The Pile of Stuff at the Bottom of the Stairs by Christina Hopkinson Read Free Book Online Page A

They wear gorgeous box-fresh maternity clothes and give off a throb of excitement and hope. Children are still a potentially chic accessory and how you give birth is something you dictate in a plan. They still live in this edgy, urban area, but they’ll move soon, you know, they’ll say—the schools in the inner city… so many kids with English as a second language… besides, we wanted a garden and a proper high street.
    I’ve never felt such optimism as I did when I was pregnant with Rufus. Joel used to stroke my belly and talk to it, telling it funny stories and singing his favorite songs. We knew we weren’tthe only ones in the world to be having a baby, one trip to the nursery section of a department store put paid to that, but that didn’t stop us feeling like we were. We wallowed in every cliché, believing that somehow we were the first people in history to be going through them.
    My preparation consisted of reading Internet message boards discussing perineal massage and wincing, while Joel’s was creating the perfect birth playlist.
    “Do you want songs that are about children or is that a bit literal?” he asked me as I lay eight months pregnant with Rufus on the sofa. He was rifling through CDs with an energy that I no longer see from him. He was keen to play lots of them to the bump, in the manner of someone who thinks fetuses become cleverer if they listen to Mozart.
    “I don’t know. Does it matter?”
    “This is our progeny’s introduction to the world of music so, yes, it does matter. Bob Dylan’s ‘Forever Young’ as an opener, yes, perfect. Throw in a few love songs, ‘At Last’ by Etta James, and Primal Scream, but which one? I know, ‘I’ll Be There for You.’ Bowie’s ‘Kooks’ is about kids, though it’s not such a great song, is it? What other songs are there about children?”
    “ ‘Thank Heaven for Little Girls,’ ” I suggested. I was enjoying his seriousness.
    “Always good to have a song with a whiff, or should I say soupçon , of pedophilia. Shall I add Serge Gainsbourg’s loving duet with his daughter, ‘Lemon Incest,’ while I’m at it?”
    “Can’t think of any other ones about kids. Sorry.”
    “Nor can I. Except Brotherhood of Man’s ‘Save All Your Kisses for Me.’ ”
    “Never too young to be introduced to the delights of the Eurovision Song Contest.” Six years ago my knowledge of pop trivia rivaled his.
    “Very true.” Joel’s love of music was as wide as it was deep. He loved genres that others dismissed, Broadway musicals, 1930s folk and 80s pop. “Do you know what? I’m going to start by concentrating on upbeat but not pappy numbers. ‘Hallelujah,’ ‘Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues’…”
    “You who?” OK, maybe he always knew more about music than I did.
    “The Eels. ‘Perfect Day,’ of course—wouldn’t everybody’s life be better if they came into the world listening to a bit of Lou Reed?”
    “Isn’t it about heroin?”
    “The baby’s not going to know that.”
    “The baby’s not going to know about much, really.”
    “Our baby will be born a genius.” He kissed me. “With your brains. And my, no, your looks too.”
    “No, your charm. And your looks too.” At this point, I still felt that he was too good-looking for me, that strangers would point at us and wonder what this god was doing with someone so ordinary.
    “No, please no. Not my girth.” He slapped the then small overhang above his belt.
    “I love your girth.” I giggled at the other interpretation of this statement and somehow we maneuvered both our growing bellies onto the sofa and celebrated our hope and love to some of the tracks we later chose for Rufus’s birth album (but never actually played, what with the panic over his heart rate, the forceps and all those worried-looking doctors).
    “Mary,” says Becky, interrupting my thoughts. “Joel’s wonderful, isn’t he? You do know that?”
    “Yes, of course he is,” I say. “He’s wonderful.