7

baby bunting

I always relished the opportunity of going to Claudia’s house. Her staircase held a permanent exhibition of my life. Every time I saw those seven-by-ten-inch photos, I was amazed all over again at how fresh the memories are, how open the wounds, and what fun we had. They go up the stairs in chronological order. I first appear on the third step. I was seven years old. Claudia reckoned she’d run out of stairs at forty. She’ll run out of wall space entirely if the baby is born. When, I mean. I meant when. Her collection of photographs is almost identical to mine, except mine are in a huge sports bag under my bed.

In fact, Claudia’s house was a testament of the time she’d had while trying to have a baby and the courses she’d taken while trying not to obsess about it. None of them worked. Her drawings were of children, her sculpture was fetal, her cushion covers were pastel and her knitting only came in one size. What it did mean was that her small cottage south of the river had a very cozy, bric-a-brac feel. The only thing missing was a baby. Since I had nothing to do that week, I had happily agreed to help Claudia finally decorate the nursery in a non-toxic paint. Al was on his way to Singapore to look at building a new hotel. Claudia had drawn the outline of bunting three-quarters up the wall. All I had to do was follow her color scheme.

I waited for her on the third step, staring at our seven-year-old selves, earnestly holding hands and frowning at the sun. I swear we hadn’t changed much. She still had shiny dark hair, I still had frizzy blond hair (though now much assisted since I had started going grey). She still had blue eyes; I still had brown, except when I cheated and wore colored contact lenses. We were still physically diametrically opposed. I was always considerably taller than her. I’m straight. She’s curvy. Her skin is like porcelain; mine is pock-marked (that’s an exaggeration, of course—I have two small scars from the personality-defining spots I had during my teens, but they feel like pockmarks to me). Her nose is like a button; mine is like a beak. My legs are long; hers still go down to the ground without changing shape. Many times we’ve swapped body parts and reckoned that, between us, we could achieve perfection. Although I always thought there should be more of her and she always thought the opposite. We had a drunken fight about it once. Girls are silly sometimes.

The picture a couple of steps up was of us lined up with our uniformed classmates at school in Camden. Ben and Al were in it too. It was a historical picture, because it was the term that Al joined our threesome. Ben and Al had met when Ben’s mother had briefly lived in North Yorkshire. Some quirk of fate meant that, for completely different reasons, Al’s family upped and moved south. One day there was lanky Al, sitting at his desk looking nervous. He didn’t stay the new boy for very long: Ben remembered him immediately, their friendship took off where it had been left, with Ben’s sudden departure, and our threesome became four. Al brought the countryside into our urban world. In Regent’s Park we ploughed fields and herded cows. Our games were as real to us as the zoo was. We were a very happy foursome.


Claudia came up the stairs behind me with coffee for me and something herbal for her.

“That’s my favorite,” said Claudia, pointing to the only one that I too have framed. It was taken after our O levels and we were about to be ripped apart by evil parents with differing views on further education. We took a train and buckets of cider to the south coast. We were huddled on a pebble beach, the sun setting, drunk, happy and free. A passer-by took the photo. Ben and Al have their arms wrapped around me and Claudia. We are all laughing at something Al said, and not paying the photographer any attention. It is a great shot; the pebbles have turned magenta and the sky behind us is a deep purple. I envy our youth and often wish I was back on that beach. It was all so platonic, so innocent, untroubled. Al and Claudia didn’t become a “real” couple until nearly a decade later. She always teased me that if anything were to happen it would be between Ben and me. Man, did she get that one wrong.

“What was it that Al said, to make us laugh like that?”

“I can’t remember,” Claudia replied.


Ben didn’t do his A levels. His mother needed him to start earning money so she wouldn’t have to rely on lovers any more. At sixteen he was still bewitched by her carefree ways. Only later did he realize they’d been neither caring nor free. So he got a job in a post-production company as a runner. It was there that he met Mary. Mary was two years older than us and worked on reception. It was a ridiculously serious relationship. On the weekends, when Claudia, Al and I were reconvening to puke up on Southern Comfort and lemonade, Ben was playing house. He and Mary had dinner parties with avocado vinaigrette to start with. Mary was nice enough, but she was old even for her older years. I think it happened because Ben didn’t have a normal family. There was never any food in Ben’s house. In Mary’s there was every foodstuff you could imagine, as well as a mother, a father, a friendly sibling and a dog. They even had sex once a week like an old married couple. Ben was only seventeen; we all thought it was hilarious. Well, Al and Claudia did. I was a bit pissed off.

“I lost him during the Mary years,” I said, looking at another photo of me, Al and Claudia in Camden market, without Ben.

“We all did,” said Claudia.

“That’s what I meant.”

