Country Loving

by Cathy Woodman

  ‘He’ll come round eventually.’

  ‘I doubt it very much.’

  ‘At least he has the money to help you out.’

  ‘I don’t need his money.’

  ‘You know what I mean. He can do his bit to support the baby. It’ll take the pressure off you.’

  ‘How on earth am I going to tell him?’ I pick up a cushion from the window-seat and hug it tightly to my chest for comfort.

  ‘You should go and speak to him face to face. Guy can help out with the milking – he’ll lend you Adam.’

  ‘At a cost. His rates are pretty high,’ I say with a rueful smile.

  ‘You know there are some positives to this situation. We’ll be able to help each other out and talk nappies and cradle cap.’ Jennie sighs happily. ‘There are some topics of conversation that can only be shared with another mum.’

  ‘Fantastic,’ I say with sarcasm. ‘I can’t imagine anything more dull than thinking about nappies.’

  ‘You’ll be surprised how important it is to have the right ones when the time comes.’ Jennie grins before growing serious again. ‘I wonder what kind of father Nick will want to be. Long-distance or hands-on?’

  ‘How can he be hands-on when we live so far apart?’ My brain hurts. It’s all too much to think about. I can’t get my head around the fact I am going to have a baby, let alone what will happen once it’s born. ‘I don’t know what he’ll want,’ I say miserably. ‘I thought we’d made a clean break, but now I’m going to have to see him again.’

  To my horror and shame, I notice I’ve been crying into Jennie’s cushion.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I exclaim. I’ll have it dry-cleaned. I’ll buy you a new one.’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’ll go in the wash. I’m not house-proud, not with four kids running around the place.’

  ‘Four?’ I look up through the lank fronds of my hair.

  ‘I include Guy – he’s still a child at heart, even though he’s about to become a dad for the first time.’

  ‘What is my dad going to think? He’s bound to give me a lecture.’

  Jennie stands up slowly from the floor and touches my shoulder.

  ‘You have to ignore everyone else and concentrate on you and the baby. Anyway, I’m sure your dad will love it.’

  ‘Only if it’s a boy to inherit the farm,’ I say sharply. ‘In his opinion, girls aren’t worth anything.’

  ‘That’s a very old-fashioned and bigoted outlook.’

  ‘Because he’s old-fashioned and bigoted,’ I say glumly.

  ‘Stevie, come downstairs and have some cake. It might make you feel better.’ When I open my mouth to argue that I’m not hungry, Jennie continues, ‘You’re eating for two now. You can’t think of any advantages of being pregnant yet, but there are some, and having an excuse to eat as much as you like is one of them.’

  She’s right. Back down in the kitchen, I eat two vanilla and chocolate cupcakes. Jennie helps herself to three.

  ‘You won’t say anything to anyone, will you?’ I ask her before I leave Jennie’s Folly, taking advantage of a gap in the thundery showers to walk back.

  ‘You’re going to have to tell Leo too, aren’t you?’ she says as if reading my mind. ‘It’s all right, Stevie. I’ll keep my mouth shut. I promise. And if you ever want to talk, you know where I am.’

  ‘Thank you, Jennie.’

  I can’t help thinking, as I make my way back to the farm, that if I’d accepted Nick’s proposal and returned to London, we would have bought our house near Wimbledon Common by now and be about to become a family. I would never have grown close to Leo. What am I going to do about Leo? I’m doubly distraught because I can’t possibly continue my relationship with him when I’m pregnant with Nick’s child. It isn’t fair, not just because it isn’t Leo’s baby, but because I know how he feels about children and how he couldn’t bear any reminder of his nephew’s short life. It isn’t right for me to remain his girlfriend and lover, but the idea of pulling back from Leo now is heartbreaking.

  How I wish I hadn’t slept with him now. It’s made everything so much more difficult.

  In fact, I’m relieved when Leo’s on duty this evening, and is so busy he has to prioritise his emergency visits and ask Alex to cover one of them.

  ‘I’m going to do some work on the project,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve got plenty of admin to catch up with.’

  ‘That sounds incredibly dull,’ Leo says, smiling.

