by Danny King
That’s right dear diary, Andrew’s no longer the only one eating for two. I am with child. And I can’t stop smiling about it. I’ve heard enough people say you should never tell anyone until you’ve had the twelve week scan, to make sure, God willing that everything is okay but I guess it’s only fair I let Andrew in on it. After all, he’s the one that’s going to have to get up in the middle of the night to change the baby’s nappy. Oh yes he can forget about Ben Nevis, the London Marathon and all the charity treks he likes, but there’s one set of rashly-made promises he made a few years back that he’s going to be held to.
Chapter 12. Snickers Man
“Oh for fuck’s sake, because I don’t want to. You go and run a fucking marathon if it’s that easy, I’ll watch you on telly.”
“Tom, that’s hardly the spirit that made this country great. You have to rise to the challenge, seize the day and all that. Look at Douglas Bader and what he did. Running a marathon doesn’t even compare.”
“Yeah well, for your information Douglas Bader flew planes before he had both his legs blown off. He didn’t take it up as a hobby afterwards so why should I take up running?”
“You get a medal at the end of the race.”
“Yeah well, I could get one on eBay for ten quid if I wanted one that badly. Wouldn’t have to run twenty-six miles to get it either. Tenner in an envelope and thank you very much. That’ll look lovely on the bog wall next to my OBE.”
“There’s just no use talking to you,” I dismissed, “you’ll never get it.”
“Get what?”
“Get what it’s all about.”
“Get what what’s all about?” Tom said, then thought about it.”
“The point of life,” I informed him.
“There’s a point? No one told me. So what is it?”
“To make your mark, to make a difference.”
“Believe me, me running around London in the back end of a panto horse with you ain’t going to make a stroke of difference to no one, least of all Douglas Bader, so we can kick that plan into touch can we?”
“Whatever,” I grumbled, annoyed at how he hadn’t even thought about it before dismissing it so easily.
“Anyway, what do you want to go running around all over the place for when you’ve got a kid on the way. You want to go running around after anyone, you should go running around after Sally. How far’s she up the stick?“
“A couple of months,” I told him, opening one of the bitters I’d brought with me and pouring it into a glass.
“I didn’t even know you were trying for a baby?”
“Funny that, neither did I,” I replied. “It had been mentioned a few times over the last few years but we’d never actually agreed on anything. Sally said she wanted to try this year but then it just happened naturally. An accident. Oopps, look out mate, you’ve just made a little person.”
“Come off the pill then did she?” he asked, leaning forward out of his wheelchair and reaching for the pack of beers. I passed him a can and he cracked it open and poured it into his own glass.
“No, I don’t think so. She says she might’ve missed a few days here and there over Christmas when she had a bit of a dodgy belly but nothing you could really call deliberate.”
“Think it’s yours?”
“What sort of a question is that?”
Tom took a big swig of beer to leave himself a fluffy moustache and just shrugged.
“Of course it’s mine, whose else is it going to be?”
After a thought Tom suggested his mate Martin, who drank down the Duke of York.
“You never know. Sally’s only flesh and zips like the rest of us. And who’s to say Sally hasn’t been keeping her hand in while you’ve been gallivanting all over the place after Elenor?”
This was fair comment so I let it slide, despite taking exception to the term “gallivanting”.
“Sally’s not like that,” I told him.
“We’re all like that,” he replied. “And it’s always the quiet ones you should always watch out for.”
“Sally’s anything but quiet. If only. Anyway, what’s it to you? Worried it might be yours?” I asked, turning defence into attack.
“Mine? Where d’you get those cards from?”
“Well, you are the only other person I know of that’s… you know… been with her, other than me, that is. How do I know you’re not knocking her off behind my back?”
“You really are an idiot, aren’t you?”
“True, but the point still stands.”
“Look, I know you’re only joking here, but I just want to say this straight off the bat so that this doesn’t all fester in that sick mind of yours and see you coming round here one stormy night to bang on my windows and demand an answer.”
Tom took a long sip of beer and lit one of his cigarettes. I almost instinctively asked him if I could have one, but I decided to stay given up for a little while longer. At least until I’d heard what he had to say.
“I am not, and have not, slept with Sally since you got together with her. I had a couple of dates with her back at Uni, as you well know, then she hooked up with you. These days,” he said, then shook his head and snorted, “these days Sally wouldn’t touch me with bucket of cold water if I was on fire, so no, unless girls can get it from car seats, I’m pretty confident Sally’s baby isn’t mine.”
“What did go on with you and Sally back at Uni?” I finally asked, catching him unawares. “Come on, it was a long time ago. What’s it matter now? So what was it?”
“Has Sally never said anything about it to you then?”
“No, nothing.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Tom, she never said anything.”
Tom paused to reflect through several deep drags then flicked his ash in the ashtray balanced on the arm of his wheel chair.
“Well I ain’t going to say nothing either then,” he informed me. “Nothing happened anyway. I don’t know what you’re on about,” he added suspiciously.
“What did you do? Did you… you know?”
“What?” he asked.
