by Vivien Brown
***
‘Me? What can I possibly do?’ Beth stopped fiddling with the stem of her wine glass and gave her brother a look that said she was still finding it hard to believe they were sitting in a pub and he was drinking nothing stronger than a pint of orange squash.
Ollie chose to ignore her disdainful expression, took a huge gulp of squash to prove a point and carried on regardless. ‘Be my right-hand woman, that’s what. Help me give these kids a show to remember. Make a few dreams come true.’
‘What do I know about that sort of thing?’
‘A hairbrush microphone, remember? Dancing in front of your bedroom mirror? Don’t try telling me you haven’t always had a secret desire to get into show business.’
‘You leave my secret desires out of this! And I’m not sure a primary school nativity is really what I would call show business. Not by any stretch of the imagination.’
‘Maybe not, but you still know a lot more about this singing and dancing stuff than I do. And you’re a hairdresser. You can do the hair and make-up too.’
‘Would you like me to make the scenery and do the refreshments and sell the tickets as well?’
‘Well, if you’re offering …’ Ollie ducked as his sister took a swing at his head. ‘No, no, okay, I’m sure I can find some kids, and maybe even a few parents, to do all that. But where I really need help is with the … what’s the word? The vision, that’s it. Someone who can see the overall picture, help me come up with something different, exciting, spectacular even, but still have that essence of the Christmas story about it.’
‘Like big musical numbers and fantastic costumes, and rockets going off, you mean?’
‘You can forget the rockets, thanks very much, although you’re not the first person to suggest something like that! As for the rest of it … yes, please. So far all I’ve got for definite is a Mary. The rest is a blank canvas, just waiting to be filled. We need ideas, and lots of them. But we haven’t got all that long. Only seven weeks, actually. So when can we get started?’
‘We? What’s with the we? I haven’t said I’ll do it yet!’
‘Ah, but you will, though, won’t you?’ He leant his head on her shoulder and snuggled into her, then reached across the table for her empty glass. ‘Please. Pretty please. There’s another drink in it for you if you do.’
‘A drink? God, Ollie, it’ll have to be a whole bottle at least.’
‘Done! Cheap at half the price.’
‘Is that how you get round all the girls? Ply them with booze to get your wicked way? Good job I’m only your sister.’
‘And thank God you are. And a great one too.’ He stood and rummaged in his pocket for his wallet. ‘Thanks, Beth. You’re a star. House red, is it?’
‘And a bag of crisps.’
‘God, you strike a hard bargain.’ He shook his head and pretended to count the coins from his pocket. ‘You’ll bankrupt me at this rate, but go on then. I suppose you’re worth it!’
The bar was busy but he finally made it to the front and ordered. The barmaid rammed the corkscrew into the bottle, twisted it and removed the cork, then handed the bottle over. ‘How many glasses with that?’ she asked, turning to pull a bag of cheese and onion out of a large cardboard box behind her.
‘Best make it two.’ He couldn’t have Beth downing a whole bottle by herself.
‘Ollie?’ Beth said, as he settled back down and poured them both a drink. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Sounds serious, but yes, of course you can. So long as it’s not about my drinking again. I’m only having one glass to keep you company.’
‘No, not the drink. Not this time. It’s about Jake. Did you know … well, that he might be cheating on me?’
Ollie thumped his glass down on the table. ‘What? No, I didn’t. Bloody hell, Beth. How long has this been going on? I’ll kill the little shit.’
‘No, you won’t.’ She put a restraining hand on his arm. ‘The truth is, I don’t really seem to mind all that much. I thought I would, but I don’t. That says a lot, doesn’t it?’
‘You don’t mind? Are you mad? You two have been together for bloody ever! But you only said that he might be. Aren’t you sure?’
