How Not to Fall in Love, Actually Read online

  ‘Arse,’ I mumbled.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘Go straight through,’ the cheerless receptionist said as I arrived in the doctor’s waiting area early the next morning.

  I’d called in sick to work, and when Ned had asked why I’d stated women’s problems. He’d paled and found some socks that needed balling. I walked down the tatty hall and let myself into the doctor’s office.

  ‘Ah, Emma.’ My uncle got up from his tiny NHS desk and planted a welcoming kiss on my forehead. ‘What a lovely surprise! But shouldn’t you be at work? Are you poorly?’

  I shook my head and, not knowing what to say, burst into tears.

  ‘Hey, hey.’ Uncle Mike stooped to look into my face. ‘What’s this all about?’ He led me to the fraying chair next to his desk and sat down opposite. ‘Something happen at work? Ned? It’s your mother, isn’t it? What’s she done now?’ He passed me a tissue and watched me blubber it into a pulpy mess. ‘Oh, sweetheart, what’s the matter?’

  The pregnancy test came back positive, and I dissolved into body-shuddering sobs. Uncle Mike gave the rest of his appointments to the junior locum and took me to the greasy spoon round the corner.

  ‘So.’ He considered me with his hazel eyes.

  ‘I don’t even know where to begin.’ I picked at the skin around my nails. ‘What to think about first. Does that make sense?’ I took a sip of my tea and pushed the mug away in disgust.

  ‘Perfect sense.’ He took a gulp of his coffee and placed it to the side, grimacing. ‘Until you decide, we’ll take each day as it comes. Your scan is in two weeks, but Emma, you’re ten weeks gone. You and Ned need to make a decision.’

  ‘I know.’ I gave a weak smile.

  Uncle Mike squeezed my hand. His slender fingers were always a bit cold. He’d been the father I’d never had. Well, I did have a father but he’d run off with a woman who was older, shorter and duller than my mother when I was five and my sister Alex was only three. We’d had nothing except a dwindling number of birthday cards ever since. Mum said she could never recover from a blow like that. Had the woman been a Cindy Crawford replica she could at least have understood. But the woman’s name was Ruth and she worked as a receptionist for Merton Council.

  I gazed beyond Uncle Mike to the street outside. I didn’t want to leave the café with its plastic seats and nasty tea. It would mean stepping out into a different life. One I didn’t feel even the slenderest bit of control over. A builder eating a bacon and egg roll caught my eye. His rotund stomach pressed against the Formica table and egg yolk pooled at the corner of his mouth. My stomach lurched. I leapt up and raced to the bathroom.

  Fifteen minutes later, I gingerly took my seat again opposite Uncle Mike. The road worker was gone, our table had been cleared; Uncle Mike had paid the bill and was folding the receipt into a swan.

  He smiled. ‘Come back to the house.’ He gestured at the empty table. ‘Have a decent breakfast.’

  I nodded. ‘Yeah, OK.’

  I hoped my little cousin Archie would not be at crèche and I could play with his Play-Doh and pretend none of this was really happening.

  As we left the greasy spoon, Uncle Mike opened his briefcase and handed me some NHS pamphlets.

  ‘Just in case.’

  I read the covers. ‘Healthy Pregnancy’. ‘You and Your Foetus’. ‘Choosing the Right Birth’. ‘Coping with Morning Sickness’.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, quickly stuffing them in my bag.

  ‘The last one will be particularly relevant at the moment. Might help you with those sudden rushes to toilets, rubbish bins, side of the road.’

  I looked at my feet as we crossed the street.

  ‘You know, when your mother was pregnant with you she threw up right outside a busy café in Chelsea. She leant on a postbox and retched into the gutter.’

  I looked up, interested to hear more.

  ‘She had terrible morning sickness,’ he said with a fond sparkle in his eye. ‘It lasted the whole pregnancy.’

  ‘No kidding?’ I mused, my own recent vomiting session still fresh in my mind . . . and the back of my throat.

  ‘When one of the café staff came rushing out with a chair and a glass of water, your mother scolded them for the water being too warm. She sent them back inside for ice and demanded a piece of carrot cake too.’ Uncle Mike smiled and shook his head. ‘She sat there on the footpath in the middle of Chelsea with her big pregnant stomach, eating cake while the waiter held her iced water.’

