by Karen Swan
‘Yes, but look how he found out. Because of you.’
‘It was Kate’s responsibility to tell him! I can’t believe she didn’t bother!’
Mark put his hands on his hips, his body rigid with frustration and resentment.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she cried.
He shook his head. ‘You just always have to be right, don’t you? Always the winner.’
Cress jumped off the island. ‘I should have known this was pointless. I can’t do right for doing wrong. I don’t know what more I can do.’
Mark strode across the room and grabbed her arms. ‘I know there’s something going on with you and Hunter. Ever since you signed him, you’ve been blowing hot and cold with me. At first you got all relaxed and sexy and didn’t care about hair or your make-up; you were all over me like a rash. Then you went off to Cornwall with him, and came back giving me the “I’ve got a headache” routine, just as pictures emerged of the two of you frolicking in woodland in the national press. What the hell do you expect me to think?’
The baby monitor in the corner started flashing red and Felicity’s distinctive bawl echoed through the kitchen.
‘Now look what you’ve done!’ Mark said furiously.
‘Me?’ Cress said, incredulously.
Mark stared at her.
‘I’ll go,’ Cress said, but he wheeled around and stopped her dead in her tracks.
‘No. You won’t. I’ll deal with it,’ he said, and he stalked out of the room, leaving her redundant and guilty. She stood staring after him, trembling violently, trying to take in the scale of his fury and resentment with her.
She heard the door open in Felicity’s room, and the kisses he gave her as he settled her back to sleep. She heard the rustle of sheets and the door closing again, little baby snores whistling softly, popping up as green lights.
Cress waited. She slowly finished her drink, trying to calm down and work out what it was he wanted from her.
Five minutes passed. Seven. Twelve. Everything was silent upstairs. Was he not even bothering to come back down? She turned off the lights, climbed the stairs and walked into their room. Mark was in bed, his clothes in a heap on the floor, his back turned to the door. The curtains were drawn.
‘Mark?’ she whispered, but he didn’t reply, even though she could tell from the sound of his breathing that he wasn’t asleep. His message was clear. She was still in the spare room.
Cress walked – dejected and rejected – across the landing, not noticing the light peeking out from under the door to Greta’s room. She grabbed a bundle of sheets to make up the bed, just as Greta came out into the hallway looking like Heidi in an oversized nightshirt and floppy bedsocks.
‘Goodnight, Mrs Pelling,’ Greta said, walking towards the bathroom, a satisfied little smile playing on her lips as she remembered something her mother had always told her. Separate beds only ever mean one thing: separate lives.
Chapter Forty-one
Tor shivered as she got the children out of their car seats, pulling her moth-nibbled cashmere cardigan around her. It was her latest ‘find’ at the local charity shop. Burnham was such an affluent area, it didn’t seem quite so bad to be buying hand-me-downs when they were Ralph Lauren, Max Mara and Caramel. She kept telling herself she was ‘doing’ Vintage. It’s all just a matter of perception – and a boil wash.
Buying second-hand clothes was her latest money-saving scheme. The savings they’d been living on had dwindled, and if it was an ordinary month, she would have just over one month’s reserves left. But it wasn’t ordinary. Christmas was two weeks away and Tor was becoming paralysed with blind panic at the prospect of financing a Christmas with less than £300. She defied anyone to find an organic turkey for less than £40.
But this Christmas had to be special. It had to be! It was their first without Hugh. She had to make up for that, somehow. It had to glitter and shine and make her children’s eyes widen in wonder. Because Christmas was what children remembered – Christmas and birthdays – and they would always remember, never be able to forget, this one.
The tiny profit she made on renting out the London house went straight back into a contingency fund, and although Monty had sent her an initial – and very generous – cheque for cashflow purposes so that she could hire labourers, buy furniture and paints and fabrics, she had no intention of invoicing him for her own fee. With the divorce going through, the poor man’s world was somewhere down by his ankles.
