The Baby Group

She had slept right through the afternoon, although she must have been waking up periodically, Natalie thought, as she had got through two thirds of the two-litre bottle of water Natalie had left for her with a glass next to the bed.

Natalie didn’t know how to feel about the state her mother was in.

She thought back, trying to dredge up some of the hazy and ill-formed memories of her childhood with Sandy. It did seem that Sandy had always had a drink in her hand, that was true. And she had always acted as if she were a little tipsy, but as Natalie grew older she had decided that was just an affectation, a pretence designed to make her more appealing. Still, although while Natalie had lived with her Sandy had always been distracted and preoccupied by almost everything apart from her daughter, Natalie was fairly sure she hadn’t been an out-and-out drunk.

Natalie had never seen Sandy this way before and she didn’t know how to handle her. She didn’t actually want to handle her at all. It seemed unfair that her mother, who’d done such a ham-fisted job of looking after her, now might require some serious looking after herself.

Although her mother presented a bizarre figure in her usual get-up of inch-thick make-up and tight-fitting clothes, at least that Sandy was happy with herself. The woman who had lain sprawled by the loo yesterday was a self-loathing wreck and Natalie didn’t want to see her that way again. She wanted her back the way she’d always been even if it was desperately embarrassing, because in the end she did care about what happened to her.

So, after she had put her to bed, with an acute sense of unreality Natalie had taken two further bottles of whisky out of her mother’s suitcase, took all the wine she had been unable to drink for so long out of the wine rack, gathered up the beer, vodka and even the cooking sherry and poured it all down the sink. She kept only the good wine, which she’d collected herself and couldn’t bear to waste. As she locked that in the old coal shed behind as much junk as she could shift, Natalie remembered the joke she’d made about doing just that with the vodka only a few days earlier. It didn’t seem very funny now.

Sandy slept on as the darkness gradually wore away into dawn, and Natalie and Freddie watched the sun rising together over the rows and rows of roof lines and chimneys, TV aerials and satellite dishes. Somewhere over those houses and streets, flats, churches and shops, Jack Newhouse was probably sleeping.

‘We’re going somewhere important today,’ Natalie told Freddie. ‘We’re going to go and see your daddy. Now, I must warn you. You might not like him and he might not like you, but I think it’s important to be brave and give it go, don’t you? It’s now or never kiddo.’

Freddie had taken the news with his usual cheerful indifference, which had made Natalie feel better. At least she could tell him when he was older that she had tried her best with his father. Whatever happened after that would not be her fault.

She sat on the edge of the bed and slid Jack’s numbers out from under the lamp where she had hidden them what now seemed aeons ago. She didn’t think he had started a new job yet. In fact, after everything that had happened she wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to leave London again, perhaps even go back to Italy where the climate was temperate and there were no love children hanging about, or at least none that Natalie knew of. She knew she should phone him and ask him if she could come over, but she didn’t want to do that.

First of all it would mean talking to him, which was an inevitability that she wanted to delay until the last crucial second because of the sheer effort of will it would require to talk to him politely. And secondly if she called in advance he might very well say, ‘No thank you very much, I don’t want you and your baby to come over. You’re nothing but trouble.’

No, it was best to maintain the element of surprise and just turn up, Natalie thought. If he was in he’d be far too polite to tell them to leave once they were actually on his doorstep. And if he was out they could just go and wander around the British Museum until he came back. And if he was in with another woman, Natalie could take some small pleasure in breaking up the party by introducing her to Jack’s son. Natalie thought it was best for Freddie and her to set off as early as possible, so that they might catch him before he went out anywhere.

As for her not wanting to have to speak to him, she’d have to cross that bridge when she got to it.

A million thoughts rattled through her fatigued brain. What if Jack had already gone and the figure she saw was Minnie? Or worse, much worse, what if Jack had someone else in there, another woman? What if the minute she had left him on Sunday night he’d gone right out and met the next potential love of his life standing at a bus stop?

