by Lucy Diamond
‘You okay, love?’ the nurse asked, as they waited for the lift, and for an awful moment Eve thought she might have said all of that out loud.
She managed a small, polite smile. ‘I’m okay,’ she confirmed.
The surgery, while not exactly a pleasant experience, was over fairly swiftly at least, and Eve and Neil were back home that same evening, tired but relieved that it was behind them. It was the next part of the process, the recovery, that was to prove more tiresome. Having always been a very healthy sort of person, only ever going into hospital twice before, to have the girls, and then bouncing back quickly each time, Eve had assumed she’d return to her usual busy, efficient lifestyle as soon as possible when it came to dealing with this, too.
‘You’ll hardly notice I’m gone,’ she had assured her boss, Frances, outlining her plans to fit in radiotherapy sessions around her work, and catching up later in the evenings if necessary. Frances seemed less convinced, urging Eve to take at least a week off following her op, and refusing to be drawn on the radiotherapy issue, maintaining a ‘Let’s play it by ear’ approach. ‘The most important thing is that you have enough time to recuperate and heal,’ she had said. ‘In this instance, clients come second. We can rearrange your workload, it’s not a problem.’
Recognizing the glint in her boss’s eyes that said she was absolutely not about to budge, Eve had agreed eventually, not wanting to argue, although privately she had scoffed at Frances for being so uncharacteristically soft. When, knowing her, she’d be back in the office a day after the op – you just wait. That would show Frances that she was no lightweight.
Her own flesh and blood had other ideas, however. Eve had not expected to feel so utterly drained of energy, both physically and emotionally, while she waited for the results to be returned from the pathologist’s lab. She was tender and sore, she couldn’t sleep well because her poor left breast throbbed like a hot pulse if she accidentally rolled over onto it, and it was a huge effort simply to drag herself out of bed.
‘So don’t,’ Jo told her firmly, one afternoon when she’d popped round to visit. ‘Don’t drag yourself out of bed. Your body is telling you it needs to rest. You’ve been through a lot, Eve. Go back to bed.’
Eve had never liked being told what to do, not even by a best friend. ‘But—’ she protested, on the verge of listing that she had the girls to think about, the house was a mess, she needed to order an online supermarket shop . . .
‘No buts,’ Jo interrupted, holding a finger up before Eve could voice any of this. ‘You’re not so important that the world’s about to stop spinning just because you stay in bed. Off you go. I’ll run the Hoover round and the girls can sort the laundry out. Do you want me to bring you up a cup of tea?’
There was no arguing with Jo, when she was in full nursing mode. There was no arguing with India, either, who had wangled a spare key from Neil and came and went, bringing bags of groceries and whisking the girls away on day-trips like a small bossy domestic angel. Laura, too, batch-cooked lasagnes and soups and crumbles, filling the freezer with neatly labelled foil dishes and dropping off baskets of luxury moisturizers and bath cremes that she’d smuggled from work. Eve could have wept with gratitude, she really could, except she was so wrung out with tiredness that even weeping seemed like an effort. But she was thankful for it all. Humbled, too, by their visible and continuing displays of friendship. They were the best, no doubt about it.
As for Neil and the girls, it was fair to say that they were totally rising to the challenge of her being out of action, dealing with the day-to-day running of the house far more competently than she had ever given them credit for. Okay, so Grace’s idea of how to make up the beds was still quite a distance from the crisp hospital corners that Eve had perfected over the years, and she had to bite her tongue practically every night when Neil stacked up the dishwasher in a less effective way than her preferred method, but . . . Well. Perhaps it didn’t really matter all that much, at the end of the day. Not as much as she’d once thought.
