She exhales. ‘OK?’
‘I’m going to leave Ness. That is one hundred per cent certain.’ I pause. ‘But the bad news is it might take a bit longer than I thought.’
‘How come?’ Stell takes a sip of her drink and puts her glass down hard. A little wine slops onto the table. I stare at the splash on the dark wood of the table, and then I start to speak in a monotone.
‘She found a lump in her breast. She’s had a mammogram and a scan and it’s not looking good.’
‘Oh my God.’ Stell presses her hand over her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘The doctor was very concerned,’ I say. ‘They’re going to do a biopsy.’ Stell’s hanging on to my every word.
‘We’re hoping it’s early stages,’ I say, almost convincing myself. ‘But the main thing is, she’s in the right hands now.’ I hope she doesn’t question me further. What I’ve now said is the sum total of my knowledge about breast cancer.
Stell’s nodding. ‘That’s good. There’s a good chance of beating it if you catch it early.’
‘I know. I’m trying to keep her spirits up but obviously there are a lot of unknown quantities at this stage. The point is I just feel I would be a real schmuck to leave her right now. I just couldn’t live with myself. I think the doctor said that if treatment was needed, it would likely go on for a few months. So I need to be around for a while longer. Take her to appointments and look after her if she’s sick at home. She’s got no one else.’
As I say this, I’m thinking ahead to when the baby’s born. Then what will I do? I’ll worry about that later. Solutions always magic up from somewhere. The point is that, for now, I’ve staved off a crisis. And Stell is reacting just as I hoped she would.
‘Is this why you couldn’t come for my birthday?’
I nod. ‘Exactly. She’d just found out. She was in pieces. Understandably.’
She puts her hand on mine. ‘It’s OK,’ she says. ‘I get it. You’d be a monster not to stay.’
‘Thank you, princess,’ I say. ‘Just say you’ll be there for me. Say you want me. That’s all I need to hear from you. We’ll get through this, I promise.’ I lift her chin so I’m staring into her eyes.
‘Yes,’ Stell whispers, and I touch my lips to hers.
‘I love you,’ she says.
Bullet dodged, Wolsey. Bullet dodged.
NINETEEN
Stella
I practically skip to the Tube station. OK, I feel bad for Ness, but I don’t have the slightest doubt she’ll make a full recovery. As George says, she caught it early and she’s getting treatment. Knowing George, it will be with the best private doctors around.
But the news about Ness pales into insignificance when I think about the other things that George said. As I strap-hang home, the train throwing me about as it speeds through its tunnels, I’m barely aware of my surroundings. All I can think of is George’s words.
I want to have a baby with you.
These are the words I longed to hear, alone in my bedroom at eighteen with a ball of cells multiplying in my belly. They’ve been a long time coming and they fall on me like balm, unlocking something that lies deep inside me. While I try consciously not to nourish it, this seed George has planted starts to take root.
I want to have a baby with you.
I push it away but it comes back, bigger and stronger:
I want to have a baby with you.
*
We’re soon running at full speed again. If George is attending appointments with Ness, he shields me from them. We barely speak about her, and he never misses dates he’s arranged with me. Meanwhile, since the night he told me about her lump, something’s changed: we’re closer. I no longer feel like a mistress stealing moments, but a wife-in-waiting. We make love with our eyes open, drinking in each other’s face, and I feel like I can see into George’s soul. I feel myself softening; a sense of ice melting. I’m less obsessive at work – I delegate more while I let myself daydream about what it might be like to have a family.
Even George notices a difference in me. I’m kinder, more pliable and I start to feel that this life, this love, really could be mine. It’s like a shedding of layers – the layers of protection I’ve worn since the day George walked out on me. I start smiling at strangers. I find myself looking at other people’s children, noticing for the first time not their raucous screams but the joy in their smiles, the pearly whiteness of their tiny teeth and the pudginess of their squidgy little hands.
