The Weaning

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The brass doorknocker is shaped like a hand. I take the hand in mine and knock.

I have an interview with ‘Nikki’ who needs a childminder. My First Aid training and child safety certificates are in my bag.

No answer. I knock again then check my phone to make sure I have the right house.

M sleeping so pls don’t knock – ring when u get here thanx

From somewhere inside, a door bangs and footsteps sound. A woman opens the door. Her dark hair is cut into a neat, geometric style and contrasts with her white linen dress. She wears Kohl eye make-up, silver bangles and a plain silver necklace.

‘I’m Bobbi,’ I say. ‘Sorry, I didn’t get your text till after I knocked. Did I wake him?’

She tells me it’s alright, the baby’s still asleep and to come on in. I wipe my feet on the doormat, which has the word ‘Enter’ written on it in black letters.

‘Take them off if you like,’ Nikki says.

‘Shall I?’

She has bare feet.

‘If you like – whatever makes you feel comfortable.’

She waits while I take off my shoes. I remove my socks too and stuff them inside my bag alongside my certificates.

‘Come through, we’re in the garden.’

I am barefoot like her. The black and white tiles of the hallway feel cool. She ushers me down a corridor lined with framed black and white photographs on the walls. One of the photographs shows an exotic looking beach, another is of a wedding and there is a large close-up portrait of a baby. Nikki pauses at the end of the hallway while I study the portrait.

‘That’s him,’ she says.

‘He’s beautiful.’

‘He’s going to be a heartbreaker, that’s for sure.’

The baby looks at me with a serious expression. He has the dark hair and dark eyes of an Indian prince or a 1940s cinema idol. I hold his stare while his mother waits.

At the end of the hallway, double doors lead onto a pretty walled garden. Toys are laid out on a rug and a woman sits at a patio table, eyes closed, her face lifted to the sun.

‘My health visitor,’ Nikki explains.

‘I’m just going,’ the health visitor says, but she doesn’t move.

Nikki’s bracelets jangle as she pours me some water from a jug.

‘That’s pretty,’ she says, noticing the tattoo on my wrist of a Russian doll, cheerful and rosy-cheeked. I hold out my wrist and Babushka smiles at us.

‘It must have hurt,’ the health visitor says. ‘Having it done there where the skin’s so thin.’

Her eyes are still closed so I don’t know how she has seen my tattoo.

I get my certificates out of my bag. One of my socks tumbles onto the wrought iron table and I quickly pocket it. An electronic baby monitor in the middle of the table crackles and lets out a sigh.

‘We’ll go and get him in a bit,’ Nikki says.

But this baby is eager to meet me – the monitor lets out a yelp and the lights on its display bounce. The health visitor opens her eyes at last and scrapes her chair away from the table.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she says.

We follow her to the front door where she reminds Nikki of their next appointment. Nikki writes the date in a thick desk diary on the hallway table. Once the health visitor has left, Nikki turns to me.

‘I’m struggling, to be honest,’ she says. ‘I’m just not confident I know what I’m doing.’

‘I’m sure you’re doing everything fine,’ I tell her.

‘One of the reasons I thought you might be suitable,’ she says, ‘is that you’re a bit older and a mother yourself.’

She lays her pen down on the open diary. ‘Is it a girl or a boy you’ve got?’

‘One of each.’

‘Nice. That’s what I want.’

We climb the stairs and outside a closed door on the uppermost landing Nikki holds a finger to her lips. She opens the door and we move into the room. I can hear the baby breathing. He stirs. Soft carpet presses between my toes. Nikki opens the curtains a chink and a bar of sunlight reveals him lying in a cot in the centre of the room. He turns his head to follow his mother. In the womb he would have been sensitive to shifts from dark to light, from asleep to awake, and now here he is, outside of her body, waiting to see what will happen.

‘I like him to have a gentle waking rhythm,’ Nikki whispers.

The baby lies still, trying to decipher the sounds his mother is making. I take a step closer and he hears me, turns his face. His dark eyes hold mine and the rest of the world falls away. I have never met this child but I know him. I know him, and I feel sure he knows me – the intelligence in his eyes tell me so.

‘Hello, Pickle’ Nikki says. ‘Hello, Babu.’

She lifts him out of his cot, carrying him to the window where she opens the curtains fully. He blinks in the sunshine, twisting in her arms to look at me.

‘Who’s this, Marcel? Who’s this, eh?’

She bounces him on her hip.

‘Hello, Marcel,’ I say, and I take his hand to save me from drowning in the dark of his eyes.

‘I’ll show you around,’ Nikki says. ‘Come.’

Still holding her child’s small warm hand, I follow her out of the room. On the landing, his mother opens another door.

‘Guest room.’

We stand on the threshold, poking our faces into the room, which has sloping eaves and a tiny fireplace, like a doll’s house.

‘I guess if we have another baby this will be his or hers,’ says Nikki.

