The Bachelor

by Tilly Bagshawe

  Now that Flora thought about it, Eva and Barney had spent an inordinate amount of time together in the time she’d known them. There were all those endless dog walks and long lunches at The Fox. Flora’s mind went back to that awful day when she’d caught Henry and Lucy Smart at it in the woods and raced over to Barney’s cottage in a panic, only to find Eva already there, looking far more at home than she ever had at Hanborough.

  Now, rumours were swirling that the two of them had already secretly eloped and that the Skåne trip was a honeymoon. If it were true, Flora was happy for them both, although she couldn’t help but worry about Henry. Eva was carrying his baby, after all. How was that going to work?

  Part of her wanted to call him. She’d almost dialled his number scores of times. But she hadn’t, and every time she’d been pleased afterwards that she’d resisted the temptation.

  He has my number. He’ll call if he needs me.

  Clearly, he didn’t. Flora wasn’t the only one who was moving on.

  The afternoon proved long and stressful. One of Flora’s new clients, John Hamrick, a wealthy art dealer who’d been introduced to her and Fitz by George Wilkes, had decided to throw all his toys out of the pram about various finishes. The hand-painted Venetian tiles he’d ordered for the kitchen of his grand Nash apartment, overlooking Regent’s Park, were suddenly ‘too vulgar’. (‘You should have advised me against them,’ John snapped at Flora, his upper lip curling as the first tiles were unpacked. ‘You must have known they were quite wrong.’) As for the stone floor that Flora had painstakingly laid in the kitchen, it now looked ‘too gnarly’ and ‘battered’.

  ‘But, John, you specifically requested distressed limestone,’ Flora tried to reason with him.

  ‘Not that distressed.’

  A fellow American, Hamrick had been charm personified up to this point: one of the easiest, most laid-back clients Flora had ever worked with. But evidently some big deal had gone wrong at work this week – a rare Dutch Impressionist had underperformed significantly at auction – and the art dealer had transformed overnight into a nit-picking, fault-finding, eternally dissatisfied monster.

  At GJD, Flora would have fought her corner, agreeing to order different tiles or to rip up the floor, but only at the client’s expense. But with Fitz barely off the starting blocks, and word-of-mouth recommendations vital to its survival, never mind growth, she had little choice but to accept John’s histrionics and cave in. That would be expensive and time- consuming. Flora’s resentment at his unreasonableness, coupled with her physical exhaustion and a cramped and sweltering Tube ride home all conspired to leave her in a frazzled mood by the time she finally sat down to a cold kitchen supper at almost nine.

  No sooner had she cracked open her first bottle of Beck’s than the telephone rang.

  Flora sighed. Had she given John Hamrick her home number? She hoped not, but she couldn’t remember. It was the sort of thing she might have done in a fit of misplaced efficiency weeks ago, back when he was still in his Dr Jekyll stage. Or was it Mr Hyde? The one who didn’t eviscerate people and then eat their guts, anyway.

  ‘Hello?’ she answered wearily.

  ‘Blimey. That’s not much of a greeting. What’s wrong, misery guts?’

  Barney’s voice rang in her ear like a half-remembered sound from another world. Flora’s face lit up.

  ‘Barney!’

  ‘That’s more like it.’ On the other end of the line, his smile was audible.

  ‘I can’t believe it’s you. It’s been for ever! How did you get this number?’

  ‘With difficulty, actually,’ said Barney. ‘You’re not easy to track down.’

  ‘You can talk!’ laughed Flora. ‘Half the world’s press has been hunting for you and Eva. Or hadn’t you noticed?’

  ‘Hunting for Eva, not me,’ he corrected her. ‘But, yeah, it’s been insane. I wish they’d sod off and leave us alone, to be honest. All the anxiety can’t be good for Eva, or the baby.’

  Grabbing her beer, Flora wandered into the living room with the phone, muted the TV and curled up on the couch. ‘So how is Eva?’

  ‘She’s fine. She’s at her grandmother’s tonight but she sends you her love.’

  ‘I send mine back,’ said Flora. ‘I still can’t quite believe all this. Are the two of you really married?’

