Good Husband Material

by Trisha Ashley

It was pretty obvious she didn’t. She asked hesitantly: ‘Will you see your mother – Mrs Norwood?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said wearily. I might as well get it over with. ‘There isn’t an older Mr Drew out there too, is there?’

  She thought I was mad, and perhaps I was a bit yesterday, but today I was feeling more and more sane. Perhaps that’s a sign of madness?

  ‘No – just the one. Your husband – er – Mr Rocco phoned …’ She sighed dreamily and went into a trance.

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘His voice on the phone was so sex—’ She bit off the word and blushed scarlet. ‘He said you weren’t to worry about anything, and he’d be here later.’

  ‘I won’t see him!’

  ‘Mr Rocco?’

  ‘Mr Rocco,’ I agreed.

  She went out, looking back at me as if I were insane. Perhaps I am at that, but at least there won’t be room for postnatal depression.

  Mother tottered in, looking pale and fragile. ‘Darling!’

  She laid her powdered cheek against mine. ‘How could you frighten me so! I was so worried when you just ran out like that. I even rang Fergal because I thought you might have gone there. It would have to be him who found you!’

  She sounded as if she’d rather I hadn’t been found at all.

  ‘That foreign woman phoned and said you were safe, and then he came and told me you’d had the baby and took Bess, Toby and your case away in his car! I was so upset that poor Duncan stayed all night – in separate rooms, of course,’ she added primly.

  ‘Of course,’ I agreed.

  ‘And I phoned James at the Wrekins’ this morning to tell him – he should know, after all! And he wants to see you. But now I must see my granddaughter at last! Does she look like you? You were such a pretty baby, darling.’

  She got up, peered into the crib, and added doubtfully, ‘– a pretty baby just like this one. But she’s very dark, dear, isn’t she?’

  ‘I don’t think their hair stays the same colour.’

  She took another furtive peek at the baby. ‘What are you going to call her, Leticia?’

  That’s the one thing I haven’t thought of! ‘Incubus’ wouldn’t look well on the birth certificate, but ‘Cuckoo’ is a distinct possibility.

  ‘I don’t know, Mother, I’ll have to think about it. What made Glenda choose Leticia?’

  She looked at me and her lip trembled. ‘I – I had a baby doll called that when I was a little girl, and Glenda said she thought you looked like it. But it means “gladness”, darling.’

  She subsided into a chair and said slightly defensively, ‘And Daddy and I were glad, when we got over the shock!’

  ‘So you didn’t plan on adopting me when you went down there?’

  ‘No – oh, no!’ she quavered, blotting blue mascara with the edge of her silk scarf. ‘I felt I had to go and help her when she sent the telegram saying she was about to have you, but then one morning she’d gone and left a note and your birth certificate, and I could see she’d planned it.’

  Now it was all coming out I decided to keep prodding her. ‘So I was forced on you?’

  ‘Well, of course it was a shock, darling, at first, but Daddy came straight down even though he was still far from well, and we decided to take you home as our own. Daddy was worried that we wouldn’t have any children after the mumps, and as it happened we didn’t!’ She straightened up and added more brightly, ‘So it all turned out for the best, didn’t it?’

  ‘But didn’t Glenda get in touch? Don’t you know where she is?’

  She shook her head and a last, blue-tinged droplet fell off her eyelashes. ‘Oh, no. We were afraid at first that she’d want you back, but after about a year she wrote asking for money to go abroad, and after Daddy sent it we never heard from her again.’

  It was a bit hurtful to be so unwanted by my real mother. But then, hadn’t Mother been my real mother in every way, to the best of her ability? Poor Mother, afraid I might be snatched away, and with little hope of any children of her own.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve told me, Mo— Mummy.’

  ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘Of course I mind, but I’m grateful to you and Daddy. You’re my real parents.’

  Mother, catharsis achieved, was preparing to sweep it all under the carpet. ‘I don’t think we need to mention it again, do we? You’re my little girlie and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?’

