The Year of Taking Chances (26 page)

The relief was enormous.
She’d let her crazy brain run away with her for a mad moment, that was all.
Sorry, Mum.
Must have got the wrong end of the stick, after all.

‘I was probably reading too much into it,’ she said lightly.
‘Imagination getting the better of me.’

‘Yeah,’ Gemma agreed.
‘And these things do get lost.
I couldn’t tell you where Will and Darcey’s birth certificates are right now; probably still in a box, waiting
to be unpacked somewhere.’
She smoothed the fabric carefully, before pinning another piece of the paper pattern to it.
‘You can always order a replacement anyway.’

‘Mmm,’ Caitlin said, turning back to her keyboard and typing.
No
, she thought.
There would be no ordering of a replacement, no more digging around.
She would let sleeping dogs
lie and try to forget she’d ever had any doubts.

‘This has been the strangest few days,’ Bunty mused, waggling her still-wet, shiny red nails as if playing an invisible piano.
‘Strange, but actually rather
good in the end, don’t you think?
I don’t know about you, but I feel like a new woman.’

It was a week later, and their last evening together in Baker’s Cottage, and Saffron and Bunty were still up, even though it was past midnight and the boiler had long since clicked off.
Wrapped in dressing gowns, with creamy green facepacks and freshly painted nails, and an almost empty New York cheesecake box nearby, there was a relaxed, companionable atmosphere, with neither of
them in any hurry to end the night.
They’d already polished off fish and chips, courtesy of Bunty, who’d driven out to Longwood, the nearest town, to pick them up, as well as the
cheesecake and several enormous packets of Kettle Chips, which she claimed had fallen into her basket in the shop.

‘It’s been great,’ Saffron said, glad of her extra-stretchy pyjama bottoms.
She wasn’t quite sure how much of her small bump was baby and how much was chips right now.
‘I could stay here forever, you know.’

She was only half-joking.
She’d come to Suffolk in search of a refuge, a bolthole in which to tuck herself away, far from her ordinary day-to-day life.
Despite it not turning out to be the
solitary, hermit-like few days she’d anticipated, she’d ended up laughing and enjoying herself more than she’d ever thought possible.
Hanging out with Gemma and Caitlin had been
great; she and Bunty had managed to get along without killing one another; and for the last few days Bunty had been spending a lot of time in The Partridge, flirting outrageously with Bernie, while
Saffron had laced up her hiking boots and set off into the unknown, walking for miles on her own in blissful peace, not thinking about anything other than taking one step after another.
In short,
it had been the break both of them needed.

‘I agree.
Glorious countryside,’ Bunty agreed, even though Saffron knew damn well she preferred her ‘countryside’ viewed through the window of a pub or car.
‘Lovely
people, too.
And there’s something about being out of London and away from all those grabby little show-offs and mucky, snooping journalists .
.
.
Well, it really clears the brain.’

‘Yes.
There’s space to think.’
Saffron had done a lot of that over the last few days, tramping up hills and through woodland, filling her lungs with the cool, fresh air.
Yesterday she’d even driven out to the coast and walked along the beach at Southwold, her hair flying up in the air, her ears ringing with the sound of the gulls.
While she wouldn’t
exactly say she’d come to terms with the prospect of an amnio, or really thought beyond getting the results of it, she’d made a temporary peace with the situation at least, accepting
there was nothing she could do right now but wait.

‘Plus, I’ve had a hoot this week with Bernie, and you and the girls,’ Bunty went on.
‘And isn’t my dress glorious?
I can’t wait to go out somewhere fabulous
in it.’

Gemma had dropped round the first of Bunty’s dresses that afternoon, and tears had actually glistened in Bunty’s eyes when she put it on and saw her reflection.
The vibrant
emerald-green fabric looked classy and expensive, and the garment was tailored so skilfully that it clung to all the right places, while skimming over the others.

A hush fell while Bunty turned sideways to examine her bum in the mirror; her bum, let it be said, that now looked deliciously rounded and pinchable, thanks to the seemingly magic contours of
the dress.
‘Wow, Bunty,’ Saffron couldn’t help blurting out.
‘It’s gorgeous.
You’re
gorgeous.’

For once Bunty was lost for words, as if the dress had worked an enchantment on her.
‘I
feel
gorgeous,’ she said eventually, then hugged Gemma and gave her an enormous
smacking kiss on the cheek.
‘Thank God I met you,’ she said, only half-joking.
‘I’ve never felt so womanly and .
.
.
well, desirable, frankly, in my life!’

Gemma looked as if she wanted to cry, too, and seeing them embrace gave Saffron a genuine glow of contentment.
She had made that happen, she thought proudly.

‘If Bernie sees you in the dress, he’ll probably propose to you on the spot,’ she teased now, stretching a slippered foot along the sofa to nudge Bunty.
Troy already seemed
like last year’s story, after Bunty and her lawyer had successfully seen off his attempts to smear her.
The legal team must have pulled out all the stops, because the sex tape had apparently
been destroyed as a result of their proceedings.

‘Bernie has asked me if we can .
.
.
you know.
See each other again, once I’m back in London,’ Bunty said, an unusually coy look on her face.

