Larger Than Life

by Adele Parks

  I knew he didn’t want me, but I knew I could make him want me and I knew how to do it.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I’m not ready for this, Jessica.’

  She sighs. ‘No one ever is. Even the couples who have spent years trying with IVF. They are not ready. They may want it more. But they’re not ready either.’

  Job. Lover. Home. Friends, all star quality. I have it all.

  Including a sneaky suspicion that this is a little bit more than I bargained for. This wasn’t part of my plan. ‘Having kids seems like the end of life as I know it,’ I mutter.

  ‘It is exactly that.’

  We both fall silent. I study the park bench. The graffiti reads Andy Luvs Angie 4 Ever. Will they? For ever? It seems such a long time. The time I have left is for ever. George Feels Sick 4 Ever. George Changes Nappies 4 Ever.

  My mother interrupts my musings and asks quietly, ‘So are we talking gin and hot baths?’

  It’s admirable that she does not shy away from the issue. I am, and always have been, pro-choice. Abortions are an option for teenagers, mothers of half a dozen children in increasing, overwhelming debt. They are an option for anyone who finds out that their baby is seriously ill. They are an option for rape victims. Abortion is not an option for me. I’m thirty-two, solvent and I love the father of my child. ‘No. No gin or hot baths.’

  ‘Oh good.’ Jessica sighs with relief, although she hadn’t betrayed her viewpoint until she’d heard my decision. This is her greatest strength – she never passes judgement. ‘Well, darling, I hope you know that your father and I are always here for you.’ She adds the caveat, ‘Providing you never, ever use the Granny word. By the way, Georgina, when I said the damage to your body is irreparable, I wasn’t being entirely honest. I can give you the name of a marvellous surgeon at Bart’s. The very essence of discretion. Visit him within three months of the birth and everything will be as good as new, if not better.’

  I know she’s trying to be a comfort.

  I hang up.

  It’s raining, and I wonder how long it has been doing so. It’s the dark, relentless type of rain that offers no compensation or joy. Wind snakes its way into my coat and licks my back. Circles appear in puddles and disappear almost as quickly. It nearly always rains at commuter hour. I think of the sweaty tube carriages, damp and steamy with dripping people, bags and umbrellas. Irritated and exhausted shoppers tutting if someone opens the window, tutting if no one does. Tutting if someone stands on their toes, or they on someone else’s. I imagine harassed office workers irritably fighting for an extra square inch of space, and drunks who sing and smell of streets and urine. In my mind I see the groups of Japanese girls who giggle quietly and relentlessly, neat and identical in their designer clothes. They are oblivious to the fact that all the other women in the compartment are glaring their resentment at the slim hips and advantageous exchange rate. I know all this life is happening right now, as it did yesterday, and as it will tomorrow. Everything going on as it went on before. No one aware that my life has changed, irredeemably.

  I pull my coat an inch further around me and walk to the park gates.

  Time to go home and tell Hugh the news.

  2

  I fell in love with Hugh Williams the first moment I saw him. Sam and I were first-year students at university and we couldn’t believe Hugh was too. He appeared so much more mature. It turned out that he was twenty; he’d taken a couple of years out, to find himself, in India. Which he did in record time – he was there only about six weeks and spent the rest of his gap years stacking shelves in his local Sainsbury’s. I always think this is why he’s so good with people.

  Just over thirteen years ago. Nearly half my lifetime. In all that time I’ve never loved another man. This all sounds über-romantic. People are generally bowled over by my story. Love at first sight and the idea of such constancy, etc., etc. Faces fall slightly when I mention that he was seeing someone else at the time, whom he subsequently married and had two children with. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly thrilled either, but, hey girl, life’s not a fairy tale.