  ‘We are.’ Barney laughed, sounding happier than Flora had ever heard him. ‘I’m not sure I can believe it myself.’

  He told her how everything had unfolded. How he and Eva had grown closer, particularly since her pregnancy, but how he hadn’t known until her wedding day that she was actually going to leave Henry.

  ‘I’d told her I loved her. I think she knew anyway. But I wasn’t sure if she felt the same way. Nothing had happened between us, not even a kiss. But then, after her no-show at the church she called me. About seven o’clock that night we met up at a hotel near Gatwick and talked. As soon as we saw each other again, we knew.’

  ‘I can’t bear it,’ sighed Flora. ‘That is so romantic.’

  ‘Well, sort of,’ said Barney. ‘It’s not exactly your classic love story. Eva’s five months pregnant with another man’s baby, don’t forget. There’s still a lot to be untangled.’

  ‘How is Henry?’ Flora couldn’t hide the worry in her voice.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Barney. ‘Eva’s spoken to him a few times. He was angry at first, I think. And hurt. But a lot of that was wounded pride. Deep down he must have known things weren’t right between them. Anyway, I’m sure you know more about his state of mind than I do.’

  ‘Me?’ said Flora. ‘I don’t know anything.’

  ‘You mean you aren’t talking?’ Barney sounded surprised.

  ‘No,’ Flora said defensively. ‘Why would we be?’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Barney. ‘Let me think. Maybe because you’re obviously both madly in love with each other?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Flora. Then, after a long pause, ‘Do you really think he’s in love with me?’

  ‘Of course he is,’ said Barney. ‘Eva suspected it for a while, but I couldn’t see it till much later. Not until after you slunk up to Seb’s place in Yorkshire and disappeared. Henry was frantic.’

  ‘Was he?’ Flora hated the hope she heard in her own voice.

  ‘Completely. That was when things really snapped for him and Eva. She was having his baby, but all he could think about was you. He wouldn’t let me drive up to check on you; he insisted on going himself.’

  Flora listened, lost in thought.

  ‘I think that was also when it dawned on me that I’d fallen in love with Eva,’ said Barney. ‘Funny how these things creep up on you, isn’t it? Or what it takes to make you realize what’s right under your nose.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Flora, who hadn’t really been listening to a word since ‘you’re obviously both madly in love with each other’.

  ‘What happened up in Yorkshire, by the way?’ Barney asked, nosily.

  ‘Nothing happened!’ Flora flushed. ‘We just talked. He was only there for about twenty minutes. He was with Eva. Nothing has ever happened between Henry and me. And nothing ever will.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Barney, ‘now that you’re both free?’

  Flora sighed heavily. ‘Have you seen the papers recently? The pictures of him in Tahiti and, last weekend, in LA? I’ve lost count of all the bimbos.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ said Barney, once again astonished to find himself defending Henry Saxton Brae. But, in this case, he meant it. ‘He’s just letting off steam.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Flora, sadly. ‘Henry will never commit. He doesn’t have it in him.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘I do. He hasn’t even called me since it happened. Not once.’

  ‘You haven’t called him either,’ Barney pointed out reasonably.

  Finishing her beer, Flora shook her head. ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Even if I do love him �
�� and I’m not saying I do – that’s one frying pan I am not about to jump into. I just got my life back, Barney. I’m free, from Mason, from Graydon, from my past, from everything. I’m starting a new business and that’s all I care about right now. I’m happy.’

  ‘If you say so, Flora.’

  ‘I do say so.’

  After she’d hung up, Flora sat there for a long time, clutching her empty beer bottle and staring into space, thinking. She was pleased Barney had called. Pleased that he and Eva were happy. They were a good match.

  As for Henry, she meant what she said. Perhaps she did love him. Perhaps he loved her, too – as much as he was capable of loving anyone.

  But the kind of love Henry Saxton Brae could give wasn’t enough for Flora. It wouldn’t make her happy. From now on she would be her own security, her own saviour, her own knight in shining armour.

  Fitz would be her lover.

  Work would be her children.

