The Year of Taking Chances (9 page)

Maybe Caitlin had been kidding herself, but after the road trip with Harry she’d half-expected him to get in touch.
Had it been a figment of her imagination that
he’d flirted with her?
All those questions he’d asked, the growing feeling of intimacy as they swapped confessions in the One-Direction-stickered cab of his van, the way he’d even
(jokingly) offered to kill Flynn, as if he was allying himself with Team Caitlin .
.
.
When they said goodbye and she thanked him for all his help, there was a momentary hesitation when she was
convinced, for a split-second, that he was about to ask her out for a drink, or even sweep her up in his arms.
Instead he just leaned in, gave her a peck on the cheek and said he’d see her
around.
She’d drifted back inside, her fingers rising to touch her skin where it had been grazed by his lips, wishing she’d had the nerve to grab hold of him and put her mouth to his
for a proper kiss.

Perhaps she’d been plain wrong about any chemistry, deluding herself that she had felt the vibes.
For all she knew, Harry was like that with everyone; one of those charming, easy-going
types who slipped through the world with ease, a Pied Piper of women, attracting jostling, flattered hordes in his wake.
All those proposals and almost-marriages, remember – a woman in every
port, by the sound of it.

She’d probably had a lucky escape, all things considered.
He might even already be back with the woman who’d trampled his Stetson all the way to hat-heaven.
Anyway, she reminded
herself, lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, it wasn’t as if she was in remotely the right place to start a new relationship.
Hello?
Rebound klaxon!

Whatever.
It was all academic, seeing as she hadn’t heard a thing from him since that day, let alone glimpsed him around the village.
The only evidence that they’d been to Cambridge
at all was the pile of boxes she’d dumped upstairs, yet to be unpacked, and the bill Flynn had sent her to cover the cost of cleaning his precious canvas, along with a furious note, ranting
about her immature act of vandalism:

She wished she hadn’t read it now, but the words were burned into her subconscious.
If he thought for a minute he was getting any money off her, though, he was lost in Dreamland.
Let’s hope he stayed there.

She put her head under the duvet and sniffed, wrinkling her nose.
Getting a bit whiffy, Cait.
Personal hygiene had fallen by the wayside since she’d been back in Larkmead.
There was a
definite monobrow taking shape between her eyebrows, not to mention the shadowy line above her top lip.
A crop of small red spots had appeared around her mouth, she had a coldsore blistering on her
lower lip and there was a greasy sheen on her forehead.
Her hair had completely grown out of its bob and was bushy and kicking out around the ends, while her fringe was wonky where she’d
tried to cut it with some nail scissors two weeks ago.
As for her legs, they positively bristled with new growth.
Spring has come to the forest!
Well, to her hairy calves anyway.

Her hand wandered down to her belly and squidged it.
Caitlin had always been tall enough that she could eat whatever she liked and didn’t have to worry about putting on weight, but that
was before she spent days lying on the sofa watching endless daytime TV and stopped leaving the house.
There was a definite creeping roundness to her tummy and hips, and a new tightness to her
jeans.
Much more of this lifestyle and she’d become a hairy, wobbling beast, half-ape, half-blob.
Attractive – said nobody, ever.
If she didn’t pull herself together, make an
effort and re-enter the human race soon, she’d end up being carted off to a freak show.

Her eyes drifted around the room, as if seeing the place for the first time.
It wasn’t only her that needed a spruce up and polish; the cottage did, too.
There was dust on the mirror; an
open suitcase containing a jumble of clothes; cold, mouldy cups of tea and coffee along the chest of drawers and a row of tights drying on the radiator, toes dangling, like the ghosts of a cancan
girl troupe.

Downstairs was even worse.
She knew without stirring that there was an embarrassing number of congealing, sticky Chinese takeaway boxes silting up on the draining board (‘Ah, Miss Caitlin,
how are you today?’
the woman at Golden Dragon had taken to saying.
‘Chicken chow mein and prawn sesame toast, yes?’) Something in the bin smelled as if it was in its death-throes
and there was a pool of strange green liquid collecting at the bottom of the fridge.
If Jane was still alive, she’d have a fit at the state Caitlin had let the place get into.

