Foetal Attraction (23 page)

She drooped back on to her suitcase under the condom vending machine and buried her head in her hands.

If today was a fish, Maddy thought to herself, she’d throw it back.

Up a Storm-Water Drain Without a Paddle

ROOM IS A
word the English use loosely. What Maddy finally rented on the Euston Road above a beef-burger joint was more like a cupboard. She could turn over the television channels with her toe without getting up off the bed. The décor was that of a porn movie set. Only two types of people would rent a room like this. Men who paid by the hour and people who’d
escaped
. The whole building smelt like withered mushrooms. The communal bath down the corridor was ringed with grimy high-water marks. The landlord had warned that the shower steamed up: what he meant was that it steamed up the same way a Brazilian jungle does after rain. Struggling out of the tarpaulin she called a dress, she released her pendulous breasts from their elasticated feat of engineering and eased her veined legs out of their beige medical hose. It was then she caught a glimpse of her swollen reflection. Demi Moore, eat your heart out, Maddy said to herself.

She lumbered into bed and tenderly licked the strawberry aureoles from an entire packet of jammy-dodgers. The
Evening Standard
astrology column spread open on her knees advised her to ‘redouble her efforts and prepare for a major disappointment’. She licked faster. On the black and white television, new fathers drove their insomniac offspring round the block in high-performance cars. Groovy dads in GAP jeans frolicked with freckled sons and talked meaningfully about far-sighted insurance policies. The advertisements gave way to a news programme about child poverty in the UK. ‘One in four children lives in poverty in Britain … life expectancy for children in the UK is lower than any other country in the EC, the proportion of youngsters in jail higher … the …’

Maddy jabbed at the off switch with a ragged toenail in bad need, she now noticed, of a trim. She reached for the stack of pregnancy books by her bed. Books which bombarded her with advice, from toilet training to tooth fairies. But, as hard as she looked, there was nothing in these tomes about gutless wonders who got you by the short and curlies, knocked you up, then did the dingo act and scarpered back to their wives. Maddy hurled the open paperback at the wall. There was no point reading pregnancy books. What she
should
be reading was Simone de Beauvoir to work out how on earth she got into this mess in the first place. It was time to face facts. Alex was not coming back. He had put Maddy in the salad
crisper
of his mind, along with the soggy old lettuce and decomposing cauliflower. She’d been assigned to the ‘To Be Dealt With One Day’ list.

The room shuddered intermittently as trains thundered by beneath. She heard from the alley below sounds like girls being garrotted and hoped like hell it was just cats in season. She couldn’t even cry. The walls were too thin.

Maddy stretched her leg to the left and flicked off the light with the ball of her foot. She lay in the dark and waited for sleep. Instead, she listed all the things that could be wrong with her baby – cerebral palsy, osteothrombosis, cystic fibrosis, Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy, spina bifida, haemophilia … She thought of her relaxation exercises from class. ‘Deep breaths, keep calm’, Yolanda’s voice came back to her. ‘Draw on your inner tranquillity …’ But all Maddy seemed to have inside herself was anxiety, paranoia and fear of death.

Yolanda had told them that cows produced more milk and pigs healthier litters if the animals were stroked and petted and talked to in a friendly manner. ‘Goodnight, Maddy darling,’ she said aloud. ‘Sleep well.’ She hugged herself close. She flicked through her Roladex of ready-made fantasies, then froze, hand poised in position. She felt watched. Spied on. She’d heard of ‘not in front of the children’. But not in front of the
foetus
? Flushed with embarrassment, Maddy sat up and switched on the light. Severe pregnancy
cravings
were setting in. Not for the usual soap sandwiches and chocolate soup … but for a house with new carpet, a car, a husband … someone to sit with in the back row of the school auditorium during the nativity play. Keep yourself busy, she lectured herself. Don’t give way to indulgent despair. Cut those toenails. But it was this exercise in grooming which made her shatter. At twenty-four weeks pregnant, she could no longer reach her feet. No Gillian, no Alex, not a friend to speak of. Who, she demanded of the flock wallpaper, was going to cut them for her? Maddy had just mentally catalogued her list of possible congenital and hereditary diseases into alphabetical order, when there was a rap at the door.

Her heart leapt into her throat. It didn’t have far to go. It was already pressed up around her tonsils by pressure from the baby. Maddy galumphed to the door and tore it open, ready to forgive him, take him back, marry him instantly, have wild jungle sex and be his love slave.

