by Lucy Diamond
She shut her eyes. Wondering such things made her feel disloyal. He was trying, wasn’t he? He was here, at least. That counted for something.
‘Come on, sweetie-pea,’ she said, pulling on her dressing gown and scooping up Iris in one arm. ‘Let’s get some breakfast. But try not to wake Daddy up, okay? He’s probably a bit tired.’
It was lovely to say the words. Just like a real family, she thought, as she carried her daughter downstairs.
The door to the living room had been pulled to, and she tiptoed through to the kitchen, feeling a wave of optimism about the future. She’d expected too much from this visit, really. You didn’t just click back with somebody after being away from them for a whole year – you couldn’t! – and it was stupid of her ever to have imagined it might happen that way. But given time, things really might work out. One step at a time.
She plopped Iris on the floor and pulled up the blinds to let the sun stream in. Another lovely day. Perhaps they could take a picnic and go out somewhere, she thought cheerfully, as she got out the Weetabix for Iris and the tea bags for herself. Maybe drive to the Mendips, or …
She heard a scuffling sound and looked around on the floor for Iris, just in time to see her daughter’s big nappy bottom crawling away from her. ‘Hey you, cheeky girl,’ she said. Iris went faster at her voice, giggling. So cute. So unbelievably lovely. Alice went after her, smiling. It was only a couple of steps to the living room but Iris was so fast on all fours now, she was already there, pushing at the door with her little fingers.
‘No, come on, Daddy’s asleep in there,’ Alice hissed, bending down to scoop her up. But Iris had already got the door open and squirmed between Alice’s hands like a little pink eel.
Alice had expected the room to be in darkness, but only one of the curtains had been dragged over the window, and sunlight was pouring in. Jake was slumped on the sofa, spark out, the blanket half off his body to reveal his bare chest. She swallowed at the sight. He looked so handsomely dishevelled, even in his sleep.
Then she saw what was on the coffee table. White grains of powder and a credit card. Drugs. Drugs in her house!
Oh my God.
‘Iris, no!’ she cried, making a lunge for her daughter, who was making straight for the coffee table. Alice snatched her up quickly, her skin crawling with disgust, and backed away, unable to believe what she’d just seen.
Oh my God. She couldn’t stop staring. Iris could have dabbled her fingers in that stuff, swallowed it, died, even!
Iris let out a yell at being captured but Alice barely heard her. She felt so angry, she wanted to scream at Jake, still lying there on her sofa, the selfish idiot! What was he thinking? What was he doing? Why did he feel the need to snort coke, or whatever it was, in her house? It wasn’t exactly a nightclub!
A low moan had emerged from her lips. Was that why he’d been so talkative last night, was he some kind of addict?
God. It shook her – right to the core when she thought what could have happened to Iris. A trip to A&E, a stomach pump, a visit from social services … the events unravelled before her like a horror movie. All because of Jake!
She started to cry with the shock. It could have gone so badly wrong. What if she hadn’t followed Iris in there? What if Iris had died?
She held Iris close as she stumbled back to the kitchen, then strapped her safely in her high chair. And oh, she was so bitterly disappointed in Jake, it was indescribable. Just like that, all her dreams of starting over had evaporated and were gone.
Of course, she’d sent him packing as soon as he woke up. He’d cried – he’d actually cried! – tears leaking from his bloodshot eyes, head in his hands, the works. Nice performance, if you liked that sort of thing. She didn’t. She could do without that kind of drama in her life.
‘I’m sorry, Alice,’ he’d said, scrubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes like a boy. ‘I’m going to get some help. It’s all got a bit much for me lately, I …’
Pathetic. It had all got a bit much for Alice too, being a single mum, but she hadn’t turned to chemicals to prop herself up. She didn’t say as much, though, just watched him weep into his uneaten toast and felt … nothing.
‘You can’t stay here,’ she’d said. ‘Don’t you understand? I’ve got to put Iris first. She comes first.’ I’ve got to protect her from druggie Daddy who leaves his cocaine all over the table. She softened a fraction at the mournful look in his eyes. He looked as if he’d been whipped. ‘Look We can be friends, can’t we? For Iris. I’d like that. She would too, I’m sure. We’ll come and see you in LA, we’ll keep in contact, yeah?’
