Chapter Forty Six

6.9.26

October 2003

I don't know what to expect at the Brook Clinic. I imagine myself bursting through the door and dramatically announcing I'm five months pregnant and I can't have this baby in front of a group of tense young women and girls in a waiting room.

In the event I walk into an empty room, carefully closing the door behind me. A member of staff appears. I tell her I think I'm pregnant and I need to do a test.

'How old are you?'

'Twenty three.'

She tells me Brook Clinics are for women up to twenty five, so I can have a free test.

I get the feeling she disapproves of me using the service. I'm an adult. I'm wearing my smart office clothes. I don't look like someone who needs a free test. I don't look like someone whose life is in crisis.

I go to the toilet with the test.

As we wait for the result to appear she asks me how far along I think I am.

'Maybe five months.'

'Did you use contraception?'

I lie and say 'yes.' I can't cope with more disapproval.

'You are pregnant,' she says.

I nod, hardening my face to stop the tears from coming.

She tells me I need to make a doctor's appointment urgently. I need to be booked in with a midwife. I need scans. I need blood tests.

She gives me leaflets, about ante natal classes, support for mums under twenty five, healthy eating.

My parents ask why I'm so late home. I tell them I was just working late.

Two days later I'm in the kitchen when my dad tells me I should go and speak to my mum in the sitting room.

'Do you have something to say?' she says.

'I'm five months pregnant.' I'm almost crying.

She nods. 'Is this Steve the father?'

'Yes.'

'I'm not casting aspersions on your character,' she says.

I shrug.

'Why didn't you go on the pill?' she says.

I didn't know you could just go on the pill. I thought you had to be in a relationship to be allowed to take it. And I wasn't when I flew to Australia.

'I'm too young to be a grandma,' she says.

My dad comes in. 'No you're not. And I'm grumpy enough to be a grandad.' He kisses his hand and pats my head.

'Have you told Steve?' my mum says.

I shake my head.

'You will, won't you?'

Maybe I don't have to. Maybe I could just stop replying to his emails, hang up the phone when he calls.

'You have to,' my mum says. 'He needs to know.'

I email him, asking him to phone me as soon as he can because I have something to tell him and I'm scared. I tell him I love him lots.

I wonder if he'll guess what it is. If he'll just never call and never email again.

The midwife asks why I didn't make an appointment sooner.

'I didn't know I was pregnant,' I say.

'I think...' she says, 'that when you don't want something to be true you can convince yourself it isn't.'

I nod. It must be obvious I knew, somewhere deep down, with this giant stomach on this skinny body.

She goes through a list of questions.

'Do you have a partner?'

'Yes.' But I don't really know if I do. I don't know if Steve will vanish when I tell him.

'Have you ever experienced domestic abuse?' she says. 'Has your partner or anyone in your family hurt you or made you do anything you didn't want to do?'

I feel Steve's teeth in my skin, feel his fingers bruising my arm. I think of that night in Perth when he made me bleed.

But that doesn't count, surely? He didn't hit me. He was sorry he made me bleed.

I shake my head.

My blood is taken for tests. I'm asked if I want an HIV test as well as everything else.

I nod.

Steve phones. 'I got your email,' he says. 'Are you all right?'

I hesitate. I'm certain as soon as I say the words he'll hang up the phone.

'I'm... I'm five months pregnant.'

Silence. Then, 'Is it mine?'

My fingers go numb. I almost drop the receiver. How could he think it wasn't?

'Yes,' I say.

'I had to ask that.'

I don't think he did.

'Approximately five months,' I say. 'They can't be exact because I still had periods.' I'm counting those drops of blood in Melbourne as my period.

'I know you did,' he says. I wonder if he's counting my bleeding in Perth as a period. Then he doesn't have to feel guilty about it.

'What are you going to do?' he says.

'I think it's too late to... to do anything.'

'So you're going to have to have the baby."

'Yes.'

'But could it be adopted?'

'That's possible.'

We tell each other we love each other. Everything will be all right.

I wonder what he does after we hang up. If he goes to whatever group of people he's hanging out with and says, 'my girlfriend's pregnant.' Or if he pretends that phone call never happened.

'Did you tell him?' my mum says.

I nod.

'You had to,' she says.

I don't see why I had to.