—
“This is just completely ridiculous. A woman can’t have black eggs and white eggs,” growled Shazzer.
“Speckled eggs?” suggested Tom, as I emerged from the bathroom.
“Look, she’s got the stick.”
“Give me that.”
Shazzer and Tom both lunged at the stick, knocking it out of my hands. We watched as it twirled up into the air and landed gently on the carpet, then stared at it in awed wonder. There was an unmistakable blue line across the little window.
“You can’t be…”
“…a little bit pregnant,” finished Tom.
“A. May. Zing,” said Miranda.
I couldn’t believe it.
In the background I could hear the friends continuing:
“But she’s been drinking and smoking.”
“Oh my God, you’re right—she’s killed the baby.”
“The baby’s dead.”
“And she doesn’t know who the father is.”
“What are we going to do?”
—
But none of it mattered at all. I felt like trumpets were tooting and harps were tinkling. Clouds were parting, the sun’s rays bursting through, while little birds tweeted with joy. I was having a baby.
FIVE
WHODUNNIT?
TUESDAY 26 SEPTEMBER
9 a.m. Obstetrician’s office, London. “So, which of the times do you think I would have got pregnant on?” I said, hopefully.
“Does it matter?” said Dr. Rawlings, a stern woman with a crisp, humourless manner.
“Yes! Such a special moment! We want to know which one it is so we can treasure it.”
“Well, you can’t. You’ll have to treasure both of them.”
“But surely one date is more likely than the other?”
“Actually, one’s a bit early, and the other’s a bit late. Are you sure there wasn’t another ‘treasurable occasion’ in between?”
“Quite sure, thank you,” I said, primly. “So, of the two, which one would you go for?”
“No idea: both equally likely.”
“Have a guess.”
“No.”
“Just pretend you’re putting money on a horse.”
“No.”
“What about the scan?”
“Ten to thirteen weeks: you’re thirteen.”
“Will that show when the conception was?”
“No. Now call this number to fix a date for the scan,” she said, getting up. “And you’ll be able to bring the daddy with you, won’t you?”
Distinctly heard her adding, under her breath, “If you can work out which one he is.”
“Just out of interest…” I burst out, suddenly.
“Yeeees?”
“If someone did have an element of confusion about who the father was…”
“You need to get samples from them—blood, hair, fingernails, teeth.”
“Teeth?”
“No, not teeth, Bridget,” she said wearily. “Hair, fingernails, blood, saliva—all better than teeth.”
“And if someone wanted to get the DNA from the baby?”
“You need an amniocentesis. Which is probably a good idea, anyway, when you’re a geriatric mother.”
“GERIATRIC MOTHER?”
“Yes. Over the age of thirty-six you are, technically, a geriatric mother.”
THURSDAY 5 OCTOBER
“Look on the bright side,” Tom was saying, as he, Shaz and Magda walked me to the amniocentesis. “You’ll be able to claim your pension and child support at the same time.”
“This is just so stressful!” Magda was hyperventilating. “Bridget, you can’t have a baby without a father. One father.”
“No, honestly, Magda, it’ll be absolutely fine,” I said, suddenly retching.
“Darling, anything we can do to help?” said Tom.
“Thanks, Tom. Could you get me a baked potato? Oh, and a chocolate croissant and some bacon. I’m scared; I don’t want a great big needle inside me.”
“Look, the whole thing’s completely unnecessary anyway,” said Shaz. “If it starts dragging you towards every attractive woman you pass, you’ll know it’s Daniel’s. And if it feels like it’s got a poker up its arse, it’s Mark Darcy’s.”
—
7 p.m. My flat. Just returned from heaven/narrowly averted amnio nightmare.
“So, the baby’s okay?” I said, as Dr. Rawlings slithered the ultrasound over my stomach.
“Sound as a bell. Don’t worry, you’re not the first woman not to realize she’s pregnant and spend the first few months still having little drinkies. Here, you take a look at that.”