The man at the door flicked his eyes the length and breadth of her. He had knife-faced features in a loose-fleshed face. His clothes reeked of stale smoke and his day’s menu was readable in stains down his shirt front, the buttons of which didn’t quite meet, revealing a belly the consistency of suet pudding. He extended a rough, knuckley hand. ‘You’re a looker. They didn’t tell me that.’

‘Whatever it is, the answer’s no.’

The man shoved his foot in the closing door and shrugged the dandruffy shoulders of his cheap suit. ‘Really Most ladies I know would leap at the offer of five thousand quid.’

‘Who in the hell are you?’

‘Someone who’s interested in you. Very bloody interested. As will my readers be when you tell them your story of love gone wrong. Mick Mullins.’ His Australian accent grated. It reminded Maddy of a car grinding gears. He opened his wallet, revealing accidentally on purpose a thick stash of cash, before extracting his calling card. ‘
News of the World
.’ The only time Maddy had glimpsed this paper was when it was lining Mr Tongue’s kitty litter tray. ‘A mate of a mate overhead a convo at the Groucho Club. Said you were in the poo and might want to sell your story.’

‘What? I was joking!’

‘This room sure don’t look like much of a joke. Nor does
that
.’ He pointed a black-rimmed nail at Maddy’s T-shirted bulge. She crossed her arms, self-consciously. ‘What a way to spend Christmas, eh? And where’s
he
? Poncing about some place posh, no doubt. You’ve given that bloke your best. You’ve lost mates, work, reputation … and what have you got to show for it? Nothin’. ’Cept a sprog. You’re just gunna sink into obscurity. Left holdin’ the banner, Sister Maryanna. It ain’t fair, is it? Are you really gunna let the Pommy drop-kick get away with it?’

On most papers, to be a journalist required
intelligence
, compassion, literacy … To be a journalist on the
News of the World
, all you required, deduced Maddy, was a pen. ‘I’ll call the manager.’

‘There’s mates of yours willing to tell the story.’

She stopped pushing on the door. ‘Who?’

‘Oh yes, they’re all coming out of the woodwork now. They’ll get paid handsomely for it too … While you’re left up the spout on your pat malone … Doesn’t seem right somehow, letting these other characters get away with, say, ten g.’

‘
Ten grand?
’

‘Why not set the story straight, eh? I’m doin’ this for you as a favour. I mean, us Aussies have to stick together, right? You’ll be famous. Get your mug on the front page. I’ve got the contract right here,’ he rasped, in a voice it would hurt to shave your legs with. ‘Imagine it. You could slip over to Florida for Chrissy. Go down to the Keys. It’s seventy-five in the shade. Only a short flight. Doan worry. We’ll arrange it for you. Go Concorde if you like! Of course, we’ll need a piccie. But the story will be told in your words. Absolutely. We’ll keep out a lot of the bedroom stuff—’

Maddy slammed the door in his face.

‘Fifteen grand. My final offer. I’ll be in touch dreckly.’ She twisted the key in the lock. ‘Use your noggin, girlie. I don’t think you’re entitled to Welfare … as an
illegal alien
.’

Maddy crawled back into bed and tugged the covers
over
her head. Would he shop her to the immigration people? Oh God, he was going to blackmail her into a confession. Christ, what she could do with fifteen thousand pounds. Maybe buy a few luxury items – like food, clothing, rent.

A few minutes later there was another knock at the door. ‘Bugger off!’ The knock came louder this time, rattling her temples like a headache. She pulled the pillow over her ears. But the insistent pounding fuelled her with anger. Brandishing a well-worn riding boot, she ripped open the door. ‘I said BUGGER OFF … Oh.’ Maddy was taken aback. Standing on her grimy threshold, in the threadbare hall, was Harriet.

‘I’ve just heard,’ she pronounced in her sibilant tones. ‘How are you?’

‘Oh, fine, if you don’t count being into the third month of a very severe nervous breakdown.’ Maddy lowered her leathery weapon.

‘Ah, the lunacy of disappointed love,’ Harriet quoted, pushing past Maddy into the bedsit and looking around with undisguised disgust. ‘English men have cavities where their hearts should be. I did warn you.’

Maddy cringed inwardly. She’d come to gloat.

‘I just wanted to see,’ continued Harriet, dusting the dresser top before putting down her briefcase, ‘if you were all right.’