She’d never even meant to stay in Larkmead this long.
Once it was clear that she and Flynn were no more, she’d planned to tidy up White Gables and sell it, then move somewhere
completely new and start over.
The weeks were passing by, though, and she’d achieved very little so far.

Sorry, Mum.
I’ll get it sorted.
I really will.
Any day now.

First, though, she’d just shut her eyes and go back to sleep.
Well, why not?
She was unemployed, she was single, and it was at least an hour before
This Morning
with Phil and Holly
was due to begin.
She rolled over, pulling the musty-smelling duvet over her head, and wriggled into a more comfortable position.
You couldn’t rush these things, after all.

Later on she padded downstairs, made a coffee, turned on the TV and arranged herself on the sofa, tucking her dressing gown around her bare feet to keep them warm.
Her phone
chose that moment to ping with a new email and she reached out a hand for it automatically.
Probably just spam, or another grumpy message from Flynn, but she might as well have a look, while the
ads were on.

There followed a figure so exorbitant that Caitlin had to shut her eyes for a moment, then look again, in case she’d imagined it.
No, she hadn’t.

Wowzers.
Was this seriously the going rate in the music industry?
No wonder they all looked so pleased with themselves, if they could waft the dosh around with such ease.
She read the email
again, feeling a prickle of interest.
It had been ages since she’d done anything creative or constructive and, with this kind of budget, she could pull together something really
spectacular.

If she could be bothered, that was.
If she could actually get off her ever-increasing bum, turn the telly off and knuckle down to some proper work.

She sat up a little straighter and muted the celebrity chef who was about to make a superfood-smoothie, for all of the January dieters.
Then she grabbed her phone and dialled before she could
change her mind.
What the hell.
Chances like this didn’t come along every day.

‘Saffron?
Hi, it’s Caitlin Fraser here, from Larkmead .
.
.
.
Hi!
Yes, thanks so much, I’d love to hear more about the job .
.
.
’

‘She did what?
She gave you Bunty?
Oh, man.
She really does hate you.’

Saffron nodded, feeling weary and long-suffering.
‘Yep.
That was my reaction, too.’

It was a Thursday evening and she was in a Dean Street bar along with hordes of sharply dressed media types and Kate, her former colleague.
Saffron had suggested a drink to see how Kate was
faring following her redundancy, but also, if she was honest, because she was desperate for a good old bitch about her latest client.

Bunty Halsom was a very loud forty-something journalist and minor celebrity, who dashed off endless tabloid articles, usually about what a disgrace young people were these days and why a
woman’s place was in the home, even though she preferred to hang out in the Groucho and wouldn’t have a clue how to work a Hoover, let alone cook a meal from scratch.
She’d
appeared on a few reality-TV programmes in the past year where she’d both shocked and transfixed the nation, first by appearing to have a mental breakdown on
Celebrity Big Brother
,
then by launching herself at a fringe politician on the ill-fated
All-Stars Nightclub
fly-on-the-wall documentary.
Her subtle chat-up line – ‘Bunty likes a big one’ –
had gone viral, appearing in hashtags and gossip columns, and emblazoned on market-stall T-shirts across the land.

Brazen, domineering and incredibly needy, Bunty had been Kate’s worst nightmare of a client.
But now, as of this morning, she was Saffron’s.

‘Oh God.
Well, you have my sympathy.
My complete and utter sympathy.
Leaving Phoenix was awful but, even as Charlotte was ditching me, I thought “No more Bunty” and suddenly
felt a whole lot better.
A solid silver lining, if ever there was one.’

Saffron managed a small smile.
She didn’t need reminding how dreadful Bunty was.
She’d worked with Kate long enough to recognize the rictus smile on her friend’s face whenever
Bunty called; the tired droop of her shoulders, the barely contained impatience in her voice when Bunty was being particularly difficult.
‘Any advice you can offer?
Coping strategies?
The
number of a good therapist?’

‘Don’t let yourself be railroaded,’ Kate said.
‘Stand up to her, otherwise she won’t give you any respect.
And lay down strict parameters – no phone calls
after seven in the evening, or at weekends.
Refuse point-blank if she starts trying to get you to pick up dry-cleaning and organize dinner parties for her.
Be prepared to say no, and stick to your
guns.’
She swigged back a mouthful of beer.
‘It’s like dealing with a toddler, really.
Or a naughty dog.
You’ve got to show her who’s boss – while maintaining
the illusion that you think she’s absolutely wonderful, of course.’

