The Year of Taking Chances (10 page)

‘Saffron Flint?’

A friendly-faced nurse with a blonde ponytail scanned the waiting area.
Her eyes fell on Saffron, hauling herself up from the plastic seat with exaggerated care, and she rushed over to help.
‘Easy there.
Can you walk?’

‘I can walk, I’m just .
.
.
’ She couldn’t quite bring herself to say the words out loud initially.
‘I’m worried I’m losing my baby,’ she said, a
sob in her throat.

‘Let’s get you in here,’ the nurse said, guiding her into a cubicle and pulling the curtain shut.
‘Lie down on the bed, that’s it, and make yourself comfortable.
Is
anyone with you?
Can I call someone for you?’

Saffron shook her head, wishing her sister Zoe wasn’t ten thousand miles away in Perth, wishing that Max was there to hold her hand.
‘I’m on my own.’
It had never felt
more true.

Once she’d described what had happened, the nurse asked her to pull down her trousers a little way, then produced what looked like a small microphone connected to a speaker.
‘I’m just going to listen for a heartbeat,’ she said, ‘but don’t be alarmed if we don’t hear anything, as you’re still early along in the pregnancy.
Sometimes the heartbeat can’t be detected until later on, but let’s just see.’

She pressed the end of the microphone thing quite hard against Saffron’s belly, just above the line of her knickers.
The speaker made a crackling sound, and then a faint swishing was
audible, an underwater sort of noise.
No heartbeat, though.
Oh God.
Saffron shut her eyes, not wanting to see pity or sorrow in the nurse’s eyes.
She didn’t think she could bear it.

The nurse moved the microphone to a different position.
Again came the crackling and then the watery ssshh-shhh sound.
Still no heartbeat.
But then .
.
.

Saffron breathed in sharply as she heard it.
A faint but distinct rhythmic beating, fast as a galloping horse.
Ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom.

She opened her eyes.
‘Is that the baby?’
she asked, filling with a sudden, unexpected euphoria.
Little grape!
You’re still there!

‘Sounds like a baby to me,’ the nurse said, smiling back at her.
‘We’ll give you an ultrasound too, just to make sure everything looks okay, and maybe get you to stay in
for tonight, to keep an eye on the bleeding, and that bumped head.’

Saffron wanted to hug her with relief.
The baby’s heart was beating.
The grape was alive!
It was only then that she realized just how frightened she’d been, how desperately
she’d wanted to hear that heartbeat.
‘Thank you,’ she managed to say, leaning back against the pillows.
The galloping sound was still ringing in her ears as the nurse bustled
away.
‘Thank you,’ she said again, this time in a whisper meant only for the grape.

The ultrasound was amazing.
It took her breath away.
Seeing that tiny kidney-bean-shaped body in grainy black-and-white there on a screen and watching its small, jerky movements felt like magic,
some kind of miracle.
That little bean was her son or daughter.
Her actual baby!
She and Max had created this brand-new tiny person, and there it was, growing and changing, alive.
Until that moment
she’d never completely believed in the notion of this creature actually existing – having a smile, a personality, freckles maybe, or long legs and a cute bottom like Max.
Now look at
it: a bobbing seahorse, a real tiny baby.
Her baby.
Hello you
, she thought.
Hello little baby
.

Her doubts fell away in a single second.
Of course she could look after this baby.
She
wanted
to look after the baby.
Why had she even questioned herself?

The words of her New Year fortune-cookie came back to her suddenly:
Have courage!
Mistakes can become adventures
, and she felt tears in her eyes suddenly.
Maybe there was some truth in
that after all.

‘Would you like me to print you off a picture?’
the nurse asked.

‘Yes, please,’ Saffron said.
A picture of her baby.
Yes, she would like that very much.

Then her euphoria dimmed slightly as she realized something.
Something really important.
If she was going to keep the baby – and she was – then she really had to tell Max now.
She
absolutely had to.
Didn’t she?

It took two whole terrifying days before Spencer’s concussion subsided and he began sounding more like himself.
How Gemma sobbed with thankfulness when she heard him list
every player in the top half of the Premier League to the doctor, correctly answer what year it was and name the Prime Minister (then add what a doofus Spencer thought he was.
Yep.
Her husband was
back).
This adroit performance, along with the brain scans, reassured the doctors that his head injuries were superficial and that there wouldn’t be any long-lasting problems.
So that was the
first enormous milestone passed, and one they were all heartily glad to see the back of.
Then came another week on tenterhooks as he underwent operations (‘Bolting him back together,’
the consultant had said cheerfully) and all sorts of tests.
The good news was that the doctors thought there’d be no permanent physical damage, either.
‘He’s been very
lucky,’ the consultant told her.

Lucky?
thought Gemma.
Well, that was one way to describe it.

Spencer needed to be in hospital for two weeks overall, lying flat on his back and drugged up with morphine and co-codamol the whole time.
She, meanwhile, functioned on automatic pilot, making
sure the children went to school every day with clean clothes and full stomachs, but spending the rest of the time at her husband’s bedside, holding his hand and doing her best to cheer him
up.
Her car became a kind of decompression chamber where she’d sit and sob after visits, the only place she could really let go, apart from late at night when Will and Darcey were asleep.

