by Poppy Dolan
In my over-excitement, I give a thumbs up. Shit.
‘I know someone at Cow & Gate,’ Gina blurts. ‘A contact. I’ll set up a meeting.’
But I’m so a-buzz with the promise of something other than endless sales calls and invoice chasing and layouts for Lion egg adverts, I barely register my flicker of annoyance that Gina’s nudging her way into this project, and I don’t even feel the digging glares of the Design team. They want images of bulbous pregnant ladies and tones of pastel pinks and blues cluttering up their design schemes about as much as they want to photograph a Findus crispy pancake in HD. Besides their aesthetic values, I think the entire team of eight has a combined age of fifty-seven so babies and stretch marks and the dangers of unpasteurised cheeses aren’t really their bag. They like sleepless nights, endure the odd bit of sick and have onesies at home, but for very different reasons.
Sod Design – sod Sacha and her assuming looks in my direction right now, sod Gina’s incessant ambition – this is my chance to do some serious sneaky field research and score some big ad deals for the company. Ellie, you sly pickle, you are having it all.
We file out of the airy boardroom in a civil rush. Martin catches me up and gently pulls me to one side as the others disperse.
In a low voice, he says with a crocodile smile, ‘Excellent work, Ellie. Some great, innovative thinking. Synergy. Excellent. I think the revenue from this could possibly keep the wolves from the door a little longer. Where do you get your ideas, eh?’
This would have been a borderline compliment, encouraging even, had he not looked pointedly down at my stomach at the same time.
Bloody burrito food baby from lunch.
The chilling pincers of paranoia instantly put me off an afternoon Danish. But I’ll make a mental note to down a glass of the office crappy wine at Robin’s birthday drinks next week, in full view of them ALL.
Bloody burrito.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Two balls come flying at my face. ‘Well, this is an unexpected surprise!’
I’d done a little whoop for joy when Becca had texted this morning to say she was coming to London for the weekend and was I free for a coffee. I hadn’t realised at the time that the coffee would be served near a twenty-foot wide ball pit to the sound of a dozen squeaking toddlers. I took one look at that room and decided caffeine would not be needed. I am now 100 per cent awake. I am possibly more awake than I have ever been. And it’s not pleasant.
‘Wow, this place is …’ I look around at the foam shapes, primary colours and mysterious spillages, ‘… this place is such a discovery. I had no idea it was tucked away behind the high street here.’ We are just up the road in Peckham Rye but it feels more like a set from Willy Wonka. Except these Oompa Loompas don’t have catchy songs. They maybe have catchy colds.
Although the multitude of shouts and yelps are a little bit much on the ears for 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning, it is so lovely to see these pudgy-legged tots mucking about and getting stuck in. As I take a seat next to Becca, one little smiling rascal pelts me with foam balls – Benjy, her four-year-old.
I squint at him. ‘Benjy Wenjy, you sneaky hoodlum! Don’t make me report you for an ASBO, ‘cause I’ll do it. Yes I will!’ He races off, laughing like a wild thing.
‘Thanks so much for coming out,’ Becca pecks me on the cheek. ‘I was so gutted we missed your birthday thing. No one times getting ill these days. I always used to be able to plan a sicky for a Friday, back in the old days.’ She rolls her eyes, smiling. ‘Well, now I have the perfect excuse for as many lie-ins as I want, I suppose.’ She rubs at her medium-sized bump.
‘Of course! How are you feeling, are you tired much?’ Research, I think: research. Plus, she is a really good friend and producing a minor miracle right before my very eyes. Creating a person from a few cells will never stop being fascinating to me
‘Up and down. Matthew’s mum has been great – doing nursery runs if I’m stuck to the toilet in the mornings, making Benjy’s tea when the smell of peas sends me straight back to the loo again. Thank God she’s up the road!’
The thought of Marie ‘just up the road’ from me, forever, and with a spare key to my house makes me want to ram a foam ball down my throat until I choke myself to death. ‘And do you feel different this time, to how you were with Benjy in there?’ I point to the cute little bump between us.
She takes a long sip of her Earl Grey. ‘I didn’t think I would, but weirdly, yeah. I think I’ve been a little helicopter-ish and now I just don’t have the time or energy.’
