The First Time Mums' Club

by Lucie Wheeler

‘And that’s not it. He told me Betty had resigned. But she hasn’t, she’s still there. I don’t even get why he would say that.’

  ‘Pip, you need to calm yourself down and breathe. This isn’t doing you, or the baby, any good. Let me get the meeting started and get you some more water and we will sort this out, okay?’ Zoe bent down so that Pippa’s face was level with hers. ‘Pip? I promise you, we will sort this out, okay?’ Zoe rushed off to start the session and pick out this week’s topic-starter.

  Imogen looked at Ellie, who in turn shrugged. Pippa knew they wanted to help, but no one seemed to know what to say. If she was honest, she didn’t even know what to say or do. ‘I’m sorry, girls, I’ve totally ruined this week’s meeting. I swear, I didn’t want to bring this all up. I just… it just took me by surprise and I felt myself getting all light-headed and before I knew it I was here and… and…’

  ‘Shh, Pip, it’s okay. You don’t have anything to be sorry about; it’s that lowlife of a husband of yours. He has got some serious explaining to do. When we get our hands on him…’ Ellie trailed off.

  ‘I don’t want you to do anything.’ Pippa started to feel guilty for bringing this all up with everyone, especially these two, who she didn’t know as well. What was she doing? Everyone was going to know that she was falling apart behind the scenes. This was the last thing she wanted. Although, in amidst all of this, she did have to admit that it was nice to see everyone fighting her corner. Yes, they hadn’t known each other that long but there was most definitely some sort of bond that they had formed and seeing them jump to her defence like this made the whole situation a little easier to bear.

  ‘Are you kidding? You’re not going to let him get away with this are you?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s our place to get involved. I mean, of course we are here for you, Pippa, but, at the end of the day, this is your choice. You tell us what you want to happen.’ Imogen was very good at keeping things calm.

  ‘I don’t know what I want to happen,’ she said, feeling more and more deflated the longer she sat there. She felt a bit stupid, if she was honest. Everything had seemed to come to a head and happened so fast, but now she had the time to digest what was happening, she wasn’t sure what she needed to do and how exactly she was going to do it. ‘Maybe there is an explanation. Maybe I overreacted.’ The look she got from both girls clearly said that neither of them believed nor accepted what she had said.

  She didn’t have too much time to think about it because her phone began to flash and vibrate. She watched Jason’s name flashing and, every time the phone lit up, displaying his name, she felt a surge of nausea. Sheer panic rose from the pit of her stomach and she frantically looked at the girls for support. No matter how much she wanted to pretend she was okay, fact of the matter was, she was terrified that the thoughts in her head were the truth. She stared back at the phone, unable to move.

  ‘Are you going to speak to him?’ Zoe had returned to the table and Pippa took some relief from the fact that the general hubbub in the café had increased just a notch so that their discussions were nicely hidden between the conversations that floated around the room.

  ‘What am I going to say?’

  ‘Tell him he’s a total bastard and you want him out!’

  ‘Ellie! If you don’t have anything helpful to say, then stay quiet,’ Zoe hissed.

  ‘What? How is that not helpful? She doesn’t need a lowlife like that in her life when she is about to have his baby.’

  Pippa watched this exchange between the sisters and, on impulse, snatched up her phone and pressed answer. ‘Hello?’ The second she spoke, silence fell around the table and all three girls diverted their attention to her and what was about to happen.

  ‘All right baby, what took you so long?’

  Just hearing his voice made her skin crawl. She didn’t know what it was, but he sounded weird, as if he wasn’t himself. She couldn’t put her finger on what exactly made him sound so weird. ‘I was, um. I’m at mums’ club.’ She kept her eyes diverted to the table, fiddling with a small wrapper from the biscuits for something to do with her hands. She couldn’t look at the others. If she did she was worried she would give it all away. She didn’t want him to know something was up. Not until she knew what she was feeling. Right now she felt as though she was wading through a hazy fog and all she could think about was when she could make this all stop and go back to feeling normal.

