How Do You Like Me Now?

by Holly Bourne

  Tom is three beers and one cocktail in and he is softening.

  ‘You look pretty tonight,’ he finally says. I can smell the beef on his breath from over the table.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I know I’m lucky to have you, Tor.’

  ‘I’m lucky to have you too.’

  He wiggles his eyebrows over his burger which is encased in both hands. There is a splodge of artisan mayonnaise on the side of his lip. ‘Looking forward to trying out your present later?’

  No.

  No no no no no no.

  I wink at him in what I hope is a seductive way. ‘Of course.’ I pull up my skirt under the table and flash him the belt of my suspenders. ‘And I’ve got a present for you too.’

  He sees the suspenders and he grips my thigh. Just feeling wanted by him, if only for a second, makes me suddenly want him. I push my thighs together so I’m clamping his hand and we smirk at one another. He is still in there. Rock Man. The Man on the Rock. The spark may be like one of those flimsy cheap lighters that takes forever to catch in the wind, but there’s still some gasoline left. If I have another drink I’ll be just about relaxed enough to not mind the vibrator. It may even be enjoyable. It may even be kinky. I mean, couples use sex toys all the time. We don’t. But others do. Maybe we just need date night and sex toys to ‘spice things up’. I mean, it wouldn’t be trotted out as advice for everything if it didn’t work.

  My phone starts to vibrate manically.

  ‘No phones.’ He removes his hand to wag his finger.

  ‘I know.’ I pick up my fork and try another spoonful of curry.

  My phone goes again.

  And again.

  And—

  ‘Oh just get it,’ Tom snaps in a tight whisper. ‘I know you’re dying to.’

  ‘I’m not going to get it.’

  ‘Just get it.’

  It vibrates again. Angrily. Urgently. I’m worried now. That someone is hurt. ‘I’m not going to get it. A deal’s a deal,’ I say, though my fingers are itching to pick it up and other tables have started to notice the noise and are shooting us looks.

  ‘This is ridiculous, just check it.’

  ‘Nope.’

  He holds eye contact. We’re both half-laughing to try to ensure the other one knows we are joking but it is loaded. Atmosphere hangs on every atom in the air between us.

  ‘It’s just, whoever it is, they keep messaging. I’m worried something’s happened.’

  ‘Tori! Just check your fucking phone already.’

  I’m stinging that he has sworn at me as I swipe upwards. Part of me hopes, just for a moment, that something bad has happened so Tom feels guilty.

  My hand flies to my mouth.

  ‘What? What is it?!’

  ‘Oh my God!’

  ‘What is it Tor? Is everything OK?’ He’s panicked now, leaning over towards me, hands gripping the table.

  ‘It’s Dee,’ I say, looking up from my phone. ‘She’s gone into labour.’

  Month Nine

  Nigel Tucker is feeling very blessed!

  So, she came earlier than expected, but she’s our Christmas miracle. I’m so, so proud to introduce Janice Harper to the world. Weighing only 5lbs and 2oz but perfect and healthy and we’re besotted. Dee’s been such a trooper and I’m the luckiest man on earth. X x x x x

  238 likes

  Comments:

  Amy Price: Oh my God – congratulations! She looks so much like you Dee. Sending ALL the hugs to your family.

  Claire Spears: SHE IS JUST GORGEOUS! I cannot wait to meet her. Congratulations!!

  Sally Thomson: What beautiful news and what a beautiful baby. Wishing you all the best on this most special of days.

  82 more comments …

  *

  Christmas is everywhere by the time I’m allowed to see her.

  The air crackles with frenzied energy. Everyone is driving badly or walking without looking or pushing with their elbows. The bus to Nigel’s flat is heaving – the windows fogged and sodden with condensation. At least five different people sneeze on me. It’s too hot but there’s not enough room to take off my coat. I sweat into it, getting annoyed because my fringe will look all separated in the photos I’ll take when I meet the baby.

