Chapter Two
Dring dring. Dring dring.“Hi Zoe, it’s Jenny.”
“Oh, hi Jen how are you?”
“We’re fine, I just thought I would call to see how you are doing, and if you are going out of your mind yet waiting for the big day to arrive.” She said this like she knew how I felt, and she did.
“Oh my god I just cannot wait any longer. My due date is a week away and I just know he will be late.” I moan to her.
“Yeh, Peter was five days late,” Jenny warns, “but make the most of it while you have a bit of time on your hands. Given the chance again I would lock myself in the house with every glossy magazine under the sun and the largest box of Lindt chocs I could lay my hands on, while watching episodes of 24 back to back.” She had obviously given this much thought, or lament.
I wait for her to complete her fantasy before I butt in.
“So, how’s motherhood three months in – all going well?”
“Zo’ it is just amazing! Peter is so cool and has started smiling at me now. I took him swimming this week for the first time and yesterday I went for a beach walk with him in the rucksack”
“Rucksack?”, I bark wondering if Jenny is fully up to speed on childcare.
“Oh yeh” she laughs “It’s like a baby carrier that you strap to your back. Don’t worry I don’t have him stuffed in to a holdall along with a sleeping bag and compass!”
“Good, I’m glad” I reply with mock relief, feeling like I still had alot to learn about this baby/mother thing.
Jenny’s voice always puts me at ease and drains away any stress I might have with its chocolatey rich and smooth tone. I have known Jen since we met at college 13 years ago. Bloody hell that makes me feel old. She was in my A level English class and she seemed to know everything about Shakespeare’s plays and poems. Her skin is as dark and smooth as her voice, her mother is Ghanaian and her father a Brit. Before coming back to the UK to do her A levels she spent most of her secondary school in Paris where her father worked for a big global company. She is one of five children - all talented and musical - a good basis for Jenny’s singing-songwriting career! She works for a private sailing-club singing soul, jazz and blues, and used to travel quite a bit to their overseas resorts – before the baby that was. She also does the odd backing vocal when the mood takes her and once played backing vocals for Paul Weller!
My favourite thing about Jenny though is her sense of humour. She is the funniest person I know and over the years we have indulged heavily in wine-soaked evenings on the sofa, discussing Blake, Bowie, men – both general and specific - tarot readings and chance encounters with psychic ladies in libraries claiming to have clairvoyant insights.
We have never been best friends, nor particularly close; meeting up once every 5 or 6 months or so. That seems to be a perfect amount of time to have enough to say when we do hook up again. Jenny is married to Graham and has been for four years. He works in IT; something to do with games and mobile phones. I like him enough but he stays pretty low-key when I go to visit. I assume he wants to give us some space to catch up. Nevertheless, I don’t really know him and feel I am very much Jenny’s friend when I visit.
Jenny had a baby boy called Peter back in January. He is gorgeous and when I went down to see him in February I coveted the idea of being a mother. Seeing my first friend to become a mother - so at ease with her son - excited me, and for perhaps the first time, my own pregnancy became a little less extraterrestrial and more a reality.
When Jenny told me her fantastic news back in June last year, spookily she predicted that I would also be pregnant by the end of the year. This was particularly unlikely with no man on the scene at that time. However, her prediction was to prove absolutely right only two months later, when a brief encounter became a life-changing experience.
“So how is Graham, enjoying fatherhood?” I ask, cheerily.
“Yeh he’s such a great Dad.” She pauses as if to place an exclamation mark at the end of her statement. “I think at first he found it quite hard to bond as he couldn’t really get involved with feeding Peter or anything, but he is much better now. I mean he’s not one of these doting fathers that I see around who don’t talk about anything other than their babies, and their baby’s pram or new toy, or the latest development stage he’s reached in the last 24 hours. I can’t stand those men that say they want to be home with their kid rather than go out to work. Call me traditional but it is the woman’s role in my opinion.”
Mmm, I hadn’t heard Jenny take this tone before, kind of, principled. It seemed to me that she really was rising up to the challenge of motherhood and planned to create the perfect life for her son, I suppose. She certainly sounded determined. As far as father roles went I hadn’t given it much thought as it was unlikely to be of concern to me given my circumstances. But I had come across the doting fathers she described and I did feel a little baffled by their ‘fussing’. These men knew all the mechanical intracacies of their chosen pushchair; having looked into all the options and tried a few out before their baby was born. Post-birth, they revelled in sharing their knowledge with anyone who would listen, launching into an in-depth demonstration of the prams folding mechanism at the faintest hint of interest.
That said, Jenny seemed stoic and I wondered if she was finding the new dynamic of her relationship a little difficult to adjust to. Teething troubles I was sure and quite understandable so early on. She is such a strong person (I reassure myself), that given time they would have nailed their new lifestyle into place.
Jenny continues on without pause.
“Anyway, speaking of tradition we are having Peter christened next month!” Her announcement is delivered triumphantly.
“That’s fantastic news, what date?” I ask enthusiastically. I had never been to a christening before and I wanted to see how one was done... just in case, you know.
“It’s the 23rd - a Sunday. I know you will have a newborn and still getting to grips with everything by then, but I would love you to come. I’m writing out invitations tonight and will post them off tomorrow. We’ve decided to keep it low-key despite my Mum’s protestations! Graham isn’t really into all that ‘hands up in the air’ stuff.”
Jenny’s Mum was a real character and very much into her church work. It was her community and her haven. I imagined she would take her grandson’s christening very seriously despite already having twelve grandchildren. But Jenny was never one to put her mother’s wishes over a decision she had made herself. I was a bit disappointed though as I much preferred the upbeat ceremony over a sombre service with pious hymns that harped on about thankfulness and duty, instead of a celebration of life. Funny, I thought Jenny would have preferred that too.
I didn’t get time to answer her when she whispers back down the phone,
“Oh shit that’s Peter awake - I’ve got to go and feed him. Get yee to a newsagents and buy those magazines now! Keep me up-to-date wont you.”
I promise she will be the first to know if I have a sudden bout of nesting instinct – a common ‘sign’ of labour alledgedly. She whispers back,
“Ok Zoe, take care of yourself now wont you. Catch you later. Bye”. She calls off.
I can hardly believe that in a matter of days now I will have a BABY! Despite my huge belly I can’t quite get my head around producing a baby. It seems so unlikely, almost ridiculous. I feel like I have tried on a costume and, unlike Mr Ben, know that trying on a costume is quite different to playing the part for real. It had been a nice idea but I shouldn’t become lost in my own fantasies......but this wasn’t a fantasy! I actually am going to give birth and have to look after it (him), for the next...oooo...18 years or so. Me! He would look to me for help, advice, guidance, comfort..., a role model... I decide to go for walk and get some air.
posted by Rebecca Valentine at 9:08 pm
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