‘Really?
And what did you say?
Do you feel ready for a new relationship yet?’
Saffron hoped this wouldn’t be yet another case of her headstrong client leaping recklessly out of
the frying pan and straight into the fire.
Been there, done that too many times already.

‘Not really,’ Bunty admitted honestly.
‘But a fling would definitely put a spring in my step, if you know what I mean.
I bet he scrubs up a treat in a suit, too, don’t
you think?’

Saffron laughed.
‘I’m sure he does.’
She chose her words carefully.
‘Just promise me you’ll be more careful this time, all right?
I know he seems a nice guy and a
bit of fun.
But .
.
.
’ She broke off, unsure how much to say.
The client/PR exec boundaries had become blurred over the week.

‘But no more sex tapes – yep, got it.’
Bunty pulled a naughty-girl-at-the-head-teacher’s-office face and then reached forward to clink her empty wine glass against
Saffron’s cocoa mug.
‘The new, demure Bunty Halsom starts right here, right now.
I promise.’

Returning to her flat in London the next day, Saffron couldn’t help feeling as if she was crash-landing back down to earth.
There was nowhere to park near her flat, so
she had to cruise around all the side-streets, trying to find a space big enough to wedge her car (how she loathed parallel parking).
Then on her way up the High Street she was asked three times
for spare change by different men slumped in doorways on pieces of old cardboard.
When she finally reached her flat, she was greeted by a pile of junk mail, a dead plant in the kitchen and a
gargantuan spider in the bath.

It was a tip, as well.
She’d left in such a hurry that everything was all over the place – several self-help books her mum had lent her after that fateful Sunday lunch still dumped
on the side-table unread; piles of old newspapers waiting to be bagged up for the recycling box; two mugs growing beards of blue mould in the kitchen sink.
The washing basket was stuffed with dirty
clothes and the bed was unmade and rumpled.

She sorted through the mail in case there was any word from Max, but of course there was nothing.
A Jiffy bag with her mum’s handwriting on caught her eye, though, and she opened it to
find a tiny white Babygro, with a little hedgehog embroidered on the chest.
Saw this and couldn’t resist it
, her mum had written on a little card.
Hope you’re both keeping
well.
Lots of love, Mum and Dad xxx

A lump rose in Saffron’s throat at the word ‘both’.
Oh Mum,
she thought helplessly.
There’s so much I haven’t told you.
But where could she begin?

She laid the soft clean Babygro out on her lap, unfolding the teeny sleeves and legs.
It hardly seemed possible that her own baby, small and wriggly, might eventually be tucked into this
doll-sized garment.
If she had the baby, that was.
If they got that far.

She opened the next letter to see that it was from the hospital, with an appointment for her amniocentesis test in two and a half weeks’ time.
Here we go.
It was real.
It was
happening.

Maybe she should try contacting Max again.
She should probably just ring him, pin him down once and for all.
Well?
What do you think?
What have you got to say about this?

Soon, she told herself.
She’d do that really soon.

She picked up the Babygro and pressed it against her cheek.
‘We’ll get through this,’ she said aloud, clutching the tiny garment close as if a real baby was inside, needing
comfort.
‘Don’t worry.
We’ll be okay.’

And so real life swallowed her up again as if she’d never been away.
Back to work: writing press releases for Yummy Mummy baby foods (why was there no baby food called
Yummy Daddy?
she wondered churlishly, although she managed to refrain from emailing Head Office to enquire); trying to stir up the sludge in her brain to make creative contributions in team
strategy meetings; deflecting flack about one of the more stupid footballers she represented (arrested for taking all of his clothes off and ‘frolicking’, as the
Daily Mirror
put
it, with three semi-clad teenagers in the fountain in Trafalgar Square).

Bunty, meanwhile, seemed a reformed character.
Gone were the hourly phone calls and needy, attention-seeking emails.
She had come out of the Troy saga with her dignity intact for once, and had
gained much sympathy on social media and in the press, as far as Saffron could tell.
Someone had started a #TeamBunty hashtag on Twitter, and apparently Troy had been roundly booed by the other
customers when he walked into a Soho bar, if you believed the tabloid gossip columns anyway.
She wished she could care more about any of it.

Then, a few days later, Saffron was on the Tube, flicking through that morning’s
Metro
, when she turned the page to a fashion round-up from a glamorous black-tie party following a
TV magazine’s annual awards.
And there, right in the centre, was a large colour picture of Bunty looking sensational in Gemma’s emerald green dress.
BUNTY-LICIOUS
read the
caption underneath.

Oh, my goodness.
Did Gemma know about this yet?
She fired off a quick text, the minute she had a signal:

Gemma didn’t know?
Her phone wasn’t already ringing off the hook?
This was no good, thought Saffron to herself.
This was no good at all.
Major press coverage should automatically
equal major public interest – end of story.

Once in the office, Saffron got straight to work, bypassing her philandering soap actor who needed help with a cover story, and ignoring her whinging celebrity chef, Mario
Fratelli, who’d been stitched up with an incriminating drugs photo.
Oh, get over yourself, love, she thought briskly, opening up a new document and flexing her fingers.
I’ve got more
important people to help right now.
Then she began typing:

HOURGLASS DESIGNS
PRESS RELEASE

She paused, trying to remember what Gemma had said when talking about her work, then went on: