The Family Trap (13 page)

‘It’s all getting clearer, don’t you think? He was away, leaving you to fret about his reaction, thinking about the whole Sharon thing – will history repeat itself?’

‘I wasn’t fretting.’

‘Oh, I think you were. Subconsciously.’

Bonnie is a committed amateur psychologist. The annoying thing is, she’s usually bang on.

‘Go on,’ I say, reluctantly.

‘So, you leave it till the very last minute to tell him, and then you have to sound him out first, and then when that doesn’t go as well as you’d hoped, you jump ship.’

I wait, knowing exactly what she’s about to say next.

‘Because, just maybe, you thought deep down that if you did tell him the truth, it would be him jilting you.’

Sometimes the truth is hard to hear. And sometimes it takes a crazy Scottish lass on the other side of the world to tell it like it is.

‘So,’ I say, ‘is your skin like really sore now?’

Bonnie laughs. ‘Fine. Point taken. Counselling session over for today. And yes, it hurts like hell. But I look twenty years younger.’

That would mean she looks about thirteen years old. We laugh together, as if the distance between us is no barrier at all.

‘I’ll fly over for the birth, Stella,’ Bonnie tells me before she hangs up.

‘And I’ll fly over for the wedding,’ I promise. With my three-month-old baby. The thought stops me in my tracks.

‘We’ll see,’ she says. ‘We’ll see.’

*

‘It’s due
when
?’

‘Mid August is my best guess. Of course, without knowing the exact date of your last period, it is only a guess. They’ll be able to give you a more accurate date at your scan.’

Which will also be sooner than I’d thought. According to my doctor, I’ve missed my twelve week appointment, and the one she’s just this moment booking will probably be nearer to the scheduled twenty week scan. By her reckoning, and based on the very embarrassing measurement of my belly a few minutes ago, I’m at least four months’ pregnant. Maybe more.

No wonder the morning sickness has been so bad. No wonder I’m putting on so much weight.

Seems I can’t get anything right these days.

‘But everything’s OK, right? With the baby? I mean, missing the scan and not seeing a midwife until now ... It’s not a problem, right?’

My GP is a kind and sensitive woman in her late fifties. She doesn’t know me very well – I’m rarely ill – but she picks up on the anxiety in my voice.

‘You are perfectly healthy, Miss Hill,’ she says reassuringly. ‘Your blood pressure is fine, the baby’s heart rate sounds just right. Do you feel well? Have you had any problems?’

I almost burst out laughing. Any problems? Where should I start?

I tell her about the sickness and the tiredness, which she confirms is completely normal. I’m surprised to hear my blood pressure is normal, though. Who’d have thought I could sail through all this relatively unscathed.

Health-wise, at least.

‘Will the father be able to attend the scan with you?’ the doctor asks, typing fast into her computer.

Not likely. Unless some miracle occurs in the next seven days …

I think my miracle days are over.

‘He might be able to,’ I tell her vaguely. ‘Depends on other commitments.’

She prints out the appointment slip and hands it to me, smiling gently but not meeting my eyes. ‘I see by your notes you have another child, a teenage daughter?’

I nod. I’m guessing her notes tell her a lot more besides. For instance, that the teenage daughter in question has also just become a new mum herself.

‘Well.’ She stands and brushes invisible specks off her tweed skirt. ‘I wish you the best of luck with everything. And if you need anything else, you know where we are.’

Out in the reception area I’m struck momentarily by a familiar lurching of my stomach. The sickness will pass soon, she said. I’m almost at the end of that phase. Well, I’ll believe
that
when I see it. With Lipsy I was sick until the very last month. But I’ve come prepared: I have mints in my bag and lipstick and blusher to repair the damage to my face and my breath. By the time I emerge from the doctor’s surgery, I’m minty-fresh and ready to go.

Which is just as well, because waiting right there on the pavement outside the surgery is my mother.

‘I thought we were meeting in town?’ I say, after I’ve given her a hug hello and told her how well she’s looking. Which is not a word of a lie. My mother is positively glowing.

‘I saw your car parked outside and thought I’d wait for you,’ she says.

‘But what are you doing here?’

‘Just passing by,’ she tells me airily.

‘But ... now we have two cars,’ I point out lamely. I’m thrown, finding her here. Just passing by doesn’t cut it, but I’m not sure how far I want to pry.

