Babyville (20 page)

I love the smell of this house, even though I have no clue what it is. It's not beeswax, or lavender, or anything as romantic as lilies. It's not even something as prosaic as Shake 'n' Vac. Just the house's own smell. The smell of home.

I love puttering in the kitchen with Mark's cookbooks, licking my fingers sensuously as I scrape flour, butter, and sugar into the blender and pretend to be the quintessential Domestic Goddess.

Is this what they call nesting?

I love stopping off at the flower shop on the way back from work and coming home with armfuls of stargazers and creamy white roses, and arranging them as best I can in vases that I dot all over the house.

This must be what they call nesting.

I love sinking into the sofa with my legs up on the coffee table, tapping my Garfield-encased feet to Coldplay in an effort to give baby a headstart in the musical stakes. Mark keeps saying that the experts mean playing Mozart and Beethoven to your fetus, not Coldplay and Travis, but the last thing I'd want is a nerd, and the baby seems to like it just fine.

I love my bedroom, which is almost as big as Mark's and, thankfully, has a small ensuite bathroom, but most of all I love the room that's going to be the nursery.

We're about to start decorating, now that I'm over seven months. Mark tried to insist we wait until eight, but quite frankly even if the baby decided to come now, we'd have a damn good chance, and I can't wait anymore.

I love the pale pistachio paint we've chosen, and the lemon borders. I love the green gingham curtains we're going to order, and the huge teddy bear rug we saw in the West End last weekend and couldn't resist.

I love this house so much I don't think I ever want to leave. I have thought about it, naturally, but for now this is working. Mark seems to be as comfortable as I am. He loves that I'm so happy here. He loves that I do, on occasion, cook him supper, and it's out of the goodness of my heart. He loves that there are flowers in the house, and feminine smells. I think he even loves being pissed off at me for filling the washing machine with lacy knickers when he was just about to stick his T-shirts in.

“You know what it is?” he said one Friday night, when I'd made an effort and we'd just finished a home-cooked dinner of roast chicken and apricot crumble. “I don't think I ever realized before you moved in how lonely I've been. For years. And I'm not lonely anymore.”

I snorted. “How could you have been lonely for years? You lived with Julia for years.”

“That's the point. I never thought you could be lonely when you were living with someone, but now I think that there's nothing lonelier than being in an unhappy relationship.”

“So I'm your Lady in shining armor, sent to rescue you from years of M & S prepacked meals and holey socks.”

“Why, are you willing to darn my socks? Because I do actually have a couple upstairs that need—”

“Fuck off!” I grab the cushion I'm sitting on and whack him over the head.

“If you weren't pregnant I'd whack you back,” he says indignantly.

“If I weren't pregnant I wouldn't be here and you'd be having boring old pasta for dinner.”

“Are you trying to imply I can't cook?” he says, wounded. “Because you can fuck off too,” and with that he pours my mango smoothie all over my head.

“I can't believe you did that.” I'm completely aghast, looking at my lap as the orange liquid drips off my hair and into my lap. “I can't believe you did that.”

Mark sits back, crosses his arms and waits, grinning. He's waiting for my counterattack, but I'm too stunned to do anything. I'm in shock.

I start to laugh.

“God, you look ridiculous.” Mark joins me in the laughter, laughing so hard he doesn't notice me grab a handful of spinach until it's too late and the spinach slides slowly down his nose.

With a combined giggle and scream, I turn and run out of the kitchen, because revenge will be his, and I know it's going to be bigger and better than a mango smoothie. I have a feeling it may have something to do with coffee ice cream, which, although back in the freezer, is still ominously runny due to me having forgotten that it was standing on the kitchen worktop for ages.

I can hear Mark running up the stairs behind me, and I shriek as I fumble my way into the nursery.

“No!” I say sternly, putting up my hand to warn him off. “Enough's enough, Mark. Not in the nursery. We've just decorated.”

“You can clean it up later,” he sings, advancing toward me slowly with two tubs of open ice cream and a large grin. Shit. I forgot about the other tub. “Revenge is mine.”

“No,” I shriek, but I'm giggling as he gets closer. “Mark, I'm serious. Think of the baby.”

“The baby loves coffee ice cream,” Mark says, which of course is what I've been telling him for the last two weeks to explain my sudden craving for a flavor of ice cream that I had, before my pregnancy, abhorred.

