The M Word

by Eileen Wharton

  I am never going out again.

  I must avoid Mick at all costs.

  Tammy texts to ask what the hell happened to me and why was I not at work this afternoon. I ignore her.

  I’m Googling last-minute deals to some far-flung corner of the world when there’s a knock at the door. Tammy’s annoying shriek invades my home. I know she won’t go away until I let her in, and the pounding is making my head ache.

  ‘Jesus, Roberta. You are becoming so high maintenance,’ she says as she bowls through the door, flicks the kettle switch on and pours coffee and milk into cups. ‘What the hell happened to you yesterday?’

  I toy with the idea of lying to her and telling her that I just had a headache, but I need to share this with someone. And even though shame burns me, I feel like I have to tell her.

  She’s speechless. Tammy. Nothing to say. Nicks. Nada. Zilch. Zippo.

  ‘So, you can see why I’m feeling the way I’m feeling.’

  ‘And how are you feeling?’

  ‘How do you think?’ I say.

  ‘Is this a quiz? Cos my brain hurts.’

  ‘My everything hurts.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to do the only thing one can do in these circumstances.’ She looks at me blankly. ‘I’m going to run away.’

  I’m on an aeroplane to Paris. I decided just to drive to the airport and see what they had available. I tried to book a flight to Shanghai or Doha. I wanted to get as far away as possible from my home town. The very “helpful” airport employee robot told me I could have a flight to Paris and book a flight further afield from Charles de Gaulle, but they had nothing long haul leaving Newcastle this evening with spare seats.

  ‘If madam can just wait until tomorrow.’ No, madam can’t. Madam needs to get out of town before she changes her mind, and yes, she does require extra leg room, arse room and belly room. The robot wasn’t certain they do extra belly or arse room, but she’d see what she could do about the leg room.

  I’m seated next to a man who must have swallowed someone else. He’s huge. Mahoosive. Girontonormous. His flab spills over onto my seat, and I find myself squished up against the window. I’m thinking about asking one of the stewardesses to move me when I hear him whisper to one of them, ‘Excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude, but this lady next to me is taking up rather a lot of room with her stomach. Is there anywhere you could move me to?’

  ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ I ask.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ he says.

  ‘So, you should. You’re a man mountain with more peaks than Kilimanjaro, and you have the cheek to tell them I’m squashing you. It’s lucky you haven’t squeezed this child out of me.’ Of course, everyone on the plane is now staring at me. The hostesses are flapping like birds in a fox hole, and I just know I’m going to be on the evening news if I don’t bite my tongue.

  The girls find him a seat at the front by sweet-talking a little old lady who doesn’t need the extra leg room as she only has one. Leg, that is. He waddles to the front. I’m surprised that the plane took off with him on it, and I worry for the rest of the journey about the weight we’re carrying.

  ‘They should charge fat people extra,’ says the girl in the aisle seat. ‘Like, really fat people, I mean. Those who need a crane to get them out of bed.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Not pretend obese people, like myself, whose doctors are knobheads.’

  She gives me a queer look, plugs in her earphones and ignores me for the rest of the flight.

  I manage to fly the rest of the way without impinging on anyone else’s personal space, and by nine pm, I’m having dinner at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Alone and lonely. The gourmet food is like sawdust in my mouth. I’ve run away, but the person I’m running from is sitting right with me. The whole of Paris is laid out and lit up before me, and I just want to be back in my own little home, with my own dodgy neighbours and my own feckless and faithless, irritating and abrasive family and friends.

  It’s when the waiter brings the bill that I feel the pain. And not because it’s forty euros more than I expected. A sharp, searing, period type pain. I’m bent double and crying. By the time a paramedic arrives to rescue me, there’s a small pool of blood on my chair. Everything turns to black.

  #polycephaly

  I wake surrounded by white. The baby is still moving inside me, so I know I haven’t miscarried. A doctor stands over me running an ultrasound probe over my lower tummy.

  ‘It is as I think,’ he says in a sexy French accent.

  ‘What is?’ I ask.

