The Art of Keeping Faith

by Anna Bloom

Nope, it is definitely coming from outside of my head.

  Shit, it’s only six in the morning. Someone must be having a laugh.

  I march down the hallway trying to locate the origin of the incessant drilling. Tristan is standing out there too, hands on hips listening intently to gauge the direction of the noise.

  Standing there in silence, I adopt his pose. It seems the best for listening.

  “Upstairs,” we both exclaim at once.

  ”Hopefully it will stop soon,” Tristan helpfully comments before shuffling back to his room in his underpants.

  Sod that. I am not taking the chance.

  I march out the door to our flat and start to hammer on the door to the one next door. It’s a bit of a weird set up but because the flat is an old house split into a conversion, we share the external, pretty, stained glass blue door outside but have our own internal doors on the inside of an extra hallway.

  It’s like living in the Tardis; I am cool with that. Normally.

  After five minutes of dedicated hammering I hear the drill cease its eardrum-destroying noise followed by the thud of heavy work boots.

  “You all right, love?” asks the man covered in some kind of dust when he answers the door.

  Is he mad?

  “Do I look all right to you?” I demand.

  He looks me up and down. It’s only when he does I realise that I am wearing my fluffy Christmas pyjama’s.

  Damn it.

  “Well that depends on your definition of all right don’t it, love?”

  Great, a smart arse at six in the morning.

  “Okay, well let me explain it to you. I am not all right at all. It is six in the morning. It is the Tuesday after a Bank Holiday and you are disturbing all the nice people who live in this street, including myself, with your incessant and completely unnecessary drilling.”

  There I think that cleared that up.

  “Well, I think I will be the one who decides if it is necessary or not.” He tells me.

  Oh, my God. He is going to argue with me. Does he not know that I am a crazy, hormone-driven, pregnant woman?

  Oh no. Hold on. Nobody does.

  “Drilling at six is never necessary, and I am pretty sure it is against the law.” I am not sure this is strictly true, but if I say it convincingly enough he may believe me. “Secondly, no one actually lives here, so I have no idea who you are in such a rush to drill for. But I think you should toddle off and make yourself a nice cup of tea and wait for a more suitable hour like ten, or maybe even eleven.”

  “Eleven!” the man covered in dust snorts. “I will be finishing then, love, we have only got a few weeks to get this place finished. The owners want it rented out ASAP.” He actually says ‘asap,’ instead of ‘A.S.A.P.’

  “What? What owners? No one lives here?”

  I have no idea why I am standing here talking to this guy in my pyjama’s, but I am intrigued now.

  “The owners, they were going to live here but now they want to rent it out. Too right, too. Get a packet for this they will. And, they won’t want to live here with nosey neighbours like you, will they?”

  Then he slams the door on my face.

  “I am going to complain to the council you know!” I shout through the door mainly for my benefit, not his.

  I can hear him laughing, followed by the drill starting up again.

  I return to the sanctuary of my own flat with its drilling noise and a sarcastic round of applause from Tristan.

  “Well done, sis.”

  “Oh, go shag yourself.”

  Me: Ben please?????

  7th May

  Ben: Nothing

  So everyone knows—about Ben, that is.

  It’s kind of okay. I knew it was going to happen at some point, but it would have been better if everyone had found out like on the last day of term so I never had to see them ever again.

  Instead, I have to walk across campus looking dog rough with serious bad skin, greasy hair that never comes clean no matter how many times I wash it, and know I am being watched and sniggered at.

  Oh, and I am. There was a gaggle of girls out on the lawn enjoying the early summer sunshine and they all stopped talking to watch me walk by. Then later a girl came up to me in the library. I’d made it all the way up to the top floor and the history books for the first time in weeks, and asked me if it was true that Ben and I had called it a day.

  “Yep, sure is,” I retorted sliding further down in my study desk chair.

  “So does that mean he won’t be visiting campus again?”

  “Well how would I know?” I told her. And how would I?

  “So do you think he is he looking for a new girlfriend?”

  Deep breath.

  “Maybe, I don’t know but I guess you will have to find him first.”

  She looked at me a bit odd and then walked off.

  Everyone is looking at me a bit odd at the moment.

  Last night Jayne and Beth who seem to have put all the differences aside for the time being turned up at our place.

  It was nine in the evening and it is fair to say I was feeling particularly tired, grumpy and hungry.

  Tired because I had been up since six due to the wanker with the drill; grumpy because I had been laughed at on campus; and hungry because I had attempted some beans on toast and then threw it all up, which was completely gross.