One lunchtime I’m in Boots, being jostled by the lunchtime crowd. The heating’s up too high; industrial fans are blasting hot air into the store. I’m sweating under my coat and suit, the air’s too dry on my skin, and my hair’s gone static. I find myself in the vitamins section. Before I know it, I’m holding a jar of folic acid supplements in my hand and wondering if I should buy them. I feel naughty, like I’m a teenager caught by my mum with a packet of condoms in my hand. Folic acid is for those respectable women who plan babies – to date it’s never featured in my life plans, but George’s words have pierced me deep inside: I can’t stop thinking about getting pregnant and, if I have a baby, I want it to have the best chances in life. I’m passionate about this: an apology, perhaps, to the baby whose life I prevented from starting.
I stand still, people pushing past me down the narrow aisle, and I remember the feeling of those first days of pregnancy: the tingling breasts, the unshakeable feeling that there was something growing in my belly. Back then, it caused nothing but horror but, now, I long to feel it again. I smile to myself: this time I’ll do it right. I put the tablets in my basket and take them to the checkout, where I catch the cashier’s eye. She doesn’t say anything, but she smiles, and I know she knows. I feel like I’m joining a secret club.
Maybe now the time is right.
TWENTY
George
Stell’s late to our hotel one day and I loiter about the room wondering what to do. It crosses my mind to wait, naked, on the bed but, as I’m undoing my trousers, I think maybe that’s too presumptuous. So I stand at the window, watching the street below, but the angle’s not right for me to see the hotel entrance so I can’t see if she’s arriving.
Time stretches. I make an espresso, clicking a pod into the machine and inhaling the aroma as the machine vibrates and coffee splashes into the cup. When I hear the click of the door – half an hour late – I’m pacing the room. I turn and catch my breath as she wafts in: that face; that hair; those eyes; those lips – where Ness has curves, Stell is all drama, edges and adrenalin. My cock stiffens.
‘Princess!’ I cross the room in two strides and stop in front of her. She makes no apology, no explanation, for her tardiness – neither do I want her to. We stand, centimetres apart, for a moment, taking each other in, then I lean in, push her hair back from her face and kiss her softly on the lips. ‘How are you?’
She doesn’t reply, just steps around me without speaking and starts to undress, slowly removing her clothes in what I’m sure is a tease show until she’s left only in stockings and heels. Then she lies back on the bed and starts to touch herself, her hands sliding over and into the flesh I’m desperate to taste. All the while she does it, she’s watching me with her eyes half closed, moaning. I move to join her, my hands on my belt buckle, but she shakes her head.
‘Oh no. Not yet.’
Dear God, she makes me watch until I can’t bear it, then, finally, she rolls onto her front and slips a pillow under her hips.
‘Fuck me.’
I realise, as I come, gasping, inside her, that in the heat of the moment I forgot to use a condom.
As we lie together afterwards, I stroke her taut belly, so different to Ness’s, which, while I can’t yet feel the bump, is starting to thicken. ‘Oh God, Stell, I’m so sorry.’
She smiles. ‘Are you really? You said you wanted a baby with me.’
Before I can reply, she jumps out of bed and heads into the bathroom and I lie there contemplating
how I’d cope with both my wife and my lover pregnant. If you sat me down and made me pick one of them at this point, I’m pretty sure I’d pick Ness. Not so much through love but because she’s carrying my child and it’s the right thing to do. Just think of the bad press I’d get for leaving her pregnant. But, wow, if Stell was pregnant too, it would change everything. The thought is both terrifying and and exciting.
I’m this far into my thoughts when she reappears wrapped in a towel. I watch as she steps back into her clothes. She sits on the edge of the bed as she rolls her stockings back up her legs – usually she makes a show of it for me – it’s often a sticking point that delays my return to the office but today she does it matter-of-factly, turning her body so I can’t see the stretch of her legs as she eases the stockings up her thighs and I wonder if she’s cross with me about the condom; if it’s reminded her of that awful time when we were eighteen. Sometimes she’s so difficult to read. She re-buttons her blouse and slips back into her skirt. Then she stands in front of the mirror and puts her hair back up ready to return to the office. I’m still naked on the bed watching her – drinking her in – my hands behind my head.
