From Here to Maternity (18 page)

I put on a sexy little négligé – that was now not so sexy because my stomach was straining the seams but at least my cleavage looked good – and James came out of the bathroom to find me rolling about, trying to find a position that didn’t highlight my expanding midriff.

‘Hello,’ he said, pleased to see the lacy black number. He knew he was on to a good thing. There was nothing subtle about my efforts.

‘Hello, big boy,’ I purred, sounding as ridiculous as I looked.

James laughed and hopped in beside me. We kissed and played around…

The next thing I knew, James was calling. ‘Emma! Emma!’

‘What?’ I said, opening my eyes.

‘Were you asleep?’ he asked, appalled.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, I just had my eyes closed.’ My God, I had nodded off. I realized now that I must have fallen asleep right in the middle of sex.

‘I can’t believe you were asleep.’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘You were practically snoring.’

‘I was having a great time. I must have just nodded off for a second.’

‘In the middle of sex, Emma,’ said James, looking put out. Clearly, having your wife fall asleep during intercourse was not good for a man’s ego.

‘Yes, but not on purpose. I wasn’t bored or anything, I’m just really, really tired. Sorry.’ I felt awful. How could I have fallen asleep? It was so insulting for poor James.

‘You should have told me you were tired. I thought, with the lacy nightdress, you were up for a night of passion.’

‘I was. I am. Come on, let’s get back to it. I’m wide awake now.’

‘I hardly think that’s a good idea. You clearly need a good night’s sleep.’

‘Come on, it’s not as if we’ll be here for hours. Chop-chop.’

‘Darling, when your wife goes into a coma during sex, it’s a passion-killer to say the least. We’ll call it a night.’

‘No, come on, look, I’m full of beans now,’ I said, jumping up and down on the bed. ‘Let’s go for it. Will I get out the Rampant Rabbit to spice things up?’ I asked, referring to the large rabbit-like vibrator that Babs had ordered for me over the Internet when we were trying to conceive.

‘To be honest,’ said James, looking down at himself, ‘the Rabbit might be your best bet this evening. I don’t think I’m going to bounce back – as it were – from the shock of finding you asleep.’

‘Sorry, James,’ I said, hugging him. ‘You know it’s not that I don’t love you or find you incredibly sexy, it’s just lack of sleep.’

‘It’s OK. But you should go to sleep now and try to catch up. I’d like you to be a bit more involved next time.’

Jess and Lucy were roaring laughing by the time I’d finished the story. ‘Poor James!’ said Lucy.

‘I know, I felt awful,’ I groaned. ‘I need some kind of female Viagra.’

‘You’ll start feeling more energetic soon,’Jess assured me. ‘The first few months of pregnancy are really draining, and with Yuri as well it’s no wonder you fell asleep. Are you taking any iron?’

I shook my head.

‘Well, you should start. Spatone do sachets that you can dissolve in orange juice. It’ll help.’

‘I’ll get some tomorrow.’

‘I’d start with a double dose, if I was you,’ said Lucy, winking at me.

Chapter 20

Lucy woke up to a silver rectangle being waved at her. She opened a bleary eye. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, as Donal shook it under her nose.

‘I thought we had an agreement.’

‘What are you talking about? For God’s sake, it’s eight o’clock on Saturday morning and I’ve hours of sleep left. Whatever it is, it can wait.’ Lucy pulled the duvet over her head.

‘Lucy, why are all the weekdays gone out of this packet?’

Lucy frowned. What on earth was he crashing on about at this ungodly hour? She poked her head out. ‘What?’

Donal was holding her packet of Nordette contraceptive pills and pointing at the missing days. ‘Why are you still taking these yokes? We said we’d try for a baby.’

‘No, we did not,’ Lucy said, awake now. ‘You said you wanted to try immediately and I said I didn’t. We never agreed to anything. In fact, we disagreed. And since when do you go around rooting in my bath-bag?’

‘I was looking for a nail scissors and I saw these. Lookit, Lucy, you’re no spring chicken and it’s time these went in the bin.’

‘Thirty-six is not that old. Stop telling me I’m past my prime.’

‘Can you not stop with these things and give it a shot? I’d make a great father. I’ve done a good job with Annie and you get on well with her now.’

Lucy snorted. ‘Annie’s the troublemaker who tried to break us up, remember?’

‘Believe me, I remember it well. Let’s give it a go, for the hell of it.’

