by Sara Foster
They had arrived late. To a quiet, darkened resort, an empty reception area, then a girl handing them keys for a villa he had prebooked on the internet only hours earlier, which they had to walk down a pitch-black path to get to. By the time they had unlocked the front door and Alex had turned on the lights, Amy had been white-faced, silent, shaking, her chest rising and falling rapidly, and she’d gone and locked herself in the bathroom for over an hour, while Alex contemplated whether he was really up to this new, pro-active approach.
However, the next morning, when they had woken up to the sounds of the sea and the excited squawking of children and gulls, and headed out for breakfast to find themselves in a beautiful, bustling resort, he knew for sure that his idea had been a good one. Waiting it out here would be a completely different proposition to their small, claustrophobic hotel room in the city. In fact, as the days had gone by, they both seemed almost to have forgotten that they were waiting for anything at all. They had swum, and eaten, and read, and taken walks along the beach. Last night, on one such expedition at sunset, Amy grabbed hold of his hand and held it for just a moment, while Alex thought uneasily of his wife.
When they had first got there, he had used the hotel internet and sent a long email to Chloe. He’d tried to be honest about everything, but had realised as he was typing that there were things he would never be able to explain fully. How could he tell her about his confused feelings for Amy and ask her to understand? Plus, he couldn’t tell her about Amy’s revelation regarding the baby; that one really wasn’t his secret to divulge. So, even as he pressed Send, he’d felt it was a futile gesture; another way of disconnecting them while trying to bring them closer again. The only way he could really begin to make amends, he had come to realise, was to abandon Amy and go home. The thought nagged at him every time he checked his email. It had been five days and she hadn’t replied.
He hadn’t had any heart-to-hearts with Amy this week – it had been an unspoken agreement between them. They had talked a lot of baloney, really, about current affairs and other guests in the hotel. Of course, a lot of subjects veered towards uncomfortable territory, but they had both become adept at steering the conversation back on course. And they had been laughing, and teasing one another, and sometimes it had felt like they’d never stopped, and that was killing him.
This time together had made Alex realise how much he and Amy had been robbed by circumstance. Whenever he thought about it, his blood heated up with anger and injustice. He thought about his time with Chloe: Chloe laughing, dancing, cooking at home, heading off to work. He thought about Chloe in her wedding dress. Amy should have had that. If not for the twists and turns of fate, then Amy would have had it all – probably with him. How he wished he could make it up to her.
The sun had begun its descent as he watched Amy lean over him in her bikini, reaching for her towel while dripping water onto him. She had just begun rubbing her hair when Alex’s mobile phone began to trill. The noise stilled her hand.
‘You need to come back,’ Detective Thompson said, without preamble, when Alex answered the call. ‘The defence has closed. The jury are about to retire. I don’t think they’ll be out for long.’
Alex met Amy’s eyes. She didn’t need him to do anything further for them both to know that this halcyon period was over.
84
Chloe had woken up with the feeling that something was wrong. Given that everything seemed wrong these days, it felt strange to think that way, but this was different. More nagging. More troubling.
It wasn’t that she was trying to block out the thought of her husband sharing a room – and a bed? – with another woman, because she had been doing that 24/7 for the past few days. Nor was it the email that was sitting patiently in her inbox, full as it was of pleading and excuses and guilt, which she still couldn’t begin to think how to reply to – although that wasn’t exactly helping her in her endless quest for an uninterrupted night’s sleep.
Nevertheless, despite her fresh misgivings, she went to work. The Abbott countdown was now days rather than weeks. The atmosphere in the office was tense. Even the solicitors who had nothing to do with the case knew that the way it played out could have a dramatic impact on the fortunes of them all.
There was now a small scrummage of media to contend with outside the office, wanting the first sound bites, any insider knowledge. When they’d initially appeared, a couple of days earlier, Mark had described being harangued by them as he tried to walk inside; yet they’d left Chloe alone, seeming largely uninterested in her. They probably assumed she was a secretary. If so, it appeared that sexist assumptions weren’t completely dead, she thought, though media savvy possibly was – the secretaries knew far more than anyone else around here.
