‘Now, do you want to know what sex the baby is?’ Janice asked with a broad grin.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘No,’ said Ned at the same time.
‘What?’ My head snapped in his direction. ‘Why not?’
‘It’ll be a nice surprise on the day.’
‘The fact I am even having a baby with you is surprise enough,’ I said sourly. I turned to Janice. ‘I want to know.’
‘Well I don’t,’ Ned said, folding his arms across his chest.
I glared at him.
‘Ah, it no good,’ Janice said, turning away from the screen. ‘I cannot get good picture. It got important bits facing down. Sorry.’
Ned looked smug.
If I was a particularly bitter and mistrustful person I might have thought Janice was choosing not to look properly just to side with Ned. But luckily I was fair-minded and rational.
‘Yeah right,’ I said as sarcastically as I could.
‘But you can take some pictures home if you want?’ Janice ignored my comment.
‘Can we?’ Ned said, overly enthused.
Janice clicked and chortled and took far more than the NHS-allowed number of photos while Ned chatted about his future as an ice cream magnate and I sulked on the bed, disappointed in myself for liking his idea of vodka-lime-flavoured ice cream being sold from a van at the summer music festivals but doubting he’d actually pull it off.
Icy air hit me as the hospital sliding doors opened to the bleak early evening. Ned trailed behind, enthralled by the grainy photos of my womb.
‘Can you drop me home?’ I said as we stopped near all the sickly smokers leaning on their drips.
Ned looked up from the photos, a frown on his freckled face.
‘Oh, ah. No, I can’t. I, ah, got dropped off by someone.’ He fussed with his errant hair. ‘I’m getting the bus.’
‘Fine. I’ll get a cab,’ I said, looking in the direction of the empty cab rank. ‘See you later.’
‘OK. Sure.’
We looked at each other, both seemingly thinking the same thing. How had we got to this point? Standing outside a hospital, a baby we would have to look after for the rest of our lives arriving in four and a half months, too awkward or resentful to talk to each other? Talking was what we had done. Emma and Ned, laughing in the corner of the bar, ignoring our friends’ calls to join them on the dance floor. Or staying at home with a few bottles of economy wine, telling stories we’d told many times, insular but complete. Then, without our really noticing, cheap wine and conversation got replaced by cups of tea and evenings on the couch, one eye on the TV the other on our individual laptops. The stories had been told, the jokes laughed at, the wine was gross. And now this; baby on the way, him living at his mother’s dating nameless sluts and the only date I had was with the dent in the sofa shaped like my arse.
‘Em, I’ve got something I need to—’ he said at the same time I said, ‘Look, Ned, I—’
We did the usual self-conscious ‘you go’, ‘no, you were first’, ‘it’s fine, you go’ tussle back and forth before settling on me.
‘I really need you to pay back that money.’
Ned’s face dropped. ‘But I—’
‘I’ve got to start buying things for the baby. And Mum’s threatening to call the police.’
‘What?’ His head shot up. ‘No! I just need more time!’ he said, his arms flapping. ‘I’m about to crack this new recipe. Please? We are seriously on the verge of something here. I know it this time! And Gerry knows this dude who knows this other dude who has, like, the best whipping machines and . . .’ His passion waned in the face of my silent cynicism. ‘I just need more time, that’s all. Please give me a chance?’ His voice was quieter, defeated. ‘Trust me this one more time? Please?’
‘Jesus, Ned,’ I sighed, glancing at the smokers, aware of them watching our exchange.
Ned looked close to tears. He really was passionate about this bloody ice cream. Why could he still get to me?
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘You’ve got another few weeks, but that’s it.’
Ned’s face lit up. He nodded like one of those toy dogs in the back of a car. ‘Yes, definitely. You’ll see, Em; this is going to be massive. Thank you, thank you so much.’
‘OK,’ I sighed.
Ned thanked me again and again, then lolloped towards a bus stop on Blackshaw Road. I fumbled around in my bag looking for my phone just as a cab pulled up. The rear door flew open and out jumped a pregnant lady in her nightgown and a harried-looking man. They rushed inside, panic furrowing their faces, leaving the cab door still open.
‘Are you free?’ I asked, leaning through the open door.
