When You Walked Back Into My Life (24 page)

She drew away from him. ‘You are pleased though … just a bit … aren’t you?’

He began to speak, then stopped.

‘Fin?’

He hesitated again.

‘Alright: I’m not going to lie to you, Flo, it’s too important. I don’t want a child right now. Not yet, not until we’ve had some time together, got our lives on track with somewhere decent to live. This is way too soon … you know it is.’

Tears were pouring down her face. ‘You sound as if you’re blaming me.’

‘I’m not … but it was you who said we should keep going, even though we didn’t have a condom that night in Dad’s house … if that’s when it happened. I’ve been so careful all the other times.’ He sounded almost peeved, and Flora suddenly felt an irrational desire to hit him.

‘Fuck you.’

She shot up from the sofa and walked out, shutting herself in the bedroom. Lying there, she felt her heart pounding through her chest wall, but anger stifled any more tears. She would have the baby whether it suited Fin or not. She would do it alone, somehow she would, even if they had to live off the state. She clutched her stomach, trying to get a sense of the minute cluster of cells that would eventually make up their baby.

It was a long time before Fin appeared by her side. She felt disorientated by his face suddenly so close to hers.

‘Flo … Flo? Please, let’s not fight.’

She pulled herself upright, but she didn’t know what to
say to him as he sat awkwardly beside her on the bed. She fiddled with the tissue she’d been clutching.

‘Look at me,’ his hand went under her chin, gently drawing her head up. ‘Listen. I know I should be more enthusiastic, and I will be, I promise. I just need time.’ His grey eyes looked almost bruised.

‘I can do it myself if you won’t support me.’ Flora knew it was a childish declaration, even if fundamentally true. She had no desire whatsoever to bring up the baby without Fin, alone and in poverty.

‘Of course I’ll support you. I never said I wouldn’t. Please, stop being stupid and let’s have some supper. You’re going to have a baby, you need to eat.’ He was smiling now, but she could see the effort it cost him.

Later, as she lay next to him in bed, she couldn’t sleep. For the first time she questioned whether she really loved this man. His response had profoundly shocked her. Not the initial denial, or stunned surprise, that was fair enough – he was nearly fifty and had managed to evade fatherhood thus far – but the complete lack of love in his face when she had told him she was carrying his baby. Because this wasn’t a one-night stand with a woman he barely knew. He said he loved her, said he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. But she could see, in that moment, that he hadn’t been thinking about her at all, or about the baby, or even about
them as a couple. He’d been thinking exclusively about himself. Where was the love in that?

*

Bel sat next to Flora on the bus taking them to Westfield.

‘Remind me. Why, exactly, are we going to some grisly shopping centre on the Saturday before Christmas?’

Her niece giggled. ‘To shop?’

‘Hadn’t thought of that.’

‘It’ll be fun. Like a zoo and totally hectic, and we won’t find a thing before our legs are reduced to bleeding stumps, but it’s what you
do
when it’s Christmas.’

‘I’ve bought all my presents.’

‘Oooh, smug. I suppose you bought them at a summer fair like old people do,’ Bel teased. ‘Well, I’ve got everyone’s except Mum’s. You have to help me. You know how hard it is to find something she hasn’t already got.’

Flora was pleased to be away from the flat and Fin. In the first few days after the revelation, they had been careful around each other: he being over-solicitous about her health, she making light of the whole thing. But neither of them had the will to really sit down and discuss what they might do in a practical sense. So the baby was like a looming, but mute, presence over all their conversations. Flora was the first to break.

‘We have to talk about this, Fin,’ she’d said, as they sat having coffee and croissants at the weekend.

‘I’m not avoiding it.’

‘I didn’t say you were.’ There was a tense silence. ‘Let’s not argue.’

Fin tore off another piece of his croissant, but instead of eating it he just looked at it then laid it back down on his plate, rubbing his hands together to get rid of the pastry flakes.

‘I’ve thought about nothing else since you told me, but I’m getting nowhere. We’re in a mess. And if you can’t work because of the baby, I don’t know how we’ll support ourselves in London.’ He gave a heavy sigh. ‘The only solution I can see is one you won’t even contemplate … moving up to Inverness.’

‘I have contemplated it.’

‘And?’ His look was cautious, but he didn’t wait for her reply. ‘I could get work up there quite easily, guiding people, or in one of the millions of climbing shops around, until I’m fit enough for bigger things.’

