The Other Woman(78)

I didn’t have the energy to answer.

‘Do you want a coffee?’ he asked.

I shook my head. I couldn’t think of anything worse.

‘What’s up?’ he said, filling his cup with hot water. ‘Do you think it’s flu or something?’

I rubbed at my eyes; yesterday’s mascara was still coming off even after all the tears I’d cried. ‘I really don’t know,’ I said. ‘I just feel poisoned.’

‘What did you eat yesterday? Did you eat anything with Mum?’

I shook my head.

He came and sat down next to me on the sofa, sipping noisily from his mug. The stench of coffee permeated my nostrils and I clamped a hand over my mouth in a futile attempt to catch the vomit that projected across the coffee table.

‘Jesus!’ shouted Adam, jumping up from the sofa, spilling the offending liquid onto the carpet.

‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry,’ I said, though even as I was saying it, I wondered why my first thought was to apologize. ‘Give me a minute. I’ll go to the bathroom and then sort this out.’

My throat was burning from the hot bile spewing up from my intestines, and my eyes streamed as I battled to stop the retching. How had a sixty-three-year-old woman caused my mind and body to fail me like this? I was a strong woman who had never suffered fools gladly, who could carry her own in any situation. How had this happened to me? It defied logic.

I was still hugging the porcelain when it occurred to me that maybe the root cause of my physical state was indeed something more logical. My brain banged against the sides of my skull at the very idea of it.

It had taken all my resolve to drag myself into town, not least because I felt like death warmed up, but because a very real possibility was raging in my head. I bought an exorbitantly priced test at the chemist’s in Charing Cross station and spent a further 50p for a toilet cubicle to wee onto a stick in. I’d envisaged walking to work whilst the chemicals did their stuff, but I hadn’t even pulled my knickers up when a prominent blue line appeared in the window. My vision blurred as I tried to read the instructions again, begging the question, ‘Does a line mean I’m pregnant or not pregnant?’ hoping against hope that it was the latter.

I called Pippa as I repeatedly banged into the turnstile to get out of the basement convenience. A girl with blue hair and chewing gum in her mouth watched me gormlessly as I did it four times, my temper fraying with each attempt.

‘That’s the in turnstile.’

‘Brilliant,’ I said sarcastically.

‘What is?’ said Pippa’s voice from my mobile, as she finally picked up.

‘I’m pregnant,’ I replied feebly.

‘Fuck,’ she said, ‘and that’s brilliant, how?’

‘No, that’s not brilliant, I was talking to . . . oh, never mind. Shit, Pippa, I’m pregnant.’

‘Well, that’s something of a surprise,’ she offered slowly.

‘I mean, what the hell?’ My head was unable to compute what was going on.

Pippa remained silent on the other end of the line until I reached the Strand.

‘How did that happen? Was it supposed to?’ she asked.

‘Of course not,’ I snapped, though why I was taking it out on her, I don’t know.

‘I thought you were on the pill,’ she said.

‘I was. I am. But I forgot to take it for a while, when all the wedding stuff kicked off. I probably missed, I don’t know, maybe a week’s worth, maybe more. Adam wasn’t at home, and I wasn’t intending to sleep with him anytime soon, so . . .’

‘So, what was it?’ she said. ‘Immaculate conception?’

‘Things just took us a bit by surprise one night, the first night we . . . you know . . .’

I groaned at the memory of telling Pammie how I might be pregnant from all the make-up sex we’d had. Jesus.

‘But I thought you wanted to reschedule the wedding for as soon as possible,’ she said.

‘I do, but I can’t now, can I? I’ll never be able to reorganize everything before I start showing. I don’t want to waddle down the aisle seven months pregnant. Oh God, Pippa, I can’t believe this. It’s just all too much.’ I started to cry, and the delivery driver pulling up outside the post office asked if I was all right. I smiled weakly at him.

‘What did Adam say?’ she asked.

‘He doesn’t know. I’ve just done the test in Charing Cross. Wait. I’ll call you back.’ I raced to the nearest bin and hurled my head into it. Seeing an upended KFC box with gnawed-at chicken bones made it ten times worse. Commuters were going past me, not knowing whether to rush by, or slow down to gawp, but they all looked disgusted.

‘Are you okay?’ asked Pippa, as I answered the phone.

I grunted. ‘That was just me throwing up into a street bin.’

‘Oh, classy,’ she joked. ‘But seriously, what are you going to do about this?’

‘I’ll tell Adam tonight and we’ll talk it through. Honestly, Pippa, I can’t tell you how messed up this all is.’

‘It’s not messed up, it’s a blessing,’ she said.

‘I mean everything,’ I said. ‘Everything around me is so screwed up. How can I contemplate having a baby, when Adam and I still have our own issues to deal with? What’s he going to think? Oh, God.’