Anyway.
He was home now, and even if life wasn’t remotely normal again, she had to stay positive.
It could have been worse.
Much worse.
As it was, he would have to wear an ankle-cast for
eight weeks and a back-brace for four months while his fractured vertebrae healed.
After all that, he’d still need lots of physio before he could even think about running or playing football.
No driving for six weeks.
Mild stretches and gentle walks were to be encouraged, but nothing more strenuous.
‘What about sex?’
Spencer asked anxiously.
(Of course he did.
The subject
was uppermost in his mind about 99 per cent of his waking hours, by Gemma’s reckoning.)

‘It’s probably best to give it a few weeks,’ the doctor had replied.
‘You’re due to come back and see us in a fortnight, so we can discuss that then.’

‘A
fortnight
?’
Spencer had never looked so gutted in the whole time Gemma had known him.
In fact he had never been so miserable, full stop.

Once back at home, Gemma had fondly imagined tender nursing scenes where she mopped her husband’s brow and fed him chicken soup, and he in turn gazed lovingly back at her, overcome with
gratitude.
But the reality was that he spent whole days slumped on the sofa, watching mindless television or locked in battle on the Xbox, glassy-eyed and unresponsive, resisting all Gemma’s
efforts at conversation, unless to complain that the sturdy neoprene back-brace was uncomfortable and bringing him out in a rash.
He also complained that he was too thirsty, too hot, too bored, too
much in pain – everything, in short.
Mindful of the doctors’ advice that gentle exercise would help speed the recovery of his back, Gemma tentatively suggested going for walks when the
rain cleared, a stroll to The Partridge for lunch, even a spot of gardening.
He turned his nose up at everything, though, barking that he wasn’t feeble-minded, he wasn’t a bloody
pensioner yet, he didn’t want to go for a fucking
walk
.

He was bad-tempered with the children as well, told them they were too noisy and snapped at them for the slightest thing.
A few evenings after he came home Gemma and Darcey were sitting at the
kitchen table together, making appliqué birds to sew onto one of Darcey’s T-shirts, when they heard Spencer bollocking Will about something or other.
‘Why doesn’t Daddy
like
us any more?’
Darcey whispered, anxiety shining in her large brown eyes.

The question pierced right through Gemma’s heart.
‘He does like you – he
loves
you, sweetheart – he’s just fed up, that’s all.
He’ll be better
soon,’ she soothed helplessly.

Thirteen-year-old Will was more succinct.
‘Dad’s being a total prick,’ he growled later that evening when she went up to say goodnight.
There was a wild fury about him that
Gemma hadn’t seen since he was a tantrum-throwing toddler, but she could detect hurt, too.

‘Don’t say that about your dad,’ she replied with automatic loyalty.
Upsetting his daughter and calling his son a loser might not be the sort of behaviour that would win
Spencer any Dad-of-the-Year awards, but she knew he was like a wounded animal, lashing out at those he loved.
‘Give him a bit of time,’ she said.
‘He’ll be back to normal
soon.’

That night in bed she hooked a leg over Spencer’s and rolled closer to him, hoping that some wifely love might go a little way to soothe his tortured mood.
Yet for the first time ever in
the history of their relationship he shuffled away, muttering that he had a terrible headache.
She lay there stunned, unable to believe her ears.
Usually she only had to raise an eyebrow at her
husband for him to leap on her with lusty enthusiasm.
Through illness, hangovers, broken nights’ sleep when the children were tiny, he’d never once turned her down.

‘It
will
get better, Spence,’ she whispered into the darkness, feeling desperately sorry for him.
‘I promise it will.’

But no answer came.
And the words seemed to echo around her head, as if mocking her naivety.

Gemma felt conflicted about leaving Spencer the following Monday to go and have lunch with her dad, as was their custom, but her mother-in-law came over instead and she knew
he’d be waited on hand and foot in her absence.
Besides, she was dying for a big old squeeze from her dad.
The two of them had always been close, but even more so after Karen, Gemma’s
mum, flaked out and left the family for Carlos, the Ibizan waiter she’d fallen for on holiday, back when Gemma was eight.

Left to bring up his daughter and three sons single-handedly, Barry Pepper had valiantly done everything in his capacity to fill the space of two parents.
He’d mastered the vagaries of the
washing machine and the never-ending filthy sports kits; he’d shepherded them all to school on time, in just about the right uniform; he’d learned to cook from scratch; bought a bouncy
Labrador, Sultan (‘Sultan Pepper, it’s a joke – do you get it?’); and even mastered an epic roast dinner by the time the first Christmas came round.
Of course Gemma missed
her mum – who drifted back to the UK periodically with an enviable tan and new tattoos – especially when it came to embarrassing things like needing a bra and her first period, but
Barry coped admirably, roping in his sister Jan whenever womanly advice was required.
As for boyfriends, when Gemma started dating and bringing boys back home, having three big brothers and an
over-protective father in the police force didn’t half sort the wheat from the chaff.

