by Jon Rance
I lay in bed and thought about Jack and the baby. Our little baby. It wasn’t the life I’d ever imagined, but I knew it was the life I wanted. It seemed so obvious. Jack was always going on about defining moments. He thought we all had a pivotal moment in our lives – a piece of random luck, good or bad timing, a pivotal decision that made us who we are – but I hadn’t always agreed with him. I thought life was like a film: just a series of shots worked together to create a whole. It had a beginning, middle and an end and within that framework were important milestones: first steps, first words, first kisses, first loves, first jobs, marriage, kids. It all rolled into a life.
It dawned on me that when I was sixteen and had the abortion, had lost the baby that Mum said was impossible to keep, that was my defining moment. That baby would have been thirteen now. My life would have been unrecognisable from my current one. I always thought back to that and a part of me regretted it, felt awful for doing what we did, but another part of me knew Mum had been right. That baby was impossible, but this one was different. Once I knew I was pregnant, I knew I had to keep it. It wasn’t really a choice and maybe, just maybe, it would help heal the wounds of the first one.
I fell asleep thinking about Jack, holding my phone in my hand, hoping that tomorrow, when the sun came up, everything would be all right. The last noise I heard before I closed my eyes was giggles on the landing and then Rhys’s whispered voice telling someone to be quiet, before I heard the door to his room open and another young heart about to be broken creep inside.
To: Kate Jones
From: Emma Fogle
Subject: Re: Oz
K,
I’m going to keep the baby. In the end it wasn’t even a choice. It’s Jack and me and we made this life and whether we meant to or not, it doesn’t matter because we did. And I’m really excited about it.
It’s strange, and I don’t want to go all weird and girlie about it, but something biological shifted in me and I can feel it. It’s like once I was pregnant my motherly hormones just kicked in and I know more than anything in the world I have to take care of and protect this little life. It isn’t something I thought I’d ever feel, but I don’t miss the film because this is so much more important. And you were right about that too. I’m young and I got this role, I can get other parts. This isn’t the end of my acting career, but the start of something else.
It’s my last morning at the mansion and it’s early because I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been up most of the night thinking about Jack. I have to go home and tell him now and as happy as I think he’s going to be, I’m still worried. This baby wasn’t planned and a part of me is terrified because we can’t afford it and I know it’s going to put even more strain on Jack to do something. I know he’s going to be a brilliant dad, but I’m just concerned because he’s already been acting weird about the film and now this. I’m probably worrying about nothing, as usual. Wish me luck.
I hope you’re having fun and still enjoying yourself in Australia. I’m so glad you found a suitable travelling buddy – and a girl this time! I’ll write again soon. Your pregnant and happy BFF. Love you.
Love Em X
Jack
I didn’t know what it was. I couldn’t place the sound. I turned and felt my spine concertina as if I’d been sleeping inside a small wooden box, but then I realised it was almost as bad – I’d slept on the sofa. The small two-person sofa we’d been meaning to replace for ages, with the lumpy bits that dug into my back. I could still hear the noise like a gentle tapping on wood. I tried to open my eyes and get my bearings, but my head was banging and a sharp pain sat just behind my eyes waiting for its cue to go on. I opened my eyes and the sharp pain suddenly released itself upon the rest of my head. A blurry but familiar image was standing in front of me.
‘Oh my God, what happened to you?’ said Emma. I sat up slowly and it was then, as Emma leant down to kiss me that I remembered. Everything came flooding back in a millisecond, crushing me beneath its sheer weight of awfulness. Memories like snapshots of another life flashed through my mind. Emma. Rhys Connelly. Depressed. Therese. Drunk. Dancing. A club. Back to mine. Naked on the sofa. Sex? I stopped and looked at Emma in horror. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘It’s not what it seems,’ I managed to garble out as Therese came walking out of the bedroom in a pair of Emma’s pyjamas. Emma’s face dropped. It looked terrible. It was terrible. ‘Emma,’ I said, but it was too late because she was already turning around and walking out, slamming the door behind her.
