39 Weeks (20 page)

30
th
September – Week 17 + 5
D
ays

Being at work was a lot more comfortable
these days
, everyone knew I was pregnant so I didn’t have to watch what I said so much, and the builders had left
a couple of weeks ago
so there was no chance I’d run into Matt the twonk, not only was that a huge relief but it meant I could go to the loo anytime I felt like it.

Almost everyone had settled into their new allotted places, and with the archive filing being shipped off to Sheffield, and the sales department all now working downstairs in their new office, the rest of us had a bit more breathing space. Well I was crammed in with Martin, that wasn’t so brilliant, and I missed the all day every day banter of being in a large open plan office, and Martin was . . well Martin, a middle aged, boring, accountant. The highlight of his life was watching X Factor on a Saturday night. But all in all work wasn’t so
bad at the moment
.

Shirley was still clucking over me like a mother hen and
one morning
had bought in some things for the baby
that
she’d knitted herself, which was really nice of her. It was a baby cardigan that she called a matinee jacket, no idea why, a matching pair of booties, a knitted hat, sorry make that baby bonnet, and a baby blanket all in the same god awful fluorescent glow-in-the-
dark salmon
pink colour,
evidently she’d decided it was going to be a girl. I hated it all, and even if I did have a girl there’s no way I’d ever inflict this stuff on her, I mean the baby probably wouldn’t care or know any different, but I would
,
and I’d be the one who had to look at it all the time. Still though it was nice of her
to go to all that trouble
and I was touched by her generosity, even if not by her taste in baby clothes.
 

It had only been a few days but already I felt more at home in the new flat than I’d ever felt in the old one.
Marsha had been as good as her word and together we’d lugged four bags of baby clothes
upstairs
on Sunday night. I hadn’t
opened the bags or looked at any of the things inside
, I just dumped them in the second bedroom and closed the door.
But on Tuesday
night
after receiving Shirley’s lurid offering that morning,
my curiosity got the better of me and I sat on the floor going through everything.
There seemed
to be
an awful lot of stuff
and I wondered if I’
d really need
it
all
, but then it occurred to me if I was having twins I would, in fact I might need even more. If only I knew for sure, but the second scan that would decide my fate was still another three weeks away. 

James had come round on Wednesday, to make sure I was alright. He didn’t stay long as he was on his way to watch the local football team play a
home game
. Another reason why he was never going to be more than a friend
, I definitely didn’t need another footballing boyfriend. Done that, been there, and wasn’t ever doing it again. I almost started thinking ‘still it was nice of him to think of me’ but then I remembered he had
his own reasons for playing Mr Nice G
uy
,
and was probably still on his brownie point mission. I’m not cynical, honestly I’
m not, just realist
ic. I mean did you ever meet a
guy
, any guy,
that did anything that wasn’t in some way going to
be of
benefit
to
him
self? No I thought not, neither have I.

Shelley rang as I was leaving work saying she and Nick were on their way to look at a flat round the corner from Kingsley Road
, and if it was alright with me they’d stop in for a coffee afterwards. Of course I said yes, it had been a couple of weeks since I’d seen her, the longest time we’d gone without seeing each other since those heady days back in secondary school, and I’d missed her. We’d phoned each other but what with her being so preoccupied and besotted with Nick, and me moving, we hadn’t found the time to actually meet up.

I dumped my bag when I got in and kicked off my shoes that were killing. Who knew
that even your feet got bigger when you got pregnant. I didn’t get it at all, I mean I was having a baby so yes my stomach would get bigger, and yes my boobs would inflate a size or two, but my feet!
Why? W
hy would having a baby make any difference to my feet, and my ankles they’d got a bit fatter as well. Was there any bit of me that wasn’t pregnant? 

This would be the first time I’d seen Nick since he and Shelley had met that night at Zee Zee’s, and I was keen to see them tog
ether, you know see how they behaved
together, or more to the point how he was with her
. I’d heard Shelley’s version of events of course, ad nauseam, but I needed to see for myself if her love sick befuddled brain was right about him
, and if he f
elt
about her
the same way
she felt about him, and I could only do that by watching them together.

Half an hour later the doorbell went and I let them in. Shelley gushed her hello eager to
see my
new flat. Nick was
politely
quiet and obviously feeling a bit awkward. I mean I was Shelley’s best friend so i
t was kind of important that he
and I
got on, and that I liked
him. Al
though probably the truth was that Shelley was way past the point of
‘like me like my friends’ and
was more ‘I don’t care what everyone
think
s
, I love him no matter what’, bu
t maybe he didn’t know that, so
I had to give him credit for trying.

I showed them round my new spacious abode, explaining how I was going to get rid of all the peach as soon as possible, and we ended up in the kitchen while I waited for the kettle to boil.

‘So what was it like, any good?’ I said
referring to the flat they’d just been to look at.

‘It was alright, I don’t know about that bathroom though, and the smaller bedroom was a bit too small don’t you think?
You’d never get a double in there.
’ Shelley said to Nick.

‘That’s a shame, it would have been brilliant if you were just round the corner.’ I said pouring the now boiled water into the mugs.
‘Have you looked at many others?’