  They wanted us to go to Fez. Obviously there was no way in a million years I was going to go. Meredith stood firm by my side and said that she did not feel like going either, although it was pretty clear she may have been up for it.

  Tristan gallantly diffused the situation by offering to buy the girls pizza and go on a booze run to the local off-license.

  Beth and Jayne cannot turn down pizza. Or beer, for that matter.

  They were all tiddled by the end of the night; Tristan’s idea of going for a booze run involves three litres of vodka as well as two cases of beer.

  I drank water. Hip, hip hooray.

  The good news is we are all now on Ben watch and have set up a Google rota to make sure no possible sighting gets missed.

  Beth, after eight bottles of beer and ten straight vodka’s, decided it would be far easier if she just texted him to tell him that I missed him and wanted him to come home. She grabbed her phone, typed something random and then announced to the room with one eye closed, “There we go that should sort it,” just before she fell over her own feet.

  I leapt up out of my chair as quick as I could manage without being sick on her.

  “What the hell did you write?” I screamed, but she had already deleted it by the time I sat on her where she lay on the floor.

  “I don’t know, I can’t remember,” she helpfully informed me before pushing me off her so she could run to the toilet and throw up.

  Bloody cheek, that’s my move.

  Me: Everyone knows about you leaving. I wish that I could explain that it was me who made you go and that it was not your fault. I just need to find you. Where are you?

  8th May

  Ben: Nothing

  Turns out Ben is not anywhere. He has not answered Beth’s message and it has been two days. She is pretty pissed and is threatening to put on her shit kicker boots to track him down and kick his arse.

  I can’t believe he would ignore Beth. That’s not like my Ben at all. But then, he is not my Ben anymore and maybe I just don’t know him the way that I thought I did. I never would’ve thought that he would walk away from me. This time last year when I made him leave, he refused point blank. He sat on the fountain at Trafalgar for hours, waiting for me to realise what an idiot I was being by thinking we would be better apart than together. Now he is gone, and I am left coping, but in a way that I never expected.

  I am going to have a baby and Ben is not here to share it with me. I wonder how he feels thinking that our baby is dead? I wonder how I would feel if I had lost the splodge that day. It would have destroyed me. I wish I could speak t
o him to tell him the truth, even if he has moved on and does not want me anymore he should still know about his child so he can make the right choices.

  This morning I woke up in a state of panic to the sound of stupid drilling, and realised that the crazy row we had on Easter Sunday has made Ben turn into his dad. The one thing that he never wanted to be. I know it is Ben who is out of contact, but I know I am more than to blame for the current state of affairs. I allowed my inner green-eyed monster to ruin everything. Forever.

  I have made Ben turn into his dad and the very worst bit is the fact that he does not even know.

  I need to fix this. I need to tell him, so that even if he never wants to be with me again, (and let’s be honest who would blame him for not) he still knows the truth.

  I am going to have to take drastic action.

  If I have not heard from him by the weekend I am going to have to ring the mum’s. That’s right. The situation is desperate enough that I am going to have to speak to my own mother and not just her; I am also going to have to ring Ben’s in a bid to put all my mistakes right.

  Me: I am going to find you. I have to.

  9th May

  Ben: Nothing

  “Are you ready?”

  “Uh, what? Ready for what, you demented person?”

  I am worried that Meredith is starting to adopt a lot of my old characteristics, well, the characteristics that I used to have when Vodka Lilah used to drive things.

  This is the first morning this week I have not woken up to drilling. Instead I have awoken to Meredith bouncing on my bed.

  “It’s scan day,” she says bouncing higher. “Come on, Lilah, you can’t have forgotten.”

  Well, I would not use the word forgotten exactly.

  “Nope.”

  “You have been checking in your folder, haven’t you?”

  Uh, no. I am far too busy searching the Internet.

  “Yes.”

  “Come on then. Let’s get ready. We have got to be at Kingston at nine-thirty.”

  “Nine-thirty?”

  “Yep, and I am driving.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  There is no point arguing. If scary, Lilah-style Meredith has made her mind up, then so be it.

  One hour later

  “Watch the truuuuck!”

  “What truck?”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and grip onto Deathtrap Cooper’s split leather seats.

  After a moment has passed I cautiously open my eyes and breathe a sigh of relief when I see that Meredith has managed to successfully negotiate our way around the parked lorry she was careering toward at great speed.

  If I make it to the scan it will be a complete miracle. We may be attending the hospital for an entirely different reason than we set out for.

  Half an hour later

  We are here, but we are late. Meredith just bunny hopped the car around the car park and then spent ten minutes trying to reverse into a space.

