Mommy by Mistake (26 page)

N
atalie was trying hard not to notice Tiffany staring at her.

“Cake, anyone?” she offered, passing a plate of Jamaican ginger around the rather subdued table.

“Jill says she’ll put you in touch with a divorce lawyer if you want,” Steve told Meg. “She says she knows a woman who can get you anything you want and more besides in settlement.” He was very careful to avoid looking at Frances, who sat straight-backed at the end of the kitchen table, all too aware of her unspoken status as a potential spy in the camp. She wouldn’t have come to this meeting except that Meg had asked Jess to phone her and make sure she did. She told Jess to say she was sorry for what she said last night, and that she’d hate to lose Frances too. So Frances had come to the meeting, and Meg thought it had to be a true testament to their friendship that she had done so.

“It hasn’t come to that yet, surely,” Frances said, but everyone ignored her.

“I don’t know what I want,” Meg said flatly. For now at least it seemed that the tears and anger had evaporated into a more manageable numbness. From this position of emotional paralysis, Meg supposed she should begin to try to imagine what the future would hold, even if it seemed impossible to visualize the next ten hours, let alone the next ten years. As the thought crossed her mind she had a sudden vision of herself ten years from now, trying to manage four teenagers alone. It was a terrifying vision.

“I don’t know what I want,” she repeated.

“Well, the house for starters,” Natalie said. “And half of everything else, at least.”

“It’s too soon to be talking about this,” Jess said, reaching out and laying her hand on the back of Meg’s wrist. Meg looked at Jess’s hand but she didn’t seem to be able to feel it.

“It’s not too soon,” Steve said regretfully. “Jill says she knew about this one guy who as soon as his affair came out emptied all the joint bank accounts and moved all his assets into his girlfriend’s name. He fleeced his wife good and proper. The poor woman was left with almost nothing. She says you need to talk to a lawyer now, maybe even today.”

“No she doesn’t,” Frances said from the other end of the table. Nobody looked at her. “Look, Robert is at my house, I know exactly what’s he’s doing and he’s not doing any of that. The only thing he’s doing is wondering why he’s behaved like such a fool. He’s devastated, Megan. He’d do anything to try to turn the clock back.”

“Shame he didn’t think about that when he was practically chewing the face off that woman the other day,” Natalie said sharply. “He is the one who is responsible for the end of this marriage and he’ll have to live with it.”

“He is fully aware of that,” Frances said. “But there is more to think about than houses and assets—there are the children…”

“He wasn’t giving them much thought while he was carrying on with her, was he?” Jess felt compelled to say. “He was with her when Iris was being
born
, Frances. Defend that.”

Frances kept her features perfectly level.

“I do not defend him,” she said. “I’m only saying…”

“Look,” Natalie said. “We’re here for Meg, not Robert. If you can’t support her, then you’d better go.”

“I support them both,” Frances said, and when no one replied, she began to rise slowly from her chair.

“Wait!” When Meg spoke everybody, looked at her. “Don’t go, Frances, you’re right,” she said.

“Pardon?” Natalie looked confused.

“She’s right,” Meg told the group. “It’s too soon to think about lawyers, it’s too soon to make up a list of what I want from my marriage. I need time to think about what’s going to happen to me and the children. I need to decide if I really want this to be over.”

“What?”
Jess said, looking around at the others for support. “Of course it’s over, Meg. You can’t go back from this! Can you?”

Meg shook her head and looked at Jess. “I don’t know,” she said, with some emphasis. “But I need to be able to think about it for the children’s sake and for mine. Frances understands that, and if the rest of you can’t, then perhaps you should be the ones to go.”

Natalie, Jess, Tiffany, and Steve exchanged glances.

“We’re here to support you, whatever you want,” Natalie said.

“Even if I take Robert back?” Meg asked her.

Natalie nodded. “If that is what you choose, Meg. But please promise me you won’t make that decision based on the fear of being alone. Because you’ll never be alone. You’ll always have your friends. And you are a stronger and more capable woman than you realize.”

Meg raised her head and looked at Natalie.

“Were you married in a church, Natalie?” she asked suddenly.

“Er, no,” Natalie said, noticing Tiffany was staring hard at her again. She was clearly waiting for Natalie to make the confession that she had assured Tiffany she would make days ago. Surely the girl realized that it still wasn’t the right time, that right now no one wanted to know about her nonmarriage. “It was a package-holiday thing, on the beach. It was lovely. Gary looked great in white trunks.”

