by Lucy Hay
“Where are you?” Mike enquired, as if he could read my mind.
“I’m in town.” I said, keen to get off the line. I could feel my confession rising in my mouth now like bile. I was sure I’d spill my guts over the phone. Mike’s Dad’s house was just two or three streets from where I was standing, yet I couldn’t face making the five minute walk to Francis’ to tell Mike there. I could just see the old man’s face, always impassive, yet somehow able to transmit his disapproval. He’d never liked me. The strange hick girl with the rag tag family, I was not good enough for his boy. Yet little did Francis know that he wasn’t good enough for Mike either: we had all been mismatched by some strange and cruel cosmic joker.
“Come over.” Mike said and I knew immediately what he had on his mind. Normally I would not be against sex either, even in the middle of the day. I had never understood my girlfriends’ seeming disregard for the act, as if it were only for nights or special occasions, when their boyfriends had been “good”. Shona was particularly derisive, rattling off the names of her many conquests, before telling me in graphic detail how each of them had failed her expectations and subsequent vigorous testing. Mike was only a competent lover at best (he had had as relatively little experience as me), but I had always liked the release of sex, if nothing else. Perhaps too much. It was the only time I ever felt at ease in his company too. But:
“No.” I said and before he could start whining at me that we hadn’t seen each other in nearly ten days (the subtext being I had some kind of duty to relieve him of his frustration), I continued with: “We need to talk.”
We need to talk. What a clichéd phrase. It was up there with, “I will never leave you”. The latter was just so unlikely! I thought of all the couples I had ever known and saw the flaw: my father left my mother in the lurch on a whim, whenever he felt like it. My mother was so used to it now, she had stopped depending on him financially or even expecting him to take his responsibilities seriously. Instead she did what she could, taking in ironing and cleaning holiday chalets, the twins trailing after her and squirting air freshener in their wake. And in the summer months we were usually okay, money-wise. But winter months were harsh. The holiday chalets closed up for winter and Dad was usually let go from whatever hotel he had taken up residence in that year. Sometimes Mum would take pity on him and let him sleep on the sofa in the run up to Christmas, making him pull his weight as the official babysitter whilst she went out looking for work. Unlike Dad, Mum had a few qualifications and occasionally she’d find temping work in offices. It was always strange to see my mother in a shirt and skirt, her frizzy hair tied up in a bun, which threatened to unravel any second. But for all his supposed responsibility, Dad would merely meander through the house instead or watch daytime television, so usually it was Sal or I who cleaned the kitchen after breakfast and made sure the twins brushed their teeth, or Amanda and Hannah did the washing up when they were supposed to.
And looking further away from home, the false nature of “I will never leave you” still held true as far as I was concerned. Shona’s Dad spent all his time working, away from the family and away from his marriage, preferring instead the company of women whose services he paid for and whom Shona’s Mum pretended did not exist when she reviewed the monthly credit card bill online. Like a typical rebellious teen eager to learn the secrets of her parents, Shona had decoded the password years earlier and upon seeing the names of the companies listed, Googled them. Yet being party to such a discovery was not as coolly clandestine as she had imagined. Shona had agonised for hours with me, wondering if she should tell her mother and if she did, how it would affect their lives. But just days later Shona had seen her mother log in to the same website, Google the names of the companies just as she had done, then simply log off. Shona had waited on tenterhooks all week for her father’s return, sure there would be some kind of major confrontation. Instead, Shona’s mother had merely welcomed Philip back and they had all sat the table together and eaten, just as they always did. Shona told me she felt as if she would explode at first. But as her food congealed on her plate in front of her, Shona realised the distance between her parents – in the same room, yet so many miles apart – and became impossibly sad. Shona instead excused herself instead and went to her room for the rest of the night, MTV on full blast to hide her crying.
