The Year of Taking Chances (32 page)

Well, Charlotte was certainly showing her true colours – mistrustful and paranoid until the last.
Saffron bestowed a dazzling smile on her, determined to teach her a lesson in
professionalism.
‘Of course.
And all the best,’ she said, holding crossed fingers behind her back.
‘It’s been fun.’

Then she turned and left Charlotte’s office for the very last time, and didn’t look back.

Saffron took the executive decision to give herself the rest of the day off.
After depositing the meagre contents of her desk back at home – her Violet and Mushy Pea
Pantone mugs, her stash of pistachio nuts and peppermint teabags, hand-cream tubes and all the personal thank-you cards she’d kept pinned up on her noticeboard – she packed a swimming
bag and went along to her local baths.
There she spent a most relaxing hour tanking up and down the pool while a group of elderly ladies in flowered bathing hats splashed about in the shallow end,
waving their arms around to the strains of 1980s pop hits in the name of Pensioner Aquarobics.
This is my new life
, she thought to herself, walking home with wet hair and the faint whiff of
chlorine emanating from her bag.
So far, so good.

She phoned Gemma later on to warn her against calling the office line, for fear of having a belated invoice fired off to her by an irate Charlotte.
‘Whoa!
You’ve quit?
Good for
you!’
Gemma exclaimed.
‘So what’s the plan now?’

‘The plan .
.
.
Well, I don’t know exactly yet, but I’m taking Bunty on as my first client and I’m going to move house, find somewhere in the sticks before the baby comes
along.’
She pulled a face, trying not to dwell on just how woolly and vague that all sounded.
‘But I was really ringing to say that I’ll have a bit more time on my hands for the
next few weeks.
Technically I’m not supposed to work with Bunty until she’s seen out her contract with the agency – a whole month away.
So if you want me to help you at all,
I’m a free agent.’

‘Oh, really?’
Gemma’s voice rose in pitch.
‘God, I need all the help I can get right now, Saff, especially since Spencer—’ She broke off.
‘Yes,
please
.
That would be totally bloody amazing.’

‘Great.
You’re on.
Just let me know what you need me to do.’

‘You superstar.
Thank you.
I could do with some good news.
Will it freak you out if I tell you I actually seriously love you?
I mean it!’

Saffron laughed.
‘You’re welcome.’
Was Gemma all right?
she wondered.
She sounded kind of manic.

‘Oh, and hey, this is just a totally random thought, but you could always come and stay here, if you want?
We’ve got plenty of room, if you don’t mind undecorated granny-chic,
that is.
We’ve set up a bit of an office, me and Caitlin, you’d be welcome to join us.’

Saffron paused for thought.
Stay in Larkmead?
She had made the offer assuming that she would tackle any work remotely, from her laptop in the flat, but the prospect of a return to the Suffolk
village was tempting.
Larkmead had become something of a haven for her this year.
She could immerse herself in Gemma’s business, pop over to her mum’s for Sunday dinner, indulge in
Rightmove fantasies about where to live next .
.
.

‘Sounds perfect,’ she said without needing to think about it any more.
‘Are you sure?
It won’t be until next week anyway, but I can always ring Bernie
and—’

‘Don’t be daft.
We’ve got room here, and it’s the least I can do after all your help.
Listen, I’d better go, I’ve got someone coming for a fitting in ten
minutes – a TV newsreader, can you believe?
You know where I am anyway, so just turn up whenever.
See you soon!’

‘See you soon.’

In for a penny, in for a pound, Saffron decided.
Without pausing to weigh it up, she rang the estate agent through which she rented her flat and briskly gave a month’s
notice, just like that.
Putting the phone down afterwards, she felt exhilarated by her own recklessness, as if she’d just crossed a rope bridge and cut it loose behind her.
No turning back
now.
She was doing this.

Besides, she’d never truly loved this flat, had she?
It was the place she’d come to, broken-hearted after the end of her marriage, the ‘this’ll-do,
handy-for-the-Tube’ flat that she had never bothered to decorate.
The very walls were papered with unhappy memories, the bedroom echoed with sighs.
She would find somewhere better and move
out, she vowed.
She’d like a garden, after living up in an apartment block with only one window that opened.
Fresh air and friendly neighbours.
A spare room that could be either a cheerfully
painted nursery or a crash-pad for visiting friends.