“I bet he does,” Tiff said under her breath.

Natalie frowned at her and looked at Meg. “Why do you ask?”

“I got married in a church,” Meg said. “I don’t go to church a lot and I’m not exactly religious, but that ceremony meant something so special to me. When I spoke those vows, I meant them absolutely. Marriage is not always supposed to be easy. It’s
easy
to let things go wrong. It’s
easy
to lose your way and make the wrong decisions and most of all, it is
far
too easy to just give up when things seem too hard or too painful. Robert had sex with someone else, he lied to me and betrayed me, and the thought of being able to get over that and to carry on being married to him sickens and appalls me.” Meg paused, closing her eyes for a moment as she fought to compose herself. “But not being able to do it terrifies me, too. I have four children who love him. And
I
love him. If he was leaving me and didn’t want to come back, then I wouldn’t have a choice. But I do have a choice, and it’s one that I owe to my children and myself to think very, very carefully about. When I took those vows I meant them, every word.”

Everyone else at the table sat in silence for a second. They had never seen Meg look so serious, but more than that, so strong. In her weakest and most vulnerable moment she seemed to be more determined and more certain than ever.

“But, Meg, it’s Robert who’s broken the vows,” Jess reminded her tentatively.

Meg looked levelly at her. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, he has, but don’t you see?
I
haven’t—yet. I haven’t broken them. And I will have to think long and hard about whether or not I am going to.” She suddenly looked so tired and young, like a little lost child.

Natalie, who was sitting next to her, put her arms around Meg’s shoulders. “If that’s what you want,” she said.

“But do you understand why?” Meg asked each of them.

“Yes, we understand,” Tiffany said, when nobody else seemed able to speak.

They all sat around the kitchen table until morning turned into afternoon, each forgetting or choosing to ignore their planned trip to the second Baby Music class. It seemed impossible that only a week ago the world had seemed so different.

In near silence, Frances remarked, when she glanced out the window, that Gripper was digging up the newly emerging daffodils by the fence.

Meg seemed unperturbed.

“So what about
EastEnders
then?” Natalie tried. “Who’d have thought that
she
was a lesbian! Seriously, everybody is a lesbian these days in soaps. I don’t mind; I’m all for lesbians, but I think they should have few more gay men, don’t you? Even it up a bit?” She looked around at the blank faces. “Or is that just me?”

“Um,” Steve said.

“Really,” Frances muttered under her breath in disgust.

“Hadn’t thought about it much, I have to admit,” Jess told Natalie apologetically.

“Sorry.” Natalie grimaced. “Sometimes I just get compelled to say what’s in my head and quite often it’s extremely stupid.”

“Why aren’t I surprised?” Frances said loud and clear, arching one eyebrow.

Natalie was about to open her mouth in response when Steve spoke.

“That’s what Jill says about me,” he said cheerfully. “She says, ‘I love you, darling, but you never think before you open your mouth.’ I always know if she’s about to tell me I’ve done something wrong because she always starts with the phrase, ‘I love you, darling, but…’” Steve smiled. “She read about it in this American book on how to have a successful relationship. Apparently it’s supposed to diffuse the buildup of anger, because it’s so much better to disagree in an ‘atmosphere of love.’ For example, as Jill said to me only this morning, ‘I love you, darling, but I do wish you wouldn’t pass wind audibly.’”

This time the whole group laughed.

“She reckons it’s that bloody book that will keep our marriage on track,” Steve went on, happy that he had single-handedly lifted the mood.

“Maybe you could lend it to me then,” Meg said with a watery smile. “I need all the help I can get.”

Steve blushed to the tips of his ears. “Oh God, I’m sorry, Meg…Jill’s right about me, isn’t she? I don’t think.”

There was silence except for the ticking of the kitchen clock and the distant sound of Gripper’s daffodil excavation.

“Anyway,” Jess stepped in, smiling at Tiffany. “How are you, Tiffany—how are things going?”

Tiffany shrugged and stirred a third spoonful of sugar into her coffee.

