The Anniversary

by Hilary Boyd

  ‘Yeah, I don’t.’

  The other man laughed. ‘I’ve heard of retirement, obviously. But I didn’t think people like us actually indulged in it. What the hell do you do all day?’

  Howard was older than Jack, but a dyed-in-the-wool workaholic who would have to be carried out of the political satire monthly he edited feet first. Jack, noting the blue tinge to his skin, the breathlessness and the hacking cough which followed every laugh, thought that might not be such a distant prospect. Which made him sad. The man had his faults, but he was entertaining, an old-style maverick who would do what he believed was right and to hell with the consequences.

  After their second cup of coffee, Howard leaned back and lit yet another cigarette, sighing with pleasure as he carefully blew the smoke out of the side of his mouth, running his hand over his thinning grey hair.

  ‘So,’ Howard said. ‘Didn’t I hear you got married again?’

  Jack nodded.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Yeah, good.’

  ‘Never understood why you and the beautiful Stella split up.’ His face took on a dreamy expression. ‘Now, there’s a woman, Jack. Do you see her much these days?’

  Jack took a long breath. ‘Recently, yes. Grandchild stuff, you know.’

  Howard nodded, smiled fondly. ‘Got millions of them, myself.’

  Later, Jack wondered what on earth he was thinking, blurting out his innermost feelings to someone to whom he’d never been best-friend close and hadn’t seen in years. But he had a sudden urge to tell someone, anyone, even Howard Duff.

  ‘The truth is, Howard, seeing Stella again has been a bit weird … you know, old feelings rearing their ugly head.’

  His friend looked surprised. ‘Feelings? You mean you still fancy her?’

  Jack shrugged.

  ‘But you’re married.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hmm, tricky, that.’

  Both men fell silent.

  ‘But you haven’t, you know …’

  ‘No, God, no.’

  Howard gave him a sympathetic look. ‘Want my advice?’

  Jack shook his head. He knew there was nothing anyone could say that would help him in his dilemma. And anyway, Howard’s advice on women was not exactly legendary for its usefulness; he had three marriages on the slate and counting.

  ‘Well, I’m going to give it to you anyway,’ Howard replied, good-naturedly. ‘At our greatly advanced age, you should follow your heart, Jacky. It’s a lot more reliable than those other parts of our anatomy we won’t mention. The company of a fine, intelligent woman like Stella … Christ, I’d give my eye teeth for another chance at that.’

  There was something sad in his friend’s last remark and for a while neither man spoke. Jack found he was feeling almost dizzy from the caffeine and the heat and was dying to get away from his friend, the cigarette smoke and talk of Stella.

  ‘Not sure I’ll have the chance,’ he said quietly.

  Howard shrugged. ‘No, well … join the club, then.’

  36

  Eve was talking to Eric. She had butterflies just thinking of him being back in a few days. His flight was all set for the next morning, Thursday, leaving Rothera for Mount Pleasant in the Falklands, where he’d stay overnight, then take the RAF flight to Brize Norton on Friday, landing a day later, on Saturday afternoon.

  ‘I should be at Ashford – trains willing – by about ten fifteen. See you before eleven, I hope,’ Eric said. ‘Oh, Evie, I just can’t wait. I haven’t dared think about being home too much, in case the weather closes in and we can’t fly. But it’s looking OK so far.’

  ‘When will you know for certain?’

  ‘Not till the last minute, unfortunately. It can change in a heartbeat here. And it might be good in Rothera, but crap in Port Stanley.’ She heard him groan. ‘I feel sick just thinking I might be stuck here.’

  ‘You feel sick!’ Eve said, laughing.

  ‘We should manage our expectations, I suppose, hard as that is.’ Eric sounded serious. ‘There have been times people are grounded for up to a week – longer, if the weather closes in.’

  ‘My expectations will not be managed,’ Eve said, meaning the words to be jokey, light-hearted, but hearing them come out as a sort of wail. ‘If you don’t get here soon, you’ll miss the birth.’

  ‘Don’t panic, Evie. The baby’s not due for another six weeks,’ he replied firmly. ‘And Arthur was nearly two weeks late, remember? So you might have two months to go yet. It’ll be fine.’

