CHAPTER 1
FOR MY BOYFRIEND’S thirtieth birthday I thought I’d go all out and surprise him with a pregnancy. I mean, I surprised myself too, but it was a broadly good surprise, so Joe and I decided to roll with it. And if you’re going to do a thing, you may as well do it properly. So as responsible soon-to-be parents we thought we’d better leave the hive of criminal activity that is London and opt for a safer, more wholesome life in the country. This despite the fact that, in nearly ten years in London, the most heinous crime I’d ever witnessed was a bunch of teenagers running out without paying in a Pizza Express. The metropolitan criminal underworld aside, with neither of us earning a six-figure salary, if we stayed in London we’d be living in a (barely) converted garage and our baby would be sleeping in a drawer. London was out. We were Moving to the Country™.
Our destination was the quiet market town of Penton, nestled among the picturesque Cotswold Hills. As far as it’s possible to tell via Google, Penton gave off a certain vibe that I would vaguely describe as “posh hippy.” When picking our future home, this was something I felt I could get on board with, as despite being neither posh nor hippy I have, more or less successfully, masqueraded as both at various points in my life.
I was ready to embrace the patchouli oil. Maybe I would buy a dream catcher.
As we rolled our cumbersome rental van through the ancient byways of the Cotswolds, I could barely move for the assortment of car snacks wedged around me. I had prepared for the three-hour journey with all the diligence of an excessively snack-oriented Everest expedition. Or so Joe said. But at nearly nine months pregnant, I was taking no chances. If I had to be chronically uncomfortable, radioactively overheated and need to pee every five minutes, then I wasn’t going to add “hungry” to the mix. I opened a pack of Skittles with a contented sigh. I was also wearing my dressing gown because I’d forgotten to pack it, and TLC had just started playing from my Spotify “moving” playlist. If it weren’t for the Rolo that had dropped down my cleavage and was slowly melting, just out of reach, I would have had to say life didn’t really come much better.
I shared this happy thought with Joe, who merely grunted. He seemed a tad stressed. To be fair, I wasn’t driving. Nor had I contributed much to packing the precipitous mound of possessions hovering behind our heads, waiting to take us out with an incautious emergency brake. Being heavily pregnant gives you a get-out-of-jail-free card for lifting anything heavier than a sausage roll. I had directed the packing from the sidelines, occasionally sneaking items back out of the charity shop box when Joe wasn’t looking. This was why I was currently sitting with a glittery blue Virgin Mary piggy bank nestled, ironically, between my pregnancy bump and crotch. I knew if I let it out of my sight Joe would gift it to Goodwill faster than you could say “Hail Mary.”
I peered out of the van window at the countryside flashing past. It was … green. Definitely very green. More so than even Hampstead Heath, which I had previously considered to be pretty damn rural.
“Do you think they have chicken shops in the country?” I asked Joe nervously.
“You probably have to kill and pluck your own.”
I nodded sagely. That sounded about right.
At this point Joe took a corner, braked rather abruptly and the Virgin Mary jabbed me sharply in the crotch. I was about to complain when I realized why he had stopped. We had arrived.
Spread out below us was our new home: Penton. Nestled snugly in the valley like the slightly over-warm bag of Rolos wedged alongside the Virgin in my lap. It was small, perhaps a thousand houses running along the valley floor and a handful more clinging to the hills that rose either side. A dense woodland ran along the crest of the hill opposite, the trees hazed with the almost fluorescent green of oncoming spring. Fields sprawled along the valley sides, liberally dotted with assorted livestock. The golden light of early evening gave it the sort of glow I had previously always put down to light pollution.
Joe hauled on the handbrake until he almost gave himself a hernia. Penton, apparently, didn’t do flat. We sat silently for a while and surveyed our new homeland, holding hands across the mound of semi-demolished snacks.
“Nice,” Joe said eventually.
“Mm-hmm,” I sniffed, a familiar welling sensation behind my eyeballs.
Wordlessly, Joe rummaged through the empty Monster Munch packets to dig out a reasonably clean McDonald’s napkin and passed it over, giving my hand a squeeze. Admittedly, it didn’t take much to set me off these days—commercials for rehoming dogs, the mere mention of Adele—pregnancy hormones are extremely soggy, it turns out. But, in this case, I felt it was deserved; Penton Vale was rather beautiful.
Never one to miss out on an emotional moment, from the back of the van came the unmistakable sound of the dog being sick, probably over our most precious possessions. The handbrake gave an ominous groan and we set off again, down the winding road and through the heart of our new home.
It took us perhaps three minutes to trundle our van the length of Penton high street and find ourselves heading fieldward again. With alarming rapidity, the trees began to close in.
“I don’t think there are anymore houses.” Joe squinted up the darkening road ahead of us. It looked suspiciously rural.
I checked my phone. “Stop!”
Joe’s sudden braking catapulted the Virgin Mary across the dashboard. It really hadn’t been her day.
“Google Maps thinks we’re here.” This was the level of my navigation skills.
