Taking my handbag into the bathroom I remove the three boxes of pregnancy tests I bought earlier. I want to be absolutely sure.
I also feel sick as a dog that I’m doing this without Joe. It feels like a betrayal, it feels like I’m already lying to him. I don’t want to lock him out, but I need a minute with my own thoughts on this. It might not even be anything…
I pee on what feels like a dozen sticks, laying each one out a towel as they work their magic. Hopefully each and every one will be negative. That’s what I’m planning on, anyway.
I drank water all night and so my bladder’s up to the job.
I flush and wash my hands but as I’m standing I look down and see they’re already showing positive results. Every bloody one says I’m pregnant.
How can this be? How? I am so careful…! I have an alarm on my phone to tell me to take the bloody pill. I always take the bloody pill.
Except…
But no…
I would have…
Surely?
Surely!
Yes, surely.
Around the time Mars died I was pretty spaced out and the shock of it all made me sick a couple of times. I might have even forgotten to take the pill on a couple of days, I don’t know. I can’t remember. Those days weren’t good and even though I wasn’t shagging Joe in the immediate aftermath, I’d been shagging him senseless right up to that point… and I can’t be sure… but if this has happened, it’s probably as a result of grief making me sick and my boyfriend wanting to come inside me all the time, which I’ve allowed. So this is my fault. I should have made him wear condoms this whole time. I should have forced him to take that new pill for men. I should have sewn myself up in fact.
“What’s going on?” he asks, throwing the door open. “You’ve been weird all night.”
He clocks the array of used tests and stares me out. I can’t say the words. He’s looking at me for answers but I don’t even want to say the words.
He looks at one of the packets then looks at me. “These are all positive. Are you pregnant?”
“These must be wrong, I mean… I didn’t even check the use-by date. I mean, they’re wrong, right?”
“Did you get your period?”
Fierce heat burns my face and sends tears careering from out of my eyeballs. “No!”
“Christ in heaven!”
He takes a seat on the edge of the bath, head in hands.
I’m actually glad he’s as shocked as me.
“I kept being sick the day Mars died, didn’t I? I was so sick. I thought I was okay. We didn’t have sex for a few days. I may have even thrown a pill in the loo because I wasn’t keeping anything down. But then I started taking them again and we had sex and I thought everything…”
“You don’t have to explain yourself, Het. It takes two. I should’ve thought. I should’ve known you weren’t in the right state.”
“I can’t be without you, Joe!” I’m a snivelling, shivering wreck.
He pulls me towards him and I stand between his open legs as he presses his face into my stomach and puts his arms around my hips.
“God, I thought you were going weird on me tonight. I was starting to think all sorts.”
“I’m sorry,” I splutter, with half a laugh.
He stands and faces me, his thumbs wiping away my tears.
“We decide nothing tonight, baby,” he demands, “we sleep on it, okay?”
“What if I can’t sleep?”
“I’ll start talking about my protein shakes and you’ll have to fall asleep or listen to me.”
He pulls me in, his hug hard and strong. I cling to him, burying my face in his neck. He takes my face in his hands and kisses me hard, too.
There’s so much I can’t say right now, and so much I don’t want to say, but I have to speak anyway.
“Joe, I didn’t plan this, I don’t even know if I want it either. But I cannot go and get rid of it. I already know that. I know it like I know the seasons. I know it in my blood. Yes I was all up for preventing it, but getting rid of something that’s made from parts of both me and you, I couldn’t do that. I love you too much!” I burst into a new sobbing hot mess and he gathers me tight into him, my feet leaving the ground. He takes me to bed and snuggles up tight with me, stroking my hair as I try to stop myself crying… and crying… and crying…
“Say something,” I beg him, once I’ve quietened down.
“If anything, and I can’t believe this is even possible – I mean my little brothers are five this year – but if anything, this only makes me love you so much more. And I didn’t think I could love you anymore than I already do.”
I roll onto him and make him mine, own him and ride the life out of him. It’s different. It’s desperate and more serious. We tug and pull at each other until we’re fighting the life from one another’s bodies – literally.
“I am so fucking horny for you,” I whisper in the dark as we recover ourselves.
He slaps my bum and pulls me closer. “At least there’s no change there, then.”
We laugh into the dark, too. Until god knows what hour.
IN the morning, things look different again, as they always do.
I feel terrified. I feel like I’m riding a rollercoaster and I’m not sure if I want to get off or keeping riding it until I’m sick again. I never asked for his love, never sought it, but I have it. It’s a love I’ve never known before. It’s a pure love.
He fills my car with petrol whenever he uses it. He wakes in the night with me if I’m awake. He puts away the shopping after I’ve brought it home. He stands on the outside of the pavement where I might get mown down. He puts me first in everything. Joe is my man. I’m his woman. I have never, ever doubted that for a second.
But he’s only nineteen. Twenty in the autumn. Twenty by the time I have this little one, but still, so young. Am I cutting him off from freedom, am I subjecting him to a life in chains? Am I making him settle down when that’s really not what he wants. Does he love me enough? Will we still love one another after a kid comes along? What if I can’t love it? What if he has to love it all by himself and I’m completely incapable as a parent. What if this turns into a complete disaster and this year of my life turns out to be one I never want to think back on in years to come?
