Phoebe’s dad, on the other hand, whilst appearing to agree with his wife, showed a secret sort of pride and pleasure in the whole thing that surprised her a little. She had always imagined he would be the more disappointed of the two – he had always seen Phoebe as his precious little girl. But he seemed rather happy about the whole thing. Phoebe wondered whether, in his head, he had already gained a grandson who would be inducted into the re-enactment society the moment he grew big enough not to buckle under the weight of a musket.
The problem Phoebe had created for herself now was that she had made a new lie. She’d promised Jack she wouldn’t tell her family, and now she had to make them promise not to tell him they knew. She hated all this lying, but it seemed impossible to stop.
‘Jack’s got so much work on at the moment he’ll get behind if he takes a morning off – especially with how long they take in here. Besides, this is only a dating scan. He can come to the important ones with me.’
‘When are you going to tell his parents?’
‘Mum… we’ve been through all this…’
‘I think it’s wrong, that’s all. They should know.’
‘And they will, soon.’
‘Are we going to meet them? We’ll be practically related in a few months so I think we ought to.’
Phoebe didn’t agree. In fact, she couldn’t think of anything more horrific than the prospect of Jack’s parents meeting hers. She adored her mum and dad, of course, but she knew for others they could be an acquired taste. She wasn’t sure what prim and proper Carol would make of her father’s hobby and his plain-speaking ways, but she was pretty sure she wouldn’t approve. And she certainly didn’t need any more reasons to hate Phoebe. If, God forbid, Carol dared display her obvious contempt for Phoebe in front of Martha then it would be handbags at dawn and there was no telling where that would end. Martha might appear to be a nag and she might not always approve of Phoebe’s choices in life, but anyone stupid enough to hurt her daughter did so at their peril. In those situations, Martha was like a lioness protecting her cub: no mercy and no forgiveness. It was hardly going to make for a future of peaceful Christmas lunches.
‘Give us a bit more time,’ Phoebe said. ‘There’ll be plenty of opportunities once the baby arrives and things that both sets of parents will have to attend.’ Phoebe ran through a list in her head: Naming ceremony or christening (depending on what Jack wanted), birthday parties, school plays, awards ceremonies – all of them would have to take place in a secret bunker somewhere under the Swiss Alps so that nobody but she and Jack would know about them. It was the only way to keep all-out war at bay. Even Maria would have to sign the official secrets act.
Phoebe looked up at the sound of the scanning room door opening. A young couple practically skipped out, hand in hand, their expressions alive with happiness and expectation. Phoebe was filled with a pang of envy. They looked barely old enough to have finished their GCSEs and weren’t dressed in a way that suggested a lot of money, and yet they seemed so happy. She and Jack would be in a much better position in many ways, but that happiness was so absent from their lives right now it was painful. She tried to block the sadness that crept into her heart. Jack would come round eventually, wouldn’t he? He was such a fantastic dad to Maria; how could he not be the same with their child?
And then her darkest thoughts pushed their tendrils of doubt into her heart. Maria was Rebecca’s daughter. Sweet, clever, funny, perfect Rebecca. Jack had loved Rebecca for almost his whole life and then she had died. His family never seemed to tire of reminding Phoebe of that. What if Jack had loved Rebecca in a way that he could never love anyone else? Rebecca might be dead, but she would always own his heart. What if Phoebe was always on the outside looking in?
‘Phoebe Clements…’
Martha nudged her daughter and nodded towards a woman in a white tunic and shapeless navy trousers standing at the open door of the scanning room.
‘Come on, let’s find out what’s going on.’
Phoebe took a deep breath. This was it, the first time she would see her child. She was both excited and terrified at the same time. As she walked towards the smiling sonographer, she reached for her mum’s hand, suddenly feeling like a little girl again. Martha gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. There was a kind of calm, stabilising influence that only a mum could give, no matter how old you got. Phoebe was so glad to have hers there. She only wished that she had Jack with her too.
