Love... And Sleepless Nights MAY 2012 (13 page)

‘I’m pretty sure you ordered a visuvio, madam.’

Oh God.

Somebody kill me. Kill me now.

‘Really?!’ A few heads turn to look at us. ‘I’m a pregnant woman, you
cock
. Do you think a pregnant woman would want to eat something really
spicy
?’

‘I have no idea madam.’ The poor man is now looking decidedly scared.

‘Oh, you have no idea? Tell me, did your mother have any children that lived?’

Ouch
.

That’s a bad one, even for angry Laura.

‘I’m sorry madam,’ he says, trying to recover the situation. ‘I will take this away and get you what you wanted.’

‘Too late!’ she screams and stabs the fork into the middle of the visuvio, narrowly missing the waiter’s hand as he goes to pick it up. ‘My husband and I are leaving.’

‘We are? But I wanted a pizza.’

The look Laura gives me contains daggers, swords, machine guns, land mines and at least one inter-continental ballistic nuclear missile.

I get up, resigned to eating sodding toast again for dinner.

Laura storms out of the restaurant, pausing only to lean over a young couple near the window, who are waiting for their meals as well. ‘You won’t get what you ordered you know!’ she barks at them, tearing them both from the romantic reverie they’d obviously been enjoying. ‘If you ordered a quattro staggioni, don’t be surprised if he brings out a plate of fucking vermicelli!’

I grab one of Laura’s arms and usher her quickly out of the front door.

I have a feeling we won’t be returning to this particular restaurant any time in the near future.

We ended up traipsing around the 24 hour Asda looking for frozen pizzas.

I picked up a four seasons for me and a ham and cheese for Laura. Both look like they’re made of cardboard, and will probably taste much the same.

It’s only when I get to the self service counter that I realise my wife is no longer with me.

When I do find her ten minutes later, I have to chase her up the aisle to get the bottle of Cillit Bang out of her hand before she takes a swig and earns herself a night in casualty.

Laura’s Diary

Friday, October 4th

Dear Mum,

It’s impossible.

Completely and utterly
impossible
.

I look down at the enormous bump in front of me and there is
NO WAY
I can squeeze its contents out of my vagina.

It’s ridiculous!

What am I, a reticulated python?

Intellectually I know it’s perfectly possible, otherwise the human race wouldn’t exist, but there’s a gigantic mental block in my head that simply can’t accept it on a visceral level.

I can see why so many women elect to have a caesarean.

In the last few days I’ve started to have not what I’d call panic attacks – but definitely panic ‘incidents’ that come and go quite at random.

I’ll be behind the counter at work thinking about nothing in particular, when this little voice will pipe up: ‘
That baby’s head is going to wreck your under carriage
.’

…and I’ll spend the next ten minutes frozen in fear, until a customer snaps me out of it with a question about mint thins.

On top of that there’s the whole bringing up another human being for the next twenty years part of the equation. The sheer responsibility of it threatens to crush the life out of me.

How the hell do these women squeeze out four or five of the little sods?

I know that some of them (the Housing Authority kind, who look up to Kim Kardashian and believe everything they read in The Sun) have babies so they can get benefits from the government - and thus never have to trouble themselves with finding a job.

I just can’t get my head around that.

No amount of government handouts could ever persuade me that it’s worth having my lady garden stretched to breaking point, and my life completely taken over by a miniature person with incontinence and no volume control.

I spoke of my concerns (oh, alright I cried like a bitch) to my midwife Marigold.

‘You need antenatal classes, you stupid girl,’ she said in her usual caring manner. ‘I keep telling you to go. It’ll help you with all this stuff when I’m not around.’

I admit I’ve been putting antenatal classes off.

I have enough night terrors thinking about the birth thanks to the information I
do
have - I don’t need my worst fears confirmed in a public setting.

I say as much to Marigold.

She shakes her head and regards me with the eyeball. ‘I never heard such girly rubbish in all my days. You think you’re the first to have these worries? Get your skinny white backside to classes and don’t talk such cow shit to me anymore!’

With this sage advice ringing in my ears, last night Jamie and I attended our first antenatal class.

I’ll give you three guesses how it went…

The first two don’t count.

‘Really?’ whines my husband when I tell him what we’re doing.

‘Yes Jamie. We need to go. I’m thirty weeks in now. There’s stuff we have to learn about.’

‘It won’t be any fun, you know.’