Besides, was it her imagination or did the girls seem to be . . . well, growing up pretty brilliantly, actually, with their new responsibilities and independence? Sophie had discovered a new talent when it came to cooking and was busily working her way through Eve’s Nigella Express book. ‘Seared Salmon and Singapore Noodles tonight, Mum!’ she could be heard to say, shaking the sizzling contents of a pan like a pro. Did Neil, too, seem glad of the chance to be looking after her for once, to find new gentle ways to show that he cared, with a hot-water bottle here, and a downloaded podcast there? Plus, without Eve in the background tsk-ing and saying ‘Oh, let me do it’, when he fumbled around the washing-machine controls, he had mastered its temperamental nature now, all by himself. In fact he had even taken to the black mildewy marks around the rubber seal of the door with white vinegar over the weekend, having read a useful tip on the side of the detergent packet.
Maybe, just maybe, Jo had a point. The world was still turning and the house hadn’t fallen down without her there at the helm. Had Eve grossly underestimated her family? Had they been complicit in allowing her to?
Oh, this was a brave new world all right. A changed new world, which was scary and uncertain, with the possibility of darker clouds yet to come on the horizon – but a world, nonetheless, where she had been shown that she was loved and cared for. Where the laundry still got done and the dinner was still put on the table, albeit with just about every single utensil and pan needing to be washed afterwards. But, really, you couldn’t ask for more than that, could you?
Chapter Thirty
‘This train will shortly be arriving in Newcastle. All passengers for Newcastle, please alight here. Newcastle, your next station stop, in approximately two minutes.’
Yes, love, we get it, Newcastle – no need to bang on, Laura thought, heaving herself up from her seat with a little Oof noise. She was coming up to seventeen weeks pregnant now and still only had a modest bump, but she was really enjoying playing up to the novelty of carrying her own tiny passenger, putting a hand in the small of her back whenever she had to stand up for any length of time, and updating everyone in her office on just how hungry, tired, sweaty or flatulent she happened to be feeling at random moments. (‘Too much information,’ Jim kept telling her unhappily, but she honestly didn’t care.)
The train doors swished open and she stepped onto the platform. Just before five o’clock: perfect timing, she thought, seeing the large digital clocks overhead. It was the last Friday in July, rather chilly and grey for the time of year, and she had taken the afternoon off work in order to catch the train north to see Matt. Jo had made no bones about what a badly thought-through idea this was, in her eyes – ‘What if he’s got plans?’ – but Laura had decided not to phone ahead to arrange anything. She wanted to surprise him, to see the look on his face, when he saw her waddling towards him, bump first.
‘Of course he won’t have plans, he doesn’t have any mates up there,’ she’d scoffed in reply. ‘Look, let me do it my way, all right? Don’t argue with a pregnant woman.’ (She loved saying that. In fact, Jo was threatening to get a T-shirt made up with those very words emblazoned across the front, because according to her, Laura had been saying it quite a lot. Whatever. There were worse catchphrases, right? Besides, it was extremely good advice.)
‘Make sure you get an open return ticket, that’s all, in case you end up staying over,’ Jo had said, tapping her nose annoyingly, unable to resist the last word. ‘If you know what I mean.’
In truth, the main reason Laura hadn’t phoned Matt in advance was because, right up until the last minute, she thought she might change her mind and bottle out. Not because she didn’t want to tell him her news – of course she did – but because she was scared that he might not smile when he saw her. Or, worse, that he would see her bump and his face would be like, Oh, shit. Jo might seem convinced that Laura and Matt were going to have this amazing joyful reunion, running towards each other in slow mot
ion like in some cheesy romcom, but Laura felt too apprehensive to start counting any chickens. After all, he’d said to her face that he had fallen out of love with her, hadn’t he? He’d said he thought they were done. And a baby was definitely not some form of magic glue that could stick together broken bridges and create a perfectly restored marriage – ta-dah! No cracks!
I think we’ve reached the end of the road, Laura, he’d said. Don’t you? Deep down? There was no baby in the world that could miraculously delete words like that from a woman’s brain.
Oh God. Please let this be all right. Please let him be happy about the news. She couldn’t bear the thought of him turning her away in dismissal: I don’t want you OR your baby, all right? Especially not after a two-and-a-half-hour train journey, when she was dying for a wee and some proper food.
