How Not to Fall in Love, Actually

by Catherine Bennetto

  ‘Thanks for dessert,’ Sinead said from the front door. ‘Goodnight!’

  Uncle Mike gave a wave and they shut the door, leaving Mum, Joe and me in the cool darkness. We crunched across the driveway towards Mum’s car.

  Mum beeped her car unlocked. ‘Have you spoken to your sister?’

  ‘I tried a few days ago but couldn’t get through,’ I lied.

  ‘Hmmm.’ Mum frowned over the roof of her Mini, assessing whether it was worth pushing the issue. Much to my relief she decided against it and jumped in the car.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want a lift?’ she said through her open window.

  ‘It’s just round the corner, Mum.’

  Joe took me by the arm. ‘I’ll look after your daughter.’

  ‘I’m sure you will,’ she said. She blew us kisses and roared off.

  Joe and I walked arm and arm in the direction of home. I admired how well he’d handled himself for an entire evening with my boisterous family. I was thankful Joe didn’t ask questions about Alex and why I wasn’t taking her calls. He seemed to sense it was not a subject I wanted to discuss. I, on the other hand, had no such tact.

  ‘Can I ask you a personal question?’

  ‘I guess,’ Joe said with a wary smile.

  ‘What was the guy like?’

  Joe’s arm stiffened but he feigned ignorance. ‘What guy?’

  ‘The one . . . in bed with your fiancée.’

  ‘Ex-fiancée.’

  I stayed quiet, hoping I hadn’t upset him.

  ‘I don’t really know,’ he said eventually. ‘I didn’t get a good look. I left as soon as I saw them.’

  ‘Oh.’ I watched our feet move in slow unison along the chewing-gum-spotted footpath.

  I imagined what it would’ve been like for Joe. How I would’ve felt if it had been Ned. But it was much, much worse for Joe. He was engaged to Katy. They were planning their future. I never intended to marry Ned. ‘Did you say anything to them?’

  ‘No.’ He swallowed. ‘But he said something to me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Once they realised I was there they stopped what they were doing and Katy tried to cover herself up with the duvet, which I remember thinking was kind of weird because clearly we’d both seen her naked.’ He screwed his face up in an incredulous grimace at the memory. ‘Anyway, I turned to walk out and the guy said, “It’s nothing serious, mate, just a bit of fun”.’

  My mouth fell open.

  Joe shook his head. ‘He called me “mate”. Can you believe that?’

  ‘Why didn’t you go in there and pummel his face?’ I stopped walking, slipped my arm from Joe’s and made energetic face-pummelling actions, throwing a fist into my upturned hand.

  Joe stopped and watched. When the fictional little guy in my palm was well and truly flattened, I ceased pummelling and composed myself.

  ‘I had to get out of there,’ Joe said with a resigned shrug. ‘I just kept walking.’

  ‘Well, if you ever see him again, you point him out to me. I’ll sit on his chest till he gasps his last breath,’ I said, patting my pregnant belly. ‘And I’ll face-pummel him too.’

  Joe smiled.

  We arrived at the cottage gate and silently opened the door, removed coats, turned on lights and took turns in the bathroom like an old couple who’d been married for years. I stepped out of the bathroom in my pink flying-pig pyjamas just as Joe was locking the front door.

  ‘’Night,’ I said.

  ‘’Night, chubby.’ He stepped forward, put his hand on my shoulder and kissed me affectionately on the forehead.

  When he stepped back it was clear that his action had surprised him as much as it had me. I giggled. Joe gave me a look I couldn’t decipher, patted me gently on the belly and headed upstairs.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘Miss George?’ Janice, the midwife from last time, called, scanning the waiting room.

  I pushed myself out of the chair and headed in her direction. Recognition quivered over her features as she saw me and glanced round.

  ‘Just you today, Miss George?’

  ‘Yes. Just me.’ The sight of Janice brought back disagreeable memories. The kissing, the smiling, the Ford Fiesta with the ridiculous eyelashes round the headlights.

  ‘Oh, that a shame. Your partner a lovely young man.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ I followed her into the exam room.

  ‘And the ice cream? How he going with that? He said he bring me a pot of the Singapore Sling.’ Janice chuckled and chittered while I lay on the vinyl-covered bed, impatient and excited to finally find out the sex of my baby.

