by Tracy Bloom
“Well I guess you have a point,” she said eventually. “But at least you’re here with mates, not lipsticks on legs.”
“There is that I suppose. But all that still isn’t the main reason why my night is worse than yours.”
“Go on then, put me out of my misery,” she said, noticing the look of mischief in his eyes and trying very hard not to like it.
“OK then,” he paused and drew breath. “I went to the men’s and the bloke next to me stared at my you know what and said, “Shame about the ginger pubes.””
Katy couldn’t help but giggle. Just like a schoolgirl.
“But surely you knew you had ginger pubes before you came out?” she said feeling a blush starting to emerge to her horror.
“Of course, but to have a total stranger point them out to you during what should be sacred time is wrong on so many levels.”
He looked genuinely upset which caused Katy to burst out laughing. He started laughing too, obviously pleased he had at last won her over.
“I’m Ben by the way,” he said, offering her his hand still sticky from spilt lager. “So now we are united in misery I can either offer to buy you a drink or we can make a run for it, and go really up-market and grab a kebab?”
Before she knew it she was sitting on a cold stone step outside Gonads’ Kebab House spilling chilli sauce on her black stilettos, knowing this was probably the highlight of her evening.
Talking had been surprisingly easy. She was relieved that he hadn’t offered any embarrassing chat-up lines or false flattery. There was no sob story of a wife who didn’t understand him or a tricky divorce, which seemed to be par for the course with the older men she had been attracting lately. He didn’t even ask her what she did for a living. He just talked utter nonsense about anything and everything which made a refreshing change to the “I’m more successful than you” conversations she was used to with the image-obsessed men she met through work. In fact she realised for the first time in a long time she was with a man and not worrying about what she said or how she looked.
Before long he finished his kebab, licked his fingers one by one then, screwing up the greasy paper, announced he had better be off.
“Football tomorrow,” he said. “You OK to get yourself a taxi?”
“Yeah fine.”
He turned to go and then at the last minute he looked back.
“Fancy a drink one night?” he asked.
She hesitated. She had enjoyed his banter but she didn’t want to give the poor lad false hope.
“OK, but just a drink, that’s all.”
“We’d better go out on a Tuesday then,” he said seriously.
“Why?” asked Katy.
“Because no-one ever has sex on a Tuesday.”
They had met for a drink on a Tuesday, then the following Thursday, then the Monday after that, then finally they had had sex on the Saturday.
“You see Tuesday is such a nothing day. Sunday you have end of the weekend sex. Monday you have - bloody hell I need something to cheer myself up because it is still the start of the week sex. Wednesday you have maybe post scoring nine goals at football or boring night on the telly sex. Thursday is the new Friday so you go down the pub and then have - oh dear, aren’t I wild and crazy I’ve had too much to drink on a school night sex. Friday you have - thank Christ another week survived at work sex. And Saturday. Well Saturday is - it’s bloody Saturday I should have sex, sex.
“But Tuesday you see is tricky. What reason on earth is there to have sex on a Tuesday? You ask everyone. I bet you no-one can remember the last time they had sex on a Tuesday.”
Now as she slogged her way down endless hospital corridors following barely legible handwritten signs, she struggled to think of a good reason to have sex on any day of the week. In fact her entire opinion on sex had changed since that fateful morning six months ago when she had woken feeling queasy for the fifth day running. Initially she had put it down to a very bad and much extended reaction to a lively client dinner. However she was finally forced to admit that this was not her usual hangover sickness. She froze and racked her brains. When had she last had her period? She could vaguely remember the office Christmas party and having to cram tampons in the lovely little glitter bag she had bought specially to go with her hideously expensive little black dress. She rushed to the kitchen to check the calendar, her heart thumping so loudly she thought it might wake Ben who had stayed over. She flicked back to December and held her breath as she counted the weeks up until now. The first attempt got her to seven. No, that can’t be right. She checked again and again but the answer was seven every time. Shit, shit, shit. This could not be happening. She was on the pill. You don’t get pregnant on the pill. That is the whole point of the pill surely. She couldn’t have a baby. She was going out with Ben. He wasn’t ready to be a father. He was eight years younger than her. He was born in the eighties for God’s sake – practically still a child himself.
She sank to the floor; her beautiful Moroccan tile floor in her beautiful designer flat and buried her head in her hands. The implications flooded uncontrollably through her mind. What about her career? What about her life? What would everyone say? What would her mum say? She knew she would be horrified since she’d spent Katy’s entire adult life telling her not to get trapped like she did. She was convinced that had it not been for marriage and kids she would have been a star in Vegas despite the fact she was a terrible singer. Now she was making up for lost time in their villa in Spain spending most nights down the karaoke bars with her cronies.
