Cam wakes up slowly; she feels terrible. The air is thick and musty in her room as she gets out of bed and opens the curtains and a window. Cool summer morning air flows in, and sunlight creeps over the London skyline, flooding the room with its luminous rays, but the usual high it offers her isn’t there today. This early summer brightness makes her feel worse. She gets back into bed, and curls into the foetal position.
‘Errrr,’ she says, in a groggy voice.
‘Still feeling ill, babe?’ says Mark, waking up next to her. He’d come over late last night with crisps and Diet Coke, as she thought they might have helped with the nausea. They didn’t. He reaches over to gently stroke her boobs, and her reaction is to smack his hand away.
‘Woah, what was that about?’ he says, understandably taken aback by the violence.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbles, putting her hands to her boobs herself to investigate the swelling and the pain that she’s suddenly aware of. ‘PMT,’ she confirms.
She rolls onto her back, exhaling through pursed lips, and feels sick again. She gets up and goes to the bathroom, where she vomits instantly.
‘You OK, babe?’ calls Mark from the bedroom.
‘All good now,’ she calls, casually, as she goes to clean her teeth. But a thought is lurking in the back of her head. The implant was supposed to last for three years; how long ago was it she had it put in? Two? Three? … Four?
She drops her toothbrush on the floor, and bangs her head as she reaches down to get it.
‘FUCK EVERYTHING,’ Cam shouts, using it as an excuse to be emotional.
‘What’s the matter, babe?’ Mark says, suddenly appearing at the bathroom door. She turns to look at him, not knowing what the right thing to do is. When she opens her mouth, she doesn’t know what is going to come out.
‘I think I’m pregnant,’ she says.
‘What?’ replies Mark.
Cam stares at him, as if he’s going to tell her it can’t be possible.
‘What do we do now?’ he asks instead.
‘I don’t know; I’ve not done this before. Get a test?’ suggests Cam.
‘OK, shall we go now?’
‘OK.’
They get dressed without saying a word, both with glazed, zombie-like looks on their faces, feeling like total strangers, despite months of physical intimacy.
When she’s dressed, Cam sits on the end of the bed and puts her head in her hands.
‘Don’t worry, babe, if it’s happening, we’ll do the right thing,’ Mark says, being a great guy. Cam gets up and steps away from the support. She has a feeling that her idea of what constitutes ‘the right thing’ and his idea of ‘the right thing’ are probably very different.
‘You know, you don’t have to come. I’ll be OK. I’ll get a test, and if it’s positive I’ll text you later, OK?’ she says, feeling like she needs to be alone and regretting telling him.
‘No way, I’m coming. We’re in this together.’
‘No, Mark, please. I’d really like to be alone, OK? I’ll text you later.’
‘Babe, it takes two to ta—’
‘Mark, please don’t say tango. Were you going to say tango?’
‘Yes.’
Cam pushes a long, slow breath through her tight mouth. She might be sick again, or maybe she just needs some air.
‘Mark, I’d really like to be alone, OK? I’m feeling really sick, I’m sure it’s a false alarm, and that I’ll do the test, take some Pepto-Bismol, get my period and all will be fine. OK? Please, go to the gym, I’ll let you know later.’
Mark thinks about arguing, but he knows Cam well enough to know that when she says she needs to be alone, there is no negotiation.
‘OK, but call me, OK? Not text.’ He puts on his denim jacket, and goes to the door. ‘This doesn’t scare me, you know.’
‘I know,’ Cam says as he leaves.
That’s what I’m afraid of.
In Boots, Cam takes one of every type of pregnancy test they have and drops them into a basket. There are five in total. She also grabs a big pack of Always Ultra to throw anyone who might be spying on her off the scent. At the check-out, she looks down and bobs gently up and down on the balls of her feet, doing all that she can to show the cashier she’s in a hurry. The cashier looks around to make sure her superior isn’t listening.
‘You must be very excited to want to know five times?’ she says, smiling sweetly.
‘Yeah, really really excited. I’m also in a hurry, sorry, can you …’
‘I understand. I was the same, just desperate to know. And to think there is this movement where women are deciding not to have children. It’s so sad.’
‘What movement?’
‘Oh, I read this awful article by this woman who says she never wants children. Trying to make other women follow in her footsteps. It’s not right. I have two and wouldn’t change it for the world.’
‘Yes, well, everyone is different.’
‘Well, fingers crossed for this test then.’ As she scans the pregnancy tests, her perfectly swept-up ponytail swings from side to side, making Cam feel sea sick.
‘I actually don’t want to be pregnant,’ she blurts out. ‘If I am, I won’t keep it.’
‘But …’
‘I’m sorry if you find that upsetting, but I have the right to make that decision and not feel I can’t admit it.’
‘I just …’
‘Stop judging me!’
‘I’m not, I …’
Cam snatches her card out of the card reader, grabs the bag of pregnancy tests and sanitary towels and storms out of Boots. Standing in the street with a carrier bag in her hand, she can’t stop the tears from rolling down her face. She has no idea why she is crying.
‘Fucking hormones,’ she says to herself, as she wipes tears from her eyes.
Back at home, in her empty flat, Cam gets a coffee cup from the kitchen and pees into it. Sitting on the toilet, with the cup on the floor between her feet, she unwraps each test and drops all of them in at once. After a very long three minutes staring at the ceiling, she pulls the first test out. Then the next, then all the rest at once.
‘FUCK IIIITTTT,’ she screams, squeezing her head with her hands.
The Face of Childless Women is pregnant.