The Man I Didn't Marry

by Anna Bell

  I slip my phone out of my pocket in a bid to distract myself and I see there are some messages in the group chat that Anneka set up, about the meet-up we’ve got arranged for Monday.

  Since our antenatal class a week ago, we’ve been messaging each other quite a lot, bemoaning everything from swollen ankles to listing everything we will eat/drink/do after the babies are born. The evening at Anneka’s on Monday will be our first proper meet-up and I’m really looking forward to seeing them.

  * * *

  Anneka:

  Morning, ladies! Just need to confirm that you’re all on for Monday evening? It’s at seven o’clock sharp. Do let me know if anyone’s got any dietary requirements, other than the pregnancy ones, of course, as I’ll be doing the Ocado order in a bit. Looking forward to seeing you all for some moderated fun!

  * * *

  * * *

  Helen:

  I am confirming my place and availability for Monday, only I don’t do fun in moderation. My dietary requirements are lots of cake and carbs to make up for the lack of alcohol. See you on Monday at 7.30 x x

  * * *

  * * *

  Anneka:

  It’s 7 sharp and I’ve ordered healthy snacks now.

  * * *

  * * *

  Helen:

  It’s OK I am happy to visit an actual shop and will bring unhealthy snacks too – to give us a balanced diet, and FYI I’m always late, will aim for 7 aka see you 7.30.

  * * *

  * * *

  Polly:

  I’m there. Really looking forward to it, you have no idea what a relief it is to have found such a lovely group.

  * * *

  * * *

  Nina:

  Thanks for the invite, Anneka, but I don’t think I’ll be coming along to the meet-up. I have a really large social group and it’s always so hard fitting everyone in as it is. You seemed really nice though :) Best wishes with the bumps, births and babies x x

  * * *

  * * *

  Nina HAS LEFT THE GROUP

  * * *

  I stare at my phone in shock. I quickly scroll down to see my friends’ reactions. My phone’s making little noises every couple of seconds letting me know more messages are being added.

  * * *

  Anneka:

  WTF???? How dare she leave us?????

  * * *

  * * *

  Helen:

  Perhaps this is how the other group felt when you left. ;)

  * * *

  * * *

  Polly:

  Do you think it was something I said to make her leave?? Did I come on too strong?

  * * *

  * * *

  Helen:

  Maybe a little. Maybe you should have waited until after Monday to confess true feelings… Kidding, obviously she’s a weirdo.

  * * *

  * * *

  Anneka:

  What am I going to do with all the carrot sticks???

  * * *

  * * *

  Helen:

  Do you want the 31-week pregnant bitch reply to that or the polite one?

  * * *

  * * *

  Polly:

  I’ll bring some hummus… x

  * * *

  I quickly type a response when I get to the bottom of the conversation.

  * * *

  Ellie:

  OMG, what a shocker! Looking forward to seeing you on Monday and discussing it x x

  * * *

  Definitely Nina’s loss, IMHO. The conversation finishes and I put my phone on the table. I look over to the coffee van to see that Rach is nearly at the front of the queue.

  ‘Eleanor, Eleanor Smith?’ says a voice and I turn to see a woman squinting at me. It’s her cheekbones that makes me instantly recognise her as the extremely stunning Cara Worthington, someone I went to school with.

  ‘Um, yeah, although it’s Voss now. How are you, Cara?’

  I watch her eyes widen at my surname. Everyone at school knew who Max was, and I’m sure she wouldn’t be the only person to be surprised I married him. But she quickly composes herself, fluttering her eyelashes and breaking out into a big smile like we’re long-lost friends, when, in truth, I’m surprised she even knew my name. Or at least she knew the name teachers called me at school – anyone who was truly my friend would have called me Ellie.

