Final Chapter: The Beauty of Parenthood or How You Should Be Careful What You Wish For

Jack Troy - Taylor was born four days before Christmas (at least ‘Troy’ was better than George’s idea of ‘Dumbledore’). When he was born, his skin was mottled like corn beef. And his hair curved off to the side like he was running in a head wind. When he cried his mouth opened and a roar came out that reverberated in your eardrums for hours. Like after you’ve danced next to some speakers in a club and the ghost of the music echoes inside your brain and you have to push your head under the pillow to get some sleep.

For the first four months, he did nothing but shit and roar. When he was hungry- he roared. When he was bored- he roared. When something good came on the TV - he roared. When Carla stood up to go the toilet - he roared. When George tucked his blanket up around his neck at night - he roared. When Mum put the kettle on -he roared. We all watched as those tiny, angry tonsils vibrated in the back of his throat. Crowding in a circle around his cot, we waited for his mouth to close and the noise to stop. Usually one of us would pick him out and he’d be soaking wet with fury and his fists would ball up and push through the air and we’d hold him at arms length, just trying to figure out what he was trying to tell us. Perhaps I would have been the same if I’d ended up with parents like Carla and George. But then to be fair they did the best they could. George’s Playstation gathered dust in the corner of his bedroom and he gave his skateboard to one of the neighbours kids. He spent each night trawling the Internet, looking up advice on how to soothe angry babies. Meanwhile Carla took to holding her breasts with the crook of her left arm, wet patches all over the front of her shirt. Each time Jack roared, the milk flowed and flowed. Eventually she took a bath towel and tied it around her chest and that was that.

And I may have been imagining it but rather than making me mad with envy, Jack’s birth had quite the opposite effect. Of course, there were times (especially in the minute-long pauses between the roars) when I loved the way his bottom lip trembled every so slightly when he slept. And the way the dent in his head felt like a soft - jam pot lid. And yes - babies smell delicious when they have their bums covered up. But this thing; this little beast wanted everything. It wanted your milk, it wanted every last drop of it, it wanted every hour that you spent with your face smashed into your pillow and there was no time for even the most rudimentary of tasks like pulling a brush through your hair or having a bath. And definitely no time to just sit and wonder.

And after four months, things got a bit better and Jack roared every couple of hours rather than minutes and it was as if Carla and George (and Mum to a certain extent because she couldn’t escape – she was forced to be the truly, modern ‘twenty four hour Grandma’) were suffering post-traumatic stress and when you visited, they whispered and their hands trembled when the tiniest sigh floated through the wires of the baby intercom. This was what parenting was all about. It wasn’t all those fluffy moments you see in adverts where Mums look like they’re going to ejaculate all over themselves because their baby has just eaten a spoon of banana porridge. Carla looked like she’d returned from war. A war where the enemy threw food at your head, punched you in the breasts and deprived you of sleep. Her shoulders sagged, her chest now trailed the floor and picked up old tea bags, toast and pieces of cat kibble. She no longer bothered using kitchen towel and just wiped whatever was stuck in her hair/hands/fingers onto her bath towel sweatshirt. She was lucky if she found the time to squeeze a piece of toothpaste onto her finger and rub it around her gums and teeth at night. And whilst she’d hardly been Monica Bellucci to begin with, it was still a shock to see her in such an abject condition. Of course there were small pockets of time when the expression on her face contorted into something resembling happiness- especially if Jack did something new like kicking his legs in a different way or peeing in her eye. Then Carla would shout out and we’d all run upstairs to see what he was doing but usually it was a big disappointment (it wasn’t like he was talking or telling a joke). And Jack NEVER gurgled (which is something they must dub on top of those baby adverts).

And occasionally, very occasionally, he slept. It was usually enough time for each of us to run around the house - picking up nappies, towels, baby wipes, plastic mats and booties. It was a bit like preparing for the Queen to arrive on an official visit but only having five minutes to get everything ready. One time I actually watched Mum lick a dirty teaspoon and put it back into the drawer. Then the roar from the intercom would signal the start of the next shift.

And I helped as much as I could. I tried. And whilst I loved Jack (of course I did but I was also grateful that he wasn’t mine), I cherished the moments when I shut the door to Mum’s and walked the ten minutes to the bus stop and all I could hear was the police sirens screaming through the air and the teenagers punching one another in the street and the bass bellowing out of the cars flying through the red stop lights.

And when I wanted to go to the toilet, I went. I didn’t have to take the baby and put it in some weird harness thing and tie it to my chest and then go (something Carla insisted on doing when she was left alone with Jack). And if I wanted to lie in bed all night and sleep I could actually do it. I didn’t have to stare into those quivering, tiny tonsils and think up solutions to make them stop. And when I went with Simon to the pub, I could just sit there and drink (usually I'd need quite a lot to drown out the rubbish he spouted) and I didn’t have to keep checking my mobile every two minutes in case the baby was roaring and Mum needed me to come home and leak more milk into its roaring head.

I’d wasted too much time trying to get one of these things and not for one minute had I appreciated the pure, unadulterated pleasures of NOT having one. If on a bright, sunny morning, I wanted to walk to Crystal Palace and watch the dogfights - I could. If I wanted to curl up on the sofa in my pyjamas and watch MTV - I could. And if I wanted to explore missed opportunities, I could do that too. Eventually I called Medium Brown (who was also known as Sean) and left him a message and then another two days later. And when he didn’t call, it wasn’t about lost eggs anymore. Though there was still some hope inside because women were having kids right into their fifties these days - sometimes leaving it to their seventies and then having fresh, energetic eggs and sperm injected into their tired, dusty boxes.

Deidre - can you hear me? Don’t get too complacent in that hutch of yours. It’s not over until that womb gets buried deep in the earth. It’s not over until the hymns have been sung, the relatives have dried their tears and are down the pub discussing why you never succeeded in having roaring offspring of your own. (And I’ve done my sums- there’s still roughly one hundred and eighty opportunities until we have to look into other avenues.)

But I’m implying that I was planning pregnancy again and really I wasn’t. Instead I was thinking about the way he looked in my dressing gown and how when he laughed, all his reserve flew out the window and he shook and spluttered and clutched his stomach like he was about to explode.

And when he eventually called (sometimes good things do happen), I tried to keep my voice steady. I didn’t want to shoot my load and scare him off again. For some reason, he’d decided to give me another whirl. Perhaps it was the crazed look in my eyes. Perhaps he liked women who never gave up. Or perhaps he just had nothing better on. This time, there’d be no mad monster inside making me chase him around Soho and no slipping of the thermometer under the tongue before I set off. And I’d also refrain from leaning over the table at dinner and prodding his mouth with my butter knife to check the quality of his teeth. And I wouldn’t be smothered by chest hair, tickled by the tiniest penis in the world or thrust up against the headboard. Or if I was, then I’d enjoy it or not enjoy it. But I’d no longer be counting off the days.

We met in Covent Garden.