Be My Baby (38 page)

The cold dread he’d been trying to outrun suddenly turned into a brick wall. He smacked straight into it. She’d almost left him? And he hadn’t even guessed. Hadn’t seen it coming. He was failing another wife.

She waited for him while he processed this information and now she took his silence as he’d meant it—an invitation to continue.

‘We all have things we need to face,’ she whispered. ‘I decided it was time to stop running. Time to stick with what I’d started, no matter how hard it got.’

He should have felt grateful at that, should have felt his stomach thaw out, but it just got harder and colder and tighter. He blinked and stared at the wall. ‘I always thought you were a miracle of some kind, Jennie Hunter.’

She didn’t say anything for a few seconds. She was wrapped around him and he felt her muscles lose that heavy, fluid feel. When she
spoke again her voice was thick. ‘Dangerfield. My name is Jennie
Dangerfield.’

And then she pulled away from him. He felt and heard her hit the mattress, and guessed she’d rolled onto her back.

Well done, Alex
.

Minutes limped by and then Jennie said, ‘Chris phoned and asked you to go climbing in Scotland, didn’t he? Some annual trip you do. I think you should go.’

Why was she bringing this up? He’d done the right thing about that.

‘I told him I wasn’t going,’ he said, and heard the irritation in his own voice. ‘Work’s busy. I hardly get to spend any time with you and Mollie as it is.’

Jennie let out a sad, resigned breath. ‘Even when you’re here, you’re not really here. And the more time you spend…
ghost walking
around this house, the worse it gets. We need you, Alex—me and Mollie. We need you to be here with us, not just in body, but
here
…’

She reached out and placed a warm palm on his chest, left it there for a few seconds, then drew it away again. ‘You once told me I was like a roller coaster ride,’ she said, her voice bare. ‘I was flattered. But I’m not sure you want a roller coaster. I think you like the flat of the motorway better—even
speed, no lumps and bumps, interchangeable scenery…’

‘That’s not true! I—’

‘We had a concentrated high at the beginning of our relationship, but it can’t always be like that, you realise that, don’t you? There are going to be low patches, tough times. We can’t shut our eyes and pretend they don’t exist.’

He folded his arms across his chest. ‘I’m not shutting my eyes against anything.’

Jennie seemed to know he was kidding himself because she carried on. ‘You can’t have the highs without the lows, you know. And if you want to iron it all flat and go without both…well…that’s not living. It’s existing. You need to decide what you want,’ she added, her voice cooler now. ‘The motorway or the roller coaster. And time away might help you do that.’

Alex rolled onto his back. ‘I know what I want.’

He’d always known what he wanted; he’d always had the whole of his life planned out, right from the age of fifteen, when he’d decided he was going to study law to help people, to protect people. But he realised now that Jennie had never really been part of his plans. She’d been an impulse, a wonderful,
maddening, life-affirming impulse. What did that mean?

‘I’ll tell you what I want,’ she said, her voice heavy with sadness. ‘Having Mollie and I under the same roof as you isn’t the same as being a family, and I want to have the future we dreamed about, even if it looks a little different now we’re here.’

He couldn’t take it any more. He rolled over to face her. ‘I want that, too,’ he found himself saying. ‘But I don’t know how.’ And as the words left his mouth he felt raw and open, all his weakness on display.

She reached out and touched his cheek. Even when he was breaking her heart she was still generous to him.

‘If you want to, you’ll find a way.’ It wasn’t an accusation, but a fact, stated with love and tinged with fear. ‘But…’ her voice dried ‘…if it’s not happening, you have to ask yourself if this is what you
really
want. Am
I
what you really want, or was I just the best way to forget your problems, another way to distance yourself from your feelings when everything got too much?’

Shame washed over him. It was true what she’d said—partly. He’d used her, and he was an utter heel for doing it, but he loved her, too. At least, he had. He wasn’t sure of what he
felt about anything any more. He just hoped he could untangle all of this and still find that love when he was free of it, that it wouldn’t disappear along with the knots.

