by Holly Martin
‘Hey…’ George faltered slightly when he realised her face was blotchy as if she’d been crying. He took a step towards her. ‘Where have you been?’
‘I’ve been out on my bike, like you wanted me to. I didn’t realise I had to keep you apprised of my every movement,’ Libby snapped, which completely threw him.
‘I’ve phoned you, you didn’t answer.’
‘My phone is in my flat.’ She turned towards her front door.
‘Are you OK?’
She turned back, her eyes flashing angrily. ‘You’re so fickle, George. You kiss me, you try to sleep with Cerys, and when that doesn’t work, you try to sleep with me. Now you’re going out with Giselle, and judging by the magazine you’re holding with the top ten sex tips, you’re probably going to try to shag her as well. Polly, I’m sure you could try her next, if Giselle doesn’t work out for you. Sally, you told me you were in love with her a few months ago. But then you’re a man, I should expect this from you, any hole’s a goal, eh George?’
Libby stormed away from him and he stared after her for a second before he chased after her.
‘Wait, wait, I don’t understand. What’s your problem?’
‘I have a problem with you kissing me like… like I meant something last night, and then moving on to someone else today.’ She stepped closer and jabbed a finger into his chest. ‘I have a problem with you just using me for practice, refining your skills for someone better.’
‘Libby… I…’
But she was already storming into her flat, slamming the door, and for the first time in six months he heard the flat door being locked behind her.
* * *
It had been a weird night and not at all what George had expected to happen when he had woken up with Libby in his arms that morning. Libby had refused to answer her door, and when he and Giselle had gone to the pub together, there had been many people who had given him evil stares for the entire night. In the end they had cut their evening short and decided to go back to his flat so they could talk some more over some hot chocolate.
He looked at Giselle as they walked back along the street. She had been lovely to talk to. He didn’t know why he had been so scared to talk to her for the last week – she was easy-going, friendly, incredibly kind.
He let them into his flat. ‘If you put the kettle on, I’ll make a fire.’
Giselle moved ahead of him into the lounge. ‘Oh.’
And even though he couldn’t see what had made Giselle stop in the doorway, he knew it was Libby. He moved round Giselle and sure enough Libby was curled up on his sofa, fast asleep. She was wearing her pyjamas, and had probably sleepwalked into his flat and then drifted off into a deeper sleep when he wasn’t there to take her back home.
‘George, why is she asleep on your sofa?’ Giselle asked.
‘She sleepwalks, a lot. Sometimes she goes out on the street, sometimes she ends up in here.’
‘Really?’ She seemed genuinely intrigued by this. ‘Does she just curl up on your sofa and go back to sleep?’
‘No, sometimes she just stares into nothing; sometimes I can have actual conversations with her.’
‘What do you talk about?’
‘Oh, nothing sensible. The other day Clint Eastwood was buying her car.’
Giselle smiled, turning back to him. ‘So she’s quite intellectual when she’s asleep then?’
He moved into the room. ‘It’s rare that she’s just sleeping, that means she’s gone past the sleepwalking stage and fallen back into a deeper sleep.’
‘What do you do with her when you find her – isn’t it dangerous to wake her up?’ She moved further into the lounge to look at Libby.
‘Well, they say you shouldn’t wake up sleepwalkers because it can confuse and scare them. When she’s actually sleepwalking, I just take her back to her own bed; she’s normally very compliant. When she’s like this, she’s probably safe to wake.’ He moved towards Libby to shake her.
‘Aw no leave her, George, it seems a shame to wake her. Look, let’s leave this now, we can hardly carry on with our conversation while she’s here. Come and see me tomorrow morning and we can chat more about it then.’
Giselle eyed Libby for a moment, then pulled the blanket off the back of the sofa and gently covered her with it.
‘Goodnight, George.’
He bent his head to kiss her on the cheek. ‘Thank you.’
Giselle smiled. ‘My pleasure.’
As she left George turned his attention back to Libby who had quite clearly woken up, as she was glaring up at him. Had she seen him kiss Giselle? Where had all this anger suddenly come from? He had blurred the lines between him and Libby, and with the kisses, lying in bed with her, he had somehow hurt Libby too, which was the last thing he ever wanted to do.
Libby got up, quickly moving towards the door.
‘Libby, wait, we need to talk.’
She turned back, wearily. ‘What’s there to talk about? You’re with Giselle, the woman of your dreams.’
He faltered for a moment but then quickly pressed on.
‘Listen, last night in bed, when I tried to sleep with you, you stopped me.’
Her eyes flared angrily. ‘You think I stopped you because I didn’t want you? I stopped you because I wanted our first time together to be beautiful, because a friendship as close as ours should have culminated in something wonderful, and not just a quick, easy, drunken shag. I stopped you because… I wanted you to make love to me because you loved me, not just because you were drunk and horny.’
She turned for the door again, but he was quicker, and slammed it before she could open it. She was facing away from him, his hands either side of her on the door. She was breathing heavily. Her fists were clenched but he could see goosebumps on the back of her neck as his warm breath touched her.
‘Are you saying…’ He swallowed. ‘Are you saying you want me to make love to you?’
