Hard to Love

by S M Mala

  ‘The news?’

  ‘Don’t be flip. At times like this, you must be careful on every decision you make. Personally, I agree you should work fewer days, but I won’t let you walk away from the company. I love your brother, but you’re more business savvy.’

  Mabel sipped her strong cocktail and thought hard.

  ‘I’m not going to meetings. I’ll come in on Tuesday and Thursdays, only for a few hours.’ Mabel turned to her mother. ‘Do you think I should even consider having his baby?’

  ‘Oh God! Why isn’t life ever easy?’ came the solemn response.

  ‘I’ll look through it.’

  Mabel returned to work on Tuesday and knew the gossips were busily spreading the news.

  She didn’t care.

  Glancing up, she smiled at Tommy.

  ‘Tell everyone I’m having a breakdown and not to approach me as I might turn violent.’ She was met with a concerned expression. ‘I’m fine. Don’t take me so seriously.’

  ‘I can’t stop thinking about what you’re going through,’ he said sadly. ‘Mabel, if there’s anything I can do.’

  ‘Honestly, you don’t have to do anything.’

  He left and shut the door as Mabel looked at her emails, read them quickly before deleting. She turned her chair to look out of the window and sat there, staring into the sky.

  All she could think about was Wes trying to make a point that she would be so lost without him; only a child spawned from his semen would alleviate her grief.

  Mabel wasn’t quite sure what she was feeling.

  Then her mobile phone started to ring, and it was Lee.

  ‘Hello there,’ she said, not even bothering to put on a cheerful voice. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I rang, but you didn’t call back.’

  That he had done; twice a day since Saturday.

  ‘I know but I’ve been tied up with the kids and work plus a few other problems,’ Mabel replied, watching a pigeon shit on a man’s head. It made her smile. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I can’t stop thinking about you,’ he whispered down the phone. ‘You’re amazing.’ Mabel pulled a face, not knowing how to respond. ‘I want to see you again.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, letting out a little sigh, not wanting to. ‘I’ve got a few personal issues to deal with.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Just things. When it’s sorted, I’ll give you a ring. Is that okay?’

  ‘Are you giving me the brush off?’ he asked, sounding semi amused.

  ‘Not exactly the brush-off, but I’m not in the right state of mind, and it’s not fair on you.’ Then she hesitated. ‘It was what I needed, some physical comfort. Please don’t think I used you.’

  ‘If that’s what you did, I loved it.’

  ‘I have to go to a meeting, Lee.’ Mabel couldn’t continue the conversation. Her heart wasn’t in it. ‘We’ll speak soon, I promise.’

  ‘Mabel, can we just meet for-.’

  She hung up then finished his sentence. ‘For a fuck? Not again thanks.’

  ‘Was that a personal call?’

  Spinning around in her chair, Alex was standing by the door.

  As soon as she saw him, there was a sudden rage.

  Slowly she turned her chair around and looked at the scenery.

  Anything was better than looking at him.

  ‘Go away. I’m busy.’

  ‘I need to speak to you,’ he said, walking up to her.

  ‘A few weeks ago, you made it very clear what you thought of me, even criticising my work as well as my Sunday roast, which isn’t burnt, as you well know. Not to mention an accusation about being a substitute father for my kids.’

  ‘I was angry and-.’

  ‘You betrayed my trust about what I told you about Wes, then willingly laughed behind my back with your group of imbeciles because of your lack of respect for me.’

  ‘I did not laugh!’

  ‘And as for needy? I don’t need you!’ She watched him put his face in his hands. ‘Based on your request, I stopped conversing. Now do the same for me. If we go to meetings together, we don’t have to talk.’

  ‘I know you’re upset and angry. I saw it when you came back to work and-.’

  ‘Leave me alone. You don’t know how I feel.’

  ‘Is that what you wanted to speak to me about when I saw you in the park? Mabel, I wish you’d said.’

  ‘Does it matter?’ she said, feeling pin pricks of tears in her eyes. ‘I got it all wrong, once again. And you were angry, and I tried, but you weren’t listening.’

