Three Angry Women and a Baby Read online

  Three Angry Women And A Baby

  A Heart Warming Feel-Good Romantic Comedy

  Kerrie Noor

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Sheryl

  2. Steven

  3. Mum

  4. Henry

  5. The Hospital

  6. Homecoming

  7. Helen

  8. The Library

  9. Home

  10. Redundancy

  11. Amy

  12. Sheep

  13. Seagulls

  14. Girls’ Night Out

  15. The Parking Attendant

  16. The Lawyer

  17. Zinc Cream

  18. Sex and Trees

  19. The Argument

  20. The Dishwasher

  21. The Library

  22. The Plan

  23. A Blast from the Past

  24. Cocolder Again

  25. The Taj

  26. The Breaking of a Wheelchair

  27. Another Bonfire

  28. Viral

  29. Silence

  30. The Codpiece

  31. The Proclaimers

  32. The Reporter

  33. The Dinner

  34. The Dance

  35. The Wedding

  36. The Comm

  37. The Pelvis and Elvis

  38. Resurrection

  39. Making Up

  40. They

  41. Forgiveness

  Epilogue

  A Note From The Author

  The Real Story Of “O”

  A Free Short Story Bonus

  Prologue

  Beatrice looked at her phone, then nudged George. “All systems go,” she said.

  George flicked on the light. “What?”

  “It’s happening.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “The baby,” said Beatrice.

  “Now—in the middle of the night?” said George.

  “Yes. That’s when babies come, in the middle of the night.”

  George pulled a face. “But we don’t have to get up, do we? I mean, what are you going to do?”

  “Be there,” said Beatrice.

  “Where, Glasgow?”

  “She’s having a home birth,” said Beatrice.

  “No one has a home birth in Ardrishaig, it’s the middle of nowhere.”

  “Well, she might.”

  “She never talked about it.”

  “Look, just get me there,” said Beatrice.

  George looked at Beatrice. Is she calmable?

  He took a chance.

  “The last thing she needs is you in the way. Steven will call us.”

  Beatrice grunted and pulled her wheelchair closer to the bed.

  “What are you doing now?” snapped George.

  “I can’t sleep,” said Beatrice.

  “Here, let me,” said George.

  “No, it’s all right, wouldn’t want to disturb your sleep. I can do it.”

  “I said let me,” said George.

  Beatrice pulled the chair closer, overbalanced, and fell off the side of the bed onto the floor with one leg inelegantly tangled in the sheets.

  She tugged at her leg.

  “Told you,” said George.

  “No you didn’t,” snapped Beatrice.

  Sheryl looked at her baby and didn’t feel anything. She knew she was supposed to feel something, but she felt nothing.

  Steven kissed the top of her head and looked at his wife. “She’s beautiful.”

  Nothing.

  He kissed the baby’s head and then hers again.

  “My beautiful wife.”

  Nothing.

  She wanted to cry. Instead, she sighed. Maybe I’ll feel . . . when I get home.

  Sheryl passed the baby to Steven.

  “You think of a name. I need some sleep.”

  The nurse looked at Steven. Sheryl, clocking the look, let out another sigh and rolled over.

  Steven, with his precious bundle in his arms, walked to the window. It was like he was in a film. He was so happy—a beautiful baby girl, just like Sheryl. He stared down at her delicate features: the tiny fingers, the button nose. He slid a finger into her hand and her pink fingers curled around it. She was so small.

  He stared into the morning sun, drinking in the fragrance of a newborn. “Our first day together, honey.”

  He turned to look at his delicious wife, her curved back to him. The nurse threw a she’s tired look.

  “There’s plenty of time for names,” he whispered to his daughter, “isn’t there, sweetie?”

  Sheryl snored.

  Sheryl spent the next day in bed trying not to think about the package in the cot beside her. When the package cried, the nurse picked it up, and Sheryl feigned sleep.

  “She’s hungry,” said the nurse.

  Sheryl whipped her eyes open and looked at the tiny face. I want to feel something, but I can’t.

  A middle-aged woman patted her on the arm. “That’s right, make the most of the time in here. You’ll need it once you get home.”

  “Aye, that’s right,” said a young woman in the next bed, “it’ll be weeks before you get a night to yourself.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that,” said the nurse.

  “You feeding the wee one yourself?” said the young mother.

  Sheryl nodded.

  “Make that months,” she said.

  Chapter One

  Sheryl

  A stitch in time saves bugger all.

  “I hear you’re a belly dancer,” said the consultant. “Been doing it long?”

  “Ten years,” I muttered, closing my legs.

  He covered me up with a tap on my knee. “That explains it.”

  “What?”

  “You got hips that expand like a snake’s jaw,” he said, laughing. “You could swallow a car.”

  The doctor chuckled as I glared at him with my best is that supposed to be funny? look. My fanny had had more viewings than a house auction with instruments that would scare a masochist, and I was supposed to enjoy a stupid joke?

