The Displaced Nation

Maggie opened her front door, and I handed her a screwdriver set.

“Oliver said you needed this urgently,” I said. “He says there should be one in there that fits, but let him know if there isn’t.”

I tried not to sound irritable, but really — did Maggie require this so urgently that I had to interrupt a nap and traipse here? The last thing on my wish list right now was another needy middle-aged woman. My mother already occupied that job slot, and it seemed that my beloved Maggie was picking up her bad habits. They’d spent a lot of time together over the last few days; in fact, today, Mum had been at Maggie’s house since before lunchtime.

But why stop at blaming middle-aged women? Oliver could have brought it to Maggie himself before his after-work shower, but no: “You take it to her, Libs. I’m shattered.”

And I’m not, of course.

Maggie took the screwdrivers from me. “Come in,” she said, opening the door a little wider.

“No, it’s OK.” I turned to leave. “I have to get back. Jack needs his dinner.”

Maggie reached out and grasped me by the elbow, drawing me back. “Jack will be fine with Oliver for a few minutes. Come on,” she urged. “Your mother just put the kettle on.”

I didn’t want tea. I wanted to give Jack his dinner, put him to bed, and then I wanted to go to bed myself.

“All right,” I said with a sigh, and stepped into the wood-panelled hallway.

“Go and make yourself comfortable,” Maggie said. “I’ll be with you in a moment.” She trotted off towards the back of the house.

Wearily, I turned left, into the living room.

I felt my jaw drop.

* * *

“It’s usual not to have a shower for a second baby,” Maggie said behind me, as I gazed at all the people congregated in the living room. Mum. Charlie, Anita, Julia. A few moms from Jack’s new nursery school. Even Caroline. “But you’re a special case.”

Pink and blue bunting criss-crossed the room. Pastel-wrapped boxes lay piled in one corner. Pink- and blue-iced cupcakes nestled together on a three-tier stand.

Welcome, Twins! said a big banner over the fireplace.

I felt my eyes prickling. “Thank you,” I whispered, looking round at everyone. I hugged Maggie, not quite able to believe that I was the centrepiece of my own surprise baby shower. “Thank you so much.”

Anna appeared from the kitchen and handed me a glass of something that looked like champagne. “Sparkling grape juice,” she said, before I could object. “Although you might want the real thing before the evening’s over,” she murmured, her eyes darting in the direction of my mother, who sat in Maggie’s rocking chair talking earnestly to Charlie.

“Delivery rooms aren’t my scene,” she was saying. “But Libby would like me to be there, I think.”

“No way!” I mouthed at Charlie, any rush of sentiment for my mum receding rapidly.

Charlie’s lips twitched. “Of course, with it being a C-section delivery, they probably won’t let you in.”

Mum took a deep, huffy breath. “That’s not what I’ve seen on A Baby Story. It’s a real family occasion for all those women.”

Heaven preserve us. Mum started channel surfing four days ago, and all her “I didn’t come to America to do this, that and the other” arguments vanished.

Apparently, her raison d’être in America is to watch The Learning Channel all day. If I’ve seen one woman give birth on these dreadful programmes since Sunday, I’ve seen thirty, and believe me, it’s not a good idea when your own birth experience has been scheduled for seven days hence, and your mother has decided that an impromptu family party in the operating theatre would be fun.

Yes. The twins will be extracted from me on April 26th at 9am. My slightly elevated blood pressure was still causing Dr. Gallagher some concern, so he booked me into his busy timetable for next Thursday.

I’m not happy about it, or even convinced that it’s necessary, but what can you do?

Oliver says: Look on the bright side. At least there will be no getting out of bed at three in the morning because your waters have burst and the bed’s a swamp.

Always has a way with words, does my Oliver.

So, as I was saying — what can I do?

Sod it. Enjoy the party. That’s what.

“Cheers, everyone,” I said, raising my glass of grape juice.

* * *

Charlie fetched her car — everyone had parked their cars in the next street so I didn’t get suspicious — and packed all the gifts in the trunk to deliver them to our house. I felt so lucky, so loved. You remember all those things I had returned to the baby shop because they’d cost so much? Maggie had taken note of the items, and now most of them were once again on their way to the babies’ room.

I felt overwhelmed with the generosity, the camaraderie, the shower of affection. No wonder these parties are known as showers.  I felt — far more than I had ever felt in my hometown of Milton Keynes — that I belonged. Belonged to something good.

* * *

“I just wish it didn’t have to be this way,” I said to Maggie as I put my outdoor shoes on, waiting for Anna to bring her car round to drive me the short distance home. “I’ve always dreaded the idea of being sliced open, but I don’t have much option if Dr. Gallagher thinks it’s too risky to let me go on any longer…”

Maggie snorted disbelievingly. “If I know dear Gerry, he’ll have a golf tournament lined up in a couple of weeks that he doesn’t want to miss. Take my word for it, your hospitalization is less to do with your safety, and more to do with keeping his handicap.”

“No!” I was shocked. “He wouldn’t do that — would he?”

“He’ll take very good care of you, don’t worry. Better to do it his way than to have a complete stranger delivering those twins, don’t you think? Imagine — you could end up with that frightful witch, Elspeth Wojcik.”

I shuddered. One visit to that particular obstetrician, whom I’d nicknamed Doctor Death, had been enough. The possibility that in Dr. Gallagher’s absence she could deliver our twins was horrifying. But I still balked at the idea of having my midsection cut open, no matter how unnoticeable the scar would be afterward.

“You need some alone time with Oliver. That’s what you need,” Maggie said.

“But we went out for dinner only last Saturday,” I protested.

“Ribs and fries aren’t going to bring on labour, are they?”

“What?” Maggie’s twists of conversation confused me sometimes. Quite a lot, actually, these days.

“Alone time at home, is what I meant,” she said. “Not alone time at Ruby Tuesday’s.”

The penny dropped.

“Oh!” I’d forgotten about that little trick to bring about labour. And it sure beat swigging castor oil.

Maggie nodded. “Send Jack and your mother round here every lunchtime for the next few days, and see if you and Oliver can spoil Gerry Gallagher’s plans.”

The gravel on Maggie’s driveway crackled as Anna’s Mustang drew up outside.

“You’re on,” I said.

* * *

A Massachusetts spring heatwave. Sun pouring in through our bedroom windows. A chickadee chirping close by.

Oliver feeds me another strawberry. “I should get back to work,” he says. “But I think I’ll call in and say you’re not well.”

“Again? Will they believe you?”

“Don’t care if they do or not.”

“You could always work at home,” I suggest.

“Or do something else at home. Does this old wives’ tale really work? Technically, you’ve still got four weeks to go. ”

“It’s supposed to work. So they say.”

I lie on my side and gaze out of the window, at the slight breeze moving through the tall oak trees at the end of our garden, and I listen to the silence of Woodhaven.

The babies have been very quiet for a couple of days; they’re still, sleeping a lot, getting ready for a big day. Their peace makes me woozy, detached, and I feel myself mentally withdrawing from the world just as they prepare to meet it.

No. It won’t be long. I know it.

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #48 – Hospital visiting hours

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #46 -A tale of two mothers

Click here to read Libby’s Life from the first episode

STAY TUNED for Friday’s post, when Anthony Windram debates the view that, this Sunday, expats should be the last people celebrating Earth Day.

