Vintage Babes (39 page)

I carried on and explained my good tidings. ‘So I’m jumping for joy.’

‘It’s excellent news,’ he agreed. ‘And cause for us to celebrate. How about coming up to town and I’ll take you to dinner at one of the finest and newest restaurants?’

I hesitated. Although the prospect of being wined and dined at a five-star London hangout did not particularly excite me, sometime we would need to meet to talk about arrangements for the wedding.

‘Thanks, I’d like that. And I’d like to meet Kathryn, too. We’ll both be at the wedding, I imagine, and if we get to know each other a little beforehand it’ll ease –’

‘No, no, I was thinking of a special dinner,’ Tom said. ‘Just you and me on – how about Sunday evening?’

For the two of us to dine alone struck me as odd. Why not include Kathryn? Also Sunday evening seemed a strange choice of day and time and, because there were often engineering works on the line at weekends, I would need to check the train service. Another thought: my father was coming for lunch, though he usually departed late afternoon.

‘This coming Sunday?’

‘That’s right. Sunday, the 27th.’

My heart twanged. Tom had referred to a ‘special’ dinner and the 27th was a special date. A date which had relevance to just the two of us. Now I understood why he had chosen Sunday and felt touched. Warmed. It was a caring choice.

‘The 27th it is. I’ll travel up by train.’

‘Then I’ll meet you at Waterloo,’ he said, and we fixed a time – with the proviso that I could change it, if necessary.

Replacing the phone, I took a drink of wine and then rang Steve’s number.

‘Sincere thanks,’ I said, when he answered. ‘Thank you for bringing Lynn to her senses and for bringing her and Justin back together again.’

‘They’ve made up?’ I heard the smile in his voice. ‘That’s great.’

‘They’ve not only made up, they have decided to get married. In church, in the summer.’

Steve laughed. ‘And you’re obviously delighted.’

‘Walking on air. Beth’s back living with her darling daddy–’

‘So you’re on your own again?’

‘Yes, they moved out and went home about a quarter of an hour ago. And it’s all thanks to you.’

Steve lowered his voice. ‘I wish my daughter would come to her senses and go home, too. She’s wandering around here like a lost soul. It’s obvious she’d be happier back on home territory, but whenever I suggest she returns she concocts a dozen excuses.’

‘It’ll happen and soon,’ I assured him.

He sighed. ‘I hope so.’

*          *          *

On Friday I was walking back from the fire station where I’d been speaking to a trio of firemen who were running in the London Marathon, dressed as Teletubbies, to raise money for a wheelchair for a disabled colleague when, further along the High Street, I saw someone waving. Narrowing my eyes against the glare of the sun, I realised it was Jenny, standing outside the charity shop and signalling to me.

‘You know that yesterday afternoon I went with Tina to the model agency in London?’ she said, as I joined her. ‘You’ll never guess what happened.’

‘Tina landed a booking?’

‘Not just one, three, but – Got time to talk?’

I inspected my watch. ‘A quick five minutes.’

‘Then come inside and I’ll tell you about it.’

‘No Eileen today?’ I asked, as Jenny led me through the deserted shop, past rails of second-hand – oops, ‘pre-owned’ – clothes, towers of C.D.s and a table bearing a collection of lightly chewed Beanie Babies.

‘She was here, but she’s gone to the doctor’s again, this time with restless legs.’

‘Sure it’s not restless tongue? The chronic variety?’

Jenny grinned. ‘Could be. Frances was supposed to be taking over when Eileen departed, but she hasn’t shown up. Frances is the Green Party supporter who’s a keen do-gooder. A valiant lady and utter pain. I’ve told you about her.’

I nodded. ‘The one who volunteers to help with anything and everything, but is totally unreliable.’

‘That’s her. When she’s here, she charges the wrong prices and gives folk the wrong change. She drives Eileen wild. Remember I said Eileen would be gossiping about you and Steve in a week at most?’ she carried on. ‘It didn’t take that long. When she was in earlier, she announced that one of her friends had seen ‘my friend, Carol, snuggling up to a new fellow in La Petite Bourriche.’ Seems the new fellow is middle-aged and not such a snappy dresser as Max, but looked a bit of all right nonetheless.’

I laughed. ‘I’ll tell Steve.’

Reaching the small staff room at the rear of the shop, Jenny launched into her news. ‘Tina was given three bookings. Two are for advertisements for clothes, designer clothes, which will be featured in fashion magazines, and the other is for vitamin pills.’

‘She was given the bookings straight off?’

‘No, it took forever. For one job she had to attend an audition which, fortunately, was being held not too far away. But then she had to have photographs taken, so that the agency could put her forward for future jobs. I was sat in the waiting room leafing through copies of
Hello
and
OK!
magazines for almost three hours.’

‘Poor you,’ I commiserated.

‘At least I’m up to date with the pop scene and who’s living with whom in the film world. But –’ Jenny chuckled ‘– as I was sat there, one of the agency bosses walked through and noticed me. Seems they’d been looking for a woman to be photographed for a kitchen equipment catalogue and she reckoned I looked like I could ‘dice a mean carrot’. In other words, I look your typical middle-aged, middle income, middle of the road housewife. Mrs Average.’

