She took another olive and dialled in her number, but to her dismay Slime-on answered.
‘Is Helen there?’ said Elizabeth, politely enough but with an obvious tone of displeasure that she had to speak to him and not her friend.
‘She’s having a lie-down,’ he replied. ‘Can I help in any way?’ he added, far too nicely to be genuine.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ she replied, mirroring his manner, ‘but I’d be very grateful if you could tell her I called to see how she was.’
‘Certainly,’ he said precisely. ‘Bye-bye now.’
‘Did I hear the phone?’ said Helen, emerging from the main white and gold bathroom which had the more powerful shower of the two bathrooms in the house.
‘Yes, you did,’ said Simon, putting the receiver back down on its cradle in the hallway.
‘Who was it?’
‘Some customer-survey thing. I gave them short shrift,’ said Simon with a smile. He looked at her standing there with just a white bath-sheet wrapped around her body, her shoulders bare and beaded with scented water drops and her eyes impossibly big and blue and begging him to want her. Helen let the towel fall and he came to her and picked it up and wrapped it around her again.
‘Don’t be silly,’ he said, then, ‘I’m just going next door to my office; I’ve got some calls to make.’
Helen said, ‘Yes, okay.’ Inside, her heart started to bleed.
Chapter 22
The next morning marked Elizabeth’s twelfth week of pregnancy and she was happy to find that she didn’t feel the slightest bit sick, which was lucky, as she was back on the jiggly train to Leeds for her first day in her new job, an occasion that merited her new navy maternity suit and loose spotty shirt. Her shoes were much lower than she was used to, but she did not want to risk wobbling about in her customary long, pin heels. As a consequence she felt very short waiting with the other commuters for the train, and decidedly plumper than usual, as if she had been given the use of a different body overnight. Not that it was an unpleasant feeling, just very strange.
Nerys came down to collect her from Reception wearing a big welcoming smile then she took her up one flight and over to a lovely dark wooden desk by the window, just outside Terry Lennox’s office. She babysat Elizabeth for most of the day, showing her where all the loos were and kitchen areas and coffee and chocolate machines–‘priorities’ as she described them. Then she took Elizabeth on a tour of all the departments and gave her the essential rundown on Terry Lennox’s idiosyncrasies: ‘has tea with two sugars but no milk, coffee with no sugar and lots of milk, loves Jaffa Cakes, hates Penguins–the foil-covered variety obviously–tends to swear rather loudly at the nearest person when the fire alarm test goes off on Friday mornings…’
Then she took Elizabeth to lunch in the very nice underground staff restaurant ‘The Sub’ and introduced her to a few intrigued faces, before whisking her back up to Security to get her picture taken for her pass. Elizabeth hadn’t realized how round her face was becoming until the moment she saw the photo. At this rate, she would look like a Christmas pudding by the end of her pregnancy.
Helen and Janey had sent her a flower display to wish her luck which sat very prettily on her new desk. Terry Lennox buzzed her for coffee at two o’clock to remind her that she had forgotten him and warned her that it was three strikes and out. Elizabeth batted back that it would be his loss then because she had not forgotten him and had actually been on a biscuit search, seeing as there were only Penguins left in the tin. He roared with laughter and said he liked a woman with spirit enough to answer him back and resource good snacks.
The train home arrived punctually, her car started perfectly first time and she climbed into bed that night a tired but contented woman.
There was a bouquet of flowers waiting for Janey at Reception–from Elizabeth and Helen. The card read, To Janey FF good luck in your new job. She took it up to her new desk in her new department and rang Helen at work to give her a quick thank you, then she rang Elizabeth on her mobile.
‘Is that Secretary Extraordinaire for business genius Terry Lennox Esquire?’
‘Yes. His that the Manager of Customer Services for Backland Hinternational Cakes and Confectionery?’ replied Elizabeth in a mock-posh voice.
‘Yes, and she is ringing to say thanks for the flowers,’ Janey said.
‘Pleasure!’ said Elizabeth. ‘And thank you for yours as well, they’re lovely.’
‘An extra thank you for the card, by the way. FF! You pair of sods!’
‘We thought it himpolite to write “Fart-Face” in full.’
‘Yes, but everybody now thinks that’s the size of my chest!’
‘You’re never only a double F! ZZ Top named their band after your old bras.’
‘Bugger off and have a nice first day!’ Janey said, not able to keep up the annoyed act then.
‘Bugger off yourself, Oh great one,’ said Elizabeth, blowing a noisy kiss down the line.
Then Janey set to. She was only surprised they had any customers left at all. There was a constant stream of customers ringing up complaining that they hadn’t had a reply to their original complaint sent in an average three months ago, which was doubling the already ridiculous workload. Serve them right for employing a twelve-year-old flibberty-gibbet with a posh degree, thought Janey with some satisfaction, preparing to bring some age and commonsense to the proceedings. She took a couple of girls off data-inputting and put them on those phone calls alone, then she cleared it with Personnel to get some more temps in until they’d dealt with the backlog. They put up a fight and uttered the word ‘budget’ a lot, but Janey stuck her size nine kitten heels in. She had rolled up her mental and physical sleeves and was suddenly a force to be reckoned with. As she looked down, the sight of her breasts jutting out in front of her seemed to empower her even more. She had seen the effect they had on George. She was a powerful woman–a battleship. She felt bloody marvellous.