  Eric was usually able to soothe her on the frequent occasions when she got stressed. But today his words just wound her up. She felt, suddenly, as if he had no right to comment on her pregnancy in such an apparently complacent fashion.

  ‘That’s unlikely,’ she said, with a calm she did not feel. ‘The placenta’s in the wrong place, Eric. It’s across the neck of the womb and if it doesn’t move the baby won’t be able to get out without me bleeding to death. So I might have to have a caesarean, and if I bleed before that, then it’d be an emergency and it might be born any time, tomorrow even …’ She spoke evenly, but felt on the edge of hysteria. She had never meant to tell Eric over the phone like this, but his unruffled projection about the course of her pregnancy had put her own fears, which were spinning out of control around her head right now, into stark contrast.

  There was a stunned silence. Then Eric said, ‘Evie, slow down. What are you saying? What’s wrong? Tell me again, for heaven’s sake. I don’t understand.’

  Eve took two deep breaths as she tried to reply.

  ‘Please, sweetheart. Please talk to me. Are you alone? Where’s Stella?’

  Eric sounded so flustered, so scared that Eve made a gargantuan effort to get herself under control. She was in the sitting room, and had been pacing the rug as she talked on the phone. But now she sat down on the brown sofa. She could see her mother and Arthur outside, Stella deadheading the pink roses by the front door and handing them to Arthur to put in the blue bucket he carried, both of them chatting away.

  ‘It’s OK. I’m all right,’ she managed, between stuttering breaths. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you,’ she added.

  ‘Is Stella with you, Evie?’

  ‘Yes. She’s outside with Arthur. Honestly, I’m all right, Eric.’ She went on to explain the situation.

  ‘God,’ he said when she’d finished. ‘When did you find out?’

  ‘Umm … the last scan.’ This was a lie, of course, she’d known for weeks.

  ‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t want to worry you. There wasn’t anything you could do from the other side of the world, anyway.’ The thought of him so far away, and of his return being potentially delayed, set off the tears again, but she held her breath and swallowed hard.

  Eric let out a frustrated sigh. ‘You should have said. I would have come home immediately if I’d known.’

  She thought he sounded hurt, but she couldn’t help that. She was suddenly furious with him for not being here all year, furious with herself that she didn’t stop him from going in the first place.

  ‘You knew I was pregnant,’ she said, not even trying to keep the sulk from her voice.

  ‘Not till I’d got all the way to the Antarctic, if I remember rightly,’ he replied tersely.

  ‘OK, OK, that was my fault. But when you did know, how did you think I’d cope with Arthur all on my own for five months? You never asked.’

  ‘I do ask, Evie. You know I do, every single time we talk. But you always say you’re fine. And you’ve got your mum there.’

  He sounded defensive and this made her even angrier, although she knew she was being unreasonable. She did always say she was fine, and she supposed she was. He should still have been here.

  ‘My mother shouldn’t have to do your job,’ she snapped.

  Silence. She could feel her heart beating too fast.

  ‘You’re right,’ Eric said eventually. �
��I should have been there. I’m so sorry.’

  Eve began to cry, the tension flowing out of her body. ‘I’m sorry too, for shutting you out. I am OK, Eric, I really am. It’s just …’

  ‘I love you,’ he interrupted, the tenderness in his voice like a solid, physical caress.

  ‘I love you too,’ she replied softly.

  ‘I’ll make it up to you, Evie, I promise,’ he said. ‘No more expeditions for a while.’

  ‘Please, please don’t be late,’ she pleaded as he said goodbye to her. ‘I don’t think I could bear it.’

  37

  ‘I was so horrible to him, Mum.’

  Eve was sitting on the loo beside the bath, while Arthur splashed about with his green wind-up turtle, which chugged around his wet tummy and made him squeal with delight. Stella was kneeling on the bathmat, periodically rewinding the turtle, her shirtsleeves rolled above her elbows, leaning on the cold bath edge.

  Stella noticed her daughter’s tired eyes. She had been largely silent over supper and she knew she must have been crying again.