‘It doesn’t matter, Stella. We can go in yours and then you drop me back here later.’ She tucks her arm through mine and guides me towards my beaten up old wreck of a car.

‘Well, OK. If you’re sure. Your car’s a bit more luxurious, though. Maybe we should take yours. As it’s here and all.’

‘But I’m rubbish at parking,’ she points out, and I laugh, noticing that her late-model Corsa is indeed parked at a very odd angle. I wouldn’t like to be parked next to it, that’s for sure.

Her invitation to meet for lunch totally caught me off guard. She’s hardly spoken to me since the non-wedding; apart from bumping into her when I’m looking after Phoenix she might as well have left the country. I saw the invitation as an olive branch. It might just mean she’s forgiven me for ruining her big day as the mother of the bride. Because it was, of course, all about her.

I was tempted to say no. I hardly get any time to myself these days, and I’m completely run off my feet. When I’m not working I’m looking after Phoenix – in effect I have two full-time jobs. Lipsy went back to work earlier than any of us expected, claiming it was her right ‘as a woman’ to return to her job the way any man would. I can’t argue with her logic, but I can – and do – argue with her expectation that I will work as an unpaid childminder for the foreseeable future.

‘It’s good practice for you, Mum,’ she tells me whenever I complain, wafting perfume around her head or plastering on her lipstick. Then, with a kiss for Phoenix and another for me, she skips out of the door, the very epitome of the twenty-first century, have-it-all woman.

As my mother straps herself in and checks her hair in the passenger mirror, I take a deep breath and say, ‘So, you were at the doctors too, were you?’ and brace myself for the response. I’m not good at personal conversations with my mother. I’m trying to be better, but there’s some kind of knowledge barrier going on there. That is, I’d rather not delve too deeply into her problems because they always seem to have a way of turning into my problems. It sounds selfish. It
is
selfish. It’s also completely and unfortunately true.

She’s been better since Dad came home, though. And the two of them seem happier than ever before, so I can’t complain, can I? Even if they are almost too happy, like a pair of lovebirds on heat.

‘No,’ she says, clearly lying through her teeth. ‘I was just passing. Like I said.’

I give her a kiss on the cheek – a reward for having the decency to lie to me and keep me out of whatever it is she’s up to. With my mum and dad it’s best to operate on a need-to-know basis, and most of the time I really don’t need to know.

Lunch is pancakes in John Lewis’s cafe, sitting on the glass-fronted balcony watching Milton Keynes’ dedicated shoppers file past underneath.

‘You want to go easy,’ my mother says, watching me pour sugar on top of my pancake. ‘All that eating for two stuff isn’t true, you know. With your build, not to mention your age, you’ll have a hell of a job getting the extra weight off when the baby’s born.’

‘Let’s talk about something else, shall we?’ I answer through gritted teeth. ‘How are you and Dad getting on?’

‘You’re really interested?’

‘Of course I am!’ I’m hurt that she’s so surprised. ‘Of course I’m interested, Mum. I want you both to be happy. You know that.’

She smiles radiantly and pats my hand. ‘Oh, we are. We are. Very happy. You know,’ she says, her eyes going all dreamy and unfocused, ‘he’s a different man since he came out of prison.’

‘Shh,’ I tell her, looking around the cafe.

‘I’m not ashamed of him, Stella, and neither should you be.’

I glare at her across the table. ‘I’m not ashamed. But neither do I want to discuss
prison
in the middle of John Lewis.’

She shrugs, and carries on. ‘Well, he’s a changed man. More attentive. More loving. And in the bedroom department–’

‘So, how’s your pancake?’ I blurt out. Anything but the bedroom department, please!

‘You’re such a prude,’ she laughs. ‘We’re not ancient, Stella. We do still have sex, you know.’

‘OK, then. This is just getting weird now. I’m not having this conversation, so either change the subject or I’m leaving.’

‘Oh, Stella,’ my mum sighs, but at least she’s stopped talking about sex. Oh no, I spoke too soon.

‘Well, if you must know, that was why I was at the doctor’s this morning.’

I’m groaning now. A great, long groan, with my legs stretched out under the table and my head thrown back in the uncomfortable chair. Why, oh why do I fall into this situation every time? I try to block out her voice but it isn’t easy. Certain words get through. ‘Drying up’ are two that I can’t escape from, and ‘lubricant’ is another. ‘There’s lots you can do about it, according to the nurse,’ she says defensively, as though I’ve implied there isn’t.

