‘You single?’ asked Tommy. ‘I am. If you are, maybe we could go out for a meal sometime. Fancy that? What do you like? Chinese? Italian? Thai? Then we can have a proper catch-up, can’t we?’
Palma’s eyebrows raised at the long string of questions. Which to answer first.
‘Yes, I’m single,’ she replied. ‘And I like it that way.’
‘Okay, well, as friends. I have to watch my diet. Two months before a fight and I’m on a really strict regime, but I can have the odd day off at the moment if I need to.’
The last time she’d been out for a meal had been with Grace. Grace had taught her that the plate on her left was her side plate and that she used her cutlery from the outside in. It had been a lovely posh restaurant where the waitress unfolded her serviette and placed it in her lap for her. She’d had a steak and it had come with potatoes that were piped into stars and ‘flat peas’ and Grace had laughed and told her they were called mangetout.
‘Yeah, why not,’ said Palma. A change of scenery would be nice. She’d become used to being lonely and she knew that wasn’t good.
Tommy smiled. ‘Great stuff. Friday night? You got a preference?’
‘Surprise me,’ said Palma.
‘Okay, I will,’ said Tommy, draining his cup, which he then carried to the sink and swilled.
‘Actually, I like Chinese best,’ said Palma.
‘So do I. I’ll pick you up at seven. Friday, yeah?’
‘Okay,’ said Palma, as he opened the door. The fat smelly woman who lived in the flat above was coming down the stairs. An unattractive mix of yeast and urine hovered around her like a rancid aura. She saw Tommy’s nose twitch slightly.
‘I’m moving from here,’ said Palma quickly. ‘Soon as I can.’ She didn’t know why she felt the need to make the point to him, but she did.
‘You should,’ said Tommy before he too went down the stairs. ‘You were always better than this.’
Chapter 10
Eve had made a Sunday lunch with more trimmings than her Auntie Susan put on the Christmas dinner, which equated to a veritable overload. She and Jacques hadn’t taken a day off in ages, and she’d done a really daft thing by suggesting she cook because she had almost dropped off to sleep whilst stirring the gravy. They had only six weeks until the lagoon opened and then they could take their foot off the pedal, but she had no idea how she was going to last the pace.
If she told Jacques how tired she felt, he would insist she stay at home and that’s why she wouldn’t. She’d pushed for the extension to Santapark and the lagoon and when Franco Mezzaluna had offered to open the new attraction, Eve’s plans had spun like candy floss around a stick, getting even bigger and grander; and so there was absolutely no way she was going to dump them all onto someone else to fulfil.
‘Where’s this lunch, wench?’ Jacques shouted from the dining room. ‘And would you like a glass of red or white with it?’
‘Neither, I’m having a glass of sparkling water,’ said Eve. She couldn’t drink alcohol during the day at the best of times without it closing her brain down, and she didn’t want to waste her afternoon off snoozing on the sofa. She lifted up the plates and carried them through. Jacques was looking a lot more enthusiastic than she was at the sight of the feast she’d prepared. She’d spent the morning peeling and whisking, basting and boiling and she didn’t want a single mouthful of it.
She forced down as much of it as she could, aware that she was pushing it around her plate as she used to do with her horrible school dinners.
‘That was superb, so why haven’t you eaten much?’ Jacques asked, placing his cutlery on his empty plate which he had cleared in record time. ‘You okay?’
‘Fine, just tired,’ Eve replied, rolling out that excuse yet again.
He humphed. ‘I told you we should have eaten out. It was mad—’
‘I wanted to do the wife thing,’ Eve interrupted him. ‘I wanted us to be at home eating a meal cooked from fresh for a change.’ She stood up and reached to pick up his plate and Jacques gently slapped her hand away.
‘I’ll do the washing up. You choose a film and we’ll settle down, put our feet up and relax.’
‘Sounds great,’ said Eve, stifling a yawn.
‘I’ll bring in a big bowl of ice-cream to share. Any particular flavour?’
‘Ooh, you choose.’