‘It isn’t supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be educational.’

Jamie groans even louder. ‘But it’ll be a room full of idiots like us.’

‘Look, Marigold’s recommended this class to me at the leisure centre. It’s private, so there are less people. It won’t be that bad.’

I should learn to never say
‘It won’t be that bad’
before entering into a new activity for the first time. It’s like I’m putting a curse on myself.

We bowl up to the leisure centre at
six thirty
to find four other couples waiting outside one of the smaller activity rooms towards the back of the building.

‘Evening,’ I say, waddling up to them. I get a few obligatory British nods of heads and muttered return greetings.

One woman, a petite Oriental girl, gives me a toothy grin. ‘Hello to you! I’m Lolly! This first time?’ she says in that clipped efficient manner Asians have when English isn’t their first language.

‘Yes,’ I reply.

‘Ah… good! Good!’ she turns to a white guy in his fifties standing next to her. ‘They like us two week ago Brian!’

‘Looks like it,’ Brian replies. The dynamic between the two of them is fairly obvious. I have to wonder whether he paid for her up-front or on inspection of the goods at the airport.

‘Why are we all stood out here then?’ Jamie asks the small crowd of expectant parents.

‘She’s late again,’ sneers a tall, rangy looking individual in a brown sports coat near the door – one arm wrapped round his much shorter wife’s neck. Body language can be such a dead giveaway sometimes. He rolls his eyes.

‘I’m sure she’ll be here soon.’ This much friendlier response comes from a lady a good few years past forty, standing with her equally friendly looking husband of about the same age. ‘Nice to meet you love,’ she says and extends a hand, which I’m happy to take. ‘I’m Susan and this is Clive.’

‘Hello. I’m Laura and this is Jamie.’

‘Lovely.’ She regards my belly. ‘How far gone are you?’

This is a question I’ve been asked more times than any other recently.

A pattern has formed in most of my conversations, which revolves exclusively around how my pregnancy is progressing… and very little else.

‘I’m thirty weeks.’

‘Thirty five for me. First time?’

‘Yes. You?’

‘Yep. Decided it was about time we produced offspring. Couldn’t have left it much later!’

She’s going to ask me if I know the sex of my baby next.

‘Boy or girl?’

‘Girl.’

I have to finish the ritual, to do otherwise would be rude. ‘Yours?’

‘We don’t know yet. We wanted to keep it a surprise.’

Yes, and by the look of the clothes you’re wearing you can probably afford it.

The predictable conversation is interrupted by a stick insect in a yellow jump suit. At least this is my first impression of the woman who runs the antenatal class.

‘Sorry I’m late everyone.’

‘Not a problem Trisha,’ a thick-set woman sporting a close-cropped haircut says from where she’s stood next to a pregnant girl covered in tattoos. They might as well have a sign above them saying LESBIANS in big, black writing.

The stick insect unlocks the door. ‘Come in everyone!’ There’s a nervous energy about this skinny woman that’s already setting my teeth on edge.

We file into the room.

The four other couples take up position in a semi-circle around Trisha in front of some large sponge mats. Jamie and I slot ourselves in on one end in front of a spare mat and try to look inconspicuous. It doesn’t work.

‘Welcome my friends!’ Trisha says to us, clapping her bony hands together in delight. ‘You must be Laura and Jamie.’

‘Yep, that’s us,’ Jamie confirms.

‘Excellent. We run quite an informal class here. The best thing to do is just listen, watch and join in as you pick things up, okay?’

We both nod a little uncertainly.

‘Goody goody gumdrops!’ Trisha exclaims happily.

The phrase ‘goody, goody gumdrops’ is not one you want to here spouting from the mouth of someone who’s supposed to be a healthcare professional.

I turn to look at Jamie. He looks like somebody has just flicked him on the testicle, so I assume he feels much the same way.

Trisha goes to an iPod dock on a table at the back of the room. She puts her iPhone into it and plays with it for a moment.

The room is suddenly filled with what sounds like Free Willy being raped.

‘What the bloody hell is that?’ Jamie cries.

‘Oh don’t worry!’ Trisha says. ‘I like to get the mood for the class right with a little whale song.’ She looks at the thick-set lesbian. ‘Could you get the lights for me Ashley?’

The woman does as she is bid, while Trisha produces another black electronic device from her bag and deposits it on the table next to the iPod dock, switching it on as Ashley flicks the lights off.