The Year of Taking Chances (15 page)

A letter was the answer, Saffron decided.
Her attempt at telling Max about the baby face-to-face hadn’t worked, what with the whole unexpected girlfriend-on-knee
development in the pub.
Emailing him the news would be crass; a text even worse.
The thought of all the awkward silences that could unfold within a phone call – pregnant silences, even
– ruled out that possibility also.

A letter, then.
She could take her time over a letter, be clear, honest and articulate.
He would be able to read it in privacy and mull over his reaction before responding.
A letter was the
grown-up, measured way to do this, reminiscent of Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy and all the best love stories.
Now she just had to write the bloody thing.

Dear Max,
she began, stretched out on her sofa, still in pyjamas.
It was Sunday and a milky sunlight was filtering through the grimy windows of her flat.
Outside a car alarm had been
going off for almost an hour and she was starting to fantasize about taking a dirty great sledgehammer to it.
She chewed the end of her pen, trying to think how best to phrase the bombshell:

Ugh, no, that sounded bitchy.
She crossed out the last sentence just as her mobile started ringing.
Caller: Bunty.
On a Sunday morning, for heaven’s sake.
Hello?
Boundaries?
Sending the
call to voicemail, she returned to her letter:

She felt her heart constrict at the last word.
Surely nobody could be
indifferent
when told they were to be a parent, even if it was third time around for him?
Was it insulting of her
even to include the word in her list, implying that he was some kind of robot?

Her phone started ringing again.
Caller: Bunty.
With a flash of irritation, she pressed the Ignore button and threw the phone to the far end of the sofa.

Bunty was ringing again.
Aargh!
What was this woman’s problem?
Making a low growling in her throat, she grudgingly pressed the green button to accept the call.
This had better be
life-and-bloody-death, she thought.
Death, preferably.

‘Hello?’

‘Ah, Saffron.
Bunty here.
I just need—’

‘Bunty, it’s Sunday,’ Saffron said crossly, before she could stop herself.

‘Yes, dear, I know, but creativity doesn’t stop for a day off, does it?
I’ve had a wonderful idea for a new thing.
The Bunty Bra!
So many other people have done lingerie
collections, haven’t they, but the problem is: no boobs.
A couple of fried eggs in two scraps of lace – I mean, come on!
Let’s have some proper bosoms here.
And who’s got
the best knockers this side of Channel 5?
We both know it’s me.
So, I’ve been thinking.’

She drew breath and Saffron leapt in.
‘Bunty.
Let’s talk about this tomorrow.
I’m right in the middle of .
.
.
’ she glanced around for inspiration, her gaze landing on
her small, bare white feet at the end of the sofa, ‘ .
.
.
a pedicure.
I can’t chat now.
Send me an email and I’ll get back to you tomorrow morning.
Or maybe just talk to your
agent?’
Like a normal person would do?
Rather than badger your long-suffering PR person, who has completely zero interest in Bunty Bras?

‘She’s not answering her phone.’
Bunty tutted.
‘Sometimes I don’t know what I pay that woman for.
I
made
her, you know.
I made that agency what it
is.’

‘Bunty.’

‘Okay!
Pedicure, yes, got it.
I’ll email you.
I mean, I’m happy to do matching knickers too, obviously, but I think boobs are where it’s at.
Bunty’s Bouncers.
Bunty’s Baps.
No, too coarse.
Bunty’s Bosoms .
.
.
Anyway, you’re the expert, you can spin it for me.
So why don’t we—’

Saffron could swear that her blood was actually starting to fizz with irritation.
‘Bunty, I’m going now,’ she said loudly over the top of the braying voice.
‘Goodbye.’

She ended the call, feeling worn-out.
Bunty was like a steamroller on steroids.
No wonder she had got through so many husbands and love affairs.
Those poor men, honestly.

Back to the matter in hand: the letter.
But her phone was already buzzing with a text message,
Got it.
Bunty’s Boulder-Holders!!!!

‘Oh, go away, you madwoman,’ Saffron groaned, turning her phone off before any more inane messages could appear.

Peace restored, she picked up her pen again, determined to finish this time.

There.
She read it all through, changed a few words here and there, then copied it out in full, folded the paper neatly and put the letter in an envelope, ready to post the next day.
Excellent.
Well done, Saffron.
One important thing done.
Next up: something even more onerous.
In exactly one and a half hours she needed to be sitting down at her parents’ dining table in Essex for
Sunday lunch, and somehow she’d have to tell them as well.

