Chapter Forty Five

 September 2003

My parents are waiting at the barriers at Heathrow.

   'She doesn't look fat,' my dad says. 'Everyone says people come back fatter from a year in Australia but, she doesn't.'

   See? I'm not pregnant. I would look fat if I was. 

   But what about-

   Don't think about it.

   

My friends seem to be mostly on holiday but Lucy tells me Becky's having an Ann Summers party next week. This seems completely out of character for Becky. I feel lost. Has everyone changed while I've been away? I don't think I've changed. Except-

   No. Nothing's changed.

   I go to the employment agency I got my job at the bank with. In a couple of days I've been offered my old job back.

   I'm back in the same rut I ran away from.

   But it's different now. This is only temporary. In a few months I'll be in Asia with Steve.

   He emails. He's still lonely in Broome. Soon he'll go back to Perth, hoping to get tickets for the rugby world cup. He asks for my phone number. He wants to hear my voice. He loves me and misses me so much.

   I'm afraid I won't have anything to say to him.

I walk to the town centre to buy shampoo. Voices call my name. I turn and see a man and a woman I don't recognise outside a pub. They are laughing. They seem drunk. 

   I turn in confusion. Then another voice calls. It's Lucy. 

   'Come in,' she says.

   'He was perving at you as you walked past,' she says 

   'I wasn't,' says the man.

   'And I said, "you can't perve at her, I know her," and they didn't believe me so they asked your name. I didn't think they would go and start shouting at you.'

   I ask her about Erin, her daughter. 'Is she at school now?' She'd be about four and a half.

   'Not till January. But she's at nursery all day. First day back today. That's why we're here, celebrating.'

   She asks me what I'm doing. I tell her I've got my old job back, but I'll be going to Asia with Steve soon.

   'But didn't you want to go to drama school?' she says. 'Aren't you saving up for that?'

   I shrug. I don't remember having any plans.

   She frowns. I know she's thinking I'm giving up my dreams for a man. A man who's probably not worth it. Just like she did.

I start work. I'm on domestic payments. There are still so many of the same people here.

   'When are you due?' my supervisor whispers to me.

   'What?'

   'You're pregnant.'

   'No.'

   She looks at me sceptically.

On the Saturday Steve said he'd phone I wait in. I wait and I wait. Nothing. It would be nearly midnight in Broome. He won't call now. I go out.

   'Your friend Steve phoned,' my dad says when I come back.

   'You should have waited,' my mum says.

   Steve calls on Sunday evening. He's drunk. I tell him I'm going to an Ann Summers party next week.

   'You'll have to buy something for me,' he says.

   'I don't think there'll be anything in your size,' I say.

   There is some kind of commotion at his end.

   'Bruce the Shark wants to know if you'll marry me,' he says.

   I wonder if that's what the commotion was. Some random he's been getting drunk with asking who he's phoning, and when he said, 'my girlfriend,' the drunk random thinking it's funny to ask if I'm marrying him.

   'Have you been talking to weird people again?' I say.

   'Oh. No. That was just my alter ego.'

   'So you're the weirdo then.'

   I wonder if it was meant to be a trick question. If I'd said yes would he have told me the next day that he obviously didn't mean it, he was drunk, the fact that I said yes showed we weren't on the same page, we'd have to break up.

   And if I'd said no he would have said I clearly didn't love him enough, we'd have to break up.

   It can't be normal, I think, to be so paranoid about your boyfriend's motives.

At the Ann Summers party I feel awkward. I don't know Becky's work friends. I don't want to talk about orgasms and look at underwear. I'm not drinking like everyone else is.

   Finally at the end I get to speak to my friends properly. Lucy has a new boyfriend. She's probably moving to another town to be near him. Becky has a new boyfriend. Kate says he's controlling.

   'When they live together I'm going to knock on their door and say, "Can Becky come out to play?"' she says. 'Because she doesn't do anything without his permission.'

   Is this the fate of every woman? To rearrange our lives on the whims of a man.

  Fiona says Becky's boyfriend isn't that bad, it's just that she's changing.

Steve phones again. We talk about when we'll meet in Asia. He says he's got even more tanned since I left him in Perth. I'm losing my tan.

  'Stop tanning,' I say, 'or I'll look like a snowman next to you.'

   He asks if I'm being good.

   'I'm always good,' I say. 'I'm a perfect saint.'

   'Oh, yeah? What about what you did in Sydney?'

   'What do you know about Sydney?'

   'You told me, you and two men-'

   'I was drunk.' I feel numb. I shouldn't have told him about that. I don't want him to bring it up. I don't want to be reminded. 

   But I never really forget anyway.

   'And you weren't very saintly when you were with me,' he says.

   'I was drunk.'

   'What, the whole time?'

   'Yeah, the whole time.' 

   I hope he hears the smile I am desperately trying to fill my voice with.

One evening I look at my reflection in the glass back door.

   I look pregnant. I definitely look pregnant.

   I need to do a test.

   I'm too embarrassed to buy a test. Too scared to do it on my own. Too ashamed to tell anyone. Too ignorant to know what to do if it's positive.

   I look up Brook Clinics on the internet. There's one in walking distance. It's open till seven pm. I'll go tomorrow after work.

   The test is bound to be negative.

   Bound to be.

Brooks Clinics