Who Loves You Best (8 page)

I’m engulfed by the familiar rush of guilt. I love both
my children, of course I do. But with Poppy it’s effortless, as automatic as breathing. I have to choose to love Rowan every single day.

“I never know why they’re crying,” I tell Jenna. “You seem to have a sixth sense—”

“I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you, that’s all. Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’ll be much easier next time around.”

“Sounds like an idea,” Marc murmurs, putting his hand on my thigh.

I remove it, my ardor rapidly cooling. “Not in my lifetime.”

“I know we said that two—Christ Almighty!”

He yanks on the steering wheel as a figure stumbles out of the hedgerow, and the Range Rover swerves towards the middle of the road. A car coming in the opposite direction mounts the grass verge to avoid us, horn blaring angrily. Marc slams on the brakes and pulls over to the side of the road, his face white with anger. I twist in my seat and watch Xan stagger towards us, oblivious to the near-accident he just caused, shirttails flapping, laughing as if this is all a huge joke.

Marc buzzes down his window. “What the fuck d’you think you’re playing at?”

“Needed a lift, mate.” Xan grins.

“Don’t ‘mate’ me. If you think I’m taking you anywhere after that—”

“Please, Marc,” I mutter. “He’ll get himself killed if we leave him here.”

Marc’s jaw tightens. He nods tersely towards the back
of the car. “You’ll have to get in the boot. There’s no room in the back.”

“Nice one.”

I climb out and wait for my brother to haul himself into one of the flip-down seats in the rear of the car, making sure he puts his seat belt on. Within minutes, he’s passed out. I glance at him in the rearview mirror. He looks about twelve years old.

I can cope with the careless way Davina behaves towards me; it stings sometimes, but I’m used to it. I try to remember that her own mother died when she was two; instead of sending her to school, her father kept her at home with him and an army of servants who waited on her hand and foot. Davina is shallow and irresponsible and utterly selfish, but is it any wonder? I can’t find it in me to hate her; if anything, I feel sorry for her.

But I’ll never forgive her for what she’s done to Xan.

No one who’s ever seen
Sophie’s Choice
could forget it. That harrowing moment on the railway platform at Auschwitz, when Sophie is forced by the Nazi concentration camp commandant to choose life for one of her two small children, and death for the other.

“Don’t make me choose,” Sophie begs, clutching her children, “I
can’t
choose!” But then, when a young Nazi is told to take them both to the death camp, she releases her daughter, shouting, “Take my little girl!” and has to watch helplessly as the screaming child is carried away to die.

I was only a kid when the film came out, motherhood
a distant glimmer on the horizon, but the scene haunted my sleep for weeks. How could any mother choose between her two children? How would the ensuing grief and guilt not drive you insane?

Except … except that I
would
be able to choose.

“Do you find Poppy … easier?” I ask Marc tentatively the following Monday morning.

Marc finishes knotting his tie. “Rowan can’t help having colic. It’s not his fault.”

“Oh, I know,” I say quickly. “I’m not blaming him. Just, you know. Saying.”

“He’s had a tougher start than Poppy. It’s bound to take him a while to settle down.”

He’s four months old
, I think.

Marc reaches for his jacket. “Look, it’d be nice if Rowan calmed down, sure, but he’ll grow out of it, the physician said so. Until then, we’ll manage.” He smiles. “We’ve done OK so far, haven’t we?”

No one knows what I nearly did that night. Sometimes, even I manage to forget. I tell myself I’d never
really
have pressed that cushion into Rowan’s face; that even if Marc hadn’t come downstairs with Poppy—hiccoughing and tearful, woken yet again by her brother’s screaming—I’d still have thrown the cushion aside, and scooped him into my arms and covered him with kisses, soothing his frantic cries like a good mother. It was just a moment of madness, that’s all. A split-second impulse.

Yet I’m afraid to be alone again with my son. I adore him, but I’m terrified of what I might do, what I’m capable of. How do I know I won’t have that …
impulse …
again?

I’ve read about baby blues, postnatal depression, sleep deprivation; I know what they can do to you. Of course I don’t really want to suffocate my baby! I love Rowan! I’d never
want
to hurt him.

But I can’t be trusted.

Rowan doesn’t bother to cry as I reach into the pram for Poppy. He knows I won’t pick him up until his sister is fed.