  I recoiled as she squirted the cold gel onto my now very protruding stomach. The image of the baby popped up on the screen. Janice took notes and measurements while I contemplated the little stranger who would soon be the most important person in my life.

  ‘Placenta has moved.’ Janice smiled. ‘That good news.’

  The baby looked so much bigger than the last scan, all squashed and folded in the confined space. I allowed myself a brief panic about how it was going to vacate my body leaving everything unripped and untorn, before pretending that that day was so far away it would probably never come. I was returning to Bradley Manor in two days’ time and it was something I was very much looking forward to for many reasons. When I was there I was not in the same city as Sophie and Ned having sex, I didn’t have to maintain the exhausting charade with Mum about how Ned’s repayments were going and it was much easier to hide my guilt on the phone or over skype when I spoke to Uncle Mike about how Archie was doing on the ‘lovely little chihuahua/cat movie’. Yes, Anglesey and its disconnection from my real life were far simpler.

  ‘Can you see what sex it is?’ I asked when Janice closed the folder and clicked her pen.

  ‘No.’ She looked at the monitor, then at me, her face arranged in calm defiance. ‘Baby not in the right position.’

  ‘But . . . you didn’t try.’ I was positive she was doing this because of Ned. ‘You have to check.’

  Janice stared me down.

  ‘You have to check!’ I said again.

  ‘I been doing this a long time, young lady. Baby not in right position.’

  Surely this was unprofessional practice. I wanted to find out what kind of baby I was having. I had rights.

  ‘But you have to at least try.’

  Janice gave a curt shake of the head.

  ‘Hi, honey, I’m home!’ I said, shutting the front door behind me.

  Joe’s favourite scuffed boots were in ‘just stepped out of them’ locations down the hall.

  There’d been a fair amount of trouble at the hospital after an out-of-character episode in which I’d snatched the scanner from belligerent Janice’s clutches and attempted to scan my own belly (a physically challenging task – akin to an upside-down tortoise trying to tie his shoelaces). A scuffle with the scanner had ensued, and some unmannerly language; I’d not achieved my goal, Janice had ended up covered in blue gel and security had been called. Once I’d explained my case, really labouring over the dead grandmother, horrible break-up/money-stealing/job-losing events, Geoffrey the security guard asked Janice to try one more time to determine the sex, to which she agreed but only if I wrote a formal apology then and there. And we were both pleased with the decision that she was to have absolutely no more to do with me after that. But the damned baby kept its uncooperative little legs so close together that Janice was proved correct. It was impossible to see bits or lack of bits. Now I’d had my final scan and would not know what kind of baby I was having until D-Day.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, dumping groceries on the table.

  ‘Hey! How’d it go?’ Joe leapt off the sofa and joined me in the kitchen. ‘What’re we having? Pink or blue, trains or tea sets, Jake or Maggie?’

  I gave him a quizzical look.

  ‘The Gyllenhaals . . .?’ he said, as if I were very, very stupid.

  I regaled him with the scan events. Joe made
empathising noises but called me a psycho.

  ‘Roast chicken OK for dinner?’ I said, putting the last of the groceries away and flicking the kettle on.

  ‘That would be lovely, but I’m going out,’ he said, getting out two mugs. ‘My friends think it’s time I got back in the saddle. My mate Tim’s exact words were “time to dunk some beef”.’

  ‘He sounds nice.’ I made a face to suggest the opposite.

  ‘He’s a lawyer,’ Joe said with an indulgent eye roll.

  ‘Anyway, I just need some proximity to testosterone. There’s been a bit too much poetry and linen cupboards and Richard Curtis. I think I’m starting to grow breasts.’ He fingered his nippular area.

  ‘I did notice you’d ironed all the tea towels . . .’

  ‘I used lavender linen spray.’

  Joe came down from his room later that evening in an outfit of snug jeans, stiff-looking brogues and a crisp blue shirt open at the chest that, I assured him, set off his eyes and in no way made him look like a member of One Direction. He left in a cloud of aftershave muttering that it had been ages since he’d gone out with the lads, and hoped they were just going to a local pub where they could actually hear each other, and really hoped they didn’t go dancing.

