But now that veneer is all but gone. His skin is pale, his hair needs cutting, his usually immaculate clothes look rather crumpled. His face is set and worried and she can tell by the tension in his features that he is physically trying to stop himself asking her about Fran.
He ushers her into a meeting room.
‘Can I get you a tea or coffee?’ he asks as she sits down.
She shakes her head, suddenly nervous. This is the first day of the rest of her life. She has spent months grieving the life she had always known, but now after the yoga retreat, after meeting Amado, after beginning to learn how to forgive herself, she knows she has to take a step into the unknown, into a new future. Just like Will and Fran will have to as well.
He sits down opposite her and hands her a large brown envelope from the stack of papers in front of him.
‘Congratulations,’ he says, quietly.
She smiles. ‘This is it?’ she asks. ‘My divorce?’
‘That’s your decree absolute. It’s over and you have everything you need, I think.’
‘More than I need,’ she replies. ‘How can I ever thank you?’
‘You don’t need to thank me,’ he says. ‘I’m just doing my job. Do you have any questions or concerns?’
‘No.’ She starts to stand up. She suddenly doesn’t want to be here any more and begins to wish she’d asked him to put the decree in the post. ‘Thank you,’ she says again.
He stands up too.
‘If there’s ever anything else,’ he says as they shake hands, ‘you know where I am.’
She nods again, rushing away from him, hoping that she doesn’t seem rude. She doesn’t want him to ask about Fran.
She is standing waiting for the lift to take her back down to the street when she hears the door open behind her, his footsteps on the landing.
‘Elizabeth,’ he says quietly.
She turns around slowly, knowing she can’t avoid him. He looks utterly deflated.
‘How is she?’ he asks. Elizabeth knew he wouldn’t be able to let her go without asking. She takes a breath, unsure of how to respond, unsure of where her loyalties lie. She looks at his crumpled shirt and the deep worry lines that bisect his brow.
‘About as good as you,’ she replies.
‘Terrible then,’ he says with the shadow of a smile.
‘She’s doing a better job of hiding it than you are though.’
He sighs, rubs his eyes. ‘I presume she’s told you,’ he says.
‘About your affair? Yes, but I’m hardly in a position to judge.’
Will doesn’t say anything and for a moment Elizabeth thinks he’s going to cry.
‘I promised her I’d give her this space,’ he says eventually. ‘But if you speak to her can you tell her that I miss her and that I love her and that I’m sorry?’
The lift arrives and Elizabeth turns towards it. As the doors slide open she steps inside, holding them open with her back as she turns towards Will again.
‘She already knows that you love her and that you’re sorry,’ she says. ‘She’ll come home, I know she will.’ Elizabeth isn’t sure about any of this, but she does know that finding out about the pregnancy will bring Fran home eventually and that she loves Will enough to tell him about the baby at least. After that it’s up to him.
He looks up then, his eyes suddenly full of hope.
‘Really?’ he asks.
‘I promise,’ Elizabeth says, crossing her fingers behind her back like she used to when she was a little girl and wasn’t quite telling the truth. ‘But you need to start forgiving yourself,’ she goes on as the lift doors begin to shut. If she’s learned one thing over the last week, it’s that.
By the time the lift has reached the ground floor she already knows what she must do. She will go back to Salou and bring Fran home.
After all, she had promised Amado she would return.
Fran
For Fran the days pass slowly, uneventfully. This is what she needs – acres of time and space to allow herself to be.
She sees Mia from housekeeping each morning; they share ginger tea and communicate as best they can about their pregnancies. Her friendship with Mia reminds her of her mother’s friendship with their Polish next-door neighbour when Fran was a child. Neither woman spoke the other’s language, yet somehow they knew every minute detail of each other’s lives.
Mia married the previous summer and is fifteen years younger than Fran. Fran marvels at how simple life seems to be for Mia before remembering that nothing is ever as simple as it seems. She has told Mia that this is her first pregnancy too, after all – although Fran has seen the way Mia looks at the plush Piglet that sits on Fran’s pillow as though she doesn’t believe what Fran is telling her but is too polite to argue.
At night Fran holds the Piglet to her chest and remembers everything. All this time and space is wonderful in the day, in the sunshine, among the bougainvillea, but at night it is almost overwhelming and the space in the bed where Will should be is as empty as a vacuum. As each day passes she misses him more. She fills her days as best she can but at night she wants to wrap herself around him so they can share the secret she is carrying inside her. But each morning she remembers what he has done and she wonders if she’ll ever forgive him, if she’ll ever be able to trust him again.
She wants it to be like it used to be; she wants the old Will back. But she knows that version of Will is gone for ever, worn down by life in the same way that she has been. Those old versions of Will and Fran aren’t coming back. Everything has changed.
Every morning after she wakes up she stands naked in front of the mirror and looks at herself. She fights waves of nausea, but the actual vomiting stage seems to have passed. She thinks she can already see a thickening around her waist but wonders if it’s just wishful thinking. As each day passes she feels a new flicker of hope deep inside that this baby may survive. But she can’t let herself hope. Not yet.
