The Lies We Tell, page 14
I didn’t feel like one.
‘Now gently rinse his little head, like this. You’ve got it. Well done.’
I felt quite chuffed. All my working life I’d been confident, because I knew where I was with figures. They either added up or they didn’t. But babies were unpredictable. Sarah’s encouragement made me feel as though I was really getting somewhere. I patted my son’s head with the towel. ‘Excellent,’ she said approvingly.
Was that a pang in my chest? It seemed such a miracle that we had created a life together. I wasn’t one for poetic thoughts but I suddenly felt quite overwhelmed.
By the end, I was exhausted. So was Freddie. ‘He’s going to sleep again. Is that all right?’
‘Some babies sleep a lot and others have longer gaps. They’re all different.’
‘There should be some kind of classification.’
‘Very funny, Tom.’
I meant it. But I couldn’t help having huge respect for my wife. She seemed amazingly capable. How would I ever catch up? And what if I did something wrong that hurt Freddie? He was so small and vulnerable.
‘I hadn’t realized that being a parent was such a huge responsibility,’ I whispered to Sarah as we got into bed that night. She was already there before me. In fact, I’d taken longer with my shower, almost hoping she would be asleep. Then we wouldn’t need to have any awkward conversation.
‘It is,’ she agreed, nestling her head into my shoulder. ‘But you’re here with us now. We’re going to manage this together, Tom. I know it.’
Slowly she stroked me below. I felt myself stirring. ‘You can’t make love to me until after my six-week check,’ she whispered. ‘But I can help you …’
Then, at the point of climax, I thought of her in prison. Had she worn one of those orange boiler suits like you see on television? How many hours a day had she spent behind bars? Why hadn’t I asked this before? Now was too late. I’d lost the urge.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, reassuring me. ‘These things take time.’
Then Freddie woke. He was in his crib next to the bed because Sarah wanted him in the same room. ‘Olivia says it’s best,’ she’d said.
‘What do we do now?’ I asked.
‘He wants feeding.’
‘Again?’
‘It’s all right. You go back to sleep.’
I nodded off. But it was an uneasy sleep. This time, in my dreams, Sarah was running through a prison with Freddie in her arms. Someone was chasing her. I couldn’t see who.
When I woke it was only 5 a.m. She was feeding Freddie again. ‘How do you know he’s not getting too much?’ I asked.
‘He’ll stop, or he might be a bit sick.’
‘Isn’t that dangerous?’
‘Many babies regurgitate some milk, which is why it’s important to watch them.’
This whole baby thing seemed littered with pitfalls. Yet it was also strangely addictive. I kept looking at Freddie. This was my son. My son! How incredible was that?
I left for work early. I could get more done that way and then I might be able to come home earlier for bath time.
‘How is it going?’ asked Hilary, who, as always, had arrived before me. We were the only ones there.
‘It’s all right, actually,’ I said.
‘Good.’
I had been slightly worried that the confidences I’d entrusted Hilary with might affect our relationship, but they hadn’t. She treated me now in precisely the same matter-of-fact way she had done before. The only difference was that, whenever there was some kind of work-related event, such as a birthday or leaving party, the two of us generally found ourselves sitting next to each other at the pub or wine bar or wherever the occasion was being held. We were the only two people in the group to ask for non-alcoholic drinks. Our conversation was never personal. We talked about things like Gordon Brown’s spending policy. I was pleased to find that Hilary’s political views were similar to my own.
But shared views were one thing. A shared child another.
When Hugo rang a few weeks after Sarah and Freddie had come home, to suggest a drink or a game of tennis, I told him I was busy.
‘You’re not still upset about Chapman, are you?’ he said. ‘I didn’t know he was going to kill himself.’
But I was still angry. Not just with him for threatening the man but also with myself. For the terrible truth was that part of me felt relief that Chapman could no longer tell the world our secret. Never, I vowed, would I allow my son to be put in such a position. I would always be there to give him the fatherly advice I had not been able to ask for myself. I was going to be the best dad I could possibly be. And the best husband too.
