by Adele Parks
Sigh.
It takes me about thirty minutes to locate the relevant section in the bookstore. It’s on the third floor, which leads me to believe that a man, or a woman who has yet to discover her reproductive capacity, designed the store. I huff and puff my way up the stairs doing a good impersonation of Dawn French running the final mile of the London Marathon. Odd to think that not so long ago I prided myself on sprinting up stairs all over London, including that double set at Piccadilly tube station because the damn escalators are never working.
It’s an eye-opener to discover that there is a whole industry devoted to the thus far invisible army of women that give birth. There is shelf after shelf after shelf of books about pregnancy. Straight books, funny books, medical books, books that look at the emotional, psychological, sociological, economic and political aspects of having a child. Books with diagrams, books with photos – black and white and colour (aahhh) – and books that rely entirely on text. There are books about conceiving, carrying and labour. There are books about the first days, weeks, months and years of childhood. The choice is overwhelming. I have no idea which book to buy. Despite the choice, all the books have two things in common. One, they all picture women with dodgy 1980s haircuts and sailor-collar dresses, and two, they are universally terrifying and depressing. In a near trance-like state I finally grab the two nearest to me. One is a week-by week guide to pregnancy. I flick over some pages until I come to the section on the baby’s development at week nine.
Week 9
Your baby’s arms and legs are longer. Hands are flexed at the wrist and meet over the heart area. Your baby now moves its body and limbs.
I look at the diagram expecting to see something that could audition for a Huggies advert. In fact, there is a diagram of a small alien-like thingy. Its eyes look evil. The second book I choose is a lighthearted text detailing the things a best friend should tell you about pregnancy. Since I haven’t actually managed to tell my best friends I am pregnant as yet I hope that this book will be a good enough surrogate.
There’s another book, one that acts like mercury spilling into my nervous system. I can hardly bring myself to glance at the title on the spine. It’s about dealing with miscarriage and stillbirth. So, for the first time since I was a Brownie, I say a prayer. A sort of prayer. I don’t drop to my knees in the middle of the shop, but I sort of ask whoever is out there that if at all possible could (s)he see to it that the little grain of couscous grows to be a howling, mewling, spewing baby.
I want this so much that I think I’ve stopped breathing.
What does that mean? Could that be the first hint of an appropriate response? It feels right. In fact, it feels much more right than many of my other appropriate responses – for example, raving about Pulp Fiction’, I’m aware I’m supposed to love the film, I just didn’t but best we keep that to ourselves. It’s definitely more appropriate than describing beds in galleries as informative and sophisticated, as opposed to wanky.
Exhausted from the effort of climbing three flights of stairs, I decide to stop for a quick coffee. I reluctantly remember that I should no longer be drinking coffee, and so order a banana milkshake instead, another habit I kicked in the Brownies, but my churning stomach is threatening revolt yet again and is more or less demanding something creamy and calorific. I patiently queue in the bookshop café, nervously eyeing the only free table and wondering if it will be my stomach or my legs that will let me down first. I notice some guy walk into the café, put his bags on a chair at the free table and then join the queue behind me. Let’s face it, we’ve all done it. The bagsie thing. So I’m not perturbed. I take my milkshake and sit on the other side of the table.
Have you ever read one of these books? Have you? I am carrying an alien! A puke-inducing, body-deforming, breast-engorging, amniotic-fluid-drinking (whatever that is) alien!
And the book I’ve chosen has an obsession with food, too. How tactless is that? Apparently the crown-rump length of the embryo is just over 2 cm; they liken it to an olive, and my uterus is a little bigger than a grapefruit. Yuk, yuk, yuk, yuk. Olives. Now there’s a thought. I fancy an olive and some of those cherries they served in really naff drinks in the 1970s. I think I’ll nip to Tesco Metro on the way back to the office.
The bagsie guy joins me, I smile, and for the sake of good form I add, ‘Hope you don’t mind me squatting, there was nowhere else to sit.’
I turn back to my pregnancy book, thus making it clear that I have no intention of talking to him and that my sitting at his table is entirely driven by necessity and not an attempt to leapfrog the lonely-hearts column.
