Falling to Earth

by Deirdre Palmer

  ‘Well, Gray would like to see the back of me, even if you wouldn’t. He must be thinking I’ve outstayed my welcome by now.’

  ‘Gray loves having you here as much as I do. He’s very fond of you and he likes to know I’ve got company when he’s away.’

  Andrea brightened. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Totally.’ Juliet crossed her fingers beneath the tissue box.

  Andrea looked crestfallen again. ‘He’ll change his tune when he finds out what I’ve done, Ju, and so will you.’

  ‘Andrea, if this is about bringing your boyfriend back here and not collecting Rachel then don’t give it another thought. It’s all forgotten. I forgave you for that ages ago – I’m sorry if you thought I hadn’t.’

  ‘No, it’s a heck of a lot worse than that. I’ve let you down and I’ve done it in style, just as your mother predicted.’ Andrea gave a little, humourless laugh. ‘Good old Pamela.’

  Juliet opened her mouth to speak but Andrea shushed her. ‘The man I’ve been seeing, it’s someone you know. Oh God, I’m so sorry!’ Andrea slumped forward, covering her face with her hands.

  Juliet’s chest tightened. ‘Andrea, look at me.’

  Andrea seemed to have difficulty in carrying out this instruction. Eventually, she sat up and slid her hands away from her face to reveal a very guilty expression, beneath which lurked the merest soupcon of defiance.

  ‘Andrea, just tell me, will you? Who is it you’ve been seeing?’

  ‘It’s David. David Wellman.’

  Juliet’s jaw dropped about half a yard.

  Andrea flicked her hair back. ‘That’s right. David-down-the-road. David-pillar-of-the-fucking-community. David as in David-and-Fiona. So now you know why I have to go, because I’ve bollocksed everything up, for you as well as for me, not to mention poor old Fiona.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Andrea! How could you?’ All this swearing was catching. ‘What the hell were you thinking about?’ Juliet had a thought. ‘Hang on a minute, you told me the guy you were seeing wasn’t connected with the drama group. I asked you outright and you said he wasn’t.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I said he wasn’t in the play, which he isn’t.’

  ‘Oh, of course not – he’s only the director – not to mention one of our neighbours! You lied to me, Andrea.’

  ‘I didn’t, not technically. I could hardly tell you who it was, could I?’

  ‘If you had I might have been able to stop you.’

  Andrea gave a half smile. ‘I doubt it. I was on a high. He made me feel good and it was fun, a bit of ego-boosting, no-strings larking about. Oh, Ju, don’t look at me like that. I know I’ve messed up and I’ve tried to end it loads of times but he won’t accept it’s over. He doesn’t seem to care about the danger – he gets off on that, if you ask me - and he flatly refuses to believe I don’t have feelings for him, don’t even fancy him any more.’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘No. I’ve tried everything, even the it’s not you, it’s me thing.’

  Juliet grinned. ‘Not that old chestnut.’

  ‘Quite.’ Andrea smiled ruefully back.

  Juliet had a thought, along with a mental snapshot of Fiona Wellman, pale and downcast, scurrying past the house, avoiding eye contact with her.

  ‘Does Fiona know about you?’

  ‘No, I’m sure she doesn’t. That’s one reason I had to stop it, before she found out.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure she doesn’t know,’ Juliet said, half to herself.

  ‘Oh? Why do you say that?’

  No reason. It doesn’t matter. Look, Andrea, surely you must be able to end it. You’re a grown woman, not an inexperienced eighteen-year-old. Just don’t have any more contact with him and don’t go near the drama group, obviously.’

  ‘I must! I have to see the play through now. I’m not just the prompt and the gopher. I’m the understudy for the post-woman, the waitress and the horsey woman with the gin habit. Oh, and I’m the dead body at the end of Act Two.’

  ‘Well, I can see that might be a problem.’

  Juliet had already set aside her outrage that Andrea had been carrying on with one of her neighbours. This was about Andrea now. Clearly David Wellman deserved no sympathy, unlike Fiona, but there was nothing she could do about her. She could help Andrea, though. At least she could try, and she couldn’t do that if her friend was bent on packing up and leaving.

