“The thing is, Malvolio, if this was a meal that had gone cold in my restaurant, I’d understand why and how you could say, ‘I don’t want this anymore,’ but this is a baby. You can’t change your mind. You know, what with it being a baby and everything.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, lowering his line of sight to the tabletop.
“You’re sorry?” I asked. “I’m having your baby, you’ve changed your mind, and you’re saying you’re sorry?”
“I can’t say anything else.”
“Yeah, you can, you can tell me why.”
“I’ve told you.”
“You have talked a lot of nonsense. You haven’t actually told me why you have changed your mind about something it took so much for me to agree to. And I only agreed to it because I knew how desperately the pair of you wanted this. Up until you went on holiday, I couldn’t keep your hands off my stomach, which leads me to believe that you don’t mean anything you’ve said.”
Mal looked at me, his face set, his dark eyes fixed; it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything else.
“What am I supposed to do about the baby, Mal?” I asked him quietly. Because they may have talked about a baby not fitting into their lives, but I was sure they wouldn’t have thought more beyond that. And they absolutely had to.
He lowered his gaze to the tabletop again. “You … you could … abortion.” As he spoke, his voice was so quiet I had to lean forward to strain to hear. “That would be easiest.” He started to worry at a spot behind his right ear; he did that when he was anxious. “That’s what would be best.”
“Easiest? Best?” I repeated. “What would you know about it?”
He kept his eyes lowered. “Stephanie had one. When she was fifteen; she seems fine.”
Fine? Stephanie? Don’t get me started on that one. “There’s a difference between having an abortion when you’re young and have an unplanned pregnancy, and when you’re in your late twenties and have gone out of your way to get pregnant.”
“Keep it, then.”
“Right, and tell everyone what? That you’re the father? And you want nothing more to do with me? And, don’t worry, I didn’t shag him and his married butt to get up the duff, no, I used a turkey baster because I was going to have the baby for him and his wife. No, no, they didn’t drug me, I did it willingly because I care about them so much.”
“That’s what I meant about it being easier.”
“No, Mal, what would be easier is if you were to have the baby as planned.”
“We can’t, I’m sorry.”
“At least look me in the eye when you say that, because otherwise I won’t believe you,” I said.
He raised his eyes again and as they met mine, I saw that he wasn’t there. He had dissociated from this. I had learned about this in my clinical training. A person would remove themselves so they could do something they didn’t want to do, so they could survive a traumatic situation, so they could see through a deeply difficult decision. He had removed himself so that he could tell me this.
I’d only seen him do this once before. We were eleven. Mal, although tall, was sinewy, quiet and always with a girl—either me or Cordy—so a lot of boys took that to mean he was weak and an easy target. Billy Snow, who was large and bullish-looking, sat behind Mal and me in math, and one day called Aunt Mer a loony. He whispered it, knowing our teacher wouldn’t hear but that it would needle Mal. And would probably provide a new line of bullying. Mal was out of his chair and on top of Billy Snow before anyone—least of all Billy Snow—could react. He knocked Billy Snow backwards out of the chair, and didn’t say anything as he pummeled Billy Snow’s face. Everyone in the class—including Mr. Belfast—was shocked into inaction, and we all watched in horror as Billy Snow’s face became a bloody, pulpy mess. Eventually, Mr. Belfast came back to life and hauled Mal off the unfortunate would-be bully. Mal’s eyes, instead of being wild, slightly murderous, were blank. For the first time in my life, I was scared of Mal. He was not the boy I knew; he was a person capable of severely hurting someone and looking vacant as he did it.
I hadn’t been that scared of Mal again. Not until this moment. The fact that he had to remove himself to do something difficult meant that they didn’t want the baby, and he didn’t want to see me anymore.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “We shouldn’t have done this in the first place, but it’s best we tell you now rather than in a few months when it’d be far more difficult.” He reached out, held his hand over mine. He’d held my hand so many times over the years, and now this was the final time, he was telling me.
