by Alix Kelso
Heather frowned and gave him a look he remembered only too well from the unhappier times in their marriage. “I’ve been texting you, Bruce. You haven’t replied.”
“Did you expect me to?”
She flinched at the steel in his voice. ‘No, I guess not.’
Her hand moved to the baby bump and sadness swept her face. Bruce felt sudden remorse for the tone he’d used, although he didn’t fully understand why.
His gaze moved to her bump. “Are you okay?”
She rubbed her stomach almost absent-mindedly and her expression softened. “I’m okay.”
Keith emerged from the kitchen. “Bruce, we need to get these tiles glued back down before ... oh ... Heather.”
“Hello, Keith. How are you?”
“Aye, fine.”
No one seemed to know what to say next. The only sound was the fruit machine, quietly singing to itself in the corner. Not even Jimmy Pearson or Big Kev, Bruce noted, seemed willing to risk an ill-advised comment.
“Um ... so, what brings you here, Heather?” Keith finally said.
“I need to talk to Bruce.”
“Aye, right. Bruce, why don’t you take Heather upstairs and get some privacy.”
Bruce pointed in the direction of the back stairs and showed Heather into the small living room. When he gestured to the sofa, Heather waved a hand.
“If I sit down, I’ll never get back up again. This baby’s destroying my centre of gravity.” She turned and saw his expression. “Sorry, I know you don’t want to know about that.”
“Heather, why are you here?”
“Because you didn’t reply to any of the messages I sent and you’ve refused to answer my calls.”
“Can you blame me?”
“Not really.”
“So, I’ll ask again. Why are you here? What do you want?”
She sighed. “My painting, Bruce. I want my painting.”
He frowned. “What?”
Throwing her arms wide, she gestured at him. “My painting! The one you took when you left. It’s my painting, Bruce. You gave it to me as a gift. You had a no right to take it. I want it back.”
He felt his eyebrows beetling as he took this in. “The painting? That ugly painting, that’s what you came for?”
“If you thought it was so ugly, why did you take it?”
“You know why.”
Her expression changed and the sadness returned. “Yeah, I know. Look, I understand why you’d rather just ignore me. But that painting is mine, and I’d like to have it back.”
Bruce stared and then felt laughter roll through him. “All those texts you sent were about that painting?”
“Yes, of course. What did you think they were about?”
“You just kept saying we needed to talk and sort things out. I had no idea what you wanted.”
He walked to the other side of the room and looked out the window.
“Actually, that’s not true,” he said. “I thought it might be a lot of things. I thought maybe you and Dan had split up, and that maybe you wanted us to ... well, that you maybe wanted us to get back together.”
Turning, he saw a look of complete astonishment cross her face.
“No, Dan and I are great. We can’t wait for this baby to come.”
Seeing the love and excitement in Heather’s face as she said this, he felt the strangest feeling as the last shards of resentment he’d held inside just crumbled away. Until that moment, he hadn’t even realised they’d been there or how much hurt he was still carrying inside. During the weeks he’d spent with Laura, he’d believed he was finally moving on from the horror ending of his marriage, but now he knew that Laura could only ever have helped him so far.
He had to let go. He had to let go of the hurt and the anger and the embarrassment. And now that he saw Heather, so obviously happy and blooming in the new life she’d chosen – in the new life she’d left him in order to live – he realised that he too not only could let go, but that he wanted to.
And so he did. And up it went, like a balloon floating away into the sky. It was instantaneous and miraculous.
“I’m glad you and Dan are happy,” he found himself saying.
Her smile came quickly. “Thank you, that means a lot.”
“Give me a minute, I’ll be right back.”
He stepped through to his bedroom and returned with the painting. Since taking it down from the wall, he’d wrapped it in special packaging and thick brown paper while he sorted out the shipping.
“I was about to courier it to you. I should’ve done it before now.”
She ran her hand along the thick paper wrapping. “You were hurt, Bruce, and lashing out. I’m sorry I caused you to do that.”
He nodded and gestured to the painting. “You didn’t come all the way up from London just for this, did you?”
“I was visiting an old friend in Edinburgh before the baby comes and wanted to see if I could talk you into giving me this before I went home.”
“Is your car downstairs? I’ll put this in the back for you.”
“Wait.” She stepped forward and moved to touch his arm, but seemed to think better of it. Her hand dropped to her side. “I know I said this a million times already. But I am sorry, Bruce. I never wanted things to end the way they did. I fell in love with someone else, but that didn’t mean I wanted to hurt you. And I know I did hurt you.”
As he looked at his ex-wife, he thought of all the pain he’d been holding inside for so long. “For a while, I thought I’d never get over it, Heather. You broke my heart.”
“Bruce, I’m sorry, and—”
He held up a hand and smiled as an image of Laura filled his mind. “But lately, it feels like it’s starting to mend.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“That makes me happy, Bruce. I only want you to be happy.”
“Come on, I’ll carry this downstairs.”
At Heather’s car, he packed the wrapped painting into the back and made sure it was secure. When he turned to her, he wondered what he ought to say.
