What's Yours Is Mine (14 page)

Tom keeps saying it's too early to get excited, but I can't help it. For the past five weeks, ever since we did the “baby dance,” as Susannah put it, with the turkey baster, I haven't been able to think about anything else. At night, I dream of cradles; by day, I scour the Internet, reading everything I can find on the subject of pregnancy. I know all the stages by heart. At seven weeks, webbed fingers and toes are poking out from your baby's hands and feet, his eyelids practically cover his eyes, and his “tail” is almost gone. The external genitals still haven't developed enough to reveal whether you're having a boy or a girl. Your baby is about the size of a kidney bean, and constantly moving, though you still can't feel it.

I realize I've driven Susannah half-mad with my pestering and checking up, but it'll all be worth it when our baby arrives healthy. I just have to keep her on the straight and narrow for another thirty-three weeks. Surely even Susannah can manage that?

The cab finally deposits us in Knightsbridge, having
taken us via Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, and the Royal Albert Hall, and I hand over a sum almost as outrageous as the one I just paid at the hospital. Susannah walks through the portals of the perfume department on the ground floor, and instantly lights up like a child in a sweetshop.

“This is awesome!” she exclaims. “Can I have a makeover?”

“Do you have any idea how many chemicals are in all these scents?” I demand, dragging her towards the lifts. “You really shouldn't even be using deodorant when you're pregnant.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“I can get you a herbal one,” I say earnestly, “or you can just use baking soda. It works really well, according to an article I read recently in
Vegan Views.
”

I suspect Susannah is about to deliver anatomically impossible instructions, when the lift doors open on the fourth floor.

“The toy department?” she says scathingly.

“The
Harrods
toy department,” I correct.

Even she is silenced when she glimpses the carousel in the center of the floor. Pandas and polar bears seven feet tall tower over us. Model trains skirt a miniature painted landscape the length of a swimming pool. On one side, rows and rows of dolls are lined up like a pink tulle regiment preparing to go over the top. On the other, Lamborghinis and Ferraris vie to be first off the grid. Gauze butterflies and model planes hang from the ceiling, while
in an alcove, a young man demonstrates some magical colored substance that expands into a series of bright balloons. A walkie-talkie doll the size of a three-year-old picks up a china teacup and offers Susannah tea. It's Aladdin's Cave, Father Christmas' Grotto, a glittering, seductive, tawdry Arab souk.

“Hello?” I tease. “Calling Planet Zee. Are you still with me?”

“Can we buy something?” Susannah demands breathlessly.

She looks like a small child. “What did you have in mind?”

“I don't know! Anything! A cuddly toy?”

I smile. “Pick one out.”

She disappears into a mountain of improbably colored plush fur and glass eyes, but returns with an old-fashioned dark blond teddy bear. “Look! It's Big Ted!”

“Big Ted?”

“From
Play School
. Remember? There were five toys: Big Ted, Little Ted, Jemima, Humpty, and—shit, what was the last one?”

“Hamble.”

“Hamble! God, I hated that doll. She looked like Elizabeth Taylor on cocaine. I was convinced she was going to sneak into my room in the middle of the night and cut off my ears or something.”

“Susannah!”

“Admit it. She could've given Chucky a run for his
money.” She dances the bear in front of me. “Can I have him? Please, pretty please?”

My sister could charm Eskimos into buying ice. I reach for the bear, and my indulgent expression petrifies as I catch sight of the triple-digit price tag. Good Lord, has she picked up a Steiff?

“It's OK,” Susannah says quickly. “It's too expensive. I'll put it back.”

I summon my brightest smile. “Don't be silly. It's yours. Now, are you ready for the nursery?”

Unexpectedly, she slips her arm through mine. I'm surprised by a sudden, protective rush of love: not for the baby, but for Susannah herself. She's had a tough time for the past few years, and regardless of the fact that many of her problems have been of her own making, I still want her to be happy. No matter what she's done in the past, she's my little sister, and I love her.

The nursery floor is as spectacular as the toy kingdom. Susannah flits from one rack of tiny delicate dresses and romper suits to the next, oohing and aahing like Charlie Bucket on arrival at the chocolate factory.

