’ meeting.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘Why don’t you come along too? I’m sure Megan – that’s the woman I’m buying cake for – won’t mind.’

Jess looked rather shell-shocked by the invitation and a little bit panicked. Natalie sympathised. She knew that sometimes she had days with Freddie when the thought of doing anything as impulsive as popping out for a loaf of bread seemed impossible. Jess’s look of terror made it seem as if Natalie’s invitation was to stand blindfolded in front of a firing squad.

‘Um . . .’ she said.

‘Only if you don’t have something already on,’ Natalie said, with a wry half-smile. ‘Like washing Babygros or sterilising something.’

Jess relaxed a little and she almost laughed.

‘Well, I suppose I could tear myself away from folding tiny socks . . .’ she said. ‘Would your friend mind, do you think?’

‘Shouldn’t think so,’ Natalie said, with a nod of her head. ‘Now, which do you prefer, ginger cake or chocolate mini-rolls? Oh, let’s go crazy and buy both.’

‘James, darling, don’t chew Gripper’s bone – there’s a love,’ Meg said, swiftly retrieving the dog’s toy from the mouth of her two-year-old.

‘Why you’ve even got a dog I don’t know,’ Frances said, wiping down Meg’s kitchen surfaces with the kind of enthusiasm that Meg found simultaneously intimidating and irritating.

As predicted, her sister-in-law had been cleaning since the moment she had arrived this morning. The first thing she had done was to scrub the kitchen table that had still been covered with the detritus of a typically chaotic breakfast for six. Once that met with her approval she put baby Henry’s car seat right in the centre of the table, as if she had somehow created an exclusion zone for him that Meg’s unruly and presumably unhygienic rabble could not breach. Then she had started on the floor; she had brought her own mop.

It wasn’t that Meg wasn’t grateful for the help. She was. It was just that she had asked her sister-in-law round simply for coffee and a chat, and that was partly under duress from Robert. She had not asked her to disinfect her entire house. Worse still, Frances hadn’t even asked if Meg minded if she cleaned and mopped and scrubbed, so even though Meg was sure it was unintentional, she found Frances’s ‘help’ really quite insulting. But there was no point in saying anything to her. Meg had learnt that from personal experience over the years.

Frances was incapable of being in the wrong or taking any kind of criticism. Even the slightest hint that you might not approve one hundred per cent of everything she said or did brought out her hackles. Like the time Meg had innocently mentioned that she’d read an article about how long it takes a woman to become fertile again after several years of taking the Pill. All Meg meant to do was to offer some kind of comfort or explanation as to why Frances was not getting pregnant immediately, but instead Frances had taken it very personally, as if Meg had somehow accused her of deliberately spoiling her own chances of becoming pregnant. And Frances was very scary when she was cross, which meant that Meg had somehow found herself apologising abjectly for something she was fairly certain she hadn’t done. She had endured the hurt looks and occasional sniffs from Frances for the rest of the night with good grace. It had been harder to keep quiet during Robert’s lecture about tact and diplomacy on the way home.

She had done it, though.

Robert always said that his little sister wasn’t frightening, just determined. Meg secretly thought that was a polite term for downright terrifying. Even so, she had a soft spot for Frances. She could see that Frances was motivated by the urge to do what she thought was the right thing, even if she had the tact and diplomacy of a very angry rhinoceros. So the best thing to do, Meg decided, was to try hard not to be offended and be glad that she had a clean kitchen floor for however brief a hiatus.

Meg noticed that Gripper was attacking Frances’s mop just as enthusiastically as Frances had cleaned the floor. She shooed the large poodle out into the back garden hurriedly, hoping that Frances had been too intent on removing limescale from around the taps to notice.

‘Anyway, Gripper was Robert’s idea,’ Meg reminded her sister-in-law, answering what was probably a rhetorical question. ‘You must remember, he brought her home one night and said he thought it would be good for the kids to have a pet? I was as shocked as anyone. He’d always said absolutely no pets up until then – I don’t know what changed his mind. Alex and Hazel going on and on, I suppose. I have to admit I wouldn’t have chosen a poodle myself. I’d have gone for something a bit more cuddly and stupid.’ Meg smiled indulgently. ‘That dog is far too clever for her own good. Do you know she can open the fridge? But Robert said they don’t shed hair so that was that. And the kids love her.’ Meg looked out of the back window at her largely unkempt garden where Gripper was making another bid to be the first poodle to dig her way to Australia.

Toodles the Poodles was the name Hazel had given her when absolutely everything she said had to rhyme. But Meg’s elder son, Alex, had protested loudly, demanding they give the puppy a proper name, the kind of name that a six-year-old boy could call out in the park. And somehow Toodles had become Gripper which had stuck, largely because Gripper was quite butch for a poodle bitch. Meg always thought she had the spirit of a Rottweiler trapped in the wrong kind of body. Alex said she was a honed killing machine, which was true if you counted socks, shoes and skirting boards as viable victims.

