* * *
In August, Lucy had an endless bout of colic, and she screamed for ten days solid. The doctor prescribed Infacol, which didn’t help, and told me to come back in two weeks’ time. I was shattered.
Mum had promised to take Lucy off my hands on Monday, her day off, so that I could have a break from it all, but I wasn’t sure I could make it to Monday. By Saturday night I was almost in tears from lack of sleep.
I’d juggle her and burp her and rock her. I’d push her along the seafront and bounce fluffy toys in her face. But nothing worked at all. She screamed and screamed, and sometimes she screamed so much that she actually went a bit blue.
That Saturday night Rob got home late to find me at the end of my tether. He’d been out for a pint with his friend Andy and looked glassy-eyed from a combination of tiredness and beer.
‘Sorry about this,’ I said, speaking loudly to be heard over Lucy’s screams. ‘She hasn’t stopped once all day.’ I stood and vacated the lounge so that poor Rob could watch the television in peace, taking my bundle of angst up to my room at the top of the house.
‘Please stop, Lucy,’ I said, closing the door firmly behind us.
I paced the small room, rocking her in my arms, squinting at the pain her screams were provoking inside my head.
I laid her down on the bed, but, though I hadn’t thought it possible, she got louder, so I picked her up again and crossed to the window and looked out at the moonlit sea. I thought about the three-storey drop to the road below and though I truly didn’t consider throwing her out of the window, it would be a lie to say that the thought wasn’t somehow present in the air, that night.
I sat on the bed and rocked her in my arms. ‘Please, please, just stop,’ I said, looking down at her furious little face. I began to cry, silent tears of utter hopeless exhaustion, trickling down my face. ‘Lucy, I can’t do this,’ I told her. ‘I just don’t know what you want.’
I offered her my breast – she pushed it away. I put the dummy in – she spat it out.
There was a gentle rap on the door, but I didn’t want to see Rob, so I pretended not to hear it.
It came again, so I shouted out, angrily, ‘Yes, Rob,what?’
‘Can I come in?’ he replied, the door easing open a crack. ‘Are you decent?’
‘Yes, I’m decent, Rob, and I’m sorry, and I know it’s late, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it, so go and put earplugs in or something.’
His big round face appeared between the door and the frame. ‘You must be exhausted,’ he said so softly that above Lucy’s screams he was barely audible.
I started to open my mouth to reply, but nothing came out. Instead, I started to cry again.
‘Oh, oh, oh…’ Rob said, crossing the room and sitting beside me on the bed. He laid one hand on my shoulder and I started to sob properly.
‘I don’t know what to do, Rob,’ I told him. ‘I’ve tried everything and I’m just… I don’t know what to do. I’m no good at this.’
‘Here,’ he said, reaching out. ‘Give her to me and go downstairs and sleep. Have a kip on the sofa. You can hardly hear her in the lounge.’
‘But…’ I protested weakly.
‘Lucy Boop and me will be fine,’ he said. Nestled in his arms she looked smaller, and instantly less terrifying.
I scanned Rob’s features and I wondered how drunk he was. I wondered if I was a bad mother for handing my baby over to a man who’d been drinking. But then, after taking a deep breath, she started screaming again and I just couldn’t stay in the room a second longer. ‘Maybe just for half an hour?’ I offered.
‘Whatever,’ Rob said. ‘Take as long as you need.’
I went downstairs and made myself a cup of tea and then attempted to watch TV. But I couldn’t concentrate on anything anyone was saying. I was too busy listening for Lucy’s screams.
Finally, I switched the TV off and crept back upstairs until I could peep through the banisters. Rob was sitting on the bed in a nest of plumped-up cushions, eyes closed, with Lucy clamped against his chest. She was still crying, but with considerably less gusto than before. Rob was alternating between humming and quietly singing the words to that summer’s chart hit: ‘Gypsy Woman (la da dee la da da)’. Something about the sight of them together made me tearful all over again, but in a good way.
I woke up about five the next morning when the first daylight began to creep through the lounge windows. The house was silent, which made me panicky, so I quietly sprinted back upstairs to check on them. The thought thatRobmight have lost the plot and chucked Lucy out of the window did actually cross my mind.
But I found them in my room, pretty much as I’d left them: Rob still fully clothed on my single bed, nestled round Lucy, finally silent, sleeping with her little rosebud mouth open. Something big shifted within me at that moment, something that’s kind of hard to describe.
Looking back, I think that maybe the whole thing aboutlikingandlovingisn’t that having one word is better, or worse, than having two. It’s more that, perhaps, we actually need loads more words. It’s that we really needso manywords to properly describe all the different kinds of love that having one, or just two, is neither here nor there.
Because there’s the love you feel for your mother, the woman who gave birth to you, who you depended on, and the love you feel for your father, and they are entirely different kinds of love. There’s the love you feel for a brother or sister, and the fierce protective –hurt them and I will kill you– love you feel for your kids. There’s love for friends, who make you laugh and feel good about yourself – and love for just about any other human you see suffering on the news. There’s romantic, sexy love, that makes you want to get so close that you end up making babies, and the inexplicable love you have for an old cat or dog you’ve had for years. My point is, I suppose, that the list just goes on and on.
