I was struggling to remember when my last period was.
It must have been about a week or so before I last had sex, but I couldn’t remember. At the time I was convinced I was infertile, so I was no longer recording my fertility cycle. I have no idea when I actually conceived the baby.
If I’m honest, I don’t even know who the father is.
It was all Harry Boyle’s fault.
Harry Boyle is not the name of the romantic lead in a Hollywood movie. Harry Boyle is the bloke that comes and fixes your washing machine.
The Harry Boyle I knew was one of our clients at the insurance company and was a total arse.
Harry Boyle was rude and brusque and impatient. He swore constantly and treated everyone like his subordinate, often demanding that people move out of a chair he wanted or go get his coffee, no matter how senior they were. He was a nightmare client and, despite the fact I was now head of new business for EMEA, it took him five months to even bother speaking to me, other than to ask if I could ‘pop downstairs and grab him a sandwich’.
As far as I was concerned, the longer he ignored me the better.
But then, after two years of trying to get pregnant and at the point where I was exhausted by it all and ready to give up, James and I were finally offered IVF by the wonderful, amazing NHS.
One round, one shot, one chance at happiness and joy.
I started the IVF injections, and my hormones and diplomacy skills went to shit.
We were in the middle of a client meeting with Harry Boyle. It was a Friday night and we had been in the meeting for three hours. Everyone knew he was just keeping us there because he could. He was the client: he could do whatever he wanted.
Finally, at 7.16 p.m., our meek and mild new business director plucked up the courage to suggest that we table the discussion for the night and pick it up again on Monday morning.
For once, Harry seemed to be reasonable and agreed that everyone could go home.
And then come back on Saturday morning.
I was tired, hot, hormonal, and perilously close to missing the time for my next injection.
‘No,’ I said. Okay, I may have yelled it rather than said it.
The room fell silent.
‘What?’ He turned and gave me the full power of his glowering stare.
‘No. We’re not coming back in tomorrow. We’re all tired and we all deserve the weekend off, and this can wait until Monday morning. You don’t need to sort this tomorrow, you are just making everyone come in because you’re being a total shit … and it’s “pardon”, not “what”.’
I didn’t wait around to be yelled at or fired.
I did what all sensible and mature women do in times of crisis. I hid in the toilet.
My colleague Sarah found me there.
‘Fucking hell.’
‘Shit. Did he go mental? Am I fired?’
‘He laughed and said we can pick it up on Monday.’
‘Oh.’
‘Maybe he’ll stop being such an arsehole now.’
‘Doubt it.’
‘You going to hide in here all night?’
I nodded.
Sarah smiled.
‘Probably for the best.’
I hoped he’d be gone by the time I slunk back into the meeting room to get my stuff, but he was still in there, chatting to the sales director, with his back to me.
He was ridiculously tall, with a mass of dark curly hair that he never seemed to get cut. His clothes were expensive and fitted him beautifully. I knew that other people in the office thought he was good-looking but, for me, his horrible personality and shitty attitude cancelled out any good looks that might have been lurking behind his perma-scowl.
He turned and caught me staring.
For a moment he glared.
Then he flipped me the bird and smiled.
Caught completely off guard, I burst out laughing.
I blamed the hormones.
You would think that finding out I was pregnant would change everything.
That I would have a new-found lust for life, be galvanised into action, start planning straight away for the future of my baby and me.
It didn’t and I didn’t.
I’ve wanted to have a baby for many, many years but that was the old me in the old world where I had a husband and a home and hot water and midwives and doctors.
I have none of that here.
I have done the sums the best I can and I think I am roughly about sixteen and a half weeks pregnant. Maybe seventeen weeks. That means I will give birth in early September.
In around five months.
If I am going to have the baby, I need to stop surviving and start living the life I have so far not been able to build in this empty new world.
I need to start eating proper food, drinking two litres of water a day, taking pregnancy vitamins.
I need to find somewhere proper to live. Somewhere I can have a routine. Somewhere I can give birth. Somewhere warm and safe and comfy.
It seems like a lot to do and I don’t know if I can do it. I’ve never given birth, never had to plan for anything, never had to take responsibility for someone else. I’ve never even had a pet.
Five months to find and make a home. And a baby. In me.
By myself.
I don’t think I want to. Not on my own. I don’t know how.
I don’t think I can.
INSERT: ITEM #6294/1
Dictaphone Recording (Tape 1 / Recording 1)
(Transcribed)
(Woman’s voice speaks into Dictaphone.)
Hello? Hello? I need to check this thing is working. It’s me. Is this working?
(Dictaphone is turned on and off.)
It’s working. I can hear myself. I … I, sorry – this isn’t about me speaking, this isn’t … I mean I just need to …
(Pause.)
My phone is dying. Every time I switch it on it takes longer to work and this morning there was nothing on the front screen. Just … blank. I’ve turned it off and on again and it’s back but it’s so faint, I can hardly see it. I’m going to lose everything, all my photos and texts and messages and … everything.
