The Yorkshire Pudding Club

by Milly Johnson

  ‘Hit you?’ he countered, but a little thrown still by the change in her. ‘When have I ever hit you?’

  ‘All those sly nips and shoves and pushes and you shouting and swearing at me won’t happen again, do you hear me, Simon? They are abuse, too–abuse, do you hear–and I won’t take them from you any more, do you understand? No more!’ she said with quiet conviction. ‘No more.’

  He looked back at her with as much disgust as if it was Elizabeth in the room with him, not mild, gentle Helen who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, but Elizabeth who would, and tell it to stuff itself as well. The shock of his domestic worm turning knocked him off course and he did not come back at her with his usual sarcastic and hurtful retorts. He merely waved his hand dismissively to indicate that he had had enough of this nonsense for now and he disappeared outside, striding off in the direction of his car, snarling that he was so pleased she was glad to see him back and how happy he was to be home again.

  Helen leaned against the wall and gathered her thoughts and her breath. I did it! I stood up to the bully! It was the moment she should have had all those years ago with Carmen Varley. She was proud of herself; she felt her father would be proud of her too. It was then she realized that she had not been sick for over twenty-four hours.

  Chapter 32

  Elizabeth’s mobile went off and her stomach did a hopeful little flip, but the number display said it was Helen at work. She felt hideously guilty for being so disappointed it was not John phoning. There had been a couple of phone calls since he had come with her for the second scan six weeks ago, but they were very quick ones. He enquired how she was and then would tell her how hard he was working to finish his houses in double-quick time. A couple of the lads were on holiday and he apparently was having to work around the clock, he said. He promised to call in and see her as soon as he had the chance, and made her promise to phone him if she needed anything and she said she would, but she didn’t ring.

  ‘Hi,’ she said to Helen, as cheerily as possible. ‘And what can I do for you this fine Monday morning?’

  ‘Elizabeth, when are you leaving work?’

  ‘What do you mean–today?’

  ‘No, for your maternity leave.’

  ‘Er…’ said Elizabeth, who hadn’t really decided yet, but with fourteen weeks to go before blast-off, it was something she really should start thinking about. ‘Dunno yet, what about you?’

  ‘I think I’m going to work as long as possible,’ came the reply, ‘but I just wondered what you and Janey were going to do.’

  ‘I haven’t really thought about it,’ said Elizabeth, ‘although I suppose I had better make up my mind soon, hadn’t I?’ It appeared the list of things to think about with babies was endless.

  ‘Well, I’ve got a meeting with Teddy about my date in five minutes.’

  ‘You sound like Andy Pandy,’ said Elizabeth.

  Helen laughed.

  ‘Sorry, I’ve been useless as usual,’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘See you later, Useless.’

  ‘See you later, Andy!’

  When Helen put the phone down, she went through to Teddy Sanderson’s office for her meeting. He had a lovely old room with floor-to-ceiling oak panelling on the walls, a massive black iron and tile fireplace feature, and knotty polished boards on the floor. It was saved from being over-dark by a huge sash window, which overlooked a small east-facing grassy area with benches that were always full of pensioners feeding pigeons.

  He held the chair for her as she sat down and she smiled at his gallantry. He belonged to a different era, one of moonlight and roses and Noël Coward and long cigarettes in holders. Teddy Sanderson was Mr Art Deco; he even had a Clarice Cliff-style coffee mug.

  ‘Now, Helen,’ he began, ‘we need to have a little chat about your leaving date and your future plans when the baby arrives. I do so hope you are going to return to us after your maternity period. You’re a very integral part of our team and I rely on you far too much for you to leave me.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, beaming. She was aware of lapping up any kind words these days with the zeal of a starving child. ‘I think I’d like to work right up to my due date, if that’s all right with you.’

  ‘Of course it is, of course it is,’ but he sounded doubtful. ‘The thing is, my dear, I think you underestimate how tired you will feel towards the end of your pregnancy–and we are heading for a hot summer, by all accounts. Tim was a September baby and I remember just how exhausted Mary was with the heat. Anyway, I just want you to know that at any point you feel you’ve been a tad ambitious in that decision, I’m entirely flexible.’