  ‘Nurse, Monsieur Diablo, if you please.’ I’m sure Diablo means devil, so I’m worried I’ve died and gone to hell. The nurse frowns, and he says something I don’t understand.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask him. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I am seeing something,’ he says, peering at the screen, his face impassive.

  ‘What?’ I’m panicking now. I know there’s something wrong. I never felt so ill with the others. I was never this big with the others. I know I was a lot younger, but this pregnancy feels so different.

  ‘I have seen…there are…how to say…two heads.’

  ‘Oh God. I knew it. I’m having a freak.’ Mick must be my brother. I retch, and the nurse runs forward with a bedpan and some tissue.

  ‘Is good news, no?’

  ‘No, of course it isn’t.’ She obviously doesn’t speak very good English.

  ‘Oh, I am sorry,’ she says. ‘Maybe in time.’

  ‘Maybe in time what?’ I’ll get over having a baby that looks like an Indian god? I’ve seen the bloody documentaries. Why did this happen to me? How was I supposed to know? I cursed Mother and Mick and anyone else who comes to mind.

  I’m in the most romantic city in the world, and I’ve never in my life felt so alone and so lonely. I even wish Tammy was here with her stupid fussing and her idiotic ramblings. When I turn on my phone, I have seventeen missed calls and messages from just about everyone. They range from, ‘Hi how r u?’ to ‘wtf r u playing @’. Why people can’t use predictive text, I don’t know.

  There’s an urgent email from Tammy saying, ‘Call me re: Mick.’ I can’t face any more bad news or recriminations. I just want to shut myself away and die.

  ‘We’re sending you for a further scan,’ the doctor says. ‘We’ve checked the babies’ heartbeats, and everything seems to be ok. I would like to make sure of this.’

  ‘It has more than one heartbeat?’

  ‘No, no,’ he says. ‘Each baby has a heartbeat. They are both beating.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Your twins. They are both having heartbeats, but I would just like to see them on the scan, and then, we will let you go home.’ He smiles. ‘Twice the joy, twice the love, twice the blessing from above.’

  It’s there in black and white. I’m having twins. Not some two-headed monster freak. They are there on the screen, hugging each other. The medics can’t tell the gender because my awkward offspring (no change there) are hiding that part of their anatomy. I don’t care. They’re healthy and normal. Well, as normal as anyone can be in our weird family.

  I decide to go back and face the music. Tell Mick what I know about our parentage and let him decide if he wants to move to outer Mongolia or stay in Newcastle. I’m going nowhere again. I’m staying where I belong.

  #noplacelikehome

  Tammy’s left a voicemail that I only get when my feet are on English soil. Actually, it’s tarmac, I think. ‘Roberta, you really are a dufus. Ring me when you get this. I need to tell you about Mick.’ Ok, I’m ready to face it. I ring.

  ‘Where’ve you bloody been?’ is the first thing she says.

  ‘Paris,’ I say.

  ‘Are you kidding me?’

  ‘Nope. I ran away, but I had a bit of a funny turn at the top of the Eiffel Tower, and they rushed me to hospital.’

  ‘Really? Is everything ok? Is the baby?’

&
nbsp; ‘Yeah. You first. What do you want to tell me about Mick?’

  ‘He’s not your brother.’

  I greet this with silence.

  ‘Do you hear me? He’s not Michael. He wasn’t looking for a long-lost sister. It’s his mother he’s trying to trace. He was adopted. His mother is called Doreen, and she emigrated to Bondi Beach. He’s an only child. So, you aren’t related. As bloody usual, you overreacted.’

  The relief feels like hot wee after a long coach journey. I have to sit on the ground for a moment, and a security guard comes running to my assistance.

  ‘Roberta, are you there? Can you hear me?’ Tammy’s tinny voice says.

  ‘I’m here,’ I say, heaving myself to my feet. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll call you when I get home.’ This is great news. Brilliant news. Mick and I aren’t related. My twins aren’t freaks. Oh God. Twins! I’m going to be a single parent of twins at almost fifty. I sit back on the concourse and weep.

  25

  #wrongendofthestick

  Drew calls to say could I go to the police station. They’ve arrested the nutter who’s been hanging round the van. He says he knows me.

