by Amanda James
‘Good idea. Five weeks to go then?’
‘Yeah, though twins normally come earlier. When I get back I’ll have a scan at Simon’s practice, just to see that everything is okay.’
‘Handy, having a private consultant for a husband.’
The disapproval in her voice rankles. Okay, growing up, Simon’s world and mine and Demi’s were oceans apart. But I live in his world now and he’s done everything he can to make me happy in it. I can’t see the point in picking a fight with her though, and stand to clear the plates. She stands too and puts her hands on my shoulders. I don’t like the serious look in her eye or the way she takes a deep breath as if she’s building up to something.
She lets out the breath and says, ‘You know, it isn’t too late to go back. I can see that living in London is killing you and Jowan said…’
‘For God’s sake!’ I brush off her hands. ‘There is no going back for me and Jowan. Look at me!’ I jab a finger at my belly. ‘I’m about to become a mother, I have a husband who loves me, and if you don’t stop all this nonsense, you and me are going to fall out big time.’
Demi’s face crumbles and she draws me to her. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, love. I don’t want to upset you, I just thought…’
I hold her at arm’s length. ‘Then please don’t. Too much thinking does no good. I’m going back to London tomorrow and everything will be okay, all right?’ I give her a little smile and hope she’ll stop now.
‘Of course. I’ll shut my big gob.’ Demi pretends to zip her lips and gives me another hug. ‘I’d hate to make you unhappy.’
We clear away and I follow her into the kitchen, wishing it wasn’t already too late for that.
Chapter Four
This was ridiculous. He shouldn’t have to creep around in his own house; he was doing it for her in the end, wasn’t he? Simon held his breath and inched his way past the end of the bed, his eyes watching for any sign that his wife was waking. No. He needn’t have worried. Holly’s breathing was a slow and steady in-out-in-out. And with any luck he’d be out, too, in a few minutes, if only he could find his car keys.
Ten minutes later, a cold sweat beading his brow, he slipped behind the wheel of his Mercedes, a mixture of guilt and relief slipping in with him. In the ten days since his wife had been back from Cornwall, it had been difficult for him to get out of the apartment in the evenings. Holly had been clingy and anxious, asking him why he was going out, where he was going, what time he’d be home. Each time, he’d made excuses about work, or that he was out to dinner with old university friends, but the last five nights he’d just sneaked out while she was sleeping.
Simon couldn’t tell her the truth, of course. Last year, when things hadn’t been too desperate, he’d told her about his occasional casino jaunts and she’d looked at him as if he’d told her he was a child molester. Then he’d had the lecture about how the only people who really win are the casino owners and didn’t he know that it would all end in disaster. What did she know about gambling? Holly was a country girl with a very naive way of looking at the world. When he’d won big, she hadn’t turned her nose up at the extra gifts he’d showered on her though, had she? No. Particularly that beach house she adored so much. Did she think the money for that came out of thin air?
Then a little voice whispered in his ear that he was being far too hard on her. Wasn’t she just trying to look out for him? She loved him, that was obvious. In the end he was only getting angry because he knew she was right, deep down. It was a mug’s game. Nevertheless, things were about to change and everything would turn out just fine.
At a red light, Simon took a deep breath and expelled it along with any trace of guilt. Yes, he’d had a longish run of bad luck at the tables lately. The worst loss had been to that nasty little toad Giles, the night Holly had told him she was staying on in Cornwall. She’d upset him and that had clouded his judgement. Turned out Giles hadn’t been quite as drunk as he’d made out. Simon had been greedy and by God he’d paid for it. But he’d be lucky tonight; he could feel it in his gut. And it wasn’t just his gut; probability came into it too. He’d lost every night for ten nights. How long could a run of bad luck last, for goodness’ sake?
*
Everybody loves a winner, don’t they say? What a difference a few weeks made. Lauren looked at him quickly and then away as if he was something distasteful, something… Simon’s befuddled mind struggled for an adequate description… something unwholesome. Who the hell did she think she was? Jumped up little gold-digger.
‘Hey, Lauren, my glass needs a refill! What’s up, don’t you fancy me any more now Lady Luck has deserted me?’
