My Mother My Mirror Read online

  However, soon afterwards we had something to be very happy about. We had been staying in a guest room at the top of a large Victorian house belonging to a premie couple who were friends of ours, and I think this was where our little girl was conceived. I have vague memories of wooden floorboards and high ceilings and two mattresses, and deciding to snuggle up on the same one...

  This time she was a tenacious little bean, and had no intention of going anywhere until she was good and ripe. We sailed past the twelve week danger period and dove in to a profusion of preparations. Friends and relations were informed, and a trickle of tiny vests, bootees, hats, cardigans and baby-gros began to arrive. I didn’t tell anyone at work, not wanting to jeopardize my job too early, but I imagine by the time I did tell them quite a few had guessed. I had a constant supply of salty crackers in my desk drawer to nibble in order to assuage morning sickness, and of course my waist was slowly expanding.

  Somebody donated a lovely selection of garments for me to wear: I had stretchy velvet dungarees, and several Laura Ashley dresses which made me feel magnificently mumsy as my belly swelled beneath their generous folds. I ate gallons of yoghurt, became a little anaemic and had to take iron tablets, threw up from time to time on car journeys and huffed and puffed up slopes... but generally I felt pretty good, and extremely proud of myself.

  The London trip had been in May, and that autumn our landlady told us that, after five years, she now needed the farmhouse back, because her son was returning from his travels and wanted to settle down. I am told it happens remarkably often that baby demands a new house. And getting to know this baby in later years, it seems very much in character. We could have stayed until after Christmas if we’d wanted, but I thought it much more sensible to move before the birth and get settled before all the baby busyness began. It wasn’t such a bad thing: Reynolds Park was not really suitable for small children. It might have been all right whilst she was still being carried around, but the thought of someone crawling on those grubby stone floors and putting the odd bit of fallen plaster in her mouth was not good. So I started searching for property. In the end I found a modern nesting box in South Brent. The village was full of babies and children, and our little road was no exception. We were attached to another house on one side, with a short driveway on the other, and we looked out onto a playing field and railway line. There was a very small patch of grass at the back and nothing at the front, but there were two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living-room, and for our present purposes it would be fine.

  We had gathered so much stuff at the other house that for almost a week enormous piles of boxes prevented us from getting from one side of the living-room to the other; but slowly, miraculously, homes were found for what seemed like an impossible number of things, until everything was spick and span and waiting for the new arrival. By this time I was feeling extremely healthy. Buoyed up by generous floods of pregnancy hormones, my cheeks were round and rosy, my belly was huge, and I felt as contented and purry as Meerschaum in front of the fire. I’m sad to say that Smidge had left us by this time. A pussy-cat fitting her description had been found mangled in a combine harvester... I’m afraid it was probably a matter of fulfilling her own worst fears again, though why she was anywhere near such a big monster I can’t imagine.

  I had such severe heartburn that I had to sleep propped up on eight pillows, and if I took a toddle to the local shops I had to stuff my knickers with tissues because baby was sitting on my bladder and any bumps would make me leak. But none of this reduced my happiness. She was by now wriggling, kicking and hiccuping; I lay in the bath and watched her mysterious undercover movements. We made lists of possible names, both boys and girls because we didn’t know yet which it was going to be. We took a drive over the Tamar into Cornwall and stopped at a gift shop where I bought a great big mobile of wooden painted tropical fish made in Bali. It hadn’t occurred to me at this time that she was going to be a Pisces, but that made it all the more appropriate. Early the following morning, I began to feel pains. At first they just felt like period pains, but I knew that this was it: the time had come. I had a remarkable amount of energy. I wiped and dusted all round the house, and went through my two hospital suitcases one last time. I had read so many books about what to take with me that I had far too much luggage. Then I cleaned all the windows! And then the pain became overwhelming. At around teatime we drove to the hospital, and this was the beginning of a whole new chapter.

