I shake my head. ‘I don’t know how you cope, I mean, trust – it’s fundamental.’
‘It is,’ Mark agrees. ‘Whether it’s about sex or crazy witches next door. And what makes you think that I am coping?’
As we sit in silence watching the countryside spin past, I think about those words, and realise that ultimately trust is what all of this is about. And almost from day one, Victor hasn’t trusted my instincts, or my words, preferring time after time to side with his aunt. And it is fundamental, because those aren’t foundations you can build a future on.
Eventually Mark says, in a dreamy voice, ‘I miss the old days, when we were neighbours. Does that sound crazy?’
‘Me downstairs, you upstairs . . .’
‘A bottle of wine together. Some crap TV.’
‘We had some fun, didn’t we? I’m not sure we appreciated it properly at the time, though.’
‘No, we definitely didn’t.’
‘Not having boyfriends kind of undermined everything, didn’t it? But yet having a boyfriend isn’t the answer to everything either.’
Mark shakes his head. ‘Against all expectation, it isn’t. Crazy but true.’
On arrival, Iain is the epitome of charming. He welcomes us both with a broad grin, and looks genuinely thrilled to have me staying. He makes up the spare room beautifully for me, even stealing a few flowers from a vase in the kitchen and placing them in my room. He doesn’t even ask me how long I’ll be staying, which is just as well as I think the question would make me cry.
We eat Chinese from a local takeaway and then, by the flickering light of their entirely convincing gas-powered ‘coal’ fire, we settle on the sofa to watch a film.
With Mark snuggled against Iain, and Iain’s arms enveloping him, they look like an image of domestic bliss. No one could imagine the cracks in the foundations of their relationship.
I try to watch the film, but my mind won’t settle. I can only concentrate upon a single set of thoughts: Is Victor home yet? Has he seen my texts? Is he replying to me right now?
But no matter how often I check my phone, there are no calls, no texts, and no emails.
Later, I sleep as if I have been drugged. But despite my ten-hour marathon, I wake up feeling tired and queasy, and vow to make a doctor’s appointment to get myself checked out.
Both Mark and Iain are out at work by the time I surface, so I wander around Iain’s beautiful flat, now somewhat crammed with Mark’s junk, and then sit in their tiny garden and drink tea. I toy with the idea of breakfast, but in the end I simply can’t convince myself that it would stay down.
My phone starts to beep its ‘battery low’ warning, so I fish the charger from my bag and sit and think about whether to make one final attempt at calling Victor. In the end, I can’t resist.
The fact that his phone is still switched off makes me so angry that despite my best intentions, the message I leave is nothing more than: ‘It’s me. I’m in England. Call me.’ I can’t even manage an, ‘I love you’.
Next, I phone my old flat, where I’m greeted by a heartening shriek of joy from SJ. ‘Get your arse over ’ere!’ she says.
Ringing my own doorbell feels strange, but being led by a grinning SJ into what was once my home feels even stranger. Just as Mark’s junk has transformed Iain’s minimalist interior, SJ and George’s piles of ethnic tat sit uncomfortably next to, on top of, and underneath my own furniture. The place looks like a boot sale.
‘Where’s Guinness?’ I ask, scanning his usual sleeping places and seeing that they are all occupied by embroidered cushions embellished with tiny, uncomfortable-looking mirrors.
‘He’ll be in the kitchen,’ SJ says.
‘Really?’
‘Yes. He always sleeps in the kitchen. On the chair in the corner.’
‘News to me,’ I say, leaving the room and following SJ down the hallway.
‘Shit it’s good to see you,’ SJ says. ‘And totally unexpected.’
‘I know. It was a bit of a snap decision.’
‘Any particular reason?’
‘Yes, I’ll tell you all about it.’ I crouch down next to the table so that I can see Guinness underneath. He is snuggled up on a thick grey fleece. ‘Hello,’ I say. ‘Have you found a new nest?’
Guinness looks at me with the catty equivalent of sleepy disdain, sniffs my fingers, and closes his eyes again. The message is clear. Do not disturb.
‘Nice to see he missed me,’ I say, straightening up.
