Any Way You Want Me (30 page)

‘Oh,
Cat
.’ I could hardly speak, I felt so choked up with emotion. ‘I’m so pleased for you. So very brilliantly pleased! That is such amazing news! How are you feeling?’

‘Fine.’ The phone crackled and I missed her next words. ‘. . . massive, swollen boobs, I can hardly bear to have a shower because even the water splashing on them feels so sore.’

‘Yeah, I remember that one. Ouch.’

‘And Tom is so excited, and we’ve just told our parents – I mean, Mum and Dad and his parents and . . . God. I can’t believe I’m going to be a mum. Me! Aaargh!’ She laughed, thousands and thousands of miles away. ‘And I can’t even get plastered on the cheap booze out here now!’

‘What a nightmare,’ I joked. ‘Oh, that is so fab. I’m just made up for you, Cat. Wow. So you must be due . . .’

‘November, I think. I’m not sure. Too stunned to work it out. Oh – listen, better go. Running out of time.’

‘Take care of yourself then. Thanks so much for ringing. I’ll—’

The phone went dead then and I held it to my ear for just a few more seconds, in case there was a sudden reconnection before I put the receiver down. Wow. Cat and Tom having a baby. It was enough to get me clucky all over again, with Nathan barely six months old. I smelled his hair, rubbed his cheek against mine. ‘Lovely, lovely boy,’ I murmured, before striding out to the hall to find Alex. ‘Hey, guess what?’

It wasn’t until later that evening, when I was lying in a bath feeling increasingly irritated by the awful bitch-in the-boardroom rant of a book I was supposed to be reading for Lizzie’s book group, that several pennies started to drop.

Clatter, clatter, clatter.

I had been absent-mindedly thinking about Cat’s baby news when I remembered what she’d said about her boobs. What was it? Something about them being massive and swollen and sore.

Then I thought about Alex’s comment about how big my own boobs had looked in my new top.

Clatter.

I remembered the achey cramp I’d had last week, that I’d put down to period pain. Yet my period still hadn’t started.

Clatter.

I remembered how the smell of fish at the Crab and Crayfish restaurant had made me want to heave, and how sick I’d felt that morning. And then, with a horrible thudding feeling inside, I remembered all those times I’d had sex without contraception. Not just with Alex. With Mark, too.

Clunk.

CLUNK.

I threw the dreary book onto the bathroom floor and tried to weigh my breasts with my hands. Did they feel heavier? Were they bigger? Did they look at all swollen? Fuck.
FUCK
. How did they feel normally? I couldn’t even think, my brain was buzzing away so frenziedly, speeding off at different tangents every second.

I took a deep breath and tried the weighing thing again. It was hard to tell in the water so then I sat up, one boob in each hand, and tried to gauge their feel.

Of course, at that very moment, Alex walked into the bathroom. ‘Wa-hey,’ he said, his eyes bulging in lusting delight at the sight of me wet and naked with a hand under each breast.

‘Can’t you knock?’ I asked crossly, plunging under the water again.

‘Sorry,’ he said. He was still grinning. He held out the phone. ‘For you. If it’s not a bad time, obviously. Shall I give you a few minutes to finish yourself off ?’

Alarm at who was on the end of the line just about stopped me from slapping him and telling him to piss off. I grabbed the phone instead and made ‘Get lost’ motions with my other hand.

‘Hello?’

There was a sniff from the other end of the phone.

‘Lizzie, is that you?’ I asked. Oh, no. She’d given Boring Steve his marching orders. She was a single parent, having pushed him out of the house and straight into Jessica’s arms. She . . .

‘No, it’s me. Becca.’ She sounded so doleful I hardly recognized her voice.

‘Becca! Have you got a cold? I was going to ring you tonight,’ I said. There was a pause. ‘What’s up? Are you all right?’

She sighed heavily. ‘Me and Nick have split up,’ she said. ‘It’s all over. After one bloody month.’ She sniffed again. ‘Why are men such a nightmare? Why can’t I find one I want to be with for longer than a bloody month? It’s the same old thing every time. What am I doing wrong?’

Of course. I remembered now. The ‘Don’t ask’ Rome trip hadn’t sounded terribly promising. ‘Oh, darlin’,’ I said sympathetically. ‘What happened?’

She told me about the bickering and how tight-fisted he was and how he was always eyeing up other women and it drove her crazy and . . . well, about twenty minutes’ worth of other stuff, with a thesaurus-worthy list of damning adjectives about him.