‘Who, me? Ecstatic. I’m now completely free to hobnob with London’s most eligible, rich and famous
hotshots
… if only they had my number,’ she added facetiously.

‘Husbands,’ Harriet brushed the air dismissively. ‘A woman can get a husband whenever she wants one. But a
baby
…’ Her face, her voice, everything about her softened. ‘Ah, now there’s a luxury item.’ Harriet flumped down on to the bed and folded her arms authoritatively. ‘Men are more pathetic now than they ever were. They can’t even do the one thing they’re supposed to be able to do, namely, produce the next generation.’ She paused to disentangle a bed-spring from the sleeve of her cardigan. ‘In the last thirty years, the average Western male’s sperm count has halved—’

Maddy knitted her fingers together across her big belly. ‘What has that got to do with the price of fertilized eggs?’

‘I don’t know if Alexander told you, but I had my tubes tied at twenty-five.’

‘Jesus … Why?’

Harriet exploded. ‘Nobody demands of an expectant mother a list of rational reasons about why she wants a child, so why should I have to list rational reasons as to why I don’t? Or
didn’t
,’ she corrected, smoothing her hair from her face and addressing the plastic, pastel Madonna and Child on the wall opposite. ‘It was a political statement. I didn’t care for the way society treated its mothers. Nor did I approve of the long-held assumption that motherhood was the
right
and proper path for a female to take.’ She pawed the lino furiously. ‘Look at the language. In contrast to the label “mother”, what do we have? Only “barren”, “single”, “spinster”, “career woman”. All pejorative terms.’ She catapulted to her feet in vitriolic mood. ‘Why? Because a child-free woman represents a challenge to the established order, that’s why—’ Harriet took a deep breath and controlled herself. ‘Let’s just say that physical exhaustion and financial dependence didn’t attract me,’ she concluded succinctly.

‘So is it irreversible or what?’

‘As irreversible as having children … It must also be said …’ the blue-eye-shadowed eyes of the three-dimensional Madonna followed Harriet wherever she paced in the tiny room, ‘that the thought of gazing adoringly into the puckered features of a miniature version of myself I found abhorrent. There was so much more I wanted to do. Write, travel, put the world to rights …’

‘And now?’

‘Madeline, I know you don’t know me very well, and I realize that we haven’t always seen eye to eye on everything … but right now you need help.’ Harriet, like a rogue elephant, always advanced in a straight line stomping over all in her path. ‘You’re coming to live with me.’

‘Thank you, Harriet, but I’m just hunky-dory on my own.’

‘I have a big house in the country. Cosy, comfortable …’ She glanced around with disdain at the ragged, rat-gnawed furnishings. ‘It’s the least I can do for a
sister
.’ Harriet hauled Maddy’s suitcase off the top of the wardrobe and on to the bed where it yawned open hungrily.

Maddy hesitated. It was true that Harriet brought her out in emotional hives … but it was almost Christmas. She didn’t have a brass razoo. Not a pot to piss in. She was camped out in one of the hundreds of local hostels housing the unemployed who’d come from up north in search of jobs which didn’t exist. She was weak with fatigue, undernourished, the
News of the World
was after her and her toenails needed cutting. She was all alone in London. The way she looked at it, she was playing Monopoly against Life, and right now, Life had got Mayfair and Park Lane. She started packing.

Joke Oak

THEY SPENT THE
night in Harriet’s Notting Hill Gate flat, then took the morning train to Oxford. London disintegrated into a demoralized tangle of junk car yards, caravan parks and wastelands. At one point in the journey, Harriet even went so far as to pat Maddy’s knee reassuringly. It was only now that Maddy was beaten, retreating, friendless … Harriet could warm to her. Defeat, it seemed, was socially acceptable. It helped to remember that Dunkirk was England’s greatest historical moment.

With unexpected abruptness, they were suddenly in the country. It was as though Walt Disney had designed a set marked ‘Quaint’, full of toy-town squares sunk in sleep and mock-Tudor mansions. The drowsy countryside had been through its annual striptease. Just like the hymn, England did consist of many green and pleasant lands … but also factories, nuclear power stations, motorways and electricity pylons
whose
gargantuan steel legs strode from coast to coast. Every square inch of British soil was soaked in fertilizers which seeped into streams. The truth about Loch Ness was that there was one hell of a big dead fish down there.