by Lucy Diamond
I like him.
Me, too. He’s a nice bloke.
A really nice bloke.
I’m glad we sorted everything out.
I’m glad there’ll be three of us in this family.
By now, a few boxes marked KITCHEN had been brought in, so Saffron went to make a pot of tea, cutting the lemon cake into slices while the kettle boiled, then foraging through the newspaper-wrapped crockery until she found some side-plates. Who knew how this would work out, her being here and Max still in the city? He had his job to think about, and two other children he loved, plus an ex-wife who was a pain in the neck, by the sound of things. She, meanwhile, had a new life in the country to get used to, the uncertainty of freelance work, a baby on the way and the whole daunting prospect of motherhood looming ahead. It could still go either way. Nothing was guaranteed.
But they would try, that was the main thing. And at the end of the day, wasn’t that all any couple could do anyway? Max hadn’t welched out on her as she’d feared, he hadn’t bailed and slunk away into the shadows. On the contrary, in the last few weeks they’d spent a lot of time together, meeting for lunch and dinner, taking their bikes out to Epping Forest one sunshiny Saturday afternoon, and going on a trip to Lee Valley, where he surprised her with a pre-booked rafting session together (she had never been so drenched in her entire life). He’d allowed himself to be introduced to – or rather interrogated by – Saffron’s sister Zoe over Skype (who awarded him a double thumbs-up in approval) and had even braved Sunday lunch in a rural Essex pub with Eloise and Simon. Thankfully they had been unfailingly polite and normal, and hadn’t tried to adopt the unborn baby once. (‘He is lovely,’ Eloise said, following Saffron into the loos after the dessert course. ‘Absolutely perfect for you.’)
Who could say? Who knew? And what was perfect anyway? She would be forty next year and had been around the block enough times to know full well that people changed, and could fall out of love with the same unpredictability as the weather. Max already had one marriage and two children to show for that; she had her failed first marriage, too. But you couldn’t let that frighten you off. You couldn’t.
Besides, she really liked him. She really, really liked him. He was kind and funny and thoughtful, and every bit as sexy and gorgeous in bed as before, even when she was stone-cold sober and twice the size of her old pre-pregnant self.
He came into the kitchen just then with a box of cookery books and caught her mashing the tea with a goofy grin on her face. ‘What are you smiling about?’ he asked, dumping the box on the table.
She went over and put her arms around him. ‘You, of course,’ she said. ‘And us. And this place.’ The baby booted her pointedly. ‘And this squirming little baby, too,’ she added with a laugh. ‘All of it. The whole lot. But right now, especially you.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
‘I’ve decided,’ said Gemma, draining her second glass of Prosecco, ‘that summer is a much better time of year for making resolutions. Don’t you think?’
‘God, yeah,’ Caitlin agreed. ‘New Year’s Eve is a ridiculous night to be making any kind of life-plans. For one thing, you’re always too wasted to think straight.’
‘Plus you’re at your skintest and porkiest, right after Christmas,’ Saffron put in, ‘which kind of throws a depressing light on everything.’
‘Exactly, and the last thing you feel like doing in horrible, cold January is venturing out into the rain or snow to go jogging, let alone denying yourself wine or chocolate,’ said Gemma with a shudder. ‘Whereas now . . . ’ She looked at her empty glass and giggled. ‘Well, all right, so I’m not denying myself anything now either, but it is my birthday.’
‘I think that’s my cue to open another bottle,’ said Spencer, and everyone laughed.
‘Just look at that bottom, would you?’ Gemma sighed, as he walked away barefoot through the long glass, and then blushed furiously. ‘Whoops, did I just say that out loud?’
‘You totally did, you dirty cow,’ Caitlin said, shaking her head in reproach. ‘What are you like?’
What was she like? Gemma didn’t need to think hard to answer that question. Very bloody lucky, that was what she was like. And very bloody grateful, too.