*
Phoebe had barely been able to keep her mind on anything for the rest of the day. She desperately wanted to tell Dixon about her scan. In fact, she wanted to climb onto the roof with a megaphone and tell the world. But she had gone about her day, having a quiet meltdown in the privacy of her own brain whilst pretending to get on with her job. What on earth she’d written in emails, what figures she’d sent to Old Mr Hendry, what she’d said on the phone to a new costume supplier who wanted to discuss sponsorship, she had no idea. She just hoped she had sounded reasonably sensible and not promised anyone rainbow-striped kittens and unicorns.
After much internal deliberation, she’d decided to call at Jack’s with the scan photo, now carefully slotted inside a laminated cover purchased from the hospital shop and stowed in her bag. If nothing else had moved him so far, perhaps this would. He knew this was the day of the scan, but she hadn’t phoned ahead to warn him she was coming so he wouldn’t be able to come up with an excuse to put her off.
On the bus now, she clutched the photo, gazing at it. Yet again she wondered how a grainy monochrome image, barely recognisable as anything but perhaps a baked bean or a squished prawn cracker could have such a profound effect on her. But this was the life she had helped to create, growing inside her. For all her fears, her doubts, her moments of resentment over the past weeks, the sudden rush of love that had overwhelmed her as the image took shape on the screen of the scanning room – the tiny fluttering heartbeats barely visible inside a sea of grey and black shapes that would become arms and legs and a beautiful face – had knocked Phoebe’s world out of orbit. She hadn’t expected it, and even now it took some getting used to, but she felt it every time she looked at the picture, so it had to be real.
Would Jack feel the same way? Her fear of rejection was double now that the maternal instinct to protect her baby had jolted violently into life. It would be hard to enough to take rejection of herself but Phoebe would get over it, eventually. Rejection of her child was quite another thing.
The bus stopped, and Phoebe looked up to see a mother and her toddler make their way up the aisle. They came and sat down in the seat next to Phoebe. The toddler, a little boy, struggled to get off his mother’s lap but the woman held him tight, cajoling him to sit still with promises of chocolate at the other end. Phoebe watched for a moment, forgetting that she was still holding the picture of her own child.
‘Yours?’ the woman asked, turning to Phoebe now with a smile and nodding at the tiny square of paper. Phoebe nodded. ‘First one?’
‘Yes.’
‘How far are you?’
‘Ten weeks.’
‘Lovely. Not long until you get another snap for the family album then.’ The toddler twisted around in her arms again and made a grab for the photo. As tactfully as she could, Phoebe moved it out of his reach.
‘No, Leo,’ the woman said, pulling his sticky hands gently away. ‘It’s not a toy.’ She dug in her bag for a dummy and gave it a quick blow before shoving it into the child’s mouth. The effect was instantaneous, like she had given him a magic sedative, and he stared into space in a peaceful trance as he sucked at it. Then she turned back to Phoebe. ‘Are you looking forward to it?’
‘Sort of,’ Phoebe smiled.
‘I suppose you’re nervous.’
‘That would be an understatement.’
‘It’s only natural. This little terror is my third. The first birth was horrific, like a scene from a Hammer film or something. My husband said watching The Exorcist was like Antiq
ues Roadshow after seeing me in labour. By the time I got to my third it was like shelling peas. I could have done the ironing at the same time. Leo was a home birth and he was out before the midwife had arrived and got her gloves on.’
‘Does it hurt?’
‘Like nothing else, no doubt about it. But you soon forget. If God let us all remember how bad it was, we’d never have a second. I’m sure you’ll be just fine.’
‘I think I’m more scared about afterwards than the birth,’ Phoebe replied. Her own honesty had taken her by surprise, but somehow she found it easier to open up to this complete stranger than anyone else so far. ‘I’m scared of getting it wrong. I mean, how do you know what the baby wants? How do you know if you’re doing things wrong? What if you cock it up?’
The woman gave her son an affectionate kiss on the head as he snuggled into her arms. ‘I can’t explain it, but things just slot into place. People will offer you all sorts of advice and they’ll tell you you’re doing things wrong and how their way is better. Sometimes they’ll be right and sometimes they’ll be wrong. In the end, you’ll just know and you’ll wonder what you were ever scared of.’