  I ditched the idea of a roast, ordered Chicken Madras, sat down with one of the pregnancy books and educated myself about what a day in the life of a six-month-old foetus was like. Apparently they could respond to light, and if you shone a torch on your stomach the baby would turn its head towards it. And, while lying on the sofa with my pyjama top hitched up and a bright orange camping torch aimed at my bare stomach, a pulsing red light across the garden wall let me know Harriet was filming again. She smiled and waved; I frowned and shut the blinds.

  Sometime in the middle of the night I got up to wee and partake in a little predawn grazing. I was standing at the kitchen bench in the dark cutting thick slices of Colby cheese (I couldn’t decide on savoury or sweet, so was alternating between smearing one slice with pickle and the next with jam) when I heard a rustling noise coming down the stairs. I hadn’t heard Joe come home but assumed it had been quite late because I’d stayed up past midnight doing the torch thing again. But instead of Joe, an olive-limbed brunette padded into the room, naked except for a duvet, the corners of it gathered across her bust like a towel and the rest pooling behind her on the floor.

  ‘Oh hi,’ she giggled and drew the duvet tighter. Her dark hair fell in thick beachy waves down her naked back. ‘Zorry, did ve vake you?’

  She was tall and taut. I swear I’d seen her in a music video. One where she looked much like she did now; naked and coquettish with smudgy eyeliner and I’ve-just-been-shagging bed hair. Her toenails were manicured in a glossy coral that complemented her bronzed skin and she wore a delicate gold chain round her ankle. I’d bet my block of Colby she wasn’t a day over nineteen.

  ‘Ah . . . no. I was just . . .’ I pointed to the cheese.

  I became very aware of my pilling flannel pyjamas, protruding stomach and mismatched socks.

  ‘Oh, OK,’ she giggled again. ‘I’m Yuliana.’

  ‘Emma.’ I pointed a jammy finger at myself.

  ‘Yes, Joe zaid about you.’ She moved towards the fridge and opened the door to the freezer. ‘I vas just getting zome ice to . . .’ she smiled over her bare shoulder ‘. . . you know.’

  I did. Blech.

  ‘Yuliana,’ Joe arrived, his whisper slurred. ‘Did you get the—? Emma!’ He caught sight of me and quickly threw his hands over his crotch but not before I got a glimpse of his chicken-skin bollocks and his surprisingly sizeable willy. ‘Wh-what are you doing here?’

  ‘It’s my house,’ I said, trying not to take in his nudity. ‘You might see me around occasionally.’

  ‘Right. Of course. So how – how are you?’ He raised an arm, attempting a nonchalant lean on the doorframe, missed, stumbled, lost his grip on his bits, then gathered himself and straightened up, a pained look on his face.

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good, that’s good.’ He bobbed his head like we’d met casually outside a Pret A Manger.

  The three of us stood in the dark kitchen silhouetted by the light of the open fridge. Yuliana didn’t seem to have the care or the nous to spot the silent skirmish going on between Joe and me.

  Who do you think you are, bringing this anklet-wearing Eastern European gypsy whore into my house?

  Please go back to bed so I can get my paws on this gypsy whore with the ever-so-twinkly anklet.

  Do her parents know she’s out? She can’t be a day over nineteen.

  Her parents are Russian royalty; she speaks six languages and runs a fashion blog. And she’s only nineteen!

  I should not have to worry I might meet naked exchange students while I attend to my midnight snacking needs.

  Is that pickle nice? Harriet made it.

  She might have herpes.

  She might do anal.

  Eventually our unarticulated exchange became an uncomfortable stare-off.

  Yuliana cocked a hip. ‘Joe?’ she said with a suggestive look. ‘Zhall ve go upzdairz?’

  Joe and I eyed each other, me trying to convey that ice sex with a teenager was not an acceptable pastime in my home and him imploring me to go away so he could bonk Little Miss Long Limbs. I crossed the kitchen to the fridge and threw the cheese on a shelf. Yuliana stepped to the side, showing off a smooth-skinned thigh that momentarily distracted Joe from his silent plead.

  ‘Goodnight,’ I said in a clipped, prudish voice.

  Joe’s gaze snapped guiltily back to me. I passed Yuliana, who rubbed an ice cube along her bottom lip and eyed Joe from under her lashes. Joe pressed himself against the doorframe as I walked out, protecting his modesty.

