Vivien Brown - Five Unforgivable Things

I’ll never know for sure why Dan proposed when he did. Perhaps he’d been thinking about it for a while, just as I had. Perhaps he had already chosen the ring, and the place, and the date. Love and marriage, going together like the inevitable horse and carriage. The traditional route through life. Our life. Perhaps it would always have been our next step. Or perhaps it was simply because of the baby.

We hadn’t planned on me getting pregnant. In fact, like most couples our age, still building our careers, still enjoying a life that revolved around pubs and music and each other, we were pretty active in trying to prevent it at all costs. And the pill was almost fool proof, wasn’t it? All you had to do was remember to swallow it and the rest just took care of itself. So, when my period failed to arrive on time, I didn’t worry. In fact, I didn’t even notice at first, and when I did, about a week later, I was quick to put its absence down to just about everything but the obvious. I must have marked the wrong date on the calendar. It must be some kind of hormone thing. I must be stressed or overdoing things at work or coming down with a cold.

I put off buying a test for as long as I could, wearing a sanitary towel in bed every night, expecting every morning to find it soaked, or at least trickled, in blood. Waiting for the inevitable crippling cramps, that would probably be worse than usual, what with being so late in coming, so I might even need a day off work, curled up with a hot water bottle on the sofa. I couldn’t see my boss being too pleased, could already imagine the muttered tut-tuts that signalled his utter inability to comprehend the inner workings of the female reproductive system but, if the bloody (ha, ha!) thing would just hurry up and come, then putting up with all that would be worth it in reassurance levels alone.

It didn’t come. I re-checked the calendar and decided to wait. Just one more day. And then another. I was in denial, pushing the thought of what it might mean out of my head, telling no one. Burying my head in the sand doesn’t even come close to covering it. Of course I was pregnant, as the little blue line told me in no uncertain terms within a minute or two of dipping the stick into my traitorous wee. Still, it could be a mistake, couldn’t it? A false reading, or something contaminating the stick, or me not understanding the instructions properly. So I bought another pack, a different make this time, read the leaflet from beginning to end, waited another twenty-four hours to make sure my wee was extra early-morning strong, washed my hands and the sink and every little nook and cranny in the space between my legs … and the second test told me exactly the same thing. I was definitely, absolutely, one hundred per cent pregnant.

It all felt so unlikely, so unexpected, so unreal. I was twenty-six, with no husband, no savings, no home of my own. I wasn’t ready. And I was pretty sure Dan wasn’t ready either.

***

We were in his room when I told him. We’d not long been home from work and Dan was still wearing his suit, and a blue and grey striped tie that made him look like some sort of public schoolboy. Somehow the formality made it easier. Like it wasn’t the real Dan. Like I was telling it to someone else.

‘No! Oh, Kate, you can’t be.’

I watched his face turn white right in front of my eyes.

‘Yes, I can. And I am.’

‘Well, how the hell did that happen?’

‘The usual way, I imagine. As far as I remember it, you took my clothes off, we kissed for a while, and then you put your penis inside my …’

‘Yes, okay. I know that part, so you can cut the sarcasm. I mean, how did it not work? The pill? I thought you said …’

‘That it was safe? I know I did, and I believed it, honestly, but it looks like I was wrong.’

We both sat there, side by side, on the edge of his bed, and stared at everything but each other. The alarm clock ticked rhythmically beside us. We didn’t speak for what felt like ages. Well, what was there to say? The enormity of the situation was only just starting to sink in for me, and I’d had a few days to get used to it, so what must it be like for Dan?

I could hear his flatmate Rich moving about in the kitchen down the hall, banging a spoon against a pan as he cooked something that was bound to be red and spicy – it always was – for our dinner, singing along tunelessly to the music on the radio. The Bee Gees, ‘Night Fever’, turned up way too loud. Even without being able to see him, I knew the moves he would be making as he danced like Travolta’s poor ginger-headed relation, jabbing his long spiky arms into the air, whatever was on the spoon flicking off and landing in little splatters across the tiles. Thank God he didn’t have a white suit!

‘So, what do you want to do?’

‘Do?’

‘About the pregnancy. About the baby?’

‘I don’t know, Dan. At the moment I’m trying not to think about it as a baby at all. I’m only a couple of weeks overdue, so it’s very early days. I don’t suppose it even has arms or legs or anything yet.’

‘Like some sort of amoeba thing, you mean? Just a shapeless blob?’

‘Maybe.’

‘We still have to do something though, don’t we? Make decisions, I mean. It may just be cells or jelly or whatever, and nothing like a proper baby yet, but it isn’t going to stay that way for long.’

‘No.’

‘So?’

I closed my eyes and screwed my fists into balls, feeling my jagged nails dig in to my palms. I’d been nibbling them a lot these last few days, and not very expertly either. ‘I don’t know. All right? I just don’t know. I need more time to think about it.’

‘Okay. I guess I do too.’

We both jumped as Rich thumped hard on the door. ‘Dinner’s up, you two! Come and get it!’

‘Shall we?’ Dan reached for my hand and pulled me to my feet.

‘Well, I don’t suppose putting it off for a few hours is going to make much difference, is it? And I’m starving.’

‘Eating for two already?’ He forced a smile and ran his hands in little cautious circles over my tummy.

‘It’s not funny, Dan.’

‘I know.’ He sat down again and untied his laces, slipping his feet out of his shoes, then pulled off his tie and flicked the top button of his shirt open. I caught a glimpse of a few lone hairs curling high on his chest, and there was a big hole in the toe of his sock. Dan. This was Dan. Ordinary, down to earth, and suddenly vulnerable, Dan. Not some stranger in a suit, but my Dan. This was the man I loved, the man I had accidentally made a baby with, and nothing could change that. It was done, and whatever happened now, we were in it together.

‘Not a word to Rich, all right?’ I slipped my hand into Dan’s and squeezed it. ‘Not so much as a hint.’

‘Of course not. And if we decide to … you know … then there’ll be nothing to tell anyway, will there?’

‘Decide to what, Dan?’

‘Come on, Kate.’ He shook his head but he wouldn’t look at me. ‘That’s enough for now. No more talk. We need time, like we said, okay? Time to think, before we do or say anything else. Before we decide. Together. Now, let’s go out there, just act as normally as we can, and eat, shall we?’

But I knew what he meant. It was as near as either of us had come to saying the dreaded word out loud. Abortion. The word that had been banging around in my head, almost from the moment I’d known. But it wasn’t the only option, was it? And Dan obviously didn’t think so either, because three days later, kneeling amongst the damp autumn leaves rotting to mush on the path as I sat shivering on a bench in the park, he pulled out a ring in a red velvet box and asked me to marry him.