Over the years, there had been other associates of my mother’s whose marriages had come under my scrutiny. I had found theirs wanting, too. Nora, my mother’s teacher friend, had had a husband who’d waltzed her down the aisle after a whirlwind romance of moonlight and roses; Hannah and the twins had been bridesmaids. Yet just six months later he was gone, his head turned by another woman at the school just as quickly. Feeling shamed and humiliated just for taking a chance, Nora had applied for every job going, but got none of them. She was forced to watch the pair of them making eyes at each other over the stale biscuits in the staffroom. At first Nora had felt a little triumph: the second wife was plump and plain, unlike Nora who even by the harshest of teenage standards could be described as sophisticated and deeply attractive. I had heard her tell Mum she felt sure that once the honeymoon period of six months was up, her Ex would realise his mistake and at least move on, leaving the husband-stealer in the lurch, as she deserved. But even worse, the second wife lasted the distance, leaving Nora to crucify herself with neverending questions she couldn’t answer: what had she done – or not done? Why would he prefer a plump, mousey, plain thing like his second wife? What was it about Nora, which had meant the Ex had felt he could just throw her away like that?
Then there had been the Hutchinsons. They’d occupied the biggest, most splendid house, “Hollyhocks”, which was up on the hill, presiding above the village. Mrs. Hutchinson was in her mid twenties, though she looked much younger: a girl, really. She had a toddler son called Lawrence, which seemed a strangely grown up name for such a small child. Mr. Hutchinson was quite old in comparison, perhaps forty, and he looked every inch of it: creases were deep in his face as surely as rail lines. It was said by village gossip Mr. Hutchinson had been some kind of big entrepreneur up in London and this certainly appeared to have weight: Hollyhocks was a huge manor, with eight bedrooms, a paddock, two horses and a well stocked garden, with its own gardener. The Hutchinsons were the couple who had everything. So it was all the more shocking when the villagers woke up to the news that Mr. Hutchinson had put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. It transpired that Mr. Hutchinson did have a fortune, but it had been wiped out overnight by the stock exchange, though few us really had a concept of what that meant. Feeling unable to tell his young wife, Mr. Hutchinson had decided suicide was his only option, apparently forgetting the act left his large life insurance policy invalid. Mrs. Hutchinson was left with nothing. She was forced to pick up the pieces and sell the house to pay some of Mr. Hutchinson’s debts, moving back in with her own mother back in Birmingham, away from privilege and rural idyll she had been sure she would raise Lawrence in. Perhaps she was still there, all these years later. Hollyhocks had since been bought by a developer and turned into the very holiday chalets my mother cleaned. Needless to say, the holiday company never advertised its bloody history. Mum always complained of a chill to chalet number twenty six, which was on the very spot the stable blocks had been, where Mr. Hutchinson had apparently blown his brains out.
And of course, there was Mrs. Darby. For all her posturing about “family” and “community”, Mrs Darby was all alone; there was no Mr. Darby and hadn’t been for over thirty years. One day, out of the blue, Mr. Darby just upped and left… According to Phyllis at the post office, anyway. Something inside me then felt sorry for Mrs. Darby then, even if she was an interfering old bag. But then, Phyllis had had no luck either: apparently she’d met her husband when she was just fourteen, younger than I was now, and they’d enjoyed fifty blissful years together and raised two children. Then, on the brink of retirement and a promised round the world trip together, Phyllis’ husb
and had abruptly died of a heart attack. There had been no warning signs and he had previously been a healthy man of normal weight, even running the London Marathon twice for charity. Now, like the others, Phyllis was alone in the world and facing her twilight years with no one to share them. Her two grown up children had families of their own and like so many from our country backwater, had long since moved away in search of work. There was little room for Phyllis in their busy lives and being a non-driver with access only to the poorest of rural public transport, Phyllis was lucky if she saw her grandchildren once or twice a year during the summer holidays or at Christmas.
So if “I will never leave you” was untrue – and being a cynic, I totally believed it was – then “we need to talk” actually meant, “I have something to tell you and you’re not going to like it”. Upon uttering the fateful words, I cursed my choice. I could feel the change in Mike’s demeanour, even down the phone; sudden guardedness with an air of panic, as he felt sure of what I was about to say:
“You breaking up with me?” He said, attempting to hide the tremor in his voice.
