Read by Elizabeth Bower
Everybody said the first baby was the hardest. All the books told you what to expect, then completely undermined that by saying every baby was different and that really, nobody knew what to expect. Her friends' experiences with their own kids had ranged from the nightmarish to the transcendental – but in all Jo's NCT classes, breastfeeding coffee mornings (not that you were really supposed to drink it) and furtive internet searches, she'd never come across anything like this.
And then she'd tried weaning him.
During the first endless weeks, after Pete had scurried eagerly back to work from the purgatory of paternity leave and she and Eddie were left alone together, Jo had often thanked the Gods, Fate, genetics, luck or whatever that Eddie was such an easy baby. She was determined to do this mothering thing properly: she'd bought all the books and signed up to every website and class going, from newborn massage to baby sign-language, but hardly any of it had turned out to be necessary in the end. He'd slept through the night almost from birth, fed like a dream; even his dirty nappies were hymns to regularity and consistency, and smelled oddly like caramel.
Still, she'd secretly looked forward to the day when she could stop breastfeeding. At first it had been difficult, then difficult and agonizing, then merely agonizing: then after six weeks, to her enormous relief, she'd lost most of the sensation in her nipples. For a toothless infant, Eddie had a gum-bite that would put a crocodile to shame: Jo had been counting down the days until she got her boobs back.
But Eddie hadn't taken to that at all. At. All.
Instead of breastmilk, she'd tried feeding him five different kinds of formula, cow's milk, goat's milk, sheep's milk, pureed banana, fruit juice, water, organic baby protein shakes ordered from a company in California, and gin. Well, all right, not the last one, but she'd been tempted a few times. Weaning Eddie would mean she could have a few drinks herself again, after over a year of abstinence, and much as she loved her son, when he screwed up his perfect little face into a scarlet fist of rage and bellowed for boob, she couldn't help visualising a large glass of red wine where his head should be. But he'd sit there, tears trembling in his eyes, making the signs for MUMMY and MILK with his chubby, clumsy hands over and over until she gave in. Sometimes she wished they'd never done that baby signing class. Sometimes it was better not to know what your child wanted, so you didn't have to say no.
The breakthrough had come, at last, when she'd managed to stab herself in the finger trying to wrestle open yet another obscure brand of baby milk. The bottle was tossed across the room, untasted, but Eddie was fascinated by the red stuff oozing from her fingertip. She shook her hand, wincing, and sucked off the blood, giving him Bunny to play with while she searched for a plaster.
Thump. Bunny hit the kitchen tiles, sprawled awkwardly like a skyscraper suicide.
“Buh buh buh,” said Eddie loudly. It was his only syllable so far, but he wielded it with devastating effect. It meant Look at me. Now.
“Yes sweetie?” she said, rummaging in the bits-and-bobs box for Elastoplast. The kitchen towel wrapped round her finger was soft and red now. The cut was deeper than she'd thought. She glanced at Eddie in his high-chair. He was grinning and tapping his right thumb against his chin.
MUMMY.
She knew what came next: hands starfishing to mimic milking a cow. Baby Sign was not a subtle language.
“Oh Eddie, won't you just try it? I've fed you twice already this morning … Mummy's tits are dropping off.” She could hear the desperate whine in her voice. Thank God Pete wasn't around to hear it. Not that he ever was.
But instead of the MILK sign, Eddie was tipping his hand up to his open lips in the gesture for DRINK.
Jo glanced around the room. There was a cold cup of tea on the counter, a puddle of rejected formula on the floor, and nothing else. “Drink? Drink what, darling?”
Now Eddie was pointing at her excitedly, and brushing his lip with his right index finger. It was one of the colour signs, she thought – what was it, green? She looked down at her injured finger. No, RED, of course.
MUMMY. DRINK. RED.
He'd seen her lick the blood off her cut. She remembered letting him suck her fingers when he was tiny and had lost his dummy. Was this so different? Surely not. What harm could it do? If it was a question of Eddie's bony gums gnawing on finger or nipple, she knew which she'd choose.
She pulled the makeshift paper-towel bandage off her finger, reopening the wound. Eddie's eyes lit up and he nearly bounced out of his chair in anticipation. She approached him slowly, dripping finger outstretched, as if he were a wild animal that might bite or bolt. Quite gently, he reached out and took her hand, then put her finger into his mouth and started sucking contentedly. It was an odd sensation, but it didn't hurt, certainly not as much as the alternative. She stood there, slightly dazed, waiting for him to finish. But he didn't. At the breast, he could take ten or fifteen painful minutes to get his fill; she pulled her phone out of her pocket, manipulating it awkwardly with her left hand, tapped the Facebook app and settled in for the long haul.
