Another Woman's Man

by Carrie-Ann Schless

  When she got a starring role in London’s West End, I got to see her more often. I was thirteen, and Mum arranged tickets for my whole class to come and see her as Fantine in Les Miserables. They all told me how cool it was having a mum on stage, envious of me getting to hang backstage most weekends. But I was envious of them having their mums at home to cook them roast dinners on a Sunday, and read them stories when they were young. Don’t get me wrong. I was proud of what she had achieved, and Dad did a great job bringing me up, but it wasn’t the same.

  Then along came Jonathan, the week of my sixteenth birthday. He was a director on Broadway, over from America on holiday. After meeting Mum, he ended up staying for three months before whisking her away to play Grizabella in CATS. New York was amazing. I went for a couple of weeks over my eighteenth birthday, and understood why she never came home. My mum the Broadway star.

  After showing her around the house and venturing to the local cafe on the corner for a quick bite to eat, Mother took herself off for a lie down, muttering about jet lag and the time difference, leaving Max and I alone with the gifts she’d got us from America, both of which we hated. She’d got me a copy of a self-help book, written and signed by her friend Mimi. Max had an unusually large amount of Hershey’s chocolate.

  I looked at the small pile of gold and red parcels under our Christmas tree.

  ‘I dread to think what’s in them.’

  Max smirked, thinking back to the dreadful Christmas jumper she had got him last year. ‘Your mum isn’t the best gift-giver, is she?’ he laughed.

  ‘I’ve got a gift for you, if you want one early, that is.’

  ‘Go on then.’ He moved himself to face me better, bending one leg underneath him, his eyes closed, and held out his hands. I leant in, placed my hands on his shoulder to balance, and whispered in his ear, ‘I’m pregnant.’

  Max slowly opened his eyes and studied my face. His lips began to curl, and his eyes softened. ‘Seriously?’

  I nodded, my own smile creeping up my face. I’d done the test that morning when he was off collecting Mum from the airport.

  From the time I had moved in with him, we had said what would be would be. We hadn’t actively been trying for a baby, there were no ovulation tests or baby-making sessions written on the calendar, but we had both stopped taking our contraceptives. He was earning more than enough for us to live comfortably, and with my rent from the harbour flat coming in monthly and more than covering our mortgage, we were financially stable enough to start a family. My wages and the left-over from the rent went straight into a savings account to prepare for the next step of our life together. I kept some for myself, to buy what I wanted, of course.

  From the moment I saw those two blue lines on the stick, I started dreaming up ways to tell Max, but as soon as I saw him there in front of me I had to tell him. Max held my face in his hands and kissed me hard.

  ‘We are going to be a family.’

  I cried happy tears as he rubbed his hand over my soon-to-be expanding belly. By my calculations, I was only about eight weeks, so we agreed not to tell anyone yet. We sat close on the sofa, talking in hushed voices about how excited we both were, until we heard the grandma-to-be’s footsteps coming down the stairs.

  The rest of Mum’s stay was jam-packed, visiting friends, hosting dinner parties, days out with her and Nan. Max was my alcoholic drink stopper, expertly swapping my vodkas for cokes, and spilling my champagne after an odd sip. We used all the tricks in the book. I went on a ‘detox’ and could only drink water. I was on antibiotics. I was the designated driver.

  I liked the fact that Max and I had a secret. After her five days were over, we loaded up the car, waved Mum off at the airport, and drove straight to Dad’s.

  ‘Welcome. Welcome. Come in. Come in. Let me take your bags.’ Dad was excited to see us. Safe journey? How long did it take? Did your mother get off ok? The weather in Brighton. The same conversation starters Malcolm always used. When the guys started talking about sports, I made my excuses to go off to the bathroom and freshen up.

  My dad’s bathroom wasn’t crammed with soaps and shampoos like mine. Along with the rest of his house, Dad kept his bathroom minimal. There was one liquid soap by the basin. One toothbrush and toothpaste in the holder. A shampoo, a shower gel, and a flannel at the side of the bath, and a razor and shaving foam on the windowsill.