My parents had a bit of money by then—two incomes, one child, and so they thought it was time to go private. I didn’t want to go but I have to admit that I got better A levels than if I’d stayed. I needed to be forced to focus because we were messing about too much. Being a new girl in a new school, costing my folks an arm and a leg, did that. I worked hard during the week, then met up with Claudia and Al during the weekends. (And Ben, when he was allowed off the leash.) I found the richer kids hard to understand—they took the piss in class, some barely turned up; they didn’t seem to care one iota about the exams, or anything else for that matter. It was quite an eye-opener for me and I ran back to where I felt comfortable. With my old mates. It wasn’t that I was intimidated, though I think my parents thought that; it was that I was disappointed. These were bright kids, brighter than me, and so advantaged, but they mocked education, I guess because it was a tool they thought they didn’t need. It is a testament to that time that I walked away from college with straight As but no friends. I know my parents were right to split us up—my career, my independence, my gorgeous flat are basically thanks to those As—but I sometimes wish they hadn’t. “What about this one?” said Claudia, pointing to one of Ben in hospital with his leg in traction. Al was leaning affectionately across him. I nodded. What about that one? It was the summer after our A levels. The summer we were supposed to go to Vietnam, the four of us. Ben had wangled time off because he’d got himself a better job starting the following September. Things were waning with Mary by that time, thank God, and we all hoped their relationship wouldn’t stand up to the time apart. But there was no time apart. Ben broke his leg a week before we were due to fly. I was with him when it happened. I stared back at Ben’s leg and his unsmiling face. A lot of my life lies in that break. But that’s another story.


Claudia pulled on my sleeve. I followed her upstairs where she presented me with one of Al’s old shirts. I dutifully put it on. I’d half expected a smock with my name on it.

I started on the green flags. Claudia went for pillar-box red. We tuned into Magic FM on the radio, opened the window and sang into our paintbrushes when any favorites came on.

“How long is Al going to be in Singapore?” I asked over the din of Claudia getting carried away with Shakespeare’s Sisters’ “Stay.”

“Months. Typical, isn’t it? But it’s a huge building project and we’ll be needing the extra money. The plan is he works on this contract while I’m pregnant, then can take a bit of time out after the baby is born.” Claudia smiled. I felt the fear in my chest tighten.

“Do you remember how Ben used to sneak away from Mary and meet us in Ed’s Easy Diner?”

Claudia put down her paintbrush. “Please, Tessa, let me talk about it,” she said softly. “Nothing bad is going to happen.”

“Sorry.” She was right, of course, but I felt so afraid for her. I think that part of the reason why I had been so happy carrying on my life as I had was because I knew that I didn’t feel the same desperate need to have a child that Claudia did. Although that was changing, I still wanted it more for Claudia than for myself.

“I do remember Ed’s. Mostly the cheesy fries—what I wouldn’t do for some of those now,” said Claudia. There was a look of longing on her face. I put an arm around her. “You really are pregnant, aren’t you?”

She smiled at me. She was so happy. “I’m inventing cravings, just so I can have them. I’m wearing maternity clothes even though I don’t need to. I’m pathetic. Al went out and bought me ice cream before he went this morning.”

“You be very careful, Claudia Ward. The extra calories required to fuel a pregnancy equates to one yoghurt a day. Not a tub of Ben and Jerry’s.”

Claudia dipped her brush into the paint pot and moved back to the wall. “How do you know this stuff?”

“Osmosis,” I replied.

“It’s weird.”

“Not really. Everyone I know has had, or is having, babies. I’m a walking encyclopedia of this stuff. Cracked nipples? Use Kamillosan—also a very good lip gloss. Cradle cap? Olive oil. Talcum powder is now a no-no, the fine particles get on to their lungs. Pacifiers are now encouraged. I don’t want to know any of this stuff, I certainly don’t need it, but, bless ’em, they tell me anyway, and, for some reason that I will never understand, think that what they’re telling me is gripping.”

“I’m doing it too, aren’t I?”

“I don’t mind it from you,” I said. “Maybe I’m being a tad defensive. I guess I file it away in the hope that it will become gripping some day.”

“Oh Tessa, it will. You’ve just got to meet somebody.”

“Haven’t you heard? It’s not about meeting somebody any more.”

“Huh?”

“No, it’s that I’ve put my career ahead of my biological clock. Apparently there is now some machine that all career women like me can pee on to find out how many eggs we have left. Just in case I go to a meeting one day and miss my opportunity to have a baby.”

“I’m lost.”

