Dyan Sheldon - And Baby Makes Two

Plus, I already had everything ready for the baby. It was laid out in my room. My nan bought me a cot, and Charley bought me a pushchair, and my sisters bought me a load of clothes, all in yellow or green, since they didn’t believe I was definitely having a boy. I’d decided against breast-feeding because I reckoned I was bound to want to leave him sometimes, so I could see my friends and go out with Les, stuff like that. Hilary had to be able to feed him then. So she bought me bottles, a sterilizer and a box of disposable nappies. She called it “the starter set”. I even had my bag packed for the hospital with some stuff for the baby and my pyjamas, dressing-gown, slippers and toiletries, like it said in one of my pamphlets.

I hadn’t picked his name yet, though. I had a book of boys’ names that I got in Smiths. I reckoned I’d have plenty of time after I’d had him and knew what he was like to read through it and find the perfect one.

My mother said the doctor could be wrong.

“Is this from all your years of making appointments for other people?” I asked. “Is that what makes you an expert?”

“Don’t get clever with me,” said my mother. “I have had three children of my own, you know. All I’m saying is you seemed sure about when you stopped bleeding. Maybe the baby is small. Some babies are.”

“And all I’m saying is what the doctor told me yesterday. That he won’t be born till September.”

“But how do you feel ?” pushed Detective Spiggs.

How the hell did she think I felt? She was the one who’d had three children of her own. She must’ve remembered feeling like a hippo with the flu.

“I feel brilliant,” I told her. “Never felt better.”

“So you don’t mind if I spend the night at Charley’s? You’ll be all right on your own?”

That was her latest torture. She didn’t want to leave me because I was so close to my delivery date, in case I was early or something and needed her help. I needed her help like Armani needs Calvin Klein.

“Of course I’ll be all right.”

She hesitated for a couple of seconds. I could tell she was torn between doing what she thought was right – staying home to torment me – and doing what she wanted to do – going to Clapham to torment Charley. She’d never had trouble making this decision before, I can tell you that. She’d been leaving me on my own for as long as I could remember. I reckoned she didn’t want the guilt if I died in labour while she was living it up south of the river.

“Well,” she said at last. “You have the number if you do need me.”

“Burnt into my brain,” I said.

It turned out to be a long night.

After the Spiggs went off, I made myself a tin of soup and a toasted cheese sandwich and curled up on the couch to read about Virgo. I couldn’t really get comfortable because my back ached so much. No change there.

I concentrated hard on what the book had to say. It was pretty good news. Virgos are practical and down-to-earth. That sounded all right to me. Shanee was very practical and down-to-earth and I got on fine with her. Also, he’d be adaptable, which wasn’t a bad thing. I wondered if I should call him Virgil. Or maybe Vigil. I put them in my mind as definite possibilities.

I had a couple of spoonfuls of soup, but it started repeating almost as soon as I swallowed it. The cheese tasted off. My back was killing me.

I readjusted the pillows and put on a video I’d already seen. I just wanted to hear some human voices, I didn’t care what they were saying.

My stomach started to ache. I shuffled into the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea.

It was hard to watch the film at all, because I was so uncomfortable and everything hurt so much.

I started thinking about Les.

He’d been gone four days, but I still hadn’t had a postcard. If I’d been Les, I’d’ve sent me one from the airport, you know sort of as a joke and sort of not as a joke. So I’d know that he missed melike I missed him. But guys aren’t the same as girls. It wouldn’t even occur to him. Guys live in the present, but girls live in the future. I’d read it in Cosmo .

I wondered what Les was doing right then. It was too late for swimming in the sea, but he might be in the pool. Or in the bar with his mates. The bar seemed more likely.

Maybe he was thinking of me.

He was sitting at the bar. I could practically see him. Usually Les drank lager, but because he was on holiday he had one of those fancy cocktails with three kinds of spirits, fruit juice, a cherry and a paper parasol stuck in the crushed ice. I’d always dreamed of sitting at a bar, sipping one of those. And Les knew it. He was thinking how much I’d like a drink like that. Since it was Greece, I reckoned there’d be little dishes of olives on the bar as well. And maybe crisps.

Les takes the postcard he bought in the village from his pocket. It’s a photograph of a Greek street, like the one Charlene sent me when she went to Greece with her husband. The houses are small and old and painted pink and blue and green. There’s a string of onions hanging outside one and a goat sleeping in the shade of a small tree.

Les borrows a pen from the barman and starts to write me a note on the back of the card.

Dear Lana , he writes. How are you and the baby? How’s the weather? It’s sunny here, but it might as well be raining. I miss you. You’d really like it here. The hotel’s well posh. Carpets and chandeliers, the works. There’s a hot tub and a jacuzzi and a whole room of arcade games. Plus, you’d love the food. And there’s a disco every night. I was thinking that we might come back here together some time. Like on our honeymoon or something. What do you think?

I thought the baby was trying to tear his way out of my body, that’s what I thought.

A pain ripped through me that was so strong I screamed out loud.

“Jesus,” I said to no one.

I didn’t want to go to the next thought. The next thought was that something was wrong. Pain like that couldn’t be normal . I would’ve heard about it. Madonna would’ve said something. Or Hilary Spiggs. She wouldn’t miss an opportunity like that.

Then the pain stopped. I reckoned that it was just some kind of glitch. You know, the baby got his feet caught in a corner or something like that.

I went back to imagining our honeymoon.

At the disco, Les and I had a spotlit dance to ourselves, because we were newly-weds. He was wearing a white suit, and I was wearing a silver slip dress and silver stilettos. Then, light-headed with love, Les stuck my shoes in his pockets and we linked arms and strolled up the beach beneath a fat, round moon the colour of Flora. Something happy was playing in the background. Maybe ABBA. I’d liked “Dancing Queen” since I saw Muriel’s Wedding.

Les was telling me how, when he’d been there before, he used to stand at the edge of the water every night and pretend he could see across it to London. He’d picture me in my black jeans and my sparkly silver top that he liked, going into McDonald’s with my shopping.

I screamed again.

It couldn’t be the baby kicking, unless he was already wearing boots. Maybe something was wrong. One of the women in the antenatal clinic knew someone whose baby choked to death on the umbilical cord while it was still in the womb. Would it feel like that if it was dying? Would it hurt me more than it hurt him?

I sipped my tea and tried to think what to do. I could phone my mother and see what she thought. But it was already after midnight. I didn’t want to wake her if it really wasn’t anything. I couldn’t ring the doctor. I’d only just seen her. She’d think I was being hysterical.