‘Well, not shedding hair is something, I suppose,’ Frances said, producing a large Tupperware container from her seemingly bottomless bag of tricks. ‘I just hope you keep on top of its . . . excrement,’ she added distastefully. ‘It can cause blindness, you know. Now, I made some muffin mix this morning after you told me that you had invited other people.’

Frances managed to refer to Meg’s guests as if they were somehow an act of betrayal. ‘I knew you wouldn’t have baked. I’ll just pop it into some cases I’ve brought with me and into your oven. Is it clean?’

Meg took a deep breath and wafted into the living room, picturing herself as a serene cloud floating over a still ocean until the urge to say something ill-advised to Frances had passed. She decided instead to let Frances discover for herself that the oven was still fragranced with last Sunday’s lunch. In fact, if she wasn’t very much mistaken, Robert’s portion, which she had optimistically dished up, was still decomposing on a plate in there where it had warmed beyond the point of no return. Robert was working a lot of weekends these days.

At least the living room was peaceful, trapping the March sun and magnifying it into an almost balmy warmth. James lay on the carpet, fixated by his Thomas the Tank Engine video, and Iris was fast asleep in the family bassinet. Meg loved to see her fourth baby asleep in the cradle, even if she was already almost too big for it. She remembered when she and Robert had bought it whilst she was pregnant with Alex. Robert had said that they didn’t need anything so frilly, silly and most of all expensive for a baby who would be too big to go in it within a few weeks. They should get a cot like everybody else. But Meg had insisted. She said she wanted something that would last for all their children, and that a cot was too big for a newborn baby to sleep in. And as they had been planning to have six children back then she argued that it was actually extremely economical. Robert had given in like he always used to, said he’d just have to close a few more deals, that was all. Meg smiled and felt the memory of those first years pull inside her with familiar happiness. The two of them starting out; united in their vision of the future – a large happy family in a large family house. A dad who provided, a mum who was at home for her children.

Eight years later and they had achieved so much of their dream. A big old house in a nice London suburb. Enough money to send Alex and Hazel to private schools, and for Meg to stay at home with James and Iris. But even though Meg had gained so much, she felt as if she had lost something too – that feeling of unity she used to share with Robert.

They were still a team, Meg told herself, as James launched himself from in front of the TV and into her lap, laughing when he made her go ‘oomph’. She kissed her younger son all over his face while he giggled and shrieked for her to stop. She and Robert were the team captains of this wonderful, miraculous family. James, Iris, Alex and Hazel and even Gripper – they were why Robert worked such long hours; he did it for their children and for her. So she couldn’t complain that she missed him. She’d just have to live with it.

Just then the doorbell went. Frances came into the living room wearing an apron with ‘How to be a Domestic Goddess’ printed on it.

‘They’re here,’ she said.

Meg hefted James back onto the floor and went to the door. Curiously, despite her bossiness, Frances was really quite shy and although she might happily come and take over Meg’s house without turning a hair, she would never dream of opening the door to people she didn’t know.

‘Blimey,’ Natalie said, holding a Jamaican ginger cake in her hands like an offering. ‘You didn’t tell me you lived in a mansion – this house makes mine look like a bungalow.’

Meg laughed as she stepped aside to let Natalie, Tiffany and then another woman in, together with three babies in buggies.

‘This is Jess,’ Natalie said, kissing Meg on both cheeks with chilled lips. Tiffany just nodded at her and Jess held out a hand.

‘Sorry for landing myself on your doorstep,’ Jess said. ‘Natalie found me looking vacant in the corner shop and decided I need rescuing from myself.’ She smiled sheepishly. ‘She was right. I think I was on the verge of forgetting how to use spoken language.’

Meg smiled warmly at Jess. ‘More the merrier,’ she said, as she shepherded the procession of mothers, buggies and babies into the kitchen.

‘Oh, I’ve got mud on your floor,’ Tiffany mumbled in dismay, looking at the tracks her buggy had left across the sparkling tiles. The fact that she obviously felt so uncomfortable and out of place was very evident.

‘Oh don’t worry about it,’ Meg said breezily with a wave of her hand. ‘The dog will be in from the garden in a minute and she’ll mess up the whole place! You can park the babies in here, then if they start crying we can just lift them out, can’t we?’

Meg caught Frances’s eye and hastily looked away again. ‘This is my sister-in-law Frances – Frances, this is Natalie, Tiffany and Jess.’

Frances nodded stiffly at the new arrivals. ‘I’ll make coffee,’ she said, turning her back on the group and so excluding herself from having to make small talk.

‘Have you actually baked?’ Natalie asked, sniffing the air as she took a seat at the table. ‘That makes my ginger cake look a bit lame.’

Meg laughed. ‘That’s Frances, can’t you see – she’s a domestic goddess.’ Everyone laughed except Frances, who remained with her back to the group. Meg bit her lip; she knew she shouldn’t have made the silly joke, not about Frances. But she was feeling a bit awkward and shy herself and just wanted to get the conversation going.