‘You know cats,’ SJ says. ‘He only has eyes for George now. Anyway, I’ve missed you.’
I scan the kitchen. It too looks quite different now that every surface is cluttered with spice jars. ‘You don’t need the flat back, do you?’ SJ asks.
‘No,’ I laugh. ‘Of course not.’
‘God, that’s a relief,’ she says. ‘Tea or coffee?’
‘Tea,’ I say. ‘I’ve gone off coffee at the moment.’
‘Hey! You haven’t commented on my bump!’ SJ says as she fills the kettle.
‘It’s huge,’ I say.
‘There’s a reason for that,’ she says, a twinkle in her eye. ‘Twins!’
‘No!’
SJ nods and grins.
‘That’s brilliant news. Isn’t it?’
‘Bloody right, it is! We weren’t sure if we’d be able to have another one. I mean, you know how hard this one was. So twins is pretty much the jackpot.’
‘And everything’s OK?’
SJ nods. ‘Seems it.’
‘Sex?’
SJ switches the kettle on and leans back against the counter. ‘A bit. Less than before, of course. And we have to do it from behind more because of the–—’
‘The sex of the twins!’ I interrupt.
SJ winks at me. ‘I know. I was winding you up. I told them not to tell me. I don’t wanna know.’
‘I don’t think I could resist.’
‘So how long are you here for? I’m so chuffed to see you.’
‘I don’t know yet. I haven’t decided.’
‘Where are you staying? Do you need to . . .’
‘At Mark and Iain’s. It’s fine. They have a spare room.’
‘Because you know the door’s always open. Well, it’s your door anyway! But you don’t know for how long?’
‘No.’
‘That sounds omnious.’
‘Omnious?’
‘Yeah.’
‘It’s om-i-nous. But you’re right. It is a bit.’
SJ fills the cups and then nods at the table. ‘So sit down and tell me all about it.’
‘Unbelievable,’ SJ says once I’ve finished.
‘I know. That’s half the problem. No one believes me.’
‘And why is Victor behaving like such a wanker, anyway?’
‘It’s his aunt,’ I say. ‘Like he said, she’s his only remaining family, so . . .’
‘I suppose,’ SJ says. ‘But you’re supposed to be his only girlfriend. And if the bitch really was trying to poison you, well, that’s serious shit.’
‘I still feel pukey,’ I say. ‘Even this morning.’
‘You should go see the doc.’
‘I intend to. I was going to phone and make an appointment, but it’s only when I get up, really, so I forgot. I’m OK now.’
‘Hum, let me see,’ SJ says. ‘Sickness in the morning . . .’
I laugh. ‘I’m not pregnant.’
‘You did a test?’
‘I don’t need to. I had my period. It was light. And late. But it was a period all the same.’
‘How light?’ SJ asks.
I shrug. ‘Very. But it still happened. I put it down to being ill. I hardly ate anything for weeks.’
‘Your boobs look bigger too,’ SJ says, staring at my chest in a way that makes me uncomfortable.
‘They do not!’
‘They do!’
‘It’s because the rest of me has shrunk, I think. I lost about six pounds when I had swine flu.’
‘You are skinny. But they still look bigger to me. Any sensitivity? Around the nipples?’
‘SJ!’ I say. ‘I’m not pregnant. I had my period.’
‘Your half-a-period.’
‘But it still means I’m not pregnant.’
SJ crosses the room and returns with a thick hardbound volume: The Big Fat Baby Book. She places it in front of me and leans past me as she flicks through the index and then opens it to a page entitled ‘Signs and Symptoms’. Some thing about her proximity, the feel of her bump against my back, the smell of her familiar Euphoria perfume, makes me feel quite emotional, like this is home. There really is something wonderful about having friends you have known for this long.
‘There,’ she says, running a fingernail across the page. ‘Sickness, nausea, vomiting.’
‘Which are also symptoms of swine flu, and/or being poisoned,’ I point out.
‘Absence of period, or an unusually light period with little blood,’ she reads.
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I didn’t know you could have a period and still be pregnant.’
‘If it’s a small one.’
