by Hilary Boyd
He drew back the duvet very slowly, terrified of waking Lisa, and slid quietly out of bed. Snatching jeans and a T-shirt, he crept downstairs and dressed in the sitting room, put on his trainers – no socks, they were still upstairs – plucked his keys from the table in the hall and let himself out of the house. He badly needed air.
It was still early and only a few places were open, but he found a small café just past the station – more of a sandwich bar – which had a couple of tables set out on the pavement. Ordering a black coffee in a takeaway cup, he sat on one of the rickety plastic chairs outside, in the unfairly beautiful light of a misty September morning, and felt his eyes fill with tears.
He physically shook at the fact of Lisa’s pregnancy. But all he could think about was Stella. If there was even the slightest chance that she returned the love Jack felt for her – and he took nothing for granted on that score – then this baby had put the kibosh on all that. He imagined the pitying scorn in those violet eyes. What were you thinking? they would be asking. And what had he been thinking?
His mind travelled back. Six weeks … the beginning of August. Had they really been so careless? He was sure they hadn’t, but maybe he’d forgotten. And, as Lisa had said last night, it didn’t really matter. She was pregnant, end of. He had an overwhelming desire to begin walking in the opposite direction to his house, to walk and walk, keep going until he was as far away as possible from Queen’s Park and the responsibility he would now carry for the rest of his life. But he had walked out – albeit extremely reluctantly – on one small child; he would not do that again. He would just have to find a way to make it work.
57
Eve clicked off her phone and groaned. Eric was waiting for her to finish the call, holding the pub door open for her. They were going out for a quick drink and a snack together at the eatery in the village – all very chic, with wood-fired pizzas and local beers, ‘artisan’ paint and rare-breed pork – while Stella babysat the children. Mairi, at just a month old, should sleep, Eve prayed, for at least an hour and a half. And if not, they could be home in minutes.
She felt dazzled by the outside world – so busy and loud after her quiet kitchen – and uncomfortable without the baby. It was as if she’d left a part of herself behind. Throbbing with a deep-seated tiredness, she would have been just as happy, if not more so, to stay at home. But her mum had suggested the plan, and Eric seemed keen. He was going back to work in the morning.
‘You are not going to believe this.’ She waved her phone at her partner. ‘Tell you inside.’
‘Wow.’ Eric looked bemused. ‘I thought you said your mum and Jack …’
Eve laughed, also shaking her head in bewilderment. ‘I did. Mum said Dad and Lisa hadn’t been getting on for a while.’
‘They must have been getting on reasonably well!’
Eve frowned. ‘Yeah, I mean surely, at his age, Dad knows how babies are made.’
‘So he’ll have to stay with Lisa now.’
They broke off as the young waitress approached to take their order: pizza to share, with sweet potato, goat’s cheese, rocket and pine nuts.
‘Obviously,’ Eve said when she was gone.
‘Do you think it was an accident?’ Eric shrugged. ‘Maybe Lisa tricked him. Wouldn’t be the first.’
‘God, what are my parents like?’ Eve sighed in exasperation. ‘First they ruin my childhood by being totally vile to each other twenty-four/seven. Then I grow up and they don’t speak for a decade. Then, out of the blue, they decide to kiss and fall in love. But oh, no, it doesn’t end there. Dad simultaneously gets his wife pregnant and buggers up any chance of him and Mum ever being together. Honestly, you couldn’t make it up.’
Eric frowned. ‘It would be almost laughable if it wasn’t your parents.’
‘Yeah. Makes you wonder what the hell they’re going to spring on us next.’
When the food arrived, Eric slid the circular cutter with great precision through the pizza on the wooden board between them. Looking up, he asked, ‘How will your mum take the news? Does she know yet?’
‘Dad said he tried to call her, but she didn’t pick up. I don’t imagine he told her in a voicemail.’ She helped herself to a slice of the hot pizza, squashing it along its length to keep the tip from flopping over. ‘She’ll be gutted, won’t she? Iain’s done a runner and now Dad’s in the family way.’
