The Baby Diaries

Me: Yes, thanks Carol, she was, but I think if she’d been slightly more nervous this could have tipped her over the edge. Why would he do that?

Carol: It’s a refrain I’ve been singing for the fifteen years I’ve been here, Kiki, and I’m no closer to finding a satisfactory answer. It was an ignorant, trouble-making thing to do and I’ve not got the slightest clue how he thought it could benefit anyone. But let me know if you get any hassle from your other authors.

Lovely Carol. How rotten to be second-in-command to someone with such a deadly combination of laziness and cluelessness. Tony can be relied upon to get involved in something just long enough to muck it up, then he’ll get bored and require someone else to do the actual work. Going on leave seems such a distant future event, like having the baby: something I know I’ll have to deal with eventually, but nothing I need to think about anytime soon. But this talk of cover has made me realise that within six months, the office won’t have me in it anymore, and I won’t be in meetings, and I won’t have books to work on, and someone else will be doing all of my jobs.

I feel incredibly strange about all of that.

The Christmas cards have started arriving in the office, from authors and agents. The very first one was from Clifton Black, Polka Dot’s military fiction specialist – and by specialist, I mean ‘someone who’s spent his career trying to convince us he has previously served in the army, while writing books like Bullets and Bravery and Serving Under Fire with an entirely straight face’ – who I may have accidentally sexted slightly before our wedding. It could happen to anyone. Since then, he doesn’t come into the office anymore, a fact which, if we’d known earlier, any one of us would have been willing to send all manner of inappropriate texts to him. But he sent a lovely card, albeit one which omitted my name entirely. God bless us, every one.

TO DO:

Come up with a few items to scatter into Susie’s calendar: a boiled egg? An empty M&Ms bag?

Find out if romantic text messages can scare off all the difficult authors

Make my peace with someone else doing my job for a little while

December 9th

Polka Dot’s Christmas party tonight. I had such a nice time, but definitely felt some sadness at being stone-cold sober throughout. Having said that, it was completely hilarious to see Alice, Dan (my favourite of Polka Dot’s designers), Carol, Norman and the rest of the team drunk beyond all comprehension and actually be able to remember it for once.

As is tradition, Pamela joined us for the first course, laughing gamely at our rising spirits, then bidding her goodbyes as the plates were cleared. As she came over to leave her company credit card with Carol, she checked that I was keeping well, and not working too hard. I’m so glad I’ve got to know her – not only is she a good person to have on one’s team, she’s also hugely inspirational, a capable woman running this company solo for years before Tony got involved.

After she left, the nice dinner rapidly descended into plate-sharing, drink-spilling, name-calling bunfight (in the best possible way) which I think will result in a) Dan waking up with a very nasty bruise on his left thigh, b) Norman being grateful he has no social media presence, and c) no employee of Polka Dot books ever being permitted back into that restaurant again.

Funny to be so sober. Funny how things change.

December 10th

If that’s how she wants to play it, that’s how we’ll play it. After finding a half-used box of floss in today’s calendar, I resolved to sneak over to Susie’s at 7 tonight, knowing – with Pete away on some travel agent job somewhere around the world – it would be the most frantic time for her. Between helping her bath the Twins and Frida, finding their pyjamas, telling them stories, brushing their teeth and getting them down, I managed to swap tomorrow’s parcel out of her calendar, replacing it with a similarly wrapped burst balloon. I would be the worst poker player – I could barely contain my glee when I went back downstairs to find Susie putting all the toys away and tidying up the kitchen.

Susie: Thanks so much, Keeks. When Pete’s away this part of the evening is always so unbelievably exhausting.

Me: [feeling slightly bad] But practice makes perfect?

Susie: More like familiarity breeds contempt. Oh, not for them, you shocked face, just for this bloody life. I’m so tired. Yes, they all sleep well and eat well and I love them dearly, but I’m going mad, Keeks. When I wave Pete off on another trip these days, my blood boils. It boils.

Me: Do you tell him?

Susie: Tell him what? That I wonder if we married too quickly? That I wonder what I’d be doing now if I hadn’t got knocked up that night?