He was good at that, after all.

Natalie stood on the corner for several minutes looking at the door, frozen with fear and indecision, wondering and waiting. The bus stop she needed to return home was just down the road, and better still at this time of day there were taxis aplenty driving right by her, their friendly amber lights offering the promise of refuge and the shortest route to safety.

And then her thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice.

‘Hello,’ Jack said warily. He had a large cup of coffee in one hand and a paper in the other. It might have been some kind of pastry that was in the paper bag tucked under his arm.

Natalie wondered if she looked as inexplicably guilty as she felt at being caught on the corner of his street. She was going to have to talk to him now. It was unavoidable. It would be much harder to try to sort things out with him without the use of actual words, especially considering that she was always the very worst person at playing charades.

‘I’m not stalking you,’ she managed to say. Her voice sounded strange in her ears, like she was listening to a recorded version of it. ‘I just came to try to talk to you and then I got here and wasn’t sure if I should any more.’ She looked up at his flat. If Jack was here, then who was the figure she saw in the window?

Jack looked uncertainly at Natalie and then glanced down at the buggy very quickly.

‘But if you’ve got company,’ she added uncertainly, looking back up at the window.

‘Company?’ Jack repeated the word as if he didn’t really know what it meant. He was looking at Natalie with that same puzzled expression again. He must be wondering why on earth I don’t just go away, she thought, feeling almost sorry for him.

‘A guest,’ Natalie prompted him, hoping to stop him looking at her in that way.

‘Oh!’ Jack shook his head. ‘No, that’s Mishka, she’s not a guest, she’s Minnie’s cleaner. She’s actually a concert harpist but Minnie employs her to keep her going between jobs.’ A flicker of something like curiosity passed over his face. ‘Did you think I had another conquest up there?’ he asked.

Natalie shook her head. ‘None of my business,’ she said with a shrug.

They stood there for a moment or two longer and Natalie wondered if they had now spent more time like this, miserable and ill at ease, than they had lying happily in each other’s arms.

‘You brought the baby with you,’ Jack said, finally acknowledging what couldn’t be ignored. He looked pale, Natalie thought, and she wondered if it was because of the sight of her and his progeny or if he really didn’t feel well. She found herself hoping it was because of her.

‘I thought you should have a chance to meet him,’ she said, holding the buggy’s handles so tightly she could see the whites of her knuckles. ‘If you wanted to.’

‘I see,’ Jack said, biting at his lip.

Natalie took a deep breath. ‘Jack, I think I behaved badly the last time we met and I hoped you might . . . let us come in and that we could try to . . . resolve things, somehow.’ She smiled tentatively at him. ‘I don’t want to leave things the way that we did. It didn’t seem like the right ending for us.’

Jack hesitated before nodding at last. ‘I thought that too. I’m glad you came back with . . . the . . . you know – baby.’

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key on a piece of parcel string. ‘Mishka should be on her way out any minute, so you go in,’ he said, handing Natalie the key. ‘I’ll get you a coffee. Are you allowed coffee – if you’re . . . ahem . . . you know, feeding him yourself ?’

Natalie nodded, repressing the urge to smile. ‘I let myself have one real cup a day,’ she said.

‘Fine,’ Jack went on. ‘Well, you go in and I’ll be in in a minute.’ He indicated the buggy. ‘You can leave that in the downstairs hallway.’ He took a couple of steps before turning back. ‘I meant the buggy not the baby. You can bring the baby upstairs if you like.’

Natalie nodded again, fighting the irresistible urge to giggle that only the hysterically tired and emotionally confused can truly know. She held the keys tightly in her fist, so that she could feel the metal digging into the flesh of her palm, hoping it would somehow focus her mind. At least Jack was letting them in. And he had said she could bring Freddie upstairs. It was going well so far.

