by Amy Bratley
Two weeks later, she’d received a note-card decorated with a sketch of Bettie Page from Alan. He’d written that the man they’d saved had phoned to thank him and that he would never forget the night they’d spent together. I make love to you sometimes, in my mind, he’d written. Fat lot of good that did her, him making love to her in his mind. But she kept the card. Now, Lexi wondered, as she surreptitiously glanced at Alan once again across the classroom, whether she was still in his mind. Somehow, she doubted it. He seemed very unaffected by the sight of her there, eight months pregnant. Could have been yours, Alan, she thought, could have been yours. With a big sigh, she tried to concentrate on the rest of her group. Rebecca was drawing columns on the whiteboard, the sun shining through the window and bouncing off her jet-black hair, almost giving her a halo. Just below her right shoulder, Lexi could see a small tattoo of Lenny’s name. The cabbie, with his blacked-out love-heart, popped into her head. When she’d called him to say she’d changed her mind and she did want to book a ride for after the class, he’d said he’d known she would call. What was he on? He’d given her his card. She’d called the number. The End.
‘So,’ said Rebecca, smiling sweetly. ‘What should I write down?’
Lexi opened her mouth, but Lenny got in there first.
‘Like I said, I’m worried about the baby coming out,’ said Lenny. ‘I have a problem with blood, like, a big problem with it. So, basically, I could pass out during labour. In some ways, I’m more worried and nervous than you, Becs, aren’t I?’
Nobody in their group said anything, though Lexi and Mel privately shared a look of exasperation. Lexi felt sure that she, Mel – and possibly even Rebecca, who was writing something completely different to what Lenny had said on the whiteboard – were thinking the same, not very polite, thing about Lenny. What an arse! Why did men have to try to stake a claim on the ultimate female experience? Wasn’t there even a pregnancy-imitation pillow that men could buy and wear to know what the woman was going through? Why? There’s no way she would want to dangle a fake penis from her nether regions in an attempt to find out what it was like to be a man. Anyway, after kissing way too many frogs in a quest to find Mr Right, she pretty much knew what went on in men’s skulls by now: white noise. Maybe the occasional toot of a dog whistle. No – she stopped herself: it’s not Lenny’s fault men had let her down so badly. Her son, if she had one, wouldn’t be like those men. Her son was going to be everything most men were not. Gracious. Generous. Honest. Open. Hers.
‘Becs wants a home birth,’ continued Lenny, ‘which is fair enough. She’s that kind of girl, you know, but it makes me nervous.’
‘Hello?’ said Rebecca, waving her hand around. ‘I am here, you know, Lenny.’
‘Oh yeah!’ said Lenny, giving her a cursory look. ‘But I really don’t know whether I want to see you writhing around in pain at home when you could be in hospital surrounded by doctors who can help out if something goes wrong. If you were speaking to your mum, she could come and help, since she’s a doctor. But that’s not going to happen, is it, babe?’
Lexi, watching Rebecca stop writing to listen to Lenny, her expression unreadable, thought she must have the patience of a saint to put up with Lenny, who seemed to love the sound of his own voice. Lexi felt her head turning towards Alan again, but forced herself to resist. If you look at him again, she threatened herself, you are weaker than I thought. She started playing a game with herself. If you look at him again, you’ll have a long labour. If you look at him again, you’ll get even fatter. She started to feel miserable, raised her feet, which were swelling to elephantine proportions, rotated her ankles and turned her head to gawp at him.
‘We’ve talked about this,’ said Rebecca. ‘We both wanted a home birth because it’s more relaxed for all of us, remember? The midwife will know if we need to get to hospital, and we’re hardly far away, are we?’
‘What if the Beetle packs up?’ Lenny said. ‘I guess I’ve got my Chopper.’
Rebecca opened her mouth to reply when Ginny interrupted.
‘Okay, everyone,’ she said. ‘Do you want to finish up those lists, then we’ll grab a cup of tea.’
