“I’m sorry.” Now Polly is staring at Anna. “I’m really pleased for you, Anna, of course. I just … you know, with Bella’s situation …”
“I understand completely.” Anna is more magnanimous than ever now that she’s so content. And now that she’s on what I think is at least her tenth mini sausage roll of the evening. “But with any luck, Bells and I will end up being first-time mothers together! I mean, knock wood about the adoption and all that!”
I don’t think this is the time or place to say that I think it might take quite a lot more than knocking on wood to see this adoption through to the bitter end. Like getting a personality transplant for my boyfriend, perhaps.
“Anyway!” Anna carries on superbrightly, as if to try to cut through the weird atmosphere she’s inadvertently walked into. “I won’t have you two shutting yourselves away in here, not when it’s Christmas Eve! I’m up for a bit of a boogie, if either of you will come and help me shove back the sofa. By the way,” she adds in a low voice as Polly makes a start toward the living room and we follow, “I really came in to tell you that you might want to come and sort out the situation with the Black Widow in there. Grace, I mean. I think you might want to prise your man off her.”
I feel almost winded by a sudden blow of jealousy. “Liam?”
“Jamie.” Anna stares at me. “Hence the fact I said ‘your man.’”
“Oh! Of course. That’s who I meant.”
“Right. That’s who you meant.”
I ignore her pointed tone as we walk into the living room, where—oh, for the love of God—Jamie is quite literally all over Grace. He’s kind of backed her into a corner and put an arm around her shoulders, and as I approach, I can hear him saying, in a very un-Jamie-like tone of immense gentleness, “You know, sweetheart, if there’s anything at all I can do to help, just say the word.”
“That’s so nice of you,” Grace is gulping, “but I’m honestly OK … oh, Bella! Hi!” She looks relieved, rather than guilty, as I approach, which makes me think Anna has been just the tiniest bit unfair in describing her as a Black Widow. I mean, it’s not her fault she attracts men, what with those doe eyes and those mile-long legs, and that delicate, porcelain skin …
Oh, who am I kidding? I’ve never really trusted Grace. And that’s not about to change just because she’s going through a dreadful personal tragedy.
“Hi, Grace. Jamie.” I shoot him a pointed look, but I can tell, immediately, that he’s already the worse for wear for however many of Brian’s White Christmases he’s just seen off in that empty glass he’s holding. We’re probably at around DEFCON 3 right now. “Everything OK here?”
“Yeah, babe, everything’s fine. But I think maybe Grace could do with another drink. Right, sweetheart?”
“No, really, I’m fine.” Grace gives a watery smile and waggles her own full glass at both of us. Drinking to excess really isn’t a very Grace-like thing, even on Christmas Eve. And even in the throes of a fresh divorce. “Everything’s really lovely, Bella. Thank you so much for having me. And … um … is there any sign of anyone else arriving yet?”
“You mean your bastard of an ex-husband?” Jamie demands before I can subtly indicate to Grace that actually, Dev should be here any minute. “Bella wouldn’t have him through the front door, would you, Bells? Do you know, babe, he’s threatened Grace with eviction from their house? Told her she’ll end up in a B&B, without the kids.”
“That’s terrible,” I say and mean it.
“Yeah, well, I’ve already given Grace my lawyer’s number. He’s cheap, and tough as nails, and he’ll help her out.”
Christ, he’s even further on the road to DEFCON 4 or 5 than I thought. I’m just about to tell him, gently but firmly, that he doesn’t have a lawyer, when Grace speaks.
“It’s really good of you, Jamie, but I don’t think he’ll be able to do very much to help me. It’s a divorce lawyer I need, I’m afraid, not a criminal lawyer.”
What the hell? I mean, I know the White Christmases are lethal—look at Mum, fast asleep now, over there on the sofa—and I know Jamie’s keen to impress posh, ethereal Grace with his bad-boy ways. But pretending he’s got criminal lawyers on his speed dial? Has the booze triggered a psychotic break or something?
