by Terry Tyler
I chose my outfit with care. I went to work in my usual trouser suit, the jacket worn open with a floaty chiffon blouse, and at a quarter to twelve I locked my door, went into my bathroom and changed into a black lace maternity dress from Chloé. It was pretty and demure; I hate those ‘look, I’m pregnant’ dresses. I wanted to look like an elegant pregnant businesswoman at a Christmas party, not a pregnant WAG. I was pleased with the finished effect. My skin and hair were looking wonderful with the lack of booze and fags, not to mention the ridiculous amounts of fruit and vegetables Pat shoved down me.
I composed myself and walked out into Blanche’s office where I knew Will and Cecilia would be waiting for me, too. Of course they’d all guessed, but they couldn’t hide their surprise at seeing me with my bump on display.
Will broke the awkward silence. “About time too. Am I allowed to say you look blooming?” he said, and they all laughed and congratulated me.
“I thought it was time to announce it to the world,” I said.
“Thank goodness for that!” said Cecilia. “In the last month, so many people have asked me if you’re pregnant that I was thinking of hanging up a sign outside my office saying ‘I don’t know, ask her’.”
“It’s so exciting!” said Blanche. “Can I organise your baby shower?”
“God, do I have to have one?”
“Of course you don’t, if you don’t want to,” Will said. “Yet another revolting trend we’ve borrowed from our cousins across the Pond; we didn’t have them in my day.” He held out his arm to me. “Shall we go?”
In the lift I could feel the ‘who’s the father’ question hanging in the air. Not that they didn’t have a pretty good idea, but they didn’t know.
The party was the usual smoothly flowing success, with many congratulations heading my way, and at the appropriate time I went to stand in the appropriate place to make the speech. I gave the usual thanks, made the usual mentions, cracked the usual jokes, and then I smiled around and plunged straight in.
“As you may have noticed,” I said, “there will soon be a new addition to the Lanchester family!” And of course everyone clapped and laughed and made toasts, until a silence fell over the room and they all waited with bated breath to see if I was to reveal the information they wanted.
No chance.
“Harry Lanchester Junior will be born in May,” I said, pausing to accept further cheers and toasts, “and I intend to carry on working for as long as I can, though I may be looking to lighten my workload as the months go on.” I carried on in this vein for a short while, artfully fielding the various cheery cracks, mostly from Sales and Marketing who’d done particularly well that year; a couple of them had got what Robert called The Golden Ticket to the boardroom do for people whose performance has been outstanding. Then I got them all to quieten down and wished everyone the happiest Christmas ever, and that was that. Even as I left the room, flanked by Cecilia and Will, I could see a few faces still looking at me as if to say: “And?”
“I think they’re all waiting for you to announce the identity of Daddy,” Cecilia muttered in my ear.
The lift arrived; I waited until we were inside it with the doors safely shut before I spoke.
“They’ll have their suspicions confirmed and all gossip and speculation will be at an end when Harry’s born, at which point I will introduce him by his full name.”
“Which will be?” Cecilia said.
I smiled at them both. “Henry Jasper James Dudley Lanchester,” I said, proudly.
They both smiled back, and kissed me.
“You do realise,” said Will, as he pushed the buttons to go up, “that this will make half the office wonder if you’ve been bonking Jim?”
Now, why hadn’t that occurred to me?
We were still laughing when we got out at the directors’ floor. Then I had to stop, because it gave me heartburn. This pregnancy lark was no joke.
We spent as quiet a Christmas as we could, except for Boxing Day at the Dudleys’, dinner with Hannah at the Brandons’ on the twenty-seventh, and of course Robert’s visit to Amy’s parents. We made several trips out to see Jim, who seemed fairly at peace in his new home which he mostly thought was a hotel, sometimes one that belonged to him, and other times the family’s new house in Gateshead, or occasionally Northumberland. He alternated between knowing exactly who I was and asking Robert why he’d brought ‘that mad cow Dahlia’ to see him. The female carers he called ‘the waitresses’, and was even ‘a bit frisky’ now and again, one of the prettier ones told us. So far, so good. Once, he showed us a dog-eared photo of him and Raine, and announced that she was coming to see him soon. He seemed very happy about this, so we just smiled and went along with it.