  I winced, but she was adjusting her make-up in her compact mirror and didn’t notice. Then she sneaked another glance at the sleeping infant, who was wearing a singularly Etruscan smile for a newborn, and suggested timidly: ‘What about James?’

  What about James? ‘Oh, I suppose I’ll have to see him eventually,’ I said wearily, ‘but not yet. I’ll deal with him later.’ And at least now I wouldn’t have to worry about his threats.

  ‘That Italian woman’s looking after Toby and the dog up at the Hall, so Duncan thinks he might as well take me home now.’

  ‘Yes, the hospital are keeping me in for a week, mostly because they say I’m anaemic, so you might as well.’

  ‘I’ll come back after that, if you need me.’

  I thanked her and said I would bear it in mind, and she tottered off with one last dazed backwards look at the baby.

  Three minutes later James burst through the door in Manic Mode, though the reek of whisky just made it before him.

  ‘Where is she?’ he demanded aggressively. ‘I’m entitled to see her, aren’t I? You needn’t think I’ve changed my mind about custody, either! What does Valerie mean by saying it would be better if I didn’t see her?’

  Thank you, Mother!

  I pressed my bedside buzzer as he veered across to the plastic tank and stared down into it.

  His face began to go red and the vein started its ominous twitch. I wanted to leap out of bed and snatch the Incubus up, except that I can’t leap anywhere at the moment. But I started to ease myself down as quickly as I could.

  Then his eyes fell on the wrist tag, which still read ‘Baby Rocco’, and he went berserk.

  ‘It’s bloody his!’ he bellowed, advancing menacingly on me this time. ‘I was right all along, wasn’t I?’

  I began to shuffle back over to the far side of the bed, wondering if I could fell him with the carafe before he strangled me.

  ‘Calm down, James! I didn’t know – I still don’t know for sure.’

  Fergal walked in, and everything suddenly went still and held its breath, as though someone had pressed the freeze button.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ he told James coolly. ‘You’ve done enough harm, sending her into labour with your threats. She didn’t know the baby was mine. I didn’t know the baby was mine until I saw her. I took advantage of her at the hotel when she’d drunk herself senseless after seeing you with your lover.’

  ‘Fergal!’

  ‘A likely story!’ sneered James. ‘You’ve been having an affair right under my nose and she would have palmed the baby off on me if she could.’

  ‘No I wouldn’t!’ I protested indignantly. ‘That’s the last thing I would have done if I’d known.’

  But I might as well have saved my breath for all the notice they took of me.

  ‘There was no affair, though I’d every intention of taking Tish off you once I found out you didn’t deserve her. When I thought she was expecting your baby I held back to give you another chance, but you blew it – and just as well, because the baby’s mine!’

  ‘Just a minute!’ I exclaimed. ‘She’s mine, no one else’s!’

  ‘I’d have brought her up as mine anyway,’ Fergal continued calmly.

  ‘What do you mean?’ blustered James. ‘What right have you—’

  ‘I intend marrying Tish.’

  The Incubus moved restlessly in her sleep and whimpered a little.

  A security guard appeared in the doorway, big and solid, with the little dark nurse next to him.

  ‘That’s the man!’ She pointed
to James. ‘He’s drunk, and he just burst in here and started shouting. The whole ward could hear him!’

  ‘But I’m her husband!’ began James.

  ‘Ex,’ Fergal told him, eyes like glacier splinters. ‘Your divorce is through: time to leave.’

  Baffled, the guard looked from Fergal’s calm implacability to James’s red, angry face and made his decision.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave the hospital, sir,’ he said, taking a firm grip on James’s arm.

  James opened and shut his mouth a couple of times like a dying guppy, then let himself be led away.

  ‘You can go too,’ I told Fergal without looking in his direction. ‘You may have taken advantage of me, and then lied to me about it, but that doesn’t mean you’ve any claim on my baby!’

  ‘Our baby!’ he said softly, sitting on the side of the bed and putting his arms around me. ‘Isn’t it wonderful? And I really didn’t lie to you – I didn’t realise she was mine until I saw her. I never thought I’d be grateful for faulty goods! Or maybe, in the heat of the moment …?’

