when her boys were small, so Nigel had passed it down to his children. Louise hadn’t known whether to suggest it, so didn’t in the end, but Ted had painfully reminded her.
‘Mummy, we have to, Daddy said it’s how Santa checks he’s got the right presents.’
Louise didn’t think Ted still believed in Santa.
‘Yes, sorry, Ted. I just thought, well, I… I didn’t want to make a thing of it…’ She glanced at Christa and Carl on the sofa and silently asked for help.
‘We can’t forget Daddy at Christmas!’ Ted cried, fierce tears in his eyes.
‘That wasn’t what I meant. I didn’t want to upset you.’ But it was too late for that. Ted burst out crying, setting Gemma off.
‘I wish he was here. I wish he could meet Valentine.’
Louise’s eyes blurred as she nodded. She just wanted him here so she didn’t have to feel like a disembowelled cherry liqueur.
‘Can we shout up the chimney now, Mummy?’
‘Yes.’ Louise called silently to Santa that she needed to sleep for five years and wake up happy while not having aged at all.
‘Can you shout for Valentine?’ Christa asked, winking at Louise. ‘Ask if he can have a good night’s sleep.’
Louise tossed and turned until morning, Valentine’s crying punctuating the inky darkness. She was dreading how the children would be, how she would be. In the end, the day had been surprisingly lovely. They’d cheated (in Louise’s eyes), and Carl had bought an entirely pre-prepped Sainsbury’s banquet a few days before. All Louise had to do was rip open packets and slam things in the waiting oven.
*
‘How was Christmas? The first one can always be hard,’ Winnie asked when she visited after work on one of the festive limbo days before New Year’s Eve.
‘I’d built it up to be a disaster in my head, and then it was OK. Valentine is a good distraction.’
‘Yes, he’s certainly a sweetie. How was the birth?’
Louise’s face lit up. ‘It was so amazing. Christa was a trouper.’
‘And how did it make you feel?’
Louise frowned. ‘It wasn’t about me.’
‘Yes it was. Did it remind you what you’re missing?’
‘Winnie, return to practice is so many hours, so much to do.’
‘Valentine won’t be here for ever. Christa will want to move out at some point. A lot of hours to kill.’
‘I don’t know, Winnie. I don’t feel ready to take the leap. I thought I did when I was in the thick of it, but then I have to come back here and deal with these three. Isaac is still so little, and being a midwife is so full on. How on earth would I make it work and not be stressed to death?’
‘You’ve got a spare room; a live-in nanny would fit nicely in there!’
‘That’s so weird – I had a dream where Nigel said something similar to me and then I woke to find Christa in labour.’
‘The universe works in mysterious ways…’
When the kids were watching TV and Carl and Christa were at Jo’s party, Louise’s phone rang.
‘Happy New Year!’ Phil said.
‘Oh, thanks. And to you.’
‘Are you OK?’ he asked. His kindness slayed her, disturbing the tears that had been lingering since Christmas Eve.
‘No, sorry, you rang at a bad time.’ Louise wanted to punch herself for snivelling.
‘That’s why I rang. New Year is tricky time, worse than Christmas really. You’re going in to another year, one that Nigel won’t be a part of.’
‘Yes!’ Louise wailed. ‘That’s it.’ It made sense now why she felt like she’d been trapped in a snowdrift of grief worse than previous crisis points.
‘Listen, are you guys going to be in later? Oscar and I could swing by if you want.’
42
An Engagement
I wasn’t sure I was physically or mentally prepared for a New Year’s Eve party. Imagine crapping a watermelon that’s shredded the walls of your vagina on its protracted passage out. Add to this not sleeping for eleven days, after which someone suggests clubbing in a bikini, your wobbly vacant baby cave resolutely refusing to deflate with the occupant now guzzling away on your tits every hour on the hour when they’re not screaming the house down, lacerating your nipples so that every latch on feels like they’re clamped in a car battery charger. Isn’t motherhood wonderful?
Nothing fitted me, apart from maternity clothes. I felt old, ugly, fat and so weary, yet I couldn’t sleep. But on the flip side of the coin, I loved Valentine with an obsessive intensity that made me feel more like his stalker than his mother. And