It was a gorgeously hot mid-July day and they were all in her back garden for a birthday picnic lunch. There were only a few chocolate-dipped strawberries left to show for the spread that had been prepared by Spencer, with a little help from Will, Darcey, Judy and Waitrose. Bees buzzed lazily around the lavender, and the smell of cut grass mingled with the perfume of the flowers and the sharp, hot stink of Max’s cigarette. She was due to meet her dad and Judy, plus all of her brothers and their other halves, for dinner that evening, and she’d already been spoiled rotten with presents and cards and the most gigantic bouquet of flowers from Bunty (‘Your most loyal customer,’ as it said on the card). Did life get any better?
‘Go on then,’ Saffron said, nudging Gemma with her bare foot. With just six weeks to go now until her due date, she was half-woman, half-belly, and wore a huge droopy sunhat to shade her face. ‘Forget New Year. What resolutions would you make right now, if you were doing them over again?’
Gemma paused to think. After a rocky start to the year, the traumas of being unhappy, scared and broke were still only just beneath the surface; she often woke up in the night and had to do a mental head-count to reassure herself: Spencer, Will, Darcey, all here, all okay, go back to sleep. But the worst was definitely behind them, and their family was reunited and stronger than ever. The chances she’d taken had paid off: her career had gone into orbit and she still hadn’t got used to the joy she felt when someone tried on one of her dresses and their face lit up. Thanks to Saffron and Caitlin, she had a waiting list of customers and had taken on two mums from the school to work as extra part-time machinists alongside Gwen. She’d branched out into a range of Fifties-style full skirts recently, which were flying out of the studio as fast as they could make them. Things were definitely on the up.
Her friends were all looking expectantly at her. Oh yes, resolutions.
‘I guess . . . just to appreciate everything, really,’ she said, tipping her head back so that the sunshine warmed her face. ‘To take stock now and then, and be grateful for what I’ve got. My family, my friends, my home – I took them all for granted, until I was in danger of losing the lot. I won’t make that mistake again.’
‘Good call,’ said Saffron approvingly.
‘I’ll drink to that,’ agreed Max, holding up his champagne flute. He and Saffron had spent quite a few evenings with Gemma and Spencer since Saffron had been renting the next-door cottage, and the four of them got on brilliantly, not least because Max, like Spencer, was a rabid Arsenal fan and had wangled them both complimentary tickets for the first match of the season.
‘How about you, Cait?’ Gemma gave her a naughty look. ‘What was your New Year’s resolution again? To find a new man, wasn’t it? Well, that’s worked out all right, I suppose . . . ’
‘Better than all right, I reckon,’ Harry said, pulling a funny face. ‘Only the hottest, sexiest, fittest—’
‘Most big-headed—’
‘ . . .bloke in Larkmead. Can’t get luckier than that, right, Cait?’
Caitlin was making a daisy chain, slicing her thumbnail through the long green stalks. She laughed as Harry nudged her and said, ‘Oh, absolutely. I knew as soon as I saw that ridiculous pink Stetson that this was my Prince Charming.’ Then a more guarded expression appeared on her face. ‘Although technically speaking, there are two new men in my life. And a new woman, too.’
‘Eh?’ asked Saffron.
‘What?’ cried Harry, pretending to be outraged.
She elbowed him, rolling her eyes. He knew exactly what she was talking about, having sat beside her and held her hand when she was too scared to open the first email a week earlier. ‘I’ve been in touch with this Adoption Search Reunion website,’ she told the others. ‘It turns out I’ve
got a half-brother, and he and my birth mother are both living in Vancouver.’
‘Wow!’ Gemma cried.
‘Oh, Caitlin!’ Saffron exclaimed.
‘Holy cow,’ said Max. ‘Will you go out to meet them, do you think?’
The big question. The terrifying, weird, exciting question. ‘Yeah, at some point, definitely,’ she said, then giggled. ‘We’ve swapped emails and photos so far, and they both look so like me, it’s really freaky. So that’s my next resolution: to get on a plane and meet them. Maybe in the autumn, when I’ve plucked up enough courage.’
Harry squeezed her hand. He knew what this meant to her. Having spent her entire life as an only child, it had been the most unexpected bonus for Caitlin to discover a real-life brother out there: Michael Wendell, an osteopath in Vancouver, who had the same big nose and fluffy dark hair as her, plus a friendly, kind face, a wife (her sister-in-law!) and a guest room with her name on it whenever she could make it out to Canada.
