The Year of Taking Chances (12 page)

Gemma snorted.
‘I’ll believe that when I see it.’
She drained her coffee and checked her watch, then got to her feet.
‘I’d better go,’ she said, winding a
fluffy silver scarf around her neck and tucking it into her coat.
Then she paused.
‘So he didn’t try it on with you, then?’

Caitlin shook her head, unable to help feeling a twinge of disappointment.
Had the monobrow and moustache scared him off?
She ran a finger self-consciously along her now-bleached upper lip.
‘If he’s the village Casanova, then maybe I had a lucky escape,’ she said with a little laugh as she showed Gemma to the door, but her words lacked conviction.
Whatever his
reputation, Harry seemed lovely.
She couldn’t help hoping that their paths would cross again soon.

Saffron was feeling the heat of having Bunty Halsom as her client.
Remembering her friend Kate’s advice, she’d been determined to go in hard, making it clear from
the outset that she had a busy client list and wasn’t about to be Bunty’s new patsy.
None of her tricks had worked, though.
Not one.
Whenever she tried keeping Bunty waiting in the
agency’s small reception while she finished sending out the new Yummy Mummy press release or whatever, Bunty lost patience and simply marched past the startled receptionist and through the
office, braying, ‘Saff!
I’m here, darling, what’s keeping you?
You didn’t forget about our meeting, did you?’

Then, when Saffron arranged a series of press interviews to herald Bunty’s forthcoming appearances on
Celebrity Masterchef
, she prepped her extensively beforehand on Tyler Starr,
the spiky gossip columnist known for winding up his subjects until they lost their cool.
But any hopes of keeping her client on a tight rein fell by the wayside as Tyler baited her with unexpected,
intrusive questions about plastic surgery, and Bunty’s complexion turned increasingly brick-red with ill-disguised irritation.
Before Saffron could leap in and rescue her, the interview came
to an early end, with Bunty throwing a glass of water over Tyler and storming out in an indignant huff.
Of course the very next day the main article in Starr’s column was spiteful speculation
about how much cosmetic work Bunty had had done.
‘Would you pay to look like THIS?’
sneered the headline above an unflattering picture of her, with mottled cheeks and at least three
chins, squeezed into a too-tight dress at some party or other.
(‘The little bastard,’ Bunty hissed savagely.
‘He’ll get a slap in the chops if I ever see
him
again.’)

And even though Saffron thought she had spelled it out perfectly clearly – several times – that she had better things to do than run around picking up dry-cleaning or organizing
pet-sitters for Teddy, Bunty’s ridiculously over-indulged teacup Pomeranian, guess what?
It didn’t make a blind bit of difference.
Every day there’d be a new email or answerphone
message that made Saffron’s fists clench in rage:

On and on it went, a never-ending stream of vapid, shallow, self-obsessed requests.
Politely at first, and then with incremental degrees of curtness, Saffron tried pointing out that none of
these tasks fell within the remit of her job, but she might as well have been talking to the wall.
You had to admire someone with such determination, really.
Admire them, or hire an assassin to
deal with them, anyway.
As for her new client’s self-esteem, Saffron had never met anyone with such stratospheric confidence levels.
Look at Bunty, deluding herself that she and Mercedes were
the perfect client match, when in reality she would be far better suited to advertising a cheap-and-cheerful Fiat.
And at five foot two, with knockers that could smother a man and a bum that needed
its own postcode, Bunty didn’t have a chance in hell of squeezing into any designer frocks.
Not that Saffron would dare burst her bubble by pointing this out.

Still, she was busy at least.
While Saffron was running around trying to keep her new client happy – and herself sane, if possible – she had little time to think about the tiny being
inside her, which had now apparently bloomed from the size of a grape to that of a fig, according to the pregnancy app she’d installed on her phone.
For something so small, it was certainly
having a big impact on her body.
Her limbs ached as if her bones had turned to lengths of lead piping.
Her eyelids felt so heavy she had to battle to force them open for the duration of her Tube
journey home.
Her diary – previously crammed with drinks, dinners and get-togethers with mates – became a blank wilderness as she made excuses and cancelled everything, due to zero
energy levels.

Once home, she would eat like a horse and then topple into bed by nine-thirty.
She had never slept so deeply or heavily in her life.
Oh, and the pregnancy dreams were absolutely crazy!
Just the
other night, she had dreamed she was in an operating theatre, in labour, pushing, pushing, PUSHING .
.
.
only for the doctor in green scrubs to pull out a Jack Russell from between her legs.
‘It’s a dog!’
the doctor announced, deadpan.
The weirdest thing was, instead of freaking out that she’d given birth to a fully grown dog, in her dream all Saffron was
worried about was whether to call him Jack or Russell.

‘Jack, of course,’ her sister Zoe laughed, when Saffron woke the next morning and Skyped her straight away in order to tell her about it.
‘That’s a really cute name for a
boy.
Hey, have you thought about names yet?’

Saffron smiled back at her sister’s tanned face on her laptop screen.
It was early evening in Australia, and the height of summer there.
Zoe was in a white halterneck vest-top, with a
ceiling fan whirring in the background, while Saffron was still in thermal pyjamas under an Arctic-tog duvet.