  ‘Oh sorry, I forgot it was mums’ club today.’ The line went quiet and for the first time in the whole time they had been together as a couple, Pippa was at a loss as to what to say to her husband. Thankfully he broke the silence. ‘Are you okay?’ He sounded nervous. Did he know something was up?

  ‘I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?’ She silently dared him to say something, to give away what she feared. But he didn’t.

  ‘No reason. Just checking on how my lovely wife is. Listen, I’ll be home early tonight.’

  Pippa screwed her face up, ‘What? I thought you were working late tonight?’ The girls looked at her, in just as much confusion. They could only hear her side of the conversation and were left to wonder what he was saying in return.

  ‘Yeah, I was, but I managed to get out of it.’ He laughed and it sounded forced.

  That was really out of character for him. He never managed to ‘get out of it’ when it came to work. Why the sudden change now? She was annoyed at herself for questioning him in her mind. ‘Okay, great. I’ll see you tonight, then.’

  ‘Okay baby, love you.’

  She retaliated in the only way she could at this moment in time. ‘You too.’ She placed the mobile down on the table in front of her and kept her eyes fixed on the screen.

  ‘Well?’ Zoe pressed.

  ‘He’s not working late tonight any more.’ Her tone was steady. She felt completely exhausted from the last few minutes. It was as though she had run an emotional marathon and now all she wanted to do was sleep. Except she knew she wouldn’t be able to. Her mind was already picking apart the last ten years of their relationship.

  ‘That’s weird, how come?’

  Pippa looked up at Zoe and shrugged. ‘Who knows? Anyway, enough about me, what’s the question for this week?’

  ‘Pip, we don’t have to do this. If you want me to take you home, I can.’

  ‘No, Zoe, its fine. I’m fine. I’ll sort this my own way. There will be a simple explanation; I just got het up with my pregnancy hormones and got carried away. You girls must be the same. It’s fine. I’m fine.’ She realised she was repeating herself and stopped talking.

  ‘Pip –’

  ‘I said I’m fine!’ she responded, a little too harshly than she meant as her barriers sprung up, reinstating their place around her image. She looked around the table at the girls – her friends – and felt shit. ‘I’m sorry, let’s just drop it… please?’

  They looked at each other and admitted defeat. ‘Okay,’ Zoe finally said, ‘But just remember that we are here, okay? Don’t think you’re on your own to deal with this. Let us help you.’

  ‘I don’t need any help. I’ll speak to him tonight. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation.’ She excused herself to the toilet and walked as fast – and as normally – as she could so that she still appeared to be calm and unbothered by the last half hour. But inside she was panicking. What the hell was going on?

  *****

  Pippa sat on the edge of her bed, staring into space. She felt empty. She felt cold. But most of all, she felt confused.

  She glanced around the bedroom – their bedroom – and all she could see was evidence that they had been unhappy for a while. No pictures around of them laughing and cuddling. No slinky nightwear ready to put on for a night of passion. Just a bedside full of books and herbal remedies on one side and the remote on the other, which summed them up as a couple. The bedroom was functional. They had wanted a baby for so long, all the magic had evaporated from this room and had it become a visual to-do list of events. Tryin
g certain times of the month, certain positions – before, during and after sex – certain natural products that helped women to conceive. It wasn’t fun any more. And it was only now, looking around at their sorry state of a bedroom, that Pippa realised how frantic she must’ve become on those last months before they did finally conceive. She had turned having sex into a regimented, planned duty. It wouldn’t surprise her if she had pushed him away.

  All these years they had been a couple and never before had he made her feel so confused about who they were, and even who she was. Not even after last time. She wasn’t the type of person who checked her husband’s texts, or went through his pockets, or hired out a secret detective to follow him to and from work, detailing every second of his existence. That wasn’t her. Yes, she had suffered with self-doubt in the past, which, to be fair, was his fault to begin with, but she never inflicted her worries onto him. It was her issue. She had decided to move past what happened before and start afresh.