(Crying.)
(Deep breath.)
I’ve managed to access my voicemails and I don’t want to lose this, I can’t lose this, I have to save it.
It’s my mum, my last message from Mum …
(Brief pause. Rustling)
Computer Voice: ‘You have one saved message’
*Beeeeep*
Hello sweetheart. It’s Mum.
(Pause.)
So, it turns out that the cold I thought your dad had was actually 6DM and I’m afraid I’ve got it now. We’re … not great.
(Coughing.)
We didn’t tell you earlier because we didn’t want you to worry. I know the trains aren’t running and you hate driving and so please don’t try and come to see us. Anyway, there won’t be much point now. Your dad and I are going to take T600 in a bit because, well, it’s time we think. Your dad never was very good at being ill was he?
(Forced laugh.)
I just wanted to call you first to hear your voice and to tell you how very, very much we love you and how happy you made us and how you are the absolute best thing we ever did with our lives and we will miss you so, so much.
(Pause, muffled sobbing, male voice in the background says something. She takes a deep breath.)
Your dad’s saying I promised I wouldn’t cry. Daddy is also saying he loves you very much and would tell you himself but I am hogging the phone as always!
(Half laugh, half sob, deep breath.)
Your dad’s right, I shouldn’t cry, because we have been the luckiest people in the world to have you. You have been everything we ever wanted. You are strong and loving and kind and we are so proud of you and … and … I wish we could have been with you at the end. I hope you are okay and not in pain and that you and James are together. Don’t worry about us, we are fine, we just want you to
be okay, we love you so …
*Beeeep*
Phone message cuts off.
End of recording.
March 18th 2024
That was the final time I ever heard from my mum.
She called as I was sitting in the bar when I had gone out during James’s sickness. I was talking to someone else when she rang so didn’t notice the call. I listened to the message after the other person left.
I should have gone to them there and then. I should have found a way, stolen a car, forced someone to drive me to them.
I should at least have called back.
But I knew that speaking to my dying mother would push me over the edge.
The entire fragile world that I had built, with me at the centre, was imploding. I was soon going to be alone, completely physically and emotionally alone for the first time in my life; and seeing or speaking to my parents at that point would have made that terrible future too real for me to cope with.
I wasn’t the person she had thought I was, I wasn’t strong or loving or kind.
I didn’t go to see them and I didn’t call her back. I was scared and selfish to the end.
And I still am.
I don’t think I will make a good mother.
I wasn’t a good mother to my first baby.
I lost my first baby.
The IVF worked. I was six weeks pregnant and glowing with happiness and hormones.
The scan should have been a formality.
But there was no heartbeat.
The lovely lady who was doing the scan spent precious NHS minutes searching, but I knew from her face that it was a waste of time.
It hadn’t even crossed my mind that this might happen, that I could be pregnant but not pregnant at the same time.
The cells hadn’t developed into a baby. They were just cells. And soon my body would acknowledge them for the invaders they were, and reject them.
And I would smell my period on its way once more.
James told people I had lost the baby.
‘Lost the baby’ – such a ridiculous phrase. Like I left it at the cheese counter in Asda. Like it was my fault. Like I was careless with its life.
I wasn’t careless. I hadn’t lost it. It had moved out of its own accord.
James tried to comfort me, tried to make me feel better. We could keep trying, pay to go private, he was happy to do that, he said. But we had been together nine years now and I knew him – I knew when he was lying.
He brought me tea and hot water bottles and went shopping for sanitary towels when I couldn’t face leaving the house to get them for myself.
He had no idea what he was buying and came back with Tena lady pads for bladder incontinence. The bleeding was so heavy I wore them.
I examined every blood clot I passed for signs it was a small part of my baby. There were none. It was just blood.
We were never alone, there was a constant stream of visitors – my mum and dad, James’s mum and dad, even a few of James’s friends came to drink tea and offer sympathy.
I stayed in our bedroom.
Ginny came round and was the one person whom I allowed to come upstairs into my room of pain. She held my hand as I cried. She was pregnant with Radley, but didn’t tell me and successfully hid her happiness while listening to my endless litany of loss.
Xav didn’t come. He had been out of rehab for nearly three months and my mum told me he was doing really well, seeing a therapist and going to NA meetings regularly. Xav had tried to contact me when he was in rehab. As part of the rehab journey I was someone he needed to say sorry to. He wanted me to come to joint therapy sessions. I had said I was too busy making a baby to be part of his drama.
Now I was too busy losing a baby for him to be part of mine.
I cried and I slept and I stared out of the window, and ten days passed and I woke up one morning and realised it was all over.
My physical and imagined future was over.
No pregnancy, no baby, no plans for the next day, week, year, or decade.
I was just me again.
I was a blank shape. A now-empty blank shape lying in a space on our bed. Doing and feeling nothing.
Early April 2024
I spent another two weeks at the hotel.
Well, I think it was two weeks, but I am not entirely sure as my phone died completely the day after I recorded Mum’s voicemail onto the Dictaphone.