Mishka was indeed on the other side of the door as Natalie unlocked it. She seemed utterly unsurprised to find a strange woman with a baby on Jack’s doorstep, and Natalie couldn’t decide if it was a good or a bad thing. The young woman had paused for a moment to admire Freddie so that by the time she left Natalie quite liked her, even though she was tall, slender, blonde, talented and Russian. Natalie found that she liked anyone who liked her son.

Minnie’s flat looked even nicer in the bright sunshine of the spring morning. It had long sash windows that Natalie hadn’t noticed before, and from the tiny galley kitchen a direct view of the museum. Minnie had to be fairly minted, Natalie thought, to own such a prime piece of property. Or perhaps she had inherited it and had lived in it all her life. The place did have that feel about it. An antiquated Formica kitchen with one of those squat cream enamelled 1950s cookers, and as Natalie nosily pushed opened the bedroom door she saw dark wooden 1930s art deco furniture that looked as good as new. The book-lined living room looked as bright and breezy by day as it had seemed warm and friendly by firelight. Natalie sat down with Freddie in her arms in the wingback chair by the now cold fire grate. Freddie was wide awake, as if he knew something important was afoot, his huge black eyes as bright as buttons as he took everything in.

Then Natalie heard the door shut downstairs and Jack’s footfall on the stairs.

She braced herself. She was here to tell him that despite everything, if he wanted to be in Freddie’s life she would welcome it. Whatever he might say in return she needed to know that she had given this her very best shot at success, and that for once in her life she hadn’t let complacency or fear ruin everything.

‘So,’ Jack said as he appeared in the room, filling it up with his presence. He sort of leant around the baby, giving him a wide berth as he handed Natalie her coffee. ‘Is that all right?’ he asked her, looking at Freddie. ‘To have a hot drink right next to him?’

Natalie shifted Freddie over onto her right knee and held her coffee in her left hand, desperate for it to cool so she could mainline the caffeine. Her mind felt fuzzy and muddled and her skin tingled with tiredness. She felt like she used to when she had been out clubbing all night, only without the booze and carefree fun. She blinked a couple of times to focus her vision and wondered if coming to see Jack after so little sleep had been the best idea. But if not now, then when?

Jack sat down opposite her on the settle, took two custard tarts out of the paper bag he had been carrying and put them on two plates on a tiny table which he positioned between them. And then without touching either one he leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees again, and looked at Natalie.

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he said.

‘You are?’ Natalie asked him, feeing a swell of hope rise in her chest.

‘Yes,’ Jack said emphatically. ‘Like you, I was feeling bad about what happened between us that night. It was all so intense and difficult to take in. We found out so much about each other in such a short time. I behaved badly, thoughtlessly. I didn’t appreciate how my news might affect you.’ He dropped his head briefly. ‘I’ve thought about that evening a lot since then and I want you to know I’m sorry. I suppose I must have had this idea that you were sort of in suspended animation while I was away, that your life wouldn’t have changed at all. But it has.’ He nodded at Freddie who was staring at him in total fascination, just waiting for Jack to smile at him, when he would return the expression automatically with his wide, all-embracing grin that seemed to invite the whole world to be his friend.

But Jack did not smile.

‘Your life has changed a lot,’ he went on. ‘And so have you. I should have realised that because I’ve changed too.’

Natalie felt the bubble of hope that had risen in her chest pop and melt away.

‘Have you?’ she asked, not really wanting an answer.

‘During my illness I thought a lot about that weekend. I built up this imaginary version of you that isn’t real at all.’ Jack’s voice was tinged with sadness. ‘Do you understand what I mean?’

Natalie nodded, forcing herself to look him in the face. ‘Yes,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘I do. I thought about you too, except I couldn’t decide if you were the lost love of my life or an evil womaniser.’

‘And now?’ Jack asked her, with an edge to his voice that she could not interpret.

