The Mothers' Group (3 page)

Miranda shook her head. ‘I don't have much time to do yoga anymore. I've got a three-year-old at home too. My husband's son from his first marriage.'

Ginie raised an eyebrow. Perhaps not so perfect after all.

‘But do you get a bit of a break when the toddler visits his mum?' Pat asked hopefully.

‘No,' said Miranda. ‘Digby's mother died when he was six months old.'

God almighty, thought Ginie, rather guiltily.

‘Oh.' Pat looked deflated. Then she rallied. ‘Well, one of our topics in the coming weeks is “Making Time for You”. When there's a demanding older sibling around, it's doubly important to schedule in me-time.'

Miranda didn't look terribly convinced.

Pat glanced around the group. ‘So . . . who haven't we done yet?'

A pale, unsmiling woman raised her hand. ‘I'm Pippa.'

Her mousy brown hair, pulled back in a tight bun, was oily at the crown. She was diminutive in stature and her high-pitched voice wavered like a child's, but the fine lines around her eyes suggested a woman in her thirties. Her clothes were drab; a shapeless grey skivvy teamed with an ankle-length black skirt.

‘That's Heidi asleep in there.' Pippa nodded at an oversized stroller shrouded in black windproof meshing, through which it was impossible to see the baby. ‘My birth experience wasn't pleasant.'

Ginie leaned forward, straining to hear.

‘Would you like to share some of it with us?' Pat asked.

‘Not really.'

Pat faltered; she clearly wasn't used to such directness.

‘Right,' she gushed. ‘That's absolutely your prerogative.'

Pippa's hazel eyes were expressionless as she shifted in her seat, smoothing her skirt over her knees.

‘Now, lucky last . . .' Pat scanned her clipboard. ‘Made . . . and baby Wayne?'

An Asian woman raised her hand. She was petite, almost doll-like, with a heart-shaped face and warm brown eyes. Her shiny black hair was cut into a chin-length bob, which she pushed behind her ears with long, smooth fingers. She smiled shyly at the group, white teeth flashing against caramel skin. She looked barely old enough to have a baby.

‘I am Made.' Pat had pronounced ‘Made' as if it rhymed with ‘paid', but Made herself pronounced her name as ‘Ma-day'. ‘And this is baby
Wayan
.'

‘That's an unusual name,' said Pat.

‘We from Bali.'

The baby gurgled from beneath a colourful sarong that covered the pram. Made reached in to lift out a toffee-skinned infant with a shock of black hair. She held the baby up to the group.

‘My firstborn boy,' she said proudly.

Ginie stifled a gasp. The baby's mouth was open, disfigured by some kind of bulbous growth adhering to his lip and spreading up towards his nose.

Ginie glanced around the room. Everyone else was poker-faced. Made was nuzzling her son's ear, oblivious.

Pat was the first to speak. ‘Is . . . Is there anything about your birthing experience that you would like to tell us, Made?'

Made paused, thinking for a moment. ‘It was very paining,' she said. ‘But he is . . . healthy boy. This is appreciating.'

Ginie smiled. Made's grasp of English was rudimentary, but her meaning was clear.

‘Good, good,' said Pat. She shuffled her notes. ‘Now that we've introduced ourselves, let's have a chat about how this group works. My role is to support you on the marvellous journey of motherhood, because being a mum is the most important job in the world.'

Ginie glanced at her watch.

‘Today we'll talk about sleeping, which is something every new mum is interested in.' Pat chuckled. ‘Sleep is extremely important for growth and development.' Her voice had assumed a rehearsed, singsong quality. Ginie wondered how many times Pat had subjected a group of new mothers to this exact spiel.

The session dragged on for another thirty minutes. Ginie spent much of this time checking work emails on her iPhone, concealed beneath the nappy bag balanced on her lap. Officially, she'd taken three months' maternity leave. But as the firm's only venture capital specialist, she couldn't trust Trevor, a private equity colleague, to manage her files properly. She checked her emails regularly, often sending two-line commands to Trevor which usually went unanswered. Her colleagues seemed reluctant to ‘bother her', as they termed it, so soon after the birth. Ginie had never felt so disconnected from her working life.

