Nicki
I lay naked on my bed staring at my cracked phone screen in horror. It’s been over a year since Phoebe last messaged me, and the relics of our last conversation hang awkwardly above this morning’s new one.
Phoebe:
I can’t believe this
You’re betraying yourself
Fine then. Be like this. Have a great life.
The messages weren’t replied to, but two ticks reveal they’d been read. Oh, how I’d read those final words until they were branded onto the back of my eyelids – crying whenever I re-read them. But, gradually, month by month, the scar of them softened as Matt and I healed and rebuilt and tried to forget about Phoebe. Now, here sits a fresh message to reignite the chaos she brought into our lives.
Phoebe:
Happy baby shower!! Looking forward to seeing you today. It’s been agggeeeeesss xxxx
It seems innocent but it’s a stark juxtaposition to the poison lying in the text boxes above. Surely she can see them too? Are we just going to jump the shark here? I sit up and lean forward and sweat drips off my forehead onto my phone screen. I wipe it with my thumb and then wipe under my sagging breasts too. They’re already double their pre-pregnancy size and don’t get me started on what the hell’s happened to my nipples which now resemble mauve dinner plates. They droop inelegantly, resting on my bulging stomach, harvesting little ponds of sweat underneath them. Honestly, the never-ending grotesqueness of pregnancy and I haven’t even dislodged my ‘mucus plug’ yet. Is it the heat making me sweat, or this message? I never thought I’d hear from her again. I’d got used to that. I’ve mourned our friendship. WHY is Phoebe coming today? Who the hell invited her? She MUST know I’m pregnant for fuck’s sake, she’s used the words ‘Happy Baby Shower’. Why would she do this to me?
Baby kicks beneath my skin as the cortisol pumps into their placenta. ‘Shh, it’s alright. Sorry. It’s alright.’ I rub their foot through my stomach, trying to calm myself down as much as my baby.
I’m initially in shock but the rage arrives shortly after and I push myself off the bed, pacing to get it out. How dare she? What’s WRONG with her? I’m pregnant. Doesn’t she care how pregnant I am? It’s been a pretty jarring experience, getting pregnant and realising just how little the world gives a shit. I’ve been stunned by the daily battle to get someone to give me their seat on the train to work, even in this heat when I’m so visibly huge. I guess it’s naive to expect strangers to care about my delicate condition, but Phoebe—
‘?’ Mum calls from the kitchen, her voice bouncing through the glass of the house, jolting me from my phone. ‘Are you awake, darling?’
If I wasn’t, I would be now.
‘I’m up,’ I call back. ‘Is everything alright?’
‘Everything’s fine. Just wondering if you want a cup of tea?’
‘OK then.’
I sigh and glance down at my phone again, trying to arrange this into my projection of how the day was going to go. Phoebe is coming to my baby shower. Phoebe the albatross. I’m finally going to see her again. I should tell her not to come . . . Surely it’s for revenge or something? At least Matt’s not going to be here. Maybe she’s decided to not totally nuke my new life and only contaminate a small part of it. I step into some really giant pregnancy knickers and tell myself she’ll know Matt won’t be coming today. Maybe this is a peace offering rather than an unpinned grenade. Maybe we can move on from what happened and let go of all the animosity?
Maybe it will be nice to see her?
I allow myself that thought as I stuff myself into my stretched silk kimono. The shock’s settling down now and I recalibrate the day, inserting Phoebe into the celebrations. It could actually be quite lovely? A great way of finding peace before the baby arrives? Plus, it’s a guilt-free way of seeing Phoebe again. I didn’t invite her. I’m innocent and yet I get to see her and smooth things over. Create a different ending to our doomed friendship. That would be nice. By the time I meet Mum in the kitchen, I’m actively looking forward to her coming, and finally, therefore, to the day itself.
‘Morning darling, how did you sleep?’ Mum’s elbow deep in their new fancy sink, Marigolds on, scrubbing a non-existent stain on the deep, stainless steel bowl.
‘Hardly at all. I think I peed seven times.’
She laughs. ‘I remember it well. Still, honestly, try and enjoy this last month of your body keeping your baby alive. It’s much easier with them on the inside than the outside.’ She unsheathes her hands and zooms straight to turn on the kettle, plopping a teabag into a mug for me. She pecks the top of my head then re-gloves and gets out a bottle of spray bleach and starts attacking the gleaming countertops.
I struggle to get myself up onto the stool at the breakfast bar. ‘I’m not sure about that,’ I tell her. ‘Being pregnant is really hard.’
‘Hmm.’
Her hand blurs over the countertop, raking up non-existent dirt, just as the kettle sings. Without blinking, she’s handing me a steaming cup of herbal tea.