~
After that, they established a routine. Jo bought a diabetic finger-pricker on Amazon, and alternated hands and fingers for every feed so that she didn't get too sore. Luckily it was a chilly autumn, so her gloves went unremarked, even indoors, and Pete never noticed that sort of thing, even on the rare nights he came home on time. The other mums had always said they felt breastfeeding had made them feel so close to their babies, and of course Jo was obliged to agree, but in all honesty she'd been too busy trying to block out the pain to really enjoy it. But all that had changed.
Finger-feeding Eddie was easy, simple, mess-free and really quite enjoyable once she got used to it. Even better, he seemed to be thriving on this new source of nutrition. For all his gorgeousness, he'd always been on the small side – maybe anaemic, the midwife said – but since switching from breast to finger he'd started growing like a weed. Sometimes she'd supplement his diet with a bit of solid food – a blood-soaked rusk or baby biscuit, maybe some cow's milk mixed in with the blood according to the Masai tradition, but she got the feeling he only accepted these to humour her. She had more success with pureed bacon drizzled with finger-juice, but couldn't start him on proper meat until his teeth came in.
It really was a revelation: even Pete commented on how big Eddie was getting and how happy they both seemed. And no more getting her sore boobs out every other hour, hovering in chlorine-reeking shop toilets or trying to be discreet in the corner of Costa. Nope, all she had to do now was prick her finger till it bled, pop it in Eddie's mouth and keep it there until he was satisfied. Everyone assumed he was soothed by the sucking alone; old ladies melted and young dads grinned as they noticed the sweet scene. Only Eddie and Jo knew their bond went way deeper than anyone guessed.
Eddie had learned a lot of new signs in the past few months, but the two he used most were HUNGRY – moving his hand up and down his tummy – and crossing his hands over his heart when he was finished. That meant LOVE.
~
And then, just when Jo and Eddie had everything just the way they liked it, Pete wrecked it by losing his job. He wouldn't tell her what happened, but luckily he'd got a year's redundancy money so the mortgage was covered. It was all very awkward: Pete really didn't know what to do with himself outside the office. He and Eddie were practically strangers: he was clueless about babies and Jo didn't even like to leave them alone together in case Pete absentmindedly fed Eddie a button to choke on, or let him play with scissors or a knife. Pete spent all his time lying on the sofa, “jobhunting” on his iPhone, but she got the odd glimpse of the screen when bringing him snacks, and she was pretty sure Ashley Madison wasn't a recruitment agency.
She started banning Pete from the kitchen at mealtimes, because instead of sitting quietly in his chair Eddie would stare and stare at his father, then start to cry. He seemed to know that finger-feeding wasn't something Daddy would understand. Soon Eddie learned his first word: “No!” He shouted it whenever Pete came near him, tapping his forehead with his thumb in fright as he made the sign for DADDY. Jo tried sending Pete out on missions to the library, the job centre, even the pub; she tried trips to the playground so Pete and Eddie could get to know each other, but neither of them seemed particularly interested in making friends. It sounded absurd, but if she had to name the feeling between them, the first word that popped into her head was … rivalry.
~
One night she was feeding Eddie in the living room while she ate her own dinner – a juicy steak-and-kidney pie – for a bit of variety. Pete had fallen asleep on the sofa in front of Top Gear so couldn't object. She gave Eddie about five minutes of finger, then on a whim sliced off a tiny fragment of meat from the end of her pie. She was pretty sure his teeth were starting to come in – she could feel the rough nobbly shapes of incisors sleeping under his gums – so he might be able to do something with it. He ate the first piece eagerly, then made the sign for MORE. She fed him another, then another; larger and larger pieces. He ground them up and bolted them down. He finished the whole pie. Was this what he'd been waiting for all along?
He tapped the fingers of his strong fat hands together. MORE.
MORE MUMMY. MORE.
She shook her head no, offered him a finger instead. His face screwed up as he prepared to cry. “There isn't any more, sweetie,” she said helplessly. “We're all out of meat.”
“No!” said Eddie. “No! No!” And he pointed at Pete's snoring body on the sofa. And then he pointed at the sharp steak-knife in her hand. He was signing something frantically, willing her to understand. HUNGRY. MORE. DADDY. DRINK. EAT.
“What do you mean?” she said. “What do you want, sweetie?”
DADDY. EAT. DADDY. EAT.
“Daddy's eaten already. He's full.”
“No! No!” His huge brown eyes, hungry, full of need and love. Her little boy. Her man.
EAT. DADDY.
She glanced across at the spreadeagled figure. EAT DADDY.
“OK darling,” she smiled softly, “I'll just get a new bib.”
(c) J. A. Hopper, 2015
J. A. Hopper is new to motherhood and less new to writing, with a dozen stories in print and online. She's wondering when she'll go back to having story ideas not involving babies.
Elizabeth Bower (left) trained at Warwick University and Mountview. She plays Aunt Corey in the new interactive BBC comedy Secret Life of Boys and has appeared in Silent Witness, Casualty, Trollied and My Family. She regularly narrates audiobooks for Penguin, including MJ Arlidge's DI Helen Grace series.
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