Non Pratt - Trouble

Katie is horrified. The colour’s drained from her face.

“Is this true?” Mrs English is looking at Katie for an answer but it’s the person behind her who speaks up.

“It is. She asked to borrow my laptop — I didn’t realize she was going to use it for this.” Marcy doesn’t even deign to acknowledge Katie as she speaks.

I watch Marcy turn, the way I knew she would. Katie used to be her boyfriend’s best mate’s girlfriend. Now she’s worth no more to Marcy than I was — now she’s fair game for Marcy’s preferred brand of humiliation.

Katie gambled everything on this — and lost.

Serves her right.

I owe Anj and Gideon an explanation. It’s very hard, telling them, explaining what happened when Neville died — how Hannah saved me. I tell them what I told her, joining up the dots that Katie’s little PowerPoint presentation had set out. Anj is hurt, but she listens and, when I finish, she hugs me just as hard as Gideon. They tell me that they understand how hard it must be and that they’re here for me, that I’m their friend.

Neville, Hannah, Gideon, Anj… I can’t believe I deserve them, but I’m grateful nonetheless. So grateful it hurts.

My antenatal classes are crammed into a bank holiday weekend that should have been spent in the garden trying to force extra facts into my brain before the exams start. Now I’ve got something else to revise for. Hurrah.

Yesterday I sat through four hours of questions about baby prep that we should all totally have figured out by now, but the midwife running the class felt we needed to go over. She wasn’t wrong — half the people in there make me look organized. I can only assume their older brains are worse affected by all the pregnancy hormones. And they had so many questions. Dear God, it was like they thought we had all day. Don’t they know that when it comes to revision lessons, the faster you let the teacher tell you stuff, the more likely you are to get out early? Don’t they have better things to do with their weekends than sit in a room that’s all windows, melting in the heat as the midwife answers yet another question about the first stage of labour. THE FIRST STAGE. We didn’t even get to the second — the important bit — before the end of the session.

That’s what we’ll be talking about today. Giving birth.

Yuck.

I lean forward and nab a cup of lukewarm water and three biscuits. I need to keep my energy up. Five a.m. wake-up calls from my bladder are better than any alarm invented by man and if you sit me down somewhere warm there’s a ninety per cent chance I’ll sleep — I already snatched five minutes in the taxi over.

I don’t want to be here. Mum came with me yesterday, but Lola’s sick today and Robert’s away on a business trip. I couldn’t ask Mum to come with me — not when I could hear retching echoing from the toilet bowl. Poor Lolly. I called Gran, but she can’t sort it out at such short notice.

So it’s just me. Fifteen, pregnant, single mum. All the others are a sensible age, with jobs that give them maternity leave and husbands that know more about pain relief than the anaesthetist who’s going to be giving it. I can’t help but feel resentful towards all of them — hey, I’m fifteen, I’m meant to be angry at life, right? Isn’t that what people twice my age think it’s like to be me? Isn’t that what they remember themselves being? Only I’m not them and I’m only angry because I want what they have and I don’t understand why I can’t have it. Why can’t Jay be un-shit? Why can’t he be the boy I’ve been in love with all my life? Why can’t he just man up and deal with this? It’s not like I want him to marry me. All I want is for him to come clean so I can stop lying to everyone.

I gnash my teeth to distract myself from the thoughts running riot around my brain. The woman next to me must have heard — she’s looking at me oddly.

“Hannah, isn’t it?” the midwife asks me and I nod. “Is your birth partner on her way?”

Birth partner? Lame.

“My mum can’t make it today. My sister’s sick.” I bite my nail and stare at her, daring her to say anything more. I can almost see her thinking that my mum’s a single parent and look where it got me… “My dad’s on a business trip.”

I can’t believe I just said that. I just called Robert my dad. The rush of love I feel for him overwhelms me. I do love Robert. Loads. I moan about him all the time. I’m jealous of how he’s always boasting about Jay and Lola’s school stuff… But I’m starting to get how he loves me too: when he gave me the money for new clothes; how he’s never once said a word about me supporting myself or moving out; that time he came with me for a midwife appointment I’d forgotten to tell Mum about; driving me and a vomit-covered Aaron back from the Duchess. I think about the closed account in my heart that used to belong to my father and I realize that without noticing, I’ve been transferring all that credit to Robert — and some.

The midwife claps her hands and the murmuring of mum-to-be bonding quietens down. I shift in my chair and it makes a farting sound. Charming. Even the chair is against me. I shove in a biscuit and glare at anyone who dares make eye contact.

Ten minutes in and I’m tempted to walk out. So far I have heard too many men ask questions about lady parts that make even me — the owner of actual lady parts — feel queasy. How are these people ever going to have sex with each other ever again? Not that sex is the first thing on my mind when I see the midwife push a plastic doll through a frighteningly life-sized rubber vagina.

One of the men actually asks if the doll is to scale.

It can’t be. Babies aren’t that big except in hospital shows where they don’t have minutes-old babies on standby for the end of a birth scene.

You can almost hear all the women let out their breath when she says no.

“This doll’s head is proportionally smaller than a baby’s.”