‘What do you mean?’ I hope there’s some tone of sweet innocence in my voice.
She drops an eyebrow in my direction. ‘I know I go mad with the wet wipes, you don’t have to be nice about it. And now I’m trying to keep up with mucky chops over there and juggle that with work and keeping my eyes open beyond 8 p.m. Oh, and having a balanced diet, all my supplements, not too much caffeine. Blah. Anyway, coming here is proof I’m getting better. I used to call those ball pits ‘plague pits’ during my worst germ obsession.’
Benjy surfaces from the sea of balls, takes a gulp of air and dives back in.
‘I was wondering, you know.’
Becca holds her hands, palms out. ‘Full disclosure – he has just had some jabs, so he’s working with a full immunity. Plus, I looked this place up and they wash the balls every week. Baby steps, baby steps.’
I spot Benjy trying to mount a huge circular shape. Trying and failing.
‘Ooof, should I go and help him?’
There’s a twitch above Becca’s right eye. ‘No. No. He’ll be OK. No more helicopters. That’s the thing. I’m beginning to realise I’m just one woman. I can hover over one kid and just about not fall to pieces. But two? I shouldn’t even begin to try. Plus, Matthew said I was retarding his social life by not letting him play on the jungle bars. And I should listen to a University of Manchester Education lecturer, probably. Anyway, enough of all my baby dramas. Tell me about you. What’s going on down here in the lovely dirty city? See? I said “lovely” and “dirty” in the same sentence. Progress.’
‘You are growing with love. I applaud you. Um, well: me. Things are good, a bit stressy at work, but Pete’s great – I’m taking some baking classes. My mate Lydia – you remember her, from the wedding? With the blue hair then – she’s started this crazy little jewellery business that’s taking off. Yup, things are good.’
‘And so …?’ Becca’s hands turn in circles, like a combine harvester. But her words have already started the digging.
‘So?’
She flicks her eyes down to the area under my boobs and above my black jeans. ‘Anything … happening? With you and Pete. Maybe coming here,’ she nods towards the squawking rabble, ‘with your own filthy urchin?’
‘Ooof.’ I let out the longest of all long breaths. ‘That’s a question and a half.’
‘Sorry, sorry. I’ll just shut up. I’ve been wondering, nosily. It’s like when you’re in a couple and have single friends – you want to meddle in their stuff, get them to where you are. Then you have children and it’s a whole other field of meddling. I remember this one time, we were having dinner with—’
Suddenly, Becca has gone a Farrow & Ball off-white.
‘What?’
‘Oh God, I have to – watch him – yeah?’ And she’s gone, running to the ladies’ before I can really make sense of anything she’s just mumbled.
Becca hobbled back ten minutes later. Benjy hadn’t drowned in foam and I’d even managed to find his juice drink when he requested it.
Her face is still a porridge grey, with a sweaty sheen across her cheekbones.
‘You OK?’
‘Eurgh, yes thanks, hun. I was going to tell you this story but then I thought of the night it happened, we had these huge bloody steaks—’ she pauses, takes a big swallow, then goes on, ‘and now it seems just the memory of certain foods makes me sick. Ah, the miracles of nature.’
Ma
ybe I do need that coffee after all.
She leans back into her chair, lifting one hip and then another. ‘Crap, I hope I’m not getting the dysplasia thing again. With Benjy, my pelvis starting shifting position too soon, months too early, and it just hurt to walk. Or do stairs. You could carry me out of here, right?’
When my eyes widen she just laughs. ‘I’m joking, Ells! Come on. There are worse things in pregnancy than your pelvis going weird.’
And then she gives me the list.
None in the Oven
What are you looking at?