“It’s a shame you gave up breast-feeding with Rowan,” Marc says, as I settle into the rocking chair and unhook my nursing bra. “You never know, it might’ve helped.”

“He didn’t want me. He only liked his bottle.”

“
You
only liked his bottle.”

“Come on, Marc. You make it sound like I put him off on purpose.” I swaddle Poppy more tightly in her blanket. “You know how much I like breast-feeding Poppy now. I tried my best with Rowan, but he got too used to the bottle in the hospital—”

“Well, you’d have pulled the plug on it anyway, wouldn’t you?”

“I haven’t pulled the plug with Poppy,” I say, surprised by his tone. “I express milk for her every day—”

Marc shuts the wardrobe door with a little more vigor than necessary. “I still don’t see why you had to rush back to work. You’re the boss; you set the rules. It’s not like you don’t get paid if you’re not there. Anyone would think you didn’t
want
to spend time with your own children.”

I stare at him. First the outburst at Davina’s, and now this. He knows how much my job means to me; and we both need PetalPushers to do well if we’re to pay our massive
mortgage. For years we’ve put in long hours building our respective careers, working weekends and evenings, rarely taking holidays, so we could get to where we are now. It’s meant we’ve had less time together than we’d have liked, but we accepted it as the price we had to pay for our joint success. We discussed having a baby for years, planning when and how to organize it so that it didn’t disrupt our lives or impact us financially. So why is Marc suddenly coming over all Neanderthal on me?

“Fine,” I say shortly. “Why don’t
you
stay home and look after them, and I’ll work? I’m talking twenty-four/seven care, Marc, not a cuddle for thirty minutes before bed when they’re all clean and sleepy, and a walk in the park for an hour or two at weekends. Let’s see how
you
like surviving on three hours’ sleep—”

“You’re not the only one kept awake all night, Clare.”

“I’m the only one actually
up
, though, aren’t I?”

“I’d give my fucking eyeteeth to stay at home with the kids instead of slaving away in an office all day,” Marc says bitterly. “Women don’t know how damn lucky they are to have the choice.”

“Choice?”
I demand lividly. “Is
that
what you call it?”

We glare at each other over Poppy’s head. It feels as if the ground is shifting beneath my feet. I’ve never heard Marc talk like this before. Since when did we become one of those strung-out couples who bicker over whose turn it is to take out the rubbish and indulge in
I’m-more-tired-than-you
competitiveness?

Since we had children and our lives as we knew them ceased.

The truth is that, even though he agreed to it in the end, Marc hasn’t forgiven me for hiring Jenna. I’ve tried to explain how desperate I was, how fretful and anxious, that every time the babies cried it felt like a slap in the face. I tried to describe the endlessness of it, the relentless demands and chaos and incessant neediness. “You said you wanted this,” Marc responded, confused. “You wanted a baby, you
wanted
to stay at home for a while.”

The dreadful thing is, he’s right: This
is
what I wanted. I just had no idea what it really meant. I wanted children, yes; but when I pictured motherhood, what I saw in my head was the baby, not me
with
the baby. I had no idea how much work one child would be, never mind two. But even more than the sleeplessness, the relentless routine, the effort required just to get through the day: I hate being needed. I hate the repetitiveness, the mind-numbing
boredom
. My mother’s right. I can’t do it. Usually unflappable, I’ve been flapping away like a dodo trying to take flight since the birth of the twins. I’ve done everything recommended in all the books, I’ve approached child-rearing like I have everything else in my life, by reading and studying and becoming an expert; and instead of the success that has always rewarded my efforts until now, I’ve failed.
I’ve failed
.

There was only one thing I could do to put things right: hire someone who
was
an expert, someone who could succeed where I had fallen short. Marc’s a professional, a businessman. Surely he can understand that?

“Look, I’m sorry,” Marc says unexpectedly, rubbing his hand over his face. “I didn’t mean to bite your head off. I’m
just stressed out. I’ve had a bitch of a time at the bank. Of course you should work if that’s what you want.”

“It’s only a few days a week—”

“I know. I’ll see you tonight.”

He leaves without kissing me, though he drops a butterfly kiss on Poppy’s forehead, and ruffles Rowan’s pale halo of white curls on his way out.

Five minutes later, Jenna’s glossy bob appears around the door. “Marc didn’t look too happy,” she says, rolling her eyes. “He had a face on him like a slapped arse. Oh, Rowan, baby, are you still waiting for breakfast? You must be starving!”