Shit.

In that silence there comes a quiet knock on the door. The midwife looks up, pleased to have something to distract the fifteen women who want to tear her face off. I don’t bother turning round as it would be way too much effort — instead I watch her frown and say the name of the class like she thinks the person there is lost.

“What is it that you’re looking for, love?”

“It’s OK, I’ve found it, thanks.” I recognize that voice, but before I have a chance to turn, Aaron’s sitting in the seat beside me and giving me a hug. “Your mum texted me.”

That boy. Best. Fake. Baby Daddy. Ever.

Fact.

There are some things it is best not to repeat. I think I heard most of them in that antenatal class.

He calls at 11.17 on a Saturday night. I shouldn’t answer it.

“Jay?”

“Did you tell Katie?”

I don’t understand what he’s going on about and my brain’s too slow to form the right questions.

“Did you tell her?” He’s almost shouting and I don’t like it.

“Of course not! Do you know anything that’s happened in my life the last six months? We fell out. And stop shouting,” I add as an afterthought.

“Well, she sent me a text saying she knows I’m the dad.”

That makes a twisted, Katie-Coleman kind of sense. Her plan with Aaron backfired, so she’s come back to the identity of the dad. She knows it’s not Aaron, not Tyrone… somehow she’s finally worked her way round to Jay. Good job she didn’t start there. I wish she’d just leave me alone, but that isn’t Katie’s way — once she starts, she finishes and she hasn’t finished with me yet.

“Katie knows nothing,” I say, although there’s a little niggling doubt in the back of my mind. After all — she’s right. Maybe she’s just trying to get a reaction out of him and then she’ll know… “You haven’t replied, have you?”

“No. Why do you think I’m calling you?”

That sentence is so disappointing. Why would I think he’d call? He hasn’t so much as emailed since I saw him at Easter.

“Just tell her she’s mental or something. No one else knows.”

“Aaron does.”

I close my eyes. Jay can be so difficult. But when I picture him, I still fancy him. Hate my stupid hormones — now is not the time to get horny again. Besides, why am I giving him advice on how to hide the truth when I want him to face up to it? I’m such an idiot.

“I don’t care what you do, Jay. Goodbye.”

“Wait.” And like a muppet, I do. I shouldn’t. I should hang up right now. “Hannah?”

“Yes?” I try to sound like I don’t care, but he knows he’s scored a point.

“She really doesn’t know?”

“Not unless you tell her.”

“Good. It’s Dad’s birthday coming up and I don’t think he needs to find out like this…”

“It’s not like he’s ever going to find out, is it?” I say viciously and hang up before I can hear him tell me not to.

Jay calls back instantly but I reject it. He sends a text.

Ure not doing something stupid right now ru?

I text back.

Did something v stupid a long time ago. ANYTHING is a shitload more sensible than that.

He texts back: Dont tell them now, Han. Not now.

When?

But he has no reply to that.

And neither do I.

There’s something in the air as we gather outside the hall. No one’s in uniform and it’s interesting looking at some of the people I’ve never seen at the park or a party. There’s one guy who’s not in any of my classes, but I’ve seen around and always thought he looked pretty cool — the kind of person that in another life I might have ended up mates with. Judging solely on his faded Joy Division T-shirt, I come to the conclusion I was right.

Katie is wearing something that is meant to be Juicy Couture — only “Couture” is spelled with a double “O”. For a moment I feel sorry for her. She isn’t the person she wants to be and no matter what she wears or who she sleeps with, it’s not going to change that.

“What you looking at?” Katie mouths off and all my pity evaporates. I heard she tried to tell Nicole that Hannah’s stepbrother was the father. Nicole told her she was pathetic — oh, how the bitchy have fallen. It doesn’t matter that she’s telling the truth.

Everyone turns when the front door bangs against the wall as someone pushes it with too much force. It’s Hannah.

The word “radiant” springs to mind. It’s a pregnant woman cliché for a reason — Hannah is glowing. Her skin is clearer than Marcy’s and her dark hair looks model perfect. Everyone’s used to seeing her in an oversized school shirt that makes her look blousey and fat, but today she’s wearing her favourite outfit — a skin-tight khaki dress that displays her curves to full effect. Flip-flops show off perfectly painted toenails (courtesy of Anj) and pale curved calves lead up to her half-length leggings.

I watch other people as she approaches, the way they reassess the girl they’ve been sidelining since January. Fletch’s eyebrows hit his hairline and even Joy Division boy frowns, pondering a moment before remembering who the pregnant girl is.

“I’m bricking it.”

The spell is broken. This isn’t some fecund goddess. This is Hannah Sheppard. Only the Hannah in front of me isn’t the same one I met back in September — that one would have been hyper-aware of the glances her way, would have swung her hips a little and made eye contact with a minimum of three boys before reaching me.

Dad pulls open the door to the hall and calls us inside. There’s a pause, a gathering of breath, a steeling of minds and then the rustle of nerves personified as plastic bags and pencils as we make our way into our first exam. As we pass Dad, he winks at me, then at Hannah, who gives him a nervous smile.