The Darker Side of Mummy Misfit #2 (3 page)

Fenella’s response was trademark Fenella-esque.

“Jammy bastards!  All they have to do is hop on Aeroflot and pick up their little bundle of joy. 
We
have to push the wriggling, squirming mass through our lady-bits. 
Then
we can’t sit down for a week, not that we could actually
go anywhere
because our wayward knockers will have minds of their own and squirt unsuspecting passers-by without a word of warning.  Oh, Sweedie, I wish I’d said no to the bonk now and gone and bought a baby too - don’t you?”

I know she says these things in jest and when challenged she added, “Yes, of course I’m delighted to be with child again, even if it does mean I’m going to look like Attila the Hun for the third time in my life, but I can’t stop the morbid thoughts.  Last night, I dreamed my waters broke in a CCL meeting and Hinge took bets on the times between contractions, Bracket cut the umbilical cord with a Swiss army knife and Letchy and Barbie were copulating in the corner to Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’.”

I agreed that was particularly unsavoury.

“Yes, Sweedie. I didn’t even know if the army knife had been sterilised.”

Oh Fenella, she really is one in a million but how lovely that we can share all this together.  Three new babies, how exciting.

Saturday 20
^th
September

Still thinking of a way to break Nic and Rick’s baby news to Max.  Homophobic Hubbie says it will confuse him to think that the baby will have two dads, but we have to tell him
something
or he’ll be even more confused when a baby just arrives on the scene from nowhere and with no explanation.

Max knows that they live together and are ‘special friends’ but wasn’t at their wedding - sorry Ned, ‘Civil Ceremony’ - last year because of all the questions it might raise.  There’s only
so
much a six year old can take in.  So this baby issue is a bit of a tricky one.

Ned says we should just lie and say they’re babysitting for a friend.  “Come on Lib.  He doesn’t need to know anything else for now.”

When I explained that this baby was for life, not just for Christmas, and that babysitting generally meant that the baby went back to its parents at least occasionally, he realised he didn’t have a macho leg to stand on.

“Why don’t we just skirt around the whole ‘one mummy, one daddy’ issue and say they’re adopting a baby who needs two people to love it?” I suggested, very tentatively.  “The gay issue need never raise its ugly head.”

Ned reluctantly conceded, after a slight shudder at the words ‘gay’ and ‘head’ in the same sentence, that it was probably the best way to go but added, “If this screws him up in later life you, Nic, Rick and Baby Gorbachev will have a lot to answer for.”

I love my hubbie even though he has issues.

Sunday 21
^st
September

Max, as usual, took it all in his stride.

“Cool!  It’s very sad the baby had no one to love it but how lucky Uncle Nic and Uncle Rick found him.”

Ned and I looked at one another with eyes prickling - out of the mouths of babes.

Max then added, “And how lucky that they were already husband and husband or they might not have let them have a baby, isn’t that right Daddy?”

Ned threw his eyes to the ceiling and, after exchanging a resigned look with me, reserved the right to remain silent - although I suspect there was a whole heap he wanted to say that probably wasn’t fit for such tender young ears.

Monday 22
^nd
September

Mrs S waved us off to school this morning shouting, “Oh Libbybeta.  I am very much excited.  Skunk is bringing his new lady friend to visit me tonight and I have been cooking dhal and chapatis.  He was telling me her name but it is not in my brain anymore, but I
do
remember that she is a witch doctor.  Very interesting, do you not agree, Libbybeta?”

I can’t wait to see how she’s got
that
one wrong.  It should give Skunk a good laugh too.

Chatted to Fenella at the school gates and decided we’d head into town for some maternity clothes.

“Now that you’ve got some dosh, Sweedie, you can treat yourself to some new stuff.  You can’t go around housing your bump in Oxfam gear - no matter how designer it may be.  You have no idea what it could do to a developing foetus.  I knew a woman who only ever wore black when she was pregnant and
now
her eleven year old is an Emo - you know, all weird and depressed and constantly threatening to top herself.”

Couldn’t understand the relevance, and not quite sure how much of that little tale I believed, but it spurred me on to finally part with a bit of money and treat myself to some attractive tents to adorn my bun in the oven until March.

Fenella was very brave and went for little crop tops and combat trousers.  Call me old fashioned. but I’m still a firm believer that pregnant flesh should be covered, no matter how beautiful you may think it is.  In my mother’s day, mums-to-be wore an overcoat - rain, shine or heat wave - and did everything to avoid showing the world they’d actually ‘done the deadly deed’.  Now I’m not saying I’d go
that
far, but I do believe in keeping it out of people’s faces.  Fenella, on the other hand, is even contemplating having her belly button pierced with a Swarovski crystal to draw even more attention to her “duffedness”.

Quite pleased with my buys and, even though I’ve got nothing more than a peanut to show at the moment, threw a demure smock over my leggings before popping next door to Mrs S to introduce myself to Skunk’s ‘voodoo woman’.

Tuesday 23
^rd
September

Skunk’s girlfriend is called Silver - no wonder it didn’t stick in Mrs S’s brain for too long!

She’s absolutely adorable - petite, hippy-chic and very easy to get along with.

Not what you’d expect from a
witch doctor
at all.