Carried along on a wave of energy, she began packing up.
She filled a suitcase with all the work clothes she could no longer squeeze into and wouldn’t be wearing again for a while, then
started filling a box with books.
Her eye was caught by the pile of self-help manuals that her mum had lent her when she was last there for that fraught Sunday dinner.
She still hadn’t opened
any of them, having just dumped them on a side-table when she returned.
Maybe she should use her newly acquired free time to read up on mindfulness and inner calm, she thought, lifting them up and
scanning their blurbs with a new sense of zeal and self-improvement.
Besides, if she .
.
.

Her train of thought faltered and promptly crashed into a siding, as she glimpsed what lay under the books.
Hold on a minute.
What the hell was
that
?

As if in a dream, she reached out and picked up the letter that must have been hidden there all along – several weeks now.
The letter she’d written to Max, telling him about the
pregnancy.
The letter that, as it turned out, she had never actually posted.

Her knees buckled, her mouth gaped open and she sank onto the sofa, stunned at this new discovery.
This changed everything.
There she’d been, assuming that Max hadn’t turned up to
the twelve-week scan because he wasn’t interested, when in actual fact he had no idea whatsoever that she was even pregnant.

‘Oh my God,’ she said aloud, her voice hoarse, her breath juddering.
All the anger and hurt she’d felt, and he didn’t even
know
.
Because she’d been so bloody
airheaded that she’d never managed to get the letter in the post!
How could she have been so thick?

She was holding the letter so tightly it was already crumpled in her grasp, and she began smoothing out the creases, before checking herself.
No.
It was too late to send this letter.
Way too
late.
She wouldn’t write another one, either, and risk it becoming lost in the post or undelivered, or falling from a postman’s sack into a muddy puddle and ending up in the nearest
dustbin.

The time had passed for leaving things to chance.
She couldn’t risk it any longer.
It was half-past three in the afternoon; it would take her about forty minutes to reach Max’s
office in Covent Garden.

Sod it.
Needs must.
She would go there and tell him in person, so there could no longer be doubt in anyone’s mind.
She owed him that much at least.

Spencer didn’t come back on Monday.
There was still no word from him on Tuesday.
It was as if he’d been swallowed up by the earth.
Gemma even went and checked the
garage, and then all the rooms of the house, just to make sure she hadn’t gone completely mad, but his sports car was definitely missing, and so was he.

It was affecting them all, as if a dark cloud had permeated the brick walls of the house and blocked out the light.
Darcey had had nightmares for two nights on the trot.
Will had retreated into
new depths of sullenness, playing awful music at top volume and scowling when Gemma told him off.
And when she woke up every morning, alone in the double bed, it hit her all over again.
Where was
he?
Why hadn’t he come home?

On Wednesday morning she couldn’t bear it any more.
Voice shaking, she phoned the police to report him missing.

The policeman who took down her details sounded rather unsympathetic.
‘So you haven’t seen him since Sunday,’ he said.

‘No, or heard from him.
He’s got his wallet, but not his phone, or even a change of clothes.
He just upped and left.
He’s in a back-brace, driving a black soft-top Mazda.
I
mean, he’s pretty visible.
People will have noticed him.
If you could notify the other police forces .
.
.
’

He gave a polite cough.
‘I’m afraid that, as he’s over the age of eighteen and the circumstances aren’t suspicious, I can’t do that, madam,’ he said.

That took the wind out of Gemma’s sails.
‘You can’t .
.
.
What?
Why not?’

‘We see this kind of thing quite often, unfortunately.
A domestic, a row – one person takes off to cool down.’

‘Yes, but .
.
.
’ She couldn’t believe how lightly he seemed to be taking this, how little he appeared to care.
‘But he’s been injured.
He’s depressed.
I’m worried he’s going to do something silly.’

His tone softened a fraction.
‘I’m sorry, madam.
The best advice I can give you is to contact the Missing Persons Bureau.
They can put your husband’s details on file and will
get in touch if they have any news.
But hopefully he’ll come back under his own steam anyway.
They usually do.’