On New Year’s Eve Robert talked to the matron of the home before we left, while I sat with Jim, and as we walked out to the car park he looked very angry indeed.
“Giles and Mum haven’t been once,” he said. “Not once, all over Christmas.”
“Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea if Raine came to see him after all, then,” I said.
“Hmm.” He wrinkled up his nose. “I’ll think about it.”
“He seems quite contented; that’s the main thing, isn’t it?” I said, as we got into the car and I pulled my seatbelt over Harry.
“I suppose so.” He looked into his mirrors and pulled out of the car park. “I just hope he’s still having enough ‘good days’ to understand who his grandson is when he gets here.”
Those twelve days of Christmas were a delight, but with so many people absent it was a time for reflective thought, too.
I phoned Isabella rather than going to see her, and Caitlin’s family rang on Christmas Day. Caitlin told me that Letty was very excited about her new cousin and asked when she would be able to play with him. I got that weird sensation again when I thought about Letty, even more strongly this time. A horrible, dark dread. I didn’t want to see her at all, ever. I wanted to keep her as far away from us as possible. How the hell I was going to deal with these irrational feelings I didn’t know, but I could almost see them on their first night together, twenty years in the future: Robert telling a gorgeous twenty-two-year-old Letty how their fate had been sealed when she was two years old.
It was exactly the sort of thing he would say, too, the charming git.
Perhaps I’d had a feeling about what could happen, not what actually would; maybe it could be avoided.
Oh well, I’d worry about it later. Like, in eighteen years’ time.
When Robert visited the Robsarts, I used the time to sit in my study at home and plot out an overview of my objectives for the coming two years, which I would present to the board during that first week back. Jim would have his Lanchester Dudley hotels; it was just a shame it was too late for him to know about them. I wanted to do it for him, though, and his son and grandson.
I agreed that Robert could give up the Kew Court flat and officially move into Lanchester Hall after the holidays. I was reluctant at first, but even I could see that I was being selfish as well as impractical. I’d refused to marry him and or give our baby his surname; I was lucky he was so understanding. Besides, I wanted to make our family warm, solid and safe, and I could hardly do so if Harry’s father didn’t live with us.
“I’m understanding, not a sap who’ll put up with anything,” Robert said to me, and I heard the warning in his words and his voice.
I didn’t feel so bereft about my own missing loved ones anymore. We could look forward now, which was why I waited until New Year’s Day to visit them. Not in December with all its slowing down to a heavy, sleepy end, but in January when anything was possible, when new ideas and plans germinated, growing safely in the dark until they were ready to burst forth in the warmth of the spring.
I planned to go down to the churchyard on my own but Robert started being tedious about icy roads, so I allowed him to drive me. Yes, I would have to learn how to accept help more as the weeks went on.
&nb
sp; He was less than pleased when I woke him at eight a.m. to tell him I wanted to go before breakfast. It had to be then, though. I love first light, when the day is new and anything can happen. Poor Robert was not at his best, having hammered the red wine the night before while we sat in bed and celebrated New Year’s Eve with a film binge.
“I warn you, I won’t always comply with your barmy demands without protest,” he said, as I shoved a mug of coffee at him. “The only reason I’m not complaining today is that I’m too hungover to speak.”
The day was bleak, one of those that chill you to the bone. I’d pictured a brilliantly coloured sky making an orange and pink winter wonderland of the snow, but fantasies rarely work out as planned. As I let myself through the lych gate and walked slowly down the path, I was glad of my Uggs (stopped me going arse over tit on the ice) and my huge furry hat. The day had that frozen, dank stillness to it; the year was still asleep. Only the daft (me) and the non-hungover because pregnant (guilty again) were anything other than safely warm at home and in bed.