‘Are you planning to have another one?’

‘Oh yes, but not for a year or so – give this little monkey some time of his own first.’

His fingers are tight around two of mine as we move downstairs to the second floor. His dark head bobs against Nikki’s white linen shoulder.

‘Our room,’ she says, holding open a door.

A smell of lavender hangs in the air and there are more black and white photographs like the ones downstairs, including a framed contact sheet on the wall above the marital bed which charts the pregnancy of a faceless, naked woman.

‘My husband took those,’ Nikki says, following my gaze.

‘Is he a photographer?’

‘Writer. You’ll meet him.’

‘What kind of things does he write?’

‘Oh, it’s ghost-writing projects mainly – that’s where the money is. But there have been a couple of novels.’

She rearranges some necklaces that lie on the top of a chest of drawers. Marcel watches her movements and lets go of my hand to reach for the jewellery.

‘Not those,’ she says. ‘They’re mummy’s.’

‘And what is it that you do?’ I ask.

‘I’m a PR officer for a charity campaigning to raise awareness of modern-day slaves,’ she says.

‘Are there still slaves, then?’ I ask.

‘You’d be surprised. And not just overseas. There have been prosecutions in this country.’

She turns and leads the way across the landing to a white-tiled bathroom. The window is open and looks out into the tops of trees. Their fresh green smell fills the space and mingles with the perfume of expensive soap – sandalwood and cinnamon. A white painted washstand holds a changing mat printed with yellow ducklings.

‘He’s in washable nappies,’ Nikki says. ‘Trying to do our bit.’

She opens an airing cupboard that is neatly stacked with nappies, flannels and towels. All three of us stare at the clean linens. Then she wrinkles her nose and sniffs.

‘Have you done something?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Not you. He’s terribly constipated – just the tiniest nuggets but no real issue. Would you mind? It’s a two-man job.’

She lays Marcel on the duckling changing mat and asks me to hold down his arms. He stares at me as his mother pulls off his clothes and inspects the contents of his nappy. I smile at him, but he remains solemn.

‘Poor lamb, you really are bunged up, aren’t you,’ Nikki says.

She holds both his ankles, lifting them in one hand to clean his bottom with the other, wiping, then releasing his ankles and dabbing quickly at his penis with a fresh wipe. Then she fastens a new nappy and asks if I will take him. My fingertips scrape against the cool plastic of the changing mat as I pick him up and I can’t help rocking from one foot to another – as if his weight sets off a rhythm inside me. I kiss his hair. He smells of warm bed.

‘I can see you two are going to get along,’ Nikki says, glancing at us in the mirror above the sink where she is washing her hands. Then she turns to face me.

‘I don’t suppose you could spare an hour or two now, could you? I could get some work done while you hang out in the garden.’

‘Of course,’ I say.

‘Wonderful! Thank you so much!’

We go downstairs with me treading oh so carefully, imagining how his little body would thud and bounce if I dropped him.

‘Lounge.’

This room is large and airy, furnished with leather sofas, Indian rugs, and an old-fashioned writing desk in one corner. The walls are hung with large abstract paintings.

‘Who’s the artist?’ I ask.

‘My father-in-law,’ Nikki says. ‘He was quite famous in his day. I’m not sure I like his work much, but there you have it.’

She gazes at the canvases and so does Marcel. He has the poise of a miniature Maharajah surveying his estate, but I feel him tense with excitement when Nikki pulls out a crate from the bottom shelf of a bookcase.

‘Toys.’

She shoves the crate back into place and our tour of the house ends in the basement kitchen where I am shown bottles and teats in a state-of-the-art steriliser.

‘He usually has a bottle around now,’ she says.

‘Would you like me to feed him?’

‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’

‘Of course not.’

‘And this would be gratis?’

‘Sorry?’

‘A free trial, as it were.’

She fixes me with her brown-black eyes.

‘Yes,’ I say.

She makes up a bottle and watches me settle with her child on one of the dining chairs, which are transparent, made from clear Perspex or fibre glass.

‘Give me a shout if you need anything,’ she says.

‘We won’t need anything,’ I say.

Marcel watches her go out of the room as I tilt the bottle to his mouth. The gesture, the angle, everything about this movement is as familiar as if I were tilting it to mine. He begins to suck but keeps his gaze fixed on the space his mother has left. When he realises she isn’t coming back he turns his eyes on me, staring into my face. I pretend not to notice his interest, looking around the room to allow him to study me while he feeds.

The kitchen cabinets and surfaces are white and everything gleams. The black and white floor tiles are like a giant chessboard. An old-fashioned clock hangs on one wall, while on the other a poster shows a friendly nurse in a starched white head-dress. She holds a tray on which there is a packet bearing the same image, of the benign-looking nurse with rosebud lips and shiny cheeks, holding her tray which carries the same packet with the same image, and so on into infinity, it seems. I stare and stare at the poster, trying