  “Car,” I said with an angry tug at my sheet. “And what size we talking of—mini, four-wheel-drive, limo?”

  The doctor flicked his gloves from his hand and tossed them in the bin. “Sense of humour, very good.” He smiled, muttering something about my ability to close like a clam.

  I was in the middle of a large birthing room with a door that swung open at a whisper of a wind and a foghorn-voiced doctor shouting out the size of my pelvis at a volume that I was sure even the café across the road could hear.

  I glared as the consultant lathered his hands under the tap, pulled a towel from the holder, and, without looking at me, continued on about dilations and the like. The two nurses nodded while the teenage-looking students took notes. They didn’t look old enough to watch a porn film, let alone handle a dilator.

  According to the nurse, he—the consultant—was eccentric, and I was to take any so-called joke with a pinch of “whatever.” It was one of the first things she said when I arrived, along with “get undressed,” “put this on,” and “we need a specimen.”

  “A while yet,” he muttered to the older nurse.

  I watched him leave, his white coat flowing like he was a caped crusader, his porn virgins following.

  “Snake jaw,” I said. “What sort of friggin’ bedside manner is that?”

  “He’s Polish,” said the older nurse, like somehow that explained something.

  “Polish?” I muttered. “What’s that got to do with parking cars?”

  “He always talks about cars,” muttered the younger nurse.

  The older nurse smoothed down my sheet. “But he is the best. Honest
ly, if I were having a baby, he’s the man I’d want.” She looked at the younger nurse. “His episiotomies are talked about for months.”

  “Seamless,” said the younger nurse.

  I gulped. “Cuts . . . down there?”

  “But don’t panic.” The older nurse patted my arm. “He hardly does them.”

  “He’s more a caesarean guy, very safe,” said the younger nurse.

  I looked at Steven, who had just entered. “Caesarean?” I yelped. “But I did yoga and breathing.”

  “Honey, you have the best, he’s very good. Parking cars is just his way of lightening the mood.”

  “Parking cars?” Steven looked at me, confused.

  “Mood lightening?” I turned Steven. “Apparently, talking about my bits like I’m a garage will have me laughing though my labour.”

  “It’s to take your mind off things,” said Steven with an is she okay? look at the nurse.

  “Take my mind off things? That’s like saying hit your head against the wall and you won’t feel any pain when they cut your peri-fucking-neum.”

  “Let’s just leave the perineum out of it,” muttered Steven.

  I let out a manic laugh that even I didn’t recognise; my moods were seesawing all over the place.

  “My mother’s been going on about my perineum for months in fact, ever since I told her I was pregnant,” I joked.

  Steven rolled his eyes. “She mentioned it a few times.”

  “‘Olive oil and rubbing,’ she says, ‘will keep you like a virgin.’”

  Steven threw a look at the older nurse. “She never said that, your mum doesn’t believe in virgins.”

  “Steven hasn’t fried anything for weeks.” I laughed again and then burst into tears. “My mother’s put him off olive oil for life.”

  Steven looked from one nurse to another, mumbling something about medication.

  “Medication? That’s your answer to everything,” I snapped.

  “Well . . . it might help, the breathing certainly isn’t.”

  “Well, you’re not trying to push out a tow truck though a pinhole, are you?” I snapped.

  “Perhaps it’s time for some more medication,” muttered the older nurse.

  Hours ago, excited, happy, and enthusiastic for a deliciously simple natural birth, I had been whipped into a labour room and given a gown the size of a napkin which hardly covered my breast.

  “Is this for nose blowing?” I laughed.

  The nurse, a young woman who was bustling in the corner with instruments, laughed out loud. “No dignity in this place,” she said.

  “It’s like a doll’s dress,” I said, causing more giggles, until the older nurse entered.

  “Having babies is no laughing matter,” she said to me, “it’s serious.”

  She eyed me, perched on a bedpan like a buoy in the water. “You done anything in that pan yet?”

  I mentioned something about waiting for everyone to leave, sending a series of tuts from the older nurse.

  Apparently, I had the consultant of all consultants and should be poised for inspection like a cow waiting for an insemination.

  “You’re lucky he’s on tonight,” she added before leaving.

  The door swung open. I stared into the corridor, grateful it was empty. Perched on a bedpan is not something you want anyone to see.

  When I discovered I was pregnant, I was so excited, so happy. Steven had bought a pregnancy test, and as we looked at the blue marker, he cried. We had wanted a baby for so long.

  I prepared myself for my birth with yoga moves, belly dancing, and birth classes, rubbing oil on bits and pieces while visualising me glowing with a baby in my arms, Steven beside me, and whale music in the background.

