The Family Trap (12 page)

‘Does he know? That you’re pregnant?’

I shake my head. Edie carries on looking out of the window. I follow her gaze and see a robin sitting on the frost-covered fence outside.

‘So, in that case, one of you must be of the opinion that he wouldn’t make a very good father. And you worship the ground he walks on, am I right?’ She looks at me and I nod, willing the tears away. She purses her lips again and tilts her head to one side. Behind her back, the robin mimics her movements. ‘So, in that case, it must be him. He doesn’t want a family, and you do. And you’ve already gone and got yourself in the family way ahead of time, but you’re scared to tell him in case he thinks it’s a trap.’

I stare at Edie, open-mouthed. She’s actually not that far off the truth, but how on earth did she get all that from ‘I’m pregnant’? She laughs her dry little laugh when she sees my face.

‘Oh, just because I’ve never been married doesn’t mean I don’t know about love, young lady. Or how complicated life can be. I’ve had my fair share of loving, you know. Even if I don’t have a lot to show for it.’

The wistful look on her face as she turns away again just tears at my heart. I take her hand. ‘Edie, there are loads of people in here who got married, had kids, did the whole family thing, and they have nothing to show for it either. Where are their kids and grandkids now? A visit once a year if they’re lucky, for some of them. And you, you’re more alive than any of them.’

I’ve never thought about Edie in this way, but as the words come out of my mouth, I realise that this is nothing less than the truth. She is a wonderful woman, self-contained and kind, feisty and full of life. I hope I’m half as sparky as she is when I’m her age, and I tell her so. She waves my compliments away, but I can see that she’s touched.

‘Enough changing the subject, my dear. We were just getting down to the nitty-gritty.’

I groan and slouch back on the footstool. How did all this begin, exactly? One minute I was having a moan about gossiping co-workers, the next I’m in the clutches of Bletchley’s answer to Miss Marple, having my life dissected.

Where is Velma when you need her? Shouldn’t she be checking up that I’m doing my rounds properly? I’m already at least an hour behind.

‘Well,’ asks Edie, her eyes twinkling mischievously, ‘was I right?’

I shrug. ‘Half right. Well, maybe more than half. I’m not scared to tell him
– I totally planned to tell him before the wedding. But I kind of went about it in a sort of sideways way, asking how he felt about becoming a dad again, sounding him out before I dropped the bombshell.’

‘And he baulked?’

‘You could say that. Or you could say that he flat-out refused to entertain the idea, laughed at me, got angry with me, and then dismissed the whole thing as the crazy maternal longings of a new grandmother.’

‘Hmm. I suppose becoming a grandmother so recently didn’t help him see you as a potential new mum.’

‘Exactly. He said that I was only feeling this way because I’d been spending time with Phoenix, and that once we got on with our new life together it would pass. As if wanting a baby is some kind of virus.’

‘But, Stella, aren’t you missing something? Paul said all those things because he thought it was just an abstract discussion, a what-if scenario. If you’d told him, if he knew you were already pregnant with his child, surely he would have said something completely different.’

I nod slowly. ‘And that’s the point, isn’t it, Edie? If I had just come out and told him straight off, just dumped the news in his lap like a birthday present, I’m sure he’d have pretended to be happy. What choice would he have had? He loves me, we were about to get married. Paul would have stepped up to the challenge. But then, I’d never have known how he really felt. We’d have spent our whole lives living a lie, playing at happy families while all along Paul felt trapped and cheated. Wishing for something else.’

‘And once you knew how he felt,’ says Edie softly, ‘you loved him too much to let that happen.’

I sniff and wipe my eyes with a corner of my pale blue tabard. ‘Something like that, I guess. Although it didn’t feel so noble at the time.’

‘You’ve sacrificed your own happiness because you didn’t want to trap the man you love in a life that wasn’t for him. There is something noble about that, don’t you think, Stella?’ Her face turns to me hopefully, almost pleadingly, and I wonder briefly if we’re still talking about me. But I nod my head and smile bravely, and Edie looks away, satisfied.

*

For the rest of the day, I mull over Edie’s assessment of the decision I made. I’m not sure how I feel about being painted in such a noble light; however much hindsight is applied after the event, it doesn’t change the fact that I jilted Paul and didn’t give him a decent explanation, or even an apology. His letter burns a hole in my handbag. What does it say? And how will I feel when I read it?

