Someone Like You (56 page)

The taxi cruised to a halt and Hugh opened the door for her.

Disappointment flooded through her. He wasn’t going to ask to see her again. Then, she felt his lips brush her cheek gently. ‘What are you doing next Saturday night?’

he asked.

She beamed at him. ‘Painting my toenails, unless I get a better offer.’

‘You’ve got one now,’ he said, thrusting a business card into her hand. ‘Dinner same time next week. I’ll book somewhere exotic and you can phone me on the mobile.’

The taxi drive home took nearly an hour. Normally, Leonie would have been taut as an elastic band watching the meter rack up the fare with the speed of a slot machine in Vegas. Tonight, she felt as if she was sailing home on a thermal breeze, like a yacht racing around the Caribbean.

Inviolate from the pain of everyday life, including huge taxi fares.

She whispered his name to herself a couple of times; Hugh Goddard, Hugh Goddard. It was a nice name and he was a nice man. Mind you, she could see them arguing over how to bring up kids, but then, that was hardly the issue here. She was hardly planning on having any more, so their wildly different views would not matter. What did matter was the way he made her feel. He was funny and attractive, and in his company she felt funny and attractive too. In other words, the perfect match.

‘No, we haven’t set a date, but we want it to be soon,’

Hannah said, holding her hand out as Emma and Leonie bent over and admired the rock. ‘Felix is up in the air for the next few months because he’s auditioned for two series and he won’t know if he’s been successful for ages. Which means,’ Hannah sighed, ‘that we daren’t book anyplace for the reception.’

They were having coffee in Hannah’s kitchen, a hastily convened conference to discuss life, the universe and men.

‘Oh,’ Emma said. ‘I thought Felix would be crazy to hold on to you now you’ve agreed to marry him. I was expecting you to say the pair of you were off to the Seychelles for a beach wedding in the morning.’

‘I’d like that,’ Hannah admitted. ‘I’m not into big family weddings, to be honest, and the thought of a party with seventy elderly relatives I haven’t seen in aeons doesn’t appeal to me. Not to mention what my father would probably do if he got drunk.’ She corrected herself: ‘When he got drunk. We’ll have to see what happens about the wedding.

A beach one would be nice …’ she added.

Leonie was in fantasy land. ‘It’d be so romantic, Hannah,’ she sighed wistfully, thinking of Hugh. ‘Barefoot on the beach, coconut trees everywhere and the sound of water lapping the shore.’

Emma didn’t appear quite so happy at the news, Hannah thought. She must be imagining it: Emma was one of the sweetest people she knew. She’d be thrilled to see Hannah happy.

‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?’ Emma asked bluntly.

Both Hannah and Leonie gaped at her in shock.

‘You don’t think you’re rushing into it, do you?’ Emma went on. ‘I know you love Felix, but wouldn’t it make more sense to live together for a year and then decide? Just to be sure,’ she added.

‘I am sure,’ snapped Hannah. ‘We were made for each other. I’m crazy about him’

Emma interrupted. ‘Don’t get cross, Hannah. I’m not saying that for a moment. I know you adore him, but marriage is a big step, you want to be absolutely sure. And Felix did go off before Christmas and not tell you where he was going. You have to be certain he’s not the sort of guy who does that on a regular basis.’

Hannah’s jaw tightened. ‘I don’t need to be reminded of that, thank you very much,’ she said icily. ‘He explained why. It’s complicated, and I didn’t invite you here to question my judgement, Emma.’

The other woman flushed. She’d gone too far and had hurt Hannah, which was the last thing she’d intended.

‘Please don’t get angry, Hannah. I only wanted to say, I’m afraid you’re rushing into it and that you’ll get hurt. I’m not saying it to be horrible. He’s lovely, I know that, and he said he was sorry. I’m sorry too, I’m just being cautious.

That’s me-‘ she gave a brittle laugh - ‘too cautious.’

She sounded so genuine, but Hannah was hurt by the inference that Felix wasn’t really in love with her and that it was a one-sided relationship. She was also still smarting from Felix’s disappearing trick at Christmas, and to have Emma bring the subject up as though she pitied Hannah - well, that was too much to take. How dare Emma say those things?

‘I know you think you’re helping, Emma, but you’re not,’ she said in a tight little voice. ‘I’m getting married to Felix and I hoped you’d be pleased for me.’