Saffron had no experience with dogs or toddlers.
She’d grown up in a cat-loving family, and had no nieces or nephews on whom to practise being strict.
Her heart sank.
Charlotte, her boss,
had spun this as a new opportunity for Saffron, a chance to push on up to a higher level of PR, but working for Bunty was sounding more like a punishment by the second.

Noticing her silence, Kate rummaged in her bag for a square red purse.
‘You need a drink,’ she announced, getting to her feet.
‘A strong one.
What can I get you?
Let’s
start the Bunty-proofing with alcohol.
It helps, trust me.’

Oh, a drink.
That would be lovely.
A bottle of beer like Kate’s, misted with cold.
A massive bugger-it cocktail with a paper umbrella and jaunty dangling cherries.
A knockout vodka martini
just to take the edge off her day.
‘Um .
.
.
a lime and soda, please,’ she said, pushing the temptations forcefully from her mind.

Kate’s eyes widened.
Saffron was never usually one to refuse booze.
‘On the wagon, eh?’
she asked.
‘Dry January?’

‘Yeah,’ Saffron said, then hesitated.
‘Actually, no.
I’m pregnant.’

The words were out before she could stop them and hung in the air.
Kate sat back down.
‘God,’ she said.
‘Wow.
Wasn’t expecting that.’

‘Nor me,’ said Saffron.

‘Right.’
They exchanged a look.
‘So .
.
.
how are you feeling?
Are you okay?’

How was she feeling?
Well, not exactly radiant, put it that way.
Saffron was not enjoying being pregnant very much at all, in fact.
The tiredness was like being beaten down by a sledgehammer.
She woke up every morning and had to leap out of bed immediately in order to hang her head over the toilet and puke.
As for her rampaging hormones, they seemed to have cranked up her emotions to
‘lunatic’ level.
She’d wept the other day at the sight of an elderly Asian couple holding hands at the bus stop.

‘Knackered,’ she said, ‘and confused.
And I keep bursting into tears over the slightest thing.
I cried at an Andrex advert yesterday.
It’s like there’s no Off
switch any more.’

Kate put a hand on her arm.
‘Let me get you that lime and soda,’ she said.
‘I’ll be right back.
I take it you haven’t told Charlotte yet, by the way?’

Saffron shook her head.

‘Good,’ said Kate.
‘Keep it that way.’

Saffron leaned back against her uncomfortable, trendy plastic chair while Kate weaved through the crowd of designer-clad twenty-somethings en route to the bar.
It was weird, releasing her big
secret after weeks of secrecy.
‘I’m pregnant,’ she said again under her breath.
She’d half-expected the sky to fall in, but the world was still turning.

‘Here you are,’ Kate said, putting the drinks on the table and sitting down again.
‘So, what are you going to do?
I can’t tell from your face whether you’re happy
or sad, or plain old freaked out.’

‘I’m still at the freaked-out stage,’ Saffron confessed.
‘I mean, me and Max, we were barely even a couple.
I’d only been out with him a few times before this
happened.’

‘But you liked him, didn’t you?
I remember all those flirty phone calls.
What does he say about this?’

‘Um .
.
.
’

Kate’s forehead puckered.
‘You haven’t told him?’

Saffron lowered her eyes and sipped her drink.
God, lime and soda really was the most boring, joyless drink in the world.
‘I’m not sure how to,’ she admitted eventually.
‘Maybe it’s kinder not to tell him anything at all.
I mean, he’s got two kids already, and I hardly know him.
I don’t want him to feel tied to me in any way, or responsible,
if he’s not interested.’

‘Yeah, but he is responsible, technically,’ Kate pointed out.
‘I guess it depends on whether or not you’re planning to keep the baby.
Tell me to mind my own business,
obviously, but .
.
.
well.
Are you?’

