LITMIR.BIZ

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His special talent was to down two bottles of wine in under a minute, and then set his balls on fire. He also sang ‘Wonderful Tonight’ while stark-bollock naked, but I think I was in the loo at the time. I was introduced to him again at a party a month later, where he’d just had his head shaved for charity, but again I don’t remember it – not ready. I needed to fuck around a bit longer and flirt with my friends’ brothers, etc. When I did properly meet him, he annoyed and interested me, which is of course a fatal mix. He was one of four irascibly arrogant, attractive freshers who turned up late to Rag orientation, just as I was halfway through my speech as a committee member. I balled them out for it but took note of his blue eyes, cool glasses and the ridiculous way he was wearing two T-shirts at once. And while I publicly raged against arrogance, it basically turned me on (I was 20 years old, nowadays I just rage). Even though he was pretty direct, I could never tell whether he was joking or not. He was really funny, acerbic, incredibly rude and a showman, and I dug it. But once I’d made the first move (drunkenly standing on his feet, thinking I was playing footsy, and then just shoving my tongue in his mouth), it turned out he was also deliciously kind, sweet, clever and sane. Definitely not my type – I liked them dark, swarthy and mean – but it was a nice change. He was so level-headed and patient, which was comforting to a highly neurotic crackpot like me.

      He’s from Barnsley and had only left the UK for UK-extensions, like Faliraki and Kavos. His ambition had been to open a cocktail bar OR fight fire (mainly with the view to nailing chicks), with no ambitions to go to university. His teachers thought otherwise because he was really clever, but it wasn’t until a friend’s father suffered a massive stroke that he decided to study physiotherapy at university, thinking he could be pivotal in the rehab of people like his friend’s dad. I know – whatta guy. Nearly 11 years later that’s what he does – helps people learn to walk again. He’s basically a good man with a questionable sense of humour.

      We are the stereotypes of our regions in the flesh – I’m every bit the southerner his parents feared I would be (precious, fussy, always cold), and he’s every bit the northerner my parents hoped he’d be (calm, stoic, economically sensible).

      He’s got lips like Tom Hardy and despite the fact he has mousy-brown hair, is convinced he’s blond. He’s got a dead tooth up front where he flipped over the railings inside a double decker bus with a beer bottle between his teeth. He has a broad but soft Yorkshire accent, and swears in a southern accent – a hint that perhaps he didn’t swear at all before he moved down here. He’s always very good at everything, even if it’s his first time. From table tennis and playing the ukulele to useful things like building a shed and card tricks. He’s a bit tight; slightly sloppy when drunk and when he buys something he has to check its price remains the same online in the weeks afterwards. He’s kind, quietly and understatedly. Kids love him. Everyone loves him.

      I’d had boyfriends before we met at 20, but I’d never felt this genuinely worshipped, and it made for a heady end to my second year at uni. One time we staggered back from a night out and there was a sign on the old fridge which my landlord had dumped in the front garden, saying to ‘look inside’. He had filled the whole thing with cheese, massive blocks bought from the cash and carry, like gold buillon in a safe. It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me. When I graduated, I continued to go up to visit, and when he graduated, the following summer, he moved down to Chichester to my parents’ house. When we both got jobs – his as a physio and mine as a writer – we moved to Brighton, where we’ve been ever since. He is still the anchor that keeps me sane but also laughing until I pee, and although he is nearly a whole year younger than me, he is always the more emotionally robust of the two of us. I often look to him for a measure of a situation, when I don’t know what to think. So the fact that he wasn’t jumping at the news was making me even more nervous. It’s his baby too, and he’s more worried than me.

      Proper weepy

      The next day, after dreaming about growing phantom babies that were actually kittens, I wondered if maybe the problem was that my husband is so laid-back and rarely visibly excited (I blame his northern upbringing) that I just hadn’t been buoyed along yet? Maybe I need to seek out the joy, absorb it like osmosis from someone who will be really excited. So I hopped on the train to see my mum. I placed the two positive pregnancy tests on the table, and predictably enough she squealed with joy. I was banking on her reaction making me feel happy but the bitter tears came again, the inexplicable sadness. I couldn’t say those words – I AM PREGNANT – without sobbing.

      ‘I’ve saved all your Sylvanians, darling!’ she says, as if this would steady my nerves.

      She realised the escalating price of toys wasn’t the problem, and held me for what seemed like hours.

      I dodged calls from friends, came off Twitter and I put on my out-of-office. I told Rich I wanted to be sure how I felt about it before I dealt with how other people felt about it. Deep down, I think I wanted the option to back out of the pregnancy, but also because in telling people, they would start seeing me differently too. I didn’t want people to start vying for my job or friends to discard me on the pregnant pile. I shut myself away and didn’t deal with it at all. Until my body forced me to deal with it.

      I’m just like Kate Middleton

      I was back at my mum’s a few days later when I was suddenly punched in the throat by a wave of nausea, which never let up. I crawled into bed and there I stayed.

      ‘Oof. Oooooof, oooooof. Oof,’ was all I could say. Almost the French for egg, interestingly, seeing as it was an oeuf implanting itself in my womb and causing me to feel like I could fill a stadium with my hot, sour vomit.

      The early symptoms of pregnancy are the first hint that you are slipping from your own narrative. You hand over your body and mind to your baby and to everyone who has an opinion on how you should look and feel. For me, it felt like my body was turning against me, like the priority was already switching from me to my baby, who as yet was just a cluster of cells. My body changed in a flash; I had lost control already. As I was at my mum’s when this tsunami hit, there I stayed. It was insane! My every cell vibrated with the need to vom and that sappy taste sat on my tongue like an oyster. My mum wedged halved Cheerios between my cracked lips so I wasn’t starving her grandchild, but otherwise I didn’t eat and I would spend up to 10 minutes trying to swallow a single mouthful of water.

      It wasn’t just the mornings either – it rolled through my body 24 hours a day, waking me from sleep. I couldn’t escape it. Lying down, sitting up – it was all like riding a rollercoaster – and I couldn’t read or focus on the TV to distract me.

      My acute sense of smell meant that I knew Rich was entering the house before I heard him. His aftershave, his breath, a cigarette he’d walked past that morning – it was all burning the hairs out of my nose, making me hate him. Hate him! This prick with a penchant for pickled onion Monster Munch was clearly out to piss me off.

      ‘YOU HAD A KFC, DIDN’T YOU? ADMIT IT! YOU SELFISH ARSEHOLE!’

      Weirdly, he stopped asking me how I was feeling about the baby around then. And with my mum hovering like a nervous nurse, wringing her hands and counting Cheerios, it was easy to avoid the conversation altogether. I think he assumed I would be dead soon, anyway.

      I felt so weak and so sad now; the need to stay in bed and sleep was overwhelming every other thought. This is what depression feels like, I thought one morning as I considered changing my pyjama bottoms but instead rolled over, a fresh wave of nausea drowning me under its sour wash. I had experienced brief pockets of depression in my teens, so I knew the familiar heaviness, the consistently tear-filled throat. Looking back, I definitely suffered from antenatal depression. It felt bottomless and constant.

      It was pulling me under and away from decisive action, stopping me from making a plan to surface again and change. Suggesting anything as definitive as an abortion at this point felt too deliberate and I was wrung out, not capable of lifting my head from the pillow. I definitely thought about it. I was adamant I did not want to be a mother. And the craziest thing? I couldn’t tell anyone how I felt. Because the first thing a mother is expected to be is loving and grateful.

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