  ‘So now you know, just tell me to go – not that I need telling.’ Andrea sat up and gave her shoulders a little shake.

  ‘You’re going nowhere. You’re staying right here so I can keep an eye on you as I should have been doing all along and when I tell Gray, he’ll agree, so let’s drop the subject, shall we?’

  Andrea gave a big, shuddery sigh. ‘If you say so, Ju, and it’s very sweet of you but I won’t be here much longer. I’ve been thinking about it anyway. I need to get my life back on track and if it’s taken David bloody Wellman to make me see that then at least I’ll have salvaged something from this godawful mess.’

  ‘Well, it’s your decision of course, but do you have any ideas about what you’ll do, where you’ll go?’

  Andrea nodded. ‘I’m going back to Declan.’

  The phone rang in the middle of the night. Juliet reached over Gray’s lightly-snoring form and fumbled for the handset. She didn’t know why she was bothering – it was bound to be a nutter.

  ‘We’ve done it! We’ve had the baby!’ Al’s voice sliced through Juliet’s sleepy brain. ‘Born at four-twenty-two precisely.’

  We’ve had the baby? Juliet had a surreal vision of Al on the bed beside Karina, legs akimbo, pumping frantically away at the gas-and-air, which, in fact, he probably had. ‘Al, that’s fantastic news. Congratulations!’ She squinted at the clock. Twenty to six. Only almost the middle of the night then. ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘Peachy, both of them.’

  Wide awake now, Juliet wanted to know more, the important stuff like name and weight, but Al had already gone, to wake up the rest of their friends and family, no doubt.

  The lift stopped and started countless times as it cranked its way up the tower block of the Sussex County. At level eleven, Juliet stepped out, along with a clutch of other visitors bound for Maternity. She had hoped to avoid coming up here – the parking was dreadful for one thing – but the baby was slightly jaundiced, Karina had told her on the phone, so they weren’t allowed home just yet.

  There were six beds in the ward, each with a fish-tank cot next to it. Five of the cots contained little, blue-blanketed mounds, the sixth, nearest the door, contained a pink mound. Juliet went over and kissed Karina, who was sitting on top of the bed wearing grey sweatpants and a navy-and-white striped top, beneath which only the merest sensation of a bump was visible.

  ‘Have a chocolate. They’re heaven, especially these.’ Karina indicated a spiral confection. ‘Go on. Tallulah brought them.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Juliet took the chocolate, Karina took another and for a moment all they could do was beam at one another.

  ‘Hello, Tallulah,’ Juliet said.

  ‘Hi.’ Tallulah got up from the grey plastic chair at the other side of the bed. ‘Come and sit here.’

  ‘No, I’m fine. Besides, I want to have a proper look at this little one.’

  Juliet sat on the edge of the bed, bent over the cot and gently lifted the pink blanket away, revealing the perfect little head with its covering of coppery hair, the sweetest baby features, the bluest eyes. Something inside her melted faster than the chocolate had.

  ‘She’s beautiful.’

  Karina giggled and lifted the baby unceremoniously out of the cot. ‘Juliet, this is Daniel. Daniel, this is Juliet, your surrogate aunt.’

  ‘Daniel?’

  ‘They were fresh out of blue blankets.’

  ‘A boy! But I thought... well, I just assumed...’

  ‘Not surprising. Al brainwashed everyone, including himself.’

  ‘So is
he all right about it?’

  ‘All right? He’s ecstatic! He was so desperate for it to be a boy that he hadn’t dared say anything, not even to me – not that he wouldn’t have loved another daughter just as much, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ Juliet accepted the baby from Karina. He felt so very, very small. He wasn’t though, not in baby terms. He’d weighed in at nine pounds three, apparently.

  ‘When are they letting you out of here?’

  ‘Tomorrow, with any luck. His blood test this morning showed an improvement. He hardly looks yellow at all now, except on his tummy.’

  Juliet winced at the thought of the baby having to endure needles being stuck in him. ‘Poor little fellow. Talking of which, where’s Al?’

  ‘He’s taken the girls on the pier. They got a bit excitable in here, wanted to wheel all the babies around in their cots.’

