Having his baby when he doesn’t want me to feels wrong. I do not wish to bring a baby into the world with no father …
What was my fourth reason? I couldn’t remember. What was it?
‘Anna Temple!’ I heard. I stood up. ‘You’ll be going down to the ward next,’ said the nurse, ‘but first go to the locker room, take everything off, put your belongings in a locker, put on a paper gown and wait.’ I did as I was told. Then, clutching the back of the gown, which felt uncomfortably breezy and exposed, I sat down with two other women in the waiting area. I felt suddenly self-conscious about my bare feet. The polish on my toes was chipped and there was a ridge of hard skin on my heels. But the thought of prettifying my feet in preparation for an abortion made me feel even more sick than I already did.
I picked up a leaflet about contraception so that I wouldn’t have to catch the eye of either of the other two women who were waiting with me.
‘Anna Temple?’ said another female voice now, after what seemed like a week but was probably twenty minutes.
I followed the doctor down the draughty corridor into a cubicle.
‘OK,’ she said as her eyes scanned my form. ‘We’ll just run through a few things before I perform the procedure.’
‘Could you tell me how it works,’ I said.
‘Well, it’s quite simple,’ she replied pleasantly. I noticed a speculum lying on a metal tray on the trolley next to her and some syringes in their wrappers. ‘You’ll be given a local anaesthetic, into the cervix, and once that has worked, the cervix is gently stretched open, and a thin plastic tube is then inserted into the uterus, and the conceptus …’
‘Conceptus?’
‘That’s right. Will be eliminated from the uterus.’
‘The conceptus will be eliminated from the uterus,’ I echoed.
My head was spinning. I closed my eyes. I was ten weeks pregnant. The ‘conceptus’ was over an inch long. It had a heart that had been beating for five weeks now – a heart that had suddenly sparked into life. It had limb buds, which were sprouting tiny fingers and toes, which themselves had even tinier nails. It had a recognisably human little face, with nostrils and eyelids; it even had the beginnings of teeth …
The doctor began to tear the wrapper off a syringe. ‘If you could just hop up on to the bed here …’
I stood up. ‘I need to go.’
She looked at me. ‘You need to go?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, there’s a bathroom at the back, by the fire exit.’
‘No,’ I said weakly. ‘That’s not what I mean. I need to go as in “leave”. I can’t do this. I don’t know how I thought I could. It’s … not the right thing – at least, not for me. My boyfriend – ex-boyfriend now – doesn’t want me to go ahead. And when I told him I was pregnant he was very upset, and he said that a child has the right to be born into a stable family unit with two parents to love it, and that may very well be true. But now I’m here I realise that more important than that, a child has a right to be born.’
She looked at me. ‘So you’ve changed your mind?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry,’ I added, as though I thought she might be disappointed.
‘That’s quite all right.’ She sighed. ‘You’re not the first.’ She crossed my name off the list and gave me something to sign. ‘Good luck,’ she said as I left.
I retrieved my clothes from the locker and got dressed, and walked past reception, not even telling the nurse on duty that I was going, not asking – or even caring – whether I’d get my money back.
I didn’t wait for the lift but ran down the five flights of stairs and stood outside the building for a moment, inhaling deeply, feeling my heart rate gradually slow. Then I went next door into the bookshop, found the parenthood section, pulled out a copy of What to Expect when You’re Expecting and took it to the counter.
‘I’m going to have a baby,’ I said.
* * *
I sent Xan a long e-mail that night, explaining my decision.
He wrote back one sentence: I will never forgive you for doing this.
I hit Reply: I will never forgive myself if I don’t.
The next morning I drove down to see my father.
‘Well …’ he said after a moment, as we sat at the kitchen table. ‘This is a … surprise, Anna. I can’t deny it.’ He was shaking his head in bewildered disappointment, as though I’d just had an unexpectedly poor school report.
‘I hope you don’t disapprove,’ I said in the awkward silence that followed. ‘I don’t really see why you should,’ I went on, ‘because first of all loads of women go it alone these days, and secondly the same thing happened to you and Mum.’
I saw a look almost of alarm cross Dad’s face, but he and Mum had always glossed over their shotgun wedding; absurdly, I’d thought, given that it had been screamingly obvious that she was two months pregnant with Mark when she got married.
‘Sorry, Dad,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to embarrass you.’ There was another silence in which I found myself wondering whether he and Mum had had terrible rows about her unplanned pregnancy, or whether Dad had just accepted that he should do the ‘right’ thing.
‘I’m sorry,’ I repeated. ‘But I’m just so … upset.’
‘It’s OK,’ I heard him murmur.
‘And I’m acutely aware that I’m in the same position as Mum was thirty-five years ago. But she was lucky – because she had you. And you didn’t abandon her, or berate her – like Xan has done with me. You just dealt with it, then made a happy life with her’ – my throat was aching – ‘for nearly forty years ’til death did you part. And although it may sound strange to be envious of one’s own parents, I am envious of you and Mum.’ I felt my eyes fill. ‘Because I know your sort of happiness is not to be my lot.’
What you need is a hardy perennial.
‘I’m going to bring up this child on my own. It’s not what I would have hoped for.’ I felt a tear slide down my cheek. ‘It’s going to be lonely, and hard.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Dad said, handing me his hanky. ‘But it’s going to be a joy too – because children are; and when they come along, I believe that you just have to accept it.’ He looked out of the window.
‘What are you thinking?’ I asked quietly.
‘I’m thinking that maybe this new life has started because your mother’s ended.’
I felt the hairs on my neck stand up.
I’ve got the peculiar feeling that I was meant to meet you.
‘Yes,’ I murmured. ‘Maybe it is …’
Dad put his hand on mine. ‘You won’t be on your own, Anna. I’ll help you, darling. So will Cassie.’
I doubted that Cassie would help in the slightest – but she was at least thrilled by my news. ‘I’m delighted,’ she said when I phoned her that night and told her that she was going to be an aunt. ‘Good on you, Anna! Congratulations!’
‘Well, thanks,’ I said, genuinely touched by her enthusiasm. ‘But can I just repeat that I’m not with the father – Xan. He’s gone to Indonesia. He doesn’t want to know about the baby. He didn’t want me to have it. He’s effectively abandoned me and I’m extremely upset.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Cassie said matter-of-factly. ‘I heard you say all that.’
‘Then