Claire Allan - Apple of My Eye

But then, I was in the supermarket, half-heartedly throwing a sad selection of meals for one, to be washed down with a bottle of wine, into my basket, when I saw her hovering around the fresh fruit aisle.

She looked more tired than before. The dark circles under her eyes only highlighted her pallor. She probably needed iron, I thought. She had apples and grapes in her basket, but really she should’ve been stocking up on leafy greens, red meat. That kind of thing. I was tempted to talk to her, but what would I have said?

What would it have looked like? A mad woman in the supermarket telling her that she needs more iron in her diet.

I followed her from a distance. Watched as she put some fresh bread into her basket. Wholemeal. That was good at least. As was the fresh orange juice she chose. It was good to see she could make some decent choices for her baby. The chocolate biscuits, the tinned soup – neither of those were particularly nutritious. Not for an expectant mother. I shook my head.

Her baby needed to be well. I needed this baby to be well.

I wasn’t one of those crazies who thought a woman became nothing more than an incubator when she fell pregnant, but the baby always had to come first. Anything else was selfish. A mother shouldn’t just eat what she wanted, do what she wanted without considering the life she was growing inside her.

Every baby deserved the best start in life.

That’s how it had been with me. Not that it mattered in the end.

Maybe I knew nothing. Maybe this woman with her tinned soup and her packet of biscuits knew more than I did. It wouldn’t matter in a few months’ time anyway. I’d be able to feed my baby all the healthy food they needed.

My mother’s car is parked outside my house. I smile when I see it, even though I know she’ll probably drive me mad within an hour of being in her company.

As I pick up the couple of bags of shopping I’d left on the passenger seat, I watch the rain bounce off the ground outside, remembering how my mother told me that the splashes of water were actually fairies dancing. I believed her for so long. If I’m honest, I think a part of me still believes her now, or chooses to at least. I rub my tummy. I’ll tell my baby that story. Create a bit of magic for them just as my mother had for me. Even when we didn’t have much, we’d always had some magic.

I’m still watching the fairies dance and jump, when I see the door to my house open and the porch light switch on. My mother stands there, pulling her cardigan tightly around her as she looks out through the rain. She blinks, looks at me and waves, and I wave back.

Suddenly, I’m the overexcited primary school pupil seeing her mother arrive in the playground at the end of a long day of colouring in and learning to write my letters. I just want a hug from her, so I open the car door and trample through the dancing fairies into my mother’s now open arms, still holding the shopping bags.

‘Sweetheart, I was so worried. Where’ve you been? I was expecting you home an hour ago.’ The genuine concern in her voice warms my heart.

‘I just called into town to pick up a few things. I’ve not had time to do a big shop so our cupboards are bare. It’s just some basics.’

She ushers me in through the door and takes the bags from me. Sitting them on the floor, she helps me out of my coat.

‘There was no need. I’m sure you’re wrecked after your day at work and the last thing you needed to be doing was running round the shops. Besides, you should know by now that I always come prepared.’

The smell of her special chicken soup hits me and I’m shocked to feel hungry.

‘Is that your soup? Oh! Mum, it smells delicious. I got some lovely fresh bread that’ll go down a treat with it.’

‘We make a great pair,’ she says. ‘Of course, if you moved back to Belfast we could make a great pair all the time.’

‘Mum,’ I say, teasing. ‘Enough. You know we’re settled here. Martin’s practice is here. My job is here. Our lovely home is here. Martin’s family is here. You could always move down, though.’

She bristles. This is a discussion we’ve had before.

‘You know I have my own life in Belfast,’ she says. ‘I’m too old to start again somewhere new. You and Martin, though, you’re young things who could make a go of things anywhere.’

‘Shall we stop this conversation before it gets heated?’ I ask. ‘And can we also get me some of that soup? I’m hungry.’

‘I knew my soup would tempt you,’ she says, beaming. ‘When you were a little girl, chicken soup always brought you round when you were feeling poorly. You could be looked after like this all the time if—’

‘Mum!’ I fire a warning shot and she shrugs her shoulders. Tells me she was ‘just saying’ before taking two bowls from the cupboard and ladling the soup into them.

I slice the bread, bring it and butter to the dining table. Sitting down, I look out through the bifold doors at the darkness of the lake. The rain is battering the glass, raindrops chasing raindrops down the windows. It’s going to be a rough night. I catch my reflection against the blackness. Mum’s right, I do look worn out.

She carries the soup over on a tray along with two glasses of water and when she sits down, she looks me straight in the eyes.

‘So, maybe you can tell me all about what’s making you so stressed.’

‘I’m not stressed,’ I lie.

‘Eliana Johnston, I know you better than I know myself. You called me and asked me to come down a day early. Now I know you love me dearly, but you never ask me to come down early unless something’s nipping at you.’

‘Hughes,’ I correct her, ‘my name is Eliana Hughes now.’ I take a spoonful of soup, blow on it gently before bringing the spoon to my mouth. It’s delicious. I try to distract my mother by telling her how lovely it is.

‘I know it’s lovely,’ she says with a smile, ‘just as you know you will always be Eliana Johnston to me. But that’s not what we’re talking about just now, is it?’

‘Just now I want to eat my soup, Mum. I’m too tired to think straight, you know?’

‘Okay,’ she says, but I feel her eyes on me as I eat.

She fusses around after, making sure I’m comfortable and relaxed. Only when I’m curled under a throw on the sofa in front of the blazing fire does she ask me again what’s wrong.

‘You know you can tell me anything,’ she says, her blue eyes wide.

My mother has the most beautiful blue eyes in the world, bright aquamarine. So vibrant. I’m incredibly jealous I haven’t inherited them and secretly hope my baby will.

I nod, but I feel a little silly and more than a little embarrassed. How can I tell her that her very-much-in-control daughter is struggling with pregnancy and worried the life she loves is about to disappear from under her feet?

‘Everything with the baby okay?’

The baby – always her first thought. I feel a pang of irrational something. Jealousy maybe. Whatever it is it’s followed immediately by guilt at having a negative feeling towards my own child.

‘The baby’s fine. Kicking and wriggling as normal. Still making me sick, so I’m pretty sure my hormones are still doing exactly what they should.’

‘You’d tell me, wouldn’t you? If you were concerned for the baby at all.’

‘Of course, Mum,’ I say.

And I mean it. My concern isn’t so much for the baby but more about how I’ll cope as a mother. Especially if I end up on my own. We’re not all like my mother. We don’t all thrive on our own.

‘Have you told Martin yet that you know the baby is a girl?’

I blush. I’m not at all comfortable with the fact that I know the sex of our baby and he doesn’t. But he wants it to be a surprise. I did too, until I started to feel so terribly ill and so worried that it’d affect how I bonded with her. So I’d figured that if I knew, it’d make her more real to me. That it might help.