The First Time Mums' Club

by Lucie Wheeler

  Pippa felt relief flood her body when she saw that he was typing and then her phone beeped in response. ‘Oh, thank goodness for that,’ she said, laughing nervously and smiling at the girls. How would she still keep her head held high if he had ignored her text too? Thankful that he did reply, she opened the message, but straight away felt the fury rise up again. The girls clearly saw Pippa’s change in mood because they immediately said, ‘What’s wrong?’

  Pippa slid the phone across the table to Ellie and resumed her stare out of the window at her lying husband.

  ‘Sorry, Pip, I’m just in a meeting at the moment. I’ll call you later.’ Ellie looked up at Pippa. ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘That’s it. I’m going to go over there and give him a piece of my mind. I am bloody pregnant with his child and this is what he does to me. It’s not on, girls.’ She looked at them for reassurance. ‘I’m not overreacting, am I?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  Pippa stood up, but this time Imogen placed her hand on her forearm to stop her. ‘Hang on, Pip, who’s that?’

  Pippa and Ellie followed Imogen’s pointing over to Jason again, but this time they could see someone approaching him across the grass. ‘I don’t know who that is.’ Pippa said, noticing her breathing had rapidly increased in speed.

  They watched as a woman approached Jason. They could only see her from the back, but she was wearing a dress and had vibrant red hair trailing down her back.

  ‘Maybe this was who he was meeting, then?’ Imogen questioned, but none of the girls adjusted their stare.

  They watched the woman gradually get closer to him until she reached him and he leant forward and kissed her.

  Not just a peck on the cheek, but a full-on passionate kiss.

  Chapter 32

  Ellie ushered Pippa through the door of the café, closely followed by Imogen. The girls sat Pippa down at their usual table at the back in the corner, which was actually still free, and Ellie left Pippa sobbing with Imogen and ran out the back to get Zoe.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Zoe asked, drying her hands on the pink tea towel that she grabbed from the side as Ellie ran in. ‘You need to slow down. It’s not good for you to be running about all over the place with that belly.’

  ‘It’s Pippa,’ Ellie said breathlessly. A mix of walking really fast and adrenaline – with a good splash of anger thrown in – had made her really out of breath. But at this moment in time, that was the last of her worries.

  ‘What is it?’ Zoe’s face drained of colour. ‘Is it the baby?’

  Ellie shook her head. ‘No, the baby is fine. It’s that dickhead, Jason.’

  ‘Oh God, what’s happened?’ Zoe went to leave the kitchen but Ellie stopped her. ‘Let me fill you in first. I don’t think Pippa will want to hear me talking about it again in front of her.’ Zoe stopped as she listened to Ellie unfold the drama that had taken place in the park.

  ‘Oh my God, you’re kidding?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Well, where is she now? Is she okay?’ Zoe’s eyes frantically darted out to the café.

  ‘What do you think?’ Zoe nodded in response to Ellie’s rhetorical question. ‘She’s outside. We brought her back here. I didn’t know where else to take her and I figured you’re her closest friend so she would want to see your face.’

  Zoe nodded and made her way out to the café, immediately rushing over to the table, where Ellie had left the girls and, dropping to her knees, she held out her arms for Pippa to fall into. They sat there for a few minutes, Zoe letting Pippa cry into her shoulder. Ellie went back out into the kitchen to make some coffee. Shortly after she did so, Imogen appeared.

  ‘You okay?’ she asked Ellie, still peering around the door.

  ‘Yeah, just thought everyone could do with some coffee.’ Imogen nodded in agreement. ‘You can come back here, you know. You don’t have to hover in the doorway.’

  Imogen walked in and took one of the cups from the side as Ellie finished putting some milk in. ‘Whose is this? I’ll take them out.’

  ‘That one’s Pip’s and this,’ she slid another cup over, ‘is Zoe’s.’ Imogen took the cups out and reappeared.

  ‘Um, there’s a woman at the counter. Shall I get Zoe?’