‘I am,’ protested Emma.

‘Girls, let’s not fight,’ begged Leonie. ‘With you two at each other’s throats, it’s like being at home again while Danny and Mel are having a fight.’

Hannah allowed herself to smile briefly. ‘You’re right,’

she agreed. ‘Let’s get off the subject of weddings, shall we?’

They had more coffee and tried to talk naturally, but the tense atmosphere remained, like the lingering scent of nicotine long after the cigarette had been put out. Eventually, Emma couldn’t take it any longer.

‘I have to go,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll phone you both during the week.’ And she was gone.

Hannah and Leonie sipped their coffee in silence, Hannah staring moodily at the fireplace.

‘She’s trying to be a good friend, that’s all,’ Leonie said, ever the pacifier. ‘Emma cares for you and she’s cautious.

We all know that Felix adores you.’ Which wasn’t exactly true, because neither Emma nor Leonie had met Hannah’s Mr Wonderful. But they had heard Hannah’s version of events: that he was perfect and that he adored her.

‘Yeah, I know,’ sighed Hannah. ‘I suppose I overreacted a bit. Let’s forget about it, shall we?’

But even though she wanted to forget what Emma had said, she couldn’t.

It was like a bad omen or a blight hanging over what was supposed to have been a lovely day. When Leonie had gone, Hannah pottered around the apartment, tidying things and straightening cushions. Emma’s words niggled at the back of her mind. How sure was she of Felix, really?

He’d left suddenly without worrying about her. Could that happen again?

‘Hannah’s insane to get married to Felix,’ Emma said to Pete that night when they were washing up companionably.

‘Why do you think that, Em?’ Pete asked.

‘I don’t know, there’s something about Felix I don’t like.

His name for a start. I mean, Felix! Come on, he comes from somewhere outside Birmingham. Felix Andretti is a bit exotic for Brum.’

‘He might have parents who weren’t born in the UK,’

Pete said mildly.

‘And I’m Dutch,’ his wife replied. ‘He went off and left Hannah without a word for a whole month and then swans back into her life, expecting her to welcome him with open arms! He’s a bastard. And I saw a photo of him in Hello! with someone else. I didn’t tell Hannah - I couldn’t.’

Emma’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who knows what he was up to when he was away for that month. I bet Felix thinks fidelity is something to do with a stereo system.’

Pete laughed. ‘You’re a panic when you’re angry about something, you know that?’

‘Well, it’s just that I’d feel like a useless friend if I didn’t say something, Pete.’ Emma rinsed the last saucepan and started wiping the sink fiercely with a J-cloth. ‘I don’t trust him and I tried to tell Hannah what I felt. But she got so angry that I chickened out at the last minute and backtracked.’

‘If

you feel that strongly about it, try again. Phone her and say you care about her and don’t want her to be hurt, so is she sure she knows what she’s doing,’ Pete suggested.

‘Yeah,’ Emma said. ‘I suppose I could. But she’s already furious with me for bringing the subject up in the first place. She’d never talk to me again if I went for a repeat performance.’ She gave a little sigh. ‘Come on, Father Ted is on in three minutes. I’ll make the tea and you get the biscuits.’

She had the baby dream again that night. It was so real, so utterly intense. She was standing in the shopping centre, trying to push a trolley into the supermarket. But she was tired and she was afraid of hurting the baby. A baby! she realized in astonishment. Then she looked down and saw that her belly had swollen to this small, neat bump. A three-months pregnant bump. She spent the next while gently holding on to it, as if something would fall out if she let go. How she caressed the bump, talking to it, loving it. It was a wonderful feeling, knowing that she was pregnant and sensing this tiny creature inside her, a creature she had to protect. Her little girl. How Emma knew it was a girl, she wasn’t sure. But it was a girl. She walked around and talked to people, Pete and her mother among them, but she didn’t say she was pregnant or anything, in case it would jinx things. So she decided to do a pregnancy test, but when she walked - barefoot for some reason - to the chemist to buy one, the chemist’s had strangely become a grocery shop.

Emma knew she had to do the pregnancy test, she panicked about it. But she couldn’t find one and she needed to sit down in case all that walking hurt the baby, and it started to rain and then … she woke up. Lying in her bed, she felt for a few moments as if she was still pregnant, it had all seemed so utterly real. Then Pete shifted in the bed and started snoring. The faint dreamworld faded as the real one came into focus. She looked at the clock: six thirty, it would soon be time to get up. And she wasn’t pregnant.