  He walked closer and stood by the window so she could see him.

  ‘You’re hurting, okay. Don’t push me away,’ Alex said, and she noticed he was holding an orange. ‘Don’t push anyone away, not right now. I wasn’t there for you when you needed me. I feel really bad about it because I know you were there for me.’

  ‘I don’t need anyone and certainly not you,’ she said. It was the first time she had looked into his eyes in weeks. This time they were less angry and more confused. ‘Just my children, that’s all. And they don’t need a substitute father, so you got it wrong there. They had a father, and he was wonderful to them, which is much better than you could ever be to Rose. They’d want something better, not worse!’

  As she said it, she knew the words were vile, so gulped hard.

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ she whispered.

  ‘I see you’re upset.’ Alex stepped forward and peered into her face. ‘I shouldn’t have said what I did those weeks back. I didn’t know what you’d been through, and I’m sorry. I thought the worst because people have let me down in the past.’ He glared at her, holding onto either side of the chair. ‘Fucking around isn’t going to help. Believe me, I know.’

  ‘He’s not real. I made him up, didn’t I? That’s the sort of person I am.’

  ‘Not from what I heard on the phone.’ Alex looked upset. ‘Mabel don’t do this.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Fuck your brains up even more. All the decisions you’ll make will be wrong, and you’re not thinking straight. I know you loved Wes, how could you not?’

  Mabel gulped hard and glared at him.

  ‘Go away and laugh at me behind my back!’

  ‘You’re an angry idiot, do you know that? You’ll probably end up having a nervous breakdown, not before giving me one!’

  ‘I’m handing my work over to the team, so there’s no point me turning up every day. This place can then run on giggles and fun as you don’t want to work with me,’ she said flatly. ‘Whoopee!’

  ‘You have to work on the pitch for ‘Love to Love’. I never said I didn’t want to work with you. I said if you disappear on the fly, it’s hard to do the work.’ He looked like he was on the verge of screaming at her. ‘But I didn’t know the reason until a few days ago because you bloody well didn’t bother to tell me!’

  ‘Don’t speak to me!’

  ‘I never betrayed your trust. Paolo overheard us talking, and I bollocked him. He was spiteful because he knew you were there.’

  Then he lunged forward and kissed her very hard on the lips.

  Mabel shoved him away as they angrily stared at each other.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ she asked, her heart thumping hard in her chest.

  ‘Because I wanted to.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Joanna walking in and stopping. Alex didn’t move but was still eyeballing Mabel. ‘Are you two okay?’

  ‘Can you tell him to go?’ Mabel said, turning her head and hearing him groan before he let go, and pushed her chair hard against the desk, making it bang loudly, and her jolt forward.

  ‘Gladly!’ he said, walking past Joanna, who looked confused. ‘She has issues as well as being deaf and thick to go with it!’

  ‘Stick it up your arse!’ Mabel snapped.

  Then Alex slammed the door and stormed off.

  ‘Oh,’ sighed Joanna. ‘I sense something’s going on. Don’t upset h
im. He’s doing marvellous work!’

  ‘Marvellous,’ Mabel replied sarcastically, looking out of the window. Her heart was palpitating due to fury. ‘Give him my shares.’

  ‘Then how will you support your family?’ Her mother walked towards her, folding her arms and leaning against the window. ‘And no more screwing about.’

  She couldn’t be bothered to answer, so stared at the sky and thought hard.

  ‘Don’t even consider having a baby with Wes’s sperm,’ whispered Joanna, as Mabel turned her head sharply to look at her. ‘I think he did it to make sure you would. What a parting gift! Had he only thought about that when he was ill instead of listening to that African witch bitch.’

  ‘Don’t be a racist.’

  ‘Baba calls me worse things and that’s acceptable, is it? I’d love to strangle that fat neck.’ Joanna was holding her hands, looking like she was imagining doing it to Baba. ‘I bet you she’s plotting something.’

  ‘She can plot as much as she likes, I’m still thinking about it.’

  ‘If you do, what chance will you ever have of finding someone to love? How can you explain to another man that you decided to have a baby with your dead, ex-husband’s specimen?’