‘As sure as I can be. It was something Jen said last night. Oh, she was cagey about it. Said she could be mistaken but she thought she’d seen him, in the street, kissing some random girl she didn’t recognise. Of course, that meant she definitely had seen him, but she was trying to let me know gently, you know? Not wanting to hit me with it all in one go. Drop in a few seeds of doubt and see how the land lies. But the land didn’t even rock, Ollie. I didn’t feel a stab to the heart or anything like that. Didn’t feel much at all, really. What sort of a girlfriend does that make me?’
‘Oh, come on now. Surely what you should be asking yourself is what sort of boyfriend it makes him?’
‘Yeah, I know. But, in a way, if it’s true, then I’m sort of glad. It lets me …’
‘What?’
‘Well, it lets me take action, I suppose. Have a bit of a rant at him, then tell him it’s all over. I’m actually quite looking forward to that. Having the upper hand, and getting out without any of it being my fault.’
‘Wow. Getting out? Is that how you see it? And I thought you loved the guy.’
‘Funnily enough, so did I. But obviously not. I’ve seen how you’ve been since you lost Laura, and I know it’s not quite the same, but that’s just not the way I feel. I think maybe it’s been over for a while but neither of us wanted to face up to it. But now I can.’
He leant over and gave her a hug. ‘That’s my girl. You make sure you give him what for, though, before you dump him. Make the bugger squirm.’
‘Oh, I intend to. And then I’m going to throw myself into something that really is important.’
‘Like?’
‘Your school show.’
‘You’ll do it, then?’
‘If it keeps you out of trouble, and out of the pub, of course I’ll bloody do it.’ She ripped open her bag of crisps and stuffed two into her mouth at once, spluttering through the crumbs. ‘Just you try and stop me!’
Chapter 21
Kate, 1987
Such a sense of responsibility! Walking around carrying six almost-babies inside me, trying desperately to make them stay exactly where they were. In fact, I hardly walked at all. I took a fortnight off work, which didn’t go down too well so soon after the Venice break, but there are some things far more important than a job and this was one of them. Let them sack me if they wanted to, I didn’t care. I’d be leaving soon anyway, if things went according to plan.
I was meant to wait two weeks, then go back for a blood test to see if I really was pregnant – properly ‘yes they’ve made it’ pregnant – but it was so hard having to wait that I was tempted to buy a home test from Boots. I picked up a packet and read the instructions, but it looked like it wouldn’t be able to give me a reliable result quite so soon. I’d done pregnancy tests before, of course, but I’d hoped technology might have moved on since then, that by some miracle a test would already know the fate of my embryos within days of their arrival, but you needed to wait a good week or so after a missed period for it to work, and I hadn’t even reached that stage yet, so I put it back on the shelf.
It had been stupid of me to go out to the shops anyway. Why on earth wasn’t I at home with my feet up? Just carry on as normal, everyone had said, but I didn’t want to, didn’t feel I should. Walk, work, move about, even have sex if you want to, they said. Forget they’re in there. As if I could!
I was doing everything I could to keep these babies, and myself, healthy and strong. No alcohol, no hot baths, no dashing about. I read a book about eating well too, and made a bit of a snap decision to eat more healthily. Lots of fresh vegetables, more fruit, only the leanest of meat, plenty of iron, and far fewer chips. Not that I’d ever been much of a cook, but making up big vats of vegetable soup was easy, and it did me good to feel
I was looking after myself properly.
When the usual day of my period came and went and I was still blood-free, I couldn’t help getting my hopes up. On the Saturday, when our appointment for the test came around, I had woken up feeling decidedly sick and had heaved over the toilet for a while, although I hadn’t managed to expel anything other than a bit of spit.
‘It’s probably just nerves,’ Dan said, as we climbed into the car and set off for the clinic. ‘You can’t possibly be showing any pregnancy signs already. Not this early. They’re still the size of full stops. If they’re even still in there …’
‘Oh, thanks for the positive words of encouragement!’ I turned and gazed out of the window at the early morning traffic, not wanting him to see how much his words had stung me. Didn’t he realise just how important today was for me? For us? I was four days late now, and we hadn’t got this far on the two previous attempts, the blood arriving promptly and painfully on both occasions, before I’d had the chance to have any tests to confirm what I already knew.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, looking at me instead of at the road, a horn blaring out at us as he pulled out in front of another car at a junction and had to swerve to avoid hitting it. ‘Jesus! That was close.’
