The Baby Group (28 page)

Tiffany's smile faded and she looked down into her coffee cup for a long time.

‘Lots of things scare me,' she said. ‘I keep thinking what if I can't pass the exams? What if Anthony and me break up and I'm on my own? What if I never talk to Mum again?' Her voice cracked on the word ‘Mum' and she paused. ‘I wish all I was doing was sunbathing and playing spin the bottle in the park. That's what I
should
be doing. I mean, I love Ant and Jordan, so much. I really, really do but sometimes I just wish things were different – easy.'

Natalie laid Freddie on the play mat on the floor and struggled up off the beanbag. She went over to Tiffany, putting her arm around her. ‘You miss your mum, don't you?' she asked her simply. ‘You hate her, you're angry with her and she really hurt you but you still miss her. Because she's your mum, right?'

Tiffany nodded. ‘When I was poorly or sad, or I'd hurt myself my mum would always be there. She'd always have room for me in her arms no matter what she was doing. She'd cuddle me and say, “Mum's got you, you're all right now.” I know I shouldn't have gone behind her back, and maybe I was too young to be having sex but we were being careful. I didn't try to get pregnant. And the really bad thing is that I know if it had been a white boy I was pregnant by she would have been OK in the end. She would have taken me in her arms and told me, “You're all right now.”' Tiffany dropped her head onto Natalie's shoulder and Natalie felt the young girl's shoulders trembling under her palms.

‘I bet she misses you too,' she said.

‘But it will never be all right, will it? Because I can't and I don't want to change the colour of my baby's skin. I'm proud of her and Anthony. So nothing will ever be all right again with me and Mum, and I act all strong, Natalie, but sometimes I just want my mum.'

Natalie held onto her tightly.

‘Do you want to go and see her? I'll come with you if you like?' Natalie offered.

Tiffany looked up at her. ‘She'd make mincemeat out of you,' she said with a watery smile.

‘Well, then, let her try,' Natalie said with kamikaze bravado. ‘I happen to be world-class negotiator, not to mention a champ at judo.'

‘Yeah, right,' said Tiffany.

‘That is one of the things I don't like about you, Tiffany,' Natalie said gently. ‘You always see right through me. But seriously, do you want to go? We could go today – unless the whole family will be round for Sunday lunch?'

Tiffany looked thoughtful as she sat up.

‘Dad will be fishing on the canal until at least four, that's when we have Sunday dinner, and Dan will be round his girlfriend's. It will be Mum on her own at home. She says it's her peace day with everyone out of the house. Could we go?' She looked at Natalie questioningly as they heard Jordan stirring in the bedroom, with little hopeful hiccupping cries.

‘We could,' Natalie said.

‘But she won't change her mind,' Tiffany said, shaking her head. ‘About Anthony or Jordan. It's too late.'

Natalie took her by the wrist and pulled her to her feet.

‘It might be,' Natalie said. ‘But there is always the slight possibility that it might not. And that is worth finding out, isn't it?'

Tiffany's family home was a smart 1950s semi with its pebble-dash painted cream and the front garden turned into off-road parking. A jaunty basket of red geraniums hung either side of the front door, and identically planted window boxes sat outside all the front windows. It didn't look like the house of a woman who would punch the friend of her estranged daughter at the least provocation but still, Natalie was nervous as they approached. She had no idea where she got this reckless campaigning spirit from when it came to sorting out her new friends' lives. If she could only confront her own problems with as much direct action as she demanded from Tiffany and Meg, she might have resolved them by now. Perhaps she shouldn't have brought Tiffany here, but when she saw her face this morning as she talked about how much she missed her mum she knew exactly how Tiffany felt. She had been missing her mother for years, even when the woman was living under the same roof as her. If there was a chance for Tiffany to get back some sort of relationship with her mother, Natalie wanted her to take it. Any chance, even the slightest, had to be worth the risk.

‘We'll go round the back,' Tiffany said, her voice lowered as if they were committing some kind of stealth operation. ‘She'll be in the conservatory listening to the radio.'