Without my phone to remind me of the date I lost track of the days pretty quickly and allowed myself to drift from one day to the next doing the barest minimum to survive.
I was still suffering from morning sickness and, following the loss of my phone and all the memories it contained, I felt like I was grieving for the dead all over again. And this time I had no drink or drugs to dampen the pain.
But then, one random morning, I was in the hotel kitchen, standing at the sink drinking a glass of water when something amazing happened.
I felt my baby move for the first time.
Wriggling in my tummy.
A small flutter that I thought was indigestion at first but, when I took another gulp of the icy water and felt the fluttering again, I thought maybe, just maybe.
So I did it again. And again.
Until I was sure the baby was half drowned.
‘That’s woken you up, hasn’t it!’ I laughed.
I laughed with my baby.
Something was in there. Someone was in there. Starting to wriggle around.
Physical confirmation that he or she existed, that he or she was alive. For the first time I truly understood that this was no longer about me. Or at least it was no longer just about me.
The baby couldn’t fend for itself. It couldn’t drink from the toilet or catch a rat if it was hungry.
If I died the baby died, and if I gave up the baby gave up.
And just like that I realised I didn’t want to give up. Not any more.
It was time to go, time to find a home for my baby and me.
I needed a proper plan this time. A plan for a life.
Mid April 2024
Unfortunately, the new, enthusiastic, focussed me was just as scatterbrained and unorganised as the old, suicidal me.
In my excitement to leave the hotel I once more forgot to check that I had everything I needed.
So, when I pulled over on the A43 to fill the Defender with diesel and found that I had forgotten to bring a funnel to do it with, it immediately took the wind out of my newly billowing sails and I saw it as a sign that I was only ever going to be a badly prepared and unfit mother.
I had at least had the luck to run out of diesel smack bang in the middle of suburbia. Funnel central. So I grabbed my rucksack and Lucky, and set off towards the nearest house-lined street.
The first thing I noticed was the rubbish. Lots and lots of rubbish. Rubbish flying in the wind, tumbling along the gutters, stuck in trees and in fences and bushes, and whirling in mini cyclones at the corners of buildings. At first, I couldn’t work out where it was all coming from, but then I noticed the ripped and battered black bin bags that were also lying or flying about. It must have been bin day just before or during 6DM and, good citizens that they were, the residents must have put their bins out as normal.
Except this time no one came to collect them.
The bags weren’t intact, so something must have ripped them open. I walked a bit faster, imagining giant rats or feral dogs roaming the streets but, turning a corner, I came upon the most obvious culprit.
The street was covered in shit. Not dog or fox shit. Bird shit. Cars, pavements, lamp posts, houses; all covered in splatters of white, runny, bird shit.
Staring sideways at me through its beady yellow eye was a giant seagull.
Easily the size of a small dog, it sat in the middle of the pavement laconically pecking at … something vaguely white and rotten. I didn’t dwell too much on what it might be.
I walked slowly towards the bird. It continued to eat. I moved fo
rward again, and this time it turned its head to look at me. I stopped walking immediately. Its evil yellow eyes stared. I stared back. It blinked. I took a slow step sideways. It could have the pavement if it wanted. The seagull cocked its head to one side, blinked again, opened its sharp, hooked beak, and let out a loud, barking yell.
The yell was immediately returned by a hidden multitude of other harsh, rasping barks, and I jumped at the loud cacophony of noise. Lucky growled and charged towards the seagull, which, rather than take flight, stood its ground, reached forward, and pecked Lucky on the nose. Lucky yelped and raced back to hide behind my legs. I, meanwhile, was more interested in where the collective cries had come from and, looking up, I saw that the roofs of the houses were lined with seagulls, all bobbing their heads up and down and now, it seemed, crying out in support of their compadre who had bitten Lucky.
I have never seen the movie The Birds, but I had seen enough clips from it to know the damage that could be done by average-sized crows, let alone these dog-sized, evil-looking rejects from some low-budget horror movie. One by one the roof dwellers took flight, filling the air with flapping wings and cawing cries. I tried to tell myself that my stomach-cramping fear was unfounded, that they were simply putting on a display and I should just move smoothly to another street; but when the first one dived down and tried to peck Lucky’s tail, I ran.
I pounded down the street, rucksack banging against my back, but, turning the corner, saw that the next road was also lined with houses and roofs decorated with seagulls. Lucky changed tactic for me by racing up the path of the nearest house. I followed, building up speed to force the door open with my shoulder. At the last minute I decided to try the door handle and, when it opened straight away, I went tumbling straight down the hall head over heels. Lucky followed, careening into me, and I quickly rolled over and crawled on my hands and knees to the front door to slam it shut, just as the first seagulls were landing on the porch and looking inquisitively in at us.
‘What the hell was that?!’ I yelled at Lucky. Both of us sat, panting and staring at each other.
Then I threw up onto the hallway floor.
It was the smell.
Last One at the Party Page 23