Page 8 of The Baby Plan

Samson’s dig about how she’d seemed like she had no idea what she was doing with her niece spurred Sophie on: she needed to learn how to care for Alana, and quickly. She was solely in charge of this little human being, and there was no room for mistakes. But, strangely, the burden of this expectation didn’t weigh heavy on her. As tired and grieving as she was, there was nothing as important as the baby in her arms. How her life had changed so dramatically in less than twenty-four hours, and how strangely worthless Sophie’s previous existence seemed when compared to her niece holding her hand while she was feeding. Nothing else was anywhere near as important as Alana.

Her natural tendency to organise kicked in. She began researching baby care on her mobile phone, trying to get an idea of what you do with an infant all day, what on earth you feed them, and generally, how to keep a small, delicate human being alive. How did we manage before the internet to tell us what to do? she thought.

While Alana sat on a playmat in the middle of the sitting room floor with some toys Sophie found lying around, Sophie wrote out a feeding and sleep schedule for her and a basic meal plan for over the next couple of days.

There wasn’t much food in the house, and not a huge amount of nappies and formula, so Sophie figured she’d need to face the supermarket with her niece soon. She’d make a list of what was needed and the fresh air would do her good. She felt better and a little more in control of the situation until she tried to put Alana down for a nap after her lunch. Alana didn’t approve of this part of her aunt’s programme. As soon as Sophie placed her down in her cot, on her back as all the websites she’d visited advised, her niece’s beautiful little rosebud mouth opened to an extent Sophie didn’t believe possible and let out an absolutely ear-splitting scream. Anyone listening would think the poor child was being murdered. Sophie scooped her up again immediately. Maybe this wasn’t going to be as straightforward as the schedule suggested, Sophie thought to herself as she kissed her still snuffling niece on the forehead.

* * *

A week later, and Sophie was still living in Natasha’s flat and trying to decide what to do for the future. Work had been very understanding when she’d called and explained what had happened to her sister, but she hadn’t told them about Alana. They’d offered her some leave, and she’d added some holiday she was owed, so had two weeks to properly figure out what to do. It was the longest time she’d had off work since getting her first full-time job after university.

She knew she couldn’t stay in her sister’s home for ever: it was small and much too far for her to commute to work for a start, and it was a council flat — she’d already been contacted about when she had to hand back the keys. But it was where Alana knew and where Natasha’s belongings were. There was no one but Sophie to sort through it all and decide what to keep for Alana, and no one else to arrange Natasha’s funeral.

Yvonne, the social worker, had been in touch and visited again. She seemed satisfied with how things were going. She’d advised Sophie on the first steps for her to gain at least temporary official guardianship of Alana, and Sophie had a solicitor on the case.

“I’ll be away for the next couple of weeks, but you can leave a message with my department and someone will get back to you if it’s urgent,” Yvonne had said at the end of the visit.

Sophie got through each day by following the routine she’d drawn up for Alana, throwing herself into caring for her niece and learning everything she could about bringing up a child. Disjointed from ‘real’, regular life, the two of them were in a little bubble together.

Alana was surprisingly good company and Sophie found she didn’t feel as alone as she so often had living by herself in London. Even if the baby wasn’t the greatest conversationalist.

Having responsibility for her niece gave meaning to Sophie’s day but also allowed her to cry and grieve when she needed to.

She was gradually gaining in confidence, exploring what Alana wanted and needed, but still had to steel herself every time they ventured outside. Caring for a baby out of the home and among other people was far trickier, she found, than staying inside. When she was out, she was constantly worried everyone would see her for the fraud she was, and think she wasn’t the best person to care for her niece.

Finally, though, she decided they needed to go somewhere other than the supermarket. Sophie wasn’t ready to brave the baby story-time at the library she’d seen advertised, but it was a lovely day and Natasha’s flat didn’t have a garden. The sky was a deep blue, smudged with only the occasional fluffiest of white cloud; the light breeze took the edge flawlessly off the summer heat and brought the fresh smell of the sea faintly into the building; in short, it was perfection. A walk after Alana’s 11a.m. bottle would be a nice change and would be good for her niece.

Sophie packed anything they might need for their outing while Alana had her nap; even after only a week, she’d discovered it was always better to be overprepared when it came to dealing with babies.