“I’m going to take my exams in September.” She glanced up at Natalie, the first look she had given her all morning that wasn’t a glare, and even smiled. “Natalie came round to my mom’s with me the other day. I thought it was a washout, a total waste of time—
Mom didn’t want to know. But yesterday she came round while Dad was out at work. We had a cup of tea, talked about things, what’s on TV, gossiped about Mom’s neighbors. Not anything real or important. She didn’t mention the reasons why she hadn’t been before or why Dad didn’t know she had come now. But she came and we sat and talked and she even held Jordan on her lap for a little while and kissed her before she went. It wasn’t a big reunion or anything, she never said she was in the wrong—but at least she came.” Tiffany smiled tentatively. “It might be a start, you know? It’ll be hard and there will be more shouting, but it’s like Meg says, things that are worth having don’t come easily.”

After that everyone seemed more relaxed. The baby group members settled back into discussing their babies, what new clubs they might join, which ones they wouldn’t go back to in a million years, and although Natalie was as resolutely chatty as the rest of the group, she couldn’t stop thinking about what Tiffany had said. Because it was the teenager and not Meg who had clarified the notion in her mind.

Things that were worth having didn’t come easily, that was what she’d said.

Just as it would seemingly be so easy to have Gary in her life, it felt nearly impossible to bring her and Freddie to a point where they could have Jack in theirs: where Freddie, no matter what had happened between Natalie and Jack, could have his father.

At some point during their last meeting, Natalie wasn’t sure why, she had become utterly furious with him, consumed with a rage that had incinerated all her common sense in one solar-strength flare. It was when he told her that he wasn’t dying, she remembered. Was she angry with him for not dying? she wondered anxiously. And then she realized it was not that. For the short time she had thought she was going to lose him without ever really having him, she had been devastated. And it was such a ter
rible and horrific prospect to face that when he had laughed at her and told her everything was going to be fine, she had snapped.

What had exactly followed then was muddy and confusing, but Natalie knew she hadn’t prepared him at all for the news about Freddie. She had literally flung it in his face; it was a selfish, vengeful act, designed to shock and scare him as much as he had shocked and scared her.

She had promised Freddie she would do the right thing by him, but she had already failed. There was only one thing she could do now to try to rectify the situation.

She had to go back and see Jack again.

And this time she’d take Freddie with her.

F
rances was the last to leave. Steve had gone first, leaving Meg the solicitor’s number on a piece of paper he attached to the fridge door by a Teletubby magnet.

“Just in case,” he said. “Jill says you should be prepared for everything.” He thought for a moment and dropped a hand on Meg’s shoulder. “And
I
say you’re a bloody marvelous woman and you shouldn’t accept anything but the best. Promise me you won’t, Meg.”

Meg smiled up at him. “I won’t, Steve,” she said. “That’s the last thing I want.”

Jess had gone soon after, when Jacob woke from his nap and wouldn’t stop crying.

“See you all at Tiff’s,” she had to say quite loudly to be heard over his yells.

They had been discussing when to hold the next meeting, and
Frances had put into words what the rest of them were reluctant to say.

“Well, it’s my turn, of course, but I hardly think considering my current guest that it is an appropriate venue.”

“And it’s not fair to keep turning up at Meg’s all the time,” Steve said. “I bet she’s sick of the sight of us.”

“Well, Jess and Steve have already held a group and we know Natalie currently has workmen in, so that leaves…” Frances stared pointedly at Tiffany, who instantly retreated back to the shy and awkward girl she often was around the other members. Her cheeks flushed pink and she sank her head between her shoulders.

“Oh well,” Natalie said, keen to take the spotlight off her friend. “Come to mine, the work’s all but done anyway, so…”

“No,” Tiffany said, at first so quietly that no one heard. “No,” she repeated. This time the others looked at her. “I can do it.”

“What’s that, love?” Steve asked her.

“I can hold a meeting at my flat. You might as well know I live on the thirteenth floor of a high rise and I’ve got hardly any furniture and no cups that match—” she glanced at Meg’s table—“or a milk jug. But I can make tea, so if you don’t mind the odd chip in your cup, you can all come to mine.”

It seemed more like a challenge than an invitation, but Natalie was pleased that Tiffany had issued it.

“Brilliant idea!” she said. “Of course it’s Tiff’s turn. Thank God, I say, that means I have a few more days to evict my mother before you come round—what a relief!”

Tiffany had carefully written out the address and her telephone number for everyone but Natalie, who had been there before. “Eleven o’clock next Tuesday then?” she said.

Everybody agreed to be there, and Tiffany was able to smile
again, with a mixture of pleasure and anxiety. After all, the only other thing she’d hosted in her entire life was a sleepover.

