For Better for Worse

by Penny Jordan

  Tonight, for the first time since she had become aware of her pregnancy, they had shared their old intimacy and closeness; tonight she had been fiercely conscious of her love for him, and his for her, sharply aware of all that she would lose if she lost him. But it wasn’t just herself and her own needs she had to think of now.

  Bleakly she wondered how long it would be before Ben started to betray the resentment he must feel. Tonight the shock of losing the hotel had brought them close together, but that closeness wouldn’t last long; it couldn’t…

  In the darkness Ben touched her gently.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he told her softly. ‘Everything’s going to be fine.’

  Don’t worry? How could she do anything else? How could they bring a baby up in this small, cramped flat? Ben didn’t even have a proper job… just this temporary work. It was all very well for Ben to say that he could understand dive’s decision…

  It was only later the next day at work that Zoe realised that she had said nothing to Ben about his disappointment. She had known how much this venture had meant to him, how anxious he had been about it right from the start, how reluctant to believe in it. She had laughed at him then, teasing him for his pessimism.

  Her shift finished at four and she was home for just after six. Ben opened the front door for her, and the sight of him standing there formally dressed in his suit and white shirt, a shirt he must have had to iron for himself, sent a small shock of fear icing through her.

  ‘Ben…?’

  She said his name questioningly, suddenly so afraid that her breath was a sharp pain in her lungs, suddenly seeing him with a new clarity. Last night they had truly been lovers, but now, today…

  She looked at his suit again and then glanced nervously into his face, half afraid of what she might see there.

  ‘I’ve been to see Clive,’ he told her quietly.

  Clive… Hope rose inside her.

  ‘What’s happened? Has he changed his mind about the hotel? Has he—?’

  Immediately Ben shook his head. ‘No, it was nothing like that. You weren’t listening to me properly, Zoe. I said that I went to see him, not that Clive asked to see me.

  ‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently. It’s obvious that things can’t continue as they are.’

  A sickness invaded her stomach which had nothing to do with her pregnancy.

  Here it was… what she had feared all along. He was going to tell her that he couldn’t stay; that he resented the burden of the fatherhood she had forced upon him.

  Her face must have given her away, because he suddenly frowned, his mouth hardening not with anger, she recognised, but with pain.

  ‘Zoe, Zoe, when will you learn to trust me? To have a little faith in me? Have you any idea how it makes me feel, knowing that you believed you had to protect me from reality… knowing that you weren’t able to share something as important as this with me?’ He touched her stomach lightly as he spoke. ‘Deep in the psyche of every man there’s a part of him that has an atavistic need to be the archetypal male strong guy with the broad shoulder to lean on. No matter how much of a wimp the rest of the world might think him, deep inside every man is a certain something that tells him that it’s his duty, his responsibility, his role to be leaned on; to be the one who gives support rather than receives it.

  ‘I may not be Mr Macho… I may not ever want to be, but before God I want you to feel that I’m there for you, and not that I have to be protected and lied to because I don’t have the strength to accept the realities of life.

  ‘When you first told me about the baby and about concealing the truth from me, I felt hurt and angry because, by believing that deceit was necessary, you made me feel so much less of a man; and then I recognised that it wasn’t you who was making me feel like that. All you were doing was simply reacting to the subconscious message I was giving you. I was the one who was responsible for the fact that you felt you couldn’t trust me… couldn’t rely on me.’

  He made a small, helpless gesture as he saw the tears filling her eyes.

  ‘Zoe, all my life I’ve been used to people leaning on me, all my life. I…’

  ‘I know… that was why. I didn’t want to be like them, Ben,’ she told him passionately. ‘I wanted us to be equals… to share every thing… Remember how you told me that if Sharon had her baby it would ruin her life? All I could think was that if I had our baby it would ruin yours. I tried so hard to do the right thing, but I couldn’t, and even if it means that I lose you…

  ‘No, it isn’t that,’ she told him fiercely when she saw the sadness in his eyes. ‘I don’t love it… him or her, more than I do you. Just in a different way. Who does the baby have to love and protect it if it doesn’t have me, Ben?’

  ‘It’s my baby too,’ he told her gently. ‘Although recently I’ve been wondering if you wished it weren’t, wished it didn’t have a father, but were yours exclusively, you’ve been shutting me out so much.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t realise what was happening, Zoe. I wish I had done… I wish I’d been more sensitive… more aware. I wish I’d never said what I did about Sharon’s baby. The guilt I feel for having said it, for her having lost it, is something I shall have to live with all my life; and if you… I love you,’ he told her thickly. ‘I love both of you. That’s why I’ve always said I don’t want children. Not because I’ve been afraid I won’t love them, but because I know that I will.

  ‘Look around this flat and then tell me honestly that this is the kind of environment where you want our child… our children to grow up… I grew up in poverty, Zoe. I know just what it means… just what it does.’

  ‘Ben, I’m so sorry,’ Zoe wept, and she was. Sorry not just about the baby, but for all the ways in which she could now see that she had hurt him, punished him even if only subconsciously by refusing to allow him to share what was happening with her, by refusing almost to allow him to take any responsibility.

