PRoLoGUE

‘We could sex it out?’

There are no words. I look at Matt as he eyes me up cautiously, wondering whether making love to his nine months pregnant wife would have her explode like John Hurt in Alien. The ‘sexing it out’ will not be happening, mainly because I’m teetering on the edge of the sofa trying to find the best position to accommodate my piles, but also because I know the sweaty and brutish effort that sex would entail is just not worth the indignity. The baby body-pops inside me and I imagine a very tiny me in sweatbands dancing to the Sugarhill Gang. She stops.

‘The fact is, I’m never having sex with you again. You and your sperm are not allowed within a five-mile radius of my nether regions once this one gets out.’

‘Single beds and onesies then?’

I nod. Matt pretends to laugh. I am deadly serious. This baby makes four. Four little humans. From now on, reading, wine, crochet, and addictive iPhone games will become my nocturnal activities of choice. He hands me my tea and starts to pat down the sofa looking for the remote. I smile secretly to myself because a) Matt makes great tea and b) my back fats have tight control of the remote. I am carrying this man’s progeny past the forty-week stage, this TV is mine. He starts sifting through the toy box. I sip my tea loudly.

‘Have you …?’

‘Check the kitchen maybe?’

I return to my show, half-watching, half-comforted by a noise that isn’t the high-pitched shriek of three children under the age of ten. Matt swears through the wall and returns scratching his head.

‘It’s bloody Jake, isn’t it? He uses those remotes as car ramps.’

‘Probably.’ Winning. I am winning.

‘What you watching?’

‘Some cooking thing.’

Cookery programmes get me through pregnancies. When I am swollen, overtired, and literally stuck to the sofa because I can’t lever myself off it, there is always comfort to be had from watching someone baste a ham or ice a gateau. Matt thinks otherwise.

‘Can we switch to BBC2?’

‘No.’ Simply because I cannot endure another tedious programme about a man walking up the Welsh coast for no other reason it would seem than to be rained on. Not even a handsome man at that.

‘Please, anything is better than this. Really, Jools. This bloke is such a tosser.’

I look up. Tommy McCoy: foodie hero, Michelin-starred, TV chef du jour. The sort you see splashed across jars of pasta sauce, shiny books, and your television, asking you to buy local, go organic, and sieve your own fruit. Sorry, in our house your fruit will always have bits. So maybe he’s a bit of a cock, but that didn’t mean his brand of cooking wankery was going to make me give up the television.

‘So, my love, it’s me, Tommy. You know me, off the telly. Hahahaha, look how shocked you are! Class!’

‘I mean, the mockney geezer act is wearing a bit thin, eh?’

‘So … balsamic vinegar – laaarrrvely on your strawberries. Who’d have thought it, eh?’

Matt cuddles up next to me. ‘Or, alternatively, you could leave the strawberries as they are, you dipshit. Why is that woman crying?’

‘It’s part of the show. He accosts someone in a supermarket, goes through their trolley, tells them how crap their food is, and then spends a week teaching them how to buy and cook proper food.’

Matt scrunches his eyebrows, trying to understand how the show’s concept is worthy of a woman’s tears. I surprise myself at how much I know about this show given I’ve only ever read about it in Heat.

‘This is the part where he brings out the pictures of what her body will look like if she continues to eat the way she does.’

True enough, Tommy starts with graphic pictures of an enlarged heart and gastric ulcers. Matt grimaces slightly.

‘Preachy. So really, he’s getting paid millions to tell people they need to eat proper food. What a revelation. Some jumped-up Essex wannabe, probably makes more in a day than I do in a year.’

I nod, awaiting the rant – the money rant where for a moment, Matt slips back into his socialist student self and preaches about distribution of wealth, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Poor little church mouse Matt and his holey socks and sad life with his Jabba the Hutt wife. This is my least favourite rant given it always has a way of questioning mine and the kids’ value in his life. Still, at least it’s better than his ‘teabags-in-the-sink’ rant.

‘Why is everyone hugging? What’s in that bowl?’

I look up.

‘Quinoa.’

There is no response as to how anyone can cuddle over grain. Matt starts to put his hand down the sides of the sofa in his continued quest for the remote. He pulls out a toy cow, a Tesco Clubcard, three Lego men, and something greying and round.

‘For the love of … crap, Jools – is this a piece of meat?’

I look at the furry, leathery disc curiously.

‘Nope, an old breast pad.’

He stares intently at it, secretly working out how long it must have been down there. Five years, to be exact. Then a look like he gives me when he finds solidified milk in the fridge or a huge, sticky mass of travel sweets on the passenger seat of the car – his health and safety look. I give him a look back.

‘It’s all right, love! I’ve got a great chicken dish for you. Stuffed with lemons, thyme, and a bit of bacon. What do you say?’

‘I say I can’t believe I am fricking watching this shite.’ Matt’s voice deepens, his accent slowly evolving into Angry Scotsman.

‘Please … it’s just TV … a stupid TV chef and you’re getting your melons in a twist about it.’

I sit forward. The remote literally falls out of my back. That’s not Matt’s happy face.

‘Seriously?’ He reaches over. I let the remote fall to the floor and try to kick it under the sofa. The lunge action makes me topple like a Weeble. Matt laughs. This induces rage.

‘Oooh, Tommy McCoy earns more than me for doing nothing … suck it up, Campbell.’

‘Well, maybe we should get him round here. Teach you a thing or two about cooking.’

I pause. I half want to smother Matt with my pregnant boobs, but there’s a definite need to stop proceedings for a short while. I look down. A wet patch grows in my maternity shorts like an angry, enveloping raincloud. I think two things: first, my tea? No. Second, damn my pelvic floor! Have I pissed myself? No. Then my abdomen tightens. I look up at Matt and grab on to the sofa cushions until my knuckles lose colour. Mother of bollocking bollocks. Tommy McCoy’s face beams at me from the TV.

‘Don’t worry, laaarve, I’m Tommy. I’m ’ere for you!’

With whitened teeth and badly dyed blond hair, he prances around some stranger’s kitchen in really terrible trainers. Please don’t let this man be the first person my baby sees. Please. Pain sears through my back like someone ironing my spine.

‘Matt … Jeeeeeeeeesus Christ, she’s coming.’

And even though he’s done this twice before, Matt stops in his tracks, the emotion hits his eyes, and he catches me.

‘Wow. So we don’t need to sex it out then …’

I laugh. I fall into him. Now. She’s coming now. And all I hear is Tommy sodding McCoy’s voice echoing around the room as I spread my legs, my undercarriage throbbing as if it might fall out.

‘Now with your chicken, first check for the gizzards. Just pop your hand up the hole and pull them out.’