He had turned my life upside down and now his life was the right way up but mine still had a way to go. But I let him see the forgiveness before he left and I wondered if he would ever think about that time, and feel guilty. I knew that the old George would, and that made me feel better. Actually it didn’t make me feel better. I was bitter now. Unbelievably, he had come home bitter and twisted and here was I now feeling the same. Maybe I’d go to New York and take him to court, then go to the press. See how he’d like that. I stared at the wooden table. I stared at my empty teacup. I stared at the empty coffee cup. That was where he’d sat, for the last time ever before he walked out of my life.
I picked up my mobile and called Joe.
‘Joe McClaren.’
‘Joe, it’s me.’
‘Is everything all right, the baby...’
Every time I called him he said that. It almost made me smile.
‘Everything’s fine. I just saw George.’
‘You what?’ He sounded pissed off.
‘Remember, I promised you I would never lie to you again. I saw him, he wanted to explain, to apologise. Julia and him are together again and they’re going back to New York to get married.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, he said he was a total shit, and he was sorry.’
‘And?’
‘Well it’s not going to change anything is it? It’s happened now and an apology doesn’t make everything go away. But he made me realise one thing.’
‘What?’
‘That it’s time for us to put the past behind us.’
‘If we can.’
‘We could try.’
‘We could.’
‘You could try to forgive me.’
‘I could try.’
‘Are you still on for birthing classes tonight—apparently they’re showing the unedited video version of labour.’ I laughed.
‘It might make you not want to go through with it.’
‘Yeah but I’m not entirely convinced I have a choice.’
‘No, right, actually you don’t, unless you keep your legs closed.’
‘Not my strongest skill.’
‘No, I remember you used to be quite a minx.’
‘I might still be.’
‘Really?’
‘So, I might not be my most desirable right now but I will be again.’
‘That’s the easy bit, it’s the stretchmarks and the floppy boobs that stay with you forever.’
‘So tonight then, meet at the hospital at seven.’
‘Yup, same time, same place.’
‘It’s a date?’
‘Well, it’s sort of a date.’ I hung up smiling, this was definitely progress.
Chapter Forty-five
Full Term
My baby shower was a little unorthodox. Simply because it was thrown on the day I was due to give birth. I had no idea about baby showers, what they were, or why they were called showers. Lisa proved to be an expert, which was strange. They were a present-giving party for expectant mothers and anything that involved present-giving was OK by me. But for reasons unknown to everyone else, I had evaded having one. Here were my reasons: Ever since George had disappeared off the scene I had been trying to get life back to normal. Just as soon as my life became public, it became private again. Overnight I was in the midst of disruption, overnight I wasn’t. I knew how fickle the press were, but there was something from that time that stayed with me. After the press left my doorstep to my great relief, but the disappointment of my neighbours, the aftermath stayed. Once more I was a normal person, a pregnant, normal person. I once again had freedom of movement, I could come and go as I pleased. I was just another person in a city full of people.
Although I had a few offers, mainly from people wanting my side of the story after George had been shown up to be a total prat, I had refused them all. I didn’t want the story to continue and it had never been my story anyway. All I wanted was to go back to work and to work. I wanted to be anonymous, and in a few months I had achieved that. Now, I rarely got a second glance. I had been forgotten and that suited me. There would always be the marriage-pact story, it had been chronicled and therefore records of the mad phase in my life were always going to be there, but for my sake, for the baby, for Joe, I didn’t want them to be anything more than records. Dusty, old records in a cardboard box. Or was I a floppy disk in a plastic box? Because that was where I wanted to keep that part of my life—in a box.
There was still something I wanted to do: win back Joe. And I was only able to do that by giving him space. I’m not sure who it was who said that if you love someone set them free and wait because if they love you they will come back, but whoever said it, I was doing it. I had asked him for forgiveness once, but now it was up to him. George had taught me something. Actually his actions had taught me something. If you want to push someone away, far, far away you pursue them relentlessly. Perhaps I was being a little paranoid because I would never take Joe to court, nor would I go to the papers with our story, been there. It had been done.
I didn’t want a baby shower. It was because I was too busy trying to put my life back together, and actually I was finding it harder than I thought. Work was fine but I was tired. So tired. And big. Enormous. Huge. I got to the seventh month and thought there was no way I could get any bigger, but I did. Daily. The clothes that Lisa and Imogen had chosen for me were beginning to strain in protest and I’d taken to wearing huge men’s shirts that were the only thing that fitted. Nothing else was that big, just my stomach. I did wake up one morning in a panic and called Dr Langton to ask him if he was absolutely sure I was having just one baby. He found that amusing, to my annoyance.
I discovered exhaustion, real exhaustion. I had never known anything like it. After work I would go home and fall asleep pretty much straight away. When Joe came to see me I would fall asleep on his shoulder, which wasn’t a good seduction technique, so luckily I wasn’t trying to seduce him. Lisa insisted on taking me out to dinner one night, saying that because I was pregnant didn’t mean I had to be boring, and I found it so hard to reach the fork to my mouth that she gave up straight after the main course and bundled me home in a taxi. The driver had to wake me when he got to my flat.
