A Very Lucky Christmas

by A Very Lucky Christmas (retail) (epub)

  Quickly, she gathered what she thought the patients might need, stuffing the items into two separate bags, while trying not to think of the couple’s misfortune and grief. All the while, she couldn’t help but wonder about her own situation. Was she, or was she not, pregnant?

  Giving in to impulse, she darted into the spotless en-suite and opened the cabinet above the sink. It was unlikely but you never know… ah. Found one! Not one, but several pregnancy testing kits sat neatly on the top shelf, and underneath was a whole pile of ovulation kits. She realised Zoe and David must have been trying to get pregnant for some considerable time. Daisy imagined each barren month must have brought its own share of misery, when Zoe realised she hadn’t caught. Zoe had been going through her own version of hell, and probably David had too, if his joy on Christmas Day, when he finally shared their good news, had been any indication.

  She picked up one of the little boxes and held it, imagining Zoe’s impatience and desperation, her sister-in-law not wanting to wait until her period arrived, but wanting to know as soon as possible after ovulating whether she was, in fact, pregnant. She also imagined Zoe’s despair when no little blue line appeared next to the test one, and Daisy thought back to her own relief when the exact same line had failed to develop that time when she’d thought she might be pregnant several years ago. She also thought she’d been doubly careful since that scare, but had she?

  She thought about her own lack of trying, and how she could be pregnant without even knowing, as shame stole over her. Zoe and David had tried for what might have been some time, and now they’d lost one of their precious babies.

  Daisy’s tears finally came, and she perched on the edge of the bath crying for the nephew or niece she’d never get to know, for her brother and sister-in-law’s pain, and for David’s near miss with death.

  She only regained control when she reached for yet another handful of loo-paper and spotted the test kit still clutched in her damp hand. She knew what she had to do.

  Her fate was going to be decided by a little stick of plastic and the magic it contained. It seemed like this week was one for discovering secrets in toilets. She knew how she felt about Melissa’s nasty little secret (Daisy made a mental note to go back to reading the contract when she had five minutes), but she had no idea how she felt about the little human who may, or may not, be growing inside her.

  For a brief moment, she didn’t want to know. If she ignored it, she could pretend everything was the same as it had been this morning, when she was getting ready for work, in happy ignorance about what the day held in store for her. If she didn’t do the test and she was expecting a baby, then she could apply for jobs with impunity, able to say that she honestly hadn’t known she was pregnant once she started a new position.

  Tempted though she might be, she understood how unethical it was. Anyway, if she was indeed pregnant, she had a responsibility to the baby, and needed to make an appointment to see her GP in the next few days. Soon, Daisy could be listening to her own child’s heartbeat, and the thought filled her with an odd mixture of excitement and trepidation. More trepidation than excitement, if she was honest.

  Though she’d used a pregnancy test before, it was a long time ago and each brand may be different, so she peeled off the cellophane and read the instructions carefully.

  Pee on stick. Wait two minutes. One blue line = not pregnant. Two blue lines = oh shit!

  Her stomach felt distended and bloated, and when she put the leaflet down and pressed against her flesh with slightly trembling fingers, it felt firmer than usual. She stopped pressing, terrified of harming anything which might be in there.

  She read the instructions again, just to make sure, then she dropped her knickers, took her future in her hands, and peed on the stick.

  It was the longest two minutes of her life. For the first ten seconds she gazed fixedly at the two little windows. For the next ten she gazed out of the real window, counting in her head. The sky was a dull December gunmetal grey, heavy with the promise of more rain to come. The sky is pregnant, she thought slightly hysterically. Zoe pregnant, sky pregnant, me pregnant. Or am I?

  She risked a quick look. One line, the test line, had emerged, faint but clearly there. She scrutinised the other window for several long seconds.

  Nothing.

  She looked away again this time catching her reflection in the mirror above the sink. The woman staring back at her was a frightened stranger.

  She looked at the test again.

  Still no second line.