  I’ve never actually been to Nigel’s flat before and it takes me a while to find it on Google maps. I go down a few wrong roads and retrace my steps. But, eventually, I am here. Outside. Looking at the flat and thinking how very Nigel. It has a security-gate code thing to stop even pedestrians getting in. It must’ve cost a fortune. I check Dee’s message on my phone to remind myself what number they are and press the appropriate button. There’s a ring and a buzz. Her voice crackles out of the speaker.

  ‘Tor? That you?’ She sounds like Dee. Her voice is the same. I’m not sure why I thought it would be different, but I’m relieved that her voice is the same.

  ‘Rumour has it that YOU’VE HAD A BABY,’ I yell into the intercom. ‘I’m coming to check these unsubstantiated claims.’ Her laughter crackles as the gate buzzes and slowly swings open.

  Dee’s waiting for me at the door to her flat and seeing her breaks something inside me. ‘Dee!’ I go to hug her but she steps back.

  ‘Ooo careful! I’m still all stitched up down there.’ She pats me tenderly on the back though as I walk through to her new home.

  I can smell the baby before I see her.

  The scent of baby lingers and casts its usual hypnotic spell. It makes the air in this flat feel calm and serene.

  ‘Where is she then?’ I ask. ‘I’m not here to see you.’

  Dee laughs, holding her stomach. ‘Don’t make me laugh again. She’s in the living room. Here, I’ll show you.’ We follow the scent through the flat that Dee hasn’t quite managed to de-bachelorise yet. The walls are all still cream, the furniture all still black. But framed photos of them hang on the wall in the hallway. Snapshots of their life, cementing their time together – though this time last year they didn’t know the other existed. I pad after her, instinctively taking off my boots, and there, there in the corner, is her baby.

  I walk over to the Moses basket and look down at my best friend’s baby. She’s tiny. I’ve never seen one this tiny before but Dee’s auburn hair grows aggressively out of her head.

  ‘Dee,’ I whisper, feeling her beside me. ‘She’s beautiful. She’s got your hair.’

  We stand there quietly. Janice sleeps, head on one side, little fists clenched, lost in whatever unconsciousness newborns have.

  ‘She’s something, right? I was always worried my baby wouldn’t be cute, but she really is, isn’t she?’

  ‘She’s so small.’

  ‘Well, she was so very early.’

  I stare at her a while longer. I crouch down and hold out my little finger, pressing it into her palm. Janice grabs hold of it in her sleep. I turn and grin back at Dee. She smiles at me, tired, from where she’s gently lowering herself onto the sofa.

  ‘I’ll make tea,’ I say.

  ‘I love you.’

  I deftly remove my pinkie and work out my way around Nigel’s kitchen. It’s all steel and shiny and everything you would expect. The teabags are in a special jar. The fridge takes a while to find because it’s invisibly built into the units. I return with two steaming mugs. Dee reaches out gratefully.

  ‘So …’ I say.

  ‘So.’

  ‘Dee, you’ve had a baby.’

  She shakes her head, like she can’t believe it either. ‘I know. What’s that about?’ She looks so different. Her face is whiter. Her hair is limper. And yet, there’s something about the way she carries herself. She seems wiser, older, like a grown-up.

  I sip from my mug. ‘How are you? Really?’

  She shakes her head, a smile creeping across her freckles. ‘Happy. So so tired, yet so so happy. She’s just … it’s so weird, Tor. It’s totally fucking surreal. I can’t even explain it.’

  I smile at her. I am happy for her.
I can manage that, and that makes me proud of myself. ‘And how are you after … everything?’

  Dee blows her fringe up and shakes her head again. ‘For God’s sake, Tor. Everyone tells you how awful it is, but they don’t actually ever get across how awful it is. I thought I was going to die. I actually thought I was dying.’

  My heart rate picks up at even the thought of it. My palms clamming. If I ever have a baby, I will have to do this too. It’s the fear that creeps up on you sometimes, out of the blue. A bit like those moments when you realise, when you’re doing the washing up or something, that you’re going to die and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. If you want to give birth to a baby, you will have to go through labour. And not one person has anything good to say about that. ‘You’re OK though?’