“Grace, I’m sorry, you’ve not met Jamie before, but sometimes it’s best to take him with a pinch of salt!” I let out a little laugh. “He’s teasing you, and he shouldn’t. This is a serious situation Grace is in, J. She really does need a lawyer. You mustn’t waste her time pretending you know one.”
“Well, obviously I know one, Bella!” Jamie glares at me through slightly glazed eyes. “And he’s fucking good, too. I would never have got probation as early as I did if it weren’t for him.”
This time my laugh is louder. “What are you talking about, probation?”
“Probation, babe. From prison. For my GBH conviction.”
The living room suddenly seems to get very, very small, and very, very hot. “GBH?”
“Grievous bodily harm. Come on, babe, you know all about this!” But there’s a panicky look in Jamie’s eyes. It’s absurd to think of this right now, but it’s a bit like the look he gets when I accuse him of farting in bed, he claims he hasn’t, and then the terrible toxic smell starts to creep toward us, unavoidable evidence that he’s tried to pull a fast one. Except right now, it’s a hell of a lot guiltier-looking. “You know I did seven months, for so-called assaulting my auntie’s landlord in Kilburn … Hey, there’s no need to look at me like I’ve just shot Bambi!” He laughs, but there’s a hollow sound to it. “And it’s not like it sounds.” He turns to Grace, either because he wants to convince her that he’s not a hardened violent criminal, or because he can’t look me in the eye. “This bloke gave as good as he got. And he’d been causing nothing but grief for my auntie Eileen for months by the time I finally lost it with him. Always threatening to put up her rent and never coming round to fix any of the lousy old appliances he’d saddled her with …”
“Sure. Um … it sounds awful.” Grace is looking embarrassed and extremely uncomfortable. “I might just go and get a bit of food, actually, if it’s OK by you?”
As she slips away, Jamie looks at me again. “All right, all right, maybe I haven’t mentioned it to you. But it was three years before we met, at least! And it’s not like it really matters …”
“Not like it really matters?” I echo. “But I told you”—didn’t I tell him?—“when we were first talking about adoption that we’d have to go through all kinds of police records checks. That they’d probably trawl through every parking ticket and fender bender but that it would only be a problem if either of us had any kind of serious criminal conviction. You know. Like grievous bodily harm. Or something.”
Jamie swallows. “Oh. Right. Shit. I don’t remember you saying that.”
“No. No, you wouldn’t, would you?” I feel my fists clench into tight, lethal balls and think, just for one moment, about drawing one of them back and smashing it into Jamie’s face. Shattering a few of his teeth, perhaps. To go along with my dreams. “You wouldn’t remember, because you were probably doing something really important at the time. Like watching Manchester United. Or recovering from a hangover.”
“Right. Yeah. Sorry, babe. Might have been.”
I take a deep breath. “I mean, this isn’t a small thing we’re talking about here. We’ll have to tell Samantha, and I don’t think …”
“Who’s Samantha?”
I’m just about to scream at him, at the top of my lungs, For the hundredth time, she’s our fucking adoption social worker, when suddenly the doorbell rings.
This reminds me that I have a roomful of people here, most of whom are shamelessly eavesdropping on my conversation with Jamie. And that Dev is probably the one ringing the front doorbell.
“I need to get that.” I stumble away from Jamie and out into the corridor.
The last thing I need is Polly following me.
&nb
sp; “Bells … Bella, stop.” She puts her hand on my shoulder before I’ve even reached the front door. “I heard that. I mean, I heard some of it … this is crazy. You can’t stay with him now! Not if you ever want to adopt a baby! No adoption agency in the land is going to look twice at you with a prospective father who’s been in prison—in prison, Bella!—for violent crime.”
“Polly, not this again.” I push her hand away, then turn to face her, plastering a smile over my face that I know for a fact isn’t coming anywhere close to reaching my eyes. I’m willing myself to forget about Jamie, just for a few minutes, just while I get Polly and Dev talking. “Let me get the door, OK?”
“Oh, come on, it’ll just be some tone-deaf carol singers or something. Ignore it. You’re upset.”