‘Well,’ she said, as Frances lifted little Henry from his tabletop haven and put him on a chair instead. ‘It is very nice to have some decent adult company again.’

‘Hear, hear,’ Natalie agreed, raising her eyebrows as Frances carefully set a tray replete with a cafetière, mugs, sugar and even cream down on the table. ‘And in a nice clean house,’ she added. ‘My place is such a tip between me, Freddie and the electrician – it’s like Armageddon.’

‘Oh that wasn’t Meg, that was me,’ Frances said, with an icy edge. She pointed at her apron. ‘Domestic goddess, see?’

There was an awkward moment as everyone tried to work if Frances was attempting a joke or an insult. Not even Frances was exactly sure.

‘So what shall we talk about then?’ Natalie said a little chirpily over the silence. ‘Feeding? Nappies and their contents? What do you do at this sort of thing? Compare stretch marks?’

The doorbell chimed again.

‘Oh, I invited someone else!’ Meg said, clapping her palm to her forehead. ‘I completely forgot! The neighbours over the road – Jill and Steve?’ She looked at Frances. ‘They had a little girl recently. I dropped a note in last night; I thought Jill might want to come. That’ll be her.’

Frances looked at the five mugs arranged on the tray and slowly got up and fetched another.

‘I’ll have to make another cafetière,’ she said pointedly. ‘Megan never thinks these kinds of things through.’

But when Meg returned she did not have Jill or anyone who even looked like Jill with her. She had a man with a baby in his arms. A man who just by virtue of his sex immediately reminded Natalie that she had no make-up on again and that her tummy still flopped over the top of her trousers.

‘Well!’ Meg said. ‘This is Steve and little Lucy. It seems that Steve’s a stay-at-home dad!’

‘Really?’ Jess said politely.

‘How interesting,’ Natalie added, sucking her gut in with the remnants of her abdominal muscles.

‘That’s cool,’ Tiff said in a low voice.

‘But you’re a man,’ Frances said. ‘Men can’t come to a mothers’ group. It’s women only, I’m afraid.’

It was Meg who took baby Lucy from Steve’s arms and sat the poor blushing man down before giving him back his daughter and pouring him a cup of coffee.

‘Of course Steve’s allowed!’ Meg said as lightly as she could. ‘Ours isn’t a formal group – it’s more of a casual gathering and anyway I think I saw on the local news that Stoke Newington is the capital of stay-at-home fathers, so I’m sure that men are allowed to go to even organised meetings. This is the age of equality, after all!’

Natalie and Jess murmured in agreement.

‘But she said she wanted to talk about breast feeding and compare stretch marks,’ Frances said, nodding at Natalie. ‘You can’t do that with a man around!’

‘Don’t worry, Frances,’ Natalie said, carefully enunciating the other woman’s name. ‘I was only joking. It’s just nice to get out of the house. We can talk about football for all I care.’

‘I don’t have to stay,’ Steve said, half rising in his chair.

Three women ushered him back down. One didn’t and one teenager stared quite hard at the table top and wished she’d stayed in to watch This Morning.

‘You’ll laugh,’ Steve said. ‘But I’ve been wondering and wondering all morning about coming over. Jill said I was an idiot to worry and that of course you wouldn’t mind, but I thought – a bunch of girls together – you won’t want a man hanging round.’ He smiled apologetically at Frances, whose face did not move a muscle. Steve, who had sandy hair and pleasant brown eyes, also seemed to have a treacherous complexion as he flushed perfectly pink once again. ‘Jill earns the most money, you see, as a barrister. And I’ve started working from home as a freelance graphic designer. It made sense for me to give up my old job, it was something I’ve wanted to do for ages anyway – go solo. I like being a full-time dad, I don’t think it’s undermining my manhood or anything. I think I’m privileged actually, to be such a big part of Lucy’s life so early. So many dads miss out on this bit.’

The women did not actually say ‘Ahhhhh,’ but all of them thought it. Even Frances was touched.

‘Well, good for you,’ Natalie said. ‘Fancy a slice of ginger cake?’

‘Or what about a freshly baked muffin?’ Meg added.

And it seemed to be decided without the need for any further discussion that a man was an acceptable member of the group. As Meg came back from fetching a mewling Iris she paused and looked back at the group of people sitting round her table. Natalie and her peculiar mix of confidence and flakiness seemed to make everyone laugh. Jess was pleasant and quietly funny and young Tiffany didn’t say two words as she picked at her cake and watched the others talk. Brave Steve with little Lucy cradled on his shoulder was talking about the best winding technique and finally there was Frances, pouring more cups of coffee, refreshing the sugar bowl and wiping rings from under mugs.

Meg was glad they were all there, filling her great big house with voices and laughter, and using up part of her day, helping to take her mind off the things she didn’t like to think about.

She had few hours now to shut away her wondering and worrying and not to think at all about her and Robert. Or when exactly it was that they had started to become strangers.