Head Over Heels

by Sara Downing

  Dad perches himself on the edge of my lounger and clears his throat.

  ‘It’ll be alright, Grace, it’s only a baby. And you’re a coper, you always have been. Whatever happens, don’t worry about it. And remember we’re always here for you if you need us.’

  I dissolve into rivers of tears again; Dad’s words are so simple, and his love for me so uncomplicated and unconditional. I throw myself into his hug and the two of us sit there for a while, not saying anything. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as close to him as I do at this moment. Mum always wants to help, bless her, which sometimes means her getting more embroiled than I’m comfortable with, but Dad is made of the more non-interfering variety, and his presence and few kind words are enough to reassure me that maybe things will be OK, after all.

  I wake up a couple of hours later to feel the sun beating down on me. Good old unpredictable English summertime. I fell asleep under a chilly cloud but wake up in the sauna effect of the midday sun. I am hot and sweaty and…….. pregnant. That word again, followed by another somersault in my stomach as I revisit the events of this morning. Way too early for it to be the baby kicking, tiny little dot that it is, but I imagine it will feel a bit like this, a fluttery butterfly-like sort of sensation. This feeling is only nerves, though, or more like terror, as I contemplate my near future as a single mother.

  What will the baby look like? Will it be a boy or a girl? I find myself imagining a toddler-sized version of Tom, a little boy wobbling around on Bambi legs with a head full of Tom’s blond, springy curls, and feel myself smiling, even though I don’t want to. Or a little girl that looks a bit like me. I’ll have to get my own baby photos out later, see what I’m in for.

  And then I pull myself together again. No more cooing over this new life that’s growing inside me. No, I have to be pragmatic. I’ll have to take time off work, heaven forbid, and in any case, how can I go back and face Tom at school after all this? Maybe I should just walk away from it, cut my losses and move back down here, away from him and my life as it was, be near to Mum and Dad. The thought of cutting loose from my home and my friends fills me with a fresh bout of anguish and I feel the tears springing in the corner of my eyes again. What am I going to do? How will I cope with this? IT’S A BABY! HELP!

  Dad comes into the garden with a large glass of juice for me and sets it down on the table.

  ‘You look better now, love,’ he says, sitting down beside me again. ‘You’re still my baby girl, you know,’ he adds, tenderly tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear. I can tell he is choked up, but he moves off again quickly, hoping I haven’t noticed his emotions bubbling to the surface.

  I am going to do this on my own and I’m going to do it well, I resolve. After all, women have babies every day, don’t they, and some of them are in a lot less fortunate situations that me. At least I have a salary (for the moment, anyway) and a loving family who will help. It’s not like I’m some poor, knocked-up teenager whose life is in tatters now that there’s a baby on the way. I will find a way through this, and it will make me a stronger person. Yep. I can do it. ‘BUT IT’S A BABY, YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BABIES!’ the other half of my brain shrieks, and I dissolve into a ball of jelly all over again. My brain is aching from trying so hard to get my head round this conundrum. Ouch.

  And then I make a pretty radical decision. I’m not going back. I’ll email my resignation to Tom; I know I’m supposed to give a half term’s notice, but it’s extenuating circumstances and all that, and if he’s quick he can get some temporary cover in time for September. No, I wouldn’t be leaving the school in the lurch; if I do it now then I won’t feel too guilty about it. No one need know about the baby, least of all Tom. I don’t want him having anything to do with it; as far as I’m concerned, he’s just the sperm donor. I have to be strong, I have responsibilities now. The baby has to come first, and I will stay down here, find somewhere to live close by to my parents, and let Mark sort out the house and all the financials that go with it at that end. I should be able to get myself a nice little place here, and I can build a new life, get a part time teaching job eventually, and get along just fine. I amaze myself at the speed of my decision, and how quickly I manage to plot out the rest of my life, but it seems the only logical thing to do. I’ll put it to my parents later; after all, they said they wanted to help, and this is probably the best way for all of us.