The women all stood up and moved towards the kettle, smoothing their hands appreciatively over their bumps, as if they were brand-new car bonnets in a showroom, while Ginny turned the whiteboards round to face the centre of the room. Lexi lagged behind, her heart hammering, so she could get a good view of Alan and Katy. Katy’s beautician had been working overtime on her eyebrows, that was for sure. And it looked as if Katy hadn’t paid attention to the advice about not dying your hair while pregnant. No one was that platinum blonde. Katy was pretty much everything Lexi wasn’t: attractive, very slim, perfectly proportioned, fashion conscious even in pregnancy, now speaking about her birth plan in that authorial tone that comes with supreme self-confidence and partial disdain of those around you. Speaking to Alan so only he could hear, she turned to leave the room, probably to do pelvic-floor exercises in private. Even more aware of Alan now Katy had left the room, Lexi deliberately turned her back on him. Waddling towards Ginny to ask her a question, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned round to find him facing her.
‘Lexi the life-saver,’ Alan said in a soft voice. ‘I’m amazed to see you again. In reception I was a bit shocked – you know? I often think about the day we met. Do you remember—’
He stopped speaking and smiled at her, eyes gleaming. Lexi blushed and smiled back, enchanted.
‘No,’ she said, deadpan. ‘I don’t remember a thing. Who are you again?’
Alan laughed. He lifted his hand, to shake hers.
‘I’m Alan,’ he said, taking her hand in his then lowering his voice. ‘I seem to remember liking your pink underwear.’
‘Right,’ blushed Lexi, meaning to pull her hand away, but she left it there, a moment too long. Just long enough for Katy to walk back into the room and notice.
‘Alan?’ she said, suddenly by Lexi’s shoulder. She turned to Lexi. ‘I’ve been thinking I recognize you from somewhere. Have you ever come into Spotted, my locations company?’
Lexi turned round to face Katy, beaming from ear to ear, praying that she couldn’t possibly recognize her from the time she’d waited outside Alan’s office building a few weeks after their meeting, like a proper bunny-boiler. When Alan had come out of the office holding a woman’s hand – Katy’s, she realized – Lexi had thrown herself on to the floor behind a wall, pressing her nose into a discarded box of KFC to hide herself. Not her proudest moment.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m a social worker, so I’m out and about in Brighton quite a bit. We may have seen one another, though I normally have my ear glued to the phone, so I’m not really aware of what’s going on around me.’
‘Where’s your other half?’ said Alan. ‘Is he coming?’
Here we go. Lexi sighed and chewed her bottom lip. However positive she felt about her decision to have a baby on her own, if she told Alan about it, she felt as if she’d be admitting to him that he’d been right to reject her. That all men had rejected her. That she was not worth loving. She was tempted, for a second, to make something up. Billy, my husband, is overseas on business. Roger died in a mountaineering accident. Quentin is out riding his horse.
What am I thinking? she chastised herself. There was no man. No one had ever come close to winning her heart – except Alan. Being single was just fine. She was going to be a mother. She didn’t need a man. Even so, it wasn’t an easy thing to tell people. Taking a deep breath in and composing herself, she told the truth.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘There is no other half. I’m kind of going solo on this.’
‘Going solo?’ Katy repeated, in a louder than necessary voice, her narrow eyebrows wiggling around. ‘I see – so you’re single?’
Lexi smiled uneasily. She knew everyone in earshot had their ears pricked up, despite pretending to be absorbed in each other’s conversation. Okay, she thought. I can handle this. I
handle far more tense situations on a daily basis. I’ve developed trusting relationships with dangerous, abusive people in order to try to heal their broken lives. I’ve talked a suicidal teenager down from the top of a building. I’ve convinced an alcoholic mother with mental-health issues to hand over her child so she would be kept safe. I’m a centred, tough person. I don’t judge anyone else – why should I care whether these people judge me? I don’t. There was nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to be embarrassed about. The decision to have a baby alone had been a brave, independent woman’s choice. Brighton was a forward-thinking town. Many female couples had gone down a similar route to have children. But, somehow, standing here, in the company of Alan, whom she had held on a pedestal as the kind of dreamy man she’d like to father her children, Lexi was reminded of how she had felt in the school playground: different, wishing she could be like everyone else, scrabbling for a story to tell or a wisecrack to make or a hairstyle to try to divert attention from people looking too closely at the real her, asking too many questions.
‘Perhaps it’s none of my business,’ said Katy apologetically. ‘Sorry if I’ve asked the wrong thing.’