She teaches her yoga classes, she reads, she sleeps. Her skin gains colour and she starts to put on weight. She begins to look healthy for the first time in nearly a year, even though she still feels nauseous until lunchtime most days.
Every couple of days Jake pops by the hotel and has lunch with her. He is always on his way somewhere or on his way back – taking holidaymakers up a mountain or bringing them down again, like a modern-day Grand Old Duke of York. When she is with him she forgets everything else, she forgets Mia, Will, her baby, her past. When she is with Jake she is Frankie Sullivan again. She is the girl who danced down Camden High Street at four in the morning and believed every sunrise was just for her. But when he leaves, everything comes flooding back. Some days she wants him to stay with her for ever. Other days she can barely stand to see him at all, fighting the temptation to touch him, hold him, kiss him.
‘Let me take you to dinner on Saturday,’ he says at the end of the first week. There’s something about his tone of voice that makes it sound intimate, like a date.
She knows she should say no. She knows that whatever Will has done doesn’t make this situation right. But she can’t resist.
‘OK,’ she says, hesitantly. ‘Just dinner.’
She still doesn’t tell him about the baby, or about Oscar or the miscarriages. She still can’t bear to see pity in his eyes.
AUGUST 2015
I was still in bed when Will left that morning. He’d taken to going in late, to having breakfast with me, to spending as much time as he could with me before Oscar was born.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t get out of this meeting.’
‘It’s OK, I don’t mind.’
‘Listen, do you want to go away next weekend?’ he asked. ‘One last time while it’s just the two of us? A babymoon.’
‘A babymoon? Really?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s what it’s called.’
‘According to who?’ I smiled at him. He still read way too many baby books.
‘We could go down to the
south coast,’ he went on, ignoring me. ‘Brighton, Bournemouth?’
‘I’d love to, Will, but I’m not very comfortable. I don’t want to travel very far.’ I felt huge. I could hardly believe I still had ten weeks left. I didn’t feel I could get any bigger without bursting.
‘Well how about somewhere closer to home? Southwold maybe?’
I didn’t really want to go anywhere. I wanted to stay at home and nest, but I could tell he wasn’t going to let this go.
‘That’d be lovely,’ I said.
‘I’ll book something today,’ he said as he kissed me goodbye. ‘I’ll see you this afternoon.’
I heard him leave, closing the front door behind him, the wheels of his car on the gravel outside. I lay in bed with my eyes closed, my hands clasped over my bump, drifting in and out of sleep until my bladder wouldn’t let me stay in bed any longer.
I noticed the blood running down my inner thigh as soon as I got to the bathroom. I sat down on the toilet and felt as though I was watching myself from outside of my body. I remember thinking “not again”. I don’t remember panicking. I don’t remember anything other than an overwhelming feeling of resignation.
I phoned the GP, who told me to call an ambulance and that she would be with me as soon as she could. I phoned Will, but he wasn’t answering his work phone or his mobile and nor was Janine. I presumed they were both in this breakfast meeting. I left messages. I did all of this as though I were underwater – slowly, carefully, still watching from the outside. It was almost as though I’d been expecting this. As though I knew I’d never make it through the nine months.
As soon as I got to the maternity unit in Cambridge I was diagnosed with placental abruption – the placenta was separating from my uterus, which could deprive Oscar of oxygen and cause me to haemorrhage. In a nutshell, if I didn’t have an emergency Caesarean, both Oscar and I could die.
Will still hadn’t turned up. Where the hell was he?
‘Can we wait for my husband?’ I asked. I could feel the panic bubbling up inside me now, as though my head had finally popped up from the water it had been under. I wasn’t watching myself any more. This was real.
‘Mrs Browne, we really can’t wait any longer,’ the obstetrician urged. It wasn’t my usual doctor – he was on holiday. ‘We have to go into surgery now.’
They did it under general anaesthetic because I was panicking so much about where Will was by then. I wasn’t conscious when Oscar was born. I missed so much precious time with him.
When I came round the doctors told me that Oscar was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, that he was on a ventilator, that this was a normal procedure with premature babies, and that Will was with him.
‘Will’s here,’ I whispered to myself. Everything would be all right now that Will was here.
A nurse helped to clean me up and told me that I needed to express some milk before I could go down to the ward. I was taken down via the NICU. Will was sitting by Oscar’s cot. It was such a relief to see him. He stood up when he saw me, smiled. I knew that smile. He was pretending that everything was fine, but I was pretty sure his head was pounding. I knew the look he got when his tension headaches became almost unbearable.
They took me right up to Oscar’s cot so I could see him and I felt Will take my hand in his, entwining his fingers with mine. Oscar was so tiny – I didn’t know it was possible for a person to be so small. I looked at Will and thought, ‘He was that little once.’ Almost that little anyway.
‘He’s beautiful,’ I said.
‘I know,’ Will replied quietly.
‘Is he going to be all right?’ I asked, unable to take my eyes off my baby. I could sense that Will was unable to take his eyes off either of us. I could only imagine how worried he must have been over the last few hours.
