by C. J. Skuse
‘So where is he now then?’ asks Elaine as she clickety-clacked.
‘He’s in nineteen ninety-two,’ I said, fully awake.
‘What happened to Norm from Cheers?’
‘You’ll find out, don’t worry.’
‘He died, did he?’ said Jim.
‘Who?’
‘Mel Gibson?’
‘No, he’s there look, in the box thing. He’s just cold.’
‘Why’s he cold?’
‘Because he’s been frozen for fifty years.’
‘That wouldn’t happen.’ Clickety-clack, clickety-clack.
‘Shall we watch something else?’
Elaine: ‘No no, keep this on. I like Mel Gibson.’
By this point I am mentally yanking out all her veins and arteries and wrapping them around her irritating scrag of a neck.
Jim pipes up. ‘Is that little lad his son?’
‘No, he’s a random kid who found the box in the army camp.’
Clickety-clack. ‘Who’s that other boy?’
‘His friend.’
‘Is that Harry Potter?’
‘No, it’s Elijah Wood. He was Frodo in Lord of the Rings.’
Clickety-clack go the needles. Tappity tap goes the pen. And then…
Jim: ‘Is Jamie Lee Curtis his wife out of the coma?’
‘Jamie Lee Curtis is a woman in nineteen ninety-two. She has nothing to do with Mel Gibson, okay? Her son just found the box he was frozen in, that’s all.’
‘So she’s staying with Mel Gibson now?’
‘No, he’s staying with her at her house until he can figure out what’s happened.’
‘And what has happened?’ Clickety-clack.
I sighed and waited for the plot to explain itself. It didn’t.
Jim pipes up. ‘What’s wrong with him now then?’
‘He’s ageing.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because he’s been in suspended animation for fifty years and that’s what happens to a person’s body when they’re woken up after all that time.’
‘Is that his wife?’
‘No, that’s Norm from Cheers’s daughter in the present day. She’s just told Mel Gibson that Norm is dead.’
‘Ahh. Why’s he in pain?’
‘Because he’s AGEING. It hurts him because it’s happening too quickly.’
‘Oh his wife didn’t die in the coma then, she’s still alive?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well their little boy would have aged, surely.’
‘ELIJAH WOOD IS NOT THEIR SON.’
Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack. Tappity-fucking-tap.
‘She’d be an old woman now, his wife, wouldn’t she? Was she frozen as well?’ Clickety-clack.
‘No, he thought she died in the coma.’
‘When?’
‘Back in nineteen fifty-two. Just… watch.’
So the film ends with the great romantic scene at Mel Gibson’s not-dead-wife’s house where she’s old and he’s old and finally they’re together again. And Jim pipes up…
‘Has she got the same disease as Mel Gibson?’
‘OH FOR FUCK’S FUCKING COCKING WANKING SAKE!’ I screamed, slamming the lounge door behind me – my expletives still rattling the crystal.
I got up to my bedroom, flopped down on the bed and screamed into my pillow until I felt my voice break. I’ve been here ever since.
Friday, 28th September – 20 weeks, 5 days
Jim and Elaine made it through the night – I should get a medal for that alone. Elaine’s talking to me over breakfast like nothing happened. She even said ‘Why don’t we make a start on the nursery this weekend? You’d like that wouldn’t you?’
I didn’t know if she was talking to me or to Tink – she’d been feeding her scrambled egg from a teaspoon at the time.
Apart from shouting at them yesterday, the only bad thing I’ve done in the past ten weeks is eat a tuna and mayo sandwich – mayo is one of the foods I’m ‘specifically not allowed’ – on the WOMBAT outing to Warwick Castle last month. Hope I haven’t stunted a thumb or something.
Marnie had her baby earlier this month – a boy, 7lb 11oz. No complications, Tim held her hand throughout. They’ve called him Raphael.
‘Oh like the ninja turtle?’ I said when she called and told me.
‘No, as in a tribute to my dead dad.’
Turns out her dad was Italian before he died, and lo and behold he was called Raphael too. I like the name anyway, though I always fancied the Michelangelo turtle as a kid. He was stacked and brought the laughs. Is that weird? Fancying a turtle? Add it to the list, I guess.
