by Bloom, Anna
“Yeah.”
I think Abi’s summarisation is pretty on the spot.
“That’s amazing, Faith. How do you feel? Are you tired yet all the time? I slept for weeks. I couldn’t stay awake longer than a few hours at a time?”
Why is she talking like this is normal? Is she fucking crazy?
“What? Why aren’t you telling me it’s a horrible idea? That it’s stupid; that I could never be a mother.” My stomach lurches.
“Why would I say that? You’ll be an exceptional mother. And your fiancé is one serious hottie. Your baby is going to be the cutest thing ever, and more importantly he loves you more than anything. He’s going to be wonderful.”
I think her brains must have fallen out. Or maybe she has to be awake a certain number of hours before her brain kicks in and begins to work. “Why are you acting like this is normal?”
“Because it is. Do you need me to give you a run down? Now a man has a penis and a woman has a vagina; the women create eggs and the—”
“Okay, stop. I know how it happened. But come on, Abs. I’m the worst person for this to happen to. I mean Tabitha and Lewis were better suited to an unexpected pregnancy than me.”
“Why? You love Elijah and he loves you. You live in a fuck-off giant house and you will never have to worry about money or paying bills or anything that us normal people have to be concerned with when finding out about babies.” She stops and her voice softens. “You’re scared. There isn’t a woman who has looked at a pregnancy test, whether it was anticipated or not, and not been scared to within an inch of her life. That’s perfectly normal.”
“Abi.” The choking in my throat gets tighter. “I can’t be a mother. I don’t know anything about it.”
“So, make it up. It’s what I do on a daily basis.” There’s a commotion from down her end of the call. “I’ve got to go. It’s the school run and the kids will be late. Listen, call me later. I am always here for you. But, Faith?”
She waits for my acknowledgment. “Yeah?”
“Only be scared for the right reasons, not the wrong ones.”
She doesn’t understand. Even Abi doesn’t understand how deep down in my heart there are bitter memories and painful truths that I can’t acknowledge, can’t be part of, that I keep so tightly locked for my own survival that even I can’t consider them as real.
“What are the right reasons?” I force a smile into my voice.
“Your ink will be stretched to fuck and in eight months’ time you and Eli will have to fuck like dogs because it’s the only way to do it.”
“Abs! You’re outrageous.” I shake my head, but she has made me laugh. She really is the only person to call.
“Just keeping it real, sister. Right, I’ve gotta dash. Now get to class or whatever it is you do, and I will talk to you later.”
“Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I hang up and stare at my phone for a moment. Is it really as easy as Abs thinks? Is that it? It’s just done and I’m going to have a baby?
One thing is for sure, I think condom packets should come with a warning in bold on the front, a bit like the warnings on cigarette packets, but this one would say, Failure to use could risk having a baby.
In the kitchen I find a sweet cup of tea on the table and a plate of oaty ginger biscuits that look homemade.
“Thanks.” I sit down and slide the mug towards me. I actually really fancy sweet tea and I’m relieved not to smell toast. Miss Beesley is polishing glasses which I’m pretty sure are clean. “Did you see Eli?”
She shakes her head and I take a bite of my biscuit. She knows. She worked it out from our conversation yesterday and the way I reacted. I flush slightly.
“I’m sorry I was rude yesterday.”
“Not to worry.” She nods firmly and I bite into one of her biscuits. While she’s busy polishing and tidying I watch her as she works. The biscuit is delicious, and I quickly eat four, okay, five. I don’t say anything about the big elephant in the room and neither does she and I begin to realise just what a loyal member of staff Thirty-Six Chesham has.
“Class today, Faith?”
“Oh yes, ancient ceramics and then some practical I haven’t even thought of.”
My head couldn’t be further from my studies, or art in general.
“You don’t look excited.”
I shrug my shoulders. “The last few weeks have been crazy. I’m ashamed to say it but I’m not connected to my work at the moment.”
“And you’ve got the TV show coming up.” She nods and my stomach sinks.
