Unfiltered

by Sophie White

  ‘We’re so glad you could come,’ James boomed, emerging from the kitchen laden down with platters of samosas and bhajis with minty yoghurt and pickled limes. He delivered the food to the large dining table and strode straight over to his wife. The Khans, Ali’d always thought, went way overboard with the PDAs. They were like a pair of randy cats, forever mewling and draped around each other. Maybe being a sex and relationships writer demanded these displays? From the look on Mini’s face, she was evidently also not a fan of her proximity to Meera’s grunts of pleasure as James kneaded her shoulders and managed to occasionally graze a bit of her very-nice-for-sixty-something-but-you-could-still-live-without-seeing-it side boob.

  Thankfully, Nella’s older son, Anish, ran in and shouted with alarm, ‘What’s Papa doing to Nanni?’

  ‘Nothing, sweet.’ Nella straggled in after him with the baby, Aziz, on her hip.

  Meera tutted audibly and, rousing from the massage, fixed her grandson with a smile. ‘It is foreplay, sweetie, the precursor to the physical act of love – a vital part of human connection.’

  ‘Right, if foreplay time is over, can we eat? I’m starving,’ Nella moaned, marching towards Ali and kissing her on the cheeks. ‘Well, you’ve been busy since I saw you last!’ She moved on without pause to Mini and pulled her into a one-armed hug with baby Aziz looking unimpressed at being shunted around. ‘Mini,’ Nella began, ‘I’m so sorry for your loss. You must come down to Elysia for a break. When you’re ready, of course.’

  She plonked herself down at the table and started on a bhaji, as the others drifted over.

  ‘We’re actually waiting for one more,’ Meera called just as the buzzer sounded. ‘There he is now.’ She pranced out to the hall and returned a moment later with a dazed-looking Sam.

  ‘Gah.’ Ali was mortified to realise that the weird little noise she heard had in fact escaped her own mouth. Her cheeks burned as Meera introduced Sam to Nella and James and lastly to Mini. ‘Now, you two will have loads to talk about, I’m sure.’ She winked and flitted away apparently unaware or unfazed by having just lobbed a grenade into the middle of the dinner party.

  ‘Haha.’ Mini laughed gamely. ‘If this is a set-up for me, no offence, Sam, was it? But it’s probably a bit soon, Meera.’

  ‘Oh God.’ Sam gulped audibly.

  ‘No, no.’ Meera clapped her hands, giggling and rushing over to Sam. Even in her state of shock, Ali couldn’t help but grin. He looked shit scared at the approaching barely fettered breasts. ‘Sam is the father of Ali’s baby. I invited him because I think it is so crucial for a baby to feel a part of a family unit as early as possible and I know things have been tense between you and Ali but you need to get past this and put the hurt behind you.’ She took Sam’s and Ali’s hands and Ali held her breath. He wasn’t storming off, at least. Please stay, she willed.

  ‘Thanks, Meera.’ Sam shifted uncomfortably and Ali snuck a glance at his face. His cheeks were flushed and his hair tousled. Still so, so cute.

  ‘Did he know I was going to be here?’ Ali asked.

  ‘I knew,’ Sam whispered.

  ‘How did she find you?’ Ali looked disturbed at the long arm of Meera infiltrating this remote area of her life.

  ‘LinkedIn,’ he muttered back. ‘Nowhere is safe.’

  ‘Great,’ Nella interjected. ‘Can we eat now? I’m starving, this one’s sucking the tit off me ten hours a day.’ She indicated Aziz, who was holding said tit with both hands and guzzling like a tiny man downing a flagon of beer.

  ‘They’re having a moment, Nel, fuck’s sake,’ Liv hissed.

  ‘We’re not having a moment,’ Sam blurted. ‘I’m just holding your mum’s hand! Out of politeness, like. I don’t want to be.’

  Ali burst out laughing. Hadn’t seen him in weeks and two minutes back in his presence she could already feel how much she missed him.

  Mini was looking at Sam with open curiosity.

  ‘You’re very tall. My husband was very tall, and I really wasn’t able for his very long baby.’

  Silence followed this strange pronouncement before James rescued everyone.

  ‘Sam is tall. Long babies are tough. Let’s eat!’

