Least Said

by Pamela Fudge

I took some persuading to at least take the time to think things through thoroughly, though as Tina pointed out, the whole thing might turn out to be no more than a false alarm. In the end, as she told me quite simply, it really was up to me what I did.

  All she could do was to offer some extra advice that was obviously heartfelt, and that was, ‘Don’t do anything in haste, because that’s what I did, and I’ve certainly lived to regret it.’

  Chapter 2

  Don’t do anything in haste.

  That’s what Tina had so wisely advised, and I had taken her at her word, letting the days and weeks pass in an absolute agony of indecision. Days and weeks when it became increasingly clear that the pregnancy was a fact of life and that a decision was going to have to be made pretty soon about how I was going to handle things.

  The thought of an abortion did not even cross my mind at any point, because I had already accepted that this would almost certainly be my only chance of becoming a mother. It was a chance I wasn’t about to pass up on. So, the question was, should I confess all to Jon in the hope that he would forgive me and accept there was a very good chance the child I was carrying was his, or should I keep quiet and simply let him believe the child was his and live what could be a lie for the rest of my life.

  Since our heart to heart, Jon and I had been happier than we’d been for years, and it was that – and the rest of Tina’s argument – that finally persuaded me to brazen things out.

  “If you spill the beans now you’ll be ruining three lives,” Tina had said, and followed it up with, “Doesn’t this baby deserve a father, a father like Jon? And doesn’t Jon also deserve this chance - perhaps the only one he will get - to be a father?”

  Yes, I thought, he does, but I also knew this wasn’t some harmless little secret, like lying about the price of a pair of shoes. Before I made my final decision I had to be quite certain I was capable of wrapping up any doubts I had about the baby’s paternity and putting them away forever. Once the decision was made, there could be no going back – not ever.

  *

  Jon’s complete and unadulterated joy when I announced my news was enough to convince me that I had done the right thing.

  ‘You’re quite sure?’ he asked me several times, before laughing out loud as he gathered me up in his arms and spun me round – obviously never doubting for a moment that the child I carried was his.

  He laughed and then he cried; we both did – and so the dye was cast. In all honesty I could think of very few moments over the six years since William was born that I’d had cause to question my decision. I certainly didn’t regret it – though I did spend an awful lot of time in the early days examining his baby features for any definite confirmation that he was Jon’s son.

  Will had very little hair when he was born, and when it turned out to be dark it was something of a relief. Though had he been fair it would really have proved nothing, since both Jon and the Adonis were fair but, as I was dark haired, he obviously took after me in that department.

  When I gave it any thought – which was less and less as time went on – all that I ever recalled of the other guy was the blond hair and how very tall he had been. Bumping into him like that and recognising him so instantly proved that I had remembered far more than I’d thought I had, not least his amazing green eyes. What I hadn’t expected to see was that his hair was dark hair these days, so what on earth had happened to the blond locks?

  Highlights he had grown tired of was the obvious answer, but now I had to give Will and the rugby player dark hair in common and, although Will’s eyes weren’t exactly green, they were hazel which was a combination - if what I’d read when I Googled the subject of eye colour was correct - of brown and green. My eyes were brown, but Jon’s eyes were blue.

  Don’t read too much into it, I told myself. Even brown-eyed parents often had blue eyed kids, because every child was a mass of DNA inherited from a multitude of ancestors. I found knowing that didn’t help and, when I finally fell asleep in the wee, small hours it was recalling how often people commented on how tall Will was for his age.

  I woke to find Jon standing over me with a cup of tea, which while it wasn’t unheard of, was extremely rare.

  ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’ I forced myself to joke, knowing I looked and sounded like hell.

  ‘You had a bit of a disturbed night, if the way you were tossing and turning and muttering in your sleep was anything to go on.’ Jon set the mug carefully down on the bedside cabinet before putting a hand on my forehead, and asking in a sympathetic tone, ‘What’s up? Feeling a bit under the weather, or has a difficult job come in?’

