Nina held the baby up, turning it round so it looked at each of us with its merciless glare. ‘Imagine the scene. You leave your baby alone for a second while you answer the door. In its high chair, maybe, or on the floor.’ Monica tutted, as if she would never do such a thing. ‘You come back, he’s turning blue. Jax. What do you do?’
I started. Why me? ‘Um . . .’
‘Quick! Your baby is dying!’ I knew it was just role playing, and my baby was safe inside me, but those weren’t the kind of words you wanted to hear when you were pregnant, all the same. I got up, shaky, and knelt down with difficulty on the mat where Nina had deposited the baby. It was the same colour as before – a sort of waxy beige – but I imagined it blue, choking, staring up at me. Save me, Mummy. Oh God. What did I do? I knew nothing about baby first aid, that was why I was here. Tentatively, I put my hands on its chest. It felt rubbery, nothing like a real baby.
‘Full CPR can kill a child,’ said Nina crisply. ‘Their ribs can’t take the pressure.’
‘Then what . . .’
‘Try two fingers. Gentle.’ I massaged the fake baby, feeling both stupid and like a murderer. ‘That’s better. Unfortunately, your baby didn’t need CPR – it was choking on a grape.’
‘Who’d give a baby a grape?’ exclaimed Monica. Me, apparently, the baby dunce. I’d killed him. My baby was dead.
‘Would anyone else like to try?’ Nina took the fake, dead baby, who could apparently come back to life, and held it out. ‘Rahul?’
He came forward, took the baby and immediately held it upside down under his arm. He mimed putting a finger in its mouth. ‘You feel inside, see if you can pull out the thing that’s stuck, then if not slap their back gently like this.’ He showed us. The fake baby juddered.
Nina angled her head. ‘Very good. You’ve had training?’
‘I’m a paramedic,’ he said shyly, as everyone clapped. ‘Kind of cheating.’
‘That’s very lucky.’ She cast a glance at me, as if to say, and good luck to your baby, Jax. ‘It’s so important that parents know these things. A child can choke to death in seconds, drown in an inch of bathwater. We have to be vigilant. We have to be watching all the time. That’s what becoming a parent means – from now on, you’re responsible.’
Beside me, Aaron was taking notes on a little pad he’d bought in WH Smith. Why didn’t I know these things? How did I get to almost forty without knowing how to save the life of another human being? Surely there was nothing more important.
We went round the circle, practising the move Rahul had done so smoothly, and everyone had a go. Kelly held the baby as if it were a bomb that might go off. Monica slapped it so enthusiastically it would probably die of shaken-baby syndrome. Hazel, who it turned out was a personal trainer, also knew how to do CPR, though Cathy was less sure. Aisha did it in a quietly competent way – she was a physiotherapist, she said, and I wondered if she’d met Rahul at the hospital. Aaron was good too – he’d either been watching closely, or he’d learned some first aid before, maybe when working at the bar, maybe in the homes. How did I not even know this about him?
Nina did not give me another chance, and I was too embarrassed to ask. ‘Very good,’ she said to everyone else, and I cravenly wanted her to say it to me too. I told myself it wasn’t a competition, that I was here to learn so I could be the best mum possible, but all the same I felt like I was failing already.
Alison
‘Obviously, we didn’t expect Kelly to turn up to the barbecue.’
Alison was sitting in the kitchen of Hazel Jones and Cathy Hargreaves. Their little boy, Arthur, was strapped to Cathy’s chest in a complicated fabric sling as she made herbal tea. ‘We’re a caffeine-free household,’ Hazel had informed her firmly, and Alison had reluctantly agreed to a mint tea. She and Diana were working apart that day, with Diana chasing up forensics from the body and the crime scene. Monica would be furious at all the activity on her balcony, no doubt. Alison had to admit she felt more at ease without the other woman watching her interviews, judging her probably. Making her feel old and past it. ‘Why did you not expect Kelly?’ she asked.
Hazel widened her eyes, a gesture she had that seemed to indicate incredulity at someone else’s stupidity. In this case, Alison’s. ‘Didn’t you know? Kelly lost her baby. Stillborn at eight months.’
‘It was so awful,’ said Cathy, sounding genuinely distressed. ‘Poor Kelly, she’s so young, and that boyfriend of hers was no help at all. They’ve split up now, I think.’
‘If you ask me, she’s better off.’
‘Hazel!’ Cathy looked shocked.
‘Well, she is. Think how he was at the group, that day, kicking off. Now she’s not tied to that twat for the rest of her life. She can study, make something of herself. Plenty of time to have children later.’
‘Do they know what caused her loss?’ Alison would of course be talking to Kelly herself, but she’d like to go in armed with knowledge, so she didn’t put her foot in it. She filed away the reference to an incident that had happened at the group – that could be relevant.
‘I’m not sure. An infection of some kind, maybe.’ Cathy set their cups on the table, and Alison caught a glimpse of Arthur’s soft baby head between her breasts. Was he comfortable like that? Could he breathe? Was it like an adult having their face stuck in the pantry all day?
‘So, what, she stopped coming to the group after that?’
‘Well, of course she did.’ Hazel reached over Alison to take a mug, blew on it aggressively. ‘All those smug mums. Wouldn’t you?’ It jolted Alison, the exact thing she’d been thinking, coming from this woman she’d assumed she’d have nothing in common with. Then Hazel ruined it by waving her cup and saying, ‘We make our own teabags, you see. We’re a zero-waste household.’
‘Not even nappies?’
Hazel opened her eyes wide again. ‘Especially not nappies. Landfills are absolutely choked with them! We’re doing terry cloth and washing them.’
‘I’m washing them,’ said Cathy, sitting down. She hadn’t made tea for herself. She looked exhausted. ‘Hazel’s not found much time to do it.’
A brief moment of tension went between them, their eyes locked in some kind of silent argument. ‘I’m working,’ Hazel said, looking at Cathy still.
Alison felt she had to step in. ‘You didn’t get maternity leave, Hazel?’
‘No I didn’t – how discriminatory is that? I might sue.’
‘You’re self-employed,’ said Cathy, in a quiet voice. Hazel glared at her.
Alison took a sip of her drink – mint-flavoured hot water. What was the point? She eyed the couple over the rim of the cup, which was lumpy and looked handmade. She was here to examine these two, run her fingers over their lives searching for bumps or cracks. Hazel was toned, fit, tattoos on bare wiry arms in a vest. Her hair had been shaved up into an undercut, in a way that Alison had to admit looked tough and sexy. She moved all the time with restless energy, tapping her fingers and eyeing the room as if looking for something to improve. She was a personal trainer, she’d said, staring at Alison’s doughy middle.