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Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigit

My mother is inexhaustible. She looked so old when she arrived here a week ago, but not any more. She has a new lease of life. Unsurprising, really – she’s taken all my energy instead and become a life-sucking parasite who thrives on attention and entertainment.

It’s the first time I’ve met this version of her, but evidently this is my mother when my dad isn’t around. No wonder she always looks so downcast when she’s with him; inside that whalebone-corseted shell is a Scarlett O’Hara bursting to get out. Fiddle-de-dee.

I keep wondering if she was like this forty years ago, when they first met, and what happened to change her. Or has she just recently realised that life is passing her by while she’s nodding and kowtowing to my dad?

The first few days she was here, all I heard was ‘I didn’t come to America for [insert everyday activity she does at home without thinking about it twice]’. That included drinking instant coffee, watching TV, cooking, or even going to the supermarket. I thought she might be interested in going to Stop and Shop, because it’s so different from Sainsbury’s, but no. Apparently, “Once you’ve seen one loaf of bread, you’ve seen them all” although if that’s the case, I’m mystified why she only shops at Sainsbury’s and refuses to set foot in a Morrison’s.

Of course, her everyday activities don’t now include visits to the obstetrician’s office. Oh no. Those are classified as “Novelty Voyeuristic Entertainment” and top of her Things To Do In New England. My life, to my mother, is just another reality TV show. “At Home With The Patrickashians.”

I’m on weekly visits with Dr. Gallagher now — have been for some time, since it’s twins — and these appointments are never when Jack is at nursery. Dr. Gallagher, bless him, likes long lunch hours and eighteen holes of golf on a regular basis. So I’d been looking forward to Mum being able to babysit Jack while I’m prodded around.

“Why don’t you stay here and look after him for me,” I said on her fourth day, as Oliver waited for me outside in the car. “I’ll be less than an hour, and it’s so much quicker if just Oliver and I go.”

“Don’t be so silly! Ante-natal appointments take much longer than that. I remember when I was expecting you, I’d be at that hospital all afternoon.”

I told her that this wasn’t the NHS in the 1970s, and American obstetricians need to see as many patients as possible so they can cover their insurance premiums and do valuable networking on the golf course, but she wasn’t having it.

“Jack hardly knows me these days,” she said. She likes to trot out the guilt trip card, I’ve noticed. “I’m sure he won’t want to stay with a stranger all afternoon.”

I sighed. “I’ll take Jack with me, then.”

“And leave me all on my own, here? I didn’t come all the way to America to–”

So we had to make it a family outing to Dr Gallagher’s, and it was only with difficulty that Oliver restrained her from barging into the examining room with us. I had to have an urgent word with the nurse and get her to tell Mum that family members other than spouses weren’t allowed.

Mum started to say that if she’d wanted to sit in a doctor’s waiting room, she could have done that in her own GP’s surgery.

“Tell you what,” Oliver said, as the nurse gently ushered Mum and Jack back towards the waiting room, “you can pay the monthly bill of $500 at reception. You don’t get to do that at the GP’s back home.”

She still protested, however, mildly grumbling, so Oliver stayed with her to make sure she behaved.

The nurse came back, shut the door of the exam room, and fastened the velcro strap round my right arm to take my blood pressure.

“It’s a bit high,” she remarked, after she grudgingly returned the blood supply to my fingers.

“That’s hardly bloody surprising, is it?” I jerked my head towards the door. “Anyone’s blood pressure would be up if they had that, 24/7. She was supposed to be coming to give me a rest, not give me a stroke.”

The nurse laughed after a couple of seconds in that uncertain “Oh-you-peculiar-British-people-with-your-odd-sense-of-humour” way, and packed up the blood pressure kit.

“It is higher than usual, though,” she said. “Dr. Gallagher will have to speak with you about it.”

And she rustled out of the room, leaving me to raise my blood pressure even more by reading smug advice from childless experts in mother-and-baby magazines.

Doctor Gallagher breezed in after a few minutes, looking impatiently at his watch. Understandable. Well, it was 2:45 — barely enough time for half a round of golf that afternoon, never mind eighteen holes and a prolonged visit at the nineteenth.

“We need to watch that,” he said without any preamble. “Let’s see…you’re thirty-five weeks now. If your BP stabilises, we can induce at thirty-eight weeks.”

“Induce?” I squeaked.

“It’s not a big deal,” he said. Not a big deal for him, presumably is what he meant. “And if that blood pressure doesn’t come down, we’ll have to consider a C-section.

I covered my mouth with my hand. Somehow, I’d never considered the possibility of having these babies by C-section. Images of pools, dimmed lighting, and doulas swam before my eyes. The bright lights, masks, and blue drapes of an operating theatre hadn’t entered my birthing dreams.

“But —” I said, then stopped, feeling the corners of my mouth quiver as tears threatened. “But the recovery time’s much longer after a C-section.” A friend of mine had one, and she was still shuffling around like a geisha one month later.

“Your mother’s visiting, I hear.”

At this point, I was thinking that Sandra, complete with roasted salmonella, might be more help than my own mother.

“I’m not sure how much help she’s going to be, to be honest,” I said.

Dr Gallagher nodded. “I gathered that. No one else you can ask? What about our mutual friend, Maggie Sharpe?”

He gazed out of the window at the brick wall view.

“A fine woman,” he said, exhaling sharply, and scratching himself somewhere suspicious under his white coat.

I averted my eyes.

“No,” I said. “Maggie’s done enough for me already. She drives me places when Oliver can’t. She looks after Jack when I’m at the end of my tether. She’s like—”

I stopped. I was going to say, “She’s like a second mother to me.” Only that wasn’t quite accurate, was it? These days, she was my mother.

Dr Gallagher watched me, nodding.

“Take it from someone who knows,” he said, his Cork accent strengthening as his emotions ran higher than my blood pressure. “Maggie Sharpe never does anything she doesn’t want to do. If she’s doing all that for you…believe me, it’s not just out of the goodness of her heart.”

He paused.

“You remind me a lot of her daughter, you know.”

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #47 – Showered with affection

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #45 – Mum’s the word

Click here to read Libby’s Life from the first episode

STAY TUNED for Friday’s post, when we look at ways to celebrate — or tolerate — Friday The Thirteenth.

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Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigit

Can’t stop thinking about the awful story of Maggie’s daughter and Anna’s dead brother-in-law. I see why Anna told me — festering half-truths ruined Sara’s life, by all accounts — but I still haven’t figured out what to do about Oliver’s half-sister, Tania, whom I impulsively contacted and now wish I hadn’t.

Although the simplest thing would be not to reply to her message, the damage is done. I’ve opened Pandora’s box. Then again, it’s Oliver’s Pandora’s box, not mine. Might he be grateful to know that his father didn’t abandon him, as he always thought? That’s Anna’s opinion. My worry is that if he heard his father’s side of the story, he would feel differently toward his mother. Much as I don’t like Sandra, I would hate to drive a wedge between her and Oliver.

I’m going round and round in circles thinking about it. Probably the best course of action is to let sleeping dogs lie. It’s not as if I don’t have other things to do right now, what with Easter shopping, getting ready for the twins, getting the spare room ready for my mother, who’s coming today…

Yes, I haven’t told you! My mother is coming to stay! Oliver is driving to Boston tonight to meet her at the airport. I am so looking forward to having someone here to help out; someone who can take Jack off my hands in the early evening and make nice dinners that won’t give me salmonella poisoning.

