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You know how I feel about
dungarees.’
    ‘Well, move away from them, then.’ I’m not even a
mother yet, and already our relationship has changed. ‘And stop being silly .’
    ‘You can’t wear any of these: you’ll look like
a kangaroo. It’s lucky we’ve already had sex. Because there is no way …’
    ‘Yeah, all right. I’ve got to wear something .’
    These garments not only make you look as though you aren’t having
sex now, but as if you never had any in the first place. It’s what
you’d imagine might happen if the entire fashion business were taken over
by Mormons. I can only assume there’s a chip in the software of
maternity-wear designers that programmes them to consider you spent.
You’ve been impregnated, therefore do not need to attract the opposite
sex ever again. And there’s certainly no room for the crazy notion of
wanting to look nice for yourself .
    Eventually we do find some semi-tolerable outfits, but they’re in
the shops with the loudest music, staffed by girls who become baffled when
confronted by numerals larger than 10. Ask for anything over a 12, and they
just run away. I saw a pregnant Barbie once – the baby and tummy
‘casing’ snapped on and off – and these drainpipe trousers
with slightly elasticated fronts were evidently designed for her. Either that,
or for anorexics, the latter not being generally noted for their fertility.
Perhaps we’ve missed a sign saying Maternity Dept – Age
    9–12.
    We break for lunch. That I’m good at.
    ‘I could always try the catalogues. There’s one called Blooming Marvellous .’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘So British, isn’t it? I’m feeling Blooming
Marvellous. I eat fifteen meals a day, and I wee all the time – sometimes
even in a toilet – but I’m feeling Blooming Marvellous!’
    ‘Try Fucking Enormous,’ says Peter. He puts on an smarmy
voice. ‘ Fucking Enormous, can I help you? ’
    ‘Yeah, you can: order me a glass of red wine.’
    Spring has sprung. We go for the twenty-week scan.
    ‘It’s got a Big Head,’ says the radiographer.
    ‘A big brain, you mean? Ha-ha!’
    ‘No, just a Big Head. And a short femur.’
    ‘Christ, it’s a Calman all right.’
    ‘It’s amazing the detail they can see by now.’
    ‘I know. Any hair on the legs?’
    After this, Julia rings up again, to recommend a chic French maternity
shop near Bond Street.
    ‘It sounds expensive, but you’ll only need to get one or two
things. I wore the same skirt for months . Also, with their stuff you
won’t feel like such a lump.’
    ‘Thanks. No, really.’
    ‘Wait till you’re like a house,’ she says. ‘And
you think I can’t get any bigger than this: it’s not
    possible . Then look at the calendar.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because you’ll have another two months to go.’
    Then a few weeks later, a friend of ours gets married. And I find this
– gown. In Wallis . It’s stretchy, with a sort of
bronzy-coloured snake-pattern. It feels all slinky and springy and not at all
blob-like. I try it on, and severely fancy myself. It does bring to mind this
book I had as a child, in which a snake swallows a live mongoose, but I
don’t care. Besides no one else seems to have read it. I go to the
wedding and everyone says, ‘ Wow! ’, I think in a good way.
When I get up to make my Best Woman speech, though, I have trouble squeezing
between the tables.
    ‘I’ve got that condition that’s the opposite of
anorexia.’
    ‘Eh?’
    ‘You think you’re quite slim, but in fact you’re
really fat.’
    ‘You’re not fat, you’re pregnant.’
    ‘Yeah? Well, you started it.’

3 Babies Do Come Out of Mummy’s Tummy
    Summer is approaching. I have to grasp, as it were, the birth nettle. We
arrange to go and see Mr Silverstone.
    ‘He is completely wonderful,’ says Julia. ‘So nice you
just want to go back and have more.’
    Mr S gives women the choice of natural delivery for subsequent babies
following a