39 Weeks (11 page)

The partition
was to be the walls of mine and Martin and Grahame’s new office. When I
got past Doreen’s understandable frustration and rant
and went to have a nose
, I looked at the space they were creating. Miniscule was my first thought. How the hell they thought they’
d fit three desks into the tiny space
I had
no idea, maybe Norman had changed his mind about the three of us sharing an office. It turned out he had. There were now to be two offices, one for me and Martin, and one, all
to himself, for Grahame. Probably
after the office plan leaking e-mail debacle he
’d
decided Gr
ahame would be saf
er on his own, which he undoubtedly
would.

I got myself a cup of tea and prepared to catch up on the missed mornings work, trying not to think about prenatal checkups or scans.
It was a bit of a lost cause on both counts. I worried about the scan, not quite sure what to expect, and more seriously I worried about the blood test. This I knew about, at least I knew w
hat happened
,
so it wasn’t
so much
worrying about the unknown
it was the
known that was bothering me, the
whole sticking a needle in your arm and drawing out some of my blood. Yuk and Ow being my most predominant thoughts. As for work, that was pretty much out of the question what with the hammering and drilling going on, and
all
the pandemonium it was causing.

Shell phoned for a chat
as she was bored and Katherine was giving her a hard time again,
but it was so noisy I co
uldn’t hear what she was saying so
I decided to have
an early lunch
. Even though I’d been at the doctors most of the morning so hadn’t arrived until
gone
eleven, it was near impossible to try and work in the chaos so I didn’t, try that is, and went to lunch at twelve. I phoned Shell back as soon as I was outside and away from the bedlam.

‘So,’ I said. ‘What’s the story with you and Nick? Thought you were going to phone me back last week.’

‘Yeah sorry about that, but he stayed over, and I . . .’

‘He’s not still there is he?’

‘No, don’t be stupid he went home on Wednesday but . . ‘

‘He came back again.’

‘Yes. How did you know?’

‘Just a wild guess. So?’

‘So I think I’m in love Judy.’ Shell
ey
said all smitten and gooey.

‘With Nick.’

‘Well of course with Nick, that’s who we’re talking about isn’t it?’

‘Just checking. And is he in love
too
?’

‘Mm
think so, he hasn’t said it b
ut I mean we’ve been seeing each other nearly every night
,
and when we
don’t he phones
,
and he’s just so . . .’

‘Yep, sounds like you’ve got the bug alright.’

‘Oh Judy.’ She sighed.

‘That’s great.’ I said hoping my lack of enthusiasm wasn’t too obvious. My mind wandered to the taboo subject of Rob, and lingered
there
for a while before I had command of it and forced him back into the nether regions of my head where he was supposed to be staying.

Then a
nother
thought occurred to me. What if Shelley had told Nick about me and my being pregnant. Nick would tell Rob wouldn’t he?
It was totally irrational of course but I couldn’t bear the thought that Rob would know. I mean I was never going to see him again anyway so what did it really matter, but I hated the idea that he would think what a lucky escape he’d had, I wanted him to remember me with regret, and maybe a bit of longing in there as well.

‘Have you told . . him . . about . . I mean have you talked about . .’ I lingered over the question hesitantly.

‘Told him about what?’

‘About me . . being pregnant.’

‘Well he did wonder why we’d left so early that night at Zee Zee’s.’

‘And?’

‘And I had to say something.’

‘So you told him.’ I said aghast.

‘Well yeah. It doesn’t matter does it, I mean he doesn’t exactly know you does he, it
’
s not like he’s going to tell
. . any . . one.’ Shelley said finally jumping on the same train of thought I was on. ‘You didn’t want Rob to know did you? Sorry Judy, I just didn’t think. Are you mad at me?’

‘No
,
I don’t suppose it matters. Not really.’

‘No
not really. Sorry
though
. But
what do you think, about Nick and me?’

‘Yeah it’s great, let’s hope he doesn’t mess it up.’ I said still deflated.

‘I’ve got a feeling
that . . . no I won’t say it I don’t want to jinx it.’

‘I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you. Look Shell I better go, I’m on my lunch hour and I haven’t eaten yet.’

‘Okay, well we’ll meet up soon, I could come to yours or you could come to mine, either is fine.’

‘Yeah I’ll call you.’

‘Okay, sorry again about the telling Nick thing. See you soon, bye.’

I hung up and lingered in the car park, too ticked off to go back
in
to work, or to get some lunch, I couldn’t face eating after the morning I’d had. I knew I’d pay for it later, because if I didn’t eat properly now I’d be hungry by the time I left work tonight
,
and then
I’d be back on the spewing time-
table again. But
after the emotional roller coaster of prenatal checkups, and new offices, and now Rob, my Rob as I was coming to think of him . . deluded or what,
finding out I was pregnant,
I just couldn’t face the thought of food.

I wandered back inside deciding on a cup of tea to tide me over. On my way past reception I saw the builders working on the partitions for the new
downstairs
sales office. Well when I say working I use the term loosely, two of them were watching a third who was deep in thought about what nail to use or something of the sort. It was pretty m
uch your atypical British workmen, or should that be non-workme
n.

