How Was It For You?

by Carmen Reid

‘Dave—’ she put her hand on his forearm to keep him seated and took a breath to steady herself: ‘I’m really sorry. I’m truly sorry for hurting you. You didn’t deserve that . . . Not at all.’

  He gave a little nod, acknowledging the apology. And now she was going to have to hurt him much more. Oh dear God . . . how was she going to do it? What were the best words for this? No, there were no good words for this at all.

  ‘I’m not sure how to tell you this . . .’ Her hand squeezed into his forearm; his eyes intently on her face now.

  ‘I really don’t want to tell you this . . .’ she stalled, ‘but it’s . . .’ Her heartbeat hurt, it physically hurt, her eyes scanned his face, then moved back down to the table again, wishing he could somehow guess, say it aloud for her, just know without the excruciating pain of her having to tell him.

  ‘Dave—’ just above a whisper, ‘I’m pregnant.’

  For a moment it was as if she hadn’t said anything at all. Her eyes fixed on his face saw it was unchanged, unmoved . . . Maybe she would have to say it again, he hadn’t heard . . . hadn’t taken it in . . .

  ‘The . . . fling . . . thing . . .’ she added reluctantly, totally unnecessarily.‘I’m pregnant.’

  ‘Oh no,’ came from him now.‘No, no.’ The pain in those words.

  His hands went up to his face and he began to rub his eyes as if he wasn’t able to believe what was in front of him.

  ‘Not that . . . no!’ He stood up and looked at her wildly.‘How do you expect me to cope with that?’ His voice was a strangled shout now: ‘What am I supposed to do with that? Just what am I supposed to do?’

  She had no idea how to reply to this, but he didn’t wait to hear anyway, just hurled himself furiously out of the kitchen door, then out of the back door, out of the house, so she wouldn’t see any more how upset he was.

  Bloody hell. Bloody, bloody awful hell.

  She didn’t deserve to sit at the table and cry, the way she wanted to. This was her fault, all hers, and she would have to go, she saw now. He couldn’t bear for her to be here any longer. So she would have to pack a suitcase straight away and go to her parents. The farm would go on the market and she would have to find somewhere new to live, a new job – and pregnant? How was that going to work? Too bad, she told herself . . . this was her problem.

  She went to the bedroom and got her suitcase out from under the bed, hands shaking as she piled her clothes in. She’d never done this before, in all their years together, she’d never had to pack her things and storm off to her parents’ house. But now she had finally done the unforgivable.

  As she was loading her bags into the boot of the car, she heard Dave’s footsteps on the gravel behind her.

  She turned to face him and he stopped in his tracks, realizing what she was doing. They looked at each other, a long look. Long, long look. This was really it, she suspected, heart full of fear. This could turn out to be the day when she left him, only planning to be away for a while, but actually never to come back. It had escalated so quickly to this. How had she managed to spend the day decorating?! Dreaming about how the house could be, how their life could be together . . . and by evening, be leaving?

  ‘Dave . . .’

  He crossed his arms and seemed to look past her, into the distance.

  ‘I think I should go . . . I don’t think you want me here any more, so I’m going to stay with my parents for . . .’ For what? A bit? A while? For ever?

  ‘Fine,’ he cut in.‘You do that, because no, I definitely don’t want to see you.’

  ‘OK, well . . .’ She struggled to shut the boot, didn’t seem to have the strength to get it to close. ‘Goodbye, then.’ They didn’t make any movement towards each other, the 10 metres or so between them wide as a sea.‘I’ll phone you,’ she added, not sure if she could do this, really go, when every part of her wanted to stay with him, comfort him, somehow help him through this.

  ‘If you have to,’ he said and turned abruptly away from her, heading to the house without a backward glance.

  By the end of the farm road, she wondered if it was safe to drive while crying this hard.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  PAMELA WORRIED ALL the way down the motorway what to tell her parents, how much to reveal and how she would do it. But once she’d arrived at their home, her mother and father made it easy for her. Prepared by mobile for her arrival and aware that something was very wrong, they ushered her into the house and led her to the sofa.

  They went through the hellos, the weather and the motorway traffic small talk, offered her a drink, then her mother decided it was time to get the real conversation under way.

  ‘So, what’s happened, honey?’ Helen wanted to know.‘Can you tell us?’

  Pamela saw the concern in both of her parents’ faces.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m here,’ she told them.‘It feels so stupid, so teenagey to be coming home to you with my problems.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Helen reassured her.

  ‘But I might need to stay for a bit, if that’s OK . . . and you have the best spare room,’ she smiled at them.

  ‘So?’ her dad’s eyebrows raised at her: ‘What’s the story?’

  ‘Well, er . . .’ There didn’t seem to be any way to give it to them, other than straight, ‘I’ve been having an affair.’ Bombshell number one.‘It wasn’t serious and it’s over now,’ she added quickly.‘But . . .’ Deep breath, ‘I’m pregnant . . .’ Bombshell number two, ‘And, well . . . it’s not exactly surprising, but Dave wants a divorce.’

  She watched as their faces changed, almost in slow motion, with the news. Her father looked purely surprised, her mother seemed to be struggling to know how to react.

  So, she came over and sat down on the sofa beside Pamela. Already in her dressing gown, Helen put a silky-sleeved arm around her.

  ‘Bit tricky, isn’t it?’ Pamela said into her mother’s bathed and body-lotioned shoulder.

  ‘Well yes . . . but I can’t help thinking that at least part of this is . . . wonderful,’ Helen said finally and kissed her daughter on the forehead.

  ‘I know,’ Pamela whispered, feeling the surge of relief.‘I’m glad you understand that.’

  ‘So, do you want to tell us a bit more? How did this all happen?’ her father said, still looking stunned over on the other side of the room.

  She nodded at him: ‘I think maybe I do need a drink first. Does anyone want a cup of tea?’

  Simon shook his head: ‘I think I’ll go for something a little stronger.’

  ‘Me too,’ from Helen.

  Drinks were organized in the kitchen and once they were settled down round the table there, Pamela told them all they needed to know. She appreciated how calmly they listened. They didn’t panic, make disapproving noises or rush in with a judgement at the end.

  When she’d finished her story, Helen was the first to speak.‘So, you’ve had this all out with Dave, have you?’ she asked.

  Pamela nodded in reply.

  ‘And you think divorce is going to be the next step?’ Helen asked as if there might be another option, when really, didn’t Pamela deserve a divorce? What else could happen now?

  ‘I’m not sure I’ve got any choice in the matter,’ she managed, feeling that the tears she’d held at bay throughout this conversation were not far away now.

  ‘Oh honey,’ her mother soothed.‘You’re going to stay with us for a little, though, aren’t you? Let us help you sort things out.’

  Pamela held out her hands, one for her dad to hold, one for her mother: ‘Is that OK?’ she asked, moved by the offer, their sympathy and understanding.‘You’re both really cool. Do you know that? I hope my baby . . .’ But she couldn’t finish the sentence.

  ‘How pregnant are you, honey?’ her mother asked.

  ‘I don’t even know . . .’ bubble of tears at this.‘Maybe two months or so . . . I need to see a doctor.’

  For several days, Pamela allowed herself to wallow. She wore her pyj
amas all day long, cried through whole boxes of mansize tissues and watched almost everything on the TV, as if life lessons of some sort could be drawn from re-runs of Cagney and Lacey and Murder She Wrote.

  In the evening, her parents were home, making her supper to ‘keep her strength up’, trying to support her.

  ‘So everyone’s devastated,’ she overheard her mother on the phone to Ted.‘Dave’s devastated, Pam’s devastated. You’re upset . . . we’re upset . . . I’m not sure where we go from here.’

  ‘We drink just a little bit too much wine – for a few days at least,’ was her father’s suggestion over dinner one evening. He even insisted Pamela have a little glass of red ‘for medicinal purposes’.

  ‘I’m very glad you’re not too shocked by all this,’ she confided to him.

  ‘We’re older than you, Pammy,’ he reminded her with a smile.‘We’re in our sixties . . . and we did the Sixties. There’s not a lot we haven’t heard before. And you know what? I’ve been wondering for years when you were finally going to break out and go a bit wild.’

  ‘Simon!’ Helen ticked him off.

  ‘Really?’ Pamela was surprised by this.‘I always thought the two of you were really keen for me to settle down and marry Dave.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ her mother answered.‘That too. But maybe you should have been a bit wilder first . . .’

  ‘Dad should have given me a better allowance then,’ she managed to joke.

  ‘I met Aunty Peg in town today,’ Helen told them.‘But you’ll be very impressed with me, I didn’t say anything about Pam. It seems a shame, though. She’d have loved it.’ She twirled spaghetti round her fork and smiled.‘Because, you know, you’ve had an affair with the local landowner, you’ve fallen pregnant, your husband has sent you from the farm in disgrace . . . it’s a real live historical romance . . . bodice-ripper territory, the kind of thing she gets from the library in bulk.’

  ‘Helen!’ It was her husband’s turn to tell her off now.‘It’s far too early for jokes.’

  But Pamela was smiling and threw in: ‘I’d just like to say, no bodices were technically ripped.’

  Her mother rewarded her with a pat on the arm.‘That’s my girl, everything has to be funny from at least one angle. Has to be. How else do we cope?’

  The following night, Helen curled up on the sofa beside her daughter and began to massage her feet and just chat about nothing in particular until she managed to spark the conversation that Pamela had wanted to have for days.

  ‘Can I ask you something very personal?’ Pamela dared.

  ‘Probably . . .’ Helen encouraged with a smile and a slightly too vigorous thumb circle into the ball of her daughter’s foot.

  ‘Ouch . . . How do you manage to stay in love for thirty-eight years and make it seem easy?’

  Her mother surprised her by bursting into laughter at this: ‘You’re asking me?’

  ‘Of course I’m asking you. I don’t know anyone else who’s been married this happily for this long.’

  ‘Oh boy . . .’ still laughing a little.‘Well, I’m flattered you ask, honey, really I am. But I want to be serious with you, give you the answers you deserve . . .’ So she thought for several minutes before replying, ‘First of all, two major things I have which you don’t.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Pamela was hardly able to contain her curiosity. Two major things? No wonder she didn’t have a hope.

  ‘Children and religion,’ was her mother’s answer.‘We had the two of you to care for, worry about, distract us, from pretty early on – and I was brought up a Catholic. I don’t know what holds any marriage together quite as strongly as those two elements.’

  ‘Er . . . well . . .’ Pamela was somewhat taken aback.‘I was expecting you to say love. You know, the famous Helen and Simon Zing Thing.’

  ‘Oh yes, well . . . love, of course.’ Her mother waved her hands about effusively, bringing the massage to an abrupt halt.‘But maybe not the kind you’re thinking of – swoony, heart-racing, can’t keep your hands off each other sort of thing. That goes—’ she started to laugh again.‘No, that’s not fair. It comes and goes, comes back again, cools off . . . returns. It depends on all sorts of things: how fat or thin I am, how many chores your father’s done round the house lately . . . how much money he’s earned, you know – complicated things!’

  ‘But you’ve always done the big, romantic lovers act,’ Pamela reminded her.

  ‘I don’t think it hurts to pretend, does it? If you pretend you’re something, you’re that bit closer to being it, aren’t you?’

  ‘So what kind of love are we talking about?’ Pamela wanted to know.

  ‘Unconditional, of course.’

  ‘Ooh. The big one.’

  ‘I love you and Ted unconditionally. No matter what you do. And I’ve never seen anyone else’s children and wished I could have them instead! I try to feel like that about Simon too.’

  ‘That’s very sweet,’ Pamela told her.

  ‘And because your parents love you like that, you’re probably programmed to go off into the world and look for it again. Won’t be happy till you find it . . . were happy because you did find it with someone.’ She picked up Pamela’s foot and began the kneading again, adding gently, eyes down, ‘I always thought you and Dave made each other very happy, until the infertility problem took over.’

  ‘Yup. We did,’ Pamela agreed and for a moment thought she would have to reach over for the mansize box again. But it passed.

  ‘And so,’ Pamela went on, ‘how do you keep attacks of the other kind of love at bay? The swoony, can’t keep your hands off each other stuff?’

