How Not to Fall in Love, Actually

by Catherine Bennetto

  ‘Cheese factory,’ I corrected absent-mindedly.

  ‘Right.’

  I thought about Ned and his ability to pick himself up after each failed idea and launch himself eagerly at the next one. He’d fail, he’d try again; he’d fail, he’d try again. And always with the wide-eyed faith that one day one of his ideas would work. I realised what an admirable quality that was. One that, after a few years of financial adversity, I’d begun to overlook. Especially after numerous instances of having the following kind of conversation:

  Ned: I’ve got a brilliant idea.

  Me: Oh, yes?

  Ned: I’m going to breed chickens.

  Me: Right.

  Ned: (pacing and enthusing) There’s a chicken that’s delicious but super-expensive because it grows really slowly. Then there’s a chicken that doesn’t taste good but grows fast so it’s really cheap. I’m going to breed them and get a fast-growing, delicious chicken and make millions. I can’t believe no one’s thought of it before!

  Me: You know nothing about breeding chickens. You might get a slow-growing, gross-tasting one.

  Ned: (looking at me as if I were dim) No, a fast-growing, delicious one.

  Me: Or a slow, gross one.

  Ned: (logging on to eBay) Fast and delicious.

  I’d then had another conversation about how the money in the bank was to pay rent and bills and buy cheap, tasteless chicken breasts to put in a cheap, tasteless stir-fry, not to bid on an industrial egg incubator he had no idea how to use.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Helen said, her voice gentle.

  ‘Yeah.’ My throat tightened. ‘No.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’

  ‘Movie night the weekend after?’

  I agreed, said goodbye and hung up. The phone rang again and I answered without looking at the caller ID.

  ‘Hello?’ I sighed.

  ‘I finally got you!’ Alex’s voice, while usually lifting my spirits, threw a blanket of guilt over me.

  ‘Oh. Hi.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to call.’

  ‘Oh, have you? I’ve been, um, busy on the film set.’ I don’t know why I was bothering lying; Alex would know I’d been avoiding her.

  ‘Of course. How’s Archie doing? Got another movie after this?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Just this one.’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  I could hear the rush of waves from Alex’s end.

  She coughed uncomfortably. ‘So, wedding planning is a bit crap, really.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Cal’s mother is a control freak. We’ve been thinking of getting married in Singapore and forgetting the whole “big wedding” thing.’

  ‘Sounds cool.’

  Alex was quiet. The silence was weighty and I knew an uncomfortable conversation was afoot.

  ‘I’ve really needed you, Emma,’ she said with a faintly reprimanding tone.

  ‘I’ve been busy.’

  ‘I’ve left you heaps of messages.’

  ‘My phone hasn’t been working, bad reception in Anglesey.’ I didn’t believe in hell but I was certainly headed somewhere awful in the afterlife. Perpetual Christmas Eve in Primark, or an eternity at Camden underground station on a midsummer Saturday with a hangover.

  ‘I’ve been having a bit of a tough time.’

  ‘A tough time?’ I scoffed. ‘Oh really. What could possibly be wrong in your life?’

  ‘What?!’ Alex shot back. ‘Are you so wrapped up in yourself that you can’t see other people have problems too?’

  ‘I don’t see you pregnant by a guy who’s sleeping with one of your friends,’ I spat. ‘I’m pretty sure an ex-boyfriend has never cleaned out your bank account, and your fiancé earns so much money you won’t even need a career!’

  ‘I want a career! And I see my fiancé for about three weeks a year!’

  ‘At least you have a fiancé.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to organise a wedding all by myself from the other side of the world.’

  ‘Poor you.’

  ‘Did you know Cal’s mother had been cancelling my bookings? Including the one at the pub, and now they’re fully booked. And she’s trying to get us to have our wedding in a castle with about a hundred people I don’t know because she says my small guest list is pathetic. No, you didn’t because you—’

  ‘Oh how dreadful,’ I interrupted. ‘A wedding in a castle. How will you cope?’

  ‘Emma! Why are you being so awful?’

  ‘Why are you being such a spoilt brat?’ I shot back.

  Martha strode out of the manor. ‘Archie and Tilly are due on set soon and they haven’t practised their lines together.’

