Until You're Mine (13 page)

Oscar cries and covers his face.

‘You’re a baby,’ Noah says. ‘It’s just a stupid old crab.’ Despite his bravado, I notice his dimpled hand grip tighter around Zoe’s fingers. Her nails are short and practical and she wears a single ring.

‘Am not,’ Oscar replies. He clings to James’s leg.

‘Look at his eyes,’ Noah says in awe. ‘Are they made of big caviar?’

We all laugh, but Oscar whimpers. ‘It’s like a horrid spider,’ he says. He turns his back on the tank, which is teeming with other fish and crustaceans.

As we carry on and walk through the tunnel with fish swimming overhead like birds, with coral as bright as jewels and unidentifiable creatures flapping and sculling all around us, Oscar begins to cry.

‘What’s up, sweetie?’ I ask, doing my best to get down to his level. James will have to help me stand up again.

Oscar buries his face in James’s overcoat, twisting the tweed wool between his fingers, covering the dark fabric in snot. ‘There are shadows everywhere in here,’ he says through hiccupy sobs. He peeks out and glances around the tunnel. It’s true. Crazy colours and swathes of darkness wash around us as if we really are in the unknown depths of the ocean. It’s beautiful, but frightening to a sensitive four-and-a-half-year-old.

‘They can’t hurt you,’ I say, and Zoe is right beside me offering tissues and reassurance and whatever hugs little Oscar will take. ‘It’s just the weird lights making us look funny colours. And those are just reflections.’ He jumps as another family walks past, their faces big as ghouls in the glass. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

‘I’m scared, Mummy,’ he says, transferring his grip from James’s coat to my hand. ‘That shadow looks just like the bad person in my room last night.’

I glance up at James at exactly the same time Oscar’s eyes widen to saucers. I’m not sure if it’s amazing that he called me ‘Mummy’ or utterly disturbing that he’s claiming someone was in his room last night.

THEY’RE PROBABLY GOING
to sack me now they think I’ve been creeping around their kids’ bedroom scaring them witless. They no doubt think I’m a freak because I rather vehemently avoided having my photograph taken in their fit of family nostalgia. As we walked back to the car, I overheard Claudia talking about noises coming from my bedroom during the night. James told her, in a terse whisper, that she was being silly, paranoid, hormonal.

Of course she is
, I feel I should say as we drive home in silence.

Between us, James and I scoop Oscar and Noah from the cocoon of their car seats, but by the time we’ve lugged them inside and prised the dead weight of their bodies from within the thick padding of their coats and scarves, they’ve woken up. They’re grumpy, and Oscar has wet himself.

‘I’ll sort him out,’ I say as Claudia’s face crumples at the thought of dealing with her son’s accident. She looks exhausted. I bet she’s thinking that it’s my fault he’s been sitting in his own pee, that his car seat cover will need washing and his brother is meanly laughing at him for being a baby. She believes it was me lurking in his room last night like a shadowy underwater creature, scaring him to the point of wetting himself in his sleep, giving him nightmares. ‘It’s no problem,’ I say when she asks if I’m sure. It goes some way to stamping out the flicker of guilt.

‘I’ll make some macaroni cheese then,’ Claudia says with relief. She waddles off into the kitchen while James hangs up coats and dumps shoes on the rack in the porch. He catches my glance as I lead the boys, both now whining, upstairs. I notice a twitch on the soft grey skin beneath one eye.

Half an hour later and the twins and I go back downstairs in much better spirits. The bath has warmed and woken them while clean pyjamas, their favourite cartoon slippers and the smell of cheesy macaroni sends them scampering to the table. ‘Just in time,’ Claudia says, spooning dollops of creamy pasta onto five plates. The table is already set – apple juice in a jug, an open bottle of white wine, glasses, knives and forks spread out with gingham paper napkins in between.

‘None for me,’ I say just before she serves the last plate. She stops, looks at me. ‘I’m . . . I’m going out tonight. If that’s OK.’ I bow my head. It’s last-minute. It’s crazy and dangerous, I know, but I can’t help myself. I feel my cheeks redden.

‘No supper before you go?’ she asks sweetly. ‘There’s plenty.’ She waves the serving spoon and a clump of macaroni plops back into the dish.

‘I’ll get something while I’m out.’ That’s a lie. I don’t feel at all like eating, in or out.