  ‘Thank you, Teddy,’ she said, and smiled gratefully at him. He smiled back and their eyes lingered for longer than either of them had intended. Long enough for something surprisingly intimate to pass between them, which Helen had not been prepared for. She felt her cheeks heating and she dropped her eyes away from him, hoping he didn’t think her a hussy. She thought Teddy Sanderson a very handsome man, but in a totally different way to Simon with his perfect features. Teddy’s face was–she searched for the word and found it–noble, and the aura he carried about him was gentler and kinder than her husband’s was. His eyes weren’t beautiful like Simon’s with their long lashes, but they were soft grey and they seemed to warm her whenever they touched her. And he was so much like her father in the way that he never had to raise his voice to make himself heard. He did not use force to get his point across, but got it across all the same.

  ‘How are you feeling now?’ said Teddy. ‘You’ve had quite a rough ride, haven’t you, dear girl?’

  ‘I’m much better, thank you,’ she said truthfully. She had not had a moment’s nausea since it had suddenly stopped in the middle of last week, and in that time, her skin had cleared up beautifully. It seemed her spots had eloped with her sickness to torture some other poor girl in her first throes of pregnancy.

  ‘Well, you let me know about dates and intentions,’ Teddy said again, and Helen affirmed that she would and went out to make some coffee.

  She really must think in detail about the mechanics of what would happen after her maternity leave had expired. She had hoped to speak to Simon about it, but he walked away from any baby conversation and she quickly came to realize that if she did not make decisions, then no one else would. Her mother had offered to look after the baby occasionally, but her life was so busy these days with bridge, friends and all sorts of committees and clubs, that any arrangement would have to be a very casual one. She did not want to leave her baby with a childminder, and the idea of a live-in nanny was not exactly thrilling her. She wanted to stay with her baby, but she loved working at the solicitor’s office so much. The people there were so lovely, although she sometimes felt that she was outside a great glass bubble, merely able to look in where she had really wanted to be a part of it all.

  Her first year at Exeter University studying Law had been wonderful. Then her father became ill and she could not bear to be so many miles away from him, even though she always intended to go back to Law, truly she did. She had limped along for the first couple of years after his death, existing, trying to get on with things, presenting a hard shell to the world that belied its brittleness and fragility. Then, when everyone thought she was finally getting her life back together again, some stupid television programme about hypothermia triggered off a major flip and she fell headfirst into some dark place that she thought she would never be able to climb out of again. Then Simon found her. He rode into her life, like a beautiful knight in shining armour, strong, capable and commanding, just what the lost, lonely part of her so badly needed. Loving him gave her the confidence to face the world. Until he started to take it away again.

  Twenty-six weeks–I’m six months’ pregnant! thought Elizabeth and, to amuse herself, sat down at the kitchen table with her diary and started to work out how many days she had to go if hers was a regular pregnancy. Someone knocked at the door and she did not for one minute think
it would be John, but it was, and he was bearing a bunch of flowers.

  ‘They’re smoke-damaged stock. My mate’s wife—’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ said Elizabeth, beating back the grin that was bursting her lips open, and she let him in. He handed over the flowers without fuss nor ceremony and she said, ‘Thank you,’ not, ‘What are you bringing me flowers for?’ which he had expected her to say and so had prepared an answer for.

  ‘I thought they might go with your rocking chair,’ he said, trying to justify their presence anyway.

  ‘These are pink, the chair is blue.’

  ‘Oh, hellfire! That’s colour-blind builders for you. The woman told me they were blue–wait till I see her!’

  She laughed, more pleased to see him than she could let on. She had not realized how much she had missed the sight of him over the past weeks until she was seeing him again, now, in her house, big and smiling and exuding warmth, although the evidence of overwork was there in his eyes: he looked tired out.

  ‘There’s a little flower van down the road from the site,’ he said with a slightly nervous gabble. ‘They always look that nice in their buckets when you’re passing. They’re not expensive.’ He felt the need instantly to correct that. ‘They’re not cheap ones either, though.’