They headed off towards Brighton’s city centre, which she had never seen before. Sophie set them a mission of finding a sunhat for Alana. Their pace was painfully slow as she kept stopping every couple of minutes to check Alana was all right and wishing she had a backwards-facing buggy.

They walked along the Lanes. Sophie worried about the buggy on the cobblestones, but Alana didn’t seem to mind. They stopped every now and then to check out things that caught Sophie’s eye in the shop windows. She hoped she’d have time to explore more while she was in Brighton.

Her phone guided her to the huge Primark on Western Road where she found a cute pink hat for Alana along with some sunglasses and a summer dress. The sunglasses were promptly thrown on the floor the second they exited the store, but Sophie consoled herself that Alana had looked very sweet in them for the twenty seconds she’d had them on.

They returned home from their thirty-minute walk without any mishap, though Sophie wished her confidence had been up to stopping for a hot drink; the smells from the coffee shops they passed had been very enticing and she was missing her regular skinny latte treat.

Her elation was spoilt when she opened the front door to Natasha’s flat and found a handwritten note on the mat. From Samson. It was scribbled in the margin of a torn-up political pamphlet, ‘Came to visit Alana. Call me. Samson.’ It was blunt. He’d given a mobile number.

Sophie’s first thought was to screw the whole thing up and throw it in the bin, but some part of her reconsidered, and she shoved it in the drawer by the fridge along with the piles of council tax demands and random keys and closed it firmly away. She had enough to deal with now, but knew she wouldn’t be able to ignore Samson for ever — and shouldn’t. That wouldn’t be fair to Alana or him — but he couldn’t take precedence at the moment.

Sophie began to prepare some lunch, keeping one eye on Alana playing in the all-singing, all-dancing walker Sophie had had delivered for her. The noise was enough to drive any normal adult crazy after a few minutes, but her niece loved it, so Sophie tried to last as long as she could with Alana banging away.

Her attention wasn’t really focused on either the baby or the scrambled egg and toast she was making; it was on the pile of papers on the counter next to her. Or rather on trying to pretend it didn’t exist. They’d sat there since yesterday when she’d tried to deal with them all, but had broken down in tears. The post-mortem results had returned from the coroner. Her sister’s body was with the undertaker. And the papers represented all that was left to organise to tie up Natasha’s too short life.

Sophie received at least some solace from the post-mortem results: Natasha hadn’t been drunk the night she died. Though Sophie now felt terribly guilty that because of Natasha’s past, she’d assumed alcohol had played a major part in what had happened. It turned out Natasha had swerved suddenly, presumably to avoid something. Her death had been a terrible accident.

Nothing could be said to ‘console’ about any of it, but at least Natasha had crashed into the barrier: there was no one else involved, no one else injured, or, thank goodness, killed. Tears filled her eyes as Sophie glanced down at her niece; she was eternally thankful Alana hadn’t been in the car.

After lunch, Sophie forced herself to return to arranging the funeral. Natasha didn’t have any savings. Sophie had felt a little uncomfortable going through her sister’s paperwork but Sophie would pay for the funeral and wake out of her own money. Most of the logistics had been sorted out, but the big problem was working out who to invite.

She hadn’t seen Natasha for so long, and they hadn’t been close for even longer. Sophie had no idea who her friends were. The only family she and her sister had were each other. She’d contacted a few old family friends, who’d expressed their condolences, but most wouldn’t be attending the funeral. In order to get in touch with anyone else who might want the opportunity to say goodbye to Natasha, Sophie would have to go through Natasha’s phone, she supposed, something she had a particular loathing to do. More than anything else, it felt like such an invasion of privacy. Not that that mattered now, but it felt so wrong, so intrusive. It was different from turning the phone on at the hospital to discover who’d been trying to get hold of her; this was delving into the most personal part of her sister’s life, a life Sophie hadn’t been part of.

Retrieving the mobile from the hospital bag it had remained in, she got it charging by the side of the bed and busied herself with a few admin matters for the funeral, before it was time to settle Alana for her afternoon nap. Finally, and without any more excuses, she sat in the silence of the flat and turned the phone on.

Sophie worked through the text messages first, noting anyone Natasha had been in touch with recently, but there weren’t many, barely a handful of numbers.

Made and missed calls resulted in a similar meagre haul, and one of those contacts was clearly identifiable as the blue-haired woman from Rodney Street. She couldn’t help noticing the only record of Samson was a few calls from him from the night and morning after the accident.

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