  Too tired even to crawl into the bedroom, she closed her eyes where she was and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Four months later …

  ‘You’re doing beautifully, Eva,’ the midwife said encouragingly. ‘Baby’s head is out. One more push and you’re there.’

  ‘I can’t!’ Clinging on to the sides of the birthing pool for dear life, Eva looked at Barney, sweat pouring down her face, her jaw locked rigid with pain. It was unbearable, not being able to help her or do anything. Like watching a dying animal howling to be put out of its misery.

  ‘You can,’ said Barney, laying his hand over hers, trying his utmost not to cry himself.

  Eva had asked Henry if he wanted to be present at the birth, booked months in advance at the Portland. In typical Swedish fashion, she’d already worked out a friendly, even warm relationship with her child’s biological father, and even Barney and Henry were now on civil terms. For the time being, Eva and Barney had rented a farmhouse a few miles from Hanborough, so that Henry would be close to the child and able to visit regularly, as well as a London flat. Eventually they would probably buy in the Swell Valley and settle there permanently, but nothing was set in stone yet. So much had changed for all three of them in the last year – Eva, Barney and Henry, who was now totally single for the first time in many years. All that mattered was the safe arrival of the baby.

  Despite these positive steps towards co-parenting, and Henry’s new-found maturity, he had roundly rejected Eva’s offer, explaining that he would rather stick hot pins in his eyes than hover around like a spare part amid the blood, pain and raw emotion of childbirth.

  ‘Even if we were married, I’d give it a miss,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there for the rest of his life. Just not for that.’

  ‘Or her life,’ Eva said archly.

  ‘Whatever,’ said Henry. The baby was a boy and that was that. He had a sixth sense about these things. ‘I appreciate the offer, but I’m more the “cigars in the waiting room” type.’

  At the time Barney had thought Henry a fool. What sort of a man would willingly miss out on the chance to see their child’s arrival into the world? He, Barney, couldn’t wait to see the baby. To hold it in his arms and look into its eyes and tell it how deeply and desperately it was already loved, by both of its putative fathers. But now that he’d spent ten gruelling hours watching Eva screaming in agony, unable to do anything other than hold her hand, he was starting to wish he’d had Henry’s foresight. It was awful. Just awful – the most harrowing day of his life. And it still wasn’t over.

  ‘Aaaaaagh!’ Eva let out a terrifying sound that was part scream, part roar and part heart-wrenching wail. Barney shot a panicked look at the midwife. He half expected the windows to shatter. But, to his amazement, the small, dumpy Liverpudlian overseeing the birth was smiling broadly.

  ‘That’s it, love! Go on! Shoulders are out!’

  Seconds later, kicking its tiny legs back and forth like a tadpole flicking its tail, Eva’s baby shot out of her body and into the water like a bullet from a gun. Barney stared, mute with shock, as the midwife reached into the birthing pool and scooped the infant out of the water, where it relieved everyone by crying loudly and immediately at the top of its lungs.

  Slumping back against the side of the pool, her eyes closed, Eva asked weakly, ‘What is it?’

  Barney was still staring at the child as the midwife dried it with a towel. It had stopped crying now. All Barney could see were its huge eyes opening and closing as it was prodded and wrapped, and a shock of thick, dark hair protruding straight up from the top of its head, in the manner of a cartoon character after an electric shock.

  ‘What is it?’ Eva asked again, still too weak to move.

  ‘It’s got hair,’ said Barney.

  The midwife laughed. ‘She’s got hair.’ Cutting and clamping the cord, she placed the wrapped child into his arms. ‘You’ve got a lovely little gel.’

  ‘Fuuuuuck.’ Barney stepped backwards, gazing at the baby, sitting down gingerly and with infinite care in the armchair in the corner, as if he were holding a bomb. ‘Oh my God. She’s perfect. She is absolutely perfect. Hello, lovely.’

  The baby blinked back at him, calm and curious, and all the worry of the last ten hours, all the worry of Barney’s life up to that point, evaporated instantly and totally like a dewdrop in the sun. He knew in that moment that biology meant precisely nothing. He was looking at his daughter and he had never felt love like it.