  She cut him off, before he drowned himself. ‘Cup of tea? Sandwich?’

  ‘Oh, both if you’re offering, please. I’m starving,’ he said.

  ‘Didn’t you take your snapbox to work?’

  ‘Snap? I’ve no time for food!’ said John. ‘No joking, Elizabeth, I really haven’t.’

  ‘So what are you doing here then?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t seen you for weeks and I was just passing…’

  ‘Liar!’

  ‘Okay, I wanted to see you and I’ve just been round the corner to get an electrician so I could hardly pass you by, could I?’ he said, not getting eye-contact, then he asked to use her loo and she made him a big doorstep tuna sandwich whilst he was upstairs. He scoffed it as if he hadn’t been fed for a fortnight, so she made him another, joking that he was unfillable.

  ‘So how’s things in the world of Silkstone Properties?’ she said, joining him at the table with a fork and a jar of olives.

  ‘Great. I’ve sold all of them but one already, and that’s before the roofs are on. Thanks to the rising house prices and a buyers’ market, I’m more in pocket than I bargained for so I’ll be able to finance most of the next ones myself, when I can find some decent enough land. I dropped lucky with The Horseshoes; it’s a bonny spot, all right.’

  ‘Horseshoes? That what you’re calling them then?’

  ‘Aye, there used to be a blacksmith’s there years ago.’

  ‘I’m sure someone will want the other one soon enough,’ she added encouragingly.

  ‘I sincerely hope so,’ he said, wrinkling his nose up at her as she speared another olive. ‘Do you actually like those horrible green things?’

  ‘Not as much as the horrible black ones, but I’ve run out.’

  ‘Where’s my tea?’ He winked at her.

  ‘Oy!’ she said. ‘Mr Bringing-a-two-quid-bunch-of-flowers-and-getting-fifteen-quids’-worth-of-sandwiches-in-return!’ Then she added quickly, ‘Only joking about the two quid, by the way.’

  ‘Two quid! They weren’t that much–do you think I’m made of money!’ he said, thinking, God, when did handing a bunch of flowers over become such a minefield?

  He couldn’t hook his big finger through the handle of the pretty little black cat china cup and it took three of them before he had even dampened down his thirst. Then he wiped his mouth, stood up and said, ‘Right, thank you for that. I best get back to it.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve not finished working?’ she said. ‘At this time?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve finished, for once. I’m taking the lads out for a couple of pints because I’ve driven them into the ground and I owe them.’

  ‘Oh, okay then,’ she said, surprising herself by how disappointed she felt that his visit was up. She was going to suggest they retire to the lounge with a packet of plain chocolate Digestives, one of his old favourites which had managed to find their way into her shopping basket recently. He turned to her at the door.

  ‘By, Elizabeth, you are bonny fat,’ he said.

  ‘Piss off,’ she said, and he grinned and he went.

  She could not tell if the feeling inside her was baby or butterflies.

  Janey was craving Marmite desperately.

  ‘Go and get me some.’ She elbowed George in bed and disturbed him from a good bit in his Stephen King.

  ‘Go and get it yourself, you lazy mare,’ he said.

  ‘I’m six months’ pregnant, it’ll take me for ever.’

  ‘Give over! You’ve more energy than Linda bloody Lovelace on speed,’ said George.

  ‘You would get me it if you loved me,’ she wheedled, knowing of course that he would.

  He groaned aloud and slipped on his dressing-gown, and five minutes later he was back empty-handed.

  ‘Don’t tell me we’ve run out!’ she said. The craving was so strong, she might have to get up and drive to the all-night garage if that was the case.

  ‘No, we’ve not run out.’

  ‘Oh, thank God,’ she sighed in relief. ‘Well, where is it then?’

  George flashed open his dressing-gown and his naked body was smeared from neck to thighs with it.

  That night Janey found that being six months’ pregnant and roughly the size of a humpback whale in no way interfered in her newfound sexlife.