Lexi shook her head, dismissing Katy’s apology.
‘I used a sperm bank,’ Lexi said softly to Katy and Alan, watching them trying not to look shocked. She steeled herself. Now would come the interrogation. She thought she’d heard all the questions by now. How much did she pay? Few hundred per vial. Did she know the donor? Not personally, but she had his details. Would she have any others? Undecided. Was she giving the child a fair chance? She believed so. Was she worried about HIV? No, the donor is screened and the sperm is washed.
‘Are you gay?’ came Katy’s reply.
‘No,’ said Alan.
Katy glared at him. ‘How would you know?’ she snapped.
‘I mean, no, you shouldn’t assume that,’ he said. ‘It’s not 1982.’
‘What’s the significance of 1982?’ said Katy.
Alan shrugged. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said, flustered.
Lexi smiled and rocked on her heels to get their attention.
‘I’m not gay,’ she said. ‘I’m single and thirty-six years old. I guess I’m worried that I’m not going to meet anyone in time to have a baby with them and I wanted to take control of the situation, not be sitting around waiting for a man to swan in. The sperm came in the post from a company in Denmark,’ she added unnecessarily. ‘It cost a few hundred pounds. From what I know of the father, the donor, he speaks four different languages, has a degree in social education, plays the piano and looks very Scandinavian, with bright blue eyes and blond hair. I never found my Mr Right, so this was another option . . .’
Lexi let her words trail off, feeling relieved to have told the truth. Ginny, who had been half listening in, gave her a warm smile.
‘Good on you,’ said Katy. ‘You’ve made it happen, which is more than I can say for a lot of women, who moan on about not finding a man to have children with. Like most things in life, sometimes you need to take action to get what you want, not sit around waiting.’
‘Absolutely,’ Ginny said. ‘I admire you, doll.’
‘Thanks,’ said Lexi, genuinely surprised. ‘Thank you. I wasn’t expecting that response.’
‘I mean it,’ Katy said. ‘I’m seriously impressed. Aren’t you, Alan?”
Katy shot Alan a sharp look, but he didn’t seem to notice.
‘Yes,’ he said, staring right at her, his expression unreadable. ‘Lexi, you’re obviously a very cool woman.’
‘You’ll probably find your Mr Right now,’ said Katy, screwing up her nose. ‘Sod’s law.’
Lexi looked anywhere but at Alan, forcing out a polite laugh.
‘No,’ she said. ‘He’s been and gone already.’
‘Perhaps he’ll come back,’ Katy said. ‘Never say never.’
Chapter Five
While the group finished their tea, Ginny showed a short film of a woman in active labour. Everyone sat in stunned silence, unable to believe that they were just weeks away from experiencing the same ordeal. Ginny handed round a big bag of Maltesers and, during the musical interludes, talked the group through the different stages. Erin kept her eyes closed almost the entire time, catching only the final moments, when a grey, rabbit-like baby slipped out of the woman’s vagina and into a midwife’s waiting hands. She turned to look at Edward, whose eyes were cloudy and his fists tightly clenched. She reached out to touch his arm then let her hand drop.
Why haven’t I said anything? she thought, as she sat there straight-backed, listening to Ginny explain ‘transition’, which was when the cervix completely dilates to let the baby’s head fit through, like the parting of the Red Sea. Why don’t I tell them the truth? That I already know all this.
Erin knew what the other women thought of her already. That she was quiet and reserved. Not passionate and vivacious like the stereotypical redhead. She hadn’t been quiet before, though. Three years ago, Erin had been as loud as Lexi and as self-assured as Katy. She’d been someone. Everyone on the performing-arts scene in Norwich had known her. Now that she’d moved to Brighton, she was totally anonymous. Moving had not been easy. The plan had been to put the past behind them and move on, literally. But Erin’s mind had sabotaged that plan. The past was always in her thoughts and was somehow made even more vivid by being in new, unfamiliar surroundings. The past was where she retreated, not for comfort – on the contrary – but as a subconscious reminder of why she was in Brighton, of why she should make more effort here, in her new life. It was even harder than she had expected.
