Just then the phone started ringing and it was that number on the screen. I took a picture of the number from my phone before I answered, but as soon as I said hello it went dead.
I changed the settings on my phone to make my number withheld and I tapped in the number. I decided at that point I was wasted serving coffee – I should be a detective, if I’m honest.
It rang out for a long time and I realised they weren’t going to answer and just as I was about to hang up an answerphone clicked in: ‘Hello, you have reached the voicemail of David Metcalfe …’
David.
David had sent Molly all these texts.
What. The. Fuck?
I felt the colour drain from my face and my heart was pounding. I recall Pat repeatedly saying, ‘Jo, what is it? Jo?’
I stood up without saying a word and walked past her – I went straight up the stairs, phone in my hand; I can visibly picture myself now shaking with adrenaline. I just knew there was something more to all of this. His reaction towards Molly on the night he had hit Lou had seemed strange then and I’d had a feeling there was more to this story. It had just been confirmed.
I walked into Belle’s room, trying to look calm. Molly was lying on the bed playing on her iPad while Belle was scrolling through her phone next to her. Molly looked at me, then saw her phone in my hand, and her face immediately dropped.
‘What the hell is going on, Molly?’
Belle clearly didn’t have a clue what was going on either and Molly started to cry and kept saying, ‘Please, Jo, just leave it.’
Pat came up the stairs behind me and asked, calmly as ever, what was going on.
‘Thirty-seven messages, Molly. And that’s just in the last hour, from David the fucking psychopath!’
Pat and Belle looked at Molly and she started begging them not to ask her anything more. The same beg that Lou had used that day at her house when I had mentioned calling the police. A desperate beg where she would have done anything to not be in this situation.
Pat told me to go downstairs, and I tossed the phone on the bed and did as I’d been told. I had a huge lump in my throat that I knew would turn to tears if I tried to swallow it away. I felt so guilty that I had shouted at Molly, but I couldn’t understand why a man in his forties was texting a teenage girl – the reasoning that could be behind it made me feel truly sick. And David! Could that man sink any lower?
Belle appeared behind me as I got to the bottom of the stairs and said that Pat had asked for a few minutes alone with Molly. Belle swore to me she had no clue what was happening and that Molly hadn’t mentioned David since ‘that’ weekend. She promised me that she had no idea why he was texting or calling her and she was as weirded out as I was.
Pat stayed upstairs for what felt like forever, but there was no shouting or crying – I couldn’t even hear them talking. Eventually I heard Pat tiptoe down the stairs. She walked into the kitchen and gave us both a smile and said, ‘This is going to be OK.’
I felt the bile in my throat at what I was about to hear and how I would have to act in front of my daughter.
Pat sat at the table and beckoned me to sit down, next to Belle.
‘He’s her father,’ she said.
Belle and I looked at each other in shock.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘David. He’s Molly’s father. Molly has known for the past six years and has been sworn to secrecy by her mum. That’s why she got pulled out of private school when she was seven because Harry started there, and David didn’t want them at the same school for fear of Lou finding out. Jaclyn never wanted Molly to know but David has followed her and kept track of their every move so she had to tell her.’
George. Harry. Lou.
Jesus Christ. How would they take this news?
My head was suddenly swimming with so many questions.
‘David has been threatening Molly because he thought she would tell Lou the truth as she has been spending so much time with the boys of late.’ She went on to explain that Jaclyn met David at uni in their final year, fell head over heels in love. She then found out about Lou when she was six months’ pregnant with Molly. David and Lou were already engaged, living together with a wedding planned and paid for by her parents. Jaclyn begged David to stay with her, raise their baby together, but he’d refused and got nasty, as nasty as we had seen him be on our driveway, while she was pregnant, so she’d stayed away, qualified as a solicitor and raised Molly alone.
Jaclyn had moved here for a fresh start, but David had enjoyed the power and control and had moved his family close by shortly after, started Harry at Molly’s school and forced her to leave. He would ‘pop in’ every time he felt like it and by all accounts from Molly, he bullied her mum a lot of the time – threatening to ruin her career if she didn’t do what he asked. It seemed he had total control over her too.
Belle ran upstairs and I heard Molly sobbing like a baby.
I sat at that table for over an hour, my head spinning, and the same questions kept coming out of my mouth. Questions Pat sat and attempted to answer, unfazed, as always.
She told me Molly felt she was to blame for all of this coming out. She was in a real state.
I had no clue where we went from here. How would I tell Lou, and the boys? Would Jaclyn be angry with Molly? What would happen now with this entire situation?
As my head was still swimming, I heard Jamie’s key in the front door and when he walked into the kitchen, he greeted me with a kiss on the forehead and a shoulder squeeze. He asked if everything was OK and I went to answer with a lie that everything was fine, until I remembered our promise to each other, and, as Pat flicked the switch of the kettle, I replied, ‘I think you’d better sit down, darling.’