I'm backed into a corner and there's nowhere to go. With a final squeal, Mark's got me, and he's loving every minute of smearing ice cream all over my face and hair as I try to wriggle out, to no avail.

In the end I give up. Even as he smears the ice cream on I'm smearing it off and wiping it on him until we're both covered. We're both grinning hugely, when the strangest thing happens.

Mark's face is centimeters from mine, and suddenly I want to kiss him.

I'm looking at his lips, and all I can think about is licking them, feeling his lips on mine, his tongue in my mouth, and the smile wipes itself off my face as I feel myself transported with lust, and Mark must sense it, must feel what's going on because the next thing I know he's not smiling either, and the only noise you can hear is the sound of both of us panting, and he's looking deeply into my eyes.

“I think,” I whisper, as I tilt my head slightly and move my head fractionally closer to his, “I'm about to have a Häagen-Dazs moment.”

“That's the best idea you've had all week,” he whispers back, just as his lips touch mine.

20

“No!” Stella gasps, when I tell
her that Mark and I finally got it together. “You're not serious! That's like something out of a film!”

It's the day of my leaving do, and I'm briefing Stella on taking over my job. We've popped up to the canteen to grab some tea. She asks how come I'm looking so pleased with myself, and I nonchalantly tell her it must be all the sex.

She asks with whom, and is practically hugging herself with excitement when I tell her.

“I knew it!” she squeals, when she manages to get over her shock. “I knew you two would get together. I'm so excited! How do you feel?”

How do I feel?

I feel quite unlike I've ever felt before, if the truth be known. I feel settled; comfortable; happy. I feel excited about the baby, about the future, and I feel relieved and grateful that I'm not doing all of this by myself.

I feel absolutely, one hundred percent feminine. I lie in bed at night as Mark sleeps, stroking my burgeoning belly, knowing that this is exactly what my body was designed for. Knowing that whatever heights I may reach in my career, this is the greatest thing I will ever do.

I watch Mark while he's sleeping. Often. I watch him snuffle into the pillow and I feel huge affection for him, because while I never wanted commitment, never wanted a relationship, now that I—albeit unwittingly—have one, I can see why people seek out their “other halves.” I can see what it's all about.

Rather like Mark, I never thought I was lonely. I probably wasn't, but life is so much easier, so much more enjoyable now that I have someone to share it with. I have relaxed with that security, and although I don't for a second believe that Mark is my “other half” (as I have no belief in that concept at all), I do believe that he is enriching my life, and that's all that matters right now.

“I feel great,” I say, smiling at Stella. “On top of the world.” I look down at my belly. “Except I'm thirty-five weeks and I've had enough. I've bloody had enough.”

I bumped
into someone I knew last week who said that everyone who thought pregnancy lasted nine months was wrong. In actual fact, she laughed, pregnancy lasts eight months and two years, as the last month is so interminably long.

I remember seeing an interview with Caroline Quentin who, at thirty weeks, spontaneously went into labor and out popped a perfectly healthy baby. If it's good enough for Caroline Quentin, how come it's not good enough for me?

“Do you think tonight's the night?” I've started asking Mark every night as we lie in bed, usually after sex, because my hormones have thankfully started working in welcome ways, and my libido appears to have gone through the roof.

“I don't think so,” Mark always sighs.

“Why not?” I plead, standing up to show him how much the baby's dropped. “Look how low it is. I swear the baby's head is engaged.” Mark just smiles and goes back to his book.

Even the midwife laughed when I saw her this week. “Wanting it to happen early doesn't mean it will happen early,” she said.

“But the baby's definitely dropped?” I asked hopefully.

“Hmm. It's definitely slightly lower than last week.”

“But my indigestion's much better and I can breathe more easily again. It must have dropped. Partly engaged? Even a centimeter?”

She smiled. “Don't worry. Your time will come.”

I didn't bother telling her that my time, at least as far as I am concerned, is definitely here.

 “I'd
like to say”—Mike Jones raises his glass and shouts above the heads of everyone in the room, eventually climbing on to a chair to be better heard—“a few words about Maeve before she leaves.” A general cheer goes around the room, for which I am hugely grateful, because I don't quite believe I deserve a leaving do at all, having worked here for less than a year.

“She did a great job stepping in at the last minute and taking over the reins from her predecessor, but when we said, ‘Take over where Julia left off,' we meant professionally.” Another cheer from the crowd at large as I groan inwardly, covering it with a benign smile. “When we said step into her shoes, we didn't mean jump her boyfriend and get pregnant.” More cheering, louder this time, and I'm wondering quite how politically incorrect Mike is planning to become.

