Unlike a Virgin (26 page)

They’ve told me to come back in a week’s time. That’s when they’ll do the procedure.

‘Excuse me?’ I say to the Chinese-looking lady doctor.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you mind if I do something a bit weird?’

‘Um …’

‘I wondered if you’d mind me singing.’

‘Oh no, not at all.’

Perhaps it’s certifiable to do what I’m going to do, but I feel that even though I’m not going to have this baby, I should offer it some love. So I sing. I sing ‘Summertime’, like my dad sang to me. But when I get to the lines, ‘One of these mornings, You’re going to rise up singing,’ my voice starts to crack and I have to stop and look up at the ceiling. I don’t want to break down, not here. I so want to sing the next lines – ‘Then you’ll spread your wings and you’ll take to the sky’ – but there’s a lump in my throat and I can’t. I lay back, close my eyes and try to think of a small good thing to cling on to, but there’s nothing. I’m sure there’s something, but I can’t get beyond the fact that there’s a heartbeat inside me that could grow into a person. I could love it, laugh with it, play it music. All I’ve wanted for years is family, yet here I am destroying the opportunity. I feel as though I came here today to arrange a swift abortion, but doubt put on a boxing glove and punched me in the face. I’ve been trying so hard not to think about it. Foolish really, we all know that if you push things to the back of your mind, sooner or later they come back and bite you on the bum.

When I open my eyes, the doctor is staring at me. Oh, dear, she might actually certify me.

‘Are you a singer?’ she asks.

‘No, I’m an estate agent on the Chamberlayne Road,’ I reply, though I don’t say it as proudly as I normally do.

She looks disappointed.

‘You know what you should do?’

‘What?’ I ask, but I have a feeling I know what she’s about to say.

‘Enter
Britain Sings its Heart Out
.’

See. I knew.

‘Oh, no,’ I say automatically, but then I stop. Suddenly I’m not sure of anything any more.

I have had the worst week. I thought I would just be able to have the thingy and it would be easy, but it’s not. I haven’t slept for days. Every time I close my eyes I see the picture in the booklet that the God lady gave me. But that’s not all. The strangest part is that I don’t feel alone at the moment. I lie awake at night feeling that I, or we – baby and me – are a little team. I didn’t expect to feel like this. Tomorrow at 11 a.m. I go into hospital, and when I come out it will just be me again. I feel wretched. I don’t want to do it. I violently don’t want to do it. But I know that I have to. Don’t I?

Why is it that whenever you feel really, properly dreadful, you are obliged to go to a soirée and pretend you feel fine?

I’m at one of Bob’s ‘Wet the New Development’s Head’ parties. When he finishes a new development he always holds an opening party in the show flat for any bigwigs who’ve helped him along the way – planners, architects, local councillors and business owners, people from the local paper, that
sort of thing. I come and wander around, introducing myself to people and giving out my business cards. I usually quite enjoy them, although it did take some practice. At my first one, the thought of people walking on the brand-new carpets was too much for me, so I stood at the door and made everyone show me the soles of their shoes, and then instructed them to ‘enter’, ‘wipe’ or ‘remove’ accordingly.

This is the plushest party Bob’s hosted yet and the apartment looks luscious. An agency has done the canapés, but sadly they’re the sort that look marvellous but taste revolting. After each circle of the room, I’ve treated myself to a little rest by a barely-touched-because-they’re-truly-disgusting tray of posh mini Scotch eggs. The bite I had and spat out into a napkin was the first thing I’d eaten all day. There’s also a popup cocktail barman, who I will be visiting very shortly. Posh Boy is here. I keep catching sight of him shaking suited men’s hands and patting them on the back. He thinks he’s at the G20 summit.

Bob looks as miserable as I feel. He’s walking towards me now and I just want to cuddle him up in bed with a box set of
Friends
and a bowl of chicken soup.

‘Hi, Bob, how you doing?’

He tries to smile.

‘Oh, Grace. It’s not been good.’

‘I’m sorry, Bob.’

‘Mini Scotch egg? Don’t mind if I do.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ I advise.

‘Urgh!’ he says as he bites into it.

‘I tried to warn you.’

I hand him a napkin.

‘Sorry I haven’t been in touch. I’ve been trying to get a new foreman, so I’m laying off the acquisitions for the moment, and I didn’t want to burden you with my “stuff”.’

‘Bob. Burden me with your stuff. Lay it on me, bro.’

‘Thanks, sis.’

‘How have things been?’

‘Oh, Grace, it was awful. They’d been at it for months and I didn’t have a clue.’

‘How are things now?’

‘Well, she’s left and I sacked him. I think they might be together.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Nah, it’s for the best. She wasn’t the girl I thought she was. You know me, I had her down for an angel. But …’ He slumps forward and rests his head in his hands.

I rub my hand up and down his back and say, ‘It will get better.’

‘Yeah, I know it will. But before she left she told me this thing, Grace, and I can’t get it out of my head.’

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘There’s not really much to say. She was pregnant a year ago. It was mine – or so she said – but she wasn’t happy and she got rid of it.’

‘Oh, Bob.’

‘I tell you, Grace, I can’t stop thinking about it.’

‘Oh, Bob.’

‘You know me, I’ve always wanted to have kids. And there was a child, my child – sorry, our child – and she did that. It’s stupid, but I just can’t get it out of my head. I went to see QPR on Saturday and they sell these babygro things there and I
stood in front of them wiping my eyes. Sorry, Grace, I’m not much company.’

I don’t speak; I just stroke his back.

‘I keep thinking about all the love I could have given it,’ Bob says and his voice cracks.

I can’t offer any painkilling words.

‘All that love.’

I nod. That’s all I can do. I stand there next to him, nodding and thinking of the extra heartbeat inside of me that won’t be there tomorrow.

