Gary’s face was stricken.
‘Oh, don’t be upset, Gary . . .’ Natalie pleaded. ‘There are a lot of nicer women than me, really . . .’
‘I’m not upset,’ Gary said, taking a step back form her touch. ‘I’m embarrassed . . . Natalie, I came about the bill. You haven’t paid it.’
‘Oh.’ Natalie suddenly felt very hot. ‘Oh God.’ She clapped her hand over her mouth and stared at him. And then she laughed.
‘Oh my God. OH MY GOD. Come down to the kitchen with me and I’ll find the bill and write you a cheque. Oh my God, Gary,’ Natalie repeated as she led him down to the kitchen. ‘I can’t believe what I’ve just done, what I said to you! Of course you didn’t come round here to declare your love for me. You came for a cheque.’
‘Well, from what you said it sounds as if I’d have been unlucky anyway,’ Gary told her, finding a wry smile as Natalie handed him a cheque. He laughed. ‘Sorry, but it was pretty funny.’
‘Glad to brighten your day,’ Natalie replied, still able to feel the heat in her cheeks.
‘Look,’ Gary went on, ‘the only reason I haven’t tried to ask you out again is because I know how you feel about this Jack bloke. And I’m not an idiot. If you were really free, I would.’ His mouth curled into a delicious smile. ‘You’re pretty hot for a parent.’
Natalie and Gary smiled warmly at each other, and for one moment longer Natalie thought of that happy, easy life she might have had with him.
It was the last restful moment she would experience for some time.
‘So this is Gary!’ Meg’s voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘Oh my God, Gary, how lovely to meet you at last! When Natalie’s mum said you were down here I couldn’t believe it!’
Natalie whirled round and watched as her friend waltzed into the kitchen.
‘How did you get in?’ Natalie squeaked quite rudely.
‘I let her in,’ Sandy said, following Meg into the room. ‘Found her on the doorstep.’ She grinned at Gary. ‘Hello, love, nice to see you again. I’ll leave your cakes here and go back upstairs, leave you and your friends to it. If the doorbell goes, I’ll get it.’
Horrified, Natalie watched Sandy disappear, wondering if she had any inkling about what chaos she had just unleashed upon her unsuspecting daughter.
‘Er, hello,’ Gary said. Taken aback by this woman’s greeting, he held out his hand for Meg to shake but instead she grabbed it and kissed him on both cheeks. The poor man looked like he wanted to drop through the floor again.
‘We’ve been dying to meet you for ages,’ Meg gushed, giving him a little squeeze. ‘I had no idea you would be here! Was it a surprise visit, Natalie?’
Natalie opened her mouth and shut it again. This was not going to plan. This was, as her mother would have told her in the not so distant past, all her chickens coming home to roost at once.
‘Natalie’s obviously given me a great reference,’ Gary said slowly.
‘Glowing,’ Meg assured him with a little laugh that confused him even further, as she still held onto his hand. ‘We’ve heard all about how wonderful you are, Gary. Every detail.’
Gary looked at Natalie in horror and Natalie looked anywhere else but at Gary. Maybe if she closed her eyes and counted to ten very quickly it would all go away.
But it didn’t work, of course it didn’t. If Natalie had learnt one thing during recent weeks it was that wishful thinking never worked.
Meg let go of Gary’s hand at last and kissed Natalie. ‘Natalie, how lovely for you to have your husband home.’
At last the penny dropped with Gary. He looked at Natalie, his eyebrows soaring skyward, his skin blanching underneath his tan.
Natalie looked back at him. ‘Um . . . Well, Meg, you see the thing is . . . Gary here is . . .’
Suddenly the kitchen was filled with women, Steve and babies.
‘Gary?’ Jess exclaimed, going immediately over to him and kissing him. ‘Well, how lovely to meet you, what a treat. When did you fly in, was it last night?’
‘I . . . er, no,’ Gary said. ‘Not exactly.’
‘Dubai, hey,’ Steve said, pumping Gary’s hand vigorously, with Lucy tucked under one arm. ‘Some amazing design out there, incredible architecture. I’m in design myself. I find engineering fascinating. We should have a beer sometime. It must be meet-the-spouse morning – this is my wife, Jill, it’s her first meeting today too.’
Gary smiled weakly at Jill, who looked as flustered and out of place amid the chatter as he did.