20
Sarah
And so we started again.
I tried my hardest to be the woman Tom wanted me to be.
Rather nervously, I rang Olivia’s expensive Mayfair hairdressing salon, using the number on the card she had given me before I’d left. I was shocked when I asked for the price in advance. I’d never spent that amount on anything in the past! Olivia was delighted when I told her I’d made an appointment. ‘I’ll look after Freddie for you. You go and enjoy yourself.’
‘Are you sure?’ I said. I’d never been away from Freddie before.
‘He’ll be safe with me. Don’t worry.’
But I couldn’t help it. What if he cried for me? I’d expressed some breast milk but there was no guarantee he’d take that from the bottle.
‘May I suggest removing the pink-and-blue highlights for madam?’ asked the senior ‘technician’.
I was so concerned about Freddie that I would have agreed to almost anything.
Two hours later, a glossy, chic black bob stared back at me in the mirror. Part of me rather liked it, in the way you might admire a picture of someone else. But the other part of me felt uneasy.
Who do you think you’re kidding? my reflection seemed to say. You can change your colours on the outside. But not on the inside.
I also went through my wardrobe, with Olivia’s help. ‘I think these have seen better days, don’t you?’ she said, throwing my old market jeans onto the rubbish pile by the bed.
When she’d gone, I put them back. They’d be useful for painting, if nothing else. But I also went shopping, with Freddie in his pushchair, and bought a peacock blue jersey dress from Selfridges as well as some tailored trousers. I wore the dress that evening, along with the pearl earrings Olivia had given me, for when Tom came back from work.
‘That looks nice,’ he said approvingly, tucking into the pork chop I’d grilled. At Olivia’s suggestion, I’d tried making more of an effort to cook meat dishes for him, even though I couldn’t face them myself.
On another evening, I wore his mother’s diamond necklace. His eyes actually misted up. ‘My mother would have been so pleased.’
Then he stopped. We both knew what he was thinking. She would have been shocked and disgusted by my past.
All I could do was try and make up for it now. We socialized with Hugo and Olivia. Sometimes, I sensed Hugo looking at me in a certain way. Yes, I wanted to say to him. I messed up. Big time. But I was young. Stupid. Naive. Besides, everyone’s allowed a second chance, aren’t they? This is mine. Well, maybe my third, which we won’t talk about in the hope it won’t be discovered. But I won’t mess it up again. I’m a mother now. I’ve learned from my mistakes.
During the week, I spent some of my time at the rather exclusive baby group that Olivia had introduced me to. Everyone there had names like Posy or Anastasia, with double-barrelled surnames. They talked non-stop about which prep school their children had been put down for and which designer baby shops were best. But when I got to know them, I found they had the same worries as me about things like weaning and fussy eating and not sleeping.
Very few of them worked. Their husbands all did something in the City. ‘You’re an artist?’ someone said when I mentioned I’d gone to art school. ‘How amazing!’
‘I don’t have much time at the moment to paint,’ I said.
‘I don’t have much time to go to the loo,’ said another.
That made us all laugh.
After the first few days, Tom was rarely back from the office before 8 p.m. but that suited me. Freddie and I could be ourselves without him fussing over the ‘mess’ caused by toys everywhere or food flung on the floor.
I say ‘ourselves’ because that’s what it felt like. Freddie and I were one. He panicked every time I was out of sight so I had to take him with me, even to the loo. He clung to me with such love and determination that I felt naked without him. I would walk around with him on my hip as if he was surgically attached. I would continually dip my head down to inhale the scent of his hair and skin.
As well as Olivia’s exclusive playgroup, I also signed up for one at a local hall. That one was far more casual; there, I was able to relax. One day, I began chatting to an older woman who turned out to be the grandmother of the child she was with. ‘Does your mum or dad help with the baby?’ she asked.