Had my anomaly scan today – no anomalies as far as could be made out. My sonographer was called Mishti and she had the softest hands I’ve known so far. She had another bit of news for me too.
‘Do you want to know the sex? We can tell today, quite clearly.’
‘Yeah, well I already know but you could confirm it for me I guess.’
‘Oh, did they tell you at the last scan?’
‘No. A mother knows, doesn’t she?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘It is a boy, isn’t it?’
Mishti bit her lip. ‘Do you want to know for sure?’
‘You can tell me for sure?’
‘Yes, I can tell you for sure.’
‘OK then tell me for sure.’
She pointed at a section of the screen. ‘It’s a girl.’
‘A girl?! That’s ridiculous,’ I said. ‘He sounds like Ray Winstone.’
‘Ray Winstone?’
‘Yeah, Ray Winstone.’
Mishti didn’t seem to know what to say to that. ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean.’
‘I can hear him. Talk to me. From beyond.’ Nope, still frowning; still the look of Imma call security right now if this bitch doesn’t start making sense. ‘Sorry, that sounds mad, doesn’t it? I… had a dream where Ray Winstone was in… my womb.’ I’d managed the impossible – I’d made it sound worse.
She laughed. ‘Well it’s lovely that you have such an early bond. Lots of mothers and fathers are disappointed when they get the news they’re not having the baby they tried for.’
‘No, it’s not that. I’m just surprised, that’s all. I was so sure it was a boy. But it’s not. It’s a girl. I’m having a girl’.
When I got out of there, I was bursting to tell someone. I wanted to tell my mum. But the nearest thing I had to Mum was Seren. So I called her.
It was 6.31 a.m. in Seattle. She answered croakily on the twelfth ring.
‘Rhiannon? What do you want? You woke us up.’
‘Seren, I wanted to tell you something.’
*Mumble mumble* *sigh sigh* ‘What is it?’
‘It’s a girl.’
‘What’s a girl?’
‘The baby,’ I sobbed. ‘My baby. My baby is a girl. And everything’s fine, I didn’t lose her! I’m going to order a Doppler from Amazon – all the forums say they’re tricky to use and you can get the baby’s heartbeat muddled up with your own but I think it’ll be fine if I read the instructions. Did you have one? I just want to be able to hear her heartbeat whenever I want, you know?’
‘Rhiannon, I didn’t even know you were pregnant.’
Saturday, 29th September – 20 weeks, 6 days
1.People who wear high-heeled trainers.
2.People who spit on pavements.
3.Unnecessary film remakes – Point Break, Mary Poppins, anything that came after the first Ghostbusters or Jaws, etc.
So I may have told you a pie of the porky kind and I’m not proud of it. If there’s one place I can be honest it is here so I’ll just say it; my good girl act has slipped slightly in the past two months. I’ve been paying visits, that’s all, to Patrick Edward Fenton. I’ve been driving down to Torquay and monitoring him. Window-shopping you might call it. Once Heather had told me where he worked, where he still works, it was a cake walk to find out where he lived and
what his preoccupations are. Buying video games. Selling sports equipment. Watching children.
Today I’m back in Torquay. Back in Sportz Madness. Watching him.
Old Foetus Face doesn’t seem to mind. No aches and pains as yet. No beyond-the-womb diatribes about how I shouldn’t be here, how I shouldn’t be doing this, how I should leave Patrick Edward Fenton alone to live the rest of his life in perfect peace and paedophilia.
Not on my watch.
I hovered over him as he measured a young blond boy’s feet for new football boots, clocking every single movement of his fingers on that boy’s feet. Watching him chat, as nice as nine pence to the boy’s mother, lacing up the boots, chucking in some boot cleaner for free because ‘we like our customers to go away happy’.
Ugh. Fake – thy name is Fenton.
When the blond boy had got his boots and gone to the cash register with his mum and her Mastercard, I made my move.
‘Hi there, how are you?’
He looked up at me from a sea of boxes and discarded football boots. He smiled – tongue stud, yellow teeth, three fillings.
‘You measured me up for some trainers the other week.’
‘Oh yeah, they all right? Not too tight?’