  My God! Escaped Fergal Rocco sperm are probably even now establishing a breeding colony in the hotel’s air conditioning system! Angrily I tried to push him away, tears flooding my eyes. ‘How could you, Fergal? You must have seen what a state I was in that night.’

  ‘Angel, you knew exactly what you were doing, drunk or sober! I lied to James when I said I took advantage of you.’

  I stared indignantly at him.

  ‘I resisted as long as humanly possible,’ he assured me gravely, ‘but, as you know, I’m no saint. You took advantage of me.’

  ‘I took advantage – how dare you, Fergal Rocco? The whole situation was your fault, pouncing on me outside my room like that.’ If my arms hadn’t felt like limp string I’d have hit him.

  ‘I only intended talking to you. Admittedly I was a bit angry at the way you tried to avoid me earlier, but as soon as I got you in there you wouldn’t let me go. You practically had the clothes off my back before I closed the door!’

  ‘I – I did not!’ I protested weakly.

  ‘You can’t have forgotten?’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘And although you didn’t say very much you said it clearly enough. “Yes – oh yes, Fergal!” that kind of thing. I didn’t realise how much you’d drunk.’ He grinned.

  I went scarlet. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing! You must have known that! You should have resisted.’

  ‘You seemed to know exactly what you were doing – and I’m not made of stone, darling! And I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly at the time either, because as soon as I touched you I knew that I loved and wanted you just as much as ever.’

  I looked down and discovered I’d twisted the bedspread into a screw. ‘You are only saying that because the baby’s yours.’

  ‘What do I have to do to make you believe me?’ he exploded, giving me a small shake. ‘I’ve already asked you to marry me once. And what’s more,’ he added fiercely, ‘when I kissed you on your birthday I knew you loved me too! You didn’t need to get tanked up that time to respond to me.’

  ‘You arrogant, conceited snake in the grass,’ I snarled.

  He pulled me closer and kissed me.

  ‘I don’t want to marry anyone!’ I gasped when I came up for air. ‘How could I ever trust—’

  The nurse came in, squawked, and left hastily, but I’d just discovered something interesting.

  After the birth I thought I’d never, ever, want to make love again. But now I just possibly might … in a year or so, say, when my internal organs have rearranged themselves into a more familiar alignment.

  Fergal held me close and tenderly stroked my hair. ‘I don’t want anyone except you,’ he murmured huskily. ‘If you’d only come to America with me in the first place—’

  ‘Oh, yes, and hung around in the background while you sowed your wild oats with the groupies, or whoever else took your fancy? That would have been wonderful!’

  ‘There wouldn’t have been anyone else. And why are we arguing about old history? You know you can trust me, Tish. I want a family, to settle down – I want you!’

  ‘No you don’t – you said I was prissy!’

  ‘I love your prissy, immaculate little ways.’ His voice went deeper, and even throatier. ‘And I think it’s time you cleaned me up and hung me out to dry, don’t you?’

  He grinned wickedly, but I hardened my heart – he wasn’t getting off that easily.

  ‘I’ll think about your kind offer,’ I said primly.

  ‘Think fast. Your mother’s suddenly decided she wants us to marry. She’s been reading your mail again, that’s how I knew about the divorce coming through. I’m getting a special licence.’

  ‘She doesn’t even like you! And anyway, just because the baby’s dark, it doesn’t mean—’

  ‘She’s a Rocco.’ He got up and went to peer into the crib. ‘Bet she’s going to have green eyes!’

  ‘They’re blue.’

  ‘All babies’ eyes are blue – they’ll change.’

  I looked helplessly at him. ‘Fergal, why do you want me? You could have anyone.’

  He has an interestingly sudden way of stopping arguments.

  ‘We’re getting married.’

  ‘I’m never getting married again,’ I said crossly with my head on his shoulder. ‘I like being independent, and I’m going to live in the cottage with the baby and write my novels.’

  ‘Don’t you think it might be a bit crowded in the cottage?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You, me, the baby, two dogs, one parrot, a cat – and Maria!’