She turned the screen towards me and that was it. It was love. She was all blurry—with a little round head, like, like…a baby. A miniature person inside me! A nose, a mouth, little fists up near her mouth!—the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“Right!” said Dr. Rawlings. She turned round holding a giant needle. It was insane. It was about a foot long. “Now, I do have to tell you, there are certain risks of miscarriage with amniocentesis, particularly at your age, but these have to be weighed against…”
“Get away from me!” I yelled, jumping up from the table. “What are you DOING? Are you out of your mind? You’ll MURDER my baby! You’ll skewer her like Hamlet from behind the arras.”
Found myself, to my alarm, holding my stomach tenderly like one of the Smug Mothers at the christening.
“Do you want to feel my bump?” I said.
“I just did, Bridget. That’s how we just saw the nice picture of the lovely baby, remember? Now, are we going to get on with this?”
“No, no, it’s fine,” I gabbled, gathering my stuff. “No risks, no DNA. Just don’t come near my baby with that needle.”
SATURDAY 7 OCTOBER
Calories 4,824. (But am pregnant, right? So world of food is my oyster. Though not oysters, obviously, as toxic to baby.) Toasted bagels: 3. (Potassium, or fiber?) Cheese 8 oz. (Protein.) (But not goats cheese—soft cheese toxic to baby.) Broccoli: 3 florets. (Excellent Crossover Food, but doesn’t count, as threw up after—baby hates broccoli.) Cheesy potatoes: 3. (Baby loves cheesy potatoes, and unborn babies have an instinctive knowledge of what they need.)
—
4 p.m. Just back from baby shopping. Have bought completely adorable peach playsuit with a floral bandana from ILoveGorgeous and laid it out on the bed, for all the world like it is a little baby girl. Almost wonder if could purchase doll baby to dress it up in to practice, but would that be creepy? Am so excited but at the same time find self feeling strangely lazy, sleepy and distracted, almost as if am a bit stoned. Must make sure no one finds out about this at work just yet. Also probably not tell Mum just yet. Also am definitely going to really mentally address the issue of the father. Definitely.
But will just take a minute to relish how lovely it is. I’m going to have a baby!
SIX
TELLING THE TRUTH
SUNDAY 8 OCTOBER
Noon. The Electric Bar, Portobello Road. “You do have to tell them, Bridge,” said Miranda.
I nodded, sucking diet tonic through a straw. Even though we were sitting in the Electric, my urge to drink alcohol had suddenly disappeared. The very thought of it made me feel strangely acidic and queasy almost as if I had a hangover, which is odd when you think about it.
“Bridget!”
“What?” I said, jumping.
“You have to tell them: the fathers.”
“Oh yes, no, I do,” I said. “I will. Shall we get some more chips? Do you want to feel my bump?”
They all somewhat wearily and perfunctorily patted my bump.
“Start with Daniel,” said Tom. “To practice.”
“Text him now,” said Miranda.
“She can’t just text him out of the blue.”
“Yes, I can. I can do what I like. I’ve got a baby to look after.”
I picked up the phone, bold as you please, an
d texted:
Cleaver, Jones here. I want to talk to you. Can I see you this week?
He texted back immediately:
Daniel Cleaver
Rather out of the blue, Jones, but why the hell not? Be delighted to see you. Friday night? I shall pick you up and take you out to dinner in my new car.
Blimey. Is it that easy? Have I been sitting here being so obsessed with making sure people think I don’t fancy them, in case they think I’m needy, that they actually think I don’t fancy them?
FRIDAY 13 OCTOBER
7 p.m. Daniel’s car, South London. “Like the car, do you, Jones?”
As Daniel and I zoomed across Waterloo Bridge, I was desperately trying to find a moment to bring up the baby before we got to the restaurant, lest the whole thing caused a public scene, but Daniel was completely obsessed with his new Mercedes.
“It seems like it’s purring like a kitten, but put your foot down and whooomph!”
Daniel suddenly accelerated, causing an alarming lurch in my stomach.
“Do you like the pale grey interiors, Jones? I was going to go for black, or even a rather luscious blood red, but I thought this was delicate and actually rather pretty.”
—
Daniel had chosen Nobu restaurant on Park Lane, which was the sort of place where one might easily run into Posh and Becks or indeed Brad and Angelina (in which case I could have settled the argument once and for all with Mum about whether or not Maddox was how Angelina “got” Brad Pitt).
Sadly, there were no visible celebrities. It was rather, I assume, like going on Safari and finding there were no lions or tigers. There was, however, an unmistakable scent of fish in the air.
As the waiter led us to the table, Daniel still hadn’t paused for breath long enough for me to bring up, well, anything, really. He had now moved on from his new car to his new novel, The Poetics of Time.
“Conceptually, it’s Time’s Arrow in reverse. The characters believe time is moving backwards, but it’s actually moving forwards.”
“But wouldn’t that just mean time is moving in the direction it normally does move in?” I said.
“It’s a conceptual novel, Jones. It’s existential.”
What was the matter with him? Normally Daniel’s only interest was getting you to tell him what knickers you used to wear at school.
“Yes, but still,” I said doggedly, as the waiters brought us the menus, “wouldn’t it be a bit obvious, that it wasn’t?”
The menu was all fish, different kinds of fish: sushi fish, tempura fish, fish that had been spoon-fed on sake for hundreds of years. I felt the baby thrashing in a frenzy of fish outrage.
“Wasn’t what, Jones?”
“Going backwards. I mean, if time was going backwards, you’d notice straightaway. Cars would be going backwards. Fish would be swimming backwards,” I said, feeling a lurch in my stomach.
“Fish?”
Through my new, pregnancy-induced passivity, I let Daniel order the food and carry on about his backwards-though-not-backwards book. It was all very odd. Daniel seemed to have developed some sort of urge to be taken seriously. Maybe it was to do with the advancing years. The car too! I was having a baby and Daniel was having a cliché.
“You see, this is an alternate conceptual universe, Jones,” continued Daniel. “There are no fish in The Poetics of Time.”
“Well! That’s something to be grateful for!” I said, brightly. As the waiter placed the food—all fish—in front of us, I felt I really had to get away from The Poetics of Time and on to the meat of the matter.
“It’s a new reality which makes one question one’s very…”
“Right, right, it sounds very…Look, Daniel, there’s something I need to…”
“I know, I know, I know, I know,” he said, and paused for dramatic effect. Then he switched into the more typical Daniel seducer mode, leaning towards me and looking deep into my eyes, with an air of flimsy sincerity.
“I was appalling, Jones. There should have been phone calls, sobbing gratitude for our explosive night. There should have been floral tributes, trinkets, chocolates, delicately embossed with our two names, entwined on little hearts. But I’ve been in total writing lockdown hell: editing, galleys, the launch. You can’t imagine the creative weight of having an entire novel in one’s head and…”
“Excuse me.”
“Yes, Jones?”
“Could you shut up? You’re talking bollox.”
“Ah, you’re right, Jones. Right as ever. Remind me what knickers you wore at school?”
I suddenly retched.
“Everything all right?”
“I’m not sure I can manage the fish. Do you think I could order a baked potato?”
“Ah, well, the thing is, you see, Nobu, being a Japanese restaurant, does not make a forte out of baked potatoes, jam roly-poly, pork pies, that sort of thing. You’ve just ordered a lovely Pink Miso Trout, which has been marinated in seaweed and fed on sake for four hundred years. Eat it up, there’s a good girl.”
—
I had to concentrate so hard on keeping the food down that by the time the doorman was handing me back into Daniel’s new car, with it’s new-leather smell, I still hadn’t brought up the fact that the baby, who was now wrestling furiously with a Miso Trout inside me, was even there.
“Lovely evening,” murmured Daniel, clicking something on the dashboard and revving the car with a roar.
“Daniel, there’s something I have to…”
The Miso Trout was suddenly rushing upwards towards my throat.
“Dnl stp the crr,” I tried to say, putting my hand over my mouth as it filled with sick.
