I stare down at the two blue lines on the pregnancy test.
This can’t be happening.
Closing my eyes, I sink down heavily onto the floor. I slump against the bath, tipping my head back until it rests on the cold acrylic edge, still wet from a flatmate’s shower.
I shake the test but the lines remain. Confident and straight.
‘Katie – are you in there?’ A knock on the bathroom door startles me. ‘Katie – I’m desperate here. There’s only so much more pressure my bladder can take.’
Amy. My flatmate and best friend.
I look back down at the pregnancy test, hoping the lines have disappeared. They haven’t.
I stand up unsteadily, feeling slightly sick. Morning sickness? The thought makes me feel sicker still. Am I really pregnant?
Shoving the test into the waistband of my skirt, I glance at my reflection in the mirror. I’m still in my barista uniform, milky stains down the front of the shirt. My thick brown hair’s still tangled from my nap. I can’t even take care of myself. How could I take care of a baby?
‘Katie! What are you doing in there?’
I take a deep breath and open the door. Amy rushes past.
Looking back, I see the wrapper of the pregnancy test resting on top of the toilet and make a dive past Amy to grab it.
‘What’s that?’ Amy asks, her eyes wide.
‘Nothing,’ I say, screwing it up in my hand.
‘Oh my god – you’re not?’ The look in my eyes must confirm her suspicions. ‘What are you going to do?’
Three minutes later, Amy is in my room, perched on the edge of my bed, her arm around my shaking body.
‘Everything will be alright,’ she reassures me.
I tell her all the reasons I shouldn’t have a baby. I don’t have a career, or any savings; I don’t own my own place. I don’t think Ian will want the baby. We’re not even in a serious relationship.
Amy stops me mid-sentence. ‘But do you want the baby?’ she asks.
It’s only a split second before the answer is clear to me.
‘Yes,’ I whisper, shocked.
‘Well, then you’ll make it work,’ she says confidently.
I’m about to ask her how when my phone buzzes. It’s Mum. She’ll be here in half an hour.
I kick myself for offering to cook for her and my sister. Right now dinner with the pair of them is the last thing I need.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll help you,’ Amy says, fully aware of the huge anxiety Mum elicits in me.
Amy’s worked in pub kitchens before and she powers through chopping the vegetables for the casserole, while I faff around pulling herbs out of the cupboard. I keep forgetting where things are. My mind’s a jumble. I gag as I cut the chicken. I throw the ingredients haphazardly into the casserole dish and shove it in the oven.
I haven’t even tidied up. I go to the front door and trace the path my mother will take through the flat, trying to see it through her eyes. There’s an old rusty freezer by the front door that belongs to my flatmate Cliff, full of fish fingers and chicken nuggets. Muddy tyre tracks mark a path through the hallway, where Mike dragged his bike through earlier. I notice the unidentifiable stains on the walls, the cobwebs in the corners and a lonely Christmas paper chain out of reach, just below the high ceiling. It’s been there at least three years. No wonder Mum hates coming here.
I run the vacuum cleaner over the hallway carpet, working myself up into a sweat. The mud is gone but the place still looks shabby, and I can see the dust along the edges of the carpet and on the skirting boards.
In the shared washroom, the pale bath mat is covered with dark hairs. The intercom rings as I’m pouring an overgenerous helping of bleach into the toilet bowl. I take the dirty mat and shove it in the cupboard in the hallway on my way to answer the intercom.
‘Mum,’ I say. ‘Come up.’ I buzz her in, and I just have time to rush to my room and run a brush though my hair before she knocks.
When I open the door, Mum’s hand is poised as if to knock again, a delicate silver bracelet dangling from her slim wrist. Her mouth is pinched in concentration as if she’s been bracing herself. Her frown disappears in a split second and we greet each other with matching forced smiles.
‘Mum!’
‘Something smells nice,’ she says, slipping off her shoes and entering the flat. My sister, Melissa, follows behind her. I still have my trainers on from work and I self-consciously take them off.
‘Chicken casserole,’ I reply as I nudge my flatmate Mike’s muddy football boots out of the way and Mum and Melissa follow me to the kitchen.