‘Oh, ladies, one more thing,' said Pat, turning to the whiteboard. ‘We'll meet once a week until the end of July, then once a month to November. You'll be experts by then.' She wrote out the dates in a neat line on the board. Even her handwriting was irritating, Ginie thought, all curly and feminine. Instead of dots above the i's and j's, she drew tiny heart shapes.

‘Around the four-month mark, we'll have a special “Fathers and Partners” session.' Pat circled the date for emphasis. ‘It's important to get the dads involved.'

The bell on the back of the door jangled and Pat whirled around, a curt expression on her face.

‘It's not eleven o'clock yet.' She scowled at a thin, white-haired man who stood in the doorway. ‘There's a mothers' group in session here. Didn't you see the sign?'

The man looked contrite. ‘I'll wait outside.'

Made stood up. ‘I go,' she said. ‘My husband. Thank you, Pat.'

She wheeled Wayan in his pram towards the exit. Cara, who was closest, rose to her feet and held open the door for her.

Husband?
Ginie stared at the man beyond the door. He must be in his fifties, she thought.
Is Made a mail order bride?

‘Made, you might need some help with breastfeeding, considering Wayan's condition,' Pat called after her. ‘I'll contact you next week to organise a meeting with one of our lactation consultants.'

Ginie repressed a snort. There could only be one thing worse than a midwife, as far as she was concerned: a
specialist
midwife.

Made nodded politely as she stepped onto the street. Ginie craned her neck to peer beyond the door. She caught a glimpse of the white-haired man stooping to kiss Wayan in his pram, before placing a protective hand on Made's hip.

The rest of the group began to assemble their things.

‘Well, thank you, ladies,' said Pat. ‘I'll see you next week. Everyone's contact details are here.' She waved a bundle of photocopies at them. ‘I suggest you meet up informally before we reconvene. Being a new mum can be daunting, so it's good to support each other.'

Cara stood up and looked around the room. ‘Well . . . would anyone like to meet up for coffee this Friday morning?' She seemed a little self-conscious.

No one said anything. Suzie and Pippa were fussing over their babies, while Miranda drained the last of her water. Ginie stared at her iPhone, pretending to read a message.

‘We could go to the café across the road?' Cara ventured.

Ginie glanced around the group. She didn't have time for old friends, let alone new ones. All the same, she reasoned, her problems with breastfeeding had taught her that babies weren't always predictable. There was hardly anyone in her social network she could turn to for advice—most of her friends were childless professionals. And damned if she was going to ask her own mother.

‘Okay,' said Ginie. ‘I can make it unless something comes up at work.' It was a convenient excuse, should she need an exit strategy.

Some of the others nodded too.

‘Great,' said Cara. ‘Ten o'clock across the road, then?'

‘Um . . . what about the beachfront park, instead?' Pippa's voice was hesitant. ‘There's a little kiosk there, Beachcombers. It might be nicer for the babies, being outdoors.'

Do babies even
care
at this age? Ginie wondered.

‘Yes, there's that little playground nearby,' said Miranda. ‘I'll have Digby with me and he needs somewhere to run around.'

‘Okay,' said Cara. ‘Let's say ten o'clock this Friday at Beachcombers. I'll let Made know.'

Ginie plugged the date into her iPhone. The rest of the group began to disperse. Unlike the other babies, Rose was still asleep in her pram. She looked like a cherub, floating in layers of pink and white. A tiny pulse flickered at her temple. She was so fragile, so dependent upon Ginie for everything. And I'd do almost anything for her, Ginie said to herself. Even attend a mothers' group.

She gathered up her things and began to push the pram towards the door. Pat held it open for her.

‘My husband bought the deluxe model, I'm afraid,' Ginie said ruefully, nodding at the pram. ‘I can't even fit it in the boot of my car.' Her BMW coupé had been perfect pre-baby.

‘I'm glad you decided to join the group, Ginie,' said Pat.

‘Well, I'm going back to work next week,' Ginie told her. ‘But I'll come along to as many sessions as I can.'

‘Goodness, that's a rapid return to the workforce.'

Ginie forced a smile. ‘Well, someone has to pay the mortgage, I'm afraid.'