Wednesday
What a difference twenty-four hours makes …
Jamie was amazing after last night’s revelation. After hearing Pat and me explain that Molly is David’s lovechild, and Harry and George are her brothers, he shook his head and muttered, ‘You couldn’t write this shit,’ and yet here I am …
It’s clear to me more and more since we’ve moved here that he’s inherited so much of his mum’s amazing traits and so he has a way of not only taking it all in his stride but also of making things better and not as bad as they actually are.
We agreed with Molly that she could stay at ours and we would work out a plan, together, with Jaclyn.
More than anything now, Molly needs to know that she’s supported, that we are all here for her and her mum, and that we will make things OK for them and for Lou and the boys – ultimately, they’re all the victims here.
Thursday
Mark called today. I almost didn’t answer but curiosity got the better of me. When I did he was sleazily nice.
‘Jo, babe, how are you? How’s Jamie? How are our babies? New house good?’ He didn’t give me chance to answer each question before delivering a new one so I knew that he didn’t really want to know the answers. I played along, though, wondering where the call was heading, and trying not to be sick in my mouth at how revolting he was being, then he asked to come and visit the kids to take them all out.
I told him Belle may not want to see him due to how he’d behaved recently and that the other kids all had prior arrangements over the next few days, but he replied with, ‘Just see what you can sort.’ Brilliant, as always, Mark – you fuck up and I’m the one left to sort your mess.
We agreed on a date and that he would take the kids out for the day and drop them home at tea time.
I told Jamie and he was really positive, saying hopefully he had sorted himself out and him being positive around the boys could only be a good thing.
I ignored the voice inside my head that told me he’d let them down again as I told the boys before bed. I was going to be positive.
Art was excited; Rex couldn’t give a shit. I then went in and spoke to Belle. She was annoyed that he was coming and refused to see him. She was annoyed that Art wa
s excited but I explained the boys needed to grow up more to reach their own conclusion about their dad, and maybe he had changed.
But a sick feeling rose up then and hit me, about how it would go in reality. I had to remember what Jamie said – it could be a good thing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Feeling Positive
Friday
This week has been as crazy as ever, but fun. I’ve helped Lou re-design areas of the café because of the water damage from the flat upstairs, but it’s been something for her to get her teeth into and I know she’s excited about the prospect of a proper fresh start when it opens. It’s also kept her mind busy after I delivered the news that her husband had a secret love child, and that Molly was the boys’ half sibling. She took the news extremely well, considering. I mean she was shocked, she called him a few choice names, but she was more concerned for Molly and how she was. Her decency as usual just shone through.
Jaclyn and I went out for dinner the other night. I told her I knew about David and Molly and she said it felt like a weight she’d been carrying for sixteen years has been finally lifted. She was upset, embarrassed, ashamed, but it’s almost like this situation has stopped her from loving like she should, from being the mum her little girl needed.
She told me the whole story about David. About how he’d seduced her, promised her the world, then tore it out from under her as his double life was exposed, leaving her pregnant and alone. He really is a piece of work and I felt so desperately sad that she had also lived for so many years totally under his control. Now the secret was out, hopefully she could manage him far better because she wasn’t living in fear any more.
Lou and Jaclyn are going to meet up next week, to speak and sit the kids down to explain. There are no hard feelings between them – why should there be? No one is at fault other than David. I wondered how Harry would take the news. On reflection now I see Molly was spending time with him and loving it because she knows they’re her brothers – but the boys don’t. I wondered if Harry likes her in another way and if this will upset him more. They’ve been through so much already; I can’t bear to think of them getting hurt even more.
Saturday
Jamie had booked a little village pub in Devon for us tonight that has amazing food on the menu and local beers, but I’ve come down with something that I can’t shake off so we cancelled. He’s instead spent the day cleaning the BBQ, mowing the lawn and pottering around the garden. I’ve slept on and off most of the day. I’ve felt exhausted. I think it may just be the events of the last few weeks catching up with me.
The kids have just pottered around too, making TikToks and playing games. It’s nice every now and then to have a full day at home, doing nothing, watching how they interact with one another – the games they make up and the conversations they have really make me smile. Rex had me chuckling at his pirate impression as he and Art pretended to set sail across the seven seas in a big cardboard box – he wouldn’t have it that it was a parrot he should have on his shoulder and had made Art bring him a carrot from the kitchen … I was with him on that; it was funnier that way.
Sunday
Pat took me to the out-of-hours GP this morning. Yesterday’s nauseous feeling has turned to full-blown sickness overnight, and I’ve had a banging headache all night.
The doctor took some bloods and asked if there was any chance I could be pregnant.
‘No,’ was my immediate answer. Definitely not.
We left the doctors and called into the supermarket to grab some bits for the week and when we got home Pat handed me a pregnancy test. I laughed and asked her what she was doing and as soon as she said the words, ‘Just do it, I have a feeling,’ I knew.