My father refuses to come with her, and it took a great deal of persuasion for him to let Mum off the leash and come on her own. He has a fear of flying, and an even bigger fear of having to do anything that might qualify as a domestic duty. Honestly, he makes Shirley Valentine’s husband look like Germaine Greer. He finally and bravely concluded that with the assistance of the local pub, the fish and chip shop, some friendly neighbours, and a mammoth cooking/baking/freezing session by my mother before she abandoned him, he might be able to live on his own for a few weeks and not starve.

I don’t know how my mother puts up with it, I really don’t. Still, they’ve been married for the best part of four decades, so I assume she’s OK with her incurable case of Stockholm Syndrome.

Five hours until her plane lands. I am so excited. It’s nearly a year since I saw my mum, and that’s too long.

Plus, I am dying for some of her special steak and Guinness casserole.

* * *

10 p.m. Oliver walks into the house carrying two suitcases. He dumps them on the kitchen floor.

“Two hours down, Christ knows how many days to go,” he says in a low voice, jerking his head in the direction of the garage.

I’m confused. Oliver likes my mother. She supports him when he trots out his Victorian views on the place of women in the home and the workplace. As I’ve said before, when other women in the 1970s were burning their bras, she was out shopping for whalebone corsets. Oliver laps up her outmoded opinions and uses them as ammunition in any arguments we have. “Your mother would never say that” is a frequent debate closer of his.

Mum climbs the stairs from the garage into the kitchen, carrying one of her capacious Mary Poppins handbags, and when I see her, I’m shocked.

In the eight months since I last saw her, she’s aged eight years. She doesn’t look ill — I hope she doesn’t, anyway — but she’s a little shorter, more stooped, more grey…

She looks like her own mother.

“Hello, love,” she says, stopping a couple of feet away from me. She holds out her arms. “It’s so lovely to see you again.”

She still sounds the same, thank goodness, and I give her a hug. If her outward looks have changed, nothing else has. Her skin is tissue paper soft, and her trademark scent of Johnson’s Baby Powder and Chloe perfume makes me feel as if I’m eight years old again.

I hold onto her as if I never want to let go, resting my head on her shoulder, and tears sting at my eyes. She’s been in the house for only three minutes, and already I’m dreading saying goodbye to my mum.

No one warns of it you before you make the decision to become an expat, but this is the absolute worst part of living on the other side of an ocean.

* * *

I make Mum a cup of tea with lots of sugar, and tell her to sit down and put her feet up. If my feet are swollen from late pregnancy, so are hers from sitting on a plane for seven hours, and it’s past 3 in the morning by her body clock. After half an hour, during which time Oliver has taken her bags to her room and we’ve given her the nickel tour of the house, she decides she will get an early night.

“Just take it easy tomorrow,” I say. “We don’t have to be anywhere. It’s Good Friday, although Oliver has to go into work, so—”

“That’s changed,” he interrupts. “I’m working from home instead. Family time’s important, and there’s nothing I can’t deal with from a cell phone and a laptop.”

“But…” I say. I’m confused again, because the last I heard, he had a meeting with customers who were flying in from Dubai, who didn’t celebrate Easter, and couldn’t give a monkey’s for Oliver’s need for family time.

“It’s all sorted. And I want you to take it easy tomorrow,” he adds, raising his voice. “I don’t want you running around the house and exhausting yourself. You know what Dr. Gallagher told you about keeping your blood pressure down.”

Dr. Gallagher has told me nothing about my blood pressure. My blood pressure is sterling, and I am in tip-top condition for anyone, let alone for someone expecting twins in six weeks’ time. Tired, fat, and fed up, of course, but who wouldn’t be?

“Make sure you have a rest while I’m working in the study, and maybe your mum can take over looking after Jack for a couple of hours. That’ll be OK with you, won’t it, Jane?” he says, raising his voice again.“Of course it will,” Mum says. “I’m looking forward to having him around all the time.”

“It won’t be all the time,” I say. “He goes to nursery three times a week.”

Mum pouts. “Can’t he miss it? I haven’t seen little Jackie for nearly a year, and it seems a shame to make him go when we’re on holiday. I was hoping we could go to the seaside for a couple of days or something.”

“But—” I start again.

Oliver puts his hand on my arm.

“Perhaps you’ve forgotten that Libby is about to have twins. She can’t drive now, because she finds it too uncomfortable behind the steering wheel. I think she’d appreciate a quiet time here more than a couple of days at the seaside.”

He stares at Mum, and she drops her gaze.

“I’ll see you both in the morning,” she says, turning away in a huff and unsnapping the locks on the suitcase that Oliver has laid on the spare bed.

It’s our cue to leave.

* * *

“What was all that about?” I demand, as soon as Oliver and I are in our bedroom and the door is shut. “You’ve upset her. Mum knows she’s here to help out, but she’s tired and jetlagged right now. You didn’t have to be so hard on her.”

“Listen.” Oliver pulls his T-shirt off over his head. “Just listen. The whole time back from Boston? She went on and on about how she was looking forward to having a nice holiday, and you’d take her here, and you’d take her there. She’s got a whole bloody itinerary worked out. She doesn’t seem to realise that you’re delivering twins at some point during her stay, because twice she said something like, “Ah well, I expect I’ll feel better when I go back home, because Libby will be looking after me.’ She doesn’t seem to realise that you’re the one who needs looking after.”

I’m cross with Oliver.

My mum would never do that.

That would be behaving like Oliver’s mum. Wouldn’t it?

* * *

Next morning, I wake up before Oliver, still cross with him, and feeling doubly defensive towards my mother.

I get out of bed, and plod downstairs to make some tea before Jack awakes.

Mum’s in the kitchen, sitting at the table, staring into space, with a half-empty mug of instant coffee in front of her. I automatically take the mug off her. The liquid is stone cold, so she’s evidently been sitting there for a while.

We ascertain that we both slept as well as could be expected, given our respective disabilities of gestation and time zone disorientation, then I refill the kettle, and unlock the dishwasher to unload the clean dishes.

This last chore has got increasingly difficult as I’ve become bigger, especially when I have to bend down to empty the lower shelf. From today, I realise, I don’t have to struggle. I can ask Mum to do it.

“Mum, would you—” I begin.

“I thought you’d never ask!” she says. “I’d love another cup.”

Silently, I empty the cold coffee out of the mug, and reach into the cabinet for the jar of instant Folger’s.

“Have you got any real coffee? I’ve already had one of the powdered kind,” Mum says. “I didn’t come all the way to America for instant coffee.” She leans down, rummages in her Mary Poppins bag at the side of the chair, and fishes out a bumper book of word search puzzles.

I put the Folger’s jar back and pull out the grinder and coffee maker instead,. Then I go to the freezer and root around at the back of the top shelf; somewhere, I recall, we have a bag of coffee beans, last used when Anita and Charlie came round one morning.

“So,” says Mum, busily circling words in one of the puzzles. “Where are we going today? How about you driving us back into Boston? I’ve read all about the Freedom Trail. It’ll be a lovely walk for us all. Ooh, you know — I’m going to have such a lovely holiday while I’m here.”

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #46 – A tale of two mothers

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #44 – Past imperfect, perfectly tense

Click here to read Libby’s Life from the first episode

STAY TUNED for Friday’s post, when we debate which side of the Pond parties harder and better.