  When I get here, they have Mick in custody. The sergeant is asking if I know him.

  ‘Yes, he’s my boss,’ I say.

  ‘Is there any reason why he should be hanging round the catering truck?’ he asks.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Will you just tell them that you know me and that I’m not a stalker,’ Mick says.

  ‘Yes, I know him,’ I say. ‘Can’t vouch that he’s not a stalker.’

  ‘Roberta, this is serious,’ Mick says.

  ‘It’s ok, officer, this man is my boss. He’s not a stalker or a weirdo. Well, actually, he is a bit of a weirdo.’

  ‘So, why has he been telling me to take care of you?’ Drew asks.

  ‘You have?’ I say.

  ‘You must know how I feel about you,’ Mick says.

  ‘Yes, you hate me.’

  ‘No, I don’t, Roberta. I don’t hate you at all. Whatever gave you that impression?’

  ‘Er, you did. You constantly wind me up and call me names and make jokes.’

  ‘Exactly, I make jokes. It’s banter, Bob.’

  ‘Stop calling me that. Jokes are supposed to be funny.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘So you should be. Just because you hate me doesn’t mean you should always be trying to humiliate me.’

  ‘I’d never try to humiliate you, Roberta, and I don’t hate you. Quite the opposite, in fact.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means I like you. I like you very much.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’ve liked you since the day we met. The weekend we spent in Harrogate was great, but then, the next day, you acted like you were horrified, and you wanted to forget what happened…’

  ‘Oh no. You are not pinning that on me. You acted like you were ashamed and embarrassed to be seen with me.’

  ‘Mother, do I need to listen to this?’ Drew says.

  ‘Mother?’ Mick says. ‘He’s your son?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He shakes his head. ‘So, who did you marry?’

  ‘I didn’t marry anyone.’

  ‘But the wedding–’

  ‘My daughter’s.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say?’

  ‘Not my fault you got hold of the wrong end of the stick.’

  ‘I called you and called you, and you ignored my calls. You didn’t reply to any of my texts,’ he says. ‘And then you were meeting that Harry bloke.’

  ‘He was just an ex and he’s going to remain an ex. I can’t stand him.’

  ‘And then, I came to your place, and you were with your ex-husband. I thought you were just a player, then, so I backed off.’

  ‘My ex-husband was staying in my house because he had nowhere else to go, and there’s a deed of trust on the property. I didn’t want to get into any court battle with him, so it was easier to let him stay. I haven’t been romantically involved with him for years, and I threatened to remove parts of his body if he came anywhere near me when he stayed there. I threw him out because I caught him shagging Perfect Pam on my sofa.’

  ‘Oh. Then, I saw that you were working in the catering van and assumed the young man was your partner in more ways than one.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have assumed – and why were you telling him to look after me?’

  ‘Just because I couldn’t have you didn’t mean I didn’t care what happened to you.’

  ‘You are such a douche bag. You haven’t been hanging round my daughter’s place at Durham, have you?’

  ‘No,’ he says, horrified. ‘I’m a friend, not a stalker.’

  ‘And you haven’t been sending weird emails?’

  ‘Not guilty. I like you, I’m not obsessed with you.’

  ‘Like as in…’

  ‘Like as in this,’ he says. And kisses me. Properly. With tongues. And I like it. I like it a lot.

  ‘Get a room,’ Drew and the sergeant say in unison.

  So, that’s what we do. We get a room. At Malmaison.

  ‘So, the baby?’ Mick says as we’re lying on the bed eating strawberries and drinking champagne. Well, he’s drinking champagne, and I’m eyeing it jealously and taking a sly sip when he goes to the bathroom.

  ‘Is yours,’ I say.

  ‘Blimey,’ he says, and smiles.

  ‘It’s twins,’ I say.

  ‘Are you winding me up?’

  ‘Nope.’ He smiles again.

  #loveisintheair

  I won’t tell you what Mick and I got up to at Malmaison. Suffice to say, I could probably be having sextuplets now. I know you’re going to make snide remarks about me hating him and calling him a dick. And, yes, you’re right, but love and hate are two opposing sides of the same coin. And I only hated him because I felt rejected after Harrogate. I thought he’d just humped me and dumped me. Turns out, he thought the same thing.