‘I just don’t feel ready yet. I’m still reeling from the wedding. Can we just stall the ball for a few months?’

‘If you’re afraid you’ll be a bad mother, don’t worry. Look at your own – she’s a dreadful old boot and you turned out fine.’

‘Don’t call my mother a boot.’

‘You called Annie a troublemaker.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s different because she was a wench to me for a long time.’

‘Every time your mother sees me, she practically hisses,’ said Donal.

‘I admit she’s not your biggest fan.’

‘She thinks I’m a joke.’

‘Not any more. When I told her you’d given up playing rugby and started a career as a sports presenter, you went right up in her estimation. I think she sees you as the new Des Lynam.’

‘I was thinking more Gary Lineker myself. We’re both young, good-looking sportsmen with a professional air about us.’

Lucy laughed. Donal seized the moment: ‘So, will you stop taking these?’

Lucy paused. ‘I’m scared.’

‘Of what?’

‘Of having kids and becoming one of those couples who fight all the time. I like our relationship the way it is. I like my life. I don’t want it to change.’

‘It won’t, and to be fair, it’s not as if we’ve never had a fight.’

‘Yeah, but everyone has the odd row – it’s not like the constant sniping that harassed, sleep-deprived parents do.’

‘We’ll be different. We’ll only eat the face off each other once in a while, like we do now. There’ll be no sniping. Come on, Lucy, let’s at least try.’

Lucy looked at his eager face. He was right: she wasn’t getting any younger and it’d probably take a while… and she thought she might want a child eventually… and it was day twenty-seven in her cycle so she had no chance of getting pregnant if they had sex now. She’d think about coming off the pill later. She wasn’t ready just yet, but for the moment Donal needed to be pacified.

She nodded as Donal hopped on top of her to get some practice in.

My bump seemed to be getting bigger by the second, along with my appetite. I called in to Mum’s to collect Yuri, having skipped lunch because of some mini-drama on the set at work. The head of the Flower Arrangers’ Society of Ireland had arrived for her slot, late and absolutely plastered. The woman could barely stand. She swayed from side to side, precariously carrying an enormous, award-winning floral creation, which looked the worse for wear. Amanda was freaking out because they had allocated twenty minutes to the slot and she had nothing else to fill it. I spent thirty minutes plying the woman with coffee to try to sober her up and she eventually stumbled on and managed to slur her way through the piece, although her attempts to show the viewers how to reconstruct the bouquet she had brought with her were comedic to say the least: she repeatedly dropped the flowers and cut off their heads. Amanda kept having to go to commercial breaks as the rest of us desperately tried to mirror the two flower arrangements.

By the time I got to Mum’s to pick up Yuri, I was starving. I headed straight for the bread and was soon buttering myself three large slices of toast.

‘You’d want to watch that,’ said Mum, shaking her head as she watched me stuff the toast into my mouth.

‘Watch what?’

‘Eating too much. You don’t want to turn into one of those big pregnant girls who let themselves go. You have to be careful, Emma. It’s all very well saying you need to eat for two but the truth of it is that if you do you’ll end up looking like young Maureen Doherty before the Weight Watchers.’

‘I didn’t have time for lunch, OK? I’m starving, so I’m having a few slices of toast. It’s not as if I’ve just got up from a large meal.’

‘If you pile on the weight while you’re pregnant, you’ll find it very hard to lose. Believe me, trying to shift those pounds after you’ve had a baby is very difficult, especially at your age. You need to stay away from those car-bo-hydrates,’ she said, almost spelling the word out for me. ‘Apparently that’s what does the damage. According to Nuala, if you cut out bread, potatoes and pasta after six o’clock, you’ll never put on any weight. She read it in an interview with Catherine Zina-Jones on how she lost all her weight. Nuala’s trying it out and she’s lost two pounds already.’

‘Zeta. How long has she been doing it?’

‘Four weeks now.’

‘Hardly miraculous.’

‘She looks well on it and says she feels more energetic. Those carbohydrates are no good for you after six. They won’t break down and just stay on your hips. Fruit and veg is what you need, and it’ll be good for the baby too. And no crisps or biscuits at all. They are the easiest calories to put on and the hardest to lose, Nuala says.’

‘OK, well, I’ll –’

‘Oh, and the other thing she said was that you have to drink eight litres of water a day, which seems an awful lot.’

