by Adele Parks
Suddenly I feel as though I'm on the waltzers. Shapes are moving and morphing in front of me. I can see Chuck and I can hear him but I can't understand him. My world is shifting underneath me.
'My note said my dad was dead and asked you to phone me,' I blurt.
Chuck looks as though someone has just punched him. The colour bleeds from his face – I expect to look down and see it lying in a pool of shock on Mum's carpet. Suddenly, a fraction of a second after I've joined the dots, his face floods again – this time with hope and excitement.
'I didn't get a note. Gina just gave me a verbal message – supposedly from you. She said that your dad had died and that you were going home for a few days but that I mustn't call you. That you didn't want to hear from me again, especially not when you came back to Italy.'
'She said what? Why would Gina do that?'
Of course there are many reasons why she might have wanted to ruin things between Chuck and me. Maybe she was trying to be loyal to Roberto, or maybe she fancied Chuck for herself and wanted me out the way. I have no idea. People do terrible things from time to time; that much I'm certain of.
'She said you were going to try to work things out with Roberto.' Chuck is grinning now. 'That's why I sent you the text saying I'd give you space. That's why I went to stay with Francesca.' My legs turn to liquid. 'I had to respect what you'd asked for, even if I didn't think it was the right thing. It was fucking agony. I hated the choice you'd made. I wanted to call you. I so nearly did on loads and loads of occasions but it seemed wrong considering Roberto is your husband and you'd just lost your pop. I knew it would be crap of me to lay on any more pressure, however much I wanted to.'
'Loads and loads?' I ask, giggling, finally allowing my body and brain to compute this terrible deceit. Hope starts to swell in my stomach. You thought I'd chosen Roberto?'
'Yes. When I returned from Francesca's neither you nor Roberto were anywhere to be seen. Until Paolina visited I assumed you were away together. She told me he was with Ana-Maria.' Chuck shoots me a look of concern but I beam at him, hoping he understands that I don't give a damn where Roberto is or who he's with. 'I had no idea you were in England.'
I am about to dash across the room and fling myself at Chuck. I am about to allow the horrible, relentless pain and disappointment of his 'desertion' to slide away from me forever, when I see his grin slip.
'Why didn't you just call me and ask about the text if it didn't make sense to you?' he asks.
'Because I thought you were a commitment-phobic. I started thinking about your other affair with a married woman and your reluctance to have kids.' I trail off. I realize my reasons for not contacting him are faithless and ignoble in comparison to his reasons for giving me space.
Chuck looks shocked. Pained. You don't have a very high opinion of me, do you?'
'It's not that,' I bluster. 'I threw away my phone. I didn't. . .'
'What?'
'I didn't have your number. I did call the school.'
Eventually.
I stutter on, 'But exams had started. I'd left it too late.' I begin to get an idea what he must be thinking and feeling. Suddenly, comprehending our situation from his point of view, I realize that I've been a selfish moron. I should have called after receiving the text. Think of all the hurt and confusion I could have saved us both from. I should have had more faith in him and myself; enough to know that what we had in Venice was real. I should have given him the opportunity to clear up this hideous mess. Why didn't I trust more? Looking at him now, in his tight T-shirt and battered jeans, wearing an expression of confusion and indignation, he's really never looked so entirely honourable and irresistible. I, by contrast, feel grubby and uncomfortable. I don't dash across the room and fling myself at him. I remain rooted.
I'm grateful that Mum pushes open the door and comes into the room with a tea tray heaving with cups and saucers, milk and sugar. I wonder how much she's heard.
'So, are you here on holiday?' she asks Chuck brightly.
For a moment he looks dazed and I doubt his ability to answer her, then he seems to pull himself together and says, 'More of an exploration; I'm looking for answers.'
He eyes me meaningfully. If Mum thinks his reply is eccentric she doesn't show it. No doubt she puts it down to him being American. She fusses about how Chuck takes his tea. I notice she hasn't used bags but rather she's treating him to the authentic experience. I watch as her strainer catches the leaves.
