As she wrapped her legs and arms around him in a pincer movement, Paul let his lips hover over the smooth skin of her outstretched neck. ‘You usually only want me for one thing,’ he said and then waited just long enough for his wife’s body to respond to the comment. She tried not to tense but it was too late. ‘God, is that what this is all about, Julia?’
As he lifted his head, she refused to meet his gaze.
‘Is it that time of the month?’ he asked.
Staring at the thin covering of coarse brown hair across his chest, she said, ‘How would I know?’
‘Because maybe you’ve been using the ovulation kit like you have every other month. Old habits die hard, don’t they?’
‘Paul, please …’
In one smooth move he lifted himself off her and out of bed. ‘So was that what last night was about too?’
‘You were the one who initiated sex as I recall. And besides, all that alcohol would hardly have helped our chances,’ she argued.
‘All the more reason to try again this morning.’
Julia had a choice. She could continue with the lie and face suspicion every time she tried to get close to Paul or … ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Paul, it’s not like I’m cheating on you. Is it such a crime to want to have sex and hold onto the hope that one day we’ll be parents? I know you want this as much as I do.’
‘So were you ever going to take a break? It was for a few months, Julia, maybe not even that. All I asked was that we take the pressure off each other until we know what we’re facing. Was that really too much to ask?’
‘No!’ she cried. ‘And yes! You were getting stressed, I could see that, and I thought that as long as you were happy to think we’d taken a break then that worked for you. It just didn’t work for me. You’re asking me to wait even longer than we already have and I can’t bear it.’
‘I can’t bear it either, don’t you see that?’ Paul said, the words choking him.
More calmly, Julia said, ‘That’s what scares me most. I don’t just want a baby for me – I want it for you, Paul, because I know what an amazing dad you’re going to make. What if you’re stuck with me, and only me? What happens if we can’t ever have kids? What happens if we can’t adopt?’
‘I don’t honestly know, Julia. It terrifies me too, but what scares me more is that you don’t seem to be able to face the possibility of it just being the two of us, not when you can’t even give me a couple of damn months.’
‘Because I want more for you,’ Julia said, her eyes wide with fear. She couldn’t help thinking back to the first man who had walked out on her. If it were to happen again, she had to be prepared. ‘And I can’t help but thinking you’d be better off cutting your losses and—’
Before she could finish her sentence, Paul’s temper exploded. ‘You really think I’d do that?’
‘I’d want you to do it!’ she cried.
Paul stared at her in disbelief and when he started to turn away, she added, ‘I’m sorry. Please, Paul, I know our relationship is about so much more than having a baby and I know I’m being irrational, but I can’t help how I feel.’
‘But you could lie to me?’
‘I know you’re angry and I don’t blame you, but I was trying to protect you from the stress of it all. And it’s not like we were avoiding getting pregnant. We had a lovely time last night and we could be doing more of the same right now.’
Paul was shaking his head as he pulled open a drawer and took out his running gear. ‘Funnily enough, Julia, I’m not in the mood any more and I’m not sure when I will be again. At the present moment I feel like a prize bull and I’m about to jump over the fence. But isn’t that exactly what you’d expect of me anyway? Isn’t that the kind of man you think I am?’
‘No, of course it’s not. I shouldn’t have said that. Please, Paul, stay here. You can’t go for a run now, you need time for your food to settle.’
‘I’m already feeling sick, Julia. Sick and tired.’
When Phoebe came out of the house, it wasn’t until she reached the gate that she spotted Paul further down the road. He had parked out of view of the house and was sticking magnetic L-plates to the VW Beetle. Walking towards him, she played nervously with the checked flannel shirt her nan had just told her made her look like a man.
‘You’re not expecting me to drive straight away, are you?’ she asked. ‘I’ve never been behind the wheel before.’
There was a brief flash of annoyance on Paul’s face, but then he remembered himself. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t thinking,’ he said. ‘There’s an industrial park I know that’ll be quite enough. We can start there and go through the basics. Come on.’