  Nothing is funny when you are having a baby. No one tells you how scared you become, how despite the whole world and its dog in the room with you, you are on your own. And no matter how many hold your hand, rub your back, and tell you “you’re doing great,” you are scared, petrified, that along with the baby, all your innards are going to burst out onto the table, the floor, and even the walls, and you’ll never able to shit on your own again.

  When my daughter arrived, Steven punched the air like a football player, kissed me a thousand times, and then punched the air again.

  I felt nothing but a huge desire to sleep and was just in the process of doing so when I felt a burning poker sear into the flesh somewhere down below.

  I jolted.

  My legs were spread out like a dissected frog, the consultant was playing cross-stitch with my bits below, while my daughter was being attended to under a chorus of “she’s lovely,” “she’s beautiful,” and “so like her dad.”

  “Keep still,” snapped a male voice.

  I did my best, gritting my teeth with each tug as Steven told the world and my mother that our baby girl was apparently the image of him.

  “Yes, all fingers and toes,” he laughed. “And Sheryl? Yes, she’s fine, waiting for her tea and toast.”

  When it was over, I, sipping the best tea I had ever tasted in my life, cracked a joke about tapestry and how my husband would appreciate the artistic display next time he was “down there.”

  The consultant flicked off his gloves and moved to the sink. I was just about to sink my teeth into my toast when he, without looking up, said, “Don’t I know you?”

  I looked at the nurses, then Steven. Know me? I mouthed. The only thing he’s seen is my fanny.

  “Don’t worry,” said the young nurse. “He says that to all the girls.”

  “He’s Polish,” added the older nurse.

  Chapter Two

  Steven

  Great sex comes when you least expect it.

  Turns out the consultant did know me, or rather he recognised me, and I wasn’t sure it was a compliment or not. He had remembered me from ten years ago in Glasgow, where my dancing, according to him, had inspired his daughter.

  Did I look that bad ten years ago, or did I look that good after having a baby?

  The notion had me staring into my tea until the older nurse kindly explained he had recognised me from my notes.

  “And here’s me thinking I hadn’t aged.” I laughed out loud and yet again burst into tears.

  Ten years ago, I performed to a crowd-filled street in Glasgow and also saw Steven in his boxers for the first time. I ripped them off in a frenzy of lust and wine and he had to eat his fry-up in commando the next morning, which we both found strangely erotic.

  In fact, for the next few years, everything was erotic to us, from dipping strips of bread into a boiled egg to polishing a doorknob; one look a mundane task could send us searching for the great underrated “quickie.”

  That night, in my hotel room, Steven declared that I was his muse, his best friend, and that life without me was not worth living. We had emptied the complimentary drink cabinet at the time, which was enough to make a packet of out-of-date peanuts taste like luxury and removing a coin belt as difficult as untangling a wool ball.

  “Never try to strip with a coin belt,” I laughed, unhinging it from my bra. “It catches everything.”

  Steven wrapped it around his boxer shorts and managed a few pelvic thrusts that had me ripping his boxer shorts off and tossing them in the bin. All those hours of waiting and eye contact. He was like a present sitting under a Christmas tree—waiting to be opened.

  That night, as the whole world (well, Glasgow) celebrated Nefertiti’s dancing, Steven walked me back to our hotel and never left my room.

  Nefertiti, my belly dancing teacher, had pulled a group of us together and called us the Sisterhood. Our first performance was in Glasgow. For me, a tubby woman who didn’t like being seen in a bathing suit, let alone showing my belly, it was a liberating experience that set my libido soaring. Hips circling can do that to a girl, especially in front of a cheering audience in a costume that would make Miss Piggy shaggable. We had been practicing for months, and on the big day, Steven, who was in charge of dr
iving, had the journey planned, with freshly ground coffee, herby baguettes filled with salad and cheese, and some yoghurt to follow.

  “Something light,” he said, “before the performance.”

  How could a woman turn down a homemade herby baguette? Especially when feeling like the Queen of Sheba?

  We danced to drums, and I, in the front, was, for one song, the main event. The funny thing was, the only person I saw was Steven.

  His warm body took me by surprise. We laughed and talked on a creaky bed that rocked with each movement and a headboard that crashed against the wall louder than any moans. We messed up the bed and caused mass destruction in the bathroom and laughed until we fell asleep.

  I forgot about the moaning and the rattling bedhead until the next morning, when Steven, sitting uncomfortably in his jeans dipping bread into his fried egg, was asked by the waitress if he had “slept well?”

  The old man at the next table glared over his scrambled egg, then muttered to his wife, “Sleep well? This place is like a knocking shop with friggin’ tissue paper for walls.”

  Within a year, Steven had moved in, helping to set up my “no job too small” DIY business. I was living in a converted garage in my mother’s garden. It had been converted on the cheap; I hadn’t planned to stay long. Ten years later, staring at the blue strip of the pregnancy test, Steven looked about the tiny sitting-room-come-kitchen-come-pull-out-bed-bedroom and muttered about moving.