Me: [feeling a bit sick] Do you regret it?

Susie: [looking at me] Oh, no, of course I don’t regret it. And your life isn’t my life, and my decisions aren’t your decisions, and you aren’t married to Pete. I’m glad he loves his job, but I wished he loved a job slightly closer to home, so he could put his children to bed more than twice a month, and tidy the house, and remember their school projects and the new socks they need.

Me: [putting an arm around her] Are you happy, Suse?

Susie: [silence] Not really at all, these days. I’m so tired and bored and angry that my emotional resting state is permanently somewhere in the red. Sometimes I just think – maybe I could just go, one day. Just go on holiday and come back after a few months, and see how Pete had got on. He knows what to do. If he had to, he’d be absolutely fine.

I’d not heard Susie talk like that before, although I’ve suspected for ages that’s how she felt. I almost had a guilty twinge for sabotaging her advent calendar.

December 11th

To try and begin to thank Thom for how supportive and thoughtful he’s been over the last few months, I took us to the new production of an Alan Bennett play at the National. It was fantastic – funny and clever, moving and sparky, and we talked solidly in the interval about how we both wished we came to the theatre more often.

At the end of the play, I felt Thom nudge me.

Thom: Were you … were you asleep?

Me: No. [wiping drool from side of mouth] Do you have any water, please? My mouth is a bit dry.

Thom: Well, I really enjoyed it. Thank you for the kind thought. And for not snoring.

It’s literally the least I could have done for him, and I managed to stay awake for dinner afterwards. Also, for the after-dinner treat at home. Which was very much worth it.

December 13th

Pre-Christmas Christmas drinks with Greta. She’s so utterly fantastic – an unexpected surprise when I signed up to be a bridesmaid at a hideous wedding last year, and a woman I would almost certainly have married instead of Thom if she’d been a man.

Greta: Hello there! I haven’t seen you since the early Halloween party. Nice costume, by the way. And Thom looked … good.

Me: Thank you, and tell me about it. I’m debating making him wear that every night in.

Greta: Alright, get a room. Did you manage to get the pumpkin off that guy in the end?

Me: No. He said it had his medication in. Spoilsport.

Greta: So tell me something from the world of publishing. Tell me a celebrity scandal. Make it up if you don’t know any. But don’t tell me you’ve made it up.

Me: I’m pregnant?

Greta: No no no, the tabloids will never care about that. Something about someone actually famous.

Me: I … am?

Greta: No – are you really? Well that, Katherine Carlow, is a nice treat.

Me: Thanks. Do you want to deliver it?

Greta: Noooooo. No, I do not. Do you want me to ask you lots of things about it?

Me: No, I don’t really. But is it going to be a wedge that will come between our new friendship? Are we going to grow apart because the baby has come between us? Is it going to be weird?

Greta: Only if you make me catch it in the maternity ward. Otherwise: couldn’t care less. In the nicest possible way. But I’m pleased for you.

Me: Understood.

So we didn’t talk about it, and I was happy. See? A relationship undefined by this pregnancy! I don’t need everyone to sing and dance about it. Joy!

Which means it is just Eve’s reaction that bothers me.

TO DO:

Pump Greta later to find out if she really doesn’t care, or if she just doesn’t care because she totally hates babies, like any sane person, and will thus never want to see me again after May

December 14th

Seven months pregnant, Lucie Martel has defied her weeping doctor’s advice to fly over for some pre-publicity stuff, and to meet with all of us. For that alone, I suppose, I have to respect her. I’m already feeling slightly nervous just being away from my bed, but Thom says that’s a latent tendency that’s purely been verbalised with the pregnancy. Rude.

I met Lucie over breakfast at the Charlotte Street Hotel, where she ordered a decaf espresso. I must have been staring at her a little, because she laughed and said, ‘Pathetic, isn’t it? Like ordering a meat-free steak. But it helps to cling to these little things somehow.’ She seemed nice, by which I mean normal, by which I mean she acknowledged that pregnancy seems to be just a desperate battle to cling on to life as it was beforehand.

