Baby Be Mine (4 page)

‘That’s a travesty. I’ll have to help you make up for lost time,’ he teases.

‘That’s not going to be easy with Barney around,’ I comment, before nodding down at him. ‘You should get dressed. He’ll be awake soon.’

He sighs. ‘Don’t you ever wish it was just the two of us?’

‘That’s a terrible thing to say!’ I exclaim.

‘I don’t mean it terribly. I don’t know . . .’ He doesn’t continue, instead rising to his feet and putting on his almost-dry swimming trunks.

I stand and stare at him. ‘Do you wish we had more time to ourselves?’

‘Yeah, just to talk and – you know, without being interrupted. I wish our parents lived closer.’

‘It would be nice to have them around to help more,’ I agree. ‘Are your mum and dad still planning a trip?’

‘I think so, but Dad’s really busy at work at the moment.’

‘Hasn’t he found a replacement for Joel yet?’

‘No.’

Christian’s dad, Eugen, owns an electrical store in Newcastle. He used to run it with Christian’s younger brother, Joel, but Joel quit the business recently to go and live with his girlfriend in her native Australia.

‘Mum might come out by herself. She’s having withdrawal symptoms from her grandson.’

Mandy, his mum, is besotted with Barney. If she knew he wasn’t hers . . . It’s too horrendous to contemplate.

‘That’d be nice,’ I say. I like Christian’s mum, feisty though she may be. She’s from Newcastle, whereas Christian’s dad hails from Sweden. It still impresses me that Christian is bilingual.

I really should practise my French . . .

A noise comes from the nearby baby monitor.

‘I’ll get him,’ I say, heading inside to retrieve my little sleepyhead. He’s lying awake in his cot, staring at the colourful boat mobile above his head. ‘Come on, you.’ He grips me around my neck with his chubby fingers and presses his face into my shoulder as I walk back down the corridor. A powerful wave of love throbs through me. I can barely imagine my life before he came along. The thought of being without him now . . .

That’s not to say I’ve found motherhood easy. The first few months came as a complete shock. Christian was working so hard and I ended up doing the lion’s share of the work – both with the baby and around the house. I cried a lot. I was exhausted beyond belief from getting up in the night to breastfeed, yet I would still lie awake thinking about everything. Even though Barney was born with a head full of dark hair and people said he looked like Christian, I could never be sure. His eyes were blue. Maybe they’d turn brown like Mummy and Daddy’s, as everyone presumed, but I used to torment myself that they’d turn green instead. Which of course they did.

  Chapter 4  

‘Did Christian get away okay?’ Mum asks a few days later. Christian set off this morning to return to LA for tour rehearsals. He’ll be there for a week.

‘Yes,’ I reply into the receiver. We’re talking on the phone.

‘Barney will miss him,’ Mum says.

‘Not as much as I’ll miss him.’

‘Oh dear, I hope you don’t mind me not coming.’

‘No, of course not. Don’t worry.’

I asked my parents if they’d keep me company while Christian was abroad this time, but Mum had some important bridge game to attend.

‘It’s a shame he has to be away so often,’ she comments. ‘I don’t like the thought of him mingling with all those sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll types. Why he can’t just stick to writing fiction, I don’t know.’

‘Yes, you do know,’ I say with annoyance. ‘He didn’t get a new book deal.’

‘But why? I thought his first one was quite good.’

‘I thought it was great!’ I hear my dad chip in, in the background. ‘I want to know what happened to Dr Whatshisface!’

‘Tell Dad he’ll find out in March.’

‘You’ll find out in March, apparently,’ I hear my mum say.

‘March?’ my dad exclaims. ‘That’s almost a year away! I thought his next one was coming out in September?’

‘Put Dad on,’ I tell my mum. She does so. I explain: ‘The first one came out last September and flopped, so his publishers want to try releasing the next one in a different season.’

Around the time I found out I was pregnant, Christian’s Johnny Jefferson biography was published and was a huge success. His publishers had released it in the autumn against the other heavy hitters in the lead-up to Christmas, and a year later, they assumed his first book in his new crime series would be able to hack it in the same competitive market. They were wrong.

They’ve pushed back the release of his second book to next March and are yet to offer him a new book deal. His dream of writing fiction has had to be put on hold for now, hence his saying yes to another celebrity biography.

‘I’m sure it’ll be a huge success!’ Dad booms, slightly too buoyantly.

‘Thanks, Dad,’ I reply, with a small smile that he can’t see.

‘Give me the phone,’ I hear my mum say. She comes back on the line. ‘Let me know if you want me to come down on Saturday.’

‘No, it’s okay, Mum. Christian will be back on Monday so it’s probably not worth you making the trip for the sake of a day and a half. I’ll take Barney to the beach or to a playground or something. I’ll be alright.’

‘Call me if you want to chat.’

‘I will do if I can find the time,’ I promise. We hang up and I sigh loudly. ‘Alone Again’ . . . That bloody song is driving me nuts. I switch on the radio, hoping to find something else to get stuck in my mind. An instantly recognisable tune fills the living room and a shiver travels all the way up my spine and into my head. I fumble for the off switch, but it’s too late. I’ve heard it now. The damage is done.

That was the song Johnny wrote for me.

He said he loved me. He once told me he’d never loved anyone.

The phone rings, making me jump. I snatch it up.

‘Hello?’

‘Meg?’

‘Bess!’ I exclaim. It’s so good to hear from my friend.

‘Hey, how are you?’

‘I’m alright.’ I sigh, unable to project enthusiasm into my voice.

‘You’ve heard, then,’ she says.

‘Heard what?’

