‘I’m so sorry, Kat.’ Lisa squeezes my fingers, and I feel how much she is trembling. I think it is too much for both of us being here but I can’t bring myself to leave.
‘I’ve so much I wish I could tell him,’ I say.
‘I talk to him all the time,’ Lisa says, and I think for the first time, how it must have been for her, the one who stayed. I feel terrible I never came back before now. For her. It’s stupid I thought I could wipe it all from my mind as though it never happened.
‘It was my fault,’ I say. My voice is flat. There is no unspoken question mark.
‘It was an accident,’ says Lisa. ‘If I thought for one second it was your fault… It wasn’t. Really.’
‘But if I hadn’t—’
‘Stop!’ As Lisa shouts, the branches rustle and a bird squawks as it flaps its wings, soaring high into the sky. ‘Does it have to be someone’s fault?’
She screws her face as though it hurts to talk, and it probably does. The skin on her cheek puffy and swollen; her eye half-closed and black. I wonder if she’s talking about Jake or about her miscarriage.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask. ‘I didn’t come here to do anything other than check on you.’ I realise as I speak I am telling the truth. I know Lisa has lost the baby but I don’t want to lose her, not again. ‘Should you be out of bed?’
‘As long as I take it easy the doctor says. No lifting or running marathons. I’ve stomach cramps still, and this.’ She touches her cheek. ‘But I’ll live and you’ve got to start living too. Stop blaming yourself. Think about the future. Think about your baby.’
‘What baby?’ I say dully.
‘This one.’ Lisa takes my hand and places it on her stomach.
‘But I thought?’
‘I was bleeding. But the doctor did a scan and I’m still pregnant.’
‘But how?’
‘The doctor thinks it is—’ She stops herself. ‘It was twins. They do run in the family, remember?’ And we both instinctively turn to look at the headstone of the boy we both loved unconditionally. Her as a brother, me as a lover. And as I kneel, the dampness soaking through my leggings, the cold wind numbing my cheeks, you wouldn’t think it was possible to feel heartbroken and hopeful at the same time, but somehow I do.
* * *
It only takes a couple of minutes to drive to the pub. My clothes are still soaking. Lisa’s must be too.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to go home and change?’ Already I feel the need to look after her.
‘No, it’s okay. Let’s go in and celebrate.’ Her voice is as flat as I feel. Celebrating feels wrong.
‘Are you okay?’ I am worried. Her complexion, always pale, is as white as flour.
‘Tired but the doctor says there’s no reason the remaining twin should be at risk. It’s just…’ She bites her bottom lip and stares out through the windscreen, fogging again now I have cut the engine. ‘Going to the crematorium…’ She shrugs miserably.
‘Do you go often?’ It’s supposed to be comforting, isn’t it? Having a place to visit. But as I’d knelt there before Lisa arrived, shivering with cold and the sensation of being watched, I felt anything but comforted.
‘Not enough. I went today because I knew you’d come looking for me, and how could you not visit Jake? Usually, I feel terrible. I avoid it because being there, visiting Jake, it brings it all back. I feel so bloody guilty.’
‘What do you have to feel guilty for?’ I am surprised. I thought I carried the guilt alone.
Lisa picks at a thread hanging off the bottom of her jumper and I know she is choosing her words carefully.
‘That night—’
We both jump as there is a thud. Somebody bumps into the car as they hurtle past.
‘What the?’ I pull my sleeve over the heel of my hand and rub the misted window but whoever was there has long gone.
‘Probably kids,’ says Lisa. ‘They play in this car park all the time. Let’s go inside. I’m freezing.’
‘What were you going to say. About feeling guilty?’
‘It’s all the “what if’s”, isn’t it? Even…’ She gazes out of the window, unable to meet my eye. ‘If I hadn’t been friends with you, my brother would never have met you. Would he still be here? But we’ll never know, will we?’ She opens her door and steps outside. I can still see her. I could stretch out my hand and touch her, but she feels so far away.
Inside the pub, I ease off my coat, throwing it over a stool near a crackling open fire.
‘Hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows?’
‘My go-to rainy day drink.’ Lisa attempts a smile. ‘You remembered.’