I stay silent and Chuck only just manages to respond to her jabbering so the conversation is painful and stilted. Mum must think so too, because after a few minutes she says, 'I'll get some cakes, shall I? I baked a sponge this morning. Let's cut into it.' She gets up and bustles through to the kitchen again.
Chuck flops and rests against the sofa back. He dramatically slaps his forehead.
'I've just worked it out. All of it. Looking at you now, the penny has dropped. God, I'm dim. I see, now, why you accepted my seemingly sudden departure with such indecent ease.' He stands up and starts to stride around the room. It's a small room and he's a big guy, so every two or three paces he has to change direction. I can't keep up with him, mentally or physically. 'I don't think I've ever been so insulted in all my life. You didn't think I'd be up to it.'
'Up to what?'
'You thought you'd just bring this baby up on your own, did you? Without even so much as mentioning its existence to me?' His voice is unnaturally high with indignation.
'What baby? What are you on about?'
'There are laws, you know. I have my rights. I want to be part of the baby's life, no matter what I said before. You are not going to exclude me from this,' he shouts. 'I want in.'
Mum must have heard him in the kitchen; actually Mr Hooper must have heard him from across the street. I'm too confused to try to temper my response, I shout back.
'In what?'
'I want to be involved in bringing up my baby.'
'What baby?'
'The one you are carrying?'
I stare at him utterly aghast. This is too much of an emotional roller-coaster for me. I can't get a grip on our reality. 'I'm not pregnant,' I splutter.
'You are,' he says, but this time he doesn't shout, he sounds less certain. He pauses and then adds, 'Aren't you?'
'No,' I say indignantly.
'Oh.' He looks crestfallen. His face crumples like student sheets at the end of term. But I must have that wrong. Why would he be disappointed? He doesn't want babies with me or anyone. He said so.
'Why did you think I was pregnant? That's crazy. Are you saying I'm fat?' I'm mesmerized by this latest turn. The man is mad. I'd never imagined that I might have rocked his boat so entirely but I clearly have. He's losing his reason. Gina's trickery, the sudden revelation, the long journey perhaps – it's all been too much for him. He's being so irrational.
'Well, you are a little curvier than when we last met. Quite a lot actually –' he says apologetically.
'Thank you very much!'
'But it's not just that, you also seem altered. You're glowing. Sort of serene. I thought – look, sorry. I don't know why I jumped to that conclusion. I just kind of sensed something about you. Or I thought I did. Look, forget it. Can we start this conversation again, please?'
'You have more to say to me than that I'm fat?' I demand crossly.
'Elizabeth, please.' He's clearly mortified.
Mum comes back into the room this time with a tea tray heaving with goodies: besides the sponge she's also brought a plate of biscuits and another one of muffins. I know the biscuits and muffins are shop-bought but I'm prepared to keep her secret.
'Everything all right?' she asks, showing that she knows clearly everything is far from it.
Chuck sits back down. In fact, he almost collapses with weariness or maybe embarrassment. I don't know what to think or say, so I sulkily leave the onus of conversation to them again.
Chuck starts politely, if not a little predictably, with a
comment about the goodies. I can't believe he thought I was pregnant. Am I that fat? I know I've put on a few pounds. I have been doing quite a lot of comfort eating but how hideously insensitive to mention it! And what a moment to choose. First I think he's a heartless commitment-phobic and he thinks I'm a fickle prick-tease; we no sooner get that sorted than he judges me to be faithless and I see him as deranged. Where the hell do we go from here?
'This looks lovely, Mrs Gardiner.'
'Thank you, dear.'
'My mum is a baker.'
'Is she? Oh dear, I feel I'm about to be scrutinized.'
'I'm sure your cakes are lovely. Elizabeth is proof they are delicious.' As soon as he says it, his face turns scarlet with a new flame of blush.
'Will you stop with the fat digs,' I yell at him.
'I'm not trying to have a dig. I was just taken aback. I thought one thing. You said it wasn't so. I'm – '
'Relieved, no doubt you are relieved. Because babies aren't part of your plan, are they?' I snap.
'I never said relieved,' he protests.