She kicked open the front door and the children flooded in, Millie tripping over Marney’s book bag, Oscar heading straight for the biscuit tin, Marney calling out for Diggory (Tor had had a dog flap put into the back door and they regularly found him pressed against the Aga, eagerly awaiting their return and Oscar’s pilgrimage to the biscuits).
Tor picked up the pile of post on the floor and walked down the hall to unlock the back door, shuffling through it disinterestedly. Nothing ever arrived except bills.
Except today. She looked down at a tacky, 1970s shot of the Pyramids, with tourists on camels and cloaked in hyper-tans and beige safari suits. She turned the postcard over.
Dear Tor,
I shall be back in the UK next week and would love to meet up with you to discuss my refurb. I am having a baby in February so need to add a nursery to the spec. Could you call James to get my number? Sorry for being evasive – unfortunately, I have to keep it top secret.
Speak soon,
Best Regards,
AA
Tor swallowed, her face red hot. James! Could she call James? Could she call James! No, she bloody well could not! How could he be so insensitive? After everything that had happened between them, how could he possibly let Amelia commission her to decorate their baby’s room? What was wrong with the man? Jesus!
Tor flung the postcard on the table. She’d ring James over her dead body.
She looked down furiously at the remaining post. Another Boden catalogue? She dropped it in the bin and looked at the last letter. It was handwritten.
She filled the kettle and opened the letter, feeling a jolt of shock as she saw the Planed Spaces logo in the top right corner.
Tor’s hands trembled as she read it. Did this mean – did this mean Christmas was back on? She grabbed the phone and punched in the numbers, still knowing them off by heart.
A clipped voice picked up.
‘Peter? Peter, it’s Tor!’
The voice warmed. ‘Tor! You got my letter?’
‘I can’t believe it. Is it really worth that much?’
‘It’s all true! Are you pleased?’
Tor shrieked with excitement.
‘That’s a yes, then!’ he laughed. There was a pause and he cleared his throat.
‘How are you all, anyway?’
‘Getting through it,’ Tor replied. ‘You?’
‘We miss him badly, Tor. It’s not the same without him.’ His voice was choked.
‘I know. Nothing will ever be the same without him,’ Tor said, struggling to reassure him. She was increasingly finding that she was the comforter now. She’d lived with the loss day in day out, to the point where it was getting hard to remember what it had felt like to be with Hugh any more. His absence had become her reality, her normality, but for everyone else it was something to remember, an adjustment.
‘You’re sure about selling?’
‘Oh, I would love more than anything to be able to hold on to Hugh’s share, if only to keep it as an investment for the children. To be able to keep that part of his life for them. But I can’t. I thought I was going to have to cancel Christmas.’
Tor heard him nod down the line. ‘I understand. Well, I reckon we can get this wrapped up before Christmas. The investor’s pretty keen to seal the deal.’
‘And this investor – you’re sure he’s the right person?’
‘Absolutely. He’s rock solid, and he’s coming in as a sleeping partner, which suits me down to the ground.’
‘Well then, it’s your baby now. Get the paperwork to me as soon as possible, and I’ll sign.’
‘OK. ’ He paused. ‘I’m really pleased this has worked out so well, Tor.’
‘Me too, Peter.’
‘I’ll courier everything up to you.’
Tor put the phone down and sighed happily, shutting her eyes and clasping her hands beneath her chin. Serendipity! She couldn’t believe that in the space of ten minutes she had gone from impoverished to prosperous.
She poured a large splash of brandy into her coffee. Why the heck not? Fortune had intervened when she’d least expected it. After months of rain, finally they had their silver lining.
Chapter Forty-two
Kate burrowed her toes deeper into the pink Barbadian sand. It was so finely milled it was like lying on icing sugar, emanating a gentle warmth like those electric blankets her granny had always tucked around her in bed when she was a little girl.