But by the time Jacques had finished loading up the dishwasher, Eve was snoozing on the sofa looking absolutely dead to the world, although the snoring told him she was still very much alive. Jacques put a fleecy throw over her and slotted a cushion under her head, then ate all the ice-cream himself and put on a shouty action film as a consolation prize for the lack of company.
*
Palma decided to set off to the Stephensons’ house at four. She knew more or less for certain that they’d be in because Tabitha had once told her that their Sunday nights at home were sacrosanct. It was odd that they hadn’t contacted her first, she thought as she emptied her change pot for the bus fare. Tabitha had Palma’s expected period dates in her diary and had usually called her two days after one was due to start to find out if she’d had it and, if yes, then to coordinate the next ‘session’. Palma had done the second test from the packet that afternoon and the result was the same, as she knew it would be because she felt inexplicably pregnant. She put both tests in her bag as proof for payment and headed to the bus stop hoping that she didn’t bump into Clint. A visit from him was impending and she shuddered slightly thinking about it. She couldn’t wait to get her cash and start looking around for a better place. It didn’t have to be big or fancy, just away from this area and preferably with a nice bath that she could lounge in. She’d read somewhere that unborn babies liked it when their mums lounged in water, so long as it wasn’t too hot.
Mum.
The word hit her like a tractor from left field. She shouldn’t think of herself as a mum – that was dangerous – because she wasn’t its mum. She was a vehicle, a carrier, a temporary life support machine, whatever you wanted to call it but not mum. She didn’t like it that the word had even entered her head. Tabitha would be the baby’s mum.
The bus arrived on time and then she had only five minutes to wait in the main station to catch the connecting bus out to Maltstone. It was lovely there. Only four miles away from the town centre, Maltstone boasted lots of surrounding countryside and a garden centre café that she’d always wanted to try. Maybe, if she found a house in nearby Dodley, where the property prices were much cheaper, she might do that because it was only a few bus stops away.
Ladybower Gardens was just a short walk when she got off the bus. Up a slight hill, past the sort of houses that she herself would never live in. Houses with front lawns like bowling greens and remote control gates. People on this estate didn’t catch buses into town, they chose between jumping in their little Audi TTs or their big Range Rovers. Palma could drive; she’d paid for her own lessons from her wages, but buying a car was a different matter. She didn’t fancy an old banger that was going to cost her a fortune in garage fees and so, until she could afford something decent, she’d wait.
She hadn’t wanted to phone and reveal this great moment to the Stephensons in advance. She wanted to be there to deliver the news in person and see Tabitha’s delighted face and watch Christian reach for the cash out of his safe. His car wasn’t on the drive but Tabitha’s was and Palma just caught a glimpse of her passing the front window, so it wouldn’t be a wasted trip. She walked up the path and for once didn’t hear any domestic going on within the walls. The house was silent. No TV, no music, no anything.
She pressed the doorbell and Big Ben with his echoey bell-tails rang out then Tabitha’s shape appeared in the frosted glass. When she opened the door, Palma’s smile faded because Tabitha was barely recognisable without her usual inch of make-up on, plus her hair looked like unbrushed straw and as far from its usual honeyed sleekness as it was possible to get. She seemed slightly disorientated
too, almost as if she didn’t recognise Palma at first. Palma was about to ask if she was okay, when Tabitha clicked back into herself and apologised for being vague and invited her in. The group of couple-y photos in frames that had always stood on the hall table was no longer there, but on the floor were pieces of glass and broken wood; the photos were torn up into tiny pieces like confetti. The table itself was lying on its side at the bottom of the stairs as if it had been thrown.
‘Oh my goodness, what’s happened? Have you been burgled?’ Palma drew the most obvious conclusion.
‘Burgled?’ Tabitha’s brow creased, then the penny dropped and she gave a short laugh; a hard sound. ‘In a way,’ she replied. ‘I’ve been stolen from, yes, Palma. Robbed fucking blind.’
Palma stood awkwardly whilst Tabitha bent and picked up a long dagger of glass, looked at it, and then flung it over her shoulder.