  Throughout the meal, Ali was bombarded by thoughts clamouring for her attention. On the one side, Sam was there. He came! He barely answered her text messages these days, but he came to this weird dinner party. He wasn’t exactly looking at her with affection; he wasn’t looking at her full stop. But still, he was suffering the slightly awkward boobfest at the dinner table. And she swore she saw his eyes widen when he spotted the tiny bump that was starting to pop under her Spice Girls tee shirt. Sam was an emoter and she was certain he wouldn’t be able to maintain this cold front for much longer.

  Across from Ali, meanwhile, Nella was in full flow about the daily torture of motherhood. Not exactly the most soothing thing to hear as the baby bounced in her belly. Nella was on full whinge-binge about how hard everything was with kids and it was starting to feel like exposure therapy to Ali – she’d seen a Netflix doc all about how they exposed people to their phobias to cure them, but more often than not it was even more traumatic. She could HARD relate.

  ‘It’s not the constant demands,’ Nella went on, completely ignoring Anish looking glum at the far end of the table. ‘It’s just the whole talk, talk, talking. I swear Anish hasn’t paused for a breath since he turned five. And I wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t such mindless stuff! And it’s not like they’re making memories. He won’t remember if I’m hanging on his every word or not.’

  Oh God, the poor kid. Ali cringed. Someone shut her up, she willed.

  ‘I always remember my mum listening,’ Sam said quietly. ‘She’d stop whatever she was doing and sit down on the floor to be at my level and she always seemed so into whatever I was thinking about at the time. Space or dinosaurs or whatever.’

  ‘Well, no offence, Sam, but they were different times. Your mum probably didn’t have to work, and women had so much more support back then,’ Nella snapped.

  Ali could see Sam open his mouth then close it again, obviously debating whether to correct her. When he looked away and shrugged, Ali decided to do it for him.

  ‘Actually, Sam’s mum was a nurse and she didn’t have Sam’s dad around, Nella.’

  ‘Oh, Sam, that’s so hard,’ Meera swooped. ‘She must be so strong to have weathered all that. And in the nineties. Different times.’

  Oh shite. Ali hadn’t intended to throw Sam under the ‘now you have to talk about your dead mother’ bus. He glared at her and cocked an eyebrow, as if to say ‘Happy now?’ Damn. And right when she was sure they were making some kind of progress. She threw a helpless glance at Liv, who mobilised immediately.

  ‘Isn’t anyone going to ask me the Sad Single Person questions? Usually, I’d have got at least four “any romance lately?”s by now,’ she heroically cut in, throwing herself to the ‘interrogate the single person’ wolves.

  The whole table turned to Liv. Even the baby paused in his boob-chugging to look towards his aunt.

  ‘Well?’ James was eager. ‘New development to report?’

  Now put on the spot, Liv shifted uncomfortably. She clearly hadn’t thought this far ahead.

  ‘Em, I’ve been on a new app, SCISSR, which everyone is saying is way more queer-friendly. And, yeah, I might go on some dates soon. If I get matched.’

  ‘Liv. That’s hardly newsworthy.’ Nella was scathing. ‘You’re such a third-born, anything to get attention. I was talking about my real problems and you somehow feel the need to cut across with your non-existent love life—’ She was cut off by Aziz beginning to howl in her arms and Ali couldn’t help but laugh. Fair play, baby, you shut her up. Nella picked up her boob and stuffed it unceremoniously back in the baby’s mouth. He looked momentarily surprised and then resumed his rhythmic gulping.

  ‘I can’t even get my words out with these things suctioned onto me around the clock, Mummy,’ she wailed to Meera.

&
nbsp; ‘I know, sweetheart, it is so, so hard for you.’ Meera was soothing, though to Ali, Nella sounded like a brat. She was thirty-six and telling on her own kids to her mum.

  Christ, if Nella was finding it so hard, what was it going to be like for Ali?

  ‘I found my babies awakened new depths in me spiritually,’ Meera announced. ‘But every woman’s journey is different. Just as Ali’s will be.’ She smiled encouragingly at Ali and Ali sensed she was trying to communicate with her. The smile said ‘Don’t listen to my highly strung daughter. You’ll be alright.’ And Ali tried to believe it. She caught her mother’s eyes flicking over to her. They had barely spoken about the baby, though Mini kept up a constant refrain of ‘I’ll support you in any way I can.’

