"Fenwick, Keith - Skid 02 - Skid2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fenwick Keith)

Shaking her head to clear her confusion Sue looked up and found the doctor looking pointedly at his watch. As if saying: it is after three and if you don't get going I'll miss my golf game.
Sue managed to retain her composure until she was outside and rummaging through her handbag for her car keys. She opened the door, tossed her bag onto the seat and cradled her head in her arms on the roof. Sue just couldn't believe it. Pregnant! It just wasn't possible.
Dabbing at her tears with a handkerchief Sue reached over to put the key into the ignition.
"Oh shit!" Not for the first time in recent days she found herself sitting in the right-hand seat and not the left when she meant to drive away.
"What's happening to me?" She asked herself sliding across the seat until she was behind the steering wheel. 'Am I going nuts or what?'
Sue didn't bother returning to work, what was the point in being the boss if you couldn't take time off when you felt like it?
Instead she stopped off at a liquor store on the way home and bought herself a sixpack.
What am I doing here? She asked herself again as she got back into the car. She rarely drank alcohol, though this last week she'd had an almost desperate need to drink. No not simply to drink, to drink with someone. Pulling a can of beer out of the fridge when she got home was almost a habit now. A pile of empty cans in the rubbish bin confirmed that.
For the first time in the short while she knew she was pregnant Sue smiled. Didn't women crave certain food when they were pregnant? That was the reason.
How pregnant am I? Sue asked herself. The doctor had muttered something about eight weeks she thought. Not that there was any point in counting the weeks up, there had been nobody.
Sue knew it wasn't possible that she could be pregnant, however much she was. The symptoms all fit and the tests were supposed to be infallible.
Unable to concentrate on anything for more than a few moments at a time, Sue gave up trying to work out how it had happened. She didn't really think it was an immaculate conception but there didn't seem to be a better explanation for her state.
Back at her apartment Sue unconsciously pulled a can from the sixpack she'd bought and took a long swallow. The trip home had been harrowing, not least because she continually believed that she was driving on the wrong side of the road. Though it was clear from the traffic flow that she wasn't.
Sue had suddenly found that driving wasn't the instinctive process that usually was, she had to concentrate on what she was doing!
Sue had put the irrational idea of driving on the wrong side of the road down to stress and shock. She wasn't sure about that, driving on the left-hand side seemed so natural somehow. Too many run of the mill everyday things felt weird and out of place to her. Pregnancy was just another example. Even the very familiar, her parents, her house, her work, felt strange and out of place. It was as if she had just returned from a long trip only to find that the only thing that had changed while she had been away was herself.
"Gees Wayne, this tastes like weasel's piss!" Sue regarded the can frankly, then dropped it fearing she was going crazy.
The voice had been loud and clear as if someone had spoken beside her. Unnoticed the beer frothed out over the floor. Sue looked around to make sure she was alone and screamed.
Nothing happened, the voice was gone but she tensed at the sound of footsteps hurrying along the path outside. A head popped up in the window.
"Are you all right dear?" Sue relaxed a little. It was only old Mrs Pratt from next door."I heard a scream."
Sue nodded dumbly through the window.
"Are you sure?"
Sue nodded again, wishing then old busy body would go away and leave her to her misery.
"I thought I saw a mouse," she said weakly, sounding unconvincing even to herself.
Mrs Pratt stared at Sue with and expression of utter disbelief and unhappily lowered her pistol. She'd been prepared for anything and was quite disappointed that Sue wasn't in some kind of trouble.
Mouse indeed! Grunted the crusader against evil doers and all men, as she strode purposefully back to her own apartment.
Sue reached for a cloth and wiped up the mess at her feet, then drained what was left of the beer before tossing it carelessly at the waste bin.
The usually fastidious Sue ignored the can that had missed it's target and rolled across the floor. Instead she grabbed another full one and sprawled in an easy chair.
A bell rang somewhere and Sue was just about to get up and answer the door when she realised it was the phone.
"Hello?"
"Hello dear," her mother answered on the other end of the line.
Just what I needed Sue thought, grimacing.
"How are you dear?"
"Oh pretty well," Sue lied wondering when her pregnancy would begin to show. She couldn't hide that from her mother for long.
"Are you there dear?" her mother obviously hadn't heard.
"I'm fine mom, fine really."
"I just rang to see if you were still coming down on the weekend?"
"Eh?" It seemed months ago that she had planned the visit. Surely she had been already?
"Oh sure mom," Sue recovered quickly, suddenly realising what had happened. Not that this discovery made her feel any better. She had lost time somewhere, somehow time had passed her by without her being aware of it. That was the only way to explain the pregnancy, the feeling she had been away, she might have had some kind on amnesia attack. There was a blank space in her memory as if something had been scrubbed out. But what?
Sue inserted a yes and no here and there in her mother's inconsequential gossipy conversation. Meanwhile her mind reeled at each new possibility that occurred to her. All she wanted to do was to scream and scream and scream as she speculated at what might have happened during that lost time. Got pregnant for one.
Tramping last week. Every thing before and after was clear enough in her own mind but the actual tramping trip itself was a different story. She remembered going, and coming home, but what had happened sometime was a bit of a blur. How would that explain her pregnancy? The trip was only last week afterall.
"Ok mom, I'll see you on the weekend." Sue cut her mother off, suddenly impatient with her. She didn't want to know about Mrs Jones's piles or how well her nieces and nephews were doing at bible class, or anywhere else for that matter.
Sue didn't know what else to do so he stayed sprawled in the chair until the can was empty and then went into the kitchen for another. Halfway back to her chair she had second thought and grabbed the remainder of the six pack and set it down beside her chair. Before opening another can she used the remote to flick through the television channels until she found something that appealed to her.
She watched staring blankly, nothing really registering, mechanically finishing off the six pack. At last she tried to stand and found that she was more than a little drunk.
What a mess she must look, Sue thought with a giggle.
"Oaark,"she burped loudly and giggled again and with great deliberation stumbled over to the couch and fell on it.
Within minutes, some inane game show blaring on the television, she was sprawled untidily on the couch, sound asleep in the land of dreams.
Sue dreamt of strange looking men, tall pale men wearing light coloured robes that concealed everything but their heads and feet.
Angels, she dreamt. Angels assessing her suitability for entrance to heaven, staring but not speaking as she stood before them, their distaste for her clearly evident in their faces.
Sometime in the night Sue woke, finding herself on the couch for the third time that week. She got up wearily, switched off the television and stumbled to the bathroom. There she tipped two aspirins into a glass and swallowed them on the way to her bedroom.
Sue forgot any more dreams that night but woke in the morning knowing how she had got pregnant. It hadn't been a dream but a vision. The angels weren't assessing her qualifications for heaven, but as a vessel for another of god's children. Immaculate conception was the only explanation that made any sense to her.