Phoebe had had butterflies all morning and not simply at the prospect of driving. She couldn’t help thinking how odd it was going to be spending time alone with Paul, something they had somehow managed to avoid for almost a decade, and from the way he was behaving, Paul was feeling just as awkward.
Before getting in the car, Phoebe shoved a carrier bag full of shopping behind the passenger seat.
‘We’ll only be out for an hour,’ Paul said with a hard-fought-for smile. ‘You didn’t have to bring supplies.’
‘That’s my alibi,’ Phoebe said. ‘They’re the bits and pieces I told Nan we’d forgotten and I needed to go back to the shops for. She’d only want to know why I was coming back empty-handed.’
‘You need an alibi?’
It was a challenge more than a question. ‘You know what she’s like.’
Paul laughed bitterly as he started the engine. ‘Yes, I know exactly what she’s like.’
Remarks like this were as near as they got to talking about the past, skirting around the detail and making no more than the occasional nod to the memories they shared. Phoebe didn’t expect today to be any different and she didn’t want it to be because, assuming her driving skills didn’t frighten Paul off after one lesson, they would be spending a lot more time alone together than either were used to. ‘Are you sure you’re OK doing this?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, of course,’ he said before cursing under his breath at a driver who had pulled out of a side road without warning.
‘Yeah, of course,’ Phoebe repeated, mocking his lack of enthusiasm.
Pursing his lips, Paul released a sigh with a long hiss. ‘Sorry, Phoebe. As I’m sure you’ve already noticed, I’m not in the best of moods, but I promise it has nothing to do with you.’
Phoebe said nothing. If his foul temper had something to do with Julia then it didn’t feel right talking about it, even if there had been a time when she and Paul had been able to tell each other anything. But that had been a long time ago – before Paul and Julia had become a couple, at which point the past had been rewritten and then ignored. Unfortunately, Paul was too wound up to apply the normal rules and he took Phoebe’s silence as an invitation to speak openly.
‘Did Julia ever tell you she thinks I’d leave her if we couldn’t have kids?’
Avoiding any comment on what Julia had or hadn’t said to her, Phoebe asked, ‘Would you?’
‘Of course not!’ he said, but then his body sagged; it was just a little, but enough to notice. ‘I’ll admit that I can’t imagine not ever being a dad, Phoebe. I never realized how much it meant until we started trying.’ He took a moment to concentrate on his driving, or more likely to give him time to collect his thoughts. ‘It would be a crushing disappointment, no doubt about it, and I’d want us to explore every option before we gave up completely. But worst-case scenario, if we couldn’t have our own kids and couldn’t adopt, then no, I wouldn’t give up on our marriage. So if Julia ever says anything like that, tell her, Phoebe. Tell her I wouldn’t leave her and I hope she wouldn’t either.’
‘She wouldn’t,’ Phoebe said. She was looking out of the window, feeling distinctly uncomfortable and desperate to change the subject. ‘Is that the industrial estate we’re going to?’ she asked, pointing to a road sign.
Paul indicated and chan
ged lanes, ready to turn into the estate with its warren of side roads and car parks that were deserted on a Sunday afternoon.
‘Julia says your car is pretty easy to drive,’ Phoebe continued brightly although the tone was forced and just a touch desperate.
‘Yeah, you’re lucky we didn’t opt for the tank of a car we had our eye on last year and I’m glad now that we didn’t get it. Too many empty seats.’
They drove on in silence until another wave of frustration washed over Paul. ‘You know what gets me?’ he said, hitting his palm against the steering wheel. ‘I spend most of my working life finding new homes for people who’ve outgrown their last one. Mothers complaining that they’re packed in like sardines, as if their kids are an affliction.’ He glanced over at Phoebe and his voice softened. ‘Sorry – again. I shouldn’t be offloading my problems onto you. I’m here to teach you how to drive. Now there’s one problem I can solve.’