The introduction reads: ‘Whether this is your first pregnancy or whether you’ve already had a child and you are expecting for a second, third or fourth time –’ get real ‘– this is a very exciting time for you. Having a baby developing inside you is an incredible experience.’
Incredible is a word I can agree with. As in unthinkable, unimaginable, suspect.
Turns out that pregnancy is not nine months but nearer ten, well at least forty weeks, a device to prolong the agony. Sorry, obviously I mean to prolong the excitement. And apparently, like the Queen, my foetus has two birthdays, fertilization age and gestational age. By page six, I’m dizzy with confusion brought upon by words such as mucus, cellular debris and endometrium.
‘I do mind, actually,’ says the bagsie man.
‘Sorry?’
‘I do mind you sitting here. I have some friends joining me.’
Somewhat taken aback I look up from my book. I doubt the friends bit – this chap looks like a lonely techie nerd, the only friends he’ll have are virtual – but I can’t very well call him an out-and-out liar.
‘Besides I was here first,’ he adds, quickly metamorphosing from a techie nerd to an awkward git.
He wasn’t, strictly speaking, but I’m too sick and tired to argue; I simply reassure him, ‘Don’t worry I’ll move when they come.’ I ought to point out that this level of tolerance and compromise is unusual for me, and unprecedented in London.
‘No. That’s not good enough. I want you to move now,’ says the miserable turd. He’s glaring at me with fish-like eyes. Cold and wet.
‘Well, I’m not going to, there’s nowhere else to sit.’ I wave my pregnancy book about a bit and try to stick out my stomach, hoping he’ll pick up on my condition and feel shamed into leaving me alone. I feel appalling and don’t think I could stand up to drink my creamy, gunky drink even if I wanted to. And actually part of me does want to, the part that doesn’t like sitting with weirdos, but the other part, the stubborn, I-know-my-rights-you-miserable-twat part, is not prepared to budge.
This guy has glasses and a struggling goatee. He’s wearing M&S jeans and a beige sweater. He weighs about nine stone. At a guess I’d say he went to university and studied geography. He reads the Guardian and tries to pretend he gets the jokes in Private Eye. His mother probably has her hair ‘set’ once a week at the local hairdresser’s, and his father spends most of his day on the allotment. He hasn’t got a girlfriend. He’s not a threat. I’m prepared to ignore him, to overlook his obvious hostility, to drink my milkshake quickly and leave. But he has other plans.
‘You’re one of those fucking arseholes, aren’t you?’ he says.
He says that to me. To me.
Look, I live in a cosmopolitan city, I work in advertising, I am not unaccustomed to colourful language. We all know who he means when he says ‘fucking arseholes’. He means the Sunday drivers who drive below the speed limit, he means the boy racers who cut you up at traffic lights, and he means traffic wardens who give you a ticket even though they are still writing it when you return to your car. And he, apparently, means me. I cannot reply. Literally cannot. I know if I speak I will shower the man with every expletive I know (many) in a way that would make a sailor run for cover.
Or I will cry.
Torrents.
It takes every ounce of self-control I possess to reject
both these responses. Instead, I quickly finish my drink, gather up my books and leave. Hoping that he can’t tell that I’m shaking.
Question: what kind of world is it that I am bringing a baby into? Answer: one where brutal words are said aloud, in a bookshop, by a middle-class, Guardian-reading man to a middle-class, milkshake-drinking woman.
7
We fall out of the lift, a rowdy crowd desperate for a drink, tobacco and irreverent chatter. I try not to resent the fact that only one of those three is still a viable option for me. We often have a drink after work – the theory is that this drink is to help us relax; the reality is that we often carry on discussing office politics and, rather than helping us to unwind, our drunken evenings only serve to wind each other up. Still, these nights out are irresistible. If we’re drinking on expenses we visit trendy watering holes such as Mash, Attica and Titanic, but if there’s no client spondulicks then we usually go to the Crown and Sceptre. This is the grotty local that sells warm, tasteless, overpriced beer; it has carpets splattered with cigarette burns, blood from brawls and vomit from those who can’t understand the concept of ‘one too many’. It has nothing to recommend it except that it’s next door to our office. You can find us there most evenings. Tonight is different again. Brett has a friend who is opening a bar and he’s blagged us invites, and although I’ll be drinking fizzy water I’m still looking forward to it. Champagne Charlotte’s has had the rare and dubious honour of being positively reviewed in Time Out. Everyone who is anyone will be there. The boyband is on a mission and I’m in remission. It’s been a long day.
