Babies in Waiting (8 page)

Somehow, I made it to the end of the work day. It was an odd feeling . . . I’d never not wanted to go home before. I’d always been eager to leave and get back to our little house and see James. I dragged my heels polishing and rewriting a short and very simple press release, packing up my things, visiting the loo one last time. By the time I got in the lift, it was twenty minutes later than I would usually have left.

When I got downstairs, I was about to turn left and head for the Tube when I spotted James sitting on the wall opposite our office front door. He was holding the most enormous bunch of flowers.

He stood up and walked hesitantly towards me. ‘I was an idiot, Toni. I’m sorry. I never thought I’d be the kind of bloke who had to buy flowers to say sorry for being an idiot. But I am. Will you take the flowers? And my apology? Please?’

What could you say to that? I took the flowers, and slotted into my place, tucked under his right arm, and we walked to the Tube together.

Once we got back home, he was Mr Caring. He made me sit on the sofa and brought me a cup of tea. Then he sat on the coffee table and held both of my hands.

‘What can I do?’

‘What do you mean, what can you do?’

‘I’ll be honest, Tones, I’m completely freaked out. I just wasn’t expecting this to happen so . . . fast.’

‘Me neither.’

‘And maybe I’d be able to get my head around it better if I had stuff to do.’

‘Well, there’s nothing to do yet . . . I suppose I should go and see the doctor, make sure everything’s all right . . . work out when this baby will be born.’ I could have sworn I saw the colour drain out of his face. ‘That’s what it is, James. A baby. If nothing goes wrong, in nine months or so we’re going to have a baby. Get used to it.’

‘I know . . . it’s just . . .’ I could see him thinking whether he should say what he was going to say. He decided to go for it. I wish he hadn’t. ‘Well, I expected to have more than nine months of my life left.’

‘Of your
life
? It’s not a death sentence.’

‘I know. But everything about our lives is going to change. I just wasn’t prepared—’

‘
You
weren’t prepared? I’m the one who’s going to blow up like a balloon. I’m the one who’s going to have to give birth. And I’m pretty sure it won’t be you taking a year out of your career to look after it!’

I tried to get up and walk away but he caught hold of my hands again.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I keep saying the wrong thing. Please forgive me.’ He rested his head on our joined hands and sighed. I sighed and stroked his hair. ‘This is ridiculous, James. We can’t spend the next nine months in a cycle of you saying something awful and then me getting upset and then you begging for forgiveness. For one thing, I don’t have enough vases.’

He looked up at me and smiled. I continued. ‘I know this is mad. But it’s happening. We’ll just have to get used to the idea. It’ll be a bit of a steep learning curve. I’ve
been going on this baby forum online, and I’ve learned such a lot from the women I’ve been chatting to.’

As soon as I said it, I regretted it.

‘A forum? Really? Can I go on it too?’

‘It’s not really . . . for guys.’

‘What, so it’s like a secret women’s group? Where you all bitch about your husbands?’

‘No, James,’ I said exasperated. ‘But they do get quite graphic about what they’re going through. Do you want to know about some pregnant stranger’s piles? Or constipation? Or discharge? Didn’t think so.’

‘No, you’re absolutely right. I’ll take an executive summary from you.’

I felt stupidly relieved. The baby website was my thing. I didn’t want to share it with him. Then it occurred to me that this was the first thing since we’d been serious about each other that I hadn’t wanted to share with James.

‘Give me a job, though,’ James said. ‘Let me rub your feet or something. I feel helpless. I want to do something to help you.’

‘Well, I definitely don’t need my feet rubbed. It’s not like the baby weighs very much yet.’

‘How big is it?’

‘I don’t know . . . just a few cells so far, I think.’

‘Well, there’s
something
I could do. I could go and get us a book. A baby book that would tell us all the stuff we don’t know.’

‘That’s a great idea. The bookshop on the high street
doesn’t shut till eight. You nip down and I’ll get dinner started. Oh, and love . . . can you buy me some caffeinefree tea?’

James grabbed his coat and keys and ran out of the door. I popped some jacket potatoes in the oven and put some beans in a saucepan. Maybe not the healthiest of dinners. I’d grate some cheese and make a salad too. That would add some other food groups.

