39 Weeks (25 page)

I untied the plastic bag from my foot, which was harder than it had been tying it up, partly because I was stressing so much, but mostly because it was still damp from the shower. Then I got dressed
, grabbed my crutch again,
and took a deep breath before facing my mother and the grilling I knew I was going to get.

‘So
how do you like the flat?’ I said trying to divert my mother from the inevitable for as long as possible.

‘It seems very . . what colour would you call this terracotta, peach?’

‘Yeah it is a bit peachy, and I’m going to paint it all a different colour just as soon as I can, although I’m not sure how soon that’ll be now.’ I said looking pointedly at my foot. ‘But what do you think, apart from the colour?’

‘Yes it’s very nice Dear.’ Wow this was a bit of a breakthrough. My mother actually
thinking something I owned was nice. Well not that I owned it of course I was paying rent, but still it was something I’d chosen and organised, and that she approved of.

‘So tell me about . . .’

‘You never told me why you’re here, is everything alright? How did you even know I’d be here I should be at work?’
I said interrupting her before she could ask me about Rob.

‘I phoned you at work, well I tried but of course you weren’t there, and they told me you were off, that you’d had some kind of accident.’

‘Oh.’

‘But you seem alright, I sort of knew it couldn’t be too serious if you were at home, and not in the hospital. So what happened, I see you’ve hurt your foot.’

‘Yes someone ran over it with their car.’

‘I suppose you weren’t looking where you were going.’ I’d have bet a million pounds she was going to say something like that, it was too much to hope that I’d manage to get two things right
on the same day
, the flat and my innocence in the accident. Although if I’
m
honest I was
thinking about other things a
nd that is partly why there had been
an accident. Damn
my mother,
since yesterday evening when it
had
happened
I’d been smugly avoiding the fact that it was to a certain extent my fault. Did she always have to be so right?

‘It was an accident, no one’s fault, just one of those things. And no it’s not broken and yes it does hurt but I’m alright, thanks for asking.’

‘Well I’m glad it’s not broken, and that you’re alright of course. So tell me about Rob, what did he say when you told him?’

Okay this was it. Time for the truth. It was now or never.

‘Oh he was pleased, really happy.’ Or sometime in the future maybe.

‘Of course he was, what man wouldn’t be happy to find out the woman he loves is having his baby. He does still love you doesn’t he, after all he has been away an awfully long time?’

‘Yes, still loves me
.’ I said. By rights my nose shou
ld have been about a foot long
at this point.

‘And where was it you said he’d been?’

‘Um . . I thought I’d told you.’ I prevaricated trying to buy time while I desperately tried to think of a suitable abroad type place that Rob could have been working.

‘No I don’t think you did.’

‘Bangkok, he’s been working in Bangkok.’ What! What on earth had made me say that. I don’t know anything about Bangkok except that it’s got a decidedly foreign, abroad sounding name.

‘Bangkok, and he’s been taking pictures
there
?’

‘Yes for a magazine.’

‘Oh which one, when will it be published I’ll buy it. Wouldn’t that be something
,
a magazine with my son-in-law’s pictures in.’

Oh crap. How the hell should I know which magazine is likely to have pictures of bloody Bangkok in for God’s sake? And what’s with the son-in-law reference, wasn’t she getting just a bit ahea
d of herself even if this hadn’t
all
been
a sack of lies.

‘Mum, I already explained that we’re not getting married so he’s not going to be your son-in-law.’

‘Yes I know you said
that
, but you’re having his baby aren’
t you? O
f course he’s going to want to get married.’

‘Why?
I don’t.’

‘Yes you do, I know you’re just trying to put a brave face on it because he hasn’t asked you yet, but he will I’m sure. It probably just hasn’t occurred to him yet
what with the shock of finding out about the baby.’

‘Mum, please listen to me we’re not getting married, not anytime soon, maybe not ever.’

‘So what does this freelance stu
ff pay, is it good money? After all
he’s going to have a wife and baby to support soon, maybe he ought to get a real job.’

I give up. It’s pointless trying to talk to my mother. Sometimes I think she’s got a whole different conversation going on in her head than the one that’s actually taking place. I spent the next half hour just agreeing with her, no matter what she said, it was just easier that way.

On the plus side this visit meant that I wouldn’t be getting another one for a while, at least I hoped not. And there was always the chance that Rob will have found himself a place, or at least be working away the next time she decides to descend on me. Or another possibility, I could have organised my emigration papers by then and left the country
. Maybe I’ll go to Bangkok.

13
th
October - Week 19 + 4
Days

Mum had only stayed for a while, once she’d sucked out of me all the information she needed about Rob, mostly made up of course but she didn’t know that, and
after she’d
assured herself I was alright, she went home. I determined yet again that next time I saw her I’d have to think of a reason, and it’d have to be a good one, why Rob and I had broken up. If only he would find himself a flat and not be living downstairs it would make it all so much easier. I could only hope.

