39 Weeks

by Terri Douglas

  After going home from work last Monday, when I was supposedly coming down with the flu, I took the Tuesday off as well. I was still in shock for one thing, and hey if everyone thought I was ill anyway I might as well milk it and have the next day off as well, if not a whole week. But I didn’t relish my day off the way you’d normally relish a day’s skive, and I just moped about all day feeling sorry for myself, to the point where I couldn’t stand my own company, not to mention my own thoughts any longer, and ended up going back to work on Wednesday, where thankfully I was too preoccupied with month end to think about much else. Which was great until the weekend, when it was back to just me and thinking about my dismal unavoidable future again.

  I did my Saturday morning weekly shop yesterday as usual, fighting my way through the three ring circus they call town as usual, and then as not so usual I wandered around the shops looking at clothes and shoes, that I knew would be pointless buying as who knew how long I’d be able to wear them for, but looking all the same. Anything to avoid having to go home to me and my thoughts again.

  Mum came round this morning for her monthly Sunday duty visit. I didn’t tell her of course, and was dreading the day when I’d have to, but hopefully that wouldn’t be for at least a couple of months yet. Even though I was edging toward thirty and just about supporting myself, good job she didn’t know Dad was helping me out now and then when my bank balance didn’t quite stay in the black, she still treated me as if I was about eight and needed her help, advice, and guidance on everything, which she offered freely and at any and every opportunity. I loved her, she was my mum, and I knew she was only trying to look after me, but still she drove me bonkers whenever I had to spend more than half an hour with her.

  Then this afternoon I went to see Shelley, the giver of the raunchy calendar and my best friend. I had been supposed to be going out with her last night, as we did most Saturdays, her and a couple of girlfriends, for a drink and a laugh, but I’d cried off at the last minute. I didn’t feel up to a girls night out and the way I was feeling would definitely have put a dampener on everyone else’s night out, so I didn’t go. But I was still curious as to what sort of a night out they’d all had without me.

  Evidently it had been a good night, and I was sorry then that I’d missed it, maybe it would have cheered me up and taken my mind off it all, but then again maybe it would have just rubbed it in about all the things I was going to be missing out on. Shelley had met a new bloke called Mark, twenty nine and gorgeous was her definition, and he was supposed to be going to phone her to arrange going out for a meal on Friday. She was very excited and all week-knee’d at the prospect. I didn’t say so of course, not wishing to burst her bubble, but I thought yeah right and how many times have I heard that, and how many times have they actually phoned? Um have you got a calculator handy?

  I didn’t plan to tell her about P day. It was too soon, too new, and altogether too monumentally life changing to be able to talk to anyone about it yet, even a close friend like Shelley, and I’d resolved to keep it to myself for as long as I could. I had a sort of feeling that once people knew they’d treat me differently, and right now what I needed most was to be as un-different as possible for as long as possible. Plenty of time yet before in their eyes anyway, and mine come to that, I turned into the stupid one, the mumsy one, the shunned one.

  We chit chatted for a while, and I told her about what a supercilious cow Gill had turned into since coming back off her honeymoon, and she told me again about how much of a bitch Katherine was, that’s her boss at work and evidently a dedicated first class bitch at all times that had nothing to do with honeymoons or marital status, and more to do with an inbuilt superiority complex she felt she had to inflict on everyone else, especially those unfortunate enough to have to work for her.

  And then I told Shelley I was pregnant. The keeping it to myself plan failing miserably.

  ‘You’re what? Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure, would I be telling you if I wasn’t sure?’

  ‘Well you could just be a bit late, couldn’t you?’

  So I told her I was never late and how nine pregnancy test kits had all come up positive.

  ‘Oh my God. What are you going to do?’

  ‘Nothing I can do. Have the baby I suppose.’

  ‘You could . . .’

  ‘No I couldn’t, I looked into it and I definitely couldn’t.’

  ‘I’d help you. Come with you if you’d like.’

  ‘I appreciate the offer, but I couldn’t. Honestly Shell much as I really don’t want to have this baby, I couldn’t have an abortion. If you knew what happens you wouldn’t suggest it. I looked it up on the internet and they . . .’

  Putting her fingers in her ears, Shelley said ‘no don’t tell me, who knows I might need one, one of these days, and I’d rather not know too much about it’.

  ‘Yeah I wish I didn’t know.’

  ‘You thought about it then?’

  ‘Yes I thought about it, but after I found out . . . okay I won’t say what I found out, but anyway after, I knew I wouldn’t be able to go through with it.’

  ‘Oh Judy. No wonder you didn’t feel like coming out last night. How far . . . I mean when d’you think it’s due?’

  ‘February the twenty-eighth, nine months to the day I slept . . .’

  ‘You know who it was then?’

  ‘You make it sound like I sleep around all the time, a different guy every night. Course I know who it was.’

  ‘Who? Is it someone I know? Was it Alec?’

  ‘Alec! He was months ago, nearly a year ago, how could it be Alec?’

  ‘Well you could have seen him again, you know once more for old time’s sake.’

  ‘No it wasn’t Alec.’

  ‘Well who then?’