‘Now.’ She looked at him thoughtfully, his lean, taut features so familiar and yet so strange. This was her opportunity to be completely honest with both herself and him. Did she love him? Did she want him? Was it truly this man that she longed to be with?

The answer her heart gave her was not the one she had been hoping for, and when it came to it she found it was not the one she could share with Jack.

‘I don’t know,’ she said instead, because it was easier. ‘I can’t know, can I? Like you said, we’re practically strangers.’

Both of them were quiet as they let the moment pass into history.

For the first time since they had met Natalie allowed herself the thought that perhaps all Jack and she were ever meant to be to each other were ships that had passed in the night. It was a realisation that made her feel suddenly terribly sad, as a long unspoken but closely held hope was finally extinguished.

All she could do now was to try to make the best of things for her son.

‘Jack,’ she said, careful to keep her voice steady. ‘I want to explain why I behaved the way I did. I was upset when you didn’t call me after Venice. I was so sure that you would. It was a real blow to my ego and to my heart, I suppose, when you just . . . vanished. When you didn’t call I thought that you hadn’t liked me at all, I thought you’d used me, or maybe you thought that the expensive hotel and trip to Venice should have been enough of a pay-off and maybe it should have been. But I let myself think it was more than that, something I never usually do. When I realised I was wrong, I felt like an idiot.’ Natalie laughed, despite how she was feeling inside. ‘I had planned to get over you and forget you entirely within about eight weeks, only after six weeks I knew I was pregnant, which did throw a massive spanner in the works.’

‘Must have been a bit of a sod,’ Jack said, pressing his lips into a thin serious line.

Natalie nodded.

‘It was a bit,’ she said. ‘But I wasn’t angry or upset about the pregnancy; I was happy, amazingly happy. I had everything in my life I needed to cope: money, a home, work, friends.’ She tipped her head to one side. ‘And a mother who I sort of need in a sort of unhealthy co-dependency way – but that’s another story. Anyway, I knew I wanted my baby, come what may. I thought it didn’t matter who his father was. I thought if I never saw you again that he and I would be absolutely fine. Only I did see you again. And I won’t try to just cut you out of his life. Not if you want to be part of it.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ Jack said slowly. ‘I understand completely why you didn’t tell me about him. It’s probably a better reason than mine for not telling you about my cancer. While I was behaving like a coward, you were acting like a hero. I was scared but more than that,’ Jack took a deep breath, ‘I was embarrassed.’

‘Embarrassed?’ Natalie asked him, with some confusion.

‘Yes.’ Jack looked abashed. ‘I still am a bit, to be honest, even though I’ve come to terms with it now. But when I met you I was just about to have a ball cut off. And I didn’t like talking about it. In fact, it was my general reluctance to discuss my testes with beautiful ladies that nearly got me killed. My GP is a woman. I waited and waited to ask her about the lump. I was really lucky they caught it in time.’

‘I see,’ Natalie said slowly, although she clearly didn’t.

‘Yes, I know you think I’m an idiot but I wasn’t especially rational at the time. I was worried that after the operation I’d feel emasculated, or that I’d repulse you or any woman. I thought, who’d want a one-balled man?’

Natalie tried to stop herself smiling, but she couldn’t.

‘I don’t know how to break this to you,’ she said, her mood briefly lightened. ‘But a pair of testicles is not the most important requirement in a lady’s list of must-haves when it comes to a prospective partner.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Jack asked her, with a wry smile. ‘Anyway, I didn’t know where I’d be after the surgery and the treatment. I felt for a while that the disease would castrate me, that I’d have no sex drive. I felt weak and pathetic and I . . . I cried a lot. I realise now that I didn’t know you at all, Natalie, but I did know that I didn’t want you to see me that way.’ He paused. ‘Maybe if, if you had come and told me about Freddie, if I’d known that you were having my baby, things might have been different. Except the fact that we had a child wouldn’t have really changed anything else, would it? We would still have been virtual strangers, still not knowing anything about each other. It still would have been one of the worst and most irrational ways to start a relationship.’