  The built-in bathroom cabinet was small and probably housed his prescription meds and umpteen packets of Nurofen, paracetamol, and cough syrups. Washing my hands, I smiled at the thought of bringing baby Hilton, my baby, here.

  I started wondering how Dad would cope with the chaos of a small child. Would he freak out, or embrace the world of being a grandad? Stepping out onto the landing, I looked around at the framed pictures decorating the walls of the upper level of the house. Me at four, on my first day at school; me at seven, horse riding in Devon; me at nine, blowing out the candles on my cake. The photos continued down the stairs. Me and Dad in Spain; me and Dad with Big Ben in the background; me and Dad next to a plastic Loch Ness monster. It had always been just us. Where Mum had moved on and remarried, Dad never had. I had never even known him to have a girlfriend. He had loved my mum his whole life, and I knew part of him still did.

  ‘Come on in, poppet. I’ve just made a pot of tea.’

  ‘Ooh, I’m all teed out, Dad. Just a squash for me, if you have it’

  I had gone right off tea recently. I couldn’t even get through half a cup without having to run to the bathroom.

  Dad’s phone bleeped and vibrated on the kitchen table.

  Dad didn’t flinch.

  ‘Dad, your phone,’ I pointed out to him.

  He reached into his top pocket to take out his glasses, and peered at the screen.

  ‘Ah. It’s George,’ he announced.

  I went to the cupboard to get my own glass now that Dad was distracted. ’What did he say?’

  ‘Stopped at services. Coffee break. ETA fifteen hundred hours,’ he read out from his Nokia.

  I glanced at my watch. Two o’clock. ‘So, they are only an hour away?’

  Kat’s dad, George, had been Dad’s best friend for almost as long as Kat had been mine. We loved our annual get-together. I will never understand why Dad had to move so far away from us all, but it was nice to have a holiday destination on tap. We would spend the weekend together, ending in our very own Christmas Day, complete with Christmas dinner cooked by Dad, and followed by George’s famous home-made, brandy-soaked Christmas pudding. Kat’s mum never came, but chose this weekend to visit her sister, who George hated.

  As his car pulled in behind mine, George beeped the horn. I loved the way my dad’s face lit up when he knew his friend was here. I hadn’t seen Kat properly for a few weeks, so I was excited, too. Max and Ben had been planning days out at the pub and whatnot, so they got straight on with that. The house was full of laughter and chatter well into the early hours.

  Chapter Twelve

  Two days before Christmas, Max and I went into Danny’s bar to deliver his card and present. We hadn’t actually seen him since the casino night. For some reason, he had gone off the radar.

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ Max said, strolling up to the bar.

  ‘Alright, mate.’ Danny beamed. ‘Long time no see.’

  ‘So,’ I looked at his face, ‘where have you been? Have we done something to upset you?’

  ‘No, sorry, I’ve just been…’ he paused, ‘busy.’ A smile crept up on his face.

  ‘There’s a girl.’ Max pointed at him.

  At that point, a leggy brunette walked behind the bar and helped herself to a drink out of the gun.

  ‘Ah, you’ve got me,’ Danny said to Max. He called over to the brunette, ‘Hey, babe, come and meet some good friends of mine. Max, this is Erica.’

  She walked over, flashed her dazzling pearly whites, and held her hand out to Max.

  ‘It’s so lovely to meet you. I was beginning to think you were Danny�
�s imaginary friend.’ The three of them laughed.

  I hated her. I stood there watching them, with a horrible feeling washing over me. I managed to keep smiling, pretending I was happy to see this scene. Our friend had a girlfriend; this was good. It should be. Yay, we could go on double dates and I would have someone to talk girls’ stuff with when the guys were busy with sports and stuff, but I had taken an instant dislike to this girl. What also didn’t help was, after me watching Max tell her how nice it was to meet her, they introduced her to me. ‘And this is Max’s much better half, Casey.’

  Erica slowly turned to look at me. I smiled a hi, but she wasn’t smiling any more. She gave me a slow look up and down. I hated her even more. I could tell she just wasn’t a girls’ girl. She was looking at me as if I was something she had scraped off her shoe. This was classic hate at first sight, both ways.