In the past, any reference to my mum would have made my eyes swim, but this time I felt an alien emotion in my heart. Although I’d loved my mother – and still did – I can now see that she hadn’t been that responsible. In the commune, we’d run wild, eating mushrooms from the forest and peas from the vegetable garden or dry cereal at odd times; there had been no routine or security.
It hadn’t seemed unusual then or different. But now I had the responsibility of a small child to love and care for, I began to feel angry with her. It made me determined to be the best parent I could possibly be.
Like many artists or writers with children, I was torn between my two passions. When Freddie was still young enough to have daytime naps, I would seize my charcoal sticks and start feverishly sketching. Often I would draw my child as he lay asleep before me, his little chest rising and falling. The birth of my son, I would marvel, had saved me from my old life. He was my guarantee that I would always live a better one. I had to, because mothers had to be good examples, didn’t they?
A few weeks later, two of the mothers from Olivia’s baby group came back for a coffee. They saw my sketches and asked if they could pay me to draw their children too. Olivia helped to spread the word and, before I knew it, I was receiving more commissions than I could deal with, often ending up working into the night.
‘You don’t need to do this,’ said Tom sleepily. Freddie, by this stage, had gone into his own room next door. I was glad to be back with my husband, but I had to admit that I found it odd sharing the bed with someone again. I also had a constant ear out for the baby monitor, which I kept switched on during the night even though Tom complained that the light disturbed him.
‘I can increase your allowance, if you want.’
‘It’s not the money,’ I told him. ‘It’s about doing something for me.’
‘Isn’t motherhood enough?’ he asked.
‘It’s not as simple as that,’ I protested. ‘I need to paint and draw as well.’
He’d gone to sleep by then. Yet I knew that even if he’d been awake, he wouldn’t have understood.
Olivia also asked me to draw her girls. Of course, I said I’d do it for free, but she insisted on asking what my going rate was. ‘You could charge more than that,’ she told me. ‘I know someone who runs a gallery off Sloane Square. Have you got any pictures you want to sell?’
Three went within the first month, followed by more commissions, but I still wasn’t getting the satisfaction I used to get from teaching at the arts centre. Perhaps it was because I didn’t go out to work. (I generally took, or asked for, photographs of the subject and then did the portrait at home. This was best for children, I’d discovered, because they didn’t sit still for long periods like adults!)
Now Freddie was on the move, I felt like I had to keep my eye on him at all times. He was growing up so fast. Just look at how he was hauling himself up on furniture! He was talking as well. ‘Mum’ was his first word.
‘He’ll say “dad” soon,’ I told Tom. But I could see he was hurt. I would have been as well, to be honest.
I lived and breathed Freddie. He was everything to me. I couldn’t imagine life without him. Sometimes I would be overcome with terror that something awful would happen. ‘All mothers have these fears,’ said Olivia when I told her. ‘It’s natural.’
But every now and then my fear got so bad that I was almost too scared to leave the house. ‘It will be all right,’ Tom assured me. ‘I’ve done some research into it. It’s normal for new mothers to be anxious. I’m here for you, Sarah. We’re in this together so there’s no need for you to worry.’
He gave me a cuddle. I nestled into his chest but still couldn’t get rid of those ‘what if something happens?’ flutters in my chest.
I began to avoid playgroups because they were probably full of germs. We were safer in our home. We could play games. We could do hand printing. We could dance! Our beautiful son had such an ear for music! Did he get it from my mother? I remembered her dancing with me once.
One night, I woke to hear Freddie making strangled cries on the baby monitor.
‘We need to get him to hospital,’ I told Tom.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked sleepily. ‘I think he’s merely chesty after that cold.’
‘No! We have to go.’ I had a horror of missing something important, like my aunt had missed my burst appendix. Call it a mother’s intuition but I knew something was wrong.
I was right. As soon as we got there, Freddie was rushed into special care. He had suffered an asthma attack.