  A fairy-tale scenario goes something like this. Their eyes meet across a crowded room, she chastely looks away and then looks back again; he’s still staring at her. He moves towards her holding two bottles of beer. They start talking, discover they have masses in common, he asks her for her phone number and tells her he’ll call the next day. He calls. They meet several times over the next few weeks; each date is better than the last. He doesn’t push for sex (she’s marginally disappointed by this because she’s gagging for it; why else leave home and go to university?). Eventually, after a respectable period of a number of weeks, after he’s bought her flowers, poetry books and tastefully mounted Rothko prints, they fall into bed. Lovemaking is explosive, better than anything either of them has ever come across before – although, admittedly, their repertoire is rather limited (he is her first partner; she is his second or third, definitely not more than fourth). And, as they are smoking a post-coital cigarette, he tells her he loves her and that she’s the one. At this point she is so besotted with him that she would happily agree to eat his pongy socks for the rest of her life, let alone wash them. They agree to finish their degrees, but set a date for their wedding to be soon after they’ve graduated. Then they live happily ever after.

  My real-life scenario was almost identical, except for at the bit where they’re smoking the post-coital. He didn’t set a date, but instead flicked open his wallet and showed me a picture of his girlfriend. Girlfriend! And I know that makes him sound like a bit of a shyster but, really, he’s not.

  He is divine. A genuine god-like specimen. The most attractive man I’ve ever clapped eyes on, including anyone who’s ever appeared on Top of the Pops, and all of the men in the Levi’s adverts throughout the’80s. Which, I suppose, were the only men I’d had intimate relationships with pre-university. Well, you don’t get much opportunity to meet boys, let alone men, at all-girls boarding schools. I left my school with high hopes of what uni would offer, and though I went to Sheffield, not Oxford, I was expecting the experience to be entirely Brideshead Revisited revisited. On sight Hugh fulfilled all my expectations and my fantasies and my dreams, and then some. Tall, blond, chiselled – classically handsome – with broad shoulders and a tight butt. He’s the kind of bloke that when you see him in the distance you almost hope that, up close, he’ll be a bit of a disappointment. Perhaps his eyes will be too close together, or he’ll have blackheads nestling on his nose. Because, if he is as gorgeous as his distant silhouette promises, he’ll be overwhelming.

  Up close, he doesn’t disappoint.

  He was then, and is now, staggering. His eyes are huge, sparkling, green, dramatically offset by long lashes and perfectly arched eyebrows. He has high, jutting cheekbones and a square jaw. An eleven, on a scale of one to ten.

  And they matched.

  Becca’s photo was testament to her above average beauty. Details? Think creamy, flawless skin, huge, laughing, blue eyes, long, blonde, curly tresses (the only time I’ve ever found an appropriate use for the word tresses is in relation to Becca), permanent, broad smile, revealing pearly-white teeth, big boobs, minute waist, hips, thighs, ankles, etc., etc. In short, irresistible.

  Thank God it turned out that she didn’t understand him.

  And me? Well, even disqualifying British false modesty, facts have to be stated, and the fact is, or rather was, when Hugh and I met I was more of a five or five and a half – out of ten.

  I also had long hair, but it didn’t fall in long, blonde tresses – more brown, tangled rats’ tails. I’ve got two crowns, you see. Not two heads, that really would be bad, but two crowns, and so my hair never parts properly, but sticks out at angles perpendicular to my head. My teeth could be described as straight(ish) and white(ish), but then again they could be described as crooked(ish) and grey(ish), and, let’s face it, I didn’t have a huge amount to smile about at the time. I didn’t have a wais
t at all. I was the shape of a rather chunky toilet roll, which probably gives you an accurate enough picture of my thighs and ankles too.

  It wasn’t as though I could even take consolation in her being stupid or uninformed. No. Becca was one of those who sat for endless hours in the student union bar nursing warm beer and packets of cheese and onion crisps. Not that she ate the crisps. She always made a great show of buying and opening bags and bags of them and putting them on the tabletop and shouting, ‘Dive in, dive in’. And whilst mere mortals like me, with excess fat and deficient self-control, did dive in, she held back and discussed ‘issues’.

  She had opinions on sanctions on Cuba, on whether Soviet troops ought to vacate Afghanistan, and on the environmental consequences of using CFC aerosol hair-spray. She protested against apartheid in South Africa and wanted some answers about China’s human rights record. She debated the intricate politics of Iran and Iraq, whereas I spent all my time trying to remember who was on which side. She’d even read The Satanic Verses, for God’s sake. I had ‘issues’ too, but they were less lofty – mostly clothes, music and make-up. Regularly reading Hello! and knowing how much Marilyn Monroe’s blouse was sold for at Sotheby’s were as near as I got to current affairs (£7,150, if you’re interested).