Bloody hell, I haven’t even thought about that. How can I do that if I’m having a baby? How can I do anything if I’m having a baby? “Yeah, it seems unreal.” I pop another biscuit in my mouth just to stop myself from saying anything else, and also because they are the nicest thing I’ve eaten in a fair while. “Thanks, these are perfect,” I say once I’ve finished and just to change the subject from my disappearing desire to create.
“Ginger is good for you.” She nods firmly. “Have you got ten minutes to look at something with me?”
“Sure.” I swallow down my tea, which is also perfect and soothes my tangled stomach, and I push back from the table.
I follow her all the way up to the third floor of the town house. It’s a long way up and I’m surprised I haven’t got a nosebleed by the time we’re standing outside a pine door. “This hasn’t been used in years, but maybe it might help you?” She pushes open the door and leads me in. The air is warm, I guess from the hot air rising through the rest of the house. The room is bright with bare floorboards and a faded chaise longue sits in a pale square of light coming through a ceiling window. There are some music stands and odds and ends, but the room is lovely. Small but bright and warm. Welcoming.
“What is this?” I ask.
“Well…” She frowns at the dust swirling around. “I think once it was a playroom and then maybe at another time it was used as a musical practice room.”
“So the children and the noise makers were sent to the attic?”
Her lips quirk. “Just because that’s the way it was, doesn’t mean it’s the way it should be.” Her eyes flicker over me and I can read what she’s implying. I can make this situation I’ve found myself in anything I want. I don’t need to run scared.
There’s a baby in my tummy.
There is no other rational thought than that.
“So you’re thinking this could be a studio?”
“It could be anything, I guess. It’s just here. And don’t you artists always talk about the light?”
I glance up at the sloped ceiling with sky lights cut into it at regular intervals. The light is good, she’s not wrong.
“I think we’ve probably got enough on our plate at the moment.”
She shrugs, noncommittally. “True. But I guess the space is here if you need room for yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
Her smile as it spreads across her face is enigmatic and I like her more and more by the moment. “Not everything has to be Fairclough.”
“I’ve got to get to class.” I turn for the door of the warm, bright room.
“You need to take it easy.”
She’s acknowledging the thing that I can’t.
I just can’t.
“I don’t know when I’ll be back. Have you got any questions for the day, anything you need me to do?” I still have no idea how this housekeeper thing works.
“No, not at all. You go and do what you need to do. I’ll make sure there are some meals in the fridge you can reheat later for yourself and Mr Fairclough.”
“Eli,” I remind her.
“Yes. The two of you; you know, in case you don’t feel like cooking.”
I nod, but it feels awkward and formal. “Thanks.”
With my stomach heavy with a wild sea of unmentionable emotions, I walk down the stairs. I don’t want to go to class. I don’t want to do anything apart from go back to b
ed and pretend that nothing is happening.
* * *
It’s late when I get home, gone ten. I’ve spent my time in the library and then in one of the practical studios on campus. Just staring. Just thinking.
“I was starting to worry.” Eli places his glass of amber liquid down on the kitchen table. He’s changed; a grey t-shirt clings to his slender but firm muscles, a pair of faded tracksuit pants hang low on his hips. “I thought maybe you were avoiding me.” He smiles but it’s tight around the edges; too brittle, like the glass I was making earlier that wouldn’t do a damn thing I wanted.
“Sorry, I was in one of the studios. I turned my phone off.” I don’t add that I turned it off because Abi was sending me every baby-themed emoji known to mankind as well as links to Babycentre UK and all sorts of things I didn’t want to keep looking at. Oh, and she said that from now on she would like to be known as Aunty Abs.
She can kiss my arse.
He steps closer, his warmth wrapping around me and enveloping me as the scent of his soap and aftershave mingling with whisky fills my senses. Unable to control myself, I crash against his chest, my tears springing free and soaking the soft fabric of his shirt.
“Sunshine, don’t cry.”