“No.” I said hastily, “Nothing like that. I just… I just really need to see you.”
“Then come over.” Mike said again, but I knew I couldn’t. If I went in Francis’ house, my voice would fail me and I’d end up going through the motions of sex with Mike, as he would seek to reassure himself everything was okay between us. Perhaps I would even try and buy into that idea, too. Afterwards he would probably put a DVD on – a gangster film no doubt, those were his favourites – and he would attempt to share a cigarette with me, forgetting as usual I don’t smoke. And we’d watch the violent images swim across the screen for the umpteenth time and I would not want to spoil it. Because there, at Mike’s, in his attic bedroom with the tiny window and posters of Star Wars and Bruce Lee, I could pretend I was lovable, that Mike and I were meant to be together and life could be normal. But I couldn’t pretend today. Not about this.
“Meet me at Teddy’s.” I said.
I felt, rather than heard, Mike’s displeasure. The Teddy Bear’s Picnic was a twee little tourist trap in Winby, with gingham tablecloths and toadstool salt and pepper pots, not to mention a giant mural of toys all enjoying themselves. It was hardly the place someone like Mike would want to be seen. But The Foc’s’le pub down on the seafront would not be open yet; besides, his friends could well be there playing pool and I needed to be able to talk to Mike alone, with no potential interruptions.
“Just come here.” He whinged. Even though it was well past midday, Mike probably wasn’t even up yet, but lounging around his attic bedroom in his boxers.
“I’m serious, Mike.” I felt something snap inside me. I had already travelled the best part of an hour on a bus, the least he could do is throw on some clothes and walk five minutes down the road to the damn tearooms.
“Fine.” He sighed, as if I had just asked a gargantuan task of him. With that, he hung up. Suddenly, a car horn blasted at me and I realised I was still standing in the middle of the rapidly filling car park, in one of the remaining spaces next to the clock tower. A huge beast of a car with a heavily coiffured and manicured lady behind the wheel waited impatiently. There was a pink car seat in the back, a PRINCESS ON BOARD sign in the rear window. I wondered if the sign related to the driver or the little girl in the car seat. Normally I would have skulked out the way shamefully, my cheeks red, but today I was beyond caring. I moved on, but not before I gave the driver The Finger, delighting for a moment in the perfect “o” of her surprised, over-glossed, fuchsia pink lips.
Walking through town, I saw why the market place had been empty: there was a demonstration on. Led by market people and market-goers, banners proclaimed against a supermarket chain’s imminent arrival in Winby and called for market towns’ continued survival by traditional means only. I dodged demonstrators and their whistles and drums: there was a seemingly endless throng of people with signs, plus men and women with toddlers in pushchairs and on their shoulders. Policemen and women in neon yellow jackets presided over the demonstration without malice, merely filtering people through the agreed routes and directing those who were lost or had been separated from friends and colleagues. A local news crew had set up their cameras ahead of the procession and were filming, the cameraman slack-jawed and bored, chewing gum as he waited for the crowd to pass.
Though peaceful in nature, the noise was horrendous. A tall woman with a megaphone kept yelling, over and over again the same slogan: “No ifs! No buts! We will not let our market shut!” I wondered where they had all come from; I could not remember seeing such a show of solidarity before. Then just as suddenly, I was out the other side of the crowd and into the side street Teddy’s was situated on. As I had predicted, the place was dead: a bored girl in a black and dark red uniform lolled behind the counter. She barely looked up as I entered and skulked towards a table, alone. I stared at the mural of the teddy bears opposite and noticed for the first time how faded it was. Chairs had hit the wall as they’d been scraped back, again and again, by their previous occupants. A rag doll on the left was missing half her face.
“Yes, what can I get you.” The girl materialised by my table as if by magic, her face utterly disinterested.
