My Legendary Girlfriend (10 page)

Martina was so stunned that she literally didn’t know what I was talking about.

‘I . . . I . . .’ was all she managed in her defence.

‘You what, Martina?’ I looked around for my conscience. It was nowhere to be seen. ‘It’s three a.m. Martina. You can’t go phoning people at three a.m. Look, this has got to stop. Yes, I know we had a wonderful time last Saturday. And I’ll always remember it.’ I wondered where my conscience had got to and decided it must have had an accident and drowned in one of the many pools of self-pity dotted around my internal landscape. This was the kind of mean-spirited, hard-hearted, totally selfish, self-centred thing that Simon would do. Finally, after all this time I was totally and utterly devoid of guilt – I was Sean Connery as James Bond. I could love them and leave them and not care because, at last, I didn’t give a toss about anyone but me. Shaken and not stirred! ‘Martina,’ I continued, limbering up for the kill, ‘I’ve got to tell you something. Look it’s not you it’s . . .’

‘I’m late,’ said Martina abruptly.

‘It’s nearly four in the morning,’ I replied, ‘of course you’re late. London’s not in a different time zone, Martina, half four in the morning in Nottingham is half four in the morning here too. This isn’t Australia, you know.’

She made small confused noises to herself. My efforts at biting sarcasm were obviously falling upon deaf ears.

Martina sighed heavily. ‘I’m late, Will. As in, you know,
late.’

I hadn’t the faintest idea what she was on about. After some moments of confused silence I concluded she’d either finally parted company with the last of her depleted stock of marbles, or she’d been helping herself to her mum’s Harvey’s Bristol Cream.

‘Martina,’ I continued, ‘I know you’re late. I’ve got a watch. The big hand’s on twelve and the small hand’s pointing at the five. You don’t need to tell me you’re late.’

‘Will, I’m . . .’

‘If you tell me one more
bloody
time that you’re . . .’

‘Pregnant.’

I nearly coughed up my lungs in shock. This was quite literally the last thing I’d expected. The events of last weekend had been consigned to the annals of ancient history as soon as they’d occurred. And now I was being called back to take responsibility for something that, mentally speaking, happened decades ago. The entire point of one-night stands was supposed to be that they lasted
one
night. They were not allowed to come back seven days after the event and tell you they were . . .

‘Pregnant?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘But how?’ I cried sulkily.

She started a sentence which I believe, had I let her finish, would’ve given me the text book explanation similar to the one I’d received thirteen years ago from Mr Marshall, my school biology teacher.

‘Don’t, Martina,’ I said firmly. ‘Just don’t.’ Huge droplets of sweat jettisoned from my every skin pore, so much so that my hands, wet with perspiration, lost all grip. The phone slipped from my grasp, smacking against the edge of the bed on its way to the floor. I sat and stared at it, carefully listening to the sound but not comprehending the meaning of the miniature Martina coming from the earpiece.

I picked the phone up. ‘You’re
late
?’

She didn’t know what to say after the way we’d been going round in circles. ‘Er . . .’ she began tentatively, ‘yes, I’m late.’

‘How late is late?’ I barked. ‘Later than I was to pick you up on Saturday? Later than the average British Rail train?’ I started getting hysterical. ‘I mean, should I start looking for a good secondary school for our child?’

‘My period . . .’ she began. I shuddered – an involuntary reaction cultivated in my youth intrinsically linked to the mere utterance of
that
word ‘. . . was due on Monday. I’ve never been more than a day late in my life.’

I crossed my fingers and hoped that this was the kind of biological freak of nature that would’ve gained her an entry in the
Guinness Book of Records
rather than the mundane result of a fertilised ovum.

‘It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair . . .’ I repeated, beginning what would’ve become a five minute mantra had Martina not intervened.

‘Are you okay, Will?’ she said kindly. ‘Look, I don’t want you to worry. Everything’s going to be okay. I just don’t want you to worry.’

I tried to think of something sensible to say, but, inside, my brain had turned to pure wibble. For all her faults Martina was being spectacularly calm, dignified, almost regal about the whole thing. I was entering my second childhood just as she was turning into the Queen Mother. She was unshakeable. This, I decided, was one of those moments that separated men from boys. And without a doubt I was standing on the prepubescent side.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said again. ‘Will, don’t worry.’