I’m not sure I can hold it together much longer. There is so much to think about, so many people to consider – not least of all this little life growing inside me – that I feel bowed down under the weight of it. Truthfully, I never expected it to go this far. I thought Paul and I would talk, and then this whole debacle would be cleared up. Somehow. I don’t know if I believed we could work it out, but I figured we’d try. And if Paul truly couldn’t face the thought of marriage
and
children, at the very least we’d end up friends again.

We’ve always been friends.

I’ve lost more than my fiancé and the future I’ve spent the last few months planning. I’ve lost my best friend. And I’ve probably hurt him beyond repair.

At lunchtime I take the envelope out of my bag and place it on the table. The staffroom is empty; there’s just me and my thoughts.

Maybe he’s decided we
should
talk about the whole baby thing again. Approach it with an open mind. All I need is a nod, a gesture – the possibility of a warm reception to the news I’m holding inside me – and I’ll step up with my confession and take the consequences.

Maybe he’s regretting the way he hotfooted it out of town; new job or no new job, he could have stayed around for a few days, tried to contact me. Probably he just needed time to think, and now he’s calmed down and thought about it, he sees that starting a family together is not such a crazy idea after all.

I put the envelope back in my bag, unopened.

The afternoon passes in a flurry of paperwork, and with Velma off duty at six, I spend the last two hours drinking tea with the residents in the lounge. Edie smiles and pats my arm, but keeps our discussion to herself. At least there’s someone I can definitely trust around here.

At the end of my shift I hang around until Martha says, ‘Don’t you have a home to go to?’ to which I respond with a grimace and a pointed, ‘No, actually. Not really.’

I make the short journey back to Termite Towers with a heavy heart. When I pull up outside, I check my phone for missed calls or messages. No calls, but there is a text from Lipsy: Hope UR OK. Call me 2nite xx. I sigh, put the phone away, and trudge up the broken concrete path to the place I now call home.

I open Paul’s letter the minute I’ve closed the door to my bedsit.

When I finish reading it, I read it over. And then I read it again. In a minute, when my heart has stopped pounding, I plan to take the sheet of paper – white, A4 business paper, folded carefully into thirds and placed in a business-style envelope – and rip it to pieces. And then I plan to walk calmly down the corridor to the bathroom and flush the pieces down the toilet. And then, most likely, throw up on top of it. But this time it won’t be the baby’s fault.

Chapter 12

First thing Monday morning I call Bonnie. There’s no point putting it off any longer. Telling Edie yesterday broke my silence;
if my family aren’t judging me – if an eighty-four-year-old woman who barely knows me isn’t judging me – then there’s no need to keep it to myself anymore.

When she answers the phone, Bonnie sounds far away – which she is, of course, but her voice sounds as though it’s been shrunk.

‘Bonnie? Is that you?’

‘Stella!’ she squeaks. ‘It’s so good to hear your voice.’

‘Well, it would be kinda good to hear yours too. What are you doing?’

‘Oh, I’m having a peel. I can’t put the phone to my ear because my entire face is covered in bandages.’

I look at the phone in bewilderment, then pop it back to my ear. ‘You’re having a facial peel? You?’

‘It’s for the wedding,’ she explains. As if that, in fact, explains anything.

‘So the plans are going well?’ I’m shouting now, which is something I don’t like doing indoors; the walls in Termite Towers are paper-thin and I’m sure Stephan can hear every word.

‘Yes, spiffing.’

Spiffing?

‘Excuse me,’ I say, smiling in spite of myself, ‘can you please put my real friend on the phone? The one you’ve abducted and replaced with this odd creature who talks like a nineteenth century gent and is having her skin surgically removed.’

God, it feels so good to talk to Bonnie. Crazier than I am, always off on some adventure, keeping it light. If she was here in the room with me right now I might well hug her to death.

‘It’s so competitive over here, Stella,’ she squeaks. ‘All the women are TV show perfect. I’ve got to keep up somehow.’

I shake my head. ‘No, sorry, I really want to talk to Bonnie. You don’t even sound like her. She’s Scottish, you know. Oh,’ I slap my head with my palm, ‘I get it! You’re having a face transplant. It’s worse than I thought – give me back my friend!’