  ‘I’m sure Eric understood, sweetheart. It’s fair enough, you being upset. You’ve been pretty bloody amazing till now.’

  ‘Yes, but I lied to him. I said I’d only just heard about the scan.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter now. He’s coming home and it’ll all be forgotten.’ She wiped her hand on the towel on the floor beside her and patted Eve’s hand. ‘It was good you could tell him you were pissed off he’s been away so long. He needed to hear that.’

  ‘But it was my fault, telling him about the baby too late and then being all stoic. It wasn’t fair to kick off at him like that.’

  ‘He’s known you were pregnant since March, Eve. He could … should have come back, in my opinion. And he knows it.’

  Eve said nothing.

  ‘I’m not criticizing him,’ Stella said, although she absolutely was. ‘I know this trip meant a lot to him. But he has to understand how you’re feeling, even if it does make him feel guilty.’

  ‘I’m the one feeling guilty,’ Eve said.

  ‘Well, don’t.’ She jiggled her daughter’s hand. ‘Come on, cheer up. Only two days and he’ll be here.’

  She felt her phone buzz in her pocket and lifted it out. Jack.

  ‘Who is it?’ Eve enquired.

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to answer it?’

  ‘I’ll call him later. Got to get Arthur washed before the water goes stone cold.’

  She put the phone back in her pocket. It was ten days since that strange Saturday night, during which time they hadn’t seen each other, despite Jack staying down most of the previous week. Eve had asked him over for lunch on the Friday, but Stella had made an excuse and gone to see the gardens at Sissinghurst – which she’d seen twice before, but suddenly claimed an urge to see again. He had texted, asking her to call, but she had so far resisted: she didn’t know what to say.

  And the longer she had to recover and forget, the better. It was only a couple more days before she could put some distance between them. The thought should have made her feel relieved.

  Iain, always hyper-sensitive to her moods, had discerned a change in her when he came down for the night on Saturday. Stella had been dying to see him and dreading it in equal measure. But when they were in bed, he had turned to her and said, ‘What’s up, Stell? You’re in the strangest mood.’

  ‘Am I?’ she’d asked disingenuously, feeling her conscience twitch.

  ‘Sort of … strained?’ he said. Iain wasn’t a man of many words, but he was surprisingly accurate with the ones he did use. ‘I’d hoped letting Jonny go would bring you some peace.’ Iain had never fully understood Stella’s resistance to coming to terms with Jonny’s death, believing, as he did, that the boy’s spirit would be journeying happily through the seven levels of the Astral Plane and was not really a cause for anguish any more.

  She’d nodded. There was a soft glow when she thought of Jonny now. She felt able to breathe properly for the first time in decades. If only she hadn’t marred her new-found peace of mind with those stupid, stupid kisses.

  ‘Did you and Jack celebrate after?’ Iain asked.

  ‘We were both a bit bonkers.’ She hurried past a brief account of the evening to recount the story of getting locked out, of Eve finding her in the shrubbery. Iain laughed.

  ‘That’s your inner child finally getting to dance,’ he said. Iain’s years following various gurus had given him a language she often didn’t understand. She envied his spiritual code, but was also baffled by it. But she had liked the thought that both her ‘inner’ and her actual child had been set free.

  Later, as she lay in his embrace, guilt tore at her. This is a good man, she told herself as she listened to Iain drift off to sleep. He understands me. He loves me. I’d be a fool to throw that away.

  On Friday morning, Stella took Arthur to the vast airport hangar of a supermarket on the outskirts of town. It was a fifteen-minute drive and the nearest big store to Eve and Eric’s house. Eve disliked it, preferring to shop every couple of days at the farm shop and the local convenience store in the village. But today, Stella wanted to stock up on toilet rolls, paper towels, detergent, cleaning products, etc. And Arthur loved to ride in the trolley.

  She was choosing which sort of sausages to buy from an alarmingly comprehensive range – including gluten free and ones with beetroot – when her phone buzzed. Eve. Stella assumed her daughter was ringing about something they’d forgotten to put on the list.

  ‘Hi, sweetheart … It’s Mumma,’ she mouthed to Arthur, who was chewing on the heel of a French loaf Stella had put in the trolley.

