The Baby Group (40 page)

‘Well, Jess and Steve have already held a group and we know Natalie currently has workmen in, so that leaves . . .' Frances stared pointedly at Tiffany, who instantly retreated back to the shy and awkward girl she often was around the other members. Her cheeks flushed pink and she sank her head between her shoulders.

‘Oh well,' Natalie said, keen to take the spotlight off her friend. ‘Come to mine, the work's all but done anyway, so . . .'

‘No,' Tiffany said, at first so quietly that no one heard. ‘No,' she repeated. This time the others looked at her. ‘I can do it.'

‘What's that, love?' Steve asked her.

‘I can hold a meeting at my flat. You might as well know I live on the thirteenth floor of a high-rise and I've got hardly any furniture and no cups that match . . .' She glanced at Meg's table. ‘Or a milk jug. But I can make tea, so if you don't mind the odd chip in your cup you can all come to mine.'

It had seemed more like a challenge than an invitation, but Natalie was pleased that Tiffany had issued it.

‘Brilliant idea!' she said. ‘Of course it's Tiff's turn. Thank God I say, that means I have a few more days to evict my mother before you come round – what a relief!'

Tiffany had carefully written out the address and her telephone number for everyone but Natalie, who had been there before. ‘Eleven o'clock, next Tuesday then?' she said.

Everybody agreed to be there, and Tiffany was able to smile again, with a mixture of pleasure and anxiety. After all, the only other thing she'd hosted in her entire life had been a sleepover.

Tiffany had been upstairs changing Jordan as Natalie collected her things, instructed to wait for Tiff so they could leave together. Frances went to the loo (or possibly to surreptitiously clean it), leaving Meg and Natalie alone for a few minutes.

‘Are you OK, Natalie?' Meg asked her out of the blue.

‘Who, me?' Natalie sat up straight, as if she'd just been caught napping in class. ‘Yeah, I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?'

‘You look a bit . . . preoccupied,' Meg said, with concern. ‘Like you had a bit of a sleepless night too.'

Natalie hoped to God that she didn't look as guilty as she felt.

‘Look,' Meg went on, ‘you know that just because I'm in the middle of all of this, it doesn't mean you can't still talk to me if you need to. Has something happened with Gary?'

Natalie looked at Meg, dear sweet Meg with her tear-bruised eyes and red raw nose, and with all the pain that was weighing so heavily on her shoulders, and for a second she wanted to tell her everything. But how could she? It would be so unfair to expect Meg to deal with her problems. And besides that, Meg was offering to help a woman who didn't really exist. Maybe she wouldn't like the real Natalie at all, whoever that was.

‘No, there's no problem,' she said. ‘Gary and I are fine.'

‘Which one?' Tiffany said as she walked into the kitchen.

Natalie looked at her. ‘Pardon?' she asked.

‘I mean, which Gary? It must be confusing having two Garys in your life.'

After that Natalie had left in rather a hurry with Tiffany close behind.

Finally Meg got up stiffly from the table and walked into the living room, where James had been playing suspiciously quietly for quite some time. She collapsed on the sofa, snatching him up in her arms as she did so.

‘Mama, 'ook! 'Ook!' James said, pointing proudly to his work of art, which appeared to have involved permanent marker pen and her best cushions.

‘I love it, baby,' Meg told him, holding him as close as he would let her before he wriggled free.

Frances hovered awkwardly in the doorway, with Henry on one shoulder. ‘Do you want us to go?' she asked Meg.

‘No,' Meg said. ‘Look, Frances, I'm sorry I was so horrible to you. I didn't mean to be – well, I did, and it was cruel of me. But what I said wasn't true, I just wanted to hurt you. You are a good friend to me. Truly.'

Frances took a step or two into the room. ‘Shall I pick up Alex and Hazel from school for you?'

Meg knew it was the closest she was ever likely to get to Frances acknowledging her apology.

‘Yes please,' she said. She shut her eyes and immediately felt her exhaustion swarming in and clouding her consciousness. ‘I am so tired . . .' she said vaguely.

