Baby Blues

She pushed the baby in his stupidly expensive, but utterly essential, dear! UppaBaby pram down the mews and out onto the pre-dawn boulevard. Past terraced houses with sculpted shrubbery, past the row of semi-detached with cobbled courtyards and sensible Volvo wagons and “Beware of Dog!” signs, past Edwardians, long ago converted into flats; she counted off the blue doors to her fussy infant alternately worrying she’d bundled him up too tightly and not tightly enough. She passed the Costa where a drowsy barista unstacked chairs from atop tables and she raised her hand to wave, forgetting for a moment that this was not California with its cult of friendliness or even New York where it was implied that although a burden, the coffee you ordered came with a veneer of politeness. Past the primary school which would soon echo with the screams of children with names like Lottie or Percy, whose families sent them off in matching pinnies to learn to spell honour with a ‘u’. Past the care home with its sad pebble-dashed exterior and smoking nurses speaking Sengalese to one another. They waved and so she waved back. One came down the walk to admire the baby, who had fallen asleep at last. The nurse had the most beautiful skin she had ever seen and smelled like menthol and food. She wanted to hug her, to bury her face in the woman’s neck and sob. She was so tired, she would say, and the nurse would smooth her hair and tut and give her tea and tuck her up on a sofa somewhere while someone, some other nurse with children all grown, would mind the baby.

But of course, she just walked on, all the way to where Holland Park became Notting Hill Gate and the Pret opened earlier than anything else to catch the commuters. She bought a bacon buttie and a coffee which somehow managed to be tepid and sat watching the street wake up while rolling the pram back and forth and back and forth with the ball of her foot. She tore little pieces of bread off the top of her roll; maybe they would feed the ducks if they had time. But when the baby didn’t wake up, she ate them herself instead.

“Alright, love?” The retiree next to her ask and she realized she was doing it again; crying. She nodded and gestured to the baby. The woman nodded, her sensible hair which was tightly permed and frosted bouncing a bit as she did.

“Post-partum, is it?” the woman asked kindly and she nodded again, not trusting herself to speak. The lady passed her a fresh paper napkin and she pressed it under her eyes feeling foolish but grateful. Feeling seen.

“Had it myself. Only, back then they called it baby blues and said stupid things like Eloise, have a bit of wine and try to fix yourself up so you didn’t upset your husband, there’s a good girl.” The woman said, then rolled her eyes conspiratorially and smiled, so she smiled back. Soul sisters. They finished their drinks and the retiree bused up their cups and said goodbye, rewarded by baby Fletcher, awake-again, providing her with his best grin, the one that he normally reserved for the housekeeper or dogs.

She wrestled the door open, using her body to push it wide enough for the pram to pass through and back out onto the street which had grown misty and crowded. They walked down the other side, past the touristy shops all selling the same things, past the boutique hotel in the old nun’s quarters, past the Tube station where she took the morning tabloid and over-tipped the toothless hawker for it. He yelled God’s blessings after her when he realized she’d intentionally given him the five pound note and she waved once and disappeared through the throngs fighting to make the next train, swimming upstream through them like a salmon on the way to spawn.

The lights glowed in the windows of the house at the end of the mews as she passed. She wondered if they were happy. Surely, someone must be. She passed the green door belonging to number 19 and almost collided with the banker coming out of it. She apologized with the only words of German she knew, remembering, somehow, that he was called Klaus and was from Studegaard and he chortled with laughter and explained she’d said she was sorry for the death of his cow, and she flushed red, embarrassed. He offered to make her supper and they would learn more German if she wanted and she said that would be nice. She wasn’t sure if he meant it, but she was sure that she didn’t. She asked after his wife and he thanked her for remembering, his Ehefrau was visiting their children at school. Her own husband, she said, had also gone away to school, and did Klaus-the-banker think it was best? Or did he wish they’d kept the children at home? Instantly she was sorry she had asked, it was too forward and she was too American, but Klaus shrugged and said they had wanted to go and what the kinder wanted, Sarah wanted, and that, well, he shrugged elegantly and shouldered his soft-sided briefcase as if to say what Klaus wanted was to be shut of this tiresome conversation. Though perhaps, she thought as he walked away, it was only that he was late and she was tired.

There were no lights on at her own house, save the ones that she had set with the fancy timer, and she didn’t relish going in just then anyway, so they walked past and out onto the curving avenue that wound up into the park itself. The rain had stopped again, though it was London, so for how long she wouldn’t wish to guess. It hadn’t rained enough to make the ground mushy, so she followed the footpath past the benches and into the trees that led to the little stream, joggers flowing past her as she did. The baby was chortling to his one-eyed octopus and flailing his tiny arms and legs excitedly as he did. His feet bumped against the underside of the pram’s zipped-up cover like they had when he had been in her abdomen. When he had been part of her. She had to admit he was cute. Perhaps not as cute as she had thought he was, but that was how biology worked, wasn’t it? Still, he was cute.

It was 8:15 when she slid the bolt behind her, the baby balanced on her hip, the pram tucked under the eaves outside the door. Tom, the big tabby cat, threaded himself between her legs, nearly tripping her as he did and she resisted the urge to kick him, just a little, not enough to hurt him, never that, just enough to move him so that she and baby Fletcher didn’t fall to their deaths down the stairs. She clicked on the kettle to boil so that she could warm the baby’s bottle. It was almost time for his second breakfast and then his morning nap when maybe, finally, she too could close her eyes for a few hours.

When the baby was tucked into his cot, the middle fingers of his left hand firmly ensconced in this mouth, she tiptoed down the hall and opened her own bedroom door. The room was dark and the dust motes danced on a shaft of sunlight. She expertly avoided the creaky floorboard and skirted the end of the bed where the pile of laundry lay growing and neglected, an eddy of shoes around it. She knew she should do something about it, but she wouldn’t. Not until it was dire and she had nothing but her pre-baby knickers left in the drawer. Knickers is a stupid word, arguably as bad or worse than panties, she thought as she kicked a pair back onto the pile where it proceeded to roll back down again, like a rock tumbling down a mountainside.

She flipped on the bathroom light and winced, snapping it off again. The curtain to the tub was open. A stupid, frilly thing with flounces of frothy white lace. It looked like a wedding dress, hung across the clawfoot tub that Lewis has surprised her with when he’d had the loo gutted as a birthday present for her thirtieth. It was a nice thought, but she would have rather had an Aspinal bag. He had tried though, which was something. More, certainly, than he had done recently. Still, that wasn’t exactly his fault either, was it? She had to admit it wasn’t. She finished brushing her teeth and scraped her lank hair up into the messy mummy-bun that it would live in until she could finally bring herself to wash it in a few days.

She stopped as she was leaving the bathroom, one hand on the edge of the cascading lace shower curtain.

“I’m going to go have a nap now, while the baby sleeps. I’ll see you later,” she said as she pulled the curtain around the curve of the rod, hiding the decaying corpse of her husband from sight once again.