‘You’re going to have a baby?’
‘August the eighth,’ I said. ‘And steady on with those beers.’ He ignored me and took another big slug.
‘But how?’
‘It’s a bit late for the birds and the bees chat,’ I said, trying to make light of the situation. ‘You remember that? When your father sat you down? He did his best; it’s not his fault he can’t draw.’
’Don’t try and be funny Mum… You weren’t using protection?’
I looked at Adam.
‘It was only the one time,’ I said.
‘Only the one time. And neither of you have a job right now. Who’s going to pay for this baby?’
Neither of us had expected this.
‘I’ve been applying for jobs,’ said Adam.
‘And my book is being published in April,’ I added. Rosencrantz got up and went to the window. He looked horrified.
‘But what about your career mum? You had such ambitions to be an author.’
‘I am an author!’ I said.
‘When will you have time to write? You’ll be a middle-aged pram face.’
‘Hey! Don’t talk to your mother like that,’ said Adam standing up.
‘Adam I looked up to you,’ said Rosencrantz. ‘I thought Dad would be the one to knock up some bird,’
‘You watch your mouth,’ I said jumping up from the sofa. ‘I am not knocked up! If you haven’t forgotten Adam and I are married. And you might be twenty two but I don’t like your tone.’
‘You’ll be pensioners soon, you can’t have planned this?’ said Rosencrantz.
‘No it wasn’t planned, but I’m a damned sight better off than when I had you, and you certainly weren’t planned!’ As soon as it came out of my mouth I regretted it. Rosencrantz thumped down his beer, grabbed his coat and stormed off.
We sat there in silence after the sound of the door slamming.
‘And I thought Ethel was going to be the tough one,’ said Adam.
‘Well, Ethel kind of already knows,’ I admitted.
‘How?’
‘She guessed.’
‘When?’
‘Couple of weeks ago.’
‘And you didn’t tell me? I thought it was just me and you who knew, who else knows?’
‘No one.’
‘Just when I think I can trust you!’ said Adam. He then stormed out and slammed the living room door.
Rocco came and put his head on my lap and looked at me with his wise little eyes.
‘I hope I’m having a girl,’ I said. ‘Men never seem to grow out of being children.’
Rocco gave my hand a little lick.
‘Apart from you of course,’ I said.
February
Wednesday 1st February
My nausea seems to have waned, but overnight my bladder has shrunk to the size of a peanut. I slept fitfully and woke every half hour, busting to pee, which involved climbing over Adam and Rocco to use the downstairs loo. I was flushing the toilet just before six, when the doorbell rang. It was still dark outside so I kept the chain on when I opened the door. It was my neighbour Mrs Cohen, in a long buttoned up nightie and curlers. She peered through the gap at me with her beady eyes.
‘Hello there Mrs Pinchard. I’m sorry I haven’t had time to come round and welcome you back to the neighbourhood… I’ve been so busy.’
‘So you came over at quarter to six in the morning?’ I said.
‘No,’ she said smiling awkwardly. ‘I came to ask who keeps flushing your toilet?’
‘I do.’
‘Could you not?’ she said. ‘Mr Cohen is having terrible problems with his hip, so we’re having to sleep downstairs. Our bed is up against your soil pipe!’
I apologised.
‘Why aren’t you using your en suite? It can’t do your hips any good, up and down the stairs.’
‘We’re sleeping downstairs too, until we get unpacked,’ I said. Mrs Cohen tried to see past me into the hallway.
‘So you’ll stop all that flushing? We’re stuck downstairs until Mr Cohen gets to the top of the list.’
‘List?’
‘He’s on the waiting list for a new hip. So? No more flushing?’
‘The reason I’m flushing the toilet so much, is because, I’m pregnant.’
Mrs. Cohen’s mouth fell open; it stayed close to her chin long enough for me to count six fillings.
‘Oh, um, congratulations,’ she said composing herself. She looked at me with a horrified curiosity. ‘Was it expensive? The IVF?’
‘It wasn’t IVF.’
‘But you’re…’ she was going to say old but just stopped herself.
‘I’m forty-four and I conceived naturally.’
‘Shouldn’t you be in bed?’