In the office, she munched her way through a packet of crisps as she read over what seemed like dozens of emails, mostly irrelevant, paying careful attention to all those marked Abbott. Her stomach was aching at the thought of their first trip to court – another time she might have found it exciting, but she wasn’t in the mood.
The morning dragged by. She didn’t stop for lunch as she didn’t have much of an appetite, and she couldn’t wait for the day to be over. Mid-afternoon, she made her way around the desk and headed for the toilets to splash water on her face. Her body felt sluggish, out of sorts, her feet a little unsteady.
In the bathroom she stared at her face in the mirror, eyeing the girl who stared back with the same suspicious eyes. She had just turned the tap on and leaned over when the first spasm rocked her, making her almost double up. She instinctively curled into herself, going to her knees on the hard floor, trying to steady her breathing, failing before the second wave of pain rolled in. She gasped, just as the door to the toilets opened, and there was Jana, her expression moving into shock, staring at Chloe on the floor.
‘Call an ambulance,’ was all Chloe could murmur, before the floor quivered like the shimmer of a heat haze, and she keeled forward.
85
‘You still have a life, you know,’ Alex said. ‘I think you’re just choosing not to live it.’
They were back in Perth, sitting in a bar near their hotel, and they had both had a couple of whisky chasers. That was probably why he felt emboldened to say such a thing, Amy thought.
She had just told him she had nothing. No direction. No purpose. No attachments. Nothing. She had just said she didn’t know what she would do if the verdict was not what they wanted it to be. And it had made him unaccountably angry.
However, his reply riled her.
Alex looked her in the eye and continued, ‘It’s beyond terrible what you’ve gone through. I know that. But…’ he paused, glanced down, then back at Amy, and there was a fierce glow in his eye as he stated firmly, ‘You have a life, Amy. You are choosing not to live it. And every day you do that from now on is another day you let them win.’
Her mouth fell open. The tears gathered in readiness. ‘That’s not fair, Alex. I can’t…’ she said, voice breaking. ‘I don’t know how…’
‘No,’ Alex replied, the lines of his tanned face softening as he reached for her hand. ‘It isn’t fair. And you couldn’t… and you didn’t… But think about why we’re here. Now, Amy, I think you can.’
Maybe he was right, she thought, seeing past her emotion for a second. It was why she had felt compelled to come this far – she needed to see them get what they deserved. She had to see them punished, because if she did, then another small chink of her ethereal life might crack and reveal something solid underneath that she had been missing. Something she could hold on to and tease out until it grew bigger.
86
Chloe braced herself as the doctor walked towards her, notes in hand, and reached her bedside. She’d been groggy ever since the ambulance ride a few hours earlier.
‘Good news, Mrs Markham,’ he said, looking down and flicking through a few sheets of white paper. ‘There’s no sign of any problems on the ultrasound and your bloodwork is as it s
hould be. Your gall bladder looks fine too. However, since we’re not sure what this pain was, I’m recommending at least a good couple of weeks’ rest. We can discharge you when you’re ready, and you should come straight back if you have any more problems.’
Chloe nodded mutely, trying to be thankful that the baby was okay. But she wanted to cling to his coat and cry like a child, tell him how much she missed Alex and how she wished he were here to take her home.
He wasn’t. He still didn’t even know she was pregnant, for god’s sake. And she realised there was only one other person she wanted to phone.
After the doctor had gone, she used her mobile to make a call. She got an answering machine, so dialled Jana instead. The secretary picked up straight away with a practised ‘Lewis and Marchant’. Chloe tried to imagine the everyday happenings in the office going on as normal. It seemed so remote from where she was at present, even though she’d been a part of it a few hours before.
‘Hi, Jana,’ she began.