Then there were the emotions. I felt I had been coping with so much before: the press, the heartbreak and the pregnancy. Now I had just the pregnancy, the heartbreak and the paternity issue, but it was still so hard. Birthing lessons, yoga, check-ups, shopping for the nursery, all the normal activities were taking their toll as they all made me realise one thing. I was having a real baby. Not a toy. It filled me with dread. I was going to be responsible for another person. I would have to feed it, to wind it, to comfort it when it cried, to clothe it, and although Joe was going to be a huge part of its life, I was going to be his or her mother. And before I could worry about that, I was also going to have to give birth to it. Have you ever seen a video of a woman giving birth? It’s not pretty. And the babes are so big in comparison to the small hole they come out of. I called Dr Langton and asked him for a Caesarean. Again he laughed. I was glad that my pregnancy psychosis was providing my doctor with enough entertainment. He told me that I was behaving normally for a woman in my condition but how could that be? If this is normal then people would only ever have one baby; and that was only because they didn’t know what it was really like. Unless, and this terrifies me as well, what happens if, when you do give birth, you see this tiny little cute baby and you get instant amnesia. I told Joe to remind me how I felt as soon as I gave birth. Although I probably wouldn’t ever get to have sex again anyway.
It was becoming a nightmare. It had been a nightmare from start to finish but then at least in the early days I could blame George. Not that I wasn’t glad that he had gone. But it was so confusing. This thing was happening to me and I ill understood it. It was causing all sorts of emotions all crashing together at the same time, refusing to make any sense. If Joe could have forgiven me then mayb
e I would have been better, or maybe I wouldn’t. I had his support and his ever-increasing presence as the birth drew near, he couldn’t have been more supportive. He bought me food, he cooked for me, he made me endless cups of herbal tea he even massaged my feet. We’d shopped together, we had a flat full of baby stuff. So that was another reason for not having a baby shower. I had most things I needed and stuff I hoped I’d never need. I also bought a car. A very sensible Golf. It was silver and had a really cool stereo. The only thing missing, baby-wise was a car seat, which my parents were going to buy me.
The problem was, that I still didn’t know and neither did he and the strain of that question was constantly in the air.
But then on the day I was due to give birth I thought I probably wouldn’t, because babies are never on time the first time round apparently (Lisa said). I finally agreed to a last-minute baby party.
My parents were staying at my flat, unable to bear the thought of me being alone at any time when the baby might make its appearance, because despite Joe being around all the time and assuring me that he had his phone on at all times he hadn’t stayed the night with me, for obvious reasons. My parents also said they didn’t want to be in Devon when their first grandchild was born, and I didn’t protest because I didn’t want to protest. Imogen and Jack were also in London. She said it was because Jack had all sorts of commitments but I felt it was because they wanted to be near as well. They were staying in a flat owned by Jack’s publisher in South Kensington, so at least I wasn’t totally over-loaded. Then Lisa and Max also found lots of reasons to drop in. My flat was shrinking. They came round most evenings, and Lisa most days since I’d stopped working. Freddie was also a constant presence, he said he needed to get my opinion on work issues nearly every evening, and he always came with Francesca. Everyone wanted to be with me for the birth, and if they’d been allowed to, I am sure they would have been more than happy to witness it.
I had borrowed chairs from the loss adjusters to accommodate my visitors, and the flat did feel awfully small, but it was lovely having a houseful and I think it also took the pressure off Joe. He was there but we weren’t alone which meant that he couldn’t think I was trying to back him into a corner; I had no spare corners in any case.
When the due date arrived, Joe arrived at nine in the morning having taken the day off work. Although I told him it wouldn’t be necessary he didn’t believe me. My parents had made breakfast and were sitting in the sitting room talking about baby names.
‘Are you sure you don’t have a favourite name?’ they asked after Joe made drinks for everyone.
‘It’s a secret,’ I said. It was a secret. One more thing that was just mine and Joe’s. We had shared a fair bit of the pregnancy with the general public. We had shared it with friends and family. We let them all be here when I was about to burst because they had been supporting me all the way and somehow, in some way this felt like a part of them all.
Joe was behaving as if this was his baby and I wasn’t doing anything to discourage that. We’d even had dinner with Joe’s parents, they’d come up to London especially. They were so nice and they behaved as if they were going to be grandparents which made me happy and guilty all at the same time. I asked Joe, once, in my braver moment what he would do when we knew the results of the test and guessing my meaning he just squeezed my hand and told me that it would be all right. I was terrified that he had convinced himself he was the father; I was terrified he was wrong. There was still so much I couldn’t forgive myself for, but I was living my life. Getting on with it. As best as I could.