As my foot hit the bottom step to go upstairs I heard a vaguely familiar voice that stopped me in my tracks. ‘It was a tragedy, anyo
ne could have scored from there
.’ The voice was saying.

‘Yeah but two nil.’ An unfamiliar voice answered.

‘They should have sold off Peterson when they had the chance, he’s rubbish. My kid sister could play better than him.’
The familiar voice said knowledgably.

I had to see if the voice belonged to the person I thought it did. Very slowly I back tracked to reception and lingered at the pigeon holes where
Jackie sorted the post each morning, surreptitiously watching the builders who all had their backs to me. Eventually the owner of the familiar voi
ce turned round. As I’d feared i
t was Matt the twonk.

Oh crap. Double damm and crap. Why? Of all the people I least wanted to see
at this moment, or even ever,
he was
definitely top of my
list. I backed further into the corner intently studying a letter in the finance pigeon hole, trying to look as if I hadn’t noticed any building work going on at all.

Lost in my horror-struck reverie as I was, I
missed
the threesome down tools and walk past me on their way out
, still animatedly dissecting some recent football match and totally oblivious to me.
I watched t
hem
as they
walk
ed
away from the building.
Matt
looked the same as I remembered. Still good looking in an obvious sort of way, still giving it large although of course this time it wasn’t for my benefit, and still a complete twonk.

Whatever had I been thinking that night, that long ago night when all that was on my mind was ‘why the hell not’. I could give you several hundred reasons now why the hell not, but at the time it didn’t seem
like such a big deal. Huh, how wrong can you be,
it was
definitely
a big deal now alright.

So should I acknowledge that I knew him, talk to him
? Or even more scary thought actually tell him? A definite NO screamed its way through my head to the telling him part, but should I even talk to him? A more quiet no whispered to me as I shied away from the idea. But what if he recognised me? I quickly decided that the chances of him recognising me where slim to none, him being such a rat-bag and all by nature, and the whole affair if you could call it that, happening so many weeks ago and given his penchant for seeing a different girl every night as I was pretty sure was the case, he was hardly likely to remember any of them except maybe last nights, or maybe not even then, so he probably wouldn’t remember me.

‘You alright Judy?’ Jackie said coming back from a quick visit to the loo
to her usual post behind the reception desk
and finding me hiding in the corner.

‘What? . . . Oh yes I’m fine, just looking for an invoice Carters said they faxed over.’ I burbled, saying the first thing that came into my head.

‘I’ll keep an eye out for it,’
Jackie said eying me suspiciously.

I ignored her scepticism and went back upstairs. The afternoon dragged on, I didn’t work but then no-one did much
,
what with all the building work going on.
Then a
s if I didn’t have enough problems at the moment Gill
decided to linger
at my desk on route to the kitchen to update me on her and
new
hubby’s house
hunting
.

‘We think we might have found the
perfect
house,
we saw it on
Saturday and it seemed just perfect, we would have put an offer in there and then but you can’t let them know you’re too keen can you, I mean they’re more likely to drop the price if they think you’re not bothered. It’s four bedrooms and the kitchen’s massive. Maybe we’ll get an Arga that would really be something, I mean it would easily fit and there’s something about having a country house, you have to have an Arga
in the kitchen
don’t you
, it all sort of goes together doesn’t it
?
’

She waffled on about the views, and the size of the garden and many other
,
to my mind
,
totally forgettable features that she suddenly couldn’t live without, while I just nodded and ooh’d and aah’d in what I hoped were all the right places
,
all the time wanting to scream at her ‘I don’t care’, but of course I didn’t. Eventually she ran out of things to say about the ‘dream’ house and went to get her coffee.

I tried for the rest of the afternoon to keep a low profile, I just couldn’t be bothered talking to anyone. I avoided going downstairs to the loo just in case I ran into
the twonk
, and kept my fingers crossed that he wouldn’t come upstairs
, which thankfully he didn’t. By five o’clock I was emotionally exhausted and dying to pee. Thank God that by the time I left the building the builders had long gone and I could escape as it were undetected.

1
st
September – W
eek
13 + 4
Days

This morning I’m
due at the hospital for the
scan appointment. I’d read up on it in my baby bibles, and between them and the
information in the
letter from the hospital telling me when my appointment was, I was as prepared as I was ever going to be.

Shelley had offered to come with me and metaphorically hold my hand, for which I was ridiculously
grateful
, as the alternative was either going on my own, or with my know-it-all mother who wouldn’t be able to contain herself and would probably bomb
ard me with questions about Rob that I wasn’t in the least prepared to answer. She wasn’t due for the next state visit for another two weeks so that gave me a fortnight to come up with some genius plan to get Rob out of the picture
I’d painted for her
. So far the only not so genius thing I’d come
up with, when we’d spoken
on the phone, was that he wasn’t back yet
,
thereby neatly putting off having to embellish any further.

All the information I’d garnered
about the scan
had said it was better if I had a full bladder, apparently they got a better pict
ure that way, which ludicrously made me think of it like a holiday snap, you know like someone asking where the baby had spent the summer and the answer would be ‘I
stayed in
W
omb for my hols’. Anyway, I’d peed first thing this morning but had stoically resisted all subsequent calls of nature, with the result that by the time I left for the hospital I
was already busting for the loo
.