Exiting the station, she took a few deep breaths, then headed for the taxi rank. Come on, she ordered herself. Positive thoughts. This was Matt. He was a thoroughly decent person. Just because they had split up did not mean he would have turned into an unfeeling monster. He would know just how much a healthy pregnancy meant to her.
A short while later, the taxi driver had taken her through the magnificent Victorian streets of the city centre and out to the Quayside where the Millennium Bridge curved like a white harp across the Tyne a short distance away. ‘Here y’are, pet,’ said the driver, pulling on the handbrake.
Here she was indeed, she thought, paying his fare and then perching purposefully on a cold stone wall outside Matt’s office building, a breeze buffeting its way up the street from the grey river. Here she was in Newcastle, waiting for her ex-husband to walk out through that very door so that she could tell him he was going to be a father. It all felt very dramatic, like something from a soap opera. She was half-expecting to hear a crescendo of music building around her as she waited for the moment, the duff-duff of an EastEnders cliffhanger as she dropped the bombshell. Then she found herself distractedly hoping she wasn’t going to get piles from sitting here on this freezing wall for too much longer, which rather took away something from the whole scene. (Piles! That was one pregnancy side-effect she was most definitely hoping to avoid.)
Five minutes dragged breathlessly by. Then another five. Laura’s self-willed positive thoughts began to slide slowly into doubt. What if, she thought despondently, she was too late because the company let their staff go early on a Friday afternoon? What if she was sitting here and Matt had already gone, off to some bar, celebrating the start of the weekend with colleagues, or back to his miserable bedsit on his own? (She couldn’t know for sure it was a miserable bedsit, obviously, but she had been picturing it that way. With damp in the back wall and the smell of mildew and mothballs, and tobacco stains on the ceilings.) I told you so! Jo sighed in her ear. Didn’t I say you should have phoned him?
But wait – here was someone leaving now, she noticed, brightening as the door of the building opened at last. The office block was set twenty metres or so back from the road, and Laura heaved herself off the wall and skulked on the pavement, trying to look unobtrusive as two suited women carrying laptop bags emerged down the path, their cheerful voices carrying on the breeze. Ah – and another man behind them, too, talking into a mobile phone and striding onto the pavement with swift Friday-night steps. Perhaps there was still hope for Matt’s appearance, after all.
The trickle of people soon became a gush. Clusters of employees poured out, many of them discussing which pubs they were heading to, while Laura loitered faux-casually, scanning face after face. No, no, no. No. Still no. And then, finally, the door opened again and her heart gave a jump because there he was: Matt, just as she’d seen him so many times before in his grey Marks & Spencer suit and favourite red tie. His Friday tie, as she’d teased him in the past, and her face softened, remembering. It was so strange to see him here, out of context, in this new city for which he’d left her behind.
She took a step forward, a hesitant smile on her face, one hand ready to wave . . . but then froze as he stepped out of the building and she realized he was turning to look affectionately down at a woman beside him. A beautiful woman, moreover, with black ringletty curls and cherry-red lipstick, way bolder than any shade Laura would dare wear. She gulped, her breath catching as she saw that they were laughing together, walking very close to one another as they came down the front two steps and . . . Oh God. And his hand had shyly found hers. They were holding hands.
No, she thought, staring, hardly able to breathe. He’d met someone else already? The thought had not even occurred to her. Was she really so forgettable that after mere weeks Matt had put her, his wife, out of his mind?
Every instinct was screaming at her to just turn and go, to put her head down and get out of there fast, before he saw her. But she couldn’t move because she kept thinking: no. Wait. There must be a mistake. She must have got this wrong. And then it was too late to turn and go, because his eyes suddenly widened in surprise, he dropped the ringletty woman’s hand, and his mouth was forming the shape of her name. ‘Laura?’
She folded her arms across her chest, smarting with dismay. Here she was in a new teal-coloured wrap dress that everyone at work had said really brought out the colour of her eyes, and she had curled her hair especially, and bothered with some fancy strappy sandals even though they made her feet hurt after ten minutes, but all of a sudden she felt like a fat old frump compared to Matt’s new friend, in her red lipstick and stylish pale-grey shift dress.