  So, now, we’re a couple. The kids, of course, are a little bit horrified, but, as Shoni says, at least her brothers or sisters won’t be “total little bastards”. And it’ll give her some practice for when she has her own. Tammy is bemused and keeps suggesting double dates with her and the Foetus.

  Indigestion is a very burning issue at present. Literally. I’m quaffing Gaviscon like the cast of TOWIE glug champagne. I remember when I was pregnant with Carolyn, and I suffered with terrible heartburn. I resorted once to eating toothpaste, which didn’t help, but it did make the morning sickness more bearable. Mother said it was a sure sign the baby had loads of hair. When she was born bald as a billiard ball, I realised that most old wives’ tales were basically bullshit. “It’s all at the front, must be a boy.” “Eat lots of fish and you’ll have a girl.” Also, not true, but I smell like a mackerel. “Lie on the floor and dangle a wedding ring over your belly. If it circles to the right, it’s a girl. If it circles to the left, it’s a boy.” What if it just moves up and down? What if it doesn’t move?

  Mick the di…delicious, desirable, delightful and I are moving in together. I know Patti tells us not to cohabit unless you have a ring on it, but I’m not in the first flushes of youth (BTW I didn’t notice any flushes in youth, they all arrived with middle age, so not sure what that saying means). We decide he’ll move into my place but keep his own flat so that he can disappear if we get on top of each other, or when we don’t want to get on top of each other, or when I have raging hormones and I think I might kill him.

  My Facebook updates say things like “feeling blessed” and “feeling loved”, just like all those twatty people I generally hate. I’ve drawn the line at photographing our dinner and posting that online, but my gushings are beginning to get on my own nerves. I’ve become half of one of those self-satisfied smug couples who laugh in the face of sad-sack singles everywhere. Hahaha to those going speed dating, hohoho to those on eHarmony, heeheehee to the Grindr and Tinder cre
w. I’m now one half of a whole couple.

  You’d think I’d be happy. You’d think I’d be relaxed, but oh no. Not me. Now that I’ve finally fallen in love and found someone I want to share my life with, I’ve developed an overwhelming feeling of fear, paranoia and insecurity. Now, my days are consumed with the idea that Mick will do what Knobhead did. Not necessarily with Terri-Ann from Thomas Cook (I don’t think Mick is her type, on account of him being the opposite of Knobhead). But I’m waking up feeling anxious that he will meet somebody else and run off with her, leaving my heart shattered into a million different pieces.

  I find myself listening in to his conversations with women from work for signs that he wants them. If he mentions a woman’s name, my gut churns, and I wonder if he fancies her. Before I know it, my imagination has run away with me, and he’s having a full-blown affair, is leaving me and getting married to someone else.

  Everywhere I look, there are young, pretty, tanned, toned, topless beauties, and I feel fat, frumpy and middle-aged. Why would Mick want to be with me when he could have any young woman he wanted?

  I’m working on a proposal for our newest client when Mick’s phone dings from the table where he’s left it on charge. Immediately, I’m imagining it’s someone he wants to date. I picture a tall, leggy blonde with tanned skin and a designer dress. I’m torn between checking who the message is from and respecting his privacy. I respected Knobhead’s privacy and look where that got me. An internal dialogue begins. The devil is telling me to look: It’s justified, you don’t want to be humiliated again. The angel chastises me: A relationship is nothing without trust, you have no right to check his mail. The devil: What’s the harm, just set your mind at rest. The angel: He loves you, he doesn’t want anyone else, he’s told you so. Devil: Knobhead told you that and look what he was up to.

  I pick up the phone, my stomach churning, my hands shaking. The text is on the screen. It’s from someone called Simone. I immediately imagine an exotic beauty, with legs up to her ears and perfect white teeth: ‘Thanks for yesterday, babe, you’re a star. Maybe we should…’ The rest of the message doesn’t show. Maybe they should do what? What did he do yesterday? Oh no! That’s it, he’s having an affair. My blood runs cold. Now what am I going to do? If I confront him about it, he’ll know I’ve been snooping.