After parking, the time had come for Phoebe to begin her lesson in earnest but neither of them moved. ‘And while I’m in rant mode, do you mind if I say something, Phoebe?’
‘That would depend on what it was,’ she said, daring to meet his eyes only briefly.
‘What happened?’
‘Sorry?’
‘What happened to the Phoebe I met in those daft art classes? I’ve always wanted to know.’
‘They weren’t daft,’ Phoebe answered, not sure if it was his dismissal of her craft that angered her or the point he was trying to make.
‘And neither are you,’ he said softly while looking at her with such intensity that for a moment, Phoebe thought he might just find what he was looking for.
‘You used to have this spark,’ he continued, then laughed to himself. ‘Actually, no, it was way, way more than a spark. You were irrepressible. But two years later it had been snuffed out. You looked the same but I swear, I wouldn’t have recognized you.’ Realizing he was making her cringe, he added, ‘I don’t know why I felt the need to say that, it’s just the mood I’m in, but I’m glad I said it, Phoebe, because it needed saying. You’ve been smothered for too long and if teaching you to drive can get some of that spark back then at least I’ll have achieved something. So come on, Jenson Button, let’s get this lesson started.’
9
When Helen looked out of the window and spied the VW Beetle pull up, she felt a rush of relief to see both Julia and Paul in the car. Julia had been giving Helen a blow-by-blow account of the couple’s latest argument, which had continued to rumble on for the past week, leaving Helen with a bad feeling. Julia was Helen’s role model and had been for as long as she could remember. For the first time in a long time, Helen didn’t want to be in her friend’s shoes.
With their two families so close, the two had practically grown up together and it wasn’t only the age difference that meant Helen had always looked up to Julia. Her friend was always the one to set the good example, which Helen generally failed miserably to follow, and it was rare for Helen to feel that she had the upper hand. The last time would have been when Julia had been jilted a week before her wedding. Helen was not only a wife but a mother by that point, although she had hardly been proud of her achievements. She might have been the one to make it to the altar first, but she had been slightly stunned to be there, not to mention very pregnant, having been caught two months after her first date with John. Her marriage had been destined to fail, whereas Julia had got it right second time around – or at least that was the script they were meant to be following.
It wasn’t entirely for selfless reasons that Helen was happy to see them together, however, and she was momentarily confused when she opened the door to find only Julia on the doorstep. She looked over to Paul who had remained behind the wheel.
‘Not coming in?’ she called, hoping he would respond to the disappointment in her voice.
‘Sorry, I have a date with the gym. I’ll catch you later.’
Helen was about to follow through with a more direct plea but the driver’s window was sliding back up and Julia had already pushed past her without a backward glance. Helen watched the car disappear before joining her friend in the kitchen. She found Julia admiring the room’s various battle wounds which included a broken handle dangling from one of the cupboards, deep scratches on the wooden dining table and a fridge door littered with magnets and notes. It was the home-made calendar Sellotaped lazily to the wall that held Julia’s attention for longest.
‘I take it you two haven’t made amends yet?’
‘Paul prefers getting intimate with a cross-trainer these days than with his wife.’
‘By that I hope you mean a piece of gym equipment and not an angry gym instructor?’
The scowl that had been fixed on her friend’s face softened but she didn’t smile.
‘He’ll have to start talking to me sooner or later,’ she said. ‘We’ve just had the appointment through to see the consultant. It’s in a couple of weeks and I’m dreading it now more than ever. Can you imagine what the doctor’s going to think when he realizes his patients are barely talking to each other?’
‘Sit yourself down and tell me all about it,’ Helen said.
Julia had already spoken at length about her troubles over the phone but Helen didn’t mind hearing it again. It would be good to feel appreciated, something that didn’t happen that often in her house. She switched on the kettle and set out two mismatched mugs as her friend took a deep breath. Julia was about to launch into her complaints when there was a loud thump from upstairs. They both looked up to the ceiling.