  Becca was mesmerizing.

  Everyone was captivated.

  Even me.

  I admit that if we had met under other circumstances, in another life, maybe we could have been friends. Maybe I would have liked her sense of humour, admired her compassion, conceded that she had impeccable skin and a pair of legs to die for. As it was, I simply loathed her.

  I couldn’t get over him. I couldn’t let him go. I couldn’t chalk him up to experience or carve a notch in my bedpost and move on. I really couldn’t.

  I sometimes wish I had been able to.

  Our relationship makes the Grand Old Duke of York look spectacularly sedate and single-minded. When they were up they were up, when they were down they were down, just about has us in a nutshell. In the past thirteen years we’ve metamorphosed through all the possible boy/girl incarnations, including pen pal. The only consistency is that he’s always been essential to my adult life. We’ve been ‘just good friends’, anguished lovers, not-so-good friends, the person with whom we had a drunken fumbling at the end of a party, anguished lovers again, and finally live-in lovers.

  And – er – now parents to be.

  Wow.

  It was the beginning of December. Hugh had just been headhunted as MD for Rartle, Roguel and Spirity, renowned as one of the most creative agencies in London. A desperately coveted role throughout the advertising industry, the industry that we both work in. As a matter of fact, we’d both been approached and asked to apply for the position, but as soon as I heard that Hugh was seriously interested I stepped out of the running. Well, I didn’t have a chance against him, and anyway it wouldn’t have been good for our relationship. I firmly believe the best man won. To show my absolute support I went along to his welcoming party. It was a very tasteful affair starting with champagne and canapés in the boardroom, and then dinner at Nubo’s. As is our way we drank a lot, partied until late and then made frantic, fervent love on the breakfast bar, the dining-room table and the rug in the sitting room. He asked, ‘Is it the right time?’ And whilst I was desperately trying to count the days on my fingers, well, let’s just put it this way, by the time I’d done the maths he’d done the deed.

  And as I lay awake in bed that night, gently doing my Pilates exercises whilst trying not to wake Hugh, I reasoned no one ever gets caught out the first time they take a risk.

  No one.

  3

  I’ve read about telling your partner that you are pregnant, I’ve seen the films. I know how it’s supposed to be. The champagne is supposed to be on ice (which immediately strikes me as unfair because I know that alcohol is already a long-lost friend to me). I’m meant to dress up in something that is at once feminine and intriguing. But this is out of the question, as I seem to have put on 5lb just in the drive from the doctor’s to the park, and another five on the drive from the park home. I know I’ll feel bloated and uncomfortable in all my favourite outfits. Besides which, I don’t own anything in a floral print. He’s meant to arrive home tired but handsome.

  I say, ‘Darling, you are going to be a father.’

  Then I faint. Except in this case I might have to be more specific and say, ‘Darling, you are going to be a father again.’ He’s then supposed to shrug off his tiredness long enough to gather me into his arms and whirl me around and around. It’s essential at this point that he doesn’t lose eye contact but gazes adoringly, whilst repeatedly telling me how clever I am.

  I pour a great deal of concentration into visualizing this scenario but, try as I might, I simply cannot see Hugh and me in this state of domestic bliss. I guess ringing Becca for some tips is a little inappropriate. Besides, I know how Hugh felt when Becca became a mother.

  Devastated.

  He ran.

  Directly into my arms.

  Oh God.

  It’s fair to say becoming a mum didn’t do Becca any favours. Quite the reverse. I’m rational enough to calculate that perhaps Hugh would have stayed with Becca if she hadn’t fallen pregnant and become mind-numbingly boring. Plus fat. Yes, of course, it hurts knowing this. No one likes to think they won their man because his wife lost her sexual appetite and her ability to talk about anything other than baby poo and Winnie the Pooh. But kidding yourself is just that. It’s wisest to understand, genuinely understand, where the other woman went wrong. In that way you can avoid making the same mistakes.

  Or not, if you are haphazard with a calendar.