He decided he ought to say what he truly felt.
“I hope you and Dan have a great life together, Heather. You’re going to be wonderful parents.”
And for the last time, Heather gave him that smile that had, once upon a time in another life, set his heart beating fast.
“Goodbye, Bruce.”
“Bye, Heather.”
Watching her pull out into the traffic and disappear forever, he could almost see their paths finally fork and separate.
He felt nothing but relief.
When Bruce walked back inside the pub, Jimmy Pearson and Big Kev gave him beady looks.
“Looks like you’ve got some fast talking to do,” Big Kev said.
Bruce’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, that was your ex-wife, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Your pregnant ex-wife?”
Bruce sighed. “Sorry to spoil the gossiping, but it’s not my baby.”
“In that case, you might want to explain that to Wee Blondie.”
Bruce’s head snapped up. Keith, who’d been polishing the glass shelves of his new whisky display, turned around and stared at the two men on the barstools.
“What are you talking about?” Bruce said.
“The best we can work it out,” Jimmy Pearson said, “you left your phone on those boxes of crisps, and when it pinged, Wee Blondie picked it up to put it on the counter. Her face turned white when she saw the message, didn’t it, Kev?”
“White as a sheet.”
Bruce, spying the phone on the bar counter, grabbed it and read the messages that Heather had sent while he’d been in the pub kitchen.
“Then your ex-wife walked in,” Big Kev said. “Wee Blondie took one look at that bump of hers and sprinted out the door.”
“Shit!” Bruce said. “She put two and two together and got a disaster.”<
br />
“For God’s sake,” Keith said. “You have to set her straight.”
Bruce dialled Laura’s number but it went to the answer service. When he dialled again, the same thing happened.
“Did she say where she was going?” he asked Jimmy as he grabbed his keys.
“She didn’t say anything, mate.”
Bruce squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think. “She said she was going to see her friend, Yvonne.”
“There you go,” Keith said. “Find Yvonne and you find Laura.”
“But I don’t know where she lives. Damn it.”
He dialled Laura’s phone again. This time it went to the answer machine without even ringing.
“Okay, she’s ignoring me. Of course she’s ignoring me. I’m an idiot. Okay, okay. I’ll try her flat, and if she’s not there, I’ll work out where Yvonne lives and track her down.”
“Yvonne’s a nurse, isn’t she?” Keith said.
“Yes!” Bruce said, pointing at his uncle. “She’s a nurse over at the Royal Infirmary. I’ll go there and see if I can find out where she lives.”
On their bar stools, Jimmy Pearson and Big Kev chortled.
“No one’s going to give out address information about hospital staff, son.”
Bruce paused halfway through the door, but only for a second. “I have to try. I have to find Laura. I have to put this right.”
Chapter 21
Laura couldn’t think straight. Her mind swam with one idea and one idea only: Bruce’s ex-wife was pregnant.
He hadn’t mentioned it, had never even so much as hinted at it, and she couldn’t help but wonder if the reason was now obvious – the baby was his, and he’d wanted to keep it quiet.
A child would forever link him with his ex-wife. Laura thought it was something she could’ve grown used to. Plenty of people had children from previous relationships – it was no big deal.
But it was a big deal when the child was kept secret.
She thought of those phone messages he’d received and ignored and acted so oddly about afterwards. Oh God, had those been from Heather?
Of course they had. She’d been a fool not to realise it.
A bus pulled up at the nearby stop and Laura got on. She found a seat and sent Yvonne a message to say she couldn’t come over after all.
But almost as soon as the message was sent, Laura’s phone rang. Checking the screen, she sighed to see it was Yvonne.
“Laura, I’ve got prosecco chilling in the fridge for us. What’s the problem?”
“Something’s come up, and I need ... look, I just need to sort something out, okay?”
There was a pause before Yvonne responded. “Has something happened?”
“No ... look, I don’t want to talk about it on the phone.”
“Do it anyway.”
Laura sighed and lowered her voice to avoid the nosy ears of other bus passengers. “Bruce’s ex-wife came into the pub.”
“His ex-wife?”
“Jeez, shout it a little louder, Yvonne, I don’t think you quite managed to rupture my eardrum.”
“What did she want?”
“I don’t know. But she’s pregnant.”
“What?”
“Probably about seven months.”
“And is the baby his?”
“Well, I guess it has to be.”
“Why? Why does it have to be his? She had an affair, didn’t she?”
Laura sat stunned, watching the world rush by outside the bus windows while she thought about this.
“You said she was about seven months pregnant, right?” Yvonne continued. “And you told me they split up, what, six months ago? Of course the baby isn’t his.”
Of course it wasn’t, Laura thought. It couldn’t be his baby. Could it?
“But if it’s not his baby, why didn’t he tell me anything about it? He’s told me about how she had an affair and how it crushed him. Why wouldn’t he tell me about a baby, too?”
“I guess you’d have to ask him. But my best guess is that he wouldn’t tell you because men are idiots. No one really knows how their silly brains work or why they do the things they do.”