‘Never free, love. But I can take you where you want to go,’ the taxi driver said. I jumped in, gave him my address and then slipped the scan photos out of my bag. I congratulated myself on how well I’d done forming a whole baby. Everything was accounted for: two hands, two feet, one head and a brain (phew), two ears, two eyes, one non-beaky nose. It was perfect, and it was mine. And a little bit Ned’s. But mainly mine. I wished I’d found out the sex, but I had another scan. I could wait. I looked up as the cab stopped at the hospital exit and waited for a gap in the traffic to pull out onto Blackshaw Road. The meter clicked over £4.20 while we waited. I strained to see how far back the traffic went.
And that’s when I saw it.
Ned in the front passenger seat of a parked car. A familiar turquoise Ford Fiesta with ridiculous eyelashes on the headlights.
Showing the NHS photos to . . .
Sophie?
Why was Ned in Sophie’s Ford Fiesta with the ridiculous eyelashes on the headlights? She was my friend. Why was he showing her the photos of our baby? My baby? I felt light-headed. Ned pointed at a photo and grinned. Sophie grinned back and, with a cold sweat shooting down my spine and dizziness threatening, I watched them kiss.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I slammed my front door, kicked off my boots, tossed my coat on the floor, stormed into the kitchen and sat at the table tearing a Heat magazine into angry little shreds. Had I been a cartoon, steam would have come out of my ears. The betrayal! What was Sophie thinking? It wasn’t the injustice of her kissing someone I wanted to be with – no thank you. It was the kissing of someone who was part of my life. Not hers. He was my former boyfriend, yes, but he was my current money-stealing, impregnating, ex-boyfriend. Therefore he belonged, in a certain sense, to me. Where was the loyalty? As a friend surely she should be furious with him, not kissing him. And Ned? How dare he steal away my dippy, elfin friend who, no matter what life threw at her, was always cheerful? She too was mine. Now they were each other’s. It wasn’t right! And it wasn’t fair. I felt extremely lonely. When all the vacuous faces from the magazine were torn and jumbled together like some big paper salad of life’s desperadoes, I scooped the Heat confetti into the empty fruit bowl and took it out the front door to the recycling.
‘Hello, Emma dear.’ Harriet stood on the footpath holding a black studded leash with a large Doberman attached to the end of it.
‘Hi Harriet,’ I said, peering over my gate at the huge dog sitting on its haunches. ‘Who’s that?’
‘This is Brutus,’ she said, stroking his head. ‘Say hello, Brutus.’ Brutus remained motionless. Harriet smiled sweetly.
‘Is he yours?’
‘Yes, I got him from the RSPCA yesterday, didn’t I, my boy?’ She tickled him under his rather menacing-looking muzzle.
‘To keep?’
‘Yes, dear.’ She looked at me like I was on day release.
‘But he’s so . . . big.’ I leant closer and put my hand out to pat his head. He growled a deep warning and I took a quick step back. ‘And a bit scary.’
‘That’s the whole point!’ she said, looking around her at the middle to upper-class mothers with their Bugaboos full of Gap-clad babies taking strolls on the common with a latte in one hand and diamonds on the other. ‘It’s dangerous here in the city! What a
bout the rapists and the bludgeoners and the sexual sadists? People will leave an old lady like me bleeding on the streets. Bleeding! I have to take my own protection seriously. Brutus is a trained guard dog, you know.’
‘Right.’
‘I’ve been meaning to ask you, dear, are you a lesbian?’
‘What?’
‘A les-bi-an.’ She stretched her mouth with each syllable.
I hesitated in my pink socks.
‘You’re pregnant and not married; I see no young fellow visiting you, and I just thought you might be a nice lesbian lady.’
I hadn’t thought my day could get much worse, but I was wrong.
‘Well, I’m not.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind if you are. My taekwondo teacher is a lesbian.’ She raised a knobbly finger to her bottom lip. ‘Well at least, I think she is; she wears trousers an awful lot.’
‘OK, I have to go inside now,’ I said, feeling a headache coming on.
‘All right dear, lovely to see you. Say hello to your mother, will you? She’s such a treat, isn’t she?’
‘She is,’ I said, taking in Harriet in her cream pleated skirt, thick cream stockings and cream lace-up shoes next to Brutus with his studded leash and ability to maim and kill.
