Greta: So tell me something from the world of publishing. Tell me a celebrity scandal. Make it up if you don’t know any. But don’t tell me you’ve made it up.
Me: I’m pregnant?
Greta: No no no, the tabloids will never care about that. Something about someone actually famous.
Me: I … am?
Greta: No – are you really? Well that, Katherine Carlow, is a nice treat.
Me: Thanks. Do you want to deliver it?
Greta: Noooooo. No, I do not. Do you want me to ask you lots of things about it?
Me: No, I don’t really. But is it going to be a wedge that will come between our new friendship? Are we going to grow apart because the baby has come between us? Is it going to be weird?
Greta: Only if you make me catch it in the maternity ward. Otherwise: couldn’t care less. In the nicest possible way. But I’m pleased for you.
Me: Understood.
So we didn’t talk about it, and I was happy. See? A relationship undefined by this pregnancy! I don’t need everyone to sing and dance about it. Joy!
Which means it is just Eve’s reaction that bothers me.
TO DO:
Pump Greta later to find out if she really doesn’t care, or if she just doesn’t care because she totally hates babies, like any sane person, and will thus never want to see me again after May
December 14th
Seven months pregnant, Lucie Martel has defied her weeping doctor’s advice to fly over for some pre-publicity stuff, and to meet with all of us. For that alone, I suppose, I have to respect her. I’m already feeling slightly nervous just being away from my bed, but Thom says that’s a latent tendency that’s purely been verbalised with the pregnancy. Rude.
I met Lucie over breakfast at the Charlotte Street Hotel, where she ordered a decaf espresso. I must have been staring at her a little, because she laughed and said, ‘Pathetic, isn’t it? Like ordering a meat-free steak. But it helps to cling to these little things somehow.’ She seemed nice, by which I mean normal, by which I mean she acknowledged that pregnancy seems to be just a desperate battle to cling on to life as it was beforehand.
Since Tony had already negotiated her contract earlier this year, we were free to talk about her publicity, any marketing we might offer, the bookshop deals we were looking at and how long she’d be over in the UK after the baby’s birth.
Lucie: I’m afraid I can only offer you four days for any publicity.
Me: Oh, OK. We thought you were over here for a month …?
Lucie: Well, three weeks, but I don’t think it’s fair to be working all that time when the baby is so young.
Me: No, OK, that’s great! So the baby will definitely be with you?
Lucie: [shocked] Absolutely. He’ll only be five weeks old when you publish over here, and I don’t think Bill will be ready to deal with his son for, what, eighteen to twenty years?
Me: [laughing] Of course, you know it’s a boy. That’s nice.
Lucie: Yes, Bill insisted on all the scans – we have a beautiful 4D scan of little Bill Jnr, that some nights I just watch over and over again. Do you have children?
Me: [choking slightly on my tea] Nope, no, no children. No children.
Lucie: Tick tock tick tock, you know! I see you’ve got a ring at least – how long have you been married?
Me: [gritting teeth] A few months.
Lucie: Well, don’t leave it too long. Do you know, Bill Jnr has already cost us almost $500,000? That’s because we were ‘waiting for the right time’. And that’s not including redeveloping his nursery, costs for the nanny, and any of his education.
Me: Jesus, I’d be hoping he comes out covered in gold for that money.
We both clearly had a mental image of exactly what I was suggesting and got very quiet. I suddenly thought, ‘If she walks out and refuses to do anything for us again, how I am going to tell Tony that I scared off my new author by encouraging her to push a metallic infant through her birth canal?’
Lucie shook her head and blinked, and said, ‘OK! What kind of publicity do you guys have in mind?’ I ran through the options we were chasing, women’s glossies and the weekend supplements, gave her the latest jacket options we were looking at and asked her to think about any pieces she might be writing for the US that we could use over here. Then I got the bill and got out of there, before I offered to cut her umbilical cord with my butter knife, or something.
And oh. Came home tonight to find a beautiful letterpress card from Eve, saying how pleased she and Mike are for us, with a tiny lobster holding hands with two huge lobsters on the front. Oh, Eve. I will really stop thinking the worst of you one day, really.
TO DO:
Consider whether I’m actually safe company for any antenatal group if I keep saying my grotesque birthing nightmares out loud
December 15th
My stomach has suddenly popped out. From spending ages each night standing in front of the mirror smoothing my t-shirt over a small curve (only there if you were looking), with Thom saying, ‘Stop bending your back,’ it has now – somehow overnight – become indisputably that of a pregnant. And I love it. I really do. For one thing, it means all those maternity clothes are finally beginning to fit a little better; for another, I now get a seat on the tube; for one more, it is just lovely. It has somehow lent my body proportions which suit it much better – with a small stomach curving out, I fit together perfectly, and my body just makes sense. So while I can’t grow a plant to save my life, I can grow a whole other human being. Amazing.
And yet, and yet … it’s novel, like wearing makeup for the first time, and I feel grown up. But when I consider what’s in there, what’s required of me both in that hospital room and for all the years of my life following, I can’t … breathe.
Me: Thom, what are we going to do?
Thom: About what?
Me: [patting the bed next to me] This baby.
Thom: [lying down beside me] I don’t know, Keeks. Is there anything that could make you feel better? Do you still feel sick?
Me: Hey, I don’t actually. That’s nice.
Thom: Why don’t you do some of that ‘get in touch with yourself’ rubbish you’d normally scoff at? Pregnancy yoga, or something? You can make some friends, lie in a quiet room and fall asleep …
Me: Well, that does sound nice.
Thom: And if I had been keeping my eye out for that kind of thing, I might have found out that there was a class round the corner every Thursday night, and I might have discovered that they have spaces and I might be willing to get those classes as a Christmas present if it’s anything that would make you feel better.
Me: My God. You’re such a … flower child.
Thom: [rubbing my head with fake soothing motion] I just think someone needs to do a little swimming in Lake Me?
Me: [laughing] No way, I know where you’ve been.
Thom: Katherine, you just need to connect to the life inside you.
Me: [serious] Oh. Don’t. Thom, this is so hard. I’m sorry to be ill, to be tired, to be hormonal –
Thom: Is it OK to say I quite like some of your hormones? [wiggling eyebrows]
Me: