Non Pratt - Trouble

In the back of my mind I always thought I’d go and get an abortion. Simples.

The reality? Not so simples.

This is life and death we’re talking about. I mean, I don’t think you exist until you’re born, not properly, but there is something in there and it’s something that matters. If babies in the womb didn’t count until they came out then no one would give pregnant people who smoke funny looks, or tut too loudly when they have a drink. There wouldn’t be all these rules and guidelines about what’s good for the baby if the baby didn’t matter at all.

But is it alive? Would I be killing it?

You hear about people changing their mind outside clinics because they find out that their foetus has already got fingernails or genitals or a tattoo saying “Mum” on its arse or whatever. But it’s not like fingernails = soul. They don’t qualify you for anything other than a manicure.

I’m all for choice, but what happens when you really don’t want to choose?

Mum has taken the day off work to go shopping with me for some new clothes. She finally noticed that each of my five T-shirts is on the cusp of disintegrating, although I think the last straw was discovering a hole in the crotch of my only jeans.

After three shops Mum decides that it’s time for lunch. There’s a brief squabble when she tries to make me decide where to eat. I don’t care where we eat so long as it’s not sushi, but Mum seems to take it personally when I say this. It’s like I have to care about everything these days and today there’s a lot of things to care about. Grey socks or black? Baggy, skinny or straight leg? For some reason she wanted my opinion on where to park the car. When she pushed me on the lunch issue, I snapped that it was up to her.

We aren’t on the best of terms when our food arrives.

“They’ve given you a baked potato when you asked for chips,” she says and turns to call back the waitress.

“Mum, don’t — it’s fine,” I hiss and she turns back to me.

“I knew that girl wasn’t listening.” She starts trying to shuffle some of her chips onto my plate.

“What are you doing?” I move my plate away and some chips tumble to the floor. “Stop it. I’m fine with a baked potato.”

“Fine, Aaron.” She slams down her plate so some more chips escape. “I’m just trying to have a nice day with my son. Is it too much to ask that our waitress gets the order right?”

This isn’t about chips.

“Mum, we are having a nice day.” She looks at me dubiously. “You know I don’t have to have everything my own way to enjoy myself.”

“You should have your order your own way,” she says, but she’s smiling and I smile back.

“Whatever, I just mean stop trying to please me all the time. If I say I don’t care about something, it doesn’t mean I don’t care about anything. It just means I want you to choose.”

“OK.” Mum nods, then adds, “But, Aaron, you’re my son, and what I want is to make sure you’re happy, so don’t bite my head off for trying.”

“No, Mum,” I say. “I’ll try to remember that.”

She never used to worry about making me happy.

But they found a new school, new jobs, new house — new life.

My happiness means more than it should to my parents.

It’s late but Mum’s in the sitting room finishing a coffee — I don’t see another mug, which means Robert’s having his in his study. Now is the perfect time. I psych myself up in the doorway: just do it, just do it, just do it—

“What is it, Hannah?” Mum hasn’t even looked up from her magazine. All I can see from here are upside-down pictures of soap stars in bikinis. I walk round until they’re the right way up and sit on the arm of the chair.

“She’s put on a lot of weight,” I say, pointing to one of them.

“She’s skinnier than me,” Mum says, pursing her lips.

“Not really.” I’m lying because I want to get into her good books.

Mum gives me a sideways glance and an eyebrow-raise. “Smaller than a size-six midget, am I?” She shakes her head. “Whatever it is you want, the answer’s no. You’ve been out ever since school broke up and I’ve not seen you so much as look at that fancy new computer you made such a fuss about getting to help you with school work.”

The words stall between my brain and my mouth.

Mum turns the page and the banner reads, “Grandmother at thirty — and pregnant!” There’s a picture of an impossibly-young-looking woman and her daughter both posing with their giant bellies touching so it looks like a Maths diagram.

Mum tuts and turns the page. “I get enough of that at work.”

This is not the right time.

I have failed to tell my best friend.

I have failed to tell my mother.

Who else is there?

My thumb shakes as I scroll through my phone looking for an answer. I make it to the bottom before I scroll back up, mentally crossing out each entry as I go. For a moment I pause when I get to his number and before I know what I’m doing I’m holding the phone up to my ear, not sure whether I actually want him to answer.

“Hello?”

“It’s me.” My voice is so quiet that I clear my throat ready for whatever I’m going to say next.

“Of course it is.”

Is that a sigh in his voice? I can’t help but react to it. “You didn’t have to answer if you didn’t want to talk to me.”

“What? Where’s that coming from?” He’s annoyed now.

“It’s not like you’ve made an effort…”

“We talked about this.”

“No, actually, we didn’t. We texted about this. Texting isn’t talking.”

“Whatever, Han, this isn’t a good time.”

“It’s never a good time!” I snap, thinking about all the times I have tried to tell the people that matter that I’m pregnant.

“Was there a reason you called? Or did you just want a fight?”

I close my eyes and think about him, the way he looked at me that night, the way he touched me — as if he wanted me more than anything in the world. There’s a murmur in the background and I wonder what he was doing before he saw my number flash up on his phone. The possibilities that come to mind make me sick with jealousy.

“You still there?” he says, but I end the call before he can hear that I’m crying as hard as I did the day after I got pregnant.

I have failed to tell the father.

My phone rings, but I let it go to voicemail, knowing he won’t leave a message. He doesn’t try again. Through my tears I carry on scrolling up until I reach Anj. Once upon a time she’d be the first person I’d call — now she’s just the first person in my phone book.

I throw my phone across the room and press my face into my pillows and cry so much that it feels like I’m turning inside out.

This is it. Decision time. I know what all the people I’ve tried to tell would say. Who, out of my mum, my best friend and the absent father-to-be, would tell me to keep it?

Maybe that’s what’s stopping me: I don’t know what I want, except that I want to be the one who decides.

I went to see Gran today. She managed to get me a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning — I was too upset to book it myself. She held me tightly and let me sob on her, stroked my hair and told me she understood when I explained why I couldn’t tell Mum.

When I left, she kissed my cheek.

“Paula will love you no matter what you decide. Just like I will.”

Neither of us mentioned my dad. Her son.

I had my answer planned, but the doctor asked the wrong question. She didn’t ask what I was going to do next. She asked me what I wanted. And that question had a different answer.

And I told the truth. I want to keep it.

Shit.

What now?

Katie and I are pulling a sickie for PE. She’s forged a doctor’s note saying that she’s got back problems and I told Prendergast that I’m on my period — something that couldn’t be further from the truth. He’d taken some convincing because he’s learned to be suspicious whenever me and Katie back out of team sports, but I played a blinder and cried at him. Works every time.

There’s only two of us on the sick bench, which is exactly how we like it. Our books are open on our laps and from across the other side of the hall it looks like we might be working. I’m sure Prendergast isn’t so stupid as to fall for it, although he does teach PE…

After a week of sulking, it seems Katie’s finally forgiven me for Friday. Whilst I’d simply like to write a note in the margin of her Physics worksheet telling her that I’m preggers, I choose an easier starter for ten, planning on working my way up to the harder category of Life-Changing News.