‘A beer?’ Gary said wistfully.
‘Wouldn’t say no,’ Jill replied.
‘Are you staying this time?’ Frances asked him frankly as she appraised him with naked curiosity. ‘Natalie does miss you, you know. I must say, Natalie, he’s not how I pictured him all. I pictured him as more cerebral. When actually he’s very . . . very . . . corporeal.’
‘Ah . . . um, well.’ Gary fixed his gaze on his phantom spouse. ‘Anything you want to say, Natalie?
But before she could speak Sandy appeared again in the doorway.
‘There’s someone else here to see you,’ she told Natalie with a quite outrageously obvious wink.
‘What? Who?’ Natalie groaned. ‘Is it Tiff? I need Tiff to save my life.’
‘Sorry, I haven’t been called Tiff for years,’ Jack Newhouse said.
‘Arse,’ Natalie said with a heavy sigh and then, ‘No offence.’
‘None taken . . . I think,’ Jack said. ‘You’ve got guests. Look, Natalie, I’m sorry to interrupt you but I really need to speak with you. I couldn’t wait until tomorrow.’
Natalie looked around her at her chirping and chatting friends, and at poor Gary, who kept backing slowly towards the garden doors looking helplessly at her all the time, silently pleading to be rescued.
She looked at Jack. ‘I need to say something first. Right!’ she called out. ‘Quiet please.’
One by one the baby group members fell silent, looking at each other curiously.
‘I have an announcement. This is not how I planned to make it. I planned to ply you all with cake first and get you a bit drunk, maybe slip some cooking sherry in your tea if my mother hadn’t drunk it all . . . but, anyway, needs must.’ Natalie took a breath and pointed at Gary. ‘This man, although he is called Gary, is not Gary my husband.’
‘Husband?’ Jack asked sharply. ‘Did you say husband?’
Natalie thought it best to ignore him for now.
‘This is Gary my electrician who came round to remind me I haven’t paid the bill.’ Natalie smiled a little sheepishly at Gary, who had his hand hopefully on the door handle.
‘Oh! Oh no!’ Meg clasped both her hands over her mouth. ‘How embarrassing!’
‘I do apologise,’ Frances said.
‘Oh God, you must have thought we were mad,’ Jess chipped in with a giggle.
‘There’s more,’ Natalie said. ‘There’s a lot more and I’m going to tell you all about it but first I have to . . .’ She stopped talking. The sight of Jack standing in the doorway took her breath away for a second.
‘Jack,’ she said. ‘I need to sort out a few things here. Did you want to go and see Freddie and we can talk in a bit?’
‘What’s he got to do with Freddie?’ Frances asked, with her special brand of tact-free curiosity.
‘Hello.’ Jack smiled at Frances with automatic good manners. ‘I’m Jack Newhouse – Freddie’s dad.’
There was total silence in the kitchen. You could have heard a mute mouse dropping a tiny pin.
‘I told you there was more,’ Natalie said with a shrug.
‘What have I said?’ Jack asked her.
‘A bit too much just now,’ she told him.
‘Look, I need to know – have you got a husband?’ Jack persisted, and Natalie realised that he really believed that this was possible.
‘OK, well, you might as well be here for this too, why not. Mother?’ Natalie looked at Sandy. ‘Anyone else coming?’
/> ‘Only me,’ Tiffany said as she walked into the kitchen. ‘What’s going on?’
‘You may well ask,’ Frances said.
‘Right.’ Natalie took a breath. ‘Hello, everybody, I am Natalie Curzon. I am thirty-six and a single mother. I am not married, I have never been married. I made up a husband and called him after my electrician Gary because, oh, I don’t know, it’s as good a name as any. At the time it seemed easier to tell you I had a husband somewhere than to explain to what was then a bunch of total strangers that I had conceived my son on a weekend fling with this man –’ she pointed at Jack. ‘Jack Newhouse. A man who I barely knew at the time of conception and who I don’t know that much better now.’ Natalie paused and looked at Jack; she didn’t know him well enough to be able to read his expression.
‘So, you haven’t got a husband,’ he confirmed. She shook her head. He nodded as if the news had helped him to come to some decision. Natalie just prayed it wasn’t the decision to have her sectioned under the Mental Health Act. She turned back to her friends.
