Babyville Page 0,10
things he's never heard of. She had even once emerged with a selection of velvet scrunchies in assorted colors that she deemed irresistible. When she had short hair.
But he also knows that there are strict rules about the joint account. As independent creatures are wont to do these days, they keep their money separate. Julia has her account, from which she takes money for anything that doesn't involve Mark, and Mark has his. And then there is the joint account, generally used for household bills, restaurants, furniture, food shops, gifts for mutual friends, and holidays. Anything, that is, that involves both of them. Which doesn't include Boots. And, more to the point, how in the hell did she manage to spend nearly two hundred pounds there? What the hell has she been buying?
Julia has been buying pregnancy tests. She tries to resist them, but every month, in that run-up to her period, she gets what she has come to call her ClearBlue craving. Unfortunately one just doesn't supply her with the fix she needs.
She did manage to start off with one test. They always do. Nine months ago she bought one test five days before her period, right at the beginning when they were first trying. She took it round to Sam's amid much giggling.
“I really think it's too early,” Sam said.
“But if I'm pregnant, then my body might already be producing the hCG hormone, and if it is, then it might show.”
“But the packet says you have to wait until the first day of your period, and you haven't even got any of the symptoms.”
“I bloody have,” Julia said defiantly. “Look at the size of my breasts. They're enormous.”
“But your period's due in five days, and they're always enormous before your period,” Sam said, grinning.
“And”—Julia paused dramatically—“I've been running to the loo all night. I swear, my bladder's gone crazy.”
“You've always had the weakest bladder of anyone I know, but okay, okay. Point taken. Let's do it.”
Julia's face lit up. “Great! Can I borrow a glass?”
“What for?”
Julia read the instructions out loud to Sam. “‘Place the stick in mid-flow urine, or submerge in the urine.'” She missed the look of horror on Sam's face as she explained that she didn't trust the holding-it-in-the-stream method, just in case she missed.
“You're not bloody using one of my glasses for that!”
In the end they settled for the cap of Chris's deodorant bottle. “For God's sake, never ever tell him. I swear he'd divorce me for this.”
“Just rinse it out with bleach when I'm done with it,” Julia said, heading for the bathroom.
“I know, I know,” Sam shouted back as the door was closing. “What do you think I used for my test?”
The test was negative. So was the one she bought later that day. And the six she bought before her period started. At first it was her secret, but $13.95 is a hell of a lot of money to pay when you need around a dozen of these tests every month, and last month Julia decided that as they were trying for “their” baby, the tests should be “their” expense.
Naturally Mark doesn't know about the boxes of ClearBlue hidden under the piles of towels. Not that he'd mind them in principle—it's not like your parents discovering packets of the Pill in your bedside drawer when you're sixteen and you know they'd go up the wall—he'd just mind the amount that she's buying, because Mark is nothing if not a pragmatist. He would be horrified at Julia taking the test days before her period is due; at not following the instructions on the packet; at the impatience and extravagance of an addiction that he simply would not comprehend.
Mostly he would not understand because he doesn't understand Julia. The qualities that attracted him in the beginning are the very qualities that are pushing them apart now.
He loved her energy when they met. Loved her laugh, her ambition and unconventionality. He'd noticed her at work, had already made some inquiries before he dared approach her in the canteen, had already decided that somehow he would get to know her, touch her, be with her.
He'd pass her sometimes, in the hallway, talking intensely with one of her friends, and as he approached he'd stare at her, willing her to look up, to notice him, but she never did. Every day there would be a knock on the door from a love-struck researcher with a bad excuse, and he was never interested, because none of them