Since Tony had already negotiated her contract earlier this year, we were free to talk about her publicity, any marketing we might offer, the bookshop deals we were looking at and how long she’d be over in the UK after the baby’s birth.

Lucie: I’m afraid I can only offer you four days for any publicity.

Me: Oh, OK. We thought you were over here for a month …?

Lucie: Well, three weeks, but I don’t think it’s fair to be working all that time when the baby is so young.

Me: No, OK, that’s great! So the baby will definitely be with you?

Lucie: [shocked] Absolutely. He’ll only be five weeks old when you publish over here, and I don’t think Bill will be ready to deal with his son for, what, eighteen to twenty years?

Me: [laughing] Of course, you know it’s a boy. That’s nice.

Lucie: Yes, Bill insisted on all the scans – we have a beautiful 4D scan of little Bill Jnr, that some nights I just watch over and over again. Do you have children?

Me: [choking slightly on my tea] Nope, no, no children. No children.

Lucie: Tick tock tick tock, you know! I see you’ve got a ring at least – how long have you been married?

Me: [gritting teeth] A few months.

Lucie: Well, don’t leave it too long. Do you know, Bill Jnr has already cost us almost $500,000? That’s because we were ‘waiting for the right time’. And that’s not including redeveloping his nursery, costs for the nanny, and any of his education.

Me: Jesus, I’d be hoping he comes out covered in gold for that money.

We both clearly had a mental image of exactly what I was suggesting and got very quiet. I suddenly thought, ‘If she walks out and refuses to do anything for us again, how I am going to tell Tony that I scared off my new author by encouraging her to push a metallic infant through her birth canal?’

Lucie shook her head and blinked, and said, ‘OK! What kind of publicity do you guys have in mind?’ I ran through the options we were chasing, women’s glossies and the weekend supplements, gave her the latest jacket options we were looking at and asked her to think about any pieces she might be writing for the US that we could use over here. Then I got the bill and got out of there, before I offered to cut her umbilical cord with my butter knife, or something.

And oh. Came home tonight to find a beautiful letterpress card from Eve, saying how pleased she and Mike are for us, with a tiny lobster holding hands with two huge lobsters on the front. Oh, Eve. I will really stop thinking the worst of you one day, really.

TO DO:

Consider whether I’m actually safe company for any antenatal group if I keep saying my grotesque birthing nightmares out loud

December 15th

My stomach has suddenly popped out. From spending ages each night standing in front of the mirror smoothing my t-shirt over a small curve (only there if you were looking), with Thom saying, ‘Stop bending your back,’ it has now – somehow overnight – become indisputably that of a pregnant. And I love it. I really do. For one thing, it means all those maternity clothes are finally beginning to fit a little better; for another, I now get a seat on the tube; for one more, it is just lovely. It has somehow lent my body proportions which suit it much better – with a small stomach curving out, I fit together perfectly, and my body just makes sense. So while I can’t grow a plant to save my life, I can grow a whole other human being. Amazing.

And yet, and yet … it’s novel, like wearing makeup for the first time, and I feel grown up. But when I consider what’s in there, what’s required of me both in that hospital room and for all the years of my life following, I can’t … breathe.

Me: Thom, what are we going to do?

Thom: About what?

Me: [patting the bed next to me] This baby.

Thom: [lying down beside me] I don’t know, Keeks. Is there anything that could make you feel better? Do you still feel sick?

Me: Hey, I don’t actually. That’s nice.

Thom: Why don’t you do some of that ‘get in touch with yourself’ rubbish you’d normally scoff at? Pregnancy yoga, or something? You can make some friends, lie in a quiet room and fall asleep …

Me: Well, that does sound nice.

Thom: And if I had been keeping my eye out for that kind of thing, I might have found out that there was a class round the corner every Thursday night, and I might have discovered that they have spaces and I might be willing to get those classes as a Christmas present if it’s anything that would make you feel better.

Me: My God. You’re such a … flower child.

Thom: [rubbing my head with fake soothing motion] I just think someone needs to do a little swimming in Lake Me?

Me: [laughing] No way, I know where you’ve been.

Thom: Katherine, you just need to connect to the life inside you.

