The Cinderella Reflex (25 page)

“I don’t understand.” Richard stared at her. “I thought you were on the pill?”

“I was, but ... well, sometimes nature makes fools of us all,” Helene quoted her late grandmother’s words of wisdom solemnly.

“What the hell does that mean?” Richard snapped.

“I don’t know! It just sounds ... comforting.” Helene felt like an idiot now for saying it. She had imagined this moment in her head at least a dozen times since the pregnancy test had shown positive, but it was all going wrong.

“Comforting?” Richard looked at her incredulously. “This is not something we ever planned for, Helene.”

“No, we didn’t,” Helene acknowledged. “But is it so bad? I mean – you love kids! Look at how you always put Anna and David first.”

“That’s just it. I did. Still do. But I’m tired, Helene.” He said the word
tired
as if he were halfway up a mountain and had no idea how he was going to get to either the top or the bottom of it.

“We’re all tired, Richard,” she reminded him. “I’ve been working ten-hour days trying to win that ridiculous contest, as well as coping with morning sickness and fainting fits.”

“Helene, I have just finished rearing my family.” He stared into space. “I have been looking forward to having time for myself for
so
long
.
This is my chance!”

“Your chance to do what?” Helene asked, puzzled.

“I’m not sure,” Richard looked around her living room as if he might find the answer there. “Smell the roses?”

“It’s nappies you’ll be smelling, Richard, not roses,” Helene said bluntly. Then she noticed the horror on his face and added more gently, “It’s a baby, Richard – not a prison sentence.” She gave him a playful slap on the shoulder. “It will help to keep you young.”

He shot her a disbelieving look. “With all due respect, I think I know more about the effects children have on your life than you do, Helene. And keeping you young is not one of them!”

“Well, we’ll deal with it together.” Helene was implacable. “This is not something I can do by myself.”

A tic pulsed at the side of his mouth. “And eh ... are you sure it’s mine?”

“Excuse me?” Helene’s voice cracked like a whip into the air. In all the scenarios she had envisaged, not even the most negative had come close to this.

“It’s just ... eh ... well, I didn’t think ... I mean, I was thinking of having a vasectomy,” Richard stammered.

“I see,” Helene said slowly. “And just
thinking
about a vasectomy is a reliable form of birth control now, is it? The scientific and medical world will be thrilled with that breakthrough.”

Richard’s eyelids flickered. “Look, I wasn’t going to tell you this until later because I wanted you to enjoy your party. But I think we need to break up for a bit. Until things have settled down ...”

Helene felt a peculiar buzzing sensation in her head. “I don’t understand.” She was genuinely puzzled. “How can we break up when I’m pregnant?”

He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “There’re still a few weeks before everything at Atlantic is legally binding – before I get my money, essentially. But I suspect Jack knows about us. And I can’t risk confirming that for him. He could make things really, really difficult for me. This
baby
thing,” he said this as if he didn’t quite believe it was real, “well, it’s unfortunate timing, I’m afraid.”

“Unfortunate timing? Are you mad? It’s a
baby
!” Helene searched his face, and saw something unfathomable in his eyes. She felt panic grip her. “I thought you loved me?”

“I did. Do.” He gave a tiny sigh. “But things change, Helene. Circumstances change.”

His eyes were full of misery, but Helene caught the hint of steel in his voice. The buzzing sensation in her head was back. She gripped the edge of the sofa, her fingernails leaving indentations in the soft leather. How did Richard think he could just waltz away from everything, when the baby they were expecting was already affecting every aspect of her life? She opened her mouth to say as much, but Richard held up both his hands to stop her.

“I don’t want to do this.” His mouth tightened. “But I don’t see that I have any chance. If you say the baby is mine, I’ll deny it, Helene.”

Helene felt cold. Freezing.

“I think you’d better go.” The words came out of her mouth but they sounded as if someone else had spoken them. Richard, however, didn’t need to be told twice. He strode towards the hall door but Helene’s mood switched again, frightening her with its unpredictability.

“You can’t leave me, Richard,” she wailed after him. “Not tonight. It’s my birthday! People are about to arrive for the party!”

