Confessions of a Bad Mother (5 page)

Anyhow, you have to drink
loads
to give them Fetal Alcohol
Syndrome. My friend Kirsty’s sister, who’s a midwife, says you can
tell the ones who’ve got it – whose mothers drank a lot when they
were pregnant – because their heads are sort of oval. And in fact I have
seen one quite recently, walking past Somerfield. She was really weird-looking,
a grown-up, about thirty. Her face was sort of pointy; eyes almost round the
side instead of the front. Either that, or Somerfield is being used a landing
base for aliens. Yep, I thought: that’s a bit more than four pina
coladas. Which were mostly pineapple and coconut, by the way – did I
mention that?

Leaving the house one evening, I am accosted – there is no other
word for it – by the American woman renting the house next door. She
looks at my tummy, and at the bottle of wine I’m taking to a dinner
party, and gasps melodramatically.

‘What?’ I say. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Look!’ she says. ‘You can’t – take
THAT!’

‘What, the wine?’ Is she serious? She is. ‘It’s
all right,’ I explain slowly. ‘In England we can do this.’
And in my head I add the three little words:
Now fuck off.

It goes with all the other things I’m not supposed to do any more,
including eating curry and soft cheese, not eating, running, climbing, arguing,
going on escalators, slapping people, shouting, looking at pictures of George
Clooney and getting stressed.

But I’ve got an important matter to attend to. It’s
daunting, but once you’re pregnant it simply has to be done. And
it’s no good putting it off, either: my breasts are about to get Bigger.
How Much Bigger, my friends warn me, I can’t possibly imagine. They also
tell me that their dimensions, like the value of all endowments, can go down as
well as up; I could end up, after breastfeeding, with less than I started with.
Well, I can’t help that. For the present I need something that will (a)
make sure they don’t sag, even for a second, and (b) in four
months’ time prevent them from knocking people over in lifts. The last
piece of underwear I had professional
involvement
in, was my black lace
wedding basque. I went to Selfridge’s and had to bend over to ‘fill
the cups correctly’. But I didn’t mind because it looked
fantastic
. I took it home, lay on the bed and pretended to be Elizabeth
Taylor in
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
, only not married to a homosexual
alcoholic.

‘I have to get a bra fitted,’ I tell Peter. As the co-perp,
he has to be informed of everything I do, think or feel for the next six
months. ‘But I don’t much fancy the thought of a stranger, you
know, seeing my tits.’

‘Can’t you just buy one? Go in like the SAS? Grab a couple
and run.’ This is his solution to the agony of shopping. He has to return
quite a lot of things. ‘You mean deploy the ancient Navajo method of
screwing up the eyes and guessing?’

‘The label on this says you’re a ninety-six. Blimey, I
didn’t know you were that big. I quite fancy you now.’

‘That’s centimetres, you fuckwit.’

‘Oh.’ He looks crestfallen, then brightens. ‘If
I’d known bras would play such a key role, I’d have got someone
pregnant before.’

Shortly afterwards I get down to the lingerie department of a well-known
department store. The normal underwear looks even tinier than usual, which must
be the Alice in Wonderland effect; I have eaten the cake of conception and am
about to become Huge. Nonetheless the flimsy strings of lace on the racks do
not depress me; I have been assured by everyone that breastfeeding will ping my
figure back to its previous tautness, the only problem being that I
haven’t actually been taut since I was about ten. By fourteen I already
had a stomach that when I ran, jogged up and down like a chicken in a carrier
bag. And every pound I’ve ever put on since has gone straight to it. Now
it’s three chickens. Still! At least now I’ve got an excuse. And
there does seem to be a good choice of the ‘fuller’ models on
show.

I grab a couple of nice ones to try on while I wait for the assistant.
And that’s when I notice the old model, that I’ve been meaning to
replace for a while. Bra years are definitely longer; this one I’ve had
for – well, it doesn’t
seem
that long, and is no longer
white and shapely but bizarrely stretched, thin and grey, like an
elephant’s scrotum. I drop it on the seat and it seems to shrivel, like
the witch’s feet in
The Wizard of Oz
.