‘No, they’re fine. I’m wearing them now, look.’ I showed them off. He nodded. ‘Listen, I know this is insane and I promise you I’m not some total weirdo but I’m new in town and I don’t know anyone down here. I’ve seen you in here a few times and you seem lovely. I wondered if you’d like to go for a drink with me?’
‘A drink?’ he said, wiping his greasy forehead on his wrist.
‘Yeah.’ I gave it my best smile-and-hair-flick combo and tried to adjust my head so my eyes twinkled kindly in the harsh lighting. ‘Just hang out, my treat. I think you’re so attractive. I bought two pairs of shoes from you – didn’t you guess?’
‘No, not at all.’ He laughed in that awkward way guys do when you tell them you fancy them. Not that I did, of course. In fact, I found him obscene. And skinny too – an elongated bag of white bones wrapped in badly drawn tattoos and tied up with manky festival wristbands. And his breath stank of egg. He had nothing going for him – no social etiquette, no banter, no hygiene. Hence the partiality to romancing kindergartners I suppose.
Are you going to tell him about me? Or am I just expected to come along for the ride?
‘Yeah, all right,’ he grunted. ‘I don’t finish ’til six though.’
‘That’s okay. I’ve got my car down here. I’ll pick you up. I’ll see you later then. Oh by the way, my name’s Lia.’
‘Paddy,’ he said. ‘Well, Patrick.’
‘Lovely to meet you, Patrick.’
*
I’m parked up outside The Leprechaun gastro pub. It’s the only one in town without CCTV in the car park, as far as I could tell from Google maps. It took three lagers for the pills to kick in. He’s snoring on the back seat. I’m sticking to my promise to run him home now. I didn’t say which home though so technically, anything that happens to him now is his own fault.
Tuesday, 2nd October – 21 weeks, 2 days
1.People who can’t spell my name, e.g. everyone.
2.People who assume it’s OK to shorten my name even though that conversation hasn’t actually been had, e.g. everyone.
3.People who touch my bump without being invited (woman in supermarket, woman at doctor’s surgery, child at bus stop).
Read this article on Mental Floss this morning, all about bad mothers of the animal kingdom. Harp seals are brilliant mums for the first two weeks then once they stop feeding, they abandon their kids and go out on the pull. Cuckoos lay their eggs in other birds’ nests cos they can’t be bothered to raise them. And pandas are notoriously shite at child-rearing. They eat the wrong food, sleep for about twenty-three hours a day and don’t shag nearly enough to conceive.
I am a human panda, it would seem.
And did you know that infanticide is quite common in the animal kingdom? Well I didn’t. Lions do it, meerkats do it, and over forty species of monkey do it, according to the nature programme me and Jim watched last night. It’s one of the ways they ensure the survival of the fittest. See it’s all well and good encouraging kindness and humanity but what if we are programmed to be brutal? What if it’s instinctive?
I’m still having vivid dreams – clearer than I’ve ever had before. Last night, I dreamt I kept the baby in the freezer and I got her out, placed her on a chopping board and sliced her up thinly between two slices of multiseed bread. I have no idea what this means, other than the fact I will probably be a useless mother, but I always knew that anyway.
Went up to the Well House to make myself feel better. I sat on the edge of the well and ate a bag of Pick and Mix. The screaming started the moment I sat down.
‘I’VE BROKEN MY FUCKING FOOT! GET ME OUT YOU BITCH!’
I shone my torch down inside and was met by a flash of brown hair and a dirty, streaked face. He baulked.
‘Hi Patrick.’ I waved, chewing my cola bottles.
‘WHAT THE HELL… ARE YOU DOING? I’M HURT!’
‘I know.’
‘GET ME OUT!’
‘How?’
‘I DON’T KNOW, GET HELP. I’M IN SO MUCH PAIN.’
‘You hungry?’
‘OF COURSE I AM! I’VE BEEN DOWN HERE THREE FUCKING DAYS!’
‘Good. Stay hungry.’
I left soon after that exchange. I refuse to be being spoken to like that in my own fake house.