‘I’m not ill, I’m pregnant.’
‘Well, um, you should get unpacked, and then take it easy, Mrs Pinchard…’
She turned in her curlers and staggered off down the steps. She looked back at me with a pained smile. I closed the door, and joined Adam and Rocco on the sofa.
‘Who was that?’ asked Adam.
‘Mrs Cohen… Am I freakishly old to be having a baby?’
‘Don’t ask me trick questions so early in the morning,’ mumbled Adam into his pillow.
‘This isn’t a trick question. I’m talking medically. I’m serious.’
‘What did the doctor say?’
‘You were there, he said, wait in the waiting room.’
‘What about the midwife?’
‘Nothing really, she is rather young and inexperienced.’
‘Didn’t Jane Seymour have twins? And that was way back in the fifteen hundreds.’
‘No. That was the other Jane Seymour, Dr Quinn Medicine woman.’
‘Oh yeah,’ said Adam and then started to snore.
I couldn’t sleep so I fired up my laptop and scared myself even more. I scoured the internet but found conflicting information. It said, many older women have healthy babies at 45, 46 or 47, and also lots miscarry in the first stages of the pregnancy. Typical internet, gives you all the answers but also none of them.
I took the train over to see Marika in South London. I’d been avoiding her calls again, and in her last message she’d said how concerned she was about my well being.
I’d agreed to meet her on One Tree Hill, just down from her flat in Honor Oak Park. I got there early, and sat down on the bench that looks out over London. It was clear and still and I could just see the London Eye turning silently in the distance. A few minutes later Marika appeared at the bottom of the hill being pulled along by two enormous Alsatians. They strained against their leads, froth dripping from their mouths. As Marika reached me, she let them both off the lead and I screamed hitching up my skirt and climbing on the bench.
‘They won’t hurt you, will you Steve and Bob?’ she said scratching both of them. They ran up and started to lick my leg. I looked down at their huge incisors, millimetres from my skin.
‘It’s okay. They love cream, hand cream, body lotion, come on, it’s okay,’ said Marika coaxing me down.
‘What about face cream? I put loads of face cream on,’ I said imagining my face being torn off by their appetite for L’Oréal.
‘I brought them something to play with,’ said Marika. ‘They’ll be fine when they settle.’ She took off her backpack and pulled out two enormous lumps of bone, covered in bloody meat. ‘Here you go boys,’ she said and tossed them away from us. The Alsatians ran over and settled down to chew.
There was silence.
‘Marika, I need to talk to you,’ I said.
‘Hang on,’ she said. She pulled out her phone and started to call someone.
‘Marika, I’m trying to tell you something,’ I said. She put the phone on speaker and held it out in front of her, like they do on reality shows. Chris answered.
‘Marika, is she with you?’ he asked, his voice coming through a little tinny.
‘Yes.’
&nb
sp; ‘Hello Cokes. I love you,’ he said.
‘I love you too,’ I said, confused.
‘And I love you Cokes,’ said Marika.
‘Ok, we all love each other,’ I said. ‘Now I need to tell you something.’
‘Just before you do Cokes. We want to re-iterate that we love you. It hasn’t escaped me that you’ve been weird these last few weeks,’ said Marika. ‘I’ve been keeping Chris updated.’
‘She has, Coco,’ said Chris. I could detect excitement along with worry in his voice.
‘Ok. I’m sorry I’ve been weird. I’ve wanted to tell you both, but I promised Adam we’d keep it a secret, but now it’s resolved and I’m past the twelve week mark.’
‘Oh Coco, has it been hell?’ asked Marika. ‘The mood swings, weird sweating, your nose running, and you threw up on my doorstep!’ She took my hand. ‘Congratulations.’
‘Yes. Congratulations Coco,’ said Chris through the speakerphone. ‘Getting through the cold turkey is the hardest bit.’
‘Hang on. What? Cold turkey?’ I asked. I looked between Marika and her phone. ‘You think I’ve been on drugs?’
‘Not hard drugs like Cocaine or Heroin… We thought maybe something quite middle-class, like painkillers,’ said Marika.