Emma didn’t need to touch her belly to confirm that.

She climbed out of bed, knowing she wouldn’t go back to sleep now and not wanting to. She couldn’t bear to drift back into that dream and fool herself that she was pregnant again.

She slipped downstairs and made herself a cup of tea, all the while conscious of a huge sense of loss inside her.

If this was what it felt like to lose a dream baby, what must it be like to lose a real baby, she wondered bleakly.

How would your life ever go back to normal after that?

It wouldn’t. You’d ache for that child every day.

Feeling empty and hollow, Emma sipped her tea and watched breakfast television for half an hour. She couldn’t cope with being alone with her own sad thoughts.

Pete walked into the sitting room as she was turning off the TV. His eyes were bleary with sleep and his hair, what little there was of it, stood up straight.

His very presence irritated her, she thought irrationally, as he leaned over and kissed her on the mouth.

‘What has you up so early?’ he asked, throwing himself down on to the couch and closing his eyes.

‘Couldn’t sleep,’ she snapped. Honestly, couldn’t he tell} Had he any clue what was wrong with her? Men!

The weeks flew past. As April gave way to one of the warmest Mays in recent years, Felix amused himself learning his lines for a film being made in September, while doing commercial voice-overs to keep his bank account in the black. He still hadn’t heard back about the two series he’d auditioned for and the phone bills were horrendous as he rang his agent in London daily, alternating between optimism and sheer angst over the length of time he was forced to wait.

Hannah worked hard at the agency and was thrilled when David James came to her with the news he was opening another branch, in Wicklow this time, and would she like to move there in a more senior position?

‘It’s a fantastic opportunity,’ she told Felix that evening as they meandered along Dawson Street to meet some of his actor pals in Cafe En Seine. ‘I can’t believe how much my life has changed in this year. The job, you, everything …’ She beamed at him. ‘It’s wonderful. You’re wonderful, Felix Andretti. David said we could talk about the new office next month, to give me time to think about it. You do think I should go for it, don’t you?’

‘Sure, baby,’ Felix answered absently as they arrived at their destination to find his band of beautiful people sitting outside, shades on despite the fact that the evening sun had all but sunk. ‘Here’s the gang. Hiya, guys.’

On Thursday morning, Hannah was to think of the wry little comment Emma always made whenever they were talking about plans. ‘We plan, God laughs,’ Emma would say. ‘That’s the story of my life.’

Personally, Hannah had always thought this was a bit defeatist. She felt that life was there for the taking. What happened was up to you, not anyone else, a deity or otherwise.

If you believed that sort of rubbish, humankind would still be stuck in the Middle Ages, terrified that a vengeful God would wreak havoc if they started messing around with the world of science.

That wasn’t Hannah’s motto at all. No. You make it happen - that was how she lived her life.

Her faith in this credo faltered on Thursday morning as a direct result of Felix feeling amorous. Early morning lovemaking was her favourite and she was still feeling delicious orgasmic ripples running through her body after a glorious romp when Felix withdrew from her and said, ‘Shit!’

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked lazily, still smiling.

‘Bloody condom burst,’ he said.

‘Did it?’ She sat up.

He examined the pack. ‘That’s the second time that’s happened with these ones.’

Hannah grabbed it from him. ‘These are out of date, Felix,’ she howled. ‘Where did you get them?’

‘We were out of them and I had these in my sports bag.’

He shrugged.

‘Two years out of date,’ Hannah said, feeling herself get nervous. ‘And you’re saying another one burst. I don’t remember that?’

‘It’s only a bloody condom,’ he snapped. ‘Honestly, you do get in a fuss about the smallest things, Hannah.’

‘The smallest things can cause the biggest problems, like a baby, Felix,’ she said in a high, staccato voice.

She scrambled out of bed and threw herself into the shower, still in shock. She’d thought they’d been so careful having sex. Emma was always saying that women’s fertility decreased after the age of thirty-five, so she felt sure she had less of a chance of conceiving at the age of thirty-seven.

They always used condoms … She winced under the powerful jet of water. Using condoms was no good if the condoms in question were out of date. It was on a par with jumping out of a plane with a badly ripped parachute.