  I was screaming at her by the end, and made her get out of the car so I could park the damn thing.

  Deathtrap Cooper is a high spec vehicle and does not appreciate being driven by amateur rookies.

  We run down the corridor to the ultrasound unit and screech to a halt by the front desk where we are looked up and down with disdain by the old biddy behind the counter.

  “Hi, I’m Lilah McCannon. I have a scan at nine-thirty,” I breathlessly announce.

  She looks at the computer and then pointedly at the clock on the wall which informs us it is twenty to ten.

  “You’ve missed your appointment.”

  No shit.

  I glare at Meredith who decides to speak up on my behalf. “We had a parking problem. Did you know that your spaces are far too small to park a car in?”

  I glare at her some more and kick her on the ankle.

  “Ow, Lilah! Jesus Christ.”

  The woman behind the counter decides at this point that we are rather annoying and motions us over to the chairs.

  “I will see if they can fit you in,” she tells us in a superior tone which reminds me a little of my mother.

  Ugh, my mother.

  Must stop thinking bad things and calm down my stress levels—the baby is going to be catatonic on the scan otherwise, that’s if we even get one.

  Fifteen minutes later

  “Lilah McCannon?” calls a friendly looking woman in a plastic apron.

  “Yes!” I answer hopefully.

  “You are in here.” She ushers me along and I grab Meredith as I get up from the chair.

  “Can my friend come with me because the Dad is not here?” because I dumped him.

  “The more the merrier.” She smiles and I decide I like this lady.

  We enter the room and I automatically start undoing my jeans and push them down.

  “What are you doing?!” Meredith gasps.

  “Getting ready for the scan, duh.”

  “Lilah for goodness’ sake, it is not one of those scans. You can have a normal one now. Oh my God you haven’t read a single thing in that folder have you?” she chides.

  Laughing the lady in the plastic apron pats her hand on the big chair / bed thing.

  “I take it you had an early scan.”

  “Um, yes a couple of weeks back.”

  “And why was that, dear?” she asks distracting me from the memory by squirting me with jelly out of a squeezy bottle.

  “Oh I had lots of bleeding but everything was okay.”

  “And no bleeding since then?” she asks.

  “No.”

  “Well, let’s make sure that everything is okay.”

  I break out in a cold sweat all over. What does she mean that everything is okay? Surely one scan means that everything is fine.

  “Sorry, but what do you mean?”

  “Well, nothing to worry about, but just sometimes if there are problems we only pick them up at the twelve week scan.”

  Holy shit. No one told me this.

  Meredith grips my hand. “It’s okay, Lilah, everything is going to be fine,” she soothes.

  “You don’t know that!”

  The lady with the wand thing in her hand starts to roll it over my stomach and I stare desperately at the screen.

  I see nothing, just grey and black. Hell, I don’t even know what I am looking for.

  “There you go, see that?” the lady asks pointing at the screen.

  “No, see what? I don’t see anything.”

  “There, Lilah, stop panicking and actually look.”

  So I do. I take a deep breath and look at the screen again and then I see it. It’s not a little squished alien like two weeks ago.

  This time it looks like an actual baby inside my tummy.

  Oh shit.

  “Oh, my God, I have a baby in my tummy! Meredith can you see it? Look. There is a baby inside my tummy!”

  I gesture wildly between the screen and my stomach. Meredith starts to laugh, turning to look at her I find that she has tears on her cheeks, and then I start to cry, too.

  “Okay, I am officially not going to speak anymore, because I don’t want to freak you out by mentioning measurements and so on. So you just sit there and enjoy the view,” says the nice lady in the plastic apron.

  I automatically start to sit up, “What measurements?”

  The woman gently pushes me back down again.

  “Lilah, relax. Your baby is already going crazy. What on earth were you doing this morning?”

  I glance up at Meredith who has the grace to look sheepish.

  “Relax.”

  So I do. I spend the next fifteen minutes staring at my baby on screen, watching its hands wave and legs jump about. It looks like it has one of its hands jammed in its mouth.

  “That’s so cool,” Meredith says in complete awe; the same awe that I am feeling well up inside me.

  The more I watch the screen, the more I start to wonder about the baby inside my tummy. I’ve never really thought of it
as an actual being before. It’s always just been the reason I have been throwing up. Now I can see it move, and wave and just look bloody amazing. I start to wonder if it will have Ben’s black hair and blue eyes. Or will it have brown and grey like me? I wonder if it will be tall and artistic like Ben, or short and stubby like me?