Mmm, though! The new one is WHITE and crisp and even, like mass-produced
meringue. The cups are so firm my tits are now bashing my chin, but the lace
makes me feel a bit gorgeous. I can imagine Peter murmuring speechlessly,
perhaps coming into the bedroom behind me and saying, ‘
Fuck! How much
did that cost, then?
’

Anyway, I look at myself from all the angles in the mirrors, ring the
bell and wait. Then, during the wait, I lose heart. My
joie de vivre
evaporates, and I become suffused with a mixture of shame and anxiety that
gives way to foreboding. Standing half-clothed in a cubicle, under a merciless
white light, makes me feel like the victim of something nameless and medical.
This feeling gets such a grip on me that by the time the assistant comes in,
I’m sure she’s going to tell me I’ve got six months to
live.

The sales floor is full of lovely, satiny, lacy things, in marvellous
colours, but all the ones she’s brought are utilitarian and devoid of
flounce – like how you’d imagine a government bra designed for
prisons. Is it because I’m pregnant, or because I look as if I’ve
had too much fun in my life? Does she think I need taking down a peg or two? I
feel suddenly very small and vulnerable, like a refugee about to be
deloused.

‘You won’t be able to wear that.’

‘Why not?’

‘You can’t wear underwired when you’re
pregnant.’ Why? Does the wire transmit subversive messages to the fetus?
There’s a conspiracy here to make me be ugly, I know it.

‘As you get bigger, it compresses the top of your
tummy.’

‘Oh.’ My tummy’s not going to be up HERE! (It is, of
course.) I put on one of the others. She stares at me, and with the expression
surveyors adopt when confronted by subsidence, sinks into a morose silence.
Eventually she says: ‘How’s that for you?’ in the tone a
hangman might use about his rope. Two more, Amish-type bras are tried on.

‘And when do I get the – nursing one?’

‘Well, obviously not now!’

‘No, of course.’
How stupid.

‘You have to come back – when you’re
bigger.’

‘Right. Right.’ How soon can I get out of here? I attempt to
hide the scrotum under my bag, but she spots it and, like a health inspector,
pronounces it condemned.

‘Well, that one’s totally gone.’

‘Oh, I know!’ Why do I want her
approval
?

‘Do you handwash your bras? You should, you know.’

‘Yes, yes, of course, I will, I promise,’ I babble,
desperate to return to a society where I am no longer a number in a cubicle but
a free woman. Somehow, I manage to display a bit of spine and take, along with
the bra for offenders, one in black shiny satin. It’s in the sports
range, but I fearlessly break the rules and demand they take my £21.

I tell Peter: ‘I’m never going into another cubicle,
I’ll tell you that.’

‘How are you going to vote?’ (It is May 1997.)

‘Do pregnant women have the vote?’

‘And anyway, won’t you have to go back again when your tits
get
really
huge?’

‘Well! As you weren’t there to support me, you have to come
and do the next stage.’

‘Er …’

Things have improved hugely since, but not that many years ago maternity
clothes were still like punishments devised by some extreme seventeenth-century
sect. They seemed to symbolize the loss of not only your figure but your whole
adult identity, managing to make you look like both a baby and an old maid at
the same time, the sort of woman whose elderly parents still choose her
clothes.

The main style on offer is a kind of Midwestern Vernacular: huge smocks,
drawstring skirts like shower curtains, and trousers with expanding panels in
the front. Everything is
checked
. You can have white with blue checks,
or blue with white checks. I haven’t worn any kind of pinafore since
primary school, and they don’t bring back great memories. All I need to
complete the ambience would be a bottle of scent made from disinfectant,
overcooked cabbage and off milk. If I was going to play Anne of Green Gables on
children’s television in Romania, I might, just might, wear this. But
what’s this? All-in-one
playsuits
? I’m having a baby, not
trying to dress like one.

A few yards away Peter is making sicky faces.

‘
Dungarees
– yeuch! You know how I feel about
dungarees.’

‘Well, move away from them, then.’ I’m not even a
mother yet, and already our relationship has changed. ‘And stop being
silly
.’

‘You can’t wear
any
of these: you’ll look like
a kangaroo. It’s lucky we’ve already had sex. Because there is
no
way
…’

‘Yeah, all right. I’ve got to wear
something
.’