  24

  Birth

  From 6pm to midnight was pure, unrelenting agony. I was lying on a bed with my back on a slope and my knees up, raising my weight on my arms with each contraction until my muscles were sore... But this was nothing compared to the violently squeezy, crampy pains in my abdomen, similar to period pains but reaching heights of intensity I had never known existed.

  How anyone ever gives birth in any other position I fail to understand: I couldn’t possibly have squatted or crawled or leant against a chair. Any slight use of another muscle would set off another contraction, and they were already coming as thick and fast as I could handle. I gripped Sam’s hand extremely tight, and breathed for all I was worth. The midwife was brilliant. Every time I reached a peak of pain and began to flounder she calmly told me what to do: “Blow away the pain... Long and slow... Relax between contractions...”

  But by midnight baby wanted out, and the pushing began. We put the backrest down a couple of notches, with my feet in the footrests, so I was no longer sitting on her head. Now I was truly lying on the altar of life, and this was huge: I had never experienced anything remotely like it. I felt as if I was a great big iron piston: the outside of my body the thick outer tube, with inside a circular steel plate, solid as a rock, being thrust forward with intergalactic force. And on the one hand I was completely helpless, but on the other hand I was able to hold back a little, or else to join in by forcing and heaving with all the strength I had ever exerted in pushing anything through those three lower orifices, multiplied a hundred times!

  I gripped hard on the solid iron bar at the top of the bed. I made noises: raw, loud, animal, woman noises one after the other that were the sound of the pain. The midwife now told me: “Use each contraction to take a deep breath and then push with all your might... And again...” invaluable advice in moments when the power surging through me could so easily have been wasted in screams and panics.

  The waters burst suddenly, and fairly late in the process, followed by a nice soothing gush and then smaller gushes after that. As the head was crowning, the midwife gently massaged my perineum, encouraging the tissues to stretch slowly so as to prevent too much of a tear.

  The first thing I knew was a muttering murmur, but Sam and Kharis, who had arrived by now, saw her look around; then one last slither and she was out, with a generous head of dark hair and a healthy eight and a half pound body. The cord was round her neck, but they cut it quickly so there was no distress, and laid her gently on my tummy. Then she was in my arms and at my breast. I was holding my baby! They checked her over, which seemed completely unnecessary at that moment and drastically less important than meeting her parents, then she was wrapped in a tiny blanket, whimpering slightly. But as soon as Sam held her and started talking to her she recognised his voice and was soothed. His face was a joy to behold, beaming down at her with huge blue eyes and an enormous, bearded smile. He was immediately besotted.

  I had imagined us sharing a bath, but of course I was longing for a deep, hot one whereas the baby needed it shallow and lukewarm, plus the lights in the bathroom were harshly bright for such a new person, so we parted company for a short while to get cleaned up. Then I was taken to the ward for the rest of the night, with curtains drawn around me and my new companion, who slept in a little plastic cot beside my bed. Sam and Kharis went home, promising to come back the next day, and we were left alone together.

  I was so thrilled. I lay there going over it all in my mind, feeling my deflated belly, now calm and empty but for the odd
twinge, and my undercarriage which despite the volcanic explosion was simply very sore. I kept peeping at her perfect little face. She had hardly cried: there was such a positive, happy feeling about her, the way she looked around as if to say, “Aha: a new place to get used to, but I know who I am and I’ve been somewhere similar before, so I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it pretty soon.”

  Suddenly I thought of the name ‘Judy’. It hadn’t been on our list of names: it had never even occurred to me. But my first friend at school was Judy, and all the Judys I knew after that were lovely people. It was a happy name; it reminded me of beach-balls and sunshine. Then thinking about what might work as a second name, Anne sounded good, with an ‘e’ on the end like the Anne I had known in Weston. Judy Anne.

  I was tremendously hungry. Kharis had given me a bag of treats which I hadn’t had a chance to look at, but now the storm was over I dipped in and found all sorts of exciting goodies such as meusli bars, salted cashews, chocolate brazils, mini cheese crackers, sesame snaps and Greek halva. I don’t think I have ever enjoyed a midnight feast so much; I was enormously grateful.