“I’m not upset. I’m fine!” I make sure my smile is even wider—God, my cheeks ache—as I reach to open the front door.
Thank God something is going right this evening. The way things are going, it might well have been some tone-deaf carol singers. But it isn’t. As planned, it’s Dev.
He’s looking very handsome, and very nervous, smartly and sweetly dressed up in a dark suit, with a check scarf and a blue coat folded over his arm.
“Bella!” he says. And then, noticing her behind me, “Poll.” His Adam’s apple lifts and lowers. “Um. Happy Christmas.”
Polly is staring at him like he’s the Ghost of Christmas Past. “What are you doing here?” she whispers.
“Bella invited me. Didn’t she … didn’t she tell you?”
“No. She didn’t tell me.”
“Well! There’s no point in standing out there freezing!” I usher him indoors. “Come on in, get warm …”
“I can’t believe this,” Polly says. “I can’t believe you’ve done this, Bella.”
“Done what?” I can see Grace, hovering nervously in the living room doorway, and I motion for her to come over. I have the feeling I might need a little bit of backup. “Look, I just thought—me and Grace just thought you might like to catch up with Dev, it being Christmas and everything.”
“You planned this, too?” Polly spins to look at Grace.
“No! It was Bella’s idea.” Grace—or should I call her Judas?—looks like she wishes the floor would open up and swallow her whole. “I mean, I knew about it, but I didn’t plan it. But now that he’s here … I mean, you were supposed to be getting married a week from now,” she adds lamely. “Don’t you think it’s a bit silly to have let things get to the point where you won’t even talk to him?”
“If she doesn’t want to talk to me,” Dev interjects, doing his best not to look like a broken man, “then it’s fine. I’ll just leave, and …”
“No. No, I’ll leave.” There’s a sob in Polly’s voice. She starts pushing past Dev. Then she does a very, very odd thing. As she passes him, she makes a sudden grab for him, holding him tightly to her for three seconds … four … five …
It doesn’t last. His own arms come up, after a moment of shock, to go around her. Which is when she lets go of him, moves for the front door, and slams it behind her.
I want Dev to go after her, but he refuses. He looks too shell-shocked to be of much use, anyway. My second choice is for me to go alone, but Grace insists on coming with me.
We catch up with Polly as she wrestles with the tricky catch on the gate at the bottom of my front path.
“Leave me alone!” she commands.
“Polly, please, come back inside …”
“I cannot believe you did that to me!” Ignoring her own professed desire to be left alone, she turns around to face us. In the unflattering orange streetlight, her face looks hollow, her cheeks sunken. “I told you—I told both of you—just to forget about the idea of me and Dev being together! And what do you do? You scheme and plot together to dangle him under my nose!”
“We didn’t scheme. Or plot,” Grace begins.
“And why would I believe anything you say?” Polly rounds on her. “You didn’t even tell me you were seeing Locanda Locatelli guy!”
“I … I haven’t been …”
“Don’t lie! Bella knows all about it. Just another one of the ways in which you two are oh-so-cozy together these days, apparently. I mean, who’d have ever thought the two of you would band together like this?” Her voice is heavy with sarcasm. “The dynamic duo, putting aside twenty years of animosity, just to save poor little Polly! Well, it’s easy, isn’t it, to come up with a clever little plan to bring about the precious wedding you’re both so keen on me having? Far easier than either of you sorting out the mess you’re making of your own lives.”
Neither Grace nor I say anything. I suspect that, like me, she doesn’t have the faintest idea what to say.
“I should never have come home,” Polly is saying, turning back to the gate and managing to flip the tricky catch this time. “I should never have tried to make anything right with both of you. I just wanted to stop feeling so guilty. And then, maybe, I could have made things work with Dev …” She breaks off. She’s looking over my shoulder, and I suddenly realize that there is noise and activity behind us.
When I turn around, I see that it’s Anna. She’s flanked by Poor Pete on one side, and Dev on the other, and she’s holding her stomach, doubled over in pain.
My first thought is that she should never have been eating so many of those sausage rolls.