I leaned against a dry piece of wall. I was lost too, to be honest. The article had enraged me. “All this time, I thought I was working to pay off my mortgage, the bills, feed and water myself, since no one else is going to do it for me. Turns out I’ve been selfishly pursuing a career instead. I have to work. I’m not not having kids because of my job, I’m not having kids because I haven’t met anyone to have kids with. Now if they invent a machine that I can pee on and a blue telephone number of my ideal partner appears on a stick, then I’ll purchase.”

“You don’t need a machine, you’ll meet someone soon. No one knows what’s round the corner.”

“How many corners, Claudia? Because I feel like I’ve turned them all.” This conversation depressed me. I was better at not thinking about all of this. “I meet people all the time. It never works out. I don’t know why.”

“Hmm,” said Claudia.

“Why, what do you think I’m doing wrong?”

“Do you really want to have this conversation?” she asked, a more serious tone creeping into her voice.

“Yes. I need all the help I can get. Claudia, I want this to be me soon. I really do. Tell me, what am I doing wrong?”

Claudia put her brush down. I did the same.

“I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong,” said Claudia, turning the radio down.

“But…?”

“But, then again, you don’t really let anyone close enough to you for you to have to do something wrong. You don’t blow it. But you don’t grab hold of it either. I’ve seen boys drift away from you because you give them nothing to hold on to.”

I picked up my paintbrush again.

“That’s yellow,” said Claudia.

“Sorry.” I put it down again.

“Do you disagree?”

I exhaled loudly. “I feel like I’m out there grabbing at things. I know last year wasn’t great, but that was understandable. I shagged a guy two weeks ago, if that helps.”

“That doesn’t count, you’re never going to see him again.”

“It’s not my fault I like the bad ones.”

“Whose fault is it then? And anyway, that’s bollocks because you don’t just like the bad ones.”

I ducked the question. “I met a nice bloke last weekend. It got quite heated on the dance floor but then I had to go and make sure Caspar didn’t drown in his own vomit.”

“But you didn’t really need to look after Caspar, you could have called Fran.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Yes, you could have. You chose not to.”

“He needed my help—trust me, dobbing Caspar in to his parents would have been worse, and anyway, he didn’t ask for my number.”

“You should have given him yours.”

“Not possible. Remember how that bloke was with you at the christening?” Claudia nodded. “He snubbed you just for saying hello. You just can’t go around looking like you’re interested these days. People write you off as a stalker if you so much as mention a number…” I paused for dramatic effect. But thinking about it, what I was saying was real. It was tough out there. Whether it was being done to me, or I was doing it to myself, I couldn’t tell, but I was beginning to feel like a failure just for thinking that maybe I wanted a husband and some kids. Was it so bad to want what everyone else had? Why did I have to do everything for myself when everyone else was getting help? When was someone going to look after me? I picked up a stick and stirred some paint absent-mindedly. I didn’t like these conversations. “I’ve been hurt. I guess I’ve got more barriers up now.”

“Don’t pull out that stock answer. Everyone has been hurt; it’s not a good enough reason to barricade yourself in. And it’s not about your boss either.”

“Ex-boss.”

“Whatever. Tessa, I’m talking about something that has been going on for a long, long time, and you know it.”

“Since when?”

“Tessa…”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Tell me.”

Claudia looked at me intently. I played dumb. An act I’d perfected so well I convinced myself most of the time that I had no idea what she was insinuating.

“You’re gay.”

There was a second of silence before we both burst out laughing.

“You silly old tart,” I spluttered.

“Had you.” She laughed again.

“What if I was? This could have been a very difficult thing for me.”

Claudia laughed again. The woman had a heart of stone. “Bollocks. I’ve often wished you were. I know some great gay women who’d be perfect for you.”

“And this I’m supposed to thank you for? Mind you, I did snog a girl once, and it wasn’t bad.”

“Maybe you could go to see an acupuncturist and ask her to bring out your feminine side.”

“Masculine side, you idiot.”

“Depending on whether you wanted to be the bloke or the girl in the relationship.”

“The girl. No, the bloke. No, the girl. I’m not doing away with my girly products and I don’t really want a blokey girl shaving in the bath, so she’d have to be a live-out lover. So I’m the girl, I’d still earn—must have my own money—live on my own, and just call in my bitch, who’s a bloke in disguise, for the occasional shag. Hang on, isn’t that my life?”

Claudia laughed again. “Stop, I’m going to pee in my pants.”

She left the room. I heard her laughing up the stairs to the little bathroom on the landing. Silly old cow. I sighed with relief. Claudia was a wise woman. She knew better than to open that old can of worms. But for a second there, I thought she was calling my bluff—and I don’t know if I could lie as easily to Claudia as I frequently did to myself.