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Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigit

LOST: One sense of coordination. Last seen, fleetingly, Monday at 9am while driving on highway. Disappeared entirely at 9:05am at red traffic light, which I acknowledged to be a nice crimson colour but otherwise ignored and sailed straight through to the other side of the crossroads. Screeching and honking noises from other cars, and loud, choice, sexist epithets from a bloke in black F150 pickup truck.

Something similar happened four years ago, I remember; something involving a small Peugeot, a removals lorry, and my roundabout technique — the rules of which I had inexplicably forgotten, despite having learned to drive ten years before.

In the last month of gestation, it seems, coordination leaves me, and I wander along in a fog of delayed reaction. After Monday’s near miss, which left me trembling and repeating “Oh my God, oh my God,” for two hours, I have decided I’m not safe to be on the road.

Thank goodness for friendly neighbours like Maggie who don’t mind driving me places. She’s taken me shopping, she’s taken Jack to school for me — she’s my personal chauffeur whenever Oliver isn’t, in other words.

Which brings me to the subject of Oliver.

Ah. Oliver. Oh dear.

You see, I had an email this morning. And I don’t know what to do.

* * *

Ever had an idea that seemed really brilliant at the time, but 24 hours later it…wasn’t? I suppose you have; we all do. Most of the time, though, you don’t act upon those ideas. But every now and then, impulse trumps reason.

That’s what happened last week, when I was awake at two in the morning with only my nesting instinct and laptop for company. Why I didn’t just find the baby toys I was looking for, scrub them with disinfectant, and go to sleep like a normal person would — actually, a normal person wouldn’t be awake at two in the morning, disinfecting toys, but that’s beside the point — I don’t know. Instead, I am now wondering what on earth possessed me to make contact with Oliver’s long-lost father when Oliver himself has never shown any interest in doing so.

Dean Patrick, that’s his name. I’d seen it on Oliver’s birth certificate. It was easy enough to type it into Facebook and see what came up. Not many results. At least, not many results with a date of birth around the right year, a location in England, a hometown of Norwich (Oliver’s place of birth) and privacy levels set low enough that a probable daughter-in-law in Massachusetts could stalk his photo albums.

There was only one like that. One was all it took.

Here was a man, I thought, who was either unconcerned about his online privacy, or not very savvy about it. But because of this cavalier or naive attitude, I knew I’d found the right person. I stared for ages at someone who could have been Oliver in thirty years’ time. The same fine, blond hair — receding more than Oliver’s — the same fair, sun-reddened skin, Oliver’s slightly sticking-out ears. In this picture, one of an album called “Devon 2011” Oliver’s father stood on a sandy beach, holding the hand of a small boy, a little older than Jack, from whose other hand dripped an orange ice lolly.

My favourite grandson, the photo caption read. Four people had clicked the Like button. Underneath:

You go, Grandad! commented a woman: Tania Patrick.

Sister? Mother? Daughter? Sister-in-law? My counterpart, another daughter-in-law? Another ex-wife, on friendlier terms with him than is Sandra?

No matter; I was sure all those people existed. On Dean Patrick’s friend list was a host of other Patricks: Tania Patrick, Janey Patrick. Lewis Patrick, Vince Patrick. Henry Hank Patrick. But he was “In a relationship” with Polly Owen.

I didn’t send Dean Patrick a message. Not directly. A week ago, I still had enough brain cells to be subtle, if not enough to restrain myself from being terminally stupid. I figured that in a large family like his, and with an Irish name at that, one member ought to be into genealogy. Sure enough, a search on GenesReunited turned up the same names in a family tree owned by someone called Tania. I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but I thought that might have been the same Tania who encouraged him to “You go, Grandad.”

So I sent her a message instead.

At four in the morning, sadly, the sleep-deprived brain is incapable of straightening out skewed logic such as: “Where’s the harm in it? She can only say No.”

If only she had.

* * *

A few hours and one nap later, of course, I was in a state of mild panic, asking myself what the hell I had done. This panic increased with every passing day, as I imagined relationships rocked and marriages wrecked as a result of my interference; it culminated in a full-blown anxiety attack this morning when I opened my email inbox to find a reply from Tania Patrick.

Oliver noticed my agitation when he returned from Seattle, but thankfully put it down to surging hormones, pre-birth nerve, and my close call with the F150 pickup driver. He doesn’t know about the email I received from Tania Patrick — and how can I tell him?

Yet I must tell someone. Today, when Maggie picks me and Jack up, I will unburden myself to her, in the hope that her bohemian attitude to life will lend some sense of justification to my actions.

* * *

The doorbell rings.

It’s not Maggie.

“She’s sick,” says Anna Gianni, waving a set of car keys in front of my eyes. “That sniffle she had turned into bronchitis, and she doesn’t want you anywhere near her and her germs. I’m your chauffeur today, ma’am.”  She peers more closely at me. “Is that all right? I’m quite safe. You don’t have to worry about your son being driven around by a maniac.”

I shake my head, the tears that have lapped at the surface for nearly a week now ready to spill over a carefully built dam of self-preservation.

Anna says nothing, but holds her hand out to Jack, takes his booster seat from me in the other hand, and proceeds to strap him and booster into the back seat of her black Mustang. I sit in the front seat and say nothing.

We drop Jack off at Helen Flynn’s nursery, where he rushes off to play with another little boy without a backward glance, then we get back in the Mustang.

“Home?” Anna asks, turning the ignition key. “Or time out in the restaurant? Thursday’s quiet.” She twists round to see over shoulder as she backs out of the parking space. There’s silence between us while she waits for traffic to pass so she can turn onto the main road. It gives me time to think.

“Restaurant,” I say, exhaling in a rush at the same time, and staring out of the passenger door window so Anna can’t see my eyes shining a little too brightly.

Inside the empty Maxwell Plum, Anna commands me to sit at a table. I do so, and study a watercolour painting on the wall. It’s of a young man, dark-haired, Italian-looking. I’m about to get up and take a closer look when Anna returns to join me, carrying two cups of something frothy.

“Decaffeinated,” she says, putting one in front of me.

I pick up the spoon and draw patterns in the froth. “Have you ever,” I say, “done something really, really stupid? Like, so stupid that you can’t imagine why you ever thought it was a good idea?”

Anna leans back in her chair, apparently amused. “I’d hardly have reached my forties without doing that, would I?”

I coffee-doodle some more. I tell her about contacting Oliver’s father’s family. I tell her about my email this morning from Oliver’s half-sister, who claims to be over the moon that her half-brother has finally got in touch, because it was always a source of regret to her father that his only son never wanted to see him.

Anna smiles, but she looks sad.

“You need some perspective on this,” she says. “Let me tell you about my brother-in-law. Max Gianni. It might help.”

I listen.

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #45: Mum’s the word

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #43 – Alone again – naturally

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Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigit

“Four days. That’s all. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Oliver drags his black leather carry-on down the garden path and onto the driveway, unlocks the doors of the rented Ford Taurus, and heaves the case into the boot.

Carefully, I lumber after him, even though we’ve already said our goodbyes in the house.

“Do you have to go?” I sound whiny and pathetic, even to myself, but I can’t help it. It’s better than lying on the floor and having a luxurious Jack-like tantrum, though, which is what I really want to do.