  The first morning at home I woke up crying, convinced that my mother had died. It had been a dream, but had seemed very real, and it felt so tragically unfair that she had known Judy in the womb but was going to miss out on her whole life out in the world.

  In my dream we had just taken Buckles for a little run up and down a muddy slope, and when we got back inside he started sniffing at her dressing-table: the ‘Intimate’ talcum powder and all those familiar, individual smells that a baby first knows as mother. Then I began thinking about what I would say at the funeral: acknowledging those things that were dear and familiar to me and going over them in my mind.

  Lying there awake, I felt sad for a while, then thinking about it I realized my subconscious was telling me that I was the mother now... But I did ring Carmen just to make sure she was OK.

  We began to get to grips with the business of feeding. Right from the beginning, Judy was passionate about it. There was a period of trial and error, when she learned how to latch on and suck, I learned how to get us both into the right position, and my boobs learned just how much milk this newcomer would be wanting. On about day three I had the most magnificent bust ever, but even Judy couldn’t cope with that quantity so they went down a little, but still bulged nicely.

  It was a lovely feeling, being suckled, and to begin with, when there was still some leftover stuff to expel after the birth, I could feel the sucking action tugging at my womb, helping it to get tidied up and come back to normal, getting my womanly juices flowing round my body again. It felt quite sexy, and very satisfying. Judy gazed up at me with her enormous blue eyes, her fingers either interlocked as if in prayer or resting softly on my skin, a look of intense concentration on her face as she did so well what she was absolutely best at. Often she would make appreciative little noises, especially when the milk was coming in nice big gulps.

  Making sounds was the one thing she hadn’t been able to do inside me. She had a sweet, soft little voice... so pure. There was no expression in it like surprise or charm: it was just a very new voice, almost like a bird. She commented on things, saying “oh” and “laa,” “lee” and “ell,” but not with any emotion... or even when there was a little frustration there was no edge to it: it was simply a direct response to what was happening.

  I loved to watch her sleeping, breathing through her mouth: a tiny triangular mouth with a small, soft inner bump in the apex at the top, matching the triangle around the nostrils of her tiny nose. She had minute, pinky purple fingernails, like miniature seashells. They were quite strong, and she had scratched her face all over before we realized they needed a trim.

  Kharis stayed for two days, shopping and cooking me meals. It was lovely to be looked after, but on the evening of day two I heard raised voices through the floorboards and knew that it wasn’t going to last. I can’t even be bothered to tell you what the argument was about: basically, Kharis was being a little bit bossy and insensitive, Sam felt threatened and insecure, and that was that.

  After she had left I fell into an exhausted sleep, feeling very chewed up on top and still cramping painfully down below. Then in the early hours I woke again in floods of tears. It wasn’t only Kharis leaving, though the conflict had been upsetting when everything else was so miraculous and untainted. I think I was just overwhelmed by it all. I staggered to the bathroom and back, then slid in with my back to Judy and Sam on the other side of her, and sobbed my heart out – quite loudly at first, with my new vocabulary of woman animal noises.

  Sam woke up from his earplugged, eye-shaded haven, terrified that I had rolled over and crushed Judy, or that something was wrong with her, because apparently I seemed to be leaning over her Moses basket. In his anxiety he almost crushed her himself as he reached over to hug me; but she was blissfully unaware of all this. It was nice to feel his body again: it seemed extraordinarily large compared to her tiny one, and very comforting. As I drifted back to sleep my love for Judy took a little leap, as I realized how awful it would have been if she had been hurt and how much I wanted to protect her.

  In next to no time we were deluged with an avalanche of gifts, a great many of them pink. The postman brought pink greetings cards both huge and small, friends and relations brought bonnets and blankets and bootees, and big bouquets of flowers. The people from Fairford Electronics sent me a long computer-generated streamer saying “CONGRATULATIONS” with computer-drawn babies at each end. Sam’s family arrived with a pink fluffy teddy, pink silk flowers and a whole set of tiny pink clothes. How popular we were all of a sudden! I was amazed at the power of this little person to make it all happen. The wave of energy that had been building for nine months had now broken on the shore, bringing with it an enormous flood of love.