  ‘He’s over there.’ I jabbed a thumb behind me. ‘I’ll be one minute.’

  Martha gave a look of contempt and waddled off.

  ‘Look, Emma,’ Alex’s voice was softer. ‘I know it’s been really hard for you with the pregnancy and the whole Ned and Sophie thing, but life goes on. You’ve got to stop being so full of self-pity and—’

  ‘I don’t need your lecture,’ I said primly.

  ‘Well you need to hear it from someone.’

  Martha prodded my shoulder. ‘He’s not there.’ She pointed at the empty garden seat.

  ‘Emma, you need to—’ Alex continued.

  ‘What I need is for people to just give me a break.’

  ‘Could you stop whingeing for one second and do your job?’ Martha barked.

  I shoved past her and stalked round the courtyard looking for Archie between the parked cars and trucks.

  ‘Alex, I’ve got to go. Why don’t you ring me when you have some real problems?’

  Alex was quiet for a moment, then burst into tears. ‘What’s happened to you?’ she sobbed.

  The Second AD stepped out of the manor. ‘Archie on set, please,’ he droned.

  It was all getting too much. Martha was staring down at me from her high horse (how did it bear her bulk?); the Second AD was waiting with his hands gripping a radio, an impatient film crew on the other end; Alex was crying down the phone and Archie had disappeared. I wanted to throw the phone at Martha, start running and not stop until I reached my bedroom in Wimbledon.

  ‘I’ve got to go.’ I hung up on the sniffling Alex feeling a surge of disappointment in myself and headed to the barn house.

  ‘Now they’ll have to go on set without having practised their lines.’ Martha fell in behind me.

  ‘They practised them this morning.’ I entered the barn house. The living room was empty. ‘They’ll be fine.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ she sniffed.

  I opened the bedroom door. No Archie. Martha huffed and puffed behind me as I checked my room, her room and the bathroom. Archie wasn’t anywhere. The Second AD appeared at the door to the barn house as Martha and I arrived back in the living room.

  ‘He in here?’ he said, his dark-ringed eyes darting round the room.

  I shook my head. ‘Maybe he went back to set?’ It was quite like Archie to discern when he was needed. He seemed to have an innate knowledge of the workings of a film set. Martha gave me a you’d-better-hope-he-is-or-you’re-in-deep-shit glare as she pushed past me. We were shooting in the main entranceway of the manor so when Martha, the Second AD and I walked through the door the crew turned to face us. The expectant look on their faces told us Archie was not with them. Tilly stood in the middle of the set with a zombie camper extra, ready and waiting. I looked at the assembled crew: impatient art department, bored costume girls, a fidgety, tight-faced director and the frowny First AD.

  ‘Where’s Archie?’ she squawked, giving her Bear Gryllsesque watch an agitated glance.

  The first flutters of alarm tightened my chest. He was such a responsible little man it was easy to forget he was only four and should be watched constantly. I tried to remember the exact moment I’d last seen him. It was as I’d answered the call from my sister. I remembered because he’d been playing with his tu
gboat . . .

  ‘The lake!’ I pushed past Martha. Gripping my hands beneath my large stomach to hold the weight of the baby, I began to run across the courtyard. ‘Archie!’ I yelled.

  ‘ARCHIE!’ Andrew’s voice boomed out from behind me.

  Footsteps barraged across the courtyard. Andrew, Steve and some other crew members passed me and disappeared round the edge of the manor. I rounded the corner after them and the lake came into view. No Archie. The gathering crowd, a handful in zombie costumes, streaked across the lawns and fanned out around the lake. Andrew and Steve raced down the length of the jetty. Andrew reached the end first and with a quick scan of the water dived in. Archie! One of the lighting guys dived in from the other side. Tears blurred my eyes. I kept running. I reached the jetty and saw Archie’s crisp packet caught in a clump of grass. Steve stood at the end peering into the dark water while grips and lighting guys ran round the edge calling Archie’s name. Andrew came up for a breath and dived back down. I reached Steve, gasping for breath. He turned. Dread clawed at my throat as I saw what was in his hand. Archie’s tugboat. The back of my neck went cold and I fought the urge to vomit. Steve grabbed my arm as my legs gave way.

  ‘Oh my god,’ I rasped.