Me: [serious] Oh. Don’t. Thom, this is so hard. I’m sorry to be ill, to be tired, to be hormonal –

Thom: Is it OK to say I quite like some of your hormones? [wiggling eyebrows]

Me: Yes, I liked those ones too. But it’s horrid for me to feel so at the mercy of this thing I don’t even know, or understand. I’m still me, I’m still Kiki, but now I’m this vessel being pummelled and slugged and lectured.

Thom: Who’s lecturing you?

Me: [mumbling]

Thom: Christ. Have you been looking at forums again?

Me: I was just curious!

Thom: What, bloody UninformedMumsSpeculate dot com? Kiki, if those places upset you, why would you look at them?

Me: It’s just … one of the people mentioned that if you don’t bond with your baby while it’s … you know … in there, it can really affect how you get on with it when it’s born.

Thom: [putting his arms around me] Kiki, that sounds reasonable. I’m sorry.

We just lay in bed for a while, not talking, and I hoped that something would change, to stop swinging wildly between finding a positive and being suddenly petrified by it. I didn’t want to be quite as certain as Lucie Martel, but I wouldn’t mind just a little piece of that.

Optimism, I suppose I was after.

December 16th

Before Christmas swept us up in Publishing’s usual month-long shutdown, I thought I’d better get in touch with my other new authors. Jennifer Luck, rather bafflingly, wrote back to say how far she’d got with Tony’s notes (Tony writes notes?) and would resubmit in January, as they’d agreed. Matthew Holt, meanwhile, seemed delighted to have a new editor, as he hadn’t quite ‘clicked’ with Tony. I’ve no way of knowing whether that means Matthew saw straight through him, or whether Tony pointed out that most parts of Sweden don’t have three months of continuous daylight each summer. Can’t wait to read his updated manuscript too, next year. Still no clue to the contact details for Stuart ‘Tara Towne’ Winton, though. I’ll look into this properly in January.

Back at home, I’ve no idea how she’s done it, but she’s done it again.

Me: Has Susie been round here while I’ve been out?

Thom: No. Why?

Me: [holding up a tampon]

Thom: This is a bit too abstract even for me. What’s the connection?

Me: It was today’s calendar gift.

Thom: Oooooh. Ooh, that’s good. No, she hasn’t been round here for ages. You haven’t done something foolish like give her a key, have you?

Me: [thinking] Oh, I bloody did, as well. For emergencies.

Thom: We need to raise our game.

TO DO:

Come up with a full blueprint for Susie Revenge

December 17th

We went to Susie’s last night, before heading out with them for drinks for Pete’s birthday. Mum and Dad stayed in to babysit the kids, and I managed some quick advent calendar manoeuvres before we left. ‘What are you grinning about?’ asked Susie as we wrapped up for the walk to the pub, and Thom just mouthed exaggeratedly, ‘DID YOU DO IT?’ over her shoulder. I nodded to him but just smiled at Susie, saying, ‘Gosh, nothing! Aren’t we suspicious?’ She narrowed her eyes at me, but we went off nonetheless. I had a great time tonight, and Susie’s so much happier when Pete’s around. I’m sure she didn’t mean all that stuff she was saying the other day. I can’t imagine how exhausted she must feel all the time, or how much she misses him. I’m sure they know what they’re doing, though.

December 21st

Susie rang tonight.

Susie: Have you been meddling with my advent calendar?

Me: [sniggering] No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Susie: You little bastard. Those calendars are sacrosanct.

Me: You started it!

Susie: What do you mean, I started it?

Me: You put the pencil in mine!

Susie: What?

Me: What?

Susie: What pencil?

Me: Don’t try that game with me. The pencil … in my … advent calendar … Didn’t you?

Susie: I did no such thing, you horrible brat. How dare you.

Me: Well, who did then?

Susie: [silence] Dad?

Me: I got a tampon last week.

Susie: [longer silence] Mum?

Me: [even longer silence] She has been really stressed, Suse. I think Dad’s heart attack shook her more than we realised. And you know she always goes crazy at Christmas.

Susie: So you’re blaming your mother, are you? That does not seem like the actions of a grateful child. Your poor, aged mother.