‘About Johnny?’

Silence.

‘Oh, you haven’t heard,’ she says.

Apart from Christian, Bess is the only other person who knows about my relationship with Johnny – if you can call it that. There were rumours in the industry when I quit working for him so suddenly, but no one knows for sure what happened, and my confidentiality clause prevents me from telling anyone, even if I wanted to. I shouldn’t have told Bess, but I couldn’t help myself.

‘Tell me,’ I urge Bess, dread seeping into the pit of my stomach.

She cuts to the chase. ‘He and his girlfriend are both in hospital after overdosing.’

My heart jumps.

‘It was an accident, apparently.’

I can’t speak.

‘Meg?’

‘I didn’t even know he had a girlfriend,’ I say dully.

‘They met in rehab.’

‘Fat lot of good that did them.’ I manage a bitter laugh.

‘Are you okay?’ Bess’s voice is hesitant.

‘I’m fine,’ I reply curtly. ‘Nothing to do with me.’

‘I know you don’t mean that,’ she says gently.

‘Stop. Just stop,’ I warn.

‘He’s alright,’ she says. ‘In case you want to know.’

‘I don’t.’

She continues, ‘They’re saying he’ll be going back into rehab.’

‘He should never have left the bloody place,’ I mutter. ‘Bess, I’ve got to go. Barney has woken up. I’ll speak to you soon.’

‘Okay. Lots of love.’

‘You too.’

I end the call. The baby monitor is silent. Barney hasn’t woken up – that was a lie. Another one.

I stare out of the French windows to the mountains in the distance.

I was right to choose Christian . . . Johnny wouldn’t have changed for me.

Or maybe he would have . . .

No. I made the right decision. It’s just a tragedy biology made the wrong one.

The baby could have been Christian’s. It’s possible, even though we used protection. I wanted it to be Christian’s. I knew Johnny would have run a mile if I’d told him I was pregnant and that the baby was his, or at least might have been his. The same sentence would have probably gone down equally as well with Christian: ‘Hey, honey, you know that kid you’ve always wanted? Well, get this! I’m knocked up! And the good news is, it
might
be yours!’ I don’t think so. Christian would have joined Johnny on his marathon to get as far away from me as possible. Don’t get me wrong: I would have deserved it. But my baby wouldn’t have. And I wanted to give my child the best possible upbringing I could hope for. Christian is a good dad – when he’s around. Johnny would have been a terrible one.

I’d better not turn on the radio for the next few days. They’ll be playing his songs incessantly as a result of this. I should leave the telly off, too. I glance at my laptop. No. No. No.

My resolve lasts until late that evening, when Barney is tucked up in bed and I still haven’t heard from Christian. He was supposed to call me when he landed, but he hasn’t, and I’ve allowed my bitterness to eat away at me so it’s easier to justify my actions. I turn on my laptop, my head tingling with anticipation.

Google: Johnny Jefferson.

Millions of hits come up. I nervously click on the first news link:

Stupid, stupid idiot!

How could he do this to himself?

I saw at first hand the effects drugs had on Johnny. It got to a point where he was in such a bad way that I could bear it no longer. I took him to a house in the Yorkshire Dales in the north of England and made him go cold turkey. It wasn’t the smartest idea I’d ever had, but it worked. For a while, at least.

A memory comes back to me of sitting in front of the log fire in the house. His green eyes staring into mine, his lips trailing down my neck . . . I shiver.

Stop. Stop thinking about it.

I can’t.

His warm chest pressing into me . . . my fingers tracing the tattoo across his navel: ‘
I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel . . .’

‘Johnny Cash lyric,’ he explained.

‘You wouldn’t ever hurt yourself now, would you, Johnny?’

Stupid, stupid!

Another memory slams into me, this time about when he came to see me after he found out I was dating Christian.

‘Nutmeg . . .’

That was my nickname. The name he gave to me.

He runs his thumb down the side of my neck.

‘Stop it!’ I bat his hand away. ‘Why are you doing this? I’m happy, Johnny. I like Christian.’

‘There!’ He practically shouts, pointing at me. ‘You said “like”!’

I step backwards. ‘I love him,’ I say determinedly.

He shakes his head and leans back against the corridor wall. ‘You said “like”,’ he says again, this time more slowly. ‘You
love
me.’

Sobs well up inside me.

I still love him. I love him even now.

I cry my heart out, stifling the noise with my fingers so as not to wake my little boy. Oh, God, what am I going to do?

It’s too late . . . It’s too late . . .

I cry for a long, long time, curled up on the sofa as the sun dips below the horizon and the mountains change in colour from sunset orange to pitch black. Eventually my tears subside, but my curiosity doesn’t. I want to find out about Dana Reed.

I click on another link.

They met in rehab back in March during Johnny’s third stint there. Relationships in rehab are discouraged, but Johnny and Dana flouted that rule. There’s a picture of them coming out of a club in the early hours of the morning a few weeks ago. She has long, dark hair and is wearing a lot of make-up: black eyeliner around her eyes, heavy metallic black eye shadow and red lipstick. Her skin is pale, considering she lives in LA, and Johnny towers above her so she must be petite. She’s beautiful, in a rock-chick kind of way. She suits him, I realise, and jealousy surges through me. I angrily rub away my tears and read on.

She’s an up-and-coming singer songwriter who, according to the music press, is the Next Big Thing. She’s twenty-five, eight years younger than Johnny and a year younger than me. They haven’t been apart since they met – there have been no rumours of Johnny messing around. ‘Could she finally be The One?’ one journalist asks. ‘They’re a bad influence on each other. It will all end in tears,’ another states.