I’m sitting at the breakfast table thinking all this when he comes downstairs and takes me in his arms.
“We should go to your doctor first,” he says, “to be clear about everything, at least.”
“Yes, that’s sensible.”
“It’s going to be all right.”
“I can’t stop worrying about everything… this isn’t ideal! I–I–I don’t know what I expected, but this has been a shock and I–”
“Everything you’re feeling, I’m feeling too. I am so scared.” He puts my hand on his heart and I feel it pounding unnecessarily. We’re at home, he’s not training, and there’s nothing too much to worry about. But his heart’s racing.
“I’m scared,” I mumble, crying again.
God, could these tears just do one already!
“What I feel for you, and I think that what you feel for me, is real, isn’t it?”
I somehow talk, but it’s screechy… “Yes. I wouldn’t be having it otherwise.”
“And that’s all we have to remember. That this is a product of our love, that our love is real, that we have something rare and precious and this is a part of that. This will change our life but it won’t change us, we’ll still be in love. Won’t we?”
“I can’t imagine never loving you. I can’t stomach never having you.”
“Good. Now, we’ll stave off telling anyone else until we’ve had a scan. I want this to be our secret,” he says.
“Why?” I ask, feeling suspicious.
“Because it feels special, keeping this just ours. Everyone else, gah, they always want to stick their noses in.”
“I agree. But might I just tell Liza? She won’t tell anyon
e else if I threaten her with violence.”
He barks a laugh. “You may tell Liza, if it helps you deal with it. I was more referring to my parents anyway, you know that.”
“Uh-oh. Oh my god. I didn’t realise….”
“What, what?” he asks, thinking I’m serious.
“Terry’s gonna be a great granddad. He’ll have to be told with a stiff drink in his hand.”
“Ahhh god, this is why I love you.”
He picks me up and spins me around, lavishing me with kisses.
I hardly feel different at all right now, but who knows…
It’s the unknown that terrifies me.
LATER THE SAME day, I’m round at Liza’s, preparing to drop the bomb. She’s fussing over Rupert who’s still covered in spots, bless him. I’ve tried telling her a few times already but she always gets sidetracked by vomit, poop, Rupert’s various calamities, or the phone or doorbell ringing.
“I’m shitting pregnant, all right?” I yell.
Liza scolds me with one of her looks. “You just swore in front of my children, woman.”
“So…? They didn’t even blink.”
She’s shaking her head. “How?”
“Life, I suppose. Life happened.”
“And what are ya gonna do?”
I’m actually quite shocked that she’s not more shocked. “Well it’s Joe’s baby so…”
“Hmm…” She chews her tongue. “I think we know it’s more than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“You… it’s like you’re a totally different person now.”
“I feel different in some ways, in others I feel just the same.”
“Anyway would you be a love and put the kettle on for me? I can’t really, can I?” She’s got that look in her eye. It’s like a look of ‘I told you so’, but worse. It’s more like, ‘I could have guessed this would happen’.
Well, I did tell her that Joe and me were shagging non-stop, and she managed to get pregnant on no orgasms whatsoever – twice! Ha! I’m sure she wasn’t as in to it all then as she is now. God forbid she gets pregnant a third time. Her education might be shot to shit then. Although, I can imagine her as a scholar even in her old age somehow. She has that look of universal youth about her, like she’ll never grow old. But then she is very small. I feel my mind wandering as I make the tea and decide to tell her something else, too.
“I found a unit to rent. It’s gonna be called Etta Designs.”
“Etta designs what?” she shouts through, sounding aghast.
“Dresses, you fool.”
“I’m completely lost. I know about the online thing, but…”
“Going global, babe. Yeah. So instead I decided to get me a shop on ye olde Avenue.”
She laughs hard and long.
“Eh, don’t sound so fucking surprised.”
“LANGUAGE!” she reminds me, even though at three, I’m not sure her eldest understands yet.
“Do you want a job? You’re almost as good a seamstress as me.”
“HETTY fucking BERNARD, you take that back.”
I move to the doorway and swing my ass at her. “Kiss it, sister.”
She collapses into tears of laughter and Rupert can only wonder at why his mummy is laughing so hard.
“Think about it, you can bring the kids if you need to. Put them in a pen or something. Emily’s at nursery and Rupert’s mostly asleep. Get you out of the house and that, get you a bit of your own cash, maybe I’ll even let you keep an item or two.”
I can hear her thinking about it and I stick my head around the door. Clearly my last offer got her but she still wants to make me beg.
“I’ll buy you buns, as well?”
“You twisted my arm.”
“YES!” I fist pump to nobody but myself. “We have so got this, woman.”
“You’ll need a front of house, right?”
“Yeah, why? Do you know someone?”
I return to the living room with two cups of tea and a packet of hobnobs. With two active children around, the biscuits will absorb the tea faster than we can drink it.
