How Not to Disappear Read online

  I try not to think about that, or about Reuben, or what’s going on inside me and what’s going to happen next. I switch it all off and just let myself cry.

  When the crying stops I look in the mirror. My face is puffy and sad and streaked with grey. I sort out my mascara and dab a bit of concealer under my eyes to make them look less red and blotchy. Bit of lippy. I smile at myself. Almost convincing.

  All the time I’m doing it, I realize I’m half waiting for a reply from Reuben, waiting for my laptop to ping or my phone to buzz. As if. I should know him by now.

  When I finally get a a reply, several days of denial and fried food and Watership Down later, it says this:

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Subject: Re: On The Road

  your hair smells of hashbrowns you say? thats actually quite alluring to a certain kind of man. so i’ve heard.

  i’ll write more soon. phenomenally hungover.

  oh and i am never ever ever getting in a car with you. ever. can only assume you bribed the instructor. was it money drugs or sexual favours? all three? i’m guessing all three.

  and who the hell is Jack keroauk>? dcos he play for Chelsea?

  xR

  PS can you think what I might have done with my left shoe? and er trousers? they don’t seem to be where I am. was quite a night! least i think it was

  PPS also you have an over-punctuation disorder. all those CAPITALS and exclamation marks make me dizzy!!!!!!!!!!! or that could be the hangover

  A whole week and that’s it? I’ve been sitting here, pregnant and miserable, waiting for hungover abuse and a lame football gag?

  I type a reply saying:

  FUCK OFF REUBEN AND NEVER CONTACT ME AGAIN.

  But of course I don’t send it.

  I’m sitting on the closed lid of the downstairs loo with the phone in one hand and yet another pregnancy test in the other, trying to get my head straight. I’m not being helped by the fact that on the other side of the locked door, Alice is pretending to be an FBI SWAT team.

  ‘IT’S NO USE, PETROVICH!’ she bellows in a terrible attempt at an American accent. ‘WE GOT THE PLACE SURROUNDED. YOU BETTER COME ON OUT WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR OR WE’RE COMIN’ IN THERE.’

  Anyone using the downstairs loo instantly becomes a criminal overlord, Nazi, orc, Dalek, elephant poacher or other variety of baddie in Alice’s mind. She waits outside with an arsenal of guns, swords, bows and arrows and sonic screwdrivers, and lays elaborate traps for the unfortunate victim. We’re used to it, but it can be unnerving for visitors.

  ‘Jesus, Alice,’ I yell back. ‘Can I not go to the loo in peace? Just once?’

  ‘No!’ She’s angry with me because I wouldn’t let her watch a documentary on psychopaths, making her settle instead for one on shark attacks.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘IT’S OVER, PETROVICH. WE KNOW WHAT YOU’VE DONE. WE KNOW WHAT YOU ARE, YOU COLD-BLOODED, TWO-FACED, MURDERING MONSTER.’

  I stare at the pregnancy test in my slightly shaking hand. There’s no way I can bring myself to wee on it with Alice only metres away. Carl was supposed to take them out today but he’s been called in as emergency cover for Senior Zumba at the gym because one of the other trainers called in sick. I’d hoped the sharks would keep Alice occupied for a while, but clearly they hadn’t been gruesome enough to hold her attention.

  ‘Mum hid two packs of Jaffa Cakes at the back of the food cupboard last night,’ I say in desperation.

  The shouting stops and as I hear Alice’s feet thumping down the hall to the kitchen, I focus again on the little white stick of doom. It’s the fourth test I’ve done. As soon as I was late I started to worry. After a week I bought a test, but somehow even though I was fearing the worst, when it was positive I didn’t believe it could be right. So I got another kit, a different brand this time, just in case. And then, panicking, I bought another, just to be sure. I know it’s stupid. The leaflet that came with it makes it all too clear that you can’t get a false positive: if there are two lines you’ve got a bun in the oven and that’s all there is to it. And the test kits are bloody expensive. Plus there’s the whole embarrassment of buying them – I’ve had to go to different shops each time to avoid being served by the same person, and every time I imagine what they’re thinking as they take my money: wondering if it’ll be positive, and how old I am, and thinking how glad they are they’re not me. And then there’s the bother of secretly getting rid of them afterwards so that no one will find them. I’m so paranoid about Mum or Carl finding them I can’t risk putting them in the kitchen bin. But to get to the wheelie bin at the side of the house I have to go through the kitchen to get to the back door and there’s always someone in there cooking or doing homework or watching TV, waiting to pounce on anyone who might be wandering through clutching a stash of positive pregnancy tests. So I’ve got them all hidden in several layers of carrier bags under the bed so I can sneak them out of the house and get rid of them anonymously.