“Didn’t quite catch that, Jones.”
But it was too late.
“Christ alive, Jones, what’s going on? This is a nightmare. This is hell. Are you the Exorcist?” a melting-down Daniel cried, as sick spurted out from behind my hand all over his pale grey interior.
—
11 p.m. My flat. Little sweetheart, I’m so sorry about all this. I’ll make it up to you, I promise. You just stay safe in there and leave it all to me. I’m going to show you the best time…I think I’d better call your granddad.
SATURDAY 14 OCTOBER
Dad’s club, London. It was so lovely to see Dad. I told him everything and he just looked at me with those kind, wise eyes and gave me a big hug. We were sitting in the library. There were old books, maps, globes; a sooty coal fire, and leather armchairs whose tattiness went so far beyond the distressed as to be practically psychotic.
“I feel like a crack whore, or one of those women on Jerry Springer who’s slept with her own grandson,” I said. “Do you want to feel my bump?”
“We’re all just an impulse away from The Jerry Springer Show, love,” said Dad, patting his embryonic granddaughter affectionately. “I’m not even sure myself if you belong to me or that young curate who did a stint at the vicarage forty years ago.”
I gasped.
“I’m joking, pet. But you haven’t done anything that ninety per cent of people in the world wouldn’t have done in your position.”
We both looked round at the aged gentlemen club members, most of whom were dozing quietly in their armchairs.
“Eighty-five per cent?” said Dad. “Look, pet. You never go too far wrong by just telling the truth.”
“You mean tell Mum?” I said, horrified.
“Well, no, maybe not your mum just yet. But with Mark and Daniel, just tell the truth and see where it takes you.”
SUNDAY 15 OCTOBER
2 p.m. My flat. Sitting on the floor, hands trembling, I dialled Daniel’s number, feeling the six collective eyes of Tom, Miranda and Shazzer boring into me.
“Yeees, Jones?” said Daniel into the phone. “Is my ear about to be sprayed with…”
“Daniel, I’m sixteen weeks pregnant,” I blurted.
The line went dead.
“He hung up on me!”
“Fuckwit, t
otal, total fucking fuckwit from hell with a tail.”
“How can any human fuckwit do that?” I said, fuming. “That’s it. I’m through with bloody men. They’re irresponsible; self-indulgent…Does anyone want to feel my bump?”
“You have to find some way of externalizing these angry thoughts and feelings,” said Tom in his creepy therapist’s voice and patting the bump nervously, as if the baby was going to jump out and be sick on him. “Perhaps by writing them down and burning them?”
“OK,” I said, marching over to the kitchen table and grabbing a Post-it pad and a box of matches.
“No!” yelled Shazzer. “No fires! Use the phone.”
“Okeedokeee.”
I typed into the phone. “Daniel, you are a selfish, shallow…”
“Give it to me, give it to me,” slurred Shazzer, grabbing the phone. She typed “fuckwitted, crap writer” and then pressed send.
“We were supposed to BURN IT,” I said in horror.
“What? The phone?”
“She was supposed to express the angry thoughts and feelings, then send them into the universe,” said Tom. “Not text them to the object of the angry thoughts and…Here, have we run out of wine?”
“Oh, God. And he might be the father of my unborn child.”
“Iss fine,” said Tom, in a drunk yet soothing voice. “Do him good to hear it.”
“Tom, shut up. Bridget, you’ve done your practicing. Now text Mark,” said Miranda.
—
So I did. I simply texted: “I would like to see you.” And, to my utter astonishment, he wanted to meet me immediately.
SUNDAY 15 OCTOBER
I stood on the doorstep of Mark’s tall white-stuccoed house in Holland Park, as I’d stood before, before so many earth-shattering events, sad, happy, sexual, emotional, triumphant, disastrous, dramatic. The light was on upstairs in his office: he was working as usual. What would he say? Would he reject me as a drunken slag? Might he be pleased? But then…
“Bridget!” said the intercom. “Are you actually still there or have you rung the doorbell and run away?”