Richard half-turned to look back at her. “It’s not as if anyone ever knew about us,” he pointed out. “So they won’t think it’s odd that I’m not here.”

“They’ll think it’s odd when I have a huge bump in another couple of months and no father for my baby!”

He took a few steps back towards her. “Why don’t we think about this? I mean – you don’t have to have it, do you? I mean, it must be only a few weeks ...”

“
It
is a baby, Richard.” Helene’s voice was icy and this time actually felt like her own as another bewildering mood change came over her. “It’s a gift. I actually thought you might have been happy about it. But that was before I realised what a lily-livered wimp you are. So you want to check out as soon as the going gets tough? So go. Do it. Get out now if you’re going.”

She turned away. She wasn’t going to think any more about what he had just suggested. She would just block it out, pretend that he hadn’t. She put her face in her hands and bit hard on her top lip to stop it trembling. She heard the soft click of the hall door.

He’s gone, she thought dully. On the night she told him she was expecting their baby Richard had left her. On the night of her fortieth birthday when people were due to arrive any moment for the celebrations, Richard had come to tell her he wanted a
break
? The tears, which had been threatening all evening, finally started – great shuddering sobs that made her feel as if she might choke. This cannot be happening to me, she told herself. This weeping and babbling was not her! She was a strong person. She struggled to regain control of her emotions but it was useless. Big wails of fear and grief shook her body and she covered her face with her hands, trying to stem the tears. Hormones! It must be the hormones.

She stiffened at the creaking sound of her hall door opening again. She sat up straight, pure relief flooding through her. He was back! Of
course
he was back. She tried to compose herself, wiping her tears, patting her hair. She would find it difficult to forgive him for his initial reaction, of course she would. But, she rationalised, maybe it had been unfair to spring it on him out of the blue like that in the first place. After all, she’d had time to get used to the idea. They would get over this, she promised herself, and their relationship would be the stronger for it in the end. She lifted her tear-stained face to the door, ready to welcome him back into her life.

“I’m a bit early, I’m afraid. The hall door was ajar.” Matt from the Travel Cafe was standing awkwardly in the hallway, almost invisible behind the giant bouquet of sunflowers he was carrying. The flowers, with their yellow and black faces reminded Helene of sunshine and hope and optimism and she couldn’t bear it. She burst into a fresh, uncontrollable flood of tears.

To his credit, Matt didn’t waste time asking awkward questions. He took one look at her red-eyed face, her make-up destroyed with tears, and marched into the kitchen where he put his flowers in the sink. “I’ve obviously come at a bad time. But tell me what I can do to help?”

For a few tempting minutes Helene flirted with the idea of asking him to stick a note on the door announcing that, due to unforeseen circumstances, the party had been cancelled. But then she realised how difficult it would be to explain that away in the morning.

Besides, some part of her recognised already that if she was going to have to survive as a single mother, then hosting a birthday party was going to be the least of the challenges ahead of her. So the party went ahead. Everyone came from work. Even Ollie turned up for an hour. Helene watched the celebrations as if she were behind a glass screen. A deep sense of shock enveloped her in a protective shield so she was able to get through the evening with a curious sense of detachment.

Matt took on his self-appointed role of host for the evening with panache, filling people’s glasses, dealing with the caterers when they arrived, even arranging an impromptu karaoke competition when everyone had a few drinks on them. Helene watched on vaguely as Sara and Andrea sang completely out of tune, and wondered how the hell her life had arrived at this point with so little warning?

The one concession she allowed herself was that the party should finish early. Again, Matt rose to the occasion and managed to get the last person out of the apartment just after midnight.

“Will you be okay?” he asked when there were just the two of them left.

“Absolutely,” Helene reassured him. He seemed reluctant to leave but Helene closed the door resolutely behind him. She then walked into her bedroom and stuffed a change of clothes into her overnight bag. Earlier in the evening, she had slipped away from the celebrations and quietly booked herself into a nearby hotel. She couldn’t bear to be in the apartment on her own tonight.