  In the early weeks, Ali knew what Mini meant by that was ‘I’ll support you when you get the abortion’, but as the pregnancy continued, Ali got the sense that Mini’s support did not.

  Mini clearly hadn’t anticipated ‘her support’ coming to mean ‘I’ll support you keeping this cursed child of a social media hoax.’

  ‘And how does SCISSR work, Liv? D’ya remember you scissored once, Meer? At an orgy in ’82.’ James had a look of fond remembrance and both Liv and Nella winced.

  ‘No scissor chat, please, Dad,’ Liv implored. ‘There’s actually someone I like, not on the app. A real-life person, who I’m thinking of asking out.’

  ‘That’s fab, sweets,’ Meera trilled. ‘What’s their name?’

  ‘Amy. She’s working with Ali on her Instagram things and she’s really cool. I’m going to be interviewing her for a chapter of the thesis.’

  Shite, Ali thought, spotting Sam’s reaction to the mention of Insta and the dreaded thesis. They still had so much to talk about. Everything with the pregnancy announcement was set and she’d be making her return to the Insta-fray in a matter of days. She had to get him on his own.

  After dinner and lengthy goodbyes, they all made their way out into the evening, which was balmy for May. She hung back, letting Liv and Mini go ahead to the car. Sam’s hands were dug into his pockets, and even in the navy shadows of the car park, Ali could see him stealing glances at her bump. It had finally started to pop, and she’d had to leave the top of her leather skirt open just under the swell of her belly.

  ‘You’re getting a little roundier,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Ali agreed quietly, careful not to push it. She felt that the moment was fragile. They hadn’t spoken properly in over a month, just terse WhatsApp updates, but here finally was undeniable proof that they were bound together forever. ‘I’m starting to feel it move a bit. It’s amazing.’

  ‘Wow, that must be freaky.’ He looked around awkwardly, clearly unsure of where to go with this strange interlude.

  ‘It is, seriously.’ She relaxed a little. This was good. He was talking to her. Sort of.

  ‘What did you mean when you said you were still doing Instagram stuff?’

  Well, that lasted about two seconds. Ali sighed inwardly.

  ‘I’m doing one last sponsored post. Amy Donoghue’s helping me, like Liv said. Do you remember her? You probably met her at one of the Insta events a few months ago?’

  ‘One last post? Like in a heist movie? One last job? Before you retire from your life of fakery and go straight for the rest of your days?’ Sam looked sullen.

  ‘Well, sorta yeah, but it’s going to be an honest post. I just want to set the record straight. And Amy has found a really good sponsor, who is paying major money. Money that I’ll need when the baby comes, Sam.’

  He absorbed this without comment, just scuffing his trainers on the ground and avoiding her eye. At least he’s not railing at me, she thought. She could see Liv and Mini waiting patiently, if presumably a little awkwardly, in the car and knew she needed to wrap this up.

  ‘Why don’t we meet and talk about it properly? Will you? Please, Sam, we have to find a way to at least still be friends.’ She could see immediately this wasn’t the way.

  ‘Oh, as if it’s me that’s making all of this difficult! I’m the one refusing to play along, am I?’

  ‘Sam—’ Ali tried to protest but he was off. It was as if he had just suddenly detonated.

  ‘I’m not punishing you, Ali, I’m fucking hurt. I’m completely fucking traumatised by all of this. Prime Time have actually approached me about giving an interview and I think I’m going to do it. They’re offering private counselling if I go on. People need to know about this. It’s fucked up and it could happen to someone else. I read about this girl who told her ex that they’d had a kid together and he spent years believing he had a son and paying maintenance and then it turned out she’d made the whole thing up.’

  ‘OK, that’s shitty, but I did not do that, Sam,’ Ali pleaded.

  ‘You as good as did that. You were on the way to doing that.’

  Oh God, he was on a roll now. Ali felt panicky. She couldn’t believe Prime Time were still sniffing around.

  ‘Please just don’t do Prime Time. If you do that, then this baby will always be able to see what happened and how she came about.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Ali! If this baby has a decent WiFi connection, she’ll be able to see all that. You made sure of it with your #BullshitBabyJourney posts and the bloody hundreds of hot takes you’ve inspired.’

  The sound of a car door slamming interrupted them both.