‘Really?’ Phoebe couldn’t imagine that day at all.
The bus juddered to a halt. Phoebe looked up in some surprise to see that she had reached her destination already. ‘This is my stop.’
‘Oh, right…’ the woman stood to let Phoebe squeeze past before sitting her son on the empty seat and easing herself down next to him again. The little boy pulled himself up at the window and began slapping the glass with squeals of delight.
‘Thanks,’ Phoebe added. ‘It was lovely to talk to you.’
‘No problem. And if you want to find me after the little horror arrives, I’m a helper at St Alban’s Street Playgroup. Come along any time with junior for a cup of tea and a chat.’
‘I will,’ Phoebe smiled.
‘Good luck!’ the woman called as she made her way down the bus. It was a funny thing, but Phoebe felt more like a mum after that short conversation than ever before. Maybe she wouldn’t stink after all.
*
The walk to King’s Road was short and balmy and Phoebe blinked, half-surprised to find herself there as she looked up at the street sign. Familiar faces passed her and smiled their greetings as she walked to Jack’s house. It was amazing how quickly people accepted you as part of the community if you stalked the same street often enough. Most of them looked as if they had just finished work too – suits on, briefcases at their side or wearing paint-spattered overalls. Work… what was she going to do about it? It was another thing to figure out and she would, just as soon as she got her head around the fact that she was going to be a mum.
When she got to Jack’s there was no reply. She knocked again but still nothing. Frowning, she dialled his number and he didn’t answer his phone either. She wondered whether she ought to let herself in, but it seemed weird to sit alone in his house.
After wandering the street again a couple of times, hoping to bump into him returning from a walk with Maria or something similar, and phoning him again to no avail, Phoebe gave up. She had been so excited to see him tonight, especially after her chat on the bus, and had been determined to infuse him with some of her new-found optimism too. She left feeling oddly flat. That’s what you get for arriving unannounced, she thought, although it was strange for him to be missing at that time on a weekday evening when he would usually be busy with Maria’s tea and bedtime routine. Not to mention the fact that she often paid him impromptu visits and he normally let her know if he wasn’t going to be in, just in case.
Not wanting to go home, and not wanting to bother her parents for a second time that day (or give them any excuse to suspect that things weren’t all rosy in the garden with Jack), Phoebe found herself wandering slowly back towards the centre of town. It was a long haul in bad weather but this evening, in the warmth of the sun, it was a pleasant walk that gave her space to think.
The landscape of her life had changed beyond recognition in the last twelve months and sometimes she forgot that her emotions needed to catch up with the pace of progress. This time last year she had been working as a barmaid, drinking away most of her shifts with the customers in a bid to forget the despair that each day waking up without Vik brought.
Thinking about Vik brought her up short. With every day that passed now he occupied less and less space in her life. But how could she forget? The old guilt pricked at her. His Sikh parents had erected no memorial she could visit, and had forbade her to attend his cremation. His ashes were probably miles away now, drifting on some foreign tide. What would he think if he could see her now? Would he think her fickle and inconstant, moving on so soon? Was that why Jack struggled so much? He had seemed so happy to give his heart to Phoebe, but that was back in the beginning when it was all just fun and games. Now that their future had become so serious, did he feel he was being unfaithful to Rebecca’s memory, as she did to Vik’s? Phoebe wished he would talk to her, that they could work it out together, but whenever she approached the subject he closed up tight. They had both suffered losses, and surely it was right that they should be granted just a little happiness?
‘PHOEBE!’
She turned to see Maria racing down the street towards her. ‘PHOEBE!’ she cried again, running so fast she almost tripped over her own feet.
‘Careful!’ a woman called after her.
As Maria threw herself into Phoebe’s arms, giggling, Phoebe looked up to see the woman coming towards them at a brisk walk. She was in her fifties, a willowy and elegant figure dressed in a flattering long skirt and fitted jersey top with coordinating scarf. Phoebe could tell that her shoulder-length hair was once strawberry blonde but now washed silver-grey; there was a sprinkling of freckles over her cheeks, the skin so fine it needed no foundation.
