- The continuing trials of an accidental mother -
This week The Scent of Love...
In sensory overdrive, I was assaulted by the stench of the Great British public. Returning home from teaching a creative writing class, the light of the Tube was shrill to the eye and I, bombarded by an array of noxious smells wafting through the carriage. The most offensive was cheap perfume with a heavy note of alcohol, alcohol with a heavy note of halitosis, closely followed by mixed spices and stale sweat. It was as if the volume on each of my senses was on maximum. I could almost decipher someone's mood as it effused from his or her pores.
Buses were worse. They stank of depression, stale make up, testosterone and old age. It made me sick. Feeling nauseous was becoming more pronounced. Ye olde Morning sickness came in waves, irrespective of time. Thankfully, I had not yet, succumbed to the porcelain bowel. Interpreting nausea as a sign to eat, I did just that. Dry biscuits or some small thing worked to quell the ebb and flow and settle my stomach.
The Tube rattled along the tracks till it hit a particular stretch and then shrieked - fingernails along a blackboard to my ears, which tingled and I winced eager for the time to pass so I could alight. I had been thinking about something the Ex said in Cambridge.
I love the smell of my Ex. I recalled our first kiss, a chaste enough affair but still close enough to catch a whiff and know I was on to a good thing. Having published a book on the Kiss I totally believe, as research bears out, one can sniff out a potential mate. Women use kissing as an assessment device whereas men use it to determine how lucky they will get - supposing the moistness of a women's upper lips mirror those of her lower....
So to Cambridge - where we met to discuss the situation. We found a nice enough restaurant and once comfortably ensconced began our 'talk'. The mood was measured, a layer of protective 'distance' suppressing for (my part at least) immense excitement and dread. Niceties were brief, our orders taken and then my Ex posed, in as polite a manner as possible, if he was definitely and unequivocally the father of this unexpected pregnancy.
It had been almost a month since we had seen each other.
"What have you been up to?" He wondered, "Been out at all? Any parties?"
I blushed that such aspersions were cast upon my character and maiden reputation.
Except...
I had been out just the weekend before. Unaware and oblivious of my 'condition' I had even downed a few vodkas. Nothing I couldn't comfortably manage and I had, dare I admit, also indulged in a sneaky puff on the fire stick, practise you understand for my anticipated French adventure.
A friend I hadn't seen in an age had called over and we had spent the first hour deriding the men who had most recently failed us, the following hour we moved on to deriding men in general and then decided to go out into the night to hunt down fresh prey. My hunting skills were rusty. My kill for the night amounted to nothing more than a sequence of numbers. However, the thing was he called.
"I haven't been with anyone," the Ex declared over lunch.
"No me neither."
Should I feel guilty because a person called me and asked me out for coffee?
"There was one girl but nothing happened," my Ex continued.
Should I feel guilty because a person called me and asked me out for coffee and I said yes?
"Honestly nothing happened," my Ex stressed the word nothing. "Stupid of me to say anything. Sorry. What about you?"
I can't believe I actually feel guilty because I went for a coffee with a person in the afternoon, for half an hour and absolutely nothing happened.
"It was just a coffee,"I blurted out.
"What are you talking about it?" He asked.
"Nothing."
"This baby better not come out black."
Oh, my god the person I had coffee with was black... Jeez and I seriously question whether one can get pregnant from a beverage.
Over lunch we discussed the concept of having a baby together. Our instincts seem to be in synch and the situation though scary, (we only met six months ago) for want of verb 'smelled' good. We finished our lunch and then my Ex asked if I wanted to go back to the hotel for a coffee.
"I'm not sure, I've rather gone off caffeine what with the pregnancy."
"Oh, really..." he said a tad dejected.
"Yeah even the thought of it is..." I shuddered, "Disturbing."
He held my coat open so I could slip my arms into the sleeves; close behind me I caught an irresistible whiff of him.
"Then again," I said, buttoning up my coat, "I could probably manage one."
TO BE CONTINUED...
In the deep, deep depths a most industrious production continues...
Since last week the embryo has doubled in size and is now of tadpole stature, about 8mm long. A heartbeat is discernable at between 100-130 beats per minute as blood begins to circulate. Arms and legs begin to bud. Brain waves are detectable from day 40 as brain tissues grow rapidly. Eyes begin to take shape and have already started to darken with pigment.