‘We could try it out,’ she conceded.

His look was surprised, bordering on suspicious. ‘You’d do that?’

She didn’t answer, no longer able to avoid the fact that it wasn’t the house itself, or its location, that was the problem. She pushed the thought away.

‘It’ll be a while before I can get back into hospital work … I couldn’t even begin to until she’s at least six months
old.’

‘She?’ Fin asked. ‘It’s a girl, is it?’

She hadn’t realised what she’d said. ‘I’d like a girl.’

Fin looked away and she immediately felt awkward, aware that any baby talk met the same blank wall. He just didn’t want to engage in the baby as a real person.

‘We’ll sort the house. It’s a good space, I can fix it up in plenty of time for the baby. Make it really nice.’

He reached over for her hand. ‘You’ll see, Flo. It’s a wonderful place to bring up a child. Plenty of fresh air, a safe environment. He … she would have the perfect childhood.’

She nodded, knowing it was probably true.

‘When are you going to tell Prue?’

‘I’d like to tell her today, but I think we should wait. At my age there’s quite a risk of miscarriage.’

‘Would it be dangerous for you if you miscarried?’ He looked suddenly anxious.

‘Not for me.’

He frowned. ‘I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you, Flo.’

She resolved to start thinking seriously about the move to Scotland. It did make sense. And if they stayed in this flat, with or without a screaming baby, they would eventually stab each other …

*

Bel was digging her in the ribs. ‘We’re here.’

They took off around the circuit of shops lining the packed shopping centre. It was a bewildering place, loud, hot and stressful, milling with anxious people darting from store to store in their search for last-minute presents.

‘OK, so what are your options for Mum?’

Bel looked dispirited. ‘Dunno. I can’t afford the expensive stuff she likes in the perfume or cream department. And clothes are a no-no, she’d never wear anything that wasn’t designer …’

‘What about a pretty box, or a nice coffee cup?’

Her niece pulled a face. ‘Boring.’

‘Or a soap dish, a wine glass … bath stuff?’

‘Boring, boring, boring.’

They paused in front of a shoe shop.

‘Those are cool,’ Bel said, eyeing a pair of heavy black boots with buckles up the side.

Flora pulled her away. ‘How about a CD? Your mum’s got quite broad taste. You could find some funky band …’

Bel snorted. ‘Yeah, good one. I can just see Mum chilling out to Dizzy Bats or the Dum Dum Girls.’

‘No, not quite your mum’s cup of tea, perhaps. Can we have a sandwich and think about it?’ Flora was suddenly feeling incredibly tired. Thank goodness she didn’t have to
work now till Thursday, the day after Boxing Day. She hadn’t been sick any more, but she felt queasy a lot, and just strange – sort of buzzy and out of her body at times.

‘Crayfish and avocado salad and a cappuccino!’ Bel shouted. This was their favourite salad in Pret a Manger.

‘Crayfish and avocado it is,’ Flora agreed, then remembered she shouldn’t eat shellfish or drink too much coffee. ‘Or mushroom soup?’

Bel pulled a face. ‘Nah … crayfish for me.’

She eventually bought her mother a plum-coloured mascara and a case for her BlackBerry, decorated with a silver and cherry diamanté butterfly.

‘Didn’t I do well?’ her niece asked, as they squeezed into the bus seat.

‘Perfect.’

Bel looked at her sideways. ‘You don’t think they’re stupid?’

‘No, I think they’re great. If anyone can get away with plum-coloured mascara, it’s your mum.’

*

‘Can sex cause a miscarriage?’ Fin asked, as they lay in bed on Christmas morning. They hadn’t made love since she’d told him about her pregnancy. She’d been feeling fragile and tired, but she also sensed his lack of confidence around her body.

‘No, you can have sex all through pregnancy, if you want to.’

He looked over at her. ‘Do you?’

‘You look almost scared of me,’ she smiled, and pulled herself up to kiss him. ‘I won’t break, promise.’

‘It’s just … it makes me nervous … that I’ll, you know, do something while we’re making love and it’ll hurt the baby.’

‘So you do care about the baby.’

‘Of course I care.’

‘It’s just that you haven’t said a word about how you feel.’

‘No, well, not my style is it? Banging on about that sort of stuff.’

He was silent for a moment. ‘I can’t imagine what sort of father I’ll make.’ His voice was low, as if he were talking to himself. ‘I mean, what does it involve, apart from the practical stuff?’