‘It’s eight glasses, Mum,’ I said, trying to be patient. Nuala had been on a diet for thirty years. In the past she had waxed lyrical about the cabbage-soup diet, the Atkins diet, the grapefruit diet, Unislim, Weight Watchers, the Fit for Life diet, the Scarsdale diet and Slim-fast. You name it, Nuala had been on it and, as far as I could see, none had worked: she was exactly the same shape. But every time she discovered a new diet, she’d ring Mum up and tell her, in detail, what it entailed.

‘I was wondering. I knew it couldn’t be eight litres. Anyway, if I was you, I’d stay away from lumps of bread and butter or you’ll end up with big hips you’ll be stuck with for life. And you’re small, Emma, you haven’t got height on your side. You’re a pear shape like me, so you need to be careful. Your sister’s taller, she could get away with it more easily–’

‘Speaking of Babs,’ I said, interrupting her before she could depress me any further by pointing out the rest of my shortcomings, ‘have you heard from her recently?’

‘No, nor your brother. It’s only eight weeks to the wedding and he still hasn’t told me what Shady’s mother’s wearing so I haven’t been able to look round the shops for my own outfit. Whenever I ask him anything about the arrangements, he tells me not to worry, just turn up and smile. Sure I’ve no idea what type of a day to expect. I posted him a list of the people we want to invite five days ago and I haven’t heard a dicky-bird since. I might as well be a distant relation for all the information I’m given. I want you to ring him and find out exactly what’s going on. He’ll tell you. Then you can let me know. Be sure to ask him what colour Shady’s mother’s outfit is – or maybe she’s not allowed wear colours at all, maybe it has to be black. I know nothing. Totally in the dark I am about my own son’s wedding. Is it too much to ask for a little involvement? Well, is it?’

‘I’ll tell you what. I’ll head off now and try to catch him in work. I’ll let you know what he says,’ I said, backing out of the door with Yuri under one arm before the tirade got worse.

When I got home I rang Sean. ‘Hi.’

‘Hey, how are you? How’s my nephew?’

‘Great thanks, getting bigger and cuter by the day. Look, I’m ringing to warn you that Mum’s on the warpath. She’s feeling very left out of all the wedding arrangements so you might want to give her a buzz and feed her some info before she goes totally mental.’

Sean sighed. ‘I got her guest list in the post yesterday. She wants to invite sixty people when I specifically told her that the entire wedding was only going to be eighty. She even has Father Murphy on the list.’

‘What?’ I said, laughing. Father Murphy was the local parish priest. He was a nice man but by no means a close friend of the family.

‘She obviously wants a Catholic priest at the blessing to try to convert Shadee or something equally awful. Anyway, he’s not coming.’

‘Who else is on the list?’

‘The entire bridge club and every relation we have.’

‘What’re you going to do?’

‘I’ll have to call her. She can have twenty-two people max. Shadee’s folks have invited eighteen, and we’re having forty.’

Yikes! Twenty-two people. That would just about cover the uncles and aunts, leaving no room for friends. Mum was going to freak and I knew that Dad had invited his two partners in the office already. Still, it wasn’t my wedding – I had fought enough battles over my own – so I was going to leave Sean to fight his own corner.

‘How’s Babs? Has she settled into her new place?’

‘I think so. It’s a nice big one-bedroom apartment overlooking the Thames.’

‘Typical of her to land on her feet. Do you think she has any friends to hang out with?’

‘She seems to be out all the time. Whenever I call to take her out for a meal or invite her over, she’s busy.’

‘Have you seen her show?’

‘No, she’s always on during the day, but she seems to be doing well. She’s extremely confident about having her contract renewed and getting a big raise. She keeps telling me it’s all in the bag.’

‘Well, you know Babs. If anyone’s going to get what they want, it’s her. You must be glad to have the place back to yourselves.’

‘God, Emma, you’ve no idea. She’s impossible to live with. I nearly strangled her on several occasions.’

‘Do you think she’s seeing anyone? I mean, you know –’

‘Do I think she’s sleeping her way around London?’ said Sean, cutting to the chase.

‘Bit harsh.’

‘This is Babs we’re talking about.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘I don’t know. She’s pretty secretive about her social life. Whenever I ask her what she’s been up to she just tells me she’s having a laugh and enjoying London, unlike me, who’s a boring old fart apparently.’