  ‘Yes. And it’s worth it. It is. I mean, look at her.’

  We both peer over the top of the Moses basket again. The baby is still just as absorbing. Her smell wafts over us. The house is so still. Dee is so still. I’ve never seen her like this. All … chill. I ask how Nigel is doing and she grins so widely as she explains how in love he is. How cute he is when he changes a nappy. How amazing he was during the labour. There is so much love in this room. It ripples out of the walls; it looks down on me from the framed photographs. Dee is wrapped in multiple duvets of love. She’s just explaining how hot the male midwife was when I notice it.

  The glint on her finger.

  ‘Dee? You’re engaged!’

  She goes red, her cheeks flooding with blood, camouflaging her freckles. She looks down, bashful. ‘Took you long enough to notice!’

  I’m kneeling at her feet, sinking into the plush cream carpet. I am gasping. I am holding the ring closer so I can see it properly. ‘Oh my God,’ I say. ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘I wanted to tell you in person. You know how much I hate it when people post it online.’

  I rub the diamond between my fingers, playing the role of caring what it’s like. It’s a large cuboid diamond on white silver. Generic, but still quite Dee. ‘You’re not tempted to take a photo of your hand and add a comment saying “he liked it so …”?’

  ‘Tor! No! Although Nigel is desperate to. He’s so insecure, bless him. He wants to post everything all the time.’

  I am blinking more than I should, and that’s probably because I’m feeling sadder than I should. Sad at this happy news. But I’m smiling and I’m managing. I ask her all the questions I am so well-trained in asking. And I ask them without strain in my voice, as I am well-trained in doing. ‘How did he do it?’ ‘Were you surprised?’ ‘Do you have a date?’ But she is still Dee. Thankfully she is still Dee.

  ‘He didn’t get down on one knee, thank fuck. Because I’d banned him from doing so. I wasn’t that surprised. It’s Nigel. He kept saying “this will be a very special mini break” in the lead up to Norwich. He wasn’t expecting me to go into labour two hours later. And, no, we won’t get married for ages. Childbirth was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me and that’s all his fault. It’s going to take me two years to forgive him enough to marry him.’

  But she is still getting married.

  And I am not.

  The baby wakes. She gurgles, she cries. Dee winces as she crouches down to pick her up. She winces as she sits back down with her on the sofa. ‘What’s up baby? Are you hungry my darling? Are you?’

  She is a natural. I don’t even have to lie as I tell her that. Janice finds her nipple quickly and falls quiet again. Her little blue alien eyes are open and staring up with so much love, and Dee is looking down at her with so much love. There is so much love in this room, did I tell you?

  ‘I can’t move for forty-five minutes now,’ Dee says. ‘Please stay and talk to me.’

  ‘What do you want to talk about?’ I artfully move my eyes away from Dee’s breast.

  ‘You! What’s going on with you. How’s the book? How’s Tom? I will not be one of those mothers who can’t talk about anything other than the baby.’

  I am so grateful that she’s asked after me. I am so grateful even though her asking means I now have to lie. To her. To myself. Because if I tell the truth now about how well things are going I will fall apart and I’m not sure I’ll be able to put myself back together again. I start gabbling. Insecurity lacing every gurgle of nonsense that streams from my mouth. This is Dee. Dee. And yet suddenly I want her to think I’m doing great. To maybe even be slightly jealous of me. I need her to think my life is good, so I can maybe think my life is good. ‘Book is going slowly. They’ve extended my deadline …’ I sip my tea from a black shiny mug. ‘Tom is still Tom. He’s off again on a business trip next week. You know us. Oh, yeah, we still have our little fights. Oh, yeah, the same old. “Why can’t we talk about children?” etc. etc. But, you know, I’ve been thinking about it, Dee, really thinking about it.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ she asks, smiling down as Janice tugs at her nipple.