I notice the huge pile of washing-up that’s been left in the sink at the same time as Mum sees it and frowns.
‘Drink?’ I offer.
‘Just a lemonade,’ says my sister. She hasn’t had any alcohol for nearly ten years, ever since she and Graham first started trying to conceive.
‘Wine for me,’ my mother says.
I pour the drinks, helping myself to some water from the tap and hoping Mum doesn’t ask why I’m not having wine. When I turn to hand her her drink, I notice she’s looking me up and down. I wrap my arm round my stomach self-consciously. If anyone’s going to notice I’m pregnant, it will be Mum. She’s always watched my weight as closely as she’s watched her own.
I rub the long, jagged scar on my upper arm, a habit from childhood which returns when I’m anxious, particularly when Mum’s around. I brace myself for her questioning, my secret burning inside me.
‘Haven’t you had time to get changed?’ she asks.
‘Oh,’ I say, surprised. I look down and remember I’m still in my barista uniform. I notice the milk stains and blush.
‘No – I forgot,’ I mumble.
She sighs. ‘I wish you’d leave that place, Katie. You’re thirty-six now, far too old to be serving coffee for a living.’
‘I know how old I am, Mum.’
‘All that money on music college,’ she says, wistfully. ‘I thought you’d make something of yourself.’
I wince, her words hurting me more than she can imagine. The work as a barista was supposed to support me until I got my big break. But I’m still auditioning fifteen years later, and the break hasn’t happened. I write songs and do the occasional pub gig on my electronic keyboard, but that’s as close as I get to fulfilling my ambitions these days.
‘Mum—’
‘All I wanted was for you to achieve what I couldn’t.’
Mum played the piano professionally before she injured her hand in an accident.
‘I think the casserole’s ready,’ I say, although I know it can’t be. Amy and I have only just put it in.
I get up and check the oven, but Mum continues.
‘I hoped you’d have settled down by now, have a career and a family.’
I hear a sharp intake of breath from Melissa. The career might have happened for her – she’s a partner at a law firm – but the family hasn’t worked out. At least not yet. I feel a stab of guilt that I’ll almost certainly have a baby before she does.
‘Mum, I’m happy here,’ I say as I make a show of taking the casserole out of the oven and stirring it.
‘But are you? Is this really the way you want to live?’ She makes a sweeping gesture, taking in the whole messy kitchen.
I feel my emotions well up inside me. My life won’t be this simple for much longer. In nine months everything could change. I shove the food back in the oven.
‘It’s no fun being single as you get older,’ Mum carries on.
She’s been single since Dad died when I was six. I still think of him all the time, how things might be if he was alive. In the photos I have of us, I look like a miniature version of him. We gaze at the camera with matching smiles. I imagine he’d understand me in a way that Mum doesn’t. Perhaps Mum would be happier too if he was still around. I scratch at the scar on my arm.
‘You did an amazing job on your own,’ Melissa says to Mum, as I return to the table. I feel a familiar twinge of jealousy. Mum always seems to turn to Melissa for reassurance. After my father died, all I can remember is Mum and Melissa constantly together, hugging and whispering, shutting me out, telling me that I was too young to understand.
I wish I had clearer memories of Dad. I only have flashes of recollection: Dad listening to me play the piano. His calloused hand holding mine tightly as we walked to school. The slight smell of whisky as he kissed me when he got in from work.
I top up the drinks.
‘How are your book club friends, Mum?’ I ask, trying to change the subject.
She takes the opportunity to dissect the life choices of her friends’ children. Claire’s daughter is married to a banker and they’re moving to Hong Kong. Sarah’s daughter is running her own fashion business. Molly’s daughter has worked her way up to partner at one of the big accountancy firms. But Grace’s daughter is seeing a married man. And Pamela’s daughter is still living at home, she says with a frown.
Sometimes I think it must be easy being my mum, seeing everything in black and white, dividing people so neatly into the successes and the failures. Me: failure. My sister, Melissa, with her brilliant job, high-flying husband and own house: success. Except for the failure to produce grandchildren.
