Dyan Sheldon - And Baby Makes Two

Shinola was sleeping in her little room and Les and I were getting ready for supper. There was a maid who’d look after Shinola while we went downstairs to eat so we didn’t have to stay in our room. After dinner we were going to the disco.

The hotel radio station was playing songs from great Disney classics while I got into my party gear. “Someday My Prince Will Come” was on.

I zipped up my dress. It was a red dress with a tight bodice and spaghetti straps and a slightly flared skirt. I had red heels to match. I sat down at the white and gold dressing-table to put on my make-up. It was just like the dressing-table I’d always wanted (but she would never let me have), with lights around the mirror. Les came up behind me. He started nuzzling my neck and telling me how gorgeous I looked. I pretended I didn’t want him messing up my hair and stuff, but really I couldn’t have cared less.

“Lana…” whispered Les. “Lana … Lana … Lana…”

He was being too rough. I pushed him off.

“Lana … Lana … Lana…”

“Not now.” I pushed him off again. “I have to get ready.”

“Lana … Lana … Lana…” He wasn’t nuzzling me any more. He was shaking me hard.

I pulled away from him. “Get dressed,” I said. “You’ve got to get dressed, too.”

“Not at three in the morning,” said Les.

I opened my eyes. I’d fallen asleep in front of the telly again. But even though I was still half-asleep and blinded I knew it wasn’t Les’s come-to-bed eyes that were staring down at me. I shut my own tight.

“Lana, wake up.”

I risked another look. Hilary was standing over me with no make-up on and her hair in curlers like some monster of the night. I wanted to hit her.

“What do you want?”

“What do I want? Can’t you hear Shinola? She’s been crying for ten minutes.”

Then why didn’t she look after her, for God’s sake? I pulled a cushion over my head. “So give her a bottle.”

She threw the cushion on to the floor. “I’m not her mother. She needs you, Lana. Now .”

There was nothing for it, she was going to get me up if she had to drag me off the couch. I sat up, rubbing my eyes.

“I can’t have my sleep disturbed like this every night,” she complained. “I’ve got to go to work.”

She’d taken a week off after I got home from hospital, to look after me and Shinola, and that was hell. But this was worse. Before she complained all the time, but at least she got up with Shinola in the night once in a while and made a few bottles. Now all she did was complain.

“All right … all right…” I got to my feet and staggered into the kitchen.

“Pick Shinola up before you heat the bottle,” she nagged. “She’s upset. She needs to be comforted.”

“I’ll comfort her once I’ve done this,” I said, though at that moment I’d sooner have stuffed her down the loo. “I’ve only got two hands.”

There were three bottles ready in the fridge, thank God. I wasn’t up to any major preparation. Not with the Curse of Kilburn shrieking at me.

“Heat the water first,” ordered my mother. “You don’t want it hot, you just want it warmed.”

I put a bottle in a cold pan of water and turned on the burner. “I know how hot to make it,” I informed her. “I have done this before.”

She didn’t say anything. I glanced over my shoulder to see why. You know, to see if she was putting a curse on me or something and couldn’t be bothered to answer. She was gone.

Though not for long.

She came back before I had time to miss her, Shinola squirming in her arms.

“Look at her!” she said accusingly. “She’s almost blue.”

She was closer to purple than blue, if you asked me.

“And that’s my fault?” I screamed back. “Even though I didn’t hear her?”

Some things never changed. I still got blamed for everything, but now she had more things to blame me for.

“You should’ve heard her,” snarled my mother. “Either you bring her cot into the living-room, or you take the telly into your room.”

But when she talked to Shinola she was as sweet as pie. “There … there…” she crooned. “Your bottle will be ready in a minute. There … there … there…”

I took Shinola out of her arms. “She’ll puke if you keep jiggling her like that.”

“No, she won’t,” said my mother. “She has nothing in her to puke.”

It was another week before Les could come over – because of work and having to catch up after his holiday and everything. He had a surprise for me. “I can’t wait to see your face when you see it,” said Les.

It’d been so long since anyone had given me anything that wasn’t really for Shinola that I instantly forgave him for not coming round sooner.

I spent the whole day getting ready.

Les was a very neat person. I didn’t want him to think that motherhood had made me sloppy, so I tidied the flat up first. It took ages because every time I’d get stuck into the washing-up or something, Shinola would start screaming.

Then I gave her a bath and changed her so she wouldn’t smell like something that’d gone off. As soon as I snapped the last snap on her rompers, she did the biggest dump anyone smaller than an elephant could possibly do. I had to start all over again.

I hadn’t even finished doing my make-up when the doorbell rang.

Shinola was whingeing, of course, so I scooped her up and raced to the door.

Les looked surprised. “Jesus Christ,” he said.

I smiled down at her. “Say hello to your father.” I waved her little hand at him. It was wet with drool.

Les had half a smile on his face. Not a small smile, but half a smile, as if only one half of his mouth could actually move. He kind of shuffled from one foot to the other, his eyes on Shinola. I’d been hoping he’d be choked with emotion the first time he saw her, but he wasn’t, unless the emotion was nervousness.

“She’s sweet,” said Les. “She looks like you.”

I pretended to study Shinola’s face as though I’d never looked at it before, when really it was just about all I did look at any more.

“You think so? I think she’s got your nose.”

Les laughed. “She hasn’t got anybody’s nose. She’s got her own.”

He stood there, nodding and grinning, his eyes on Shinola as if he thought she was a letter-bomb.

“So,” I said. “Do you want some tea? Tell me all about your holiday.”

Les threw himself on to the sofa beside a box of disposable nappies. The sofa honked. Startled, he reached behind him and removed a blue rubber duck.

“I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like when she can walk,” I said. “Her stuff gets everywhere as it is.”

Les’s nose twitched. “She hasn’t done something, has she? It smells funny in here.”

“Of course not.” There was no way I was going to start changing nappies then. It was the first time we’d been together in weeks. I wanted Les to think of me as his sex goddess, not the girl with the poo-smeared cotton ball in her hand. “Why don’t I put the kettle on while you tell me about your holiday?”

Les leaned back with a sigh. “Don’t let me bang on too long,” he said. “I’m becoming a bit of a Greece bore.” He laughed. “You’re lucky I forgot my snaps.”

Shinola’d only been whimpering, you know, so we wouldn’t forget she was there. But as soon as Les started to talk about his holiday, she started to cry for real.

“Shhh, shhh…” I whispered. “Daddy’s trying to tell us something.”

“It was the most brilliant time I’ve ever had,” Les was saying. He raised his voice to be heard over Shinola. “I went swimming every day. And I went fishing a couple of times and even scuba-diving. I really—”