‘Awesome,’ said Saffron, wiggling her bare toes in the sunshine. ‘That is great news, Cait.’
Yes, thought Caitlin. Yes, it was great news. She was still getting used to her new family arrangements, but after some deep emotional wrangling, she had finally made her peace with Jane, and let go of the anger and hurt she’d felt. One cool, cloudy day in May she and Harry had driven out to Aldeburgh, a place Jane had always loved, and scattered her ashes at last, letting them fly out to sea. ‘Thank you,’ she said as the ashes spiralled from her fingers and up into the air. ‘For everything you ever taught me. You were a great mum.’
A few days later, when it was Caitlin’s birthday, Gemma had presented her with a patchwork bag she’d made, using scraps of fabric cut from Jane’s old clothes. Her favourite pink silk nightie, her red-flowered sundress, a pale-blue jacket, her tweedy gardening trousers . . . they were all there, cut and stitched together in a beautiful jigsaw. Every time she used the bag, Caitlin felt close to her mum again, remembering one incident or other where Jane had worn one of the garments. Happy days. Good times.
Now that she had got over the shocking discovery of her birth, Caitlin had also come to accept that the adoption had been carried out for the best reasons: an attempt to give her a second chance, a better, safer childhood. Alison was seventeen and had been pressurized to give Caitlin up for adoption by her strict Catholic parents. ‘But I never stopped thinking about you, lovey,’ she wrote in her first email. ‘I always hoped that you’d try to find me one day.’
And now she had. They had found each other. Nothing would diminish what Jane and Steve had been for her – two great parents – but now there was an extra parent in the mix, another family to get to know. When she thought back to how she’d felt at the start of the year – so alone, so sad, so broken – she hardly recognized herself. Now she had an extra helping of family, lots of interesting work from Saffron and Gemma, as well as their staunch friendship, and a hot new relationship with Harry to boot. He was just as lovely as Gemma had always claimed. She knew Jane would have approved.
Finishing her daisy circlet, she draped it on Harry’s blond hair, where it slipped rakishly over one ear. ‘Gorgeous,’ she assured him, leaning over to give him a smooch. So far, to everyone’s surprise, Harry had kept to his own New Year’s resolution about not making any rash marriage proposals, but that was fine by Caitlin. She wasn’t in any rush. Mind you, if things carried on going so brilliantly between them, she had half a mind to pop the question herself, perhaps at midnight next New Year’s Eve . . .
‘Harry, what about you?’ Gemma asked, as he and Caitlin disentangled themselves. ‘Obviously it’s impossible to improve on perfection, but are there any self-improvement resolutions you’d care to share?’
He thought about it, then nodded sagely. ‘Always to knock before I walk in on my dad when he is entertaining a “lady friend”,’ he declared. ‘My eyes, my eyes. It’s going to take years of therapy for me to get over seeing Dad and Bunty doing that.’
Spencer returned with an ice bucket and another bottle of Prosecco just as they were all roaring with laughter, and topped everyone’s glasses up.
‘Cheers,’ said Max, as they all toasted the birthday girl again. ‘Well, my summer resolution’s easy: give up smoking before the baby arrives. And make sure I’m out of the country when it comes to the birth. Joking!’ He leaned back as Saffron pretended to punch him. ‘Seriously, though. I want to be a really good dad. Better than I was for my first two children. I don’t want to let this child down – or you, Saff.’
‘You’d better not,’ Saffron joked, but she knew there was real regret behind his words. He’d been an absent dad for them, he’d said, so wrapped up in his career that he’d missed all sorts of baby milestones: first steps, first words, first days at school. These days his priorities had changed; he’d already promised her he wouldn’t make that mistake again.