I walked around to the back, to that special place in the corner of the churchyard, where I found Great Grandma Peggy, Jasper Senior and Elizabeth, Uncle Alex, my daddy, my brother, and Jaz’s mother, Jenny. I’d brought something special with me for all of them: a big bouquet of red and white roses, to symbolise unity; I’d done my homework on a ‘language of flowers’ website. I found a secure spot between the graves of my father and my grandfather, where I tucked the vase into the earth. In the spring I would plant some flowers there, I decided. Loads of them, all colours, to make our corner of the world a bright and joyful place. Then I knelt down in the middle of them all, undid my coat and showed them the little bump that was Harry.
“I’ll bring him here often so he knows who you all are,” I told them. “I’ll bring him up to be a credit to all of you, and one day he’ll take over the company from me, and make it the biggest and best in the whole of Europe. I promise.” I smiled around me at those headstones on that damp and bitter morning, all that cold earth where the bodies of those I loved slept. “I’ll make sure he marries only the most worthy of women, and produces lots of Lanchester children and grandchildren, so you’ll all live on forever in them.”
Even as I said that bit, though, I could see my daddy standing there, cigarette in hand, saying, “a very pretty speech, sweetheart, but what if he turns out to be a fairy?”
I stood up, laughing back at him. Robert had been teasing me only the day before, saying that I was going to be the mother from hell who would submit each potential girlfriend to rigorous interrogation before deeming her even half-way suitable for my precious son. And shit—what if he was gay? No, surely a man with all those Dudley and Lanchester genes could only be a paragon of heterosexual virility. But maybe an heir and a spare, just to be on the safe side—and perhaps I would have to learn that he would just be Harry, not the means to fulfil my dreams of a dynasty. Boy, that was going to take some learning.
I blew them all kisses and wished them a happy New Year, and then I put my frozen hands in my pockets and turned to leave.
Waiting for me across the grass and down the path, leaning on the ancient wall of the church, I could see Robert, watching me, smiling at me. I’d asked him not to follow me but he had, and I surprised myself by not feeling intruded upon.
I thought of all the other people of Woodville, the ghosts of the past who’d lain their own to rest in this churchyard, too. Ladies in long dresses, men in top hats and frock coats. Or ruffs, doublets and hose, even; I wasn’t quite sure how old the church was. I’d have to find out, so I could teach Harry about the history of the village and the sort of people who’d lived there, going back centuries. In another few hundred years someone might be standing where I was now, imagining women in Ugg boots; call me grim, but I also thought about the day I would join my family. It didn’t make me feel sad, though, because by then there would be so many more of us. Family; that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?
I was glad Robert was there. My Robert. The man I loved, and the father of my son.
I decided there and then that I’d better show him I loved him more often, instead of just thinking it.
Especially as I was going to need him for that spare!
EPILOGUE
Hannah
March 21st, 2015
On the first day of spring, a beautiful sunny Saturday morning and the first warm one of the year, I had a sudden urge to visit Erin. Since she was a child, she’d always loved beginnings; the new school term, the first of the month. I remember her bounding into my room on New Year’s Day when she was just eight and I was her nanny; she threw my curtains open and declared that we had a whole three hundred and sixty-five days in front of us, wasn’t it exciting?
The twenty-first of March was also the first day of the astrological year, and I thought of Erin’s baby who would be born in early to mid May, a nice, solid little Taurean. Ah yes, I had a new hobby. A similarly obsessed client had bought me a book about astrology for Christmas and I was becoming fascinated by it; I learned that my sign of Virgo gave me a sense of duty and the desire to be of service to others, which sounded about right. Not very glamorous, but accurate.
I picked Erin a bunch of narcissi from my garden, a lovely blaze of yellow to make her feel cheerful. She was finding pregnancy difficult. For one as energetic and freedom-loving as her, being restricted even by her first child was difficult. Much to her disgust, she was not one of those pregnant women who cruise along with a neat little bump throughout; she was getting enormous, poor love.