  ‘Oh heck.’ Juliet remembered the present she’d brought. Opening the silver gift bag, she held up a tiny pink and white gingham dress with a triple row of pink ruffles across the bodice. ‘It’s not really him, is it?’

  ‘Not really.’ They all laughed.

  ‘Never mind. Will this do instead?’ Juliet drew out a white box containing a bottle of mightily expensive perfume.

  ‘Too right it will. Come here.’ Karina pulled Juliet to her and kissed her once on each cheek. Squashed between them, the baby gave a little squawk.

  ‘Sorry, baby. Here, you hold him.’ Karina passed Daniel to Tallulah, who looked alarmed.

  ‘Go on. He won’t break. Get some practice in while you can.’

  Practice? Juliet glanced at Karina, who lifted her eyebrows in response. So Tallulah was still pregnant. She hadn’t succumbed to pressure from the nasty boyfriend. Juliet had an almost overwhelming urge to lift the girl out of her seat and whiz her round the ward in a celebratory dance, tell her how brave she was and how she was doing exactly the right thing. Instead she contented herself with a quiet ‘Congratulations, Tallulah. That’s wonderful.’

  Tallulah responded with a shy smile. Her head was bent over Daniel now as he lay in her arms, his eyes fixed on her face as she crooned baby-drivel to him. Karina and Juliet smiled at one another.

  Eventually, Tallulah peeled her eyes from the baby. ‘I suppose I’d better go. His lordship’s waiting out in the street.’

  ‘Tallulah, it’s not your fault he didn’t want to come in with you,’ Karina said, gently, taking Daniel and settling him back in his cot. ‘If you want to go, go but if you want to stay a little longer, then you should. Anyway, I’m enjoying my girly afternoon and I don’t want it to end just yet, so indulge me, yes?’

  Tallulah nodded happily. ‘OK. I’ll just pop out and ring Jon, tell him I’ll be a while longer, then I’ll go and get us some tea from the machine, shall I?’

  ‘Oh please! It’s as dry as the Gobi in here,’ Karina said.

  As the doors of the ward swung closed, Karina turned to Juliet, who by now was breaking a blood vessel to hear the rest of the story.

  ‘As you gathered, there’s still a baby, thank heavens. She went off to London and it was touch and go for a while – she didn’t actually tell me that but I guessed – and then she came back and laid it on the line, told him she was having the baby and he’d better get used to the idea or he’d lose them both.’

  ‘What did he say to that?’

  ‘That he loved her, he was sorry and she could have the baby if that was what she really wanted – can you believe that? – and everything would be all right because he’d look after them both.’ Karina raised her eyes. ‘Quite how he thought he was going to do that I’ve no idea, considering he does nothing except pootle about in the family business and that’s only when he can be bothered.’

  ‘But she can’t still want to be with him, not after the way he reacted over the pregnancy, surely?’ Juliet was incredulous.

  ‘No, she doesn’t, not any more. She’s realised now that he probably means every word of what he says when he says it but it’s all in the moment. There’s nothing lasting or meaningful – it’s all empty promises.’

  ‘That’s so sad,’ Juliet said.

  Daniel stirred in his sleep, emitting a tiny sigh. They spent the next few minutes in silent baby-worship, then Juliet asked: ‘So what happens next? What was the point of Tallulah coming back from London at all if she knew the whole thing was doomed from the outset?’

  ‘That’s what I wondered, but much of what’s in the apartment belongs to her. There are some paintings and some gorgeous pieces of antique furniture for a start. Tallulah picked it up at auction – she has an eye for these things. She knows if she ups and leaves in a huff she won’t get any of it – he’ll make sure of that. It isn’t as if she’s out for what she can get, it’s more a case of survival. Her mother’s coming back from South America and she’ll be around for the birth, then Tallulah will set up home for herself and the baby in London so she can’t afford to cut herself off without a cent. She’ll leave Jonathan, certainly, but when she does, it will be on her terms. She’ll make sure he pays child maintenance too, and I don’t blame her.’

  ‘Me neither. Good for her,’ Juliet said, abstractedly. An uncomfortable thought was prickling at the back of her mind.

  ‘What about the apartment itself? Does Tallulah have a share in that?’