  ‘I know,’ she whispered.

  ‘And what about your daughters? Have you told them?’

  ‘I can’t,’ Mabel said closing her eyes. ‘The last thing I want them to know is about this. It’s bad enough he thought I’d be happy and grateful to receive his left-over spunk.’

  ‘We need to talk.’

  Tafari was standing at the door, holding Wes’s large son. ‘It’s urgent.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but you don’t turn up uninvited to someone’s house on a Sunday afternoon for a chat. Especially if you stole their husband,’ said Mabel, eyeing the woman up and down.

  She was nearly six-foot-tall and looked like she could hold herself in a heavy weight boxing ring; the muscles very large and defined in her arms.

  Then she looked at the stolen sperm and what it had turned into.

  Eddie was not attractive. He was a mini version of Baba just heightened. Over three years old and the size of a six-year-old, from the look of it.

  Mabel immediately thought only a mother’s love could think the child was reasonably handsome.

  ‘My daughters are home and I don’t want you to create a scene.’

  ‘They’ll want to see their brother.’

  She held open the door and let the woman in. Tafari made her home look tiny. It was like getting a visit from Shrek and one of his kids, except they weren’t green but brown.

  Discreetly she examined Tafari. She looked like a tough cookie, but she was certainly not pretty. At the funeral, she was dressed in African robes so you couldn’t make out what she looked like, other than gigantic.

  And she said she was forty-three or four, Mabel could never remember. She looked more like fifty plus.

  ‘Jess and Lottie! You’ve got a visitor!’ Mabel shouted out.

  ‘Who is it?’ Lottie excitedly said. ‘Is it Rose?’

  That made Mabel’s heart sink, hearing her name.

  ‘Let me see,’ said Jess, running down the stairs. ‘Oh!’

  ‘It’s your step mother and brother,’ she replied and watched the girls stop half way down the stairs. ‘She wants to speak to me.’

  Neither child smiled as they walked down and glared at Tafari.

  Even Mabel couldn’t hide the shock of their reaction.

  ‘Don’t be rude girls, say hello.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Lottie asked, in an accusing manner, which was out of character. Jess stood with her hands-on hips. ‘I thought we wouldn’t have to speak to you again.’

  ‘Lottie!’ Mabel said, turning to look at Tafari. ‘I’m sorry about that. They’re still upset about their father.’

  ‘This is what they’re always like,’ replied Tafari, turning up her nose with the little giant tucked firmly under her big arm. ‘It’s the breeding.’

  ‘At least we’re not suffering from gigantism,’ mumbled Jess, as Mabel tried not to smile.

  ‘Aren’t you going to say hello to your brother?’ scowled Tafari.

  ‘Half-brother,’ corrected Lottie.

  It wasn’t so long ago she was defending the kid. Things had changed.

  Looking over at the boy, Mabel swore he snarled in her direction.

  Yes, he was the reincarnation of Baba, but pity her former mother in law wasn’t dead.

  The girls walked up to him and smiled. Not their usual genuine one.

  This was more teeth and scorn.

  It was as if Mabel was witnessing two different children.

  ‘We’re not looking after him,’ said Jess, turning to speak to her mother. ‘He cries and tells lies and then she gets annoyed.’

  ‘I don’t lie,’ the gruff voice said from the large little person in his mother’s arms, making Mabel jolt back in shock. ‘Mummy!’

  ‘Girls, go upstairs,’ Mabel said gently. ‘We’ll talk later.’

  She didn’t have to ask twice as they sprinted away, and she heard one door slam shut.

  They were going to converse about this.

  ‘I have a friend coming around in about fifteen minutes,’ fibbed Mabel. ‘Please say what you have to say.’

  ‘He left you very well off, didn’t he?’ she said, starting to get upset, still holding onto the child for dear life, but nevertheless eyeing the inside of the home. ‘That’s because you made him feel guilty for what he did.’

  ‘For what he, you and Baba did.’ Mabel glared at her. ‘And I had every right to make him feel bad. He ended our marriage. The fact that I’m speaking to you is a miracle.’