‘Even Pippa’s daughter has got married now,’ she continues. ‘She gave up her lifestyle travelling the world and settled down. Just in time. They’re expecting their first child in March.’
My sister smiles tightly and I’m plunged back into my thoughts about the baby. My baby. I can’t really have a baby on my own, can I? For a moment I allow myself to imagine a world where Ian and I stay together, have the baby and live happily ever after. But that hardly seems realistic. I might want the relationship to develop into something more, but I’m sure he sees it as just a fling. What am I going to do?
The buzzer to the flat rings and I jump. It will probably be for Mike. He’s always having people round to the flat; friends, acquaintances, people he met at the pub.
‘Hello?’
‘Katie – it’s me.’
‘Ian?’ My stomach turns. Now is not a good time. We haven’t met each other’s families before. We’re not that serious yet. Besides, I need more time to get used to the fact that I’m pregnant. If I see him I might just blurt it out.
‘I thought I’d surprise you. I brought the Argentinian Malbec – your favourite.’
‘Who’s that?’ Mum asks.
‘No one, Mum.’
‘Your mother’s here?’ Ian asks. ‘I’d love to meet her.’
‘Invite your friend up. I’m sure there’s enough food to go round.’
I give in, under siege from both sides. ‘OK then,’ I say with a sigh. ‘Come on up.’ I know this is going to be a mistake.
A minute later, Ian greets me with a big smile, a bunch of flowers and the bottle of red wine.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mum’s eyebrows rise as he kisses me lightly on the lips. She’s taking in every detail: Ian’s smooth dark hair, his chiselled features with slight wrinkles round the eyes. His sharp suit and manicured hands. The expensive wine and flowers. And the fact that he’s closer to her age than mine.
‘Come and join us,’ she says.
‘I’d love to,’ Ian replies.
‘So how do you know Katie?’ Mum asks.
I’m not quick enough to think of a reply. I don’t want to introduce him as my boyfriend. Not here. Not now.
‘She hasn’t mentioned me?’ Ian says with a grin. My mother’s eyebrows shoot higher as he puts his arm round me.
This is too much for me, and I have a childish urge to run from the room. Ian and I are just casual. But now he’s meeting my mother. And I’m pregnant with his child. None of this was supposed to happen.
‘Where did you meet?’
‘At work,’ I say quickly, dreading Ian offering up the word ‘online’ to Mum. ‘At the coffee shop. Ian runs his own business and he sometimes comes in.’
‘Your own business?’ Mum’s eyes light up and I wonder if this will go some way to compensating for the fact that he is so much older than me.
‘I run a property business,’ Ian says. ‘We buy houses, do them up and then sell them or rent them out.’
Melissa frowns. ‘Doesn’t that inflate house prices and stop young families getting on the housing ladder?’
A part of me can see what she means. Melissa and Graham are both lawyers in the city, and Melissa resents the fact that it still took them years of scrimping and saving to afford a small terraced house in the outskirts of London. Despite this, I feel defensive on Ian’s behalf.
But Ian hardly blinks. ‘It’s not quite like that. We buy houses that need a bit of care. We do them up to make them habitable for people before selling them on. Often people can afford a mortgage but can’t afford big repairs to a house. We do the essential improvements so that young people can buy them.’
‘I’m a psychiatric nurse,’ my mother says suddenly, although no one’s asked. Usually she just says she’s a nurse, leaving out the psychiatric part, but when she wants to test someone she gives her full job title. She retrained after my father died.
Ian nods politely. ‘That must be fascinating.’
‘It is,’ she says, disappointed not to get more of a reaction. ‘Do you have a family yourself, Ian?’ I slump down in my chair, embarrassed.
‘No,’ he says, with a smile. ‘I’ve always been married to my work. I wanted to build the business to have the security before I started a family.’
‘It’s a bit late for you to start a family,’ Mum says, and I blush.
I feel the weight of my secret, like a stone in my stomach. It’s not too late at all.
‘I think the casserole’s ready,’ I say, praying it actually is ready this time. I dread to think what question she might ask next.
‘People start families later and later these days, Mum,’ Melissa says. Melissa’s forty and her husband Graham’s forty-five, eight years younger than Ian.