“I can’t see anything.”
“Well, Google can’t be wrong.”
“Says who?”
“I don’t know. God?”
We reversed, slowly and painfully, and eventually found the house. In our defense, it was easy to miss, what with the Sleeping Beauty–esque creepers all but obscuring it from view. It looked like nature was trying to reclaim it—and doing a pretty good job. It was built of crumbling stone, moss and peeling paint, held together by ivy and hope. The chimney pot looked like an endgame of Jenga. I didn’t fancy its chances in a strong breeze. The house appeared to be about a thousand years old and definitely infested. I’m not sure what with—spiders, mice, ghosts, take your pick. I made a mental note to call Rentokil, and possibly a priest.
Should we have done more research into Penton before uprooting our lives and moving here? Who’s to say. But hey, it had a direct line into London, a couple of pubs with 4-star ratings on Google and an honest-to-goodness stone circle for the local village pagans. What wasn’t to like? So we hadn’t visited the place before whacking a grand’s deposit on our rental house. But I mean, who does actual real-life house visits these days? You just have to trust in Rightmove and remember that wide-angle lenses are a cruel trickery.
Our options had been relatively limited, even in the thriving rental market that was Penton. With Joe working freelance as a graphic designer, his income was both mediocre and sporadic. As a copywriter for an ad agency mine was also mediocre, but at least reliable. For now. But in Penton we were able to rent a house. With stairs. And a garden. Which was a hell of a lot more than we could have managed in London. I looked up at my dream home. A small tree appeared to be growing out of its roof.
* * *
IT WAS not without trepidation that I pushed open the door to our new home. Part of me was expecting a swarm of bats to burst out, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was unfurnished, so pretty basic, but it had exposed beams, which I very much expected from the countryside, and a genuine fireplace should we ever learn how to lay and light a fire. It was simple—sitting room and kitchen (both small) downstairs, either side of a bizarrely spacious hall, and a dubious-looking bathroom fitted out in peach; upstairs boasted an attic bedroom with a teeny-tiny storage room that would just about work as the baby’s room. It felt a bit like a toy house, but then again, it felt like we were playing at being adults, so maybe that was all right.
It was possible, however, that there were some drawbacks to its pocket-size dimensions.
“You said you wanted a place with character,” grumbled Joe as he surveyed the twisting and exceptionally narrow staircase, while holding a segment of bed frame that would never in a million years fit up there.
“You said Penton looked ‘idyllic,’ and just what we were looking for,” I replied.
Did I blame him for our move to the countryside? Hard to say. It had definitely been a mutual decision, but potentially one of those mutual decisions where you secretly harbor strong reservations but think you’re doing what the other person wants—only to find out they were doing the same.
We bickered the bulkier furniture into the house. By which I mean Joe almost buckled under the weight of all our possessions while I occasionally picked up a shoebox and Joe barked, “No heavy lifting!” The sofa just about wedged into the “cozy” sitting room and the fridge was relegated to the hallway as the kitchen ceiling was about two feet high. The bed stayed in pieces, creating a trip hazard at the bottom of the stairs, and as a temporary measure we dug out the inflatable mattress we’d taken to Glastonbury the previous year. With each slightly too vigorous stamp on the air pump, the soft aroma of year-old festival mattress filled the small attic: essence of unwashed body with undertones of cheap cider. Weirdly, it made me feel quite nostalgic, and then simply nauseous. It made Joe sweaty and then angry.
All in all, as we wobbled precariously onto our temporary bed for our first night in the country, it was with mixed emotions: general excitement mingled with mild apprehension and a side order of barely suppressed panic. In hindsight, it was a beautifully innocent time. Things were about to get a whole lot more complicated.
CHAPTER 2
HAVE YOU EVER slept on an inflatable mattress while eight months pregnant? Here’s a tip: don’t.
I woke up seriously pissed off. To be fair, this had become quite a default state for me of late, but this time I felt justified. Every time Joe had rolled over, or shifted position, or even breathed, the mattress had wobbled me onto the floor. Then the dog had joined us around midnight, with her signature ignorance of the phrase “three’s a crowd.”
“And did you hear that weird scratching noise at three A.M.?” I grumbled. “I’m sure it was mice.”
“Alice, come over here.” Joe was standing by the window, clearly not listening to my complaint.
“Could even be rats,” I muttered.
“Seriously, Al, come and take a look at this.”
I wrapped myself in the duvet and shuffled over to join him.
OK, so it was pretty nice. The view from the house, that is. In fact, I’d probably go so far as to say it was glorious. Our bedroom window looked out across the valley. Below us, the rooftops and chimney stacks of Penton tumbled down to the valley floor, where the river meandered gently, the early-morning sun burnishing its muddy waters to a bronze glow. Fields speckled with livestock of varying descriptions stretched up the hillside opposite, and off to our right a jumbled mass of woodland glimmered a fresh spring green.
“Not bad, huh,” said Joe, pulling me close and wriggling himself into my duvet cocoon, so we resembled a poorly wrapped conjoined mummy.