‘Someone you know?’ the woman said, her gaze lighting on Laura with interest as they drew level. She was nearly as tall as Matt and had long shapely legs, worst luck, and Laura felt her face burn under the scrutiny.
‘Um,’ said Matt, his face turning red, too, as he looked from one woman to the other. ‘This is Laura,’ he said. ‘Um. Laura, Elaine. El, do you want to go ahead with the others?’ He gave an awkward shrug. ‘I’ll give you a ring.’
El? thought Laura, her mind freefalling. This was Elaine, his new boss? She gulped, trying to digest this development. From what Matt had said, she’d always imagined the mysterious Elaine as being in her fifties, a matronly, overbearing sort of woman. Not this . . . this toned, glamorous fox.
Elaine shrugged coolly, then touched her fingertips first to her own lips and then to Matt’s cheek in an annoying coquettish manner, before leaving. Presumably her not-so-subtle means of staking a claim, Laura thought, stunned. He’s mine now, bitch. Hands off.
‘Oh my God,’ she croaked, trying to take it in, shock still reverberating through her as Elaine walked away without looking back. Matt and Elaine, eh? It all made sense now. How could she have been so stupid, so blind? How could she not have guessed?
Matt was looking simultaneously confused and guilty. ‘What are you doing here, Laura?’
‘How long has that been going on?’ she countered, miserably. Because how could he be happy about the news she had for him now, when he was seeing someone else? How was this ever going to work out? ‘Is that why you left?’
‘Laura—’ He broke off, crestfallen. ‘It’s not like that.’ He sighed, his eyes drifting after Elaine, who had caught up with some of the other staff members, linking arms with two blokes so that they proceeded along in a chain. Matt wanted to be there with them too, she could tell, not here on a pavement with his angry ex-wife.
Oh hell, she thought, watching his face. Arriving unannounced like this had been a mistake. A fool’s errand. And the sooner she was back on the train home again, with a consolatory chicken pasty and a muffin, the better. ‘I won’t keep you,’ she said frostily. ‘I just thought it would be courteous of me to let you know in person that I’m expecting our child in January.’ She waited a beat for his reaction, but his face was completely blank. ‘Yes, it was a surprise to me, too,’ she went on. ‘And yes, it is yours and is very healthy, by the way – if you care, that is. But I’ll let you get on with your new mates now, anyway. See you around.’
She made as if to turn –
Don’t mess with a pregnant woman! – but he had taken her arm and was steering her gently back. ‘Laura . . . wait,’ he said. His gaze dipped to her belly as if seeking proof, and then back up to her face. ‘I can’t believe – God! January, did you say? Whoa.’ He blinked, emotions flickering across his face. She could see panic there, and questions. Doubts. Bewilderment. But was he pleased, too?
‘I know it’s a lot to take in, out of the blue,’ she said, relenting a touch. ‘I couldn’t believe it, either, at first. I’d fainted a couple of times and went to the doctor, assuming I had some virus. Never dreaming for a minute that . . .’
‘Do you want to keep it?’ he blurted out, and her jaw nearly hit the floor.
‘Do I want to keep it?’ she echoed, aghast that he even had to ask. Was this the same man who’d held her hand in the hospital after the miscarriages? Who’d seen her at her lowest and most despairing? ‘Keep our baby, after all those years of wanting one, and all the traumas we went through?’
‘All right, all right.’ He put his hand up. ‘I was only asking.’ He shifted from foot to foot. ‘I suppose you want some money.’
Again, shock floored her. Why was he saying these things? ‘Matt . . . this is your child,’ she reminded him, dumbfounded. ‘Your son or daughter. Our son or daughter. Do you not care? Are you saying you don’t want to be involved – you just want to fob me off with some cash?’ It hurt, actually. It really hurt. She took a step back from him, reeling. ‘I can’t believe you even—’