  ‘It has to be done.’ I pause. ‘By the way, I’m going to have to pop up to London this weekend.’

  ‘Oh? I’m off this weekend. Why don’t we go together?’

  ‘No, you’d be bored witless,’ I say quickly. ‘I’m going to fetch my car and some of my stuff from the flat and catch up with India.’

  ‘I thought you’d got it all. Why do you want your car all of a sudden?’

  ‘I thought the car would be useful, and there are a couple of things I forgot and, anyway, India’s having one of her usual crises. I haven’t seen her for ages and she could do with a shoulder to cry on.’

  ‘So you don’t need me in the way,’ Leo says wistfully. ‘Next time maybe?’

  ‘That would be fun,’ I say, but I don’t feel excited over the prospect of going on a weekend trip to London with Leo in the future, when I’m lying to him about my reasons for going this time. I’m delaying the terrible moment for as long as I can, using the excuse that I have to let Nick know that I’m pregnant first.

  Tonight, I can’t sleep. After midnight, I sit in my old bed with a joyful Bear at my feet and stare across at the window, the curtains open, at the hills beyond, the stars and the milky luminescence of the galaxy. It is so quiet, the air is bursting with silence – that’s the only way I can describe it – and a lump catches in my throat and a tear falls onto Bear’s silky coat. Why? Why did it have to happen to me? Bear turns and gazes at me, his eyes gleaming softly in the dark. He raises his head and licks my face.

  ‘Bear,’ I say, smiling. He wags his tail and rests his head across my legs. ‘You’re a good boy.’

  He raises his lip as if smiling back, rolling over to expose his belly, asking for a stroke, knowing full well that I won’t send him back to sleep on his old chair in the lean-to.

  In spite of the test, I can’t believe there is anyone inside me. I want to scream and scream. Why me? Why us? Why now? What terrible timing! I’ve always known I want children, just not now, not this minute and not with Nick. I’ve got myself into a terrible muddle.

  I used to think people who fell pregnant unintentionally were just plain stupid or careless, and it would never happen to me, but it has and here I am. If I was merely pregnant, that would be bearable, but I’m pregnant with my ex’s baby and I’m in love with Leo.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Cow Jumped Over the Moon

  ‘You’re very quiet this morning,’ Cecil says as I drop a set of clusters on the floor for the third time. ‘You seem out of sorts.’

  ‘I have a lot on my mind. I’m going to London tomorrow. I hope you don’t mind doing the milking, but I need to pick up some more of my things – my car, for example.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, my lover. I keep telling you I can do it by myself.’

  ‘I know you’re perfectly capable, but I like to feel I’m doing my bit. Cecil, isn’t it time you slowed down?’

  ‘No, Stevie,’ he says, and I feel a pang of anxiety when I notice his eyes watering with tears whenever the possibility of retirement is broached. ‘It’s all right. It had to come. There’s no need to beat around the bush out of kindness. You don’t want us any more.’

  ‘What do you mean? I’ve said nothing of the sort.’

  ‘What I feared has come to pass. I expect we’ll find a little place in town, or Mary’s cousin might be able to put us up for a while.’ He utters a grating sigh. ‘You need the cottage for the new staff, the young ones.’

  ‘I’ve said before I wouldn’t dream of making you and
Mary homeless after all you’ve done for the farm. You’re part of it. No, I wouldn’t entertain it.’

  ‘I’ve been lucky, but I’m not going to be able to work for ever and neither is Mary.’

  ‘You can’t afford to buy a house of your own and you’d be pushed to find the rent for a place in Talyton.’

  ‘Ah, but that’s our problem, not yours. I reckon you have enough problems of your own.’

  Immediately, my mind returns to the baby – little does Cecil know exactly how many problems I’m grappling with. I try to push thoughts of my pregnancy predicament to the back of my brain to concentrate on putting Cecil’s mind at rest. I feel rather ashamed that it is my father who unintentionally put Cecil and Mary in a precarious financial position. They have had the cottage rent-free for years, along with a certain amount of food, cider, wood for the fire, use of a vehicle and – at one time – red diesel from the pump we used to have on the farm to fuel the tractor. They have hardly lived like kings and I feel as if we’ve taken advantage of their loyalty.