  Before I’d managed to give Max the ‘I hate her’ glaring look, he invited our friend and this thing he called a girlfriend round for dinner. I didn’t know who I wanted to hurt more.

  When it was time to leave, I stormed ahead of Max, not even holding the door open for him as I went through it. I was angry, I was annoyed, and I really didn’t know why.

  ‘Who the hell does she think she is?’ I grumbled, as I opened the car door.

  ‘Who?’ Max looked confused.

  ‘Her!’ I gestured back to the bar before throwing myself down in the seat and slamming the door. Max got in. ‘Did you see the way she looked at me?’ I pulled my seatbelt hard and clicked it into place.

  ‘She seemed alright to me.’

  My eyes blazed. Max knew instantly he’d said the wrong thing.

  ‘Alright?’ I started the engine. ‘Looking down her nose at me as if she thinks she’s better than everyone.’

  Max kept quiet. He knew better than to disagree.

  ‘Of course you like her! Why wouldn’t you? She’s smiley and friendly, and nice to you. And, of course, she is. You have a penis. Women like that make me sick.’ Of course he liked her with her pretty face and flirty nature; any guy would.

  Even at this early stage in my pregnancy, I was struggling to handle my hormones. We drove the rest of the way home in silence. When we got in, Max started dinner and I went upstairs to run myself a bath. I needed to wash this feeling off.

  Once I was feeling better, we had dinner on our laps then snuggled up on the sofa to watch a film. I fell asleep on his shoulder. The vile woman was as far from my mind as she could be.

  Max stared at me, a disgusted look on his face. ‘Look at the state of you,’ he practically growled at me. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself.’

  ‘Of what? What have I done?’

  ‘You’re disgusting.’ He turned his back.

  ‘Max, please.’ I lunged forward and grabbed his shoulder, turning him around.

  ‘Max who?’ It was Danny’s face. ‘You don’t need him, you have me.’

  Voices surrounded me: ‘slut’, ‘whore’, ‘bitch’, ‘tramp’. They got louder and thicker; I felt suffocated. I looked around at a crowd of faces circling. Kat; my mum; Danny; Erica; people from work. No Max. Where was Max? I wanted him. He would protect me.

  I screamed out his name and woke with a start on the sofa. In the light from the hallway, I saw a note on the table:

  Didn’t want to disturb you.

  I love you, babe.

  See you in bed xxx

  I pulled the blanket up to my chin. I felt cold. I was having the strangest dreams at the moment. The clock showed it was 4am. I wondered if it was even worth going to bed for a couple of hours, but at that moment all I wanted to do was be near Max.

  Climbing into bed, I shuffled up behind him as close as I could get. The smell of his aftershave lingered. I stroked my hand down his arm. At that moment, I needed him, wanted him more than ever. I shuffled up the bed so I could kiss his neck, running my fingers through his hair, gently scraping my nails down his back. I felt him start to stir. My kisses got stronger, my longing more intense.

  ‘Max,’ I whispered in his ear, kissing down his neck and rubbing my hands down his chest.

  ‘Mmmm?’

  ‘Max.’ He slowly opened his eyes. ‘I want you.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  After the first sober Christmas and New Year of my adult life, Max and I started preparing for our first baby scan. The night before, I could barely sleep. I’d seen hundreds of scan pictures before, and always had to tilt my head to try and make out the head and the tiny arms and legs, but this one was going to be mine. I couldn’t wait to be able to tell people. There were only so many times you could make up reasons to be on antibiotics.

  I was working until twelve, then Max was picking me up to go straight to the hospital. As I was preparing to leave, I quickly popped off to the toilets, knowing it was unlikely I would make it all the way to the hospital without an accident. My heart sank. I was bleeding. I felt instant dread. Rushing to the staff room without even washing my hands, I scrambled to open my locker and grab my keys and phone.

  ‘Hi, this is Max. Sorry I can’t…’ Shit. I hung up. I knew he would be in the car park, so I grabbed my stuff and ran.

  By the time I reached the lift, I was sobbing. What was wrong? Why was I bleeding? I was getting strange looks from people walking past, but I didn’t care. When the lift doors opened and I saw Max, I crumbled.