It was not until the next morning that Eve plucked up the courage to say anything. The evening had been a success. Mairi was still asleep when they got home, her mum anxiously clutching the baby monitor in one hand as she sat doing the Guardian sudoku at the kitchen table, reading glasses perched on her nose. Stella showed no sign of having heard her father’s news, and Eve didn’t have the strength to tell her when it was late and they were all worn out. But she couldn’t put it off any longer.
‘Dad rang last night.’ Eve was still in her nightdress, giving Mairi a feed while Stella made her a cup of tea. Eric had left for work and Eve was so grateful for her mother’s presence. It terrified her, being alone with the baby and Arthur all day.
‘He called me too, but he didn’t leave a message. How is he?’ Stella asked, with a nonchalance she’d taken to adopting whenever the subject of Jack came up. She placed the mug down so Eve could reach it with her free hand, then turned to collect Arthur’s toast plate and plastic beaker from the other end of the table. Arthur was watching Postman Pat in the other room. Eve could hear the familiar jaunty tune.
‘He’s … He rang to tell me Lisa’s pregnant,’ she blurted out. There’s no nice way to say it, she thought, holding her breath as she waited for her mother’s response.
Stella was bending over the dishwasher, stacking plates. She rose slowly and turned a puzzled face to her daughter. ‘Pregnant?’
Eve nodded as she watched her mum’s face go still.
‘So,’ she said after a moment’s pause, hands on hips as she raised a cynical eyebrow at Eve, ‘she finally got her way.’
‘It must have been a mistake, Mum,’ Eve said, wanting, ridiculously, to defend her father. ‘You told me he and Lisa … and we all know what he thought about having another child.’
‘Well, he obviously didn’t think hard enough.’ Stella turned away and busied herself washing up the milk pan in the sink.
Eve didn’t know what to say, but not saying anything didn’t seem like an option. ‘Are you upset?’ she asked finally.
Stella didn’t turn round, didn’t reply, but the pan scrubbing became almost frenzied, the tap on full, perhaps drowning out her words.
‘Mum?’ Eve wanted to get up and give her a hug, but the baby was firmly attached to her breast and she couldn’t move. ‘Mum!’
Stella laid the pan upside down on the stainless-steel draining board with exaggerated gentleness, turned off the tap and carefully slotted the green-handled washing-up brush into the cutlery drainer. Then she swung round, wiping her hand on the tea towel, her face – Eve decided – carefully put back together to create an almost blank expression.
Flicking her dark hair off her forehead and hooking the tea towel through the oven rail, her mum let out a long sigh. ‘Seems like I’ve been a bit of a bloody fool,’ she said.
Silence, except for Mairi’s focused suck, gulp, suck, gulp.
‘Do you think you and Iain …?’ Eve asked, searching for some crumb of comfort.
Her mother came over and sat down opposite Eve, leaning her arms on the table, hands clasped. She was dressed in black jeans and an old grey turtleneck sweater with chipped buttons along the cuffs, Patsy’s silver bracelet on her wrist, her nails short and free of polish. Eve thought she looked bone-weary, and older, suddenly, than her sixty years.
‘That’s over.’ Stella paused. ‘He finished it, but it was really me who broke it up.’
Eve tried to work out what she meant. ‘Because you’re not in love with him?’
Her mum nodded. ‘I tried,’ she said, then fell silent.
�
��And you and Dad …?’
‘No point in going there now, is there, sweetheart?’ her mother interrupted her, waving a hand in the air, as if blotting out the whole sorry mess. ‘I wish I’d never set eyes on your father again,’ she added, her tone taking on a familiar tinge of bitterness.
Eve didn’t reply, feeling uncomfortably responsible for throwing them together, then irritated that she even had to have that thought.
Her mother must have sensed Eve’s frustration, because her voice was strained, as if she were just going through the motions. ‘I’m sorry, Evie. You shouldn’t have to put up with all this.’
‘You can still move down here, be close to us.’
Her mum gazed at her, unseeing.
Silence. Suck, gulp, suck, gulp.