‘It will all be OK,’ said Tom, as we sat by our son in the darkened hospital room watching the monitor rise and fall with those awful bleeping noises. Freddie looked so helpless with that ventilator mask over his mouth. My eyes could barely focus from all the crying.
‘What do you know?’ I demanded. ‘You’re not a doctor. You weren’t joined to him by an umbilical cord. You almost …’
I’d made myself stop then. But we both knew what I’d been about to say. ‘You almost left us after he was born.’ Still, I had to put that out of my head. On the whole, Tom had been really caring since Freddie and I had come back from Olivia’s. He’d changed. I’d changed. It was going to be all right. Just as long as our son got through this.
And he did! The following day, Freddie was better, sitting up and beaming at us. How could children be so ill one minute and then all right the next?
‘Is there asthma in the family?’ asked the doctor.
‘Not on my side,’ said Tom, who had taken a day off work, although he was constantly going outside to make business calls.
‘I’m not sure about mine,’ I said slowly. It wasn’t as if I’d been raised in a family that ever visited a GP. But I do vaguely remember one of the other women bringing round a poultice of dried herbs for my mother when she had a bad chest. There was no way I could find out. My aunt and uncle had not been in touch since my trial. When I wrote to tell them about my marriage and Freddie’s birth, the letter came back marked Return to Sender. Clearly, they wanted nothing to do with me.
Olivia was brilliant. She put me in touch with a specialist and sat with Freddie when he napped so I could get some sleep.
‘It’s no trouble at all,’ she said. ‘It’s my only chance to have a little one in my life. Hugo is still adamant about not having another.’
Tom wasn’t keen either. ‘It took us so long to conceive Freddie – do we want to go through all those ups and downs again?’ he said.
But I was hoping he’d come round to it. That terrible night in the hospital when he’d read my notes now seemed almost like a distant memory. We had Freddie to look after now and Tom was a good father. He played number games with him. We had some great family trips to a city farm, where Freddie loved to feed the goats and sheep. We would snuggle up in bed, the three of us, on Saturday and Sunday mornings when Tom didn’t have to go to work. We were a proper family. It was all I’d ever wanted.
If only it could have lasted.
21
Tom
I’ve never been one of those people who spend time analysing themselves. There doesn’t seem much point. You are who you are.
The trouble is that you never really know who others are. I certainly hadn’t known who Sarah was when we’d met but, then again, she hadn’t known everything about me, either.
Freddie, however, was our clean slate. We were going to make a success of parenthood. I knew it. And although, like many young couples (according to my reading matter), we were stressed with the strain of having a baby, I also felt closer to this woman who had given me a son.
But as the weeks went by, I began to feel more and more exhausted. Freddie only wanted his mother, especially at night. It didn’t help that Sarah insisted on taking Freddie into our bed if he woke in the night. It was impossible to get enough sleep with all his little noises that ranged from mewing sounds to full-blown yells. I even began to make the odd mistake at work, which I had never done before. ‘Why don’t you sleep in the spare room to get some rest?’ Sarah had suggested after a few weeks of this. But when I left for work in the morning and peeped through the door to see Freddie fast asleep in Sarah’s arms, I felt shut out.
I did my best to get back home at a reasonable hour such as 7 p.m. instead of 9 p.m. Sometimes Freddie was asleep by then. This was a mixed blessing. It meant I got to eat dinner in peace. But at the same time, I didn’t want to miss out on him. I loved holding him in my arms and stroking his cheek with my little finger.
At the weekends, we often went for walks in the park. ‘You push the buggy,’ my wife would say to me. At first I was a little nervous but then I got the hang of it. Freddie began to reach out his arms to me as well as Sarah. This filled me with an unexpected warmth. I found myself laughing more than I had done for years.
Often, older people passing would look at us and give us what seemed like approving looks. It made me feel good. I was a father! I felt special. I would defend my little family with my last breath.