“Who the hell’s is it?” would be her mother’s first question. They had long ago stopped discussing Katy’s relationships as they changed so frequently and her mum had lost interest. Well at least she knew it could only be Ben’s given that they had been “hanging out” as they both liked to call it, for a good few months now. In fact she had been amazed at how well it was going. They never promised to call, they just did. They introduced each other to their friends but hotly denied any romance and there was no way they were ever going to ask to meet each other’s parents. He took the mickey out of her pretentious world of advertising and she scoffed at his million weeks of school holiday a year and ability to be home in time to watch Neighbours.
“Undemanding, uncomplicated and under-age,” was how she had laughingly described it to a bemused Daniel.
“I have no idea why I didn’t think of going for a younger man before,” she added. “He’s too young to take life seriously so we have a laugh and he’s not old enough to want to settle down, so I’m not constantly planning how to extract myself. It’s perfect.”
It was also with much relief that she had given up her nights out with the gym bunnies. They had called and begged but she had made her excuses. So there had been no drunken nights without Ben in a while, no dodgy end of night snogs or even dodgier one night stands.
“Fuck,” shrieked Katy suddenly as she sat bolt upright, dropping the calendar on the floor. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” she chanted as she grabbed at the calendar. “Please no, if there is a God, please don’t do this to me.” She flicked back to December again and there in scribbled blue biro, two weeks after the office Christmas party were the last words on earth she had wanted to read. Dove Valley School Re-union -8pm.
Katy shuddered as she recalled the events surrounding the discovery of her pregnancy and did her best to stop her mind going into overdrive yet again as they finally reached the door of the room where the antenatal class was being held. Ben reached for her hand.
“Good luck partner,” he said, giving her a wink.
She smiled at him gratefully. Maybe everything was going to be alright. She took a deep breath and stepped into the room.
As Ben and Katy entered, seven expectant faces turned to stare at the last members to arrive.
“Bloody hell, I don’t believe it. No wonder he hasn’t been turning up for football practice,” exclaimed Ben staring at a young lad slouched in a chair.
“So the local under nineteen’s team performance goes down the toilet all because my best striker has got some girl pregnant,” Ben continued, oblivious to Katy’s distress. “What an idiot. Look at him: he should be out practicing his penalties not stuck in here with a load of old pregnant women.”
Katy was too bewildered to take anything in. She could just about sense now that they were walking towards the group, the point of no return. All she wanted was to turn and run as fast as possible, but there was nothing she could do to prevent what was going to happen. At that moment the last man on earth she wanted to see looked up and saw her. A smile sprang instantly to Matthew’s mouth as he recognised her but it disappeared the moment he saw that she was pregnant.
Chapter 3
Approximately eight months earlier
Matthew’s day had gone badly. It had taken two tedious hours just to get out of London that morning, followed by a further punishing three hours to make it to Leeds. His mobile had rung constantly with clients wanting blood, sweat and tears, as well as minor miracles. Being a tax advisor didn’t mean you could wave a magic wand and miraculously uncover a way of paying no tax at all, he wanted to scream at them. He could understand that all his clients had somebody squeezing their bollocks constantly for bigger profits but they should get off his case and go and make more money. It was quite simple really.
Matthew had put his phone on silent in the end, deciding that poor phone reception up the M1 was a plausible excuse for not being at everyone’s beck and call. Besides the luxury of being able to listen to Radio 5 Live on a weekday, allowing his mind a respite from his personal stresses to the possibilities during this football season’s transfer window, was too great an opportunity to miss.
He was just pondering the acquisition options for Leeds United when Alison’s name began to flash persistently on his phone screen. He found to his dismay that he hesitated before answering, frightened that he might say the wrong thing again. She had been in tears as he left that morning, the anguish of going through yet another course of fertility treatment sending her way over the edge at the slightest comment. He could tell that every drop of her energy was focused on willing it to be this time. Any distraction or diversion he attempted to provide to calm her down was met with utter disdain and a look of withering contempt. She failed to understand how on earth he could talk about anything other than getting pregnant, let alone suggest something as trivial as her travelling with him to Leeds and seeing the match with him on Saturday.
He fleetingly remembered the time when his heart would have leapt at the sight of Alison’s name flashing on his phone screen. But that was a different Alison. That Alison had mesmerised him: so cool and calm and sophisticated, and yet still interested in him. That Alison, who had made him feel like the king of the world simply by resting her perfectly manicured hand on his arm. Whose determination to get somewhere in life had slowly re-educated his chaotic take on how to go about the business of living. That Alison, who ever so gently, had encouraged him to settle into a career rather than jobbing from one company to the next, invest in his own property rather than renting with his mates, go out to dinner rather than down the pub, buy wine from the top shelf not the bottom, read the broadsheets rather than the tabloids, all the kinds of stuff that proper grown-ups did.