  ‘I’m not asking you to retire, Cecil. It would be nice to think you could have a rest, that’s all.’

  ‘I couldn’t retire. It would drive me mad if I had to stay indoors, and Mary wouldn’t want me under her feet all day.’

  ‘When we open the visitor attraction, we’ll need your help. There’ll still be some cows on the farm that need milking. It will be up to you how much or how little you want to do. There’s the garden too – Dad can’t do it, and I don’t want to. I won’t have the time …’ I glance down at my belly involuntarily and hope Cecil hasn’t noticed.

  ‘Are you sure you haven’t taken on too much? It’s an enormous project.’

  ‘I’m going to give it a go. Nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that,’ I go on brightly. Losing my mother, realising my father is mortal and that life is not a rehearsal, has made me stronger and more determined to go for what I want. How am I going to meet the deadline for the project when I’m having a baby in the middle of it all? I feel trapped because there’s no way I can give up now, even if I wanted to, because I’ll have someone entirely dependent on me for everything: food, clothes, nappies – I grimace at the thought – and attention.

  ‘I’ll drive you to the station,’ Cecil offers.

  ‘Thank you.’ There isn’t a station in Talyton St George. ‘That would be perfect.’ I’ve told India I’ll be dropping by at the flat to collect the last of my bits and pieces – a few clothes and the car keys. I haven’t told her I’ve arranged to meet Nick at lunchtime. I plucked up the courage to call him on the phone last night.

  ‘I need to see you about something,’ I said.

  ‘That sounds mysterious,’ he responded. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me what it’s about? Only I’m too busy to play games.’

  ‘I wanted a word …’

  ‘Really, Stevie, I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to see each other again, not for me at least.’

  ‘Oh, I see. I don’t want to catch up for old times’ sake. I have something I need to talk to you about.’

  ‘I’m your ex-boyfriend. I hardly think that qualifies me as your therapist.’

  ‘I don’t need therapy.’

  ‘So what is it?’

  ‘I can’t say on the phone.’

  ‘Don’t rake up the past, Stevie. You can’t imagine how much you’ve hurt me. I don’t want to go through that again. I’m trying to move on.’

  ‘I never wanted to hurt you, Nick.’

  ‘Is it work? Don’t tell me – you’ve had enough of the muck and mud and the early starts and you want your job back?’

  ‘No,’ I say, but he blunders on.

  ‘That’s impossible now. We’ve taken on a new member of staff.’

  ‘Listen, I’m coming up tomorrow to pick up my car. How about lunch? This won’t take long.’

  ‘Lunch,’ he agrees eventually. ‘One o’clock at the pub. I can’t afford to leave the office for long.’

  ‘On a Saturday?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m very busy,’ he says with pride, and I wonder if he’s trying to show me what I could have had if I’d stayed with him in London.

  The next day, I take the train back to Wimbledon, wishing the journey would never end, but all too soon I’m at the pub. Nick is already there at a table in the corner – our table, the one where we used to meet when we were trying to hide the fact we were dating from our colleagues – and I feel a pang of regret when I see him that I couldn’t make it work. Dressed in shirtsleeves and a tie, he sits with a white wine spritzer, his laptop open and his mobile phone vibrating in front of him. He looks slimmer than when I last saw him, though not anorexic with misery. He doesn’t appear to have done the heartbreak diet.

  He looks up with a half-smile, quickly converted to a frown as he stands up. ‘Stevie, what can I get you?’

  ‘An orange juice, please.’

  ‘You don’t like oranges.’

  ‘My tastes have changed.’

  ‘So I hear.’

  ‘What have you heard?’

  ‘India mentioned you’d been seeing the vet. It appears you’ve been sleeping with the enemy – after all, he did try to convince the Animal Welfare officer to close down your precious farm.’

  That stings me. ‘For one, Leo’s okay as a person, and two, it’s none of your business if I’m seeing him or not. Anyway, how come you’ve spoken to India?’ I feel hurt that she’s been talking to Nick behind my back. What I tell her is supposed to be confidential. ‘I thought you’d collected your things from the flat.’

  ‘She’s still finding bits and pieces – it’s obviously taken me longer to disentangle myself from this relationship than it has you.’