‘Just love, I think. You had a good father. Be like him.’

‘He never hugged me … never really touched me at all. It was Mum who did the hugging.’

‘I’m not sure my dad did much either.’ Flora tried to remember her father on the brief visits he made from Saudi. All she could see was an image of him laughing with a glass in his hand. ‘We must hug our baby lots,’ she said, still unable to picture herself and Fin with a child.

*

The normally immaculate kitchen, pungent with the aroma of roasting goose, was a sea of preparation: bread crumbs for the sauce lay in a heap on the marble work surface, alongside apple peel and cores; a colander full of half-boiled potatoes; a plate of bloody giblets from the goose; squeezed lemon halves, torn foil, the inevitable Brussels sprouts still in their net bag; a pile of silver serving spoons waiting to be polished, a half-full bottle of red wine.

Prue wore a large butcher’s apron over her pink tracksuit, and sweat poured from her flushed face.

‘Thank God you’re here. This is a bloody nightmare. I thought goose would be way quicker than turkey to cook, but it’s still practically raw. We won’t sit down for at least another two hours at this rate.’

She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.

‘Nobody minds on Christmas Day,’ Flora soothed. ‘We can just ply them with booze and quails’ eggs when they arrive. Tell us what to do.’

Fin was set to peeling sprouts, Flora to polish the silver.

‘Where are Bel and Philip?’

‘I sent them out to get some brandy butter for the pud. God knows where they’ll find any – not the sort of thing corner shops stock. I’m absolutely sure I bought some, but I’ve searched high and low.’ She groaned. ‘I’ve been so busy
on this Pelham Crescent house, I don’t know if I’m coming or going.’

By the time the guests arrived, Prue had calmed down, changed into an elegant mulberry wool Nicole Farhi dress and downed a couple of glasses of Prosecco.

‘You didn’t ask Jake did you?’ Flora asked as the bell rang for the second time.

‘I did actually.’

‘Prue! What were you thinking?’

Her sister gave her a surprised look. ‘You and he parted on good terms didn’t you?’

‘Yeah, but that’s hardly the point. It’ll be bloody embarrassing in front of Fin.’ Jake had texted her a couple of times over the previous months. Just friendly hope-it’s-going-well messages, which she’d replied to in kind. She would be happy to see him; she just didn’t know how Fin would react.

‘Because he doesn’t know about him?’

‘No … because … well, just because.’

‘Oh, don’t be silly. No one cares about that sort of thing. It was just sex, and before Fin came back anyway. He can’t expect you to have been celibate all this time. I’m sure he wasn’t.’

Flora said nothing, just focused on her task of turning every potato in the large roasting tray before putting it back in the oven. Her sister had always held a pragmatic view
about sex. ‘Never apologise, never explain, even when there are photographs,’ was her favourite saying when told about a friend’s infidelity.

Prue was peering into her face. ‘You look a bit … stressed.’

‘Do I?’

Her sister put her head on one side. ‘Yes. Well, perhaps not stressed exactly. Maybe just a bit peculiar … something not quite right, anyway.’

‘I’m fine, honestly.’ It was on the tip of her tongue to blurt out the truth to Prue, but Philip came into the kitchen just then, towing behind him a painfully thin woman in her forties, wrapped in extensive charcoal cashmere, with dark hair to her shoulders and sharp, pale-blue eyes.

‘Marina! Happy Christmas!’ Prue went over to give a carefully controlled air kiss to her friend’s cheek. ‘You know my sister, Flora, and her boyfriend, Fin McCrea?’

Marina’s eyes lingered on Fin, and Flora could see why. He looked so handsome, rugged and athletic – even though he was convinced he’d ‘gone soft’ – quite a contrast to the more effete professionals and media types who frequented Prue and Philip’s parties.

‘No, I’m not sure I’ve had the pleasure,’ the woman said.

Flora noted Fin’s response with surprise. All week he’d been moaning about having to be polite to her sister and brother-in-law’s ‘pompous’ friends, but now, almost
instantly, he gave Marina a dazzling smile such as she hadn’t seen in ages. And as he did so, he seemed to straighten his spine, draw up his head, as if he were shaking himself free of a burden. So different from the brooding, almost resentful expression that she witnessed on an almost daily basis.

The other guests arrived in dribs and drabs over the next hour. Jake was the last. He looked cute, carefully dressed in his usual black and white.