Tiffany had been upstairs changing Jordan as Natalie collected her things, instructed to wait for Tiff so they could leave together. Frances went to the loo (or possibly to surreptitiously clean it), leaving Meg and Natalie alone for a few minutes.

“Are you okay, Natalie?” Meg asked out of the blue.

“Who, me?” Natalie sat up straight, as if she’d just been caught napping in class. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You look a bit…preoccupied,” Meg said, with concern. “Like you had a bit of a sleepless night, too.”

Natalie hoped to God that she didn’t look as guilty as she felt.

“Look,” Meg went on, “you know that just because I’m in the middle of all of this, it doesn’t mean you can’t still talk to me if you need to. Has something happened with Gary?”

Natalie looked at Meg, dear sweet Meg with her tear-bruised eyes and red raw nose, and with all the pain that was weighing so heavily on her shoulders, and for a second she wanted to tell her everything. But how could she? It would be so unfair to expect Meg to deal with her problems. And besides that, Meg was offering to help a woman who didn’t really exist. Maybe she wouldn’t like the real Natalie at all, whoever that was.

“No, there’s no problem,” she said. “Gary and I are fine.”

“Which one?” Tiffany said as she walked into the kitchen.

Natalie looked at her. “Pardon?”

“I mean, which Gary? It must be confusing having two Garys in your life.”

After that Natalie left in rather a hurry with Tiffany close behind.

“I know, you know,” Tiffany said almost as soon as they’d left Meg’s house.

Natalie hurried on as if she could somehow outstrip the slender teenager with her speed and strength. But of course she couldn’t, Tiffany was more than a match for her. She’d just have to get the whole conversation over with as quickly as possible. She took a deep breath.

“What do you know?” she said.

“I know that you had sex with Gary last night.”

“How can you know?” Natalie asked her, scandalized. “Did he tell you?”

“He didn’t have to,” Tiffany said quite smugly. “You just did. It was written all over his face when he came to pick up Anthony this morning. I asked him why he was so pleased with himself and he said he couldn’t tell me. I just made an educated guess that it had to be something to do with you—and I was right.”

“
Curses!
Foiled again.” Natalie couldn’t help but find Tiffany’s satisfaction in being right quite amusing.

“It’s not funny, Natalie!” Tiffany exclaimed. “You’re totally out of order, you do know that, don’t you?”

Natalie walked on briskly; as fond as she was of Tiffany she had, in her opinion at least, far more pressing matters to think about and do just now than receive a dressing down from a surprisingly prudish sixteen-year-old.

“Tiffany,” she said, with more than a hint of condescension. “You are a lovely girl, a girl who has had more than her fair share of life experiences at a young age. But you are still only sixteen. Gary is a consenting adult and so am I. It was what we both wanted and we both knew where we stood, so really it’s not as big a deal as you think it is.”

“It
is
a big deal!” Tiffany protested. “Gary really likes you and you still love this Jack bloke. Don’t use him, Natalie. You’re better than that.”

Natalie stopped dead in her tracks.

“I know,” she said. “Tiffany, look…it was a stupid and wrong thing to do. It’s not going to happen again. Neither of us wants it to.”

“Gary would, I can tell,” Tiffany said. “Look, you have to realize he’s not just some distraction to take your mind off things or some other stupid complication to get yourself caught up in. He’s been really good to me and Anthony, really good. If he gets hurt…” Tiffany trailed off before adding with a hint of menace, “I don’t want that to happen.”

“It won’t,” Natalie reassured her. “We made a mistake and that’s all. Look, please will you just pretend you don’t know? For my sake and Gary’s?”

Tiffany’s scowl was still quite fierce.

“I like you, Natalie,” she said, even though she looked as if the very opposite were true. “But you really should think before you act. You rush in too fast. Actions have consequences, you know.”

Natalie looked from Freddie’s buggy to Jordan’s.

“I think you and I know that better than most people, don’t we?” she said, with a wry smile.

“I just don’t know what you want from him,” Tiffany said, beginning to walk on. “Look at you, you’ve got a lovely baby, a ton of money, a big job, a nice house, and you’re still not happy!”

“How do you know I’m not happy?” Natalie asked her huffily. “I’ve never told you that!”

“You don’t have to,” Tiffany said. “It’s written all over your face.”