Sometimes, the hardest bit of this whole pregnancy limbo is how exposed you feel. It’s not exactly on the Ranulph Fiennes level, and I haven’t lost any fingers or anything, but still it’s a bit chilly out here in a world where being thirty-something and in a relationship apparently means your body is up for grabs as a measuring stick for how well your life is going. Not just the usual pressures of ‘Is your muffin top big enough to open its own bakery?’ or ‘Are your arms still jiggling from the wave you gave a colleague three hours ago?’ But something else. Are friends, family members, office co-workers giving your tum a sly little look every now and then, looking for a paunch fuller than usual? If you’re in the same boat as me – the perfect-baby-age boat (you can see the ship a mile off; everyone’s wearing nice cardigans and boots over skinny jeans) – and you don’t think you’re getting the bump once-over, then you aren’t looking hard enough. Dare to refuse a drink because you’re going to drive or have an early meeting to go to, and they’ll start the whip-round for a bassinet quicker than you can say ‘Unprotected sex’.
So basically, I’m off the carbs for two weeks because my boss gave me one of those looks recently. I’d rather avoid crumpets for a fortnight than have him draft the advert for my maternity cover just yet. It makes my bottom go all clenched and hard to think of someone else doing my job. The bastards. They’d find my emergency Curly Wurly stash.
And speaking of bottoms, God knows how many crumpets I’d have to steer clear of in order to get my body shape back after having a sprog. I might have to ask for a 200 metre restraining order against myself from every M&S Food in the country if I ever want to squeeze back in my jeans.
The idea of my body changing gives me the proper weirdsies. Friends who’ve already started families have grumbled politely about strangers feeling completely free to rub a clammy hand over their rounded bellies in the pet food aisle, and, yes, I might have to bat them away with a chew toy but at least that would only last for a few months. It’s the permanent bits that give me sleepless nights. Anecdotally, these are the things that I’ve heard can happen to your body after having a baby:
- Your boobs sag. Everyone knows this, sure. Doesn’t mean it’s any less horrific. I like my boobs. They’re not the biggest, not the highest, I’m no Salma Hayek, but they do the job, thank you, and they’ve collected a few fans over the years. I don’t want a Page 3 career any time soon, but I would quite like to recognise my body in the mirror please, if you don’t mind.
- Your feet sag. Yes. Sag. Apparently the arches of your feet drop in some women – and they never go back. Your best Irregular Choice heels, with the diamanté frog clips? Bin ‘em. Those super-sexy black kitten-heeled boots? Yup, they will cause you only agony in the future, no more sexy joy. This boggles my mind and makes me guard my shoe rack with the steely glare of a Russian Cossack.
- It gets roomy … down there. I mean, that makes sense – a big delivery comes out through a small hole, and it stretches some business. Like me in a pair of size eight jeggings – after trying them on, they’d be pooled on the floor in a baggy heap, the natural elasticity having headed for the hills under all that pressure. If jeggings can’t keep up with it, what the hell is my vagina going to do?! And this is not a fifties throwback wifely worry: I’m not scared that Pete will hit me with his pipe and slippers if our rude times are no longer as good. It’s that I like the rude times, just as much. After we have a baby, I’m doing a PhD in Kegels.
- Piles. Varicose veins. Milk duct infections. Bad back from carrying baby. No bladder control. Hair loss.
Oh my God. I’m going to have to stop Googling now, I’m breaking out in a sweat.
Be honest guys, if you’ve had a baby, did your body feel like yours any more? Did you care? Am I disgustingly vain? Will Spanx make it all better?
Heeeeelp,
Sprogless x
Chapter Twenty-Five
‘Yes, Mum. Well, we’ll come late on Christmas Eve and then head to Pete’s parents the day after Boxing Day. Yes, I have started steeping the fruit. Yes, in good whisky. It is literally the fourth year I’ve done it, so I’m handling it. And it’s still three weeks till Christmas. OK, two days shy of three weeks. Yup, yup. OK, Mum, have to go now. I’m off to this baking expo thing. Love to Dad … Well, I doubt I’m likely to actually bump into Paul Hollywood but if I do, I will tell him that. OK, love you, Mum. Bye. Yup, bye. Bye!’