‘Roger, over and out,' Natalie said as she negotiated Freddie's buggy through the narrow alleyway and past the wheelie bins. Sure enough, on the back of the house was a large Victorian-style conservatory, and sitting with her feet up and her eyes closed was Tiffany's mother.

Natalie had imagined her as a big woman, with meaty arms and maybe a couple of tattoos, but this woman was as slight as her daughter, fashionably dressed, her long brown hair carefully kept. As Natalie observed her she reckoned that if it came to it she could take her on in a fight.

Putting the brake on Jordan's buggy, Tiffany went over to the conservatory door and pushed it open. Her mum didn't stir.

‘Mum?' she said softly and then again, ‘Mum?'

The woman opened her eyes.

‘Tiffany,' she said, sitting up. ‘What are you doing here?' She looked at her daughter and then at Natalie who was standing outside beside the two buggies.

‘You'd better come in,' she said stiffly.

Natalie was staring at a plate of pink wafer biscuit a few minutes later.

So far it had all gone rather well in that there had been no shouting or throwing of things. She noticed that Janine, as she had been instructed reluctantly to call Tiffany's mother, didn't look at either her daughter or her granddaughter as she bustled around the kitchen they were sitting in, finding plates for the biscuits. Worst of all, Natalie noticed that Janine kept glancing up at the kitchen clock every few seconds, obviously keen for Tiffany to be gone.

Finally she sat down and managed to look her daughter in the face.

‘Your dad will be back before long,' she warned coolly. ‘You know how angry he gets.'

‘And what about you?' Tiffany asked her. ‘Are you still angry with me?

Natalie looked at Tiffany, a vulnerable girl who was so obviously in need of a reassuring hug and wondered how her mother could resist putting her arms around her and doing just that. And it wasn't just Tiffany's age that made her seem so fragile, Natalie knew that. Only yesterday she had felt just the same as Tiffany did now, wishing with all her might that she and Sandy could have that strong mythical bond mothers and daughters are supposed to have. Perhaps that's was why she was so interested in trying to get Tiffany and her mother back together. She was almost the same age as Tiffany when things went wrong between her and Sandy, and they had never been right since.

Janine looked enquiringly at Natalie, who had lifted a fretful Freddie out of his buggy and plonked him on her lap. He immediately picked up a teaspoon and shoved it in his mouth.

‘Are you her social worker then?' Janine asked Natalie bluntly.

‘Who, me?' Natalie replied. ‘No, I'm a friend. We go to baby group together. Anthony is helping rewire my house. He's doing a really good job, he's a good kid. Hard-working, responsible – you don't meet many like that at his age.'

Natalie hadn't actually met any other seventeen-year-old boys since she was seventeen (if you didn't count poor old Bob's grandson), so she had no idea what they were like. Still, it seemed like the right thing to say.

‘I see,' Janine said, with a nod at Tiffany. ‘You brought her here to interfere with our private business.'

‘No, Mum I . . .'

‘She brought me for moral support,' Natalie said firmly. ‘And because a couple of hours ago she was crying on my shoulder over how much she missed her mum.'

‘Well,' Janine said, looking down at her lemon gingham wipe-clean tablecloth. ‘Well, she had her chance, she made her choices.'

Natalie was about to speak again when the look on Tiffany's face stopped her.

‘I'm doing my GCSEs in September, Mum,' Tiffany said in a small voice. ‘I'm getting help in the holidays and I'm going to college next year, like I always planned.'

There was silence.

‘Jordon's doing really well,' Tiffany went on, smiling down at the gurgling baby who was happily gnawing on her buggy book. ‘She's got two teeth now, another one on the way I think. She crawls everywhere and since she's been on solids she's growing so quickly, sometimes I think she'll . . .' Tiffany trailed off; her mother was looking at the clock again.

‘I suppose we'd better go then,' Tiffany said.

‘You better had,' Janine agreed.

As Tiffany rose from her chair Natalie put a hand on her wrist and she sat back down.

‘Is this really what you want, Janine?' Natalie asked.

Janine looked at her. ‘I don't see how it is any business of yours,' she said.