“Mum would do it,” she says, “she’s bored of retirement, I can tell. Plus she knows the gig and did all the accounts for the chippies. She’s got a lifetime’s worth of customer service. She’d be loyal, she’d take up the slack if we needed it. She’d be perfect.”
I wrinkle my nose, trying not to get my hopes up. “I fucking love it, but… I don’t know. John won’t be best pleased to lose his partner in crime.”
“I don’t think so. He’ll be able to go play golf and go fishing whenever he wants. It’s perfect!”
“Great, I’m… I can’t actually believe I’m doing this.”
“Do you know what?” She leaves me hanging, then adds, “I actually can.”
* * *
I’VE spent a week papering the place and now Joe and Warrick are helping to move all the furniture in. When they have trouble with a fainting jacquard couch which is rather large and which I only reclaimed from a stately home auction the other day, Warrick gives me a look as if I should be helping. I know Joe would rather break his back than ask me to lift heavy stuff at the moment.
“Hetty, would you?”
“Can’t,” I say, “and shan’t.”
Warrick glares. “You’re not the woman I thought you were. You’ve gone all shitting soft on us with this floral palace of yours.”
I shake my head. “Business my friend.”
They eventually get the furniture positioned right and Joe gives me a relieved look which Warrick notices.
“What are you two hiding? I mean, all these secret looks. Not to mention–”
Warrick stops speaking and takes a deep breath, puts his hands on his hips and gives me a good look over.
“Something different about you,” he mumbles.
“You may as well tell the sod,” I yell at Joe.
“She’s pregnant, Dad.”
“WHAT!!” Warrick flares bright red. “WHAT!! WHAT!!”
“Hey, Granddad,” I say, wrapping my arms around his neck.
He scowls and points at his son, extracting himself from my arms.
“You, you, I will talk to you later, mister. But this one here,” he says, pointing at me, “how very dare you make me a granddad!”
Joe’s laughing as Warrick picks me up and swirls me around. I tell him to stop or I’ll puke on his head.
Warrick starts running through a list of stuff I’m not supposed to eat or drink. I’m nodding the whole time; my doctor already told me all this. I tell him I don’t feel any different apart from a little bit of sickness, a funny taste in my mouth.
He’s going into full Granddad mode as Joe and I stare at one another from opposite sides of the room, completely in love and totally unprepared, but ready to take on life anyway. We have each other and sometimes that’s all you need – someone to love.
Jules was right – sometimes a year shakes you up, throttles you about, and spits you out. And I’m more than ready for what’s on the other side of this. More than, and then some.
I don’t fear life like I used to anymore.
I saw what hiding yourself away can get you – physical or metaphorical death – and I’m tired of hiding.
Besides, the world seems tired of letting me hide away; it wants to drag me into it, it wants me to show it what I’ve got. And day by day, I’m learning I’ve got more and more to give this world, more than I ever dared dream myself capable of achieving.
And the best bit? This is only the beginning.
BETTY WHO’S TEN is walking tall beside me. We’re cutting through people in our ripped jeans, our t-shirts, big glasses and sunhats.
“Mum, where’s Dad? Where is he? He’s usually outside.”
“Probably being mobbed, as per usual. No doubt already indoors.”
She snickers.
We’re meeting Joe for lunch, but everywhere Joe goes, crowds seem to follow.
It’s a madly hot day in Hull, even for an August day. That’s climate change for you.
He’s come straight from his meeting to have lunch with us on Princes Avenue. You can tell by the amount of people trying to get a look through the window of the restaurant he must already be sat inside.
Joe doesn’t play for Hull City anymore. He plays for Liverpool. But we’re over for the weekend, visiting Betty’s grandparents. We’ve left Cece, our old staffy dog, whose mother was Mars’s dog Kyla – with teenagers Charlie and Harry who will no doubt be trying to coax her to play. But she hates playing. We’re meeting Joe like this because we’re back in Hull for a reason. He’s coming into the twilight of his career and wants to finish up here, where it all started. He’s been in talks and that’s probably the reason for all this attention – the press got a whiff.
We manage to push through the crowds and sure enough we see Joe behind the glass inside, eagerly searching for us. The restaurant doors open as soon as we’re spotted and Betty runs to her dad.
“I’ve only been gone the morning,” he says, clutching her tight as she throws herself into his arms. Her long blonde hair, hanging down past her waist, falls over his bare arms.
He takes my hand and smiles a smidgen, apparently pleased by the sight of me. I give him a little kiss on the corner of his mouth and we take our seats around a table.
“How was it, Dad?” she asks him.
They’re seated opposite me, sat together, while I sit opposite him, our hands touching.
“It was fine. Just got to leave it to the agents now.”
Joe should be happier about this. He didn’t get turned down point-blank so that hopefully means we’re moving back.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him, covering his hand with mine.
“I found out one of the guys who first trained me recently died is all. Just weird, you know?”
“I’m sorry,” I answer, giving him sympathy.
“Just makes me realise how short life is. Also feels a bit like coming back in time… know what I mean?”
Betty frowns. She can’t remember living here. She was only 18 months old when we made the leap and decided to move to Merseyside.
Hetty: An Angel Avenue Spin-Off Page 27