“Don’t you want to cry?” I wipe at my snot.
He lifts my chin with gentle fingers, his thumbs wiping at the tears across my cheeks. “Do you want the truth?”
“No. I want you to lie and tell me whatever makes me feel better.”
“My thoughts have been full of you all day. They’ve consumed me. The idea you have something of mine inside of you.”
“I frequently have your penis inside me—that’s half the problem.”
He snorts and pulls me close. “It’s amazing, Faith. I know you’re scared. I’m bloody petrified, but I can’t help being excited. You astound me every day, and now there is going to be a child who has all the best parts of you inside them.”
“What if it’s the bad parts of me?”
“Well then, we will hope my genes win out.”
“Have you eaten?” I pull out of his embrace.
“Faith, you haven’t told me what you are thinking?”
I hesitate, because how can I tell him the truth about anything? “That I’m scared shitless, and for me that’s something really big.”
Those blues could break my heart as he studies me closely. “Is it the baby, or is it us? Because anything me and you sounds good to me.”
I swallow hard. Is there an answer I can give to that which isn’t hurtful or destructive? So I don’t say anything. Instead, I smile and look in a tin that’s been left on the kitchen table hoping it’s full of ginger biscuits. Praise the Lord, something is right. I grab a few and then perch on the table while Eli pours himself another very stiff drink. “Want one?” he asks.
Yes. Hell, bloody yes.
“No, thanks.”
And I know it’s stupid because the baby that’s settled itself accidentally in my tummy is the size of, well I don’t actually know, but I’m guessing it’s fricking small, and I don’t even know how I feel about it, or anything yet, but my answer is still no.
His lips curve into a small smile.
“So, tell me about court,” I say and wait for him to fill my head with anything that isn’t baby thoughts.
Thirteen
He’s gone again when I wake. He slept with his hand on my tummy while I lay awake, worrying.
I stare at my phone looking at all the bloody links Abi sent me. Not that I’ve clicked on any of them.
But then maybe if I did, I’d know what was happening in there. Maybe connect to it a little bit. So I do.
Six weeks pregnant.
The baby is the size of a lentil. Its facial features are starting to form and buds are swelling where its arms will grow.
And it is definitely inside my tummy.
The twelve-week scan is the crucial moment apparently. Before that there is a one in four chance of miscarriage—well I know that. Poor Tabitha; what the hell has she been through the last few months? I’m not doing enough for her, I know that for sure.
Coming out of the Babycentre website I open my messages and type one to Tabitha.
Dinner tonight? Shall we take Jeremy out somewhere?
I don’t know what’s going on with her and Lewis, but at least I can try to help her, and Jeremy who must still be in deep grief.
At least if I’m with them I can’t sit at home by myself and worry, or over-think things, or obsess. It’s been a while since I sunk into an obsession. Eli was my last and look where that’s got me.
Eli…
That smile. The look in his eyes…
I hate myself for not being able to react to this in what is probably the correct way. I’m an emotional fucktard.
Opening our message chat, I send him one, too. I know he won’t see it until recess at court, but at least it will be there. I attach the link to the Babycentre page Abi sent me.
This is interesting, we’ve created a lentil. Apparently, we’ve got another six weeks to go until we know this is happening. Love you. Fight for Melanie. Xxxx
I put my phone down and glare at the ceiling before quickly picking it back up again, hitting dial on a number I haven’t rung in a while. I’m not expecting an answer so when a gruff “What?” blasts down the line, the phone almost slips out of my hand.
“Dan?”
“Yes.”
“It’s me, Faith.”
“I know who the fuck you are, Faith. You are calling from the same number you always call from.”
“I didn’t think you’d answer.”
“I almost didn’t."
“Why did you?” My heart beats uncomfortably in my chest. I hate this. Hate everything about it.
“I’m sorry.”
“Pardon?” He says the words I least expect to hear. “Which bit are you sorry for exactly? Telling my boyfriend I slept with you, or for getting yourself arrested in some stupid attempt at revenge?”