I didn’t want to do the test. I was scared of the result. Scared of the outcome if it was positive.
I did the test.
It was positive.
I am pregnant.
I am shit scared of what happens now.
Pat snuggled me into her perfumed neck scarf and told me I’d be fine, we’d be fine. This is a baby that will be born into a family that’s full of love. She told me she has never seen so much love under one roof.
Jamie came into the kitchen and asked what was wrong, and Pat told him it was just all a bit too much with everything that had gone on this week. He immediately asked his mum if she would mind watching the kids one night so we could re-book the pub night away – he felt we needed a break from the kids.
I remembered right then about the promise I made not to keep a secret from him again. I asked him if we could go upstairs and talk. I could tell he knew I was about to drop another bombshell but he played it cool and said ‘of course’.
Pat said she would watch the kids and, as we walked out the kitchen, she said out loud, ‘You will be fine.’ I couldn’t work out if that was reassurance for me or a warning for Jamie on how he needed to accept the news he was about to be given.
We got to the bedroom and I asked him to close the door. My hands were visibly trembling and I kept doing that thing where you start to talk but your nerves take over to the point you can’t catch your breath and you trip up on your words and keep swallowing mid-sentence.
Before I could get past the ‘I don’t know how to say this’ he blurted out, ‘We’re having a baby, aren’t we?’
I recall instantly thinking that he said ‘we’re having a baby’ not ‘you’re pregnant’. Like it was already ‘ours’ and a baby, not ‘mine’ and a pregnancy.
The feeling of relief came immediately, and as I began to cry I was also laughing. He pulled me onto his lap and was just beaming. He wiped away my tears, then asked me why I was being silly, followed by an excited giggle.
As soon as I saw his response, the relief turned into excitement for me too, and it was the first time I had thought: ‘we’re having a baby’.
I had pictured this going so differently as I always seem to think the worst, me begging to keep the baby, trying my hardest to convince him we would ‘be OK’ or the worst-case scenario of accepting it was all a huge mistake and working out a ‘best plan’ together – but now Jamie’s response meant that I didn’t have to think of any of that … and it showed me that although this wasn’t planned, it all of a sudden felt like a happy accident.
Monday
I walked round feeling like I was on cloud nine today, as did Jamie, and Pat. Despite feeling sick until tea time, I still felt happy. I imagine that’s because I now know the reason behind me feeling so sick all the time.
Pat is so happy for us. We sat at the breakfast table after the kids had eaten and I did the whole ‘how will we cope’, ‘is it unfair on the others’ questions and they both batted them away, reassuring me that we would be just fine, and all the kids would be over the moon to have a sibling they could fuss over and share – it would be a little piece of all of them – a different kind of happy to what we have now, but one I hoped would be amazing.
Tuesday
Jamie came home just after 2pm and announced the two of us were going away for the night.
In all honesty I just wanted to climb into bed and sleep. I am so tired and sick. I don’t remember feeling like this with the other three, but then I wonder if I just wasn’t ‘allowed’ to feel like this and actually I put on a brave face and convinced myself I was feeling fine because I was so aware to be ‘grateful’ of the life I had.
We set off in Jamie’s car. I asked where we were going, and he told me it was a surprise. He drove for about twenty minutes to an area I didn’t even know existed. It was like moorland but had a stream running through it. The sun was low and there were those hovering flies over the water, which was glistening bright gold. It really was beautiful; he had brought a big blanket and some scatter cushions and the thought of snoozing on his chest, breathing in his amazing scent next to the sound of the water in the warm air, was perfect.
He passed me the blanket and pulled out another huge bag from the boot then took my hand. We started walking and I
had no idea what was going on. As much as the sickness was still whirring away, I got the giggles because nothing like this had ever happened before. This was not Jamie’s style and it felt a bit weird …
We got by the edge of the stream and opened the bag. He pulled out a little brown wicker hamper and speaker. The way he had thought of this was just the cutest. I did worry about what food he’d packed considering I was now nil by mouth with the morning sickness.
Morning sickness. I have no idea why it’s called that when it’s all day and night sickness; kind of makes it sound far less dramatic than it is.
He put the speaker on and started playing the Stone Roses. I’d never heard any of their songs before we met – yet now I could recite the track order of most albums. I loved how he had introduced me to so much music that made me feel so many things. He asked me to close my eyes. I was just there thinking, Oh God – what if he pops an olive in my mouth and I hurl over him.
When he instructed me, I opened them and he was holding a small black box and had a huge beaming smile on his face. I felt my heart thud. I opened the box, feeling like a total fraud, and then I saw his grandma’s engagement ring – three huge sparkling diamonds in a row on a platinum band. It was a ring Pat always wore on her right hand, which had been left to her by her mum, who I’m told was as amazing as she is. I sobbed. This was NOT what I was expecting.
A Different Kind of Happy Page 23