Me: Don’t, Suse.

Susie: Alright, alright. Poor Mum. Don’t mention it to her, OK?

Me: OK. And Suse?

Susie: What?

Me: Don’t let the kids open tomorrow’s calendar parcel.

Poor Mum. She does seem pretty stressed at the moment.

December 22nd

Final day in the office before Christmas. Contracts all taken care of until January, publicity all wrapped up – Alice, Carol and I will be on the phone should there be any emergencies – Secret Santa gifts exchanged (gave: a woolly hat to Norman; received: a pack of fake moustaches, obviously), plans gone over and seasonal farewells said. There’s such a holiday mood over all of us, even though we’re a small office: I wonder how much of that is Christmas, and how much is how well we’ve done these last few months in Tony’s absence. Anyway, it’s nice to have these almost-two-weeks stretching ahead of us.

TO DO:

Check I’ve actually done everything?

December 23rd

Drinks with everyone tonight, bliss. Eve and Mike, who brought fresh boxes of stollen for everyone, Alice, Designer Dan, old pal Jim and Poppy, Zoe and Zac, Greta (my bridesmaid-buddy), Thom’s new teaching colleagues Liz, George and Robin, and even Susie and Pete (Mum and Dad had the kids). It was great, the first time I’d seen everyone together since our wedding, and reminded me and Thom both that we didn’t want to give any of this up when the baby arrived. It was always a pleasure to see these people, and for every friend we’d lost touch with over the years, there were new ones: Zoe, Greta, the teachers. This was a nice life, and we’re grateful for it. Eve’s stopped being a frenemy and is just my friend again, Mike brings us baked goods, Zac’s really handsome and Greta and Alice are hilarious – what more could one want from life?

TO DO:

See if this baby can be postponed a couple of years

December 24th

Christmas Eve. I have all my presents bought, wrapped and ready to go, I have my mocktail ingredients in Mum’s fridge (I’ve got everything for several jugs of mock-itos, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to just end up on the dusty Buck’s Fizz as usual) and our flat looks like a grotto explosion, every available surface covered with fairy lights, paper chains, snowflakes, Christmas cards, flocked reindeer, tissue paper snowmen (from the Twins’ school), weathered metal stars and little festive wooden decorations. Our tree was festooned with gold bows and red baubles, and with tiny decorations made by Dad. It was beautiful.

I made us both some mulled wine (so thoroughly mulled I’d be lucky if there was even a breath of booze left in there) and brought two mugs of it through. Thom was sitting on the floor, staring at the tree.

Me: You OK?

Thom: [slightly surprised] Yeah. I am. Are you?

Me: Yes. I like how much this baby moves. And I like you.

Thom: My God, Christmas makes you emotional.

Me: You say that like it’s not fact number one about me.

Thom: Do you like it today?

Me: I do. More and more.

Thom: You’re going to have a baby here next time we do this.

Both: – All going well.

Me: We will. Are you going to cover it in ‘Baby’s First Christmas’ bibs and babygros? Will you get it tiny baby antlers?

Thom: I don’t think they exist.

Me: Well, now we know what we can pitch to Dragon’s Den, don’t we?

We stayed up late tonight, mostly just resting against the sofa, looking at the tree, until suddenly at 11.59 Thom said, ‘Right, get to bed. Father Christmas won’t come otherwise.’ Quite right, too.

December 25th

Oh, a lovely day. Thom woke me up with such wonderful treats, gifts from under the tree and a tray of Christmas breakfast in bed: buttery scrambled eggs and toast, fresh orange juice and tea, and a little mince pie. ‘I’m going to look nine months preg by New Year if you keep this up,’ I warned, stuffing the mince pie in my mouth first. ‘Ah, the beauty of Woman in bloom,’ Thom countered. ‘Plus, blooming woman, we need to be at your mum and dad’s in an hour. Shall we open something here first?’ My mouth still full, I grabbed the nearest gift and thrust it at Thom, nodding, wide-eyed.

Here’s what we got one another:

From Thom:

A new MAC Ruby Woo lipstick (mine’s run out)