I finger a pair of minute white bootees threaded with satin ribbon. They're so tiny! I can't imagine the little foot that will fit them.

I'm going to have a baby. I'm going to have a baby!

“You've got to see this,” Susannah gasps, pulling me towards the nursery furniture. “This crib is just amazing. It looks like something out of a fairy tale.”

She stops before a pale blond wood cot, tented in pale pink gauze and muslin like a miniature four-poster bed. “It's beautiful,” I say. “But what if it's a boy?”

In the end, we decide on a traditional cherrywood cot that converts into a child's sleigh bed, with apple-green 400-thread pure cotton baby sheets. It's far more expensive than I'd planned, but it's fun to spoil Susannah. I find I can't say no to her: not to the armfuls of smocked Victorian nightdresses, or to the cream cashmere receiving blanket—three hundred pounds for twenty-four square inches!—or even to the ridiculous Silver Cross pram and Bugaboo stroller that Susannah seems to think essential additions to any well-appointed nursery. We pick out tiny yellow socks, muslin mittens, lace shawls, Ralph Lauren romper suits, satin-edged matinee jackets. Even as the cashier is ringing it up, I know it's all hopelessly extravagant and impractical: everything must be hand-washed, and since when did an infant appreciate Dior tailoring? But it makes Susannah so happy, and so I say yes: yes to the designer bibs, yes to the silk bootees; yes to it all.

I spend over five thousand pounds in a little over two hours, and tell myself firmly that I can afford it, and that it's worth it; that Susannah's smile is worth it.

When she drags me with childlike guile towards the jewelry department on our way out of the store, I follow. She sighs dreamily over the Tiffany counter, and I can't resist her. She doesn't have anyone to spoil her. And when I direct the sales assistant towards the solid silver bracelet from the 1837 collection that Susannah has picked out, the
same bracelet Tom gave me for my last birthday, her pleasure is mine.

I'm so lucky, I think, as we jump in another taxi, back to the station and home. No matter how much I spend on her, I can never repay Susannah. I'm so lucky to have her, to have this chance. I have the perfect life.

I don't think I've ever been happier.

I can't tell anyone else I'm pregnant. Not now that the pathetic, whiny bastard's backed out of the deal.

I can't fucking believe it. I'd never have got up the duff if I thought for one second I'd end up stuck on my own with this kid. I don't want a fucking baby! Why did I have to go and spoil a good thing? Once again, I've snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, as Dad would say. He'll disown me for life after this.

Only Grace knows. And naturally I haven't seen her for dust since the whole thing went belly-up.

Shit, I am so screwed. I've got nowhere to go, and no job. I don't have a thing for the baby, apart from what Grace and I bought on our last shopping spree, most of which is pretty but useless. And I have precisely seven pounds fifty-two to my name. Grace opened her first savings account when she was eight, but I've never been a rainy-day sort of girl. My credit cards are maxed out, I'm overdrawn at the bank, and I owe nearly four grand to a
loan shark at forty-two percent interest. Without Grace, my choices are a council flat and benefits, or starve on the street.

I've called her, like, about ten times, I've left messages telling her where I am, and she hasn't bothered once to come and find me. She knows the trouble I'm in. She could afford to bail me out if she wanted to. She's my sister; she owes me!

A skanky shop assistant hovers behind me as I finger the thin, cheap babygros on the rack. “Can I help you?”

“No, it's OK. I'm just looking.”

“How nice. For you.”

The bitch doesn't move, making it abundantly clear she thinks I'm about to stuff her crappy trash in my back-pack. In fairness, if she turned her back, I would.

This is
so
not what I'd planned for this baby. She was supposed to have the best of everything. One of those fancy three-wheeled strollers. Designer outfits. Not a secondhand cot with teeth marks in the rails, and scratchy nylon dresses from a market stall.

Seven pounds fifty-two. I can buy the baby some clothes; or eat tonight.

I slink out of the seconds shop, my cheeks burning. I've fucked up my life before, but never like this.