Lauren looked at him and had the grace to blush. Then she raised a quizzical eyebrow across the room at a thick-set man in an expensive suit, one of the managers, Simon thought. He shook his head at Lauren and she shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, Mr West. Casino policy is to refuse to serve customers who might have had a little too much to drink.’
‘Eh?’ Simon leaned his elbows on the bar to steady his legs. ‘I’ve only had a couple! A double whisky in this glass now, if you please, miss.’ Simon thumped the glass down hard on the bar.
The thick-set man came over and whispered in his ear. ‘We don’t want to upset everyone, do we, Mr West? Allow me to escort you outside.’
Simon took a step back, his hands bunched into fists. How dare this ape of a man talk to him like this? ‘Upset everyone?’ Simon flung his arms up. ‘Who am I upsetting!’ Then, to his surprise, the ape grabbed his elbow and made as if to pull him towards the door. ‘Get your hands off me right now, or…’
‘Hey, hey, my man. No need for that,’ a deep and cultured voice said behind them.
The ape immediately released him and nodded in deference before walking away. Simon turned round and could have cried with relief. ‘Mark! Mark, am I glad to see you! Did you see what happened?’ Simon hung on to his oldest friend’s shoulder and swept his arm in the direction of Lauren and the ape. ‘They tried to humiliate me. Said I’d had too much to drink and…’ Simon’s words got blocked by a lump in his throat as he looked up into Mark’s sympathetic dark eyes.
‘Yes, old chap, I saw and heard.’ Mark linked arms with Simon and guided him to a table in a corner. ‘Look, just you sit there and gather your thoughts. I’ll get us a coffee and you can tell me all about it.’
An hour and two coffees later, Simon was seeing things more clearly and he wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. Yes, he was sure, actually. It wasn’t a good idea at all. He remembered that he’d purposely downed those whiskies to obliterate reality – the vile, almost unbelievable, nightmare his life was turning into. Simon hugged himself and tried not to give in to the desire to rock back and forth. Wasn’t that what crazy people in movies did? He wasn’t crazy. Just sad, ashamed and… desperate. Yes, desperate was the main thing he was.
‘You’re looking a bit more like your old self now, my friend,’ Mark said, crossing his long legs and leaning his six-feet-five frame back in his chair. Not for the first time he reminded Simon of a hawk. In fact, Hawky had been his nickname back in the day. Dark eyes that missed nothing, aristocratic features, long, hooked nose, slicked-back tawny hair and a keen intelligence that was almost palpable. It was this that had led to his great success as a stockbroker. Mark was seriously loaded.
‘I wish I was my old self, Mark. I don’t care for this new one.’
‘You said you’d lost everything when we first sat down. Can you explain what you meant?’
‘I meant what I said. I have nothing… or won’t have once the bank has taken the house – keep defaulting on the mortgage, see? I lost the rest… everything.’
Mark narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. ‘Surely it can’t be that bad?’
‘It is.’ Simon swallowed hard. There was no way he’d add tears of disgrace to desperation. ‘Tonight was going to be the big win, but it didn’t happen. Should’ve listened to my lovely Holly. The o
nly winners are the casino owners.’
‘We all lose sometimes, old friend. That’s the challenge, isn’t it? I think you might be seeing things a little gloomier than they actually are…’
‘You can afford to lose big, Mark. I can’t.’ Simon ran his tongue over dry lips and shoved his hand through his hair. ‘You know that little prick Giles Harwood we went to school with?’ Mark nodded. ‘He started it all off really. Yes, I was already on a losing streak but he tricked me. I thought he was pissed and risked a pile on that poker game. Lost it all.’
‘How much?’
‘Two hundred and fifty.’
Mark pulled back his neck and frowned. ‘Two hundred and fifty pounds is nothing, Simon. I…’
Simon shot Mark an incredulous look. ‘Of course not, Mark! Do you think I’d be worried about that? No, it was two hundred and fifty thousand!’
Mark stroked his chin. ‘Hmm. That was a tidy sum… I might be able to come up with some of it…’
Simon held his hand up. ‘But did I stop there? No. I carried on. And tonight I bet all of what I had left. My savings, my boat, my car… and the Cornish beach house.’ The enormity of what he was saying whipped up a wave of nausea in his gut. How could he do this to Holly? She’d be devastated.
