and then a quick hang up. I don’t go for hour long conversations about what I’ve been thinking about for the last half hour or anything like that.
Later on I could hear Alison upstairs; she was talking to her belly. I’m not one for calling people mental, but really, I’m not sure whoever it is in there is going to be able to understand English when they’re only seventeen weeks old. Surely it takes a bit longer and besides, she already told me that it didn’t matter that my dad used to make monkey noises as I couldn’t understand.
I suppose it does bring her closer to the baby and cuts down on the chances of her going all crazy and killing it. There’s been a few things in the news recently about mothers who get so depressed after birth that they harm their babies, so if talking to her belly helps then, regardless of how silly I think it is, I’m going to support her.
By making monkey noises.
Tuesday May 1st 2012
Alison woke me up this morning; the baby was kicking her and she wanted me to see it. Yes, SEE it. The bumps were huge. The baby must be really going mad in there and wanting to get out. It was like seeing someone locked in a sleeping bag trying to find their way out.
I’ve seen it twice today and Alison has taken to sitting with her iPhone ready, waiting for it to happen, so she can film it. So far she’s missed it as she doesn’t actually know how to use the camcorder function on the phone and by the time she’s shouted me across to make it work the baby has stopped kicking.
Wednesday May 2nd 2012
I was at work when the video of the belly moving came through, God knows how much it cost to send a video via text, and I just know she hasn’t sent it to just me. I instantly checked Facebook to make sure she hadn’t uploaded it there. I don’t want my baby all over the Internet before it’s even alive. Alison is one of these people who doesn’t mind posting what she’s had for dinner on the Internet. I’ve looked at her page and all her mates coo around a plate of food, saying things like, ‘Ooh, I love carrots,’ and stuff like that. It’s not something I do. All I’ve ever used Facebook for is the games (God damn Candy Crush) and for stalking down girls from school to see if they’re ugly yet. Thankfully she hasn’t posted it online.
I have to say though, it was a good video.
Sunday May 6th 2012
It’s been in the back of my mind for a while, but as tomorrow is the day we find out the sex of the baby, I’ve been thinking about the sexes more and more. A girl should be OK for most of her childhood before all the worry comes in during her teens, whereas a boy, by all accounts, will be an utter nightmare from the word go. I’m not sure if I can handle a boy. I know I’ve been keen on a little me, but now I’ve read up about it, it’s a worry.
I think the uncertainty is the biggest thing that’s played on my mind. I’m glad that, all being well, tomorrow we’ll both know what the next few years are going to be like.
10.00 p.m.
I’m to and fro on the girl/boy thing. It’s like I have scales of opinion in my head and they’re moving about like there’s a couple of Sumo wrestlers on each side jumping up and down. One minute I am thinking how great it will be to have a son, then I’m switching to how much hard work it will be.
I need to sleep.
Monday May 7th 2012
It’s a boy. I can’t believe it; I was right. I might even have to start calling myself ‘mystic Graham’. I did the obligatory two arms in the air celebration when the midwife, who could speak full English this time, told us she could see the penis, or, as she called it, ‘winky’ My celebration was perhaps a little self-indulgent, a point that I noted when Alison started to cry. It’s her own fault for buying so many pink items and claiming to have a ‘mother’s instinct’, although I felt it probably wasn’t the time for pointing this out.
The baby wasn’t moving around as much today as he had done at the last scan. He did seem to bat away the scope that was prodding him, though. I think I’d do that, too, if someone was prodding me as I tried to sleep. So he’s just like his dad already.
As we left, I asked for a photo, I’ve seen hundreds of them on Facebook and had people shoving them in my face, expecting me to be as interested in their little blob as they are, but no one has ever mentioned that they cost five quid. Per print. Can you believe that? I mean, I don’t even think Polaroids were that expensive back in the day when that was the only form of instant camera. That they charge that price for a print in the day and age of camera phones is shocking! (You’re not allowed to use camera phones in the room they show you the ultrasound in, as apparently it interferes with the equipment, which is a lie as I had mine on and the equipment was fine. I wonder if they had a lie to roll out about not using them in the ultrasound room?)