‘I hope so.’
Gemma gazed out of the window unhappily.
If only she hadn’t nagged him about the lawn; if only she hadn’t torn a strip off him for the ‘fat’
remark; if only she’d bitten back all that anger and frustration .
.
.
‘Thank you,’ she remembered to say, before hanging up.

What would help most, Judy – Gemma thought meanly, glancing at her phone as she pushed cubes of braising steak around the frying pan – is if you could stop texting me every five
minutes, acting like you’re my new bezzy mate.
You’re not part of the family yet, you know.
Butt out!

Just as she was thinking this (totally unfairly, yes, but she couldn’t help herself) her mobile jangled with Number Unknown, and her heart skipped a beat, as it did every time.
Please let
it be Spencer.
Please let it be him.
From a phonebox or a B&B or a police station, she didn’t care where.
Let it be him and she’d go straight out and bring him home.

‘Gem?’
said a deep, unfamiliar voice.
‘It’s Jonny.’

Jonny?
She was so frazzled that it took her a moment to remember who Jonny was.
Then it hit her.
Spencer’s cousin, who’d moved up to Newcastle.
‘Hi,’ she said
tremulously.
‘Hello.
Is he .
.
.
?
Have you .
.
.
?’

‘He’s here.
He’s safe, love.
He’s hitched up here – just arrived this afternoon.’

‘Oh, thank God for that.’
She let the spatula fall into the frying pan and sank to her knees on the kitchen tiles, half-laughing, half-crying.
‘Is he all right?
What’s
going on?’
The words processed through her mind.
He’d only just
got
there?
He’d left three days ago.
And where was the car?
‘What do you mean, he hitched?’

‘Stuck his thumb out and got a lift, I should think.
He’s a bit knackered and quiet, but all in one piece.’

Gemma could hardly speak for a moment, she was so overcome with relief.
She’d take knackered and quiet in Newcastle over dead in a ditch any day.
‘Can I talk to him?
Is he with you
now?’

Jonny paused.
‘He .
.
.
ah .
.
.
I’m sorry, love, but he doesn’t want to chat, he said.
Wants to sort his head out.’
He sounded awkward.
‘It was all I could do to
give you a call, to be honest.’

It was like being slapped around the face.
Why was Spencer punishing her like this?
Had she really been so awful?

‘Gemma?
You still there?’

‘I’m here.’
She ran a hand through her hair.
‘Tell him .
.
.
Tell him not to worry.
Tell him I love him and just hope he’s okay.
If he wants to speak to me later,
I’m right here.
I’m not going anywhere, okay?’

‘All right, doll.
I’ll tell him that.
You take care of yourself, all right?’
Jonny lowered his voice and it crackled into her ear.
‘I’ll get on his case about
ringing you, okay?
I’ll sort him out.’

‘Thanks, Jonny.
Thank you so much.’

She sat on the floor for a full two minutes, trying to take this in.
So Spencer had made it up to Newcastle, but didn’t want to speak to her.
And what did Jonny mean about him hitching
there, when he’d driven off in the car?
What on earth was going on?

Slowly, dazedly, she got to her feet and fished the gently melting spatula out of the frying pan, anguish slowly giving way to anger.
Selfish, that’s what it was.
Why did everything have
to always be about him?
If there was any justice in the world, this should have been a gloriously happy period for her as she made great strides of progress, racked up new career achievements, and
smashed her way magnificently through every tiny ambition she’d ever dared dream about.
There were women queuing up to buy her dresses.
Rave write-ups in the press.
Her order book filling
faster than she could keep up.
It was like the best rollercoaster ride ever .
.
.
except for one thing: Spencer wasn’t beside her, holding her hand and sharing her delight.

No, he was up north, sulking and refusing to speak to her.
‘Well, up yours then,’ she said, giving the frying pan a shake.
‘Be like that!’

A few days passed without any word from Newcastle.
She telephoned Jonny several times for updates, but each call brought the same response: Spencer didn’t want to talk
right now, but yes, he was fine, a bit tender where he’d knocked his ankle playing golf, but in increasingly good spirits.
They’d picked up some new medication from Jonny’s
doctor.
It was no bother at all.