  ‘No it’s okay, I’ll see to her. Can you finish this cappuccino for me? Help yourself to whatever drink you want.’ Ellie walked up to the counter and served the woman, all the time glancing over to Zoe and Pippa in the corner. Pippa looked awful. She had initially been stunned into silence when she realised what Jason was doing. But all of a sudden it was as if a fog of emotion had engulfed her and she was hysterical. The girls had to quickly move her away before she went storming over to him. He would find out that Pippa knew, but not yet. Ellie wanted to make sure he got what he deserved, the lying, cheating bastard. It was a weird feeling, though, seeing Pippa lose it. She was normally so together and had everything under control. Seeing her fall apart felt wrong – it wasn’t Pippa.

  She caught Zoe out of the corner of her eye and she smiled her thanks to Ellie for taking over the shop. Ellie saluted in response and continued with the customer.

  After an hour had passed and the shop had quietened down, Ellie was finally able to join the girls back at the table. Pippa had calmed by now, but she seemed very subdued. Ellie smiled sympathetically as she sat down. ‘How you feeling?’

  ‘I’m okay,’ Pippa replied, sipping at her latest hot drink. ‘I’m sorry for turning into a complete mess earlier.’

  ‘Hey, you don’t need to apologise. You had every right to react how you did. I’m just really sorry you have to go through it at all.’ Ellie felt so sorry for her. Her mind temporarily flicked to Chris and how things had been starting to feel good between them lately and then what it would feel like if he did something like this to her.

  ‘We’ve made a decision.’ Zoe was focusing her attention on Ellie now, filling her in on what had been spoken about over the last hour.

  ‘And you’re happy with this?’ Ellie directed the question at Pippa, who just shrugged and said, ‘What have I got to lose?’

  ‘Okay, when?’

  ‘Tomorrow. Pippa will stay here with us tonight and just tell Jason she’s having a girly sleepover with us lot, and then tomorrow it’s all systems go.

  Chapter 33

  Tonight was the night and Pippa felt sick. All last night she had gone over the plan in her head, trying to stop herself from thinking it was a bad idea. But she couldn’t avoid the fact that something needed to be done – she wasn’t going to be made a fool of again. She had asked the girls over and over again whether it was right to talk to him first, that there might have been an explanation, but as Ellie said, there would be no explanation in this world that would mean it was acceptable to be acting the way he was with that woman. It wasn’t just the thought of her marriage ending that upset her, or the fact that her baby would be growing up without its mum and dad being together, but more to do with the realisation that after all these months, her suspicions have been right. All those times she doubted herself and cursed herself for being paranoid – all the while she had actually been spot on. She had spent hours going over in her head whether she had done something wrong to push him away, but the girls had not let her dwell on that fact for very long. And then there was the fact that pretty soon everyone in town would know what had happened. There was no covering this one up – she had failed as a wife and the whole town would be talking about it. What a mess.

  Jason’s keys in the front door yanked her back into the here and now. Shit, she thought, as her heart began to pound. She had been so caught up in the plan, she hadn’t even given a second thought to how she would actually feel seeing him again. Her nausea crept up a level and she could feel her throat clogging up. She mustn’t let on to him that anything was wrong. Yet this was a hell of a lot harder than it seemed!

  ‘All right?’ he said as he entered the living room and dropped his bag onto the floor.

  ‘Uh-
huh,’ Pippa replied, feeling safer with sounds than words. She kept her gaze fixed firmly on the TV, not taking in a single word of what the chefs were saying to each other, but thankful for the distraction.

  ‘Good day?’ He seemed really cheerful, which was initially calming, but then she realised why he must’ve been so cheerful. She then found herself wondering what he did last night when she was staying at Zoe’s. The thought hadn’t crossed her mind at the time because she just saw it as her needing time to calm down, but of course, free house, no wife, maybe he was cheery today for another reason. She couldn’t stop the scenario playing out in her mind and she felt herself panicking.

  She nodded in reply to his question, still unable to form any words and avoiding his eye contact.