‘Did you hear what Lexi said before?’ Katy leaned over to whisper to Erin when the film finished, and Ginny pushed the DVD-player to the side of the room. Erin shook her head. She had, but pretended she had not. She didn’t want to come across as a gossip.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I was in a world of my own.’
‘Lexi’s baby is a donor-sperm baby,’ said Katy, raising her eyebrows. ‘Big decision that, isn’t it?’
Erin thought about this for a moment. She looked at Lexi, who was smiling and laughing at something Rebecca was saying and realized she had been too quick to judge her. She’d put her down as a carefree, jolly woman, who probably enjoyed a pint and a stint on the karaoke, but how could she be carefree when she’d made the decision to have a child all by herself?
‘I suppose your biological clock starts ticking really loudly when you get into your mid-thirties,’ said Katy. ‘I expect she wants to be with a man really. It’s hardly the dream, is it? Starting off where most women fear ending up.’
Erin chewed her lip. The discovery that Lexi’s baby was from donor sperm was something of a revelation. Of course, she knew that people didn’t have easy lives, but, somehow, lately, she’d got into the habit of thinking it was only herself and Edward who’d had a difficult time. Perhaps Lexi was a potential friend. Perhaps they could share stories.
‘Dreams rarely turn out quite how you expect, do they?’ she said, staring past Katy’s head and into the middle distance.
‘When I say “dreams”, I’m really talking about ambitions,’ said Katy, correcting herself. ‘I’m a big believer in making things happen for yourself. So, Erin, what do you do for a living?’
‘I used to be a dance teacher,’ said Erin, thinking of her old life, which seemed to have happened to someone else entirely. ‘I helped run a dance studio in Norwich, but then . . . then —’
Erin paused. She looked at her hands and sighed, knowing that she wasn’t going to say anything meaningful about her past. Although she’d made the conscious decision to stay quiet today, it depressed her. Part of her wanted to blurt out the truth.
‘Oh well, things happened, and we moved to Brighton a few months back,’ she said instead, wondering for a moment if she appeared to Katy as mysterious as she felt she was being.
‘Hmmm,’ said Katy, apparently unconcerned or uninterested in whatever it was that Erin was hiding.
Then Ginny clapped her hands together.
‘Now you’ve seen a normal labour,’ said Ginny, ‘let’s talk about your expectations for your own birth. How about your group first, Katy?’
‘Yes’ Katy said, glancing at Erin. ‘Hopes are, of course, for a natural, uncomplicated labour and, for Erin, a calm C-section. Personally, I want to do it all by myself. No pain relief, no intervention. If things go wrong, then that changes, but Alan will step up then and take control.’
Erin watched Alan, who lifted his hand as if to acknowledge his role. They were a dynamic couple, the sort of people who earned pots of money and went on city breaks all around Europe.
‘Nothing’s going to go wrong,’ he said. ‘But yes, I’m there.’
He was exactly the sort of man you’d find in a magazine list of Britain’s Top 50 Most Eligible Men. Handsome, but not overly, he oozed capability. With his Rolex watch slipping slightly on his wrist and his winter suntan, there was something terribly charming about him. He wasn’t showy. The way he held himself, too, was appealing. Erin thought he’d be a good dancer.
‘I’m going to be taking the gas and air,’ he said. ‘I’ve got my own birth plan. What do you think, Edward? Are you up for the gas and air?’
Erin tensed as she waited for Edward to respond. She’d almost forgotten he was there, silently sitting by her side. She pulled her cardigan around her.
‘Indeed,’ said Edward, with an awkward laugh. ‘But I don’t think that will be necessary in our case.’
‘Okay,’ said Ginny, ‘we’ll be discussing pain management next time. And what about something from the other group?’
‘Mel talked about her fears over whether the baby will be born healthy,’ said Lexi. ‘A fear we all share.’
‘Yes.’ Ginny nodded. ‘Everyone worries about that.’
‘Sometimes I think you can know too much,’ said Mel weakly. ‘At my anomaly scan, the sonographer found these little white marks on my baby’s heart. She called them echogenic foci, I think. Well, I know, since I’ve been googling it ever since. There are whole threads on chat forums devoted to it. Anyway, they usually just go away, or they can be a marker for Down’s Syndrome. I’ve decided to think they will just go away, but if that’s the case, did I need to know they’re there?’