  Then the emotional side of my brain fights back once more and the tears start rolling down my cheeks, yet again. No chance of a drought this summer, with all the rainfall from my eyes over the past few days. I don’t think I’ve ever cried as much as I have recently; not even in my teenage angst years of one broken ‘romance’ after another. I will miss my friends, no doubt about it, but they will only be at the end of the phone, won’t they? And they can come and visit, can’t they? I take a deep breath to confirm my decision. Despite everything, I know it’s the right thing to do, for both of us. For my baby and me.

  Twenty-Four

  ‘Dear Tom,’

  ‘Please accept this email as my resignation from my position at Cropley Village Junior School,’ I begin.

  I can’t find my mobile – I wanted to give Mum a call and let her know my decision, but I seem to have mislaid it. Maybe I threw it somewhere the other day, in a fit of pique. Anyway, it’s nowhere to be seen, so I will just get this off to him, and then I can present Mum and Dad with my decision as a done deal when they get back. I’m sure they’ll be pleased. I know it’s the right thing to do, so how can they feel otherwise?

  Dad has popped out to the garden centre or something, so I have the house to myself, and I can focus on my plans for my new life. Just need to finish this email to Tom before they get back. Funny, they both seem so concerned about me, yet they’ve both deserted me in my hour of need, haven’t they? So I will just get on and do this and…….

  Suddenly the door to the tiny room that serves as a study in my parents’ home flies open, and Mum is standing there, with Sarah beside her.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Mum asks.

  ‘Writing my resignation letter,’ I reply, adding a big smile to show that it’s what I want, and that they should all be happy for me.

  ‘Don’t,’ Sarah butts in. ‘Don’t do anything rash, Grace.’ I notice she is holding my mobile. ‘Here you are,’ she says, guiltily, handing it back to me, ‘you might need this.’

  ‘Thanks, where did you find it?’ I ask, mystified.

  ‘Well actually…’ she begins, but she doesn’t get a chance to finish her sentence.

  The door opens again and in comes Dad followed by…… Tom. I don’t believe it. What on earth is he doing here? I can’t ask him, because I’m struck dumb by what seems to be this conspiracy unfolding before my eyes. Dad is jingling his car keys, and Tom is standing there like an extra in a B movie, looking like he wished the ground would open up and swallow him.

  Now it all makes sense. Sarah and Mum must have ‘borrowed’ my phone to get hold of Tom’s number, asking him to come down, and Dad hasn’t been anywhere near the garden centre, he’s been to the bloody station to collect Tom, hasn’t he? That’s what they’ve all been up to whilst I’ve been trying to sort my life out on my own.

  ‘How could you!’ I yell at my parents and sister. ‘What right have you got to interfere in my personal life! You did this, didn’t you! You stole my phone and rang him and….well…… how could you!’ The accusations fly and I feel like I’ve been completely railroaded. There I am, quietly trying to get my head round everything, one issue a time, but in the meantime my own family, my nearest and dearest flesh and blood have been conspiring behind my back, making all sorts of decisions without even consulting me. The cheek of it! How dare they? I’ve been completely cornered, and now I’m stuck in this box of a room with them all in the doorway and I can’t even run away from them.

  Just as I’m about to let rip with a further explosion, suddenly my parents and Sarah pull off another of their amazing dis
appearing acts, and the study door closes, leaving just Tom and me, and we are rooted to the spot, awkwardly regarding one another. I hadn’t in any way forgotten just how gorgeous he is, but I am still floored by his sheer presence, the size of him, the sexiness oozing from his every pore, and just the fact of him being there in the flesh, when that was the last thing I’d expected.

  Neither of us knows who should go first, so I try really hard to give him another of my withering looks, folding my arms across my chest in a defensive stance. ‘You’re not going to hurt me again,’ my body language reads.

  ‘Grace, I’m so sorry,’ he begins, finally. He pulls up a chair alongside me and reaches out for my hand. I pull away quickly and his expression is one of hurt and surprise. What did he expect? One lame ‘sorry’ and everything would be OK again? Suddenly I’m hit by a sense of déjà vu and this starts to feel like a re-enactment of the episode with Mark the other day. The only, and major, difference being, that when I look at this man, I know I love him, despite everything. But even though he has love on his side, he still has a lot to explain and a lot to answer for, but now he’s here I know I have to give him that opportunity.

