Behaving Like Adults (37 page)

Five minutes in the office put a stop to that. The star of
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
had broken his ankle. And, bizarrely, even though the part required the guy to
act
a broken ankle, the real thing precluded him from playing it.

‘Not a fan of method acting then?' said Claw, when Nige burst through the door and trumpeted the news.

The heir-apparent rolled his eyes. ‘Like
that
hasn't been said a thousand times.' He grinned and dropped to his knees. ‘Holly, dearest, pretty please, Holly, grant me an open-ended sabbatical as from today, Issy can fill in for me, this is fate, darling, it's fate –
I
didn't trip him, I promise – I have to prepare for the role, attend rehearsals, perfect my lines, consider how to interpret the character, decide how precisely to blow every other sucker off the stage! Unfortunately, the bastard keeps his dressing room. But I'll
get you and Claw free tickets, front row, you can even bring that ghastly friend of yours, Rachel—'

‘We spend our
days
listening to you rattle on,' said my ungrateful sister. ‘Now we've got to spend the evenings too?'

Nige blanked her, fixing me with moony eyes.

‘Well,' I said. ‘You're going to go whether I give permission or not, so I might as well be gracious. Of course you can have a sabbatical, you big berk. You're going to be a star!'

We all three nodded our glad amazement at fortune sticking out a leg to speed Nige on his journey to fame. Two seconds later, he was gone.

Claw bit her lip. ‘Blocks. I'm actually going to miss him.'

So was I. I'd gone through a phase of treating Nige with suspicion. Now I'd begun to recover my senses, I saw him for what he was – a good pal and great company. He cheered the entire office. Even Issy had thawed in his presence. (Claudia and I were amazed the day when Nige expressed his boredom at needing the toilet as it was down the end of the corridor. Issy, normally prudish, had confided that after her Caesarian she was displeased at having a catheter inserted but to her surprise, ‘It was
remarkable
. You just don't feel the need to go – ever!' Nige had squealed, ‘Ohhhh, catheters are great! But society says No!') In his absence, I felt all three of us would wilt a little.

‘Now what?' said Claudia.

‘We'll manage,' I lied. ‘Get Issy in more often.'

‘Can we afford her?' said Claw. (Issy didn't let a little thing like family get in the way of income. She cherishes money, I suppose because growing up we never had much. Claw is the opposite – from a fiver to five grand, she spends frantically until it's all gone. It's as if she feels guilty about having it, as if any accumulation of wealth is an implied slight on our parents. She never extracts less than a hundred pounds from the cash machine and squanders it at such a speed you'd think the notes were pure asbestos. I'm
somewhere in between. I love buying for others and I like buying for myself, but I don't
have
to.)

‘Probably not.' I glanced at a fresh sheet of admin costs typed out by Nige and placed plonk in the centre of my keyboard, presumably as a buttering up ploy.

Apparently, administration cost a breezy £400 per month, but then Nige hadn't listed his own pay, or Claudia's. Or the accountant's. Or mine, to be fair.
I
could take a pay cut. I wasn't exactly racking up bar bills at nightclubs or buying fur coats. That said, after my security binge Claudia had taken over liaising with our accountant, so I couldn't spend Girl Meets Boy's money, even if I'd wanted to. Our number of weekly applications was still low, however, so I was mildly curious as to why, on my return to work, I found that the bank had backed off. When I'd mentioned this to Claudia, she'd said, in a sarcastic way, ‘Yeah, lucky that.' Whatever she'd meant to imply, I hadn't pursued it.

‘Could we hire a temp?' she said.

I wrinkled my nose. ‘The last one pilfered about a hundred quid's worth of stationery. And she never paid into the doughnut fund. We'll manage on our own.'

‘Right,' said Claudia.

I peered at her. ‘You okay? You're supposed to be in love. You look grey, no offence.'

She smiled weakly, showing tips of vampire teeth. ‘Period pain. Ouch.'