“I wish I didn’t, love. But it’s the last trip before the babies come. Promise. After that, I’m grounding myself.”

He drops a last kiss on my cheek, then opens the driver’s door and sits behind the wheel, peering at the rental car’s unfamiliar dials and levers.

“I’ll text you when I get to Seattle. You’ll probably be asleep, though. Look after the four of you,” he says.

With a wave and a beep of the car horn, he’s off to Logan Airport.

And here I am, again. On my own.

* * *

Evenings are long when Oliver’s gone. Anita says she loves it when her husband’s away, but I must be very needy or something, because I detest having only my own company plus that of a three-year-old who isn’t yet fluent in the English language. Jack, exhausted by a busy day of Lightning McQueen role-play (I really should start charging Pixar for advertising) is in bed by seven, so, rather than watch hours of TV commercials interspersed with the odd five minutes of American Idol, at eight o’clock I’m in bed with a cup of tea and the eReader Jack gave me for Christmas.

The great thing about eReaders is that there are lots of cheap books to be had, all without venturing from the comfort of your armchair. There are even free ones, if you care to read the classics. Now, I’ve read and enjoyed my share of Tolstoy and Dickens, but as my due date gets nearer, I can feel my brain turning to incoherent mush, so any reading material now is light, romantic frippery. All light, romantic frippery involves tall heroic men (in touch with their feminine sides of course) and women who pretend to be modern and feisty, but usually show their true colours by shagging the bad boys from their high school days who used to torment them for being fat. You know your brain is mush when you’re not outraged by this scenario.

It doesn’t really matter what I read, though, because after ten minutes, I feel my eyelids drooping, and I shuffle down under the duvet with an assortment of strategically placed pillows.

Just for once, the babies aren’t having a private rave party. The full moon is under cover of cloud, and the dark outdoor silence is only enhanced by the chirruping of crickets, who arrived early this year.

I shut my eyes. The world fades.

* * *

Four hours later, I am awake again, with a burning desire to listen to a 70s disco playlist, clean out all the cupboards in the junk room, and scrub the bathroom grouting with a toothbrush.

This phenomenon is known as “The nesting instinct” and is a bald reminder that humans are, in fact, animals, however sophisticated and evolved we pretend to be.

It’s also happening too soon. I’m about 32 weeks along now, and pretty sure I didn’t hit this stage with Jack for another month or so. Could it be that Megan and Sam are going to arrive even earlier than Dr. Gallagher predicted?

The thought gets me both excited and nervous at the same time. The twins sense this, and start hacking at each other’s shins.

Sleep is impossible now.

* * *

American houses have wonderful cupboards — sorry, closets. They’re the size of English spare bedrooms. They hoard clothes you won’t admit will never fit again; started-and-abandoned craft projects; paperback books you will never reread, but Brits just love hanging onto their books; lightly used sports equipment; and outgrown, slightly chewed baby toys.

This last category is what I’m looking for. Somewhere in this cavern of a closet lurks a baby bouncer, a mobile, an activity centre, one of those little horseshoe beanbag cushions, and all sorts of goodies for the frugal second-time mother. When Maggie and I went shopping the other week, I picked out two of everything to be fair to the babies, but was so horrified by the total at the checkout that I returned much of it a few days later. I figured that newborns aren’t likely to get a lifelong complex if one has a brand new, wind-up, musical, Peter Rabbit mobile and the other has a few moth-eaten dangling teddy bears.

I find the boxes quite easily, and begin to haul them into the bedroom where I can sort through them in comfort. As I shuffle the first one across the floor, side to side, it knocks something over, and I squat down to prop the object back up again.

A badminton racquet cover. I remember unpacking it in July, looking inside, and finding something that, unbeknownst to me, Oliver has treasured for nearly thirty years: a 6th birthday card from his absent father, who at that point had supposedly run off with a local librarian, with never a thought for his wife or 6-year-old son.

Once again, I unzip the racquet cover, take out the birthday card.

“Dear Oliver — so sorry I can’t be with you on your big day. See you very soon, Tiger. All my love, Dad.”

Nope. It still doesn’t sound like a message from a father who has run off with a local librarian and doesn’t intend to come back.

Far more likely that Sandra has told Oliver a surgically enhanced version of the story; the truth, though, is probably vastly different. It sounds, I think with a sudden chill, as if her husband was away for a short time that coincided with Oliver’s birthday.

A business trip, perhaps.

Pondering this, I push the box of Jack’s baby toys into the bedroom and sit down on the bed before pulling back the packing tape to open the box.

Inside is a time capsule of nearly four years ago: the blanket we wrapped Jack in to bring him home from the hospital, the plastic identity bracelets, now cut, that encircled newborn Jack’s wrist and ankle. A pair of bootees, knitted by my mum for her first grandchild. A pristine copy of The Times, dated May 13, 2008. I remember hearing, later that day, that China had had its worst earthquake for thirty years, with thousands feared dead, and I’d felt guilty for being so happy while so many were suffering.

And Oliver. What had he felt that day, I wonder? Had I bothered to ask, in my post-birth euphoria?

Happiness, of course, that he was able to be with his new son as he began life; determination, I hope, that he would stay with him until it was Jack’s decision for him not to do so; sadness, I imagine, that his father was not around to share in this family event.

My mobile phone trills a blues scale: a text from Oliver.

Just arrived at hotel, it says. Miss you.

Miss you too, I text back, and within half a minute, the phone rings again.

“You not in bed yet, babe?” Oliver’s voice is comforting in the silence of the night.

I explain about the cupboards and 70s disco music cravings. He laughs.

“I remember this bit,” he says. “Which is it getting the nesting instinct treatment? Pantry or utility room?”

“Spare bedroom closet,” I reply.

A missed beat at the end of the phone, as he recalls what is in that closet. “You’re not throwing any of my stuff away, I hope.”

I hide a smile, even though I know he can’t see me. “Not even the box of squashed ping pong balls. Don’t worry.”

“That’s good. Having a clearout is fine, but you can go too far with these things. Look, why don’t you get back to bed now? You need your rest, and if I’m honest, I need mine, because it’s been a sod of a day. Nearly missed my connection in Salt Lake City, and—”

“Oliver,” I interrupt. “Do you ever think about your dad?” There’s something surreal about a conversation that crosses time zones in the wee hours; it makes you say thing you ordinarily wouldn’t. If there’s a no-go area in our marriage, it’s Oliver’s father.

Another pause — surprise? Anger? I wait. Would Oliver answer?

“Never.” Oliver’s voice is casual, cool. “Not since the day he left.”

You know, I’ve heard that casual, cool tone before. I’ve used it myself as a child, after a slap on the legs from my mum. “Didn’t hurt,” I’d say, bracing myself for another slap that would sting twice as much.

It’s the tone of defiance, of buried hurt feelings. A lie, in other words.

“Go to bed, Libs.” He sounds gentle now. “You must be tired.”

“I am. I think I will…Love you too,” I say, and click to end the call.

But against my better judgment and Oliver’s exhortations, I don’t go to bed right away.

Instead, I head for the computer. I log into Facebook, click Search, and type a name I’ve seen many times over the last year, on Oliver’s birth certificate.

Dean Patrick, I type.

It’s four a.m. before I eventually get back to bed.