‘A few, really we want somewhere like this.’ Shelley said looking round her. ‘You were dead lucky finding this place.’

I handed Nick his coffee and he muttered a subdued ‘Thanks’.

‘So what else have you been up to, anything exciting?’ I asked. Looking at both of them.

‘I took Nick to see Mum and Dad last Sunday.’ Shelley answered.

‘And I took Shelley to meet my Mum on Monday night.’ Nick said.

‘How did it go, did your Mum like her? Don’t you just hate having to introduce your friends to your parents, never mind anyone who’s a bit more than a friend.’ I joked
to Nick
.

‘No my Mum really liked Shelley, they got on fine together didn’t you Shell?’

So he could talk. It wasn’t exactly Einstein’s theory of relativity, but it was talking.

‘And what about your Mum and Dad Shell, did they like Nick?’

‘My Mum loved him, Dad was his usual
over protective, are you going to turn out to be good enough for my daughter self to begin with. But it went alright. What about you, how’s it going with the twonk’s brother?’

‘Still just friends. He helped me move, organised a van and everything. But nothing else to report.’

‘And he still likes you?’

‘Yes, I guess so.’

‘You guess? Have you seen him again since last weekend?’

‘
Yes he came round for a while on
Wednesday.’

‘And?’

‘And nothing.’

‘Honestly Judy you drive me mad sometimes, here’s this bloke, he obviously likes you a lot, he’s not bothered that you’re pregnant and that’s not nothing is it, and you’re . . you’re dithering about, wondering whether you like him or not.’

‘I do like him.’

‘Well then, why don’t you go out with him, properly I mean?’

‘For one thing I’m not sure I like him that way . . you know that way. And for another he’s the twonk’s brother, his twin brother.’

‘Yeah that’s a bit of an obstacle I grant you, but still . .’

‘A bit of an obstacle! It’s
way
more than that. But even if he wasn’t I’m not going out with someone, pregnant or not, just so I can have a boyfriend.’

‘Yeah okay.’ Shelley sighed.

We drank our coffee, well I had tea, in an uncomfortable silence until Nick said ‘What colour are you going to have?’

‘Um sorry?’

‘When you redecorate, what colour are you doing it?’

‘Not sure, I keep changing my mind. One day it’s going to be cream everywhere, or maybe white, and the next I think I’ll have a different colour in every room, or cream in the living room and colours in the others,
almost anything really
just so long as it’
s not peach
.’

‘I think the cream would be nice.’ Shelley said.

‘Mmm maybe.’

‘What about wallpaper?’ Nick said getting the hang of the whole talking thing.

‘I could in the bedroom I suppose, but I
’m not sure
that
I’d be any good at wallpapering.’

‘What about the other bedroom, the baby’s room
, have you decided how you’re going to do that yet?’
Shelley said.

‘No, haven’t even thought about that
. No point really
,
the baby will have to be in my room won’t it to begin with, and anyway I don’t know if it’s going to be a boy or a girl, so pink or blue
I guess.
’

‘Or lemon.’ Nick said. ‘My sister did their baby’s room lemon.’

‘I didn’t know you had a sister.’ I said.

‘Two I’ve got two.’

‘Older or younger?’

‘Both older.’ Nick said in a deflated sort of way.

‘That must have been rough, growing up with two older sisters.’

‘Yeah tell me about it.’

I made some more coffee for everyone,
and tea
again
for me, and Nick began to relax a bit, telling us about his bossy older sisters and how sometimes he
’d
got his own back by being you’re average annoying little brother. Once he’d loosened up a bit and got over his ‘I’ve only just met you’ nerves, he was quite funny and easy to talk to.

I watched him with Shelley. He held her hand or was touching her arm throughout the whole visit, and he couldn’t stop looking at her,
even when he was talking to me
he was still mostly looking at Shelley and just glancing in my direction. But then Shelley
had spent the
whole time watching him. I satisfied myself that it was the real thing and that either he was a
n Oscar nominee calibre
actor that had somehow missed his calling, or he was really in love with her.

After they’d gone I sighed to myself, you know like you do when you’ve just finished watching a really good film
with the mandatory
happy ending
, I mean you know it’s all fiction, but you still sigh a bit enviously at the fairy tale ending. But this wasn’t fiction, this was real. I sighed again. Then I caught myself and remembered how crap all men were, even the nice ones. There was something wrong with every single one of them, you just didn’t always see their flaws straight away, but they were there alright.

1
st
Octob
er – Week 17 + 6
D
ays

This morning being Saturday I’d of course woken up early, it’s the unwritten law that Monday to Friday when you have to get up it’s near impossible to drag yourself out of bed, but on the weekend when you could lie in bed quite legitimately you wake up early of your own accord
,
and
even if you’re still tired
it’s impossible to
get back to sleep
.
Or is that just me?

I’d just got back from my weekly run to Sainsbury’s and was
going for the world record in how much shopping you could squeeze in the freezer, calling into use all the ‘jig-saw’ technique’s I’d
learnt
since leaving home, when the doorbell went. It’ll be James I thought. I hadn’t seen him since Wednesday and he’d said he might drop by this morning when he’d sent me a text message yesterday asking how I was.