‘So anyway, enough moaning,’ she said in the end, when my ear was hot with having the phone pressed against it. I heard her inhaling a deep yogic breath. ‘Time to forget all about Nobby Nick.’

‘Absolutely,’ I said, as cheeringly as I knew how. ‘You can do better than that.’

‘Yeah. I can,’ she agreed. ‘You know, I am really desperate for a good girls’ night out on the town,’ she went on. ‘Desperate. When can we do it?’

The hand that wasn’t holding the phone to my ear slid across my belly. The belly that was still a bit on the saggy side from being pregnant with Nathan. The belly that . . .

‘Um . . . I’ll check with Alex,’ I said. ‘Can I ring you back tomorrow?’

‘Yeah, great,’ she said. ‘I’ll ring around a couple of others, try and get some more of the old crowd out. We can have a bit of a girly reunion, doll ourselves up to the nines, drink dodgy spirits all night and go and dance round our handbags somewhere.’

‘Look forward to it,’ I said loyally, my eyes fixed on my belly all the while. Oh God. ‘Talk to you tomorrow. And sorry to hear about Nick. Go round to the offy and get yourself some wine and chocolate at once.’

She sighed. ‘Yeah. The old stand-bys.’ She sounded sad again. ‘We’ll always have wine and chocolate. Anyway. Thanks for listening, Sadie. Bye.’

I pressed the button to switch the phone off and lay there in the water, quite, quite still, trying to ignore the doubt that was creeping through my mind. Listen, I told myself firmly, your period is only a day or so late. Big deal. And besides, it’s bound to be a bit skewed at first, starting up after pregnancy and birth, isn’t it? Now that I thought about it, I was sure that things had been a bit irregular after Molly, too. Yeah. Actually, I was
convinced
my periods had been irregular for a while afterwards. Same as now. Why was I even expecting them to fall back into a routine, like clockwork?

I was imagining it all, just because of Cat’s news. A kind of sympathetic pregnancy, if you like. I was worse than a man!

Besides, it was far too soon to be . . .

No, it would just be unfair if I was . . .

I absolutely couldn’t even think about being . . .

I pulled the plug out of the bath, stood up and dried myself roughly. I would stop thinking about it. I would pull on my dressing gown, go downstairs and sterilize all of Nathan’s bottles for tomorrow, clean the kitchen, watch drossy Sunday night TV, flick through the
Observer
and forget that the thought had even crossed my mind.

What thought? Exactly.

For the whole of the next week, I tried to go through the motions without dwelling on the thought that was too terrible to be named. I saw Mark on Monday, which I had been alternately dreading and planning to bottle out of. On the evening itself, I decided that the no-show option was just too cowardly, and that instead, I should go round and tell him exactly how I felt. Which is what I did. Well, what I tried to do, anyway.

The thing was, before I could launch into my carefully rehearsed ‘I am so-o-o mad with you, what the hell were you playing at?’ speech, he got in first and apologized. Profusely. I then gave him a toned-down version of the ‘I am so-o-o mad with you etc’ speech, and he said he’d never pull a stunt like that again. Actually, he promised, hand on heart, the works. There’s nothing like a man with a sincere look in his come-to-bed eyes to make me waver.

That was the point at which I had planned to tell him, kindly but firmly, that things weren’t working out and we should probably stop seeing each other. Yet somehow or other, we had a kiss and a cuddle instead, just to make friends. And then, somehow or other, the kiss and cuddle swiftly turned into passionate, gasping sex on his office floor.

As he held me afterwards, he whispered, ‘I love you so much,’ into my ear, and even though I tried my damnedest not to listen – I did try, I really did – the words made my blood sing around my body. At least I didn’t say it back to him. I hadn’t quite forgiven him enough to say it back to him. Those three little words were still for Alex’s ears only.

I had brought along the as-yet-unwrapped present he’d given me, originally intending to coolly return it to him without even opening it, but the passionate, gasping, I-love-you-so-much sex had changed my mind somewhat and I opened it, half-dressed, sitting on his knee. It was such a gorgeous silver bangle with such an elegant curve to it that I felt I simply had to show him my appreciation all over again.

After that, I decided to forget about the whole ‘choosing Alex or choosing Mark’ decision for the time being. Yeah, Mark had been out of order. I had been angry with him, furious even, but the problem was, I couldn’t bear to say goodbye to him. He still made me feel so dizzy and euphoric. And anyway, he’d apologized
and
promised never to play games with me ever again. Hopefully the status quo was about to return.