“His sister-in-law almost let something slip when I visited them. It had to have been about the baby. She thought I knew. Oh God, maybe it is Bruce’s baby, Yvonne, and Claire thought I knew.”
“You’re running in circles, Laura. The only way to find out is to ask him.”
“I don’t think I can. I’m too terrified in case it is his baby. And too confused about why, if it isn’t his baby, he wouldn’t tell me the whole story.”
“Look, you’re crazy about this guy. Anyone with eyes can see it, and anyone with eyes can see he’s crazy about you too.”
But Laura was shaking her head. “No, I need to take a step back. We’ve been moving too fast and this is a wake-up call. Even if that baby isn’t his, I can’t help but feel he’s got feelings for her, Yvonne. What was I thinking, getting involved with someone barely a few months out of a separation and divorce?”
“Now you’re just being silly. Look, come over here and we’ll talk, and—”
“No, I’m just going to walk around for a while and have a think.”
“Okay, but I’m here if you want to come over.”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Laura ended the call and trudged off the bus. She began walking, heading in any direction, no direction.
The baby couldn’t be Bruce’s. Yvonne was right. Wasn’t she?
But what if it was his baby? Remembering the text message that Heather had sent, Laura cringed.
Stop ignoring me and pretending this isn’t happening.
Oh God, had Bruce been ignoring the fact his ex-wife was pregnant with their baby? That didn’t seem like the Bruce she’d come to know – and come to love.
But after only a few short weeks together, maybe she was deluding herself about how much she actually did know.
“Laura, are you quite alright?”
Blinking, Laura looked up and stared in bafflement at Natalie, who had somehow appeared before her.
“I just came out of my solicitor’s office across the street and saw you standing here,” Natalie said. “Are you okay?”
Laura glanced around the busy street, where people rushed past and traffic zoomed along the road.
“I ... I was going to get a cup of coffee.”
Natalie eyed her carefully. “I’ll come with you, in that case. I need a coffee myself after spending an hour discussing the details of the Valentino’s sale with my slippery solicitor.”
Natalie steered her towards a nearby cafe, and once they’d ordered coffees and taken a seat by the window, she unwrapped her scarf and looked long and hard at Laura.
“What’s the matter?”
Laura stirred her cappuccino. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time.”
She stirred the teaspoon some more before finally surrendering and summarising the events of the last half hour. When she’d finished talking, Natalie nodded and sipped her coffee.
“Well, it sounds to me like Yvonne is right,” Natalie finally said. “I can’t imagine that Bruce is the sort of man who would keep the imminent birth of his own child with his ex-wife a secret from a new girlfriend. However, I’m also aware that people can, and do, let us down. Keith certainly never mentioned anything about it to me, but then again why would he? I think Yvonne is right. You need to talk to Bruce.”
“But he kept this from me.”
“If it isn’t his child, how has he kept it from you? If it isn’t his child then there’s nothing to tell.”
Laura rubbed her eyes. “I haven’t had many serious boyfriends, Natalie, you know that. And I opened up to Bruce about a lot of things in my life, and about stuff I find it hard to talk about. It hurts that he kept this from me. I know that doesn’t make much sense.”
“You’re right, it do
esn’t.”
“We’ve said we love one another. And I do love him. But there’s too much about him I don’t know.”
“Laura, let me tell you something. You don’t fall in love with someone because you already know everything there is to know about them. You fall in love with someone because you want to know everything there is to know about them. And if that love is real and the person you are in love with is basically good at heart, then there’s very little you learn about them that could ever change how you feel.”
“That’s ... that’s ... do you believe that?”
“I not only believe it, I lived it. Angelo and I were married within months of meeting each other. I didn’t know all there was to know about him and he didn’t know all there was to know about me. We learned as we went along, and not once did I ever have cause to doubt the love I felt for him.”
Laura looked out at the street and shook her head. “Maybe I’m not capable of that.”
Natalie set down her coffee cup. “Laura, during all these years I’ve known you, I’ve come to know one thing for sure. I’ve kept it to myself, but I’m going to say it now. You got scared after your parents died, and believe me I understand why and certainly don’t judge you for it. You were only nineteen after all, of course you were scared. But you’ve gone on to become too cautious in life, because of what happened. In your job, you’ve stayed with me at the restaurant to avoid taking any real risks out there in the world. And in relationships, you’ve chosen men you’re not really interested in so that when it ends, you won’t get hurt too badly, if at all. At least that was true until Bruce came along and upended everything. And now, because something unexpected has happened, you’re trying to run.”
“Hang on—”
“We live in a complicated world filled with complicated people, and there’s no such thing as a safe bet. Don’t find excuses to distance yourself from this man who’s finally turning your world upside down, when that’s exactly what your world happens to need.”
Laura stared, confusion raking her mind as she tried to understand. “Are you saying I ignore the pregnant ex-wife?”
“I’m saying you ask questions about the pregnant ex-wife. If you don’t like the answers, then decide what you want to do. But don’t use the pregnant ex-wife as justification to creep back into your little shell and hide. You’ve been in there long enough, don’t you think?”