  I snorted with laughter. My mother was not known for her subtlety. Or for worrying about what other people thought of her.

  Archie and I played at the kitchen table while my aunt Sinead sat at the other end feeding Millie, their chubby-armed nine-month-old. Mum had been nine when Uncle Mike was born (a wonderful accident, Grandma had called him) so my cousins were much, much younger than Alex and me. Millie was spitting her mashed vegetable crap out over her chin and onto the table, blowing raspberries and giggling. It was a messy affair. One I was careful to keep away from. I may not be the most fashion-conscious girl around but I at least liked to keep my unfashionable clothes clean. Uncle Mike was at the Aga cooking up a feast. A cup of tea wafted its bergamot aroma under my nose. No more strong black coffee; not good for unwanted foetuses, apparently. Sinead was telling Uncle Mike about a charity dinner they were required to attend.

  ‘Another one? Really?’ He got eggs out of their retro blue Smeg fridge and stepped over one of Archie’s toys.

  Their huge house was always in chaos, in spite of the housekeeper’s efforts.

  ‘Can’t we just give them money and not go?’ He cracked the eggs with the ease of someone at home in the kitchen.

  Sinead didn’t cook, or work. Sinead had babies. Alice was eight, Jess was six, Archie was four and Millie was last.

  ‘Dad’s expecting us to make an appearance. You know how he gets.’

  ‘Yes, I do. But just one weekend I’d like to stay in with my wife, cook up some spicy chicken wings and watch a little television.’

  Sinead scooped food off Millie’s chin and spooned it back into her mouth. Millie spat it back out again. I secretly applauded her. Second-hand, chin-dribble food was disgusting.

  ‘Should’ve moved to Yorkshire and started my own practice in the country,’ Uncle Mike mumbled as he distributed bacon among waiting plates. ‘None of this charity nonsense and balls and kisses in the air. Why kiss the air anyway?’

  ‘Darling, you’re mumbling to yourself again.’ Sinead mopped at Millie’s grubby face.

  I was enjoying the distraction. ‘To go or not to go to a charity ball’ was a much simpler problem than my own ‘to have or not to have an accidental baby’ dilemma.

  ‘You’re doing it wrong, Emma,’ Archie pointed out.

  He was quite right. We were supposed to be playing Fairy Lions with the Play-Doh, and as I had no idea what Fairy Lions looked like I’d made a rather pathetic-looking purple cat.

  ‘Oh, sorry.’ I allowed him to tear apart my cat and commence serious Fairy Lion construction, glancing up now and then to make sure I was paying attention.

  ‘Breakfast’s up,’ Uncle Mike said, bringing food-laden plates to the table.

  A hunger like no other came over me. I shoved the Play-Doh to the side, slicked butter on a piece of toast, took huge bites and swallowed it down after only three chews. I needed to feel some weight at the bottom of my nauseous stomach.

  After a few minutes of comfortable silence Sinead lifted her coffee and spoke. ‘So, Emma, are you going to get rid of it?’

  With her neat brown hair pulled into a low slide clip at the nape of her neck and her almost uniform-like choice of clothing, white linen shirt and black or brown ironed trousers, she looked innocuous enough. But her conventional attire concealed a punishing frankness and blasé attitude to suitable conduct.

  ‘Bloody hell, Sinead,’ Uncle Mike said.

  Archie looked up from his breakfast.

  ‘Sorry, A
rchie, I didn’t mean to say that. Eat your toast, darling.’ He shook his head. ‘Honestly.’

  Sinead shrugged.

  ‘Daddy?’ Archie said, looking thoughtful. ‘Why did you say sorry?’

  ‘I said a rude word and I didn’t mean to, OK? Eat your toast.’

  Archie went back to his breakfast.

  ‘I don’t see why we shouldn’t talk about it. She’s nearly a third of the way through.’ Sinead turned to me. ‘You have to make some pretty quick decisions.’

  I started feeling sick again. ‘Well . . .’

  ‘What wude word did you say, Daddy?’ Archie said.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, darling. Eat your toast.’ He turned back to Sinead. ‘Emma needs to think about this in her own time—’

  Sinead ignored her husband. ‘You hear all this crap about “giving life”, but let’s be real, it’s more like having it taken away from you.’

  ‘Was it “shit”, Daddy?’

  We looked at Archie innocently waiting for an answer.