‘The thing is, I didn’t know you then, it didn’t seem important. But over the last few weeks I’ve got to know and love you all. I really mean that, I love you and care about you all. You have become important to me as friends, and I didn’t know how to tell you what a fool I’d been. It just got harder and more stupid as time went on – every time I decided to tell you, something would happen to someone else and I’d feel like even more of an idiot. Then when Jack came back I got even more confused and muddled and it wasn’t until we were all at Tiffany’s, just after Tiff got Jacob breathing again, that I realised just how sad and poor I’d be without you. And if you can still bear to be my friends after all this nonsense I promise never to lie to you again, except about my age and weight which I think is more or less a given with most women over the age of thirty-five, don’t you? Not that I am over the age of thirty-five . . . Anyway, you can stone me now, if you like. There’s some pea shingle in the garden.’
Nobody said anything until eventually Meg asked, ‘Is that all?’
‘Um, well . . . yes,’ Natalie said. ‘What more do you want?’
‘I thought you were going to tell us you were in a ménage with the electrician, your husband and this guy,’ Steve said, sounding a little disappointed and oomphing as Jill elbowed him firmly in the ribs.
‘I knew there was something more between him and you,’ Jess said. ‘Didn’t I say, Meg? I said I knew. When we saw him in town that day she had this look on her face, she looked . . .’ Jess caught Natalie’s pleading glance and didn’t say any more. ‘Oh Nat, you idiot.’
‘Does that mean you don’t all hate me?’ Natalie asked them.
‘We think you are really rather foolish,’ Frances said. ‘But that was already apparent.’
‘How could I hate you when you’ve been such a dear, good friend to me?’ Meg smiled at Natalie. ‘No, it was just a silly fib that didn’t hurt anyone. I can’t believe you didn’t say something before, you silly thing. I bet you’ve been fretting about it all this time.’
‘I have, a bit,’ Natalie said. She was feeling rather foolish but extremely relieved.
‘Well, at last,’ Tiffany said, rather maternally, and when the others looked at her she added rather proudly, ‘I knew ages ago.’
Gary, who had been frozen by the back door, was gradually relaxing. He looked at Jack and nodded. It was a gesture of solidarity, Natalie realised. A signal that they were both men who had survived the madness of Natalie Curzon in one way or another.
‘I’ll get off then,’ he said, sliding open the back door. ‘See you later, Tiff. Take care, Natalie, and good luck!’ Natalie gave him a little wave as he closed the door, but he didn’t wave back.
‘Shall I make the tea?’ Sandy said. ‘And then all of you ladies and Steve can go upstairs to the sitting room. Natalie will just have a quick word with Jack here and she’ll be up in a minute, is that OK?’ Natalie had never been so glad to have her mother take control of a situation. She had never been glad of it before, in fact, and hadn’t had the compulsion to hide behind her mother’s skirts for at least thirty years.
‘Hold on,’ Jack said as everyone began to file out. They stopped and looked at him.
‘I don’t know any of you actually.’ He looked both scared and slightly manic. ‘But I have a declaration too. Why not?’
Natalie froze. She didn’t know what he was going to say but she was sure she didn’t want him to say it in front of everybody.
‘Jack,’ she said. ‘Look, I’m sorry about all this . . .’
‘I have to,’ he said with a determined nod. ‘I liked the way you spoke just now. You were very brave, I thought, and . . . admirable. It made me want to have a go. There’s been a lot of ambiguity between us. A lot of things either half said or not said at all. And it’s no good, not for you or me or Freddie. I want all your friends to know how I feel. But most of all I want you to know.’
‘Oh,’ Natalie said in dismay, looking at her mother, but Sandy just smiled encouragingly at her. ‘Jack, all I’m asking is that whatever you think about me you don’t let this affect you and Freddie.’
‘Natalie, be quiet and let me talk,’ he interrupted her.
‘How interesting,’ Frances said, taking a seat on a stool and crossing her arms. The entire baby group was listening.
‘Last year was a big year for me,’ Jack began. ‘I had cancer and I met Natalie.’ He took a breath and squared his shoulders. ‘I thought the most important and life-changing thing of those two events was the cancer, but I was wrong. It was meeting Natalie.’ Natalie couldn’t look at him – she hung her head and closed her eyes and waited for the indictment that was bound to follow. ‘Because of meeting her I now have this amazing son to get to know and be a dad to. And if that’s not the most important thing that can happen to a man, then I don’t know what is. But that’s not all – I want you to know that I’ve done something much more stupid than Natalie ever has.’
