39 Weeks

  Thirty Nine Weeks

  Thirty Nine Weeks

  By

  Terri Douglas

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the author.

  1

  26th June - Week 4

  Two complacent little thin blue lines stared back at me as I gaped at them in absolute horror. This can’t be happening, not to me, not now. One day maybe, one day in the future, the faraway distant long time yet future, but not now surely, I mean I was only just beginning to reap the rewards of all those years of studying and taking exams.

  This had to be wrong. Somehow I’d managed to buy a faulty pregnancy testing kit. That’s it, the stupid thing must be faulty. There’s no way I could be pregnant, it has to be wrong, I haven’t even been seeing anyone. The only time, recently anyway, that I’d . . . . . was after Gill’s hen night, a one night stand with a guy called . . . . . called . . . no don’t tell me, I’ll get it . . . Matt. That was it, his name was Matt.

  I grabbed my jacket and keys and rushed out the door, then rushed back two seconds later and grabbed my purse. I drove like a maniac to four different chemists and bought two pregnancy testing kits in each, then drove home again at record breaking speed. Eight tests from different shops should do it and prove conclusively how wrong that first stupid test must be.

  Right then, should I do them one by one or all eight as a bunch? Mm . . if I do them one by one I might be here for some time as I’ll need to pee eight times. What about four and four? No still too time consuming and I need to know now, as in right now, this minute. Okay as a bunch then.

  I put the kettle on to make a large mug of tea. That’s a diuretic right? Tea’s not usually my thing but I keep a box in the cupboard for the monthly visits from my ever-loving yet eternally disapproving mother who drank nothing but tea, and desperate situations call for desperate solutions. I think about Matt. From what I could remember, which wasn’t a whole lot given the Bacardi and Coke haze I was in at the time, he was kind of okay looking, the other girls seemed to think so anyway, I remember that at least. In fact this whole thing is really all their fault, if they hadn’t thought it was so funny that a stud type like this Matt was trying to chat up a self professed man-hater like me, and encouraging me to ‘go for it’, I wouldn’t be sitting here now waiting for the kettle to boil to make myself a cup of strong tea so that I could pee on a stick, or on eight sticks.

  I wasn’t always a man-hater, but what woman is? Well lesbians I suppose although they don’t necessarily hate men they just don’t fancy them. No I started life, at least when I got to puberty anyway, as your atypical isn’t love wonderful, and one day I’ll meet ‘the one’ and get married. But that was before Mike the liar, and Josh the control freak, and Ben the womaniser, and last but not least Alec the done nothing wrong specifically, just your average self obsessed male arse. There were a few more but they were the significant others that turned me from an unsuspecting innocent potential bride-to-be and homemaker, white picket fence three bedroom semi and two point five children not to mention cute scruffy dog, to a what do I need a man for as a permanent fixture anyway. I’m much better off without all that crap.

  I mean who needs it? Some bloke telling you how to do everything, or anything, as if you’re five and need a helping hand or guidance with every aspect of your life, while they consistently bollocks things up or manoeuvre their way out the front door to be with their mates, or worse still invite their mates back to your place to watch twenty two other blokes that they idolise and envy, and that they’re never going to meet or be like, kick an inflated pig bladder around a large field, whilst shouting obscenities at the TV and guzzling endless cans of beer, not forgetting the belching a whole lot and scratching their arse. No I decided after the last loser enough was enough, no more serious relationships for me, I Judy Parker have had enough of men and want nothing more to do with any of them, except in a strictly casual sense lasting no more than two or three hours at the most. And that of course is how I’ve ended up on my own on a Sunday morning, peeing on sticks.

  I made my tea, leaving the tea bag in for a full five minutes before removing it, the stronger the better right? The more potent, the more peeing power. I added a drop of milk, and then seeing the colour of it added a slurp more. I sipped the disgusting brew telling myself it was medicine of some sort and that I needed this life saving beverage to make me go to the loo to prove what I already knew, that there was no way I could possibly be pregnant.

