Katy Regan - One Thing Led to Another

‘Putain de merde Maman! Qu’est ce que tu fou?!’

Doing a course in French, I knew this loosely translated as ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

Then Laurence leapt off me, his erection waving about like a rather awkward third person and pulled up his jeans.

‘Oooh la la.’ I noted the distinct lack of humour in his mother’s voice. Then in her face. She was standing right in front of us. ‘It’s three a.m. And you have a bedroom to go to, Jesus Laurence, have some respect.’

And then I said the weirdest thing, to this day I don’t know what possessed me.

‘Merci beaucoup!’ I shouted after her. Just like that. No joke. I nearly died.

‘ What did you say?’ Laurence said incredulously. Eyeing me up like he’d just spent the last half an hour getting off with a mutant.

But I couldn’t say anything. I covered my face with my hands.

My stomach churns at the memory. I turn back to my inbox and there it is.

From: _LCane@blackberry.co.uk

To: tess_jarvis@giant.co.uk

I was wondering, now we have our glad rags back, you free tomorrow night?

I am now!

I am on my way back from lunch, after reciting the email word for word and relaying the whole dry cleaners scenario to Anne-Marie and Jocelyn and basically the entire office, when I feel the growling vibration of a text message in my pocket.

It’s Jim.

Warren. House party tomorrow. Keep it free.

Presumptuous or what! Now I get my own back. I text:

Sorry, no can do, have hot date with sexy ex. Ha! Kiss that! One all. I do have a social life of my own, you know.

My phone rings immediately. ‘Jim’ flashes up.

‘Oh, now that is lame,’ he says.

‘Come again?’

‘Resurrecting an old boyfriend. I don’t think that counts.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t realize this was a competition!’ I laugh.

‘You started it. You’re the one who said “one all”.’

Jim is always like this when he is on school holidays. Too much time on his hands, gets very childish.

‘It’s a date isn’t it?’ I say. ‘He’s a bloke isn’t he? He fancies me, I fancy him, what’s not to like?’

‘Fine, it’s just, you know, take your good friend Jim for example. Not one to resort to dredging up old flames when in need of a bit of excitement, I travelled far and wide for romance and found an Italian corker who can offer me first class stays at exquisite hotels with no strings attached.’

‘Annalisa found you, remember? White as a sheet, having just barfed in a bin in Rimini town centre you were so hungover, I seem to remember.’

‘She didn’t know I’d just barfed in a bin.’

‘Bet she did, bet she could smell it on you.’ (I always sink to Jim’s level eventually.)

‘No, I was gentlemanly and paid for her coffee actually and anyway she fell for my northern charm and quick wit.’

‘Whatever.’

‘Yeah, whatever. The point is, I thought you hated Laurence?’

‘What makes you think it’s Laurence?! I know it’s hard to believe but I have had other boyfriends, you know.’

‘Not ones you’d call your “sexy” ex, you haven’t.’

I protest but Jim’s right. I would not call any of my other exes my sexy ex. Not because they weren’t sexy at all (I like to think I have upheld some standards in my life) but because Laurence was THE sexy ex. The One. Or as near as damned as I’ve ever been to it.

‘Anyway,’ I continue, feeling ever so slightly triumphant, that Jim has even thought about my past relationships enough to even make this observation, ‘I never said I hated him.’ Did I? He broke my heart; I was gutted for a while. OK, maybe I hated his guts for a while but I never actually hated him. ‘We were young, I expected too much. That was like, seven thousand years ago now anyway. Give the guy a break.’

‘I’ve got nothing against Laurence,’ protests Jim. ‘It was you that he upset, or have you forgotten the night you got back from travelling and demanded I come round, having drunk a bottle of wine in about half an hour feeling practically suicidal? What makes you think he’s changed is all I’m saying.’

‘Jesus Jim, it’s just a date, he didn’t ask me to marry him.’

‘OK. Well that’s OK then,’ says Jim, cheerily now. ‘Have a good time and make sure you give old Cane a damn good seeing to.’

I hang up, walk back to work smiling to myself. Jim really is weird sometimes.

I text Gina ‘how’s the evil hangover?’ And look at my watch: 1.53 p.m. There’s seven minutes till lunch officially ends. Still, a lot can happen in seven whole minutes. I go to the Ladies and then, I don’t know why, perhaps it’s women’s instinct that draws my attention just then, to something in my bag. Shimmering among the bus tickets and leaflets about cultural events I know I will never get round to attending, the blue wrapper containing the other pregnancy test from the pack of two I bought glints at me from the bottom of my bag. I’m not pregnant, I can’t be, I had a negative test. (Shelley Newcombe told me back in Year 9 that you can never have a positive after a negative.) But it cost me fifteen pounds and I really don’t like waste. And so I go into a cubicle and I get it out. It’s less of a conscious decision, more of a cleaning-up exercise, just as you might eat the one leftover stick of Kit-Kat that was making your desk look untidy. I wee on the little stick and balance it on top of the toilet roll holder, not thinking, just doing. Then I set the timer on my watch for two minutes.

1.50

This is ridiculous, I’ve even got PMT: sore boobs, knackered, short fuse, the Works

1.30

No period though and that’s a fact, I’m a week late; I’m never a week late

1.00

I am stressed though, that’s also a fact and I bet two seconds after doing this negative test, I’ll come on (ruining my best knickers it’s always the way)

0.45

I glance at the test, yep, just as I thought

0.30

Two lines emerging, God, I hate wasting money, especially due to paranoia

0.25

Misplaced, neurotic, paranoia

0.14

I pick up the test and tear off some toilet roll – I’m wrapping it up now, to throw in the bin

0.10

But then the light catches it – the breath catches in my throat

0.08

It can’t be, can it? can it? oh my God! tell me it can’t!

0.06

I feel like I might throw up, I swallow, take a deep breath, exhale slowly, then look at it again

0.04

But it’s still there

it’s still there…

a cross, a bright blue fuck-off cross! I’M PREGNANT! I’M FUCKING PREGNANT!! and I can hardly breathe, I can’t get my breath – help me! – my lungs won’t expand, and all I’m aware of, apart from this sensation, is a great surging, flooding of blood to my head…

If it wasn’t suddenly rush hour in the toilets, I might be making much more noise by now. But I can hear someone in the cubicle next to me, blowing their nose, and I know – she even does that in her own special way – that it’s Anne-Marie, so I don’t, I don’t make a sound. I just stay where I am, hand clasped over my mouth, my world having just shifted on its axis, and me hanging off the side by one fingernail.

My first concern (which points towards promising maternal impulses at least) is that I must have pickled whatever is there, if it really is there, by the alcohol consumed last night, the sambucas at Greg’s birthday drinks, the drugs. Shit, the drugs! I had a spliff with Gina last night and I am overcome with a murderous guilt, a guilt I am wholly and completely unprepared for. And then comes the shock, it hits me like a wall. Shock, guilt, shock, what the hell do I feel? The emotions seem to thrash over me, like merciless ice cold waves, pinning me to the back of the toilet door and stealing my breath.