‘Darling, come in.
You look well.
Oh!
Such a cold face.
It’s been so frosty lately, hasn’t it?
Dad thinks we’re going to get snow next week.
I’ve
been bubble-wrapping everything in the garden in readiness.’

‘Hi, Mum.’

‘Did you get here all right?
The roadworks have been terrible on the A12.
We were stuck in a jam there on Thursday for – what was it, Lorraine?
forty minutes?
– long enough,
anyway.
Dear me.
Anyway, come on in.
Kettle’s on.’

‘Thanks, Dad.’

Saffron’s older sister Eloise was in the kitchen, looking as if she had a cold, as usual – red nose, droopy face, tired eyes – as she peeled carrots.
Simon, her husband, was
leafing through the business section of the
Telegraph
at the table, but glanced up at Saffron’s entrance.
‘Ah!
The Londoner arrives.’

Simon was quirky and slightly odd, Saffron always thought.
He reminded her of a guinea pig, with his earnest dark eyes and short, tufty black fur – hair, rather.
He was up from his seat
now, all awkward and twitchy, as if he wasn’t sure whether to shake hands with her, kiss her cheek or attempt a light, barely touching hug.
She saved him the decision by hugging both her
sister and then him – like it or not, Simon.

‘Good to see you!’
Eloise said.
She was a financial adviser for a medium-sized chain of estate agents and terribly clever, always had been.
Oh!
You’re Eloise Flint’s
sister?
Really?
teachers would say, frowningly, to Saffron as she followed two years behind at school, unable to believe that daffy, dreamy Saffron could possibly share any DNA with pin-sharp,
test-acing Eloise.
Simon, meanwhile, did something boffiny in computing; Saffron had heard him explain his job several times to different people over the years, but still was none the wiser.
Even
with a gun to her head, she’d struggle to explain what, exactly, he did during the average day at work.

‘How are you?’
Eloise asked now, post-hug.

Well, I’m accidentally up the duff, since you ask, El.
‘Fine, thanks.
Busy, you know.’

‘Tell me about it.
Ten-hour days I’ve been working recently, trying to get our audits in.
My brain aches just thinking about Monday morning.’

Eloise’s brain must be like an enormous, bustling factory, Saffron thought: conveyor belts spinning, sparks flying from the mechanical cogs in constant motion, numbers shuttling like
synapses, lightning-fast.
Oh, to have a mind so efficient, so swift, so organized.

‘I saw that client of yours on
Masterchef
the other night,’ Lorraine Flint said, chopping Bramley apples for a crumble.
‘What’s her name?
The one with froggy eyes
who seems drunk all the time.
Booby or Barbie or something.’

‘Bunty Halsom,’ Saffron said without any enthusiasm.

‘Oh God, are you working with
her
?’
Eloise said with undisguised horror.
‘She was in
The Times
yesterday, some awful piece about her and her silly little dog.
I
was just saying earlier what a fright she is.
Wasn’t I, Sime?’

‘You were, and I agree.
Dreadful woman.’

‘You don’t have to tell me that,’ Saffron said, pulling a face.
She sat down, leaning forward somewhat so that her jumper bagged out, disguising her rounded belly.
Not that
anyone seemed to have given her a second look, for they were all too busy slagging off Bunty.

‘I mean, excuse my language, but she’s just such a publicity
whore
.
She really is.
Sorry, Mum, but nobody is forcing her to go on all these programmes, are they?’

‘I don’t know – Saffron might be,’ her dad said wryly.

‘Nobody’s forcing her,’ Eloise repeated.
‘She can’t get enough of the limelight.
Vile woman.
What have you been doing with her, Saff?’

Saffron explained, feeling, as she always did, that her career was something of a joke to her parents and Eloise.
Nobody had ever said it, but she knew they all thought running around after
celebrities and journalists was a silly, pointless kind of job, compared with the much more grown-up work of finance and science.
Yes, all right, Saffron felt like saying, but are your jobs
anywhere near as stressful as working with Bunty effing Halsom?
I very much doubt it.

Conversation moved around to the safe topic of Zoe and how much they all missed her.
Then, once lunch was dished up, gravy poured, everyone around the table poised to dig in, Eloise cleared her
throat and sat up a little straighter.
‘I know you’ve all been waiting to ask,’ she began, a catch in her voice, ‘so I’ll just come out and say it.
No, the IVF
didn’t work this time.
I’m not pregnant.
So there we go.’
A tear dropped onto her plate and Simon put his arm around her.