At the bar, the barista heats the milk in a machine that spits and gurgles. The sight of champagne chilling in the fridge saddens me. I’m still going to be a mum and I should be shouting it from the rooftops but the thought of the baby Lisa has lost is at the forefront of my mind. I can’t help wondering if it would have been a boy or girl. It is almost incomprehensible I could be feeling such a raw sense of loss for a baby I didn’t know existed, but I can. I do. Tears are not far from the surface as I try to bring my thoughts back to the baby who is left, reassure myself it is okay to feel happy.
‘Do you believe in fate?’ Lisa asks before I have even sat back down with the drinks. ‘Or karma. What goes around. I don’t know. Do you believe some things are meant to be? Inevitable almost?’
Written in the stars, I think, but instead, I say: ‘I’m not sure. I used to, but some things seem so senseless, don’t they? So pointless? If it’s all part of some grand plan I can’t help wondering why.’
‘What I said. Before. About Jake still being here if he hadn’t met you, I don’t believe that. Not really. Car accidents happen every day, and if it was his time, where and who he was with wouldn’t have made a difference, would it?’
‘It doesn’t stop me feeling any less guilty though. If it wasn’t for me he wouldn’t have been in the car at all.’
‘Do you think she still feels bad? The other driver?’
I shrug. I hadn’t really thought about her. ‘At least she didn’t have any passengers in the car with her. No one else… got hurt.’ I can’t say the word ‘died’. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it still haunts her.’
‘That’s what frustrates me, I think. The police ruled it a non-fault collision. Atrocious weather. A tragic accident. But Mum seems to need someone to blame. Craves it, almost. She can’t seem to let go.’
I take hold of her hand.
‘Sometimes…’ Her voice quivers. ‘I wonder if she wishes it were me who died instead? If Jake was her favourite?’
‘That’s not true. She didn’t have a favourite.’
‘I suppose we believe what we want to, don’t we?’ Lisa sighs. ‘Anyway, this is for you.’ She pulls a grainy black-and-white picture out of her bag.
At first, I can’t make it out.
‘Is that?’
‘The baby. I’m so sorry you ended up missing the scan. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, Kat.’
I trace the image, the tiny limbs, the out-of-proportion skull – alien-looking, almost.
Lisa rests her head on my shoulder. ‘I’m scared Mum will find out but I’m too scared to tell her,’ she almost whispers, and I don’t blame her. I don’t think Nancy will take the surrogacy well. Not when she knows the baby is coming to me. It’s hard, as I study the photo, to equate the black-and-white blur to the baby growing inside Lisa I press my hand against her belly.
‘Thanks.’ It’s such an innocuous word but dripping with everything I feel. Everything I want.
Lisa looks around the pub and shifts in her seat. She looks uncomfortable as she brushes my hand away.
‘It feels really tender still.’
‘God. I’m sorry.’ I’d thought about the emotional pain we are both feeling over her loss but she must be feeling awful physically too. ‘Can I do anything for you?’
‘No. I think I’ll go home and put my pyjamas o
n. Something looser. It doesn’t help my waistbands are tight. I know it’s early days but I think once you’ve been pregnant before your abdomen muscles are shot and you expand even quicker. Last time I didn’t show for ages, but this time I can’t do my jeans up already.’
‘Have you got any maternity clothes?’
‘No. I gave them to a charity shop. Didn’t think I’d need them again. You know I’ve never wanted a baby of my own.’ She fidgets again, eyes darting around the pub.
She’s putting me on edge. I find myself looking over my shoulder, paranoia gnawing at me.
‘Lisa, what’s wrong?’ I know her well enough to know something is, and it isn’t only that her clothes are tight.
Lisa stares miserably into her drink, dunking marshmallows under the chocolaty liquid with her finger and then letting them bob up again. ‘I’m worried somebody might see us here together and mention it to Mum.’
‘I saw her earlier.’
‘You didn’t say anything about the baby, did you?’ She looks stricken.
‘‘Of course not – but she’s going to notice.’
‘I know. I’m going to tell her.’
‘Do you want me to come? Explain?’