  When she had told herself that she had been protecting him, she had also, she recognised now, been punishing him a little as well, motivated not by any lack of love for him, but by her own fear and unexpected insecurity.

  He looked tired, older, and yet despite his slumped shoulders she suddenly had the impression that they were also broader… stronger…

  She opened her mouth to reassure him, to tell him that somehow they would find a way, and then she remembered what he had just said and, instead of telling him anything, she asked him hesitantly, ‘Ben, what are we going to do?’

  He smiled at her then, a broad, almost boyish grin of pride and satisfaction.

  ‘What we are going to do is find ourselves a small, easily manageable and reasonably priced restaurant which I, with my skill and flair, will quickly turn into the place to eat. We’ll be so busy that we’ll be turning people away, and I shouldn’t be surprised if Princess Di herself doesn’t start ringing up and asking us to keep her a special table for lunch. Oh, and yes, I nearly forgot; what we’re also going to do is make sure that this restaurant comes with some good-sized living accommodation and a nice private back garden. Babies need gardens,’ he told her gruffly, ‘and so do kids. Give agrees that it’s a viable proposition and he promised that he’ll back us… I called in at a couple of agents on the way back and collected some stuff. Most of it will be rubbish, of course…’

  ‘Ben, Ben… why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell me what you were planning? You didn’t just do this on the spur of the moment… not you…’

  ‘No,’ he agreed, quieter now. ‘No. When you told me about the baby, I knew that he or she was going to need a proper home. I knew that, while you might be happy somewhere like this while it was just us, you’d want more, much more for our child.’ He touched his fingertip to her lips as she started to protest and told her softly, ‘That wasn’t a criticism, Zoe, not a dig at your parents and the way you were brought up. Of course you want the best for our baby… so do I. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t.�
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  A feeling, a sensation began to bubble up inside her. It was joy… it was love… it was relief and gratitude, Zoe recognised dizzily, half holding her breath in case it went away again; but most of all it was love. Not just hers for Ben, not just his for her, but theirs for each other and for their child.

  ‘I know this isn’t what you wanted, Ben,’ she whispered against his lips. ‘It isn’t what we planned, but it is going to be all right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Everything’s going to be fine,’ Ben assured her as he held her and kissed her slowly with lingering pleasure. ‘Everything’s going to be fine.’

  Behind his back his fingers were crossed. He wasn’t sure how yet, but somehow he would make sure that it was. For Zoe’s sake.

  And for their child’s? He closed his eyes momentarily.

  He wasn’t going to spoil things now by allowing himself to remember the bitterness, the resentment, the jealousy and sense of being shut out and unwanted that he had felt these last few weeks.

  He loved Zoe and he would learn to love their child. Somehow.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  ‘FERN, my dear, how are you?’

  ‘Fine,’ Fern responded bracingly, stepping back into the shadow of the shop window awning to allow another shopper to skirt past her and Roberta.

  Everybody knew about the pending divorce now, of course, and very probably about Venice’s pregnancy. Nick was living openly with her, after all. Fern had seen them both the previous day as they drove through town in the expensive new Rover saloon car Venice had bought him.

  ‘We preferred the safety features on the German models,’ she had overheard Venice confiding to someone as she passed her in the street yesterday. ‘But we both feel that we have a duty to support British industry and the British working man.’

  The pity she could see in her friend’s eyes irked her a little; was it silly of her to feel increasingly annoyed by the show Venice was putting on of publicly and repeatedly acknowledging her guilt and responsibility for the unhappiness she had caused ‘poor Fern’; cleverly making something of a virtue out of a vice by adding with modestly lowered head and soft, whispery, half-ashamed voice that there was of course the baby to consider?

  She was feeling decidedly tired of being miscast in her unwanted role of grieving martyr, Fern reflected to herself as she prepared to try for the umpteenth time to convince Roberta that she was neither suicidally depressed nor emotionally devastated by Nick’s defection.

  The trouble was that it wasn’t really possible for her to announce the truth… and besides, who would believe her if she did?

  Perhaps if, when the news had first broken, she had not taken refuge with Cressy… But at the time it had seemed a sensible thing to do… for one thing she had then still been half afraid that Nick might change his mind and come back, still been half afraid of believing in her good luck.

  And then, when she had come back, she had had to spend a lot of time in Bristol checking up on courses, accommodation and part-time jobs.

  At Cressy’s insistence, she had plucked up the courage to approach Relate and had been surprised and delighted by their positive response to her and the helpful advice they had given her on the kind of qualifications and training she would need if they were to consider enrolling her, with a view to her eventually practising with them as a counsellor.

  She remembered from her previous reading of their literature how arduous and demanding the training course was, given the kind of work involved, but what had surprised her had been the fact that the extent and intensity of the commitment and work involved had only hardened her determination to go ahead.

  The realisation that she could be so determined and motivated had not just increased her self-confidence, but had also brought with it a sense of excitement and anticipation she could not remember experiencing for years.