'What's this about a baby?' asks Mum.
Because I'm in turmoil and not capable of thinking straight, I blurt, 'He thought I was pregnant with his baby.'
'His baby?' Mum cries with astonishment. 'How could you be pregnant with his baby?'
'That's not the bit we are debating, Mum,' I say snippily, aware – too late – that I've opened a can of worms. 'The bit I'm taking umbrage with, right now, is that Chuck has come all the way from Italy to tell me that I'm fat?
Mum's face creases with concern. 'I thought you were pregnant too,' she says. 'But I thought it was Roberto's baby. I've been wondering when you were going to talk to me about it. I thought the problem was you- were having a baby with a husband you no longer loved, but are you now telling me that the problem is you are having a baby with a man who isn't your husband?' Mum looks horrified.
'I'm not having a baby!' I yell.
'Oh, well, sorry,' says Mum. 'But you've been grumbling about feeling sick. Your clothes are too tight, your emotions are all over the place.'
I look down at the skirt I am wearing today. It's held up with a safety pin because I couldn't get the button fastened. I had to let the shirt hang out; the shirt that strained across my enormous boobs, that is. I've always had big boobs but recently mine have defied belief and they are quite tender too. I thought I was due but I haven't had a period since I've been at Mum's. No period. No sodding period. Oh my God! Without another word I push past Mum and dash out of the front room, nearly upturning the tea tray burdened with goodies. I grab my bag and run, feet slapping hard on the pavement all the way into the village and into the chemist.
72
I run back from the chemist with a pregnancy kit in my hand; I couldn't be bothered to wait for the gawky girl to put it in a bag or give me my change. I run all the way home, feet slamming so hard that they throb, heart pounding in my chest with a wildness that makes me think I might be sick. Mum is right, I have been feeling sick so often recently. Could it be . . . Could it? I offer prayers up to anyone who will listen, anyone who can influence; my dad, God, the lady in the white coat on the fertility website. Please, please, please, I beg.
Mum and Chuck are both standing in the front garden, both anxiously staring up the street, waiting for my return. Mum looks excited. I can't read Chuck's expression. He thought I was pregnant. He saw it first. If I am, that is. Oh God, oh God, please, please. I dare not want it this much. I dare not believe it. I feel closer to the possibility than ever, but will I survive a disappointment if I'm not?
I don't stop in the garden to so much as acknowledge my anxious loved ones. I push straight past and run upstairs into the bathroom. Chuck is hot on my heels but I slam the door in his face and lock it.
I know how these tests work. I've used them dozens of times before. I've spent hundreds and hundreds of pounds on them. I rip the cardboard and hold the stick in my hand. This is it. I pee and pray at the same time. I think God will forgive me the inappropriateness of that.
'Elizabeth, can you hear me?' asks Chuck. I sit on the side of the bath and wait the longest 120 seconds in history. I can't make my lips form an answer. I nod mutely and therefore, unhelpfully. Chuck goes on regardless. 'Elizabeth, sweetheart, I just want to say, whatever the result, it doesn't matter. I want you and I want babies, if that's what you want. Hell, I want them anyway, and if this doesn't give the result you need don't worry, we'll try again. We'll keep trying and trying. It will be fun.' He laughs but his laugh is desperate and nervous. 'We'll have a family, Elizabeth. I promise you. We'll do IVF. We'll adopt. The stuff I said before, well, that was before.'
I turn the lock and open the door to face him. 'Before what?' I ask.
'Before I fell in love with you.'
Epilogue
She is it. She is all. She is more than even I could have hoped for. She makes me want to sing, and laugh, and dance, and live. Live so, so well. She is meaning and sense to me. She was worth the wait. Every moment of it.
Truly, my greatest delight is covering her with kisses. I love to kiss her rosy cheeks, her plump belly, her smooth legs. My lips melt on her soft and velvety skin and it feels as though I'm dipping my face into a bowl of fresh cream. I drink in her smell, it's more scrumptious than freshly baked cake or Italian coffee and it's more pure, fresh and intoxicating than even the full-bloom roses in my mum's garden. Well, most of the time it is; sometimes she carries a faint whiff of vomit or worse.