‘I didn’t mean you, love.’ Mum reaches her hand out and touches her shoulder, but Melissa shrugs it off.
‘I keep myself fit and well,’ Ian says. ‘Anything’s possible.’ I can’t bear to meet his eye.
‘It can take a long time to get pregnant,’ my sister says, and my heart aches for her.
Not always, I think, as I reach my hands into the oven to take out the dish. How the hell am I ever going to tell them all?
‘Ow!’ I’ve been so distracted I forgot to put the oven gloves on. The casserole pot is already halfway out of the oven and it falls to the floor before I can stop it, bits of chicken and broken china flying across the kitchen.
I burst into tears.
Ian rushes over and puts his arm round me. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asks.
I glance up and meet my sister’s eyes through my tears. Her gaze is so intense that for a moment I think she knows my secret. She can see right through me, like she could when we were children and we were so close I thought she could read my mind.
I can’t keep it inside me anymore. It’s too huge to contain. And sooner or later everyone in this room will know anyway.
‘I'm pregnant,’ I blurt out. I only mean to whisper, but the words shoot out louder than I intend, filling the kitchen.
As soon as I’ve spoken I regret it. Even my mother is silent. The clock in the kitchen ticks so loudly I wonder why I never noticed it before.
I hear my sister’s chair scrape back suddenly on the kitchen tiles, and she bolts from the room.
When I finally dare to look up Ian is staring at me, speechless, his eyes full of questions.
I force the zip closed on my last suitcase. I’m all packed. After five years, I’m moving out of my flatshare. I’ll miss the hustle and bustle of communal living, and my late-night chats with Amy. But there’s no way I can stay. Not now. I smile as I touch my belly and feel one of my twins kick against my hand.
In just a couple of months my life will be completely different. I’ll be a mother to two girls, in a big house in suburbia, living with my property developer partner. It sounds good on paper, but inside I’m terrified.
I was stunned when Ian turned out to be delighted about my pregnancy, and excited I was carrying twins. It was then I finally realised I was in love with him. Since we found out he keeps buying little gifts for the babies; tiny booties and delicate blankets, soft toys and rattles.
As soon as the sonographer showed us the twins wriggling about on the scan, we both instantly fell in love with them. They touched each other in the womb, hands reaching out and brushing each other, as if they already felt a connection. Ian’s hand squeezed mine as we watched.
Even Mum’s happy after the initial shock. She’s been telling her friends about my big house, rich boyfriend and future children. I’ve switched from a cautionary tale to a success story overnight.
I survey the empty bedroom, ready and waiting for the next tenant to arrive this afternoon. Without my stuff cluttering every surface and my pictures on the walls, my old room looks soulless and bare.
I swallow my sadness and turn to leave, shutting the door behind me.
In the living room Amy gets up to say goodbye. I wrap her in a hug. ‘I’m going to miss you,’ I say.
‘It’s the end of an era,’ she replies. Amy’s lived here nearly as long as I have. While other housemates have passed through, the two of us have remained, closer than sisters.
‘What am I going to do without you?’
‘You’ll have Ian.’
I half smile and she grins back at me.
‘I’m glad he turned out to be alright after all,’ she says.
When Ian and I first got together, he’d revealed so little about himself that Amy and I would entertain ourselves by making up stories about a secret double life he might lead. Middle-class drug dealer. Russian spy. Male escort.
‘Do you think I’m doing the right thing?’ I ask, doubts rising to the surface once more.
Amy raises her eyebrows. ‘The right thing? Of course you are! I would die for an opportunity like this. It’s like you’ve won the lottery. You’re moving into a multimillion-pound house in a really nice area.’
I smile at her. Ian’s commandeered one of the houses his company owns for us to live in. They bought it a couple of months ago, and luckily no one’s moved in yet. As soon as I told Amy that Ian and I were moving in together she found the old listing for the house on Rightmove and showed me the pictures. The house is beautiful: three storeys and five bedrooms, a modern kitchen diner opening out on to huge gardens and a bathroom with a cast iron bath by a window overlooking a park. Amy was desperate for us to go together and check it out before I moved in, but then her friend had a crisis. He’d split up with his boyfriend and needed somewhere to stay. I’m moving out of the flat a bit earlier than planned so he can take my room. I’ll be in the new house for a few days on my own before Ian joins me. His elderly mother is moving out of his place into sheltered accommodation in a few days’ time, and he’ll join me when she’s settled.
