‘Any problems there?’
I look away, it already having been drummed into me on the maternity ward how dimly I’d be viewed if I didn’t feed her myself.
‘OK,’ I mumble, though clearly not very convincingly, because her eyes narrow and she immediately pounces on my words.
‘Would you like to feed her now, Mum, so I can check her latch?’
I shake my head. ‘She’s fast asleep and I don’t want to wake her. It’s fine, honestly.’ The truth is I don’t want her to see how bad I am at this. The softly smiling, dreamy-eyed women in the breastfeeding leaflets pressed on me at the hospital, those loving mothers with their contented, suckling infants who seem to be everywhere suddenly, are such a far cry from my reality that I can’t bear for her to see it. I don’t tell her about the tin of formula I bought in desperation only this morning, the blessed relief of feeding Maya from a bottle, not having to have her gnawing at me or listen to her ear-splitting frustration.
Little by little I slide, deeper and deeper each day. ‘I’m going to go and stay at my mum’s for a while,’ I tell Lucy the next time she comes. Harassed and overworked, she gratefully signs me off, with a vague promise to phone in a few weeks’ time. When Uncle Geoff next visits I see that he has no idea that when he leaves I’ll sink exhausted to the floor, my face a mess of snot and tears, while Maya wails alone from across the room. Gradually I stop replying to his texts, or answering his calls.
I’m so tired that I have begun to see things that aren’t there: from the corner of my eye black spiders scuttle across the ceiling; objects roll silently along the floor. Exhaustion has left me with a permanent sense of seasickness, of the ground being always unsteady beneath my feet. It isn’t often that I leave the flat, but it’s on a day that I’m forced out to the corner shop to buy more nappies that I see my new neighbours again. As I queue I spy the two lads from the window, walking across the street, their heads bent, their hoods all but obscuring their faces, their dog strutting leadless and collarless in front of them.
Maya, who had slept peacefully the entire way there and back, waits until we’ve returned to my building and I’m standing in the communal entrance, trying to muster the energy to carry both her and the buggy back up the four flights of stairs, when she wakes and begins to cry, loudly and unceasingly.
It’s like a thousand crows are cawing in my head, scratching and pecking to get out. I lean against the banister and close my eyes, summoning every ounce of strength I have not to leave again by the front door, to walk away without her and never come back. I don’t know how long I stand like this before I realize that I’m being watched and I look up to see the woman staring at me from her open doorway. I start guiltily, but before I can say anything she comes over to Maya’s buggy and, without looking at me, takes the handles. ‘Grab the other end,’ she tells me.
I do as she says and, at her nod, begin the climb. On the way up I steal glances at her, the small face with its hard bright eyes and fine lines, the red hair and map of tattoos on her scrawny arms, the thick gold rings on her knuckles, but we don’t speak – even Maya has lapsed into vague half-hearted grumblings now – and it’s not until we reach the top that I thank her. She has started back down the stairs when I hurriedly say, ‘I’m Edie, by the way,’ and at first I think she’s not going to respond, but at the last moment she turns and smiles briefly. ‘Monica,’ she replies, then disappears from view. I stand and stare after her and, though I can’t explain why, I’m oddly comforted by the thought of this tough-looking stranger living her life only a few floors below, a glimpse of shore lights from the midst of a dark and choppy sea.
A few weeks later, passing a church hall in the pouring rain I notice a sign for a mother and baby group. I pause, glancing down at Maya who, for once, is lying quietly beneath her rain cover. I’m soaked, yet I can’t quite bear to return to my cramped, messy flat. On impulse I open the door and peer in. The hall is large and packed with women sitting around drinking tea and eating biscuits, while in the centre what seems like hundreds of toddlers stampede through a sea of brightly coloured plastic toys. The noise is overwhelming. I’m about to back away when a woman in her sixties, wearing a vicar’s collar, strides towards me. ‘Are you coming in?’ she says briskly. ‘That’s right, in you come. Close the door behind you, we don’t want any escapees, do we?’ Dazedly I do as she says. ‘Pushchairs over there, that’s the way, well done.’
Obediently I lift Maya from her buggy and park it with all the others then edge into the hall, looking around myself uncertainly. I notice a small group of women in the corner, balancing babies on their knees. I make my way over to them and, finding a seat, shift Maya in my arms, hoping desperately that she’ll keep quiet for a while longer. Out of the corner of my eye I watch the other mothers, noticing enviously how relaxed they seem, their children slung casually over their shoulders or being jiggled on knees, the women paying little attention to them as they chat amongst themselves.
Eventually one of them turns to me and smiles. ‘Hi,’ she says and nods at Maya. ‘Oh, isn’t she lovely. How old?’
‘Six weeks,’ I tell her. ‘Yours?’
‘Eight months now.’
I hesitate, then blurt, ‘Does it get easier? It’s just, she just … she never stops crying. Do you know what I mean? I don’t know. I suppose they’re all like that, are they? Is yours? Does yours cry all the time too?’
The woman tilts her head sympathetically and blinks. ‘No, he’s a cheery little thing, this one. So easy! Always smiling.’ She pauses then says, ‘I think it’s because my husband and I are such laid-back people, you know?’ She gives a self-congratulatory smirk, and adds, ‘Maybe you need to try and chill out a bit? Babies sense it if you’re stressed. Have you tried yoga?’
I shake my head and murmur faintly that I’ll give it a go, and she turns back to her friend just as Maya opens her mouth and lets out a piercing shriek. As quickly as I can I gather up my things and leave.
The sky clears as I reach the park at the top of my road and I sink gratefully on to a wet bench, Maya asleep now in her buggy next to me. The park has a panoramic view of London but I close my eyes to it, exhaustion carrying me to the edges of consciousness. I don’t know how long I doze before I wake with a start, sensing a shadow fall in front of me, another presence near. I shield my eyes and look into a face that takes me a couple of moments to recognize as the man who sold me the cot before. I notice his peroxide tufts have gone, his black hair now closely cropped.
‘Hi,’ he says. ‘Edie, right?’ He stands by Maya’s pram, smiling down at me. ‘James. I sold you the cot. I thought it was you!’ His son is a few feet away, poking at the grass with a stick.
I nod, conscious suddenly of my hair sticking greasily to my face, and the fact that I’d picked up the nearest clothes from the floor before braving what seemed like this monumental expedition. I realize I can’t remember the last time I washed. ‘All right?’ I say.
‘She’s a beauty.’ He’s looking into the pram now, and I do my best to arrange my features into the expected smile. ‘Thanks,’ I say.
‘How’re you doing?’ he asks. ‘Everything going all right, is it?’ and I’m horrified when my eyes fill with tears. I look down, willing myself to stop.
A silence falls while he tactfully glances away. ‘It’s hard, isn’t it, doing it by yourself,’ he says after a while, then adds, ‘Me and Stan’s mum split not long after he was born.’
I nod, staring at my hands.
‘It gets easier,’ he says. ‘It sounds like bullshit, but it’s true, it really does.’
I’m too embarrassed to meet his gaze; using every ounce of strength I have to keep the tidal wave of hopelessness at bay. At last to my relief he takes his son’s hand, and begins to move off. ‘Well, better go,’ he says, ‘lunch and so on.’ I nod, swallowing hard. ‘Take care,’ he adds, and, with a final sympathetic smile, he goes.
It’s at this moment that Maya wakes