  ‘Have you got a name for her?’ the midwife asked Eva, who was slowly coming back to life.

  ‘Francesca,’ said Barney firmly.

  ‘Francesca?’ Eva sounded surprised. They’d discussed a few names but Francesca had never come up. ‘I like it,’ she smiled.

  ‘Francesca Eva.’

  ‘Perfect.’

  ‘Francesca Eva Griffith.’

  Eva raised an eyebrow. ‘One step at a time, my love.’ Holding out her arms for her daughter, she added, ‘Someone had better tell Henry.’

  After a brief, half-hearted power struggle over the name (the truth was Henry liked the name Francesca, and he really didn’t have any decent alternative suggestions, having focused all his energy on coming up with names for a boy), Henry quickly became as besotted by his daughter as Barney and Eva.

  Though he didn’t share Barney’s enthusiasm for nappy changing, swaddling, burping and all the other daily ministrations Francesca apparently required, he was a regular visitor to the hospital during the ten days that Eva was there (she’d lost so much blood during the birth that she was kept at the Portland for observation), and was happy to spend hours ‘chatting’ to his daughter about everything from the racing results to politics and her predicted taste in music.

  ‘You mustn’t listen to too much of Mummy’s Swedish crap,’ he would tell the sleeping infant as they paced Eva’s large private room.

  ‘Why not?’ protested Eva.

  ‘Because it’s crap,’ Henry cooed in Francesca’s ears.

  ‘Your music is crap,’ Barney agreed disloyally from behind an open copy of the Telegraph, where the crossword was defeating him utterly. ‘I’ll go and get a coffee,’ he said, stretching his legs and yawning. ‘Give you two some time on your own.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Henry, handing Francesca back to Eva and looking at his watch, ‘I have to run. I’ve got a dinner at my club tonight – some fundraiser or other I got myself roped into. I can stop in tomorrow?’

  ‘We’re taking her home tomorrow,’ said Barney.

  For a split second Henry smarted at the word ‘home’. Part of him felt instinctively that Hanborough was Francesca’s home. But he restrained himself from snapping. Barney was Eva’s husband, after all, and would be as much of a father to his daughter as he would. It was in everybody’s interests that they continued to get along.

  ‘All right, well, I’ll come at the weekend then. Once you’ve had a chance to get settled.’

  Barney opened his mouth to say something but Ev
a cut him off. ‘That would be lovely,’ she said. ‘We’ll see you then.’

  After Henry left, Barney perched on the edge of the bed beside her and the baby.

  ‘That’s our first weekend home, as a family,’ he grumbled.

  ‘I know,’ said Eva. ‘But Henry’s trying. I lived with him for three years and I’m telling you, this is him doing his best.’

  ‘OK,’ said Barney.

  At the end of the day, Henry Saxton Brae had given him the greatest gift of his life. A few awkward weekends were a small price to pay.

  Flora straightened her hair and brushed chocolate croissant crumbs off her Zara silk jacket as she rushed into the Portland.

  As usual, she was late, this time after a meeting with Fitz’s lawyers that had overrun by more than an hour and had been deeply depressing. Graydon James had launched yet another lawsuit against her, every bit as frivolous as the last. This time he was accusing her of ripping off his designs for a house they’d worked on together in the Hamptons years ago. Apparently the blue tiles Flora had chosen for a client’s master bath, as featured in last month’s UK Elle Décor, were ‘almost identical’ to the suite GJD had installed in East Hampton.

  ‘You can’t copyright blue tiles!’ Flora complained in frustration to her lawyers.

  ‘Of course you can’t. Which is why he’ll lose,’ the lawyers assured her. The problem was that, even when Graydon lost, he won. His pockets were infinite, whereas Flora’s most definitely had a bottom, a bottom that she’d hit at least two court cases ago. Even if she was awarded costs, they took time to come through, time that Fitz didn’t have in terms of its urgent cash-flow needs. In less than a month Flora would be unable to pay her rent, or the interest on her business loans. Graydon was squeezing the life out of her fledgling company and there was nothing on earth she could do about it.