‘Not really,’ she replied.
‘I’ve got my twelve-week scan coming up in a few days, though.
I don’t know if I should find out if it’s a boy or a girl.
What
would you do?’

‘Oh, don’t find out,’ Zoe said at once.
‘Give yourself something to announce on the big day.’
She peered into the camera.
‘Christ, Saff, your boobs look
gargantuan in those pyjamas.
Jealous!’

‘I know,’ Saffron said, giggling despite herself.
‘I can’t stop looking at them.
I’m going to have to get a new bra, Double-Melon size.’

‘Fruity,’ said Zoe and wolf-whistled.
Then her face rearranged itself into something more serious.
‘Saff – have you said anything to El, yet?
Only I spoke to her the
other day and she was really down.
Gearing up to do another round of IVF apparently.
They’ve taken out a loan this time; she said it was their last chance.’

Saffron sighed, Double Melons forgotten, as a wave of guilt swept over her.
Poor Eloise.
She and her husband Simon were so desperate for a baby.
According to Mum, Eloise had even started going
to church and praying for a miracle.
How could Saffron bring herself to announce that oh, by the way, she was accidentally pregnant a few weeks into a new fling?
Impossible.
‘Not yet,’
she said glumly.
‘You and my friend Kate are the only ones who know so far.
I’m building up to Mum and Eloise next.’

‘What about the Jack Russell’s dad?
When are you going to mention it to him?’

‘I’m building up to that, as well,’ Saffron mumbled.

Ending the call a few minutes later, she dragged herself out of bed and into the small dingy bathroom.
The mirror showed a new swollen silhouette to her belly that made her feel like a softly
ripening fruit.
Hey – and this was the second morning on the trot that she hadn’t immediately sprinted out of bed in order to vomit.
Might this be the blooming, radiant stage of
pregnancy that she’d read about?
She very much hoped so.

Her sister’s question about Max had struck a chord and she turned on the shower feeling thoughtful.
Zoe was right: she had to let him know, and the sooner, the better.
Today in fact.
Yes,
today she would contact him and arrange to meet.
It was only fair that she put him in the picture.
If he wanted nothing to do with the baby, then so be it.
She was prepared for that reaction; it
was a real possibility.

But there was another possibility, too – that his face would light up in delight, that he’d take her hand and gaze into her eyes.
It could happen, couldn’t it?
And then
he’d understand why she’d been so offhand about the kite-surfing, why she’d gone quiet on him since Christmas.
Whoa,
he’d say.
I wasn’t expecting
that.

Nor me,
she’d reply.
I have to admit, I was kind of surprised, too.

Those beautiful dark features of his would scrunch up as he thought.
It’s unorthodox, I guess, but we could make it work, couldn’t we?
The two of us, parents together?

She washed her hair, trying on the fantasy for size.
Mummy, Daddy and baby, living happily ever after.
It felt like cheating somehow, as if they’d be leapfrogging a whole line of
traditional relationship milestones.
She barely knew Max.
She had no idea about his favourite film, the books he liked, whether he preferred fish and chips to a curry, if he had siblings or
allergies, let alone how he’d man up in a screaming, bloody childbirth situation.
As for living together, for all she knew, he was a complete lazy slob who left dirty clothes on the floor and
the toilet seat up; a middle-of-the-tube toothpaste-squeezer, who’d never cleaned an oven in his life.
He’d been married before, after all.
There had to be a good reason he wasn’t
married now.

She squirted some of her favourite banana conditioner into her palm as she pondered this, but in the next moment felt her stomach contract at the smell.
Oh no.
Not again.

Dripping wet and naked, she burst from the shower unit, just in time to throw up into the loo.
Uggggh!
And again.

Shivering and spitting and wiping her nose and mouth, she knelt there on the cold lino, her optimism faltering as she waited for the nausea to pass.
Who was she trying to kid?
Max was already a
father – he’d been there, twice over.
If he had any sense, he’d steer well clear of being saddled with a vomiting new baby-mother.
And who could blame him?

Later that morning Saffron leaned back at her desk and read through her email again.
That would do, she decided.
She sounded perfectly normal and grown-up.
Hey, we shagged like lusty nymphs
several times last year, and then I went a bit weird on you, but see how civilized and mature I can be now!

Something like that anyway.
Well, it was the best she could do, and now her phone was ringing and she had a million other things she should be getting on with.

‘Hello, Phoenix PR, Saffron speaking?’

‘Saffron, there you are – this is Bunty.
I’ve just had a splendid idea about a book.
Maybe a memoir, or possibly a sort of self-help thing, for women who want to be more like
me .
.
.
’

Only half-listening, she pressed ‘Send’ on her email and watched the screen change.
Sending .
.
.
Sent
.

‘.
.
.
So if you could set up a few meetings with publishers for me, start the ball rolling, that would be marvellous, dear.
My Bountiful Life
– that’s one possible
title.
Or
Halsom Is As Halsom Does
– you know, a little play on my surname.
Thought that was rather witty, don’t you?
Saffron?
Are you still there?’