  ‘Mum, I’m bleeding,’ her daughter’s voice was low with fright. ‘I was having a shower and when I got out there was blood running down my leg. It’s a lot, Mum, really a lot.’ She sounded as if she were about to cry.

  Stella caught her breath, her heart racing, but she managed to steady her voice for Eve’s sake. ‘OK, listen, sweetheart. Stay exactly where you are, don’t move. I’ll ring the ambulance. Is the door open downstairs?’

  Whimpering, Eve said it was.

  ‘Good. I’ll call them right now, OK? We’re round the corner from the hospital, so we’ll meet you there. Bring your phone, I’ll get all your stuff later.’

  When Eve mumbled a reply Stella couldn’t catch, she repeated her instructions firmly, clicked off and, trembling with anxiety, rang 999.

  ‘Come on, Arthur,’ she said to her grandson, grabbing him and lifting him out of the trolley. ‘We’ve got to go.’

  She left the half-filled trolley where it stood and raced out of the supermarket – Arthur, not understanding the sudden change of plan, twisting about in her arms, objecting vociferously and screaming that he wanted to go back in the trolley.

  As she ran towards the car, Stella rang her daughter again. It went straight to voicemail and Stella hoped that meant she was on her way.

  ‘Stop it, sweetheart,’ she coaxed, as she tried to get the flailing child into his car seat. ‘Please … we have to go and see Mumma really quickly.’

  But her bewildered grandson was having none of it. In the end, Stella had to sit with him on her knee at the open car door, holding him until he eventually calmed down. She felt like screaming herself as doom-laden thoughts of the baby spun around her brain. What am I going to do with Arthur? Her heart was racing as she reached for her phone and called Jack’s mobile. Please don’t be in London, she prayed, as she waited for him to answer.

  ‘Hi, Stella.’ He sounded so pleased to hear her voice.

  ‘Where are you?’ she said without ceremony.

  ‘At the cottage … Why, what’s wrong? You sound in a panic.’

  ‘It’s Eve. She’s bleeding. I’m at the supermarket with Arthur. I called an ambulance and she should be on her way to hospital, but she’s not picking up and I’ve no idea how bad it is. She sounded really frightened.’ She gabbled on, so grateful to be talki
ng to him. ‘I’m going straight to the hospital, but I don’t know what to do with Arthur.’

  ‘On my way,’ Jack said immediately.

  She let out a sigh of relief. Strapping her frazzled grandson into his seat, she drove the short distance to the maternity unit, where she parked, one eye on the entrance to see if there was any sign of the ambulance carrying her daughter.

  Turning round to check on Arthur, she saw that he’d fallen asleep, exhausted by his tantrum. Should she wake him? Eve would want Stella to be there when she arrived; she’d be so scared on her own. She tried Eve’s number again. Again it went to voicemail. ‘Come on, Jack,’ she whispered.

  Seconds later, Jack strode across the car park like a knight in shining armour. She gave a silent cheer and got out of the car.

  He didn’t greet her, just asked immediately, ‘How is she?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just saw an ambulance arriving, but I couldn’t see if she was in it.’

  Jack looked towards the hospital entrance, then back at her, his face mirroring her own anxiety as he ducked to check on Arthur through the car window. ‘Why don’t you go in and see what’s happening. I’ll stay with the little man till he wakes up, then come and find you.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, wanting to hug him. ‘I’ll text as soon as I know.’

  Hurrying through the revolving doors, Stella was directed to the second floor and antenatal triage. She found her daughter in a room similar to the one in which she had been treated the last time, although on a different floor. Eve was lying on the bed in a hospital gown, pale and frightened, her bump large under the white sheet, her red hair piled untidily on top of her head in a bunched ponytail. There was already a drip in her arm, which a nurse in a navy uniform was checking silently, and a belt around her waist, hooked up to a beeping monitor beside the bed.

  She let out a wobbly sigh when she saw her mother. ‘I’m scared, Mum. There was so much blood …’ Eve didn’t get to finish voicing her concern as another nurse entered, pushing a trolley containing a mobile ultrasound scanner, a young female doctor with a mousy bob hard on her heels.