I cast my mind back to The Event, but this time not through the eyes of the greatest fan of the most spectacular sexual athlete the world has ever seen. No, this time I went back as one of those disaster experts who sift through plane wreckage trying to piece together evidence of what went wrong.

While we had used a condom, I had to admit that I may have been just a teensy weensy bit careless. I kind of got carried away with the excitement of it all – after all, the one-night stand was uncharted territory for me. And for some reason the thought of doing it on her sofa while her parents slept in the room above us turned me on so much that I thought I’d pass out with the excitement. So, there
might
have been the slightest possibility that I
might
have torn the foil packet rather carelessly, but it had seemed okay to me when I’d wrapped it in its Kleenex coffin and flushed it away after The Event. I mean, I didn’t put it through the sort of rigorous testing that had got it its kite-mark but it hadn’t leaked. At least I hadn’t thought so . . .

Part of me (that which would sooner hack off its own head than take responsibility for the fact that it may have screwed up) wondered if she was lying. After all Martina’s favourite book was Hardy’s
Jude The Obscure
. And while she probably fancied herself as the ethereal Sue Brideshead, she could well have been Arabella Donn trapping the unsuspecting hero with a false pregnancy. It was a nice theory but for the huge gaping holes in it. It just wasn’t Martina’s style to lie. She wasn’t the kind to make waves even when trying to save herself from drowning. This was real. She was with child. I was the father. And it was highly likely that it was all my fault.

‘Are you sure?’ I said. ‘I mean, do you know for sure?’

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know for sure.’

‘Then there’s still hope.’

‘Maybe.’

‘So you haven’t had a pregnancy test yet?’

‘No.’

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘Why not? What’s wrong with you, Martina? Are you insane, woman? You are, aren’t you?’

She fought back her tears but I could hear them in her voice. ‘I . . . I don’t know, Will. I’m scared. I’m scared what the test will say. I’ll never get a job if I’m pregnant. I’ll be stuck here with Mum and Dad, surrounded by nappies, watching gardening programmes for the rest of my life. I’ve been trying to phone you all week to tell you,’ her voice faltered. ‘I can’t go through this on my own.’

I lay down on the bed, phone in hand, and stared at the ceiling. My earlier reincarnation as James Bond had all but disappeared by now. I’d had my licence to kill revoked. It felt good to be back in the familiar territory of the Realm of Regret, positioned on top of my favourite pile of ashes and sporting the latest designs in sackcloth. Martina had been worrying about this all week and I’d been too wrapped up in my own worries to notice. Lower than a snake’s arse? Really, it just wasn’t possible to feel more despicable.

I tried my best to comfort her, but at the back of my mind I knew something was up. I was carefully choosing every word I said, refusing to admit liability, in case one day soon it would be thrown back in my face. So I didn’t say anything rash like ‘I’ll be there for you’ or ‘Let’s see how our relationship goes’ or ‘I’ll support you in whatever decision you make’. I made no mention of the future and instead opened my bumper book of meaningless platitudes and showered her with them from a great height. She seemed comforted. This, after all, was the nicest I’d been to her since promising to call as I’d warmly kissed her good-bye on her doorstep late on that fateful Saturday night.

We talked some more about things totally unrelated to the situation at hand: what was on telly right now; what she was doing in the morning; why teaching attracts such manic personalities; and then made ready to say our good-byes. She said that she was going to buy a test kit first thing in the morning and I told her to phone me as soon as she knew more. Before the call ended, reverting to her old self she said: ‘Whatever happens, this doesn’t change the way I feel about you.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, me too,’ and put the phone down.

2.19 A.M.

In a way I was both disappointed and elated at my sperm’s performance. While in denial (which I surely was), it was quite possible to enjoy that exhilarating flush of pride in knowing that one of the little fellas had fulfilled its destiny. I’d kind of imagined them to be miniature versions of myself – slightly overweight, lazy, dysfunctional. It was hard not to laugh out loud at the mental picture I had: a group of them entering into a discussion halfway up Martina’s cervix about whether it was time for a fag break. All, bar one diligent little fella, vote yes. ‘I gave ’em up last week,’ he says. ‘No fags. No booze. I’m feeling so healthy that I think I’ll carry on.’