‘You do yourself a disservice, madam! You’re an alluring sexbomb who wreaks havoc in the loins of men.’

‘Am I? Do I?’ She laughed. ‘You’re a true friend, Carol. A total liar, but a true friend all the same. Anyhow, the woman asked if I was in the market for work.’

‘And you said thanks, but no thanks.’

‘On the contrary, the new confident Jen said yes.’

I stared in amazement. ‘You’re going to be a model? That’s fantastic!’

‘It’s hardly parading along a catwalk and it could be just this one job, but I thought I’d give it a whirl. The agency boss was keen to get me ‘on board’, as she kept saying.’

‘Great for the ego.’

‘It was. It is.’

‘And, who knows, it could lead to greater things. Before long you could be refusing to get out of bed for less than ten thousand pounds a day,
à la
– whichever supermodel it was.’

Jenny grinned. ‘Make that twenty thou. Though I could easily decide that modelling isn’t my scene. For a start, I’d need to keep a strict watch on my weight and do I really want to spend my days traipsing around London having my appearance dissected and assessed, then being turned down?’ She made a face. ‘Bad for the ego. So I shall continue looking for an office job.’

‘I trust the news of her model girl mum rocked Victoria back on her heels?’

‘It almost flattened her. Bruce, too.’

‘What was Tina’s reaction?’

‘She was pleased for me. I mean, it’s not as if I’m any kind of competition.’ Jenny frowned. ‘When we were travelling up on the train, I said how sorry I was that she was all on her own, without any family. But it turns out she does have a family or, at least, she has a mother and a brother.’

‘So where are they, abroad?’

‘I don’t think so. Tina was vague, but I got the impression she could’ve seen her mother fairly recently, though from a distance. Apparently there was a nasty quarrel in the past, the distant past, and they haven’t spoken since. She didn’t give any details.’

‘Her mother must be getting on,’ I observed.

Jenny nodded. ‘I suggested Tina should get in touch and try to mend their relationship before it’s too late – before the old lady dies – but she said she doubted her mother would be willing. Though that could’ve meant
she
wasn’t willing. Great shame. By the way, Shane’s moving out this weekend. He’s found a bed-sit in Croydon, so –’

‘Anyone around?’ a woman’s voice called.

‘Coming,’ Jenny replied.

‘I must go,’ I said. ‘Bye.’

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

Pulling out of Dursleigh
Station, the train trundled past council houses pinned with satellite dishes, picked up speed alongside five-bed, five-bath executive mansions where expensive garden furniture graced wide patios, cut through rolling fields and burrowed beneath a busy dual carriageway. A couple of stops, views of a rugby pitch, a multi-masted telephone exchange, tight terraces of brand new houses each oozing a conservatory and we entered suburbia. As the train duddle-dee-dered along, I reflected on Tom’s choice of day. April 27
^th
was the birthday of Michael, our son… and the day of his death.

In a repeat of how it had been when I was expecting Lynn, throughout the nine months of my second pregnancy I had felt wonderfully well. Yes, I’d suffered bouts of morning sickness and was destined to collect another phalanx of stretch marks, but my hair gleamed, my skin was as smooth as silk, I bloomed. A week before the due date, I had gone for a regular check-up and been assured that all was in order and the baby was healthy. I felt it kick.

‘It’s an energetic little bugger,’ Tom had remarked, putting his hand on my bump. ‘My guess is, we’re going to have a son.’

‘Or a second daughter,’ I’d said.

In those unenlightened days, you didn’t get to know the gender of your offspring beforehand and I didn’t want Tom to be too hopeful – or too disappointed. Though, having already got a girl, I, too, felt a boy would be ideal.

The contractions started around dawn one morning, becoming definite by breakfast time and, as arranged, I had duly delivered an unbothered Lynn into Jenny’s loving care. Tom drove me to the hospital, but when the usual tests were done the doctor, a middle-aged Mancunian, had looked concerned. He took me for a scan, which frightened me. When I asked if something was wrong, he squeezed my shoulder, told me not to worry and spouted banal phrases like ‘funny old world’ and ‘at the end of the day, all down to fate’. After the scan, we returned to the room where Tom had been left to wait. Then the trite, supposedly comforting, words ceased and the doctor hit us with – ‘I can’t find a heartbeat.’

My first reaction was disbelief. A mistake had been made, it couldn’t be true. Then I had expected to be rushed into surgery for a Caesarean. But there was no dramatic race to the operating theatre. The baby had to come out naturally.

My labour was a numb and tortured affair which seemed to last for ever, but late that afternoon I gave birth to a little boy. A perfectly formed corpse. We had already decided that if we had a son we would call him Michael; Michael Thomas Webb.

When he was born, Michael’s face was wrinkled and his mouth was open, and I kept on thinking, hoping, he might take a sudden breath and curl his tiny fingers around mine. That the doctor had been wrong and a miracle could happen. It didn’t. The baby lay still, as tranquil as if he might have been asleep. One of the nurses carried him off, cleaned him and dressed him in the clothes which I had brought and then they took photographs, which I still have. We were encouraged to hold him, and I did. I cuddled my son. I told him that his mummy and daddy loved him dearly and would always love him. But Tom couldn’t face it. He wouldn’t touch him.