‘But why would she brush me off like that when I was trying to help?’

‘Don’t read too much into it. Besides you’ve got other friends – Tara, Susie… Just give Lucy a wide berth perhaps.’

‘Okay,’ I muttered, ‘but you’re right, it was probably just a bad night.’

Chapter Twenty-Three

Lucy

Tuesday 8^th June

I read through last night’s WhatsApp exchange with Aisha. I had been purposefully keeping my distance from The Baby Group. I couldn’t face them right now. I had been thinking too much, worrying; afraid of what I might say if we did meet up. Now that Albie was actually here, it all felt very real. That, plus the fact that things seemed to be going so well for the others, especially Aisha, when things were going far from smoothly for me. And Albie was struggling so much in the feeding department, it broke my heart that I couldn’t satisfy him easily. Although I was happy to have him here, it didn’t stop me feeling like a failure at the same time.

Albie had eventually taken the bottle last night, thank God – a reprieve from his tiny mouth gnawing at my battered nipples and listening to his high-pitched hungry screams. At one point I had to leave him lying on my bed, his arms and legs waving in the air, like an overturned beetle. I just needed a moment to take a few deep breaths; to walk downstairs, grab a glass of water and a digestive biscuit and compose myself before going back into battle.

Oscar had moved into the spare room on the floor below our bedroom for the week because he was finding it hard to cope at work, thanks to the broken nights. And he wasn’t the one up every two hours. Reality had set in, and I worried whether Oscar’s promises about being ready for all this were going to be broken. Nobody – not even Maggie – said it would be this hard.

I had wanted a baby so badly for years, but in my dreams it was easy, natural. People without degrees, helpful partners or management roles had babies and they all seemed to cope, so why couldn’t I? I knew now that I had imagined motherhood through rose-tinted glasses. I felt anxious a lot of the time and wondered if Albie and I were bonding well enough; if it was normal to feel this sad sometimes. I mean, I knew I loved him, I loved him more than anything in the world, but sometimes I wanted it to be just me again; to go out and meet a friend for dinner; to go to the corner shop and get a newspaper without careful planning and my heart beating so fast. I was okay when I only had myself to look after. A lump came to my throat.

Oscar told me it would get easier. ‘This will soon be a distant memory’. He even made me laugh one day when he got home from work early and found me in tears, yellow poo splattered on the wall beside us, like thick emulsion paint. Two soiled babygrows in a heap on top of the nappy bin and a peppering of poo over my top.