  ‘Whatever makes you ask that?’ I pulled myself up in bed and tried not to sound too anxious. Hearing that I was talking in my sleep was making me feel decidedly nervous. ‘Was I moaning about multiple tiers and icing consistency or something?’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t make out a word you said,’ he dismissed carelessly, and turned to pull back the curtains while I sagged back against the pillows, weak with relief. ‘Now,’ he went on, ‘don’t rush to get up – I’ll take Will to school. He’s just finishing his breakfast. Are you sure you’re ok?’

  ‘Must have been that sandwich I ate before coming to bed,’ I dismissed. ‘It’s my own fault because I know cheese gives me nightmares.’

  ‘Well, I sometimes eat onion, knowing full well that I shouldn’t,’ Jon said. ‘A little bit of what you fancy does you good, but sometimes I’m afraid you have to pay for it.’

  I knew he was only trying to make me feel better, but he couldn’t have put it in a worse way if he had tried.

  The job I was working on that day was a wedding cake, but I wouldn’t call the work difficult – in fact the more intricate the design the more I enjoyed working on my creations. The business that I ran single-handedly was making celebration cakes. I had made the decision to make the change when Tina moved away, rather than accept her generous offer to take over her existing business.

  I’d learned a lot from my time working with Tina. I’d joined her not long after she started her catering business providing home cooked meals for those who either hated cooking or simply didn’t have the time. She’d been a single mother at the time and working from home suited her perfectly.

  In those long ago days Jon was the one who had kitted out Tina’s garage as a working kitchen to cope with her expanding work load. He’d had his own small, but well established business fitting kitchens back then. It was when Tina confessed it was getting to the point when she could really do with some help, that he’d suggested me for the job. We started as neighbours, became colleagues and, eventually, the best of friends.

  Around the time I became pregnant with William, the father of Tina’s by then teenaged daughter, had reappeared in their lives. They rekindled their romance and finally became a family. It made sense for them to move to London because that was more central for Calum’s thriving literary agency and, unsurprisingly, Tina’s business had proved to be even more of a hit with the busy folk in the capital than it had in the tiny town of Brankstone.

  By then, as a result of receiving an offer he couldn’t refuse to buy him out, Jon had opted for the security that comes with working within a large company. Always conscientious, he had worked his way steadily up through the ranks until he was offered a partnership. He and Kerry, the boss’ daughter I had thought he was having the affair with, were now co-owners of the massively successful business and, like Tina, we had moved on and up in the world.

  I no longer had to work for a living these days, and the house we lived in was considerably more spacious than the two bed terrace we had left behind. However, Jon had completely understood that it wasn’t just about the money and had offered no objections when I came up with the celebration cakes idea. I’d never had the inclination to make it a bigger concern, but he’d still insisted on providing me with my own business premises, attached to the side of the house.

  William had grown up watching Mummy ba
king and decorating all manner of cakes and, even at his young age, he was becoming quite a dab hand himself. His birthday cakes were the envy of his school friends and a lot of my jobs came from their parents.

  I suddenly came to and, looking down at what should have been a delicate trellis pattern, found myself, instead, staring at a higgledy-piggledy pile of icing. Deep in thought, I had been relentlessly squeezing it from the bag and the mess I had made was now adorning the cake I was working on. Giving myself an impatient shake I worked quickly to minimise the damage and reminded myself, quite forcefully, that harking back really wasn’t helping me or the situation I found myself in. What I needed was someone to talk to and, just like that other occasion, there was only one person that someone could be.

  ‘Wendy, how are you?’ Tina’s voice was light, bright and happy. She was probably very busy, but I knew how blessed I was to be secure in the knowledge that she would never be too busy for me.

  ‘Oh, you know,’ I began, trying and failing quite miserably to match her airy tone.

  ‘What?’ she said immediately, because she’d always been too perceptive by half. ‘What’s the matter? It’s not William is it, or Jon?’

