by Jane Davis
I sat and finished my drink, thinking how ludicrous the situation was. Laura and I couldn't carry on like this. Even though she hadn't promised me anything, I had let myself believe that all was not right at home and that there was still a chance she would choose me. Listening to Tom, I wondered if I was what was holding the marriage together or preventing it from working. Perhaps the only fair way to resolve things once and for all would be if I removed myself from the equation. Laura had tried to do this once before. Now it was my turn.
The mechanics of this were far easier than I had imagined. I felt no desire to go anywhere in particular. I had always been good at throwing myself into my work when things were not right in other parts of my life. For some time, my firm had talked about opening an office in the north-east of England and I volunteered to go. They began to make preparations immediately. This gave me time, but not too much time, to prepare mentally.
I was too weak-willed to break things off with Laura before I left. Neither was I able to resist mentioning the conversation that Tom and I had had. She was typically unrepentant.
'I can't keep on putting my life on hold until everything is perfect,' she said.
'But what about us?' I asked. 'Doesn't this mean anything to you?'
'Don't you see it means everything to me?' She cupped my face. 'If I didn't have you, I couldn't go out into the world and be the person everyone expects me to be.'
'Have you thought about what you would do if you got pregnant now? Clearly, you're trying. How would you know who the father is?'
'It would be very unlikely to be Tom,' she said bitterly.
'How can you be so sure when you have Andrea?'
'We're sure. Don't ask me how, but we're sure.'
I shook my head, not understanding her certainty. 'That makes it worse. What would you do if you got pregnant and the baby was mine? Would we just carry on like this?'
'I don't know all the answers. I'd love to pretend I do, but I don't.' Laura was tearful. 'Tom's given up his dreams for me and Andrea. You know what that has cost him. I don't think I could leave him now.'
This only cemented my feeling that I was doing the right thing. Laura said that she treasured our relationship but that her marriage took priority – even if there was a child involved. Faye had been wrong when she said that Laura would never sleep with me, but she was also right; I had never stood a chance against Tom Fellows. I was at a time in my life when it was no longer good enough. When I picked up Andrea and swung her around, or carried her on my shoulders, or when she took my hand as we crossed the road – and especially when she called me 'Daddy' by mistake – I felt a yearning to be a father. It was no longer just about the girl for me. I wanted the whole package. There would never be another Laura as far as I was concerned, but maybe with a new start and the bigger picture in mind, a family might be possible.
Then one afternoon, Laura caught me hugging Andrea too close for too long and telling her that I would never be more than a phone call away.
'You're saying goodbye!' She was wide-eyed and shocked. I didn't answer but turned around to face her. 'But why?'
I held her to my chest. 'Don't you see I have to? How long can we put ourselves through this?'
'You say it as if it was torture, whereas I've had some of the happiest times of my life with you this last year or so.'
'I want more than you're prepared to give me, Laura. I always have.' I stroked her hair. 'If we carry on like this we're going to start to argue and it will be just like every other relationship you've tried to escape from.'
'But you can't leave me.'
'Mummy, why are you crying?' Andrea interrupted, her hands tugging Laura's skirt. As Laura let go of me to explain to Andrea that she was very, very sad, I made a cowardly escape, touching Laura's blonde waves for what I honestly believed would be the last time.
Part Eight
Faye's Story
Chapter Thirty-five
I hadn't been home for over three years when Laura came to stay with me, bringing Andrea with her. I was used to Laura coming on her own because of Tom's schedule, but I immediately sensed that this time something was different. Being in such close proximity to Andrea made me nervous. I drank too many gin and tonics to compensate, which made Laura eye me critically. She may as well have come straight out with it and asked me to stop drinking in front of her child. 'Whose child?' I imagined myself asking.
Andrea was boisterous. 'Aunty Faye' this and 'Aunty Faye' that. Jumping on the furniture and wanting to be the centre of attention. Every new discovery was followed by a shriek of delight that produced smiles from Laura and goosebumps on the back of my neck. My flat was hardly child-proof and neither was I.