I begrudgingly paid the five pounds for a print, then Alison made me spend another ten pounds on getting one each for both sets of grandparents. I could have bought a digital camera for that price. I know we have to pay for prescriptions, and although I disagree with it as I’ve paid taxes and National Insurance, we do it because if you’re lucky it isn’t that much … but for the photos of your first baby? You’d think a bit of tax money would go towards that. I wonder if they’d still charge you if they needed the print of it; if it did have Down’s syndrome or something, would the fee still apply? Probably, knowing this crooked bunch of bastards. The prints aren't even that good. There is no choice of size. It’s small or small, no frames, just a shitty little envelope with a picture of a cartoon elephant on it. If we were fatties I could sue for that. Defamatory, that’s what I’d say it was. I asked Alison if my nose was big enough for someone to get away with calling me an elephant as an insult, but she said that piglet would be a better one. I stopped thinking about the daylight robbery that had just happened and started to wonder how ‘piglet’ had come out of Alison’s mouth so quickly.
In the car on the way home Alison asked me if I was going to get a real job soon. When I asked her what she meant, she said that she didn’t really envisage her child growing up with a parent that washed plates for a living and, regardless of me reminding her that I only did this on a Friday to get out of cleaning the fryer and frying the fish, she did have a point. Up until now, I’ve just done the easiest job that requires the least amount of qualifications for the most money that I can find. I don’t want my son being at school on the day they ask everyone what their dad does for a living and him having to stand up and say I cook bacon or load a dishwasher. It’s hardly the sort of place that I’d even want to take him into for the day, to have a look at where Daddy works. Meeting Boris is only something you should have to do if you’re getting paid for it at. No one deserves having him inflict his breath on them for free. It’s bad enough on minimum wage.
Surprisingly, I didn’t find myself arguing with Alison about the job, which I would have done if I hadn’t just had the experience of seeing my son. I agreed with her and we moved on to have what I think is the most grown up conversation I’ve ever had. Alison asked me what I enjoyed doing. Which stumped me for a bit, so she asked me what I didn’t enjoy doing, which didn’t stump me at all. I started out by listing every single little job that I had to do in my current role, I surprised even myself with how much I seemed to hate the job I’m in now.
‘Why do you do it when you clearly hate it so much?’ Alison asked, not unreasonably.
‘No one likes their job,’ I told her. ‘They just do it for the money.’
‘That’s not true, I love my job,’ she replied.
‘Is that a lie?’ I asked. Alison went on to inform me that she loved her job. Or at least she does when she’s there. I knew they all used to go out for drinks in her last job, but I thought it was something they were forced to do. We never go out for drinks together. Boris doesn’t need the excuse of ‘being out’ to drink, he does it at work. Jane is now on my list for the person I’d be least likely to talk to if I ever saw her anywhere other than work. I kind of have to talk to her there, but if I was given the option I’d cut out even that. And
the rest of the kitchen team struggle with basic human communication and either grunt and point, or in the case of the chef, scream and throw whatever is closest whenever they need something.
We talked about what I could do instead, Alison asked me to pick the one thing I would like to do if I could do anything, and suggested that I don’t think about the training or qualification element, just name my dream job.
‘Easy,’ I said, ‘managing a homeless hostel.’
It’s true, I did want to do that. I used to be friends with a homeless guy. When I was waiting for my bus home I always used to talk to him. He used to sit on the bench outside the bus station and that’s where I’d have my last cigarette before I went inside to jump on the last bus home. Jerry was his name, he used to tell me about his life before he ended up on the street. He’d been in the navy, then working in a local council somewhere, I can’t remember where, then one day he came home from work and his wife had left him, took his two children with her and moved to France with a man that used to work in Boots.
Things went downhill for Jerry after that. He stopped going to work. Didn’t tell anyone, just stopped going, then the drinking started, which moved on to drinking things