“You know?”
“No, what?”
“Look just tell us you bastard!”
Tom stared at me and shook his head.
“If you really want to know, but you’re not going to like it,” he admitted, angling his eyebrows. He waited the longest possible time before he continued. “We had a foursome,” he shrugged, stunning me to my core.
“You mean, like, with another couple?”
“Yeah; Sally, me and another couple of geezers,” he nodded. “It was just one of those things, we’d got really drunk and Sally had taken an e and it was her idea. She said she wanted to be shagged by three blokes at the same time so she asked the guys next door if they wanted to join in. To be honest, I didn’t really enjoy it, I just went along because of her but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
This was considerably worse than I’d been expecting. I thought it might’ve been something Tom had done, or failed to do, but Sally and three guys? It was all too much, way too much, but try as I might, there was no putting the cork back in the bottle now.
“She was really going for it you know,” Tom winked, all at once miming the incident for me.
“This is a joke. You’re joking right?”
“Of course I am you fucking potato-head. What are you like?” I took a moment to mop my brow and dispel the images of Sally “really going for it” with three geezers before draining my glass and asking Tom for a fag.
“No, you’ve given up,” he said, stubbing his cigarette out and slipping his packet into his top pocket. “No, nothing happened between Sally and me. I mean, that was the point, it just wasn’t there… for either of us, so we drew a nice little neat line under it and pretended it never happened. Have you been stewing on that for the past… however many years?” he frowned.
�
��No,” I lied.
“Good, because there’s nothing to stew on. If anyone should be stewing on anything, it should be me,” Tom pointed out.
Tom adjusted his position to demonstrate that the conversation had left him physically uncomfortable then looked down around his wheels for his coat hanger.
“Here it is,” I said, spotting it on the floor and handing it to him.
He fed it into his plaster cast and poked about a bit until he found the spot.
“It’s going to be great wearing this thing for the next two months,” he scratched. “Anyway, what were we talking about. Oh yes, your little bundle of joy. Jesus, you’re going to be a dad.”
“So you keep saying.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Numb from the eyebrows downwards,” I replied.
And I did, more or less. See, Sally’s wonderful news came on top of a whole heap of other recent worries and my brain seemed to have responded the way it always did, namely by pretending it hadn’t heard. The whole thing simply wouldn’t sink in and I couldn’t make up my mind how to react, one way or the other. I guess it’s often the way with guys. We all say we want kids, just as we all say we want to be in the SAS or the World Cup final, but when it actually happens most of us just freeze, which weeds most of us out of the SAS and World Cup finals, but fatherhood is different.
Anyone can be a father. All that’s required is half a bottle of rosé and nothing good on the telly and hey presto, your very own little miracle. How could this not batter a man sideways?
“It’s an awesome responsibility,” Tom agreed. “So you want it then?”
“What? Of course I want it. Wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah I guess, but I’m not the one in the hot seat, am I? Has Sally had the scan and the test and all that now?”
“No, no we’ve got to do that next week to confirm everything. Actually, I’m not even supposed to tell anyone because they say you’re not meant to until you have the scan.”
“Why?”
“Well, in case the baby’s damaged, or deformed or something and has to… you know, be aborted. It’s a bit hard on the mum then having to go back and tell everyone that she’s not pregnant any more.”
Tom agreed then asked me why I was telling him then.
“Well Christ I’ve got to tell someone haven’t I, I’m going out of my head. Don’t tell anyone else though.”
Tom looked around his little empty flat and then down at his plaster casts, wheel chair and silent, dust-covered phone.
“Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.”
We talked a little more about Sally and babies and so on, covering all the usual topics such as names, genders and schooling before exhausting all avenues of responsible conversation and got back to the subject of sex.
“So, did you end up giving Elenor one or what?”
“No. I almost did but in the end I didn’t,” I finally admitted. Tom nodded and said he could see it was heading that way from a mile off. “Yeah well, I don’t know what I was thinking,” I said. “I wasn’t myself.”
“Yes you were. Everyone says that when they do something stupid, ‘I wasn’t myself’ but that’s bollocks, one up from saying ‘it wasn’t me, it was some big lads who made me do it’. Sometimes you’ve got to hold up your hands and take it like a man.”
“When did you get so grown up? Only three weeks ago you were replacing Rosemary’s granddaughter’s picture with a picture of Nick Griffin and blaming it on Godfrey. Now you’re holding up your hands and taking it like a man.”
“She didn’t notice for three days. What a blindo. Anyway, that’s different, that was just a joke. What you did doesn’t compare.”
“Nearly did,” I corrected him.
“Fine, nearly did. It still doesn’t compare though. You could’ve fucked up your whole life for the sake of a quick guilty poke. And not just your life, Sally’s life too. Did you ever think about that?” he asked.
“Yes yes yes, I thought about it,” I assured him, though that sounded even worse so I added, “which is why I didn’t go through with it.” This wasn’t so much a lie, more a fuzzy grey area.