I’ve been fielding Mum’s annual pre-Christmas panic witters while comparing jumpers for today. It’s bloody chilly out there but I also know this baking show is the kind of event where twelve million bustling women barging past each other will cause enough friction to heat the moon. I’m going with the oversized thin Fair Isle cardi I bought from an Oasis sale. I thought it was supposed to come up so massive, in that ‘Boyfriend’ style where everything looks like you’ve just been freed from a prison camp and this is all they had for you to wear. But it turns up it was a size twenty on a size twelve hanger. And yet I still don’t feel like I’ve learned my lesson about frenzied sale shopping, as the cardi sort of works and is nice and airy in sticky situations. Plus, if I get so swollen with free squares of millionaire’s shortbread or focaccia or any sort of truffle I can snaffle, it will still look too big on me and therefore I will look slender. Genius. In that vein I’m going for stretchy dark blue jeans. And my turquoise Converse for comfort and speed. There might be goody bags and I’ll be buggered if I miss out on those.
All togged up and ready to rumble, I stick my head into the kitchen. There is a definite smell of frying butter, the smell of seduction in my mind.
‘Hey, husband, I’m off.’
‘Huh?’ Pete looks up, an egg cupped in each hand like he’s some bonkers human weighing scales. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m off. To the baking show. With Hannah. That I told you about a million times.’ I try to keep the edge out of my voice, as part of The Being Super Nice to Pete campaign. He can’t help the fact that his memory is just a bag of sawdust with weevils living in it, I suppose.
‘But I got up early so I could make you Eggs Royale!’ He says this with so much indignation it’s as if he’s smoked the salmon himself. My stomach lurches as it registers the kindness of the gesture and the deliciousness of its nature. But thinking of moist smoked salmon and buttery sauce all mixed together suddenly gives me a lurch of a sicky nature. Weird. Must just be too early for me on a Saturday.
The rules of womanhood say you can’t ditch your friends for your husband, even if he does have George Clooney twinkle eyes and he’s making hollandaise sauce from scratch. Them’s the rules, and I won’t mess. Plus, I can’t see Hannah putting up with any of that bad friend nonsense. She might give me a demerit.
‘Sorry, darling.’ I hold up my hands. ‘I promised Hannah and I can’t cancel now.’
His bottom lip threatens to fold over but then remembers its age and holds firm. ‘Oh. Right. Of course. I was just going to use the Magimix, that’s all. But it can wait. Um, so when will you be back?’
I scratch the back of my head. ‘Late afternoon? It’s a whole big thing, lots to look at … and eat. Why don’t you call the guys? There must be some sport to watch.’
Pete rallies. ‘There usually is, somewhere in the world and on the cable channels. OK, Smells Bells. Text me when you’re on the way home. I might do the hollandaise with some asparagus or something, for dinner.’
Again a sicky pu
ll twists my stomach lining and I feel like I might spew for a tiny second. ‘No!’ I gasp.
‘What?’ Pete flinches.
‘Er, no … because …’ I’m failing to work out what that was all about myself, ‘because asparagus is way out of season, knobhead.’
Pete’s eyes narrow at the jokey insult – it’s not our usual kind of discourse to use actual insults beyond Smelly (for me) and Nerd Head (him), but I feel sicky and panicked and so went a bit weird.
I ramble on. ‘Ha ha! Sorry, just grumpy – or something – it’s too early. I’ll buy you some nice ham there! Byeeee!’ And then I leg it to Earl’s Court.
Earl’s Court Tube station makes me feel like I’m in some classy WW2 spy movie. Like, I’m a glamorous femme fatale and while seducing a dashing British government minister for all his secrets I accidentally give away my true nationality by breaking down into tears at the sight of the Earl’s Court departure board system. ‘But zis is crazy!’ I would wail, ‘Zees silly arrows and destinations make no sense! And why only trains to Olympia on a Saturday? Whhyyyyyyy?’ And then they would cart me off to a prison camp on the Isle of Wight. I don’t know why I make myself a Nazi in my own daydreams. Must be a nice little pocket of self-loathing in my subconscious.
But only a true London resident can crack the system and escape the labyrinth. When you do – or better yet, someone asks you for help – you feel a level of smugness that makes your crazy council tax rates feel slightly worth it. Oh London, you passive aggressive yet alluring mistress.
Hannah is reading a battered green-spined Virago book while she waits for me.
‘Hey lady,’ I pull back from our cheek pecks. ‘Is that book good? You look really lost in it.’