Birth in Suburbia - Carol Falaki (well read books txt) 📗

can’t imagine Sean doing it, he doesn’t have the time apart from anything else.”
“They can all make the time Debbie, if they want to,” Chrissy said, but added quickly, “Although I wouldn’t worry if I were you, I can’t imagine Sean doing it either. He’s so bloody organised he couldn’t handle two women, too many potential complications.”
Debbie nodded. That was true, Sean made sure that everything in their life was organised. When they first met she had found this attractive, but occasionally she secretly craved spontaneity, some demonstration of her value to him; an occasional complement or affectionate word would be nice. There were times when she felt invisible.
Contrary to what Chrissy thought, Debbie wondered if being well organised would give him more opportunity for infidelity, not less.
Looking back, she realised how quiet she had been of late, and how she could cry at the smallest thing.
At home Sean had been making an effort to be patient, but Debbie knew it was an effort for him, an effort that was wearing thin. She had found safety in silence. If she didn’t talk about the things that were worrying her she avoided more tears. In private, she could sit and let the tears flow, and she usually felt better afterwards.
A sparrow ventured close to her feet searching and picking for crumbs or anything that resembled food. Debbie was struck by a sense of recognition.
That’s how I feel, she thought, pecking for crumbs. Chrissy looked at her.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine thanks Chrissy, just thinking and I suddenly feel tired, ready for a nap, must be the food.”
As they left the bistro Chrissy invited her round to her house that coming weekend.
“I’m having a barbecue on Saturday if the weather stays like this, can you make it?”
“Sounds great Chrissy; Sean will light the barbecue if you want.”
“And what makes you think I can’t light my own barbecue?” Chrissy replied, responding to Debbie’s smirking face. She knew Debbie was remembering last time.
“Paraffin marinade is not my favourite.”
“Okay then, point taken, I’m sure Nigel will give him a hand. Helen and Nigel said they’d come if she isn’t in labour, she’s due next week isn’t she?”
They walked through the small shopping mall, stopping to look in the windows on the way, and crossing the road toward the car park where they parted.
Chrissy planned to do some serious shopping before collecting Natalie from school.
Debbie’s house was situated on the far side of the green adjoining the road where Chrissy had left her car.
“Are you alright to drive Chrissy?”
“Two small glasses and that was ages ago, I’m fine, and I’m on holiday. I’m having the week off, although the beggars won’t leave me alone and keep ringing with problems, but I’m not going in until Monday and that’s final.” She smiled at Debbie.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Debbie continued her way home across the green to collect her dog Scooter. She was tired but couldn’t bear the thought of sitting in on such a nice day.
Her spirits were momentarily lifted by the sight of two very young children who were sitting on the grass picking the heads off daisies and throwing them at each other in fits of laughter. The green was white with daisies, the sun was shining. It was a beautiful afternoon. She needed to think. Sean was at work. She had to talk to him, but that would have to wait, until later.