‘No problem,’ she says. I can’t help noticing the slight note of relief in her voice. Now they can eat without me, a family of four, just as they used to do before I came along. ‘Pass these to the boys, James,’ Claudia continues, and her husband silently puts food in front of the children. Together they watch me leave the room.

When I have fetched my coat and bag from upstairs, I call out the cheeriest good-bye I can manage. The front door is closed before I hear their reply.

*

The pub is crowded but I’m certain she’s not here yet. My nerves aren’t firing or aching as if they’ve been stripped raw, and my pupils aren’t stretching to saucers at the sight of her. The hair on the back of my neck isn’t prickling with anticipation and I can’t detect the musky notes of her sad perfume.

‘Gin and tonic, please,’ I say to the lad behind the bar when I finally inch my way to the front. His hair is long and messy and he’s wearing a T-shirt with ‘God Save the Queen’ printed on it. He turns round to fetch a glass from the shelf. I don’t usually drink gin but tonight it feels as if I should. It somehow seems fitting. He puts my drink on a white paper mat and I give him the money.

I turn, sipping the bitter fizziness, and look for an empty table. What we need is a quiet corner for two, a hidden alcove where no one will see us. I don’t want anyone spying. But all I can see is a pub full of bodies – mostly men, mostly roaring out hilarious stories to one another before they finally head home to their families. There are several clusters of women standing about wearing impossibly high heels and dresses that are more like tops. I squeeze between a group of businessmen and stand on tip-toe to see if I can spot a table. I can’t. It wasn’t the best meeting place to choose.

My text was spur of the moment yet I’d spent all of last night thinking about it, pacing about, unable to sleep for worry.
I want to see you. 8pm The Old Bull, cnr Church and Brent Rd. X

I didn’t receive a reply until we’d come out of the aquarium, blinking in the low winter sun that had finally made an appearance after the morning’s rain. The world was suddenly mirrored, fresh, dangerous – seemingly reflecting everything I was trying to ignore. The feelings I had wouldn’t stay hidden for ever.

She’d agreed to meet me.
OK
was the briefest of replies, and without the usual
X
at the end. That alone instantly sent me into a flat spin of worry about her.

There is a small gap near the door so I go and stand in it, hoping to spot her if she comes in. I barely have room to breathe. People are all around me, jostling and shoving as they make their way outside for a smoke or to the loo.

It’s her hair, as ever, that I spot first. It’s as if the pub’s caught fire and we’re all burning up.

I shake my head. I’m being ridiculous.

‘Cecelia!’ I call out, way too loud. I put my hand above my head and wave frantically. Everyone stares at me. I lower it the second she sees me, and then the blush comes.

I watch her walk towards me, pushing through the crowd with ease. The world lurches into slow motion as she drags our entire history behind her.

‘Heather,’ she says. Her voice, low and sweet as if she drank syrup, catches me unaware even though it hasn’t been that long since I last heard it. She raises a nearly full glass at me, and I wonder how long she’s been here, how I could have missed her.

There is a biting moment when neither of us knows whether or not to draw close and peck a kiss, but then some jerk seals our indecision by jostling me and making me slosh my drink over my hand. It dribbles down to my elbow. I glare at him, and in a second Cecelia is mopping me with a tissue. I laugh nervously. It’s so unlike her to do that.

‘I’m glad you came,’ I tell her. The words tumble over each other. She must think I’m drunk.

‘You sounded . . . urgent,’ she says. ‘I thought something was wrong.’ How she gleaned that from a plain and simple text I don’t know, but then that’s the thing between us. I’m suddenly reminded of the twins and the way they seem to know what the other’s thinking. It’s happened several times already since I’ve been working for Claudia, as if their connection is way more than common growing space in a womb.

Oh God,
Claudia
.

My stomach rolls and knots as if I’m stricken with disease. I don’t want to think of her right now, yet here I am, squashing back the feeling of guilt that I’m about to shatter the Morgan-Brown household into a million pieces. It’s not a matter of if. It’s a matter of when.

‘I’ve been on the lookout for a table, but there aren’t any.’ It doesn’t seem right, telling her standing up. That’s the thing with Cecelia – and don’t I know it: everything has to be perfect. Even with her own brand of just-picked-it-up-off-the-floor meets vintage-shop-finds, Cecelia’s image is carefully crafted right down to the mismatched shades of nail polish she wears on each finger, and the quivering strands of red hair that appear not to have been brushed for a week but have, in fact, taken half an hour or more to place into mussed clumps.

