Silence followed this strange pronouncement before James rescued everyone.
‘Sam is tall. Long babies are tough. Let’s eat!’
Throughout the meal, Ali was bombarded by thoughts clamouring for her attention. On the one side, Sam was there. He came! He barely answered her text messages these days, but he came to this weird dinner party. He wasn’t exactly looking at her with affection; he wasn’t looking at her full stop. But still, he was suffering the slightly awkward boobfest at the dinner table. And she swore she saw his eyes widen when he spotted the tiny bump that was starting to pop under her Spice Girls tee shirt. Sam was an emoter and she was certain he wouldn’t be able to maintain this cold front for much longer.
Across from Ali, meanwhile, Nella was in full flow about the daily torture of motherhood. Not exactly the most soothing thing to hear as the baby bounced in her belly. Nella was on full whinge-binge about how hard everything was with kids and it was starting to feel like exposure therapy to Ali – she’d seen a Netflix doc all about how they exposed people to their phobias to cure them, but more often than not it was even more traumatic. She could HARD relate.
‘It’s not the constant demands,’ Nella went on, completely ignoring Anish looking glum at the far end of the table. ‘It’s just the whole talk, talk, talking. I swear Anish hasn’t paused for a breath since he turned five. And I wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t such mindless stuff! And it’s not like they’re making memories. He won’t remember if I’m hanging on his every word or not.’
Oh God, the poor kid. Ali cringed. Someone shut her up, she willed.
‘I always remember my mum listening,’ Sam said quietly. ‘She’d stop whatever she was doing and sit down on the floor to be at my level and she always seemed so into whatever I was thinking about at the time. Space or dinosaurs or whatever.’
‘Well, no offence, Sam, but they were different times. Your mum probably didn’t have to work, and women had so much more support back then,’ Nella snapped.
Ali could see Sam open his mouth then close it again, obviously debating whether to correct her. When he looked away and shrugged, Ali decided to do it for him.
‘Actually, Sam’s mum was a nurse and she didn’t have Sam’s dad around, Nella.’
‘Oh, Sam, that’s so hard,’ Meera swooped. ‘She must be so strong to have weathered all that. And in the nineties. Different times.’
Oh shite. Ali hadn’t intended to throw Sam under the ‘now you have to talk about your dead mother’ bus. He glared at her and cocked an eyebrow, as if to say ‘Happy now?’ Damn. And right when she was sure they were making some kind of progress. She threw a helpless glance at Liv, who mobilised immediately.
‘Isn’t anyone going to ask me the Sad Single Person questions? Usually, I’d have got at least four “any romance lately?”s by now,’ she heroically cut in, throwing herself to the ‘interrogate the single person’ wolves.
The whole table turned to Liv. Even the baby paused in his boob-chugging to look towards his aunt.
‘Well?’ James was eager. ‘New development to report?’
Now put on the spot, Liv shifted uncomfortably. She clearly hadn’t thought this far ahead.
‘Em, I’ve been on a new app, SCISSR, which everyone is saying is way more queer-friendly. And, yeah, I might go on some dates soon. If I get matched.’
‘Liv. That’s hardly newsworthy.’ Nella was scathing. ‘You’re such a third-born, anything to get attention. I was talking about my real problems and you somehow feel the need to cut across with your non-existent love life—’ She was cut off by Aziz beginning to howl in her arms and Ali couldn’t help but laugh. Fair play, baby, you shut her up. Nella picked up her boob and stuffed it unceremoniously back in the baby’s mouth. He looked momentarily surprised and then resumed his rhythmic gulping.
‘I can’t even get my words out with these things suctioned onto me around the clock, Mummy,’ she wailed to Meera.
‘I know, sweetheart, it is so, so hard for you.’ Meera was soothing, though to Ali, Nella sounded like a brat. She was thirty-six and telling on her own kids to her mum.
Christ, if Nella was finding it so hard, what was it going to be like for Ali?
‘I found my babies awakened new depths in me spiritually,’ Meera announced. ‘But every woman’s journey is different. Just as Ali’s will be.’ She smiled encouragingly at Ali and Ali sensed she was trying to communicate with her. The smile said ‘Don’t listen to my highly strung daughter. You’ll be alright.’ And Ali tried to believe it. She caught her mother’s eyes flicking over to her. They had barely spoken about the baby, though Mini kept up a constant refrain of ‘I’ll support you in any way I can.’
In the early weeks, Ali knew what Mini meant by that was ‘I’ll support you when you get the abortion’, but as the pregnancy continued, Ali got the sense that Mini’s support did not.
Mini clearly hadn’t anticipated ‘her support’ coming to mean ‘I’ll support you keeping this cursed child of a social media hoax.’
‘And how does SCISSR work, Liv? D’ya remember you scissored once, Meer? At an orgy in ’82.’ James had a look of fond remembrance and both Liv and Nella winced.
‘No scissor chat, please, Dad,’ Liv implored. ‘There’s actually someone I like, not on the app. A real-life person, who I’m thinking of asking out.’
‘That’s fab, sweets,’ Meera trilled. ‘What’s their name?’
‘Amy. She’s working with Ali on her Instagram things and she’s really cool. I’m going to be interviewing her for a chapter of the thesis.’
Shite, Ali thought, spotting Sam’s reaction to the mention of Insta and the dreaded thesis. They still had so much to talk about. Everything with the pregnancy announcement was set and she’d be making her return to the Insta-fray in a matter of days. She had to get him on his own.
After dinner and lengthy goodbyes, they all made their way out into the evening, which was balmy for May. She hung back, letting Liv and Mini go ahead to the car. Sam’s hands were dug into his pockets, and even in the navy shadows of the car park, Ali could see him stealing glances at her bump. It had finally started to pop, and she’d had to leave the top of her leather skirt open just under the swell of her belly.
‘You’re getting a little roundier,’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ Ali agreed quietly, careful not to push it. She felt that the moment was fragile. They hadn’t spoken properly in over a month, just terse WhatsApp updates, but here finally was undeniable proof that they were bound together forever. ‘I’m starting to feel it move a bit. It’s amazing.’
‘Wow, that must be freaky.’ He looked around awkwardly, clearly unsure of where to go with this strange interlude.
‘It is, seriously.’ She relaxed a little. This was good. He was talking to her. Sort of.
‘What did you mean when you said you were still doing Instagram stuff?’
Well, that lasted about two seconds. Ali sighed inwardly.
‘I’m doing one last sponsored post. Amy Donoghue’s helping me, like Liv said. Do you remember her? You probably met her at one of the Insta events a few months ago?’