  How long had it been? She’d forgotten to keep counting and she hadn’t thought to time it, using her watch.

  She started over: one, two, three…

  Seventy-five.

  One hundred and thirty-six.

  Five hundred and ten.

  Still no second line.

  Daisy Jones wasn’t pregnant.

  A wave of relief, then sadness, followed by relief again, swept over her.

  She didn’t know whether to fist pump the air and do a happy dance, or whether to curl up in a ball and cry.

  She did neither. Wrapping the evidence in one of those bags for used sanitary towels, Daisy went downstairs and stuffed it in the kitchen bin, taking care to shove it down deep. Then she picked up David’s and Zoe’s overnight things, and returned to the hospital.

  All the while, the only thought in her head was “not pregnant, not pregnant, not pregnant”.

  Chapter 18

  Zoe wasn’t a good patient. Neither was David, but at least he was still in hospital, though his consultant was making “discharge soon” noises. If Daisy thought she had her work cut out now, it was going to be twice as bad when David came home. Daisy, being out of work and considered by her mother to be at a loose end, was the nominated carer, a task she wasn’t particularly relishing. And today was only day one. In fact, Zoe had been home from the hospital for less than two hours, and Daisy had already caught her trying to make up the bed in one of their spare rooms.

  Daisy had sent her back downstairs with a flea in her ear, and strict instructions to sit on the sofa until Daisy had finished putting fresh sheets on the bed in which she was to sleep for the next week or so.

  After that, they’d see, wouldn’t they? It all depended on Zoe’s GP. At present, the younger woman had been told to take it easy and rest, but when Daisy carried an armful of bedlinen into the kitchen, she caught Zoe chopping vegetables.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ Daisy demanded, whipping the carrot away and nearly getting her finger sliced off as she did so.

  ‘I can’t just sit there,’ Zoe protested. ‘I’m going to go mad.’

  ‘I don’t care if you go doolally, you’re going to put your feet up. Or do I have to call David?’

  ‘No,’ Zoe replied hastily, ‘don’t do that. I’ll be good, I promise.’

  ‘I’m not doing this to be mean,’ Daisy pointed out. ‘I’m doing it because I care.’

  The other woman’s eyes filled with unshed tears. ‘You’re so good to me,’ she said.

  And Daisy felt like a heel. She had never been good to her sister-in-law in her life. All she had done was make fun of her (silently – she’d not shared her thoughts with anyone) and mostly ignored her, and because Zoe was so unassuming and quiet, she often faded into the background like an unused armchair.

  Now that Daisy was getting to know Zoe a little better, she couldn’t understand why she had thought the other woman so dull. Yes, she was reserved, but then who wouldn’t be when faced with an overpowering Elsie and a very capable and loud Sandra. Gee-Gee, not to be outdone, could be a force to be reckoned with, too.

  Again and again, the phone rang, with people wondering how Zoe was, asking if she was okay and offering their help. Daisy was impressed with the sheer volume of friends her sister-in-law had.

  Daisy could count hers on the finger of one hand, and her friends had been suspiciously silent since she and Freddie had split up. Daisy hoped it was because they simpl
y didn’t know what to say to her, and not because they were laughing behind her back. It was also an odd time, in between Christmas and New Year, when family commitments come first, so she gave them the benefit of the doubt. Then there was the other issue, that many of her friends had been Freddie’s friends too, and maybe they didn’t want to appear to take sides.

  ‘What are you making?’ Daisy asked, gently prising the knife from Zoe’s reluctant fingers.

  ‘I thought I’d do chicken in a mushroom and parmesan sauce.’

  ‘I can do that,’ Daisy said firmly. ‘Sit down and let me put this load of washing in the machine, then you can supervise.’ Daisy would definitely need supervising – she had absolutely no idea where to start.

  Zoe obediently sat, watching Daisy work and Daisy was conscious of her sister-in-law studying her every move.

  ‘David might be home tomorrow,’ Daisy said, trying to make conversation.

  ‘I hope so. Will you take me to visit him later?’