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #44 – Past imperfect, perfectly tense

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #42 – Something in the water

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With just weeks to go before the arrival of the twins, Libby is making the most of her life with only one child by finding him a new nursery school and thereby becoming a Lady Who Lunches. But it’s not all Fun, Fun, Fun, she is finding.

“Libby, do stop worrying. Jack will be just fine.” Charlie shrugged off her jacket and draped it over the back of her chair. “I know you had a bad experience with that other nursery, but Helen Flynn’s place is wonderful. He’ll love it there.”

“But suppose he doesn’t? What if it’s a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire for him?” I said, pulling out a chair from under the restaurant table, and sitting down heavily. The chair wobbled. It had a wooden seat, and wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the padded benches in the booths along the walls, but I could no longer squeeze into those, so Anna Gianni had tactfully seated us at one of the Maxwell Plum’s large centre tables.

Anita opened up the black padded menu. “Think about it logically,” she said. “The owner told Caroline to find Dominic another school because his idea of free play was beating up smaller children with whiffle sticks. She’s not going to stand idly by if someone’s giving your son a hard time, is she?”

I opened my own menu. “You’re probably right. It’s difficult not to worry, though.”

“I hate to tell you this, hon, but it only gets worse. Wait until he’s at elementary school.”

I don’t know why some people think you’ll feel better if they tell you things will be even worse later.

“Well, fortunately, I don’t have to think about that,” I said. “By the time Jack’s ready for elementary school we’ll be safely back in Milton Keynes. He’ll be starting Year One at the local Infants and learning how to spell properly instead of missing the U out of all the words.”

Anita and Charlie exchanged knowing glances.

“You say that now,” Charlie said. “But most people stay much longer than two years. Woodhaven draws you in.”

“I’m not most people, and I’m not being drawn in anywhere,” I snapped, banging the menu down on the table. “I agreed to two years, not a bloody life sentence.”

Here’s the thing. Oliver and I have been here barely nine months, and already the people in HR are talking about extending the contract. The initial two years? Fine. I can cope with that. Three? OK — I think. But where does it stop? At what point do I put my foot down, or, worse, at what point does I discover that it’s harder to go back than it is to stay?

“It’s terribly slow service today,” Charlie said, looking around the restaurant. “At this rate we won’t have time for dessert.”

“They’re short-staffed,” Anita said, studying her menu again. “There’s only the owner’s wife. That other loopy woman who works here is nowhere to be seen. I bet she’s out somewhere with a small animal in a pushchair. Last time I saw her, it was a rabbit. Honestly, she’s so many sandwiches short of a picnic—”

“Carla’s a whole loaf short.” Anna Gianni materialised at our table behind Anita, notebook and pen in hand. “But I’ll take her, both minus the Wonderbread and plus small animals in strollers, any day, rather than be the only server on a busy lunchtime. Now — what can I get you, ladies?”

Anita’s face turned a delicate shade of magenta. Charlie bit her lip, either in embarrassment or in an effort not to laugh, and I threw Anna an apologetic smile. She winked at me as we gave her our orders, then glided away to another table, where a couple of businessmen in suits were having a loud, showy-offy conversation about the price of Apple stock.

“You and your big mouth,” Charlie muttered at Anita.

Anita shrugged. Her face was still a bit pink. “It’s true, though,” she whispered. “She’s as nutty as a fruitcake.”

“Must be something in the water.” Charlie picked up her own glass of water and examined it. “Take Caroline.”

Caroline still wouldn’t say whether her new baby was a boy or a girl, and although she had now given it a name, it was the unisex “Taylor”, so we were none the wiser. Her husband, the boss, was equally silent on the subject.

Anna came back with our drinks and appetisers, and Charlie asked her sympathetically if she would be holding the fort on her own for long.

“Only until Saturday.”

“And then Carla will be back?” I asked.

Anna’s tone softened. “Sadly, Libby, no.”

I saw Anita raise her eyebrows as Anna said my name.

“She’s having a bad spell right now,” Anna continued. “Maybe she’ll be OK enough to come back in a few weeks. We’ve ordered her one of those life-like baby dolls to look like the photo of…well, you know. So that will help her, we hope. And me, come to that. I’m tired of looking after a menagerie.”

She bent down to pick up a napkin from the floor — mine, since I no longer had enough lap to keep a napkin secure — then patted me on the shoulder.

“You and I should get together again,” she said. “As soon as—”

“Miss?” One of the loud businessmen waved at her from across the room. “Miss? How much longer before you bring our order? We have a very important conference call at 1pm.”

Anna smiled in their direction. “I’ll be right with you,” she said loudly. Still smiling, she muttered “Never mind gun control in this country — what we really need is to keep jerks like that separated from their BlackBerries.”

“I’ll call you on Sunday after we get the agency staff settled in,” she said to me. “I promise I’ll call.”

She hurried away.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Anita turned to me. “How do you know her so well?”

I explained about Maggie, and how she seemed to know everyone in Woodhaven.

“Maggie?” Charlie asked. “You don’t mean Maggie Sharpe, do you?”

I was surprised. “You know her?”

“I know of her. Everyone knows of her. Or at least, everyone knows about her daughter…what’s her name?”

“Sara.”

“That’s it. Sara. Anyway — according to town legend, she’s the reason Carla Gianni lost her mind. About twenty years ago.”

“What?”

“Small town talk, but it’s what I’ve heard from quite a few people.”

“And…” I fumbled around for words, did a few calculations based on what Maggie had told me about her daughter. “How did someone barely out of her teens make Carla lose her mind?”

Charlie shrugged. “Like I said, there must be something in the water here.” She picked up our water pitcher and refilled all our glasses. I waited. “But the story I’ve heard is — she killed Carla’s son.”

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #43 – Alone again – naturally

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #41 – Pick & Mix at the Baby Shop

Click here to read Libby’s Life from the first episode

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Despite Oliver’s best intentions to put Libby in a state of nirvana with hourly facials and pedicures, Libby has decided that the way to mental peace is via a lengthy shopping session in a baby equipment store.

“This is the closest I’ll ever get to shopping for a grandchild, and I’m going to make the most of it.” Maggie manoeuvred our shopping trolley into an aisle stacked with Pampers. “You use the disposable type, I suppose? Everyone seems to now, despite all the fuss they make about saving the environment.”

“I’ll save the environment when the twins are out of nappies, and not a minute before.” I waddled to the section where the smallest sizes were. “How many boxes, do you reckon?”

“Not too many.” Maggie hefted a jumbo-sized box into the trolley. “Babies grow fast. One minute they’re spitting up milk, and the next they’re off to college. And in some cases, that’s the last you see of them.”

I picked up a multi-pack of baby wipes from the shelf, and said nothing. This, I knew, was a reference to Maggie’s daughter, Sara, who left America in her late teens and never came back apart from one unannounced visit a few years ago, for a school reunion. Maggie hasn’t said as much, but she must have been pretty hurt that when her daughter finally elected to return to her hometown, it was to see her old friends rather than her mother.

“I’m never going to be a grandmother now,” Maggie said again. “Not that I can blame Sara for that, of course. I was hardly a good example of motherhood. Barely in my twenties when she was born, and Derek and I divorced before she finished kindergarten…although I’m sure that’s not the only issue. The Max affair has a lot to answer for.”

I raised my eyebrows, willing her to say more, but she turned away and seemed very interested in a rack of burp cloths.