Eve’s heart broke for her mother as she began to think through the ramifications of her father’s news. The family would obviously have to expand to include Jack and Lisa’s baby, but how would her parents cope? She dreaded going back to the bad old days when they didn’t speak to each other, couldn’t be in the same room together. They’ll have to come to some sort of compromise, she thought, for everybody’s sake. Because she was not going to spend the next decade tiptoeing around the pair of them, unable to have a family party without choosing which one to invite.
58
Stella was outside with Arthur on Sunday afternoon, trimming back the ice plant by the hedge on the right-hand border of the garden. It was a stunning day, the autumn sun still warm, but a light breeze blew pleasantly cool on her sweaty face. She was working hard and fast, had been since early – as soon as she’d cleared the breakfast – needing to find physical relief from the turmoil in her head.
‘Here’s another one, sweetheart.’ She reached forward across the bush to hand Arthur a faded pink flower head, the spiky petals soggy and papery from the previous day’s rain.
Arthur took it and threw it into the wheelbarrow. ‘We’ve got lots now, Bibi. The bonfire’s going to be huge.’ He threw his arms in the air to demonstrate just how huge, then went back to stamping with his yellow wellington boots on a molehill on the wet lawn.
Stella stopped for a moment, secateurs in her gloved hand, and looked across the garden. She’d done well enough over the summer, in her attempt to retrieve the plants from the wilderness. But there was still so much to do. And all of it made her think of Iain. They had not been in touch. In her entanglement with Jack, she had paid so little attention to her partner. But he was always there, in the background, up for a call about which plant to prune, supporting her when she was worried about Eve, listening to her family gossip. She had taken him so much for granted.
About Jack, she could hardly bear to think. Lisa’s pregnancy had cut her to the quick. She felt as if Jack had been playing her all summer, when all the while he’d been carelessly fucking his wife, making a baby he didn’t want. It was such crap behaviour, it made her gasp for air just thinking about it.
But despite the disgust she felt, she could not help her heart breaking for what might have been. She had not been brave enough to admit to Jack how she felt about him, but clearly it was just as well she hadn’t.
Now she had to play nice. Jack and Lisa were dropping round later, to give Eve her present, and she would have to pull herself together – for Eve’s sake. She would have to coo and smile and hug and generally enthuse about the baby. She would have to look Jack in the eye. How the hell will I do it? she screamed silently. Could she be ill and skulk upstairs in her bedroom with a pretend cold, maybe a stomach upset? Eve said they wouldn’t be staying long. But part of her wanted to confront Jack, see the guilt in his eyes as she smiled sweetly and said how simply marvellous it was that he was going to be a father again. Let him know with what utter contempt she viewed him.
The day stayed fine, the evening sky shot with gold and pink as dusk settled on the terrace. Eric had laid the nibbles outside on the garden table: crisps, olives with chili and pimento, quail’s eggs still in their shells, a bowl of carrot, celery and courgette batons with a hummus dip, some smoked salmon on little squares of granary bread and a pile of seedless tangerines.
‘Looks lovely,’ Stella remarked when she came down after a shower.
Eric must have heard the strain in her voice, because he eyed her anxiously as he polished the wine glasses and set them carefully on the worktop.
‘Are you OK with seeing them?’
Stella gave him a wry smile. ‘Needs must.’ She sat down. ‘I promise I won’t kick off and make a scene,’ she joked half-heartedly.
Eric raised his eyebrows. ‘Of course not,’ he said, looking slightly alarmed at the thought.
She assumed he knew about her and Jack, although they had not had the conversation. It made her blush to the roots of her hair, knowing that everyone – even Lisa, perhaps – was aware of what had gone on between them. It felt almost sleazy, at their age, to have been sneaking around like that. And worse, she felt like a complete mug.
Lisa and Jack looked dreadful. Lisa was pale and drawn, her make-up, although beautifully applied as usual, sat on her pretty face like a mask. Jack looked unkempt, his broad shoulders slumped, his greying hair in need of a comb. Both of them wore the forced smiles of people who would rather have been anywhere else in the world, but were determined to make sure nobody found out.
Lisa said virtually nothing, just clung to Jack’s hand, leaving her husband to do all the talking, his chatter – after the initial wave of awkward congratulations – about anything that did not relate to the baby they were expecting: the microscopic elephant in the room.
