The Nearly-Weds

by Jane Costello

  Thank God, he’s alive.

  ‘He’s settled well, but he’ll need to stay in at least overnight,’ the doctor tells Ryan. ‘But the important thing is that he’ll be fine. You saved his life.’

  Ryan’s complexion is marginally less ghostly now, but his expression is numb. ‘It wasn’t me,’ he whispers. ‘It was Zoe who saved his life. It was Zoe.’

  ‘Well, Zoe,’ replies the doctor, putting his hand on the back of my chair, ‘you should be real proud of yourself. The little guy wouldn’t be with us if it wasn’t for you. You did everything right.’

  I force a smile, but I’m feeling so wiped out I’m sure I must look like a zombie.

  As the doctor closes the door of Samuel’s room behind us, I look down at his little round face as he lies fast asleep on the bed. He’s still pale too, but compared with how he looked when Ryan pulled him out of the water, he’s a vision of health and vitality.

  Ruby is also fast asleep on a couch in the corner of the room, a blanket wrapped tightly round her. I offered to take her home hours ago, but she was determined to stay and I think Ryan’s glad of our company.

  ‘Well,’ I drag myself up from my chair, ‘do you fancy a coffee? I’m sure I saw a machine out there somewhere.’

  Ryan shakes his head. I’m about to walk through the door, when his voice interrupts me. ‘Zoe.’

  I stop.

  ‘Can you sit down again for a minute?’ he asks.

  I walk back to my chair quietly so I don’t wake Ruby or Samuel. ‘What is it?’ I ask.

  His cobalt-blue eyes are glazed with unspilled tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says slowly, as he wipes them. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Forget it,’ I whisper. ‘It was just a row. And I said things that were—’

  ‘No,’ he replies. ‘I don’t just mean about the row. I mean about everything. I mean about . . . how I am.’

  ‘Oh,’ is all I can manage.

  ‘I know what I’m like to live with. And yet you put up with it. With the way I am. And I guess what I’m saying is . . . you shouldn’t have to put up with it.’

  Now I bow my head, fiddling with a cord at the side of Samuel’s bed. This conversation should feel awkward but somehow it doesn’t. ‘I’m not going to tell you I’ve found my whole time here easy,’ I whisper.

  ‘I know,’ Ryan admits, ‘and I . . . I don’t feel good about it. Believe me.’

  I look up into his eyes. He’s as handsome as ever, but so pale. My heart starts to beat faster and I curse myself at the inappropriateness.

  ‘Zoe,’ he continues, ‘you should know that you’re probably the first person I’ve met since Amy died that I actually, really . . . liked.’

  Suddenly my chest feels tight and I realize I’ve been holding my breath for so long my cheeks must be about to turn blue.

  ‘You’re kind, Zoe,’ he continues, as I listen in silent astonishment. ‘You’re funny. You’re great with the kids. That’s before we even get on to the fact that you’ve just saved my son’s life.’

  As I sit there, shell-shocked, so many things are whirling in my head yet I have nothing to say.

  ‘I’ve been an asshole. And I know I don’t deserve your friendship. But please just know how sorry I am.’

  I feel a dry lump in my throat as Ryan reaches across the bed and gently clutches my hand. His is big and strong but his fingertips are soft. As I gaze at the contours of his knuckles, my heart beating wildly, he squeezes. There is something about the way he does it that makes the tears I didn’t know were welling spill out of my eyes. They rush down my cheeks and on to the blanket next to Samuel’s foot. Just watching them soak into the fabric makes me say something without even thinking about it. ‘I want to go home.’

  As soon as I’ve said it, I don’t know why I did. Perhaps the intensity of the moment reminds me of how much I miss it. Of how much I miss Jason. Of how desperately I miss him.

  ‘I want my mum and dad,’ I whimper. ‘I want to hear a Scouse accent again. I want to drive on the left. I want to watch what Leanne Battersby’s doing on Coronation Street. I want a massive breakfast with HP sauce. I want . . . I want . . . Well, that’s all.’

  I glance up at Ryan, who looks as though I’ve stabbed him in the heart.

  He stands up and walks silently round the bed to my side. Then he leans down and – to my even greater astonishment – wraps his arms round me. They feel so powerful and strong that they take my breath away. I am overwhelmed with shock and desire as warmth spreads through my body and I struggle to keep my pulse under control.