I nodded. The phone rang, Claudia answered it. I realised I was still nodding and that my pulse was breaking records. With effort, I stopped jerking my head. A series of airless gasps passed for breathing, no matter how deeply I gulped, I couldn't seem to get oxygen to my lungs. I gripped the sides of the chair and heaved myself upright. I just about made it to the Ladies without falling flat. I splashed my face with cold water, stared bleakly into the mirror and tried to remember.

When was the last time?

I've never been a great fan of periods. I know some people make a great deal of them, the entire family going out to celebrate their baby girl's first bleed. I can just imagine my father choking down a Bloody Mary in honour of the occasion. That said, Issy keeps a filed record of every date of every period she's ever had. Any week of the month she can tell you the exact day of her cycle. Should you need to know. Me, I have them and forget about them. I usually sense when one is due because I catch myself being more disagreeable than usual. But since Stuart, my disagreeable streak had stretched over three months, putting my period radar out of action. Think, Holly, when
was
the last time?

I must have had one since Stuart. I must have, because it would be too unfair if I hadn't. I raked through the trivia to see if a memory presented itself. But no. I'd check my diary, see if it sparked any associations. The truth was, I hadn't paid attention. After a Stuart, you don't
want
to pay attention to your body and its functions. You prefer to kid yourself that it's nothing to do with you. The more distance you can gain between your mind and it, the easier it is to minimalise the pain, until you could almost believe that it had happened to someone else. If I'd bled continuously for three months, I hardly think it would have registered.

It couldn't be Stuart's. He'd worn a condom. But condoms split.

I skittered into the office, grabbed my bag and skittered out again. I ran into the chemist and bought the first pregnancy testing kit I saw. I tried to look happy as I paid for it, in case the cashier formed any impertinent theories. Then I raced back to the office, dashed into the loo, and peed on the wretched thing. What was it, blue square? blue circle? I
knew
the instructions, I didn't need to read them, what modern woman does at the age of thirty? I tried to look away, then look back but I didn't have the self-control. As I stared, a faint blue line appeared and my heart peeled its skin in horror.

Speaking for myself, you're so used to false alarms, you never
truly
think that line will appear. So when it does you can't quite believe it. I broke the habit of a lifetime and sat down on a public toilet. (The lid was on, at least). I didn't want to start mewling but a few wails bubbled out. It was plain that God had taken a dislike to me. An unfortunate enemy to make, considering how childish He is. (‘You start something with
Me
, I'll finish it, see how you like a plague of locusts, etc' – what a
brat
.)

If it was Stuart's I was getting rid of it and send me to hell. My mind twitched to the flowers he'd sent me. I'd wanted to throw them out of the window, but I'd placed them in water instead. They were
flowers
, not the person who bought them. And when Issy had told me to stop watering the houseplants to teach Nick the lesson of responsibility, I couldn't bring myself to let them die. You don't nurture something then kill it. But this was different. But
how
? Was I putting an innocent to death to pay for Stuart's crime? It wouldn't have consciousness at this stage. It was a foetus. And I believed in choice. But I also remembered what Pamela Fidgett had said to Nick.

Nick had told her he felt he must have done something wrong, for his mother to give him away. He must have been a bad, evil sort of baby, for her to abandon him.
Pamela had said, ‘I challenge you to look into any pram and pick out an “evil” baby. How evil can a baby be?' She'd made Nick feel much better. But considering her words made me feel worse. Was it a blob or a baby at this stage? My choice. My choice, no one else's business. Jesus. What if it were
Nick's
? I scraped my hair out of my face, and held my head in my hands, probably to prevent it from exploding. It was much more likely, even if I did blush at the fact there was a father shortlist.

I still had to remind myself that one of them hadn't given me a choice.

I stepped out of the Ladies and wandered slowly back to the office. It had to be Nick's. I didn't deserve for it to be Stuart's. What would Nick say when I told him? I wanted to get back with him, I had to admit it. It would be so cosy and safe – me, him and a baby. Our own little family unit. He'd want that too, I knew he would. He
needed
me now, more than he did before. Now, he'd appreciate me. A
baby
. Once you have one, you can't put it back. Then again, look at Nick's birth mother. He'd be thrilled, I was sure of it. By becoming parents ourselves, we'd be sloughing off all the crap that had gone before. Making a fresh start.