Libby turned back to him and then clearly regretted it as they were now standing very close. He couldn’t move away from her, couldn’t take his hands from either side of her body. She backed up against the door.
‘No, you’re with Giselle. You had your eureka moment today, when you realised you could do better than Cerys, and you said you were going to ask out the woman of your dreams. You chose Giselle, because she’s beautiful, a woman you’ve known for a week. The woman of your dreams is not me, not good old Libby, your best friend for the last six months.’
‘Hang on… I’m not… I thought…’
‘What did you think, George? What were you thinking when you were kissing me so passionately in bed last night? What were you thinking when you came into my room, got into bed with me and told me you wanted me, that you wanted to make love to me? As the woman of your dreams is clearly not me, then when you said you wanted me, you didn’t actually mean you loved me did you, you meant, “I want a shag, you’ll do, in fact anything with a pulse will do right now.”’
George swallowed, wondering how his lovely evening had ended so badly. ‘That’s not how it was at all.’
‘I’ve booked my ticket to New York. I leave Christmas Day. It was cheaper if I flew out then rather than the start of January and as there was nothing here worth staying for there didn’t seem any point in waiting around. I hope you get everything you ever wanted out of this thing with Giselle, but this time I won’t be there to pick up the pieces if it goes wrong.’
He watched, too stunned to move or say anything, as everything he ever wanted walked out of his flat, and a few seconds later, he heard her own flat door lock as she closed it behind her.
Chapter Nineteen
George came down the stairs from Giselle’s flat feeling like he had run a marathon and it was still only ten o’clock in the morning.
He stopped suddenly halfway down the flight of stairs, staring in shock at the outside world that had transformed overnight into a sea of white that covered the beach with a thick blanket. How had he not noticed
that before? He had barely slept the night before as he thought about Libby leaving. This morning he had woken determined to do something to stop it. He had to speak to Giselle about the ball and barely even given the outside world a glance. Proper snow in White Cliff Bay was almost unheard of. It had snowed before but nothing quite as spectacular as this. Normally, especially this close to Christmas, it would have filled him with pure delight. He would have dragged Libby down to the beach to make snowmen, but that wasn’t going to happen today.
Suddenly Libby’s flat door slammed open and she ran for the main door. Had she seen the snow and was running outside to enjoy it? But something about her urgency made him realise immediately that something was wrong.
‘Lib?’
She glanced up at him, seeing him for the first time.
‘George… shit, it’s Kat…’
She ran out the main front door and he knew from her tone that something was terribly wrong. He ran out after her and Libby stopped on top of the steps, suddenly taking in the beauty of the snow scene in front of her.
‘Shit, I can’t get my car up to Two Hill Farm in this.’
George stared up the road towards the pub. There was a Land Rover parked outside loading chairs into the back.
‘No, but I bet he could.’ George pointed to the man, who looked vaguely familiar.
Libby didn’t hesitate, she ran down the road towards the car. By the time George had caught up with her, she had already explained the problem to the man and he had agreed to help her. As the man turned, George realised it was the sickeningly good-looking bloke Libby had tripped over a few nights before.
‘George, this is Henry, he says he’ll give us a lift up there.’
Henry briefly shook George’s hand and climbed in the driving seat. Libby got in the passenger side, leaving George to climb in the back, glowering at the back of Henry’s head.
‘I won’t be able to wait with you I’m afraid, preparations for the ball have been thrown completely into disarray and I’m helping my girlfriend Penny with an emergency contingency plan.’
George stopped scowling. Henry had a girlfriend. This was the man that had nearly jumped in after Penny when she had fallen in the sea the other night. But then the scowl quickly came back on his face. Henry was right. The snow could ruin everything. His big plans for the ball could all become undone. He would have to come up with an emergency contingency plan of his own.
* * *
Libby watched Henry take the corners on the narrow road up to Two Hill Farm quickly, impressed with his handling of the ice and snow. Her heart was thundering against her chest. She felt sick, physically sick.
‘What’s happened?’ George asked, leaning between the two seats.
‘She’s bleeding.’ She glanced over at him, he looked pale.
‘That’s not good, is it?’
Libby shook her head.
‘Where’s Big Dave?’
‘She sent him out to get chocolate milkshake, she’s got a real dairy craving, and now she can’t reach him on the phone.’
‘Has an ambulance been called?’
‘Yes, but, God, George, she sounded so scared, she said she was in so much pain, she was sobbing.’
‘For God’s sake, get there quickly,’ George said to Henry and to Libby’s surprise Henry put his foot down.
* * *
As the car skidded to a halt in the courtyard, George was already out the door. Libby stopped to talk to Henry for a second and George heard him say he was going to look for the ambulance and help them to get to the farm if he could, before Libby chased after George. They burst through the front door and up the stairs.
God, if anything happened to Kat or the baby, Big Dave would be inconsolable. Quite what he and Libby could do was another matter, but he was glad he could at least be here for her, for Big Dave.
‘Kat?’ he called, but Libby was already shoving past him to a door at the end of the landing. He quickly followed her.
Kat was lying on the bed, her face red and flustered, crying and writhing in pain.
