39 Weeks (2 page)

Maybe if I turned on the tap, let it run, you know, the sound of running water’s supposed to make you want to go isn’t it?
I waited, and waited a bit more, but still nothing.

Time for drastic measures. I walk
ed
back to the kitchen, keeping my life saving sticks with me at all times, and filled a glass with water, drank it and filled it again. I sat down at the two persons only small round dining table in my kitchen. There really wasn’t room in the kitchen for a table of any description, even a small one with only two seats and you could only comfortably sit on one of the seats, the other one was so tightly squeezed in that you had to be very thin and hold your breath until you’d actually sat down
to
be able to
use
it
, but there wasn’t room in the living room either. So rather than
eat off my lap all the time
,
I’d gone for the one less cupboard and squeeze a table in the kitchen opt
ion. I sipped my glass of water
staring into space and willing myself to need the toilet.

I wondered how long it was before you started to show, before people started to notice
a bump
and your clothes all felt a bit tight. I wondered how long it was before it was too late to have an abortion. Did I want an abortion? I always thought I was dead against it, but then I always thought that if and when I got pregnant I’d be with someone, or if not
, that
at l
east it would have been planned, n
ot just some one night stand with a guy I can hardly remember and a few short weeks later there you are up the duff. I wonder why they call it up the duff, a bun in the oven well that’s easy, obvious, but up the duff
? Who or what is a duff anyway?

Two glasses of water later I can finally, thankfully, feel that little stirring something telling me I need the loo. Stick
s in hand I go back to the toilet
, and produce the smallest amount of pee possible, but nevertheless manage
somehow with the dedication of a contortionist
to splash all eight sticks. I lay them gently on the porcelain shelf
part
of the sink
behind the taps
, grab a handful of toilet paper to get the worst of the pee off my hand
s
which in my exertions I’d managed to
water along with the sticks, and pull my jeans back up. I wash my hands thoroughly and dry them on the towel, all the time watching
the test sticks
like a h
awk
for any si
gn of the tell tale dreaded
blue
lines.

By the time I’d finished drying my hands five of the god dammed stupid bloody sticks were sportin
g glow in the dark, glaring
blue
bloody lines all over the place, and when I turned over the other three they were all
dazzling me with their neon
blue
ness as well.

So that was it then. No doubts this tim
e, I was well and truly up the duff whatever it was
. True I wasn’t dying of l
eprosy or some other pestilence which I suppose is
a
good
thing
,
but
I was condemned for
the next twenty years of my life
to
being responsible for someone else
, a small helpless someone else
, waiting on them hand and foot, with no sleep, no sex, no life of my own, and no time off for good behaviour.
Oh crap!

27
th
June -
Week 4 + 1 Day

When I got to work the next morning I was one of the first in. I usually got to work early and today was no
exception. In fact given that I’d hardly
slept a wink the night before, getting to work early was an absolute necessity. If I had to spend one more minute locked up in my flat, just me, nine used pregnancy test kits, and overwhelming thoughts of
the beached whale I was about to grow into, I’d have gone stark staring mad. On reflection stark staring mad might have been easier to deal with, I mean if I was stark staring mad I wouldn’t have a clue what was going on would I
,
a
nd co
uld stop thinking about how impossible
my life was going to be from now on.

Shirley was there as usual
half heartedly pushing the vacuum cleaner around
. She’s the cleaner of the offices at Fishers. She’
s about seventy
and has been cleaning these offices for probably about
sixty of her seventy
years.
I like Shirley, she’s smart and funny
in a quaint sort of way,
and seen it all. She’s had five children, all grown up no
w of course, and three husbands. T
hree! Just goes to show you can never tell about people. She’s long since past being able to give the shabby old offices at Fishers the thorough spring clean that they so desperately need, but that would probably take an army of
younger super-fit
cleaners
a couple of weeks, and
Shi
rley’s part of the furniture,
the place
just
wouldn’t be the same
without her here every morning, so we all put up with the barest mini
mum in terms of office cleaning for her sake.

‘Hi Shirley, good week-end?’ I say dumping my bag on my desk and
trying to sound as normal as was
possible under the circumstances.

‘Yeah, I guess.’

This was a fairly typical response for Shirley
, she rarely if ever has
a good weekend. Her family of five grown
up offspring
and their assorted children, not to mention husband number three, usually had some crisis or other to contend with, and it was usually down to Shirley to sort it all out or council the unlucky victim.

‘Trouble?’

‘Well not trouble exactly but Vicky, my second eldest, her daughter Scarlet has gone and got herself pregnant. She’s fourteen for God’s sake, I mean how’s she going to cope with a baby. It’ll be my Vicky of course that has all the work, all the looking after to do and sleepless nights, I can’t see that little madam, my grand-daughter, putting herself out at all.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah it’s not good is it, I mean what was she thinking, it’s not like she doesn’t know about these things, she’s had sex ed at school and Vicky’s talked to her about . . . boys and sex and . . . all that stuff
, so you’d have thought she’d have been
a bit
more careful wouldn’t you, I mean if she had to have sex at her age why didn’t she use something. I don’t know kids today.’