  ‘You don’t – can’t!’ Helen laughed.‘I fall in love with someone else at least once a decade. But I try not to do too much about it.’

  Well, this was a revelation.

  ‘You don’t!’ Pamela insisted.

  ‘Everybody does. They’re lying if they tell you otherwise.’ Ouch. Ouch. Vicious thumb circles.

  ‘Who’ve you been in love with?’ her daughter was longing to know.

  ‘I definitely can’t tell you that.’ Helen let go of the foot she was working on and took a sip of the drink by her side.

  ‘Yes, you can,’ Pamela insisted, ‘I’m your daughter . . . your 35-year-old daughter, who is up the duff by her married lover, you can tell me anything.’

  Helen replied with a laugh, but then, finally halting the foot massage so she could concentrate, she confessed, still smiling: ‘The big romance of my married life – I really don’t know if I should tell you this, darling – oh, what the hell, it was so long ago . . . was Father Brian.’

  ‘Father Brian?! The priest!’

  ‘Oh, he was beautiful,’ her mother replied.‘And such a sensitive soul.’

  ‘Did you have an affair?’ Pamela, wide-eyed now, was racking her brain for an image of Father Brian.

  ‘No. No, well . . . I was obsessed. I was going to church three times a week. I couldn’t get him out of my head. You know what these things are like, I imagine—’ pointed look.‘There was a bit of heated kissing in the vestry.’

  ‘NO!’

  ‘Oh yes, then the next thing I knew, Father Brian was “on holiday”, then transferred to a parish in Scotland.’

  ‘He got found out?!’

  ‘No, I don’t think he did. He was such a tortured soul, I think he confessed – of course – so the Church stepped in to give him an easy getaway.’

  Pamela, stunned, finally asked: ‘So I’m sworn to secrecy then, am I?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Oh no. No, of course not, Simon knows. We often have a good old laugh about that one.’

  ‘So how many other ones are there?!’ Pamela asked.

  ‘About once a decade . . . Simon too . . . so that’s about eight between us, I suppose. Best not to do too much about it because they go away – you get over them. But then, I’m beginning to think people get over everything . . . eventua
lly.’ She reached down for her drink once again.‘However . . . unconditional love, that’s what the world needs more of. But hey, I was at Woodstock.’ Helen flicked a peace sign at her.

  ‘Of course you were.’ Pamela gave an eye roll. This was a famous family legend.

  ‘Will I get over Dave?’ she asked her mother then.

  ‘If you want to, honey.’

  ‘What if I don’t want to?’

  ‘Then it’ll take a little longer. But you know what?’ she looked at her daughter very seriously now.‘You should probably get in your car, head on up there and at least tell him you don’t want to get over him.’

  ‘Ha! I don’t think he wants to hear from me, ever again.’

  ‘I think you’re wrong there, Ted says he’s absolutely heartbroken. But anyway, you won’t know till you try, will you?’

  ‘Mum, I’m pregnant with someone else’s baby!’

  ‘Oh so what . . .’ Helen dared.‘It’s not the nineteenth century, no-one expects you to go off and shoot yourself. And anyway, you were doing donor sperm stuff before you left London, is there such a big difference?’

  ‘I think you’ll find there is. Penis versus pipette. Believe me, it’s a little different.’

  But Helen wasn’t backing down: ‘This is modern life, Pamela. People can get used to anything if they want to.’

  ‘You think we should get back together again, don’t you?’ She sounded her mother out.

  ‘Can you stop worrying about what I want? Please. All I want is to point out to you, that you and Dave often talked about moving to the country, together, when you had children. Maybe if you both stopped making such a big drama out of this you could finally get what you wanted . . . Did you ever think of it that way?’

  No, she hadn’t thought of it that way – and how did she even begin to make Dave think of it that way?

  She dared to ask her mother’s advice once again.

  ‘Big declarations,’ was what Helen recommended.‘Big declarations are always good. If you leave now, you’ll be there by . . .’

  ‘One in the morning! No, I have to sleep on this.’

  ‘Bah!’ her mother scoffed.‘Not exactly the Woodstock way, is it?’