  But after I got Reuben’s email I was so desperate not to be pregnant that I decided I had to check just one last time. It still seems so completely impossible that I keep thinking it must be a mistake. First off, the whole concept of pregnancy suddenly seems absurd. I’ve known the facts of life since I was six and Kai O’Leary explained the process of baby-making in detail to the whole of Squirrel Class during Circle Time, in spite of Mrs Bean’s best efforts to distract us. We all took it pretty well, I think, although some of the parents weren’t best pleased. And then at secondary school it was all condoms on bananas and diagrams labelled with unlikely words like ‘epididymis’ that made me and Kat giggle.

  So obviously I’ve known where babies come from for pretty much as long as I can remember. And yet now, suddenly, it seems so improbable. You have sex, and then a whole new person grows inside you and eventually emerges, painfully, out of what Kat refers to as your lady-regions? It’s bizarre, when you really stop and think about it. And deeply disturbing. Kind of like a horror movie.

  And on top of all that, I’m just not the sort of person that gets pregnant. At the end of Year Eleven in our yearbook I was Most Likely To: Become An Accountant. I’d been pretty upset at the time. ‘But I don’t want to be an accountant,’ I’d said to Reuben. ‘Why would they think that? I want to be a film director. Or an archaeologist. Or an internationally acclaimed tap dancer.’ ‘Don’t worry,’ Reuben had said. He’d been judged Most Likely To: Be Divorced By Somebody Famous. ‘I don’t suppose they even know what an accountant is. It’s just code for “we think you’re clever and boring”.’ ‘Great,’ I said. ‘That makes me feel much better.’ But looking back, even accountancy seems better than pregnancy. Anyway, how stupid do you have to be to think you won’t get pregnant because you’re not that sort of person? Not really a very reliable method of contraception, Hattie, actually.

  Anyway, I decided I’ll just give it one more try, take one more test, just in case I was some kind of scientific anomaly or I’d just happened to buy a rogue batch of faulty tests or . . . something. Anything.

  And if it’s still positive I’ll have to phone the doctor’s and make an appointment. That’s the deal I’ve made with myself. I’ve been trying to psych myself up to call the surgery all week. But each time I panicked and bottled it at the last minute. Making an appointment would mean it was real. There would be no going back. I’d have to tell someone else; I’d have to sit face to face with someone and say the words out loud: I’m pregnant. And then I’d have to answer humiliating questions. Yes, I did have unprotected sex. (I pictured the doctor looking at me, wondering how I could have been so stupid. How could I explain that it didn’t seem like that at the time? It just seemed right.) How long ago? Four weeks. And five days, actually. I know it was stupid. But I thought it was the wrong time of the month and—

  And what? I try to think of reasons, to explain it to myself.

  And I was a bit drunk and emot
ional and . . .

  And?

  And it was Reuben.

  I imagine the doctor staring over her glasses at me, stifling a sigh, trying not to look judgemental but inside thinking, You silly, silly girl. And me sitting there, knowing she’s thinking it and knowing she’s right. Why hadn’t I done anything about it afterwards? I could have got the morning-after pill. But the truth is I was too confused, too busy trying to pretend it hadn’t happened, that nothing had changed.

  And then there would be more questions to answer. Symptoms? A missed period. I’m a bit tired. The smell of congealing saturated fat at the Happy Diner’s been making me feel even queasier than usual. Alcohol makes me want to vomit. Other than that, nothing really.

  And then . . .

  Then she’d ask me more questions. Difficult questions that I don’t know the answer to.

  Yes. Then I’d have to make decisions.