  ‘Maria!’

  ‘You don’t think she’s going to lose the chance to get her hands on the baby, do you? She’s been knitting for weeks! And how are you going to write more wonderful books about me if there’s no one to look after Baby Rocco?’

  I sank back against the pillow with as much dignity as I could muster and said faintly, ‘I think I need to rest.’

  ‘I’ll see you later. Is there anything you want me to bring?’

  ‘Champagne!’ I snapped, and he laughed and went away.

  Fergal: March 2000

  ‘First sensational pictures of Fergal Rocco and

  Leticia Drew with their baby girl …’

  Exposé magazine

  Must have been one of the nurses – money spoke louder than ethics. But I forgive her. I forgive everybody, I’m so happy.

  I knew the baby was mine the minute I set eyes on her, I don’t know how. If only I’d known all along, I’d have done things very differently, and to hell with her husband.

  I love Tish. I always have and I always will, and it’s a relief to stop pretending I don’t, when really I want to marry her and earn the right to look after her for ever.

  And she loves me too, even if she’s a little mad at me at the moment.

  The amount of publicity all this has generated is going to come as a shock to her when she leaves the safe world of the hospital, but I’ve plans to deal with that … and after all, I’ve already kidnapped her dog and parrot!

  Maria says she is now running a menagerie, rather than a house.

  Chapter 47: Photo Finish

  It was highly ingenious the way reporters tried to find a way into the hospital, even to the extent of trying to bribe the nurses.

  In the end we had a sort of minor press conference, on the understanding that they would then leave us in peace for a bit.

  The photograph of Fergal, the baby and me was rather nice, though I’m sure I don’t remember him saying anything like the things they attributed to him in the article.

  My agent is ecstatic – he rang to say my book sales are rocketing since the news broke and sent a huge flower arrangement to the hospital. (I’m having writing withdrawal symptoms.)

  James has vanished from the scene entirely, since he now has other things on his mind – Wendy’s in here too, having been
rushed in a couple of days after me.

  Makes you think, doesn’t it?

  She must have had her little lapse about the same time as I conceived, hence the urgency to get rid of me and induce James to marry her, I suppose. And when I told Alice that James wanted sons, she must have thought announcing her pregnancy was a sure card.

  And the nurse says it is a boy at that, so perhaps it is.

  Wendy and sprog had been moved to the main ward when I next minced through on my way to the bathroom. (Take it from me, normal methods of locomotion are out when someone’s been practising embroidery on your credentials.)

  She was wearing the usual back-to-front water wings and a glum expression.

  Moved by something of a spirit of fellow feeling – and sheer unbridled curiosity – I veered across.

  ‘Hi, Wendy,’ I said. ‘Congratulations.’

  Stooping, I looked down into her baby’s cross, pink face.

  There was no mistaking that aubergine-shaped nose, now rendered in minute incongruity in the crumpled, screwed-up face.

  He looked exactly like Howard.

  ‘Well,’ Granny’s welcome voice said sternly down the telephone, a call orchestrated by Fergal. ‘I suppose it’ll all come out in the wash.’

  ‘What will, Granny?’

  ‘All that mess. Mind you, I never liked him, and at least that Frodo’s a real man.’

  ‘Fergal.’

  ‘And I blame your mother.’

  ‘She did her best,’ I said, to my own surprise. ‘Granny, you did get my letter, didn’t you, explaining about Glenda, and how I’m …’ This was really difficult, and I swallowed painfully before going on in a rush, ‘I’m not really related to you at all, Granny!’

  ‘Of course you are, you great daft ha’porth. It’s ozzymoses.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Ozzymoses. That thing where it all sort of seeps in. You’ve been around me long enough to absorb some Thorpe into you.’

  ‘Osmosis?’

  ‘That’s what I said. Anyway, you’re the only kind of granddaughter I’ve got, so you’ll just have to make the best of it.’

  I began to feel better. ‘I think I can live with that, Granny.’

  ‘Rose and I’ll hire a car and come and see you soon. When’s the wedding?’