‘I’ve got a proposition for you,’ she says.
‘Go on.’ My body tenses. It’s amazing what you can think in a fraction of a second. I imagine her asking if she can run away with me; emigrate to New Zealand and start a new life where nobody knows who we are.
‘Would you like to stay over at mine one night?’ Her tone is casual and she says it to the mirror, not to my face. I’m not sure I heard right. She’s never, ever invited me to stay over. On the contrary, she’s made it clear that her apartment is her space and hers alone; that she doesn’t want anyone else ‘polluting the energy’ or some such crap. I push myself up onto my elbows.
‘Did you just say what I think you did?’
‘Maybe. What did you think I said?’
‘Did you… Did you just invite me to sleep at your place?’
Stell pushes the final pin into her hair and turns to face me. ‘I believe I just did, Mr Wolsey. So what do you think?’
I jump up and put my arms around her, even though I’m naked.
‘Yes!’
‘No excuses this time.’
‘Absolutely. I will move heaven and earth to make it happen,’ I say. ‘Just watch me.’
TWENTY-ONE
Stella
I leave work on time the night that George is due to stay over. Earlier that week he’d started to tell me what plans he’d put in place to buy us our night together. We were in bed in the hotel, and I was lying half on top of him. I held my hand over his mouth.
‘I don’t want to know.’
‘Fine,’ he’d said, struggling to free his head from under my hand. ‘Just know that it’s foolproof. There’s nothing – nothing – she can do to get me to go home.’ He’d taken my finger in his mouth and given it a gentle bite. I rolled off him.
‘Good.’
George reached out an arm and pulled me back towards him. ‘Nothing short of an act of God will get me out of your bed once I’m in it.’
Now, as I take a cab back to Hampstead, I run through the preparations I’ve made. I should have an hour at home before George arrives. The groceries will have been delivered during the day – the concierge will have let the delivery guy in; ditto the flowers, which I briefed the florist to arrange ‘casually’ around the apartment, like they’ve just been thrown into vases. The cleaner will have been, and the place should be gleaming even more than usual. In my bag, I have a paper bag of fresh rose petals to scatter in the bathtub, and there’s a bottle of champagne in the fridge. It’s a complicated dish I’m cooking for supper, but I’ve done a dummy run so I know exactly how to time it. It’s crucial that everything tonight is one hundred per cent easy and natural. Everything about tonight will say to George: this – this luxury, this easiness, this sexiness – could be yours, with a baby thrown in as well. You could have it every day.
Up in my apartment, I change into cropped blue jeans and a cream silk shirt. My feet are bare on the parquet floor; my long hair loose. Let Ness dress like a show pony in her bright colours and designer dresses, but I know what George likes. There are crisp white sheets on the bed; the duvet looks pristine, like a hotel. I light the scented candles I’ve scattered throughout the bedroom and the en suite and nod at the soft light they throw around the room.
Back in the hallway, I walk over to the front door and turn to face the apartment, imagining how George will see it for the first time: the small entrance hall facing the doors to the bedrooms; turn the corner, then the huge expanse of parquet flooring that decks the open-plan living, dining and kitchen area. White paintwork, cream sofas and curtains; the only splashes of colour coming from the carefully chosen art that hangs on the walls, and one feature wall in a shade of grey so rich it verges on teal. I don’t know what George’s house is like, but I imagine it’s all to Ness’s taste. Some may call mine a cold apartment. I appreciate that, but it’s very me: clean, uncluttered, no drama.
I wonder what it’ll look like with George inside it.