  But lately, things had been different. He had turned her into this person and she didn’t like it. She heard the door open and then close from downstairs, signalling Jason’s return. ‘Pip?’ he called out from the hallway.

  ‘I’m in here,’ she replied, feeling all of a sudden at a loss for anything to do with her hands. She coughed to clear her throat and perk herself up. Jason strolled into their bedroom just minutes later holding a beautiful bouquet of flowers. A colourful mix of oranges, yellows and pinks – she couldn’t help but smile at him as he presented them to her, followed by a gentle kiss on the head. Maybe she had been overreacting.

  ‘Oh Jason, they’re beautiful! What have I done to deserve these?’

  ‘It’s more a case of, what have I done …’

  The happiness was short-lived and Pippa felt a weight drop into her stomach as he sat down beside her. ‘What do you mean?’ she managed to choke out, still trying to sound relatively calm and normal when inside she was screaming and fighting against the urge to run away.

  ‘Baby, I’ve not been totally honest with you.’

  Oh my God, here it is, she thought to herself and dropped her eye contact. She couldn’t look at him. He was about to tell her that he’d been seeing someone else, she could feel it. The thoughts in her head became frantic and she struggled to clear her mind of the haze long enough to hear what he was saying. She could see his lips moving but she couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. She now had a ringing sensation in her ear, replicating the pumping of her heart. Surely her head would explode before she was able to calm herself. And what effect would this have on the baby? She had read in lots of magazines that stress can affect the baby massively and here she was, inflicting her poor unborn child with a truckload of stress and…

  ‘Pip? Did you hear me?’

  She snapped her eyes up to Jason, who was now smiling at her. What had she missed? Surely he wouldn’t be smiling at her if he had just told her that he had been having an affair. She knew he had a weird sense of humour, but surely even he couldn’t be this strange.

  ‘Pip?’

  ‘What… um… sorry, you lost me. What did you say?’

  ‘I was just saying that I know you have been stressing a lot recently with the amount of work I have taken on and Betty told me that she had spoken to you and you were calling up about Patrick.’

  She nodded to show him she was still with him. Where was he going with this?

  ‘And I know I have seemed a little off recently, but I want you to know that it has nothing to do with you and that I love you. I know you will be thinking the worst and you’re wrong.’

  She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. What was she supposed to say to that?

  ‘Baby, listen. I know have been working loads recently.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ she finally said, ‘Patrick.’

  ‘No baby, not Patrick.’ She knew that anyway, though, didn’t she? Was he about to come clean for lying? ‘Patrick left a while back. I used him as an excuse because I didn’t think you would ever question it and I didn’t want to talk about the real reason why I have been working loads. But… well, you did question it.’

  ‘What was I supposed to do, Jason, just sit back and lose my husband to his job? I hardly ever see you.’ She was pleading with him to understand.

  ‘I know! But that’s what I am trying to explain.’

  ‘Jason, you’re not making any sense.’ A dull ache began to creep up inside her skull and make its presence known. She could feel the headache brewing and from past experiences knew she had about thirty minutes before the migraine completely took hold.

  ‘Okay. Yes, I’ve been working lots but it isn’t because of Patrick. It’s because I am struggling a little bit.’ He looked at the ground.

  ‘Struggling? With what?’

  ‘With the whole baby thing.’

  She felt as if she had been slapped in the face. ‘What do you mean? Me being pregnant?’ He nodded. ‘What?’ It came out like a whisper.

  He jumped up straight away and came closer to her, kneeling on the floor in front of where she was sitting and putting his hands around hers. ‘But I’m working on it. I promise, it’ll be okay. When the baby is here, I’m sure I’ll feel different. It was just hard to take the news initially and I guess I just went off the rails a bit …’

  ‘Jason, we decided to have this baby together – you agreed you wanted a baby.’ She couldn’t believe she was having this conversation. ‘We spoke about it for ages!’ Her voice was lifting up a notch now.