I turned up the radio and moved on to the pot of biro-top blue. The bunting was beginning to look real. It was during my A level year that I realized I was in trouble. Perhaps it was Mary, talking about the plans she and Ben were making, or perhaps I was a late starter and my hormones only kicked in at seventeen, or perhaps I had always liked him more than I should have. It wouldn’t have been hard. At fourteen, Ben opened the door for girls. He wasn’t a bully and he knew how to talk to women, and though he went through the girls, he always let them down gently. Everyone, even teachers, had a crush on him, but it was me that he chose to be his friend. Me. Nothing ever happened between us, but a lot of people imagined it had. I got grief from girls who liked him and saw me as a threat. And I suppose I was the greatest threat of all. I was his best friend and that gave me the edge. It terrified me when I realized I wanted to be more than friends. Not only did I risk losing our friendship, I had become just like everyone else and I knew exactly how he felt about all of them.

I never told anyone I liked him. Not even Claudia, though I suspect she and Al have discussed the possibility of “us” at great length. It would make a neat ending, wouldn’t it? But they don’t know what happened the day Ben broke his leg. The only person who knows is Helen. And I only told her because when we met on a beach in Vietnam, I never thought I’d see her again.


I heard another song end. That made it four since Claudia had gone to the loo. “Claudia? Are you coming back, or what?”

There was no answer. I put down my brush and wiped my hands on Al’s shirt. I opened the door. “Oi, you lazy cow, you can’t get me over here to work while you have a little nap.”

Still there was no reply. Have I mentioned this wasn’t a large house? You could hear the cat-flap flap from the top landing.

The bathroom was only half a staircase in front of me. The door was a fraction ajar.

“Claud, are you in there?”

She didn’t reply. But I knew she was there. I could feel the density of her behind the door. I carefully pushed the door open and stepped inside. I would rather be blind than have seen what I saw that day. Claudia sat on the loo with her pregnancy jeans around her ankles. Her knees were parted wide open. I couldn’t see her face because she was staring into the toilet bowl, but her arm was stretched up towards me. In the palm of her hand was tissue sodden with blood. It had seeped through her fingers, and dropped on to the white wooden floor boards around her feet. Floating in the palm of her hand was…I still to this day don’t know what it was. It looked like an old grey piece of rotten sponge. The fact that it wasn’t red scared me, it was the color of a tombstone.

The smell of blood coming off Claudia was intense—earthy, sweet and thick. I could hear dripping sounds. One was rapid, high-pitched, as if a metronome had been set with the weight at the base. The other was set to a slower, heavier beat. It wasn’t until Claudia looked up at me through the trestles of her long, dark hair that I realized what it was. Bright red blood was spilling out of her. Intermittently her body hacked up viscous-blackened globules and spat them into the toilet. They sank through the red water and congealed on the base of the bowl.

“I can’t get the red paint off,” she said, staring at her hand.

“OK, sweetheart.” I took the thing out of her hand and physically shuddered as I felt it slip like raw liver through my fingers. I threw it into the bath. “I need you to lie down, honey, OK? Can you do that?”

“I can’t get the red paint off,” she said again.

“It’s OK, we’ll clear it up later. You lean on me. Lean on me.” The moment she was standing I realized I should have taken her jeans off. But it was too late, I couldn’t stop. I saw a rivulet of blood run down her inside leg. I wrapped a towel around her waist, held on to her and it, and we shuffled like geriatrics to her room. I didn’t give a second thought to her hand-embroidered sheets. I pulled them back, lay her down and covered up that awful, awful mess between her legs. Then I left her, because I had to talk to her doctor and I didn’t want her to hear. I would have called 999 but I didn’t want her being carted off to the nearest hospital. She had specialists, people who’d understand what she was really losing.

“118 118, this is Craig speak—”

“The Lister Hospital, London.”

“Sorry, what was that?”

“The Lister Hospital. Please, this is an emergency.”

“What town is that?”

“London. Jesus, please—”

“I cannot get you a number if I don’t know—”

“I’m sorry.” I wasn’t sorry. I wanted to punch him.

“Would you like to be put through directly?”

“Yes.”

“There will be an addit—”

“I don’t fucking care.”

There was silence, and for a terrible moment, I thought he’d cut me off. Then the phone started ringing. I don’t know what I said to the woman who answered the phone, but very quickly I was talking to someone who knew Claudia and said her name softly. He wanted to know what I’d seen, how much blood she was losing and what color it was. I told him.

“She’s losing the baby,” said the voice.

“I fucking know that,” I screamed. “Tell me how to stop it, just tell me, tell me how to stop it, please, please tell me how to stop it…” My voice had cracked the first time I asked him, but I couldn’t stop repeating the words because I knew that when I stopped asking I would have to come to terms with the fact that there was no answer. Claudia was losing her baby girl and there was nothing I could do to stop it. The bunting was coming down.