‘Can I buy you dinner after?’ he offers.

‘Oh.’ I pause. I love Bob, but much as I want to comfort him, I can’t be a sympathetic ear tonight. I can’t hear about the baby he would have loved. ‘I’m really sorry but I can’t.’

I should have dinner, though. I haven’t eaten a proper meal for days. God, I haven’t eaten, I haven’t slept, I haven’t taken care of myself at all. I know why. It’s because I hate myself for what I’m going to do tomorrow.

Posh Boy finds me later, sitting on the bed in the master bedroom, draining a margarita and staring out of the window. He’s carrying two drinks: a margarita and clear-looking drink in a martini glass. He holds the margarita towards me.

‘You looked like you could use another.’

I take it and place my empty glass on the bedside unit.

‘Thank you.’

I sip it and wince.

‘Yeah, I think the barman’s taken a shine to you. He asked if this was for you, and when I said yes, he had a very free hand with the tequila.’

‘Oh,’ I say vaguely.

‘What’s up with you?’

‘Nothing. Why?’

‘Grace, you look like you’re contemplating suicide.’

‘No, just murder.’

‘Mine, I suppose.’

‘Always.’

‘Blimey, was that a smile.’

‘Just a little one.’

‘It was a nice smile, too.’

‘Yeah, well, don’t get too used it.’

‘I’ve been thinking.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, John, that would involve having a brain.’

‘I know you love me really, and that’s why I’ve been thinking that you and I should really have one night of passion, you know, to get rid of this sexual tension between us.’

He’s standing at the end of the bed and he’s taken off his suit jacket. He’s wearing his black suit trousers and they fit him perfectly. They must sit just below the belly button on his flat tummy, and whereas some blokes buy shirts way too large, he doesn’t, so you can decipher his shape. Broad at the shoulders, tapering in at the waist and, although I haven’t seen his bare arms, I’ve felt them round me and I know they’re wide and muscly at the top. Badminton, who’d have thought?

‘Are you mentally undressing me?’

‘No, John, I am not.’

‘Shame. You can whenever you like.’

‘Thanks, very kind of you.’

‘Righto,’ he says, knocking back his drink. ‘Gotta get out of here.’

‘Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Why don’t we go for another drink?’

‘Because you’ll jump me.’

‘Oh ho, aren’t we full of ourselves. I won’t jump you. I might try to find out the secret of your sales success, because
it’s quite unprecedented, but I promise not to jump you. I did it once and it still brings tears to my eyes.’

I smile at the memory and then I think about the offer of a drink. Why not have another drink? The one in my hand hasn’t done nearly enough anaesthetising for my liking. What else would I do? Go home alone and lie awake, wrapped in a blanket of sadness. Anything to stave that off, even a drink with Posh Boy.

‘Go on,’ he says, as if reading my mind. ‘You won’t be seeing me for a while now, I’m doing a stint at the Cricklewood branch. What do you reckon?’

‘You’re buying.’

‘Of course, highly independent, feminist woman, except when it comes to being bought drinks by men.’

‘No, but when posh blokes appear from nowhere and nick the job I’ve been working towards for five years, then yes, I let them buy me a drink.’

‘Oh, now we’re getting to the point. Did you really want Head of London Sales?’

‘Did I really want Head of London Sales? Er, no. I wanted it to go to you, a bloke who appeared from nowhere, doesn’t know the company and can’t sell as much property as I can.’

‘You will be—’ He stops.

‘Will be what?’

‘You will—’ he stops again. ‘You’ll be OK. I know you’ll be rewarded.’

‘What are you on about?’

‘Nothing, I just, um, I think Ken has something lined up for you, that’s all.’

‘What?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘Hopefully he’ll sack you and I’ll get your job.’

‘Could be.’

I don’t know what Posh Boy’s going on about, and at this particular moment in time, I don’t know if I care.

‘So what did you make of my offer?’

‘What offer?’

‘The one night of passion.’

‘Oh, please.’

‘Is that please, oh, oh, oh, John, yes,
please
,’
he pants orgasmically, and it’s quite funny, so I laugh.

Much later on, we’re in a hotel bar. We hadn’t planned to come in here, but he was walking me home and I needed the toilet. So we came into the hotel and when I emerged from the toilet he’d ordered me a drink. Now he’s just got me another, although I don’t remember saying I wanted one. He’s carrying my fifth or possibly sixth margarita when he asks again, ‘What do you reckon? One night of passion? Well, there can be more than one, but I thought I’d try to sell just one first.’

As he puts my drink down in front of me I reach out and touch the muscles on his upper arms, just because I want to feel them. He lets me trace the contour of his muscles with my fingers for a few moments, then he scoops me up and sits me on his lap, and there’s something about his strength that makes me feel as though I’m being lifted away from my problems. Super quickly his lips are upon mine, and the idea of one night of passion suddenly doesn’t seem so bad.

‘Come back to mine. My dad’s away,’ he whispers urgently in my ear.

‘You live with your dad! You’re such a shuttlecock!’ I screech. But I go home with him anyway, because I don’t want to go home alone to another sleepless night, because I want to block out tomorrow, and because even though they’re not the exact arms I want, I’d like to feel them around me, just for one night.

‘Oh dear, Gracie,’ I say, slowly banging my head on the landing wall as the night before comes back to me. I’m creeping out of John’s house. John has already gone. Oh God, I shagged my boss. I bang my head on the wall again.

‘Why, Gracie? Why?’ I whimper. ‘It was the tequila-based cocktails, your honour, I can’t take them. I’m short.’

‘Good afternoon,’ says an oriental female voice. I keep my forehead on the wall as it’s easing the dull ache inside, and turn my face to see a small Filipino woman in a salmon-coloured dress standing a foot away from me.