‘My balls are aching, it’s a necessity that I get laid tonight,’ comments Karl.
‘Darling, you are all charm,’ I muse.
‘Not getting enough, you effing shirt-lifter?’ asks Drew sensitively. It’s the only way they know how to communicate.
Karl snarls some retort, but I miss it because at that moment I notice Hugh in reception. I’m thrilled – it’s been a while since he’s surprised me by meeting me after work like this. He’s obviously being doubly thoughtful since I’ve told him that I’m pregnant. A fraction of a second later I notice Kate, Hugh’s lovable little tyke – except she isn’t in the slightest bit lovable – and Tom, who is still so tiny that he is a non-person without any personality at all, not even an offensive one.
My heart sinks. Obviously, I’ve forgotten some commitment or other. ‘You guys go ahead, I’ll catch you up.’ I sigh.
As they walk towards the door Hugh exchanges a few pleasantries with the lads. They congratulate him on his job move and they all discuss football and bottled beer. They’re nearly bosom buddies. In the background I’m beaming. I can’t help it, he is proud-making. He fits so easily into any social situation, happily chatting and passing the time of day, and yet he’s so much cleverer and more distinguished and remarkable than other men.
Although I think Karl is in exactly the same shirt, and Drew is wearing the same suit, but in a different shade.
‘Babe.’ Hugh turns to me and kisses me full on the lips, holding my face between his hands. I adore the openness, especially after the months of skulking. I cast a cheerful, victorious glance at the boyband, but it’s wasted because they’ve already scooted out of the door, in pursuit of that first drink.
‘Babes, you are looking hot,’ murmurs Hugh.
‘What do you want?’
He grins and I’m grinning too because seeing through his blatant flattery is another sign of our being a legitimate, established couple.
‘Buggered up the childminding arrangements, haven’t I?’ Hugh shrugs and then bangs his hand against his head, managing to leave his hair helplessly ruffled. He plays the little boy lost to his advantage frequently, and whilst it’s no longer quite as charming and endearing as it was thirteen years ago it is now quintessentially him and therefore irresistible. ‘Becca’s at some night course, I said we’d babysit. After all, the sooner she’s retrained and back in the workplace the better it will be for us.’
This is undoubtedly true. Becca doesn’t work, so Hugh still pays the mortgage on their place and lives rent-free at mine. Well, it would be ridiculous to ask him to contribute towards a mortgage that I can easily afford. We both earn serious salaries and we don’t go short on luxuries, never mind necessities. Besides which, Hugh quite rightly points out that Kate and Tom shouldn’t have their lifestyle compromised because of the choices that the adults around them made. They’re used to having their mum at home. Having said all that, I sometimes wish that she was more financially independent, the emphasis being on independent.
‘Fair enough,’ I comment as I scoop up the wriggling Tom. Oh God, his nappy needs changing. ‘What course is she doing?’
‘Furniture restoration.’
I don’t see this as a practical choice for a fully trained accountant trying to get back into the workforce. Surely, she should be updating one of her qualifications on tax fiddles. Furniture restoration! A bloody delaying tactic if I ever saw one. She’s hardly likely to find employers queuing up to offer her a job bringing a Louis XIV chair back to life. A surge of irritation washes over me and I battle to suppress it. Deep breaths, deep breaths. Bloody Becca always seems to use the children to get what she wants. This reminds me of Christmas, which was difficult. Naturally, Hugh and I had wanted to spend time together as it was our first official Christmas as a couple and, naturally, Hugh had wanted to spend time with his kids. Naturally, Becca had wanted the kids to be at home over Christmas and, naturally, she did not want to spend any time with me. The feeling was mutual. Besides these immediate warring factions, various grandparents, uncles and aunts had a claim on the kids’ time too. If they continue to be so much in demand, they’ll be on Tatler’s ‘most wanted list’ before they start prep school. From about August onwards all the various interested parties argued as to where and when they could spend an hour with the monsters. I really couldn’t see the appeal of watching them carelessly rip open their carefully wrapped presents, eat the paper, squash the box and break the toy, but it seemed that I was the only person in the Western world that had no such urge.