It takes me two hours to walk the mile back home to the crappy bedsit I'm sharing with two other art students, who seem to spend most of their time fucking each other and getting high. The place is a total shit hole, but beggars
can't be choosers. It's twenty-five quid a week, and frankly, if I wasn't a dab hand at the old teenage shoplifting, I'd be hard-pushed to stretch to that.

But the bedsit's not going to work when the baby comes. It's worse than a Victorian slum. The kid would never survive. I've already picked up a lousy cough from the mildew and damp; it'd kill a baby. The sink is backed up with grease and rotting food, the sofa and stained mattress on the floor are alive with fleas—I'm covered in bites—and fast-food wrappers and moldy take-away boxes cover the floor. The only bathroom in the entire building is a vomit-encrusted toilet one floor down, shared by at least twenty people. When I want a shower, I sneak through the fire exit of the local swimming pool. I'll have to hope the council gives me something better when I sign on, though I wouldn't hold my breath.

Gil and Bryony have left their works all over the mattress. I step over them, glad I'm wearing DMs. Last thing I need is to get HIV jabbing my foot on a dirty needle. If I stay here much longer, I'm going to give in and start using again, and I promised myself I wouldn't while I was pregnant. But Christ, even Grace would be tempted if she was stuck in this dump.

Fucking Grace. I know she and Tom make enough to set me up in a half-decent place, at least till I'm back on my feet. How come, no matter what happens, she ends up smelling of roses, and I'm the one covered—literally—in shit?

It's always been the frigging same. If we got caught
talking after lights out, I was the one who got a wallop from Dad. We both bunked off Guides to go to the Youth Club disco, but when Mum found out, Miss Goody-Two-Shoes played her favorite “I was just looking out for Susannah” card: I got grounded for a month, and she was Big Sister of the fucking Year. I spent six months interning for free in a magazine art department, desperate for a break, and at the end of it, they just let me go and signed up a cheap new sucker. Grace got a column on the financial pages of the
Mail
simply by going to college with the right people. Guess who renewed her car insurance and twelve hours later wrote her car off and got a huge payout? And guess who forgot to renew it, and smashed into the side of a Mercedes and is still paying off the debt?

Grace married a solvent, faithful, decent man. I shacked up with a spineless loser. She has a career. I have a record.

There's never been any point trying to compete. So guess what? I haven't. My life has been one long might-as-well-be-hung-for-a-sheep fuckup. It's her fault I'm up the duff, but guess who's going to pay for it? It's not fair. I want her life—

“Hello? Calling Planet Zee. Are you still with me?”

I jump about a foot, knocking a tower of fluffy red hippos to the floor. The memory of my first pregnancy is so vivid, it takes me a moment to realize where I am.
Harrods
. The most expensive fucking toy department in the world. The contrast between then and now is so surreal, I feel like I'm in some kind of weird
Dallas-
style dream.

Grace laughs and picks up some of the fallen hippos. I
watch, but don't offer to help. Any one of these stupid stuffed animals probably costs more than I spent on Davey in his entire first year.

For a dizzying second, I hate my sister so much I can't breathe. If she'd looked after me when I really needed her, maybe my life wouldn't have ended up in such a huge fucking mess. Maybe Davey's dad wouldn't have walked when I was seven months pregnant. Maybe I'd still have my kids. Maybe
she'd
be the one desperate for a few crumbs of happiness from
my
table.

The feeling crumbles into shame. I don't hate Grace, of course I don't; but that doesn't mean I'm filled with sisterly peace and love right now, either.

“Can we buy something?” I demand abruptly.

She laughs again. She's really loving this Lady Bountiful bullshit. “What did you have in mind?”

“I don't know. Anything. A cuddly toy?”

“Pick one out.”

Pick one out. Price is no object, blah blah. Yeah. I get it. It must be just
peachy
to be able to buy stuff without having to look at the price. I know she's trying to be nice, but she's so fucking patronizing I want to spit. She's got no idea how the other half live.

I suddenly spot some ugly old-fashioned teddy bears like the ones they used to have on
Play School
. I look at the price tag, and nearly shit myself.