TWENTY-TWO
George
I ring the bell of Stell’s building bang on eight and wait, stamping my feet in the cold, for the porter to buzz me in. Then I take the lift up and pause for a moment as the doors open at Stell’s floor. The hallway is opulent in a way you usually only see in five-star hotels. A thick rug sits on a polished marble floor, the lines of its pattern leading the eye towards just the one walnut front door. Discreet spotlights highlight architectural flower arrangements that sit on incidental tables, and the smell – the smell is, for lack of a better word, ‘rich’. I’ve never been a fan of apartment living – I prefer the kookiness of a period house – but I can’t help be impressed. Stell owns this place; I’m sure she once said she bought it outright.
I pad across the carpet and tap at the door, holding myself still as I listen for the sound of her walking towards it on the other side. I take a couple of deep breaths, trying to slow my heartbeat, then, suddenly, she opens the door.
‘Hey,’ she says. ‘You made it. Come in.’ She’s barefoot in jeans and holding a glass of white wine. She smiles, then walks back down the hallway. I drop my bag in the hall and follow her, catching her by the waist before she turns the corner into what I presume will be the living area.
‘Hey! Where’s my kiss?’
She turns in my arms and kisses me gently, holding her wine glass carefully out of the way. Her shirt rises and my hands find the soft, bare skin of her waist. She pulls away.
‘Come.’ She turns and leads me down the hall.
On the threshold of the living room, I stop, genuinely stunned. The blinds are open and the lighting’s low so I can see the lights of the city twinkling outside.
‘Wow. It’s amazing!’ I go to the window and put my hands up to the glass to see better outside. ‘What a view!’
Stell smiles. ‘Good, isn’t it? What can I get you to drink?’
‘Whatever you’re having.’
The kitchen is open-plan. Stell pulls champagne out of the fridge. ‘I thought we could toast our first night together?’
‘Perfect.’
‘Here – let me.’ I hold out my hand for the bottle but Stell shakes her head.
‘No. Tonight you’re my guest. Sit down. Relax and enjoy. I’ll make you work later!’ She winks at me lasciviously, then pulls two glasses out of the freezer and deftly opens the champagne.
‘Cheers,’ she says, as we clink the glasses.
‘To waking up tomorrow morning with the most beautiful woman in the world in my arms.’
Stell laughs. ‘Are you OK sitting here while I do a few bits in the kitchen? I thought we’d get dinner over quickly so we have the rest of the evening…’
She tips some stuffed olives and cashew nuts into a dish and places them on the counter next to me. I think back: have I told her that they’re my favourite? That I never get th
em at home because Ness is allergic? Maybe not. Stell pads about in the kitchen, a tea towel slung over her shoulder. I can’t get used to seeing her in this domestic role. It’s like seeing a whole new facet of her and, for the first time – ever if I’m honest – I wonder what it would be like to be married to Stell. Would every night be like this?
‘How was your day?’ she asks so I prolong the fantasy by telling her a funny anecdote about something that happened in the office today, just as I would to Ness. When I finish, I throw a cashew into the air and catch it in my mouth. Stell gives me a sideways look that’s not totally approving.
‘Right,’ she says. ‘I think we’re ready for the starters.’
‘What can I do? Can I carry something?’
She hands me the wine and two fresh glasses. ‘Pop these on the table while I plate up the starter.’
My phone rings. I kill it without even looking at the screen. ‘Sorry.’
We take our places at the dining table.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘This looks wonderful.’ And I’m not lying. She could serve roadkill tonight and I’d eat it gratefully.
‘I hope so. Bon appetit.’
I’m not even one mouthful into the starter when my phone rings again. I kill it again without looking, but still, now I’m wondering who it is who wants to get hold of me so urgently at this time.
‘Mmm. It’s delicious.’ I take another forkful and chew appreciatively. My phone rings again and I sit back and stare aggressively at it, my lips pressed together.
‘Sod’s Law,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Take it,’ Stell says.
‘Do you mind?’
‘Of course not.’
I look at the screen: it’s Ness. I’ve promised Stell nothing will get in the way tonight. I cut the call.
‘Work,’ I say, returning my attention to Stell. ‘Is this one of your signature dishes? It’s incredible. The flavours are exquisite.’
The One That Got Away Page 7