He pulled her to him, kissed her cheek and tasted her quiet tears.

‘I’ll go,’ he said. ‘To Scotland.’

She softened just a little in his arms, but he was terrified as he lay there very still, holding her. Terrified he’d find he was wrong. That he didn’t want her after all. How could he tell when he was this numb?

The air up here was so clean, so pure. Alex stopped walking up the rock-strewn ridge and turned to look around him. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing man-made. He couldn’t even spot a crofter’s cottage or a road. No power lines. Not even an aeroplane in the sky. Just craggy mountains, mists of purple heather, rough grass and swathes of bracken. And the clear, bright sky.

He could almost imagine he was the only living soul on the planet. No other people meant no relationships to mess up. He was sure this soaring solitary feeling would eventually ground itself and become crushing loneliness, but at the moment he felt wonderfully free.

‘Hey, slowcoach! If you don’t get a move on, we won’t reach the summit by lunchtime and I’m hungry.’

Alex turned his head and found his brother grinning at him.

Well, he was
almost
the last soul on the planet.

Thankfully, Chris, while good-natured and cheerful, knew when to leave Alex to his own thoughts. He didn’t bombard him with chatter as they climbed. He didn’t sing stupid songs at the top of his voice. Alex loved his brother.

To ensure Chris’s continuing silence, he stopped admiring the view and started putting one foot in front of the other again.

Jennie had been right. He’d needed this.

He was five hundred miles away from his problems, and from this distance he hoped he might find some perspective.

So, for the next few days, whether he tramped through springy glens in the rain, or pushed his way through mist on a hillside, or stood on a summit in a rare moment of sunshine, he let the solitude and the quiet—the soft healing colours—soak into him.

He realised that after Becky had deserted him his mission to protect the world had silently changed into protecting himself. He’d believed
he could make himself invincible, believed he could get away with ignoring it all.

So as he climbed he opened the door in the back of his head and looked for monsters. They were real, all right, but not nearly as big and scary as he’d thought they’d be—anger at Becky for leaving him, rage because she’d never told him about Mollie. She’d stolen three years of his daughter’s life from him and he couldn’t even shout at her for it! Just this thought had left him silent with fury for hours. But there was also guilt, sadness, fear. And, as he took them out, one by one, and shone his torch on them, they all vanished into monster dust.

So, while Alex was physically always on the move, inside he found the stillness he’d been searching for. Alex wasn’t a man who needed to weep or shout or punch things to access his emotions. All he needed to do was to stay still long enough for them to catch up with him.

Jennie hated the silence in the house. Mollie had gone to visit Alex’s parents for the weekend, and she’d been here alone too many hours. Alex had been gone for six days and was due home tomorrow afternoon, not long before Mollie’s grandparents returned her. She knew
it had been her idea to set her husband free and send him off to the Highlands for a week, but she hadn’t factored in how difficult it would be to be left behind. Waiting. Wondering. Endlessly dissecting every conversation they’d ever had. It was driving her nuts.

She threw down the magazine she’d been reading and hauled herself out of her bubble bath. Even this hadn’t managed to calm her down. It was odd. Although she was a city girl, more used to heels than green wellies, what she really wanted to do was go for a bracing walk in the fresh country air. She wrapped a towel around herself and peeked out of the window.

It was overcast, and they’d had nothing but rain for the last few days, but the weather lady on the breakfast news had said it was going to brighten up later.

She got dressed and then went downstairs and grabbed her cardigan off the hook by the back door and plunged her feet into her bright pink flowery wellington boots. Boring old goose-poop green? Not on your life. She might be adapting to life in a village, but she wasn’t ready for ugly footwear just yet.

There were plenty of other walkers out this fine Saturday afternoon, but it wasn’t long before Jennie lost her sense of camaraderie and
got irritated with them. What had happened? Had the whole of south-east London decided to leave suburban bliss to tramp down country lanes? The footpath was heaving with them—muddy dogs bounding backwards and forward, children screaming in delight or whining about how far they were walking. Parents who just didn’t seem to care about either. And she could tell they weren’t locals because their wellies were just as garish as hers.