‘Now gently rinse his little head, like this. You’ve got it. Well done.’
I felt quite chuffed. All my working life I’d been confident, because I knew where I was with figures. They either added up or they didn’t. But babies were unpredictable. Sarah’s encouragement made me feel as though I was really getting somewhere. I patted my son’s head with the towel. ‘Excellent,’ she said approvingly.
Was that a pang in my chest? It seemed such a miracle that we had created a life together. I wasn’t one for poetic thoughts but I suddenly felt quite overwhelmed.
By the end, I was exhausted. So was Freddie. ‘He’s going to sleep again. Is that all right?’
‘Some babies sleep a lot and others have longer gaps. They’re all different.’
‘There should be some kind of classification.’
‘Very funny, Tom.’
I meant it. But I couldn’t help having huge respect for my wife. She seemed amazingly capable. How would I ever catch up? And what if I did something wrong that hurt Freddie? He was so small and vulnerable.
‘I hadn’t realized that being a parent was such a huge responsibility,’ I whispered to Sarah as we got into bed that night. She was already there before me. In fact, I’d taken longer with my shower, almost hoping she would be asleep. Then we wouldn’t need to have any awkward conversation.
‘It is,’ she agreed, nestling her head into my shoulder. ‘But you’re here with us now. We’re going to manage this together, Tom. I know it.’
Slowly she stroked me below. I felt myself stirring. ‘You can’t make love to me until after my six-week check,’ she whispered. ‘But I can help you …’
Then, at the point of climax, I thought of her in prison. Had she worn one of those orange boiler suits like you see on television? How many hours a day had she spent behind bars? Why hadn’t I asked this before? Now was too late. I’d lost the urge.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, reassuring me. ‘These things take time.’
Then Freddie woke. He was in his crib next to the bed because Sarah wanted him in the same room. ‘Olivia says it’s best,’ she’d said.
‘What do we do now?’ I asked.
‘He wants feeding.’
‘Again?’
‘It’s all right. You go back to sleep.’
I nodded off. But it was an uneasy sleep. This time, in my dreams, Sarah was running through a prison with Freddie in her arms. Someone was chasing her. I couldn’t see who.
When I woke it was only 5 a.m. She was feeding Freddie again. ‘How do you know he’s not getting too much?’ I asked.
‘He’ll stop, or he might be a bit sick.’
‘Isn’t that dangerous?’
‘Many babies regurgitate some milk, which is why it’s important to watch them.’
This whole baby thing seemed littered with pitfalls. Yet it was also strangely addictive. I kept looking at Freddie. This was my son. My son! How incredible was that?
I left for work early. I could get more done that way and then I might be able to come home earlier for bath time.
‘How is it going?’ asked Hilary, who, as always, had arrived before me. We were the only ones there.
‘It’s all right, actually,’ I said.
‘Good.’
I had been slightly worried that the confidences I’d entrusted Hilary with might affect our relationship, but they hadn’t. She treated me now in precisely the same matter-of-fact way she had done before. The only difference was that, whenever there was some kind of work-related event, such as a birthday or leaving party, the two of us generally found ourselves sitting next to each other at the pub or wine bar or wherever the occasion was being held. We were the only two people in the group to ask for non-alcoholic drinks. Our conversation was never personal. We talked about things like Gordon Brown’s spending policy. I was pleased to find that Hilary’s political views were similar to my own.
But shared views were one thing. A shared child another.
When Hugo rang a few weeks after Sarah and Freddie had come home, to suggest a drink or a game of tennis, I told him I was busy.
‘You’re not still upset about Chapman, are you?’ he said. ‘I didn’t know he was going to kill himself.’
But I was still angry. Not just with him for threatening the man but also with myself. For the terrible truth was that part of me felt relief that Chapman could no longer tell the world our secret. Never, I vowed, would I allow my son to be put in such a position. I would always be there to give him the fatherly advice I had not been able to ask for myself. I was going to be the best dad I could possibly be. And the best husband too.