  ‘’Night,’ he said.

  The next morning I opened my bedroom door and was greeted by Joe and Yuliana in the open front doorway, he in just his boxers and she in a shimmery, groin-grazing dress. They were knotted in a postcoital we’re-still-drunk-so-don’t-yet-realise-how-inappropriate-it-is-to-grab-at-each-other’s-arses-on-the-doorstep-at-9-a.m.-in-front-of-all-the-welsh-setter-walking-families-on-the-common clinch. All I could think of was how god-awful their breath must be. After much slurping they pulled apart and became aware of the schoolmarmish presence that was I.

  ‘Oh, bye Emma,’ Yuliana said in a voice husky from a night of faking orgasms. ‘Look after my zexy golubchik.’

  Joe winced as her talons dug into his buttocks. I gave a terse smile and lumbered down the hall, but not before noticing that dangling from Yuliana’s manicured claws were her strappy whore heels and on her feet were a pair of foldable ballet slippers. Had she anticipated going home with a stranger? Did all young people go out at night armed with appropriate ‘walk of shame’ footwear? Was this practical attitude to casual sex the norm? More slurping noises drifted down the hall, then some empty murmurs about maybe meeting up for a coffee later in the week, correct email- and number-checking. The door shut and Joe appeared in the living room looking hangdog and terribly the worse for wear.

  ‘Oh, good morning,’ I said, scooping decaf coffee into a pot. ‘How are you feeling this morning? A little bit Jimmy Savile?’

  ‘Don’t start,’ Joe said, plopping onto the sofa and dragging Mum’s Missoni blanket over his head.

  ‘Well I’m gonna.’ I stomped out of the kitchen and stood over him, hands on hips. ‘I did not care for last night’s events.’

  Joe uttered a dry-mouthed ‘sorry’ from under the blanket.

  ‘I do not want to have to introduce myself to naked students in my own house at four a.m.’

  ‘Not student. Intern at Cosmo.’

  ‘I do not want your sex props to come from my kitchen.’

  ‘We didn’t—’

  ‘And I do not want to spend three hours listening to your sex Olympics then watch you suck the face off a teen slut from a Pitbull music video on my front doorstep!’ />
  Joe pulled down the blanket. He looked worse than the night he’d arrived drunk and in possession of pie. ‘You thought we were Olympic-like?’

  I huffed.

  ‘I feel revolting,’ he groaned.

  ‘You are revolting.’

  Joe rested the crook of his elbow over his eyes. I stomped back to the kitchen and busied myself with coffee-making, getting out a second mug for the hung-over mug on my sofa.

  ‘I’ve never done that before, you know,’ he said from under his arm. ‘Had a one-night stand.’

  ‘Was it everything you’d dreamt it would be?’

  Joe was quiet for a moment. ‘It’s not great, actually.’

  I let out a derisive ‘ha’ from the back of my throat.

  ‘She was quite . . . bossy.’

  ‘I know.’ I shuddered.

  Yuliana’s barked sex orders had got more Belarusian dictator-esque as the evening progressed. I wedged a box of cornflakes under my arm and carried the mugs to the sofa.

  ‘Here,’ I said, holding one out.

  ‘Thanks.’ He sat up and took the coffee.

  I handed him the cereal he liked to eat directly from the box and took a seat in the armchair.

  ‘So,’ I curled my feet under me. ‘I’m not the gatekeeper to the world of sex or anything, but I’d feel more comfortable if you, you know, “dunked your beef” elsewhere.’

  Joe gave a contrite smile. ‘It won’t happen again. It really . . .’ He shook his head. ‘It just wasn’t my thing.’

  ‘You did sound a little out of your depth.’

  ‘I was not!’

  ‘Put it zere, Joe. Zere! Zere! Put it. Put it zere! Joe! Put it! PUT IT! ZERE!’ I mimicked. Joe groaned.

  ‘Where were you trying to put it?’

  ‘Shut up!’ Joe threw a pillow at me. We grinned.

  ‘Seriously, though,’ I said, reaching for the cereal box. ‘I’m going back to Anglesey tomorrow. I don’t want any more girls coming here using my pantry as an adult toyshop.’

  Joe shook his head. ‘None. I’m done. Got it out of my system.’