Dear Pat let me in. “They’re all in the kitchen,” she smiled.
“All?” I wiped my feet and ignored the hand she offered for my coat. Pat was as much a friend of the family as I was, these days; I never wanted her to wait on me.
“Will’s here. Shall I put those flowers in water?”
“Oh, lovely—and yes, thank you!” Will had become an even more frequent visitor since Erin made her big announcement. Besides the parents themselves, I think he was looking forward to seeing Harry’s grandson more than anyone.
The sun lit up the kitchen as I walked in, three faces smiling up at me.
“Morning, chaps!” I said, sitting down in the chair that had always been mine, ever since I used to sit at it every morning to eat breakfast with Erin and Jaz.
“Coffee or something stronger?” Pat said. “It’s nearly lunchtime!”
“Oh, nice one,” Robert said. “I was just wondering if I could have a beer without anyone moaning at me.”
I sat and admired Robert for a moment. Pat and I frequently made those ‘if I was ten years younger’ jokes favoured by women of a certain age, though twenty years would have been more appropriate in my case.
“Robert, just sit there looking like you do, and I’m sure no woman in her right mind will moan at you for anything, ever,” I said. A pleasing advantage of my age; I could make lecherous comments like that without anyone taking me seriously.
“Try telling that to this one,” Robert said, with an affectionate smile in Erin’s direction. “She’s been grumbling non-stop since she woke up.”
“Well, my back aches like hell and I think Harry’s trying out for the Olympic hurdling heats,” Erin said, grabbing my hand and putting it on her stomach so I could feel the baby moving around. “Ouch! That, or discus throwing.”
“He wants to get out and tear round that garden,” Will said.
“He wants to get out and come down the pub with his daddy,” said Robert. He glanced up at the clock. “Talking of which, it is now twelve-thirty and if we had a yardarm I am sure the sun would be over it.”
“Isn’t that in the evening?” Will said.
“Well, it’s officially lunchtime, anyway.” Robert stood up. “A nice cold Bud, je pense. D’you want one, Will? Hannah? Glass of wine?”
“Yes, please,” said Erin, and stuck her bottom lip out. “I wish!”
“You can have one,” I said. “On
e won’t do any harm, not at this stage.”
She perked up. “Oh good, I was hoping someone would say that.”
Will stood up and went over to the back door. He stepped out into the garden, and smiled.
“I’ve got an idea,” he said, coming back in, “it’s glorious out there—why don’t we sit out on the terrace?”
“Sign me up.” Erin struggled out of her seat. She swung round to Robert, pointing her finger at him and grinning. “If you even mention that I must be careful not to catch a chill, I’m leaving you, okay?”
“I’m saying nowt,” Robert said, from inside the fridge, “anyway, you won’t get very far in that state. I’ll soon catch you up.”
“It’s so sheltered out there anyway,” I said. “It’s a suntrap at this time of year, remember?”
It was indeed. Without the wind, it was actually warm enough to sit there without coats. The azalea and japonica added delightful colour on either side of the steps down to the lawn. I laughed at myself. Oh dear, astrology and the appreciation of a well-planned rockery; at not quite fifty, was I already developing batty old lady tendencies? Pat switched on the fountain from inside the kitchen and I shut my eyes for a moment to breathe in the sweet smells of spring, the calming sound of the stream in the background.
“That thing makes me want to go to the loo even more than usual,” Erin said. “Have you spoken to my sister this week, Hannah?”
“Mm-mm.” I thought about the conversation we’d had.
“Is she still finding peace within the bosom of the church?”
I smiled. “If it works for her, don’t knock it.” Since Christmas, Isabella had found religion. Nobody knew what or who had provoked this conversion, but she now sported a slightly glazed, serene expression most of the time, though that might have been something to do with her medication, too. At least she seemed happy. Happier, I should say. I’d been to see her the month before, and braced myself to ask if she’d heard anything from Phil Castillo about a possible divorce.