“Sssh, ssssh.” He calms the crowd. “Seriously, though, we're all very happy with the job Maeve's done here, and we're even more happy that the rumors about Mark were unfounded after all.” I look at Mark, who gives a short, tight smile, Mike Jones never having been his favorite colleague in the first place. I know this speech is killing him.

“We wanted to say good luck with the baby, and hurry back soon before Stella . . . where are you, Stella?” Stella gives a shout and raises a pint glass from the back of the room. “Before Stella gets too comfortable in the pregnancy chair. Oi, Stella?”

“What?” She's grinning and I know that whatever Mike comes out with next, Stella is more than equipped to handle it.

“You're not planning on telling me you're expecting anytime soon, are you?”

“Fuck off, Mike!” she shouts, which gets the loudest cheer of the night.

With the inappropriate speech over, they bring out the presents: a basket containing two Petit Bateau stretchsuits and a yellow gingham matching comb and brush, a sexy pair of red lacy knickers that I doubt I'll ever manage to fit into, and a bottle of Antiseptic Nipple spray from Boots.

Just what I always wanted.

 “Are
you sure you don't want anything?” Mark shouts from the kitchen, where he's busy preparing dinner. “Tea? Biscuit? Baby?”

“Nothing,” I shout back, repositioning the vase in the living room, then standing back to get a second look. “Actually, can I have the baby? Now? Please?” I hear Mark laugh, and move the vase back to the coffee table.

Everything needs to be perfect tonight. Viv and Michael have come up to London for the weekend, and tonight they are coming here for dinner. And I feel ever so slightly sick.

Thankfully they didn't ask to stay here. It's not something I could handle right now. They've booked into a guesthouse up the road, and I can't quite grasp the fact that I'm going to be meeting my mother's serious boyfriend this evening, who also happens to be my father.

“You've become the quintessential Jerry Springer family,” quips Mark, unamusingly I think. “All you need now is to discover I'm your brother and we'd be guaranteed a slot on the show.”

“Oh ha bloody ha. Because of that, you can now do the cooking.”

“It's your family. Why should I do the cooking?”

“Because (a) I'll accept it by way of apology for what you've just said, and (b) you're better at it than I am.”

“You only needed to say (b),” Mark laughs, and I smile as I watch him open cupboard doors, checking for cardamom pods and cumin seeds, knowing how much he loves cooking for other people.

I go upstairs to change, again. So far this afternoon I've tried on five outfits, which is quite a feat considering the only things I'm wearing right now are a pair of black stretchy leggings from Mothercare and three men's sweaters from Marks and Spencer. All those sexy little numbers that were supposed to see me through? The men's shirts? The tight sweaters that were supposed to stretch to accommodate the belly? Forget it. They fitted me perfectly until six months, and then overnight nothing fitted at all.

But I manage to find five variations. Do I wear the black leggings and high heels in a bid to look slimmer, or will I just look horribly eighties? Do I wear the gray sweater with the black leggings or is that dull? Should I squeeze into the brown stretchy trousers from M & S, which, although not maternity, were supposed to have seen me through to the end, and really, what does it matter if they're a bit tight and I can't actually do them up anyway? One of my sweaters will cover that in an instant.

Why does it matter so much what my father thinks? But of course I know why it matters so much. It matters because the little girl in me still wants his approval. It may have been my decision to walk away from him completely ten years ago, but I want him to look at me now and be proud. I want him to think I'm successful, beautiful, everything he would want his daughter to be.

And I'd rather not have him think I'm fat, hence the clothing dilemma, although, as Mark said earlier, at thirty-eight and a half weeks pregnant I think I'm allowed to err on the side of large.

I do feel enormous. I've developed the pregnant woman's waddle, belly pushed out and hand resting in the small of my back for support. I feel like a caricature of myself, even as I do it, but it's the only way I feel balanced.

As for how much weight I've put on, God knows. As do the nurses, midwives, and obstetricians, but thankfully that's as far as it goes. Every week they weigh me, and every week, just before I stand on the scales, I announce loudly, “Don't tell me what I weigh.” I figure that since there's nothing I can do about it, there's no point in knowing, because even though pregnancy's the greatest excuse there is, I know that I'll still feel horrific if I've put on more than the twenty-five to twenty-eight pounds the books advise. Also, I'm pretty damn certain I've put on about twice that, but I don't really care.