“All of it.”
“What are you doing, Dan? You remind me how I was years ago. Remember when you used to come and find me and bail me out of all sorts of shit?”
“I always had your back.” His voice breaks.
“You did.” My throat tightens. I almost slip and tell him about the baby. About the weird being that’s planted itself in my insides, but I don’t. What good would it do? He can’t help me from that, and he shouldn’t. It’s Eli and me now. “Dan, I’m worried. What are you doing with yourself? I want to help.”
“You can’t,” he snaps, and the barrier that’s been between us since that fateful night of Al’s funeral snaps back in place. We will never get around that, or over it. Maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe we should give up on one another and stop hurting each other.
“Do you want to come to London? Maybe hang out?”
He snorts with venom. “And watch you and his Lordship? No.”
“It doesn’t have to be like this?”
“No?” He sighs and it’s like he’s punched me in the chest. “What I wish is that I’d never fallen in love with you. Sometimes I wish we’d never met.”
He hangs up as abruptly as he answered, and I stare at the ceiling while tears slip down my face. Shit.
Somehow, I manage to drag myself out of bed and into the bathroom where I stare at myself in the mirror. I look like shit. My skin is awful, my hair revolting. And I’m fucking hungry but there isn’t a single thing I want to eat.
“Yo, Faith.” I turn at the sound of Dylan calling my name. I can tell it’s him before I even see him. It’s that zesty enthusiasm he’s got going for him. It’s damn annoying.
“Dylan?”
“How you doing?”
“Fine. You?” I head into the coffee shop on campus, but then stop just inside the door. It smells awful, of sweaty people and burnt coffee. I rock back on the balls of my feet.
“Are you going in?” Dylan looks at me expectantly, but I shak
e my head. I might chuck on his shoes. Where the hell has this come from? Although I haven’t eaten all day. Maybe it’s that? Or maybe it’s the mutant inside me; the lentil mutant.
“No, I’ve just remembered I’ve got a meeting.”
He nods at me knowingly. “About the TV show? I tell you, Faith, my mates can’t believe it when I say you’re going to be on the box.”
“Well it’s a long way off yet.” And it might not happen because I have a bun in the oven, so let’s not get overexcited.
Luckily my phone begins to ring, so I don’t have to make any more conversation about an uncertain future. Then I look at the screen and my heart sinks. Brighton.
“Sorry, Dylan, I’ve got to get this.” I wave my phone at him.
“Sure thing, TV star.”
I shoot him an evil side-eye of doom and swipe at the screen of my phone as I weave myself away towards some privacy as quickly as I can. “Hello?”
“Hi, is this Faith Hitchin?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Shirley, your liaison officer with Brighton and Hove Police. I wanted to check in.”
My stomach plummets and I plonk myself down on the nearest bench uncaring of the passers-by whose path I block with my stumbling walk.
It’s the call I’ve been dreading.
“Hi.”
“You okay, Faith?”
No. I can one-hundred-percent claim I am not fine at all.
I scrunch the number of the counsellor Shirley gave me into a ball and shove it deep into my underwear drawer. I don’t even know why I wrote it down. I could have just pretended and made it sound like I was taking it down digit by digit.
My phone vibrates with a message and I pull it from my back pocket. Eli.
I can get a scan at a private hospital? If you wanted to know if the lentil was happening?
Is he sitting there looking at hospitals while he should be at court?
My fingers fly over the keys. Let’s talk later.
His answer is instant. Okay.
I’m going to The Good Earth on Old Brompton Road with Tabs and Jeremy if you finish early tonight? I put the invite out there. I know he won’t be finished much before nine or ten, and honestly, I’m kind of hoping I’ll be asleep by then. I could curl up in bed right now and not plan to wake up 'til tomorrow. This is exhaustion like I’ve never known. Not even in my wild days when I never slept and burned on nervous angry energy instead. I never hit a low like this.