“Be safe, yeah?” He stood up, and walked away, leaving only the faint scent of his aftershave and the lingering impression of his warm hand on mine.
CHAPTER 29
H e opened the door, about two hours after he left, and shut it quietly behind him.
His keys jangled as he dropped them on the hall table, and he didn’t put his head around the living room door to say hello, he went straight to the kitchen.
I heard the fridge door open and shut, and a chair being pulled out from the table. I waited a few minutes, gave him time to decide if he was going to settle there or come back to talk to me. When he didn’t come back to me, I went to him.
He was sprawled on the chair facing the window, a beer in one hand, staring out into the garden. In front of him were four bottles of Sol and the bottle opener. He put the beer in his hand to his lips and knocked it back with a jerk of his head. I usually made him drink from a glass, but right then, it didn’t seem an important thing to enforce.
“How did it go?” I asked him from my place in the doorway. The sadness he was swaddled tightly in kept me at bay.
He didn’t reply, but paused for a second in gulping down his beer, letting me know he had heard my question but wouldn’t speak to me.
“What did she say?” I asked.
He put down the empty bottle, reached for another, flicked off its cap and began to drink.
I ventured into the room, deciding to put my arms around him. Love him better. It must have been hard for him, but it was for the best. In time he would see that. This would have come between us. Even if they hadn’t been plotting to keep the baby for themselves, I would always be wondering if they had, and that wouldn’t have been good for our marriage. How would it impact on the baby, too, if I always blamed it for making him fall in love with her again?
I touched him, knowing he would stand up, fall into my arms and let me surround him with love; soothe and support him. Help him start the move toward putting this behind us.
His body flinched away from me in revulsion. I took my hand away, stepped backwards, scalded deep inside by his reaction. “I did what you wanted,” he stated. I knew then we wouldn’t talk about it again. He wouldn’t be sharing with me the details. It was done. Full stop.
As he stood up, I saw his face. Torture branded into every pore. The image of it instantly imprinted itself onto my heart and mind, a permanent wound of what I had made him do. I’d never forget it. He swiped another beer from the table, took the bottle opener and went to the garden, slamming the door behind him to signify that he wanted to be alone.
It was going to take time. Slightly more than I had at first anticipated. I had slightly underestimated what this would do to him. But time would blunt the sharp edges of pain, smooth out the ragged parts. We would be fine. We would be happy again.
CHAPTER 30
M al stopped short outside the revolving glass doors of his tall office building when he saw me.
Something flittered across his face. Irritation? Fear? I’d never seen it on his face before when looking at me, so was taken aback. Every time he saw me, he looked pleased to see me. Even when we were in the midst of rowing with each other, when he could push me into shouting and ranting and raving at him, he still never looked so … uncomfortable. That was it. He looked uncomfortable.
Inhaling deeply, he came toward me while securing a pleasant look on his f
ace. Pleasant. As though he was going to speak to a client he didn’t want to speak to. It was the look I put on my face when I had to go and talk to an irate customer about the food/service/ambience: a necessary inconvenience, one you had to endure to get your job done.
“Hi,” he said, his eyes skimming over me to focus somewhere else.
“Hi,” I replied, quavering over that one word, because I couldn’t hide my anxiety. Pride had told me not to come here, to leave him to it, to decide what I was going to do and get on with it. But pride was not pregnant, alone and, basically, terrified.
I waited for him to say something else. To continue the conversation. I thought … I thought when he saw me he’d realize what he’d done. That he couldn’t possibly mean it. Even if they had changed their minds about the baby, he couldn’t possibly mean it when he said he wouldn’t be seeing me again. But he clutched his black leather briefcase, the one that I had bought him for his first day at work, in one hand, shoved his other hand in his trouser pocket. He had nothing to say to me. He had said everything there was to say ten days ago. That was why he hadn’t called.
“Could we have a chat?” I asked him, suddenly unsure if this was a good idea or whether I should have listened to my pride.