  ‘No, it’s only rented. That’s another thing. When she first met Jonathan he told her it was his, left to him by his grandfather – untrue, like a lot of other things he told her. She says he’s a dreamer but the man’s a total fake, that’s obvious. I mean, who would be impressed anyway, just because someone owns a bit of Regency Crescent, so why bother to lie? It defies understanding, it really does... Juliet, are you all right? Is it the heat in here?’

  Juliet was already on her feet. ‘I’m so sorry, Karina, I’ve got to go. I’ve just remembered...’ She fled.

  She spotted Jonno as soon as she’d crossed the road outside the hospital. He was leaning nonchalantly against the roof of the green MG, which was parked half on double yellows, tapping indifferently at his mobile phone.

  ‘Hello!’ He snapped the phone shut as Juliet marched up to him, his eyes giving her the once-over as his trademark smile slotted into place. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Never mind what I’m doing. It’s what you’re doing that matters, what you’re doing to Lou – Tallulah – and, my God, I fell for it all, didn’t I?’ Juliet slapped a hand to her forehead. ‘All that self-pitying crap about Lou not wanting the baby when all the time it was you and it was her heart that was breaking, not yours – not that you’ve even got a heart or if you have it made its escape from your chest years ago and lodged itself about a foot lower down together with certain other parts of your anatomy I’d like to aim a punch at. You’d think I’d be old enough and wise enough to know better, but no. Well, I know now. I know what a two-faced, selfish bastard you really are!’

  ‘Steady on.’ Jonno didn’t look in the least nonplussed by Juliet’s outburst. The come-hither smile had gone but what replaced it was an expression far more sinister, one of sardonic amusement. How could she ever have found him attractive?

  ‘Don’t tell me to steady on! The way you’ve treated that lovely girl is an abdomination and you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. Not that I see any signs of that so far.’

  ‘I think you mean abomination.’ The smile threatened to break out again.

  ‘That’s what I said. So go on, explain yourself. No, actually, don’t bother because I don’t want to hear it.’

  Juliet was standing close enough to Jonno now to see the film of sweat that had broken out on his forehead. She was getting through to him on some level, then.

  He changed tack. ‘You’re right, of course. I am everything you say, and more. I misled you and that was wrong of me but I was confused. I’m lucky to have Lou, I know that, and I’m amazed she loves me enough to want to have a child with me, even if it wasn’t planned. I know I behaved bad
ly towards her, and you as well, but I was scared, Juliet, scared of suddenly being expected to become someone else - a father. I mean, how big a deal is that? I couldn’t cope with the suddenness of it all. I don’t...I didn’t feel ready.’

  He might as well have added: ‘Will that do?’ to the end of this little speech. Anything to get her off his case.

  Juliet glared at him. ‘And that gave you carte blanche to hare off, literally, round the city trying to pull other women who ought to know better, and thankfully, this one did.’

  The smile returned, all too easily. Brown eyes flashed. ‘Yes, that wasn’t one of my greatest moments. Quite lost my touch there for a while.’

  ‘You arrogant pig!’

  For two pins, Juliet could have beaten Jonno on the chest with her fists. As it was, she couldn’t seem to move. Blood pounded in her ears and her legs seemed devoid of all feeling. As she stood there, glued to the spot, she sensed someone approach behind her and Jonno’s gaze shifted enquiringly to somewhere above her left shoulder. She turned.

  ‘What the devil’s going on?’ Gray said.

  23

  ‘Nothing. It’s fine. I...we had something to sort out, something... personal. Look, wait for me over there. I won’t be a minute.’ Juliet waved across the road towards the hospital entrance. Gray, however, was going nowhere. Her stomach turned inside out, several times.

  ‘Something personal, yes. That much I guessed. It didn’t look like he’d pinched your parking space.’

  ‘Gray, please...’

  ‘You’re Gray, then. Pleased to meet you.’ Jonno extended a hand towards Gray, who ignored it.

  ‘And who might you be?’

  ‘Jonathan. Friend of Juliet’s.’

  ‘He isn’t a friend. Gray, let’s go. I’ll explain on the way.’

  ‘I think I’d like a little explanation now, if it’s all the same,’ Gray said levelly, his eyes on Jonno.

  An ambulance screamed past. Juliet waited until it had gone before she spoke.