‘It was,’ I say, pointing to the next line. ‘A strange taste in the mouth which many describe as “metallic”.’
‘You have that?’
‘Yes, but, well, as I say. The water was funny.’
‘Feeling tired?’
‘Well, of course, but . . .’
‘Loss of interest in certain foods or products that you previously enjoyed?’
‘Nope.’
‘You said you’ve gone off coffee.’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘Yes, that’s true. It tastes funny.’
‘Constipation?’ SJ says.
I push my chair back and stand.
‘Where are you going?’ SJ asks.
‘Where do you think?’ I ask. ‘To buy a bloody pregnancy test.’
‘No need,’ SJ says, raising one hand. ‘I’ve got a whole box of the buggers. When we were trying, I got a load off the internet. They were cheaper that way.’
She scuttles from the room, so I sit back down and stare out at the dead Leylandii and wonder if it’s OK to do a pregnancy test without Victor being aware. It feels inexplicably like a kind of infidelity.
‘How exciting!’ SJ says, when she returns. She drops the package on the table in front of me and says, ‘Pee on that, dear.’
‘Can we have another cuppa first?’ I ask, looking up at her grinning face.
‘You don’t need to pee much! You only need a drop!’
‘It’s not that. I just need a moment. To pull myself together.’
SJ squeezes my shoulder. ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘If anyone knows what a big deal this is, it’s me.’
When I open the bathroom door, SJ is standing right outside, a broad grin on her face and her arms crossed. ‘So?’ she says.
I raise the strip so that she can see it. ‘Does that mean what I think it means?’ I ask, my voice flat. I am so emotionally numb that I feel like I have had whatever organ produces thoughts surgically removed.
‘Yes!’ SJ shrieks. She wiggles on the spot with excitement and then throws her arms around my rigid body. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she says so loudly that her voice hurts my ear. ‘We’re going to be mums together!’
I do my best to enjoy the hug, but I still feel like the Google search, How to feel when you find out that you’re pregnant, has yielded the blankest of pages. I can’t even seem to think properly about the meaning of the word ‘pregnant’ for the moment.
‘Come!’ SJ says, stepping away and reaching for my free hand. ‘You’re shaking. Come and sit down.’
We return to the kitchen and I lay the test on the table and sit and stare at the two coloured lines – two lines of semaphore which mean ‘everything changes’. SJ watches me staring at the strip and waits.
‘Is it certain?’ I ask eventually. ‘Or can these be wrong?’
‘In theory they aren’t one hundred per cent. But I have never seen a false positive,’ she says. ‘And I’ve done hundreds of the buggers.’
I nod and finger the strip. ‘God,’ I say. ‘Pregnant! I thought this might never happen again.’ I think about the abortion and an almost spiritual sense of relief for this second chance washes over me. My vision goes cloudy as tears well up.
‘Hey, hey,’ SJ says, squeezing my hand. ‘It’s different this time. Everything’s going to be fine.’
I nod and wipe my eyes on my sleeve. I start to smile, and another feeling, joy this time, starts to build like a wave rushing up the beach. Right at its peak, it reaches me and crashes over my head.
‘I’m pregnant, SJ,’ I say, suddenly astonished.
She touches my chin and forces me to look her in the eye. ‘It’s all gonna be OK,’ she says.
Obtusely that statement makes me realise that it all might not be OK – that the pregnancy might fail, or the baby might have something wrong with it, or . . . Or my partner might change his mind about having a child and leave me. Again.
‘I need to phone Victor,’ I say, fumbling in my bag for my phone.
‘Of course you do,’ SJ says, touching my shoulder and discreetly exiting the room.
As I hunt for my mobile, I am simply assuming that he will answer. My brain has decided that if there is any reason, any logic to the universe – if there is any sense of fairness in our lives, any connection between Victor and me – then it must be this profound miracle of life itself. So not only will Victor know to answer the phone, but what I tell him will ultimately fix everything between us.
I raise the phone to my ear: voicemail. The wave of optimism vanishes into the beach, leaving only a wet stain to show that it was ever there.