  ‘I know we did. I guess I just panicked when it actually happened.’

  ‘And you’re telling me this now? What do you expect me to do?’

  ‘Nothing!’ He was up on his feet, brushing his hands through his hair in frustration. ‘I just wanted to be honest with you about how I am feeling – surely I should be able to talk to you about this. You’re my wife, for Christ sake!’

  ‘Yes, I am your pregnant wife! For fuck’s sake, Jason!’ She stood up and stormed towards the door.

  ‘Baby, please don’t leave it like this. I was just trying to be honest with you. I’m going to try harder, I promise. I’ll make it up to you.’

  She stood in the doorway looking at him. She didn’t know what she felt: anger, frustration, betrayal… all of them? ‘I don’t know what you want me to do.’

  ‘I want you to just… say it’s okay and we can move forward from this.’ His eyes pleaded with her for forgiveness.

  ‘Jason, do you want this baby?’ The words make her feel sick just asking them. What was she going to do if he said no? Everything that she was scared of was now becoming a possibility – being a single parent and having to do everything alone.

  He hesitated. ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘You don’t sound too sure.’

  He strode over to her and took her hands once again into his. ‘I do. I just had a blip, but I’m on board and ready. I’m sorry I put you through this. I will try harder.’

  Pippa nodded and then made her excuses so she could get some fresh air. She needed to walk this conversation off.

  ‘Can I come with you?’ he asked.

  ‘I just want to have some me time, if that’s okay?’ She needed to breathe.

  ‘No worries.’ Pippa turned to walk. ‘Pip?’

  She looked over her shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She looked back at him but she felt as if she was looking at a stranger. He wasn’t the Jason she fell in love with and married. Every time they argued and even when he strayed before, she still loved him and they got through it. But this… this made her feel so completely out of her skin. She spoke softly, barely able to raise her voice loud enough to be heard. She tried to push out the words, fighting against the dragging feeling that was pressing down on her chest.

  ‘Having a baby means everything to me, Jason. It’s my life.’ He stepped forward, but she held her hand up to stop him. ‘I have dreamt of this for as long as I can remember and you w
ere always right behind me. Every step of the way. You wanted this as badly as I did – at least, I thought you did.’

  ‘Pip, please.’ He looked as if he was going to cry, but it had no effect on her any more. And that frightened her.

  ‘And now…’ her chin quivered as she fought against the emotion. ‘Now you’re telling me you don’t want this.’ She looked down at her tummy as she rubbed her hand over the bump.

  ‘Baby, listen to me, I do want this, I just needed to tell you how I was feeling.’ He was pleading with her now. But she brushed him off.

  ‘I need to just have some space. I’m going for a walk.’ She turned to the bedroom door and walked out, quickly. She needed to get outside, get some air. Her world was slowly falling apart and she had no idea how to fix it any more.

  Chapter 28

  ‘Hey you.’

  Ellie tensed up as she heard Chris’s voice. Zoe gave her one last look and then left them to it, which Ellie was grateful for. It was hard enough that she has to sort things out with Chris, after their argument at her flat a couple of weeks ago, without having an audience for it, too.

  Chris hovered in the doorway of Zoe’s flat, seemingly unsure of what to do. She didn’t miss the fact that he looked tired. But, annoyingly, even though he was clearly stressed and not sleeping, he still looked gorgeous. His t-shirt tight against body teamed with the jogging bottoms he had thrown on this morning was a really nice combination; Ellie found herself looking at his chest, but then realised that she was staring and whipped her eyes away. ‘You going to stand there all day or shall I put the kettle on?’

  He looked a little uncomfortable, but after a moment gave in to a smile and walked into the room, closing the door behind him. The air between them was awkward, which felt strange because, out of everyone Ellie had ever known, Chris was always the one she felt most comfortable with. But now she couldn’t even remember a time when there hadn’t been an awkward atmosphere between them. This pregnancy felt like a lifetime.

  ‘So…’ he began.

  ‘So…’ she replied.