‘And come over for cake later. I’ll show you how Brutus kills a rabbit on command.’ She waved goodbye and turned towards the village, her loud-hailer slung over her curved back on a leather strap. ‘Come on then, Brutus dear, let’s go and see Marjorie at the bookshop.’
A few hours later I was curled on Mum’s sofa, a hot chocolate in a gold and black tiger-striped mug warming my hands and Mum at my side looking damp-eyed at the scan photos. I’d told her all about Ned not wanting to find out the sex of the baby and seeing him kissing Sophie in her Ford Fiesta with the ridiculous eyelashes on the headlights (Mum had said many, many unrepeatable words), then, with tears welling, I regaled her with the conversation with Harriet. Everybody thinks I’m a lesbian, I’d wailed. Well, stop wearing those god-awful Ugg boots, she’d said. But my feet will get cold, I’d wailed louder. Fashion is pain, she’d said, slipping off a Jimmy Choo to show how her toes remained in a permanent pointy court-shoe shape.
‘And you might want to wax this,’ she said, touching a blood-red nail to my upper lip. ‘Big eyebrows are back, darling, but it’s pushing the envelope to try to single-handedly introduce a moustache as fashion for women.’
Horrified, I fled to the bathroom and yes, there, faintly on my top lip, was a line of downy blond hair. I looked like a 13-year-old boy. My balls would be dropping soon. I returned to the sofa.
‘I wanna trade lives with someone.’ I flopped next to Mum, glancing at a copy of Vogue with Giselle on the cover. ‘Preferably her.’
‘It’s nothing a little trip to the Balance Clinic won’t fix. I can book you in with Amanda if you like.’
‘Sure,’ I moped.
Mum studied the photos again. ‘So beautiful.’ Then she appeared to be struck by a sudden thought. ‘Did you tell Ned to pay you back? Did you tell him I’d call the police? Because I will do it, darling.’
‘Ah, yeah, I did.’ I got busy with my cuticles. ‘He’s, um, he’s going to do it . . .’
Mum frowned.
‘He has to do it in instalments, because of the repayment structure of . . . of the . . .’ I cleared my throat. I didn’t want to tell an outright lie, so was attempting to lay a vague haziness across the subject. ‘It’s fine. It’s all sorted, and yeah, the instalments will be starting very soon.’ I quickly pointed to the photos. ‘Do you see its little nose?’
Mum was immediately re-enthralled. ‘I think it’s a girl.’ She traced the photo with her finger. ‘Maybe fashion sense skips a generation.’ She glanced at my Mothercare leggings sagging at the knees and the Gap tunic top that I wore no fewer than four times a week.
My chin trembled. I was a cellulity single pregnant girl with a moustache, nipples the size of soup bowls and the silvery beginnings of so many stretch marks I looked like I’d previously dated Edward Scissorhands. And, as my mother pointed out, I also lacked any fashion acumen. I was destined for spinsterhood. I would sell the cottage, move in with Mum and collect teapots.
Mum stroked my face. ‘You are who you are and I just love you, my darling.’ She smiled and wiped a tear from my cheek. ‘But I’m taking you shopping.’
Later that evening I sat in my cottage at my dressing table, looking in the mirror and running a finger over my velvety moustache, contemplating Sophie and Ned and a single life filled with teapot collector magazines when my phone rang.
‘Hi.’
‘Whatcha doin’?’ Alex asked in a chirpy voice.
‘Oh, you know. Stuff. Nothing.’ I turned away from the mirror.
‘Interesting. Do you want to know what I am doing?’ She was perky.
‘All right, what are you doing?’
‘I’m . . . PACKING!’
‘What? Where for?’
‘Vanuatu!’
‘But I thought you still had a few weeks in Dhaka?’ I said, disorientated. My body was expanding – was time contracting?
‘So did I!’ Her excitement was palpable. ‘But I got a call from this guy who’d been over here as a consultant last year, we’d got on really well and he said he’d heard my contract was nearly up and he wanted me on his next project! It was an absolute last-minute assignment. He had to get his crew together quickly or they lost funding so I signed the contract, got released from my current position and I leave in three hours!’
‘That’s great!’