‘He’s stable,’ Will said. ‘The doctors will know more tomorrow.’ I wanted to know more than that, but at the same time I was too tired to think about it. I just smiled at Oscar, wishing I didn’t have to go to my room. Wishing I could just stay with my baby.
Will’s medical insurance paid for a private room which, over the following week, we were immensely grateful for. Once the nurses got me settled and gave me my pain medication they left us alone.
‘Not too long though,’ they warned Will. ‘Mum needs her sleep.’
Mum.
‘You don’t have to stay here with me,’ I said.
‘Yes I do.’ He was still holding my hand as though he never wanted to let go.
‘How’s the head?’ I asked.
‘Fine.’
‘Liar.’
He smiled. He looked exhausted.
‘Where were you?’ I asked then.
‘The meeting went on much longer than I thought. I had my phone switched off. By the time I got here you were in theatre. I’m so sorry.’
‘Were you worried?’
‘Terrified,’ he admitted. I’d never heard him admit to being scared before. ‘But it’s going to be fine,’ he went on. ‘I promise. We’re parents, Fran.’ He looked at me, amazement in his tired eyes.
‘I know.’ I watched him as he sat there, still in the suit he’d put on that morning, shirtsleeves rolled up, jacket a crumpled mess on the floor. I wondered sometimes how he kept going. How he’d got through all of this, month after month of disappointment, year upon year. Whatever he might say, I knew this wasn’t how he’d planned his life – looking after me, always hoping, never quite believing.
‘I’m so tired,’ I said.
‘Sleep,’ he said gently, letting go of my hand so he could sit on the edge of the bed, unlace his shoes, slip them off. Very gently he lay down next to me, fitting himself around me on the narrow hospital mattress.
‘Is that OK?’ he asked. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’
‘It’s more than OK,’ I replied.
‘I love you, Fran,’ he whispered in my ear.
After a while I heard his breathing slow down and, as he drifted off to sleep, he shifted against me. I felt the press of him against my hip and I was taken back to the Christmas party nearly eleven years before, when all this began. Would I have done things differently if I’d known how hard things were going to get?
When I woke up it was morning. Will was gone.
‘Dad went home late last night for a shower,’ the nurse told me. It took me a while to realise that she was talking about Will. ‘He’ll be back soon and you can go and see Baby with him.’ They helped me with my pain medication and to express more milk. Then they helped me get cleaned up and tried to get me to eat some breakfast, but all I could manage was a cup of tea.
‘How’s Oscar?’ I asked. He was fine, apparently. Still stable. The doctor would talk to us later today.
Every time I moved my whole body hurt. I thought about my bed at home, about Oscar’s nursery, about all the plans that Will and I had been making for our last ten weeks of being a couple, before we became a family. I thought about how none of that had worked out how we had planned. Again. I started to cry.
‘Come on now,’ the nurse said, mock-sternly. ‘Don’t cry. Baby’s doing fine and Dad will be here in a minute. Don’t you worry.’ Why couldn’t she use our names? Why did she have to talk to me as though I was five years old? I wanted to get up then, but the pain seared through me from my surgery. The nurse saw me flinch.
I lay back on the pillows, resigned to accept this inanity until Will turned up to rescue me.
JULY 2016
Fran
Jake picks her up from the hotel on the Saturday night. He’s wearing a suit and Fran feels underdressed. She hasn’t brought clothes with her for dinners that aren’t dates in posh restaurants. She thought she was here to teach yoga. She was only meant to be here for a week. She’s tired and nauseous and, for the first time since she got here, she’s starting to feel as though she wants to go home.
He kisses her on the cheeks – left, right, left – and they walk to the restaurant side by side, close but not
touching. Fran notices Amado watching them as they leave but he doesn’t say anything and neither does she.
Jake has booked a table on the terrace overlooking the sea. Fran had been feeling excited about dinner but as soon as she sees the table, how romantic it all looks, she feels uncomfortable and wishes she’d never agreed to come. This feels very much like a date. She can’t stop thinking about Will, can’t stop fiddling with her wedding ring.
‘What’s the matter?’ Jake asks after he orders wine.
‘I don’t drink,’ she replies.
‘I know that,’ he says, although the look on his face shows that he doesn’t believe her. ‘The wine’s for me. You’ve hardly said a word. What’s wrong?’
Fran sighs, knowing there’s no point lying. ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ she says. ‘It’s one thing wanting some space and time away from my husband; it’s quite another to use that time to have romantic dinners with my ex.’
‘Frankie …’ He hesitates. ‘Fran, it’s been fourteen years. I’m not about to jump you and we both know that when you go back to England I’m probably never going to see you again. I just thought it would be nice to spend some time together.’ He smiles. ‘But if you really don’t want to be here,’ he says, more gently, ‘I’m happy to walk you back to the hotel.’
Fran softens at his smile, at his gentle tone. She’s over-reacting.
‘It’s fine,’ she says. ‘I’m fine.’
Jake makes small talk for a while as they order food and begin their meals. He talks about life in Catalonia, about the people he’s met, those he can count on as friends, the community he’s started to build.
The Things We Need to Say Page 19
