The cluttered shelves of an overactive mind

Isobel is now one year old. How quickly it has gone and how much has happened.

We mark the event with a party at Matt's sister Auntie Jenny's house, with his mum and little sister Jo.

I was working so join them in the evening. I drive past the house only once before I dare to stop.

This is an achievement for me. I often find family occasions, usually at pro-active Auntie Jenny's house, intimidating. But that's another post altogether.

This time I can easily pinpoint the fear.

This day, and indeed the whole festive period, carry dark shadows from last year.

This mess was all shoved onto a top shelf in a corner of my brain to be forgotten, until Christmas songs, periods stuck at my parents' house wanting to be elsewhere, certain friends and other festive memory triggers bring it all crashing down.

Isobel started off for me as a concept. She was a baby being born into an awful awful situation. She was a bargaining tool. How horrible to come into the world like that, not really wanted for what she was. Her father hadn't wanted her and her mother's motivations were less than honourable.

The thought of it made panic. What a mess! What a mess!

We didn't really talk about it, which made it easier to ignore. When we did discuss it, I identified my role as his supporter. And I threw myself into that role. It was Matt's situation and it must be hard for him.

Sometimes we talked about what we could teach her, what she would grow up to be. Once we discussed names, running down an alphabetically ordered list.

“What do you think of Isobel?”he said in the same way he'd asked me about 20 others.

“Ugh, no! They're always bitches! Every Izzy I've ever met (three) has either picked on me or been too good to even talk to me.”

And just think, Lizzie and Izzy, ugh. Maybe that's why she chose it or maybe Matt said something. I'll never know and it no longer matters.

The day Isobel became a reality, she was much harder to put back into the box at the back of my mind.

The panic returned in a tidal wave.

Matt was called to the hospital in the morning, and she was finally born at about 10.30pm.

I sat around all day waiting. I continued in my role, taking him to the hospital, dropping him things off, texting him. I felt sick and couldn't eat a thing.

I bought the day's newspapers, some photo fridge magnets, a photo album, some 'It's a Girl!' announcement cards, which remain unopened in the pink baby box I bought, which I go to every now and then to store things I'm sure he'd like to keep.

I couldn't sit still, so I went out and bought pink champagne for us to celebrate when he got home.

Every time I returned to the flat it was unnaturally empty, my housemates like birds before a natural disaster.

I couldn't go to my room where too much privacy just might tip me over the edge. Being in the living room, where anyone could just walk in, kept me in check.

I put on the television but felt irritated by the noise. I sat on the sofa in silence and felt cold pricks on my face. The silence rumbled in my ears and I could feel the blood beating around my head.

If I dared to think of what was unfolding at the hospital, my heart seemed to shudder, rather than beat. I went back outside and just wandered around the shops. I bought a number of greetings cards I could cut up to decorate the photo album I had bought, glitter pens, sequins and beads.

It occupied another hour or so, aligning the illustrations neurotically straight.

I hid my head under the sofa cushion and took ten deep breaths after a stupid slip of the hand.

It was supposed to be perfect for her.

Eventually, a day of clenching every muscle wore me out, particularly my stomach which was in knots. I lay on the sofa and stared uninterestedly at the television, which I decided to endure in case anyone came in and saw me.

Then he called. She'd been born. Exact time, weight etc. Relief.
He asked me to bring the car back to the hospital.

I thought I'd get to meet her, but he dropped me back off home and just took the car to take them home. It would be awkward for me to be there. I should have known that really.

I stayed up to open the champagne. But it was 3am when I text him to ask if he'd be coming home at all. I told him I didn't mind if he stayed, I just wanted to know whether to wait up. He returned at 5am, shattered, and went straight to bed.

With him back, relieved, I resumed my role. I cuddled him and asked if he was OK. Was there anything I could do? I watched over him all night and soothed him when he made noises or ground his teeth.

We woke late and in a panic. He had to get to Lizzie's. His mum and sisters were coming to visit Isobel and were going straight there. It took me a while to realise I wasn't going with them. And it hit me round the head like a club.

I avoided him, sorting laundry in the spare room. He can't leave me here to another day like yesterday.

Lizzie was the one in the wrong in this situation not me. I'm the one made to feel illegitimate, while they all play happy families. Lizzie knows we're together and this was her choice. Surely she just has to endure my presence.

My knackered body tried to wretch up bile from its empty stomach as I made another realisation.

My role as Matt's shoulder to lean on dissolves as the difficult situation suddenly turns into a beautiful outcome. She's no concept for him. He holds her in awe of what he now has. They're all so happy.

Cold sweat pricked through my face as the panic descended.

