by Frances Pye
None of them had spoken to Terry for weeks. Lily out of pride after her attempt at reconciliation had been snubbed. Mara out of shame—she was responsible for the article that had caused all the trouble—and Jules out of a mixture of inertia and intimidation. Whenever she thought of Terry, an image of her screaming insults came to mind. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t forget the sheer vitriol that her friend had spat at her and so hadn’t been inclined to get in touch. Plus, given that the others were much closer to Terry, she hadn’t felt that she should be the one to make a move. Until now.
Nervous, unsure of her reception, but determined to go ahead, Jules gathered her courage and reached out to press the doorbell.
After about twenty seconds, she could hear someone running down the stairs, then undoing the lock. She took a deep breath and stepped back a bit. Terry might be pleased to see her. On the other hand, she might be furious at the intrusion and slam the door in her face.
The door opened. Terry saw who it was and squealed. “Jules!” She reached out and hugged her. “What a great surprise!”
“You don’t mind me turning up like this?”
“Do I look like I mind?” Terry grinned.
Jules smiled right back. “No. No, you don’t.”
Terry reached out for another hug. “It’s fantastic to see you. I’ve wanted to call you guys. I was a real cow with Lily. Did she tell you?”
“A bit. Yes.” Lily had just said they’d quarreled, though not what about. And that Terry had rejected her overtures of friendship.
“I haven’t known how to make it right. So I’ve done nothing. Coward, I am.”
“No. Not you. Never you.”
“Yes, me. But that doesn’t matter now. You’ve come.” Another hug.
“Hey. I’m here. No need to keep checking.”
Terry laughed. “You are, you are. And I’ve got just the thing, haven’t I?”
And she ran off up the stairs.
By the time Jules got into the flat and found her friend in the kitchen, Terry had already opened a bottle of champagne and poured two glasses. “I’ve been saving this. For a special occasion. Like this. You coming here after the last time at your house and that. I’ve wanted to talk to you, say sorry again. I was a nightmare. I don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s okay. I wasn’t all that nice either. In fact, I was a complete bitch.”
“Nicer than me.”
“Not noticeably.” Jules shook her head. “Am I forgiven?”
“Course. Am I?”
“No question.”
“A bit of a celebration, then.” She held a glass out to Jules. “Here you go.”
“Terry, I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“You can’t?” Terry looked closely at Jules, noticed her slightly swollen breasts, her rounder belly, her shining eyes and clear skin. “You’re pregnant!”
“Yes. That’s it.”
“Jules! Since when?” Terry tried hard to sound excited. And pleased. But it was a struggle. Because she couldn’t stop thinking that it must be Sean’s, that he had sent Terry here to break the news to her. And shriveling inside at the idea.
“Forty-six days.” Jules noticed Terry’s forced enthusiasm but put it down to her already stated disapproval of predetermined single motherhood.
“Congratulations.” Terry kissed Jules on the cheek, then turned and poured her a large glass of milk. “Here. I’ll have to drink all the champagne myself, won’t I?” She took a large gulp. For courage. “Who’s the father?” Terry needed to ask. She had to know, even if it were bad news.
“It’s the oddest thing. You remember Michael? The man I was once engaged to?”
“You left him at the altar.” Terry’s voice shook with relief. She felt like leaping up and down and dancing around the kitchen. Michael. Not Sean. Michael. “Wasn’t he a lord or something?”
“An earl.”
“God, Jules. Will the baby be an earlette?”
“No. He was married until a few years ago. He’s already got his heir.”
“Oh. All right.”
Terry waited for Jules to continue.
But Jules didn’t. She’d heard the relief in her friend’s voice when she’d said it was Michael, realized that Terry must have thought she was going to say Sean. And been terrified by the idea. She knew Terry had been to bed with Sean—Lily had told her—and had thought it just a fling, a meaningless one-night stand. But what if it hadn’t been? It would certainly put a new slant on their quarrel about him. If Terry were in love with Sean, of course she’d be that angry when Jules tried to restake a claim.
“Well, come on, then,” Terry prompted.
“What?”
“Where? When? Why?”
“Not how?”
“I know that. Well, I think I do. If my memory serves me right. Now, spill the beans. Details, girl, details.”
And Jules spilled. All about meeting Michael that night, about going to bed with him, about him disappearing and her deciding not to try to contact him, about her discovering she was pregnant.
“You had no idea?”
“None.”
“God, after all these years. Your ex-fiancé. What do you think he’ll say? Will he be pissed off?”
“I don’t know. Possibly. Probably. Terry, what should I do?”
Terry looked at Jules, dumbfounded. In her experience, her friend had never come to her directly for advice and had rejected any that she offered, particularly if it was contrary to her own wishes. Had she changed that much? “You want me to tell you what to do?”
“Yes. Please.”
“Well, okay. Sure. Fire away.”
“Do I tell him about it? No, wait.” Jules held up her hand when she saw Terry about to jump in. “It’s not that I want to keep the baby to myself this time. Believe it or not, I learned a lot from the thing with Sean.” Jules was watching Terry closely and saw her wince at the mention of Sean’s name. “It’s just that I don’t think Michael wants to see me. And I hurt him so much and I don’t want to do it again.”
