Chapter One (part three) - The Friend Before Baby
Phone rings. (Kazoo sound sounds: Dedede dedede dedededede.) I check my phone monitor which says ‘call’ - better answer.“Hello, Zoe speaking.”
“Hi Babe it’s Nancy”.
Nancy is my drinking buddy. Was my drinking buddy. She is now my lodger...for another week anyway.
She has already been crashing on my sofa for two months whilst she waits for the purchase of her new house to go through, and, quite frankly, the companionship that I was looking forward to has felt more like a trial-run of motherhood, only jumping ahead sixteen years or so, I have been landed with a teenager! Let me explain.
This morning I scooped up three pairs of lacy G-strings – clearly not mine as I have no current need for G-strings in ‘my condition’ nor G-spots for that matter. I have spent half an hour washing-up and putting away eight side plates and a clutch of Marmite-smeared knives, (Marmite has been a casualty of my pregnancy. Once dearly loved, the near-black goop now offends my nostrils, along with my tastebuds, to such an extent I gag at the sight of the unsecured yellow lid threatening me with a waft of deadly fumes), endless mugs laced with coffee dregs haunt the legs of my sofa, the bathroom sink and my bookshelf. One mug contains a cigarette butt.....no, two, at the bottom, and another plays host to what looks like a tiny drowned cat curled up at the bottom. I am assuming it is biscuit. She hasn’t even been here long enough to drink a whole cup of coffee. She really is treating this place like a hotel.......Did I just say that out loud?
It’s petty I know, which is why I have chosen not to raise the issue, quietly living in hope that one day she will stick around long enough to see that the slightest bend forward, or sideways, when heavily pregnant is a carefully judged contortion of torso, combined with dangling appendages stretched full-length to reach the mere brim of a cup.
Bending in any direction has become such a gymnastic feat that when I do pull-off a torso-twist-arm-stretched combination I feel I should do a little jump at the end, knees slightly bending as my feet hit the floor in perfect unison. As my legs slowly straighten I raise both arms up parallel with my shoulders, back arched, chest out and with chin held high I come to a proud and satisfied finish. Applause fills the stadium and the judges vote 6.9 across the board.
Hey, only one more week to go and she will be moving in to her new house, just around the corner. Her first flat, so she is bound to want to spend loads of time there. This means we get to spend lots of time in and out of each others living-rooms, watching favourite soaps, cooking yummy food and chatting about mad drunken evenings together over the last 6 years... besides, she is my birth-partner and I don’t want to piss her off with only a couple of weeks to go before the big day.
“Zo’ babes, I’ve just had a call from Drew who really needs me to go with him to this celeb do he has been forced to go to by his manager. It’s at the Sanderson and I could really do without another champagne-soaked night, but....(she sighs a long-suffering sigh on her outbreath), y’know if Drew needs me there......” (her sentence rhetorically trails off with no ending). “Sooooo, could you do me a massive favour and hand-wash that vintage top of yours that I wore last weekend? It’s not like you’ll be wearing it anytime soon is it?” she chortles. “I’ll love you forever! And if you do it now then it should have dried by the time I collect it.”
“Tonight?” I blurt out, panic-stricken, trying to digest all her words and their implications in the split-second between her voice and mine.
“Well, I’ll probably pick it up around 6.30’ish as Drew needs me there for 7. So I will literally have to get the cab to wait outside while I run in and straight out again”. She had missed my point.
My voice trembles back, “But tonight is NCT night!” - a plea verging on a whine.
“Oh my god” Nancy recalls. She thinks quickly, “Well.. .isn’t tonight all about breastfeeding techniques and, you know, stuff after it’s born? You’ll be fine. You know all the others now anyway, you don’t need me at this one. And Drew really needs me and I totally can’t get out of it. Sorry Babes, you know I’d have come otherwise and I’ll definitely be there next week”. I hear someone shout to her in the background. “Okay Babe, I’ve got a call on the other line, I’m absolutely stacked today. Everyone seems to be wanting me to work for them and throwing money at me. I’ve already turned down two 5K jobs this week, it’s mental. Anyway, really got to go. See you at 6.30 babe. Thanks for the top again, bye.”
The phone clicks off.
I stare at the handset trying to fathom what it had just delivered to me and how I should react, could react, would react to...well....the whole thing,... really...
.... NCT was scary enough. All those self-satisfied smiles swapped openly from one couple to the next. FTB (Father to be)’s hand moves smugly in a slow clockwise, then anti-clockwise circle, across her ‘bump’. MTB looks fondly, and thankfully, into his eyes and then around the room to acknowledge the approving and complicit zippy grins from all the other couples. God! It is like being in a chill-out zone with everyone collectively ‘coming up’. I wanted to point out that he had basically ‘knocked her up’ which any animate, and a few inanimate objects had proven able to do for milleniums, and anyway she wouldn’t be looking that thankfully at him in a week or two when her insides had flipped inside out.
Still, I was glad to have been party to the revelations of the last five classes - even if it had cost me £150 - The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy of Childbirth & Parenthood, had proven enlightening.
Nancy had come with me to the last four sessions (having missed the first due to a clients’ drinks meet she “couldn’t get out of”). Last week had focused on birthing positions. This required your birth partner (aka husband), to sit behind you, legs astride whilst placing his arms around you and rubbing your bump. This achieved, the two of you are then to breathe deeply in unison sharing the energy and the moment. Nancy and I had managed one intake of breath before falling into uncontrollable hysterics for what seemed like an hour, but was probably only three minutes. The room fell silent as all eyes focused on the two of us.
Solemnly our NCT host, Yvonne, cautioned:
“There will be no room for modesty and embarrassment when the birthing day arrives.” This had the effect of both Nancy and I feeling and looking about twelve as we looked down at our fingernails and picked at our imaginary chipped nail varnish.
The NCT holistic approach didn’t seem to extend beyond the MTB & FTB scenario, empathy for a rather unusual predicament with your drinking buddy was in short supply.
She had succeeded in sobering us up somewhat though.
Nancy was right though, it was breastfeeding and aftercare tonight which I souppose I would be doing on my tod, so I guess it’s better to start now.
Placing my mobile back on the table my mind turns to my gorgeous and much prized vintage top. I knew exactly where it was as I had picked it up off the floor yesterday. I had very deliberately placed it in the ‘handwash’ pile currently erupting in my bedroom, to avoid the terrible fate of the ‘boil-in-the-bag’ laundry pile. Clearly such laundry organisation proved I was well on the way to ‘grown-up’ status.
As I fished the top off the ‘delicate’ pile, my internal dialogue strongly objected, moaned - whined even - about the imbalance of this friendship and perceived responsibilities. But, just as quickly, objection gave way to doubt and the question, am I hormonal? Isn’t this what friends do for each other - especially when said friend is about to perform the biggest favour of my life? After all, it is just a small delicate top that will only take ten minutes to swish around in some hand-wash liquid before drying flat on a towel. It wasn’t like I was ill, and I had backed-off from work now I was so pregnant. Perhaps I was allowing this small thing to get to me because I had failed to raise the other small irritations as and when they’d cropped up. To bring attention to them now, and collectively, would seem petty, juvenile even.
I would wash the top for her, but I was pissed-off she wasn’t coming with me tonight. I had been looking forward to spending a bit of time together in my final two weeks, as well as having someone to go with.
I waddle off to the bathroom, snowflakes and top in-hand, mumbling to myself that I’ll start on the model search once the top is washed and drying.
Labels: FBB, NCT, vintage top
posted by Rebecca Valentine at 9:13 am
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