Her dad still lived in Stowmarket, where he’d been a policeman for years until a knee injury forced him into early retirement.
Now he was his own boss, working as a double-glazing fitter,
and he and Gemma had got into the very nice habit of having lunch every Monday.
They would go to the pub together – always the same table in The White Horse – and eat pie and chips, her
with a Coke, him with half a bitter, and catch up on the world.
Gemma would do anything for her dad, and vice versa.

It wasn’t until she rang the doorbell of 93 Partington Road, the house she’d grown up in, that she was struck by the feeling that something looked different.
After closer
consideration, she realized that the living-room windows had been cleaned – a rare enough occurrence for this to be instantly noticeable – and the small front garden had been smartened
up, too, so that the dustbin was now tidily in one corner rather than blocking the path.
There was also an ornamental blue pot of winter pansies beside the door.

Gemma stared at those winter pansies suspiciously.
Her dad’s taste in plants was for wild and rangy specimens – big bristling shrubs, sweet peas romping up a bamboo wigwam, blowsy
scented red roses with velvety petals.
He was not a man who would ever have voluntarily bought a pot of prissy winter pansies, let alone display it proudly outside his own home.
So where had it
come from?

‘Gems!
Hello, my love, come in,’ he said, answering the door just then.
Barry Pepper was tubby and balding these days, more Danny DeVito than Ryan Gosling, but had the kindest face
of anyone she knew, and gave the best hugs ever.
As he put his arms around her now, she felt the comforting flannel of his shirt against her and breathed in his usual soapy scent, feeling a million
times better already.
God, she needed this.

Then she froze.
A woman with streaky blonde hair and a sage-green fleece had appeared behind Barry and was giving Gemma a toothy smile.
In an instant Gemma knew how the pansies by the door had
materialized.

‘Hello,’ said the woman eagerly.
‘I’ve been dying to meet you.
I’ve heard
all
about you!’

‘Hi,’ said Gemma, extricating herself from her dad’s embrace.
Her first feeling was of dismay.
Not today
, she thought, trying not to sigh.
I just wanted him to myself
today
.

‘Ah.’
Barry looked slightly shifty.
‘My two favourite girls.
Gemma, this is Judy.
Judy, my daughter Gemma.’

Gemma tried to catch her dad’s eye.
And Judy is .
.
.
?
But he seemed in a hurry to find his jacket all of a sudden, and turned away to unhook it from the peg.
That was when Gemma
noticed the new coat rack up on the wall, and that someone had changed the pictures around.
Instead of the faded old map of Stowmarket that had hung above the hall radiator for as long as she could
remember, there was now a bland print of brightly coloured anemones in a clip-frame.
As for the small black-and-white wedding photo of her parents that had stood on the small wooden table forever,
that had vanished too, replaced by a brass bowl holding an arrangement of pine cones.
What the hell .
.
.
?

Judy was advancing, hand outstretched, teeth exposed in another smile.
‘Lovely to meet you after all this time.’

‘You too,’ Gemma replied reluctantly, shaking Judy’s hand in a very British sort of way.
Bang went her heart-to-heart with her dad then, she thought.
She’d been looking
forward to the chance to unburden some of her thoughts to him, have a moan, have a cry, even.
Knowing Dad, he’d have her laughing by the time they’d scraped their plates clean;
he’d be taking the mickey out of her parallel parking, or doing impressions of her brother Luke’s new girlfriend.
She hadn’t counted on having to share him with fleece-wearing
Judy.

She tried to get a grip.
Her dad was a grown man, he didn’t need to live his life around Gemma or ask her permission for a new girlfriend.
After a deep breath, she plastered on her best
bright smile.
‘Are we ready then, Dad?
Judy, are you joining us for lunch?’

Judy’s face lit up.
‘I’d love to,’ she said, pulling on a big red Puffa jacket and stuffing her feet into Uggs.
‘What a treat!’

It wasn’t as if Barry had been single the entire time since Gemma’s mum had abandoned them for her new life in the sun.
When Gemma and her brothers left home, they
had made a concerted effort to force their dad out on the dating scene, signing him up to a dating agency and scouring lonely-hearts columns on his behalf.
There had been relationships with
Marjorie (two months – dreary old drip), Aisling (bawdy and fun, but not settling-down material – three months) and one very nice lady called Venetia whom they all adored, right until
she vanished with a load of Barry’s valuables, never to be seen again.

And now there was Judy.

‘So,’ Gemma said conversationally, as she and her dad waited to order at the bar.
Judy was already sitting down, flicking through a newspaper someone had left behind.
‘Where
did you two meet then?’

He beamed.
‘I did her windows for her, first few weeks of January.
We got chatting and .
.
.
that was that.’
He fiddled with a Carlsberg beer mat, spinning it between finger and
thumb.
‘The thing was, I was sitting at home on New Year’s Eve, on me tod, and .
.
.’