  I forced myself to drink the whole mug, dumped it in the sink, vowing never to drink the stuff again, grabbed the testing kits and went straight to the loo. As I sat inelegantly perched on the porcelain throne, I frantically unwrapped each one throwing the packaging on the floor and held on to my precious sticks waiting. Nothing, nada, no peeing going on whatsoever. I’d have to wait for the tea to kick in, say maybe twenty minutes. Yes that should do it.

  Okay what I need is to do something else to take my mind off the whole thing for at least twenty minutes. I’ll finish off that spreadsheet I’m supposed to be working on and that I promised I’d have done by Monday morning. Yes that’s it. When I started it this morning there was no thought in my head that two hours later I might be pregnant, and I’m not now of course, it’s all a false alarm, some kind of sick joke that’s really not funny at all. Well maybe after I’ve proved that I’m not pregnant it’ll be funny, and I’ll look back and laugh at how panicked I was, but right at this moment it’s not in the least bit humorous.

  Although if I’m not pregnant then why am I a week late. I’m never late, not ever. I could time my periods almost to the hour never mind the day. So if I’m not pregnant I must be ill, really seriously ill. I mean your periods only stop if you’re . . . . anorexic or . . . . if you’ve got the dreaded big C . . . . or . . . . but surely if I had some life threatening not to mention terminal disease of some sort there would have been other signs other symptoms, wouldn’t there? I must just have the dates wrong, I must have.

  I checked the calendar again, it’s a big one on the back of the kitchen door hiding from the rest of the world because it’s twelve beef-cake firemen baring their all, that Shelley who bought it for me, thought was so funny given my predilection to anti-relationships with anything male. But no I hadn’t got it wrong, this would be the twentieth time I’d checked and counted, and the twentieth time I’d come up with the same answer. I was a week late and there was no getting away from it. Seven days late had to mean something, either I was pregnant or I’d got bubonic plague and the first symptom of both was missing your period.

  Okay spreadsheet, just stop thinking about pregnant stuff or dire diseases. Relax. Get into work mode and juggle figures for a bit. When I wasn’t panicking and trying to make myself pee I worked in an accounts office, or the finance department as it had recently been re-named since we’d been taken over. I’d worked at Fishers since just after I passed my first lot of exams six years ago, and had recently been promoted to management accountant for the greeting card part of the group. I still wasn’t sure how we could call ourselves a group when we were just one company and always had been as far as I knew, but the Steadman brothers who’d bought us out, taken over and shaken us all up a bit, had re-named us The Fisher Group, instead of just Fishers that we all still referred to ourselves as, despite their edict to the contrary.

  I looked at my spreadsheet that was supposed to show sales trends for the last three years and wondered idly how I would fit a cot into my tiny one bedroom flat.

  Stop it. Forget all that and concentrate on the job in hand. I’d promised Norman Steadman, the MD and shorter of the two brothers that you couldn’t tell apart unless they were standing next to each othe
r, that I’d have these figures by tomorrow morning, and if I hadn’t been distracted by my need to pee on a stick I would have finished by now. Right October, the final figures for last October were . . . . maybe I could put a cot in here, keep the bedroom as it is and wedge a cot in the corner of the living room.

  This is hopeless. Okay forget the spreadsheet for the time being. Maybe if I watch a bit of telly for a while it’ll take my mind off it. I closed my laptop and moved it to the other side of the settee. I flicked on the telly to be immediately confronted with Rachael giving birth to Ross’s baby. Naturally like everyone else I’d seen most episodes of Friends at least twenty times, including this one, but did it have to be this episode today, right now, when I was trying so hard to avoid the subject of babies or any reference to them whatsoever.

  I watched in fascinated horror at how painful it all looked. Even though they were trying so hard to make giving birth funny, and it sort of was, it still looked frighteningly real and bloody uncomfortable. I couldn’t do that, I just couldn’t. Not going to happen, no way.

  How long has it been since I last peed? No idea but it has to be at least fifteen minutes since I drank that tea. I went back to the loo and clutched my sticks that were going to save my life as I knew it and wanted to keep it, while I waited. Still nothing.