  25

  Heaven on Earth

  I could hardly believe it: everything had changed overnight. There was a new person in the world, and we had been chosen to take care of her. I suppose Martha was the last baby I had known, and at age fourteen I had been pretty uninterested. Since then I hadn’t had much contact with babies, and now suddenly here was Judy bang in the middle of my life, completely dependent on me... and so perfect.

  My experiences with Maharaji were what I had thought of as spiritual – and certainly something unique happened then that I had never experienced before and have not experienced since – but the birth of Judy was something else completely. I felt I had been let in on an enormous secret: angels don’t gather in heavenly throngs, they each find themselves a protective little shelter with two people to care for them, and live very quietly; and for all three it is a miraculous opportunity to experience Heaven on Earth to the best of their abilities. Sam and I had talked about seeing the world through the eyes of a child, but all that talk now seemed so old and jaded. Suddenly it was fresh, real and beginning to happen.

  I developed an enormous empathy for all the other parents and children in the world. Suddenly my heart was open to humanity and I cried for the confusion, violence, pain and lack of love. I found myself watching a programme about Kurdish refugees and weeping. I imagined what it would be like to go through all that we had been through and then find myself in a life-threatening situation with the real possibility of my child dying of starvation or being killed in war. I felt so lucky to be safe in rural Devon.

  I was also incredibly lucky with my Danish midwife. Her name was Kitte, pronounced Kita. She had delivered babies to Buddhists and Hindus, to junkies and Mexican dancers, in garden sheds and mansions... She was a lovely lady: amazingly open-minded, sympathetic and understanding. She answered all my questions, and often reassured me that my instincts were right: that if Judy wanted lots of closeness and feeding then I should do her bidding – provided my breasts could cope with it. She told me it’s impossible to spoil a tiny baby, and that love is the golden rule.

  Once, on Kitte’s day off, I got an old-school midwife instead, and t
hat made me appreciate her even more. She wanted to prick Judy’s heel and take drops of blood, which made her squeal and made me cross and indignant. I knew my baby was perfect; I didn’t need her fear mentality coming snooping for problems. Her bag was choc-a-block with chemicals of one sort or another that she presumed to apply to Judy, and the advice she gave me about feeding sounded like a military regime. What is more, I had to smile into her eyes for at least five seconds to induce a response. She reminded me of the staff in the hospital in Hitchin who had diagnosed my crying as “emotionally unstable”, when I had almost been killed and they were rapidly finishing me off with their iron routines. In her case, she observed my tears coldly and told me I needed a good sleep.

  Most days we had a precious half hour or so when Judy was neither feeding nor sleeping but awake and happy, gazing in fascination at the sunlight on the curtains, cooing, sighing and squeaking. Sometimes I played soft music and she would dance her tiny hands slowly around her ears like a Japanese lady waving a fan. She had very slightly pointy ears with a fuzzy ridge down the back, like a fawn. Her cheeks were smooth and yummy, like peaches, and there was a little crescent moon shape between her bottom lip and her chin.

  She developed a funny expression for when she was hungry, opening her mouth wide in a wonky, sideways way, looking towards the side that was open widest, her breath coming in fretful little pants as she searched for her next meal. We christened this her ‘Popeye’ look... I think Popeye’s mouth was this shape to accommodate his pipe.

  Sometimes when the milk wasn’t coming through properly, or she had failed to get a proper grip, she would go through a terrific fight before finally latching on: screaming at it and shaking her head from side to side, her mouth still wide open, fingers flailing everywhere... really quite funny! Then once she was settled her button nose would go up and down like a rabbit as she focused on her task; until she was full up, her glowing cheeks bulging like a hamster as she slipped away into a deeply peaceful sleep.