Oh God. I can't believe that Viv's coming with my father.

 “Viv,
you look wonderful!” Mark has already opened the front door while I am still struggling to get up off the sofa. “You must be Michael,” I hear him say, and my heart starts beating very fast as I step into the hallway.

My father—Michael—stops still and looks at me, and neither of us says anything for a while. I had a speech planned. I was going to be cool but polite. I was going to call him Michael and pretend that he was merely my mother's new boyfriend. If the opportunity arose, I was going to dismiss his pleas to be my father again. I was going to tell him that, thanks to his abandoning us, I had become used to not having a father, and certainly didn't need one now. I would say that while I was willing to accept his relationship with Viv, if he thought we were going to have a father/daughter relationship, then he had another thing coming.

But that was before I saw him.

Standing in the hallway, eyes filling with tears, is a middle-aged man who is so familiar my heart is threatening to break. And it's not Viv's boyfriend, not to me. It's Dad. My dad.

“Dad!” A sob breaks out, and the next thing you know he's opening his arms wide and I'm running into them, clinging onto him, and never wanting to break free of his embrace.

I'm sobbing so hard I don't realize he's crying too, and when we finally break away both Viv and Mark have disappeared into the kitchen, and I'm left with my dad.

“Look at you!” he laughs through the tears, holding me at arm's length. “Look at my little girl.”

“I'm hardly your little girl anymore.” I gesture to my stomach, and we both smile, but I am his little girl! I'm still his little girl!

“I'm sorry,” he whispers, the smile gone now. “All these years have gone by and I've never stopped thinking of you and I wanted to write, or phone but—”

“Sssh. It's okay.” I put my arms around him to comfort him, because suddenly it is okay. Suddenly I know that I don't have to carry the past around with me any longer. That it's okay to let it go, to move on, and that the only important thing is that we're together again.

We go into the kitchen to see what the others are doing, and I see that Viv's sitting at the kitchen table, also wiping tears from her eyes. But she's smiling broadly, and I know that in her wildest dreams she didn't expect this to happen.

And, looking at her face, I know exactly what she's thinking, for I have had the same thought myself.

We're a family again.

Dinner
is delicious. Mark is funny and charming; Viv is positively blooming in Dad's presence, and Dad is, well. Dad is exactly what I always wanted my dad to be. He's both interesting and interested. He's sharp, and funny, and loving, and warm. He teases me gently about his first grandchild, and makes me feel treasured and safe.

“See what happens?” He turns to Viv. “I leave you alone with her for twenty-two years and she goes and gets herself pregnant. Honestly. I can't trust you for a second.” There is warmth and humor in his voice, and Viv is head over heels in love.

But I can see he loves her too. He watches her tenderly as she gets up to help clear the table, and, if I didn't know the history, I would think that they were newlyweds. Except they are too comfortable with one another. So comfortable they look as if they've been together forever. As if there could never have been anyone else.

“Maeve, I have your blessing, don't I?” Viv's scraping leftover Moroccan lamb stew into the bin.

“What? So you are getting married?” I thought I'd dread this. But I'm delighted.

“I didn't mean that.” She colors, and I'm sure it's in the cards soon, and that knowing Viv she will wait for the arrival of their first grandchild, wait for all the excitement to die down before making any announcements of their own. “I just meant, you're happy about this, aren't you? Michael, your father, coming back into our lives. You can see how much he's changed?”

I put the dishcloth down and give Viv a hug. “Viv,” I say, “he's exactly what I always hoped my dad would be, and he's exactly what I always hoped you'd find. I'm just still in shock that it's him.” And we both laugh as a sharp pain stabs me in the stomach and I gasp.

“What?” Viv holds my arm in alarm. “Maeve? What is it?”

“I don't know. Nothing.” I breathe out, the pain gone. “Probably just indigestion. I knew I ate too much.”

“You're sure you're okay?”

“I'm fine.” I smile at her but I'm worried. Strange pains when you're pregnant are no laughing matter and I potter around the kitchen for a while, making coffee, moving slowly and carefully in case the pain comes back.

Viv looks at me with concern when I come back to the dining room and sit down, but I smile reassuringly and stand up to pour the coffee.

And then I wet myself.

“Shit!” I sit down hard, and immediately blush. And then I think I'm going to start to cry. How can this happen? I'm thirty-three years old, and this may well be the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me in my whole life.