‘Chloe? Chloe, I’m so sorry, are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Can you put me through to Mark?’
‘Mark? Mark’s not here. I haven’t seen him all morning. Isn’t David still with you? He took a taxi and followed the ambulance.’
‘David?’ Chloe looked up in surprise and, sure enough, she could see her boss through a small window, standing outside the door talking to the doctor, his face grim. He glanced at Chloe as they spoke.
‘Yes, sorry, Jana, I’ve just seen him,’ she said.
‘Get well, Chloe,’ Jana replied. ‘Just let me know if you need anything.’
‘Thanks,’ Chloe said, hanging up and leaning back onto her pillow, not wanting to look in David’s direction. How embarrassing. Things were getting weirder by the minute.
David finished his conversation with the doctor, and then opened the door.
‘The doctor says you’re fine to go home, Chloe. I’ll take you there in a cab. Unless there’s someone else -?’
Absurdly, with Alex absent, it was Mark’s face that sprang again into her mind, but she could imagine David’s eyebrows never returning from his hairline if she told him that. So she shook her head and said, ‘Taxi’s fine.’
David disappeared, and Chloe nestled into the pillows, staring at the ceiling. Her womb still ached; the poor baby must be very uncomfortable. What had she done to cause everything that was happening to her? First Alex, and now this.
She thought back to Alex’s email. She wasn’t going to write back; what was there to say, as, while things were like this, the ball had to be in his court. She couldn’t beg – even if she felt like it, which she wasn’t sure she did – because if anything changed as a result, she’d always wonder if it had really been because he wanted it to, or if it were just because she had made him feel guilty.
And why did she want Mark right now? Heaven forbid, she wasn’t somehow, in some unbelievably stupid way, rekindling feelings for him? No, she reassured herself, it was because, even though Mark was completely annoying, he knew her. He could rile her, but he also understood how to comfort her. And he knew about the baby. And he was dependable. The thought surprised her. Yes, Mark was, for all his faults, dependable, if you really needed him. And, right now, he was pretty much the only person she felt that way about.
‘Chloe?’ A nurse’s head popped around the door. ‘The taxi your dad ordered is here.’
‘What?’ Chloe was taken aback. ‘He’s not my dad.’
The nurse shrugged, uninterested. ‘Well, whoever he is, he’s come to collect you. You ready to go?’
Chloe nodded. The nurse came in with a wheelchair, then helped Chloe off the bed and into it. ‘Remember, straight into bed when you get home, okay?’ she said. ‘Now, here are your ultrasound pictures.’
Chloe took the proffered envelope as though it might explode in her hand. Then, gingerly, she pulled out the contents, and stared at the black and white outlines of her baby. She could make out a nose, a spine, even fingers. She laughed in wonder as her eyes moistened. It was the first time she had felt anything like happiness in weeks. ‘Hello, little one,’ she said, stroking her tummy while staring at the irrefutable evidence that there was another life inside her to think about now.
She pushed the pictures back into the envelope as David came in and spoke to the nurses, then was given her belongings. He looked smaller somehow in the hospital, and his crisp pinstriped suit stood out incongruously against the white jackets. It was as if he’d lost the ability to frighten her here, like she suddenly saw through the whole charade of power that was behind labels such as ‘boss’ and ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ and ‘doctor’. It reminded her of the first time she’d seen her mother in this way, stripped of the thin façade of parenthood that maintained the proper distance between mother and daughter, realising she was fallible after all. The image was disconcertingly incomplete, and Chloe shrugged it away quickly.
David took the handles of her chair, and she let him wheel her to the entranceway, feeling mortified, the silence between them not helping. At the taxi’s door she got up, swayed slightly, and he put a steady hand underneath her elbow to help her rebalance. She was aware of the hand and held that side of her body stiff, wanting to pull away but keen not to appear rude.
The silence continued on the journey, until they drew up at the house. All Chloe wanted was to exit the car as quickly as possible and run inside, locking the world out. But as she made to get out, so did David.