She was about as far away now from her grandmother’s sweet humble cottage, nestled in the Irish heather, as it was possible to get. She stretched her neck and looked behind her at Harry’s extravagant plantation house. Three storeys high and faced with sunny blue clapboard, a wooden veranda skirted the perimeter, populated with a density of swing seats that made it hard to ever remain upright for more than a five-yard stretch.
Not that they ever did anyway. Harry’s lust for her remained unabated, even though her pregnancy hormones meant she had the libido of a stone.
She looked back out to sea, watching the speedboat the paparazzi had moored 500 yards out bobbing gently on the azure water. There was no point in hiding from them any more. Their telephoto lenses were so powerful that if she yawned they could probably see what she’d had for breakfast. The game was well and truly up.
It was time to accept that this was how life would be from now on. Even on Christmas Day they were on duty, recording her. The exposure in Oxford had just been the start. They’d got hold of photos of her as a girl in Shropshire, at university in Durham, at law school in York, partying with her friends. Not an area or age of her life was out of bounds – as Harry’s lover and the mother of his unborn child, she was public property. It seemed the British public had a right to know who she’d slept with as a teenager and where she had her hair done and what she was eating on her pregnancy diet.
But she didn’t really care for herself. None of this was a surprise. She dealt with the media for her living – she was simply on the other side of the fence now. No, it was Monty she was worried about. As if he hadn’t been emasculated enough, their infertility problems had been recorded in microscopic detail.
Kate’s eyes narrowed as she saw another boat pull up and drop anchor, her stomach tight as she played out in her mind the scene of Monty finding out about Harry and the baby. She should have rung, written, seen him, sent a message in a bloody bottle. Anything! Anything rather than read about it in the papers. He’d never forgive her, and she didn’t blame him. It was unforgivable. She’d never have thought she was capable of hurting him like that. But then, she’d never have thought she was capable of anything that constituted her life now.
She wrapped her aquamarine chiffon sarong around her and stood up, her little belly tight and neat, swaddled in a giraffe-print swimsuit, tortoiseshell shades and with a floppy chocolate hat keeping the sun off.
She walked slowly up the rosy-pink bank towards the house. Harry wasn’t back yet. He’d gone for an early morning dive and wouldn’t get back till just before lunch. They were having roast turkey with all the trimmings, although Kate couldn’t think of anything worse in this heat.
‘Mary, I’m just popping into town,’ Kate called to the housekeeper as she stood in the hallway, reapplying some suntan lotion.
‘Yes, madam,’ Mary said, popping out of the dining room, where she’d been dusting.
‘Is there anything you need me to get while I’m out?’ she asked absently.
‘No, madam.’
‘Right, OK. Well, I’ll be back in an hour or so.’
‘Yes, madam,’ Mary said, watching after her curiously. Harry was a big star out here. He stayed here every Christmas, and this new girlfriend wasn’t at all what she was used to.
Kate put the keys in the Mini Moke and turned on the ignition. The white leather bucket seats gleamed in the sun and she felt their heat sear into the backs of her thighs.
She roared down the long drive, the gravel spraying up behind her wheels. The house sat in thirty acres of land, and she loved flooring it down the long drive to the pineapple-topped gates, dodging coconuts as they dropped from the lofty palm trees.
She pulled out on to the narrow dusty road and felt the wind stream over her skin and lift her hair, the shadows cast by the banyan trees flickering over her. It was freedom – of sorts.
She kept her eyes on the road, not bothering to clock the other manses on this millionaires’ row, but more concerned with avoiding locals swerving dangerously on their bikes. As she got nearer into town and the big houses made way for tiny shanty huts, bleached billboards advertising sun lotion and fizzy drinks and ice creams peppered the roadsides, with little trestle tables selling fresh strawberries and coconut milk for two bucks.
The streets were empty. It was eleven o’clock on Christmas Day and everybody was at church. Judging by the horrendous parking, most of the congregation had been late and just abandoned their cars in the road, rather than bothering to manoeuvre them to the kerb.
