39 Weeks (40 page)

‘Well . . I am, and trust me you would be too if it was you.’

‘Yeah I guess so.’

‘I know so. Can we please change the subject now? I really don’t want to think about all that, not today.’

‘Okay. Sorry.’

‘Okay then.’ I said and snuggled back into his embrace.
 

‘I had an idea last night.’ Rob said holding me tightly
with his chin resting on the top of my head
.

‘Mm
hmm.’ I answered distractedly
,
more in tune with the feel of him
rather
than anything he was saying.

‘Yeah. You know I have to go and do this seaside shoot, well I remembered you said you liked the seaside in winter and . .’

‘You remembered that?’

‘Yes of course, you told me that night . . well we both said we liked it didn’t we, anyway I wondered if . .
. .
’
and he trailed off without finishing his sentence.

I pulled away slightly so I could see his face. ‘If?’ I said.

‘Well if you’d like to go with me, I mean if you want to.’

‘I’d love to spend a day at the seaside. Which one, where?’

‘The thing is I’ll probably have to stay over, they want at least one shot of a sunrise over the sea, you know the sort of thing, and well . . that’ll mean I have to be there at whatever o’clock in the morning and . .’

‘You want me to stay over with you?’

I straight away went into meltdown. My face didn’t register the pandemonium I was feeling, at least I tried not to let it
show, but inside my head the remaining brain cell was bouncing around like an oversized ball bearing in a pinball machine. I mean of course I wanted to go it sounded
fantastic. I’d be with Rob, and we’d be together all night, and he’d asked me to be there when he was away working
and that sort of implied he was ‘serious’ right?
I pictured a late night walk along the beach hand in hand, and helping him get just the right shot at dawn the next day, and . .
oh I don’t know
a million and one things all
mega romantic and about as ‘serious’ as you could get.

Course
on the other hand would that mean sex? That question I kept avoiding was now staring me in the face.
Obviously
I fancied him like mad and was more than up for it
, but how would Rob feel
making love to a pregnant woman and
seeing my bump in all its glory. And how would I feel seeing Rob seeing my bump. And last but by no means least could I actually do it, you know actually have sex given my largeness.

Of course on the other, other hand, did he mean staying over as in sex, or did he mean staying over as in separate rooms and
he
hadn’t even
thought about sex?

‘Is that . . okay. I mean if you’d rather not I understand, I just thought . .’
Rob stumbled over his words.

‘Would it be . . um . . would we . .’ I couldn’t say it, I didn’t know how to phrase it and couldn’t bring myself to just blurt out
does that mean sex or not.

‘If you want we could have separate rooms.’ He said looking me straight in the eye, and somehow in that moment I knew that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted us to share a room, share a bed, have sex.

‘I . . won’t that be expensive having two rooms.’ My pinball brain cell was now bouncing back and forth between two buffers, ding, ding,
with
all
the
lights flashing and everything.
And w
on’t that be expensive I’d said, of all the naff stupid remarks to make that had to be the naffist.

‘Is that what you’re worried about, the expense?’

‘
It’s just that . .’

He bent his head and kissed me
long and hard. It was the perfect antidote to the foot in the mouth disease I was suffering from and effectively put a stop to me making any more of a fool of myself.
He tenderly stroked my face while we gazed into each other’s eyes.
It was pretty obvious then that we both knew what we were really talking about
, and it wasn’t whether he could afford to pay for an extra room.

‘I think I’m falling in love with you Judy.’

‘I think I’ve already fallen in love with you.’ I said hardly daring to breath.

‘Come on.’ He said taking my hand and pulling me towards the bedroom.

‘But . . but . . I’m having a baby?’

‘I know. I’ll be careful. Come on.’
He reached o
ver and turned the oven off, while
I panicked at the thought of the old lady oversized bra I was wearing and what he’d think.

He led me into the bedroom, and suffice it to say that my pinball score went into the billions beating all previous scores by a mile.

1
st
January – Week 31

It was new years day and my new year’s present from Ella was my belly button popped, I don’t mean burst open or anything gross like that,
what
I mean
is
I’d always been an inny and now I was an outy.
The whole stretched stomach thing had reached its ultimate capacity, at least I hoped it was the ultimate, and there wasn’t even enough room left in there to accommodate an inny belly button.

Not only was my belly button doing weird things but I had a thin white line down the centre of my stomach that I know wasn’t there before. I consulted both baby bibles. One didn’t mention anything about lines appearing, but the other one said a lot of women get it
, apparently it didn’t signify anything in particular and wasn’t harmful or deadly or anything, it just happened. I had stopped looking too closely at my naked body months ago, ever since the whole nipple area changing colour thing had started happening. It was too depressing so
I avoided it as much as I could
and just kept my metaphorical fingers crossed that everything would
magically
go back to normal after Ella had been born.