“Well that’s for the best,” he said. “Believe me, you would’ve hated yourself for it. Seriously, you would’ve. Because you love Sally… no no no, I’m not getting soppy or anything, I’m just saying, you do. And if you had ended up banging Elenor you would’ve felt so guilty that you would’ve never been able to feel the same about Sally again. And that’s a terrible price to pay for a bit of dirty nooky,” he lectured.
“Yeah, I know you’re right,” I said, rubbing my face and reaching for another beer. I passed Tom one too and we paused the conversation to top up our glasses.
“You reckon she is dirty then?” I asked when we resumed. “Old Elenor?”
“God yeah, a right dirty old cow I bet,” he conjectured, giving my mixed feelings a quick stir. “You can always tell.”
“I can see Elenor with three geezers more than I can see Sally with three geezers,” I told him.
“I can see both of them with three geezers – couple of slags,” Tom informed me, taking a considered puff on his cigarette. “Anyway, you don’t want to worry about that, dirty nooky ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. And after one or two rounds the appeal’s gone anyway so that all you’re left with is a big load of guilt and a skeleton that’ll rattle around in your cupboard for the rest of your life. Honestly mate, it ain’t worth it.”
“I know. At least I know now,” I agreed, and I did. As sexy as I found Elenor, I also found her seriously annoying. I just hadn’t been able to see that side of her for a few weeks because my horn kept obscuring the view. A bucket of cold reality in the face and I suddenly couldn’t understand why I’d even wanted her in my room.
“So what’s she been like since the party?”
“A little bit offish actually. She hasn’t said anything about it so I figure it’s best left alone.”
“Probably annoyed at you for turning her down. Girls like Elenor don’t like to be turned down,” Tom surmised. “They’re not used to it.”
I had thought about pulling her to one side to talk to her but when I saw how funny she was being with me I decided to take the coward’s way out and simply put up my own set of shutters. Chuck Godfrey not talking to me in the mix, the rest of the Xtremers glaring at me because my mate had got their mate fired and Norman popping around every five minutes to bang on about his fucking report and I can’t tell you what a joy work was at the moment.
“Still, look on the bright side,” Tom said. “You’ll probably never get another chance with Elenor, not now that you fucked this one up. That’s the rule. Blokes only ever get one shot at a girl and if you don’t take it there and then, a lifetime of trying will never present you with another,” he reckoned, making me remember my near-miss with Abigail all those regret-filled years ago.
“Hmm,” I agreed.
“Cheer up mate, that’s a good thing,” Tom said, when he saw the look his last insight had left on my face.
“Yeah. Yeah, I know it is,” I conceded.
“Don’t worry, just think, this time next year, you’ll be a dad. Then you’ll really know what problems are all about,” Tom winked.
Sally’s Diary: February 12th
I’m so excited about my news that I want to tell everyone, but I still haven’t had my scan and until I do I mustn’t say a word. But you’ve no idea how hard that is.
I can’t make up my mind if Andrew’s taking it all in his stride or is contemplating doing a runner. He certainly seems to have a few anxieties he’s not letting me in on because he looks positively stilted every time we talk about it. Not so much the proud father who’s impregnated his wife as the guilty little pooch who’s pooed somewhere you’re yet to find.
But I couldn’t be more excited if I tried. I drift off to sleep every night dreaming about my baby. Being with him or her. Taking care of him or her and smothering them
in love. It feels so right that I can’t understand why we waited this long. A whole new chapter of my life is opening up before me and I suddenly feel complete. My God, if this is how I feel after only ten weeks, what am I going to feel like when my baby actually arrives? I know it’s an over-used expression but it really feels like I have a miracle growing inside me. And all those children I’ve taught over the years, and all the children in the other classes, other schools and other countries, they all must’ve brought the same feelings into the world with them.
Amazing then how the world’s not a nicer place isn’t it?
Chapter 13. But Then Something Awful Happened…
Sally got her period.
It came out of the blue because up until this point she’d been utterly utterly utterly convinced she’d been pregnant. It was something that Sally just hadn’t expected.
“Come on love, don’t fret it. After all, we hadn’t planned that one anyway,” I said in an ill-conceived attempt to cheer her up. I then went on to compare her false alarm to finding twenty quid in the street, only to realise it had fallen out of your own pocket in the first place.
Not my finest hour.
So I tried to gee her up with a couple of Nicole Kidman movies and an industrial-sized box of Maltesers which did the trick for a couple of nights…
But then something really awful happened.
Sally continued to feel nauseous and bloated for another week or so, prompting her to seek a second opinion in case she actually was still pregnant. And that’s when it was confirmed to us that she wasn’t.
No, Sally actually had cancer.
It smacks you right in the face when you say it, doesn’t it? But that was the fact of the matter. Sally had cancer. Or at least, suspected cancer. Ovarian to be precise.
We had it confirmed a couple of days later after Sally went up for tests and something called a transvaginal ultrasound screening. We’d tried to take our minds off the worst by joking about the name, with Sally reckoning it sounded like Dracula’s music system or something, but the joking stopped when the screening actually found something.