‘Shall I take the children home?' Frances offered. ‘Iris and James too, if you like. I could give them tea and drop them back later, give you a few extra hours to get some sleep.'

‘I think I might sleep now,' Meg agreed and then one last restless thought kept her awake. ‘Robert's at yours isn't he?'

‘Yes,' Frances said. ‘He hasn't been back to work since . . . it all happened. Is that a problem? Do you mind him seeing the children?'

Meg shook her head. ‘No, of course not. I just wonder what they'll think, seeing him there. So far they haven't noticed any difference. He's home so rarely. If they see him they'll know something is wrong.'

Frances nodded.

‘I'll tell them he's been helping me with something,' she said. ‘You rest and I'll bring them back after tea?'

‘Ask Robert to bring them back,' Meg said, one last clear thought keeping her conscious.

‘Are you sure?' Frances asked her.

‘Yes,' Meg said. ‘We have to start talking at some point.'

‘You're sure it's not too soon?' Frances sounded worried.

‘I think it's more important not to leave it until it's far too late.'

It was the last thing Meg said before she drifted off into the sanctuary of sleep.

‘I know, you know,' Tiffany said almost as soon as they'd left Meg's house.

Natalie hurried on as if she could somehow outstrip the slender teenager with her speed and strength. But of course she couldn't, Tiffany was more than a match for her. She'd just have to get the whole conversation over with as quickly as possible. She took a deep breath.

‘What do you know?' she asked Tiffany.

‘I know that you had sex with Gary last night.'

‘How can you know?' Natalie asked her, scandalised. ‘Did he tell you?'

‘He didn't have too,' Tiffany said quite smugly. ‘You just did. It was written all over his face when he came to pick up Anthony this morning. I asked him why he was so pleased with himself and he said he couldn't tell me. I just made an educated guess that it had to be something to do with you – and I was right.'

‘
Curses!
Foiled again.' Natalie couldn't help but find Tiffany's satisfaction in being right quite amusing.

‘It's not funny, Natalie!' Tiffany exclaimed. ‘You're totally out of order, you do know that, don't you?'

Natalie walked on briskly; as fond as she was of Tiffany she had, in her opinion at least, far more pressing matters to think about and do just now than receive a dressing down from a surprisingly prudish sixteen-year-old.

‘Tiffany,' she said, with more than a hint of condescension. ‘You are a lovely girl, a girl who has had more than her fair share of life experiences at a young age. But you are still only sixteen. Gary is a consenting adult and so am I. It was what we both wanted and we both knew where we stood, so really it's not as big a deal as you think it is.'

‘It
is
a big deal!' Tiffany protested. ‘Gary really likes you and you still love this Jack bloke. Don't use him, Natalie. You're better than that.'

Natalie stopped dead in her tracks.

‘I know,' she said. ‘Tiffany, look . . . it was a stupid and wrong thing to do. It's not going to happen again. Neither of us wants it to.'

‘Gary would, I can tell,' Tiffany said. ‘Look, you have to realise he's not just some distraction to take your mind off things or some other stupid complication to get yourself caught up in. He's been really good to me and Anthony, really good. If he gets hurt . . .' Tiffany trailed off before adding with a hint of menace, ‘I don't want that to happen.'

‘It won't,' Natalie reassured her. ‘We made a mistake and that's all. Look, please will you just pretend you don't know? For my sake and Gary's?'

Tiffany's scowl was still quite fierce.

‘I like you, Natalie,' she said, even though she looked as if the very opposite were true. ‘But you really should think before you act. You rush in too fast. Actions have consequences, you know.'

Natalie looked from Freddie's buggy to Jordan's.

‘I think you and I know that better than most people, don't we?' she said, with a wry smile.

‘I just don't know what you want from him,' Tiffany said, beginning to walk on. ‘Look at you, you've got a lovely baby, a ton of money, a big job, a nice house and you're still not happy!'

‘How do you know I'm not happy?' Natalie asked her huffily. ‘I've never told you that!'

‘You don't have to,' Tiffany said. ‘It's written all over your face.'