He flinched, then lowered his line of sight to the ground. “About what?” he asked eventually.
I blinked at him, surprised. When in twenty-nine years had I needed a reason to talk to him? “I need a reason to speak to you now?”
He gave a half-shrug without raising his eyes.
“OK, Malvolio,” I said, folding my arms across my chest, resting my weight on one hip. “You’re my best friend in the world, so I have to tell you about this problem I’m having. I’m pregnant. Don’t worry, it was planned and I love the father very much. But now the father has told me to get rid of it. I don’t know what to do because he won’t talk to me, and I suspect he might change his mind. So, I was wondering, as my best friend in the whole world, if you wouldn’t mind facilitating his mind-changing process by going round and beating some sense into him for me?”
Was that a small smile that played across his lips? It must have been, because he said, “Let’s go for a coffee at Carlitto’s.”
“I really need a glass of wine,” I said.
“Wine? You can’t drink,” he said.
“Why?”
He frowned. “Well, you’re …” His voice trailed away, his mouth twisting as though angry at having been so easily caught out.
“Coffee it is, I guess,” I said.
I turned in the direction of Carlitto’s, an Italian café bar we often went to when I met him for lunch.
“So, how’ve you been?” he asked after we’d walked a few paces, side by side in a strained, unsettling silence.
“How do you think?”
He looked pained for a second, his eyes flickering to focus on the mid-distance—away emotionally from me—before coming back to the present.
“How have you been?” I asked when it became clear he wasn’t going to reply to my non-rhetorical question.
“Fine,” he said. “We’re planning a holiday. We were thinking of camping in the south of France. Maybe going over on the ferry and driving down.”
Was he talking casually about holidays when inside me grew his child? I began to glance sideways at him, wondering who he was. He even looked a little different: the bump on the bridge of his nose slightly more exaggerated, making his face seem off-balance. His eyes seemed closer together, narrower, meaner. His once soft, wide mouth seemed to have hardened into a thinner line.
“Steph might be able to get three weeks off work, but she’s not sure yet. She’s been covering for the owner whilst she’s on an extended break. Steph loves it. It’s been really good for her, having that extra responsibility. It’s shown her she can do it. Hopefully, the owner will give her the time off when she comes back. I’ve got holiday carried over from last year.”
“I thought you said neither of you could handle the extra responsibility,” I said. “That’s why you didn’t want this baby anymore.”
“I wasn’t lying,” he said, his defenses instantly bolting into place around him. “And there’s a world of difference between running a shop and looking after a baby.”
We arrived at Carlitto’s to find the pavement outside cleared of tables and chairs, the blind pulled down over the glass door, the metal grills bolted over the windows. We should have known, few cafés stayed open late—this time was the preserve of restaurants and bars.
“I suppose we’ve got to go to the pub now,” I said. “I’ll just have an orange juice or something.”
The look of discomfort tinged with irritation flitted across his face again as he raised his wrist, looked at his watch. His father’s watch. He never told anyone that, not even Stephanie, I’d guess. “I have to get going,” Mal said. “We’re going to a friend’s place for dinner.”
“Don’t you think this is more important?” I said. Why was he being so cold? In anyone else, it would have been upsetting; in Mal, it was devastating.
“Nova, I don’t know what you expect from me. I’ve told you our decision. I don’t know what else there is to say.”
“How about why?” I asked him loudly. A few heads turned toward us and I lowered my voice, took a few steps closer to him.
“I’ve told you why,” he said.
“No, you haven’t. I know you, you’ve never been scared of responsibility in your life. You live with it every day. I don’t believe that you can’t handle the responsibility of a baby,” I replied.
“Did you ever think that’s why? Because I’ve had responsibility, I’ve been looking after people my whole life, and I can’t do it again?”
“No, I didn’t ever think that because it’s bollocks and you know it. Is this Stephanie’s doing?”
He stared at me, a muscle twitching in his jaw.