Rob on the other hand
was
fascinated, in fact it was him that had first noticed. When he asked me about the white line I was mortified at first, but when it became obvious that he wasn’t put off in any way, he just had a sort of macabre interest in the whole thing, well it seemed a bit macabre to me
anyway
, I
relaxed a bit and even started to enjoy his
absorption in the whole subject of my ever changing body.

It had only been a week, one short week since we’
d first had sex, but those six
days had been intense. For one thing neither of us w
ere working so it had been six
actual whole days, and nights
, and we’d spent practically every minute of them together
.
H
e’d spent
hardly
any time at all downstairs, only
to get clean clothes
, not that we’d
got
dressed
much
if you know what I mean
, so he didn’
t really need
clean clothes.
It felt like he’d moved in and I loved it, every minute of it. We’d talked and talked into the early hours
almost every night
, made love, fallen asleep and made love again when we woke up
. We
’d
had showers together, cooked dinner together or phoned for a takeaway, watched cheesy Christmas films together, and talked some more.
It was bliss, and my mind went back to when he’d first told me he was looking for a place of his own and I’d considered offering to let him stay with me rent free with all the sex he could handle. I almost told him about it,
but it was still
all
a bit new
,
the me and him thing, and I thought it better to wait until we’d been together
a while
longer.

Today was our last day
before I had to go back to work and Rob had to phone roun
d to see if he could get some more
photography commission
s
. Apart from the seaside job the weekend after next he had nothing lined up until mid March
,
and that was only a one day
maybe that might not even come off.

Neither of us had said anything about the future. I’d carefully avoided the subject knowing how skittish some guys are about any sort of long term commitment, and even though I’d gotten to know Rob quite well in a lot of ways, I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure about whether he saw us as a long term thing or not. I mean it wasn’t just about me and him was it, there was a baby to consider. I knew he was okay about me having a baby, more than okay he was happy about it, but did that mean he was okay about having one as a permanent fixture. Or having a girlfriend as a permanent fixture come to that. Anyway to be on the safe side I made sure I didn’
t say anything that might lead him to think I was thinking in terms of years rather than weeks or months.

T
hen he said he really
should try and
get some more work,
and the sooner the better,
that we’d need the money if I w
asn’t going to be working for much longer
, th
at someone had to be able to provide the
nappies and baby milk
. S
o then I knew, well I had hope that he wasn’t thinking in weeks, he was thinking long term, at least I
was almost sure
he
was.

‘
And
I should probably get on with the decorating.’ He said
while we were
still
sat in bed, lingering over a late breakfast that he’d made us both earlier
. Since finishing the living room what with one thing and another he’d never got round to painting the bedroom. ‘Maybe we should do Ella’s room next
?’

‘Maybe, not today though eh, it’s our last day together. I have to be back at work tomorrow.’ I said as I snuggled up to him and he kissed the top of my head.

‘Okay boss. No decorating today. But tomorrow while you’re slaving over a hot computer all day
,
I’m going to give this room its first coat at least.
And you need to start thinking
about
how you want to do Ella’s room.’

‘I already know. It’s going to be pink of course, a very pale pink, and maybe have a border, you know like those ones we saw when we were getting the paint, with all the teddy’s on, or maybe the one with the fairies, that was kind of cute.’

All these home making plans gave me a warm glow inside. Who’d have thought this time last year, back in the days when I had no-one to worry about but myself and I was determinedly anti-relationships of any kind, that this time this year I’d be on the verge of having a baby
and be pleased about it, even looking forward to it,
and
that I’d be
seriously considering a very definite relationship
with someone
. No not considering, I’
d considered already and was
totally committed to the idea
.

‘Do you want to
go and choose
it
today?’ Rob said.

‘No not today, anyway every
where’s
closed
isn’t it?
Let’s go on Saturday.’

‘Okay. So if we’re not decorating and we’re not buying supplies what are we doing today? Let me think, what could two people with nothing to do and nowhere to go specially do? Mm . .
.
’ Rob said sliding down under the covers and pulling me with him. ‘Bit of a no brainer really’ he
added grinning wickedly.

I struggled to sit up again and laughing said ‘I need to shower and wash my hair’.
   

‘Your hair looks great.’ He said pulling me back down.

‘Tempting as your offer is, and I might take you up on it later
, I really need to shower.’

‘Might?’ He said releasing me.

‘Maybe, who knows? If you play your cards right I could possibly be persuaded.’ I said all flirty.

‘You know I cheat.’

‘Cheat?’

‘At cards. I cheat. So there’s no maybe or might about it, you and I will be back here sometime later today to finish what we almost started
, guaranteed
.’

‘I lov
e it when you get all masterful
’
I said grinning as I got up. ‘Makes my knees turn to jelly and the hairs on the back of my head tingle.’

‘Well why didn’t you say that before. Okay get back here now
, right now.’ He joked bossily
.