It was a similar story on Wednesday. We just stayed safely in his office and had a quick burst of rude and satisfying sex and a laugh about something stupid or other, before I went back home to my children and Alex, and he went back to his wife. It was OK again. In fact, it was more than OK again. We both knew where we stood. Or knelt. Or lay. Or . . . Well, whatever.

I was feeling so much better about being able to juggle both men successfully without dropping either of them, and so happy that Mark had dropped his pantomime-villain stalker tendencies, that I even arranged for my mum to look after the kids on Thursday afternoon. Then I called Mark and persuaded him to skive work and take me to Richmond Park for a spontaneous date. It was exhilarating to be holding hands with him in the park, in the fresh air and sunshine, and I quite forgot I had a single care in the world.

It wasn’t until Friday, when my period was a whole week late, that reality slammed up against me. Much as I was loath to do so, it was time to face facts. Actually, for the first time since the weekend, I felt confident about it. I had had a crampy feeling all morning and was sure that the late arrival was at last on its way. So I would do a test, just to confirm the happy news, and then, once I knew I was in the clear, I would devote myself to being the most careful contraceptive user in the world. This would never have to happen again.

I took the kids shopping in the morning and, when I was sure that nobody I knew was within a half-mile radius of the chemist, or at least within view, I picked up a home pregnancy test kit and paid for it, with all the fake casualness of a virgin buying condoms for the first time. Hey. It was no big deal. I was probably going to get my period any moment now and I would have wasted a tenner. I’d be laughing about it with Anna in a couple of days’ time.

For all that, though, the pregnancy test kit felt like a lead weight in my handbag; I was aware of its presence with every single step I took home. I rushed through making the kids’ lunch. Baked beans for Molly, bunged straight in the microwave – there you go, sweetheart. Defrosted veggie mush I’d made for Nathan the week before – spoonful, spoonful, spoonful, wipe faces and hands, time for a nap. Off you pop!

When at last the house was quiet and all that I could hear was the sound of my own fast breathing, I walked quickly to my bag, took the test kit from it, stealthily, like a thief, and went straight up to the bathroom with it. No going back now. Oh God. This was the moment of reckoning, all right. Pregnancy test. Two of the most monumental words that had ever related to me. Apart from, perhaps, ‘Tena Lady’.

Cat’s words echoed around my head, taunting me.

Bought a test kit from Boots and . . . I was late, you see, you know me, never late. And anyway, I did that whole weeing on the white stick thing, and yeah, I’m pregnant! We’re going to have a baby!

OK. Do it. Just do it. I opened the box and ripped off the foil wrapper, my fingers shaking so much I could hardly pull the stick out. I read the instructions. Like I didn’t know what I had to do.

W
ITH THE TIP POINTING DOWNWARDS, HOLD THE ABSORBENT SAMPLER IN YOUR URINE STREAM FOR
5
SECONDS ONLY
.

Oh, bloody
hell
. I couldn’t believe I was doing this again. It had only been just over a year since the last time I’d had to do it. Why hadn’t I
insisted
on using condoms? Why had I been so half-arsed about the whole thing?

I did what the instructions told me to do and waited for the result.

C
HECKING THAT THE TEST HAS WORKED:

A
BLUE LINE SHOULD APPEAR IN THE
SMALL
WINDOW, AS SHOWN IN PICTURE ONE.
T
HIS INDICATES THAT THE TEST IS COMPLETE AND HAS WORKED CORRECTLY.

I
F THERE IS A BLUE LINE IN THE
LARGE
WINDOW, AS SHOWN IN PICTURE TWO, YOU ARE PREGNANT.
E
VEN IF THIS LINE IS FAINTER THAN THE ONE IN THE SMALL WINDOW, IT STILL MEANS THAT YOU ARE PREGNANT.

I
F THERE IS NO BLUE LINE IN THE
LARGE
WINDOW, AS SHOWN IN PICTURE THREE, YOU ARE NOT PREGNANT.

I stared at the stick and watched a blue line appear in the small window. OK. Blue line in the small window was fine. That just meant the test had worked. Don’t panic.

Then I stared and stared at the large window until my eyes ached in their sockets. Please don’t let a blue line appear. Oh please, God, please,
please
don’t let there be a blue line.