‘See! You’re just as distracted as I am. Your mind’s not on what you’re doing. Please just be careful, Dan. You could have got us all killed.’
‘All?’
‘You know … me, you and the babies.’
‘Well, tell them all to put their little seatbelts on then. The road’s a dangerous place for defenceless embryos!’ Dan laughed then, and reluctantly I found myself smiling too.
‘It will be all right this time, won’t it?’
He took his left hand off the wheel and touched my tummy. ‘Hope so, sweetheart. I really do.’
The rest of that day passed in a blur, as if I was watching events happening through a permanent cloud of tears. Which, I suppose, I was. The test was positive, and I can remember hugging everyone in sight. The nurse, the doctor, at least three other patients in the waiting room, Dan …
‘There’s still a long road ahead, Mrs Campbell.’
I was nodding but I was still too busy crying to listen.
‘We won’t be able to count the embryos for a while. They’re still too small to show up accurately on an ultrasound …’
‘Yes.’ I nodded again, but I still wasn’t listening.
‘We’ll see you again at about seven weeks.’
‘Yes.’
‘The receptionist will make you an appointment.’
‘Yes, okay.’
We must have walked down the corridor, travelled down in the lift, passed the shop, but I don’t remember any of it. Without even knowing how we’d got there, we were suddenly back out in the street. A light rain had started to fall, and we walked back to the car, arm in arm, without an umbrella, splashing through the shallow puddles on the pavement, turning corners, crossing roads, neither of us saying a word.
Dan fumbled for his keys, opened the car door for me and helped me in, holding on to my arm until I was safely seated, as if I was made of glass, as if I might break. He’d never done that before.
‘We’ve done it,’ he said, once he’d climbed in the other side and closed the door. The rain was heavier now, pounding on the roof and sliding down the windscreen. ‘We’ve really done it this time. We’re actually pregnant.’
‘Yes, we are. We really are.’ And then we were in each other’s arms, the car full of the sound of the rain and our own heartbeats drumming away in tandem, and our eyes closed, and both sobbing like it was the end of the world.
***
Of course, it wasn’t the end of the world. Only of the world as we knew it. That day was just the beginning, and just a few worrying weeks later we were back, part excited, part terrified. ‘If all six are alive in there, we’ll be famous,’ Dan said just before we went in. ‘With cameras following us everywhere. Like the Waltons.’
‘Goodnight Johnboy.’ I laughed at my own pathetic attempt at an American accent. ‘Goodnight Jimbob!’
‘Not those Waltons, you dope! I meant the sextuplets. You know, all of them girls. That poor father! What he must have to suffer …’
‘Don’t you count your chickens, Dan. That could be you in a few minutes, looking at your future brood. If you’ll excuse the pun.’
‘Ha, ha. Well, they did start out as eggs, didn’t they? And you’ve been acting like some protective mother hen ever since. But, I tell you what. If they’re all girls – not that we’ll know that today, of course – then I’m leaving home. Running away to sea or somewhere. I’ll be condemned to a life surrounded by pink frilly stuff and mountains of sanitary towels! And I’ll have nobody to play football with.’
‘Girls can play football …’
‘Ready, Kate? And you must be Dan? Come on in. How have you been?’ It was Joanne, the same girl who’d scanned me before, and as she ushered us in all the banter just dried in our throats. This was serious stuff.
The jelly was thick and cold as Joanne ran it over my exposed tummy, pushing down with the flat end of her scanner. I squeezed my eyes up tight and tried hard not to wee on the table. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t push too hard,’ she joked. ‘I know it can be a bit uncomfortable.’
Dan was gripping my hand. I could feel the tension in his fingers, running right through him and into me. Or maybe it was the other way round. ‘Well?’ he said, impatient to know. ‘Can you tell how many?’