‘Sorry,’ said Therese from behind me. ‘I thought she was gone for the week.’
‘Me too,’ I said, grabbing my crime scene pile of clothes from the floor and getting dressed.
The night before on the sofa, Therese and I had started out with an almighty passion. We’d grabbed and pulled at each other until we were naked. It seemed for all the world like it was just a matter of time before we would go that extra mile. But I couldn’t. I pulled back at the last moment because something deep inside of me knew that if I had sex with Therese, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.
‘What’s the matter?’ Therese said breathlessly.
‘I can’t do this. I’m sorry. It isn’t you, it’s me. It’s Emma,’ I said and then we were getting up and covering ourselves with a sort of awkward embarrassment; our nakedness, which only moments before had seemed so natural, suddenly felt like the strangest thing in the world. The darkness of the room was replaced with light as the world in all its complicated glory stopped us in its tracks.
We sat and talked for a while and she wanted to get a taxi home, but it was late and so I told her to stay the night in the bed and I would take the sofa. I didn’t think Emma would be back for days and so I didn’t think it would matter. I didn’t think and that was the problem.
I caught up with Emma just as she was getting into her car, tears streaming down her face.
‘Emma, please don’t do this.’
‘Do what, Jack?’
‘Let me explain.’
‘Five minutes,’ she said, the tears replaced with a face of sheer calm. She looked shocked, not angry but disappointed, and that was far worse. When I was little and I did something so terrible that Dad didn’t even shout, but just stood and looked at me, disappointed, it was the worst feeling in the world. When you did something so awful it was beyond punishment, you felt it and I had the same feeling again. I wanted Emma to shout at me, punish me and then forgive me. What I didn’t want and couldn’t stand was the quiet, sullen disappointment.
We walked around the corner to Frank’s Café and took a seat outside. I ordered us a couple of coffees and we sat and looked at one another. Emma and Jack. Jack and Emma. We were getting married in a matter of months. We were going to spend the rest of our lives together, but at that moment, nothing was further from my mind.
‘I called and Rhys was in your room,’ I eventually said. ‘And I thought, after your kiss . . .’
‘You thought I was shagging him.’
‘I’m sorry, Em. I freaked out. I made a mistake. I should’ve trusted you.’
‘So you thought, Emma’s screwing Rhys, I’ll go out, pick up a random girl, bring her home and fuck her in our bed. That will teach her.’
‘We didn’t have sex.’
‘You didn’t?’
‘No.’
‘But something happened. A girl in a pair of my pyjamas did walk out of our bedroom if I’m not mistaken.’
‘Her name’s Therese. We work together. It was just a stupid drunken thing, Em. It didn’t . . .’
‘I know, “It didn’t mean anything”. But you know what, Jack, it usually means something,’ she said, her face cracking again. A tear leaked out and slid down her beautiful pale cheek.
‘I don’t know what to say to make it OK. I just want to go back and change what I did, make a better choice. I love you, Em, so much and I hate that I hurt you, hate that I did what I did.’
‘And what did you do?’
/>
‘Nothing, we just kissed.’
‘Just kissed?’
Perfectly balanced moments like that didn’t come along very often. I had an opportunity. The truth was that we didn’t have sex and surely that was all that mattered. We were drunk, it was foolish, but why should I ruin everything because of a stupid, silly mistake? People talk a lot about the importance of truth and honesty in relationships, but what good was the truth if it was going to hurt Emma and possibly ruin the rest of our lives?
‘We just kissed. We were drunk and that’s why she stayed over because I didn’t want her going home late at night. She slept in our bed and I slept on the sofa. It was nothing, Em. A stupid, stupid kiss that meant nothing. I would never cheat on you. You’re going to be my wife.’
She looked at me and I could see she was breaking. I felt rotten, but I couldn’t risk losing her because of one night.
‘And it’s never going to happen again?’ she eventually said, wiping the tears from her cheeks.
