The Yorkshire Pudding Club

by Milly Johnson

  Teddy Sanderson caught her ringing for a taxi and made her cancel it, and then he insisted on driving Helen to the hospital in his Bentley, even though she protested. Thanks to Simon and the crushing discomfort of all the water she had drunk, she was not in the mood for small talk and Teddy was sensitive to this and hummed along to the radio without trying to engage her in banal conversation. He deposited her at the front entrance to the small private hospital on the outskirts of Wakefield and she declined his offer to wait with her, saying she would get a taxi home. She was not sure that she could keep the water in or down; it was making her feel ill and she had embarrassed herself quite enough in front of Teddy Sanderson recently with her crying fit, even though he had been very kind to her.

  Luckily for Helen, she was shown straight to the sonographer as the appointment before hers had been cancelled at the last minute. She was helped up onto the couch and yelped at the icy hit of gel on her skin, but her reaction to the first sight of her baby was very much different to how she imagined it would be. She felt her heart almost stop. It was as if time stood still as she stared at her baby growing and moving inside her. She had thought she would cry or scream with joy at this moment that she had waited so long for, but she only smiled. She felt as if her whole being had been filled up with calm, warm sunshine that threw the sickness and tiredness and those stupid rows with Simon into dark shadows. It was the most thrilling thing she had ever seen, her baby inside her. She felt fulfilled, beatific, in harmony with life.

  She looked at the blur of little fingers and toes, attempting to count them.

  ‘He’ll have nails on those,’ said the sonographer.

  ‘Her,’ said Helen. ‘I just know it’s a her.’

  This moment was theirs, mother and child, a moment she would carry with her for ever because it imprinted itself upon her and became part of her. Everything outside it was immaterial, of no consequence. For one wonderful minute, nothing else in the universe mattered but them.

  Chapter 24

  ‘So how did you get on?’ said Elizabeth down the phone, as her first working week at Just the Job HQ came to an end.

  ‘Job or baby?’ said Janey.

  ‘Job.’

  ‘Amazing.’

  ‘And your scan?’

  ‘Amazing.’

  ‘What did George think?’

  ‘Amazing.’

  ‘Haven’t you got a Thesaurus in your house?’

  Janey laughed. ‘What date have they given you?’

  ‘September the twentieth, and yourself?’

  ‘Thirtieth, so we’re all about the same then, aren’t we? I’ll ring Hels and see how she is in a bit. Have you heard from her?’

  ‘Well, I rang on Sunday and spoke to Simon because she was having a lie-down, but she didn’t ring back,’ said Elizabeth, who wouldn’t have put it past the oily tosser not to have passed her message on.

  ‘What about you then? What did you think when you first saw the baby?’ asked Janey.

  ‘It’s still sinking in,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Unbelievable, I suppose.’

  ‘So come on, how’s the new job?’

  ‘It’s great, I really like it, lovely people, Terry Lennox is ace and I’ve got a desk overlooking the canal. So how’s being a whip handler?’

  ‘I love it,’ said Janey with relish. ‘The Department was so bad I couldn’t have made it worse if I tried, which helped.’

  ‘Don’t be so modest,’ said Elizabeth. ‘You’re good at what you do and we all know it.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Elizabeth, don’t start giving me compliments–this week has been weird enough as it is without that happening.’

  Elizabeth rang Helen after she had spent a good half an hour, and a good half jar of olives, on the phone with Janey. They did not talk for long though. From the edgy way Helen was speaking, it was obvious Slimy was hovering in the background so they did a brief summary of the main events and agreed to catch up properly later. Helen was going out for a meal with some of Simon’s friends and was just in the middle of getting ready so Elizabeth left her to it. She herself was only set for a night in with the fire on and a battered cod supper, but she wouldn’t have swapped social lives with Helen in a million years.

  She was just pouring out some raspberry tea, hoping to shift a few acidy burps, when there was a distinctively heavy knock on the door.

  ‘I was just passing,’ John said, when she opened it to him.

  ‘Liar,’ she replied and moved aside to let him in. ‘I suppose you want a cuppa?’