20
Sarah
And so we started again.
I tried my hardest to be the woman Tom wanted me to be.
Rather nervously, I rang Olivia’s expensive Mayfair hairdressing salon, using the number on the card she had given me before I’d left. I was shocked when I asked for the price in advance. I’d never spent that amount on anything in the past! Olivia was delighted when I told her I’d made an appointment. ‘I’ll look after Freddie for you. You go and enjoy yourself.’
‘Are you sure?’ I said. I’d never been away from Freddie before.
‘He’ll be safe with me. Don’t worry.’
But I couldn’t help it. What if he cried for me? I’d expressed some breast milk but there was no guarantee he’d take that from the bottle.
‘May I suggest removing the pink-and-blue highlights for madam?’ asked the senior ‘technician’.
I was so concerned about Freddie that I would have agreed to almost anything.
Two hours later, a glossy, chic black bob stared back at me in the mirror. Part of me rather liked it, in the way you might admire a picture of someone else. But the other part of me felt uneasy.
Who do you think you’re kidding? my reflection seemed to say. You can change your colours on the outside. But not on the inside.
I also went through my wardrobe, with Olivia’s help. ‘I think these have seen better days, don’t you?’ she said, throwing my old market jeans onto the rubbish pile by the bed.
When she’d gone, I put them back. They’d be useful for painting, if nothing else. But I also went shopping, with Freddie in his pushchair, and bought a peacock blue jersey dress from Selfridges as well as some tailored trousers. I wore the dress that evening, along with the pearl earrings Olivia had given me, for when Tom came back from work.
‘That looks nice,’ he said approvingly, tucking into the pork chop I’d grilled. At Olivia’s suggestion, I’d tried making more of an effort to cook meat dishes for him, even though I couldn’t face them myself.
On another evening, I wore his mother’s diamond necklace. His eyes actually misted up. ‘My mother would have been so pleased.’
Then he stopped. We both knew what he was thinking. She would have been shocked and disgusted by my past.
All I could do was try and make up for it now. We socialized with Hugo and Olivia. Sometimes, I sensed Hugo looking at me in a certain way. Yes, I wanted to say to him. I messed up. Big time. But I was young. Stupid. Naive. Besides, everyone’s allowed a second chance, aren’t they? This is mine. Well, maybe my third, which we won’t talk about in the hope it won’t be discovered. But I won’t mess it up again. I’m a mother now. I’ve learned from my mistakes.
During the week, I spent some of my time at the rather exclusive baby group that Olivia had introduced me to. Everyone there had names like Posy or Anastasia, with double-barrelled surnames. They talked non-stop about which prep school their children had been put down for and which designer baby shops were best. But when I got to know them, I found they had the same worries as me about things like weaning and fussy eating and not sleeping.
Very few of them worked. Their husbands all did something in the City. ‘You’re an artist?’ someone said when I mentioned I’d gone to art school. ‘How amazing!’
‘I don’t have much time at the moment to paint,’ I said.
‘I don’t have much time to go to the loo,’ said another.
That made us all laugh.
After the first few days, Tom was rarely back from the office before 8 p.m. but that suited me. Freddie and I could be ourselves without him fussing over the ‘mess’ caused by toys everywhere or food flung on the floor.
I say ‘ourselves’ because that’s what it felt like. Freddie and I were one. He panicked every time I was out of sight so I had to take him with me, even to the loo. He clung to me with such love and determination that I felt naked without him. I would walk around with him on my hip as if he was surgically attached. I would continually dip my head down to inhale the scent of his hair and skin.
As well as Olivia’s exclusive playgroup, I also signed up for one at a local hall. That one was far more casual; there, I was able to relax. One day, I began chatting to an older woman who turned out to be the grandmother of the child she was with. ‘Does your mum or dad help with the baby?’ she asked.