I didn't want to consider that Nick might
not
be thrilled to hear of his impending fatherhood. I tried not to remember that when Issy told Frank that she was pregnant, his reaction was to vacuum the entire house, in silence, for three hours. Not quite what Issy had been hoping for. But, I reassured myself, now Frank was a devoted dad, an outspoken champion of parenthood. If Nick was a little taken aback at first, he'd soon come round. I also tried not to remember that while Nick loved entertaining other people's children, he always returned from parties, slumped on the sofa, gestured around the room, and whispered, ‘
Silence
.'

‘You're the one who looks grey,' said Claudia, the second I walked in. (She likes to have the last word on insults.)

‘I'm fine,' I muttered. I could have done without this observation. When you're struggling to keep your house of cards from collapse, you don't appreciate so-called friends huffing and puffing. The tiny, ever-shrinking part of my brain devoted to realism suspected that Nick would be appalled beyond belief. Of course I couldn't entertain such a possibility because
then
how would I cope? I was finding it hard enough to cope with my
own
doubts. It had been proved that I couldn't look after myself – how could I be trusted to look after a baby?

Recently, when I stroked Emily and she responded by rolling on her back and showing me her belly (quite the biggest compliment you can receive from a cat), I found myself looking forward to her death. I loved her so much, it seemed the safest option. I wanted her to have a happy life and die quickly, before anything horrible happened to her. I knew this was an odd line of reasoning. I also knew the fierce, consuming love that most babies inspire in their mothers and – judging from what I could feel about a cat – I worried about the terror it would bring. With the world in the state that it was, how could you dare to love another being so much that your life depended on it?

‘I'm fine,' I repeated.

‘Good,' replied Claudia, ‘because I've got something to tell you that will make you feel even finer.'

Really. ‘Go on then.'

Claudia beamed. ‘We made a match. Sam and Bernard have resigned their membership.'

My jaw dropped. (It's amazing how, when you're experiencing disbelief, that this actually
happens
.) ‘But,' I squeaked, ‘how could they? God, they love Girl Meets Boy!'

Claudia's smiled drooped. She looked confused. ‘Er, Hol. That's what members do when they find love. They resign their membership.'

I could feel the fear rise. We
needed
people like Sam and Bernard. I didn't care if Nige said they had radio faces. We
needed their sweet natures. We needed their membership fees. And, despite my attempts to be normal,
I
still needed to keep everyone safely single. How could I run a dating agency if my instinct now opposed the very point of it?

‘Claudia, do you know for certain that they've got together?'

‘They rang within twenty minutes of each other. They were coy, but it was obvious.'

I hardly heard her. I was sunk in gloom. I'd failed. I'd failed on every count. I'd botched my life good and proper. I trusted Stuart, the Big Bad Wolf, I ditched Nick, the Frog Prince, and I couldn't manage a business. You know, I bet the baby
wasn't
Nick's. And even if it was, he'd hate me for burdening him with a child. I might as well face it. He still
was
a child. And I was an idiot. An incompetent fool. Only
I
could end up being sued for damages by my own rapist.

Funny. Once upon a time I was a strong, confident woman. I was the do-it-herself princess who didn't
need
a prince. Now I had to have him to prop me up.

I sat down in my executive chair, and crossed my legs. ‘Claudia,' I said. ‘I'm going to give you first refusal. I'm selling Girl Meets Boy. I'm sure you'll understand. I've had enough.'

AS CLAUDIA STARTED
to say all the stuff you say to people who are poised on a window ledge, I decided to tell her about the pregnancy. Not because I wanted her to know, but because I didn't have the strength to engage in an argument with a clever person and I hoped it would shut her up. Having a kid was a marvellous excuse to jack in the business, even if it wasn't the real one. Now
her
mouth fell open.