“When’s it due?”
“March!” I said. Realized, now with my pregnancy public, I had started to feel not so much like Her Majesty the Queen, but like an air hostess, only with human head attached to elephant’s body, saying same thing to one person after another with fixed grin.
“When’s it due?”
“March. Thank you for flying with us,” I said, distractedly.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” said the cashier as she rang up my shopping and I fumbled to get my credit card out of my purse.
“Boy, two years’ time. It’s an elephant,” I said, sliding my card into the machine and adding, “Can I have fifty pounds cash back, please?”
“Just enter your PIN.”
I stared blankly at the cashier.
“Just pop your PIN in here.”
People in the queue behind me were starting to mutter things.
“Pregnant women! Forget everything!”
“I think it’s a girl, she’s carrying lopsided.”
“Do you think she’s all right?”
“Look,” said the cashier. “Get on with it.”
“I can’t remember my PIN.”
Started jabbing different numbers frantically. My birthday? Nope. My actual weight and my ideal weight? Nope. The baby had eaten the part of my brain with the PIN in it.
“She’s firing blanks,” said the man behind me.
Firing blanks. Firing blanks.
“Have you got another card?”
“No,” I said, fumbling in my wallet for cash: nothing but a 50p coin. “Don’t suppose you do credit?” I gabbled. “I’m a regular customer. I’m very trustworthy. I used to work for the TV—Sit Up Britain?”
“Sorry.”
I shouldn’t have told her it was an elephant.
—
Firing blanks. That’s what Daniel said to Mark after the childbirthing class, when Mark was so angry and I went off in the taxi. Suddenly remembered looking back at the two of them, through the taxi’s rear window. I saw Daniel saying something intently to Mark, then Mark stormed off. Something happened. It was after that conversation, the same night, when Mark sent me the letter.
I took out my phone, right there in Tesco Metro, and dialled.
“Daniel?”
“Yes, Jones. I’m about to do an interview about The Poetics of Time for the most important arts programme in Monaco. But what may I help you with?”
“You know after the childbirthing class?”
“I do know after it, yes, Jones.”
“What did you say to Mark?”