  ‘But I gave him a miracle,’ Tafari said smugly, cuddling the fat ugly thing in her arms. ‘A son!’

  ‘And what a son!’ Mabel said. ‘Why are you here? He was fair in the will unless you want to contest it.’

  ‘You didn’t need the money. You have a business. I have a son to bring up now I am a single parent.’

  ‘You should have thought about that when you decided to kick him out.’ Mabel flicked her a dirty glance. ‘And you forget, I was left bringing up two girls alone.’

  ‘I won’t allow you to get everything,’ she said, walking closer to her.

  That was when Mabel could see the true horror of the ugly fat kid.

  Never did Mabel realise her DNA must have fought off the ugly DNA Wes had.

  She smiled, and the kid burst into tears.

  ‘Don’t upset my son,’ Tafari said protectively. ‘He’s a small child.’

  ‘He’s the same size as Lottie and probably weighs more.’

  ‘And he needs a brother.’

  ‘Pardon me.’

  ‘I want my husband’s sperm back!’

  ‘Mum.’

  Jess looked shocked as Mabel took the girls out after Tafari left. They were walking towards the ice-cream parlour down the main road. ‘He left you sperm?’

  ‘Don’t say it too loudly,’ Mabel said, trying to hush her child. ‘I would have preferred his vintage mini but he gave it to your ox sized grandmother, whose arse will never fit in.’

  ‘Don’t be mean to Granny Baba,’ Lottie said defensively, as Jess rolled her eyes. ‘She has lost her son.’

  ‘And she said I could have it when I pass my test,’ smirked Jess smugly.

  ‘Based on her weight, you’ll need to put in a new suspension,’ mumbled Mabel as Jess laughed.

  ‘That’s nasty,’ said Lottie, looking upset.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Mabel, stroking Lottie’s hair. ‘It’s a lot to think about.’

  After buying the girls ice-cream, they walked down the terrace towards the park, and Mabel smiled at the little kids running about.

  Then she saw a young family with two little girls. They were laughing as the dad kissed the mother.

  It hit hard in Mabel’s chest it wouldn’t ever happen to the three of them again. That’s when she f
elt dizzy and stumbled on her feet. Jess managed to hold her elbow while trying not to drop her ice-cream.

  She felt lost and alone.

  Even looking at the kids’ concerned faces left her with an overwhelming feeling of responsibility for her children.

  Wes’s children.

  ‘I’m going to do my best by you, I promise,’ Mabel whispered.

  Then they all hugged, and she heard Lottie start to cry then looked at Jess, who smiled while tears came streaming down her face.

  ‘I love you both so much,’ Mabel said, feeling herself choke. ‘I want to make you happy.’

  ‘Then have daddy’s baby,’ Lottie sobbed as Jess immediately stepped back. ‘That’s what he wanted you to do.’

  ‘No! Don’t you dare?’ Jess snapped, pointing an angry finger at Mabel and wiping her tears away. ‘He didn’t want you to have a baby before he died, why afterwards?’

  ‘But it will be a part of daddy,’ gulped Lottie, rubbing her eyes. ‘And I want my daddy back. I miss him!’

  ‘I miss him too, but I don’t want mum to have dad’s baby! It’s just wrong!’

  ‘Girls, I think your father thought he was doing something right when he has no bloody idea what he has really done.’

  ‘Mabel are you listening?’

  Paolo asked as she sat in a meeting the following Thursday morning at nine o’clock.

  She had been told to turn up for the ‘Love to Love’ catch up.

  As they sat around a large table, she looked at Paolo.

  Since her little outburst, he went crimson every time their eyes met.

  And she smiled, knowing it made him more uncomfortable.

  ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ she whispered, looking out of the window and watching the clouds float by.

  She wondered if Wes was looking down from above, seeing all these women quarrel over his sperm, and laughing.

  Lottie and Jess weren’t on full speaking terms since Sunday, and Mabel knew why.

  One thought she could get a replacement dad out if it; the other thought it would be another snotty child to interfere with her life.

  And no-one had asked for Mabel’s opinion.