  ‘Well, aren’t you a great conversationalist today?’ he said sarcastically and walked out into the kitchen. Pippa tried so hard to bottle up the tears that were forming at an alarming rate and beginning to pool in the corner of her eyes. She mustn’t ruin this now. She just needed to get through the next couple of hours until he fell asleep and then she could start sorting all this out.

  Typically, it took Jason a lot longer to fall asleep than normal. The one night she wanted to just get out the way and he was on top form. He spent the whole evening being chatty, engaging in conversation with her and even snuggling up on the sofa with her whilst they watched TV. For her part she didn’t take in anything that was going on in the programmes and when he snuggled up next to her with his arm around her, she felt awkward and uncomfortable and just wanted to scream at him to get his filthy hands off her. But she couldn’t, not yet. So she endured an hour and a half of him being like that before his breathing finally slowed to a soft snore. She left it for another half an hour to make sure he was fully asleep before sliding off the sofa – as smoothly as she could with her huge baby bump – and pocketing his mobile phone, which had been switched off and left on the side. He had taken to switching his phone off when he got home recently. She didn’t think anything of it before, but now she realised it was probably because that woman might text or call him and give the game away.

  She hurried into the bathroom downstairs and locked the door. Sitting on the toilet, seat down, and her hands shaking intensely, she pressed hard on the power button to turn it on. Annoyingly the phone played a tune as it started up and she was forced to quickly sit on it to muffle the noise. Her heart raced even more at the risk of being caught out with his phone. What would he do? She guessed he would go mad, like he did before. She couldn’t risk that because if he started shouting at her for snooping she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hold in the fact that she knew.

  Pulling the phone out from under her bum she was faced with the pin request. She tried the number from before, but it didn’t work. ‘Damn it!’ she cursed. Of course he had changed his pin. He wasn’t as silly as he looked. She tried a few combinations and ended up locking the phone. Just the thought that he had changed his pin after last time made her angry. She sat for a further minute, waiting for the pin request to be ready for another attempt. She then tried another attempt before it locked her out again. ‘Bloody phone!’ She put it down on the side, now having to wait a little longer to try again. She whipped out her phone and texted the WhatsApp group she had set up with the girls.

  I can’t bloody get into his phone! Pin!!!

  In quick succession she received replies from all three.

  Ellie: Fuck!

  Imogen: Oh no!

  Zoe: You need to think. What would he use?

  Pippa replied:

  I’ve tried all the things I can think of, nothing is working!!

  Imogen: What about birthdays?

  Ellie: I’m guessing your anniversary isn’t one the bastard would use!

  Zoe: Think outside the box. He won’t want you to get in, so what would he use… anything at home he uses locks for? Or work?

  Pippa frantically tried again, but still nothing. Then it came to her. She grabbed the phone again and typed in the code for the office back door. She had only ever used it once when visiting him at work after hours and she was actually amazed that she remembered it. The phone jumped into life.

  OMG IM IN!!!

  Zoe: What was it???

  His bloody work code for the door!

  Ellie: Ha-ha! Result! Okay, do your thing. Xx

  Pippa put her phone down and went into his messages. Blank. Of course he deleted them all. Just as she was about to move onto contacts, a new message pinged into his inbox. It was from ‘Patrick’. ‘Oh shit,’ she whispered as she clicked on it to open.

  Hey, last night was amazing. I miss you. Call me when you land.xx

  Heart doing a million beats per second, she quickly took a picture of this message and added it to the group with the caption ‘WTF?’

  Imogen: Land?

  Ellie: Where the fuck is he going?

  Imogen: Are you going to reply??

  Pippa looked at his message over and over again. It wasn’t the ‘land’ part that had made her feel so ill. ‘Last night was amazing’, he had been with her whilst Pippa was at Zoe’s. Just that thought alone made her feel empty.

  Zoe: Don’t dwell on the ‘last night’ aspect; I know what you will be thinking. Just take a deep breath and do what you need to. It’ll soon be over.

  She smiled at Zoe’s message – she knew her so well.

  Okay, I’m doing it!

  Pippa put her phone down and typed the response that she and the girls had agreed on yesterday.

  I need to see you, it’s important. Meet me at the park at 10am?

  She didn’t need to wait long for a reply.