The panic drove me to Matt's apartment in the Midlands where I dug his bottle of Tanqueray out of the freezer with the intention of seeing in the New Year oblivious to it all. But I couldn't stomach anything stronger than half a cup of black tea.

I shuddered under a quilt on the sofa and didn't move for two days as I worked out how to breathe through the crushing pressure on my lungs as I was being left out of this enormous event affecting both our lives.

A long time ago now, but still very raw underneath the surface.

I take a deep breath and knock on the door. Auntie Jenny greets me with Isobel on her shoulder.

She's wearing a purple satin party dress, with netting underneath to poof out the skirt, lined with sequins and with a matching pouch handbag.

She grins and stretches her arms out to me as soon as she sees me on the doorstep.

“She's missed you!”

I pick her up and take her into the living room where I carefully pick out a route through the toys on the floor. A waddling duck on a rope, an electronic Thomas the Tank Engine which chugs and peeps, a rocking donkey and a couple of helium balloons. I'm happy they've not yet opened the present I bought her and have also left the cake until I arrived.

I'm handed a plate of food from one set of hands, while another set whisks Isobel off to show me what she can do with her new walker.

Within minutes she's struggled free and is by my feet, arms outstretched for me to pick her up. Securely back in place, she rests her head on my neck and holds on tight.

That little experience gets pride of place on a shelf at the very front of my brain, where I keep the things that cheer me up.

Picture perfect?

You already know of course that Matt and I survive the drama.
Nothing thrusts you into adulthood more violently than having children, I'm told.
Matt was inconsolable. He didn't want to bring a child into the world this way.
His own father left when he was seven and is now living out his retirement in Thailand.

After the initial shock, Matt needed a friend and if I could define any part of my relationship with him, it was our friendship. I stood by him, but with half an eye on the door, ready to bolt.
I promised my friends I wouldn't let it get too far. If I couldn't trust him before, this only confirmed that.
Matt had always imagined he would eventually grow up, despite being almost 30 and not having made much progress.
He had only just converted the word 'job' into 'career' and wasn't exactly on the right path towards sustaining a meaningful relationship.
But from somewhere, he expected to end up with 2.4 children, a suburban semi, an Audi Passat and a wife who he can still have good sex and a laugh with a few years in.

With the exception of the latter, Matt's dreams varied greatly to mine.
I had a vague picture of being shacked up with kids and a hubby one day, but would have to overcome the obstacle of all men being tw*ts, which seemed too much hard work.
Children also scared me. Rather the hazardous effects they may have on my business suits scared me when I encountered them on public transport and it annoyed me that I couldn't block them, and their effing and blinding mothers, out with my iPod.
And suburban communities make me want to vomit.
I grew up in middle class commuterville and at the age of 13, started working in my local pub, from which I was privileged to witness the kind of person I did not want to become.

I could write another blog or an entire novel about this time of my life, which I believe was also the beginning of my superiority complex.
My friends have often joked that I should publish Memoirs of a Village Barmaid, but that's another story.
In short, I've spoken in hushed voices with the so-called respectable men who hoped I'd take pity on them if they told me they no longer had sex with their wives.
I've got cigarette burns collecting glasses from the women who were 20 years and three kids older than me.
And I've watched five-year-old Tommy, who was as much part of the 'early doors' crew as his parents were, being drilled one day by his grandmother. "My fahther's car is a Jaguah and he drives it rahther fahst."
Meanwhile 'fahther' raced to the scene on his front garden where mummy was pouring Châteauneuf-du-Pape on his best shirts for gambling away Tommy's college fund again.

I don't think now I could leave the blessed anonymity of the city.
Where I can walk down the street with tears streaming down my face without starting rumours.
Where I can turn off my phone and walk for hours without bumping into anyone I know.
Where I can shout at a rude stranger when I'm in a bad mood without expecting to see him again.

One day, Matt awoke suddenly to find that instead of a distant dream, he was somehow already halfway there.
With a baby on the way, his 30th birthday approaching and a place on a fast-track leadership course within a plc, I was the final piece of the jigsaw.
A nice girl. Great fun to corrupt, but also a keeper.

Explosive arguments about betrayals, about Nick and Lizzie and about our different hopes and values maybe should have warned us off.
Instead, it showed us we couldn't be just friends.

Now we live in a messy two-bedroom flat in a beautiful city that suits both our careers.
Every weekend we have a gorgeous happy little visitor who is allowed to dribble whatever she wants on my clothes.
I have Disney compilations on my iPod and babble away with her all day, rather than trying to block her out.
Here's to the best risk I've ever taken.