  ‘No, Archie. Sinead, would you please let Emma be.’

  ‘It’s OK. I guess I do need to think about what to do,’ I offered, trying to avoid a heated conversation about my situation.

  ‘See,’ Sinead said. ‘She’s fine talking about it. We’re all family—’

  ‘Was it “fuck”, Daddy?’

  Uncle Mike’s eyes widened. Sinead looked a trifle amused. I sniggered behind my teacup.

  ‘No, Archie. Shush now. And eat your toast.’ Uncle Mike glared at Sinead then turned to me. ‘You do whatever you feel is right. We’re here for you, no matter—’

  ‘Was it “wanker”?’

  ‘Archie!’ Uncle Mike shook his head. ‘Where’s he picking up this language?’

  ‘From me, dear,’ Sinead said matter-of-factly.

  ‘I feel sick,’ I muttered.

  ‘It will pass soon.’ Sinead patted my arm. ‘You’re a bit skinny. Get your hands on some Krispy Kremes.’

  ‘Daddy?’

  ‘Yes, Archie?’ Uncle Mike said warily.

  ‘ “Bitch” is not a bad word if you’re driving when you say it.’

  Uncle Mike shot his wife a beaten look. She sipped her coffee. I put my knife and fork together, excused myself and retired to the music room. Sloping sunlight from double-height French doors warmed the Persian rugs and a ten-foot real Christmas tree, decorated in evenly spaced red and gold bows and baubles, wafted the welcoming scent of pine. I flicked through the iPod, picked out an album and lay on the sofa.

  So.

  I was pregnant.

  Did I want a baby?

  I was twenty-seven, I didn’t own my own home, I had a few thousand quid in the bank – not much, but not terrible – and although I’d been clawing my way up the illustrious film and TV ladder for the past few years, one foot was still on the bottom rung. And, despite his enthusiasm for entrepreneurial conferences and ‘Money: Master the Game’ Tony Robbins apps, my boyfriend hadn’t earned a penny in two years.

  No one my age was having kids. Life was too expensive to settle in your mid-twenties (twenty-seven is so still your mid-twenties!), buy a house and think about life insurance. And too much fun. People my age were still going on gap years, spending their Christmas Eves having lines of coke off the back of a toilet cistern in clubs and figuring out what they wanted to do ‘when they grew up’. Which I guess we all thought happened sometime in your thirties.

  Later that evening, Uncle Mike’s Porsche turned into my dark Tooting street and pulled up outside my flat, disturbing a scruffy drunk taking a leak on our brick wall. Uncle Mike watched the man zip up his jeans and trip over his own feet, a familiar look of concern on his face. We’d travelled the short distance from his warm, pine-scented house in Wimbledon to my scuzzy flat in Tooting in silence. In two weeks I had a scan at St George’s Hospital. And by then I’d have to have made a decision. I was pretty sure I knew what I had to do. I was in no position to be caring for a baby.

  I opened the car door. ‘Can you say thanks to Sinead for putting up with me today?’

  Uncle Mike waved away my request with a smile. I gave him a peck on the cheek, shut the door and looked away from his tail-lights as my phone rang. The caller ID said ‘Alex’.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘I just called to tell you I hate my job today,’ my little sister said in a chipper voice.

  Alex worked for the UN in Dhaka on a water sanitation project. She lived in a concrete apartment with bars on the windows and an outdoor toilet. She sat in a flimsy-walled office in forty-degree heat and typed reports, analysed spreadsheets and printed budget initiatives that no one ever read. And for the privilege she paid for her own flights, accommodation and food. She was allowed to hate her job.

  ‘You loved it last week.’

  ‘Yes, but last week I was allowed out in the field. Last week I watched a three-year-old boy drink clean water for the first time in his life. His mother cried. I cried. Last week was great.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve just had enough of the wooden crate. I want to sit on a real toilet.’

  ‘Doesn’t your placement end in a few weeks?’

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t even know where my next posting is. It could be here again. I know I’m supposed to love what I do because I’m helping to change people’s lives, blah blah blah, but some days I just want to wash my hair in water that doesn’t smell like poo.’

  ‘We all do.’

  Alex laughed. ‘I’ll be fine. I do actually like my job. I get to see some pretty weird stuff. There’s an eleven-year-old boy outside my building who has a stall selling guns and honey.’