‘Victor,’ I say quietly. ‘It’s me. I have to talk to you. It’s urgent. It’s really urgent.’
I lay the phone on the table and, feeling suddenly panicky, I turn to scan the room. ‘SJ?’ I call out. ‘SJ!’
‘I’m here,’ she says, reappearing in the doorway.
‘He’s not answering,’ I say. ‘He’s still not bloody answering.’
She crosses the kitchen, pulls a chair next to mine and wraps me in her arms as tightly as her unborn twins will allow. ‘He’ll phone back,’ she says. ‘And it’ll all be fine. You’ll see.’
‘Will it?’ I say, my voice trembling as a surge of something different – fear – rises within me. ‘Because . . .’
The thought provoking that fear is this: that getting pregnant didn’t fix my relationship with Brian; getting pregnant was the moment that everything went horribly wrong.
‘Of course it bloody will,’ SJ says. ‘Think. We’ll be mums together. Our kids will be the same age. They can play together. Go to school together. It’s brilliant.’
I nod and smile as the image she has described takes form and begins to warm my heart.
SJ reaches behind her for the kitchen roll and rips off two sheets and hands them to me. ‘You see?’ she says. I nod and wipe my face and blow my nose.
‘You wait till Victor finds out,’ she says. ‘He’ll be home on the next flight.’
The word ‘home’ triggers yet another train of thought. Because, of course, this isn’t home any more. France is supposedly home now. And if France isn’t home, then I’m homeless.
‘Will it be French?’ I ask, suddenly.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Victor’s French. If we get back together—’
‘Of course you’ll get back together.’
‘Maybe. But if we do, and I have the baby in France, will it be French? Or Irish?’
‘I don’t know,’ SJ says. ‘You’ll have to check. Doesn’t it depend if you get married and that?’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. I think it might depend where I have the baby.’
SJ frowns. ‘Actually, they aren’t gonna go to school together, are they? If you’re in France. Your kids will grow up to be Frenchies. You’ll have to give ’em names like Jean-Pierre or some
thing. “Here comes CC and little Jean-Pierre.” It’s got a certain ring to it. A certain je ne sais quoi . . .’
She seems to find this funny, but I must be frowning, because her smile drops. ‘What is it? What’s up?’ she asks.
I shake my head, robot-like. ‘Even if we do end up back together, I don’t want a French kid,’ I say.
SJ laughs.
‘I’m serious. It would be like it wasn’t my child.’
‘It’s really not a big deal,’ SJ says. ‘Victor’s French, isn’t he? And you love him.’
But I have just understood something important, which incredibly has never crossed my mind up till now: if I bring my child up in France, it will end up learning French as its first language. It will go to French school, have French friends, watch French TV, and – heaven forbid – listen to French music. In short, my child will be French.
And that is a big deal. Because though I have never even suspected that I might have the vaguest hint of xenophobia in my reasoning, I am absolutely certain of one thing. That’s not going to happen.
‘God,’ I say. ‘How could I not have thought of that? I mean—’ I’m interrupted by the sound of the front door opening.
‘George?’ I ask, grabbing the pregnancy test and the packaging, and stuffing it under my jumper.
‘Could be any of my lovers,’ SJ says, mockingly.
‘Don’t say anything!’ I tell her.
George appears in the kitchen doorway, wrestling his way out of a huge overcoat. ‘Evening, ladies,’ he says. ‘I didn’t know we were due for a visit from our landlord.’
We both turn to smile at him, apparently unconvincingly, because the next thing he says is, ‘And what are you two plotting?’
‘Nothing,’ we both say simultaneously.
George raises an eyebrow. He looks amused and entirely unconvinced. He hangs up his coat and takes a seat at the table where he looks intently from SJ to me, and then back again.
‘Nice suit,’ I say. It’s initially just an attempt at creating a decoy conversation, but the second I say it, I realise that it’s true. In fact, I have never seen George look so good.
‘They gave him a suit allowance,’ SJ says, latching onto the subject with a little too much enthusiasm. ‘Imagine!’
‘My new boss told me off for dressing like a tramp,’ George says. ‘It’s the carrot and stick approach.’
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