She lowered the pram onto the street and started towards the car park.

Why did everyone have an opinion on her returning to work? She'd had a similar reaction from her mother, and Daniel hadn't been all that enthusiastic, either. If she'd been a man, no one would have questioned it. People expected fathers to go back to work as quickly as possible after their children were born. But mothers, she was learning, were judged differently. An alternative set of principles applied, even if the mother was the breadwinner of the family.

Ginie lifted her face to the warm winter sunshine, such a welcome relief from the dull hours she'd spent inside the house lately. The truth was, as much as she adored Rose, she'd been thinking about returning to work since her release from hospital. In the days after the birth, she'd been half expecting to have the sort of personal epiphany she'd heard about in other women: a loss of desire to work, and a sudden passion for the grander, higher calling of motherhood. But Ginie had worked too hard, become too specialised, to let go of it all lightly. One type of love, the maternal kind, had not usurped the other. Her love for the law remained.

She'd waited until Rose was one month old before raising the issue with Daniel.

‘We need a nanny,' she told him, returning to the dinner table for the third time in thirty minutes. The quiet Friday night meal she'd planned had been hijacked by an unusually fractious Rose. Daniel looked up from his plate, a chunk of lamb speared on his fork.

‘What?' she asked, defensive.

‘I'm listening,' he replied.

‘Okay.' She took a deep breath. ‘I've been thinking. Maybe I should go back to work sooner rather than later. I mean, I'm enjoying Rose and everything, but it's been a month now and the bills keep coming in.' Ginie's salary was quadruple that of Daniel's earnings. It had always been that way, from the moment they'd met on Curl Curl beach, just over a year ago. And now, with the global financial crisis worsening and Daniel's communications work dwindling, hers was the only income on which they could rely. Daniel kept insisting that the novel he'd started not long after their wedding would be finished within the next few months, but as far as Ginie was concerned, that was about as likely as winning the lottery.

‘We've got a great life,' she continued. ‘Why change it? Obviously I don't expect you to alter your own working arrangements because of Rose.' She paused, offering him the opportunity to say that
he
would be the primary carer until he started bringing in more work. Daniel remained silent.

‘I've looked into au pairs,' she went on. ‘They're quite inexpensive for what they do. They stay in your home, help with the housework, look after the baby. I could work four days a week in the office and one from home. You'd be free to do your own thing without having to worry about Rose. Maybe we could even get some quality time together. I mean, we haven't been ourselves lately . . .' The words were tumbling out of her mouth. She stopped herself short.

Things had changed between them almost as soon as she'd discovered she was pregnant. When the severe morning sickness had finally subsided, mind-numbing fatigue set in. In the final weeks of pregnancy, her stomach's swollen surface had resembled blue vein cheese, crisscrossed with newly formed blood supply lines to the baby. And while Daniel claimed her pregnant body was beautiful, she was appalled by it. He'd actually wanted to photograph it, for God's sake. It was a secret relief to Ginie when Rose came early, so it was no longer an option. But they hadn't been intimate since. Something had changed for her after the birth. Her body was different, that was clear, but it was more fundamental than that. Every time he reached for her, she almost flinched.

Daniel coughed. ‘When do you think you might go back to work, then?'

‘Three weeks,' she replied. ‘I spoke to Alan today. He wants me back as soon as possible. Trevor's covering the Kentridge matter, but he's struggling.'

‘Oh.' Daniel nodded, the movement slow and exaggerated. It was something he did, she'd learned, when attempting to contain his irritation. The ticking of the cedar clock on the sideboard punctuated the silence.

‘Why don't you consider this a bit more?' he said finally. ‘I mean, Rose is only a month old.'

Ginie shook her head. She'd spent hours trawling the internet in the weeks before the birth, researching and comparing agencies. She'd already spoken to the staff at Mother's Little Helpers and confirmed the availability of a likely candidate, willing to start in a fortnight. Ginie had been impressed by her profile: a registered nurse from Ireland with qualifications in childcare. What else was there to consider?

‘But this way, with an au pair, we can
both
keep working,' she said. ‘We don't have to change our lifestyle, we don't have to worry about compromising Rose's care. And we can still get some time for us.'