  She had come home late the previous evening after a brief return visit to Cressy to inform her of her progress and to meet Graham.

  Seeing them together had firmly convinced her that the two of them were ideally suited for one another. Their obvious happiness and completeness together had saddened her a little but she had very quickly controlled the small tendrils of envy which had tugged at her emotions.

  She had come into town today intending to put the house on the market for sale, and despite what Venice had said to her she had no intention of letting her patronise her by making her accept Nick’s share of the profit.

  There was, after all, nothing to keep her here now. She had already been accepted on the Relate training course starting in October, and she had narrowed down her choice of accommodation to three definite possibilities. The course would be run in the evenings with some weekends also given over to training, so she would have the opportunity to find some work during the day to support her.

  The thought of leaving the familiarity of the town and her own safe domestic routine, which would have once filled her with apprehension and insecurity, was now, instead of something to be dreaded, something to be eagerly anticipated.

  It had hurt her a little at first to realise how many of those she had considered to be, if not friends, then at least acquaintances now seemed anxious to avoid her.

  There were exceptions, of course, and Roberta was one of them, but even in her manner towards her Fern could detect a change… a hesitation… an avoidance of the subject of Nick’s apparent desertion of her and his relationship with Venice.

  Fern tried not to mind. After all, if Roberta had raised the subject, what could she have said? That she had already decided to end the marriage herself before Nick had left? Would Roberta believe her?

  Probably not, but it still made her pride sting that she should be the object of so much curiosity and well-meant pity.

  ‘Are you going to the meeting tonight at the Town Hall about Broughton House?’ Roberta asked her.

  Fern frowned, her thoughts momentarily diverted from her own problem. ‘What meeting?’

  ‘It was in the paper last week… you must have seen it,’ Roberta insisted. ‘Oh, of course, you were away, I’d forgotten. It was very interesting, and extremely well informed. It pointed out what the town would stand to lose if planning permission was granted on Broughton House. I must admit I hadn’t realised until I read it that the gardens had been designed by Gertrude Jekyll, nor that there’s a society especially devoted to the preservation of her work… I…’

  ‘Only part of the gardens were designed by her,’ Fern interrupted her friend quietly. A tiny niggle of something she couldn’t quite put her finger on was beginning to stir in her brain.

  ‘Really? Oh, well… The point is, Fern, that towns like ours are being eroded and damaged all the time. Plans are passed, buildings, places of historical value are destroyed under our very noses, and by the time most of us realise it it’s too late. Sometimes the very people we think are there to protect our heritage for us can be the ones…’ She broke off. ‘Local councillors are not always able completely to separate their public responsibilities from their private needs, especially in a time of recession. It’s easy to understand how someone might feel tempted by the thought of a large profitable contract into ignoring his moral responsibility to the people he represents…’

  She was talking quickly now, her voice and manner almost defensive, and as Fern listened to her she suddenly realised what Roberta was trying to say.

  ‘You’re talking about Adam, aren’t you?’ she interrupted her. ‘Adam and that supermarket consortium he’s involved with.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got to admit it is all a bit suspect,’ Roberta told her defensively. ‘Adam must know what people are saying, but he’s done nothing to contradict or deny that he is involved in plans to acquire Broughton House as a potential development site.

  ‘Personally, I think whoever wrote that article does have a point. It was very intriguing, really… Its being anonymous, I mean. At the end of it there was a paragraph inviting everyone who was interested in oppo
sing the granting of any kind of planning permission and preserving the house and gardens as they are as part of the town’s history to attend a meeting tonight at the Town Hall. You’ve always loved the house, Fern. Why don’t you come along?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Fern told her non-committally. She wasn’t ready yet to make public the fact that she would soon no longer be part of the town, and if the meeting had been about anywhere other than Broughton House she knew she would not even have considered going.

  But it was true… she did love the house and its gardens. Given that, surely she should be as enthusiastic and pleased that something was going to be done to protect them as Roberta appeared to be. So why wasn’t she? It couldn’t be because of Adam’s involvement, could it?

  She was frowning as she said goodbye to Roberta and hurried towards the estate agents, pausing briefly as a leaflet in a shop window announcing the meeting she and Roberta had just been discussing caught her eye.

  ‘Good idea, that,’ a woman standing next to her also reading it commented to her. ‘It’s about time someone looked into what these councillors and the like get up to… if you ask me there’s far too many of them more interested in lining their own pockets than in doing what’s right by the likes of us.’ She sniffed disparagingly, turning to tell the child at her side to stop scuffing his new shoes on the pavement, before taking hold of him and disappearing inside the shop.

  Still frowning, Fern walked on. What was happening? Adam had always been one of the most popular and well-liked of all the local councillors, and certainly one of the most trustworthy and honest, and yet now it seemed even people who knew him well, like Roberta, were beginning to question that honesty.

  And all because of one anonymous article which had appeared in the local paper.

  Perhaps she would go to this evening’s meeting after all, she decided thoughtfully.

  * * *