  I close my eyes and, my emotions all over the place, eventually persuade my shoulders to relax. As he pulls me closer, I register how glorious the warmth of his skin feels against mine. I allow my wet cheek to drop to the muscular curve of his shoulder and luxuriate in the sensation. My head is a cyclone of confusion but my body’s reaction is one of unequivocal yearning.

  Ryan strokes my hair away from my face and I can feel his mouth next to my ear. His breath is soft and sweet. ‘Don’t go,’ he whispers. ‘Please don’t go.’

  Chapter 48

  Later in the week I wake up in the middle of the night dreaming about the wedding again. There is cold sweat on my forehead and I feel so clammy that if my mother was there she’d accuse me of coming down with something.

  I hardly sleep after that, tossing and turning as if the bed has been invaded by a swarm of morris-dancing ants. By the time I drift off, it feels as if I’ve had only a minute’s sleep before I’m woken by Ruby and Samuel knocking at my door. ‘Come in,’ I croak, sounding as if I’ve inadvertently left my tonsils somewhere else.

  When the door opens, Ryan is standing there with a tray of scrambled eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, bacon, toast, a cup of tea and a paper. ‘Oh, Jeez – I forgot something,’ he mutters. He produces something from his back pocket and plonks it on the tray.

  It’s a bottle of HP sauce.

  Chapter 49

  If they’d made museums like the Boston Children’s Museum when I was little, I’d have wanted to spend my life there. Trudie, Amber, Felicity and I have been there all morning with our entire crew, who have been so excited you’d think someone had been surreptitiously slipping e-numbers into their organic pear juice.

  We’ve been taking apart toasters in a section called Johnny’s Workbench, investigating the laws of science with a golf ball, and are now in Kid Power, which is about different ways of exercising. They should be exhausted, but if anyone suggested stopping for a rest I’m sure the kids would think they needed psychiatric treatment.

  ‘You not joining in, Felicity, love?’ Trudie asks, as she slips off her cork wedges and prances on to an interactive dance-floor with Andrew and Eamonn skipping behind her.

  ‘Oh, I’ll sit this one out,’ says Felicity, cheerfully, straightening the collar of Tallulah’s cardigan. ‘This isn’t the kind of dancing I specialize in.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve got qualifications in that as well?’ I ask.

  ‘Only a few.’ She beams. ‘Grade eight in ballet, seven in jazz – just enough to get by, really. My real passion is ballroom, though. Did you know that the Viennese Waltz is so fast and complicated that some schools insist on teaching it privately rather than in classes?’

  ‘Er . . . of course.’

  ‘Well,’ she continues with conspiratorial glee, ‘between you and me, while I could never comment on this personally, I’m told my Viennese Waltz is enough to make gentlemen weep.’

  ‘Why? Do you tread on their toes?’ Trudie shouts.

  ‘Very droll, Trudie,’ Felicity concedes.

  It’s always slightly odd to hear Felicity refer to the men in her life. In contrast to Trudie – whose love life is such a hot topic it’s positively inflammable – Felicity gives the impression that her attitude towards the opposite sex is rather like her attitude towards foie gras: she can take it or leave it.

  Trudie once attempted to interrogate her about her romantic history, but w
hile we got some mildly juicy titbits (lost her virginity at twenty-one to the son of one of her father’s shooting companions), she insists she’s focusing on her career. Trudie couldn’t have been more appalled if her tea had been spiked with Domestos.

  ‘Now, Tallulah, my darling,’ Felicity says, as she leaps up and claps her hands, ‘I spotted a wonderful basket-weaving area earlier that I know you’ll love. Shall we?’

  By now the children are as giddy as a pack of hyenas having their feet tickled. Even Amber has joined them on the dance-floor and is lolloping around performing what she insists is a traditional bhangra dance she picked up when she was travelling in India. To me it looks like some of the moves you see at three a.m. in the Ministry of Sound.

  Tallulah glances at Ruby, who is now near-hysterical with laughter. ‘Um, okay,’ she replies reluctantly.

  ‘We won’t be long, Zoe!’ Felicity shrills, as they disappear round a corner.