  Cara Worthington was one of the popular girls in my school year and we didn’t exactly mix in the same circles. She used to swan around with her perfect make-up and an inordinate number of little butterfly clips in her hair, a trail of hot boys in her wake. Whereas I used to shuffle around school with the odd spot covered with bright orange cover-up, my hair in a tight bun with two escaped tendrils hanging down at the front and the only boys following me were from the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing club we’d formed.

  ‘I’m fine. I’m so pleased you recognised me. Especially when I’m looking like this,’ she says, as if fresh glossy hair was some kind of disguise. She’s dressed head to toe in Lycra, but, being Cara Worthington, it’s not any old Lycra, it’s Lululemon, which makes the out-of-shape yoga bottoms that I’m wearing seem even more frumpy. ‘It must almost be twenty years now. We missed you at the ten-year reunion.’

  ‘Oh yes, shame I couldn’t go,’ I lie. When the invite came through on Facebook I promptly deleted it, not wanting to relive my school days. ‘I was living up in London at the time and busy and um…’ I say tailing off. ‘So, do you live around here?’

  Since we moved back a few months ago I keep seeing people I went to school with. After years of living an anonymous life in London, where even my next-door neighbours pretended not to know me, I can’t get used to it. It seems that a lot of people escaped Fleet, but the lure of familiarity and free babysitting from family members has pulled many back.

  ‘No,’ she says with a tone of horror. ‘I’m just back visiting my mum. I live in Manchester now.’

  ‘Oh, I like Manchester,’ I say, nodding.

  ‘Yeah, it’s great. I work for the BBC up there.’

  ‘Wow, impressive.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she says, beaming again and giving her hair a flick.

  It’s scary how alike she is to her teenage self and I hope that she’s not thinking the same about me.

  ‘So, it’s Voss, then?’ she says, her eyes starting to twinkle. ‘You don’t mean you married—’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I say, a little bit proud of the fact.

  ‘Wow,’ she says, looking impressed. ‘Do you mind if I pull up a chair?’

  ‘Oh, um, of course,’ I almost gasp in shock. The only time Cara spoke to me at school was if she needed to borrow my maths homework, and I’m pretty rusty on trigonometry now. ‘Rachel’s just getting us drinks, did you want me to shout over to get you one?’

  ‘No, no,’ says Cara, looking over at Rachel and smiling. ‘No, I’m on a juice diet at the moment.’

  She sits down at the empty chair opposite me, placing her elbows on the table and cupping her chin in her hands.

  ‘So, Eleanor Voss,’ she says, weirdly emphasising my surname, ‘I want to hear about what you’ve been up to. I see you’ve… had a baby.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I say again, ‘and I’m expecting another one.’

  I pat my belly and her face lights up.

  ‘That’s so amazing for you both.’

  My phone starts to buzz across the table and I see that it’s Max’s mum Judy.

  ‘Do you need to get that?’ says Cara.

  ‘No,’ I say, sending it to voicemail.

  I feel guilty not answering it, but Judy’s one of those people where if you answer and ask her if you can phone back, she’ll just tell you that it’ll only take a second and rattle off what she wanted to say regardless of how long it’ll take. I’ll give her a ring when Cara’s gone.

  ‘So, which one of you is going to stay home for the baby?’ she says, tilting her head.

  I’m thrown by the question,
which seems awfully progressive. It’s the second time today I’ve been asked this, and it’s starting to make me feel guilty for womankind that Max and I didn’t even discuss it.

  ‘Well, predominantly me. It’s easier with the breastfeeding,’ I say, feeling like I have to justify it.

  ‘So, you’re taking the whole year,’ she says, almost shocked.

  I nod, feeling even more guilty.

  ‘I don’t know if I could leave my job for as long as that,’ she says. ‘I love it so much. It’s like a calling. Plus, I’ve worked so hard to get to my position, I’d hate to take a step back,’ Cara says.