She noticed a bulky white envelope lying on the hall table, wrapped up with a thin silver ribbon tied in a bow. She picked it up and looked at Richard’s familiar handwriting.
To Helene, Happy Birthday.
It was the gift she’d felt through his jacket pocket earlier this evening. Another lifetime ago, before her world had tilted on its axis. She slid it unopened into her bag.

She looked back at the debris of the party – the empty bottles and uneaten cake and the fortieth birthday balloon already deflating in the corner. She stood there for a few seconds, trying to fix the image of her guests enjoying themselves in her head. But all she could see was the earlier ugly scene between her and Richard.

She gave a tiny sigh and opened the hall door. The party planners were coming in the morning to clear up. By the time she arrived home from work tomorrow, all evidence of tonight would be erased from her home. Which was now exactly the way Helene wanted it.

“I have hired my own, independent counsellor on this matter. One with a law degree,” Ollie Andrews was muttering darkly from behind his computer screen.

“You’re right, Ollie,” Sara said. “And here, what do think about this coaching thing that Paulina Fox is setting up? Like, can you
coach
someone into having the X factor?”

“No, you can’t,” Ollie said. “You either have it or you don’t. And I have, so what is the
point
?”

Tess sighed. It was the morning after Helene’s fortieth birthday party, which had been pretty tense for a celebration. She had gone because she wanted to make an effort to get on with everyone at work better this time around. But Helene had acted strangely out of character – she had hardly spoken to anyone all evening. Tess had been unable to look Andrea in the eye because she still hadn’t worked out whether to tell her about seeing Joe in the restaurant. Consequently, she had drunk too much wine, had slept in late this morning and was now nursing a giant hangover. And all this talk about the contest was getting on her nerves. “It’s just another stunt dreamed up by Paulina. They probably already have their winner picked if you ask me,” she muttered.

“
If
we asked you!” Ollie glowered.

Sara looked at her curiously. “I didn’t even know you were going in for the contest, Tess.”

“Oh, I’d say there’s a lot we don’t know about Ms Morgan, Sara. Like her ‘speciality’ in giving elevator speeches! Hah hah hah!”

“What’s this about elevator speeches?” Andrea strolled by, looking at Ollie curiously.

“It’s nothing, I’ll tell you about it later,” Tess said quickly. Thankfully, Andrea had been out of the office when Helene had announced to all and sundry that Tess had been stalking Jack McCabe. She wanted to explain what had happened without the nasty spin Helene had put on it.

“Tell her now, why don’t you, Tess?” Ollie challenged. “Why keep your best friend in the dark? Let me save you the bother, actually.” He turned to Andrea. “What do you think of this? Tess has been
stalking
Jack McCabe. She trapped him in a lift so she could pitch her ideas to him in private.” He raised his eyebrows meaningfully. “Hence the term ‘elevator speech’.”

Andrea stared at Tess. “So when did you decide to enter the contest?”

Tess sighed. “I wasn’t talking to Jack about the contest – I was trying to get the agony aunt slot back!”

“Yeah ... because that was such a success the first time around!” Ollie chortled, snapping the lid of his coffee container open and taking a long slug.

“So that explains how Joe saw you having dinner with Jack,” Andrea said slowly. “He said you pretended not to see him, but he was pretty sure you had.”

“She was having
dinner
with Jack?” Ollie almost choked on his coffee.

“But that’s so cool!” Sara was full of curiosity. “So tell us, Tess, what’s he
really
like? Is he ruthless? Is he going to sack everyone over thirty? Is he as
hot
as he looks?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Tess muttered, her mind was racing in another direction altogether. If Joe had told Andrea he saw Tess at the restaurant, there must be an innocent explanation for him being with that woman! Thank God. She turned to her now.

“Listen Andrea, I’ve loads to tell you. How about lunch?”

“I’ve a pretty busy day. Sorry.” Andrea switched on her computer and stared at the screen.

Tess bit her lip, wondering how to get back their old, easy friendship.

The phone rang.

“Hello, Atlantic 1 FM. Oh! Okay, I’ll tell her. Tess!” Sara covered the receiver with one hand. “It’s Paulina.” She made a jabbing gesture with her finger towards the telephone. “She’d like you to pop along to see her. She’s starting the coaching sessions immediately.”