James was still out, so I fired up my laptop and checked my personal email and Facebook. Then I logged on to the baby website, just for a moment, to check if my post had had any more replies. There was one more post on my thread. It was from somebody called BlondeAmbition.

Hi PR_Girl,
Your story really touched me. I’m so happy for you and your OH

(I’d learned that that meant ‘Other Half’, a blanket term for husbands, boyfriends and life partners).

I’ve been so worried about my relationship with my OH. He’s been pulling away from me, and I think he’s getting restless. He’s my whole life, and I can’t imagine being without him. I know that people say a baby won’t fix what’s wrong in a relationship, but I truly believe that if I get pregnant, it will bring us closer. We haven’t started trying officially, but I think we will soon. Has your
pregnancy made you and your OH stronger together? Do you think we . . .

I couldn’t read any more because I heard James on the stairs, so I closed the window immediately. I had to laugh . . . had it made us stronger together? We’d rowed more today than we had in the last four years. I was shutting down my computer like a guilty pervert caught watching porn. My husband was more worried about snowboarding than impending fatherhood. Had it made us stronger together? At this rate, we wouldn’t make it to the end of the week!

James had a bag with three different kinds of tea in it, and an armful of books. ‘I didn’t know which one to buy, so I bought them all. Firstly, I had a look at this one, and I learned you’re four weeks pregnant, not two. You take the start date from the first day of your last period . . . I know you don’t have regular ones, so you estimate fourteen days . . . anyway . . . it’s four weeks, not two. I got this one, which is all about nutrition in pregnancy, and let me tell you there are
loads
of things you can’t eat. And I got this one, which shows you how the baby looks at different stages.’ He opened the book at a page headed: ‘Two weeks after conception’. There was a picture of a tiny blob. ‘It looks about the size of an apple pip, doesn’t it?’ said James, putting an arm around me. Then he gingerly put a hand on my stomach. ‘Hello, Pip. I’m your dad.’

Maybe we would be okay after all.

Gemma’s weekly schedule was pinned above her desk, neatly typed, and colour-coded with highlighter. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, she was at school until four, then in the dance studio until six thirty. She had Wednesday afternoons off from school, but then she almost always had tennis practice or a match. Friday afternoons were set aside for course work or doing some extra reading. On Saturdays she had dancing and on Sunday mornings she taught a beginners’ class for little kids at the tennis club. She barely had time for friends – she tended to chat to them on Skype or twitter rather than socialise in person. She definitely didn’t have time for a boyfriend. Not this year, not now. But then . . . but then . . . along came Ben.

Gemma’s best friend Lucy’s parents went away to their house in France one weekend, and Lucy threw a party. She’d made the mistake of issuing an open Facebook invitation, and the house was overrun. Luckily, it wasn’t one of those parties that end up in the newspaper because
the house gets trashed . . . it was just around a hundred kids, all drinking and dancing. Most of the guys were from the boys’ school, the brother school to Lady Grey’s. Lucy and Gemma didn’t know most of them, but the atmosphere was festive and unthreatening and everyone seemed to be having fun.

An hour or so into the party, Gemma went into the kitchen to get another drink. Ben and a group of his mates were sitting around Lucy’s mum’s scrubbed oak table, playing a drinking game. She and Lucy had both noticed him when he’d arrived at the party . . . he was the best-looking guy there. Tall, slender, with longish straight black hair (probably not his natural colour), and bright blue eyes, he had a slouching, casual grace that showed he knew he was good-looking and that girls would notice him. And they had. Gemma had seen quite a few groups of girls huddled together, giving him sideways glances. He didn’t seem interested, though. He was concentrating on the complicated game he was playing with his three much less hot friends.

Gemma took a can out of the fridge and poured it into her glass, then added a splash of vodka. She only drank vodka and Diet Coke. Anything else had too many calories. She leaned against the fridge door and watched the game for a while. It seemed very complicated . . . something to do with coins and pointing with your elbows, but after a few minutes, she suspected that the lumpy boys were losing on purpose so they’d have an excuse to down their drinks. Ben was playing more seriously, as if he really wanted to
win, and after ten minutes or so, when all the other boys had drained their glasses three or four times, his was still full. The liquid was clear . . . tequila? Neat vodka? Whatever it was, Gemma was sure the other guys would be throwing up within the hour.