  I stare at the inevitable new line that has appeared in the little window of the pregnancy test. The fact that I knew it would be there doesn’t help. I’m overwhelmed by the reality of it suddenly. I feel so tiny, sitting here in my little locked room and the world outside seems so big and loud and difficult and dangerous. I lean my head into my hands, press my fingers against my eyelids and watch the bright flashes of light flicker and pulse. Maybe I’ll just stay here for a while. Maybe for ever.

  ‘Oi! Hattie!’ Alice hammers loudly on the door. ‘They were HOBNOBS, you liar! I hate bloody Hobnobs.’

  ‘Wrong cupboard,’ I lie, not opening my eyes. ‘Check the other one. And don’t swear.’

  ‘Piss off.’

  She thunders away to the kitchen again and I open my eyes. Right. This is it. I have to make the phone call.

  I get the scrap of paper with the doctor’s surgery number scribbled on it out of my jeans pocket and take a deep breath. My finger is poised, shakily, over the button. There is no escape.

  And then the phone rings.

  ‘Is that Mrs Lockwood?’ It’s a woman’s voice. She’s elderly, I’d say, with an accent, Irish, I think. ‘Mrs Ruth Lockwood?’

  ‘No,’ I say, my mind still on the call to the doctors I’d been about to make, relief flooding through me at this excuse to avoid it. ‘She’s at work. Can I give her a message?’

  ‘Well,’ the voice says, doubtfully. ‘Could you tell her it’s . . . it’s about her husband.’

  ‘She hasn’t got a husband. Do you mean Carl?’ A thought occurs to me. ‘Wait, you’re not one of his clients, are you?’ Carl is very popular among the older ladies at the gym, and Mum’s always joking that he’s going to end up with a stalker. Perhaps that day has come.

  ‘No, I mean her husband,’ the voice says. ‘Dominic.’

  Dad?

  I’m so surprised I don’t know what to say. Someone wants to talk about Dad? No one ever talks about Dad. Mum certainly doesn’t. Ollie asks me about him sometimes; he and Alice were just babies when Dad died. I don’t like to admit I don’t remember much either.

  ‘But he’s dead. He died eight years ago.’

  ‘I know. Are you . . . Harriet?’

  ‘Hattie,’ I say, surprised. ‘Who did you say you are again? What’s this all about? Did you know Dad?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know him, dear. My name’s Mrs Cleary. You can call me Peggy. But I’d really rather speak to your mother about it, Harriet, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Hattie. Look, Dominic was my dad so if you’ve got anything to say about him you can say it to me. I’ll let Mum know.’

  ‘Well,’ she says, hesitating. ‘It’s not really about him, as such. It’s about a relative of his.’

  ‘A relative?’ I thought hard. I didn’t think Dad had any relatives apart from Nan, and she died when I was a kid. He was an only child and Nan had brought him up on her own; his dad had died in an accident when he was a baby and no one was ever allowed to talk about him.

  ‘Yes, his aunt. Gloria. Your grandmother Gwen’s younger sister. She’s my upstairs neighbour. And my—’ she pauses a little doubtfully— ‘my friend. In a manner of speaking.’

  Nan had a sister? But that can’t be right. I’d have known.

  ‘I’m sorry, I think you’ve made a mistake. I’ve never met her. No one’s ever even mentioned her. Nan didn’t have a sister.’

  ‘She hasn’t been in contact with her family for many years, Harriet,’ Peggy says. ‘Well, you know how families can be. And, well, Gloria is . . . well, she’s what you might call “a bit of character”.’

  ‘YOU LIED!’ Alice is yelling. ‘You totally and utterly lied about the Jaffa Cakes, you . . . LIAR! Bloody, bloody liar!’ She starts hammering on the door again.

  ‘Pack it in, Alice,’ I hiss, putting my hand over the receiver.

  ‘Are you still there?’ Peggy says.

  ‘Yes,’ I say loudly. ‘But could you speak up a bit? My sister is also what you might call “a bit of a character” and is being extremely noisy and annoying and immature.’

  ‘I was saying she hasn’t been in contact with her family for a very long time.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well . . . that’s not really . . .’ The voice on the other end of the phone pauses uncertainly.

  The voice outside the door doesn’t.