James
had phoned me that
evening and I told him about my foot
. He was all concern and I thought he would rush over to make sure I was alright, but he didn’t. He did say he’d come over tonight though. I wasn’t going to tell him it was Rob that had run over my foot, after his reaction when he’d found Rob here that day with all of Marsha’s baby stuff I thought it better not to mention it, but somehow it slipped out. He went from Mother Theresa to The Hulk in about ten seconds, saying he knew it, and when I asked him what he knew he snorted and m
umbled something about knowing R
ob was going to be trouble and was an arse
, well he didn’t actually say arse, the word he used was much more colourful but arse is what it amounts to.

This morning, bright and early, Rob helped me downstairs and took me to work.
It was an uncomfortable journey
to say the least
, and not just because of my foot
. We both carefully avoided the whole subjec
t of him being Marsha’s brother
and my thinking he was her husband, and stuck to how I was feeling, the weather, and what time he should pick me up. It was all so polite and awkward I was already dreading the return journey even before I’d got out of the car, never mind a repeat performance twice a day for the next couple of weeks.
I mean what else was there to talk about, and how many times could you ask someone how they were feeling, or whether
they thought
it was going to rain or not.

Work was okay thou
gh. It was quite a relief
to be surrounded by normal
boring work
stuff and not to have to
think about what an idiot I’d been
, or what to tell my Mum, or if I was having twins. Of course
it was only to be expected that
I
’d have
th
e Mickey taken out of me
,
and I wasn’t disappointed. Comments like ‘mind your step’ and ‘best foot forward’ were rife,
and callin
g me ‘Hop-along’ or ‘Jake’ and
laughing at my clumsiness with the dratted crutch became the norm. Course everyone thought they were being so original and so hilarious while they killed themselves laughing at my expense, and I did too . . at first, but by mid-morning when I’d already heard every possible joke there was, it began to grate a bit, and besides that my foot
was
really
still quite painful.

When everyone wasn’t busy being soooo funny, they were all concern, it was either or. Shirley clucked and fussed like a mother hen
of course
, and even Martin felt a twang of
sympathy, who knew he was capable, he even made me a cup of tea, something he’s never done in all the time I’ve worked at Fisher’s
, it felt like I’d entered the twilight zone, and then he got all embarrassed at his own sense of compassion and promptly went back to being his more normal
chauvinist
self.
  

Despite all this carry on, which on any other day would have been distracting enough to prevent me noticing
even if a bomb had
been
dropped, I was stressed.
Apart from all the other stuff I had to worry about the thing uppermost in my mind was my scan next week. The scan. The one that would decide whether my life would be terrible
from now on,
or double terrible.

The only person who knew about the twin thing was Shelley, so when Martin went to lunch I closed our cubby hole office door and phoned her. I had to
tell her about the accident and
update her with the
situation with Rob anyway, although come to think of it Nick must have known Rob wasn’t married so why hadn’t he said something? And I really needed someone I could talk to, I mean properly, and not
be
some fake
best behaviour
version of myself.

As expected she was all concern about the accident, then when it was clear I wasn’t seriously injured she laughed at my predicament and having to hobble around using a crutch.
Then I told her about the situation with Rob.

‘And all this time you thought he was married?’

‘Yes I thought I’d told you, I’m sure I told you.’

‘No. You said a
guy called
Rob lived downstairs, you didn’t say
it was
the Rob.’

‘Oh.’ Well that’ll be why Nick hadn’t said anything then. If only I’d told Shelley what was going on from the beginning, Nick could have put me straight and I could have saved myself a whole heap of
mortification.

I hadn’t told her about my big fat lie to my mother, that would have
been
to
o
embarrassing even to tell
my best friend, so I didn’t mention Mum’s impromptu visit
either
. It seemed to me my life was just one big round of embarrassment. There was the situation with Rob, there was becoming the walking wounded because he’d run over my foot with his car, there was being ‘friends’ with my baby’s uncle and him wanting to up the stakes and be more than just friends, and last but not least my ever increasing stomach.
   

‘So how are you
feeling
about living above this Rob that you liked so much?’

‘I’m . . dying actually. I did like him and now I can’t even look him in the eye. I feel so stupid. And to top it all off he probably thinks not only am I a prize moron for getting it all so wrong, but I’m a pregnant moron that was probably trying to have a last fling
that night
before all the pregnant stuff became too obvious.
’

‘Yeah I can see how he’d think that, good job I dragged you away when I did. I bet he thinks James is the daddy.’

‘Probably.’

‘You’ll just have to grin and bear it for a couple of weeks until you can drive again. I don’t see what else you can do, unless you cab it back and forth to work.’

‘I would but it’d cost a fortune.’

‘What about one of the other people at work, can’t one of them give you a lift?’

‘Maybe. I’ll ask around, I’m not sure who lives that way. But the reason I phoned, the real reason, was that I’m so worried about all this twin stuff. I haven’t told anyone else it’s even a possibility. What am I going to do if it turns out I am having . .’

‘Look I know it’s
a possibility
, but didn’
t you say the doctor
said he didn’t think you were
?’

‘Yes but . .’

‘Well there you are then.’

‘Yeah I know, but what if he’s wrong?’

‘Judy there’s nothing you can do about
it,
worrying isn’t going to make one of the baby’s disappear is it? If you are you are.’