  Trudie bounds back to me, out of breath, as she pulls her tiny vest top over her belly. ‘Christ, are there any paramedics in here?’ she wheezes.

  ‘Never mind that,’ I say. ‘Now I’ve got you by yourself, I demand that you tell me about your night out with Ritchie. Did the “date of the decade” live up to expectations?’

  Last night hadn’t been just any old night on the tiles. Ritchie had organized an overdraft-busting restaurant, booked a taxi and given Trudie strict instructions to wear the most glamorous item in her wardrobe.

  The result was more feverish anticipation on her part than if he’d been flying her to Paris in his private Learjet.

  Yet Trudie’s frowning. ‘I wish you hadn’t asked that.’

  ‘Why? What’s the matter?’ I ask, hardly able to believe she isn’t bursting to fill me in with every last micro-detail.

  ‘Don’t repeat this?’

  ‘Of course not.’ I’m a bit worried now. ‘What is it?’

  She sighs and inspects her hands. Her bright pink nail polish has started to chip round the edges. ‘Ritchie asked me to marry him.’

  ‘Ohmigod!’ I cry. ‘Ohmigod, ohmigod! Wow, Trudie! This is great!’

  Halfway through my frenzied monologue I pick up on her mood and pull back the reins on my congratulations. ‘Or . . . not great?’ I ask, trying to work out why she has the expression of someone on their way to identify a body.

  ‘Hmm, great or not great? Bloody good question.’

  ‘Oh, God, you’re right. It’s far too soon. I wasn’t thinking, I just—’

  ‘It’s not too soon,’ she interrupts.

  ‘Oh. Then why?’

  She doesn’t say anything.

  ‘I know we’re good friends, Trudie, but my powers of telepathy aren’t quite as tuned as they might be.’

  ‘Sorry, love,’ she says. ‘Look, it’s good in one sense, obviously.’

  ‘In the sense that you adore him?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  I roll my eyes. ‘Well, for God’s sake, what other sense is there?’

  ‘Ssssh!’ she hisses, glancing round to check that no one can hear. ‘I can’t marry him.’

  ‘You’re not already married, are you?’

  She tuts. ‘No.’

  ‘Um – you’ve secretly signed up to become a nun?’

  Trudie looks down at her vest top and hot pants, both of which appear to have been on a boil wash for the past six days. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Okay . . . Why?’

  ‘First, let me tell you something about Ritchie. He loves kids. He’s great with Andrew and Eamonn – I mean, really great, better than their own dad. Even before he proposed last night, he’d been going on about us starting a family and stuff. I mean, Ritchie just cannot wait to have kids.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, he thinks I’d make a great “mom”, as he says.’

  ‘You would.’

  ‘Well, don’t be so sure,’ she replies.

  ‘Don’t you want kids?’

  ‘Yeah, but—’

  ‘I’ve seen you with Andrew and Eamonn. You’re amazing with them. How can you think otherwise?’

  She bites a nail. ‘When I was little, I got sick.’ Her eyes blur. ‘I had leukaemia.’

  It takes a couple of seconds for the words to filter into my brain. ‘You . . . you’re kidding?’

  She shakes her head and continues so matter-of-factly we might have been talking about a bout of Chickenpox.

  ‘I was only four,’ she says. ‘Spent ages in and out of hospital. Nearly drove my poor old mum and dad out of their minds. Mum was convinced I wasn’t going to make it – I mean, you would be, wouldn’t you? Having your four-year-old daughter get cancer isn’t something anyone plans for.’

  ‘God, Trudie.’

  ‘Well, the really unbelievable thing is that I pulled through. “I’m A Survivor!”’ she sings, not quite as tunefully as Destiny’s Child.

  ‘You’re amazing, Trudie,’ I tell her. ‘I knew it the minute I met you.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ she shrugs, ‘I don’t know about that. I beat the disease, got the all-clear and grew up to lead a completely normal life.’

  ‘So, what’s this got to do with Ritchie?’

  ‘I was just getting to that, love. Cancer’s a bloody cruel disease, Zoe, don’t ever doubt it. And although I beat the bugger at four years old, it left me with a memento. A little thing to make sure I never forget it was there.’

  Somehow I know what’s coming next.