Jacob was still crying when Jess got in. He hadn't stopped once on the way home, even the lull of the bus hadn't sent him off. She dropped her bag and coat on the floor just inside the front door and went straight to the armchair where she put him to her breast. But he didn't want to feed, twisting his head away from her.

She felt a cold wash of panic well up from the pit of her abdomen. She touched her lips to his forehead. He felt very hot.

‘Oh dear,' she said out loud to him, needing to hear the sound of her own voice calm and in control. ‘Are you poorly, Jacob baby? Have you got that nasty cold? Poor you, you don't know why you feel so rotten, do you?'

Jess laid Jacob on the floor and removed all his clothes until he was down to just his nappy. And then she remembered that she had to keep his extremities warm, so she put socks and mittens on him. Still he cried.

Picking him up again, Jess went to the bathroom and took out the Calpol that Lee's mother had brought round: one of the most bizarre new-baby gifts that Jess could imagine.

‘It will save your life,' Gene had told Jess as she handed it to her. ‘It's a godsend.'

Jess, who instinctively did not like the idea of feeding her little baby drugs, had vowed never to use it, but now . . . if it would bring Jacob's temperature down and help him rest . . .

The label said a single 2.5 ml dose could be given to a baby aged between two and four months. Jacob was nearly three months, so she could give him a spoonful. But when she looked at him and how tiny he was, it just didn't seem right to give him drugs. Nothing else had gone into his body yet except for her milk. What if he didn't really need paracetamol, what if she would only be giving it to him to make herself feel better? She knew what Lee would do if he were here. Lee would just give it to him, but alone Jess was paralysed by indecision. Consult your doctor if concerned, that was what the label also said, and Jess was concerned.

She thought about herdoctor's surgery, which was just still open and only a few yards down the road. She knew exactly what would happen. She knew the obligatory frosty receptionist would treat her like a moron and that the weary doctor would patronise and talk down to her, making her feel like an idiot for bringing her baby in with just a cold.

But she couldn't guess about giving him paracetamol. She needed someone to tell her what to do, and she needed to know that it was just a cold and not the beginning of all the more sinister diseases that had already run through her mind.

‘Don't worry, sweetheart,' she told her baby. ‘The doctor will sort you out.'

‘You're doing everything right,' Dr Moran told her after she had finished listening to Jacob's chest. ‘Keeping him cool, keeping up his fluids. His chest sounds clear. It's a bit of a worry that he doesn't want to feed, but it's not so long since his last feed and his temperature is not dangerously high. Have you got a thermometer at home?'

Jess shook her head.

‘Well, you can get one at the pharmacy over the road. If I were you I'd keep an eye on him, monitor his temperature. If it goes any higher, ring me and we can decide about the paracetamol, although I would rather hold off if we can.'

Jess burst into tears. Dr Moran looked taken a back.

‘It's nothing to worry about really, Ms Bergin. It's just a cold.'

‘I'm sorry. It's just that you are so nice and you don't make me feel like an idiot – which has made me act like an idiot.' Jess sniffed and smiled all at once. ‘Thank you,' she added.

Dr Moran smiled. ‘I had my first a little over a year ago. It's much easier to talk about being a parent than to be one. I know how you feel, I know that things other people think aren't that important can seem incredibly huge and scary. And besides, you can't be too careful with a young baby. But I promise you there is no need to worry.'

When Jess got home Jacob had taken a little milk and then fallen asleep in her arms. Between then and the time that Lee got in she pressed the thermometer strip across his forehead every few minutes. So far his temperature had remained a little high, but steady.

She felt as if Dr Moran had armed her: with information, a tool and best of all the promise of backup if things got worse. The buzz of anxiety still hummed in her nerves but despite that she felt, with near disbelief, that she was coping. She was coping on her own.

For the first time in a long time she wasn't crippled with fear.

Chapter Twenty-five

Natalie stood outside her house with Freddie and wondered.

Now that she had decided to go and see Jack, perhaps she should just go and see him before she decided to do something equally decisive but entirely different, like joining an order of silent nuns in the Outer Hebrides.