  ‘Sam, you’re angry but Ali is under a lot of pressure carrying this baby and you can’t be attacking her forever.’ Ali couldn’t believe it – Mini coming to her defence. She continued towards them speaking firmly. ‘She’s made a horrendous mistake, but you don’t know what she’s been through losing her dad like that. Grief is different for everyone and we all cope with it in our own way.’

  Sam’s expression was still stormy, but he didn’t argue. ‘OK,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll think about Prime Time. I haven’t said yes yet.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Ali said softly.

  They parted and Mini led her over to Liv’s car.

  ‘Thanks, Mini,’ Ali whispered as they hopped in. She was quietly amazed her mum had come over and supported her like that.

  ‘Well, you’ve a lot going on, pregnancy is no joke. You were like a parasite inside me, as I recall.’

  Liv giggled and Ali couldn’t help but grin too. ‘It is like being possessed or something,’ she piped up. ‘One minute I’m crying over a really affecting home insurance ad and the next I want to murder everyone and eat two chicken fillet rolls back-to-back.’

  ‘Oh pumpkin, don’t be eating chicken fillet rolls.’ Mini looked stricken at the thought.

  Sam’s headlights swung over them as he turned and sped through the gate of the car park.

  ‘God, he’s not thawing even one little bit.’ Ali started the car, and tried to relax her shoulders. She was tense and exhausted from the angst of seeing him. They dropped Mini home and Ali resumed the Crystal Doorley podcast with the sound turned low.

  ‘So many women have thanked me for being so brave and sharing my weight-loss journey, which makes it all worthwhile,’ Kate was telling Crystal. ‘With the bopo movement, many women are being shamed for wanting to be healthy and look good.’

  ‘So true,’ replied Crystal.

  ‘You can’t self-appoint as brave!’ Liv shouted at the speakers. ‘You have to wait until someone else calls you brave, Kate, and then modestly deny it!!! Considering she works in PR, she doesn’t know shit about how to present herself. And, please, no one is being shamed for conforming to narrow beauty standards. Are you really going to call in to her or can we turn this crap off?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s late.’ Ali sighed. ‘I’ll blame the foetus.’ At the next traffic lights, she tapped out a message to Kate, blaming pregnancy tiredness. ‘You were fab on Crystal’s podcast. So brave. XXX,’ she concluded the message.

  ‘Fine’ was Kate’s cold response, but Ali couldn’t get caught up in her mood right now, not with the gnawing regret in her belly over her botche
d opportunity to get Sam back on side. Plus going to CatAnon meetings was really making her analyse her triggers around Instagram more. When they were better friends, she and Kate had communicated almost exclusively in bitchy screengrabs about other girls’ Insta-posts. They didn’t bring out the best in each other.

  As they made their way toward the city, she mulled over the big picture. What were her options? If she did the Insta-post with the lie detector company, she’d be set for money for at least six months if she was smart about it. But judging by his reaction tonight, Sam would be a lost cause. She blinked to prevent the threatened tears from falling as the passing streetlights sped over the car. She realised a part of her had been certain that one way or another they would somehow work it out. That he would see her bump or see the baby hiccupping on the 22-week scan – only weeks away now – and finally put the hurt behind him. He said he was traumatised; the words landed like a blow to Ali. She’d done that. God, she had really fucked up.

  ‘Hey, don’t cry, Ali.’ Liv reached over and rubbed her arm in a consoling gesture.

  ‘Shit.’ Ali wiped her cheeks. ‘I didn’t even notice I was.’

  ‘Sam will come around, he will.’ Liv sounded reassuringly confident, but Ali felt that hoping was dangerous at this point.

  ‘Maybe I need to scrap the sponsored Insta apology post?’ Ali was trying out the idea on herself as much as Liv.

  As they turned towards the toll bridge, Ali glanced over at Liv, whose mouth was set in a firm line.

  ‘Well, I’m always pro not putting stuff on Insta,’ she said wryly.

  ‘But how will you bone Amy if she’s not around choreographing my image rehab?’ Ali attempted to lighten the mood. ‘It’s you I’ve been doing all this for. The whole thing, fake preg and real preg, anything to get you back scissoring.’

  ‘Oh gawd, shut up, no one scissors! I’m now officially unable to hear that word without thinking of my mother,’ Liv groaned.