The Single Mums' Secrets - Janet Hoggarth Page 0,93

blue wool twill. The secret of its box-fresh appearance was down to the fact that instead of having a close personal relationship with a vibrator, Louise had one with her Dyson. Now all Dyson had to do was invent a vibrating hoover with the appropriate attachment and Louise could set it to stun and end up lot happier. Medical research had revealed the more orgasms a woman has, the more content she was. And maybe she’d get off my back about crumbs.

She eyed my errant fork with suspicion. I should have lobbed the pesto-covered pasta up in the air just to see if she would leap up and catch it like a performing seal before it hit anything.

‘Maybe I am. Wouldn’t you be a lot comfier eating that at the table in the kitchen?’

*

I’d remembered the significance of the date, so had woken early, sneaked downstairs and prepped a mighty breakfast aimed at distraction rather than skilful presentation. When I heard Isaac grizzle in his cot, I’d already warmed his milk, sneaked him out of bed in his PJs and brought him down, plonking him in front of the TV. I finished slicing the sourdough bread and heated the croissants while my ankles puffed up like rising dough.

My body was no longer my own. I had expanded in places I’d never imagined. My ankles began their steady inflation as soon as my feet hit the ground – that was a well-documented change, but there were so many more in the pregnancy lucky dip that I wasn’t expecting. My fingers resembled those cheap Richmond sausages by lunchtime; my feet had grown a size (most likely being force-fed all the extra liquid from my ankles); and my upper arms could have wrestled an alligator – they were the size of two boiled hams. I couldn’t even look at my boobs without thinking of a Eurotrash porn star. Their veiny blue cheese appearance was also quite off-putting; nothing felt sturdy enough to contain them. I couldn’t see my pubic hair without a mirror, but I could feel that it had doubled in thickness and was now an official ‘Mum Muff’. Had I shaved it off, I could have woven a luxurious toupee from the trimmings.

I would bet all my equity from the house that a man had originally coined the whole misconception that pregnancy is a beautiful time – most likely to prevent the end of civilisation. Bum grapes are not beautiful. They throb and they can burst when you push the baby out. At least I had almost stopped being randomly sick. In my line of work, I had dealt with a fair few pregnant patients over the years, done my stint of delivering babies on labour ward (no one tells you about the excessive blood or poo), but I had always known, like a man, that this was never going to be part of my life experience. I would not grow a human being inside me. I would not give birth.

Well, I was now, and it was nothing like I had anticipated, even though I had medical experience in the matter. Some things you can only know when they happen to you. Driving is a thing you can imagine if you don’t drive. Let’s be clear, growing a baby is not like driving…

‘What’s all this?’ Louise cried at seven-thirty as she wandered into the kitchen wrapped in her dressing gown, her hair sticking up on one side.

‘A pre-holiday breakfast. We need to stock up so we don’t have to stop for lunch.’

‘Oh, ye of little knowledge of travelling with children. They will want lunch before we have made it ten minutes down the South Circular. Let this holiday be a giant learning curve for you on the realities of having children in your life for ever. Have you seen the size of the snack bag? It’s as big as a Smart Car.’

All things considered, breakfast was a success and performed its distraction duty admirably. I managed to grill bacon without the fat spitting all over the oven door, the scrambled egg didn’t set like rubber, and the croissant crumbs refrained from ricocheting across the border into the food exclusion zone. We were hoping to leave at ten-thirty so that by the time we arrived, we could check into our house. All we needed was to get through this day unscathed. Then the post arrived.

‘Aunty Christa, the postman’s here!’ Gemma yelled out from her station at the window, poking her fingers through