  I was silent. Alex would know there was something up. Usually we wouldn’t let each other finish a sentence, so keen were we to regale each other with the contents of our lives.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I pulled my coat round me.

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘Not.’

  ‘Are too.’

  ‘Not.’

  ‘Something’s wrong.’

  ‘Isn’t.’

  ‘You’re one-wording me.’

  ‘Am not.’

  Alex groaned. ‘Well, can I guess?’

  ‘If you want.’

  ‘You broke up with Ned?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Mum did something?’

  ‘That’s just a given.’

  ‘You’re pregnant?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said in a little voice. ‘But I also think I might get fired.’ I pressed my lips together.

  Alex was quiet but only for a second.

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  ‘No.’ I wiped my nose on my sleeve.

  ‘Are you sure? I mean, really sure? Why don’t you go to Uncle Mike and get a proper—’

  ‘Already did. Definitely am.’

  ‘Well . . . are you happy about it? You don’t sound happy. What did Ned say? Oh my god, does Mum know?’

  I could picture Alex pacing her office, her mind working overtime to find the most sensible solution. Sometimes I thought it was Alex who was the elder sister.

  ‘I don’t know what I want. I only just got back from Uncle Mike’s. I haven’t told anyone. Not even Ned.’

  ‘I thought you were on the pill?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Well, how did it happen then?’

  ‘I dunno . . .’ I said unconvincingly.

  ‘How did it happen,’ Alex pressed, her voice taking on the tone of a reprimanding headmistress.

  ‘Well, there was this one week . . .’

  ‘Oh Emma.’

  ‘I was just so busy at work and I couldn’t make a doctor’s appointment, then I forgot but I figured it would be fine because I heard all these women at work who talked about how it took them a year to get pregnant after being on the pill. It was only one week!’ My head hurt. ‘Can we talk about something else?’

  ‘We really should keep talking about this.’

  ‘Please?’

&
nbsp; ‘OK. Ah . . . Cal got a promotion.’

  ‘That’s good. What’s he do now?’

  ‘It’s still investment . . .’

  Alex let forth a torrent of words that individually I understood – stock, floating, finance, sector, margin, exchange, hedge – but all together were as decipherable as Stallone speaking Klingon. Alex had been with Cal since university. He did something with money. All I knew was that he was relocated to a different major banking city every year or so. Alex could never be the typical banker’s girlfriend, sitting in plush apartments and shopping with bankers’ wives, so she’d followed her dream of working for the UN and had spent the past couple of years being posted from New Delhi to East Timor and finally Bangladesh. They survived on trust, skype and a few weeks together a year.

  Eventually Alex ended with, ‘You understood none of that, did you.’

  ‘Is he rich?’

  ‘He makes other people rich.’

  ‘He’s doing it wrong, then.’

  Alex snorted a laugh.

  ‘Want me to come home?’ she said after a brief moment of quiet.

  Affection bloomed across my chest. It wasn’t an empty offer. If I said yes, my fiercely loyal little sister really would be on the next barely welded-together Bangladeshi plane out of there. But Dhaka needed her and her unread audit reports.

  After saying goodbye it was time to talk to Ned. I checked my face in a compact mirror and turned towards the flat.

  ‘What the . . .’ Whorls of smoke coiled out from under the doorframe. ‘Shit!’

  I shoved my key in the lock and flung open the door. Thick smoke billowed out.

  ‘NED!’ I screamed. I covered my mouth with my jacket and stumbled inside, feeling my way down the hall to the bedroom. I pushed open the door but the room was empty; the computer still on. ‘NED! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?’

  I lurched towards the kitchen from where plumes of smoke were swelling out, cursing Ned for taking the batteries out of the smoke alarm to use on his latest invention (a remote-controlled remote control). Smoke pitched from the stovetop. My eyes stung. I took a breath of the marginally clearer air in the hall and staggered across the kitchen using my jacket to lift a billowing pot off the stove. I dumped it in the sink and turned on the tap, ducking away from the hissing, spitting water. On the kitchen bench sat an open can of baked beans, sauce dribbling down the side. I inspected the pot in the sink. A hard, black substance was scorched to the bottom. Stone-cold toast sat in the toaster. When the house was clear of smoke and I’d thrown the ruined pot in the bin, I grabbed my phone and saw a text from Ned.