Bonnie starts to laugh then lets out a piercing shriek. ‘Oh my God, don’t do that, Stella. I cannot laugh, it’s agony.’ At least some of her accent is creeping back in, I’m gratified to hear.

‘I’d better go, Stella, they’re signalling that it’s time to have this rubbed off.’

Ouch!

‘I’ll call you in half an hour, OK?’

‘OK,’ I say gloomily, and end the call.

I spend the enforced half an hour sitting on my bed staring at the wall. There is nothing to do in this room. I don’t even have a TV. Lipsy said I should take the one out of her and Robert’s room, but I declined. Filling this place with home comforts would make it feel too permanent. I really do hope Lipsy and Robert get on their feet soon and decide to rent their own place. Maybe I figure if I slouch around looking pathetic enough, they’ll take pity on me and move out. Give me my real life back. But there is a certain poetic justice to this situation: if I needed a way to punish myself for the mess I’ve made of everything, living in this grotty bedsit certainly fits the bill.

By the time Bonnie calls back I’m glum again, and when I tell her the reason why, she responds with typical Bonnie bluntness.

‘Stella, you are a right stupid cow, do you know that?’

Sometimes you need to hear it, sometimes you don’t. This is a don’t occasion.

‘And you’re living where? Are you insane?’

I tell Bonnie about the baby, which shuts her up for a few seconds.

‘But Stella,’ she says, thankfully now talking directly into the phone like a normal person, ‘if you’d just come out and told the guy, he would never have said all that horrible stuff.’

Which is almost word for word what Edie said. Maybe Edie could be the new Bonnie in my life. I imagine going clubbing with Edie, her wearing one of Bonnie’s sequinned outfits, standing against the bar of Oceana with a cocktail in her hand.

Maybe not.

‘That is exactly the point,’ I repeat, wearily.

And then Bonnie surprises me. She says, ‘It’s all that Sharon’s fault.’

I sit up, interested.

‘Sharon? What’s she got to do with it?’

Bonnie’s voice from across the Atlantic is clear and authoritative. ‘Think about it, Stella. If it hadn’t been for Sharon getting pregnant and then Paul and her splitting up over it, you would never have been worried about his reaction to your fantastic news.’

‘You really think it’s fantastic news?’ I ask, touched. So far most people have reacted to the news of the baby as a problem to be overcome, a burden to be endured. Tears spring into my eyes as I think of how joyous the news of a new baby usually is, and how my baby has missed out on all this.

But then, if I’d just come out and told everyone on that very first day, would it have all been so very different? Somehow, I don’t think so.

‘My best mate’s having another baby? Sure it’s fantastic news! Can I be godmother, can I, can I?’

I nod, then realise Bonnie can’t see me down the phone. Which is just as well – the tears are flowing now, and I’m pretty ugly when I’m crying.

‘So,’ I say, ‘how exactly is it Sharon’s fault?’

‘Are you crying, Stella Hill?’

‘No.’

‘Liar. OK, well, maybe not Sharon’s fault specifically – she couldn’t help getting pregnant, I guess, and she sure couldn’t help it that Paul dumped her when she found out she was. But he was pretty much a confirmed bachelor, wasn’t he, huh? Until last year, when Sharon comes back into his life and says, “Hey, fella, meet your daughter”. Must have been a shock to a guy like him.’

I think about what she’s saying. ‘When I first found out I was pregnant, I did think about that, you know. I thought about how they split up, and how I hoped it wouldn’t happen to us. But I just pushed the thought out of my mind. I’m not Sharon. I mean, Paul and I were meant to be together.’

Silence extends out between us as we both consider my use of the past tense.

‘I’m thinking that you didn’t push it that far out of your mind at all,’ Bonnie says. ‘And that maybe you figured you’d jump before you were pushed.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘How long did you have between finding out you were pregnant and the wedding, Stella?’

I think for a minute. ‘Just under two weeks. But I couldn’t just announce it, Bonnie. Lipsy had just had her baby. I didn’t want to steal her thunder. And then Paul was going on about Hannah and their blasted holiday. He actually let Sharon go with them, you know. In a caravan. It was weird.’