  ‘Yeah, I have. And, well, I’m just not sure if I’m maternal, you know? I’ve not, like, got that ache to reproduce. I’m … ambivalent.’ My hands are throwing shapes around me as I speak – like I’m making balloon animals of lies out of the surrounding air. ‘And, well, maybe I don’t have the urge to have kids because I’m so fulfilled by my job, you know? Like, I’m so lucky that I have a career where I’m essentially leaving a part of myself behind on the world. I make a difference. I feel like I have such a purpose already. So maybe that’s what’s scratching that itch, you know? So maybe I don’t need to have children …’

  I tail off because Dee has pulled a face. A very involuntary face. She looks up from her baby and is still pulling the face. ‘Oh, Tor,’ she says, readjusting her arms so the baby’s head is even more comfortable.

  ‘What? What is it?’ I ask.

  She presses her lips together and gives just the slightest hint of a head shake. ‘It just makes me sad to hear you say that, that’s all.’

  I pause. I tiptoe into this conversation, scared to go any closer to the cliff edge of it.

  ‘Why?’

  Dee stares at her baby again. Shhing her, whispering she is a good girl. She manages to look back up, sorrow in her eyes. Sympathy. Maybe. Maybe, a hint of judgement? No. No it won’t be that. It can’t be …

  ‘I’m sure you think right now that your career is as fulfilling as having a baby,’ she starts to say. Starts to say what will ruin everything. She keeps speaking. In this patronising voice I never knew existed. ‘But, honestly, Tor. They’re incomparable. You won’t understand until you have one yourself, but it’s just so much bigger than anything else … a career just can’t compete. I’m sorry hon, but it just can’t. I’m not saying this to upset you, I’m just saying it because … well … because I’m worried about you and Tom. I don’t want him to talk you out of anything. I think you know your books aren’t the same as a baby …’

  And that.

  That is when.

  The veil falls down between us.

  Janice, maybe sensing my tension, falls off the boob and starts wailing. Dee tries to push her back on.

  I stand up. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Shh, shh, come on. You’ve not finished with this one yet.’ She looks up. ‘Stay!’ Dee says. ‘I’ll get her reattached in a moment. You’re not upset, are you? I only said it because I care about you, Tor.’

  ‘I really do have to go.’

  If I don’t leave within twenty seconds, I will explode into ash. I will leave chunks of myself, of our friendship, all over the cream walls of this flat.

  I cannot believe.

  Cannot.

  Believe.

  She has just said what she has just said.

  ‘I’m not upset.’ I smile as I lie. And she falls for it. I don’t know how, but she does. ‘Please, don’t stand up. Get her settled,’ I put my hands up. ‘I can see myself out.’

  Dee seems slightly disappointed that I’m leaving before she wants me to, but more distracted by the baby and what t
he baby needs. And you know what? I am OK with that part. I am used to that part. I accept that it is normal and natural and part of how friendships change when one of you brings a new life into this world. I am not a monster. I am not selfish. I am not unwilling to adapt. I’m not even letting my jealousy cloud this – though I am sure I would be accused of such if I ever dared bring this up.

  ‘Take care, yeah?’ I tell her. I reach out and stroke Dee’s red, glowing hair that burns like fire in the low winter sun streaming through the windows. ‘I’ll call you soon.’

  ‘You sure you have to go?’ She sounds needy now. Maybe Nigel is not due back for a while. But she has just told me how fulfilling all this is so she’ll be fine by herself.

  ‘Yes. Christmas. Career stuff.’ Poison leaks from my tongue as I say the word ‘career’ but she doesn’t notice because Janice is reattaching. I put my coat on and pull on my boots and say goodbye over my shoulder. Just as I’m about to push through the front door, I stop and look at the photographs. There is one here that I took – of Dee and Nigel on the dance floor at the wedding I brought her to. The wedding that changed her life. Nigel’s got Dee hoisted on his shoulders, her head is thrown back with laughter. She fell off his shoulders moments later, then dragged me to the loo to tell me she really liked him.