Teddy Sanderson leaned over to Helen. ‘Can I get you a coffee?’ he asked softly.
Helen stole a quick look at the large railway clock on the wall facing her desk and despaired.
‘I’m so sorry, Teddy, I didn’t notice the time,’ she said, struggling to her feet.
‘No, really dear, I wasn’t pursuing you. I could see you were busy and I do know how to switch a kettle on,’ said her boss, gesturing for her to sit back down on her office seat. ‘Now, milk and no sugar, am I right?’
‘Er, yes,’ she said, feeling a little odd at having the senior partner make her a drink, when it was her job to make him one. Teddy Sanderson, however, was not like any of the other solicitors she had worked for. He was old school: a gentleman and a gentle man. Tall, slim but with nice, broad shoulders and a full head of white hair that made him look instantly older than his forty-seven years, until you studied his almost lineless face. He had a grown-up son reading Medicine at Southampton University, a handsome, good-natured boy who popped in sometimes when he was on holiday.
Teddy became a widower the same month that Helen became a bride, she had recently learned. He lived alone, except for when his son visited, in a huge gabled house secluded by trees that reminded her very much of her parents’ Old Rectory, whenever she caught snatches of it through the gates as she drove past. Helen had been his secretary for three years now and he had never treated her with anything but kindness and respect. Kindness was very dangerous to Helen at the moment, though. She felt so tired and limp and nauseous that she just wanted someone to hold her and tell her that everything was going to be all right. She had turned to her mother for comfort and told her she was sick and scared. However, Penelope Luxmore was a harder and completely different animal to her daughter, and her advice had been very succinct: to pull herself together before she made herself any sicker. Oh, and to drink ginger tea, which apparently had cured her own, negligible hiccup of morning sickness.
Helen knew she could always call on Janey and Elizabeth, and that both of th
em would have been extremely cross to find out she was feeling this way and hadn’t rung to talk, but figured they both had quite enough to worry about with new jobs and their own pregnancies, and so she struggled on with her heavy heart alone. More than ever just then, she wished her dad would come through that door and cuddle her.
As she stared at it, willing it to happen, it flew open and Teddy Sanderson came in with a mug of coffee. Helen then burst into tears, giving her ‘making a fool of myself in front of the boss’ as something else to add to her list of ‘how stupid I am’s. As if Simon hadn’t given her enough.
Chapter 23
Elizabeth felt quite guilty about reminding Terry Lennox that she wouldn’t be in on her third day as she had to go to the hospital for a dating scan.
‘Well, don’t rush back,’ said Terry Lennox, lifting up his I’m The Boss, But Only When My Wife Lets Me mug. ‘That’s the worst coffee I’ve ever tasted.’
‘You drank it, didn’t you?’ Elizabeth threw back.
‘I was extremely thirsty,’ he said. ‘Oh, and if you’re not back by after lunch, I’ll have your wages docked.’
‘I’ll call into Starbucks and bring you a slice of their rum and raisin cheesecake if you shut up,’ said Elizabeth with a mischievous grin and Terry Lennox shut up, apart from grumbling something under his breath about ‘bloody secretaries taking over the world’. Elizabeth sailed out of the building that evening with a big fat smile on her face, feeling as if she had been there for years already.
She had a 9.15 appointment the next morning but was in the hospital car park twenty minutes before that for good measure. She had drunk a full litre of water an hour before, as instructed on her letter, which had been easy enough, but by the time she reached the antenatal waiting room, liquid was almost oozing out of her eyes and she felt as voluminous as a grand piano. There were two women with appointments in front of hers, which made her realize that no way was she going to be on time and would probably have burst by then anyway. The first woman in the queue had a husband who couldn’t sit still, saying in a whisper that was tantamount to anyone else’s shout, that hospitals made him nervous. The second woman was really a girl in a school uniform who was crying because she couldn’t keep the water down. Her boyfriend stood nearby in spots and a baseball cap and a grubby white shell-suit that made his super-skinny body look as if it actually had some meat on it.
By the time they called out her name, Elizabeth was a walking water bomb. She went into a softly darkened room where the white-coated lady sonographer helped her up onto a couch and positioned Elizabeth’s maternity trousers so they just about covered her dignity, then she apologized for the gel being cold before she proceeded to squirt it all over Elizabeth’s tummy.
Elizabeth gave a startled gasp. Cold? It’s so cold it must have been stored up Simon’s backside! she thought, which made her want to laugh, and she knew she better not with a bladder that full. She couldn’t see what the sonographer was looking at on the screen in front of her but she was studying it intently, whilst moving a probe through the gel on her stomach.
‘I think just over twelve weeks is spot on,’ she said eventually. ‘So, judging by the date of your last period, you’re looking at a late September baby, around the twentieth, although it could be as late as two weeks after that.’
‘So by mid-October, he’ll definitely be out, one way or the other?’