  I want to scream out that I have too. I think of how hard I’ve worked climbing the rungs, all those years of study, all those hours of overtime that I had to effectively push aside when I had Sasha. So far, I’ve just about managed to keep my position – they’ve let me work a three-day week, but with another baby in tow, and the mum guilt creeping in of wanting to spend more time with the kids when they’re young, I’m not sure how long that’s going to be the case. Especially when I have so many male colleagues who don’t seem to suffer the same fate when they have kids. But I don’t say any of that; I just nod along.

  ‘So, Eleanor Voss, are you due soon?’

  ‘I’ve got another nine weeks or so to go, Cara Worthington.’ Why does she keeps using my full name?

  ‘Bloody hell, nine weeks, so you’re going to get even bigger than that?’ she says. ‘No offence, it’s just that usually tall people have those small bumps…’

  I suddenly hope that they’ve run out of flapjacks.

  ‘Here we go,’ says Rach, balancing the tray on the table, when she looks up and sees who’s sitting opposite her. ‘Oh, um, hi.’

  ‘Hi, Rachel, you remember me, right? Cara Worthington from school.’

  ‘I remember,’ she says with a nervous laugh.

  ‘So, another little baby?’ Cara says, staring directly at Rach.

  ‘Um, yeah, we’re all very excited,’ she replies and turns to me, her eyes begging for me to take over the conversation. Rach seems to have regressed to her school self, where she couldn’t even look, much less talk, to anyone popular.

  ‘I couldn’t imagine having two kids. Not that I need to. I don’t even have time to go on a date with my job, let alone have a baby,’ she says with a tinkle of laughter.

  ‘So, do you work on TV?’ I say, taking the pressure off Rach.

  ‘Behind the scenes. I think it’s more rewarding than being on-air talent,’ she says, nodding as if she’s agreeing with herself.

  ‘I imagine it is,’ I say.

  ‘And what do you two do? Rachel?’ she says, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘Um… I…’ says Rach with a bit of a stutter.

  ‘She’s a researcher at the University of Surrey.’

  ‘Impressive,’ she says and Rach blushes. ‘And what do you do?’

  ‘I’m a data analyst.’

  ‘What’s that?’ she says, screwing up her face.

  ‘In basic terms I look at a company’s data and try and make patterns to see if there are elements of their businesses that can be streamlined.’

  ‘Oh right. Sounds… heavy. Probably why you’re desperate for a break. Although I would have thought that, in your situation, you would want it do it a bit more fifty-fifty, rather than you giving up your job, Ellie,’ she says, looking between me and Rach.

  ‘In my situation?’ I repeat.

  She nods. ‘Yes, you know. I mean you’re carrying the baby and then you’re getting all the time off with the baby too.’

  ‘Well, that’s usually how it goes,’ I say.

  I pick up my coffee, in a bid to drink it as quickly as possible to get away from Cara and her weirdness, only to find out that I don’t have an asbestos mouth and it burns my tongue.

  ‘I’ve always wondered about these things. You know, how it works? How you decide how you’re going to get pregnant.’ She’s still looking between the two of us.

  Cara was always goofing around in our human biology lessons – probably because she was one of the only teens in our class that had already conducted her own experiments – but perhaps she should have been paying more attention.

  ‘Well, there’s a man and a woman…’ I say with laugh and a bit of a snort.

  ‘And you didn’t mind?’ she says, looking directly at Rachel.

  ‘To be honest, I try not to think about her having sex with my brother,’ she says.

  Cara’s jaw drops and it only highlights her perfect cheekbones more. She’s clearly as shocked as I am that Rach has managed to reply in a full sentence to her. She peers closely into the stroller that I’m rocking. Sasha’s eyes fly open, as if she senses that she’s being watched, and for a moment she’s too startled to cry.

  ‘Oh my God, she looks so much like him,’ Cara says.

  I scramble underneath the stroller, rooting in the bag to her milk.

  ‘Don’t worry, honey, you’ve been sleeping, but I’ve got some milk for you.’