  Chapter 33

  Elizabeth was sure one of the odd side-effects of her pregnancy must be sharpened intuition because recently, she felt people had started to look at her slightly differently at work. It was not in the nice benign way that people looked at pregnant women, either, but one that gave her cold prickles at the back of her neck. It crackled in her psychic airspace that she was somehow the subject of gossip; she caught just one too many stares lingering in her direction followed by covered whispers for it all to be down to an over-active imagination.

  Nerys was her usual sweet self, but when Elizabeth casually asked her, ‘Is there something I should know about me?’ Nerys shook her head and pretended a little bit too hard that she didn’t know what Elizabeth could be talking about. Elizabeth did not press her too hard. Nerys was not the malicious type and whatever was being said, this gentle young woman with the sweetheart face and big smile was unlikely to be the source of it. Not that Elizabeth had ever been one to be bothered by what other people thought of her, but it niggled at her all the same in her sensitive state.

  Two days before the Norfolk conference, Elizabeth had just taken a document over to the other end of the building when she found she needed the loo. These days when her bladder spoke, she listened immediately and she slipped into the nearest Ladies. She did not suppose anyone expected to find her there, which is why the women spoke so freely at the other side of the door when they came in mid-bitch.

  ‘…Apparently she’s a right old slapper. Got drunk at a party and doesn’t even know who the father of the sprog is,’ and the owner of that voice entered the next cubicle to Elizabeth and started to urinate noisily.

  ‘Well, there’s a rumour that Terry Lennox is the father, which would explain why she was fast-tracked to being his secretary.’ This from another younger voice, who seemed to be standing waiting for Cubicle Woman by the sinks.

  ‘Possibly, but she looks dog rough enough to me to have been shagged on a pile of coats at a party. At her age as well–ugh! Julia Powell says she told her and the MD to stick their job. Then she lands up in a plum job here. Now if that isn’t fishy, what is?’

  The loo flushed.

  ‘Old slag!’

  ‘Fancy having a mother like that. It’s got no chance, has it? Kids should be taken off women like that, in my opinion. Poor little bastard.’

  That was the pivotal moment when Elizabeth decided that she was not going t
o let this go. She had been called far worse than an ‘old slag’ but that was not what had infuriated her. She marched out of the cubicle, and if she could have bottled that look on their faces, she would have kept it for ever and looked at it when she needed cheering up. She didn’t shout or scream or swear. She went calmly over to the sink, pumped some soap from the dispenser and nudged on the tap lever to wash her hands.

  ‘Not that it is any of your business, but I know exactly who the father of my baby is and it isn’t Terry Lennox, although I’m pretty sure he’ll be interested to hear that he is on your shortlist.’

  She knew the gobbier of the women now that she had seen their faces. She was Sue Barrington, a jumped-up, mealy-mouthed secretary who hung around coffee machines with her arms folded talking to anyone who would give her the time of day. She usually had more colour in her cheeks than she did now though, because she was corpse pale.

  The other one was just an impressionable office junior who was at the other end of the embarrassment colour spectrum with a face working through red and romping towards puce and looking very much as if she was about to cry when Elizabeth said to her, ‘And as for fast-tracking–I was a secretary working my backside off when you weren’t even born.’ She snapped off a paper towel. ‘I’ve never been the slightest bit affected by petty-minded, lazy office bitches and I’m not starting now, but never NEVER’–her voice galvanized to iron–‘talk about my child with your foul mouths again. Is that understood?’

  The women kept their heads down, hoping she would go away but Elizabeth stood her ground.

  ‘WELL, IS IT?’

  Her voice bounced off the wall tiles and left an equally threatening echo in its wake. There was an embarrassed muttering by response, which satisfied her enough to sweep past them and out of the door with a flourish before she asphyxiated on the atmosphere in there, which seemed to have every bit of oxygen sucked out of it. It was only when she got back up to her office and sat down, exhausted from the effort of trying to keep the waddle out of her dignified, purposeful exit that she asked herself, ‘How did Julia know that? How the hell did Julia know?’