  ‘Remember that guy who came on to me at Gill’s hen night?’

  ‘No way. You slept with him? But you were giving him all the classic Judy put-downs as I remember it, and didn’t give him a look in.’

  ‘Yeah and you lot were all telling me to go for it, and anyway weren’t you just a bit preoccupied with his mate at the time, so you probably missed the finale.’

  ‘Not that preoccupied, well I didn’t think I was. I can’t believe he talked you into sleeping with him, he was a complete scum bag, attractive and everything I grant you but come on. What were you thinking?’

  ‘I was thinking it had been a long time since Alec, and even though I’d sworn off relationships with men, I hadn’t decided to become a nun, so I . . .’

  ‘And he’s the father.’

  ‘Yes, the good looking scum bag Matt is the father.’

  ‘Matt, yes that was his name I remember now. Bloody hell, poor you. Will you tell him?’

  ‘Um no. That wouldn’t be my first choice no. But I couldn’t tell him even if I wanted to, I’ve no idea what his phone number is or where he lives, or even what his last name is, or even if Matt is his real first name.’

  ‘You never even got his phone number?’

  ‘No I wasn’t planning on ever having to speak to him again. He was definitely one night stand fodder, and only managed that status by virtue of the fact I was somewhat befuddled by the amount of Bacardi I’d had that night. I’m not proud of sleeping with such a twonk but what happened happened.’

  ‘Did he take your number? Maybe he’ll call you?’

  ‘Shelley when will you learn that just because they ask you for your phone number and go through the whole performance of putting it in their phone, it doesn’t mean they’re actually going to phone you. It’s just a way of keeping score, the new version of the little black book, or notches on the bedpost. It makes them feel good to have a lot of girl’s names and numbers in their phone, probably about ninety nine per cent of them can’t even remember who the girls are, what they looked like or where they met them, never mind giving a moment’s thought to ever contacting them again.’

  ‘So you don’t think he’ll phone
you?’

  ‘No I’m pretty certain he won’t. We both knew it was a one night only thing. Except I’m going to be paying for my one night for the next twenty years, give or take.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘Mm my thoughts exactly. But it’s better this way, if I have to do this, which I do, the last thing I want is some scum bag of a bloke interfering, or heaven forbid thinking he had to do the right thing.’

  ‘You mean like asking you to marry him, or live with him, or offering to support the baby?’

  ‘Yes I mean exactly that. The last thing I need is to be saddled with a baby and a man, any man, father of the said baby or not.’

  ‘Why on earth didn’t you use a condom? You of all people?’

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean by me of all people, but we did use one. It’s not full proof you know and evidently this was one of the dodgy five percent, or whatever it is, that doesn’t work properly.

  ‘So you’ll be a single mum.’

  ‘Yes. God knows how I’m going to manage it but I guess that’s exactly what I’ll be.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Pretty pissed off actually.’

  ‘No I mean feeling, you know pregnancy-wise?’

  ‘Oh that. I feel fine, just like I always do. I don’t think the whole morning sickness stuff starts for a few weeks yet.’

  ‘Well that’s good at least.’

  ‘Yey hooray for me. Something to look forward to isn’t it?’ I said without a shred of enthusiasm, and heaving with sarcasm.

  How wrong can you be? This evening after I got home from Shelley’s with promises of keeping her updated on my progress, and swearing her to secrecy at least for the time being, I had dinner, a micro-waved ready prepared curry, and felt decidedly queasy afterwards. Half an hour later I projectile vomited it back out again.

  The pregnancy bible’s both said that not everyone get’s morning sickness only about half of all mothers-to-be, and it’s not always in the morning, apparently it could be at any time of the day or night. So why me, and why was it called morning sickness I wondered, if you could have it at any time? And was this morning sickness at all, or was I just sick, you know your normal average tummy bug or eaten something that disagrees with you sick, that all normal average people get at some time? I feared that only time would tell, or more specifically tomorrow.

  5

  12th July - Week 6 + 2 Days

  I am now officially a fully paid up member of the pre-mothers up-chuck club, otherwise known as morning sickness, or in my case eight o’clock in the evening sickness. On the plus side it didn’t interfere with work or getting ready for work in the morning, it did however interfere with any plans I might have had for going out in the evening. For a week now I’ve been sick every night, the biggest problem being should I eat when I got in and inevitably throw it all up later, or should I wait until after up-chucking time and then have something to eat, neither option appealing to me much.

  The last couple of days I’d made sure I ate something in the morning for breakfast, not my usual routine at all existing as I usually did on coffee and only the occasional bit of toast on the weekend, and then what Mum would call a proper lunch at . . well lunch time, so that I didn’t have to eat in the evening, and so far this seemed to be working but for how long I had no idea.

  Work plodded on as work does, and I plodded right along with it, grateful almost for the time I spent there, as it meant that for eight hours a day at least, I wasn’t thinking about baby’s. Another month end routine was well underway, and progressing steadily. No more screw ups on my part, as far as I knew anyway, and I was earning my keep and justifying the recent salary increase.