‘Milly, what are you doing up there?’ Helen bellowed.
There was a mumbled, incoherent reply.
‘What?’ Helen screeched.
Rather than a reply, they heard movement as Milly made her way downstairs.
Julia looked understandably confused. ‘I thought she was at her dad’s this weekend?’
‘Now there’s a story,’ Helen promised but could say no more as a miserable-looking child poked her head into the kitchen.
‘I wasn’t doing nothing.’
Helen glared at Milly, who was keeping her head down and refused to meet her mother’s death stare. ‘If you weren’t doing nothing, Milly, then you must have been doing something.’
Julia sucked the air through her teeth. ‘You don’t want to get caught out by a double negative,’ she said in a poor attempt to break the tension.
Milly looked at Julia with tears brimming in her eyes. ‘I was only doing my homework like my mum told me to.’
‘And what?’ Helen asked. ‘You were so absorbed in your studies that you fell out of bed?’
‘Yes,’ came a surly reply.
Helen practically growled her response. ‘Go back upstairs and stop messing about.’
‘Can’t I stay down here with Julia?’
‘No.’
Milly turned to Julia in the hope that she would overrule her mother. Julia shrugged. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘Can I get a drink first?’
‘No.’
The tears spilled down Milly’s cheeks as she pursed her lips. She attempted a response but it came out as a sob and she turned tail and stormed back upstairs, stomping her feet and slamming her bedroom door. Silence followed but brought no peace to the house.
‘That was a bit harsh, wasn’t it?’
Helen poured their drinks and took out a packet of biscuits from the cupboard, determined to demonstrate how unmoved she was by her daughter’s tears. Her jaw clenched when she said, ‘She’s about to learn that if she insists on staying home with me then she bloody well isn’t going to enjoy herself.’
John had Milly every other weekend, a routine that Helen relied upon. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy spending time with her daughter, but she deserved some time to herself. She was still in her twenties and she wasn’t ready to spend all her weekends at home avoiding the housework and watching kids’ TV. She had planned to go into town that afternoon and pester Phoebe. What
was the point in having a friend with a store discount if you couldn’t take advantage of it? She needed a new outfit because she was meeting up with the girls from work later and hadn’t intended coming home until she was too drunk to remember how good a time she’d had.
Those plans were in disarray and she suspected she would be spending the next two days pacing the floor like a trapped animal and being irritated by her daughter.
‘What happened?’
‘Eva had a bit of a scare with the baby and ended up in hospital for a couple of days.’
This was news that Helen could have shared with Julia earlier in the week but under the circumstances she had avoided any conversation that involved other people’s pregnancies.
‘Oh, God, is she all right?’ Julia asked, surprising them both by the alarm in her voice.
‘I think so, they’re home now but they’ll have to monitor her blood pressure a bit more closely.’
‘She must be, what? Eight months now?’
‘She’s due a few days after Christmas, so yeah, about that. Knowing my luck, she’ll decide to drop it on Boxing Day, which is when Milly should be staying with them. If my darling daughter is in a strop now because her dad suggested they stay home to look after Eva rather than go tenpin bowling, I dread to think what she’d be like if Christmas was cancelled. You might want to keep a wide berth if that happens.’
‘It’s understandable, though. Milly’s been the centre of her dad’s universe for so long and she’s scared that’s going to change.’
‘It will change,’ Helen said, having long since lost sympathy for her spoilt brat who was going the wrong way about convincing either parent that they should be investing more time and effort into her upbringing. ‘No doubt about it.’
Julia eyed Helen with suspicion. ‘Sounds like it’s bothering you as much as it is Milly. It must be weird thinking of John with a brand-new family.’
Helen did her best to look affronted. ‘I’m not jealous, if that’s what you’re suggesting.’
‘Aren’t you? Just a little bit?’
The Goodbye Gift Page 8