  I have to presume at this point that Mum and Sarah have filled him in on my reasons for running away. ‘So, who is she, then?’ I ask, trying to keep the poison from my voice, but knowing that I sound bitter. I can’t help it.

  ‘She’s my sister,’ Tom begins. I let out a ‘huh’, as if to say ‘you’re not trolling out that old excuse, are you?’ He sounds like some dirty old man talking about his ‘niece’ to disguise the fact that he’s playing away with a much younger woman.

  ‘Come on, Tom, I’ve seen pictures of your sister, and no offence to her or anything, but you have to admit, she’s not a patch on that woman I saw you with,’ I say, clutching at the flaws in his argument.

  ‘I swear to you, Grace, it’s my sister, Ellie. I have to say I got a bit of a shock, too, when she turned up. I knew she’d just come back for the summer, she’s studying at UCLA, and when she called me up and asked to meet in town, I barely recognised her. I walked right past her! There was this blonde beach-babe, utterly gorgeous. She’s been California-d,’ he laughs, ‘all long blonde hair and fit and toned, nothing like the plain-Jane, blue-stockinged sister that we all waved off at Heathrow two years ago. That’s what a couple of years on the west coast does to you, obviously!’

  I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, and to start with I’m stuck in that no-man’s land of not knowing whether to believe him or not, but why would he lie? It’s such a bizarre story that it just has to be true – why on earth would he contrive to make up something like that?

  ‘Ohhhhhhhhhhhh,’ I let out a huge sigh and look at Tom, and then my hand goes to my mouth and I laugh. And laugh and laugh and laugh. Tom joins in and the two of us are laughing fit to split our sides when he suddenly stops and pulls me to him and kisses me. He hasn’t lost his touch and I feel all my bitter resentments floating away on a cloud of love and lust.

  ‘I’ve missed you, Grace,’ he says, pulling back a little and becoming serious again, but keeping hold of my hand this time. ‘I thought I’d lost you, and it was killing me. When you disappeared and I didn’t hear from you, I assumed you must have had second thoughts about us and resented me for splitting you and Mark up. Then I heard on the local grapevine that Mark had been down here to see you, and I thought, well, that’s it, they’re getting back together. So I thought it would be best for everyone if I kept my distance. You and Mark were together for so long, after all.’

  ‘Mark did come,’ I explain. ‘And he did want us to try again, but I don’t. When I saw him I knew straight away it wasn’t him I wanted to be with. My Dad threw him out, he was brilliant!’ Tom looks relieved at this news, and the tension seems to disappear from his face. ‘It was you I wanted all along, but I just couldn’t get past seeing you with another woman.’

  ‘If only I’d known you’d seen me that day, or if you’d chased after us, or even if we’d just bumped into you on the street,’ Tom goes on. ‘None of this would have happened. I could have just introduced you to my Barbie-esque sister. I’ve told her all about you, by the way, she can’t wait to meet you. The poor girl is mortified that she’s caused all this trouble between us. She’s staying at my flat for a couple of days so you’ll get to meet her when you come back.’

  ‘Poor girl. Look at me, feeling sorry for ‘The Blonde’ now,’ I laugh, ‘When I’ve hated her so much since I set eyes on her. I’m sure she’s lovely really and I’d love to meet her……when I come back.’ I smile at Tom and he pulls me to him again. I can’t begin to describe the relief I feel, just to be back in his arms. All that silly talk of running away…….. and then I realise with a jolt, I haven’t told him.

  ‘What were you up to in here, anyway, tapping away at that computer?’ he asks.

  ‘Sending you my resignation letter,’ I reply. The colour seems to drain from his face. ‘I was going to run away for ever and stay down here.’

  ‘That was a bit extreme,’ he replies. ‘Looks like I got here in the nick of time.’ He smiles and those gorgeous dimples and little creases round his eyes bring tears to mine.

  ‘What’s with the tears, Grace?’ he asks.

  ‘I haven’t told you everything.’ I gaze round the room and sigh, wondering what the next piece of news will do to our newly reinstated relationship. Probably make him run a mile.