As for this Alison… She had had her cool, calm sophistication sucked mercilessly out of her to be pumped full to the brim of fear, doubt and a crippling sense of failure. That Alison had not tolerated failure. This Alison had absorbed the knowledge that she was not able to conceive naturally like a sponge, soaking up every negative feeling she could possibly connect to discovering her body was defective. She had become nervy, edgy and obsessive.
Deciding to start fertility treatment had briefly revived the old Alison as she sensed a whiff of regaining control. She attacked the whole thing as she would a full-time job, the relief of being able to do something practical written all over her face. She took reassurance in the fact that no-one could have researched it more than her, no-one could have prepared her body better than her, no-one was more careful than her each time they went through the process. Slowly but surely, however, the relief had faded from her face to be replaced initially with a distinct hue of disbelief followed by a constant black cloud of plain and fear as time and again her body refused to fall in line with what she so desperately wanted.
Matthew braced himself before he touched the pick-up button ready for another minefield of a conversation.
“Hiya,” he said, trying to sound as bright and breezy as possible, hoping that this would at least start the conversation off with a degree of buoyancy.
“Hi. I called to say I haven’t gone into work today,” said Alison.
“I see,” replied Matthew. “You feeling alright?” he asked hesitantly.
“What do you think? I’m a nervous wreck Matthew. I’m sitting here yet again obsessing about whether I’ll soon be thinking about how to decorate the nursery or absolutely devastated because we’ve failed again. Isn’t there any way you can come back tonight?”
“I’m really sorry Alison. You know I would but I’m the only one from the consultancy going to the match now and someone’s got to be there to look after the clients. Ian had to pull out because his daughter is singing the lead in the school play. She was the understudy but the other girl got caught in some big scandal sleeping with one of her teachers or something and was banned from appearing. Now poor old Ian has to suffer two hours of sitting next to his ex-wife listening to out of tune kids warbling The Wizard of Oz rather than the joys of corporate hospitality at the Leeds game. He’s pretty pissed off I can tell you.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
“Alison, are you still there?”
The silence continued until he heard a sniff and he knew she was crying.
“At least Ian has a daughter he can go and see in a school play. I would trade that for a million afternoons in stupid bloody corporate hospitality. Does he have any idea how lucky he is?” she spat out.
“Oh Alison, I’m sure he does. It’s just sod’s law isn’t it, that it all happens on the same day.”
“Sod’s law that he gets a daughter he can’t even be bothered to go and see in a school play and we get nothing.”
“Hey, come on, it might work this time.”
“But what if it doesn’t? I can’t even think about how I will cope. I just don’t think I’ll be able to pick myself up again and carry on.”
“Alison, it doesn’t do you any good to think like that. We will cope because we will have no choice but to cope. Look, why don’t you call Karen and see if she wants to meet you for lunch, take your mind off it for a while?”
He hoped this would get her off the phone. He felt guilty but he had lost track of how many times they had had a similar conversation and it was grinding him down. Yes he wanted a child too but he hated what it was doing to them both. Before all of this it was Alison who had kept their lives on track, always somehow knowing the right thing to do. But that Alison had long gone and he was now the one desperately trying to hold it together for both of them and he suspected he was failing dismally.
“Christ Matthew, you never want to talk about it do you? Why can’t you be grown up enough to just talk to me about it?” she sobbed.
He closed his eyes briefly. It killed him when she said things like that as it bought out all his insecurities. That he wasn’t good enough for her. That he didn’t impress her with his desperate attempts to be the kind of guy he thought she wanted him to be with his career in financial
consultancy, his company car and his expense account. That underneath he was still the chancer he was when she had met him.
“I try Alison, believe me I try, but you have to get this in perspective somehow. Look nobody died did they?”
The moment the words had left his mouth he knew it was possibly the most idiotic thing he had ever said.
“Well that just says it all doesn’t it. You have absolutely no idea.”
Call Ended blinked up on his screen.
All he could feel was relief. He knew he should call her back but he would get it wrong all over again. Where was the manual for dealing with a wife who had changed out of all recognition the minute she started struggling to have a child?
The radio cut back in and he listened to the guys ringing in, airing their views on which players should go to which teams. He wished he was as free of worry as them, with time to rant on national radio that they were the only people who really knew what to do about the trials and tribulations of the state of British football, and if it wasn’t for the day job they could have been the best manager the country had ever known.
He was late when he finally got to his meeting at the Leeds office. His colleagues based there could not resist the usual jibes reserved for anyone based in London.
“Get lost did you? Forget that England does actually exist outside the M25?” asked Ian.
“Funny,” Matthew replied. “The fact that I am born and bred Yorkshire and you are a southern wuss masquerading as a tough northern bloke seems to escape your memory.”
“Southern wuss?” exclaimed Ian, getting up and grabbing his discarded tie from the coat stand. “And there’s me busy telling the client you are the shining star coming all the way up from the big smoke to give them some dazzling PowerPoint action.”