It had been the strangest, most draining twenty-four hours of her life. She’d barely eaten, barely slept, barely been able to shuffle to the loo, even – and that despite the night nurse’s insistence that she wouldn’t be allowed to leave till she’d ‘passed water’; something she hadn’t understood at first, like so much of the language and routines on the ward. She’d felt nagged at and violated and never left alone. Shall we see if we can get baby to latch on? Shall we check your down-belows? Baby sounds like he needs changing. Baby looks like he needs winding. Where’s your mam, love? Expecting anyone? Shouldn’t you be putting baby down?
And worst of all – that muttered ‘oh’, when the night nurse came on duty and peered into the little plastic cot while doing her rounds. She’d not said anything else to Christine after that. She hadn’t needed to. Her expression, as she glanced from Joey and up to Christine and back again, had already amply made its point. And then Christine had seen her afterwards, up at the nurses’ station at the far end of the ward, leaning over the desk and whispering to one of the other nurses. Then glancing back at her and whispering to the other nurse again. Christine hated her for that. Hated her. For Joey.
‘You okay, love?’ Josie was holding Joey like she knew exactly what she was doing. Holding him in the crook of one arm, jiggling him slightly so she didn’t wake him, the Morrisons carrier bag with Christine’s dirty clothes in dangling from the same elbow, and still proffering her other hand to help her friend out. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let me help you. Feeling sore?’
Christine took Josie’s hand, thinking how the word ‘sore’ didn’t begin to describe it. She’d remembered her mam mentioning it, a good while back, when she’d first confessed to being pregnant, and had ventured to ask what giving birth was like. ‘Like having your fanny put through a fucking mincer’ had been her immediate brusque reply.
It galled Christine, somehow, to realise she’d been right. To accept that in some things her mam did know better. The thought also saddened her. She’d ruminated on it miserably for half the frigging night. To think her mam had been through exactly what she had in order to give birth to her. And had now disowned her, apparently. She couldn’t quite make sense of it. How it might have happened. How she felt about her baby – that she would kill for him, love him always – and how her mam now seemed to feel about her. How did you get from the one to the other?
She clambered out, with Josie’s help, and grimaced as she did so. ‘Jesus, Jose,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling battered. I thought once you’d done the birth bit that was it for the pain.’
Josie shook her head. ‘You wish, mate. You’ve got stitches?’ Christine nodded as she took her friend’s free arm. ‘That’ll be it then. Then there’s the after-pains, of course …’ She’d already steered her in the direction of the house. They’d pulled up a couple of cars down as Eddie was outside tinkering with his Escort. ‘And brace yourself, love,’ Josie said. ‘Because now the hard work begins. As in feeds round the clock and no sleep for the foreseeable future. Welcome to the wonderful world of motherhood!’
‘Little ray of sunshine she is, isn’t she?’ Eddie had popped up from under his bonnet, his curly hair haloed by the sun. ‘Full of sympathy and helpful little nuggets of advice, eh?’
Josie aimed a toe in his direction and Christine felt a stab of anxiety for Joey’s safety. ‘Piss off, Eddie,’ Josie said, laughing. Then she took a step closer to him. ‘Want a peek?’ she asked, twisting so he could better see into the folds of blanket.
Eddie grinned. ‘That’s a whole bundle of trouble right there, that is. You all right, love?’ he asked, turning to Christine, his expression sympathetic.
‘S’pose,’ she said, though she felt anything but.
Christine had always felt at home round at Josie’s, where everything felt just that bit nicer. When her own house was full of tired, old-fashioned furniture, Josie and Eddie’s place was almost like a show home. They didn’t have much spare cash, she knew, but they had made the best of what they did have. There was a modern low-backed sofa, one of those huge paper lanterns hanging from the middle of the front room ceiling, a glass coffee table with chrome legs and a huge shaggy rug. They also had one of those enormous stone fireplaces along one wall, with a specially designed shelf for the telly.
Most of all, though, was that Josie’s home was a place of warmth and calm, where no one ever shouted or got wasted. And watching her friend now, doing everything one-handed with the baby still tucked close beside her, Christine knew immediately that she was going to dread having to leave.
But leave she must. She was a mam herself now, with a whole tiny life depending on her, and much as part of her wanted to collapse into a heap and sleep, another part was already struggling with the scenario before her – of both Joey and her being mothered by Josie. Of her friend taking charge, of having already taken Joey. And there it was again; this powerful urge to take him back again.
She didn’t. The more rational part of her didn’t feel equal to the task of doing anything but watch her friend gratefully, as she lay the baby on the couch and in seconds removed the woolly hat and knitted coat it had taken her so long to put on.
Joey stirred and kicked his tiny legs. ‘There,’ Josie cooed. ‘That’s better, isn’t it, little man? Oh, our Paula’s going to think she’s died and gone to heaven,’ she added, turning to Christine, who still felt incapable of doing anything but standing there, mutely. She felt dizzy now, foggy, as though her brain wasn’t quite functioning.
Josie obviously noticed. ‘Sit down,’ she ordered. ‘Go on, before you fall down.’ She picked Joey up again and nodded towards the couch. ‘I expect your blood pressure’s through the floor. You must be dropping on your feet. You need a proper rest, Chris. You’ll feel much better once you’ve had a decent kip. Tell you what, I’ll leave Paula round my mam’s for a bit longer. Look after your little man for you while you get your head down for a bit, okay?’
‘Oh, Josie,’ Christine started, ‘I can’t let you. I’m supposed to –’
‘Nonsense. Now look,’ she said, going round to the far end of the couch. ‘Don’t laugh, but I couldn’t carry your Moses basket down on top of everything else. So I thought this would do for now … Least till I go back up to your mam’s and fetch it …’
She’d hooked her heel round something and was dragging it across the carpet backwards. ‘Had a bit of help from Paula – and a gift – of her second favourite teddy. Just on loan, mind.’ She grinned. And what she’d pulled out was a drawer. ‘It’s from the chest up in the spare room,’ she explained. ‘And trust me, this is luxury. My nan used to put my dad to bed in a drawer.’ She laughed then. ‘Only difference being that it was still in the chest of drawers, and if he played up, she’d shut it – with him still in it!’
She stopped laughing then, and came across, sitting down beside Christine, who had started sobbing so hard that her shoulders were shaking. It had come out of nowhere. It was seeing the cot. The wooden drawer. The whole emotional whump of it. That she was a mum, with a baby, and had nowhere to go.
But for her friend, anyway … Life suddenly felt so precarious. ‘It’s all right, love,’ Josie soothed. ‘You’re just tired, overwhelmed. Come on, let’s get this little fella tucked up – and don’t worry. He’s quite safe. Come on, to bed with you. Now.’
Joey’s cry cut through the fog like a knife. So distant, yet so powerful, as if designed specifically to seek her out. Which she supposed it was, and the fierce protectiveness washed over her immediately, but now it was accompanied by a feeling of something like claustrophobia, as the thoughts that had assailed her before she’d drifted off to sleep all returned with a vengeance. She was on her own. She had a child to support. Her life was changed