I smiled and a great weight suddenly fell from my heart, breaking off like an iceberg and floating away before being dissolved in the ocean. Emma would never know the complete truth about Therese, but it was all right because it didn’t matter. It was nothing. The shameful truth is that sometimes one-night stands do mean nothing. Sometimes it’s just a senseless, thoughtless, rash concoction of alcohol and irresponsibility.
‘Never. I love you too much.’
‘Love you too and I’m sorry, I . . .’
It suddenly dawned on me I still didn’t know why she was back so early. What had happened with the film, the week away and why was she looking at me like that? Her face had changed again. Only this wasn’t an expression I’d seen before. I couldn’t read it and I didn’t know what she was going to say next. How could I have known?
‘What’s the matter?’ It was then that she broke down again, the tears flooding out of her. People at nearby tables looked across at us as I got up and knelt in front of Emma and held her. She sobbed into my shoulder for what seemed like an age. I felt her body shudder and shake uncontrollably. It scared me. She eventually pulled herself from me; I wiped her eyes and nose with the back of my hand, before she looked at me with a smile.
‘I’m pregnant, Jack,’ she said, searching my face for a reaction. ‘We’re having a baby.’
Suddenly everything seemed to tumble and fall away beneath me. Everything I thought I was and had seemed different and changed forever. How could she be pregnant? She was on the pill and we’d been together for so long and I didn’t understand. I was going to be a father. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t have a proper job. I hadn’t made it as a writer. I couldn’t support them like my own father had with us. But then suddenly it didn’t matter. Emma and I were having a baby. All the negative thoughts and worries evaporated and a huge rush of love and protection shone like a lighthouse through my body, illuminating everything around me.
I’d thought about having kids one day, when our careers were sorted, when we could afford it, when it seemed right, but sitting there at Frank’s, it felt right. It wasn’t planned, we couldn’t afford it, our careers were far from sorted and maybe we weren’t ready, but it felt right.
‘Seriously?’ I managed to mumble out between the tears that had suddenly appeared on my face. ‘I’m going to be a dad?’
‘Seriously,’ said Emma and I buried myself in her knowing that nothing in the world really mattered anymore except Emma, me and the little person growing inside of her.
Ed
I love Kate. I love Kate. I love Kate.
I was sitting at my desk repeating the same three words over and over in my mind, trying desperately to erase in some way the waterfall of guilt that kept tumbling and cascading unrelentingly down my body. Since my night with Georgie, I’d felt sick nearly every moment of every day. I’d wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, hoping and praying it had all been just a horrible nightmare, then realising it wasn’t a bad dream at all but my actual life. I’d see Georgie at work, smiling, laughing and without a care in the world and my heart would sink. It meant nothing to her. I had been just a casual shag, another notch on her bedpost.
‘Do you have those numbers?’ barked Hugh, suddenly standing in front of me. His bear-like silhouette blocked out the sun that was coming through the window.
‘Sorry, sir, what’s that?’
‘The numbers, Hornsby. The numbers we spoke about this morning,’ said Hugh again. The hostility in his voice because he’d been forced to repeat something spat at me and I was surprised not to find my face suddenly damp. I could see his brain ticking over as he waited, calculating the seconds he’d wasted having to repeat himself. Oh, the humanity.
‘Right, yes, the numbers. I’ll email them to you. Five minutes?’
‘To the second, Hornsby. To the second!’ he said in the same venomous tone and then he turned around and marched towards his office. I quickly started working on the numbers he’d requested and managed to email him in a little under five minutes. My heart was racing, my hands were sweaty and I needed a quick break. I didn’t smoke, but grabbed my coat and headed outside anyway.
Kate and I were walking along the Thames path in Putney. It wasn’t long after we officially became girlfriend and boyfriend. We talked about everything and nothing and stopped for lunch at a little pub. I was twenty-one and I didn’t think life got any better. Growing up in Slough, this was what I had always dreamt about. I had a beautiful girlfriend, I’d just graduated university and I had my whole life ahead of me. I remember it so clearly and the conversation we had that day.