  ‘Aye please, but not that fruity stuff,’ he said, sniffing up and wrinkling his nose.

  Cleef had got up, for once, and started purring and wrapping his silky, black tail around John’s boots.

  ‘I’m going to tread on this cat one of these days,’ he said, lifting him up.

  ‘You won’t be here that often,’ she said, and then felt immediately annoyed at herself. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it came out,’ she said.

  Blimey, she apologized! he thought and looked at her as if she had gone insane.

  ‘What?’ she questioned.

  ‘Nothing.’ He sat down in the usual seat at the table and shrugged off his coat. ‘There was a reason I called in,’ he went on. ‘I can get some paint–it’s the best stuff, look,’ and he handed over a paint chart. ‘I wondered if you wanted some for the bairn’s room.’

  ‘What colour?’ said Elizabeth, getting out a cup for him.

  ‘Any colour you want, straight off that chart.’

  ‘Not off the back of a lorry, is it?’ she said suspiciously.

  ‘Back of a…you cheeky mare! Is it hell! It’s an insurance write-off for smoke-damaged stock. Well, the tins are–the paint inside them is okay. People are always trying to sell or swap things on building sites.’

  ‘I can get paint cheap anyway with my staff discount.’

  ‘You can’t get it cheaper than free, can you?’

  ‘Free? How come they’re giving it away?’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ said John, throwing his hands up in exasperation. ‘I’m getting it for free because the bloke who’s flogging it is trying to get on my good side. He’ll want a favour later, no doubt. That answer your question?’

  ‘I’ll have a look,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t thought about a nursery yet,’ although he alerted her to the fact that she really should start.

  She supposed the baby would go in her auntie’s old room, which was a lot bigger than hers was, as she shared the back half of the house with the bathroom. She had never moved herself into the larger room because she always felt safe and secure where she was and sometimes, in the middle of the night, she was sure she could hear those three circles and a flop that Sam always did. She wanted him to haunt her; it was a nice feeling knowing he was still around, looking out for her.

  ‘You eaten?’ he asked, after he had drained his cup.

  ‘Not yet. I was going to get a fish supper from Les,’ she said.

  ‘I haven’t eaten either. What if I go for them and you get an extra plate out? It’s bitter cold out there, you don’t want to be going out in it in your condition.’

  ‘It’s only a bit of cold. This is Barnsley not Siberia!’

  ‘Just get the kettle on again, you,’ he said, not giving her room to argue further because he then slid back into his expensive-looking jacket, flicked up the collar and swanned out of the house.

  She stood at the window and watched his broad, leather-clad back disappear down the street. At least his clothes sense is better now than it was back then, she thought, remembering that first sight of the black-garbed cowboy sauntering towards her in the bus station like he was going to ask her where the nearest gold mine was. And thank goodness he saw sense to shave off that stupid moustache! She smiled, then realized she was smiling and stopped and went to get the table ready. She made some fresh tea, buttered some bread and put an extra setting out. Whilst she waited for him to return, she took a quick look at the pa
int chart. There was a lovely pale lemon that caught her eye and, as yellow had been her Auntie Elsie’s favourite colour, it seemed a good choice for the large front bedroom.

  Her tummy rumbled although she knew she wasn’t in for a long wait as the chip shop was just at the bottom of the snicket. It was locally known as ‘Les Miserable’s’, but not in the French way. Les Shaw, who had run the place since Elizabeth was a girl, was the most miserable-tempered human being on the planet–but his batter was the best in the area and his chips were superb. John came back soon with enough food to sink the Bismarck.

  ‘Well, you’re eating for two,’ he explained.

  ‘Me and a three-inch baby, not two giant starving hippos!’ she said. ‘There must be half of Ireland in chips here!’

  ‘Get stuck in then and stop mithering.’

  ‘I don’t eat chips.’

  ‘That’s what I liked about you, Elizabeth, you were always such a grateful beggar,’ he said, and plonked a handful of chips on her plate anyway. He remembered how she used to eat the equivalent of her own body weight in them every week, not that it ever made her put any weight on.