Phoebe stared at her. She recognised the features instantly, but from photos of a much younger face, one gone now from all but memory.
‘Hello…’ she greeted warmly. ‘You must be Jack’s friend. Maria has told me lots about you.’
‘Um…’ Phoebe’s brain struggled to process a reply.
‘Are you coming to our house?’ Maria asked. ‘Granny May is coming.’
So this was Rebecca’s mother. She gave Phoebe a warm smile that took her completely by surprise. She had never expected to meet May, although perhaps that was rather foolish. If she’d been asked, she would have assumed that May would be cold towards her – not unlike Carol in fact. This warmth was too weird and Phoebe wondered if she would actually prefer May to be rude to her.
‘Jack’s not at home,’ was all that Phoebe managed to get out.
‘That’s odd,’ May said, her smile fading. ‘He knows to expect us.’
‘That’s what I thought. I tried to phone him but he’s not answering…’ She paused before continuing, wondering whether it would be ok to mention what she was thinking? ‘I have a key…’ she said, finally. ‘If you need to drop Maria off at home I can stay with her until Jack gets back.’
‘That’s very kind of you, but there’s nowhere I have to be and nobody to get home to. I’m happy to stay with Maria.’
Phoebe had no idea how she was supposed to respond – what she should and shouldn’t say about the situation they all found themselves in. Would they both creep around the elephant parked on the pavement between them and pretend not to see it?
‘Perhaps I should try Jack again,’ she said eventually.
‘You do that and I’ll phone Carol to see if she knows anything.’
While Phoebe dialled Jack, almost certain that he wouldn’t answer, May pulled an old mobile phone the size of a brick from her straw shoulder bag. A quick conversation with Jack’s mum revealed that she didn’t know where he was either, or Archie, for that matter (although that was less worrying as nobody knew where Archie went and what he got up to half the time). From this half of the conversation, it was clear that May was having a tough time persuading Car
ol not to leap into her car and head straight over.
‘Phoebe’s here,’ May said, giving Phoebe an unexpected and very disconcerting wink. ‘She has a key and can let us in.’
Phoebe could only imagine Carol’s reply. Perhaps that was why May was winking. Whatever was being said at the other end of the line, she seemed unperturbed by it. As Phoebe watched her, she decided that she loved May already and cursed her rotten luck that this perfectly sweet woman had to be the mother of her nemesis and not Jack’s own.
May ended the call and slipped the phone back into her bag. ‘Carol says we should call her when we find out where Jack is. She tried him too and got no reply.’
Phoebe wondered whether Carol had swallowed her pride enough to try Archie too, but guessed from the fact that May didn’t mention it that there would be an ice-rink in hell before that happened.
May looked down at Maria. ‘How about we make good use of Phoebe’s key and let ourselves in? Knowing your dad there’ll be a cake in the larder with our names on it.’
‘Can we go to the park, Phoebe?’ Maria asked.
‘You’ve just come from the park!’ May laughed. ‘I’ll bet after a day at work what Phoebe needs is a cup of tea, not a race round the park trying to keep up with you.’
Maria giggled. ‘I won’t run fast.’
‘The only place we want to go fast is home…’ May held out a hand, ‘come on little madam. Time to head back.’
‘Ok…’Maria grumbled, reaching up to hold onto May’s hand.
‘You work in the big toy shop in town, don’t you?’ May asked Phoebe as they began to saunter back in the direction of King’s Road.
‘I do. Started there at Christmas.’
‘And you like it?’
‘Some days. It’s not exactly a high-flying career but I’m happy enough there.’
As they continued to exchange small talk, Phoebe felt the irrational urge to answer every question with a question of her own about Rebecca. It probably wouldn’t be the best ice-breaker though, so she bit her lip and forced herself to think of other things.
Mishaps in Millrise: Parts 1-4 in one book – plus a little extra… Page 24