And sure enough, one of the boys suddenly lurched up from the table, clapped his hand over his mouth and looked around wildly. Gemma reached over and pulled the kitchen door open and he dashed outside. She heard him retching over Lucy’s mum’s herb garden.

Ben looked up from the table and smiled lazily at her. ‘Lightweight,’ he said, jerking his chin at the hapless hurler. ‘Do you want to play?’

‘OK, but I’ll stick with the drink I’ve got, thanks,’ she said, as she slid into the vacant chair.

It wasn’t the most romantic beginning, but what happened afterwards was. They went out into the garden together, where loads of kids were sprawled on the lawn chatting and smoking. Ben led her to the summerhouse, and they sat side by side on the patio swing and talked and talked. They discussed cinema and books. Surprisingly, he had broad tastes in films, not just the action/superhero stuff most guys seemed to like. They’d both recently read
1984
and thought it was mind-blowing. Ben wanted to tell her about all his favourite bands. Gemma wasn’t that into music, so she ended up nodding a lot. He took his iPod out of his pocket and chose a track, then took her arm to draw her closer so they could each have one of his earphones. He left his hand on her arm and then
slipped his hand into hers. Gemma could barely hear the music, the blood was pounding so hard in her ears.

When the song finished, he gently took the earphone from her ear, turned her face towards him and kissed her. Even though he had been drinking, his breath was sweet and biscuity, like a child’s. It began to rain, and the kids who were sitting on the lawn made a run for the summer-house. They all piled in, stumbling and laughing, and several shrieking girls flopped on to the swing next to Ben and Gemma. Ben took her hand and led her out onto the lawn. The rain was soft and not at all cold. They walked towards the house, but there were people spilling out of the kitchen door and the French windows . . . it was clear the house was crammed. Ben drew her under a tree, away from the lights of the party, took her in his arms and began to kiss her again. They hadn’t said a word. Gemma could feel the tiny cool drops of rain on her cheek, and the soft warmth of Ben’s lips on her own and she knew she would remember this moment forever.

Things seemed to change really fast after that. Ben rang and texted her several times a day. They met up whenever they could and spent hours in parks and cinemas, whispering and kissing. A week after they met, he took her for a walk and seriously, gravely, told her he loved her, and asked her to be his girlfriend.

She thought her schedule had been full before, but now she realised it had been empty. Suddenly, without warning, Ben rushed in like the sea and filled every moment of her day. When she wasn’t with him, he was all she thought
about. She played the Spotify playlists he had made for her over and over. She couldn’t sleep or eat properly. Her stomach fluttered with nerves and excitement all the time, and she felt slightly sick. She only felt properly alive when she was with him. It was like the world was suddenly more brightly coloured. They had silly names for one another and a million private jokes. She had never felt so close to another human being. She felt warmed by him, and she wanted to touch him all the time. It was just like a film or a song. It really was.

Up until now, it wouldn’t have occurred to Gemma’s parents that she was old enough to have a boyfriend, or even that she might want one. As far as they were concerned, she was still their good girl, always working at schoolwork, ballet or sport, friendly with Lucy, Iris and Sophie, girls from the same sort of upper-middle-class families as her own.

She had had some problems, granted . . . there had been the short patch when she’d stopped eating, really. It wasn’t an issue, she’d just wanted to stay slim enough for ballet, but her mum had made her go and see a shrink for a while and he’d made her keep a food diary. She’d put on a few pounds to keep them happy, and it had all blown over.

So now she looked like the perfect daughter – active, beautiful and perfectly well behaved – which gave her parents carte blanche to carry on with their extremely busy lives. Her father did something in the City that meant he left for work at seven and was seldom home before ten
at night. He was out playing golf most weekends too. Her mother didn’t work, but seemed never to be at home. Between hair, nail and facial appointments, gym, charity and social events, she would never have been able to find time for a job.