Stella hovered on the sidelines. When they arrived, she had hugged Lisa with genuine warmth, feeling an odd mixture of guilt and pity. For Jack, she had pecked vaguely in the direction of his cheek, holding him at arm’s length. She had not met his eye. As they danced this ritual greeting, she felt his hand on her shoulder, his fingers clutching at her flesh, almost painful in their desperation. But she would not look up.
They drank wine – Lisa, an elderflower spritzer – crunched on crisps, peeled eggs, dipped batons and made desultory conversation as they stood about on the terrace. Eve opened the present her father brought: an elegant, antique silver photo frame containing an image of little Mairi asleep in her mother’s arms – which Stella remembered Jack taking the day of the baby’s tea party. Then, around the time the sun dipped beneath the horizon, leaving the party in shadow and aware of the evening chill, the conversation flagged and Eve, finally, plunged in.
‘So, come on, Lisa, tell us! When’s the actual due date? April? May?’
Lisa looked taken aback, glancing around as if she thought Eve had mistaken her for someone else. She seemed to struggle with a reply.
‘Maybe too early to know for definite?’ Eve went on helpfully. ‘I couldn’t remember when I had my last period with Arthur. It wasn’t till I had the first scan that I got a proper date.’
‘You’re, what, not quite two months?’ Jack intervened, sitting with Arthur on his knee. As he looked at his wife, Stella saw him give a small, almost imperceptible shrug.
Lisa, ignoring Jack, gave Eve a grateful smile. ‘Me too! My periods are always rubbish. I didn’t really want Jack telling anyone till the twelve weeks were up.’ There was definite chastisement in her words.
Jack looked sheepish and helped himself to a tangerine, tearing the skin off as if his life depended on it, then offering the peeled fruit to Arthur.
‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ Eve said soothingly. ‘But it is a nerve-wracking time. Have you been sick?’
Lisa nodded. ‘Once or twice, just certain things – like bacon, for instance – make me feel a bit queasy.’ Again, a reproving look was sent in her husband’s direction, and Stella remembered that Lisa rarely ate bacon.
She got up, excusing herself to everyone with a smile, suddenly unable to take another minute of baby talk about Jack’s child. She saw Eve glance up at her, eyebrows raised in concern, but Stella, trying not
to rush with indecent haste, kept going, through the kitchen, up the stairs and into her bedroom. Once inside, she quickly shut the door and leaned heavily against it, as if keeping out the Viking hordes. I won’t go down until they’re safely gone, she thought, as she threw herself on to the bed.
But the desolation she felt – realizing properly for the first time that this pregnancy was real – was like a dull twisting in her gut.
Stella did not hear the knock. She must have dozed off to the sounds of voices coming up from the garden, the chink of glasses, the baby’s cry. When she opened her eyes, he was looming there, beside the bed, the room almost dark. She let out a soft cry, quickly sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Without asking permission, Jack sat down beside her, his hands clasped in his lap.
‘I’m so sorry, Stella.’
She swallowed. ‘Why, Jack? Why did you do it?’ She spoke softly. She just wanted to know.
‘I didn’t do anything. We always used a condom. Always. I honestly don’t know how it happened.’
‘Sex, perhaps? That’s usually the way it works.’
She heard him sigh. ‘Be sarcastic all you like. I’m telling you, I was incredibly careful.’
But you were still having sex, she thought, bitterly, while you were implying you cared for me.
‘So things weren’t as bad as you made out, between you and Lisa.’
‘Don’t, Stella.’ Silence. ‘Yes, we were still having sex. But not very often.’
Jack sounded exhausted. ‘I was on the verge of telling her when she sprang this on me.’
‘Well …’ Stella’s voice was brisk as she got up off the bed. She wanted to scream at him, to beat him to a pulp for his casual male lust. ‘You’d better get back, your wife will be wondering where you are.’
Jack rose to his feet, but he didn’t speak. They stood face to face in the fading light, not quite touching, for what seemed like an eternity. She saw the desolate expression in his eyes and felt her own fill with tears.