  ‘I can’t see anything, it’s too dark!’ Andrew yelled as he burst up from the water again.

  ‘Try there!’ somebody shouted.

  Andrew dived back under. People searched the reeds at the edges of the lake. The lighting guy rose from the water empty-handed and dived down again. My darling Archie! An anguished groan sounded, and when Steve put his arms round my shoulders I realised it was coming from me. Andrew came up again, puffing and panting.

  ‘I . . . can’t . . . see.’ His chest heaved up and down under his soaking shirt. ‘Can’t . . . find him.’

  A lighting guy burst out of the water on the other side of the lake and shook his head. Crew and cast stood in tense silence.

  My little Archie.

  I fought to stay conscious. Andrew ducked under the water but with less conviction. I pictured Sinead’s crumpled face. How would I tell her? How do you tell anybody you’ve lost their 4-year-old son? And what about Alice and Jess? And Uncle Mike? It was going to break him. It was going to break the whole family. A cold sweat settled down my neck and I felt myself drifting from consciousness. Voices shouted orders, sending people to check the orchard, the vegetable gardens, the tractor shed. It sounded like I had glass jars over my ears. I caught a glimpse of Martha standing in the background, her arms round Tilly and a look of genuine fear on her face. My eyes lost focus. I was falling, slipping into a very dark place. Through the fading voices I heard a distant bark. And then another. I tried to concentrate. Those barks . . . why was I focusing on the barks? I fought the irresistible pull to nothingness. Archie, Ivan, Wayne . . . Another bark sounded, and with my remaining strength I lifted my head and looked in the direction of the forest.

  ‘Archie,’ I croaked.

  Andrew leapt out of the lake and ran, wet-bodied, towards the forest. People followed.

  ‘Archie,’ I said again, my voice stronger.

  ‘Come on!’ Steve helped me to my feet. He held my arm as we laboured along the jetty and across the field as fast as my weakened legs would allow. We reached the edge of the forest and Steve guided me through the damp undergrowth. The forest ran gently uphill. Low branches grabbed at my clothing and mud caked the undersides of my shoes. Steve’s grip was firm. I heard another bark, closer now, at the top of a steep rise. I gripped shrubs and roots and pulled myself uphill, Steve behind me, his hand on my back. Finally, out of breath and covered in mud, I reached the top. And there, surrounded by the puffing and panting crew, next to Ivan who was licking himself and Wayne who was digging at the undergrowth, sat Andrew. And he was watching a big black beetle walk along a mossy log with a content and unscathed Archie at his side.

  I pushed through the gathered crew, lurched over the log and fell to my knees next to Archie. The soggy soil soaked through my tights. I crushed Archie’s warm, alive body to my chest and breathed in his Palmolive-clean hair.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  ‘Knock, knock.’

  ‘Come in.’ I wiped my nose on a raggedy bit of tissue.

  ‘How is she?’ Andrew said, sliding the door of the barn house behind him with a gentle swoosh.

  I was disappointed to see he’d changed out of his wet shirt. Fainting in the mud in front of everyone had most definitely been worth it when I’d come to and realised I was being carried (with a fair amount of strain I’ve decided to ignore) with my head pressed against his chest. But then I passed out again and had woken up on the sofa in the barn house with Des the safety officer, who had breath like the bottom of a parrot cage and a set of teeth that each appeared to come from a different species, peering into my face with a torch. The actual definition of a rude awakening.

  ‘Blood pressure’s OK now,’ Des said, sucking air through his feral teeth. ‘Heart rate and baby’s heart rate seem stable. Blood sugar’s a little low.’

  ‘I feel fine,’ I said, trying to sit up with all the grace of an upside-down hedgehog. ‘Where’s Archie?’

  ‘He’s with Martha in Wardrobe.’ Andrew helped me to a sitting position. ‘He’s OK.’

  I nodded. Archie would be in Wardrobe because his costume was covered in mud. Because he had wandered off unattended into the forest and played with a beetle when he should have been under the watchful eye of his loving yet self-absorbed cousin. Because Ned had his own ice cream, Sophie had her own Ned and my tropically located sister was marrying somebody in a castle.

  My eyes began to water.

  ‘Emma, it’s not your fault,’ Andrew said, sitting beside me and resting his palm on my back.