  ‘No,’ I could feel my chin begin to wobble, tears to form in my eyes, ‘it’s...,’ and then it all came pouring out. The recent ‘meeting,’ if you could call it that, with the rugby player from that long ago wedding - and what suddenly seeing him again might mean.

  ‘You bumped into this guy where?’ she asked when I had finished and paused to draw a ragged breath.

  ‘Southampton,’ I said miserably.

  ‘But that’s at least thirty miles away,’ she pointed out in her sensible way. ‘Hardly just down the road.’

  ‘It’s still too close for comfort.’ I insisted with a shudder.

  ‘But he knows nothing about you, not even your name if I remember the details you shared at the time correctly.’

  ‘I feel sure he recognised me,’ I said.

  ‘Recognised you, after all this time? Come on, it’s been seven years, Wendy, and your time together was pretty brief.’

  ‘But I looked back as I was leaving the shop and he was just standing there, staring after me – and I had Will with me, Tina. Even now he’s probably putting two and two together and realising there may have been a consequence from our night together.’

  ‘Why would he care?’ Tina reasoned. ‘After all, he already has four children, remember.’

  ‘Oh, I know you’re right, but seeing him again has completely unsettled me. There are far too many coincidences for my liking, like his hair being dark now, like Will’s, the fact he’s so tall and everyone always commenting on how big Will is for his age, and,’ I gulped, ‘he has green eyes, Tina. I’d forgotten that – and Will’s are hazel.’

  ‘Your hair is dark, Jon is pretty tall, and hazel isn’t green.’ Tina’s patience was amazing and the more sensibly she responded to each and every worry, the more I calmed down.

  ‘I’m being silly, aren’t I?’

  ‘Not silly, no, love,’ I could hear the smile in her voice, ‘but perhaps a tad paranoid. The fling, if you can call it that, was a moment of madness on your part. We both know that. However, such liaisons were probably a much more common occurrence in his life and he was unlikely to have attached any importance at all to it. Even if he thought he knew you from somewhere, it’s highly unlikely he will ever actually be able to place you.’

  ‘Of course, you’re right.’ As I acknowledged that, I could feel a massive load lifting from my mind.

  ‘And,’ Tina reminded me, quite firmly, ‘the chances still are that Jon is Will’s biological father, you mustn’t ever forget that.’

  By the time I put the phone down I felt like a different person. All the doubts that had resurfaced since bumping into the Adonis the day before just melted away like ice cream on a sunny day. Of course, Jon was Will’s biological father – who could ever doubt it after once seeing them together? And I saw them together every single day.

  I went back to tackling the wedding cake with renewed energy and a clear mind. When I finally stood back I knew that I had created something unique and very beautiful. The bride was going to be thrilled and the cake would, I felt sure, result in a rash of orders after the wedding, probably enough to keep me busy for at least twelve months.

  We would be going to the wedding, of course, because the bride was one of the school gate mums I’d become friendly with. Like the majority of couples in these modern days, she and her partner had completed their family before they decided to name the day.

  ‘The only problem,’ Lucy had confided, ‘is that having your children before the wedding means you end up struggling to get back to your pre-maternity figure in time for the big day.’

  I actually thought she had an enviably slim figure, especially since the latest arrival was still small enough to be jiggled on her hip while she waited for her six year old to burst out of the classroom at the end of the school day. I was actually a little slimmer than my pre-William days myself, but had finally accepted that I would never be what you might call sylph-like, and discovered that I could live with that quite happily.

  ‘How’s the cake coming along?’ Lucy greeted me as I arrived to take my place among the mothers and fathers gathered outside of the school. I just nodded and smiled, not wishing to boast about how pleased I was with it.

  ‘It’s finished?’ she squeaked, and when I nodded again, she squeaked again, before begging, ‘Oh, my God, can I see it?’

  I laughed, and told her, ‘Well, I can hardly stop you, can I? It is your cake.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Probably best if we wait for the children to come out of school,’ I reminded her, and right on cue the bell went.

