One Day in December(92)

I dump my keys and bag on the hall table, my mobile tucked under my ear. ‘No. I’m too scared of what it might say.’ What I don’t tell her is that I think I’d be more scared if it were to say yes.

‘Oscar’s not home yet then?’

I sigh in the empty flat. ‘He should be back in a couple of hours.’

‘Hang on,’ she says, muffled. I can hear her moving around, and then she’s back and clear again. ‘Sorry, just getting out of bed. Right, I have wine and I’m not going anywhere. Get the test out, Lu.’

‘What, now?’ My voice is unnaturally high.

‘Yes, now. Or would you rather leave it until Oscar’s home?’

She’s right, of course. Given the way we are just now, it’d be much better if I do it with her and know for sure one way or the other before he comes in.

‘Okay,’ I whisper, shaking the test out of the chemist’s paper bag.

I turn the box over and scan it, reading the by now familiar instructions aloud as I kick off my shoes and lock myself in the loo. Why, I don’t know, seeing as I’m the only one home. ‘I’m in the bathroom.’

‘Good. Open the test.’

I struggle as always with the fiddly packaging, finally releasing the white plastic stick from its foil seal. ‘There. Got it.’

I look at the stick and then at the loo, and then I sigh and get on with it.

‘I can hear you peeing,’ Sarah’s voice floats out of my phone on the floor.

‘Just be glad we’re not on Facetime,’ I mutter, wrangling the stick into the right place, managing to pee on my own fingers in the process. ‘Why do they make these things so bloody difficult?’

‘Don’t drench it!’ she shouts, unhelpfully.

I sigh as I extract the stick. Straight away I can see something happening in the windows, so I snap the lid on quick smart and put the stick on the edge of the sink.

‘Start the clock,’ I say, washing my hands.

‘Done.’

I sit down on the floor and lean my back against the wall, my legs stretched in front of me, the phone against my ear again.

I close my eyes. ‘Tell me something about your life there, Sar. Distract me.’

‘Okay. Well, I’m at the kitchen table. It’s supposed to be winter but we’re having a heat wave, and our air-con is a lazy bastard. I’m mopping up my sweat as I talk to you.’ I can almost see her; they live in a gorgeous low-slung beach house. She sent me the particulars when they went to view it and I needed to go and lie down in a dark room to get over my envy. It looks like something out of a seventies House Beautiful magazine, all sunken seating areas and double-height ceilings. She pauses, and then says, ‘Oh, and I proposed to Luke.’

‘What? Oh my God! Sarah!’ I shriek, properly shocked. It’s so Sarah not to wait around when she knows what she wants. ‘When? What did you say? And what did he say?’

‘He said yes, of course,’ she laughs. ‘And he cried like a baby.’

I laugh too. I can believe it; Luke’s a big softie.

‘Time’s up, Lu,’ she says, quiet and serious again. ‘Three minutes.’

I hold the stick in my hands, the cap still in place. ‘I’m scared, Sar,’ I whisper.

‘Don’t be. Whatever happens, you’ll be okay, I promise.’

I don’t reply, just stare at the stick. I don’t know if I can do this.

‘For God’s sake, Laurie, take the fucking cap off!’

So I do. I pull it off fast and hold my breath as I stare at it.

‘Well?’

‘One blue line.’ I gasp down a huge lungful of air, shaking. ‘Just one. That means I’m not pregnant, doesn’t it?’

‘Oh, Lu, I’m sorry,’ she says, gentle now. ‘It’ll happen soon, I’m sure it will.’

I dash my hands across my eyes and put the stick down on the floor. ‘Yeah, I know.’

When Oscar comes home just after eight, I’m in my pyjamas drinking a glass of wine at the kitchen table. He eyes the wine, then raises his eyebrows. ‘Is that wise?’

The coolness to his tone suggests he’s still in the same frame of mind as when he left on Sunday.

I shake my head. ‘I thought I might be pregnant, but I’m not. I did a test. I must just be late, it happens.’

His expression softens as his eyes search mine. ‘Are you okay?’

I’m not sure how to best answer his question truthfully. ‘I don’t think I am, no.’

I wait while he pours himself a glass of wine and sits down at the table. He looks done in; I wish I could just make him some dinner and offer to run him a bath, but my heart won’t let me back out of the decisions I reached on the bathroom floor after Sarah rang off.

‘Did you accept the job?’

He stares into his wine glass. ‘You always knew I was going to.’

‘Yes.’ I nod slowly. ‘It was the right thing for you.’

‘But not for you?’ he asks. He doesn’t sound angry or cool any more. I think he’s starting to realize that this conversation has the potential to devastate us both.

I sigh, and a tear slides down my face. ‘No.’ I swallow hard, hating everything about this situation. ‘I’ve spent the last couple of days thinking I might be pregnant, and trying to work out what to do if I was.’