Kate drove through the town slowly, the turquoise sea peeking periodically around the sides of the small buildings, trying to entice her back to its warm waters. She found a free spot, carelessly parked the car – well, when in Rome – and sat on the bonnet. She looked out to the horizon. She could just see the photographers’ boat past the promontory – they had no idea she’d gone yet – and her eyes narrowed as she looked for Harry’s dive boat. He was out there somewhere, under that heavy sea. Peaceful, floating, like their bab— She felt a kick!
She couldn’t believe it. The first kick, the very first. It was really happening. She was having a baby! Kate threw back her head and laughed loudly all to herself like a crazy woman, her shoulders shaking.
Even though she’d weed on seven pregnancy sticks and seen Mr Fallon fortnightly and had already had four scans, her head hadn’t been able to get past the theoretical stage. She had seen that she was pregnant, she had been told that she was pregnant. But she hadn’t really felt pregnant. Or at least, not the happy pregnant she’d always imagined. Frankly, she’d spent the first trimester of this pregnancy completely terrified. She used to fantasize about the way she would tell Monty when the line went blue, about the party they would throw to tell their family and friends, the neat designer bump and no weight-gain that would have everyone so jealous, the excitement of going on maternity leave.
But it hadn’t been like that. Exhilaration hadn’t been the first emotion to flood her brain when the little blue line appeared in the window. It had been so early in her relationship with Harry; they were still devouring each other, wanton and insatiable. It had been the first time in years she had had sex without thinking about making a baby. This relationship wasn’t supposed to have been for keeps. She had been trying to run away, not settle down.
As for Harry, well, he’d taken it better than she’d anticipated. There had been a moment when . . . a look on his face that had been hard to forget, even after he’d recovered and said all the right things. It was a look that had stayed with her, so that even though he patted her tummy and made the phone calls to the right doctors, she found herself trying to act as though she wasn’t really pregnant at all – pretending she wasn’t too coma-tired to go to another party, swallowing back the retches as he sipped his aromatic espressos and tucked into cornflakes (even just looking at the box made her heave), and acquiring a habit of wearing negligées in bed to show off her budding bosom and hide her spreading waist.
Up till now, she had tried to minimize the impact of
the pregnancy on their relationship – trying to show him that things between them didn’t have to change, but now, with the baby beginning to intrude – quite literally – upon them, she didn’t want to keep pretending. She wanted to rejoice and celebrate it and dwell on it and show off. Because it was everything she had ever wanted.
She slid off the bonnet and walked around to the back of the car, catching sight of a little girl skipping towards her as she picked up her bag.
Kate straightened up to watch her. She couldn’t have been any older than five, her hair in bunches, her green cotton piqué dress ballooning with air at each jump.
Becoming aware of the rich lady’s scrutiny, the little girl looked up and stumbled.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Kate said. ‘I didn’t mean to put you off. It’s just you’re such a terribly good skipper. I couldn’t help but watch.’
The little girl looked at her, unsure, her skipping rope dangling by her side.
‘Merry Christmas?’ Kate offered limply.
The little girl kept on staring.
‘Where are your family?’
The little girl pointed to the church.
‘Aren’t you supposed to be in there with them?’
She shrugged, and twiddled with the rope.
‘Did Father Christmas bring you any presents?’
The little girl nodded again.
‘What did he get you?’
She held up the rope. Kate could see that the wooden handles had been fashioned as frogs and painted green.
‘Wow. You must have been a very good girl for Father Christmas to give you that.’
The little girl nodded and took a couple of tentative steps forward. She held up the rope for Kate to examine, and Kate admired it enthusiastically.
‘Is there a baby in your belly?’ the little girl asked finally.
‘There is.’
‘Can I touch it?’
Kate nodded and the little girl placed a tiny hot hand on her belly.
‘It feels all hard.’