39 Weeks (45 page)

She
didn’t stay long, which I was grateful for, as she’d arranged to meet her sister, my Aunty Mag who was widowed since Uncle John had died four years ago, and they were going to an eighties night at the community centre, some do in aid of
Save The Children or something. She
was still a bit put out at the thought of Dad going out with Stella Frankham, or ‘that woman’ as Mum referred to her as, but she wasn’t so much wounded as . . determined
I think would best
describe it.
I got the feeling she was out to prove
to him what a mistake he’d made, and
was
maybe
even trying to make him a bit jealous, as tonight’s outing, so I gathered, was all about who she and Aunty Mag might meet there. This was a huge turning point for my Mum. She’d played the put upon, hard done by, mistreated wife, ever since hers and Dads divorce, in fact even before that. But now I saw a glimpse of how she must have been when Dad first met her.
It was quite a revelation
to me
I can tell you.
But like I said I was in my numb zone most of the time, and other peoples problems, even my mum or my best friends, seemed
to me to be
superficial and trite.

At work I’d
agreed to six months maternity leave, but Ted said that could be extended for a bit longer if I needed it
to be
,
as long as I let them know
. It was hard to gauge, I mean six months sounded like a long time but it would be another five or six weeks before Ella had even arrived so that left me with four or five months to get used to being a mum and arranging to leave Ella with someone else, and I had absolutely no idea
how I would manage or
if i
t would be long enough.

My temporary replacement had been found, it was Jack
,
the
Clark Kent version of the
would-be Superman
,
or so he’d like to think
. H
e’d already taken and passed a few of his exams and was looking forward to the chance to prove himself doing my job while I was away. I was glad Jack had been given this chance, but I can’t say I wasn’t worried about it as well, I mean he might turn out to be better at it than I was, and then they wouldn’t want me back at all, in six months or ever come to that. I tried not to think about it too much.
  
 
 

At three o’clock I was summoned by Martin to the main larger office, and I knew what was coming. It was my official leaving presentation. Fisher’s being what it was and
your
atypical hotbed of gossip, I already knew, well had surmised, that I’d be given vouchers. I mean it wasn’t
that
hard to work out, it’s what they always did when someone left, the only thing that varied was
where the vouchers would be for.
I guessed m
ine would most probably be for Mothercare.

‘Ahem.’ Grahame fake coughed to get everyone’s attention. They were all ranged round
in
a small circle sitting on the edge of desks or just standing, while I
,
given my delicate state had been guided towards a chair, set there for the purpose, at one side of the circle next to Doreen.

I looked round at all the smiling faces, well some looked bored like I usually was at these things, but mostly they were all smiling. Everyone was there, all my finance office colleagues of course, but even the guys from the drawing office and the people from sa
les, even Jackie from reception was
there,
and even both the Steadman brothers. Wow I had no idea I merited this sort of send off.

‘Ahem.’ Grahame fake coughed again but a bit louder this time. Good old Grahame as ineffectual as ever. I was sort of going to miss his bumbling awkwardness. After a minute or two everyone quietened down so Grahame could get past his opening ahems. ‘Well we all know why we’re here don’t we,’ he
said,
a
nd
one of the drawing office guys said ‘Yes cos you told us we had to be’

‘Yes thank you Ronnie. We’re here to say goodbye to Judy.’ Grahame said and Martin whispered something in his ear.
Graham nodded and continued
‘Yes, well that is to say it’s a temporary goodbye to Judy, because if you haven’t guessed yet our Judy is having a baby.’ This was Grahame’s idea of a joke, and everyone laughed politely.
‘She’s been here for seven years and we’ve all watched her rising through the ranks . .’

Oh my God
he was full of crap, rising through the ranks! What ranks? Yeah maybe I wouldn’t miss him that much.

He waffled on for about ten minutes that felt more like ten hours, about how wonderful I was, and how wonderful having a baby was, and how they were all going to miss me, and I should be sure and come back to visit
after
the baby had been
born, and yawningly on and on until everyone’s smile looked more plastic than real. But I suppose he meant well.

Then Doreen and Jack nipped into Grahame’s office and came back with a huge bunch of flowers,
a wrapped present, and a couple of cards one much larger than the other.

The flowers were all pink, in reference to the fact I was having a girl baby I assumed, and were standing, if that’s the right word, in that plastic wrap that holds water, and that you’re sure will leak if you don’t be real careful about how you hold them or where you put them down. But they were beautiful.

The larger card was predictably signed by everyone, and even had a sheet of paper inserted with more signatures on because they’d run out of room on the actual card itself. After a brief glance it looked like everyone had something quipy
to say, and whoever had organised it, Doreen I’m guessing, had been round the factory as well. There were so many good wishes, and good luck’s, I could feel myself welling up.

The other card was the Mothercare vouchers I’d been expecting and was for two hundred and fifty pounds. I was gob-smacked. I mean even given that Doreen had been round the factory, two hundred and fifty pounds was . . well gob-smacking.