‘It's not, except that I can't imagine this is really how you want it to be with your little girl. Why are you punishing her for doing nothing more than thousands of other girls her age do every year, and not half so many deal with so well? You've brought her up to be this amazingly strong and resourceful girl, she must have learnt her mothering skills from you and she's a damn good mother. You look like an intelligent woman, and I know because Tiffany's told me that you two were very close. Do you really want to destroy your relationship with your daughter and granddaughter over a non-existent problem? Is it really worth it?'

Tiffany gasped and stared at her mother as Natalie braced herself for a barrage of angry abuse. But Janine didn't move. A few seconds ticked by on the clock, the only sound to break the otherwise total silence.

‘I miss her too,' Janine said, speaking about her daughter in the third person. ‘I wonder how she's doing, how the little one is. I know that boy is taking good care of her, people tell me. But it's her dad. He won't have it.' She shook her head, hopelessly. ‘He's stuck in his ways and stubborn. I said to him maybe we could try to get to know the boy, get along with him, maybe meet his family. But like I said, he won't have it. He's an ignorant old fool.' She looked down at Jordan in her buggy for the first time, and was rewarded with a gap-toothed smile.

‘She's beautiful,' she said, acknowledging Tiffany at last. ‘You're doing well. A first baby is hard to manage.'

‘You could still see us,' Tiffany said, her tone so hopeful Natalie felt her eyes prick with tears. ‘Dad doesn't have to come. You could come and see us . . . you wouldn't
have
to tell him.'

Janine looked at her daughter and shook her head. ‘I can't go behind his back,' she said, with finality. ‘You know I can't. We've been married twenty-eight years. We trust each other. He's not a bad man, just a stupid one.' Her smile was bitter as she looked down into her teacup. ‘You know, I think it was the shock that did it – when you told us you were pregnant. I just don't think that he ever,
we
ever, expected it would be our little girl. Always so good, always worked hard at school, never out later than you were supposed to be. He still saw you as the little girl who used to sit on his lap and read with him not so long ago. He was shocked and hurt, Tiffany. He latched onto the first thing he could think of to try to break you and Anthony up and to keep you as his little girl, pregnant or not. But you didn't choose him, you chose Anthony. And that hurt him.'

‘I didn't mean to hurt him,' Tiffany said. ‘But how could I choose? I love Dad but I love Anthony too and he loves me, Mum, he really does.'

Janine nodded slowly. ‘Yes, it does look that way, that's for sure,' she said thoughtfully. ‘I think if things had happened differently, maybe when you were a bit older, he would have been fine with Anthony. But he's said what he's said now. He's made his stand and he hates to admit he's in the wrong, you know that, Tiff. Once his mind is made up it's impossible to change it.'

‘But I miss you, Mum – I need you,' Tiffany pleaded, her voice breaking.

Janine looked at Tiffany, her eyes brimming with tears, but she did not make a move to touch her.

‘Dad'll be back soon,' she repeated, her voice trembling. ‘You'd better go, love, hey?'

Tiffany scraped her chair back and hurried out of the house as fast as she could with Jordan in the buggy, as Natalie strapped Freddie into his. Janine sat perfectly still, her elbows resting on the kitchen table as she held onto the teacup she had yet to drink from.

‘He's the most precious thing in my life,' Natalie said to her, nodding at her son. ‘I'd never let anything stand in the way of being his mum. I can see how much you love her, Janine, don't lose her for ever.'

When she got outside she found Tiffany sitting on the front wall furiously wiping away her tears with the sleeves of her jumper.

‘I told you it was too late,' she said when Natalie stopped beside her.

Natalie shook her head. ‘I don't think it is, I think you really got through to your mum there and anyway, whatever happens you tried, and that's important. It really is. I'm proud of you.'

‘Will you stop being proud of me,' Tiffany said with a loud sniff as she stood up and defiantly shook her hair off her shoulders. ‘It's getting to be embarrassing.'

‘Come on,' Natalie smiled. ‘How about you come back to my place, I'll cook us lunch, we'll eat a load of cake and watch my
Dirty Dancing
DVD. It never fails to cheer me up.'