  ‘Doesn’t it feel weird for you to look at her and see him?’ Cara asks Rach.

  ‘Not really, he’s her dad.’

  ‘Mmmhmm, absolutely,’ says Cara, nodding away. ‘But it must be hard looking at her and seeing his resemblance every day.’

  ‘I don’t see Sasha every day, I live in Guildford,’ says Rach, frowning.

  I finally find the milk at the bottom of the stroller.

  ‘Here you go, sweetie,’ I say, placing it in her hands and stroking the side of her face.

  ‘Surely Guildford’s commutable from Fleet,’ says Cara. ‘Why wouldn’t the two of you live together?’ She gestures to me and Rach.

  ‘Why would we live together?’ I say, confused, sitting back up from the stroller now that Sasha is preoccupied with drinking from her sippy cup. I pick up my coffee cup and take a much-needed sip.

  ‘Because you’re married,’ she says, looking between us both. ‘You’re Mrs Rachel Voss.’

  ‘You think Rachel is my wife?’ I say, spluttering out my coffee.

  ‘That’s what you said. I asked if you married her and you said yes.’

  ‘Er, no you didn’t. I’m pretty sure I would have remembered that.’

  ‘Oh, right. So, you two aren’t…?’ she says, raising an eyebrow. ‘God, I’m so sorry, but you know there were all those rumours at school about you two being lesbians; I just assumed.’

  ‘All those rumours at school?’ I say in a slightly high-pitched voice whilst this all sinks in.

  ‘Yeah, you two were always together and didn’t you have your own language?’

  ‘It wasn’t really our own language, it was a variant of gibberish,’ says Rach, who is more amused than stunned. ‘Did everyone think we were together?’

  ‘I think so,’ she says, shrugging her shoulders. ‘It could have been worse; we could have thought you were dating one of those boys you used to hang out with from that sci-fi club you used to have.’

  I curl my hands tighter around my coffee cup, despite it practically scalding me, as I try and digest this revelation. Rach has started to laugh. Sasha starts to laugh too and somehow it makes the whole situation seem all the more funny.

  ‘I can’t believe everyone else knew I was a lesbian when I didn’t.’

  I crack a smile. Rach came out to me when we were in our mid-twenties, although she didn’t tell anyone in her family until just after her parents split up.

  ‘So, wait, hang on. If you’re not married to each other, and she’s your brother’s baby,’ she says, nodding her head towards Sasha, ‘does that mean you married Rachel’s brother?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Oh, it’s just that I thought Max was your only brother.’

  ‘He is,’ says Rach.

  ‘You married Max?’ she says, turning to me, her voice tinged with disbelief. ‘You married Max Voss? Max Voss who we voted Most Fuckable of 1997?’

  I know that I looked different in scho
ol and I wasn’t the most comfortable in my skin back then, but surely it’s not that shocking that I could have married him, is it? I mean, he might have been the Max Voss back in school, but now he’s just Max.

  ‘Yes, Ellie did, I don’t know why it’s a surprise,’ says Rach. ‘She’s fucking awesome – in fact, Max is bloody lucky that she married him; she’s more of a catch than he is.’

  I’m grateful to Rach, and I try and smile in appreciation but I’ve started to shake. Cara still can’t see past the gangly girl in the glasses. The funny thing is, that whilst my glasses might be thinner, I’m still that girl, studious and a bit geeky at heart, but I’m also warm and funny and generous and she would have seen that both then and now if she’d actually looked, but she won’t.

  ‘Of course, I guess it was just a shock at first, but of course there’s no reason that she couldn’t have married him…’ says Cara, still seeming shocked. ‘Just out of… curiosity… does he still look like…’

  ‘A Hemsworth brother, uh-huh,’ I say, feeling uncomfortable that my life is now being validated by how hot my husband is. Sasha’s starting to wriggle in her stroller and I take her milk away, before unclipping the stroller straps and pulling her on to my lap.