‘That’s right. Want to see?’ said the sonographer, and before Elizabeth could say aye or nay, she had twisted the monitor around to show a screen full of grainy lines. Then, like a magic-eye picture that suddenly makes sense, something moved and Elizabeth realized what she was looking at. Not for one minute did she expect to see something as formed as the vision on the screen. She could make out the clear shape of a baby with the makings of toes and fingers. She also didn’t expect to cry out as she did. Her eyes filled up and started spilling warm tears over her cheeks.
‘It gets quite a few people, that first sighting,’ said the sonographer, snapping out a tissue for her from a ready supply at her side.
Elizabeth could see his little spine and his big head and his little thin legs. The sonographer pointed out his tiny feet and his heart.
‘You can take some pictures home,’ she said, moving the probe around to show her some more angles.
‘Can I?’ squeaked Elizabeth, dabbing at her eyes which were clouding her vision of the little bones picked out in white.
That was her baby, nobody else’s. Hers.
‘You can collect them at the Reception desk outside when you’ve had a wee,’ said the sonographer, wiping the jelly off her stomach a minute or so later. ‘I expect you are more than ready for one now!’
It was positively the most rewarding visit to the loo she had ever had in her life and she could easily have given Niagara Falls a run for its money. Then she picked up the pictures of her baby at the desk, paid over her money for them and headed back to her car with the envelope pressed against her heart. Down the corridor a couple of boisterous, flirting teenagers were play-fighting. They would have knocked into her had not something dark and non-negotiable spiralled up in Elizabeth. Her left arm shot out and swept the girl clear of her space.
‘Watch it!’
The girl was going to give her some face-saving lip back, but one look at the small woman’s glittering eyes made her save the cocky ‘stupid cow’ comment until she was well clear. Elizabeth wasn’t sure if this instinctive protectiveness was love that she felt for the thing growing inside her, but she did think she might have killed anyone who tried to harm it.
‘I wish they’d hurry up. I’ll burst, I will!’ said Janey, in the same waiting room, but four hours later.
‘So I suppose tickling you wouldn’t be a good idea?’ whispered George, clawing up his hands and making a slow menacing move towards her ribcage with them.
‘You dare,’ she said, edging back from him. ‘Maybe later though!’ and they both laughed, even though she wanted to cry with discomfort.
‘Those boobs of yours are getting bigger by the hour,’ said George, pointing at them as if she didn’t know where they were.
‘Gerroff my pups, you!’ said Janey, batting his hand away.
‘Pups? Pups, you say? They aren’t pups. They’re fully grown Alsatians!’ said George. ‘Bloody hell, Janey, I’ll have to get some Polaroids of them before they go down again.’
‘Dirty bugger,’ she said, whilst hoping they wouldn’t go down that much. She had forgotten how much fun they used to have with them in the pre-diet days.
‘Excuse me,’ Janey said, grabbing the attention of a passing nurse. ‘I’m not one for moaning, but I can’t hang on much longer.’
The nurse gave her a sympathetic look. ‘We are running very late,’ she smiled. ‘Look, go and let a little out just to take some of the pressure off your bladder. Sometimes they do get so full they interfere with the quality of the picture anyway. Just a little one, mind!’
Easier said than done, for once she had started, Janey couldn’t stop. She reckoned that when she finally managed to squeal the brakes on, she must have built up a pelvic-floor muscle like Schwarzenegger’s arm. She had just come out of the loo when her name was called and with a, ‘Thank God,’ Janey followed the lady in the white coat down the corridor. George helped his wife up onto the couch by holding her bottom which made the sonographer laugh. The gel squirted on Janey’s stomach was not as cold as the ice-cubes from Saturday night, but a bit chillier than the squirty cream from Sunday afternoon. She lay there still with George holding her hand in the quiet, dark little room with the bunny curtains. Then, when the checks had been completed, the sonographer turned the screen around and George burst into tears as Janey went into shock.
She could not move, she was so overcome with guilt that she hadn’t wanted this child as much as her career; this wonderful tiny living thing inside her that made her catch her breath and instantly added another dimension to her life with a free batch of new
never-felt-before emotions thrown in. She had read what it would look like at twelve weeks but never thought for one minute that today she would be seeing a baby-shaped baby inside her. Their baby. She would never know how it had happened as they were so careful about contraception, but it didn’t matter any more. Seeing her own baby growing inside her, feeling George’s joy impact upon her heart was powerful and magic, and humbled her. It was the moment Janey fell in love with her baby. It was also the moment that she realized how much she loved the big, hairy lump blowing his big nose on his big hankie next to her. How could she have thought there was a life out there for her without him?
Helen hadn’t taken the car to work because Simon was supposed to be picking her up and together they were going to the hospital. Then he rang to say that his meeting had overrun and she would have to get a taxi and go alone.
‘But it’s my scan!’ she cried.
‘Don’t you think I don’t know that,’ he hissed down the line, his voice muffled as if he was covering up his mouth so others wouldn’t hear. ‘I can’t do anything about it. Don’t you think I would if I could?’
The Yorkshire Pudding Club Page 15