It was funny. But not that funny. That one conscientious tadpole of love, so eager to live out its potential, was about to cause my downfall and there was nothing I could do about it. It was one of those classic moments when you wish that you really could turn back the clock. Even so, had I managed to go back in time, to that moment just as I was unzipping Martina’s dress, not even the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future could’ve stopped me. Passion is depressing. A man in a French film once said, ‘I resist my temptations in order to feel that I am free.’ Though it was said by a character in a French film – which by definition means you can’t take it entirely seriously – the truth of the words resonated clearly. Sometimes the effort to resist can be as passionate as the compulsion to succumb.

The opening and closing of one of my close neighbour’s front doors broke my concentration. I stood up and looked out of the window. Next door’s dog – a black Labrador – barked at my window. Turning back into the room I scratched my stomach and tried to work out how I felt. I wasn’t entirely sure. I looked at the alarm clock. It was late. Rather than being exhausted I had the munchies in a big way. Though not hungry enough to eat the proverbial horse, given two slices of bread, a bottle of ketchup and an hour or two longer without sustenance, even Champion The Wonder Horse would have looked snackworthy. My stomach specifically desired ice-cream. Then it occurred to me that perhaps I was having sympathetic cravings, just as some men have sympathetic pregnancy pains. Whatever the reason, I wanted ice-cream and I wanted it now.

This was one of the few instances I found living in the capital to have its advantages. Nottingham had nothing at all resembling the all night shop, which was a shame, because the 7-Eleven (so called because it’s open 24-hours a day, seven days a week. Well done, Misnomer Man!) was a pretty good idea, probably in the top ten most brilliant ideas humanity has ever had – not as good as the Walkman or the answering machine, mind – but for that matter not that far behind either.

Fumbling through the clothes that constituted my pillow I located my trousers and proceeded to look for a jumper. The only one I found that would protect me from a bout of hypothermia was a cable-knit sweater Gran had made me a long time ago. It was during her frantic phase of making things out of wool: dolls for her next-door neighbour’s kids, a bobble hat for my dad and a pair of trousers for Tom who, even at the age of ten, had the good sense to realise that woollen trousers were the kind of fashion mistake that followed you about for the rest of your life. Despite the cold I didn’t bother with socks as I couldn’t find any of the little sods. Instead, I pushed my bare feet into my laced-up burgundy brogues, ignored the sound of my mother tutting as she said, ‘No wonder all your shoes fall apart if that’s how you treat them,’ and went out of the door.

The silence of early hours Archway was beguiling. Take away the sound of far-off traffic and the odd taxi or bus and this was the quietest North London ever got. The coldness of the night air heightened my sense of isolation – no one would be out in weather like this unless they were mad or in search of ice-cream. My ankles were so cold that they felt like they had ice cubes rubbing against them. Standing on the door-step, I watched the vapour from my first outside breath disappear heavenwards before launching myself into the night.

The streets were empty. Most of the revellers from the Irish club up the road would have been asleep for at least an hour or two. The chip shop on my side of Holloway Road was closed but the one farther down, past the dry cleaners, was still open, although technically speaking, it wasn’t a chip shop – the name on the front of the shop being Mr Bill’s Fast Food. The nearest they had to chips were French fries which, five minutes prior to ordering, lay in a bag with thousands of other grim-looking bits of frozen potato.

Walking briskly I reached the top of the road in a new personal best of eight minutes and thirteen seconds! A couple were huddled together in the doorway of the snooker hall near the intersection of Holloway Road and Junction Road. The man was in his mid-thirties, but it has to be said that I’m notorious for not being able to tell the age of most people over the age of eight. I once thought one of Simon’s ex-girlfriends was fifteen, when she was actually twenty-five. I spent weeks congratulating myself on how liberal I was being, not asking her how she was getting on with her GCSEs or being less subtle and referring to her as jail-bait.