The biggest question of all.
Answering it, when she knew that Kate had three beloved children of her own, felt like tiptoeing through a minefield.
For all she knew, Kate might strongly
disapprove of abortions or giving babies away to be adopted.
Saffron had always vaguely disapproved herself, until she’d found herself in this predicament and realized just how many shades of
grey there could be.
‘I didn’t have myself down for a mum,’ she replied slowly.
‘I’ve never even held a baby before, let alone looked after one myself.’
She
swallowed.
‘Sometimes I think it would be easier just to .
.
.
’ she waved a hand across her belly, avoiding Kate’s eye, ‘ .
.
.
to make it go away.’
Kate nodded
sympathetically and Saffron rushed on.
‘I just can’t imagine myself with a baby, that’s all.
Pushing a pram.
Singing nursery rhymes.
Changing nappies.’
She bit her lip.
‘But then again, I’m thirty-eight now.
Ovaries shrivelling by the minute.
This could be my last chance.’

The mood had turned sombre and Saffron was starting to wish she had left this particular can of worms unopened.

‘Anyway,’ she said quickly.
‘How are you?
What have you been up to, work-wise?’

As Kate talked about making a go of a new freelance career from her dining-room table, Saffron found herself only half-listening.
Meanwhile her head teemed with anxious thoughts about money and
babies and Max.
Nine weeks into the pregnancy now, according to the website calculator she’d looked at that morning.
The baby was the size of a grape.

Time was running out.
The grape’s life hung in the balance.
She had to make a decision soon.
And I will,
she thought fiercely, as Kate went on about social media and agency work.
I have to.
Just .
.
.
not today.

It was raining hard as Saffron left the bar and walked towards Oxford Circus to get the Tube home, shoulders hunched under her thin coat.
Puddles swelled on broken paving
slabs, rainwater gushed and swirled along the gutters, and the bus wheels sent up fountains of dirty spray.

Ugh.
January, you suck.

Once at the station, she hurried down the steps towards the warmth of the Underground, longing to be home.
But the concrete steps were wet and slippery and all of a sudden she lost her footing
and fell in a terrifying rush, landing heavily at the bottom of the stairwell.
Ow.
Ow.

People hurried past, shoes tapping urgently.
Some actually stepped right over her, as if she wasn’t there.
She tried to manoeuvre herself gingerly upright, but felt a sharp pain in her
abdomen, followed by a pulling sensation low down.
The baby.
The grape.

‘Are you okay, dear?’
An elderly lady bent over her, reaching out a hand.
‘Can I help you up?’

Tears pricked Saffron’s eyes.
The indignity, the pain, the shock .
.
.
and now the kindness of a stranger.
It was all too much.
‘Thank you,’ she said, grabbing the handrail
with one hand and taking the old lady’s blue-gloved hand in her other.
She heaved herself up, bruised from the hard floor.
‘Thank you very much.’

‘Are you all right?
Anything hurt?’
The lady was still holding onto her and put her other hand on Saffron’s back to steady her.
‘There’s a nice young man over
there, one of the staff.
Shall I get him to help you to the train?’

That low, digging sensation was still there at the very base of her abdomen, and Saffron put a hand to it instinctively.
Oh, little grape, are you all right?
Her vision started to flicker in and
out, as if she was going to faint.
‘I think I’m going to .
.
.
’ she murmured, lolling forwards like a puppet on loose strings.
‘I feel a bit dizzy.’

‘Okay, duckie, let’s sit you down again then.
Hold on to me.
Excuse me!
Young man!
This girl needs some assistance, please!’

Saffron was dimly aware of footsteps approaching, then strong hands clasping her sides and helping to lower her back to the ground.
Everything blurred before her eyes as if she was teetering on
the edge of consciousness, and she struggled to pull herself back into the situation.
A man with a ‘Transport for London’ ID round his neck and concerned brown eyes crouched in front of
her.
‘Are you okay?
Do you want me to get you some water?’

‘I’m pregnant,’ she whimpered, aware of a sickening wetness between her legs.
Blood, she was sure.
She must be losing the baby.
Tears rolled down her cheeks as she blurted out
her secret for the second time that evening.
‘I’m pregnant!’

Saffron had never felt so scared in her entire life as when she was waiting in the A&E department of the hospital all alone.
Her spine was tender from where she’d
jarred it, landing with such a thump on the concrete; her head ached, where she must have bashed it against the wall; and worst of all, a quick visit to the loo had proved that yes, she was
bleeding.
The vivid splash of scarlet in her knickers felt like an accusation from her own body, as if the grape was making a stand.
Well, if you can’t even be bothered to decide whether
or not you want me, you can whistle, if you think I’m going to stick around.