  ‘COWBAG. FIEND. STRUMPET. IGNORAMUS. BUMFACE.’ Alice’s fires her varied repertoire of high-decibel insults at me through the door.

  ‘And why has she decided to get in contact now?’

  ‘Well, now you come to ask—’ there’s an awkward pause— ‘she hasn’t as such. Not as such.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The thing is, she’s not very well, Gloria. She’s really not very well at all. That’s why I wanted to speak to your mother, you see? You’re her only living relatives, as far as I know. And I just thought, with her being the way she is and with her not having anyone else . . . well, I thought you might want to know. About her being poorly. I thought perhaps you might want to see her.’

  ‘Right.’ My mind is flitting around from the pregnancy test to Dad to mysterious aunts and then to whether Alice is going to manage to break the door down, and this whole conversation is so weird that it’s hard to focus on what she’s saying.

  ‘She’s been ever so low, you see, Harriet. I think it would give her a real lift to have some visitors. To know that somebody cares. We all need our family, don’t we?’

  ‘Hmm,’ I say, unconvinced, as Alice’s stream of abuse continues. ‘HAG. MONSTROSITY. WEIRDO. LOSERRR.’

  ‘Could you pass the message on to your mother and ask her to call me? Tell her it’s very important.’

  ‘Yep, sure . . . hang on, I need to get a pen.’

  I frantically wrap the pregnancy test in loo roll and the carrier bag it came in and stuff it as deep into my jeans pocket as it will go, pulling my top down over it to try to disguise the bulge. I’ve been wearing long tops anyway because my jeans are a bit tight and the button keeps popping undone at unfortunate moments. I’ve been wondering whether this is because of being pregnant but, to be honest, they’ve always been a bit tight and the industrial quantities of pancakes I’ve been eating are more likely to be the cause. Still though, the thought makes me a bit panicky. How soon will I start to show? Are there any other telltale signs that might give me away to someone who’s been pregnant themselves (i.e. Mum)? Beyond the obvious I know nothing much about pregnancy.

  I open the door and am hit in the face by a stream of water being fired by Alice from a water pistol.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Al!’

  ‘Are you all right there, Harriet?’ comes Peggy’s voice from the dripping phone.

  ‘You shouldn’t have lied about the Jaffa Cakes!’ Alice yells.

  I run past her to the living room where Ollie is sitting, oblivious to the great white shark rearing up behind him on the TV screen, humming ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ and drawing an elaborate picture of our family in rabbit form. I’m pleased to see that I’m the
next biggest after the Ollie and Alice rabbits. Mum and Carl are minor rabbits, and I smirk at the fact that the Carl rabbit is wearing a figure-hugging peach-coloured jumper that does him no favours.

  ‘Give us a pen will you, Ols?’

  He looks up, smiles his faraway smile, and hands me a silver glitter pen that I use to scribble down Peggy’s number and her address, which is in London. I read it back to her while Alice tries to rugby-tackle me from behind.

  ‘You won’t forget to pass the message on, will you?’ Peggy says, doubtfully. ‘I’m . . . concerned.’

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Just a misunderstanding about Jaffa Cakes.’

  ‘I meant about Gloria, dear.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I say. ‘Of course.’

  ‘I want to help her but . . . She’s not exactly what you might call an easy person. And now, with the way she is . . . You will make sure your mother understands it’s serious?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I say from where I’m lying, Alice sitting triumphant on my chest, whacking my head with a cushion. ‘I’ll let Mum know.’

  It’s late and pouring with rain by the time Mum gets in, so she’s soaked through as well as tired.

  ‘Sorry I’m so late again, love.’ She grimaces as she folds down her umbrella and it sprays water over her and the floor. ‘Honestly, I’ve had the day from hell. Had a load of work dumped on me that’s got to be done before we go to Mallorca. And then Bernard collared me and that was another hour of listening to him waffle on about budget cuts and belt-tightening. And then . . .’

  I tune out. How boring it must be to do a job like Mum’s. I mean, she seems okay with it, but is this how she thought her life would turn out? What would she be doing if she hadn’t had me and the twins? I think again about the pregnancy test. I never did call the doctor. Maybe I’ll just leave it a few more days. I want to get my head straight first. If only I could talk it through with Kat . . .