It was amazing how poised she felt, how in control of the situation. She was at the helm of the relationship now, deciding the direction it would take. It was a good feeling.
And after she’d watched him shamble down the path to Jed’s car half an hour later, and waved him goodbye, her eyes fell upon the sweet peas in the front garden. The flowers were so pretty with their papery petals, their leggy green stems, and the wonderful fragrance that spilled from their heads.
Later, she decided, she’d cut some and take them round to Dom’s house. Just as a friend, of course. Now that Jake had left in disgrace, she felt free, light and free, like a bird spiralling joyfully up into the sky. The sun was on her face, and she felt sure there was still a happy ending out there for her somewhere.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Beautiful World
Katie’s Hen Night, November 2008
Katie sat on the high stool at the bar, twisting her fingers nervously in her lap. She was here first, of course. She was always everywhere first. She’d have to make a real effort to arrive at the registry office after Steve next month. Punctuality was fine on one’s wedding day, but being an early bride was definitely uncool.
She put her phone on the bar, half expecting it to buzz with an apologetic text. So sorry, can’t make it … She wouldn’t be surprised. She’d had to beg Alice and Georgia to come out tonight, after all. A reunion could go horribly wrong. But still. It wasn’t every year that a girl got married, was it? The least they could do was show up and have a dance with her.
She sipped her drink, smiling at the thought of the wedding. Just two weeks to go now, and she couldn’t wait. After all her angst, the proposal had slipped from her lips as easily as if she’d planned to say it all along. What was more, it had felt right. It was going to be so different this time around.
Steve had stood up and held her and laughed into her hair, his arms tight around her, and said, ‘Yes. Yes!’, and it had felt brilliant, like fireworks going off all around them. It had been such a fantastic night from there on. The two of them had taken over the dance floor, swinging each other round to ‘Come on Eileen’ and ‘Blame it on the Boogie’ and ‘Dancing Queen’ and all the other greats, laughing and doing stupid moves and then smooching like teenagers to the slow songs … She wasn’t even drunk, but she felt high as a kite, bursting with exuberance and happiness.
And oh, it had been so romantic after that. Steve had ordered champagne to be sent up to the room and they’d made love all night, unable to take their hands off each other. God, he was just lovely. Definitely the marrying kind.
‘Let’s stay here the whole weekend,’ he’d suggested the next morning as they sat in the tangled white sheets feeding each other bits of croissant.
She’d dipped her finger into the raspberry jam and put it into his mouth. ‘Mmm, that would be nice,’ she said as he licked it off. ‘But I don’t have any clothes.’
He’d grinned and given her breast a gentle squeeze. ‘Who needs clothes?’
Who indeed. They barely surfaced from the bed that day, just ordered in room service and made the most of the facilities. It wasn’t as posh as the Bristol hotel room they’d stayed in the week before, but it was definitely more intimate. Sure, it was something of a squash, both of them fitting under the drenching shower, and they had to stay pressed pretty close together throughout – b
ut that was okay. (That was more than okay, actually.) And the bath wasn’t as gargantuan or elegant as the one last week, but Katie didn’t care. Full to the brim with the steaming water and the entire contents of the complimentary bubble bath, it left barely any room for her and Steve to get in together, but they’d managed it (and very erotic it was too).
So no, Katie hadn’t actually been too fussed about clean clothes in the end. It was only when they got home to Bristol on the Sunday night, still glowing from their Birmingham shagathon, that she remembered what else might have come in handy. ‘Oh shit,’ she cried that evening over a takeaway curry. ‘I forgot to take my pill. That’s two days I’ve missed!’
She couldn’t believe it. She was like a robot with the contraceptive pill every morning, never missed one, having always been so terrified of the consequences. But in the excitement and drama of the Birmingham jaunt, in the happiness of her reunion with Steve, the sureness that yes, she wanted to be with him for the rest of her life … somehow the clockwork had clicked to a stop.
There was no mistaking the hope that flared in Steve’s face at this news. He stared at her, opening his mouth to say something, then closing it again. ‘What does that mean?’ he asked carefully after a moment.