  ‘I won’t even make a hole in this!’ she said.

  ‘Well, eat what you can and leave the rest on the side of your plate,’ he said, and she smiled involuntarily because that’s what her Auntie Elsie used to say.

  She made more of an impact on the feast than she had thought possible.

  ‘Remember sitting on the seafront at Blackpool with fish and chips, trying to spot the biggest bottom that walked past us?’ he grinned as he sat back and stroked his full stomach. ‘I said that whoever won was going to buy the ice creams…’

  ‘That’s right, and you won,’ she said. ‘That bloke with the vest and the braces! Then you said that it should have been the loser that bought them.’

  ‘Yes, but I honoured it, didn’t I?’ he laughed.

  ‘Aye, but you moaned about it.’ The memory came running to the front of her mind as if it was showing off how clear it still was.

  ‘And that fat kid fell off the donkey and his dad came rushing over…’

  ‘…And fell in the donkey crap,’ she finished off for him. ‘Oh God, that was so funny!’

  ‘We bought a bucket and spade and made sand-castles, and that old bloke thought we were bonkers.’

  ‘Well, you had your shorts on and a leather jacket. I thought you were bonkers, never mind him!’

  ‘And I won that teddy bear for throwing darts. I don’t suppose you still have it?’

  An alarm went off; things were starting to get too cosy.

  ‘No,’ she said flatly, ‘of course I don’t. It’s all years ago,’ and she started to clear up the plates.

  Those days were gone and they had no business going back to them, especially to that day in Blackpool. They had gone there on a mad sunny whim and somewhere in the hours that followed she had started looking at him in a different light. The big guy with his hair getting ruffled by the sea breezes and his face turning brown in the sun and his dark chocolate eyes sparkling with fun, laughter and some other ingredient she was scared she recognized as they twirled around on the Waltzers. He’d taken her hand, they had run down the prom like kids, and she did not want him to let go of it when they slowed down, but she pulled it away all the same. Then she had made up some stupid argument when they got home because she knew he was starting to take root in a forbidden place in her heart. She made him storm off and the next time she saw him, that Lisa was all over him like a rash at Janey’s cousin’s wedding and she forced herself to totally blank him. He got drunk and pulled her outside and he kissed her with soft but insistent lips and said he loved her. She shoved him off and wiped the taste of him from her mouth and told him to piss off. Hadn’t he got the message? She didn’t love him, she hated him. She felled him like a tree. She would always remember how he looked at her then, love and hurt and confusion all vying with each other for supremacy.

  Elizabeth shook the memory away and forced out a yawn. ‘I’ll have to get to bed soon, I’ve had a hard week at work.’

  ‘Nice place? You enjoying it?’

  ‘Smashing and yes. I suppose you’ll be going out, it being Friday an’ all.’

  ‘No, I’m not going out,’ he said, but took the hint and got up.

  ‘Thanks for tea, John,’ she said.

  ‘It’s all right. Here,’ and he pulled out of his back jeans pocket a business card. ‘Just in case you didn’t keep my number last time. Ring me if you’re ever stuck,’ and he went to pin it up on the noticeboard behind the door, where she had put up one of the scan pictures.

  ‘This him then?’ he said, after taking it off and looking at it for a long time.

  ‘Yes, that’s him.’

  ‘That’s amazing. Look, fingers and everything!’ He pinned it back up after he had looked at it some more. ‘I could have come with you, you know, if you’d asked.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘Just in case you felt a bit “single”. I could have pretended to be your other half.’

  ‘John Silkstone, what age are you living in? There are more single mothers than couples out there these days.’

  ‘I still think a kid needs a father though,’ he said, and instantly regretted it as her face clouded over.

  ‘Well, I didn’t, did I? Anyway, thanks again and goodnight.’

  ‘Maybe if you’d had a right dad, Elizabeth, you wouldn’t be so bloody closed up,’ he said, as he went out of the door. He was barely out of it before he heard her lock it behind him. Just like she had locked him out of her heart.

