Babyville Page 0,67

unbelievably reassuring, and after a while my sobbing becomes hiccuping, and after a while the hiccuping slows down until I'm almost normal. I pull some toilet paper off the roll and dry my eyes, then open the cubicle door to see Stella standing there with a concerned expression in her eyes.

“Everything okay?” I say with a smile, and I turn and walk out the door. I feel absolutely fine.

“I fucking knew it,” Ted's saying as I walk back into the room, only remembering to wipe the mascara from under my eyes just in time. “She's turning into Julia. I swear, it's that bloody chair. All the women who sit in it start off sussed and sexy, and that chair turns them into mad bitches from hell.”

“Johnny,” I say, as Ted jumps, then starts shuffling some papers guiltily on his desk. “Can I have a word in private?”

Johnny follows me out the door, both our footsteps echoing in the silence that has suddenly descended on the room, and he follows me mutely to the drinks machine where I put in some coins and punch in the buttons for two cups of tea.

And it's only when I turn to look at him that I realize how upset he is, and I feel terrible.

“I'm so sorry.” I hand him a cup of tea, but he still can't look at me. “Johnny, look at me.” Reluctantly he raises his eyes, and I continue, shocked at the hurt. “My behavior in there was appalling. I don't know what to say. It had absolutely nothing to do with you but I took it out on you because you were an easy target. There is no excuse for the way I spoke to you, and I promise you it won't happen again.” I can see I'm getting through.

“Johnny, there's stuff going on in my personal life. Not stuff I can talk about, but it's a difficult time for me. I should never have brought it into the office, and I should never have taken it out on you. Can you forgive me?”

Johnny smiles a very small smile and nods.

“Okay. Let's get back. Oh, and by the way, can you ask Ted to find out whoever supplies the furniture in this place and get them to change my chair immediately?” With this Johnny gives me a proper smile.

Now all I have to do is apologize to everyone else.

I stop off at the chemist's on the way home again tonight. Every night I make sure I find a different chemist, just so they don't think I'm completely mad. Every night I get home and go straight to the bathroom with a pregnancy test, praying that the blue lines will have disappeared. They haven't.

Viv phones me every day. She phones to see how I am, and when I tell her what happened today, because I am still in shock about my behavior, Viv tells me that her pregnancy with me was exactly the same.

“I didn't have a minute's sickness,” she says fondly, “but my hormones were all over the place. I cried at absolutely everything and the anger? I had a positively rageful three months. If I wasn't shouting, I was crying. You're just like me,” she says, and then she stops, because she remembers that I am not just like her.

I am not going to have a baby. I am going to have an abortion.

Just as soon as I get around to making the appointment.

15

From sex kitten to blimp in five easy minutes.

I'm enormous. How can I possibly be this enormous when I'm just, what, eight weeks, nine weeks pregnant? Okay, okay, maybe it's down to the sudden irresistible urge I've had for chocolate. Maltesers, Crunchies, Double Deckers. You name it, I've sent Johnny down to the vending machine to get it.

And the reason for yesterday's minor tantrum? The machine was out of Bountys. Who would have thought a bar of coconut covered with milk chocolate would elicit a flood of tears? Certainly not me. Not before yesterday. But if I can't eat exactly what I want to eat, my hormones go haywire, and I know Ted's comments about the Mad Bitch from Hell chair have been repeated amid much mirth.

Oh fuck it.

Viv keeps calling to see if I'm okay. And last week a parcel arrived with a year's supply of Pregnacare vitamin supplements.

“Why did you send this to the office?” I hissed down the phone to her.

“I knew you wouldn't be at home to take it in,” Viv