asks Maron, tapping on the door and opening it a crack before coming in. I brace myself for the inevitable reaction to the sight she’s greeted with, but she doesn’t even flinch when she looks at me. I don’t know what to do with that. There is no point in being in attack mode if no one is trying to attack you.
‘Oh dear, it smells like someone has had a little accident,’ Maron says, acknowledging the smell radiating from Bonnie. I realise I have no nappies; in a rush this morning, I’ve left the nappy bag at home.
‘She’ll have to wait now,’ I say, lying back, submissively giving my body to Maron. She’s seen it now, there is no point in me resisting her.
‘Oh it’s OK, you don’t need to leave her with a poo in her nappy. I can wait,’ she says, making me feel like the cruellest mother imaginable for making my child sit in a dirty nappy while I get what is, essentially, a beauty treatment. But I insist she must just get on with it.
‘OK, let’s get going, shall we, so you can freshen her up.’ Maron lights a candle, which helps with the smell. My torture is about to begin.
‘Please go as quickly as you can,’ I ask her.
I lay my head to the side, away from Maron. She gets the things she needs to start the procedure.
‘So is she your only one?’ Maron asks, nodding in Bonnie’s direction.
‘Yes,’ I reply in my blandest voice. I don’t want to talk. Vera understood that.
‘How old is she?’
‘Three and a half.’ Is she serious, she thinks I am here to make friends?
‘Do you think you’ll have another one?’
‘No,’ I say, sharply. Why do women always presume that other women want to talk? And why, when you only have one kid, do people always ask if you want more? As if having one isn’t enough, that having siblings would be better for them. As an only child, I resent this question, as the subtext is that I myself missed out on something and that I am damaged as a consequence.
‘She’s such a good girl, what’s her name?’
‘Bonnie,’ I reply, as monotone as I can. Not wanting to invite more chat. Maron stirs the wax, and loads it onto a wooden spatula. ‘It’s a little hot, give me just a second.’ She says, dragging out my misery. ‘That’s such a pretty name.’
I regret it more and more every time someone says that.
‘You’re lucky,’ she says. Which makes me want to stick a wax strip on her face, yank it off, and see how lucky she feels.
‘Lucky?’ I ask. Fascinated by whatever stupid logic she has for such a statement.
‘Yes. You’re lucky. My cousin has this condition too. She’s how I got into waxing. I used to get rid of her hair for her in school. I got pretty good at it quite quickly. She’s married now and can’t get pregnant. And look at you with your beautiful daughter. You’re lucky.’
‘Sounds like she dodged a bullet,’ I say, turning away.
Maron doesn’t have a comeback for that. She takes a few moments to think of another deeply personal question. I don’t know why beauty therapists, hairdressers, dentists or anyone at all who is being paid to do a service think that women come to these appointments to have their lives interrogated. It drives me mad.
‘So how was the birth? I looove talking about birth,’ she says excitedly.
‘Why, have you done it?’
‘No, but I can’t wait to.’
I sometimes find the best way to end a conversation is to say something unpleasant.
‘Birth was awful. The worst experience of my life, and that’s saying something.’ I hope that will shut her up, but if there is one thing I have learned about Maron in the few moments I have known her, she doesn’t shut up.
‘Oh no, why?’
‘Really? You want to know?’
‘Yes, I think it’s important to hear all birth stories, it’s research. If I know all eventualities then I won’t be scared if they happen, right?’
‘OK, well I’d been hoping to have her naturally.’
‘Wow, good for you.’
‘Yeah, well I’m terrified of medical intervention, so I didn’t think I had much choice.’
‘OK, and did you do it?’ she asks, stirring the wax and testing it on her hand. She seems more satisfied with the temperature now.
‘No, I had to have a C-section in the end,’ I say, flashing back to the trauma. Seeing myself, naked, surrounded by strangers. Humiliation crippling me.
I’d booked a full body wax for two weeks and one day before my due date. After a treatment I have around two and a half weeks of being hair-free before it starts to grow back. So if Bonnie was on time, I’d be good. If she was late, even by two weeks, I would be hairy, but it wouldn’t be its maximum thickness. It was the best I could do.
Bonnie came two weeks and two days early. I was fully hirsute. Thick, black, bear-like hair all over my body. Between my breasts, around my nipples, all over my abdomen, my back. My pubic hair thick down to my knees, heavy fur toward my ankles. When I went into labour I cried. I knew countless people were about to see my body and I panicked. My cervix did too, clamming up so tight Bonnie had no chance of getting out. I tried for hours, but she wouldn’t come. The hospital lights were bright, I begged for them to go down. They insisted they needed to see. Liam did his best to comfort me, but I screamed at him and made him feel as redundant as I did ugly. I heard a nurse say, ‘This is the most primal birth I have ever seen.’ Meaning it was like watching an actual ape give birth. I felt repulsive. So self-aware. Everything you shouldn’t have to feel in that moment. I wanted to be alone. To disappear into a dark corner and get my baby out by myself. I swear if I had been in the wild, it would have been OK. But there were people everywhere and no matter how much I screamed at them to leave me they wouldn’t. After fifteen hours of active labour, the doctor insisted I had a C-section. I was wheeled down the corridor. More bright lights. They had to shave my belly to get her out.
‘Well, at least you got her out safe,’ Maron says, snapping me out of my memory. ‘Well done you, birth is beautiful no matter how it happens,’ she continues, her young, ignorant mind speaking on her behalf.
Beautiful is not a word I would use to describe any aspect of my birth experience. I have never felt so ugly as I did in the hours that followed, either. My stomach was covered in stubble. I couldn’t breast feed Bonnie because I worried it would scratch her on the back of the head. They wanted to shave my nipples so she could latch on. I couldn’t cope with getting my boobs out in front of people anymore. The hair between them thick, the hair on them thicker. So I stopped, and asked for a bottle. Liam gave her the first feed. I just stared and watched, feeling like my entire world had been shattered. All that, just to hand her to someone else. I had already failed her in the first few hours of her life. It would only be downhill from there. My mother always liked to tell me I destroyed her body during childbirth. I don’t plan