  I mooch around the flat trying to submerge that last thought. Think good stuff, think nice thoughts. I instruct myself in the same way Jessica used to instruct me when, as a child, I woke up from a nightmare and couldn’t fall asleep again in case the scary dream found its way back into my mind. OK. Good thoughts:

  Hugh arriving on my doorstep eight months ago. I beam to myself remembering the exquisite mix of relief, breathtaking excitement and sheer, unadulterated joy. He’s chosen me! After nearly two years of undignified sneaking about and before that eleven years of frustrating silence, Hugh and I were able to declare our love for each other, to each other and to the world at large. Good thought – it doesn’t get better than that.

  What was so utterly wonderful about that day was that Hugh didn’t sneak up to my flat with a battered suitcase and heart, he arrived with a flourish, with pizzazz. The doorbell rang, which made me think it was a courier from work as Hugh had a key; Sam never arrives without calling first and who else would pop by? I opened the door, and lying on the mat was the most enormous bunch of starburst lilies; there must have been thirty stems. The bouquet was undoubtedly the most beautiful bouquet I had ever seen, or have seen since. It was a frenzied mass of colourful flowers and ribbons, with arty twigs jutting out at jaunty angles. It was a bouquet that declared celebration. At the very centre there was a yellow toothbrush. A toothbrush! Did this mean? Could this mean? I hardly dared hope. Giggling to myself I looked left to right but couldn’t see any sign of a florist or Hugh. I picked up the enormous bouquet and, taking care not to brush the flowers – heavy with staining pollen – against the hall wall, I took it to the kitchen.

  The card read, I choose you.

  Yes. Yes. Yes. I punched the air, I screamed out loud. I literally jumped for joy; over and over again I jumped, pounding my feet on the floor until they hurt. He chose me. Me. Chose me. He did. My unrestrained delight was brooked (but only momentarily) when Hugh knocked on the kitchen window. He was laughing, it was clear he’d witnessed my entire response. Heart racing, I ran to the back door, pulled it open and flung myself into his arms. We kissed and kissed and kissed until he scraped my chin away, and my knickers.

  That was eight months ago.

  By the time Hugh arrives home I am trashed. Not woozy, not merry, not pl
easantly inebriated, but trashed. Plastered. Wrecked. Far from becoming a long-lost friend, alcohol is my closest intimate. And whilst I know I absolutely should not be drinking now, let alone drinking enough to become legless, I simply can’t stop myself. I might as well admit it: I am smoking my eighth cigarette of the day, too. I argue that if I hadn’t found out about the pregnancy until tomorrow I’d probably be at some wine bar right now, smoking and drinking myself into oblivion in happy ignorance.

  I know it’s a shoddy argument and I already feel guilty.

  ‘Hello, gorgeous. Can I join you?’ Hugh kisses me on the lips and nods towards the nearly empty bottle of Merlot. He throws his jacket over the back of a chair, it’s a really simple action. But this simple, domestic action makes my heart zoom to my mouth and then ricochet to my knickers. He, at least, has fulfilled his part of the bargain; he does look handsome and tired. I really regret my lack of floral prints. I love him. Every tiny bit of him. From his dishevelled hair, which he has so obviously run his fingers through numerous times today, down to his immaculate, shiny shoes. He takes great care of his shoes. He has a shoe-tree for every pair he owns, and he never puts on or takes off a shoe without the aid of a shoehorn. This practice, although undeniably old-fashioned, endears him to me anew every time I witness it.

  I love him so much it hurts. I love him so much I feel sick with it.

  But then that could be the pregnancy.

  ‘How was your day?’ I ask.

  He treats me to a half-grin, a half-shrug. We both know that the other’s days are, as a matter of course, busy, stressful and political. We wouldn’t have it any other way. He pours himself a glass of wine and tops up my glass. He joins me on the grey buckskin settee and we shuffle into our usual position – him upright, me slouched lengthways, with my feet resting on his legs. He absent-mindedly starts to rub my ankles.

  ‘I like the nail varnish.’ He nods towards my pedicured toes. ‘So what’s up?’ he asks. Whilst I’m gratified that he knows me so well that he’s immediately sensed that some thing is wrong, his question blows any hope I had that I’d kill time with polite small talk.