‘I’ll miss this,’ I say, indicating the tatty sofas and piles of newspapers in the corner.
‘Seriously? You’ll miss the mud on the carpet, Mike never cleaning the kitchen, Cliff playing the PlayStation until 2 a.m., and no one ever cleaning the toilet?’
‘Well, when you put it like that.’
‘Are you sure you’ll be OK moving in on your own?’ she asks. Ian wanted to take the day off to help me move, but he has too much work on.
I smile at Amy. ‘Of course.’
‘Are you certain you don’t want me to come with you?’
‘You’ve already done enough. I’ll only have a suitcase to carry now you’ve organised that van.’ Amy’s mate’s going to drive the rest of my things to my new house tomorrow afternoon after work.
Her expression turns serious. ‘You’re doing the right thing, honestly. But if you need me, I’m only a phone call away.’
‘Yeah.’ I think of all the nights we’ve sat opposite each other on the faded sofas, having heart to hearts about boyfriends and jobs and life. A phone call won’t be the same.
‘Don’t cry,’ Amy says, reaching out and gently wiping a tear from my cheek. ‘You’ll get me started.’
‘Well, then,’ I say. ‘I’ll see you soon.’
Amy smiles through her tears. ‘Yes, at your baby shower. I can’t wait. You can show me round the new place then.’
I give her one final hug. Neither of us want to let go, but I make myself pull away. I take my suitcase and then turn and leave the living room for the last time, tears running down my face. I remind myself I have to be strong. I have the twins to think about now. My future is with Ian and the babies.
Two hours, two hot Tubes and a taxi ride later, I turn into the street: Adelaide Road. I’m glad I decided to just bring one suitcase of essentials on the sweaty journey.
The street looks exactly as it did on Google Street View. Huge plane trees line the pavements and shield the three-storey houses from prying eyes. The domineering, detached, double-fronted houses cast me in shadow and I feel tiny. I imagine families playing together in the front rooms, haloed by the light from the wide bay windows. I look up in awe. Delicate balconies look out over the road from the top floors.
A young child whizzes past me on a scooter, in a sky-blue school blazer and matching hat. A woman follows behind him, young with long acrylic nails, chatting on her mobile in another language.
She pauses her conversation to shout after him.
‘Frederick – wait at the crossing! Remember what your mother said.’
She must be his nanny. I wonder what world I’m moving into; who could live in these impossibly huge houses. Lawyers and bankers and high-flyers, I guess. And now me.
I swallow, feeling out of place in the summer dress I bought in the supermarket. The people round here must be swimming in wealth. I’m never going to fit in. I’ve always rejected the idea that money leads to happiness. My own seemingly idyllic, middle-class childhood, spent in a sizeable house in the suburbs, taught me that.
I go past the identical red-brick mansions, the bright green manicured gardens. The only slight expression of individuality comes from the cars on the driveways and the colours of the garages and front doors, which are varying shades of grey, blue and green. I’m looking for my house, the one Amy showed me on Rightmove, but I realise I don’t remember the colour of the garage. I doubt I’ll be able to distinguish it from all the others.
I glance at the address again. Number fourteen.
The road changes as it nears the high street. The trees shelter the occasional parked car and there’s a coffee shop on the other side of the road. I must be nearly there now. I feel my first buzz of excitement. This will be the start of a new life for us.
I pass number twelve. In front of the racing-green garage, its gravel drive showcases a Porsche and an SUV, next to a perfectly maintained, characterless flower bed.
The next one must be number fourteen.
I stop and stare.
A huge overgrown hedge obscures the house from view. Bins overflow onto the concrete driveway, and a rusty washing machine sits among McDonald’s wrappers and broken beer bottles. In one corner of the driveway there are ashes from a recent fire.
My heart sinks.
This can’t be it.
I fi. . .
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