  Nick orders orange juice at the bar before we choose beef and horseradish sandwiches. I wasn’t hungry before, but I am now.

  ‘So what is this all about?’ Nick asks as we return to our table. ‘I can’t see we have anything left to say to each other.’

  I pull out a chair and sit down opposite him.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ I say, closing his laptop.

  ‘I do mind. You’ve put it into hibernate mode.’

  ‘Nick, I’m pregnant.’

  The laptop forgotten, he stares at me. ‘Why tell me?’

  ‘Because it’s your baby,’ I say quietly.

  ‘What the …?’ He swears aloud. There’s the sound of a clattering fork from the adjacent table and the pub falls silent. ‘How can it be? I don’t believe you.’

  ‘I’m one hundred and one per cent sure. It’s your baby,’ I repeat. I’m genuinely shocked, because for all my imagining how Nick was going to take the news, I never dreamed he’d doubt me.

  ‘There’ll have to be a DNA test. Can you do them before the baby’s born?’

  ‘I don’t know. If you want a test to confirm, you can do the legwork and let me know what you need me to do. There is no doubt it’s yours. I haven’t slept with anyone … I mean, I wasn’t sleeping with anyone else when I was with you …’

  ‘So you are sleeping with the vet?’

  ‘All right, yes, I am now, but the dates don’t tie up,’ I insist. ‘I’m more than twenty weeks gone.’ I glance around the pub. Two well-dressed men in their twenties – estate agents, I suspect – are watching with interest from the adjacent table.

  ‘Don’t stop on our account,’ one says. ‘This is just like being on The Jeremy Kyle Show.’

  I glare back at them.

  ‘Ignore them,’ Nick says. ‘You’ll have to explain,’ he goes on, lowering his voice to a harsh whisper. ‘How on earth did it happen?’

  ‘In the usual way, I guess. Do you want me to give you a biology lesson?’

  ‘You were on the Pill!’

  ‘Yes, but it isn’t one hundred per cent failsafe.’

  ‘You didn’t take it properly?’ Nick rubs his forehead, leaving a red mark. ‘Did you miss a day or something?’

  ‘Don’t you think I’ve gone
over it again and again already? I don’t know why it didn’t work.’ I pull myself together. ‘Don’t go heaping the blame on me. You had just as much to do with this as I did. It’s half yours.’

  Nick buries his head in his hands and I wonder as time passes if he’s ever going to face up to his responsibilities. The sandwiches look as if they’re beginning to curl at the edges and the bubbles have disappeared from Nick’s spritzer. The energy has drained from me too. Nick and I can hardly bear to speak to each other, let alone be in the same room. How can we possibly raise a child together?

  ‘I’ve always wondered if they would work, if I would end up finding out I was firing blanks,’ Nick begins eventually. ‘It’s pretty bad luck then to get caught out like this. How many weeks did you say you were again?’

  I tell him.

  ‘Does that mean it happened when we were on holiday?’

  ‘I think it was that last time, at the farm.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I was hoping you’d say, “what are we going to do?” but if you want to wash your hands of it, it might make life easier.’

  ‘More straightforward, you mean. I don’t think your life is going to be easy.’ Nick looks me up and down. ‘Are you absolutely sure? You don’t look pregnant.’

  ‘It’s in there, all right. I’ve done a pregnancy test – four, in fact, since I did the first one at Jennie’s – and I’ve felt the baby move. I’m going to get in touch with the doctor and midwife this week.’

  ‘So you’re keeping it?’

  I nod. ‘I don’t believe in termination.’

  ‘I want to play a part in the baby’s life and be a proper dad,’ Nick says.

  ‘How can you do that when we live so far apart?’

  ‘Stevie –’ Nick places his hand on mine and cages it with his fingers – ‘can we start again? You, me and the baby?’

  It’s something I hadn’t considered and he’s taken me by surprise. The tang of horseradish rasps at the back of my throat.

  ‘It’s like this was meant to be. Come back and live here. We can be a proper family.’

  ‘No, Nick.’

  ‘I want to be a good dad, not some bloke who lives over a hundred miles away and sends presents twice a year.’