The Art of Keeping Faith (48 page)

“Oh right, thanks.” Sorry? Or secretly pleased so you can get your celebrity obsessed claws into him?

Stop it.

“You must be pretty heart-broken. I know how in love with him you were.”

“Really, you did?”

“Yeah sure, I read your article in January. Actually I worked with Zoe then and she has been in contact with our editor to ask if we would take another instalment.”

What??

“Uh, really?”

She looks a little confused. “Yeah, that’s what I do, I work for the same magazine, and I have to say we are all excited to read the next Ben and Lilah installment. I am a bit gutted that I already know that it has an unhappy ending.”

Ouch.

Fair enough though.

“Well, you never know the ending may change yet.”

“It may,” she smiles.

She seems genuine enough and I feel kind of sorry for her. She must be cut up about what happened with Richard.

“I am also sorry to hear about you and Richard.” I say.

“What about me and Richard?”

“Uh, the fact you guys broke up, too. That’s a shame for you both.”

Her face creases in confusion. “What? No we haven’t. Actually he asked me to marry him a couple of weeks ago.” She waves her hand under my nose which is sporting a sparkly something or other.

“What, really?”

“Yes, really. Why on earth would you think we had broken up?”

I think about it and then the realisation hits. I don’t want to tell her that her boyfriend, sorry fiancé, is a lying, cheating, two-faced wanker. So I offer her a shrug instead.

“Wow. Congratulations, that is good news.” I lie again. Someone, stop me please.

“Thanks,” she replies although she still looks a bit confused.

Using all my years of maturity I decide the best policy would be to run away, so I do, waving my McDonalds bag at her as an excuse.

Me:
All the mistakes I have made. Laid out for me to see. I wish I could tell you that I see them now and that I am sorry for what I have done to us.

June

1st June

Ben:
Nothing

1
st
of June. Here we are. The last month of Uni, when all the normal disciplined students will be working their socks off trying to get their best grades ever so they can come back next year and hopefully will leave University at the end of their degree with a First that will enable them to get a fabulous job somewhere.

All of the students apart from me, that is. I keep thinking about Professor Johnson last week and his request that I come back and try to do a bit of the third year but realistically I can’t see it happening. How can it? I am going to be a single mum.

Oh goodness. Every time I think that the most awful wave of panic washes over me. I am so glad my All Day Sickness is over because if it wasn’t I am sure that thought alone would be enough to make me hurl.

Maybe I should try to do a little bit of studying, just to keep the old grey matter active. But let’s be honest here, I’m going to be spending the next three weeks stalking Ben on the Internet and avoiding everybody on campus.

Most especially I will be avoiding Richard, because quite frankly, I have no idea what his game is. But I am beginning to think he may be a compulsive liar and not a good person to be around.

Oh no, hold on a minute. That is me.

When I got home last night I spent an hour ranting about Richard, Liar, Liar Pants on Fire. That was after I had done the same thing in the shop for most of the afternoon.

Baz had one thing to say. “Told you he was an arse.”

And I had to concede that he may have been right.

Me:
Is everyone else always right, while I am always wrong? Were you always right about us? Did you see us for what we really are?

2nd June

Ben:
Nothing.

“I need to tell Jayne,” I announce as I walk into the kitchen and find my friends doing something rather terrible with some eggs. I come to a standstill.

“What on earth are you doing?”

“Making you breakfast,” Meredith informs me, optimistically peering into the frying pan.

“Cheerios is fine guys. I am more than capable of feeding myself.”

Beth puts her whisk down. “Are you though, Lilah, are you? What can you actually cook?”

“Um. Cereal,” I reply, before holding my hand up to stop them interrupting my thought process. “And I am getting quite good at spaghetti and cheese.”

They both give me a pitiful shake of the head.

“Lilah,” Meredith tells me, using her stern voice. “You have got to feed the baby and yourself. Spaghetti with cheese and McDonalds is not enough.”

“Yes, yes.” I nudge her and the eggs out of the way. “Shall we go to Putney and get a cookbook?”

They both make a tutting noise.

“Lilah, you have other more important books to read.”

I can’t think what! They can’t possibly think that my history books are more important than a cookbook, are they deranged?

“What?”

“Duh, your baby book. Have you even opened it yet?”