‘It really is,’ I repeat, wanting a bit more sympathy. ‘Honestly, the list of things that’s wrong with me right now . . . Insomnia, pelvic girdle pain, the heartburn. Counting the kicks each day and worrying the baby’s dead and deciding whether to go to maternity triage for a scan . . .’
‘We never had scans in my day,’ Mum interrupts, already on her knees with a dustpan and brush. ‘Your generation knows too much. We didn’t even know if it was a boy or a girl, let alone if they had Down’s syndrome or whatever. You just got pregnant and nine months later, you got a baby and it was what it was.’
I cradle my mug with both hands and inhale the steam to ground myself.
‘Did you not worry there’d be something wrong with me?’
‘No, why would there be?’
‘Did you not count the kicks each day?’
‘I didn’t have time, . I was too busy working.’
‘I work too.’
‘Yes, well, God knows when you fit in all this fretting. We just got on with it.’ I feel my temper flaring, and, sensing it, she jumps up and dumps the dust into the bin, and starts attacking the skirting boards.
‘Mum, the house is already spotless.’
‘We’ve got babies crawling around today, we must be super careful. Now, are you sure there’ll be enough food?’
‘Charlotte said she’s organised catering. Just relax. You’ve done enough by letting us host it here.’
‘You say she’s sorting travel cots for the babies. I’m doing what I can about the heat but there’s so much glass . . .’
I smile and glance around at the vast see-throughness of their outer walls. ‘There is, indeed, a lot of glass.’
‘Your dad said it would be lovely to have all this light in the winter, but we forgot about summer. It’s so hot.’
‘I mean, you did decide to move into a greenhouse.’
I can’t manufacture much sympathy as I still haven’t quite forgiven my parents for selling my childhood home, especially without consultation. Dad just casually dropped it into conversation, ‘Oh, we got an offer accepted on the house today , ’ like it was an old sofa they’d put on eBay and not the container of all my childhood memories. I’d burst into tears and Mum had called me ‘selfish’.
‘You know your father has always dreamed of living in the countryside. Honestly, it’s not like you visit much anyway.’
It’s worse she defended him when I knew she didn’t want to sell either. Mum had carefully curated the perfect retired life. Every day of the week, she’d have a ‘Biddy Walk’ or ‘Silver Swim’ with a local friend, before getting coffee and talking about their grown-up children or physical ailments. Now, to make Dad happy, she was a 30-minute drive away from that life. Not even an easy 30-minute drive, but one on winding countryside lanes which made her anxious. But she toed the party line, and said how excited she was to embrace village life, for views over the downs, and have a vegetable patch – which seemed like an additional chore to be honest. I wept packing up our old house, my foetus only the size of a cherry tomato back then. The baby would never see my childhood bedroom, would never take their clumsy first steps in the same garden I did. And, if it wasn’t all symbolic enough, Mum dumped five giant boxes of crap onto my lap and said, ‘this is all yours’. And, through morning sickness, I’d had to spend two weeks figuring out what leftovers from my formative years I could fit into our tiny two-bed flat.
‘Clutter just doesn’t work in the glass house,’ she’d said. ‘Sorry, . You have to find room at yours.’
I rub my stomach through my kimono and promise my baby that I’ll cherish every piece of GCSE artwork, every outfit that might come back into fashion, and every book they’ve ever loved. Cherished memories aren’t ‘clutter’. The list of the things I plan to do differently from my own parents is longer than the terse silences between them. I will be less stressed, more present, I will validate my child’s emotions, I will showcase a positive experience of an equal partnership—
‘Did Charlotte say she’s bringing ice? I worry we don’t have enough ice.’ Mum’s eyes widen as she decides on her latest catastrophe, j-cloth still in hand.
‘She’ll bring ice. It’s Charlotte.’
‘Maybe I should drive into town, just in case?’
‘There’ll be ice.’
‘I’m going to go.’
‘Mum.’
‘You’ll thank me later.’
Mum vanishes before I can even message Charlotte to ask, and I hear the car start in the driveway, roaring over gravel. I sigh, trying to erase the contamination of her anxiety. I told Mum providing the venue was more than enough. No need to worry about anything else. But she insists on malfunctioning anyway. I pick up my phone and read Phoebe’s message again. I should reply. It will be awkward if I don’t. It already is awkward. At least, if I reply, it pushes those horrible messages up and off the screen. My pudgy hands hover over my phone, awaiting instruction for the response, but it feels like every button is a landmine. I stroke the crack in the screen and punch something out.
You’re coming? Who invited you?
That sounds confrontational. It must’ve been Charlotte who invited her anyway. Obliviously.
Wow OK. It will be lovely to see you.