  Shirley had some good news, her grand-daughter Scarlet wasn’t having a baby after all, she was just late or had miscalculated or something, but anyway not pregnant. Of course Shirley’s daughter Vicky, and Shirley herself, were still in uproar now they knew the fourteen year old Scarlet had been having sex, and I’m guessing Scarlet herself was none too happy that she’d spilled the beans when she didn’t have to, as she’d been stopped from going out in the evenings, Shirley said, for the next two years at least. Of course there was no knowing if they’d all be able to stick to that, I mean two years is a long time. Now why couldn’t that have been me? I’d have happily stayed at home in the evenings for the next ten years if it meant I didn’t have to have a baby. Well five years anyway.

  Gill was still maddeningly smug and doing a fairly accurate impersonation of Nigella Lawson every day, and she and new hubby had decided, she informed us one morning, that their flat was just too small so they were thinking about doing a Phil and Kirsty and relocating to a forever kind of family house in the countryside, Gloucestershire probably. She waxed on lyrically about how country living was so much better for raising the family she planned to have, and how it was an essential lifestyle change for those of us who thought about such things and could afford it. Hubby was a plumber by trade so they were coining it in and by all accounts could easily afford it. Good, I thought. You go and live your lifestyle changing life somewhere else, then you’ll have to leave Fishers and we won’t have to listen to you anymore. I’d gone right off her since she got married. She was a lesson to us all, don’t ever get married because you turn into a boring pretentious supercilious prig.

  Yesterday we’d all received an e-mail saying that after due consideration it had been agreed by the board of directors, that meant Norman had decided, that we were to be decorated, that is the offices were to be decorated, and some reorganisation of the current office space would be introduced at the same time, the plans of which were to be finalised in the coming weeks. The new paint job, we were told, would start next month.

  That threw everyone into a frenzy of speculation and complaints. Even though no-one knew where or how the office was going to be reorganised some people were already complaining like mad about having to move away from the radiator, or the window, or their spot near the cupboard kitchen. We’d always had an open plan office, since I’d been there anyway, and the mismatched desks were jammed in, in groups of four facing each other. There was fierce competition as to who had the largest desk, or the newest chair, or the most filing space, but essentially we were all thrown into the one big office as best as we could fit. But now evidently that was all about to change. The rumour was that they were dividing up the space into the various sections, sales ledger, purchase ledger, purchasing, etc. and that management accounts, that was me, Martin, and Grahame the accounts, sorry make that finance, manger would be in a separate office. The sales department was apparently moving to a different office altogether, that was yet to be created behind the reception area, stealing the space from the printing room which was vast, next to the design department.

  If the rumour was true I wasn’t sure how I felt about sharing an office with Martin and Grahame. From a work point of view of course it made absolute sense, but from a personal point of view . . . well would you want to spend eight hours a day trapped in the same small room as two middle aged male accountants? No of course you wouldn’t, and neither did I.

  But then I thought it’s only going to be for a few months, so it doesn’t really matter. By Christmas or thereabouts I probably won’t be working here anymore anyway. Or if I could manage to organise some kind of baby minding plan, I might still be working here but on maternity leave for however long it is you have maternity leave for. I really should find out about that. Do you get three months, or six, or twelve maybe? Do you get paid while you’re off, or is it half pay, or no pay? And are you guaranteed to get your old job back afterwards, assuming I’d had some success with operation baby minding that is?

  Work carried on as usual but at every visit to the loo, every coffee making expedition or lunch break, everyone was filled with speculation on the imminent reorganisation and possible implications for whoever you happened to be talking to. Sometimes the speculations were positive but mostly not. Nobody it seeme
d could talk about anything else, except Gill and her mind numbing plans for country living, nothing was going to deter her from boring us all to death with that.

  After lunch we received another e-mail asking us all to calculate how much filing space we’d each need and to discuss the results with our various managers. We were advised that we’d need to keep filing space to a minimum and that a new storage area for seven years worth of archive files was going to be organised, probably at a storage company based in Sheffield, to free up more space in the office. That started a whole new wave of moaning, along the lines of ‘Sheffield! Are you kidding? But what if we need to look something up?’ But we were assured that if absolutely necessary we could request a file to be retrieved and it would be sent back to us within a week. ‘A week!’ everyone said. ‘I mean if you need to look something up you need the info now, today, not in week. What were they thinking?’ The general consensus was that these Steadman brothers had a lot to answer for.

  By five o’clock I was relieved to be able to leave the sensitive subject of who’d sit where, and next to whom, and the pro’s and con’s of archiving in Sheffield, although mostly it seemed the con’s won by a landslide, and go home to the relative benign uneventful quiet of my flat, and wait for my evening sickness to begin.

  Tonight I was lucky enough to avoid actually throwing up. I felt the nausea rising as usual around eight o’clock, and was prepared with grim determination for the inevitable outcome that usually followed, but this evening it seemed I was to be spared. Maybe this whole eating during the day, instead of at night after work thing, was paying off.

  At nine with still no sign of any vomiting on the agenda and the feeling of nausea waning, I decided to have a soak in the bath. Relax a bit. Have a bit of me time. Maybe light a few candles and do it properly.