“It is, isn’t it? It’s Stephanie. I should have known. She’d been so weird in the last few weeks, her energy was all over the place, giving off unsettling vibes—”
“Ahh, don’t start all that bollocks,” he cut in. “Do you really think that I’d let her dictate something like this?”
“Yeah, I do,” I replied. “I know you, this isn’t something you’d do. It has to be her.”
“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do,” he said simply.
Old pain doesn’t completely die. Time may soothe it, stroke over it until it looks like it has healed, but it never dies properly. It stays with you, it lives in the cracks of your soul, waiting for moments when you feel true pain. Other people had hurt me several times over the years. I’d cried, I’d ached, I’d grieved with varying degrees of intensity. And I’d always known, after what had happened when I tried to tell Mal I loved him, that it only hurt enough to leave a scar when the person mattered. When the person had managed to open up a path to the center of your being. Few people had managed that. I never realized that the next person who would cause me as much pain as Mal had all those years ago, who would cause all that old pain to resurface with just a few words, would be Mal.
“Mal, this isn’t you talking.”
“It is, you know.”
“What am I supposed to do about this?” I pressed my hand on my stomach, forcing him to look at me. Look at the space he could hardly keep his hands off the last few months. He fixed his gaze on that spot, and I knew, I knew that he didn’t want to do this. I seized on that, stepped forward, reached for his hand to put it on my stomach. He didn’t resist, allowed me to move his hand across the gap between us—then suddenly he snatched his arm back before his fingers came into contact.
“Nova,” he said quietly, looking some way over my head, “please don’t do this. We’re not going to change our minds. That’s the truth of it. We shouldn’t have done this, and I can only apologize.”
“You can only apologize? I’m pregnant. It’s not like you’ve accidentally smashed my favorite vase, I’m having
your baby. I’m doing it for you.”
“You don’t have to have it. Not anymore,” he said.
“OK,” I said, fighting the urge to break down. “If I do that, then you have to come with me. If you want me to go through with it, then you have to come and watch me do it.”
“I can’t,” he said, still staring over my shoulder.
“You see, you see?” I replied. “You can’t face the idea of me doing it. You still want this baby.”
“No, Nova. If I come with you, you’ll be thinking right up until the last moment that I’m going to stop you. And that’s not going to be healthy for you. You’ll need to be preparing yourself, not hoping that I’ll come riding in on a white charger to save you. Because I won’t. I can’t.”
I disintegrated. All strength in me crumbling away. “Please don’t do this, Malvolio. Please. Please,” I sobbed, tears tumbling down my cheeks. “Please.” I bent forward, folding my arms over the pain that was expanding inside me. “Please, Mal. Please.”
I heard his briefcase clatter to the ground, seconds before his arms met around me, pulling me upright and close. “Please don’t cry,” he said. “I can’t stand to see you cry.”
“I’m scared. I’m so scared. I can’t do this on my own. Please don’t make me. Please.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered against my hair. Then he kissed the top of my head, and then he was gone. He picked up his briefcase and walked away, left me crying in the street without so much as a backward glance.
I saw him four times after that. I knew that if I could just let him see what this was doing to me, what the thought of not seeing him again was doing to me, if I could just talk to him enough, then he would change his mind. He would accept that he couldn’t ask me to have an abortion. To not have his child. When it had taken so much for me to do this in the first place, he couldn’t expect me to do that.
Each time—three or four days apart—I met him at work. Either at lunch, or after work. Each time he was a little more distant, a little more irritated, a little less moved by my pain. Until the final time, when he left his building, saw me standing on the edge of the wide pavement, waiting for him, and turned around and went back inside. I waited an hour and he didn’t reappear. When I got home, he had left a message on my answering machine: “Nova, please stop coming to see me.” He was cold, detached, hard. “I have nothing else to say to you. I’m not going to say anything you want to hear. Leave me alone.”
Goodnight, Beautiful: A Novel Page 24