I was relieved when Laura put her to bed and order was resumed, but it was short-lived. I had no idea of the secrets that Laura had been keeping. They were hard to take in. An eighteen-month affair with Peter Churcher. Peter gone. Things going downhill at home. And now this. Laura pregnant and thinking that it was a sign that she should be with Peter after all.
'A sign!' I remember saying. 'Did you think it was a sign when I was pregnant? The man's so virile that I'm amazed it took you so long.' Then she told me that she had been on the pill for the first year. She had only stopped taking it when she knew she wanted another baby! 'But Tom's sterile. What were you thinking of?' I asked her.
'I know. I tried to get him to try that new IVF but he wasn't keen. It's such a mess.'
I asked her if she had been in contact with Peter.
'No!' She was horrified. 'He so desperately wants children. I can't tell him about the baby unless I'm ready to leave Tom.'
That was a shock, hearing it out loud. Peter desperately wanting children. I felt anger and regret. Nobody had thought to mention that to me when I was pregnant and needed advice. When I told them that I didn't want Peter to know about the baby, no one tried to persuade me otherwise. There was nothing but agreement that I was doing the right thing.
'But why Peter, of all people?' I asked her, genuinely keen to know why she would have played away from home with someone so involved in the situation.
'We love each other.' She seemed surprised that I needed to ask. 'It's always been Pete and me. Even with Tom, it would never have worked without Pete. There's never been a time when it was just Tom.'
I honestly don't think that she saw her affair with Peter as a betrayal of Tom, because she had known Peter first. She had loved Peter first.
'You mean to say . . . ?' I began to ask, wondering how long it had actually been going on for.
'No.' She seemed to find it amusing that she had managed to shock me. 'It was never all about sex with Pete. In fact, the sex was a bit of a surprise. I thought that we had gone way beyond that stage, to be honest. We'd kissed before, but it hadn't led anywhere. I didn't think it would that time either, but I was wrong. Pete's the only person in the world that I can be myself with. Apart from you. With everyone else it's an act. Do you know what I mean?'
'How on earth would I know what you mean?' I snapped. 'I've never been that close to a man.'
'I'm not just talking about men,' she said, 'I'm talking about having to pretend you're something you're not all the time.'
'Well, you've brought Andrea with you,' I said. 'Let's see how I get on with her for starters.' That was a conversation-killer. But really! Didn't she ever think about what she was saying?
Like me, the easiest option wasn't one that Laura was prepared to consider.
'How can you want a child so much and then decide to get rid of it because it's inconvenient?' she asked.
'Even if it might save your marriage?' I challenged, playing devil's advocate.
'So be it.' She shrugged, but her face betrayed her fears. She knew what was at stake.
On another evening she asked, 'How would you feel if Pete brought up Andrea with me?'
Up until then the thought hadn't crossed my mind. I had been so far removed from the situation that I hadn't had to think about
it. I had never been in love with Peter Churcher so it wasn't a case of being jealous. But when I gave her away, it wasn't to Laura, but to Laura and Tom.
'I thought so,' she said, looking at my face.
'I haven't said anything yet,' I protested. I've thought about that conversation so many times since.
'You don't have to.' Laura always told me that Andrea was the best gift I could have ever given her. But you can't place conditions on gifts. You don't give someone a gift and tell them they can never tell anyone about it. Andrea was never a gift. She was never just mine to give. 'That would be too weird for you. I shouldn't even have asked.'
Did she expect me to protest, to tell her that it would be all right with me? I hadn't created the problem but now she wanted me to hand her a solution. I was already living far away from my home in an attempt to escape my past. How much further would I have to go to avoid the deceit that would accumulate? Oh, no! This time she was asking too much. But what alternatives were there?