The smile that had started on Natalie’s lips faded.

‘That’s true,’ she said. For a moment neither of them could look at the other.

‘I don’t know what you think about me, Natalie,’ Jack went on. ‘But one of the things I have been for most of my adult life is a coward. I run away from things that scare me. Like the final exams in my biochemistry degree. I studied for three years, aced paper after paper but the thought of the exams did my head in, so I didn’t take them. I never passed my degree. And women, it’s not that I was afraid of commitment, it was more that I was afraid of making a commitment to a woman and then realising a few months or years down the line that she was the wrong one. I thought it was better to be careful. So I didn’t really get very involved with anybody until . . . well, I suppose I can’t really say I got involved with you.’

Jack sighed and shook his head as if attempting to dislodge a particularly unhelpful thought. ‘Then there was the cancer. I ran away from that for a long time too. Didn’t get it checked out for months, waited and waited for the bloody thing to go away on its own, and once I had the diagnosis, I ran away again – with you that time. And then from you; from you and how the cancer might make you see me. So you see, I am a terrible coward. I’m weak, I’m not the kind of man who could be a good father. Or at least I haven’t been.’ He moistened his lips. ‘I’ve thought about nothing except you and the baby since the night you told me about him, and I realised – I’ve got my life back now and I don’t want to live it like a coward, Natalie. I want to be brave, I want to face life and live it – the good and the bad.’ Jack suddenly looked very young. ‘It’s just that being brave is a bit scary.’

Natalie watched him, this man she had thought of as so strong and even dashing, so dangerous to know and a real heart-breaker, and found with some amazement that it wasn’t that constructed version of him that she was drawn to after all. It couldn’t be, because all the feelings she had had for that distant and shadowy man of mystery were still present for this utterly vulnerable stranger. The more he told her the more she admired him, the more at last she really understood him. He was an ordinary man who’d been badly beaten and buffeted by life, and was still in recovery. He wasn’t what she had thought he was at all, and yet Jack was exactly the man for her, because in the end it had been none of those artifices that she had fallen for in Venice. It had been the core of him, the heart, and that was still there.

Jack looked at Freddie, who catching his eye bounced up and down on Natalie’s knee excitedly. Jack was the one adult who hadn’t instantly poured smiles and attention all over him, and he was trying his best to rectify the situation by being especially charming.

‘It seems to me,’ Jack went on, ‘that little fellow is here in the world now and he is part of me, and if you’ll let me I do want to be part of his life. I don’t want to run away from my son. I might not be very good at it but I’m going to try my best to be his father, the best one I can be.’

As he spoke, his words caught in his throat and he dipped his head for a moment, until the threat of tears had subsided.

‘Sorry,’ he said with a shrug. ‘You see, once I got past the whole running for the hills impulse I realised that it is sort of like a miracle. I didn’t know if I’d be able to father children after treatment. I was trying to get used to the idea of never being a father and then suddenly –’ He gestured at Freddie.

Natalie smiled at him, wishing more than anything that she could just go and put her arms around him.

‘Can I . . . could I have a go at holding him?’ Jack asked, interrupting her thoughts. ‘Can I hold Freddie?’

For a second Natalie felt her arms tighten reflexively around Freddie’s tummy and then she relaxed her fingers.

‘Of course you can,’ she told him gently.

Jack looked nervous.

‘I need to support its, I mean his head, right?’ he said, looking at Freddie like he was a bundle of particularly unstable dynamite.

‘Well, no, he can do that on his own now,’ Natalie said, looking down at her son who was leaning forward in her lap, his arms outstretched to Jack. ‘But it’s usually best not to dangle him by his legs or anything like that.’

Jack’s mouth twitched with the promise of a smile. ‘I remember I liked your sense of humour.’ He paused. ‘You were joking, weren’t you?’

Natalie laughed despite herself.

