The Baby Diaries

Thom: I don’t care.

Me: Tails! No, heads. HEADS.

Susie: [flips coin] Ha ha! It’s tails. [sing-songing] I get to tell them.

Thom: Oh, thank God.

Me: Just … do it. Don’t gloat, Suse. Get it done with.

So we filed back out, Dad giving us an odd look, and came into the kitchen where Mum was plating up our lunch.

Susie: Mum, Dad, Pete, children. I have an announcement to make.

Pete: [crossing fingers]

Susie: Your daughter’s knocked up – and it’s not me, for once!

Pete: Oh, thank God.

[silence]

Mum: Fucking hell.

Me and Susie: Mum!

I actually love it when Mum swears. It’s like Johnson’s walking dog – we’re not concerned so much how well she’s doing it, but that she’s doing it at all.

Mum: Sorry, darling, I just … well, I was surprised. Sorry. I just thought …

Me: What?

Mum: Well, I’m just surprised you’re having children so soon! I just thought you’d want to wait a little while. You two are both so young, and I thought you’d want to settle into your careers a little bit more …

Me: Susie had had two kids by the time she was TWENTY-FIVE!

Susie: [pulling a Question Time face] I hardly think that’s the point.

Me: [pleading] Mum.

Mum: Oh, darling, of course we’re excited. You do spring this on people, don’t you?

Me: [indignant] Would you prefer a blow-by-blow –

Thom: Don’t.

Me: [understanding] – mm.

Then Dad and Pete and the Twins were excited and gave us both hugs, and Mum came and gave me a lovely hug too. She asked lots of questions (all the right sort, for once), and Susie caught my eye and winked at me. Mum stayed excited for the rest of the afternoon, although she did occasionally repeat herself, which I can forgive in the name of her excitement.

Sometimes, I really love this family. Now it’s just telling everyone else we know. Gulp.

TO DO:

Find out if Susie’s available to tell all our friends

November 28th

Alice hasn’t so much as raised a conspiratorial eyebrow at me since she guessed the news. She’s been as friendly as ever, sweet and funny, but she’s too tactful to make hints or whisper questions to me in the office. She shows her me her neutral face, the face that’s meant she’s managed three Christmases with her handbag Gareth and her family, and never even looked at me when Carol reported that Tony had bought a baby book. In our weekly meeting, Carol asked if we had any thoughts yet on Lucie Martel’s A Womb of One’s Own.

Me: Her what?

Alice: A what of her what?

Carol: Tony bought this just before he left. It says here Kiki’s handling it in his absence. Didn’t he tell you?

Me and Alice: [blank faces]

Carol: Bloody hell. Right, it’s an American import, obviously, but we’ll publish in March, the same time as them. Lucie’s an incredibly wealthy New York journalist, mainly working in the US but with a few things published over here. Her piece on arranging a prostitute for her super-rich-CEO husband went down a storm last year in the Mail.

All: Oh, her!

Carol: Quite. She’s written the book already, but we won’t bring it out until the baby is actually born.

Me: But what is it?

Carol: Looking again at the submission notes, it’s ‘a unique look at pregnancy, labour and the early years through the fresh eyes of someone appreciating the beauty and purity of the experience’.

Alice: I’ve heard about Lucie. If her eyes are fresh it’s only because she’s had them injected with dolphin endorphins at some million-dollar spa.

Carol: We’re all thinking it, Alice, but I’m afraid you must learn to love this book. Tony’s spent enough on it that we must make use of the month we’ll have her for.

Me: But how can she have finished it if she hasn’t even had the baby yet?

Carol: Because when you have that much money, you can guarantee that life will turn out how you planned. I’ll send you the latest version; she’s over next month for a meeting with us. Did Tony really not tell you any of this?

All I could think was: Christ, I really hope Tony doesn’t buy a How to Cope with Everyone You Know Dying book, or I’m going to have to keep a closer watch on my loved ones. Why does he keep predicting my life? What the hell is going on? And why the living hell would he not tell us he’d bought it?

But it felt like the right time to tell Carol about this baby, after the meeting. She took it so well, giving me a hug and asking me for all the details. She said she’d email Tony – not that he responded with any real frequency – and get all the information to me about my leave and maternity pay. Her enthusiasm was quite infectious, in fact, and for once I didn’t mind telling people. Alice pulled out one of the bottles of prosecco that always seem to dog this place, and we had a tiny toast. I even saw Norman raise his glass to Carol before he drank, that old romantic. It wasn’t so bad, after all.

A Womb of One’s Own’s publication date is in March, four months away, a month after Lucie’s baby is born. As long as there are no complications, I’ll be happy to assist Alice with Lucie’s publicity; at seven months pregnant, I’ll be delighted to be on the phone for them while I sit in comfort in the office. Who knows, maybe she can actually give me some tips. And I can practise holding another baby, too, one that, unlike Susie’s kids, it does matter if I drop. Maybe I’ll start feeling maternal.

Although that seems unlikely.

November 29th

This morning, I remembered the times we’d visited Heidi and Rich, Thom’s best man, and their new baby Megan since our wedding. I liked them both very much, and found Megan wonderful to hold, like a kitten. But I’d always been quickly bored of that little animal warmth, and was happy to pass it back to Heidi so she could uncover an udder and feed the squirming creature. I never felt broody when we saw them – ha! In fact, last time we went, we even talked on the way home about how we hoped our feelings about babies would change before we had them ourselves – and never looked forward to seeing the baby, rather than Rich and Heidi. Yet there we were tonight. Pregnant, and on their doorstep again for another visit. We had a nice enough time, but I couldn’t wait until we were driving home again.

Me: Did you see the face they made at one another?