‘Will she keep the baby?’

‘Oh yes, I couldn’t be party to no bortions or the
like, I mean if it comes to it, if I have to,
I’
ll look after the little b . . . brat
myself.’

I cringed at the thought of Shirley looking after a small newborn baby, I mean it really didn’t bear thinking about at her age.

‘What about the father?’

‘What about him, he’s not going to be much u
se is he, he’s only fourteen himself
, it’s not like they can get married or set up house together, they’re still both at school and taking their exams next year.
But
I spect my Vicky’ll manage somehow. D’you have a good weekend?’

Yes
I thought
,
it was brilliant
, ace, right up there with the weekend Grand-dad died
, or when I found out Mum and Dad were getting divorced
.

‘It was good, yes. Quiet but okay.’

‘Yo
u sure? Y
ou don’t look so good.’

‘No I’m
fine
, just not sleeping too well at the moment.’

‘I better get on, can’t stand around chatting all morning still got the reception to Hoover out and them Steadman’s get right tetchy if I’m still pushing the H
oover round after half
eight, case we get visitors, although who’s gonna
be
visit
ing
here
at that
time of the morning I can’t imagine.’

Shirley shuffled off dragging the ancient vacuum cleaner behind her and I took my coat off. After our conversation I couldn’t help thinking
I’m not fourteen I’m twenty eight
, and I’ve had sex
ed and the talk with my mum, not to mention quite a bit of practical experience, and
I still managed to get pregnant, how dumb am I? And I haven’t got the sort of mum who’ll just take over this baby if I can’t
manage or
be bothered, never mind a Shirley in my life
. So what am I going to do?

I need coffee, strong black coffee given my sleepless night. I pick up my wittily inscribed mug that says ‘If you can send a man to the moon why can’t you send them all’ that was my secret Santa present from last Christmas, and that ceased to be funny after about a day, and go to the kitchen. Although kitchen is probably too higher accolade for the small cupboard like room containing a sink that you shouldn’t lean on as it’s dangerously close to falling off the wall at any moment, and two mismatched and never properly re-assembled cupboards donated from someone’s discarded old kitchen
when they updated.

I put a heaped spoonful of coffee in my cup and flick
ed
the switch on the kettle. I really should finish off that spreadsheet, I promised it would be done by nine this morning, that gives me three quarters of an hour to finish it. After yesterdays revelation I just never went back to it, what with all things maternal spinning round and round the inside of my head.
But then that’s the whole problem right there in one word ‘maternal’. I’m not maternal, not at all. Never longed to have a baby with or without a partner. I sort of thought I would have children at some time, maybe, but never really thought about it seriously. Not until now that is. I mean leaving aside the practical considerations which were not insubstantial by any reckoning, could I actually do the mum thing, be someone’s mum. An image like some trailer for a new film popped in my head of me in a
conventional Laura Ashley type dress,
mid calf length and
all twee pastel
flowers
, with a pair of old fashioned leather sandals, holding a small persons hand who surprisingl
y was wearing an almost identical
dress and sandals, with white blonde hair in sickeningly cute bunches either side of her head tied up with fifties style big bow ribbons. We smiled at each other and Blondie was saying ‘I love you Mummy, you’re the bestest Mummy in the whole world’.

I shook my head to dislodge the
scary image I’
d
created
and laughed to myself
,
but it was due more to hysteria than humour. And why, I thought, was she blonde, I don’t have blonde hair and neither did Matt . . .
as far as I can remember, so what the hell was that all about.

The kettle boiled and I was about to pour boiling water into my mug when it struck me that maybe I shouldn’t be drinking strong coffee in my condition. I was naive in the extreme as to the do’s and don’ts of pregnancy and had no idea if it would do any harm to the baby, or me come to that. But then I thought well what if I hadn’t found out yesterday, then I’d still be me, the old me, and would dri
nk it without a seconds thought. T
he more I thought
maybe
I shouldn’t have coffee, the more I really needed it, craved it.
Could this be my first craving? For as much as I didn’t know anything about having a baby, I did know that you got weird cravings and maybe this was one of them, or was it just me having a cup of coffee when I got to work like always, my usual pre starting work caffeine fix.

‘Are you going to be much longer?’

‘Oh hi Martin
, sorry I was miles away.’ I said hastily making my coffee and stirring like mad before backing out of t
he cupboard kitchen to allow Martin
room
enough
to get in.

Martin
Steepen
,
the other management accountant
but
for the wrapping paper side of Fishers
,
has been working here even longer than I have. He’s your stereotype accountant, nice enough bloke but not exactly what you’d call macho, or fanciable in any way. In fact it’s a wonder to me and most of the other girls here, how he managed to get married at all. But married he is with three children, and his wife Carol-Ann seems normal enough, vaguely attractive and not
a complete idiot, so I suppose
he must have
something going for him.

Now that everyone was starting to arrive for work it was beginning to feel a bit more like a normal working day, and I carried my potentially injurious
mug of
coffee back to my desk and got stuck into finishing of
f the sales figures spreadsheet, all thoughts pertaining to babies conveniently shelved for the time being.