‘Would you like a drink?’ asked Tabitha. ‘Tea, gin, vodka, red red wine. Apparently it makes you feel so fucking fine, but it doesn’t, trust me, because I’ve tried it.’ Palma noticed the slur in her voice now. She hadn’t been disorientated at the door: she was pissed.
‘Er, no thanks.’
‘So, what can I do for you? Is it isen . . . insemer . . . insemination day again? My, how time flies.’
She turned too quickly towards the lounge door and would have fallen if she hadn’t bounced into the jamb; she’d obviously been drinking plenty of that red red wine today.
‘No I came to—’
‘Because I have to tell you, Palma my dear, the deal is off. I won’t be requiring your services and neither will he. My hus-band.’ Tabitha pronounced the word with pantomime exaggeration of her lips, like an actor performing speech exercises backstage.
‘What?’ said Palma.
‘Christian. He’s been banging a little girl in his office.’ Tabitha smiled nastily.
She was joking, surely? Palma felt as if she’d just been an unwitting victim of the ice bucket challenge because a shower of coldness claimed her from the skull down. This was not adhering to the script that she’d imagined would play out.
‘You’re kidding?’
‘Do I look as if I’m fucking kidding?’ Tabitha screamed at her then toned it down. ‘I’m sorry, Pal-ma. I shouldn’t have shouted. This is not your fault. You are not the one he’s been . . .’ She paused, considered, squinted. ‘You haven’t been, have you? Have you been fucking my husband as well?’
‘No, I haven’t,’ Palma returned immediately. ‘I haven’t seen him outside our . . . arrangement.’
‘She’s twenty,’ said Tabitha, her eyes travelling down the whole of Palma’s length and back up again to her face. ‘He likes them young and blonde and pliant. I replaced his first wife who was ten years older than me and now I’ve been replaced by someone ten years younger than me. Some might say that’s karma. I almost feel sorry for her. She’ll soon find out that her knight in shining armour is just a twat in tinfoil. As I did.’
‘Surely it’s . . . mendable,’ said Palma, her heart rate increasing. ‘Have you . . . have you spoken . . .’
‘It’s been going on for a year and he wasn’t in a rush to choose between us so the bitch decided to force his hand by telling me herself. A whole. Fucking. Year. I didn’t even smell a whisker of the rat, never mind the rat itself.’
A year. But that didn’t make any sense.
‘Why would he have agreed to this . . . surrogacy if he’s been having an affair for a year?’
‘Because he thinks with his dick and not his brain,’ snarled Tabitha, wobbling as she prodded her head hard with her index finger. ‘Maybe he thought it would make it easier for me to cope with his adultery if I had a baby. A consolation prize. Or maybe he thought I’d forgive him more easily if he crawled back with his tiny tail between his legs. Who knows. Who even cares. Thank God his sperm was as useless as the rest of him. At least we don’t have that mess to sort out.’
Panic gripped Palma’s throat with sharp, bony fingers. ‘Tabitha, I am pregnant.’ Her hands were barely in her control as she pulled out the two pregnancy tests from her bag. ‘That’s what I came to tell you.’
Time froze for a couple of seconds, though it felt like much longer. The only movement was Tabitha’s jaw opening by degrees; then she made a grab for the wands, stared at them disbelievingly, and coolly handed them back.
‘Pal-ma, do you honestly expect me to take on a child that has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the slimy shit who put it in you?’
Palma swallowed. ‘Now hang on a minute. We had a deal. I—’
‘Where’s the binding contract, sweetheart? Where’s the evidence of this so-called deal – show me? I suggest you do what I’ve done and get rid of every trace of him.’
Palma’s panic segued quickly into anger. ‘I’m having it for you, because you can’t have bloody kids.’
Tabitha’s hand came to her tiny waist. ‘Who said I can’t have them?’
Palma’s face scrunched into a mask of confusion. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I chose not to. I don’t want all those . . . stretchmarks and things.’
Clint had definitely told her that Tabitha couldn’t have kids. It was what had made her agree to this in the first place. As much as she needed the money, she would not have carried a child for someone who just couldn’t be arsed doing it herself. Palma put both her hands on her stomach. ‘This is yours, Tabitha, not mine. I am carrying this for you.’