“Aha! Yes I have! I opened it on a very unfortunate page which had a photo of a baby coming out of a woman’s vagina.”

They both scrunch their faces up. “Eww.”

“That’s what I thought. And that is why I swiftly shut it and do not plan to open it again.”

Ha.
I feel quite smug.

“But you need to know about what is happening to you. I mean have you even felt the baby move?” Meredith asks in exasperation.

“What? Why would I feel the baby move?”

“Oh for Christ’s sake.” Meredith stalks out of the kitchen and flops onto the sofa.

“What?” I ask Beth who is grinning at me.

“You are rubbish.”

“I know,” I agree.

“So what did you mean about telling Jayne?” She sounds a bit apprehensive. She hasn’t spoken to Jayne since the Fez. It has all been very awkward, which may be a bit of an understatement.

“I think I should tell her about what is happening to me. I feel bad that she is the only one who does not know out of the group.”

It is true. I have been feeling very bad. I woke up in a panic about it during the night. That was just one of my panic wake-ups. The other was at the prospect of being a single parent.

“That’s not strictly true is it? Ben doesn’t know either.”

“Very helpful, Beth. Listen I know you and Jayne have your issues but I could do with you resolving them so we can all be together. I need all of my friends right now.

“Okay, I will try,” she tells me with a worrying amount of half-heartedness.

“Great. So what is the plan for today?” I ask, calling out to Meredith as well.

Beth looks at me.

“Study, Lilah. We have got to go to the library and so do you. Go find a baggy top and some stretchy pants and let’s get cracking. We have exams to prepare for.

“Great,” I grumble, but I head off toward my room again.

I think I had better have a quick Google and see what this whole baby-moving thing is about.

Me:
I am lying in the dark, my hand on my stomach wishing you were here. If you were here I would not be panicking. I would be breathing against you, my lungs filling with the air that I can no longer find without you.

3rd June

Ben:
Nothing

“So what exactly is Titanic trying to teach us?” Meredith shouts through our bedroom wall.

“Fuck knows,” I shout back.

“Lilah, come on.”

“Do we have to shout about it?”

“Yes, you know the study rules.”

We’ve had to separate ourselves. Beth is in the lounge, Meredith is in her room and I am in mine. Yesterday the study did not go to plan.

Beth and Meredith ended up getting ridiculously drunk at Froebel bar. So much so that as we walked back across campus to the car so I could safely drive us home Meredith decided she needed a pee and tried to do one behind a tree.

She lost her balance and face-planted the tree instead. She now can’t leave the house because she has a massive scrape all the way down her nose that looks suspiciously like carpet burn.

Ha.

“Maybe Titanic is trying to teach us that you can make any historical event into an overly emotional, manipulative piece of mainstream rubbish.

Silence.

Followed by, “That’s not bad, Lilah are you sure you don’t want to come back next year?”

“Oh yeah! And who will look after the baby?” I shout back.

“Tristan?”

“Oh my God, will you two shut the hell up? Some of us are trying to bloody study,” Beth screams from the lounge.

Blimey, I think she may definitely have a sore head.

Me:
I don’t know what else to say

9th June

Ben:
Nothing

I have spent the week in my room getting bigger and bigger. A large percentage of the week has been spent lying on my back staring at the ceiling with my hand on my tummy trying to feel the baby move.

Nothing.

Okay I am a bit hazy on the details of what it is supposed to feel like but I can’t feel anything. Not a flutter, nor bubbles, or anything else that Google tells me I should be feeling.

I had an appointment with crazy Jaunetta, the Midwife from Hell, yesterday. She assured me that just because I don’t feel anything does not mean there is anything wrong. I may just have a lowlying placenta or something.

I did not want to tell her that I have no idea what a placenta is.

I mentioned it to Meredith when I got home. She looked at me for a long hard moment, a look of frustration on her face, and then went marching into my room where she crawled under my bed and pulled out the baby book. She dusted it off and thrust it at me shouting, “Bloody read the book, Lilah. Oh and clean your room while you are at it, it’s disgusting, no baby can live in there.”

Until that moment it hadn’t registered with me that I am going to have a baby in there with me in a few months. Right now I am stuck on the next couple of weeks and my failing attempts to find Ben to tell him the truth and ask him to spend forever with me.