He followed her wordlessly up to the front door. Her hands trembled as she twisted the key, and she left the door open, aware of his presence behind her as she made her way up the hall.
Once in the kitchen, she tried to appear normal. ‘Tea?’ she enquired breezily.
‘Sit,’ David commanded, pointing to a chair. ‘I’ll do it. You’re meant to go to bed.’
He moved deftly to the sink and filled the pot. Chloe watched him, marvelling at his ease in an unfamiliar kitchen. She always felt awkward when in someone else’s territory, never sure of the correct mix of etiquette between unobtrusive and helpful.
‘I’m sorry, David,’ she said. ‘This is a terrible time for you to be out of the office.’
He held up a hand, turning to face her. ‘Here’s what I know. We are expecting great things from you and Mark Jameson, and over the past ten years you have never let us down…’
Chloe thought back to the law ball dance floor and the look on David’s face as he’d chastised them in his office afterwards, but didn’t remind him.
‘… and yet in the past few weeks you have both become creatures of scarcity, shall we say. You each have a look in your eyes akin to battery-farm chickens trapped in cages waiting for the electric current to reach them, and now I pick you up from hospital, where your husband is conspicuously absent, and I am told that the baby you are carrying is absolutely fine!’
He paused and shook his head in incredulity as Chloe stared at him. ‘Chloe, they said you are over four months pregnant – when were you going to tell us?’ Despite the admonition, David’s tone was surprisingly gentle.
He paused, taking a breath as if what was coming next would be the crux of it all. ‘Chloe, is this Mark’s child?’
Chloe stared aghast at David, remembering Mikaela asking the very same question, then Mark’s lips on hers, then Alex’s tight, distant expression. Her husband was in another country with a woman she’d only set eyes on twice; and she remembered again the looks on their faces when they’d first seen one another.
Her mind swam. It was all too much.
She burst into unstoppable, uncontrollable tears. She bent double, her arms wrapped around her stomach, frightened that this outburst would be the last straw for the fragile being trying to cling on inside her, but unable to control the great well of emotion that suddenly breached the walls she had been building and fortifying for the past few weeks. She was so tired of being angry. So tired of feeling out of control. So tired of spending each day o
n the very tip of a knife edge.
So tired.
She had even forgotten that she wasn’t alone, until strong arms came around her and pulled her in. At first she resisted, but then gradually she let herself fall against him, allowing her weight to lean on these arms that held her, until, after an age, she subsided into smaller snuffling sobs, entirely spent.
‘Chloe, Chloe…’ As she grew quieter, David pushed her back so he could see her face. She didn’t want to look up, the first trickles of embarrassment now finding a route through her emotions, and kept her eyes on the buttons of his shirt.
‘Chloe, you must talk to us. Of course we would be concerned, perhaps annoyed, and yes, we do have the business very much at heart as well, but we are just like you at the end of the day – just as capable as you are of screwing up every damn thing.’ She looked up and he gave her a smile and raised an eyebrow, and appeared pleased when she couldn’t help but give a small smile back.
‘Besides,’ David’s jaw clenched, ‘Mark is just as accountable for this as you are, and, from what I can see, he’s not giving you much support.’
‘No, no,’ Chloe said immediately. ‘It’s not that.’ All at once she wanted to laugh. ‘Thank god it’s not that! My husband is, in fact, the father of my child!’
David looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry, that was most presumptuous -’
Chloe cut him off, waving his apology away. ‘Don’t worry about it. But as for Mark, did Neil not tell you about Henry?’ she asked.
David sat back and sighed. ‘Oh, so that’s it, is it? Do you know what’s going on with Henry?’ He sounded weary.
Chloe shrugged. ‘No, and I’m not even sure that Mark does.’
David nodded and looked at his watch. ‘I might try to find Mark, then, when I head back, and see what’s what. I seem to be spending the day ensconced in the mysterious subterranean world of my staff, so I may as well carry on.