Katie tried to make the calculation, but her brain seemed to be on a slowdown. To her surprise, she wasn’t gripped by the sick panic she thought she might have been overwhelmed by. She actually felt quite … excited. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied, looking into his eyes. ‘I guess it might mean I’m pregnant.’
Everything seemed to go into slow motion as she said the word. Their eyes were locked on one another, food forgotten, each weighing up the possibility.
‘And … would it be such a bad thing?’ Steve was hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.
Katie thought about it. Really thought. For so long – for ever – an automatic ‘no’ had come up in her mind, like a number popping up on an old-fashioned cash till, whenever she’d thought about babies. Ching-ching! Babies and motherhood had always been tied up with her feelings about her own mother. But it didn’t have to be like that, did it?
‘If we had a baby …’ she began slowly, then blinked at what she’d just said. The words were half shocking, half thrilling to hear from her own lips. ‘I can’t believe we’re having this conversation,’ she said faintly, more to herself than Steve.
He reached over the table and took her hand. ‘If we had a baby,’ he repeated, ‘we would do things our way. We wouldn’t be like our parents.’
She nodded. ‘And … and we wouldn’t change, would we?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘We’d still be us.’
She squeezed his hand. Statistics were returning to her. The average couple took at least six months to conceive. And Katie was thirty-four now – didn’t a woman’s fertility plummet once she was thirty-five? Chances were, she wasn’t pregnant and life would go on as before. But if she was …
She smiled at Steve. ‘Let’s wait and see, then.’
She hadn’t expected to be pregnant, deep down. She’d never been pregnant before – didn’t even know if she could physically conceive in the first place. Maybe she was infertile. Maybe he was. But, as it had turned out, neither of them was.
Now she was four and half months’ pregnant, and her belly was showing. Just yesterday, she thought she’d felt the baby move inside her for the first time. She was so, so happy that this was happening, that she and Steve were going to be parents together. It felt such a big adventure.
Mind you, there was the wedding to get through first. They were having a small do: no penguin suits, no meringue dresses, no feeding of the five thousand relatives. Just close family and friends, a small registry-office affair and then food and dancing at a pub in Clifton. The only thing that was troubling Katie was wondering how Georgia and Alice would get along tonight. She hoped they could let bygones be bygones now and edge back towards friendship again. She’d been counting on Laura being there as a buffer zone, neutralizing any bad feelings, but Laura had phoned to say she was running late and wouldn’t be there for a while. So it would be the three of them all together at first – well, if the other two showed, of course …
Meanwhile, half a mile away, Georgia was walking into a different pub and trying to remember when she’d last felt quite so apprehensive. Maybe when she was bracing herself to tell Harry she was leaving him and the marriage was over? No. The words had burst out in a tirade of hatred with barely a tremor of fear. Maybe when she’d been trying to blag her way into the MTV Millennium Eve party? Nah. She’d had enough Dutch courage to quench any nerves. Or possibly when she’d been about to break the news to Isabella that she was quitting her job? Well, that had been daunting, but she’d been so excited at the prospect, she’d managed eye contact and everything. Start spreading the news, I’m leaving today … Polly had all but jumped up and down with glee.
But this … this was proper nerves. Meeting up with Alice, burying the hatchet after all these months. Georgia hoped the hatchet wouldn’t end up buried in her head. The fact that Alice had agreed to meet her at all gave Georgia slight hope, but things changed, didn’t they? People bottled it, or decided that actually, they didn’t feel quite so conciliatory after all.
Still. Here she was, right time, right address. ‘You’ll feel so much better once you’ve seen her and had a chat,’ Owen had said as she’d kissed him goodbye that morning. ‘You’re doing the right thing.’
She’d put her arms around him, not wanting to go any more. She’d only been living with him for three weeks, and had never felt happier. She felt … complete. Was that too corny? She didn’t care. It was true. Leaving London, her home for the last sixteen years, had been terrifying, but exhilarating too. She was letting her flat now with a view to selling it at some point in the future, and she and Owen had found a place to rent together in Manchester’s trendy Northern Quarter. Everyone was so friendly there, she couldn’t believe it! And the bars and shops were fab, too – she’d almost forgotten there were any other cool places outside London.