After Meredith finished shouting at me I walked into my room and looked about. Ben’s stuff was still mingled along with mine. Some of his clothes were still strewn on the floor where I have been too scared to move them in case it erased him from my life completely. If I leave them there it looks like he has just popped out to the garage to get a pint of milk, not popped out of my life for good.

Standing there for one long moment I took it all in one last time before I started to clean.

Now everything is gone. Well not gone but put into bags and boxes. All except for his old battered watch, which I found under the bed. He must have dropped it at Easter. I linked his Grans ring through the strap and then I put it on the bed stand. It is still on show. I went to sleep last night staring at it as it winked blue at me. As I watched through drooping lids I realised the futility of my actions over the last year and the curse of the ring as I am going to call it. Ben’s Nan was given it by the love of her life, whose child she had but was never with. I was given it by Ben, the love of my life whose child I am going to have, but who I am not going to be with all because I shouted one time too many.

Just after I finished cleaning, my phone rang. As is the norm at the moment my stomach took an almighty lurch before I glanced at it and realised it was not Ben.

It was Zoe. The article is going to be published on the 16
th
of June. This is good, it’s the day after the Isle of Wight would have been which means my plan is still on target. Sort of.

I am beginning to lose faith in the plan. Every time I look in the mirror and see how much I am changing physically, and believe me I am, I think to myself there is no way he is going to forgive me for this. No way at all.

Right, then. Study. I have got one of those pesky things called exams on Monday.

Me:
…

11th June

Ben:
Nothing

Oh, dear. That exam did not go well at all. Not in the slightest.

I can’t help but think of Johnson and how incredibly disappointed he is going to be in me when he realises that I have truly given up.

When I think of his face and how disappointed he will look, I then think of my Dad and how disappointed he is going to be as well.

Dad, although he never wanted me to come to Uni in the first place, has been nothing but supportive of me this year.

Damnit.

They are not going to be the only ones disappointed. Ben is going to be as well. I know we are not together, but he was the one who wanted me to try hard this time last year so I could carry on even though he was not going to be here with me. I know he came back briefly at the start of the year, but Uni has always been my thing. The thing that I did for myself.

Walking out of the exam I realised that the person I should be most worried about disappointing is myself.

So instead of skulking off back home I have come to the library. I am going to revise and then I am going to take out every one of those films we were supposed to watch and I am going to find what the missing link is between them. I know Pilchard has not chosen them at random and the only way I am going to find out is if I watch them all again in a row and piece together the mystery that is the inner workings of Pilchard’s mind.

Me:
Don’t be disappointed in me. My disappointment in myself is already enough for the both of us.

12th June

Ben:
Nothing

Meredith did not have a profound epiphany upon leaving the exam hall yesterday and therefore did not go to the library like me.

No.

Instead she decided to repeat the Delilah McCannon coping mechanism of last year and go to the bar and get completely slaughtered.

She threw up all over Tristan’s Audi when he picked her up but at least she made it home without injuring her face.

“I have to say, Lilah. I think you have been a very bad influence on Meredith,” Tristan moaned as he lugged her limp form through to their room.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” I retorted.

Well, I didn’t. I was sitting there in my fluffy pyjama’s drinking a hot chocolate.

How the tables turn.

Beth had gone home to pick up some stuff but never came back, I have no idea what that means but I kind of wish she had been there to see Naughty Meredith get carted through the flat by an annoyed Tristan. It was bloody hysterical.

Me:
?

13th June

Ben:
Nothing

“Cooey, anyone home?”

Oh, fuck it.

Nope there is no one home. Well there is … me. But I am not answering the door; it’s my bloody mother. What on earth is she doing here at eleven in the morning mid-week? Surely she should be off harassing the Vicar or rescuing wild animals or something similar. Or drinking gin. That always works, too.

“Meredith?”

Silence.

“Tristan?”

Silence.

“Delilah?”

Charming, I am third on the list. Now I am definitely not answering.

“Delilah, I know you are in there, I can see into your bedroom through the front window.”

Damn it.

Oh my God. Does that mean everyone can see into my bedroom from the street? I have never realised. That is a little worrying.

Grumbling the whole way, I shuffle to the front door and let it swing open. I am still in my pyjamas and was in the middle of an intense study/Ben stalking session.