George would be planning his wedding. That I knew, because it was related to me by my parents via his. They had told them that they were flying to New York for the wedding. The news made me feel resentful at first. Angry even. Because he had gone away and nothing had followed him. Whereas we were still dealing with the aftermath. And even if the baby was his, he would still marry Julia. Nothing would change his life.
Joe was still dealing with the fact that I had slept with George, the baby might not be his, and the fact that our lives had been so public. I think he would be dealing with that for a very long time.
Francesca and Freddie were still being affected at work, people still wanted to know about the marriage-pact baby, because that’s what it was. Although the story had died, there was still the last piece in the jigsaw to finish it off properly and they were constantly phoning to ask for the first picture, or the exclusive on the name.
My parents were still being overprotective, worried that I might not have recovered fully from events. I would never recover fully, but that wasn’t the point. They didn’t need any additional worry.
Imogen and Jack were the same. Imogen was being haunted by the way the press acted, and although she and Jack were stronger than ever (good things out of bad things), the time she spent with me will always stay with her.
Lisa and Max. Again, they won’t forget in a hurry. The amount of tears they mopped up, the fainting episodes, the neuroses. Like true friends they will always be there for me, but they can’t forget what happened.
No one can. Apart, it seems, from George.
As I stroked my baby and tried silently to coax it into the world (nine months is a hell of a long time, especially when you’re the size of a bus), I knew that even my baby would never forget.
The events surrounding his or her conception and incubation had been documented. Even if it were forgotten there might be some people who will always remember. Maybe one day he or she will read the story or hear about it some way. Perhaps I, as the mother, will have to be brave enough to explain, or perhaps I won’t. Although the head-in-the-sand Holly was supposed to have been buried, old habits die hard.
As he said ‘I do’, I wondered if George would think of us, I wondered if he would consider for a minute the repercussions of the aftermath. I don’t expect he would.
I know he thought I forgave him in the end but I didn’t really. Not deep down. I forgave him to preserve our memories, our childhood, because I could never let go of that, but that was it. He would never be forgiven for the events surrounding the marriage pact, the court case, the media circus and me.
*
‘Here you go.’ Joe handed me a cup of tea and sat next to me. He put his hand on the bump and I wondered if—when it turned into a real person—I would ever have any physical contact with him again.
‘We’re going shopping,’ my mum announced.
‘What for, Mrs Miller?’ Joe asked. My mother turned pink. It transpired that she and my father adored Joe, and I liked to think it wasn’t just because he might be the father of their first grandchild.
‘Call me Margaret,’ she said. ‘We’re shopping for the baby shower.’
‘Honestly mum, we don’t need anything.’ I had protested and protested to no avail.
‘I don’t think you realise how much you do need. Now we’re all bringing a present and having a party, it’ll do you the world of good.’
‘It’s hopeless to argue,’ Joe said. I put my head on his shoulder.
*
‘Do you think it might happen today?’ Joe asked, when we were alone.
‘No, I really don’t.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I don’t feel different today and I thought I would. After the scare last week.’
‘Braxton Hicks, that was scary.’ I had had my fake contractions, which believe me don’t feel fake and are enough to put you off the real thing. Joe had proved to be a real asset because instead of panicking he started timing and proclaimed them to be Braxton Hicks. Then he called the hospital for reassurance but they told him he was doing the right thing. You only go to hospital when the contractions are five minutes apart, Dr Miriam taught us that. But although the fake contractions were painful, I was glad we were given a dress rehearsal in a way. Joe was marvellous and that took some of the worry off me about the opening night.
‘Joe, do you think it’s going to be a girl or a
boy.’
‘Definitely a boy.’
‘I think its going to be a girl.’
‘You’re just argumentative.’
‘How do you really feel about it?’ I had forced myself to ask this question a hundred times, which was silly because even Joe didn’t know how he felt.
‘Hol, more than anything in the world I want this baby to be mine.’
‘Me, too.’
‘But I’m a part of it now, whatever happens I’m not sure I can walk away.’ That was just what I wanted to hear.
‘What happens if I’m a crap mother?’
‘Then the poor little bugger’s doomed. No, we’ll both be great.’
‘We will, won’t we?’
‘Yeah.’ I fell asleep on his shoulder and I dreamt about fish.
*
I awoke to hear hushed voices. My parents, Imogen, Jack and Joe were all around the dining table.
‘How long was I asleep?’
‘Four hours,’ Joe told me.
‘God, I never slept so much in my life.’
‘Enjoy it while you can,’ my father said. I stood up and walked over to where they were standing. On the table was a baby car seat, a McClaren pushchair (hopefully appropriately), and loads of toys.
‘This is all for us?’ I asked, touched once again.
‘Imogen went a bit mad,’ Jack explained.
‘I want my nephew or niece to have the best.’
‘It will have the best aunt and uncle,’ I said hugging her.
‘We were going to present all the gifts later, at the party.’ My mother sounded disappointed.
‘Well you can, we’ll forget we’ve seen them, Margaret,’ Joe said. I’m sure my mother blushed.
‘Can we go for a walk?’ I asked Joe.
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