  ‘I can’t have kids, Zoe. I’ve had all the tests. No matter how much I want them – no matter how much Ritchie wants them – I can’t ever have kids.’

  Chapter 50

  Ryan’s no saint, so if I’d thought that what had happened the other week would turn him into the world’s greatest housemate overnight, I’d have deserved a reality check as big as the Isle of Wight.

  But – and there’s a big but – since I put my first-aid training to use and his son came back from the brink of death, I get the feeling that a couple of matters have been put into perspective for him. And the manifestation of this is that he’s shown such an improvement that if I was writing his half-term report he’d get a gold star.

  The downing-whiskey-like-it’s-going-out-of-fashion has stopped. The stomping-round-the-house has almost stopped. The arriving-home-at-three-a.m.-reeking-of-perfume hasn’t stopped – but what the hell? Nobody’s perfect.

  In fact, last night he didn’t get in until about five thirty and I have ascertained – from the whiff I caught of his shirt when I was doing the laundry this morning (yes, I still do that) – he’s dating the woman who wears Estée Lauder Pleasures again. She hasn’t made an appearance for at least six weeks.

  Anyway, crucially, in addition to most of his bad behaviour stopping, a load of other things have started. Like spending lots of time with his kids. Like having fun. Like, wait for it, laughing.

  Yes, Ryan laughs so much now that he’s started to look like a man who has remembered how to enjoy life. He even manages to make me laugh regularly, something I’d once have considered as likely a prospect as Nicole Richie winning an international prize for her contribution to molecular science.

  Ruby and Samuel have noticed a dramatic change. This week alone, he has been home from work every night before six, which has enabled him to play baseball in the garden, sit down to paint at the kitchen table, or even just watch a movie on TV. In fact, he’s done so much with the children recently, I’ve sometimes felt we’re living with a Butlin’s Redcoat.

  The effect of all this on the children has been incredible. Ruby has a permanent sparkle in her eyes, and every night this week – with the exception of one wobble on Tuesday – she and Samuel have been tucked up in bed, blissfully exhausted and fast asleep by eight twenty.

  And my job has become so much easier.

  Tonight I’m considering what to give the children for dinner when I hear the door slam. My shoulders no longer tense involuntarily.

  ‘Daddy!’ shout Ruby and S
amuel, as they dive into his arms like two overactive puppies.

  ‘Wow,’ I say. It’s just gone five. ‘You’re early.’

  ‘They let me out for good behaviour.’ He smiles.

  ‘Well, I was about to start cooking – you can join us for dinner, if you like?’

  Ryan grimaces. ‘I tasted that HP sauce the other day,’ he teases. ‘I have a few doubts about your culinary tastes.’

  ‘What a cheek!’ I gasp, and the children collapse into giggles.

  ‘No, no,’ he protests. ‘I was going to offer to take you all out to dinner.’

  ‘Really?’ squeals Ruby, jumping about with such excitement you’d think he’d said we were relocating to Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

  ‘Really? Really?’ adds Samuel.

  ‘Yes, really, really,’ replies Ryan, picking him up and throwing him into the air as if he were no heavier than a blow-up beach ball.

  I dash upstairs and open my wardrobe to survey the options. What the hell does one wear to go out for dinner with one’s boss and young charges? Are we talking cocktail dress and heels? No, no, no. Cocktail dress and heels are definitely out – not least because I don’t want flashbacks to the last time I wore such an ensemble.

  After an intensive search through my wardrobe, I settle on an outfit I bought recently that’s made for an occasion like this – that is, when I haven’t a bloody clue what to wear: linen trousers and a floaty, angel-sleeved print top, as worn by Kate Hudson in a recent edition of Allure magazine (although I bet hers wasn’t thirty-five dollars from H&M).

  I set about applying my makeup, a demanding and subtle process by anyone’s standards. Overdo the Clinique soft-finish foundation and I risk being exposed as the sort of sad-act who gets so worked up at the prospect of a bit of dinner that she’s emptied her entire wardrobe looking for something to wear. Underdo it and it’ll look as if I’ve stopped off on the way back from Wal-Mart.

  When I meet Ryan in the hallway, he looks at me as he opens the door for the children. As usual, my knees go wobbly.