The sins of the father

I have had a day of highs and lows readers, but mostly lows. There’s no easy way to explain this to you, so I’ll just come right out with it.

Gill has managed to get herself pregnant. Good, bloody Christ, she’s up the duff. I can’t believe it, readers. I just can’t believe it.

Suddenly it all clicks into place. The other day, when we met at the moon under water? She wasn’t late because she had to be somewhere else; she was “Late” with a capital ‘L’. Late as in her moontime had not been forthcoming. In the family way. Tubbed. Up the bloody stick. The text message she sent me? “Positive?” that was the test result, not some cryptic allusion to her mood.

Obviously I found out because I caved in and called her. I asked her if she had calmed down but before she could answer, I heard her retch and then be sick. So then I asked her if she’d had a big night the night before, out with some bloke or something and then she was very rude to me.

She said: “No you insufferable little twat of a man. I’m fucking pregnant!”

I guess it must be the hormones.

You can imagine my response, readers, because it was the response that any decent man of my circumstance would have come up with, I’m sure. That’s to say, I was thinking in no uncertain terms that I am in no way ready to assume the responsibilities of fatherhood. I was panicking. I mean, it’s not like we’re even in a relationship. We’ve split up, and just because we had some drunken tuppenny bloody bunk-up in the UK’s premier location for exceptional short break experiences in a forest location – I can’t even be certain she was awake for all of it, for Christ’s sake – doesn’t mean that we can skip hand in hand into the soft-focus sunset of parenthood. Shit.

So I played it cool. I said: “Wow, so how do you feel about that?”

And she said: “I feel fucking terrible you spindly, cosseted bloody cretin.”

I had visions of the church, the aisle, Mum sitting in the front row and Gill standing there, a life of sleepless nights and nappies stretching out before me. I was about to offer some trademark Newsdesk placatory words when she hit me with the sledgehammer blow.

“And before you ask, don’t worry,” she said. “I’m certain it can’t be yours.” She was sick again, and then she said. “I think it must be Dave’s”

I got this horrible feeling in my stomach, like it was looping the loop and then I started to feel sick myself. I felt sad and angry. So I had a bit of a shout.

“Dave the bloody roofer?” I said. “Jesus Christ, Dave the roofer and my sort-of girlfriend are having a baby together. I thought we were working things out. I thought after Center Parcs things were getting back together. And now you’re having a baby with Dave the bloody roofer? He can barely fucking well write. What kind of father’s he going to be, eh? He’s a borderline alcoholic, bigoted, sexist moron. He’s got every Clarkson DVD that’s been issued. Even the foreign imports, the ones from Australia. The last book he read was a novel based on the TV series Spender, and it was written by Jimmy Nail!! He’s my best friend, for crying out loud.”

And then she put the phone down.

Well, I can tell you, readers, I didn’t know where I was. I wanted to phone Mum, but I didn’t want to tell her about Gill and Dave. So I just did what Buddhists are supposed to do in these situations: I sat down and had a think. And do you know what? It didn’t seem that bad, after a while. I actually started to feel relieved.

I’m a young man in the prime of my life. I’m a creative guy. And you know what they say about the pram in the hallway being the enemy of creativity.

I started to feel sorry for them both. It’s silly in this day and age to have unprotected sex, and they should have been more responsible. Now they’re going to have to live with this problem. Certainly, I realised that I wouldn’t be able to be with Gill after this. I can’t bring up Dave’s child, I just can’t. And I think it takes strength to be that brutally honest about something like this.

Anyway, I think it’s high time I had a beer. Newsdesk out, people.