Jonny’s words didn’t exactly go a long way towards comforting Gemma.
Golf-playing?
Good spirits?
she thought in disbelief.
Was this the same man they were talking about?
He’d
barely left the house, let alone cracked a smile for his own wife and children since January, yet all of a sudden he was living the life of Riley with his cousin?
Not cool, Spencer
, she
thought, bundling warm sheets out of the tumble drier and snapping them into sharp folds.
Not cool at all
.

Still, somebody had to keep the home fires burning, and the home laundry ironed, and the home fridge full: muggins, of course.
Mind you, the children had been admirable under the circumstances:
unloading the dishwasher, unasked, and helping her set up an online supermarket account, to save her dragging round there every week.
Of course then they’d promptly added all sorts of Creme
Egg bags, Pom Bear superpacks and several gallons of Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream to the initial order, but she let it pass.
She was earning some decent money at last, and they all deserved a
few niceties, after so much soup.
The newsreader had commissioned an evening gown, as had the professional violinist who’d been in the other day.
Saffron was coming to stay next week and
Gemma would have the full Dream Team back at Hourglass Designs.
Win-win-win.
It was all win, frankly, apart from on the marriage front.

On Saturday, Gemma took the children shopping in Bury St Edmunds as a treat and shelled out for new shoes and jeans all round, a jacket for Will and a party dress for Darcey, then some DVDs and
a game each for the Wii.
It felt like Christmas.
They had hot chocolate and gooey cakes in Harriet’s Tearooms, and then she picked up the ingredients for their favourite dinner of lasagne.
Let Spencer play golf and keep up the silent treatment, if he wanted to.
She and the children would have a lovely time if it damn well killed her.

Later that afternoon she was just sliding the lasagne into the oven when the doorbell rang and her hard-heartedness vanished in a heartbeat.
Was it him?
Was he back?
Oh, please let it be him,
she thought, dumping the oven gloves on the side and hurrying to find out.

Pulling open the door, she gave a start.
It wasn’t Spencer standing there with a bunch of flowers and an apology.
Not an early appearance from Saffron, either, with her suitcase and PR
brilliance.
Instead she saw a tanned woman in a tropical-printed jersey dress, incongruously teamed with an enormous fur coat and moonboots, arms spread wide in greeting.
‘Darling.
Surprise!’

‘Mum,’ said Gemma, inadvertently taking a step back.
Karen’s hair was an unnatural shade of auburn these days, which clashed horribly with her fuchsia-pink lipstick.
‘God.
I .
.
.
I wasn’t expecting you.’

‘I know.
Which is why I said “Surprise!”’
Karen waggled her pencilled eyebrows.
‘Are you going to let me in then, or what?
Where’s that divine husband of
yours?
And my adorable grandchildren?
Aha!
There’s my little Billy.
Goodness, haven’t you grown?
Not so little any more!
You remember Grandma, don’t you?
Except I’d rather
you called me Karen, to be honest.
Nobody can believe I’m old enough to be a grandmother, least of all me, ha-ha!’

Gemma turned to see Will behind her in the hall, looking as if he’d quite like to shrink into the floor with discomfort, while his rarely seen grandmother cackled with laughter.

‘Come in, Mum,’ Gemma said, trying to recover herself.
Was she planning on staying?
She must be – and yet now wasn’t exactly the best time.
The spare room had been set up
in readiness for Saffron’s arrival and, besides, the family atmosphere had been kind of leaden recently, despite her best attempts.
‘Er .
.
.
you’ll have to take us as you find
us, I’m afraid, we’re a bit all over the place.’
She tried to relax as her mum hugged her in a furry, perfumed embrace, but it was difficult.
Every last childhood insecurity had
immediately risen to the surface, like iron filings to a magnet.
‘Have you eaten?’
she managed to say.
‘Dinner’s on.’

Her mum didn’t reply, strutting across to cluck over Will.
‘Look at you!
My word.
How old are you now?
Fifteen, is it?
Got a girlfriend, eh?
You can tell me.
I won’t breathe a
word.’