Since making the move, she had thrown herself into freelance opportunities, pitching an idea for a column to the Evening News and feature ideas to various magazines, plus she’d written some blog posts for one of the big Manchester websites. She’d also set up her PC on a desk and typed CHAPTER ONE in a new Word document.
‘I’m going to miss you,’ she told him that morning, kissing his neck. He smelled so nice it made her insides flip and she slid a hand under his T-shirt.
‘Georgia Knight, you dirty cow,’ he said thickly as she unbuttoned his jeans.
‘You love it,’ she replied, groaning with pleasure as he pulled up her skirt and pressed her against the radiator. ‘Ohhh …’
She’d had to peg it for her train, but God it had been worth it. Her love life had been parched and pathetic for the last few years, but now it felt like monsoon season and she couldn’t get enough of him. The thought was enough to put a smile on her face as she cast an eye around the pub – no sign of Alice – and went up to the bar. ‘Vodka tonic, please. Actually, make it a double.’
Alice was running late, having missed her bus after a last-minute wobble about leaving Iris overnight for the first time ever. She knew very well that her parents would lavish her with love and care and that her little girl would be absolutely fine but it still felt awful, the thought of not being able to kiss her goodnight at seven o’clock. And how would Iris react the next morning when Alice wasn’t there? She squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to think about it, as she hurried up the road, limping slightly in her high heels. She was out of practice with such shoes – hell, she was out of practice when it came to nights out full stop. But still, Katie’s hen do, eh? She wasn’t going to miss that one for anything.
Her phone bleeped and she fumbled to get it out of her handbag, heart skipping a beat at the dread of a call from her mum: Iris has had a fall. Iris has stopped breathing. Iris has got a ve
ry high temperature …
No. Stop it. The caller display read Dom and she pressed ‘Accept’. ‘Hiya, are you okay?’
‘Hi, yeah, fine, just wanted to say, I hope it goes well tonight. Have you met The Bitch yet?’
‘No, not yet, on my way now. I think she’ll be all right. She was incredibly contrite on the phone.’ Almost embarrassingly so, actually. Laying on the apologies and we-are-not-worthy stuff so thick, Alice had half wondered if Georgia had suffered some kind of head injury. Or was this an impostor she was speaking to? Georgia had never been one for ‘sorry’ unless it was dragged out of her.
‘Yeah, well, quite right too,’ Dom said. ‘Anyway, don’t let her give you any grief, will you? No being sweet-talked into an interview about Jake or anything.’
Alice gave a little shudder. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going there. I’ve already said he’s off-limits. This is for Katie’s sake. Georgia and I are just going to clear the air, then we can join Katie and …’ She pulled a face. ‘Oh God. I’m nervous now.’
‘Don’t be.’ He was as calm as ever. He should have been in the emergency services, Dom, he was always so steady. ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine. Let her apologize and move on. I bet you’ll have a good laugh once you’re all together.’
‘Yeah. Hope so. Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks for ringing. Bye.’
‘Bye, sweetheart. Love you.’
She pressed the phone against her cheek as the call ended, wishing he could be there with her. She spent so much time with him now, it was strange to be someplace he wasn’t.
Ahh. Here was the pub. She gave a deep breath and pulled back her shoulders. She could do this. She could definitely do this.
The thing about Georgia, thought Alice as she pushed open the door, was that she’d always been so dazzling, so full of life, energy and attitude, that she made you feel a little brighter, just being near to her. She had this presence, always had done, even when they were first years at uni together. Alice had been gawky and square, had never had sex, never tried any drugs, only ever been mildly squiffy on cider a few times before. But as luck would have it, her room in the hall of residence was right next to Georgia’s – this loud, glamorous creature who seemed hard as nails, fearless. And amazingly, Georgia had been really nice to Alice, had looked after her a bit, always asked her along to pub nights or whatever. Then, a few months in, when Georgia had revealed herself to be so bruised, so fragile about the baby, and the attack … it had broken Alice’s heart.