Tabitha chuckled. ‘Well I certainly don’t want it. Buy yourself some gin and run yourself a hot bath, dear.’
Unable to contain herself, Palma leapt to a threat. ‘I want my money. And if Clint doesn’t get his money it won’t be only photo frames that you’re clearing up.’
Tabitha’s mouth gathered into a tight little knot at the name. She opened a drawer in the tall unit behind her and pulled out a business card. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘His mobile number is on there. Get him to pay you. Tell him you’re going to keep it and take him to the fucking cleaners with maintenance payments if he tries to fob you off, that should get you what you want. He’s got plenty, he can afford to pay for the mess he’s got you into. He’s certainly going to have to spend lots to get rid of me. But my advice would be to trot off to the doctor’s, darling. You can do it with pills if it’s early enough: trust me, I know. Easy peasy, doesn’t even hurt. Get your money first and then tell him you lost it.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Looking at it now, it was hardly the most well thought-out deal was it?’
‘You wanted this baby so much. Neither of us were going to back out!’ Palma’s voice had twisted to alarm again. She’d never foreseen this. There wasn’t any paperwork because they didn’t need it; Christian didn’t want a paper trail and no one would cross Clint. People who made deals with him tended to stick to them and some snowflake like Christian wouldn’t have dared mess with him.
‘It’s really not my problem, it’s his,’ said Tabitha. ‘And now I’d like you to go. We don’t have anything further to say to each other.’
Palma’s eyes were filling with tears now – tears of distress, frustration and anger. ‘This baby is yours, not mine, Tabitha.’
‘No, it’s yours and his and we have no connection. Not now.’
‘He might be back. You can sort this . . .’
Tabitha turned on her then. ‘Excuse me, miss, who the hell are you to give me marriage guidance? I do not want that duplicitous dickhead back. And I most certainly do not want his . . . his . . .’ she stabbed her finger in the direction of Palma’s stomach, then strode to the front door and opened it. ‘Go, please,’ she said. ‘Ring that number on the card and speak to him and do what you have to, but don’t come here again. I’ll call the police next time.’
Palma couldn’t move.
‘Get out,’ screamed Tabitha, which did galvanise her into leaving.
Palma’s heart was beating so fast she thought it might explode by the time she reached the bench near
the bus stop. Her fingers were trembling so much she could barely press the numbers on her phone to ring Christian on the number printed on the business card. Not surprisingly, he didn’t answer.
Last week, we reported that Tommy ‘TENT’ Tanner would be fighting Londoner Frank Arse at the O2 arena in London on 23 December in the first defence of his title. There was an unfortunate spelling error and it should have read Frank Harsh.
Chapter 11
At eight o’clock the next morning, Annie was already queueing outside the doctor’s. The surgery was over-subscribed and if she’d rung for an appointment, she might not have got one for a fortnight so this was her only option if she wanted to be seen quickly. Five people came after her but she secured the first free appointment, which wasn’t for an hour so she waited, reading a magazine, but didn’t take any of it in because her brain was rolling with worrying thoughts she couldn’t bat away. It was a relief when they called her name and told her to take the first door on the left. And then, as Joe would have put it, everything went pazzo.
Dr Gilhooley, son of the Dr Gilhooley who had recently retired, looked exactly like his father had at that age. He even sounded exactly like the man who had diagnosed Annie with chicken pox in her early teens, his voice smooth as Guinness, with an inherent Terry Wogan-esque twinkle adding cadence to certain phrases. It messed with her head. Just as the words he was saying to her now were doing, too. She could easily have believed that she was not in this room but in a mad dream, one that she’d had so many times before only to wake up and find her rocket of hope pulled down by the weight of disappointment.
‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’ she asked. The words had entered her ear but they couldn’t find a home in any part of her brain that would accept them. Every door to them was closed, since they were universally acknowledged as deceivers of the cruellest kind.
The Mother of All Christmases Page 6