Chapter 33
Hector and Bella were in a small but glossy office, buried in the heart of the Danson Corporation, having a celebratory coffee. They had just pulled off a slick presentation together and felt they deserved to pat themselves on the back.
Bella had already decided that the Danson’s job would be fun, provided Hector wasn’t too much of an annoyance. It was a healthy, profitable company just wanting to trim back costs, get some fresh ideas and step up turnover. The kind of thing Bella could wrap up in two months, tops, but still very lucrative for Prentice and Partners.
‘You look tired,’ Hector said.
‘Tired? Ha! Tired is for wimps.’ She inhaled the steam coming from her coffee. ‘I’m just going to have to get used to functioning on this level of sleep deprivation. I went to bed at 9.30p.m. last night. I was up at 12.30, then 3a.m., then got up at 6.30. Only mothers, and maybe marines, are tough enough to take this on a nightly basis.’
‘Are you missing the baby?’
‘Markie? In a funny way, no,’ she told him truthfully. ‘Because I don’t associate him with work. But when I stop to think about him, then I just want to be with him. It’s like when you’re first in love, you know…? When you want to hold someone and look at them and be with them and make them smile all the time and watch them sleeping. Yeah, I’m obsessed.’
‘I’m sure…’ Hector answered, but Bella didn’t believe he could be interested.
‘Anyway,’ she said, trying to snap back into work mode. ‘This morning went really well. I think they love us.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘This should be a nice easy one for you to get back into the swing of things.’
‘Hey, I’m not out of the swing of things!’ she exclaimed.
‘So what new ideas are we going to hit them with then?’ he asked.
As well as all the usual cost-cutting and re-evaluation of strategic priorities, she wanted to tackle the levels of stress and poor communication in the company with lots of ‘touchy-feely’ stuff – flexible working, an in-house coffee bar, break-out areas for informal meetings, longer parental leave and maybe even a crèche.
‘You’re not letting your baby get to you here?’ Hector asked once he’d listened to her ideas.
‘I’m not the only person in the world with a child, you know.’
Hector didn’t make any further comment, so Bella outlined the first round of data to be analysed.
After several hours of steady work, it was obvious she was going to have to deal with the excess milk now starting to leak out of the zeppelin-shaped boobs in front of her. She was also going to have to phone home, she couldn’t hold out any longer.
‘I’m off to pump breastmilk for a bit,’ she told Hector. ‘I hope you don’t think that’s too weird.’
‘No problem… whatever you need to do,’ he replied.
Perched on a chair in the ladies’ loo, she undid her bra and cupped the pump over a solid, throbbing breast. She squeezed the trigger steadily and watched the milk spurt out into the bottle.
Of course she was thinking about her son as she did this. She wondered what he was doing right now, was he curled up asleep? Or looking around, flickering smiles? Or was he drinking out of a bottle, wishing he could cuddle up and feed from his mummy? With that thought she felt tears prick the back of her eyes. She missed him.
She rinsed her gadgets, packed them into the bag and dialled home on the mobile as she walked back down the corridor.
‘Hello.’ Bella heard Joanne’s voice, then listened closely and could hear Markie crying in the background.
‘Hello, Joanne, it’s Bella. I wanted to see how everything was going.’
‘Well, he’s a bit unsettled. He’s barely taken anything from the bottle all morning and now he’s hungry and tired.’
‘Oh dear.’ Bella’s heart sank to her shoes at the sound of the pitiful wailing in the background. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked Joanne, not sure herself what would be best.
‘I’ll take him out for a bit. Hopefully, he’ll fall asleep then feel more like drinking something later when he’s had a nap.’
‘OK, just phone me if there’s anything I can do,’ Bella said, feeling helpless.
‘Don’t worry about him,’ said Joanne. ‘We’ll get settled down and into a routine soon.’
‘OK…’ she tried not to sound as anxious as she felt. ‘OK, I’ll try and be there about six-ish. See you later.’
‘OK, bye,’ said Joanne, hanging up.
She kept a brave face through lunch with Hector and several Danson’s execs, but by the afternoon, time was dragging and she was desperate to go home.
At 4.30, she told Hector she was going to go. ‘I’ll take some of the spreadsheets to do on the computer later and I’ll be on my phone if you need me, but I really need to be back, it’s Markie’s first full day with the nanny,’ she explained.
‘Yes, of course,’ he told her. ‘It’s a shame though, I’m meeting my friend, the project manager, Pete, for a drink after work, and he’d hoped you could come.’
‘No, I’m afraid drinks after work are going to be out of the question for a while, tell him I’ll do lunch this week,’ she answered, trying to firmly squash down the feelings of guilt this conversation was inducing.
It had turned out that Hector’s friend was one of the senior members of their liaison team at Danson’s. She really did not want Hector having cosy little meetings with him while she was leaving the office before 5p.m. But she had to go.