  Chapter 25

  The Fox Inn was attracting so many office types since the new owners took over, that it was known locally as ‘the Fax Inn’. It had become quickly famous for its opulent décor, ridiculous prices and exclusive clientèle. The food was bettered in many minor establishments, not that it mattered because at the Fox, appearance was everything. It suited Simon down to the ground. At the very second that Elizabeth’s door was closed on John Silkstone, Simon was pushing the Fox’s oak portal open for his business associate Con, and his horsey wife Melia. Con was actually nice, something Helen could not say about many of his friends. Melia was okay but not exactly good, girly company. She always seemed bored, unless the conversation turned equestrian.

  ‘You look nice,’ said Con, leaning over and kissing Helen as they walked over to the table.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, knowing he was lying through his back teeth, but she appreciated his gallantry. She felt totally washed out and looked it, and wondered when the legendary ‘blooming’ was supposed to start, because she felt very much as if she might have blinked and missed it. Janey was looking more fantastic than ever before; her eyes were shining and she was bouncing with energy. Elizabeth suited the extra weight, it made her face look younger and cheekier, but Helen’s only intimation that she was in glowing pregnancy was the growing bulge around her middle. Her breasts were still flat and her hair was lank and greasy, however many times she washed it. Her skin had not cleared up either and was rough and so spotty that Simon told her to go back and put more make-up on when she presented herself earlier for his approval.

  ‘And don’t you have anything smarter than that dress?’ he threw after her as she was about to walk tearfully into the en-suite.

  ‘Yes, of course I do, but nothing that doesn’t press on my stomach,’ she said, ‘and if you don’t want me to vomit all over Con and Melia, I suggest I had better wear loose clothing.’

  He cast her a look as if he was unsure what species she was and then stomped off to get his jacket from the wooden valet next to his Benetton neat wardrobes.

  Simon was giving Melia the sort of full-beamed attention Helen wished he would give her and she felt herself growing green, but not from nausea this time. Melia had four-year-old twins and her stomach had snapped straight back into her original size eight, which gave Helen some hope that afterwards her body would sort itself out too. Maybe
then Simon would see her as attractive again. Sexually attractive as well, for despite having just reached the long-awaited twelve-week marker when the baby was ‘bedded in’, Simon still would not touch her intimately. He was now saying that knowing the baby was in there totally put him off and he rolled away from her and slept as near to the edge of the bed as was possible. Janey hadn’t helped, talking about how Elvis never saw Priscilla as an object of desire again after she got pregnant, although it had been part of a general conversation and not in any way directed at her. Helen had not told her friends that Simon and she were experiencing problems; everyone continued to be blinded by the illusion that they were the golden couple.

  ‘Well, I’m not Priscilla and Simon isn’t Elvis!’ she had told herself after the Janey conversation. That would not happen to them–she would make damn sure it didn’t. Plus it was perfectly understandable that some guys were put off by pregnancy fat, only to be loving husbands and fathers when the baby finally came along, she rationalized. She had wondered if Simon felt excluded from what was happening–she had read that some men did–and so tried to involve him at every stage, but that had only served to annoy him more. Her only hope was to bide her time and wait until September when her baby came into the world and things would fall naturally into place again.

  As she was about to order, Simon stepped in and asked if she would like him to do it for her. She accepted his offer, beaming at his chivalry, only to watch the others tuck into duck pâté and fried cheeses whilst she chomped her way through a boring melon salad. He poured her half a glass of the South African Pinotage, when it arrived, for which she managed to smile convincingly gratefully. She suddenly wished she could get totally blasted and have a merry evening, make a total fool of herself, anything but endure this crippling, conversational desert she was sharing with Melia. Con and Simon talked business for most of the meal, whilst their wives had a banal and strained interchange. It was hard work as it was fairly obvious Melia would rather be joining in with the boys than talking babies. Melia had a fulltime nanny and Helen doubted that she ever saw her children long enough to be able to recognize them in a line-up. If she wasn’t at the gym, she was having hot stone massages, doing Pilates classes or playing at her stables.