Max Gianni, I assumed she meant: the mysterious dead brother of Frankie, and brother-in-law of Anna Gianni. As far as I could piece together, Max once had something going with Maggie’s daughter, and it hadn’t ended prettily. In my eight months in Woodhaven, I’d heard a lot of half-finished conversations on this subject, all with tantalising missing endings, and I’d have liked to ask Maggie more, except that it was obviously something she didn’t like to talk about much.

I wondered what my own life would be like when I was Maggie’s age, when my children were grown up.

Would I be bitter at the years I’d lavished on their upbringing, only to have them live across oceans, as far away from me as they could? Or would I consider it a job well done, that my children were independent and free of me? A job rather too well done, in fact?

And I wondered what they would say about me in years to come — how would Jack look back on his childhood, the twins on theirs?

Would they view me with affectionate pride, or with contempt and disdain? Would I visit them in my twilight years, knowing they’d be glad to see me return home, when all I wanted was to hold on to them forever?

I thought of Sandra, of how thankful I’d been to see her return to England. I thought of my own mother, whom I’d not seen for eight months, but didn’t really miss.

I thought of how I would feel if my own children viewed me the same way.

And, as Maggie hinted just now, are the sins of the parents gifted upon the children, so that, no matter how hard you try, your offspring make the same mistakes as you did? Or, in recognising your failures, are they forced to break away, severing an invisible umbilical cord by putting thousands of miles between child and parent — and even then, does anything really change?

In other words — would Oliver and I become our parents?

Damn these pregnancy hormones.

“Libby?” Maggie was looking at me with concern. “Are you feeling all right? Do you need to sit down?”

I collected my thoughts and smiled quickly at her. “I’m fine. Just thinking about—”

My sentence was cut short by a pigtailed girl around Jack’s age, who, unlike Jack, was not securely strapped into the child seat of a shopping trolley, and appeared to be unaccompanied by any adult, responsible or otherwise. The child thundered past us, unbalancing me enough to make me throw out my hand to steady myself, and she headed straight for the automatic exit doors. Normally those doors need something at least three times heavier than a truculent three-year-old to make them open; today, however, Murphy’s Law dictated that they be in a particularly sensitive mood. The little girl rushed straight through them towards the busy parking lot, and I watched in slow-motion horror as a huge black SUV came weaving through the parking lot, along the lane that led past the baby shop. I could see its driver clearly: a woman chatting animatedly, obliviously, on a cell phone.

I turned to Maggie, to squeak at her that somebody must do something, but Maggie was no longer there.

Considering Maggie must be in her mid-sixties, she can move fast. Faster than I can at the moment, anyway. She was already at the store’s exit.

She dashed through the automatic doors and, just as the child was about to step into the path of the black SUV, grabbed the back of the child’s pink jacket and pulled her back. Then Maggie took her by the hand and led her back into the store.

“Where’s your mommy?” I heard her ask. The girl shrugged. “Well, what’s your name?”

The girl said something. Maggie nodded, and together they walked to the back of the store, towards the sign that said “Customer Service”.

Soon, a disembodied voice on the loudspeaker informed us that there was a lost child in custody and that the parents should think about collecting her before she was sold or returned to the warehouse, or words to that effect.

Ten minutes later, Maggie returned to me and Jack, alone.

“That’s your good deed done for the day,” I said, patting her on the shoulder.

Maggie shook her head, and carried on shaking it, as if bewildered.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Did the parents not come for the little girl?”

“It wasn’t a little girl.”

“But—” You know, I don’t want to stereotype, but when a child is wearing a pink jacket and ribboned pigtails, you kind of assume certain things.

“The mother had a baby, too. Couldn’t have been more than two weeks old, and it’s tough trying to keep hold of one child, never mind look after a baby as well, so I can’t blame her for the girl — or boy — running away like that. Anyway, the baby was all dressed in green and yellow, and I asked the mother if it was a boy or a girl, and do you know what she said?”

“Surprise me.”

“She said, ‘We haven’t decided yet.’ I kid you not. ‘We’re letting our child make its own mind up about its gender.” Maggie shook her head again. “Do you want to know the worst part of it?”

“Go on.”

“This woman was English. I always think of people from the old country being very down to earth and no nonsense, and in five minutes, this woman shattered my illusions.”

A nasty suspicion formed in my mind.

“This woman,” I said. “Was she wearing diamond earrings, by any chance? Big diamonds?”

“Huge.”

“And did the child tell you her or his name?”

“He did, but of course, I got it wrong. I thought he said his name was Dominique. Shame. It’s a pretty name, for a girl.”

Poor Dominic, I thought.

Still, it’s an ill wind.

I suddenly feel much more confident about my own parenting abilities.

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #42 – Something in the water

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #40 – R&R: ABBA-style

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As a surprise Valentine’s gift, Oliver has arranged a babysitter (and dogsitter) for a few days while he takes Libby for a well-earned rest at The Health Grange Spa and Resort in New Hampshire. After less than twenty-four hours there, though, Libby is discovering that you can have too much of a good thing…especially when you have other things on your mind.

Frederika adjusted the the towel over me and started to knead the muscles at the back of my neck.

“There. Does that feel good? You relaxed now?

“Mmm-hmm,” I murmured.

Inside my head, a little shopping list began its loop again. Two cots, double pushchair, six sets of sheets, two car seats, two bouncy chairs…

“You’re tensing again.” Frederika gave an extra little push at a muscle, and I winced. Her own arm muscles would rival Arnie’s

“Ouch.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I try to be gentle with you pregnant ladies, but you know, I was professional sports masseuse in Sweden for a long time. Sometimes I forget.”

“I should send my husband to you.” He’d enjoy it as long as he kept his eyes shut. Well — I wouldn’t be recommending her services to him otherwise, would I?

“You do that. If he’s as tense as you, he needs it.”

She continued to rub at my neck, and my shopping list commenced again.

…four packs of vests, babygrows; socks. Nappies! Oh my God, how many nappies do two babies get through?  Shampoo, baby wipes…

*  *  *

“…And Frederika — that’s the masseuse, she’s Swedish — she said her sister-in-law had twins six weeks early, and they weighed five pounds each and were perfectly fine. Six weeks early — can you imagine? It’s only five or six weeks away from where I am now. And I haven’t done a thing with the nursery yet, not even bought a second cot. If these babies were born tomorrow, they’d have to share a bed, or one would have to sleep in a drawer like my granny did when she was born. Although I’m thinking we should buy two new matching cots, because Jack’s old Mothercare cot is much smaller than the standard ones over here and I won’t be able to find fitted sheets that actually fit or — Oliver? Are you feeling all right?”

Oliver put his knife and fork down, his plate of low-fat grilled chicken unfinished, and leaned back in his padded dining chair with his eyes closed.

“Libs. Please stop talking and let us both enjoy our dinner. I brought you here to the Health Grange so you could relax, not so some Scandinavian blonde Amazon could send you into premature labour by worrying over cots and stuff. Do me a favour and request a different massage person tomorrow. Preferably someone who doesn’t speak English.”

A waiter sidled up to our table, eyeing Oliver’s inactive knife and fork.

“Are you still working on that, sir?” he asked, stretching his hand out to take Oliver’s plate.

I held my breath and waited for the inevitable explosion.