Of course, the pub was packed with them, too. Not a table to be had, unless she wanted to wait forty minutes. Which she didn’t. So she gave up on the idea of a Caesar salad and a nice glass of wine and headed for home, but on her way she passed the little church on the edge of the Elmhurst estate. She stopped outside the lychgate and looked up the path to the carved oak doors. They were closed, and she had no idea if they’d be locked on a Saturday, but she’d felt strangely serene last time she’d sat on one of those pews. Perhaps it would work again, and at least she’d be alone in there.

The vicar must be a trusting sort because she found the heavy doors swung open when she pushed them. She closed them behind her, not wanting to give any of the tourists any ideas, and then slowly walked down the aisle, careful not to let her boots squeak too
loudly on the flagstones, and chose a pew not far from the back. One with a pillar to lean against.

It was cool but not chilly inside the church. Jennie rested against the pillar, listening to her own breath. The gap between
in
and
out
became longer and longer, and soon she felt better, slightly less frazzled. They should bottle the air in this place. It was good stuff.

After a while she decided it might be rude to sit here in complete silence.

I’m back again. Nice place you’ve got here…

Small talk? Surely she could do better than that. She was famed across London for her witty banter. Only…being cheeky didn’t seem right either. She sat still for a moment.

Honesty. Now she remembered. This was the place for that.

I need another favour
, she said silently.
I wouldn’t ask if it was just for me but, you see, it’s for Mollie, too… I chose him last time I sat here. I just need him to choose me back. Do you think that’s possible?

Nothing happened. No sunbeam streamed through a stained glass window. No cherubic fanfare burst the silence, but deep down inside, in a place Jennie hardly knew she had, something came to rest. She sat there for ages,
just enjoying the feeling, letting it wash over her, not in big crashing waves; the sensation was similar to the frothy surf that tickled the beach. Soft and rhythmic and soothing.

When she’d drunk her fill of the peace, she stood slowly, walked to the front of the church and stopped right in front of the altar. She tipped her head back to look at the ceiling, got lost in the patterns of the vaulting for a while, and then she turned her head to look back up the aisle.

So different from where she’d said her vows to Alex. It all seemed silly now—eloping to Vegas in an almighty rush. Getting married in a glitzy little chapel by a man in rhinestone-studded ministers’ robes, whose teeth were a couple of shades too white. She could have done without the mini-skirted angel as ring-bearer, too.

She turned to face the altar. None of that seemed serious enough to match up to what she and Alex had been through, what they were still facing. But she hadn’t understood then how hard marriage could be. In her mind it had all been diamonds and confetti.

But that was just the wedding.

What happened the day after was the true test of the vows. And the day after that. And the day after that. She closed her eyes to stop
the sudden stinging. She wanted the
day after that
to keep coming with Alex. She didn’t want them to stop. Please, please, if he could just feel the same way.

It might have been in less than solemn surroundings, but she’d meant the promises she’d made him with all of her heart. They, at least, had been unadorned, no glitz to make them seem better than they really were.

The tears had just started to fall in earnest when she heard one of the heavy doors moan. No doubt it was one of those fancy-wellied hikers who’d come to have a nose. Why couldn’t they just leave her alone?

She swiped the tears away. Maybe she could bypass them by moving swiftly down the side aisle and be out of the door before anyone had guessed she’d been crying. She lifted her head to check her exit path and froze.

She recognised that silhouette, knew it by heart.

It was Alex.

What was he doing here? How had he found her? He wasn’t supposed to be back in Elmhurst until tomorrow.

She’d got used to the dim church interior and the bright light flooding in around him made it impossible to see his face, let alone read his features. She turned to face him fully,
begging him with her eyes to just get it over and done with, to deliver her fate.

And then the room was moving, shrinking as Alex got closer and closer. No… It was Alex who was moving.
Running
. It should have only been a few seconds before he reached her, but somehow it took much longer, and as he got closer she started to see his face more clearly.