Terry looked closely at Jules, trying to see if she was telling the truth or was attempting to justify her desire to have the child alone. “Is that really it?” she asked.
“I know what you’re thinking. That I’m using this as an excuse. But I’m not. I’m not. I want my baby to have a father. I do. But not a reluctant one. And not one I have to hurt to get.”
“Are you sure he’ll be hurt?”
“No. But he walked out while I was asleep. He didn’t say good-bye. Didn’t leave a note. He hasn’t called. And up until that night, he’d always avoided me like the plague.”
“He doesn’t sound mad keen, does he? Still, I can’t see any way round it. It’s his baby too. You can’t say nothing. Suppose you don’t tell, and then later what do you do when your kid wants to know about his dad? Believe me, you don’t want to lie. Anything can happen. I never thought Finn would turn up like that, did I? Suppose he’d talked to Paul before he died? Suppose Paul had found out his father didn’t love football and terriers and spicy food and that? Found out I’d been telling him fibs all these years? God knows what he’d’ve thought of me then. Not much, I bet.
“But telling the kid the truth’s no better. Not if you haven’t told the father. What if he insists on meeting him and then you have this earl person faced with a child he knew nothing about. Which’ll hurt him even more than if he did know. You’ve got to tell him. You have. And as soon as possible.”
“What if he won’t see me?”
“Then you have to make him. But he will. You know he will.”
“What if he won’t accept that my baby is his too?”
“This is the new millennium. You have a DNA test, don’t you?”
“What if he wants me to…to…have an…” Jules found it hard to say the word.
“You refuse. It’s your body, your choice.”
“I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t. Not even if it means I bring
my baby up totally alone.”
“Sometimes it’s people’s first reaction. Shock and that. You hold firm, he’ll back off.”
“Then what if he doesn’t want to be involved but says he will out of duty?”
“Better any kind of father than none.”
“Even a cold, indifferent one?”
“Even that. Anyway, who’s to say he’ll always be that way? Duty can turn into love, can’t it?”
“What if he’s just not interested?”
“It’ll hurt, but you’ll have tried. That’s got to be better.”
Jules forced a smile. And then started to nibble at her beautifully manicured nails.
Terry left her alone for a minute, before saying, “If you’re that hungry, there’s last night’s leftover dinner in the fridge.”
Jules whipped her hands away from her mouth and sat on them. “I haven’t done that in years.”
“Come on. What is it?”
“It’s just…Suppose he’s angry. I don’t think I could cope with that.”
“Christ, you’ve run your own company forever. You organize parties for hundreds of people without thinking about it. You travel halfway round the world by yourself. And you’re worried about one measly earl.”
“You’re right. Of course you’re right.” And she was. Jules had to see Michael and tell him the truth no matter how difficult that might be. No matter how scared she was of facing him. It wasn’t only her baby who deserved that. He did also. She knew it was odds-on he would either stalk out or back away from her, with offers of financial rather than emotional support, but there was a chance that he’d be pleased. That he’d want to get involved in some way. And that in being parents they could become friends. She refused to think any further than that. Even their being friends was a long shot. But she’d have said that about going to bed with him and ending up pregnant with his baby. And that had happened.
She beamed at Terry. “Terry, you’re wonderful. I knew I had to talk to you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ll call him tomorrow.”
IT WAS eleven o’clock by the time Jules left the house. She and Terry had had dinner and had talked and talked and talked. And Jules realized that it was probably the first time the two of them had been alone together for that long in the whole time they’d been friends. There had always been Lily, or Mara, or both to form buffers between them.
But it turned out that no buffers had been necessary. Any lingering apprehension caused by Jules’s memories of the fight had disappeared the moment she’d realized how strongly Terry felt about Sean; she had been able to dismiss for good her friend’s insults that day. A woman in love couldn’t be held responsible for her words or actions. For the first time since they’d known each other, Jules hadn’t been at all intimidated by Terry’s hard-bitten, down-to-earth views, but instead enjoyed the difference between them and their backgrounds. Maybe it was age, maybe the maturity that had come out of the disasters of the last six months, but that night Jules felt Terry wasn’t just part of their group, the friend Lily had picked up along the way in a wine bar, but someone she could trust, could tease and laugh with and enjoy.
By the time she left the flat and walked to her car, she was sure of two things: that she and Terry were real friends at last, and that Terry was deeply unhappy. Oh, she’d not complained, in fact she’d said nothing to suggest that she wasn’t the most contented woman in North London, but her sense of fun had disappeared like free wine at a private view. And Jules was pretty sure why.
She was even more convinced when a tall, gangly figure ran out of Terry’s house to flag her down as she was driving away. It was Paul.
“Hello?”
“Paul?”
“Yes. Can I talk to you?”
“Of course you can.”
Jules pulled into a parking space on the other side of the road and leaned over to open the passenger door for Paul to get in.
