Page 47 of The F*cking Fabulous Forties Club

‘Like, the age of me now and I fall pregnant? Like some stupid wee schoolgirl who doesn’t know better. Oh God, Becca, by the time the child turns thirteen, I’ll be sixty! It was bad enough when I had Fiadh and I was the oldest by far on the maternity ward. The looks I got from some of the young ones, as if I was encroaching on their rich and fertile lands. I’m old enough to be a granny, for the love of God. I can’t do sleepless nights and breastfeeding and all that potty training shite again. I just can’t.’ She dissolves into a flurry of tears.

‘What does Paul say?’ I ask.

She shakes her head and I swear if Paul Cassidy has made my friend feel worse than she already did I will perform a vasectomy on him myself, with a pair of pliers and my kitchen scissors.

‘I haven’t told him,’ she sniffs. ‘I don’t know how. He’s started talking about how he’s looking forward to retiring. How the both of us could maybe look at going early. We’d have our teachers’ pensions to back us up and we could get wee part-time, stress-free jobs if we needed. Or we could just, you know, start living a wee bit. He says the boys are nearly old and wise enough to be trusted with Fiadh so we could even go away the odd weekend. If I tell him that’s not going to happen, I’m actually afraid it might break him. His blood pressure is on the high side anyway.’

‘But you have to tell him,’ I say. ‘I mean, it’s his baby too and he’s bound to find out sooner or later.’

‘I know, I know,’ she says. ‘I’m just so ashamed. And I’m scared too. Things go wrong with older mothers. There’s a higher chance the baby could have problems too.’

‘Do you think you might not want to go through with it?’ I ask, my voice soft and low. I know that Niamh, like me, is pro-choice. We campaigned for abortion to be decriminalised in the North of Ireland and were delighted when it finally was in 2019. But we also grew up in the eighties and nineties and went to Catholic schools where there were entire RE lessons on the evil of abortion and where we were encouraged to wear badges of tiny little silver feet to represent the size of a foetus. It was drummed into us that it was a sin to end a life and that life begins at conception. We were taught this with religious fervour and like most girls then, we bought into it. While our views may have changed in the intervening years, the guilt and the fear of judgement still lives in our psyche.

Niamh just bursts into tears again. ‘I don’t know. Is that awful? I don’t know. I don’t know if I can go through with it. Physically or mentally. You remember how tough I found pregnancy with Fiadh – how I thought I was losing my mind? She was worth it, of course she was, but I don’t know if I could go through it all again and still come out the other end smiling.’

I pull her close to me, using all my strength not to yelp in pain as my body reminds me of my tumble. ‘Sweetheart, we’ll get through this. You’ll get through this. You don’t have to have all the answers today. We’ll get through it one step at a time,’ I soothe. On her other side, Daniel has noted her distress and is nudging her with his nose to indicate that she may hug him if she wishes. He can be very generous with his affections like that. Of course, Niamh finds him irresistible and messes with his fur, pulling his soft, warm body close to hers. She allows him to lick the tears from her face even though she normally says letting animals lick you anywhere is ‘rancid’. ‘They lick their arses then want to give you a kiss! No thank you, Rebecca! They can keep their bum slabbers to themselves,’ she would say.

I use Daniel’s affection towards Niamh as a distraction to allow me the chance to try and get to my feet. It’s not something I’m looking forward to. I know it’s going to hurt but at the same time I know it has to be done. I take a deep breath and slowly pull myself to standing, a burning pain coursing from my tailbone both up my spine and down my legs. I half expect my legs to buckle under me if the truth be told.

Letting out a howl so loud it sets Daniel off into another barking frenzy – right in Niamh’s face – I wonder how a weekend that started so nicely for all of us has ended so absolutely awfully.

‘I need to lie down somewhere soft,’ I say and Niamh lets me lean on her as I step over the scattered tinsel and baubles and into my bedroom.

‘Thank you,’ I say, my voice just a little hoarse with emotion.

‘No need to thank me, now what else can I do to help?’ she asks, sniffing and lifting the packet of make-up wipes from my dressing table to clean her face of dog slobber.

‘I’m supposed to be helping you,’ I mutter as I gingerly lie down on the bed, no longer feeling as if my body fits in the well-worn dips and grooves. I try to roll onto my side.

‘Yes, but I’m not the one in pain right now. What can I get you to help?’

‘Hot water bottle,’ I stammer. ‘In the cupboard on the left in the utility room. Beside the medicine box. There’s Deep Heat. And ibuprofen. And a glass of water. Then I promise we can talk more about you.’

‘Okay,’ she says, and I can see her slip into helper mode. The can-do attitude is back now that she has something to focus on other than being pregnant. I wonder why she didn’t mention anything yesterday. Maybe she hadn’t tested yet. Or maybe she was just trying to wrap her head around it. I feel awful, and a little put out if the truth be told, that she didn’t talk to me about it. I have been by her side through every pregnancy and pregnancy scare of her life before now. I have sat on the edge of her bath while she peed on a stick to find out she was pregnant with Cal. She was the first person I told when I found out I was pregnant with the twins. Simon still doesn’t know that to this very day, but it was always going to be Niamh who knew first because we are so completely immersed in each other’s lives, it just felt natural.

My back twinges as I stretch again, and I let out another howl. That only attracts Daniel once more who springs onto the bed with no consideration whatsoever of the pain he might cause with all his jigging about. He’s too busy being absolutely delighted with himself at having found a new toy, in the shape of Niamh’s Superdrug bag, to play with.

‘Daniel! Let go!’ I say, reaching out to retrieve it from his clamped jaws. ‘That’s not yours. It’s not a toy!’ Daniel, however, thinks I’m very much mistaken and it is a toy – one that he can enjoy a lovely game of tug of war with.

Who would’ve thought that a bruised arse would make a simple game of tug of war with a plastic carrier bag so intensely painful. It takes considerable effort, and a smattering of my foulest but most effective swear words before I pull the bag so hard it shreds through this teeth and the contents are flung all over the bed.

As if I’ve not been injured enough, I am hit square in the face by a rectangular cardboard box. As I bat away it, grateful it hasn’t taken my eye out, I’m surprised to see it’s a pregnancy test.

An unopened pregnancy test. This seems very strange.

‘Niamh,’ I call out.

‘Hang on, I’m on my way,’ I hear her shout as I try and gather the remaining items from her now well and truly murdered shopping bag. There’s a second, also unopened, pregnancy test. One of the fancy digital ones this time. There’s also some haemorrhoid cream and I don’t know if it’s for her or for Paul but I make the decision that some things are best left unknown. For now, I just need to focus on the big issue at hand – the case of the mysterious pregnancy testing kits.

My best friend appears at my door with a glass of water in one hand and a hot water bottle in the other. ‘I have some co-codamol in my bag if you want to take that instead of ibuprofen,’ she says. ‘Maybe you need the hard stuff today?’

I am, in this moment, intensely grateful for my friend’s drug stashing habit. ‘Yes please.’ I nod. ‘Give me the strongest you have.’

She helps me get nice and comfy to take my painkillers before she lies on the bed beside me – on the side usually reserved for Daniel or, many moons ago, Simon.

When she is settled, I speak again. ‘Niamh,’ I say. ‘I’m very sorry – Daniel decided your shopping bag made for a great toy.’

‘It’s okay. I forgive him,’ she says. ‘Did you know I was going to pour myself a gin and tonic when I was downstairs and then I remembered that I can’t drink and it has disproportionately upset me.’

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