“NO!” Oliver sat up in his chair, banged his hand on the table, and sent a butter knife spinning greasily to the floor. The waiter took a couple of steps back in alarm. “Leave it alone. I’m trying to enjoy it, not ‘working on it.’ It’s a plate of poultry, not a bloody PhD thesis.”

Current pet hate of ours — going out to dinner, taking our time over a meal (in my condition, I have no choice but to take my time) and having a waiter hurry us by asking if we are “still working on” our food. As if eating is a chore and not a pleasurable pastime. This particular waiter had already asked me the question twice this evening, and now had just blown his chance of a tip by asking it a third time of Oliver.

“Bring us a bottle of the Chianti,” Oliver ordered, “and don’t come back after that until I ask you to.”

The waiter hovered uncertainly. “The wine…is it for the lady?” He swivelled his gaze at my extended stomach. “Because the Health Grange’s policy regarding serving alcohol to ladies who are—”

“The only policy that concerns you right now, mate,” Oliver said, barely holding on to his temper, “is keeping the customer happy. Either bring me what I ask for, or you explain later to the manager why, rather than adding a tip to the check, I deducted the amount instead.”

Slightly embarrassed by the scene — if anyone needed to relax round here, it wasn’t me — I lowered my head and looked down at my lap.Tried to look at my lap, that is, but I can’t see it any more.

At 29 weeks pregnant with twins, I am as big now as I was at full term with Jack. How I’m going to last another eleven weeks, I can’t imagine — except it won’t be eleven. At my last visit Doctor Gallagher told me, “You can knock off two or three weeks with twins. You won’t want to go the full nine months.”

Too right; although I have a suspicion achieving this will involve elective C-sections and things that would once have appalled me. Now, all I’m bothered about is getting rid of this enormous protuberance. Plus the realisation that we haven’t set foot in a baby shop yet, have nowhere for the twins to sleep, no car seats, no double pushchair — not even enough clothes for them. Those things are starting to bother me a lot.

All this was circling round my mind as the waiter came back with the bottle of wine and nervously set it down on the table.

“Anything else?” he asked Oliver. “Can I take your plate, or are you still work—”

Oliver fixed him with a hard stare, and the waiter blanched. “Don’t even think about saying it again,” he said. “Just bring us the check. We’ll take the wine back to our room.”

*  *  *

Back in our room, I lay on the bed on my side, surrounded by pillows, and tried to get comfortable.

I’m trying to relax during this weekend away. I swear I am, really.

Oliver swims in the resort pool and goes to the weight room and sauna, and keeps himself busy while I “relax.”

I’m dutifully having massages — Oliver made sure we were staying at a place with a specialist in prenatal massage — and herbal facials, and pedicures (although as I can’t bear my feet being touched, these aren’t very relaxing to be honest, but Oliver has already paid for them.)

Am I feeling relaxed as a result?

Despite Oliver’s best intentions, the answer is No. I am not. It all seems a bit forced — “You’re going to relax whether you like it or not” kind of thing — and while the white-coated Frederika is rubbing my back with oil, I’m not so much thinking “Ooh, that’s good” as “You know, we could be spending this time in BabiesRUs.”

Now that I have time away from Jack, the nursery school politics, man-eating landladies, and all the other things that have occupied my mind for the last few months, I can see just how unprepared we are for our imminent arrivals, and it horrifies me.

When I was expecting Jack, I had my hospital bag packed by this stage, my birth plan written, the nursery decorated…

How times and circumstances change.

The birth plan, for example — what a joke that is. As if babies ever read them. My intention, four years ago, was to give birth surrounded by scented candles, essential oils, Vivaldi CDs, and all while floating peacefully in a birthing pool. These fond plans went west when Jack refused to get out of his nice, cosy womb and had to be kick-started with artificial hormones that, after two hours, had me screaming for an epidural while hurling the candles and CDs at Oliver.

So have I bothered writing a birth plan for the twins’ arrival? Of course not. Duh.This is America; I am a “high risk”; the birth will be high-tech; in fact, I get the feeling the people at the hospital would rather I was totally anaesthetised, like they used to do to labouring women in the 1960s.

No wonder I’m tense.

“Libs.” Oliver’s voice cut into my thoughts. “Do you want to risk some wine?”

I shook my head. “Ask me again in three months or so.”

Life was so unfair. The one thing that probably would relax me, and it was forbidden.

*  *  *

“So on the agenda today,” Oliver said next morning, over our room-service breakfast, “you have a facial in the morning, then an hour’s downtime, then lunch, and then another massage in the afternoon.”

I slathered butter on a croissant, and said nothing. When your instinctive reaction at a schedule of massages and facials is “Oh God, not again,” you know the aim of “relaxation” isn’t going to be achieved.

“Do I have to?” I asked.

Oliver looked hurt. “Why? Don’t you like all this pampering?”

“Of course,” I said. “But…you can have too much of a good thing.”

“It seems an awful waste. I’ve paid for it all up front.”

“Well —” Oliver’s feelings were easily hurt, so I had to tread carefully “—why don’t I go this morning, and you see Frederika this afternoon instead? She does guys as well as women.”

A pause, while Oliver tried not to seem too enthusiastic.

“You say she’s Swedish?” he said at last.

I tried not to laugh.Oliver was so transparent sometimes. His view of the world was made up of little stereotypes; it would be good to prove at least one of them wrong.

“That’s right.”

He pretended to consider this option.

“OK then. It would be a shame to waste the appointment.”

*  *  *

“You could have warned me.”

Oliver stood over me, arms akimbo, his face very red.

I looked up innocently from the lounging chair by the swimming pool. So pleasant to be sitting reading by the hotel pool, with the palm trees growing inside, and steel drum music playing on the loudspeakers. If I squinted a bit, I could make believe I was in Barbados instead of New Hampshire.

“Warned you about what?” I asked.

“This Frederika person! She’s brutal! Look —” Oliver turned round and lifted up his T-shirt at the back.

“It looks a bit sore, certainly.” I picked up my magazine again. “Still, no pain, no gain. That’s what you always say.”

“I don’t know where she learnt her massage techniques, but the way she kept pummelling me, I thought she was waiting for the ref to ring the bell while I went down for the count.”

He sat down on the lounger next to me, wincing. “You said she was Swedish.”

“Not all Swedish women look like the blond from ABBA.” I couldn’t contain the giggles any longer. “It’s unfortunate that this one looks more like one of the blokes in the band, though. The one with the beard, at that.”

Oliver sat down on the lounger next to me and winced.

“No wonder you didn’t want to go again,” he said.

“Oh, she’s fine with me. But I’ve had enough of people getting inside my personal space…masseuses, doctors, midwives. At this stage, I think I’d de-stress more by getting stuff ready at home. Nesting instinct setting in, I guess.”

“But we’ve got another full day here. What would you like to do instead?”

I adjusted my sunglasses. I didn’t need them. It just added to the illusion we were in the Caribbean.

“How about a little light shopping this evening?” I suggested. “There’s a BabiesRUs just down the highway.”

Oliver pursed his lips, weighing up the idea of  shopping with another assault by Frederika. “It’s got possibilities. Fancy a steak somewhere while we’re at it?”

“Tell you what,” I told him. “Let’s be entirely bad, go against the philosophy of a health spa, and have dinner in McDonald’s.”

“They won’t torment you with wine, at least.”

“And they will never,” I said, “ask you if you’re still working on that burger.”

.

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