I looked at the coffee and tea menu on a chalkboard, hung haphazardly above the counter, yet my stomach rebelled at the thought of either. Perhaps the pregnancy was affecting me already? “Just water please.” I said.
“Water.” The girl repeated, unimpressed. “Fizzy or still?”
“Whatever, I don’t care.” I snapped.
The girl rolled her eyes and retreated back behind the counter, slamming a glass and a sealed bottle of water next to me seconds later. At least I knew she hadn’t spat in it. I figured Mike was bound to keep me waiting for making him get out of bed and I wasn’t wrong; about twenty five minutes after I’d got to the tearooms he shuffled across the threshold and fell into a chair opposite me.
“Let’s have it, then.” He said eyeballing me with typical belligerence.
I wondered how to break it to him. Was it best to just come out with it, or to try and couch it as gently as possible? “Do you want a coffee?” I enquired.
“I want to know what this is all about?” Mike said, his voice slow and deliberate, as if I was three years old. I noticed he was wearing his best shirt, the one with the dragon on the right hand breast pocket. Even more curious for Mike, the shirt was ironed. His hair was still wet and brushed, for once. There was even the telltale whiff of aftershave wafting its way across the table at me. I was struck by his logic: he must have figured if he was going to get dumped, he might as well do it in style. I felt sorry for him in that moment and absurdly touched. Had the situation been reversed, I would have done exactly the same. What an odd moment to discover something in common between us both at last.
“I’m pregnant.” I said at last.
Mike’s eyes grew wide and his nostrils flared in alarm, rather like a spooked horse. I expected him to rise up angrily like one too, so steeled myself against the onslaught I felt sure was coming my way: how could this have happened? Are you trying to trap me? Why didn’t you take the morning after pill? Though the retorts to the first two questions were obvious, I did not have all the answers. Why hadn’t I taken the morning after pill? I didn’t have anything against it on a moral or religious level. Yet I had not sought it after that night we had not used contraception. But then, Mike had not insisted I had either, nor supported me in any effort to find one. The morning after, he had not mentioned anything, but simply complained of a hangover. I could not face going to the doctor’s and figured they’d only keep me waiting. It was impossible to get an appointment in this town and by the time I was seen, the seventy two hour deadline for the pill’s effectiveness would probably have passed, anyway. I supposed it had boiled down to one thing: money, or rather, lack of it. Though it might be available over the counter at pharmacies – about twenty pounds – I simply didn’t
have twenty pounds. I figured I’d be okay: what was the likelihood of getting pregnant from just one act of unprotected sex? I Googled it: female fertility in a twenty eight day cycle was usually just a two to three day window per month, according to the internet. Odds were surely in my favour; I surely was in one of those other twenty five days, anyway? And even if I wasn’t, that didn’t mean I’d automatically get pregnant. So I figured: it had only been the once. The chances were good – excellent, even – that we would be lucky and we could just forget about that one, tiny drunken mistake.
Yet here we were.
But nothing was forthcoming from Mike after that initial sense of silent alarm. He merely sat in front of me, staring to the side of my head, not making eye contact, as if mesmerised by a dirty scuff mark on the wall. In return I sat and stared back at him, waiting for him to respond. Behind the counter, the girl wiped the sideboards in lazy circles, pretending not to watch us.
“Say something, then.” I said at last.
“What do you want me to say?” He replied.
Fury coursed in my veins. I could not believe it. This was happening to me, yet he didn’t even have the wherewithal or consideration to ask how I felt? Even the anger I had expected from him would have been better than such a response. But I swallowed down my resentment and said, instead, as measuredly as I could:
“What do we do?”
Another blank expression from Mike. For one terrible moment, I thought he was going to say, “No, you mean what do you do?” and then leave. Instead he sat before me, motionless. He wasn’t going to bolt for the door. Yet I was all the more confused by this strange non-reaction from him: how was I supposed to take it? I sighed and tried to rearrange the question in such a way to gain a response, wondering why on earth it had to be so difficult.
“What do you want to do?” I tried again, wincing already.