She reached over to take his hand, noticing how tanned he was, his olive skin soaking up the sun in a way that her pale, freckly limbs never did. Who would the baby look like? she wondered for the millionth time. Whose eyes would he or she inherit, whose ears, whose nose, whose complexion? So many discoveries lay ahead of her: this brand-new little person to get to know, a whole new chapter of her life just about to start. With six weeks to go, she felt as ripe and round as a watermelon, the baby no longer quite so wriggly now that there was less room to manoeuvre, but with a good strong heartbeat and perfect measurements, according to her last antenatal check. She had stopped thinking about the one in thirty-six chance. It flashed into her mind every now and then, but she pushed it away. Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it, she thought. Whoever the baby turns out to be, she or he will be loved.
‘How about you, Saffron?’ Caitlin asked.
Saffron blinked quickly, returning to the moment. ‘Resolutions, hmm.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Can I say: not to poo myself on the delivery table, or is that totally lowering the tone?’
They all laughed. ‘Did I mention that I’m going to be out of the country during the birth?’ Max said, and she stuck her tongue out at him.
Resolutions. There had to be something. She racked her brain for anything that might be missing in her life, an area on which she could improve, but at a first sweep everything was in place. She and Max had started looking ahead to the autumn, exploring villages midway between London and here, in which they could buy a little house and live together as a family. Work was great, and made her happy. Her parents were doting on her, thrilled to bits about the prospect of the new grandchild, and her sister Zoe was due to fly in from Perth in a few weeks for an extended visit, so that she could meet the youngest member of the family when he or she arrived. Nicest of all was the fact that Eloise and Simon had announced they were going to look into adoption; a positive decision that Saffron thoroughly approved of. If anyone deserved to be a mum it was Eloise.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m a bit scared about whether or not I’ll be any good at this motherhood business.’ She shifted to a more comfortable position on the picnic blanket. ‘But if this year has taught me anything, it’s that life is full of surprises. So my resolution is to try not to stress about the unknown until it happens. That – and not poo myself on the delivery table.’
‘A wise resolution,’ Spencer said, with a meaningful look at Gemma.
‘Don’t you dare,’ she warned him, laughing. ‘Not now. Not on my birthday.’
He laughed as well, dodging as she kicked out at him, then rubbed his back as it twinged from the sudden movement. Out of the back-brace at last, he was getting used to a more physical life again: swimming and going for long walks; oh, and sex, of course. He was definitely enjoying that again, as was Gemma. It wasn’t just his body that was healing; there had come a day back in April when he’d woken up and the tight, pinching sensation in his head had gone, as if something had lifted clean away. Concussion or depression, he still wasn’t completely sure which, but he was able to think straight again f
or the first time all year, no longer in constant pain, no longer quite so dour about the future.
He still wasn’t up to the full rigours of his old job yet, but had kept himself busy around the house decorating the living room, overhauling the bathroom and putting up a pergola in the back garden. More importantly, he was Spencer again: laughing and irreverent, Gemma’s best friend and favourite person. Now that she had her husband back in soul as well as body, Gemma was fully intent on creating enough wonderful new moments and memories for them to fill Greatest Hits: Gemma and Spencer, Volumes 2, 3 and 4.
‘My turn,’ he said now. ‘I can’t do all the fancy words, like the rest of you. But I know damn well I was a pretty shit husband and dad at the start of the year, and I’ve been trying since then to put things right. As you know, I flogged the Mazda back in March and I used some of the money to contribute to the family finances while I did a bit of work around the place. The rest of the money . . . well, come and see. Time for the big unveiling.’
They all got to their feet, light-headed from the sunshine and Prosecco – even Saffron, who’d been on the sparkling water. Gemma felt skittery with trepidation, unsure what to expect. There was no hiding the fact that Spencer had demolished the old garage that had once housed his precious car, but he’d erected a marquee-sized blue plastic tent over the ground where it had once stood, and she was none the wiser as to what, exactly, he’d been up to in there – only that he’d been busy and cheerful, jumping out of bed early every morning, whistling in the shower, eager to crack on with a brand-new day, just like old times. A couple of mates had been over recently to help, and there had been intriguing drilling and sawing sounds, but whenever she tried to prise out of them what he was up to, they’d all clammed up and shaken their heads. To say she was intrigued was the understatement of the year.