Shit. He was way out of his depth here. The only thing he knew about first aid was the basics he learned in the Scouts about twenty years before.
Libby quickly knelt on the bed, holding her hand. Taking his knowledge of maternity care from TV and films, he quickly ran into the bathroom to get a wet facecloth to mop her brow.
He came back in and passed the facecloth to Libby, who looked at it in confusion and then duly mopped Kat’s face.
‘Libby, the baby’s coming, but something’s wrong, I can feel it,’ Kat panted. ‘We had sex the other day, what if… what if we hurt the baby?’
‘It’s OK, Kat, just try to stay calm, the paramedics are on their way, and Dave will be back soon,’ Libby soothed.
‘Where the bloody hell is he, I swear if I give birth to his baby and he’s not here, I’ll kill him, I’ll fucking kill him,’ Kat roared. George backed into the hall again, wondering if she would kill him just for being a man.
Fumbling in his pocket, he pulled out his phone and tried Dave’s mobile for the third time, but as before it just went straight through to answer phone.
‘Dave, for God’s sake, man, get your arse back home now,’ he growled into the phone, before taking a big breath and going back into the bedroom again.
Kat screamed, gripping Libby’s hand so tightly it looked like she might have broken it, but though Libby grimaced in pain, she didn’t relinquish her hold on Kat’s hand.
‘That’s it, it’s OK, just breathe, you’re doing OK, you’re going to be a wonderful mum, Kat, and your baby is going to be beautiful, just breathe,’ Libby said.
She was so calm, so together, whilst George was panicking, wildly. What if the baby came and there he and Libby were here? He couldn’t deliver a baby, he didn’t have the first clue about these things, other than what he had seen on TV and films, and there always seemed to be a lot of crying and screaming. What if something went wrong, what if he did something wrong?
He couldn’t do this. He had nothing to offer here, he would be better off waiting downstairs. But as Libby looked round at him, he could see a real fear in her eyes and he knew he couldn’t leave her.
Suddenly he heard the front door slam open, and from the footsteps that thundered up the stairs, he knew that it was Big Dave and that he’d got the previous messages that he and Libby had left for him.
Big Dave burst into the room and was at Kat’s side instantly.
‘Dave, oh God Dave, I love you, I love you so much,’ Kat sobbed, reaching out her hand for him.
‘I love you too, now let’s deliver our baby.’
Kat beamed happily at him, but her face suddenly changed as she suffered another contraction and she screamed, squeezing both Dave and Libby’s hands tightly.
‘Hello?’ called a voice from downstairs.
George quickly ran to the top of the stairs, and nearly wept with relief at the sight of the two men, dressed in the green of the paramedics’ uniform, standing at the bottom.
‘Up here, quick.’
The men hurried up the stairs, following him down the hall to the bedroom.
‘OK,’ said one of the men calmly, ‘let’s have some space in here, everyone out who isn’t family.’
George watched Libby kiss Kat on the head, disentangle her hand from Kat’s grasp, and then allow herself to be ushered out the door by one of the paramedics.
As the bedroom door closed, he realised that Libby was trembling.
‘Shall I make a cup of tea?’
She nodded weakly, and he took her hand and led her down the stairs into the warmth of the kitchen. He made the tea and pushed the mug into her hands.
The voices and noises coming from directly above them were indistinct and not encouraging. There was a lot of screaming, shouting and loud bangs.
Libby stood up and started pacing, and he watched her progress across the kitchen floor.
‘She’ll be fine, Lib, so wi
ll the baby. The paramedics are here and Big Dave has delivered more baby animals in his life than I’ve had hot dinners.’
‘Baby animals and babies are very different,’ she mumbled, casting her eyes in the directions of the screams above her.
Suddenly there was a silence from above. A long deathly silence.
She ran out the kitchen and he followed her to the bottom of the stairs.
The silence dragged on and then suddenly it was broken with an ear-splitting cry, the cry of a baby with huge lungs.
George heard the bedroom door open.
‘It’s a boy,’ Big Dave yelled down the stairs, over the noise of his firstborn. ‘A bloody big healthy baby boy.’
George laughed and Libby, to his surprise, burst into tears. He quickly pulled her into his arms, and she cried against his chest, soaking his shirt with her tears.
* * *
At first, Libby had been too relieved about Kat and the baby to pay attention to what happened next. But just a few seconds after the announcement of the new arrival, she had found herself held tightly in George’s arms, his fingers making soothing circles across her back. She wanted to cry forever if it meant he would hold her like that.
She looked up at him, and he smiled at her, taking her face in his hands. She closed her eyes as he wiped her tears away, but with his gentle touch, her heart exploded in her chest.
Suddenly aware of how close he was standing, how he was bound to feel her heartbeat, she stepped back, embarrassed.
‘Come on then, you two, come and say hello to our son,’ Big Dave called from the top of the stairs, and Libby nearly sighed with relief.
* * *
After hugs and kisses all round, after George and Libby had both held and cuddled baby Jake, they had left Big Dave and Kat to become acquainted with their son. The ambulance men had given them a lift part of the way and they had walked the rest, trudging through the still thick snow.
George walked into his lounge, and Libby followed him in.