I tuck into my pancake regardless. No point starving myself just because my mother doesn’t know suitable lunch topics from Adam. She watches me squirt on extra lemon juice and sprinkle yet more sugar, then she sighs again, shrugs her shoulders, and looks away. I should just leave well alone now. We’re out of the danger zone, after all. There’s only an afternoon of shopping to get through, and that can’t be too bad. Even with my mother.

But that’s the other thing about my relationship with her. I just don’t know when to keep my mouth shut.

‘It’s not surprising he feels the need to keep you happy in the “bedroom department”, though, is it?’ I say between mouthfuls.

‘And why’s that?’ asks my mum quietly.

‘Well, you know. With everything that’s gone on.’

The reason I miss the danger signs is, I’m stuffing my face. By the time the frosty atmosphere penetrates my sugar-induced trance, it’s too late. My mother’s face is white, despite the carefully applied make-up, and her fingers are clenched into fists on the table in front of me.

‘You mean,’ she says, icily, ‘because of the affair.’

‘That’s not exactly what I meant, no,’ I tell her, swallowing quickly. ‘I just meant, oh, you know. Stuff.’

‘Stuff. Well, that’s just typical of you, Stella. Why bother to come up with a proper explanation? Just shut me down and hope I go away. That’s what you always do, isn’t it? Just like you did to …’

She clamps her mouth shut suddenly and looks away, but not before I’ve imagined the words she didn’t say.

Just like you did to Paul.

I come out fighting.

‘Don’t have a go at me,’ I snap back, ‘just because you made a mistake that Dad had to pay for. What happened between Paul and me has got nothing to do with it. Anyway, all I meant was, it’s not surprising that he feels he’s got to keep you satisfied now. Wouldn’t want the same thing to happen again, is all. There’s no need to jump down my throat because of it.’

‘For your information, I didn’t have an affair with your father’s accountant for the sex. It was far more complicated than that.’

She hisses sex so loudly the mother on the next table, feeding her baby some kind of green goo, looks up and glares. I shoot her an apologetic glance.

‘Mum, will you keep your voice down, please? Do we have to do this here? Do we have to do it at all, in fact?’

‘You started it,’ she says sulkily.

‘Yes. I did. And I wish I hadn’t opened my mouth now, OK? Anyway, you were the one who brought up your love life, not me. What you and Dad get up to is none of my business. I’m not interested. You did what you did, and Dad went to prison to protect you from the scandal.’

Not for the first time I wonder what on earth attracted my mum to Dad’s seriously dodgy accountant. Oh, I’ve made all the jokes – his eye for figures, checking out the bottom line. They weren’t funny then and they’re not funny now. I lost my father for eighteen months thanks to my mum’s insecurity and his misplaced desire to be the hero.

But at least they are making it work now. I suppose I should be grateful for that. At least one couple have managed to get it right.

‘I’m happy that you’re happy, Mum,’ I tell her, reaching out to touch her hand, an olive branch of my own.

She purses her lips, but then nods and gives a little shrug. For all her faults, she can’t hold a grudge for long. Which is just as well, really.

‘Changing the subject,’ she says, ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Lipsy. I’m a bit worried about her, to be honest.’

‘What about my daughter,’ I ask, not so subtly reminding her of the hierarchy. Lipsy is
my
daughter, and it’s up to me to worry about her.

She slowly pours out a cup of tea, then sips it, looking out over the balcony to the shoppers below. This is my mother’s domain, this state of the art shopping centre with its glass walls and marble seating, high-tech lighting and row upon row of retail outlets offering escape and excitement. This lunch was supposed to be a quick refuelling exercise before hitting the stores to buy yet more stuff for Phoenix. Now I fear it’s heading in a completely different direction.

‘It’s not right that Lipsy’s gone back to work so soon,’ she says, putting down her cup carefully. ‘Surely you agree?’

I shrug. ‘I’ve noticed that I’m babysitting Phoenix so often I might as well offer to adopt him,’ I say, faking a laugh.

Ha, ha. Funny joke. I’ll be laughing on the other side of my face in a few months, right?

My mother gives me a look that’s hard to read. ‘You were the same, you know. When you had Lipsy. Your dad and I, we ended up doing the lion’s share of it.’