  Maybe if I turned on the tap, let it run, you know, the sound of running water’s supposed to make you want to go isn’t it? I waited, and waited a bit more, but still nothing.

  Time for drastic measures. I walked back to the kitchen, keeping my life saving sticks with me at all times, and filled a glass with water, drank it and filled it again. I sat down at the two persons only small round dining table in my kitchen. There really wasn’t room in the kitchen for a table of any description, even a small one with only two seats and you could only comfortably sit on one of the seats, the other one was so tightly squeezed in that you had to be very thin and hold your breath until you’d actually sat down to be able to use it, but there wasn’t room in the living room either. So rather than eat off my lap all the time, I’d gone for the one less cupboard and squeeze a table in the kitchen option. I sipped my glass of water staring into space and willing myself to need the toilet.

  I wondered how long it was before you started to show, before people started to notice a bump and your clothes all felt a bit tight. I wondered how long it was before it was too late to have an abortion. Did I want an abortion? I always thought I was dead against it, but then I always thought that if and when I got pregnant I’d be with someone, or if not, that at least it would have been planned, not just some one night stand with a guy I can hardly remember and a few short weeks later there you are up the duff. I wonder why they call it up the duff, a bun in the oven well that’s easy, obvious, but up the duff? Who or what is a duff anyway?

  Two glasses of water later I can finally, thankfully, feel that little stirring something telling me I need the loo. Sticks in hand I go back to the toilet, and produce the smallest amount of pee possible, but nevertheless manage somehow with the dedication of a contortionist to splash all eight sticks. I lay them gently on the porcelain shelf part of the sink behind the taps, grab a handful of toilet paper to get the worst of the pee off my hands which in my exertions I’d managed to water along with the sticks, and pull my jeans back up. I wash my hands thoroughly and dry them on the towel, all the time watching the test sticks like a hawk for any sign of the tell tale dreaded blue lines.

  By the time I’d finished drying my hands five of the god dammed stupid bloody sticks were sporting glow in the dark, glaring blue bloody lines all over the place, and when I turned over the other three they were all dazzling me with their neon blueness as well.

  So that was it then. No doubts this time, I was well and truly up the duff whatever it was. True I wasn’t dying of leprosy or some other pestilence which I suppose is a good thing, but I was condemned for the next twenty years of my life to being responsible for someone else, a small helpless someone else, waiting on them hand and foot, with no sleep, no sex, no life of my own, and no time off for good behaviour. Oh crap!

  2

  27th June - Week 4 + 1 Day

  When I got to work the next morning I was one of the first in. I usually got to work early and today was no exception. In fact given that I’d hardly slept a wink the night before, getting to work early was an absolute necessity. If I had to spend one more minute locked up in my flat, just me, nine used pregnancy test kits, and overwhelming thoughts of the beached whale I was about to grow into, I’d have gone stark staring mad. On reflection stark staring mad might have been easier to deal with, I mean if I was stark staring mad I wouldn’t have a clue what was going on would I, and could stop thinking about how impossible my life was going to be from now on.

  Shirley was there as usual half heartedly pushing the vacuum cleaner around. She’s the cleaner of the offices at Fishers. She’s about seventy and has been cleaning these offices for probably about sixty of her seventy years. I like Shirley, she’s smart and funny in a quaint sort of way, and seen it all. She’s had five children, all grown up now of course, and three husbands. Three! Just goes to show you can never tell about people. She’s long since past being able to give the shabby old offices at Fishers the thorough spring clean that they so desperately need, but that would probably take an army of younger super-fit cleaners a couple of weeks, and Shirley’s part of the furniture, the place just wouldn’t be the same without her here every morning, so we all put up with the barest minimum in terms of office cleaning for her sake.

  ‘Hi Shirley, good week-end?’ I say dumping my bag on my desk and trying to sound as normal as was possible under the circumstances.

  ‘Yeah, I guess.’