In the past, any reference to my mum would have made my eyes swim, but this time I felt an alien emotion in my heart. Although I’d loved my mother – and still did – I can now see that she hadn’t been that responsible. In the commune, we’d run wild, eating mushrooms from the forest and peas from the vegetable garden or dry cereal at odd times; there had been no routine or security.
It hadn’t seemed unusual then or different. But now I had the responsibility of a small child to love and care for, I began to feel angry with her. It made me determined to be the best parent I could possibly be.
Like many artists or writers with children, I was torn between my two passions. When Freddie was still young enough to have daytime naps, I would seize my charcoal sticks and start feverishly sketching. Often I would draw my child as he lay asleep before me, his little chest rising and falling. The birth of my son, I would marvel, had saved me from my old life. He was my guarantee that I would always live a better one. I had to, because mothers had to be good examples, didn’t they?
A few weeks later, two of the mothers from Olivia’s baby group came back for a coffee. They saw my sketches and asked if they could pay me to draw their children too. Olivia helped to spread the word and, before I knew it, I was receiving more commissions than I could deal with, often ending up working into the night.
‘You don’t need to do this,’ said Tom sleepily. Freddie, by this stage, had gone into his own room next door. I was glad to be back with my husband, but I had to admit that I found it odd sharing the bed with someone again. I also had a constant ear out for the baby monitor, which I kept switched on during the night even though Tom complained that the light disturbed him.
‘I can increase your allowance, if you want.’
‘It’s not the money,’ I told him. ‘It’s about doing something for me.’
‘Isn’t motherhood enough?’ he asked.
‘It’s not as simple as that,’ I protested. ‘I need to paint and draw as well.’
He’d gone to sleep by then. Yet I knew that even if he’d been awake, he wouldn’t have understood.
Olivia also asked me to draw her girls. Of course, I said I’d do it for free, but she insisted on asking what my going rate was. ‘You could charge more than that,’ she told me. ‘I know someone who runs a gallery off Sloane Square. Have you got any pictures you want to sell?’
Three went within the first month, followed by more commissions, but I still wasn’t getting the satisfaction I used to get from teaching at the arts centre. Perhaps it was because I didn’t go out to work. (I generally took, or asked for, photographs of the subject and then did the portrait at home. This was best for children, I’d discovered, because they didn’t sit still for long periods like adults!)
Now Freddie was on the move, I felt like I had to keep my eye on him at all times. He was growing up so fast. Just look at how he was hauling himself up on furniture! He was talking as well. ‘Mum’ was his first word.
‘He’ll say “dad” soon,’ I told Tom. But I could see he was hurt. I would have been as well, to be honest.
I lived and breathed Freddie. He was everything to me. I couldn’t imagine life without him. Sometimes I would be overcome with terror that something awful would happen. ‘All mothers have these fears,’ said Olivia when I told her. ‘It’s natural.’
But every now and then my fear got so bad that I was almost too scared to leave the house. ‘It will be all right,’ Tom assured me. ‘I’ve done some research into it. It’s normal for new mothers to be anxious. I’m here for you, Sarah. We’re in this together so there’s no need for you to worry.’
He gave me a cuddle. I nestled into his chest but still couldn’t get rid of those ‘what if something happens?’ flutters in my chest.
I began to avoid playgroups because they were probably full of germs. We were safer in our home. We could play games. We could do hand printing. We could dance! Our beautiful son had such an ear for music! Did he get it from my mother? I remembered her dancing with me once.
One night, I woke to hear Freddie making strangled cries on the baby monitor.
‘We need to get him to hospital,’ I told Tom.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked sleepily. ‘I think he’s merely chesty after that cold.’
‘No! We have to go.’ I had a horror of missing something important, like my aunt had missed my burst appendix. Call it a mother’s intuition but I knew something was wrong.
I was right. As soon as we got there, Freddie was rushed into special care. He had suffered an asthma attack.