‘So what are we talking here?’
Simon totted the amount up in his head, hoping he’d done it incorrectly earlier. He hadn’t. ‘Give or take, close on two million.’
‘Fucking hell, Simon… what were you thinking?’ Mark said in a low voice, though its gravity wasn’t diminished.
‘I wasn’t, was I? All I knew was that I needed a win.’ Simon’s gaze slid away from the mixture of pity and contempt in his friend’s eyes. To the table he said, ‘How am I going to survive now? I’m going to be a father soon. My work is suffering – had a warning from the main partner the other day. Holly will leave me, take the children with her. I would if I was her. But I can’t let her do that… oh, sweet Jesus, what am I going to do?’ Simon’s bottom lip began to tremble so he bit down on it.
Simon stuck his knuckles in his eyes and rubbed hard. Then there was a silence that lasted for too long – it made him want to scream.
‘Oh dear, you have made rather a mess of things, haven’t you?’ Mark said eventually, as he looked at his fingers, turning a plain wedding band round and round his finger.
Simon really didn’t need this; his stomach wanted to come up into his throat when he considered the impact of what had happened. He said through gritted teeth, ‘You could say that, Mark. My life is over.’
‘No. No, of course it isn’t. You’re not thinking straight, that’s all – and that’s perfectly understandable.’ Mark looked into the middle distance and did the chin-rubbing thing again. Then he stood and shrugged into his jacket. ‘Right, come on. I’ll get you into a taxi and we’ll talk about this tomorrow. It will all be okay.’
Simon shook his head. ‘How can it be?’ Then a glimmer of hope fought its way to the front of his mind. ‘Wait… do you mean you’re going to help me out?’
Mark helped Simon into his coat. ‘I might have an opportunity for you. We’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll ring you late morning, give you time to clear the hangover.’
*
Simon watched the rise and fall of his wife’s chest as she slept, a finger of moonlight caressing her beautiful face, and he prayed that Mark would come up with something before he lost everything. If he couldn’t fix it, then nobody could.
Chapter Five
Even though I’m lying on the bed in my husband’s private practice, it still feels like a hospital. It doesn’t look like a hospital, with the plush home furnishings and soft music in the background; nor does it have that faint whiff of disinfectant in the air. Nevertheless, the screen of the ultrasound machine, the cold gel a nurse has just put on my bump, and the professional way Simon is moving around the room drags my unwilling memory to the last few days of my dad’s life as I sat by his hospital bed. He’d have been so excited to see his grandchildren. At only fifty-four he should have seen them, all things being equal. But they’re not, are they? Not always.
‘Okay, you ready?’ Simon asks, the transducer already in his hand and poised over my tummy. Is he in a rush? I’d expected him, now the nurse has left the room, to be more like my husband than a doctor. More intimate…
I look into his serious grey eyes and he looks away. He’s been acting very oddly the last few days and seems to have aged about ten years. Perhaps I’m imagining it.
‘Yes. You okay?’
‘Fine.’
No. I’m not imagining it. His tone is clipped, agitated even. A few nights last week, I’d woken in the early hours and he’d not been in bed beside me. When I questioned him in the morning, he said he’d gone out for a walk. Said he couldn’t relax. Why? Is he telling the truth? Is he having an affair? Then the lub-dub of a tiny heartbeat fills the room and I forget about all that as my heartbeat quickens too. I turn to the monitor. There they are, my beautiful babies!
Simon moves the transducer expertly over my abdomen and, after a few moments of silence, says, ‘All with our little girl is as it should be. Now for our boy.’ Well, at least he sounds a bit more human now. I give him a warm smile and try to relax.
A few moments later my heart lurches when the silence goes on a bit too long and I catch his expression. His jaw is tight and his forehead knitted in concentration. Simon’s hand moves more quickly over my stomach, almost frantically now.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ I say. I hear the mounting panic in my voice and try to calm my breathing.
Simon won’t look at me, just draws a hand down his face and moves the transducer again. At one point he pushes the thing so hard against my tummy that I cry out. ‘Simon! For God’s sake, tell me what’s wrong?’
Then he releases a huge breath and gives me a shaky smile. ‘Listen to that,’ he says as another heartbeat fills the room.
I frown. ‘Is that what you were doing, trying to find our son’s heartbeat?’ He nods and wipes the back of his hand across his brow. ‘Why couldn’t you find it? Is… is there something wrong?’
With a shaking hand he turns off the monitor, puts down the transducer and sinks down on the bed next to me. ‘He’s…’ He swallows hard and takes my hand. ‘I’m not worried unduly, but he is a little smaller than his sister.’
I can see he’s worried, even though his words say otherwise. No! This is insane. ‘But… I saw both babies, they were strong, looked the same size… and…’
‘No, it’s hard to tell really. You might have thought they were, but… anyway, as I said, he’s not that tiny! Don’t worry, love; it’s all going to be fine.’
‘Don’t lie to me. I can tell when you’re keeping things back!’ I yell and yank my hand from his. ‘Is it because of me – something I did? My past, the fact that I abused my body and…’ A sob stops my words and he shakes his head and scrubs at his eyes.
‘No, Holly. Please calm down; it will all be fine. It’s common for one twin to be smaller than the other – you know that.’
I want to yell. Slap him. Stop any more lies from leaving his mouth. When Simon lies he can’t look at me. Not that he lies to me often, but I can always tell when he does. Right now his voice is unnaturally calm too… as if I’m a patient who has to be handled with kid gloves. A person who can’t cope with the bad things in the world. ‘Why are you just sitting there calmly, talking about it? Go and get a senior partner, a second opinion.’
He sighs and rubs his eyes again. ‘Believe me, there’s no point asking anyone else. There is nothing to get hysterical about, I promise. Now come on, Holly, my love. Let’s go and have a cuppa…’
‘But I don’t want a cuppa! I want the truth from you.’ I hate that he’s using the word ‘hysterical’. The trouble is, even to my own ears I do sound it. I sit up and grip his shoulders. Make him face me.
Simon shifts away, looks at the floor. �
��Okay. There might be a problem when he’s born… it’s hard to tell. As far as I can see he’s developing normally, has everything he should have and all in the right places. Just a bit…’
‘Small.’ My sarcasm slices through the tense atmosphere, thick between us. ‘Yes, so you keep saying. When you say a problem when he’s born, do you mean he’s going to be in ICU, or, or what?’
‘That’s possible. But there’s no point in getting ahead of ourselves, to be honest.’
‘It would be nice if you were, Simon.’ He gives me a quizzical look. ‘Honest.’ My voice sounds far away… faint. Could… could he d… die?’
A deep sigh. ‘I wish you wouldn’t jump to the worst-case scenario like this, Holly.’
It’s me who looks at the floor now. I feel too hot, the room is moving. I take a few deep breaths to stop myself from screaming. If I start, I won’t be able to stop. I’ll never forgive myself if there’s something seriously wrong… my past life can’t have helped, can it? Even though Simon says that wasn’t the reason. Was it because I went swimming in the sea when it was too cold? My mum said I shouldn’t have… ‘So… so what are you saying? There is a worst-case scenario?’
‘There’s always a worst-case scenario in these situations.’ Simon stands up and puts his hands on his hips. ‘But for goodness’ sake, Holly, stop all this. Everything will be fine, I’m sure of it.’
‘You aren’t sure of it. I saw your face when you couldn’t find the heartbeat. Watched your hands trembling!’
Simon sits back down, gathers me to him and at first I push him off. Then, as he whispers soothing words into my ear, I slump against him, the fight draining away like my dreams of pushing the twins around the park in the new double buggy that waits in the hall. I should never have bought that before they were born. Mum said it would be bad luck.
‘My darling, I can’t give you a one hundred per cent cast-iron guarantee that both our babies will be born perfect, without any problems or issues, but that’s the case in any birth – twins or not. You really do have to calm down and trust me. You always imagine the worst, it’s one of your faults.’ He lifts my chin, looks into my eyes. ‘Not that you have many.’