  It’s a few seconds before I can pluck up the courage to say, ‘I’m pregnant.’

  Twenty-Five

  The ultra-sound technician rubs my stomach with that nasty sticky goo and hits me with the cold probe. I flinch as it runs across the sensitive, very ticklish part of my stomach that no one is ever allowed to touch, as it always sends me into convulsions of giggles. This time I’m not giggling, though. I’m waiting nervously to see my baby on the screen, or ‘the blob’ as I’ve taken to calling it. I can’t think of it as a baby until I’ve seen it looking like one. I need to reassure myself that it has all the bits and pieces it should have, before I can relax and enjoy this and really give in to the fact that I AM GOING TO HAVE A BABY!!!

  Tom sits beside me, absolutely glowing, a smile like a Cheshire cat stretching from ear to ear and quite clearly, but unwittingly, charming the pants off the young technician, who keeps glancing in his direction. Come on girl, take your eyes off my man and concentrate on my baby. I know he’s gorgeous, but he’s MINE ALL MINE and I’m having his baby.

  I needn’t have worried about breaking the news to Tom. Although I’d been almost prepared to see him make a bolt for the door, leaving me alone once more, that couldn’t be further from how things had actually panned out.

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ I’d said, then closed my eyes, wincing behind them, and trying to make myself invisible, expecting to see an empty space when I opened them again. But he didn’t run away, and the look on his face when I’d finally dared to open one eye and have a little peek was so far removed from the reaction I’d braced myself for. I’d expected to see shock, horror, dismay, panic, all those things shoot across his face, before he located the nearest exit and stole my dad’s car keys on his way out. Instead he’d looked serene and calm and proud, and, well, overjoyed, really, and there was a small tear trying to escape from the corner of each of his eyes. When I finally opened both my eyes, I cried too, and we hugged each other so hard I thought we might mould together for good.

  ‘Grace, it’s wonderful,’ he finally managed to gasp, breathlessly and quietly. ‘We’re having a baby! Can you believe it! Us! We’re going to be parents!’ He was speaking in one exclamation mark after another, his eyes brimming with tears but with excitement too.

  ‘So you don’t mind, then?’ I’d asked, tentatively.

  ‘Mind? Why would I mind? It’s the best news I’ve ever had! A baby! With you! Ahhhhhh!’ the exclamation marks carried on until he dissolved into hysterical, happy laughter, and I had no choice but to join in. Again we sat ther
e together, clinging to one another, our bodies shaking with mirth.

  So any doubts I’d had about Tom wanting nothing to do with me were banished instantly. Why had I ever doubted him? I would never have fallen for a man who wasn’t so gorgeously kind and caring, would I? But then even the happiest and strongest of relationships can be rocked by the news that there is a baby on the way. So many times one partner or the other cannot come to terms with the changes to their lives that are inevitable. But not my Tom. My gorgeous, gorgeous Tom.

  We are going to be a family, and he is pleased and I am… well…. suddenly I’m not as adverse to it as I’ve always been. It seems right, somehow. We will be a perfect little family with our perfect baby and all live happily ever after, won’t we?

  But as the twelve week scan day has been drawing nearer, I’ve been getting a bit twitchy and going through the entire pregnant woman trauma thing about the baby NOT being OK. What if there’s something wrong with it? Will Tom still want me – and it – then? What I’m feeling is all perfectly normal, apparently, according to my new best friends and full-time companions, the Mother and Baby magazines and manuals. I am single-handedly keeping the publishing industry afloat with my recent purchases. Tom thinks it’s hilarious. Me, a so-called ‘non-baby’ person, knee deep in all this literature. I can’t get enough of it. The trouble is, though, that it points out all the things that CAN go wrong. I’d never realised being pregnant and giving birth was as complicated, and to say I am a walking medical dictionary of pregnancy related illnesses and complications is an understatement. I’m like a baby-info website on legs. Everyone keeps telling me to stop worrying, and that if I’m feeling fine then chances are the baby is fine, and growing normally and all that stuff. I just need to relax, and chill, apparently. Easier said than done.