Behaving Like Adults (46 page)

‘I . . . it wouldn't be fair of me to say,' I said, eventually. ‘You really need to speak to him.'

‘But, Holly,' rumbled Michael. ‘We can't get a damned word out of him.'

I gulped my tea. The Mortimers followed suit and sipped their coffees. Lavinia's eyes were turning red and watery, a look which didn't complement her tan. I noticed a tremor in Michael's hands. This was hideous. To think that
my
parents were so intimidated by these people that on the two occasions my mother had dared to invite them to her humble abode, she'd spent four hours cleaning, and another four hours apologising for the ‘mess'. The Mortimers were richer than our family, more successful, more established. But, I now realised, the emotional evolution of the Appletons was far superior.

I took a deep breath. And I told them.

Not
about Nick's visit to his birth mother – that was not my story to tell – but about Nick's feelings, Pamela Fidgett's theories, the possibility that they had yet to come to terms with their (I squeezed the word out of my mouth like the last wretched inch of toothpaste from a tube)
infertility
. I suggested that Nick needed evidence of their contrition. That perhaps there was a friend they could speak to who could help them see the situation from a new perspective, someone whose opinion they respected. I squeezed my knees tight together, the cheek of
me
,
Headcase, who ought to be seeking therapy herself, advising the Mortimers to seek it. Hilariously (and I use the word in its ironic, bitter sense), I quoted Issy. ‘The child is always a symptom of the parents.'

I listened to myself dispensing wisdom to this elegant couple so much more mature and important than me and I wouldn't have blamed Lavinia if she'd pressed her Vicky sponge into my face, but she didn't. The two of them sat, nodding, their eyes fixed on my yapping mouth. Their attention was addictive and I had to force myself to stop talking. I glanced at the clock on Martha's wall.

‘I hope all this isn't too much of a, a shock,' I added. ‘I know it can't be pleasant to hear. But I'm almost certain that that's what Nick needs from you, and if you want him . . . back, I'm sure you'd be more than happy to try anything.'

This seemed to galvanise them into agreement. They leapt up, hugged me, thanked me, boomed, ‘Yes, oh, yes, absolutely,' and waved as I scurried back across the road to work. I didn't look back. Grant them
some
dignity.

I entered an altogether cheerier office. Claudia and Nick – they'd always got on – were hee-heeing over an application form. Under ‘Do you have any talents?', the guy had written ‘I can lay lino'. In response to ‘What's your greatest asset?' he'd scrawled ‘My MBA'. Claudia even gave me a ghost of a smile.

Nick stood up. ‘Do you mind if I nip to the bank for five minutes, Hol? I'll be right back.'

I couldn't believe he was being so correct as to ask my permission. This, the man who was so accustomed to doing as he pleased that on their first meeting he had no qualms about telling my parents of the thin walls in his rented studio flat, which unfortunately enabled us to hear his neighbours having sex. He'd told my mother that their efforts sounded like ‘a sea lion fixing a squeaky door'.

‘Of course you can go to the bank, Nick,' I said, wondering if I and his many parents had, with our mistreatment,
managed to break his spirit entirely. ‘You don't have to ask.'

‘Camille spoke to Nige,' said Claudia, the second he was out of sight. ‘He's going to do it. Camille spoke to Stuart's client, recorded the conversation – which is illegal but bite me – and she's biking the tape to him this afternoon.'

If ever a plan had ‘fiasco' written all over it in pink fluorescent marker pen, here it was. And she hadn't apologised for shouting at me. I covered my ears. ‘I told you, I don't want to know,' I said. ‘This is
your
idea, it's nothing to do with me. And if Stuart catches Camille, she'd better have an excuse ready that's nothing to do with me.'

Claudia shrugged. ‘Fine, fine, whatever.' Her mood froze as fast as it had melted. ‘FYI,' she added. ‘Nick told me about being adopted, last night. Which makes what you've done to him about the phantom baby even more . . . inconsiderate.'

She spun round her chair to face her computer, her black hair flying as if she were a witch on a broomstick.

