Chapter 19
As soon as they clapped eyes on the genuine Land Rover three-wheeler, complete with rubber tyres, sheepskin lining and handbrake, they both knew this was the pram for them.
‘I cannot believe how much money we have spent on a small, unborn baby.’ Don was looking fazed in the lift. He had taken a few days off, so they could spend a long weekend finally moving into their house and shopping for furniture and baby things.
‘How is the spreadsheet holding up?’ he looked at Bella with what looked like a mix of hope and despair.
‘I’m going to have to juggle some columns… maybe if we don’t eat anything for a few weeks…’ but she tried to keep the tone light. ‘Look these are one-off, setting up costs. Try not to panic.’
One tiny baby seemed to require a mountain of stuff – cradle with all the trimmings, a bath, changing table, towels, vests, cardigans, assorted clothes Bella could not resist, a car seat and finally – the only thing Don could get excited about – the baby’s set of wheels.
‘Hold on tight, we’re going to the kitchen department now,’ Bella told him. Poor Don, he had no idea about all that was on her list. They’d rented for years, now they had to furnish a whole house.
The kitchen was granted a large stainless-steel fridge, a washing machine, a dishwasher, crockery, pots, pans, cutlery, glasses and wine glasses, which all went through on Bella’s card as Don began to pale at the running total.
A taxi ride later and they were buying maple wardrobes for the bedroom, an incredibly Parisian-cool leather armchair and a distressed beech kitchen table with six chairs.
‘Not half as distressed as I’m going to be when my bill comes in,’ Bella joked to Don, as she waved her card at the machine. She instantly regretted the joke when he didn’t smile back.
‘Right,’ he said as they headed out of the shop. ‘That’s it, you’re not spending any more money. What else do we need?’
‘Well, some lamps, some rugs, and… a new sofa?’ She knew she was going out on a limb here.
‘OK.’ He sounded reasonable. ‘Well, I’m getting them.’ Before she could object, he added, ‘No, no, no… I don’t want to hear it. Bella, it’s my home too. I’m not your kept man.’
‘Can I come with you?’ she asked. If he was going to go off and rack up a whole load on his credit card, she felt she should at least guide his choices a little bit.
‘No, you have to bundle yourself off into a taxi and get home for your check-up with Suzy.’
‘OK, OK, Don. But you don’t have to get everything today,’ she told him, kissing him goodbye. ‘You know, if you don’t see anything you like…’
‘You mean if I don’t see anything you’d like.’ He grinned at her.
‘No, no, it’s your home too. You’re allowed to choose what you want.’ She tried to really mean this.
When Bella arrived back at the house, the front door was unlocked, as usual, because there were always decorators and builders here. Almost every room had now been rewired, replastered and painted dazzling white, while the floors had been sanded and varnished.
She walked through the hall and upstairs to the bedroom to dump her bags. The mattress they were sleeping on was still unmade from this morning and boxes full of clothes lined the walls. A bulb hung from the ceiling and there was only a sheet pinned over the window, so they kept waking up early with the light.
The new shower, toilet and sink were in the bathroom, plumbed in and working but the walls were still bare plaster and the lino had been ripped up, leaving stained plyboard underneath.
Two of the decorators were still working on the baby’s room. She put her head round the door to say hello.
‘Hello, Bella,’ said the younger one. ‘Bill’s down in the kitchen if you want to talk to him.’
Not really. She wanted to lie down flat out on her bed, but she thought she’d better go have a chat. She braced herself for the flight of stairs down to the kitchen and began waddling.
Bill and two other men were having a tea break when she came in.
‘Hello, Bella,’ Bill greeted her. ‘Don’t go giving birth early, this is going to take another week or so. Hopefully we’ll get the other bathroom finished off at the same time.’
‘Well, I think you’re safe,’ she answered. ‘The baby’s head hasn’t engaged yet.’
There was a collective gulping of tea. This was obviously too much information.
She hoped the existing range cooker would look OK in the new glossy black and granite kitchen. She hadn’t the heart, or the budget, to rip it out and replace it.
Finally lying down on the mattress, she called Don. ‘How’s it going?’ she asked.
‘Fine,’ he answered. ‘Leave me alone, I can handle this!’
‘All right! I’m just checking. Will you bring dinner home? All our kitchen stuff isn’t being delivered until tomorrow and anyway, I’m too tired.’
‘Is Suzy there yet?’
‘She’s on her way.’
When Suzy arrived and began the routine checks, she was concerned at Bella’s blood pressure. ‘It’s slightly up,’ she said, looking at Bella lying in an exhausted heap on her floor-bed. ‘It’s been rising gently, but this is a little bit of a blip. You’ve got to take it really easy.’
No wonder her blood pressure was up, Bella thought, she’d done serious damage to her collateral today.
She could feel slight palpitations just at the thought of it.
‘Are you OK?’ Suzy asked.
‘Yes, I’m fine. I’ve definitely overdone it today. I don’t think I’ll leave the house again.’
‘A little walking is fine and your yoga poses, but really nothing more now. We’re getting very close.’
‘Not in the next two weeks, though?’ Bella asked anxiously. ‘The kitchen won’t be finished.’
‘Well, let’s hope not,’ Suzy offered.
When Bella asked anxiously, ‘Suzy, is this really about to happen? I’m not ready.’
The doula replied, ‘No one is ever ready, Bella. You can only be prepared. But this is still going to bowl you over like nothing ever has done before.’
Don didn’t reveal any details about his shopping trip when he got home that evening and would only say she had to stay in and wait for a delivery the next day.