  ‘Am I allowed to take a peek?’ Jade Sopley had obviously heard every word but, as one of Lucy’s closest friends, no offence was taken by either of us at her nosiness.

  Lucy heaved a fake sigh and agreed, ‘Oh, ok, as it’s you? That’s it, though, no one else or we’ll ruin the surprise element. Is it ok to come back to yours now, Wendy?’

  I just managed to nod before Will raced towards me and hurled himself into my arms, knocking the breath out of me. ‘Hey, buddy,’ I wheezed, ‘missed me, have you?’

  I’d never got over being blessed with the birth of my – our – beautiful boy. He wasn’t just a handsome child; he had the most wonderful sunny nature, too. No whining or tantrums to contend with, no terrible twos, and he wasn’t even a fussy eater. I’d actually have liked another six just like him, but it had never happened even once more. Not even so much as a false alarm.

  Not that we had given up hoping, of course, because as Jon has said repeatedly over the years, ‘If it’s happened once it can happen again,’ but, content with our little boy, neither of us felt like giving nature a helping hand by going the fertility route.

  Will was beside himself with excitement when he realised we weren’t going home alone. I knew he would have all of his toys out, only too happy to share anything and everything with his friends.

  I made coffee and filled beakers with juice and plates with homemade biscuits as the bigger children rushed off to Will’s playroom, to return time and again with favourites from his shelves and toy boxes, held out for us to admire. I loved how Will brought suitable things for the baby to play with as well, and was so proud of how gentle he was with her.

  Lucy also noticed. ‘He’s so sweet,’ she said. ‘Have you thought about having more children? William would be a fantastic big brother.’

  ‘We’re working on it,’ Jon spoke suddenly from the doorway and we turned to find him smiling, unperturbed by Jade’s comments. Like me, he was more than happy with the child we had – anything else for us would be a bonus as far as we were concerned.

  None of us had heard Jon come in but, once the children heard his voice, they came hurtling into the kitchen and were soon hanging from Jon’s arms, climbing up his legs and begging him to
play with them.

  ‘You couldn’t have timed it better,’ I laughed. ‘You can take over while Jade and Lucy view the cake in peace.’

  ‘You did say you wanted a Mr Tumble themed wedding cake, didn’t you?’ Jon said straight-faced. ‘You know, to keep the children happy?’

  Lucy’s expression was a complete picture as she stared at him, clearly not sure whether to take him seriously or not.

  ‘Don’t listen to him,’ I advised with a grin, ‘he’s just winding you up. Come on, let’s leave him to it.’

  Once in my work room, with the door safely shut, I led the way across the room and unveiled the cake – all four tiers of it.

  There was a stunned silence, and it went on for so long that I became quite concerned and prompted, ‘For goodness sake say something. What do you think? Is it all right?’

  ‘All right,’ Lucy whispered, ‘all right?’ The silence lengthened again and anticipating a negative comment I found myself trying to work out how long it would take me to make another one from scratch.

  Then Lucy shrieked, ‘It’s amazing. I absolutely love it,’ and grabbing hold of me she spun me round and round in a mad impromptu dance and, very quickly, Jade joined in.

  ‘How do you do it?’ Jade sounded quite stunned. ‘It’s so delicate, so understated and so – so elegant.’

  ‘It’s everything I wanted and so much more.’ A tear trickled down Lucy’s cheek. ‘I don’t know how I can ever thank you.’

  *

  ‘So, I take it she was pleased with the wedding cake, then?’ Jon said, as we enjoyed our meal later after everyone had left.

  ‘I thought you had to be married already to have a baby,’ William suddenly piped up, as if he had been giving the matter a great deal of thought, ‘and Lucy and Roland have had two.’

  ‘No,’ I tried to explain gently and simply, taking into account the fact that he was only six years old, ‘you don’t have to be married, you just have to love one another.’

  ‘But you and Daddy are married and you love each other, but you’ve only got me.’