‘It will all be OK,’ said Tom, as we sat by our son in the darkened hospital room watching the monitor rise and fall with those awful bleeping noises. Freddie looked so helpless with that ventilator mask over his mouth. My eyes could barely focus from all the crying.
‘What do you know?’ I demanded. ‘You’re not a doctor. You weren’t joined to him by an umbilical cord. You almost …’
I’d made myself stop then. But we both knew what I’d been about to say. ‘You almost left us after he was born.’ Still, I had to put that out of my head. On the whole, Tom had been really caring since Freddie and I had come back from Olivia’s. He’d changed. I’d changed. It was going to be all right. Just as long as our son got through this.
And he did! The following day, Freddie was better, sitting up and beaming at us. How could children be so ill one minute and then all right the next?
‘Is there asthma in the family?’ asked the doctor.
‘Not on my side,’ said Tom, who had taken a day off work, although he was constantly going outside to make business calls.
‘I’m not sure about mine,’ I said slowly. It wasn’t as if I’d been raised in a family that ever visited a GP. But I do vaguely remember one of the other women bringing round a poultice of dried herbs for my mother when she had a bad chest. There was no way I could find out. My aunt and uncle had not been in touch since my trial. When I wrote to tell them about my marriage and Freddie’s birth, the letter came back marked Return to Sender. Clearly, they wanted nothing to do with me.
Olivia was brilliant. She put me in touch with a specialist and sat with Freddie when he napped so I could get some sleep.
‘It’s no trouble at all,’ she said. ‘It’s my only chance to have a little one in my life. Hugo is still adamant about not having another.’
Tom wasn’t keen either. ‘It took us so long to conceive Freddie – do we want to go through all those ups and downs again?’ he said.
But I was hoping he’d come round to it. That terrible night in the hospital when he’d read my notes now seemed almost like a distant memory. We had Freddie to look after now and Tom was a good father. He played number games with him. We had some great family trips to a city farm, where Freddie loved to feed the goats and sheep. We would snuggle up in bed, the three of us, on Saturday and Sunday mornings when Tom didn’t have to go to work. We were a proper family. It was all I’d ever wanted.
If only it could have lasted.
21
Tom
I’ve never been one of those people who spend time analysing themselves. There doesn’t seem much point. You are who you are.
The trouble is that you never really know who others are. I certainly hadn’t known who Sarah was when we’d met but, then again, she hadn’t known everything about me, either.
Freddie, however, was our clean slate. We were going to make a success of parenthood. I knew it. And although, like many young couples (according to my reading matter), we were stressed with the strain of having a baby, I also felt closer to this woman who had given me a son.
But as the weeks went by, I began to feel more and more exhausted. Freddie only wanted his mother, especially at night. It didn’t help that Sarah insisted on taking Freddie into our bed if he woke in the night. It was impossible to get enough sleep with all his little noises that ranged from mewing sounds to full-blown yells. I even began to make the odd mistake at work, which I had never done before. ‘Why don’t you sleep in the spare room to get some rest?’ Sarah had suggested after a few weeks of this. But when I left for work in the morning and peeped through the door to see Freddie fast asleep in Sarah’s arms, I felt shut out.
I did my best to get back home at a reasonable hour such as 7 p.m. instead of 9 p.m. Sometimes Freddie was asleep by then. This was a mixed blessing. It meant I got to eat dinner in peace. But at the same time, I didn’t want to miss out on him. I loved holding him in my arms and stroking his cheek with my little finger.
At the weekends, we often went for walks in the park. ‘You push the buggy,’ my wife would say to me. At first I was a little nervous but then I got the hang of it. Freddie began to reach out his arms to me as well as Sarah. This filled me with an unexpected warmth. I found myself laughing more than I had done for years.
Often, older people passing would look at us and give us what seemed like approving looks. It made me feel good. I was a father! I felt special. I would defend my little family with my last breath.