I wince and delete that too. Imagining reading it through Matt’s eyes.
I can’t pretend this isn’t a huge shock, Phoebe. I wish you’d warned me.
No, too aggressive again. Despite everything, I want Phoebe to like me. I delete for a third time and drum my pudgy fingers against the marble countertop. A giant hacking cough comes from the bathroom. Dad’s up. What is it with men over a certain age and their supersonic morning coughs? Matt’s developed one too, during his first piss of the day, and I swear we’re only a hop, skip and a jump from skid marks in baggy y-fronts, and him growing giant grey nose hairs. Dad shuffles out of the bathroom, scratching himself.
‘Morning Poppet,’ he greets me, ruffling my hair on his way to the coffee machine. ‘How did you sleep?’
‘What’s sleep?’
He laughs. ‘Your mother was the same when she was pregnant with you. Up every hour with her bladder . . .’ He swings open a cupboard door and retrieves a mug, pours coffee, and misses a bit, spilling over Mum’s freshly cleaned counter tops. Oblivious, he takes a deep slurp, and then bashes the mug down again, creating a fresh brown circle. ‘...I remember it so well. I can’t believe it was 32 years ago.’
He perches on the stool next to me, slurping and grinning at my bump, decorating the table with coffee circles like it’s a potato press. ‘Where is your mother anyway?’ he asks. ‘I can’t hear her worrying about anything.’
We laugh conspiratorially. ‘She’s convinced herself we don’t have enough ice, even though Charlotte has probably couriered in our own personal iceberg. She insisted on going to town anyway.’
‘Sounds like your mother. If there’s a stress to be had.’
‘She’s been up since five, cleaning . . .’ I look at the decorated kitchen top.
‘I told her not to. I wish she’d relax more.’
I switch from co-conspirator to mum-defender. I know she’s A Lot, most of the time, but Dad doesn’t seem to realise his behaviour causes so much of her stress. If he’d only help more, he’d magically get the chilled wife he’s spent his whole life pining for. They live in this ridiculous mausoleum because they BOTH made good money before retiring. It’s not like he was the sole breadwinner. I remember meeting Lauren a year or two ago for wine, and we’d drunk too much and complained about our mothers. She’d said Boomer women were the real losers of ‘70s feminism. ‘ They were told they could go out and have a career, but they also married these man-children, brought up by ‘50s Stepford wives, who don ’ t know how to clean the bog, ’ I remember her slurring. ‘Feminism backfired on them. They had to go work and feel liberated about that, but ALSO did the childcare and housework. It ’ s no coincidence that every woman in this country over the age of 60 has some kind of clinical anxiety disorder. ’
I really do miss Lauren. I didn’t think she’d go all Baby Cult on me. But, since having Woody, whenever I’ve tried to call her, she rarely picks up the phone, claiming Woody’s about to feed, or about to nap, or about to ‘kick off’. It felt so magical, to both get pregnant in the same year, but I hardly hear from her. It’s so weird. She always used to check in but she’s basically vanished. She didn’t even reply to my last message about my pelvic girdle pain.
‘Maybe if you cleaned more, Mum would be less stressed?’ I tell dad, rubbing my stomach again.
‘We have a cleaner and she still gets stressed.’ He grins and finishes off his coffee with a dramatic ahh . ‘Don’t worry Poppet. Your mum will calm down once everyone arrives.’
‘And once she’s collected all the ice in a twelve-mile radius.
‘That too.’
He stands up and smells his own armpit before wincing at what his nostrils have found. ‘Enjoy today, . It’s very special.’
It hits me again. Today is my baby shower. My baby shower. It’s still so surreal. 30-odd people are coming over to officiate this overwhelming life choice I’ve made, and now Phoebe, apparently, is going to be one of them.
The doorbell chimes, making the house feel like a church, and Dad jumps up to get it – unashamedly answering it in his saggy old man pants. I hear him chat to someone, laughing, as I pull out my phone once more. I decide not to overthink it, there’s no way Phoebe would’ve. She’s no doubt decided to come today on a whim, because she’s got a spare gap between art exhibition openings and other hipster parties.
‘Well, this is a surprise.’ I type out to Phoebe. Then I add a winky face.
There. Sent. Done. I sigh and lean back on the hard stool, shaking my head. I hold my bump in both hands to remind myself why I’m here. It’s what I wanted.
It’s here. Today. My baby shower. A shadow of my past attending. I may as well just surrender to the surreal of it all. It’s already so weird, it can’t possibly get any weirder.
‘Umm, ?’ Dad calls, sounding like he’s behind something. He staggers into the hot box of the kitchen, under the weight of what seems to be an entire field of flowers. ‘Did you order a peony wall ?’