  Daisy saw an opportunity and jumped at it. ‘I will, if you have a lie down after lunch.’

  Zoe thought, then nodded. ‘But only if you let me phone work first.’

  ‘Don’t blackmail me, lady,’ Daisy warned, with a smile.

  ‘You started it.’

  ‘I did, didn’t I.’

  Zoe, Daisy discovered as they talked, worked in a solicitor’s office as a paralegal, and Daisy could imagine her sitting at a desk, her blond hair in a bun and glasses perched on her nose.

  It surprised her, having never before been able to imagine Zoe doing anything other than hanging off David’s arm and giggling. Anyway, she’d never seen Zoe with her hair up, and the other girl didn’t actually wear glasses.

  ‘Do you enjoy your job?’ Daisy asked suddenly, surprised that she really did want to get to know David’s wife better.

  ‘Yes, I do. It’s hard work, but interesting. And I’m good at it,’ Zoe declared, almost defiantly, and Daisy had the sinking feeling Zoe might have guessed that Daisy thought of her as a bit of a bimbo.

  ‘What qualifications do you need?’ she asked. She hadn’t had much time to think about her jobless position since she’d been unceremoniously sacked, but as soon as the world had moved past the madness of New Year’s Eve and returned to normal, she intended to start looking in earnest. The problem was that writing verses for cards wasn’t exactly a skill which was in great demand in the Midlands, and that was all she had ever done.

  ‘I’ve got a law degree,’ Zoe said, to Daisy’s immense surprise.

  ‘Have you? Didn’t you want to become a lawyer?’

  ‘No thanks. I’m happy doing what I do. The hours are good and so is the pay, and when David and I got married we talked about having a family, with me staying at home to look after the children.’ Her face clouded when she said children, and Daisy hastily changed the subject.

  Sort of. She brought it around to her problems – not for any selfish reason, but to take Zoe’s mind off her own. ‘I’ve been given the sack,’ she announced.

  Zoe looked shocked. ‘Poor you! Let me give you a hug.’

  The other woman was a hugger, and Daisy had often seen her hug Sandra and the other two Macbeth witches, who comprised the rest of the women in Daisy’s family. It was only Daisy who had never been on the receiving end of one of them, and Daisy realised she only had herself to blame. Zoe must have accurately read Daisy’s body language and kept her distance.

  Zoe stood up and Daisy put the knife down and walked into her sister-in-law’s embrace. It was surprisingly comforting. They patted backs for a while, then Daisy pulled away, embarrassed.

  ‘When?’ Zoe asked.

  ‘The morning you went into hospital.’

  ‘It wasn’t a good day for you, was it?’ Zoe said quietly.

  ‘It wasn’t a good day for you, either, but at least David is on the mend now, and you’ve got your little one to think of.’

  Zoe’s tears were close to the surface and Daisy could have kicked herself. She wasn’t doing too good a job of preventing her sister-in-law from becoming stressed, was she?

  ‘I know,’ Zoe said, ‘and I’m so grateful. I’m a lucky lady.’

  Daisy seriously doubted the luck aspect, unless it was bad luck. And there was still no sign of that dratted coin. She ought to eat more roughage – that should get things moving.

  ‘Got any prunes?’ she asked.

  Zoe blinked at her, bewildered. ‘I don’t think so. It’s not something we ever buy. Is this for your sixpence problem?’

  Something in Zoe’s voice made Daisy smile. The other woman was laughing at her, but not in a nasty way, in a sympathetic way. If only she knew the trouble the blasted little coin had caused.

  ‘I’ll get some next time I go out,’ Daisy said. ‘In the meantime, I want you to go lie down while I finish preparing dinner.’

  Zoe walked slowly out of the kitchen, but before she disappeared into the hall she said, ‘Feel free to use the laptop.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Job hunting. I’m sure you’ll find something. A lady with your talents is bound to get snapped up.’