Chapter Two

At The Beach


Debbie sat on the beach. To all outward appearances she was relaxing and enjoying the warm sea air.
“I feel so lonely,” she thought. “Why? I don’t understand it. My baby is growing and moving inside me, I have a husband who says he loves me, and I have the support of my friends.”
But she felt remote and disconnected from all of them, like everything was on hold. Like a spectator watching and waiting for the game to begin.
She tried to see her baby in her mind but could imagine no more than a generic picture like the kind you see in magazines, scan photographs. Do all babies in the womb look so alike?
She thought about her husband, Sean, and their marriage. What was going on? Something vital had changed. Nothing remarkable had happened, but something was not right.
They had stopped communicating. They were talking, but the language had changed from familiar, easy and comfortable, to brief and distant, like an invisible screen had been raised between them. The change was recent, she thought.
A few months ago, twelve weeks to be exact, they had spent a week in Cumbria together. The weather had been awful, but that had not seemed to matter at all. It had been a perfect week of romance and indulgence. They had laughed like teenagers, and made plans for the future.
The changes in Sean’s behaviour were since then, she was sure of it. What had happened? Was she no longer attractive to him? It was certainly difficult to feel attractive while heavily pregnant, or was there something more? Had she unwittingly changed her own behaviour, or was it him?
As Debbie reflected her memory dealt her a series of shuffled snapshots of her relationship with Sean these past few months.
One by one events and feelings, which when viewed singly appeared insignificant, collectively began to create a different picture. From this new picture frightening possibilities emerged, like spectres. She closed her eyes, but there was no place to hide. The spectres took form. They would not go away.
He was coming home late from work and spending more and more time at the computer, or going for long walks alone. It was true she was no longer up to the kind of walks they used to enjoy, but he had failed to come up with a compromise, suggesting Debbie should take the opportunity to put her feet up. He would walk alone.
He was not sleeping well. Often, when Debbie went to the bathroom during the night his side of the bed was empty and the light glared thinly through gaps around the office door. If she went in he closed the page he was working on.
“Just doing a bit of catching up,” he would say turning his face from the bright computer screen, his expression as secret as the dark side of the moon.
Debbie could feel the courage and self-confidence woven around her life wane. She realised it was all far from perfect.
And it was now, with the beginning of her maternity leave, she had time during her day to wonder. Debbie could see that for the past three months she had been sleep walking through her life. She had not seen and she had not thought, until now.
Today was the day Debbie realised there was something wrong in her marriage.
The day was pleasant, with a clear sky and a warm breeze. She sat on her sweater, on the sand, her back against the white solid rocks that formed part of the reinforcement erected to hold back the tides; the potential failure of which was evident in the skeletal roots of desperate trees locked in exposed clay along the coastline.
Scooter, her black Labrador, sat at her feet the warm sun on his old back generating a familiar doggy odour that was tempered with the salty breeze. She brushed the grains of sand from her tanned legs and carelessly aimed a small pebble at an abandoned sand castle, missing it by a metre. Scooter, conservative in his responses, raised one lethargic ear.
Scattered about the beach, like spots of rainbow coloured paint from a shaken brush, people, young and old, enjoyed the afternoon. All shades, from white to dark and suntanned flesh emerged from vivid beachwear, exposing body parts that in any other setting would have been carefully hidden. Voices, laughter and cries detached by space and distance, were carried on the air.
Last week Debbie had finished work. She had anticipated delight in having some time she could call her own, for a short while anyway.
Instead she found there were too many things to think about, beside her marriage. The responsibility of bringing a baby into the world, and the forthcoming labour and birth held many fears. The cost of becoming a mother was measured in more ways than just financial.
And her body, all of the 36 pounds she had gained in weight seemed to be around her middle; would she ever be the same again? How could she be?
She had no experience of handling a baby. ‘Clueless’ was how she had described herself to her colleagues, and she meant it.
“You’ll soon pick it up,” her boss, the mother of three boys had told her. “There’s no better way to learn than practical experience.”
The closer her expected date became the more fearful Debbie became. Sometimes she dreamt about it. They were strange colourful dreams.
She wondered how it could be, that despite the countless experiences of other women, their descriptions, their stories, and with everything she had ever been told or had read about it; the prospect of giving birth remained an enigma, mysterious, frightening and exciting.
Sometimes she wished to know what it will really be like. Sometimes she thought she would rather not know.
“Stop winding yourself up Debbie,” she was talking to herself again.
She tried to enjoy the scene, to relax. The sand felt warm and gritty under her bare and swollen feet. Her toes were like cocktail sausages with painted pink tips. Helen had painted her toenails for her, and she had painted Helen’s. They had joked at the realisation they could not reached their own toes.
Finishing work, in Debbie’s plans, was a marking point, a stage further. It was so frustrating. The promise of days like today with the idea of peace and relaxation had kept Debbie going all through those weeks of feeling mentally and physically too tired, almost, to go on.
The time for having her baby was drawing near, yet where was the joy she had anticipated? Instead waves of sadness threatened to drown everything.
It was something Chrissy had said, that had triggered Debbie’s feelings of concern for her marriage. Debbie tried to remember. She wanted to clarify her thoughts