Finally and unsatisfactorily Hugh spent Christmas morning with the children, at Becca’s. I stayed in bed sipping champagne and deciding what underwear to put on for his return. I’d planned that we’d spend the rest of the day making love, only venturing out of bed to eat the amazing and exotic delicacies that I’d prepared. Delicious in a low-key way – ginger and lemon grass risotto served with mustard and black pepper crackers, homemade chocolate soufflé with violet and rose creams, a small panettone, and plenty of port. In truth there was absolutely nothing ‘low key’ about the twelve hours it took me to prepare the food, not to mention the time it took me to plan, source and purchase the ingredients. But, as I’d been waiting for this Christmas for years, nothing was too much trouble. I’d thought that the contrast between such a sensuous and indulgent Christmas and the raucous, chaotic household he’d just left would delight Hugh. But when he finally arrived back from Becca’s (three hours later than agreed) he explained that he’d already eaten as the children were expecting it of him.
Which was good of him, because it wouldn’t be fair to disappoint Kate and Tom.
I do a quick calculation in my head and realize that by next Christmas I’ll have my own mini-vandal. I believe it less than I believe in Father Christmas.
‘Oh well, we can pick up pizzas on the way home.’ Resigned, I move reluctantly towards the revolving glass doors. Tom nips my earlobe and Kate swiftly kicks my ankle. I can see we’re in for a good night.
Hugh hangs back. ‘Er, the thing is, my love, I can’t stop. I’m meant to be meeting some clients for dinner. It’s the whole intro thing, I can’t very well let them down at the last minute like this.’
‘Hugh.’ My expression speaks volumes of irritation and I would complete the picture by putting my hands on my hips, but I’d drop Tom. I can’t say too much in front of the ever-vigilant Kate. She’s
nearly five going on fifty and repeats everything I say back to Becca. She twists my words in a way that the editors of some of Britain’s scummiest tabloids would be proud of. I’m not giving Becca the satisfaction of knowing she caused a fracas.
Hugh walks towards me and puts his arms around my shoulders and rests his forehead on mine. He tries to stare into my eyes but I won’t look at him. Instead, I’m staring at the floor – not a very violent protest but my resources are low. There aren’t any handy railings that I could chain myself to.
‘If you knew how much I’d prefer to spend the evening in with you…’
‘Really?’ I immediately lock eye, forgetting my protest.
‘Do you have to ask?’ He’s using a low, groany voice, the one that indicates that I’m sending him wild with desire. Despite the fact that Tom is pulling my hair clip out of my hair (effect created being chaotic rather than tousled) and I have vomit on my jacket, I am sending Hugh wild with desire. The thought instantly cheers me up. Poor Hugh having to work at night. Reinvigorated, I try to locate Kate. She’s terrorizing the security guard; he’s trying to shake her off but losing the battle. I try to prise her fingers off his legs but she has a vice-like grip, and the moment I loosen one finger she clamps another one down again.
‘I knew you’d be cool with this. You are so good with the kids, you can tell you love them.’ Hugh is not so much outright lying at this stage (although what he says is a lie), he’s simply deluded. In fact I don’t love them. They bore me at best. However, I’ve made a superb impression of being besotted with them since their births. I suppose I do feel a bit responsible for them. Even though I make their daddy happy (and nothing on this earth makes their mummy happy, so I’ve given up caring that I may have been responsible for some of her unhappiness), I do admit it would have been more textbook, from their point of view, if their parents had stayed together. That’s why I’m generous with the mortgage payments and patient with the fact that Becca’s lawyers are tardy with the decree nisi. That’s why I encourage Hugh to spend as much time as possible with them, and I always drag myself along on their trips to Planet Hollywood or the Disney shop, even though there are other places I’d prefer to be on a Saturday afternoon, combing Bond Street or Harvey Nicks fourth floor, for example.