These garments not only make you look as though you aren’t having
sex now, but as if you never had any in the first place. It’s what
you’d imagine might happen if the entire fashion business were taken over
by Mormons. I can only assume there’s a chip in the software of
maternity-wear designers that programmes them to consider you spent.
You’ve been impregnated, therefore do not need to attract the opposite
sex ever again. And there’s certainly no room for the crazy notion of
wanting to look nice for
yourself
.

Eventually we do find some semi-tolerable outfits, but they’re in
the shops with the loudest music, staffed by girls who become baffled when
confronted by numerals larger than 10. Ask for anything over a 12, and they
just run away. I saw a pregnant Barbie once – the baby and tummy
‘casing’ snapped on and off – and these drainpipe trousers
with slightly elasticated fronts were evidently designed for her. Either that,
or for anorexics, the latter not being generally noted for their fertility.
Perhaps we’ve missed a sign saying
Maternity Dept – Age
9–12.

We break for lunch. That I’m good at.

‘I could always try the catalogues. There’s one called
Blooming Marvellous
.’

‘Why?’

‘So British, isn’t it? I’m feeling Blooming
Marvellous. I eat fifteen meals a day, and I wee all the time – sometimes
even in a toilet – but I’m feeling Blooming Marvellous!’

‘Try Fucking Enormous,’ says Peter. He puts on an smarmy
voice. ‘
Fucking Enormous, can I help you?
’

‘Yeah, you can: order me a glass of red wine.’

Spring has sprung. We go for the twenty-week scan.

‘It’s got a Big Head,’ says the radiographer.

‘A big brain, you mean? Ha-ha!’

‘No, just a Big Head. And a short femur.’

‘Christ, it’s a Calman all right.’

‘It’s amazing the detail they can see by now.’

‘I know. Any hair on the legs?’

After this, Julia rings up again, to recommend a chic French maternity
shop near Bond Street.

‘It sounds expensive, but you’ll only need to get one or two
things. I wore the same skirt for
months
. Also, with their stuff you
won’t feel like such a lump.’

‘Thanks. No, really.’

‘Wait till you’re like a house,’ she says. ‘And
you think
I can’t get any bigger than this: it’s not
possible
. Then look at the calendar.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’ll have another two months to go.’

Then a few weeks later, a friend of ours gets married. And I find this
– gown. In
Wallis
. It’s stretchy, with a sort of
bronzy-coloured snake-pattern. It feels all slinky and springy and not at all
blob-like. I try it on, and severely fancy myself. It does bring to mind this
book I had as a child, in which a snake swallows a live mongoose, but I
don’t care. Besides no one else seems to have read it. I go to the
wedding and everyone says, ‘
Wow!
’, I think in a good way.
When I get up to make my Best Woman speech, though, I have trouble squeezing
between the tables.

‘I’ve got that condition that’s the opposite of
anorexia.’

‘Eh?’

‘You think you’re quite slim, but in fact you’re
really fat.’

‘You’re not fat, you’re pregnant.’

‘Yeah? Well, you started it.’

Summer is approaching. I have to grasp, as it were, the birth nettle. We
arrange to go and see Mr Silverstone.

‘He is completely wonderful,’ says Julia. ‘So nice you
just want to go back and have more.’

Mr S gives women the choice of natural delivery for subsequent babies
following a C-section, which is rare. He also, I discover, departs from the
conventional wisdom that women too frightened to give birth normally are vain,
pathetic time-wasters who should be pelted with boiling vodka and wear a bib
embroidered with a ‘C’ of shame.

‘Remember,’ says Peter, on our way in. ‘You
don’t have to justify yourself.’

‘Four thousand pounds, remember?’

‘I think you should definitely justify yourself.’

I put on my grooved orange top from the French shop that makes me look
like a pumpkin. Mr Silverstone is a consultant, and consultants are protected
by layers of nurses, house officers and registrars to keep the likes of us
away. Yes, we have been referred to him, but as anyone who’s ever tried
to see their consultant knows, they’re like celebrity chefs. Their names
are on the menus, but when you go to their restaurants, they’re never the
ones cooking the actual food.

‘I’ve got some – issues to discuss,’ I explain
to each nurse, midwife and doctor. ‘And I’m only going to discuss
them with him.’