  Tomorrow? I thought you went back to work today? Is everything okay?

  So he told her he worked somewhere where he presumably needed to fly to… this was just getting more and more confusing. She typed a response, which she hoped would end this conversation.

  I couldn’t go. Need to talk. Tomorrow?

  ‘Patrick’ replied with an ‘okay’ and a ton of kisses. Pippa couldn’t bring herself to reply again so she turned the phone off and put it in her pocket. She then sent another message to the girls confirming she had carried out the task as planned and that she was going to bed.

  As she stood up, there was a knock on the bathroom door. ‘Pip? You okay?’

  Panic rapidly spread through her body. He was awake! How long had he been awake? ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ she squeaked.

  ‘You’ve been in there a little while, you sure you’re okay?’

  Shit! ‘Yeah I’m fine, just a bit of an upset stomach, that’s all.’ She flushed the toilet for authenticity and turned the tap on.

  ‘Okay, well I’m going up now. See you up there.’

  ‘Okay!’ she called, frantically washing her hands, trying to wash the deception off her fingers. A minute later he was at the door again.

  ‘Babe, you seen my phone?’

  All of a sudden his phone in her pocket felt as though it was a lead weight. The guilt bearing down on her left buttock. ‘No,’ she replied, instantly disliking herself for lying.

  ‘You sure? I swear I put it on the side earlier, but I can’t find it.’ He sounded a little panicked and that made Pippa feel a bolt of anger.

  ‘Sorry, I haven’t seen it. You sure you came home with it? I don’t remember you having it earlier.’ She relayed the lines that the girls had thought up for her. She needed to try and convince him that he didn’t come home with it so that he would go into work tomorrow without it. She needed to keep hold of his phone now.

  ‘I’m sure I did.’ He paused. ‘Maybe I left it at work, then.’ He didn’t sound convinced.

  She heard his feet pad away to the stairs and then climb up them.

  She just wanted it to be the morning now.

  *****

  ‘I feel like I’m going to be sick.’

  ‘It’s okay, you’ll be fine, and we are all here with you.’ Pippa felt a hand on her shoulder as Zoe spoke to her. �
�Just take deep breaths.’

  Pippa waited at the bench in the park she’d been at not twenty-four hours previously. It felt like a million years ago, though. So much had happened since she’d seen Jason and that woman here. Her mind was shattered after running a million miles all through last night. She didn’t get any sleep, not even five minutes, and she was really feeling it today. ‘What time is it?’

  Ellie looked at her phone. ‘9.55.’

  ‘Oh, bloody hell,’ Pippa’s leg began to jump up and down in anticipation. ‘What if she doesn’t turn up? How long do we wait for her?’

  ‘Oh, I think she’ll turn up. She probably thinks she will get a replay of yesterday.’ Ellie’s face said it all. She was fuming.

  ‘I don’t even remember what she looks like!’ Once she had seen Jason’s face, she found it hard to look at anything else but his face. She didn’t get a good view of the woman.

  ‘Nor do I, if I’m honest,’ Imogen added.

  ‘It’s okay; I remember.’

  ‘Ellie, you need to chill out, okay, you behaving like that doesn’t help calm the situation.’ Zoe gave her sister the look, to which Ellie poked out her tongue.

  ‘It’s okay, Zoe, I’d rather someone was on the ball because I sure as hell am not.’ Her leg began to bounce up and down as the time got closer and her anticipation grew.

  ‘Wait, is that her?’ Imogen pointed to a woman standing by the toilets alone, looking at her phone. She had her back to them, but they could tell she was typing so they took Jason’s phone out of the bag and all looked at it. Sure enough, a moment later, a message pinged onto the screen. The phone was on silent so as to not draw her attention to them if she rang. Pippa opened the message and the words; ‘I’m here xx’ flashed up. They all glanced up at Pippa for a reaction before then all looking over to the woman.

  ‘You ready?’ Zoe asked, rubbing Pippa’s arm.

  ‘No, but I guess it’s time.’ She swallowed hard to push down the bile that was creeping up the back of her throat.