Tess

Week 26. You’re a head of lettuce, and you’re supposed to be kicking me now. You’re also busy practising your grip. I wish I hadn’t read that – now I’m waiting, and sometimes I can feel panic bubbling up in me because I haven’t felt it. I have to speak sharply to myself. It’s called a quickening. I like that – it sounds like what happens to your heart when you fall in love. Please kick me as much as you like so I know you’re all right in there. I’m not sure how the procedure felt from your end, but it was okay from mine. On sitcoms sometimes they make men go weird about sex while their wives and girlfriends are pregnant – worrying they’ll hurt the baby – I’ve always thought those jokes are particularly stupid. I kind of know what they mean now. Not that there is anyone to go weird about having sex with me. Pause for self-pity, baby. But not that much. It’s the last thing I’d fancy. Cannot get my head around women who get really randy while they’re pregnant. Sorry. Too much information, inappropriate for babies. But still … you feel … vulnerable. And I feel protective. So I’m looking after you, doing exactly what the doctor said, although I go almost out of my mind with boredom staying so still and quiet. The office is helping – someone rings me with a question at least ten times a day, or at least they did until my mum took the phone off me and told someone in no uncertain terms that I was supposed to be resting. Then they resorted to email. But still – turns out I am not the couch-potato type. I’d rather be doing … And while I’m looking after you, Donna and Holly are looking after me. I haven’t seen Iris, though, and I miss her. Holly has promised to take me in at the weekend.

She didn’t hear from Sean while she was convalescing. She didn’t expect to, and he didn’t know she was convalescing, to be fair. She hadn’t told him any of that. She’d stayed with Donna for the first part, thinking herself a fraud as she lay on the sofa feeling quite fine. Donna totally overdid the nursing, becoming suddenly, and disconcertingly, quite evangelical about care-giving. Tess found it touching. Three days of Donna’s attention was quite enough, and Tess decamped to Holly’s for the second three days the hospital had prescribed. There, Holly was reassuringly neglectful. She let Tess fold laundry and load the dishwasher. Ben was away, as he often was with work, Holly and Dulcie were at their respective schools during the day, letting her rest, and in the evenings, the three of them went uber-girly, painting each other’s finger- and toenails, wearing face masks in front of Richard Curtis films with boxes of Lindor chocolates.

Dulcie was deep in revision, with her exams looming. Holly worried that she was quieter than usual; worry about Dulcie was Holly’s new default emotion, and it didn’t suit her. Being so up close to the vulnerability of motherhood – watching her laid-back, laissez-faire best mate being anxious – was a bit disconcerting.

One late afternoon, Holly left them alone on the pretext of nipping to Sainsbury’s, wanting to see what Dulcie might tell her godmother. At first, Dulcie stayed at the kitchen table, surrounded by lever-arch files and index cards. After a few minutes, she sighed deeply and pushed her chair back from the table, going to the kettle. She looked dark-eyed and messy-haired, skinny under her dad’s old Pink Floyd t-shirt. Tea made, she climbed under the other end of Tess’s blanket on the sofa, and quietly, with a tiny prompt from Tess, retold pretty much the story Holly had told her in the hospital. She fiddled with the cuffs of the shirt, pulled down over her hands, while she spoke, twisting and untwisting the jersey.

‘She’s jealous of you, you know that, right?’

‘Mum says the same thing. That’s rubbish.’

‘Bollocks. It’s always jealousy.’

‘What’s she got to be jealous of?’

‘Are you mad?’ Tess was incredulous. ‘Apart from the fact that this boy – who obviously has great taste, by the way – prefers you to her! Have you seen you? You’ve got it all, Dulce. You’re gorgeous. Clearest skin I’ve ever seen. I bet she’s spotty. Is she spotty?’ Dulcie smiled her narrow, sideways smile. ‘Ah ha. Told you. You’re gorgeous. Clever. Sporty. Funny. Unspotty. Thin. But thin with boobs. And bum.’ Dulcie coloured and squirmed, but she was smiling. ‘Sorry, but it’s true. Of course she’s jealous of you. How sad is she, really … trying to get other girls on her side. What is it, kindergarten?’

‘So why do they go, then?’ Dulcie’s face was immediately sad again.

‘That’s the billion-dollar question. I’m bloody buggered if I know. Didn’t know then, still don’t get it. I think it might just be that they’re afraid if they don’t, they’ll be next.’

‘So they’re all basically just spineless?’

God, Tess thought. They’re all just terrified, and insecure. Most of what they do comes from the relief that it’s not them, and the fear that they’ll be next drives every cruel word … They won’t be bad people, most of them. They’re doing what they need to do to survive in that gladiatorial arena. That’s all. If you could pick them off from the pack and make them all see the effect of what they were doing, most of them would be sorry. They’re just thoughtless, frightened girls. And I’d like to punch them all in the face.

‘Something like that.’

‘So why would I want to be friends with them in the first place?’

‘Bloody right. You can add principled to the list of qualities we were just making.’

‘And lonely.’

Tess pulled Dulcie towards her in a tight embrace. ‘Bless you.’ Dulcie lay very still against her, until there was just one, big heave of her shoulders, and Tess knew she was crying. Tess’s heart ached for her.

Dulcie tried to pull back, sniffing hard. ‘I don’t want to hurt the baby.’

‘You won’t. She’s a toughie. You’re a toughie. You stick with it, kid, you hear? I promise you the worst of this will be over by the time you get to uni. Most people have grown up enough by then not to be total sheep.’

Dulcie let herself be held. ‘Promise?’

‘Mostly.’ It was the best she could do.

‘I don’t need a bunch of mates. One really good one would do. Like you and mum.’

‘I was way older than you when I met your mum.’

‘So she’s out there, my best friend?’

Tess nodded emphatically. ‘She is. Meanwhile, I’ve put you down for babysitting for the next five years, so that’ll keep you so busy you’ll hardly realize what a Dougie No Mates you are.’

Dulcie laughed.

‘Me and your mum can be your Girl Squad.’

‘Okay, Tess. Getting weird …’ But she was laughing now, even though she was still crying.

Tess ran her thumbs gently under Dulcie’s eyes. ‘Don’t you cry for them, my lovely girl. They are not worth it. They’re really not.’

Dulcie rubbed the back of her hand under her nose, and then put the other one gently on Tess’s tummy. ‘You’re going to be a good mum, Tess. She’s a very lucky baby.’