‘Paracetamol or Ibuprofen,’ said Chris. ‘Once you pop, you can’t stop…’
I started to laugh and shake my head.
‘Well, what is it Coco?’ asked Marika looking genuinely concerned.
‘I’m pregnant,’ I said. I repeated it again to her shocked face. She suddenly squealed in excitement, dropped the phone and grabbed me in a hug.
‘Oh my God! Congratulations!’ she said. Chris demanded he be picked up, and what followed was an enthusiastic barrage of questions: What sex is it? When’s it due? What names have we picked out? Can they be God parents?
I said I hadn’t thought of anything yet.
‘Do you want me to get the foetus on the list for Eton and Cheltenham Ladies’ College?’ said Chris.
‘Hang on guys,’ I said. ‘It’s early days. I’m really sorry I haven’t told you till now. It’s been a horrible time. The shock of finding out, then deciding whether to have the baby. Then we had the scan and that decided things.’ I pulled out the ultrasound pictures from my coat and Marika had another round of squealing.
‘God I wish I was there! What does it look like? ’ said Chris through the speakerphone. We described the scan as best we could, and I promised to email him a copy.
‘I miss you two, I miss London. I’m missing all this,’ he said.
‘Get on a plane then,’ I said as Marika hugged me again. ‘Come home!’
‘No, I should stay here, try and make a go of it,’ he said. We sat there in silence.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
‘I’m fine Cokes. I’m relieved you’re not a drug addict, and so happy you’re going to be a mum, again. Look I’d better go.’ He rang off.
‘I hope he’s okay, maybe he’s the one we should be worried about?’ I suggested, but I couldn’t get anything sensible out of Marika, as she kept squealing excitedly.
‘Oh my God Coco! A baby. I’m going to be there all the way. I’ll babysit, oh a baby!’
I came home to find Adam bustling about with a J-cloth.
‘Hey babe,’ he said. He’d unpacked the kitchen and was polishing the chrome coffee machine. ‘How did it go?’
I told him that they had thought it was more feasible I could be a middle-aged ibuprofen addict than a forty-four-year-old mother. My laptop, which was sitting on the kitchen island, began to trill. It was my ex-sister-in-law Meryl calling on Skype.
‘Oh, not now,’ I said.
‘We might as well tell them, get it over with,’ said Adam.
Meryl and Tony came in to view. Little Wilfred was sitting on Meryl’s lap, with big solemn blue eyes. A row of china geese on the living room wall were taking flight and vanishing above Meryl’s neatly-coiffed hair.
‘Hello Coco! Adam!’ she said. ‘We’ve just heard the news that you’re with child!’
‘Congratulations,’ said Tony, his red face bearing corpulently down into the camera.
‘Thanks,’ we chorused.
’Say congratulations to ex-Auntie Coco and Adam,’ said Meryl to Wilfred.
‘Don-dat-tulations,’ he said shyly.
‘Wilfred wishes you sincere congratulations,’ said Meryl, as if she were translating a political interview on the BBC, and not her toddler.’
‘Ethel just rang,’ said Tony. ‘Told us you’ve had a scan!’
‘Yes, I’m twelve weeks gone,’ I said pulling out the baby scan.
‘Do you know what it’ll be?’ asked Meryl.
‘Not yet.’
‘Well? What does the ultrasound show?’ said Tony.
‘The ultrasound only shows the outline and only in black and white,’ said Adam.
‘Well, which will it be, black or white?’ asked Tony. Meryl nudged him.
‘Tony!’
‘What? It’s a legitimate question.’ said Tony.
‘Yes but –’
‘But what?’
‘Go and get the potatoes started,’ she hissed. ‘Go on!’
‘Ah. My wife seems to be caught up in the PC brigade! Roger wilco, pip pip Coco, Adam. Very happy for you whatever colour or race your baby will be. Here, what if it comes out green, or yellow!’ said Tony.
‘Just go!’ said Meryl pushing him off the chair. Tony adjusted his belt and sloped off to the kitchen.
‘Tony means jaundiced, of course, when he says yellow, not Chinese, though if it’s Chinese it would be lovely also,’ said Meryl. ‘I take it he or she will be, um, a mixture, a lovely cultural mixture I expect, Adam?’