‘Give me a few moments, Dan. Let’s just have a look around first and get our bearings, shall we?’
I turned my head to the side, away from Dan, so I could look at the screen. Not that any of what I saw made a lot of sense. Black areas, grey areas, all swirling about and into each other as the girl moved her scanner around. No arms and legs and heads, no tiny heartbeats thumping in and out, the way I’d imagined. But then, this was a very early scan. Way earlier than in a normal pregnancy, and we weren’t looking for size or checking for health problems or working out whether we were having a boy or a girl. We were looking for numbers. Nothing but numbers. Trying to find out if Dan was going to get his footballers. A whole five-a-side team, maybe, with a substitute thrown in for good measure.
‘There’s one …’
Joanne was pointing at something on the screen. Something small and shapeless that didn’t look anything like a baby, but if she said it was one then I believed her. I needed to believe her. This was all starting to feel incredibly and magically real.
‘And another.’
Dan’s hand clenched over mine, so tightly I could feel his nails break into my skin.
‘And … wait a moment … let’s just take a peek over here. Yes, there’s number three.’
‘Three? You mean we’re going to have triplets.’ Dan’s voice sounded wobbly, like he wasn’t sure what to say, or how to say it. ‘Oh, wow! I can’t believe it!’
‘Sorry, Dan. No, it’s not triplets.’
‘Not …?’
‘There, if I’m not mistaken, is our number four.’
‘What? Four? Are you sure?’
‘Well, unless anyone’s playing hide and seek and there’s a sneaky one or two I haven’t spotted, then yes, I would say you definitely have four. We’ll let you run straight to the loo now, Kate, then get you both in to see the doctor, to talk about what happens next, but in the meantime …’ She held out her hand and shook Dan’s before grabbing for mine and breaking into a huge grin. ‘Well done, both of you. It’s not often we achieve a result like this. Congratulations!’
Chapter 22
Beth, 2017
It was odd, seeing as they were born just minutes apart, but Beth had always felt older than the others. Yes, she’d been first into the world, so technically she was the oldest, but minutes hardly counted, really, did they? Yet she was big sister Beth, and always had been, there to sort out the others’ problems, wade in and fight their battles for them and, when necessary, s
top them from fighting each other. Always the one with bucket-loads of advice and handfuls of tissues when things got tough. But now, after all these years, it was her turn to need a shoulder to cry on. Except there wasn’t one available. The house was empty and she was on her own.
She sat on her bed in the dark and listened to the sound of Jake’s car retreating down the road. The brakes squealed as he took the corner way too quickly, then there was nothing but silence. He had gone and she knew it was for the last time.
At least he hadn’t denied it; she’d give him that. He may have been messing around behind her back for God knows how long but when confronted he hadn’t tried to lie about it. Hadn’t begged for forgiveness or promised to make it up to her either, so it had been fairly obvious this was the end. She wasn’t sure which of them had been more relieved to have it all out in the open and the decision made. It still felt odd, though, knowing it was over, and that she was, for the first time in her entire adult life, actually single.
She lay down and stared up at the ceiling for a while. Beams of light moved across it in waves each time a car passed, highlighting the cracks in the plaster and the odd cobweb. She cast her mind back to the first time she had brought Jake here, sneaking in when everyone else was out for the evening, giggling in the dark as they pounced on each other, peeling their clothes off and a condom on, rolling about inexpertly and over-excitedly under the bedcovers. She’d looked up then, at the same ceiling, peering past Jake’s spotty shoulders, and known that her life had changed, that with her virginity gone she’d passed through a barrier and could never go back. In some strange way, that was how she felt again now. A new phase of her life was beginning, and scary though it was, she was not going to regret what she’d done this evening, any more than she had that previous time.
Beth wiped a few stray tears away from her eyes, pulled herself to her feet and went over to close the curtains, taking a last look along the road to make sure he really had gone and wasn’t right now camped outside and staring up, like some love-struck Romeo, at her window. He wasn’t.