I moved on to the present
, by now I was more than welling up, I’d welled up and over, and Doreen passed me a handful of tissues to mop myself up while everyone else smiled indulgently and waited for me to get my emotions under control.
The present was an ornament, but not just any old ornament that you’d probably hide away unless the giver was visiting,
this was porcelain or some such
and depicted a fairy, of the Victorian persuasion, standing over a crib complete with small angelic baby inside. I loved it on sight. Then Doreen leaned over and turned it upside down where a small winding device was hidden. She wound it up and turned it right side up again. It was a music box. Well not a box but you know what I mean, and the fairy and the crib revolved while the music played. I loved it even more and knew it would have pride of place in Ella’s room.

Course I started crying again, I mean who wouldn’t. But now I was expected to say something. More tissues were produced, and I somehow mumbled my thanks to everyone. I so wasn’t expecting this, or that I’
d get so emotional about it all. C
ould have been all the hormones I suppose, but I knew it wasn’t. It was leaving my hard earned, studied long hours for job, and
all the friends I’d made
over the last seven years.

E
veryone offered their congratulations and best wishes before wandering back to their desks, and Doreen helped me carry the flowers back to my office.
Then Norman came in and shook my hand. Oh my God he shook my hand. ‘Make sure you come back’ he said. ‘We need you’ he said. Oh
.
my
.
god!

After he’d gone Doreen asked if I wanted a cup of tea, and I so did. So she disappeared, and Martin was busy rattling on to Grahame next door about something or other, probably X Factor knowing him, which left me on my own for a few minutes.

I thought back to the day I’d first started at Fishers and how I was a bit overawed by the fact that here I was doing
real accounts in a real office, and how it wasn’t quite what I’d been expecting
because
everything was so scruffy and disorganised. I smiled to myself remembering that I’d planned on only
staying six months at the most
,
and
back then
had visions of working in some plush, glass everywhere, building, with me in
a
desig
ner suit
and looking all Legally Blonde or some such rubbish
, you know still really attractive and cute b
ut officey all at the same time
. That was before reality kicked in and I stopped day-dreaming. I guess I’d done a lot of my adult growing up here
, and now I was leaving, only temporarily I know but still leaving, and things were never going to be quite the same were they?

Doreen came back with my tea, and one for herself, an
d we chewed the fat as they say
for a while, mostly talking about old times and some of the
people who’d been and gone
during our time. Then she got a bit choked up, and that sort of started me off again. But she
pulled herself together and told me
I’d better get going, which was true. Never thought
that would happen, that
I’d hav
e to be nudged into going home
.

She helped me load up my car, not just with my flowers and the fairy ornament, but
over the last seven years
I’d
collected all sorts of bits and pieces of stuff, you know
a
tea mug
or two
, several stupid little jokey ornament things, an overgrown half dead begonia pot plant,
a
bright pink pencil pot, last year’s page-a-day ‘Women’s Wisdom’ calendar, that sort of thing,
and it was only fair that I got it
all
out of the way before Jack moved into my office
on Monday. On Monday. This
would be
the first month-
end I was going to
miss for seven years, how weird. But hey this whole day had been weird.

7
th
February – Week
36 +2
Day
s

The
first Monday
when
I didn’t go into work I felt odd and out of place. I’d sort of persuaded myself all weekend how great it would be not having to get up
early in the morning
, and being able to do . . well whatever I wanted all day. ‘Brilliant’ I said to myself. But it wasn’t brilliant at all.

I still got up early even though I didn’t have to
,
and then
mooched about the flat for the whole day and spent most of the time thinking about what they’d be doing at work. It was so stupid, I mean if I’d just had a day off, or even a week
,
I wouldn’t have given a seconds thought
as
to what they were or weren’t doing at work while I was away. But as it was and knowing
I wasn’t going back for at least the next six months and
that everything
was still carrying on without me, I felt left out. No make that shut out. Like I said stupid or what?

The other thing about that first Monday, and for a few days after that as well, was that the day was so long. When I’d been at work the days
seemed to
sp
e
ed by so quickly
that it was the weekend again before I knew it, and at month end it often felt like there just weren’t enough hours in the day. But now the day just dragged on and on and I had nothing special to do except think. And I did. I thought about work, I thought about Ella
,
I thought about giving birth
, although I tried not to think about that too much, and I
thought about Rob and wondered
what he was doing, or where he was, and if he’d met someone else already.
All in all it was not good.

James had been round a couple of times and tried to cheer me up, and he sort of succeeded, but as soon as he’d gone again I went back to being fed up and feeling alone, I mean I was alone of course but I was really feeling it since I’d given up work and had all this time on my hands.

I’d been for another pre-natal and everything was progressing nicely, so Mary Poppins
had
said
primly, and she kept saying the baby had ‘dropped’, which I couldn’t figure out at all at first. I
thought no it hasn’t it’s still
there inside me
exactly
where
it
’s always been
you moron
. But then she said it was getting ready to engage which
uninitiated as I was in the world of producing babies,
sounded quite bizarre to me. I nodded knowledgeably as if I had even the slightest clue what she was going on about, and looked it up as soon as I got back home
in my
baby bibles
that had been gathering dust
at the bottom of my
wardrobe for the last couple of months
.