*
I’m not doing any of that nesting stuff I should be doing yet. Nowhere near ready. I haven’t even picked out a cot. That’s one of the useful things I’ve learned from the preggo books though – every woman thinks she’s a useless mother at some point. Nobody feels ready or sane or comfortable in the weeks leading up to the birth. Most women feel vile and uncomfortable and greasy and ugly throughout.
Most women except Leslee Mytesky, that is.
In the spirit of being a good mother, I’ve started reading mummy blogs to see what kind of things they’re doing so I can emulate them. One such blog is the Baby Frog Blog, written by this uber-fit personal trainer called Leslee Mytesky who’s based in LA and the worst kind of human to engage with if you’re feeling self-conscious.
For a start, she’s married to some millionaire who invented this tracing paper that scientists use, meaning Leslee doesn’t work – she spends all her time pumping out babies and keeping fit – her ‘one true passion’. She posts pictures of her yoga and pole dancing poses and daily smoothies made with chia seeds and flax and spirulina in a bid to shame breeders like me who’ve surrendered to the lard. She shares inspirational mantras such as ‘A negative mind won’t allow for a positive life’ and ‘The body is a temple – keep it clean and pure for your soul to reside in.’
My knife would like to reside in her skull.
She’s the kind of woman who would stop halfway through a food sex session to track calories. Leslee’s on her sixth kid and the blog chronicles her daily fitness regime – the aforementioned yoga, kettle ball training and jogging.
I’ve done some deep dives on her Instagram – every other picture is of her washboard stomach, her uber-cute LA-smile kids, a video of one of them saying ‘Good job, Mommie’ after tasting a particularly vomitous smoothie at their massive cobalt kitchen table.
She has more followers than I do on Instagram. Mind you, there’s an account called Maggie Thatcher’s Beef Curtain that has more followers than me on Instagram.
Leslee’s husband Chad finds her ‘so sexy when she’s pregnant’ and apparently, they ‘can’t get enough of each other in the bedroom. Hee! Hee!’
Hoe. Hoe. I wanna slice her self-righteous ears off. I want to hack at her buns of steel and fry them in front of her. I want to puncture her LA air head.
I am not a Leslee. There’s nothing to rejoice about pregnancy. Everything hurts too much. My head aches and I need to poo except I can’t summon the ar
se muscles to deal with it. It’s been baking for three days. The baby could come out first at this rate. Christ if I can’t even push out a poo, what hope is there for me squeezing out a kid?
Everything’s swelling too. I feel like a Weeble. I smashed all my Weebles as a kid. I made them fall over. And stay over.
There’s another blog which features this British model called Claudette Billington-Price who’s documenting every step of her pregnancy like it’s the most fascinating thing on God’s earth. She’s had her first kid and has ‘snapped back into shape with the help of Pilates’. I guess it helps that she only weighed about four stone wet through to begin with, and has bugger all else to do but exercise. She says ‘there’s no excuse to pig out’.
Ooh cash me ousside, Bitch.
I’m going to eat what I want when I fucking want, you sanctimonious sun-kissed, plastic-nosed, pert-breasted, peachy-butted streak of perfect piss.
Vital nutrients my ASS. After spending so long watching what I eat and trying to lose weight (granted I didn’t watch it for long or succeed in losing any) my body is now choosing to get as fat as it bloody well likes. And the vital nutrient it needs right now is pastry.
So fuck you, Leslee Mytesky. Fuck you, Claudette Rillington-Place. Fuck you, Elaine.
Fuck.
Fucking.
You.
Good job, Mommie.
Thursday, 4th October – 21 weeks, 4 days
1.Doctors’ receptionists who have conversations with their colleague about argan oil while you’re booking an appointment for a vadge prod.
2.Doctors’ receptionists who double check your prescriptions in a room full of people so everyone knows you’re waiting for VAGILEVE and ANUSOL. ANYONE AT THE BACK NOT QUITE HEAR THAT?
3.People who say ‘Quite fresh this morning, isn’t it?’ or ‘Isn’t it close out today?’ e.g. Elaine.
Went to visit Lana today. Took her some homemade cakes and hung out with her for the morning. I took Tink along too cos I knew she liked dogs. Her washing was drying on an airer in the lounge and Tink peed on her Minion pyjama bottoms. I didn’t say anything.