‘Best if you don’t. Actually, Kat.’ Lisa loops her scarf around her neck. ‘I’m going to do it on the way home. I’ll walk. It will do me good. You don’t mind if I leave, do you? Nothing worse than secrets, is there?’ Something unspoken is left hanging in the air.
‘Let me buy you some new clothes, at least.’ A small offering under the circumstances, and it’s questionable whether I’m doing this for her or to make myself feel better.
She shrugs on her coat. ‘I can get them out of my expenses.’
‘I’d like to treat you.’ Our eyes meet, and I think she sees how much I need to do something. ‘We could even go shopping together?’
‘Thanks. I’m feeling so drained though. If you transfer the cash, I’ll order some bits online.’
I nod my agreement, and after scribbling down her address for me so I can always find her if I need to, she’s gone.
I use the loo before I head for my car, rooting around in my bag for my keys. Broken glass crunching under my feet stops me in my tracks. Raising my head, blood roars in my ears as I see my car window is smashed. A prickle of unease causes me to whip my head around. Is someone there? Hiding behind the van, waiting to see my reaction? Crouching behind the wall leading to the beer garden? Thoughts ricochet as I try to rationalise what might have happened. Could someone have accidentally fallen against my car? Their elbow penetrating the glass? I dismiss each idea as it comes. The window is thick.
I peer inside the car. There is a brick on the passenger seat. Someone has done this deliberately. There’s a clattering sound behind me, and I gasp and spin around, but it’s only the barman tipping empty bottles into a plastic bin. He heads back into the pub, and there is only me left in the car park, but somehow, I don’t feel alone. Another sound springs at me, something I can’t identify, and I scuttle back to the pub. Back to warmth. Back to safety.
My eyes are fixed on the floor as I swerve to avoid a broken bottle. But before I reach the door, I round the corner and run smack into someone. My eyes take in his dirty trainers, dark blue denims, white shirt, and finally settle on his face.
‘I’ve been looking for you,’ he says.
22
Now
I hadn’t recognised the man who’d said he had been looking for me but he had introduced himself as the landlord of the pub.
‘I’m so sorry. One of the regulars told me a 4 x 4 had been broken into. There’s been a spate of it, I’m afraid. Do you want me to call the police?’
He had walked me over to my car, and I’d checked the contents – nothing had been stolen.
‘No. Let me ring my husband.’
The landlord had checked the other cars as I called Nick. His phone was switched off, and I’d been overcome with a wave of needing him. To feel his arms around me. I was exhausted, unnerved and longing to be at home.
‘Do you think you could patch it somehow?’ I had asked the landlord. ‘I can get it repaired properly tomorrow.’
Now, I crawl along the back roads, the wind buffeting the car; the thick layer of polythene taped to the window flaps loudly in my ear. I ease off the accelerator, even though I am only going 35 mph in a 60 zone. I rehearse telling Nick our news, but the words I practise sound too clunky, too convoluted. The constant stream of cold air seeping through a gap in the polythene stiffens my neck, making my head ache. My muscles are tension-tight. I’m going to have a baby. We are going to have a baby. I force myself to think of Nick because it has only now properly occurred to me this baby will have Jake’s genes too. Possibly Jake’s warm green eyes, his dazzling dimpled smile and, if so, every time I look at my child I will be reminded of the lover I lost. The more I think, the more uncomfortable I feel. Disloyal, almost, as though I am sullying my wedding vows to forsake all others. For the first time, I question whether this was a bad idea. Whether we should have tried adopting again. But it’s too late now, and in spite of everything, I can’t be sorry. We’re going to be parents.
It is gloomy-dark despite it being only teatime, and as traffic pours out of a nearby industrial estate, we come to a standstill. On a whim, I text Nick.
What are you up to this evening?
Missing you. Just leaving work. Going to eat toast in bed and watch NCIS
Nick’s a good cook but never bothers when I’m not there. I think it would be a nice surprise to pretend I’ll still be gone overnight and arrive home in an hour with a curry.
You back tomorrow? Are you okay?
My thumb punches out Yes.