‘Are you sure?’ Frances asked him. He smiled and nodded.
‘Natalie, when I got back to London, to try to pick up my life again, what I didn’t want to admit to myself was that – well, I came back for you. I was looking for you. Oh, I was trying hard not to. One day I even caught myself walking around Soho Square, because I remembered that you worked near there and I thought I might bump into you. I felt so stupid looking for a woman I barely knew, a woman who I was sure wouldn’t want me once she knew . . . the things that you know now. I told myself I could meet hundreds of women the way I met you, so I walked up to this girl and started talking to her, I told her the things I told you. I tried to have exactly the same conversation as the one we had the day we met. I’ve never seen anyone look so bored before in my life. I didn’t fancy her and she certainly didn’t fancy me but I gave her my phone numbers anyway, I thought it was a hurdle I had to get over. I was wrong.’
‘Suze.’ Natalie murmured the name to herself, as suddenly the so-called perceived anomalies in what she thought she knew about Jack fell into place.
‘I lost you. I lost you twice, once when I was too scared to show you my weaknesses, and once when I was too weak to let you know that I was scared. Scared of seeing you again. Scared of how seeing you made me feel. And when I did finally see you – you brought me to life. I tried to tell myself that our moment had passed, that we were never meant to be anything other than co-parents and friends. I said it until I almost believed it, because I didn’t think I could get any luckier than I already was – a survivor and a father. I didn’t think I deserved to be any luckier than that, and maybe I don’t. But I don’t want to be scared or weak any more, either. I have to say what I feel.’
‘Say it then!’ Natalie almost shouted on an outward rush of air. She took a steadying breath. ‘Say what you feel, Jack.’
‘I will,’ Jack said, looking at her. ‘It isn’t over for me. I care about you more than I am able to describe. I don’t want our last chance t
o have passed.’ He took a step towards her, and the baby group looked from him to Natalie and back again in one seamless motion. ‘I want to be with you, Natalie, I want to –’ He seemed frustrated as he tried to find the right words. ‘Look, I know you said you didn’t want one but – I want to be your boyfriend!’
Natalie stared at him, open-mouthed.
‘Say something!’ Jack exclaimed and then, ‘I’m starting to think this declaration wasn’t my best plan.’
‘I . . . I just didn’t expect this,’ Natalie managed to say at last.
‘Look.’ Jack took another step closer to her. ‘I know it would be strange and difficult. I know we’d be the weirdest dating couple in the history of dating couples, the only one with a baby before they even get to their second date . . .’
‘That is quite unusual,’ Frances said helpfully.
‘But I don’t care if it’s freaky. I don’t care if it’s a risk and if it’s complicated. Sometimes complications are exactly what we need. You are a very complicated person. And I need you.’ Jack took a deep breath and shrugged. ‘You make my heart beat stronger than it ever has.’
There was a collective female sigh in the room.
‘There, I’ve said it, and I said it in front all of these strange and quite scary women and that bloke, because I’m less frightened of them than I am of being alone with you and you turning me down.’
‘But,’ Natalie said with a tiny smile, ‘we’d be mad, wouldn’t we?’
‘I would say so,’ Jack agreed with a curt nod.
‘Doomed to almost certain failure?’ she asked him.
‘If we always put Freddie first it might work,’ Jack said urgently, taking two more steps closer to her. ‘And anyway, on paper it might look like a terrible idea but here in my heart it feels like the right thing to do. The only thing to do.’ Jack paused and glanced at his captive audience. ‘Have I overplayed the corny romantic gesture part yet?’
‘Not as far as I’m concerned,’ Meg said misty-eyed, her hands clasped to her chest.
‘Maybe slightly,’ Frances suggested.
‘No,’ Natalie said slowly, afraid to blink in case she shed a tear. ‘No, you haven’t because I feel the way you do. I just had no idea, no idea at all that you felt the same. I never could have asked you, I would have been too afraid. You’ve been the strong one, the brave one. You’re the one with guts. I want this, Jack, I want to be with you.’
The Baby Group Page 39