It’s something I loved about Joe from the start—his ability to smooth my sharp edges. Admittedly, of late it had felt as though we’d both been nothing but sharp edges. But right here, right now, we were all golden morning sunlight. Hell, we could be a feature photo in Home & Country magazine, or whatever countryfolk read. Closely cropped to hide the outrageous mess behind us, of course, and suitably airbrushed to remove the greasy roots, pregnancy acne and sleepless eyes.
We stood there slightly longer than was wise, until the numb cold of my feet had me hopping back to the sanctuary of the airbed, burrowing my icy toes under the protesting dog. Joe brought up two cups of tea, but they were lukewarm at best, since he hadn’t been able to find the kettle and had made them straight out of the hot water tap. This doesn’t work, by the way.
* * *
THIS BROADLY summed up how the morning passed: we moved stuff about, we discovered things didn’t work. The flush fell off the toilet and half a bird’s nest fell down the chimney. The Wi-Fi router offered internet at the speed of pigeon post, which played havoc with Joe’s Twitter habit. I tried to keep things light, but my jokes were going down increasingly poorly. When Joe started trying to piece together the IKEA changing table, only to discover he’d mixed up the pieces with the new and elaborate spice rack I’d felt was necessary for our new life, I thought it would probably be in everyone’s best interests if I vacated the premises.
“I’m going into town,” I announced, raising my voice above the hammer blows and swearing. “Do you need anything?”
“Beer,” came a muffled voice from under the slats. “And…” there was a momentary pause, then, in an ever-hopeful tone, “… a pack of Marlboros?”
“Not happening,” I declared firmly. Seeing as I’d had to give up alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, unbroken sleep and bladder control, I felt Joe needed to undergo some hardships. Although he frequently declared that it was very difficult to enjoy a pint these days with me watching him murderously and drooling like the Hound of the Baskervilles.
It took about seven minutes to walk into town. And calling it “town” was stretching it a bit. Where was I supposed to go when I needed to buy a 99p chicken McGristle burger? I would, however, be able to purchase every conceivable garment in batik, heal myself with a positively dazzling array of crystals and get my chakras aligned at the—I squinted at the poster in a shop window—WOMEN’S INNER GODDESS TEMPLE.
I wanted a supermarket. I wanted Aldi, with its incredible range of rip-off own-brand chocolate. I wanted Lidl with its magical mystery aisle, Middle of Lidl, which one week sold discount vibrators and the next week Christmas onesies (in July). Hell, I’d settle for a Poundland.
What I eventually found was a Waitrose. Of course. Well, I’d probably be able to afford half a loaf of sourdough and a single Gruyère cheese straw.
* * *
CLUTCHING MY overpriced and meager purchases, I thought I’d drop by the doctors’ office to pick up a registration form. My midwife in London had repeatedly urged me to register before moving but, well, there’d been the move to sort, and my last week at work, and saying goodbye to friends … I mean, I could list a good ten excuses for why I hadn’t done this vitally important task, but the honest reason is that I’m crap at these things and lack the motivation to improve in this area.
The receptionist rather alarmingly told me that the GP could see me in “just a tick” if I was happy to wait five minutes. In London I was used to a six-month waiting list to see the GP for a repeat prescription of the pill (which could explain how I came to be in this particular situation). I nodded nervously and took a seat.
There was another pregnant woman in the waiting room. Half her head was shaved, the rest was a knot of auburn dreadlocks and she was wearing those hippy overalls you see a lot at music festivals. She looked angry, but with that sort of anger that will probably change the world for the better. Her overalls were adorned with a number of enamel pins. I squinted; they seemed to be variations on a theme: a melting earth, THERE IS NO PLANET B, DESTROY THE PATRIARCHY, NOT THE PLANET, and—oh no—a pin shaped like a bag with FUCK NO written on it.
Now, I was yet to find any of our numerous totes with slightly suspect stains, so I’d bought a single-use plastic bag at Waitrose, because I’m a terrible person. This girl looked like she might throttle me with my own carrier bag. I wondered if I might be able to secrete my shopping about my person before she noticed it. But there’s a reason shoplifters go for lightweight, expensive items. It’s hard to conceal even a small loaf in your underwear. Even the capacious underwear that comes with being eight months pregnant.
Oh well. I gave her my best “hey I’m pregnant too, let’s be best friends” smile. She scowled. I hoped her displeasure was aimed at the plastic bag, and not more generally at me.
I wondered if I should just open the conversation with a disclaimer that I, too, thought “fuck no” to carrier bags, and had just been caught short today. But as I opened my mouth to defend myself the doctor’s door opened.
“Ailsa?”
I was halfway out of my seat before I realized that this was not, in fact, my name. Dreadlock girl jumped to her feet, cast a disgusted look at my shopping and disappeared inside.
So much for making friends.
I sighed, and ate a luxury cheese straw (cost: one month’s rent).
Copyright © 2023 by Kat Ailes