The traffic edges forward again. I start to plan what I’ll pick up from the Indian and, as I think about the creamy sauces, fragrant spices and tender pieces of chicken, my stomach growls. Leaning over I open the glovebox and pull out a tube of Fruit Pastilles and pop one onto my tongue, glad it’s a yellow one. The sugar begins to melt and my mouth tingles with a citrus zing that immediately makes me feel more awake than I am. Walking home from school, Nancy would often call into the newsagents and let us choose a treat. We’d always want Fruit Pastilles. I’d trade my red one for Lisa’s orange ones, and Jake would always eat his black ones first. We’d count down from three before placing a sweet in our mouths, regularly sticking our tongues out to compare how small they were getting. Lisa could never resist chewing, and by the time we reached her house me and Jake would still have a slither of the jelly sweet on our tongues while Lisa would have eaten all her packet and want mine.
* * *
Usually I park on the driveway but, with the window missing on the CRV, tonight I bypass our cul-de-sac and trundle down the lane leading to our garage. I slot the car in amongst Nick’s golf clubs, the Black & Decker Workbench, and the array of tools he never uses. Opening the door, the musty smell of the garage mingles with the aroma of korma drifting out of the takeout bag on my passenger seat.
I let myself into the house via the back door. The kitchen is gloomy except for the green glow of the clock on the hob. I flick on the light switch. The oven tick-tick-ticks before it ignites, and I place the foil containers of food on the bottom shelf to keep warm. The fridge whirrs in the corner, and jars of chutney chink together as I yank open the door. My hand reaches for the just-in-case bottle of M&S champagne we always keep in the salad drawer, but it seems wrong somehow to celebrate the life of one child when another has been lost. I’m exhausted from the day, from the drive. I bite back the urge to cry as I pull out a bottle of Pinot instead and lift two glasses from the cupboard.
I don’t switch on the landing light as I creep past the empty lounge and up the stairs, I don’t want to alert Nick to my presence. Before I reach our room, I slip into the nursery and, easing open a drawer, rummage through the pile of vests, holding each one up to the night light, before I find the white one with ‘I love my Daddy’ written in red.
Despite my sadness, excitement mounts as I pad across the landing, and it is only then do I notice the silence. No TV. No NCIS. Tucking the bottle under my arm, I picture a smile spreading across Nick’s face as I tell him Lisa is still pregnant, and slowly I push open the door. The room is in darkness, and disappointment wells as I think Nick must have fallen asleep. I hesitate, unsure whether to wake him, but I can’t hear the heaviness of his breathing. I can’t hear anything at all. Flicking on the light, I wait a few moments for my eyes to adjust but I don’t have to see to know that Nick isn’t here.
Frustration bubbles as I put down the wine and glasses and tweezer open two slats of the blind with my thumb and index finger. Our driveway, the space where Nick’s car should be, is empty. I call his mobile. I’m spoiling the surprise now but I don’t care. It rings and rings until the voicemail clicks in. I cut the call before sinking on the bed, unsure what to do.
Seconds later my mobile beeps.
Sorry babe. At a crucial point in NCIS. Can I call you later?
My chest tightens but I tell myself I must have got it wrong. He must be watching it with Richard, but on the blank, silent TV screen I imagine I see images of the lipstick on Nick’s shirt. I punch out a reply.
Where are you?
Tucked up in bed. Wishing you were here.
My phone slips from my grasp and on the feather-soft duvet I curl into a ball, knees to my chest, arms wrapped tightly around my legs, as though I can keep my sorrow inside. As though I can keep my marriage intact.
* * *
Later, I peel myself from the bed and every muscle screams in protest. Scenarios whip through my mind, hard and fast, and none of them are good. Nick. I can’t believe he’s having an affair, I just can’t, and yet all the signs are there. He’s forever checking his mobile, he’s been distracted, snappy almost, and I can’t remember the last time we had sex. Is it my imagination or has the distance between us grown since Christmas Day? Since Lisa’s text to tell us she is pregnant, but hovering just outside my consciousness is another memory, and I pace the bedroom as I try to pull it to the forefront of my mind. Nick received a text Christmas Day. My stomach drops. Natasha.
The Surrogate Page 12