‘And the best bit is, it’s a promotion! I’m a project manager now, and I have a proper title: Water Sanitation and Hygiene Manager. I’ll have two staff and my own accommodation. Apparently it’s right by the beach! And I actually get paid this time.’
‘Oh, man,’ I said, hefting myself to the kitchen for some necessary biscuitry. ‘I was supposed to have the exotic locations working in films and you were supposed to work in a government building getting paid shit.’
‘Yes, but you’re working on a big film with Scott Vander, and they’re all going to love you and probably end up taking you and the baby to Hollywood to work on more movies.’
My sister, the eternal encouraging optimist. I missed her so much I could feel it in my back teeth.
‘So what will you actually do as a water hygiene whatsit?’ I plopped on the sofa with a floral biscuit tin.
‘Pretty much the same sort of project as the one in Dhaka, but this time I’m really doing it, not writing reports about doing it. I go round the island to all the local schools – they have very poor water hygiene there, so I’ll be teaching the kids about washing their hands, not putting dirty water into their rivers, the effects of disposable nappies, etcetera. Then I help the village leaders construct a basic water treatment plant.’
‘You’re a regular Mother Teresa.’
‘I try. So,’ she said, ‘what’s news with you?’
‘Well . . .’ I took a bite of shortbread and swallowed it down thickly. ‘I’m a lesbian.’
‘Great!’ Alex cheered. ‘It’s always good to be open to change. When did you decide that?’
I filled her in on Harriet, teapots, the scan and the moustache, but left out the bit about Sophie and Ned, and after making a skype date for when she landed in Vanuatu, we hung up.
For the rest of the weekend I skulked around the cottage ignoring calls and texts from my friends. Sophie left a message about a flyer she’d seen on a noticeboard at the Kennington Community Centre for a person who films your labour, and wondered if I’d like the number. Helen sent a text picture of a guy asleep in her bed. And then another with his measurements and endurance time.
I came up with a handful of unbalanced ideas on how to make enough money to start paying Mum back her ‘instalments’ which included selling things, i.e. my body, my baby, my half of the cottage; and/or renting things, i.e. my body, my baby, my half of the cottage. I considered p
utting an ad on Gumtree for a lodger, but worried I’d end up with a psycho who’d kill me in my sleep in the name of Napoleon or global consumerism or something. Then I contemplated putting some of my old poetry on Amazon. At around 2 a.m. on Sunday morning I’d formed a sonnet in my head, sure it was going to propel me to superstardom.
Ah the betrayal
I like Rik Mayall
It needed work.
On set on the Monday I was still in a delicate mood. I’d told no one except Mum about Sophie and Ned, and the trapped emotions were curdling my insides. Now when Sophie and Ned broke up I wouldn’t be the only one with the story about Ned’s thoughts on the ‘movable clitoris’. But what if they didn’t break up? What if they got married? Then my baby would call Sophie ‘Stepmum’, and maybe it would like her better than me. And wouldn’t want to be picked up after spending the weekend at Sophie’s parents’ farm with all the free cheese.
Archie only had a few talking/hiding scenes on the ‘Family Home’ set with Tilly and Melody, which were pretty boring. From my seat behind the director’s monitor I looked at Amy chatting with the sound guys. I hated her. I looked at the First AD busy rummaging in her AD’s tool belt fishing out a particular flavour of sugar-free mint for Melody. I hated her. I hated Melody. And I hated sugar-free mints. Martha made an attempt to point out I was looking at the wrong scene and I told her to bite me. Which I wished I hadn’t as Martha looked like she’d be keen to have a chew on almost anything.
Caroline sat beside me at lunchtime. ‘How was the scan? It was last week, right? Did you find out what you’re having?’
‘No, the baby was in a funny position. I can try again next time,’ I said, pushing a roast potato round my plate.
‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ she said, looking much more disappointed than I was. ‘Do you have the photos with you?’
I fished them out of my bag. Caroline pored over the pictures, studying each one and making little murmuring noises.
‘They’re beautiful,’ she said, handing them back to me a few minutes later, her eyes glassy.
‘Ah, thanks,’ I said, thinking she was a little overemotional, but then again she was a make-up girl, and they were prone to ridiculous girlishness. (Except Claire, who was like a seasoned wrestler with red lipstick and studded ankle boots.)
How Not to Fall in Love, Actually Page 13