‘Yes, I was, Jack,’ she said. She was confused. She had never felt so happy and yet so sad at the same time before. It was a difficult mix of emotions to control and she felt that she might burst in the attempt.

‘You know what,’ she said. ‘I think you are actually quite a nice man.’

‘Am I?’ Jack said. ‘Really? Is that good?’

‘It’s good for Freddie,’ Natalie said. She and Jack stood up together and then, finally, she transferred her son into his father’s arms.

Once there Freddie’s features became still as he looked up at Jack with a solemn but curious expression.

Jack looked down at Freddie in exactly the same way.

‘He actually does look like me,’ Jack said in amazement. ‘Isn’t that weird? I mean, friends and family with babies are always going on about how they are the dead spit of somebody or other and I’ve looked at them, these babies, and I’ve thought – nope, they all look the same to me. Fat, pink and squashy. But I look at him and I can see myself in him, and you too. It’s the weirdest feeling. It’s . . . God, it’s amazing, Natalie.’

As Jack smiled down at the baby at last, Freddie’s face erupted into a returning grin, and expression of pure delight.

‘He smiles!’ Jack exclaimed happily. ‘Look, he smiles and he’s a baby – does that make him advanced? What else does he do? Does he crawl yet, or talk?’

Natalie couldn’t help but be warmed by his interest in her, in their son.

‘He cries, a lot, mainly at night,’ she told him. ‘He poos a lot and he likes to try to wee in your face. He’s due to start solids soon, he’s desperate to crawl but hasn’t quite got it yet, he can only go backwards if he wriggles about on his tummy. He smiles at people he likes and he’s the loveliest, most amazing baby in the whole wide world.’

Jack nodded. ‘Just as I thought. A child genius.’ He took one or two experimental steps with him, and discovering that he did not drop the baby, paced the room a couple of times. Natalie sat down and watched them.

‘Do you think it will be OK,’ he asked her, ‘you and me and him? Will it work after everything that’s happened?’

Natalie looked at Jack holding their baby and she wished more than anything in the world that she could put her arms around them both and kiss them.

‘We will find a way,’ she said, determinedly. It had begun to feel as if things had changed between them again, asif now they had passed into a new phase where Freddie was the most important thing between them. And perhaps that was simply the way it had to be. Her old friend fate had put two huge great obstacles right in the middle of the part where they should have been just starting out, dating, having candlelit dinners, taking long walks in the park, spending all afternoon in bed, talking and laughing and doing all those soppy things that somehow Natalie had never managed to do. At least, not with the same person.

That part had been robbed from them both by circumstance. And now it had to be more important than ever that Jack should move on with his life, as far as possible away from the shadow of his illness. Away from that time when their lives might have been different.

‘We’ll be fine,’ Natalie answered Jack’s question, feeling her heart compress. ‘I’m sure of it.’

‘Thank you,’ Jack said.

He leant forward and brushed his lips against her cheek, sending a jolt of longing surging right through Natalie that nearly knocked her off her feet. It was hard to believe that something so physical, so tangible could only be felt by her and not Jack. But she had to believe it, because there was not a flicker of anything in his face that might betray that he was feeling the same way.

Natalie wondered how long it would take for these feelings to gradually fade away. She hoped she would be over it by the time Freddie took his A levels, with a little bit of luck.

‘I’ll see you in a few days then?’ she said. She and Jack had already planned his first proper visit with Freddie on Saturday. She was to teach him all the things he needed to know to be able to look after Freddie.

‘You will,’ Jack replied. ‘Saturday then.’

It had taken Natalie a lot of effort not to look back as she walked away from Jack and into the throng of people that the hint of spring sunshine had brought out. But walk on she had, until she was sure he wouldn’t be able to see her any more. And then she had stopped and turned around and caught a glimpse of what might have been his head vanishing around a corner.

‘Well, the main thing,’ she told Freddie staunchly, ‘is that the waiting is finally over.’