I gave her a covert V-sign. It didn't feel like enough so I snarled, ‘I feel evil enough without your input. And FYI, Claudia, you are
not
an American, you are a British citizen living in London who happens to watch
Seinfeld
on Sky occasionally, so kindly refrain from using phrases like FYI and bite me.'

Claudia gave me the V-sign back, over her head. Ten frosty minutes of silence followed, then Nick sauntered in, whistling. ‘Everything okay?'

‘I need to get some air,' muttered my sister. She snatched up her mobile – she could have saved herself trouble and had it surgically attached – and marched out. I wondered if she expected me to tell Nick about the fantasy baby then and there. I smiled at him. I could feel my face turning puce. Martha's Got Buns was, in retrospect, an unsafe place to stage a secret assignment. Nick could have gone to the bank five minutes earlier and caught us red-handed, the
Vicky sponge in our mouths. As it was, I knew he suspected I'd been up to no good.

He beamed. ‘Guess what. She rang! While you were out!'

My heart flopped in relief. Maybe his birth mother wasn't a lost cause. ‘Oh fantastic. What did she say?'

Nick mussed his hair. ‘Malcolm's had a shift changed so he's now free next Wednesday night. And so's Russell. It's nine days away, which is a while, but sooner than I thought it was going to be. That's alright, isn't it? It doesn't clash with work?'

‘It's fine. There
is
a second date night, but we'll get Issy along. Meeting your, mm, other family is far more important, obviously.'

His face fell. ‘Oh. Bother. I was hoping that you'd come with me again. You being my future wife and the mother of my unborn child and all that.' He grinned, dropped to his knees, held my hips and put his ear against my stomach. ‘Hello, darling,' he whispered. ‘Daddy loves you.' I tried not to flinch.

‘Well,' I said, stroking his hair and wanting to groan aloud. ‘There'll be other times.'

I closed my eyes. Everything would fall apart when I told him the truth. We'd be the only couple ever to cancel our engagement
twice
. And what would I tell my family? I didn't want to shame them more than I had but it seemed inevitable. I'd convinced myself of that baby. The phantom loss was a scalpel, scraping the flesh from my insides. There'd been a young woman nursing a newborn in Martha's that morning, and I couldn't look at her. I didn't feel sorry for myself though. You shun reality, it's like swinging a wrecking ball away from you. Soon enough, it'll swing right back and pulp you.

‘Do you mind if we don't see each other tonight?' I blurted. ‘I've got stuff to do around the house.'

‘What stuff? Cleaning? Why, where's Gloria? You mustn't overdo it, Hol. Not in your state. Why don't I come and help?'

This was unreal. For the last few years, my gripe with Nick had been the gripe of a million women (and men, I guess), that our relationship was no longer the precious jewel of love, laughter and mutual respect that it had been at the beginning. But even at the beginning – love, laughter, precious jewels and mutal respect notwithstanding – Nick had never offered to
clean
.

‘Thanks, but really, don't worry. I won't lift anything heavy. It's other stuff. Phone calls. You'll be bored out of your head. I actually feel like being by myself.'

The truth, which gushed out in a rush, proved more acceptable than the blather about ‘stuff'.

‘No problem,' he said. He gave my stomach one last rub – ‘I probably shouldn't grope the boss in the office but it
is
my first day' – and returned to his desk.

That evening, I arrived home (a light awaiting me in every room, I'd resigned myself to an extra few hundred pounds on the electricity bill), went through my usual twenty-minute checking ritual – ensuring Emily wasn't lying dead in the garden, her brains bashed out by a passing thug, marching round the house with a bread knife, yanking open doors to reassure myself that no intruders were crouching in wardrobes – and threw out the pregnancy book. Then I rang Gloria.

‘Ah bloodyell, I've not forgotten to clean have I?'

‘What! No. No. You were only here a few days ago, it's still spotless, I'm living in clinical conditions. No. I'm calling about something else.'

‘Thank Christ for that. What?'

‘You know. Your cousin. The one who . . . was raped. You gave me the title of a website she found useful. I put it away, and then I lost it. I wondered if you could give it to me again.'

‘Of
course
.'

Gloria spelt out the name for me.

‘Great. Thank you. And. Did you mention that there was a psychologist she spoke to?'