‘Love you,’ I said for the first time.
It had been on my mind for days and the moment felt right. I’d known I loved Kate so quickly it had taken even me by surprise. I hadn’t intended to fall in love so soon. I always thought I’d get my career on track first, make some serious money before I delved into a proper relationship. However, from the moment I met Kate in the student union, I just knew.
‘Love you too,’ she said, her eyes glistening with pure, unadulterated happiness, but then her face dropped and she held my hands and looked at me. ‘Just promise me one thing.’
‘Anything.’
‘Promise me you’ll never hurt me.’
One of the happiest moments of my life and Kate still had those doubts. The doubts put upon her by her useless father. This was what happened when parents got divorced. There I was, from a fully functioning two-parent family, wrapped up in layers of love and the future all mapped out: a wedding, a house, kids and a whole lifetime of happiness, because in my world that was what happened. But Kate was worried it was going to nosedive into disaster and we were going to end up like her parents, because that was all she knew.
I promised I wouldn’t let that happen. I told her I’d protect her, give her the life she craved and that I’d never hurt her. Maybe it was youthful folly or just wishful thinking, promising something I could never guarantee, but I had let her down. Let us down.
‘Could I?’ I said to a bloke I barely recognised. He offered me the packet and I took out a cigarette. He sparked up his lighter and I inhaled, taking in the smoke and then almost coughing my guts up, but I managed to keep it in.
I smoked for a few years when I was younger, but quit during university. My father was a lifelong smoker and I didn’t want to end up like that: the gravelly voice, coughing every morning, the yellow-stained fingers and not being able to walk up a flight of stairs without wheezing.
‘Cheers,’ I said and then stood there with the rest of the smokers in the cold.
We were like a police line-up. All clutching our cigarettes, trying to finish them quickly so we didn’t get in trouble for being a minute too long, but trying to draw some happiness from being out of the office for a moment. I usually walked past the smokers line-up on my way out to grab lunch and always felt a sense of pity for them. But here I was, one of them, clutching my cancer stick, tapping my feet to an imaginary beat t
o keep warm and trying to enjoy it.
‘I didn’t know you smoked.’ The voice came from nowhere. An instantly recognisable voice. Georgie was standing next to me looking her usual gorgeous self in a warm coat and scarf. She sparked up a cigarette.
‘Oh, you know, occasionally.’
‘Stress?’
‘Something like that.’
We hadn’t spoken much since our night together. She’d rung me a couple of times, but I’d ignored it and let it go to voicemail. She hadn’t left any messages. The truth was I didn’t want to speak to her again. Strictly professional was the only way I could cope.
‘You shouldn’t be stressed, Ed,’ she said with a salacious grin. ‘Not about us anyway.’
‘I’d better get back.’ I had a last toke on my cigarette before I stubbed it out in the smokers’ bin.
‘Wait,’ said Georgie, grabbing my arm. ‘Don’t leave because of me.’
I noticed a couple of heads look across from the line-up. The last thing I needed was a smoking-break scene. It would be all over the office by lunchtime and I’d be standing in front of Hugh before the end of the day.
‘No, it’s not you. I just have a lot to do,’ I said with a smile. ‘You know Hugh.’
‘More than I’d like,’ said Georgie, giggling. ‘Listen, Ed. I’d hate what happened to get in the way of our friendship.’
‘Right, yes, of course,’ I said, but knowing there was no way we could be friends. Just seeing her face at work was a constant reminder of what I’d done. Talking to her was worse. ‘Friends.’
‘Good. Friends,’ said Georgie and then she leaned across and gave me a hug, pushing her body against mine. The smell of her perfume tickled my nose and the feeling of her hands around me made me want to pull back and run as far away as I could. I didn’t though. I couldn’t. Keep it together, Ed, I told myself. Just smile and walk away, and that’s exactly what I did.