31


My hands were shaking so much that even if I had had that enviable male ability to direct my stream of urine, it still would have been a hit-and-miss affair. Peeing on a stick was supposedly a simple task and one that I was not doing too well at. I washed my hands, walked out and sat down at my desk.

The packet said sixty seconds. In order to distract myself, I put it down next to me and scanned through the stat­us updates on Facebook, forgetting that my whole world could change on its response. Until I glanced over and read “Pregnant.” I picked it up and shook it a few times, thinking that like an Etch A Sketch it might rub out. Or that suddenly the word “Not” would attach itself to the beginning.

“Not” did not.

After a few heart-plummeting and adrenalin-speeded seconds, I reached for the phone. It picked up after the third ring.

“Are you busy?”

“Just going into a meeting, can’t talk now.”

“Don’t put the phone down! I just needed to tell you that I’m pregnant.”

Tick, tock, tick, tock. I could hear the smile spreading across his face.

“Oh darling, that’s wonderful. Amazing. I’ll call you later when I’ve not been able to concentrate on this damn meeting.”

We’d moved out of the more expensive end of Notting Hill, where I had shamefully abused my credit card — easily blamed on my grief — to the only marginally less expensive Richmond, Surrey.

And we’d moved into a house exactly like the one in St Albans where I’d first visited Morten and Elena. In an effort to not fall short of her standards, I’d decorated it in the manner to which Morten had become accustomed. White. Minimalist. But with pointless and artfully placed cushions.

Our new home was about seven minutes’ walk from Gilles and Elena. We knew because we’d timed it. They lived on Richmond Green, in a prestigious address, discounted because the lady below them cooked a lot of soup and the smell of cabbage was rife. Not that they minded so much about money, because both were pretty flush from our recent divorces.

Gilles was still working on his fitness website and rock-hard body, whilst Elena started a psychology major at Roehampton. Our rare interactions had been tempered with friction and lubricated with alcohol as we attempted to stay friends. I had lost Gilles once; I didn’t want to lose him again. Of course this latest development would throw a spanner in the works. Morten and Elena had been trying for a baby for eight years. And now, within three months, I was pregnant.

I met Gilles alone to break the news, as did Morten with Elena. Then we met at a pub nearby.

“Just imagine us all with a child!” she was saying as we sipped orange juice round the table. Her eyes were dancing with fire. “Gilles and I can babysit, we’ll be godparents. And…” she turned to me with tears in her eyes. “I want you to know that I forgive you and that if you die, I will take care of Morten’s child as if it were my own.” Her desire for a child had coloured her life for so long that her happiness, despite her shock at our announcement, was tangible. It wasn’t my child. It was our child.

But I didn’t want to share with her.

Not now. Not ever.

Morten and Gilles shone with pride at her magnanimity, whilst I froze in horror.

My distrust of Elena ran fathoms deep. And my instinct on hearing her words was to take my unborn baby and run. It seemed that no sooner would I have my longed-for child than Elena would be there. Telling me how to raise it, taking it for walks and play dates…and demanding that it pick sides during our many arguments. If I were still alive, that is. Because clearly — if I was dead — she had already assumed parentage.

I had experienced once that when Elena wanted something or someone, she got it. Those events had almost taken my sanity. And nicely juiced up on hormones, I feared that she could drive me mad enough to have me committed to an asylum and take my place as mother. I know it sounded mad. But our entire relationship was not particularly sane. I had thought that as friends we might be able to continue, that I might keep Gilles in my life. But protecting my future relationship with my child was more important. And escaping once, it seemed, was just not enough.