But then I realize that Anna’s cheeks are tear-stained, and that Pete is looking stricken. Something is very much more serious here than a dodgy tummy from overenthusiasm on the sausage-roll front.
“We’re getting her into the car,” Dev says, in his calm, steady Doctor’s Voice, “and taking her to the hospital. It’s very likely that she’s having a miscarriage.”
I stare at the three of them. “But … she’s not even pregnant.”
Dev’s face—and thank God, I think he’s the only one who’s heard me—tells me that I’m wrong.
So I dart forward to help them with Anna, putting my arm around her as Pete fumbles for his car keys, and Dev gets the passenger door open, and then we all start gently loading her into her seat and fastening her seat belt before getting into the car ourselves.
I see Grace’s shocked face, where she’s still standing on the garden path, as Poor Pete pulls away from the curb.
And it’s only then that I realize that Polly has gone.
When my taxi finally pulls up outside the flat on my way home from the hospital, it’s two o’clock in the morning.
Christmas morning. Yay. Happy Christmas.
Though actually, it is a happy Christmas, in one way. One very important way.
Because Anna really is pregnant. More to the point, she really is still pregnant. The horrible, frightening suspected miscarriage was, in fact, a combination of perfectly ordinary early-pregnancy spotting and—I knew it—far too many sausage rolls.
Anna burst into tears when she heard, and I think Pete was just about ready to kiss Dev, who slipped away quietly after being the one to tell them the good news. They’re keeping her in the hospital overnight, just to be safe, but with any luck she should be out tomorrow, home for Christmas.
“Here we are, then, love,” says my driver as I get out of the taxi and start shoving a twenty-pound note toward him. He waves it away. “Nah. It’s on me. You look like you’ve had a pretty rough night. Things bad at the hospital, were they?”
As always, the small kindness makes my eyes start to water. “No … no, things weren’t bad at the hospital at all. They were very, very good at the hospital. My best friend is pregnant.”
“Oh, well! That’s nice, love. You must be thrilled for her.”
“Yes, I am. I really, really am. It’s …” I glance up at the windows of my flat. They’re dark, but I can see a flickering strobelike light from—what else?—the Wii. “It’s here, actually, where the problem is.”
“Right …” He’s lost a bit of interest, I can tell. Either that, or he just wants to get back into
the West End and pick up Christmas Eve revelers who won’t get all teary-eyed on him and make him feel obliged to cancel their fares. “Well. Christmas is always a difficult time, isn’t it? Brings a lot of emotions to the surface. Best thing is, go inside, crack open a nice bottle of wine, and hope Father Christmas makes everything better when you wake up. Yeah?”
I nod, and manage a smile, and watch him as he trundles off along the road, in the direction of Shepherd’s Bush roundabout.
Thank God for Brian, with whom I kept in touch from the hospital, and who, I know, has cleared away the food and drink and, even more importantly, cleared away Mum. He texted an hour or so ago to say they were back at their hotel and they’d be around late morning tomorrow for presents and Christmas lunch. So at least the flat looks clean and tidy as I let myself in.
There’s nothing for it, really, but to go straight into the living room.
But I stop before I go in because I can hear voices. And not the weird, electronic tones of the announcer on the Wii but real voices. Jamie’s, for one. And Liam’s, for another.
“You remember how it was, mate,” Jamie is saying. “And all right, GBH sounds really, really bad. But the other guy was an arsehole.”
“Bella isn’t trying to adopt a child with the other guy.” This is Liam. “You really are a bit of a fucking fool, Jamie. What were you thinking, not telling her?”
“I didn’t think it would ever really matter. I didn’t think it would ever be an issue.”
“You thought you could get out of the police checks?” Liam sounds astonished.
Jamie doesn’t say anything for a moment. There’s just the plinky-plonk of the Wii. Then he says, “I thought I could get out of the adoption.”
It feels like someone’s just punched me very hard in the stomach. It doesn’t hurt any less because I realize that, on some level, I knew it was coming.
There Goes the Bride Page 30