I shot Adam a look to help poor Meryl out of her politically correct quagmire.
‘Yes, I expect the baby will be mixed race,’ grinned Adam.
‘Lovely,’ said Meryl going uncharacteristically red. ‘Well look, well done and I’ll keep in touch. I’ve got a mountain of hand-me-downs you can have, a breast pump, and a lovely Villeroy Boch potty, which I’ve only let Wilfred poo in on special occasions.’ She flashed us her Margaret Thatcher smile and then rang off.
‘Is anyone going to have a normal reaction to you being up the duff?’ said Adam.
‘I’ve still got to tell Daniel,’ I said.
Thursday 2nd February
Adam offered to come with me, but I said I’d like to go alone and tell Daniel. I haven’t seen him in ages; in fact I don’t know if I’ve seen him since we got married, which would make it almost five months. I texted him to ask if he would like to meet for a drink. He said he would be in Covent Garden to pick up some new sheet music from the Dress Circle music shop. I caught the tube across to King’s Cross and bumped into him on the platform. He was looking good; he’s lost some weight and his hair is very long, past his shoulders. He was wearing a beaten-up old leather jacket and jeans, and he had his guitar slung over his shoulder.
‘Hey Cokes,’ he said as my train whirred past and away. I gave him a hug. We made our way through the crowds and found a spot on a Piccadilly Line train to Covent Garden.
‘Where’s hubby number two?’ asked Daniel as we rocked through the dark tunnel.
‘He’s at my house – I mean our house, Adam’s and my house…’
Daniel laughed. ‘Ah, poor bastard. He’s just like I was, under the thumb eh?’
‘No. Where’s your girlfriend?’
‘Jennifer’s not coming.’
‘Is she busy polishing her trombone?’ I asked, a little cattily.
‘It’s the bassoon she plays, not the trombone. And she didn’t come because she’s only got four points left.’
‘On what?’
‘Weight Watchers’ points. If she came with us she’d have to use two of them for a drink, blah blah blah…’
‘Jennifer isn’t fat,’ I said.
‘Well she’s almost a fourteen,’ said Daniel
, as if she were bed-bound with obesity.
‘I am a fourteen!’ I said. ‘Well, I’ve got an excuse…’ I bit my lip. I hadn’t planned to tell him on the Piccadilly Line. We were silent until we had a spot in the clanking lift up to Covent Garden.
‘I think it’s ’cos you’ve got good tits for your size,’ said Daniel.
‘What?’
‘That you don’t look like you’re, you know... Big girls with big tits look less big than big girls with small tits…’
‘I’m not big.’
‘No, ’cos you’ve got the tits to soften it, you know?’ An elderly lady in a smart suit was staring at us.
‘Go on, just objectify us Daniel. Women are simply objects with varying sized tits hanging off them,’ I snapped. The elderly lady was now looking at me disapprovingly. Why not Daniel? He started the tit debate.
‘Alright, sorry. Voluptuous. I like voluptuous girls. I did marry you,’ said Daniel.
‘Oh thank you. Thank you so much,’ I said. We emerged into the crowds surging past the station. Daniel suggested the pub beside the covered market.
It wasn’t too busy and we found a seat in a cosy corner. A flirty young waitress approached with her pad. Daniel ordered two steak and blue cheese pasties with a pint of Guinness. Then he checked out her backside as I ordered the same minus the Guinness. He watched her pert little backside slink away, then said,
‘Eating for two, Cokes?’ I suddenly felt sorry for Jennifer at home, miserable, and saving up her four points whilst Daniel ordered fatty food and ogled the twenty-year-old waitress.
‘Yes,’ I said. I kept staring at him.
‘Yes what?’
‘Yes, I am eating for two. I’m twelve weeks pregnant.’ The waitress slinked up with our drinks. He stared at me as she put them down, then slinked away.
‘Ahhhh. Good one Cokes. Very funny.’
‘I’m not joking. Look.’ I pulled the ultrasound scan out of my pocket. Daniel grabbed it and stared. He handed it back then took a sip of his Guinness, changed his mind and downed the whole pint. He sat back.