‘My feet are killing me,’ she comments, and I glance down between us. Ridiculously high chunky grey and yellow wedges still don’t bring her up to my height.

‘Poor you,’ I say, although, in truth, I don’t really mean it. I feel annoyed with her.

Distracted, I stand on tip-toe again and spot it, littered with empty glasses. ‘Quick,’ I say, right up close to her ear. She smells of cinnamon. ‘There’s a table free.’ I make no apologies for legging it across the pub and lunge down into one of the three chairs just as another couple are about to settle in. I can’t help noticing that the woman is pregnant. I look away, pretending not to have seen.

‘Well done,’ Cecelia says. She’s wearing fuchsia tights and a short patchwork skirt. She wiggles it down as she sits, legs primly folded away from me.

I don’t know how to begin so I sip my drink instead. I wish I’d ordered a double. Triple. The whole bottle. A distillery. ‘How’s the work going?’ I ask, and she immediately tips her head at me and pulls back her hair. ‘Oh, wow,’ I say. ‘They’re stunning.’

‘It’s Diana. She’s a fertility goddess.’

I feel the lump that’s sitting deep in my neck pulse. Did she wear them to make a point? I lean towards the earrings and take a closer look. Anything to distract myself. ‘She’s half tree.’ I sound inane.

‘I morphed her legs into an oak tree. Diana was a hunter, too. She’s kind of my heroine.’ She says this with a slow laugh from over the rim of her glass as she takes a sip.

I already know this. She’s told me a million times. I suddenly feel very inadequate. Cecelia is very talented. I uncross my ankle and bump her leg with my boot. ‘Sorry.’

‘How’s the new job going?’

I can’t believe she’s asked. My nose wrinkles and my lips part but nothing much comes out. What am I supposed to tell her? ‘We were talking about
your
work,’ I say.

Cecelia seems happy enough to veer back to her jewellery. It’s part of her, intrinsic to every day of her life. ‘I got a new order today.’

I nod. ‘Good.’ I imagine the client choosing from her bizarre pieces. She once designed a controversial range of jewellery that she called ‘Rape’. She was even featured in a couple of Sunday papers. The next day, there were loads of complaints about the accompanying photographs. What did she expect? The model was semi-naked, draped in what appeared to be used condoms, and blood, and was bound up by handcuffs and had a masked man, also semi-naked, looming menacingly over her while the designs glittered somewhere in the mess. She was accused of glamorising sex crimes. I can’t say the jewellery was particularly pretty or wearable although it certainly got her noticed as a designer. A couple of stores in London regularly order as a result, although what she supplies to them isn’t quite as eye-widening as the phallic necklaces with removable female body parts. That was Cecelia on drugs or something.

‘So. How’s it going?’ I ask lamely, simply to postpone the inevitable.

‘Yeah, like I said, I’m OK,’ she says, peering at me over the top of her glass as she takes a sip of wine.

‘Cecelia . . .’ I put out my hand but she halts it with her look.

‘No need,’ she sings. She tilts her head. ‘What did you want to see me about, anyway?’ She knocks back the rest of her drink. A sure sign that she’s becoming angry. A sure sign that I did the right thing by moving out.

This is it then. The proper end. No going back. I’d better get it over with. ‘I thought you should know, after everything’ –
after all your hopes, your plans, your dreams
– ‘that I’m not pregnant.’

She stares at me a long while before getting up and leaving.

LORRAINE LEFT ADAM
at work. While the Frith case was currently eating up most of their time, he’d told her that he had some other matters to take care of. She’d stood there winding her scarf around her neck, pulling on her leather driving gloves before slinging her bag over her shoulder. She’d hoped he’d come home with her. ‘Sorry,’ he’d said, glancing up from behind stacks of files. She’d walked out of his office feeling empty, slightly bereft, and sad. It was the first time she’d felt like that about him for ages. Since he’d told her, actually.

‘Grace?’ Lorraine called out when she got home. ‘Stella? Anyone home?’

In the kitchen, Lorraine found her eldest daughter sitting at the kitchen table with several files of work and a text book spread out in front of her. There was a plate of uneaten burnt toast and a glass of water sitting beside her. Lorraine wondered how she could see well enough to study. The main lights were off with only the under-cupboard lights casting a vague glow across the room.