The van arrived soon after 11a.m. and three men were needed to haul the most enormous, pale tan sofa into their sitting room. Good grief! Made from a whole herd of Italy’s finest designer cows, it must have cost a fortune. She was stunned. She hadn’t really known what to expect from Don, but certainly something a lot cheaper.
Three very chic lamps and a vast cream sheepskin rug were also delivered. She was impressed and phoned Don at work.
‘Hello, darling, guess what I’m lying on?’
‘Bill, the decorator?’ he joked.
‘No!!! A hugely expensive, wonderfully luxurious sofa.’
‘Ah ha. It arrived then. What do you think?’
‘Amazing, fantastic… bankrupting!’ she told him. The fact that it was hardly very baby friendly, she left out. She could buy a blanket, surely. They could make it work.
Over the next week, Bella set up home on the sofa. It was finally time to stop thinking about working, or exercising, trying to look nice, even shopping and nesting. She was too tired, too heavy, too huge. She had put on almost three stone in seven months and her home outfit was shapeless black maternity trousers and one of Don’s washed-out tartan shirts. Her feet would only fit into a pair of old sheepskin slippers she’d found behind a wardrobe when they moved.
Prone on the sofa, glued to daytime TV or reading decorating magazines, surrounded by grape stalks, digestive biscuit wrappers and empty water bottles, was where Don now expected to find her when he came home from work.
So, he was surprised to find the house strangely dark one evening. In a total panic, he realised he could hear something in the bedroom. He ran up the stairs two at a time, heart pounding, convinced he was going to find his wife about to give birth in their brand-new bed.
He opened the door and saw Bella lying with the duvet over her, sobbing into the pillow.
‘What’s the matter?’ He rushed over to her side.
‘Oh, Don.’ She looked up at him with streaming red eyes and nose.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked urgently.
‘I’ve ruined this house,’ she sobbed.
‘What do you mean?!’
‘It was so lovely. It was full of character and the two lovely boys and two lovely parents and I’ve ruined it,’ she wailed at him.
‘Oh, darling girl, what’s made you think that?’ He put his arm around her comfortingly.
‘I’ve stripped it and gutted it and now it feels white and soulless. And our baby’s going to grow up in this white soulless place and we’ll probably break up because it’s so white and empty and it’s all my fault,’ she sobbed against the pillow.
‘Bella…’ – he lay down beside her and stroked her hair – ‘Bella, you’ve gone completely bonkers.’ He said this as gently and as soothingly as he could. ‘The house looks great. It looks airy and light and at the moment any kid would love it because they can charge around without knocking anything over.’
He was hoping to make her laugh a little, but she was still crying hard, so he added, ‘If you think it’s too white, we’ll get the painters back to repaint the walls. It’s not a problem, lovely girl, it’s not a problem.’
She looked up at him and he saw how swollen her eyes were with crying.
‘I love you,’ Don said.
‘Are you sure?’ she wobbled. ‘Are you really going to stay here with me and the baby?’
‘Of course I am.’ He folded her up into his arms. ‘Please don’t worry about that. I’m so sorry if I’ve made you worry about that.’
‘But our dads—’ she tried to restrain her tears long enough to get the words out. ‘Yours left and mine shagged around. It’s not exactly promising, is it?’
He hugged her harder and didn’t say anything for a while, then he answered, ‘No one turns out exactly like their parents, Bella. Let’s just give ourselves a chance. You can’t promise this will work out and neither can I, but we both really want to try and that’s enough.’
‘I feel so vulnerable and dependent,’ she said in a frightened voice. ‘And I hate it.’
He held her for a long time, then kissed her forehead. For a moment she was calm, then she put her face against his chest and burst into tears again. ‘Oh God and then there’s the kitchen!’ she sobbed.
‘Bella, I’m sorry they’ve not put in the kitchen yet… they’re behind schedule. The work will start tomorrow,’ he soothed.
‘But come and look.’ She heaved herself up and shuffled into the appalling slippers she seemed to wear all the time.
They went down the stairs slowly, Don following his lumbering wife. They went into the kitchen, where rewiring and replastering had been done, but the old kitchen was still in place, while the new one sat in unopened boxes.
Bella burst into tears again.
‘What’s the matter?’ He put his arm around her back.
‘I don’t want the new kitchen,’ she protested. ‘It’s all sharp and steely and black and this wooden kitchen, it… it looks like the kind of place where mums make soup and kids eat biscuits and play with their toys on the floor…’ her voice trailed off into another volley of sobs.
‘Bella,’ he was smiling as he hugged her awkwardly over her mountainous bump, ‘you’re going to be a great mum. You don’t have to bake cakes…’ Another sob, so he added, ‘Unless you want to.’
For a moment, he paused, not sure what to say that would help.
‘Well… can the new kitchen be returned?’ he ventured.
‘I think so…’
‘What if we get this kitchen and its walls and doors repainted? Would that work?’
‘Yeah… that’s not a bad idea.’ She sounded slightly brighter. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she sniffed. ‘Everything doesn’t have to be perfect… it has to be nice.’
‘The house is really, really nice,’ he assured her. ‘I love it. The baby is going to be safe and happy here, I promise.’
Don kissed the top of her head, while Bella wiped her wet face and streaming nose on the back of her sleeve. ‘Oh God. I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to go and blow my nose and wash my face, I’ve got to get a grip. I’ve read the books, Don. I’ve even watched some frankly horrible videos… but I don’t feel ready. I don’t know what to do.’
‘You’re going to be fine,’ he soothed. ‘We’re going to be fine.’
‘I hope so.’