Jules was the one of his mam’s friends that Paul knew least well. And was most overawed by. The society manners, the smart clothes, the confident air had always intimidated him. But he needed to talk to one of them and it was Jules who had turned up. “It’s Mam. She needs help. She won’t admit it, she keeps trying to pretend things are okay, but I see her. I see her crying when she thinks she’s alone, I hear her crying in bed at night. Please do something.”
“Sean?”
“He won’t talk to me about her. Made me promise not to mention her. I asked his friend Ray to say something, but that didn’t work either. And I can’t cope seeing Mam like this.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Get Sean to forgive her.”
Jules almost giggled at the crazy idea. There wasn’t much chance of her getting within five miles of Sean if he had anything to say about it, let alone persuading him to forgive Terry. “I don’t think I’ll be able to do that.”
“But you’ve got to. Please. Get him to see her. I don’t know. Make her stop crying. Make…make it right.”
eighty-two
Operating on autopilot, Mara pulled another box toward her and continued packing away the girls’ books, even though she wasn’t sure why she was bothering. The house sale was due to go through in two weeks’ time and they had nowhere to go. They and their possessions would be out on the street. They’d be homeless. After everything was paid off, she wouldn’t even have enough for a deposit on a rented flat. Not that anyone would accept an unemployed single mother as a tenant even if she did. She’d have to give the girls to the Moores. She’d have no other option. Yes, she could renege on the sale of the house, but then she’d owe the developer forfeit money because she’d already signed a contract. And she had no money to give him.
If only she still had Amy to talk to. She’d have seen through all the brambles, have known what was the sensible thing to do. Mara missed her friend’s kind, sometimes acerbic, always calm presence immensely. She couldn’t wish her back; her life had been an increasing struggle for years and she had been granted her desire to die at home. But Mara’s and the girls’ lives were so much emptier without her.
Yesterday, she’d walked past Amy’s house and been tempted to let herself in, just to sit in her friend’s chair and maybe get a sense of her. Some hint of what she should do, where she should go. She’d started to walk up the path to the front door but stopped when she noticed through the front windows that there was someone inside. For one instant, one half second, she’d thought it was Amy, that her friend hadn’t died, that the events of that Christmas evening had been a nightmare from which she was just awakening. But that was only for a moment. Before reality returned. And she turned around and continued on toward her rickety home. Whoever it was in Amy’s house—Mara vaguely remembered her talking about a set of second cousins in Dumfries—they wouldn’t want her bothering them.
She’d finished the second box and was starting in on another when the doorbell rang. Standing on the step was a man in a suit, briefcase in hand. Another lawyer.
“The answer’s no,” Mara said, sure it was one more attempt by the Moores to bully or bribe her into a settlement, and closed the door. Maybe she was going to have to give in, but she’d do it in her own time, in her own way.
The bell rang again. And again. The man was not going to go away. Mara pulled the door open. “Go away. I don’t want to sign anything or agree to sell my kids or—”
“I don’t think you understand, miss. I’m here to talk to you about Mrs. Amy Fenton. My name’s Edward Parker. Here.” He held out a card and Mara took a look. Well, she had been right in one thing—he was a lawyer. Though on closer inspection he was smaller, weedier, and far less intimidating than anyone she could imagine the Moores using.
Perhaps he was the person she’d seen in Amy’s house the previous day. But what did he want with her? Confused, Mara stood back to let him in.
“Can I get you a cup of tea?”
“No thank you. May we sit down? I think you might need to.”
> Now even more confused, Mara led the way to the kitchen and pulled out the least rickety of the chairs for him before settling opposite.
Parker cleared his throat. “Um, you may not know, but Mrs. Fenton had no close family.”
“Yes. I did know that. She was very lonely in recent years.”
“Apart from you and, um, your daughters, she said.”
“She was a good friend.” Mara surreptitiously wiped away a tear.
“Yes, well. I’m here to tell you that you are the sole beneficiary under her will.”
“What?”
“Mrs. Fenton has left all her possessions to you. Including her house.”
“In…including her house.” Mara looked stunned. She was stunned.
“Yes. And about thirty thousand pounds from a life insurance policy.”
“Thirty thousand! That’s…that’s…” Mara couldn’t think what to say. Thirty thousand!
“She…the will says that you were the daughter of her heart.”
Mara stared at Parker. And was unable to hold back the tide any longer. Tears began to stream down her face. They had been saved. “Oh, Amy. Bless her. Bless her.”
eighty-three
“So we’ve got to come up with some way to help.” It was Sunday afternoon at Jules’s house. She’d called an emergency lunch so they could celebrate her pregnancy, Mara’s inheritance, and talk about helping Terry.
“Of course we have.”
“Fuck, I was such a bitch to her.”
“She said the same thing. That she was a cow to you.”
“I was horrible. Angry and self-righteous. Ranting about her having broken the rules when really I was pissed off cos she’d stolen my toy.” Time, a few days of pampering, and a quick fling with the blond from the yoga class had allowed Lily to get some perspective on Sean. And her quarrel with Terry.
“You didn’t know she loved him,” Mara said.
“I did, though. Oh, she didn’t say anything then, but I knew. I even mocked her for it.”