I am not alone in delighting in Lily; wherever we go she draws a crowd. The passeggiata takes three times as long as it used to when I was pregnant and Chuck and I did the same route around the cobbled streets of Bologna. Now, people are always stopping us to have a look in the pram. They 'oh' and 'ah' about her blonde curls and sparkly green eyes, they comment on her keenness to kick off even the lightest blanket and loll in the warm evening sun, they delight in her grin which, like her daddy's, when cracked engulfs her entire face. She's played to the crowd from day one. I think she's going to be a terrible flirt when she gets older; I'm already resigned to spending most of her teen years worrying about her skirt length. She coos, and burbles, and throws out gummy smiles to anyone who takes a peek. People are always pressing helium balloons, flowers and tiny fluffy toys on us -complete strangers. I was right about one thing, Italians do love babies.
'I adore these warm evenings that allow the entire family to take a jaunty walk to the town centre,' I say to Chuck, not for the first time.
'Yeah, it's something to do, since the TV is so crap.'
I grin at him. I know he is hellbent on keeping me focused on the reality of our lives here and not allowing me to become unrealistically dreamy or to over-idealize – there lies a path of disappointment, he warns. I can't take him too seriously; I mean, what is not to love?
The cobbled streets are drenched in blond sunlight. Bologna's compact historic core is medieval in plan, so there is a rich scattering of churches, monuments and museums. I'm slowly making my way around them. I've overcome my initial belief that if you've seen one old church you've seen them all. I've discovered that the more you know about these places, the more interesting they become. Plus, I spend a significant amount of time just wandering along the elegant, porticoed streets that radiate from the two main piazzas – dipping into the gorgeous shops for a browse or to spend. My all-time favourite occupation is still sitting in a piazza, either Piazza Maggiore or Piazza del Nettuno, and sipping delectably strong coffee. This is now especially amazing because of the attention Lily draws; I am never alone – there's always someone who wants to chat, keen to know how old she is or if she's a good eater or sleeper.
Not that I have so much time to waste nowadays. Time flies. Lily is a good sleeper but she's a picky eater. She's keen to nibble on my boob but does not take her fill, so just about every twenty minutes I seem to be whipping them out. Looking after her is obviously my number one priority and the sweetest way for me to spe
nd time but I also like to slip in the odd hour teaching. Chuck bought a language school here in Bologna, which we run together. Sometimes I have to pinch myself. I find it hard to compute that I help run a business, a reasonably successful business if the last year is anything to go by. A business I care passionately about. Who would have thought it? Chuck bears the lion's share of the work but I've been helpful with the administration and advertising, and since I now have a formal TEFL qualification I've been able to help out in the classrooms reasonably regularly too. Since Lily arrived I've cut back my hours but I still manage ten hours a week when she's napping after lunch. I take her into my classroom and she sleeps right alongside me while I teach. That arrangement can't go on forever of course, but I delight in the Italians' flexibility in this matter. My pupils are always thrilled to see her. As I mentioned, she's a crowd-pleaser and Italians like babies.
It hasn't all been plain sailing. It seemed like Chuck and I were just getting used to one another when Lily arrived and threw our recently negotiated relationship into disarray. Mostly we all delight one another, nine times out of ten the discoveries I make about Chuck, or being a mother, send me into orbits of ecstasy, but from time to time we're unpleasantly surprised with each other. I was taken aback to find that Chuck snores, irritated that he does not put down the loo seat after use and stunned when he totally refused to be in attendance at Lily's birth because of his dislike of the sight of blood. He says it drives him insane that I never put lids back on bottles – whether that's water bottles, cosmetics or tomato ketchup – and my failing to do so has led to more than one spillage and row. He thinks I should do more exercise and I think he'd go as far as to secretly describe me as a bit unfit. But we are both working on these small shortcomings. I'm trying to find a way to incorporate exercise into my daily routine and I've got Chuck to agree to at least come into the delivery room for baby number two – he can always make a run for it if things get gruesome.