‘Yeah. Yeah. His name's David Goldstein, hang on a sec . . .' I heard a scrummage, then Gloria was back on the phone. ‘He's NHS and private, ask your GP to refer you.'

I took down the number. ‘And he was . . . nice was he?'

‘Oh! Yes! He was wonderful. So kind. And understanding. You'll never be a good therapist if you're not a nice person. No matter how many certificates you have. She'd have been done for without him. I mean, she still takes the pills, but a much lower dose than what she did, and that would never have happened without his help. She'd seen a psychiatrist, and he'd given her anti-depressants, but the dose was so mental she was in a constant fug. It was like being preserved in ice. But it was better than having to feel. Sometimes a load of feelings drop on you before you're ready for 'em. The drugs helped that way. But Dr Goldstein was a godsend. She'd have gone round the twist if it weren't for him. So . . . you gonna get referred? Didn't the police give you Victim Support?'

‘Yes, I am,' I replied. ‘And yes, they did. But I'd rather try the, you know, personal recommendation first. Thanks, Gloria.'

I put down the phone, and stood there for a while looking at it. The last thing I wanted to do was to follow in the Clouseau-ish steps of Claudia and Camille, but I suspected that Gloria wasn't entirely telling the truth about her cousin.

I DIDN'T CALL
my GP, I called my mother. I think everyone needs their mother. I hadn't told Nick, but after his adoption news I'd searched the internet and ordered a book entitled
The Primal Wound
. I just wanted to understand how he felt a little more
closely
. Understanding is the key to forgiveness. Mostly.

The book cited an anecdote similar to a tale Nick had told me, having heard it from Pamela Fidgett. A grown woman, who knew she was adopted, breaking down at a time of stress and wailing in her bedroom, ‘I want my mummy'. She'd never
met
her mummy – unless you count the nine months of gestation – and her adoptive mother was perfectly lovely. In truth, she hadn't a clue who this ‘mummy' was, if she was alive or dead, wouldn't have known her had they met in the street, but when this thirty-four-year-old's emotions were stripped to the raw, what emerged was the child crying, ‘I want my mummy'.

It made me want to hug her. It also turned my stomach. Grow up, why don't you, and do without! No one wants to be reminded of their own weakness. But then perhaps we all have the same weakness, except some hide it better than others. Nige had a friend whose father had been in the Israeli army. Three of their unit were captured and tortured, and because they had their walkie-talkies with them, the friend's father heard his colleagues' last moments. ‘They were calling for their mothers,' he'd said. ‘
Ima
, in Hebrew.'

Ah, God, it was too horrible, I wished Nige hadn't told
me. But again, it proved my suspicion, that at heart we are all children. We just play at being adults.

When I spoke to my mother that evening, maternal concern oozed warm and treacle-like from the receiver. She and Dad were
so
looking forward to being grandparents again. If we wanted the baby's room painted, Dad would be honoured. I so badly wanted to tell her the truth, but my voice stalled. How did I begin to inflict that much pain? I'd more easily hurt a kitten than my parents, that's how vulnerable I felt them to be.
They
didn't seem to need their mothers, but I thought of them as childlike. I wanted to protect them.

I remembered when Nick's parents visited a few years back, the day after Boxing Day. My mother's friend Leila had dropped round and, with her usual lack of finesse, hogged the conversation.

The subject of literature had arisen, as Lavinia had received a vintage edition of the complete works of Tolstoy for Christmas and good luck to her. Leila piped up in her Wiltshire accent – its softness was
entirely
unsuited to her brash personality, her fleshy pink face seemed to swell as she spoke – ‘Oh, Linda's a great reader, Lavinia, she'll get through a Danielle Steele in, like, ten minutes!'

I'd squirmed for my mother who – I wanted to shout in her defence – was just as likely to read John Steinbeck as Danielle Steel. Mrs Mortimer had smiled and said, ‘Goodness,' and my mother had smiled back. Not one other person in the room seemed bothered, but to me, my mother's smile revealed that she was too naive to know she was being patronised. I'd mentioned it to Nick afterwards, and he'd snorted, ‘Do you think my mother is actually going to open
War and Peace
? Holly, she barely gets through the
Daily Mail
!'