  Daisy gave her a rueful smile. ‘My talents consist of thinking up silly rhymes to sing to the tune of Deck the Halls,’ she said.

  ‘Are you joking?’ Intrigued, Zoe came back into the kitchen and sat down again.

  ‘Nope. The last thing they asked me to do before they sacked me, was to look into musical cards, and since it was Christmas and carols were playing everywhere, I couldn’t get the damned tune out of my head.’

  ‘What did you come up with?’

  Daisy started to hum, running the words through her mind. ‘Here’s one,’ she said and started to sing…

  ‘Deck the halls with boughs of holly,

  Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-laa

  Don’t forget you’ll need a brolly

  Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-laa

  Cause all the weather does is rain

  Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-laa

  Time to move abroad to Spain

  Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-laah’

  ‘Did you just make that up?’ Zoe asked.

  ‘Yep. Pathetic, isn’t it?’

  ‘I think it’s quite good.’

  Bless her, Zoe really was a sweetie. Daisy finally understood what her brother saw in her.

  ‘It’s awful,’ Daisy said. ‘Not exactly what Caring Cards were looking for.’

  ‘Is that why they sacked you?’

  ‘I didn’t get a chance to share it with them. No, they sacked me because of the rise of ecards, I think, not that they actually said so.’ Daisy blushed. ‘They caught me job hunting on company time.’

  ‘That’s not usually a sackable offence in the first instance, unless you’ve been disciplined before?’

  Daisy shook her head. ‘Nothing official. I’ve had the odd pointed look from my manager for being late, but no one has ever said anything. But just before that, and the reason why I was looking at a job site in the first place, was because Simon pulled me into his office to tell me that they were thinking of making me redundant.’

  ‘Did he actually say that, were those the words he used?’

  Daisy looked at her sister-in-law closely. Something had changed. Zoe wasn’t Zoe anymore. Okay the thought was silly; of course Zoe was still Zoe – she hadn’t been taken over by aliens or anything – but she seemed less Zoe-like, or rather, less like the Zoe Daisy thought she was.

  ‘Yes,’ Daisy said. ‘Simon said I was going to be made redundant, and that a date hadn’t been set yet. He said he was giving me a “heads up”, and I actually thought, stupid me, that he was being kind, giving me a chance to look for another job. Then I realised the company was hoping I’d leave before they had to officially make me redundant, so saving them having to pay me any redundancy.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘I went back to my desk, decided I wasn’t going anywhere until they gave me my redundancy payment, then I di
d a quick hunt on the internet, just to see what was out there.’

  Zoe leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. ‘Could your line manager have reasonably expected you to do that? Look on the internet, I mean.’

  ‘I don’t know. Why?’

  ‘Does Caring Cards have an internet policy?’

  ‘No idea. But there was something about using it for personal reasons in the contract I signed when I first started.’

  ‘Have you got a copy of it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I was reading when you phoned.’

  ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘I suppose so. Why?’

  ‘I may be shooting in the dark here, and it may come to nothing, but I think you have a case.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Unfair dismissal.’

  Was there such a thing? Daisy had never heard of it, but then she had never been sacked, either.

  ‘Let me look into it,’ Zoe said.

  ‘You’re supposed to be resting.’

  ‘I can read and rest at the same time, and it will give me something to do. I’ll go insane if I have to sit here twiddling my thumbs. Besides, I want to repay you for everything you’ve done.’

  Heel time again, except now Daisy felt even worse. After all, she had done nothing to help and might even be responsible for Zoe’s miscarriage, stupid though it sounded. Remind me never to say it out loud, Daisy told herself.

  A thought occurred to her. ‘What sort of law does your company practice?’ she asked.

  ‘Employment law.’

  Chapter 19

  Daisy put the chicken in the oven and logged onto the computer, after Zoe had been persuaded to go upstairs. Daisy fervently hoped her sister-in-law was doing as she was told and wasn’t reorganising her underwear drawer, or something. The two women had agreed that they would swing by Sandra’s on the way to visit David in hospital so Daisy could pick up the contract.