spent four days on the antenatal ward watching the stream of fathers and grandparents flood in during visiting hours. Sometimes I pictured my mother padding in, a hessian bag filled with goodies swinging from her shoulder, the waft of a health food store lingering in her clothes. I wanted, so much, for her to tell me how well I’d done. That I’d be a good mother. She’d have scooped Marley out of his plastic cot, clutched him to her, and whispered, You’re the most wonderful creature I’ve ever set eyes on.
Nick started the engine and we pulled out into a busy lane of traffic. As Nick drove, I looked at him properly for the first time; he hadn’t shaved in days and there were deep bags beneath his eyes – yet he somehow looked happier than ever.
‘How’s Jacob?’ I asked. He had been born three weeks before – a little dark-haired sprite who’d slipped into the world in a birthing pool, a week late.
Nick grinned. ‘Beautiful. Exhausting. Mind-blowing.’
We both have boys, I thought, feeling a burst of emotion for the future I saw ahead for them.
‘Thank you for collecting me,’ I said to Nick. ‘But don’t think about going into the taxi business – we’re going the wrong way.’
Nick smiled. ‘You and Marley are coming to our house.’
‘Absolutely not. You’ve got Jacob to—’
‘No point protesting: the spare room is already made up. Sarah and I have talked about it; you’ve just had major surgery, Isla. You can’t drive for six weeks. You can’t lift. What are you going to do on your own in the flat? You shouldn’t even be carrying him up and down the stairs yet. We want you and Marley to stay.’
I was renting a studio flat above a florist’s on the high street. Yes, the stairs would be tricky, but the flat itself was comfortable enough, and the sweet scent of cut flowers drifted up into the landing. ‘I won’t put you out like that. I—’
‘You don’t have a choice. You made the mistake of giving Sarah your spare key – she sent me in. Marley’s Moses basket and clothes are already at ours, waiting for you both.’
I went to say something more, but Nick gently shushed me. ‘The truth is, you’d be doing us the favour. I went back to work on Monday, and Sarah’s all on her own with the baby. She needs you, Isla. Plus, the two little bruisers can keep an eye on you girls for me.’
My throat thickened with tears. ‘Thank you.’
I sat propped against a throne of pillows on Sarah’s spare bed, my toes curling as I tried to latch Marley on to my breast.
‘Most natural thing in the world, they’ll tell you,’ Sarah said, who was feeding Jacob beside me. ‘I’d say it feels about as natural as wearing bull-dog clips on your nipples.’
I laughed, then winced as my let-down came.
‘Wine, paracetamol, and nipple cream: my breastfeeding survival kit.’
‘Just like they recommended in antenatal class.’
I’d been at Sarah and Nick’s for five days now, and we’d settled into a routine with the boys. If Sarah saw my light on at night, she’d slip into my room with Jacob and we’d do the night feeds together. In the mornings, if Nick had already left for work, we’d take turns in making a strong pot of coffee and we’d sit together, finding endless variations on discussions about cracked nipples and baby poo. When the babies napped, we’d put them in the same Moses basket, and coo at the way they curled into one another like kittens.
‘Sounds like Nick’s back,’ Sarah said as the front door opened. ‘Hope he’s in a takeaway mood. Again.’
We heard him put down his keys and briefcase, then listened to the tread of his feet up the stairs.
‘In here,’ Sarah called out.
Nick walked into the spare room, then paused, leaning against the door jamb, arms folded across his chest. He looked between both of us and shook his head. ‘There was a time when finding my wife and another woman in bed – with their breasts out – would’ve ranked pretty high on my list of fantasies.’
‘Hold on to that fantasy tightly, honey,’ Sarah said, ‘because that’s all you’re going to have for the next few months.’ She unlatched Jacob, then passed him to Nick to wind.
I watched Nick’s eyes brighten as he looked at his son. ‘How’s my boy? I missed you today. Are you hot in all those layers?’ He carefully removed Jacob’s tiny woollen hat, then pressed his nose to Jacob’s head, inhaling the sweet, milky scent, his eyes momentarily closing. ‘God,’ he sighed, ‘don’t you wish we could bottle that?’
Sarah smiled warmly.
Watching them I felt a stab of jealousy, which caught me by surprise. It wasn’t that I wanted Nick, or that I needed someone to help me wind Marley or change his nappies; it was that I wanted someone to share the special moments with – to help keep them alive and fresh by remembering them together, over and over throughout a lifetime.
I wanted someone else in the world to love my little boy as fiercely as I did.
Four weeks later, I padded along the beach with Marley strapped to my chest. It was the end of October – one of those beautifully crisp sunny days that lured me into thinking that summer hadn’t quite left us. It was Marley’s first visit to the sandbank, and it felt like an auspicious occasion. I’d stayed at Sarah and Nick’s for a fortnight, and although I wouldn’t admit it to them, I was struggling in my rented studio flat. Negotiating the steep and narrow staircase was tricky with a baby, but far worse with a buggy, and I felt my scar tissue pulling tight with each ascent.
‘Marley Berry,’ I said, as I climbed the steps on to the deck. ‘This is our beach hut.’
He’d looked up at me, his navy-blue eyes wise and alert.
I unlocked the door and we moved inside. The hut smelt exactly as I knew it would: of salt and books and damp wood. I threw the doors open to the afternoon sun. Autumn’s golden light cast deep shadows down to the shore, the sand glowing beneath its touch.
I fed Marley sitting cross-legged on the sofa bed, looking out to sea. I told him the story of how I’d fallen in love with this stretch of beach for its rickety wooden huts, the sense of isolation, its big skies and wild seas. I whispered that I was looking forward to watching him fall in love with the place, too.
When the light faded to dusk, the temperature plummeted and I pulled the beach hut doors to, sealing off a draught that snaked beneath them with an old beach towel. I lit the hob – breathing a sigh of relief that I’d connected the gas bottle correctly – and heated a fish pie that I’d brought with me. I burnt my mouth eating the bubbling creamy sauce – too hungry and impatient to wait for it to cool; I’d learnt to eat fast, never quite knowing when Marley would wake next.
Before bed, I dressed Marley warmly, then laid him beside me beneath a huddle of blankets, watching the moonlight dance over the sea. I bent my mouth to Marley’s ear and told him about all the adventures he and Jacob had to come – a lifetime of summers to run wild on the sandbank together. That night we fell asleep with the waves at our door.
Looking back, part of me wants to shake that young, naïve version of myself who assumed that life was going to hand out nothing but sunshine and love. Yet another part of me wants to hug her, to tell her, You were absolutely right. That should’ve been your life!
I thought the beach hut was going to be a sanctuary. A place tucked into the folds of sand, surrounded by horizon and water, next door to my best friend’s hut. Of course, I’d had no idea back then what was to come. If I had, I’d have walked away from the sandbank – left our beach hut open to the elements to be hammered by the winds and driving rain until it was nothing.