Of course, Mrs S had got her wires ever so slightly crossed - Silver’s an alternative therapist, specialising in aromatherapy, reflexology and head massage with a little cloud-reading on the side - must explore what that last one involves with her next time we meet.

She’s just perfect for Skunk and they seem to be very taken with one another.  She was also really good with Mrs S, giving her a lovely scented hand massage which amazingly stopped her talking gobbledegook for at least an hour afterwards.

While Silver and I made some herbal tea she explained why the treatment could have had such an effect on her.

“You know, Libby, Pritesh is partly right.  She
is
bored and she
is
lonely, but she isn’t doing it purposefully for attention.  But spending that little bit of time pampering her like that made her feel connected.  Right now she doesn’t feel she needs to spout on about Munchkins in her airing cupboard or giant mutant frogs in her knicker drawer because she’s getting a little bit of time.  It’s often all old people really need.”

Felt a bit guilty as I may have been slightly neglecting Mrs S, what with our summer holiday and now the start of the school term.

Took the tea through to find Mrs S telling Skunk that she’d once been Casanova’s love slave but had escaped by employing her teleporting skills.

Silver looked at me and smiled.  “I never promised it would be a miracle cure.  But I’ll keep giving it a bloody good try.”

Wednesday 24
^th
September

Had a quick word with Gestapo outside school this morning and asked her how often she and Pritesh actually visit Mrs S.

“Oh, really only when we have to, Darling.  She’s terribly sweet and all that but I always find old people a little challenging on the nose.”

What a cheek!  Mrs S has
never
been a smelly old biddy - well, a bit spicy sometimes but that’s only due to her cooking.

“And to be honest Libby, I also find her deranged ramblings a bit tricky to deal with.  Does she really expect us to believe that that revolting Skunk character is shacked up with a witch doctor?  I mean, I ask you.”

Wonder if Silver would be interested in taking up a spot of voodoo with me, cos I sure as hell know where I’d like to stick a few needles right now.

Can’t think what Pritesh sees in the wretched woman.  Feel quite insulted to think that he used to have the hots for me and then ends up going for such a vicious and vile harridan.  Guess the non-stop and varied sex must have something to do with it, but I’m still slightly put out.

Told Ned over dinner and he seized the opportunity to tease me.

“Oooh, Lib, are you jealous that your little admirer has dumped you for another?”

Whacked him with a spatula and told him, no I wasn’t
jealous
, I was just surprised at Pritesh’s choice.

“Well my love, I think he’d been in a bit of a drought for a while so he probably got a bit desperate.  The old Gestapo might not be a candidate for the Nobel Peace prize but I’m sure Pritesh isn’t thinking that when he’s dunking his samosa.”

My husband can be so coarse sometimes, I don’t know why I married him.

Well, I
do
know actually, I’ve always been quite partial to a bit of playful vulgarity - just not when it’s at my expense.

And, as a delicate woman with child, I shouldn’t be subjected to such smut.  Told him as much and then it was my turn to feel the sting of the spatula as he chased me round the kitchen until he got me in a clinch over the breakfast bar.

Yep - smut’s kind of OK!

Thursday 25
^th
September

CCL

Had another committee meeting this evening.

Fenella was slightly late and excused herself with the news that she’d been hurling like a demon-crazed Linda Blair since six this morning so, if she was a bit whiffy, forgive her.

Hinge & Bracket smiled politely, Dress-up Mummy nodded sympathetically, Shergar and Barbie winced and Letchy and Gorgeous Rooney shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

Anyway, the long and the short of the meeting - other than the catastrophic outcome of Barbie’s pedicure - “The
wrong shade of magenta!” -
is that we now have three CCL children to support at the school so the fundraising needs to be pretty full on for us to meet our forty-five grand target.

The Auction of Promises is booked and going ahead in November and could well raise enough money to keep at least one of them in the school for a year.

Someone’s donated a year’s supply of Cristal champagne.  Foolishly, and still easily impressed, I took this to be a great acquisition and could see it receiving lots of bids.

I’ve such a lot to learn.

Shergar piped up first.

“Well that’s all very well.  But how does one ascertain how much champagne is
consumed
in a year?  For someone like you, Libby, it may only be a bottle for very special occasions, whereas in
our
house, it’s practically a staple diet.”

Then Barbie chipped in with, “Oh I couldn’t agree more.  Whoever donated it needs to be more specific about quantity or no one will bid.  ‘Year-Shmeer’ - we want figures.”

The next ten minutes were spent with the pair of them trying to outdo one another with the amount of fizz they managed to quaff in a year and Fenella eventually standing up and announcing, “Well, on occasions I like to
bathe
in it but I wouldn’t expect the deal to include
that
.”

I think they realised that the piss had been well and truly taken and finally had the decency to pipe down and look suitably sheepish.

Gorgeous Rooney chuckled in the corner and Letchy went off into a fantasy world of his own, envisaging the voluptuous Fenella reclining in a tub of vintage bubbles.

The meeting wrapped up pretty quickly after that!

Friday 26
^th
September

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Saturday 27
^th
September

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Sunday 28
^th
September

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Monday 29
^th
September

I’m not pregnant anymore.

I started losing our baby on Friday night and by Saturday it was all over …

… just like that …

… the baby we’d waited so long for, and had almost given up on, gave up on us instead.