'If you leave Tom, could you leave Andrea behind?' I asked, afraid of the answer.
'That's not an option,' she replied.
'Then we have a problem,' I said unnecessarily.
But the number of options were running out. And time was an issue. How long would it be before Tom noticed and Laura was forced to make a decision? When Laura left London to return home, she was no nearer to arriving at a conclusion. I had not told her that whatever she did would be all right with me. For the first time, as I waved my so-called niece goodbye, I started to think about what would be best for her as well as for me. I started to think like a mother.
A few weeks later, Laura phoned from a telephone box in the middle of the night and reversed the charges. She tearfully told me how she had tried to leave Tom for Peter, but hadn't been able to.
'I couldn't do it to him. God knows I tried.'
'Where's Andrea?' I was surprised that my immediate thoughts were for her rather than my sister.
'She doesn't know anything about it. She's asleep in the car. It's just a bit of an adventure as far as she's concerned.'
'What are you going to do now?' I asked her.
'I'm going home to face the music,' she said.
'What's that going to involve?'
'I have no idea. It's up to Tom now.'
'Does Peter know?'
But she had already hung up on me and the question was left hanging. No matter how much I mulled things over in my mind, I couldn't think of a solution that would work for everyone. Laura had assured me that she would never tell Peter about Andrea, but if her future lay with him, how would she be able to keep it from him?
Part Nine
Peter's Story
Chapter Thirty-six
I could hear a commotion at the reception desk and excused myself from the meeting I was conducting with the intention of asking whoever was responsible to keep the noise down. I hesitated when I heard Tom's raised voice saying, 'Well, you'd better drag him out of his meeting and tell him that Tom Fellows wants to talk to him about his wife.'
The next thing I knew, I was reeling from a blow to my face and my nose was bleeding. Instinctively, I sat down on a low chair and bent forwards. I knew that Tom was not a fighting man and he was unlikely to hit me again unless I stood up against him.
'You stupid bastard,' he was shouting. 'You've gone and ruined everything.' But instead of raising his fist again, he sat down next to me and held his head in his hands.
'Shall I call the police, sir?' the receptionist whispered as she bent down to hand me a wad of tissues.
'No, no. Make us some coffees and show Mr Fellows to my office while I wash my face.'
'Will you come this way?' she asked him, but Tom followed me into the men's toilets and looked at my reflection in the mirror. Denial wasn't an option.
'I left, Tom,' I explained. 'I left because I knew that I couldn't finish it any other way.'
'Oh yes, you left all right,' he hissed. 'But did you know you left her pregnant?'
The colour of my face was answer enough to tell him the answer. 'How can you be so sure it's mine?' I asked, quickly backing off as he moved towards me again, expecting another blow. Instead he prodded my chest with an index finger.
'You knew that we were planning another child.' His voice was raised but steady. 'What did you think would happen? That I'd agree to IVF and that you could do the job instead? And then what? Tell me, Pete, because I don't understand!'
'I didn't know she was pregnant,' I said. 'Do you think for one minute I would have left if I had known?'
'What would you have done? Stayed and fought for her?' he scoffed.
'It's not as simple as that,' I replied. 'Laura would never choose me over you and I wouldn't want her to change her mind because she's pregnant.'
'If you believe that then what the hell were you doing sleeping with my wife in the first place? I trusted you!'
'I'm truly sorry, Tom. I never meant for it to come to this.'
'Those times she stayed in your house! How long has it been going on for? Three years, is it?'
'Nothing happened then, I swear it.'
'Am I supposed to be grateful for that? How many times have we sat down to eat together? The three of us? How many times have you and I gone for a drink? I don't know how you've been able to look me in the eye all this time!'
'I—'
'Don't!' He raised the palm of his hand to me, opening the door with the other hand. 'Don't even try to give me excuses.'