  Phoning the hospital, they told us to go straight to our appointment and not to A&E, as Max wanted to. In the waiting room, minutes felt like hours. We watched happy couples walk in and walk out, studying their pictures with awe. Max asked me for the hundredth time if I was ok, but I wasn’t. I was petrified.

  ‘Casey Turner!’ My heart leapt into my mouth. I had been so excited this morning, now I just felt sick. I wanted to get up and go home. I didn’t want to know. Holding Max’s hand, we followed her into the room.

  ‘Just lay on the couch, please.’ She knew our situation. She had read the notes. She was friendly and trying to be reassuring. I knew there were loads of reasons I could be bleeding. I knew some people bled all the way through their pregnancies. I mean, I had watched Eastenders and Sonia had, and even though I knew it was a fictional programme, they base it on things that can happen in reality. There were multiple reasons I could be bleeding right now, but something just felt wrong.

  Tucking blue tissue into the waistband of my trousers, she explained the gel would feel cold. The room fell silent as she studied the screen, expertly moving the wand over my abdomen. She pushed in harder in some places. Max’s grip on my hand got tighter.

  I was waiting for that moment they showed you in films, where the tension is broken by the sonographer swinging the screen around and boldly stating they had found the heartbeat. But it never came. After far too long, she gave up trying. She turned to us with sadness in her eyes and said, ‘I’m so sorry. I can’t find a heartbeat.’

  I couldn’t tell you what happened after that. I could hear voices in the background. They were far away. Distant. There was another man there; a doctor, perhaps. I’m guessing Max asked questions and the man gave answers. Either way, I left that room without a single clue of what was going on. I felt like I was in a daydream.

  Maybe I was in one of my vivid dreams. A nightmare. I didn’t know I’d had a big decision to make. I didn’t know that with just a single nod to the head I had agreed to take a pill to help speed up the miscarriage, instead of having an operation to remove it. It was already happening, they were sure of that. I just had to wait for it to pass. Max rang my boss to explain that I wouldn’t be in for the rest of the week, then his boss with the same message. I wanted him to go back to work. I wanted him to leave me alone. I wanted to cry. I wanted to sob my heart out, drown in my tears. I didn’t want to stay strong. I knew he was losing this baby, too, but it was me laying on the couch cramping, it was me bleeding heavily, it was my body rejecting our child.

  I was letting Max down. I felt like if I cried he would want to comf
ort me, and comfort was the last thing I deserved. He didn’t go back to work; instead, he hugged me whilst I cried, he replaced my hot water bottle, rubbed my feet, ran me a bath, and did everything he could do to help me through this time. He was my rock, but who was comforting him? He was feeling guilty, too. Guilty he couldn’t go through the pain. Guilty he couldn’t help me.

  By the end of the week, it was over. I went back to work; party animal at weekends. Max and I went back to being just us. We didn’t talk about the future, we didn’t think about the past. We just lived in the moment.

  But one thing never went back to normal. The way Max looked at me. He saw me differently, fragile. I put on a brave face, even to him. I was mourning something I had never seen. I left my tears until bath time, hiding my sobs with the running water.

  I can’t tell you exactly when it happened, but something broke in us. That perfect couple we had been, had disappeared. It may have been this first miscarriage, or maybe the second one I had six months later. It could have been the ectopic pregnancy I had the following year that resulted in me having surgery to remove one of my tubes. It could have been Max’s testicular cancer scare, or the news that Nan had passed away. Every one of these moments mounted up, and put an end to our dream of being a happy family.

  Eventually, I moved back to my harbour flat, and Max became just one more name on a long list of exes. It was sad, and it was unexpected by everyone we knew, but it was over… and I had to learn how to be just me again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  One of the negative parts of being newly single was being maid of honour to possibly one of the happiest brides in the universe. Sadly, their longest engagement on record had been made even longer by Ben being made redundant and a close family member becoming ill, but that didn’t stop Kat planning her big day. Weekends were taken up with trying on dresses, visiting cake-makers, touring wedding fairs around the county, and making plans for the numerous hen nights we wanted.