  I shot him a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding grimace.

  I turned to Des, who was scratching notes on a clipboard. ‘Can I go back to work now?’

  ‘Ah, I don’t think so,’ he said, clicking his pen and scanning his form. ‘No. No, I don’t think so at all. Your blood pressure has returned to normal, but it took a while. Your glucose levels are still a little low and, since you’ve refused a hospital check-up, I insist you have bed rest for the remainder of the day.’

  ‘The rest of the day?’

  Not only had I quite publicly shown myself to be the worst chaperone ever and cost the production two hours of filming when they were already up against it from Scott’s Nutella sex injury, but I was not allowed back on set to redeem myself. I covered my face with my hands. I was flooded with embarrassment. I’d put my own cousin in danger. Martha would have every right to report me.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Des said, still clicking his pen. ‘I’ll come back and check on you in an hour or so. I’m sure you’ll be back to work tomorrow. But only if your glucose levels are up.’ He stood. ‘In the meantime, stay inside, keep warm and eat small amounts frequently.’ He held out a packet of Gummy Bears sequestered from Martha’s suitcase.

  Des slid his pen into a technical-looking tool belt, sucked air through his teeth and took his safety kit and his bad breath out the door.

  ‘Do you want me to see if Martha will bring Archie in here before he goes on set?’ Andrew said.

  Oh my god, yes. Archie. I needed to hold him. To have the solid reassurance that he was alive and well. I intended to say ‘yes please’, but instead burst into tears.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said as Andrew pulled me into a sideways hug.

  ‘Hey, now,’ he soothed. ‘It turned out OK. Nothing to be upset about.’

  When I pulled back and looked into his eyes, heavy with concern, I recalled a billboard I’d seen advertising some high-fructose energy drink that pictured an All Black the size of a two-bed maisonette in mid-hurl for the try line. Dreadlocks flying to the left, his knee muscles ferocious and pronounced, photoshopped sweat droplets suspended in mid-air, and, stamped down the side in bossy black capitals:

  OWN

  EVERY

  MOMENT

&
nbsp; I’d turned to Sophie, who was lapping at a Chupa-Chups, and said, in an affronted fashion, ‘Own Every Moment. Must I?’

  Sophie had considered the poster, her head cocked to one side.

  ‘I mean, it sounds awfully exhausting,’ I’d continued. ‘Can’t I just give some moments to the cast of Friends? Or the Ellen DeGeneres Show?’

  ‘I guess it’s that whole “seize the day” thing,’ Sophie had suggested. ‘You know, umm, Carpet diem.’

  ‘Carpe diem,’ I’d said.

  I’d looked at the poster critically before moving away, Sophie toddling behind.

  ‘It didn’t work out so well for that fellow from Dead Poets Society, did it?’ I’d said.

  ‘S’pose not,’ Sophie had replied. ‘But I think that was more about his big eyebrows.’

  With the bossy poster’s ‘owning the moment’ message as my mantra I grabbed Andrew by the back of his neck and pulled him into a kiss. He drew back, startled, but after a blink of deliberation, bent forward and kissed me back. For a brief moment I wasn’t pregnant. I was a single girl having her first kiss with a hot new guy. After a few lip-mashing seconds we pulled apart. Desire glazed his eyes and I felt that if I’d shown more encouragement, and he weren’t due back on set, we would have been in the bedroom attempting ‘the crab’ or the ‘donkey kong’ or whatever other sexual positions were suitable for randy pregnant women. His balls were in my court, so to speak.

  ‘You’d better get back to set,’ I said, the rational side of my brain winning out.

  ‘Yeah.’ Andrew dragged a hand through his hair and gazed into the distance, a tad contemplative. He turned back smiling and ran a thumb down my cheek. ‘I’ll come and check on you later.’

  ‘OK.’

  Another gentle kiss, with only the slightest of lingering, and he stood, giving me an eyeful of extremely obvious bulge in his jeans. As soon as he slid the door shut I was on the phone to Helen.

  ‘Guess who just kissed me!’

  ‘Scott Vander!’ Helen gasped.

  ‘Ew, no.’ I shuddered at the thought of his hands, sullied by the act of caressing Martha, touching me in any way. ‘Guess again.’