  This was a fairly typical response for Shirley, she rarely if ever has a good weekend. Her family of five grown up offspring and their assorted children, not to mention husband number three, usually had some crisis or other to contend with, and it was usually down to Shirley to sort it all out or council the unlucky victim.

  ‘Trouble?’

  ‘Well not trouble exactly but Vicky, my second eldest, her daughter Scarlet has gone and got herself pregnant. She’s fourteen for God’s sake, I mean how’s she going to cope with a baby. It’ll be my Vicky of course that has all the work, all the looking after to do and sleepless nights, I can’t see that little madam, my grand-daughter, putting herself out at all.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yeah it’s not good is it, I mean what was she thinking, it’s not like she doesn’t know about these things, she’s had sex ed at school and Vicky’s talked to her about . . . boys and sex and . . . all that stuff, so you’d have thought she’d have been a bit more careful wouldn’t you, I mean if she had to have sex at her age why didn’t she use something. I don’t know kids today.’

  ‘Will she keep the baby?’

  ‘Oh yes, I couldn’t be party to no bortions or the like, I mean if it comes to it, if I have to, I’ll look after the little b . . . brat myself.’

  I cringed at the thought of Shirley looking after a small newborn baby, I mean it really didn’t bear thinking about at her age.

  ‘What about the father?’

  ‘What about him, he’s not going to be much use is he, he’s only fourteen himself, it’s not like they can get married or set up house together, they’re still both at school and taking their exams next year. But I spect my Vicky’ll manage somehow. D’you have a good weekend?’

  Yes I thought, it was brilliant, ace, right up there with the weekend Grand-dad died, or when I found out Mum and Dad were getting divorced.

  ‘It was good, yes. Quiet but okay.’

  ‘You sure? You don’t look so good.’

  ‘No I’m fine, just not sleeping too well at the moment.’

  ‘I better get on, can’t stand around chatting all morning still got the reception to Hoover out and them Steadman’s get right tetchy if I’m still pushing the Hoover round after half eight, case we get v
isitors, although who’s gonna be visiting here at that time of the morning I can’t imagine.’

  Shirley shuffled off dragging the ancient vacuum cleaner behind her and I took my coat off. After our conversation I couldn’t help thinking I’m not fourteen I’m twenty eight, and I’ve had sex ed and the talk with my mum, not to mention quite a bit of practical experience, and I still managed to get pregnant, how dumb am I? And I haven’t got the sort of mum who’ll just take over this baby if I can’t manage or be bothered, never mind a Shirley in my life. So what am I going to do?

  I need coffee, strong black coffee given my sleepless night. I pick up my wittily inscribed mug that says ‘If you can send a man to the moon why can’t you send them all’ that was my secret Santa present from last Christmas, and that ceased to be funny after about a day, and go to the kitchen. Although kitchen is probably too higher accolade for the small cupboard like room containing a sink that you shouldn’t lean on as it’s dangerously close to falling off the wall at any moment, and two mismatched and never properly re-assembled cupboards donated from someone’s discarded old kitchen when they updated.

  I put a heaped spoonful of coffee in my cup and flicked the switch on the kettle. I really should finish off that spreadsheet, I promised it would be done by nine this morning, that gives me three quarters of an hour to finish it. After yesterdays revelation I just never went back to it, what with all things maternal spinning round and round the inside of my head. But then that’s the whole problem right there in one word ‘maternal’. I’m not maternal, not at all. Never longed to have a baby with or without a partner. I sort of thought I would have children at some time, maybe, but never really thought about it seriously. Not until now that is. I mean leaving aside the practical considerations which were not insubstantial by any reckoning, could I actually do the mum thing, be someone’s mum. An image like some trailer for a new film popped in my head of me in a conventional Laura Ashley type dress, mid calf length and all twee pastel flowers, with a pair of old fashioned leather sandals, holding a small persons hand who surprisingly was wearing an almost identical dress and sandals, with white blonde hair in sickeningly cute bunches either side of her head tied up with fifties style big bow ribbons. We smiled at each other and Blondie was saying ‘I love you Mummy, you’re the bestest Mummy in the whole world’.