“I’m just finishing with Poppy—”

She picks up my son. “Don’t worry, I’ll sort out his bottle. Everything OK?”

“Yes, fine.” I hesitate. “Well. Actually, Marc and I had words.”

“Yeah, me and Jamie had a few over the weekend—”

“He doesn’t want me to go back to work.”

She snorts. “I’d like to see him giving up the expense accounts and company car to change shitty nappies.”

Instantly, I regret my impulsive confidence. I’ve got no right to criticize my husband in front of the nanny.

“He’s under a lot of pressure,” I say quickly. “This recession—the bank—”

“Jamie’s the same. All macho,” Jenna says, kissing Rowan’s bare toes.

I feel a pang of something bittersweet as I watch my son gurgle and reach for her; it hurts my chest, my breasts. I’m glad that my children love her, I
want
them to; and yet.

And yet.

She lifts his soft shirt and blows a raspberry on his round belly. “Jamie thinks the man should be the provider, though he doesn’t mind spending my money now that he’s screwed up his business.”

“Oh, but that’s the thing,” I confide. “Marc’s never been like that. He’s always been really proud of what I do, I’ve heard him boast about it to his friends. He’s got five older sisters; he really respects women. Although,” I add thoughtfully, “none of his sisters has worked since they had kids.”

“So you’re going to fire me and stay home after all?”

“Heavens, no. No! I’d go mad if I couldn’t work.”

“He’s just going to have to deal with it, then, isn’t he?”

“I suppose he is,” I agree, smiling.

“You need to make it clear nothing’s changed, Clare. I see it all the time: Men marry a really successful woman, then she has kids, and suddenly he expects her to stay home and turn into a perfect housewife. But if she does, he gets bored with her and fucks off with the au pair.”

Her language is a bit, well, colorful, but she does cheer me up.

“Maybe I
should
fire you if you’re going to run off with my husband.”

“Yeah, but then you’ll be stuck with him forever.”

I laugh. “Oh, Jenna. What would I do without you?”

“I’ll remind you of that next time I want a pay raise.”

I listen to her chatter to Rowan as she takes him downstairs. She thinks I’m joking, but what
would
I do without her? Rowan never laughs like that with me. Jenna is a lifesaver;
my rock. Already, after just two months, she’s become the linchpin of the family.

That first morning, as I waited for her to arrive, I was literally sick with nerves, racing off to the lavatory twice to throw up. Maybe I shouldn’t have hired her; I panicked; maybe I shouldn’t have hired
any
one. I’d made a dreadful mistake. What was I thinking, opening my home to a complete stranger, handing my babies over to someone I barely knew?

And then she arrived, calm and reassuring, radiating competence. I watched Rowan turn to her, like a flower towards the sun, and knew I’d made the right decision.

Jenna imposed order. She had the twins sleeping in their expensive cribs in the nursery within a week (though Marc and I still lapse sometimes on weekends and put them in the pram in our room). The nursery looks like a spread from a parenting magazine: the stuffed animals lined up with artful carelessness, Babygros folded just so, crib sheets so crisp you could bounce a coin off them. No matter how closely I try (and I took a photograph one Friday night after she’d left, so I could copy it precisely) I can never make it look quite the same.

With Jenna in the nursery, I’ve been able to take back control of the rest of my life. I’ve had my hair cut, the leak in the roof has been fixed, I’ve fired the cleaner (who spent all her time drinking my expensive coffee and calling Brazil on my phone) and hired someone who actually knows where the mop is. Craig biked over the account books for PetalPushers, and I’ve caught up with my emails, all four hundred and seven of them. I know that when I go to work
this morning, the twins will be happy and cared for and organized without me.

The real surprise, though, is I how much I enjoy Jenna’s company. We come from different worlds, of course. I don’t expect us to be real friends. But I’ve never had a sister, and Davina and I are hardly close. It’s so nice to have a girl around.

Poppy disengages milkily from my breast, and I button my nightdress and take her down to the kitchen. A month ago, I’d have cringed at the very idea of allowing a virtual stranger to see me half-naked and without my makeup, but it’s as if Jenna and I have signed an unspoken pact, and entered a partnership that’s already intimate. A partnership, I acknowledge, that excludes Marc.