It slammed behind him and I knew better than to follow him. If he hadn't been such a good driver, I would have worried about him on the journey home. He had travelled 200 miles to vent his anger. I knew that he had come to see me to avoid taking it out on Laura.
I spent days waiting for the next contact, but there was nothing until Faye phoned some two weeks later. I hadn't heard her voice since the wedding and I was surprised to hear it then.
'Tom's left her, Peter,' she said. 'She's too proud to come to you, so you're going to have to make the next move. She needs you.'
'You knew?' I asked her, stunned.
'Of course I didn't know at the time.' The scathing Faye was back. 'Laura's only just told me about it. Why on earth my sister would choose to have an affair with you when she had Tom Fellows at home is, quite frankly, a mystery to me.'
Even then, it was not that simple. There were other people to think about. Andrea might be old enough to understand a little of what was going on. Then there was Mrs Albury who felt that protecting the reputation of her family was her role in life and Mrs Fellows whom I would not have hurt for the world. I went home with the excuse of visiting my own mother, who was by then in an old people's home. In the end, with my father gone, instead of being released into the world again, she was lost. She reverted to calling me 'her Jonnie' with no one there to scowl at her every time she used my name. To me, it sounded as if she was talking to someone else and added to the illusion of unreality.
I rang the doorbell of the flat with trepidation. I had been gone for over four months and I was afraid that Laura might be angry or feeling too guilty about Tom to want to see me. Andrea spotted me first through the window and I watched her jump up and down excitedly. She clearly announced my arrival to her mother, so it was not a complete shock for Laura to find me on her doorstep. Nonetheless, she was surprised and cautious, cradling her bump protectively with one hand.
'Faye phoned me,' I explained. She brushed her blonde head against my shoulder. I'd love to say that she flung herself at me but neither the circumstances nor her bump would have allowed for that.
'So there's no need for me to start from the beginning,' Laura said, closing the door. Then, seemingly changing her mind: 'How much did she tell you?'
'That you're pregnant and Tom has gone. Why didn't you call me?' I asked.
'You left too, remember. And after what I had said to you I don't blame you one bit.' She smiled. 'How do you think I should have put it? "I'm pregnant and
Tom's gone, so would you mind coming home and taking up where we left off?" You deserve more than that.'
'So where does that leave us now?' I asked, taking her hand.
'Well, I'm five months pregnant with a three-year-old in tow and no income, and you live two hundred miles away. I can offer you a cup of tea, but I'm afraid I haven't got the energy for anything more.'
'Have you got a better offer?' I hung my coat on the peg in the hall.
'You're not seriously . . . ?'
'Laura, I've been in love with you for as long as I can remember, you're pregnant with our baby, and for once, there's nothing standing in our way.'
Andrea bounded into the hall. 'Uncle Pete, Uncle Pete! Guess what I am!'
'A frog.'
'No.'
'A kangaroo.'
'No!'
'A jumping bean.'
'No, silly. I'm Tigger.' She grabbed my hand. 'Come and play with me. You can be Eeyore. Mummy's Pooh Bear because she's so fat.'
'You can always rely on a three-year-old for the truth! Darling, the grown-ups were just about to have a cup of tea.' Laura tried unsuccessfully to pull her away.
'But he promised that he would come and play with me any time I wanted,' she protested.
'That is true,' I admitted, getting down on to all fours, hopeful that nothing would be more irresistible to a pregnant woman than a man being good with children. I crawled into the living room languidly, muttering about the perils of thistles.
'You've got five minutes!' Laura said in her pretend strict voice. 'Then the adults need to talk.'
'Is Daddy staying with you?' Andrea hissed at me as soon as she thought we were out of earshot, barely missing a bounce.
I sat up on my heels to marvel at her directness. 'No, darling,' I said solemnly.
'Do you know where he is?'
'I'm afraid I don't.'
'That's OK,' she said cheerfully. 'I can look after Mummy. Only she's very sad.'
I winked. 'We'll have to see what we can do about that.'