Once she was in the car, she told herself to get a grip. She was the senior person on this job and she remembered her fighting talk to Chris when she was pregnant. She’d aimed to up her day rate so people wouldn’t want her hanging round their offices for too long. She and Susan needed to have that talk about her promotion to partner or, at the very least, a pay rise.
She hadn’t spoken to Don all day, so speed-dialled him on the mobile.
‘Hello,’ he answered almost immediately, sounding terse and stressed as usual.
‘Hello, it’s me.’
‘Bella. Hello, what can I do for you?’
‘Don! It’s my first full day back at work. Aren’t you going to ask how it’s going?’
‘Oh, Bella! I’m sorry, I’ve been really busy. I’ve been in court on the Mitchell trial.’
‘Oh.’
‘How is it going?’ he asked. ‘Back in corporate-killer mode? Enjoying yourself?’
‘Well, it’s fine for me, but I don’t think Markie is loving it. When I phoned at lunchtime, he was howling his head off and hadn’t drunk anything all morning.’
‘He’ll be fine,’ Don said. ‘He’ll adjust. Try not to worry about him.’
‘I’m on my way home now.’
‘Good, look can you sort yourself out for dinner? I’m going to be late, about nine, ten-ish.’
‘OK. I might not see you. I’ll probably be in bed,’ she said, feeling that little rush of resentment about Don’s almost ‘normal’ life, while she was still dealing with all the baby headaches.
‘OK… we’ll speak later, Bella. Got to go.’
‘OK, bye.’
As the line went dead, Bella couldn’t help thinking about how it was before… when their after-work calls were about meeting up for cosy dinners or drinks or planning to rush back home to bed together.
Well, never mind, she had to concentrate on making her way through snarled-up roads, desperate to see her baby.
As soon as she opened the front door, she could make out his wailing. Rushing into the sitting room, she found Joanne cradling her son who was red-faced and inconsolable. She scooped him up into her arms and plonked herself down on the sofa. As she struggled with her buttons and bra hook, Markie was already quietening down and had turned his head towards her to drink.
Only when he’d latched on did he open his eyes to look at her for the first time.
‘Has he been like this all day?’ Bella asked.
‘I’m afraid so. He had a good long sleep in the afternoon, but he’s been crying almost non-stop since four.’
‘Oh no,’ Bella flooded with guilt.
‘I can’t get him to drink out of the bottle. Well, no more than a few sips. He won’t even take water. I’m a bit worried he’ll dehydrate in this heat.’ Joanne sounded rattled.
‘What about the survival instinct?’ Bella asked. ‘I thought babies were programmed to eat or drink something when they were hungry.’
‘You’d have thought so,’ said Joanne.
‘He’s not going to starve himself to death without me, is he?’ Bella asked, frightened at the thought.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Joanne. ‘But he’s going to have some very uncomfortable hours waiting for you to get home.’
‘Oh God…’ Bella felt even more guilty now.
‘Look, things will probably be much better in a week or two. We can’t give up yet.’ Joanne’s sensible and reassuring tone kicked in. ‘Why don’t I make you a cup of tea before I go? You must be tired.’
‘Thanks,’ said Bella. Yes, she was tired. Sunk deep into the sofa, she wondered where she was going to find the strength to get up.
An hour later, with Markie cuddled up to her, dozing and feeding on and off, she knew she did not have the strength to move. She ordered a food delivery and clicked onto a TV news channel to wait. She was planning to eat dinner, have a bath with Markie in his carrycot beside her, then go straight to bed with him. Never mind the work she’d brought home from the office; Markie should just sleep and feed close to her all night. Then maybe he would sleep more by day.
Her head hit the pillow just after 9p.m., ridiculously early, but she felt as if she was finally crawling to bed at 2a.m. after a hard day’s work and a night on the town.
It was a very disturbed night. Don woke her up when he came to bed at midnight. Markie then seemed to wake her almost hourly to feed.
Finally at 6a.m., there wasn’t any point in pretending to be asleep, so she decided she might as well get up. She looked at her husband, so sound asleep in bed he didn’t even stir, then picked up her baby and headed to the sitting room. Together, she and Markie watched the news and had breakfast.
By the time Joanne arrived, Bella was ready, made up, hair up. She had changed into her suit at the very last minute in case of baby vomit. Don was still in bed.
‘Just ignore my husband wandering around,’ Bella told Joanne. ‘He’s probably got a late start or something.’
‘Markie looks happy today,’ said Joanne, seeing him gurgling on the sitting room floor.
‘Yeah and he’s full of food, because he’s been stuffing his face all night.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Joanne. ‘That’s hard on you.’
‘Yes, but here’s plenty of breast milk in the fridge for you to try with today. And he needs a change and some new clothes. I just haven’t had the chance, or the energy,’ she confessed.
‘OK, off you go. We’ll be fine, don’t worry about us.’
Bella picked her son up and kissed him and held him. ‘Goodbye, sweetheart, see you soon.’
As soon as she put him down again, he began to cry.
She left the house with a wrench.