Someone Like You (60 page)

‘How did you know?’ she asked in a low voice.

‘I’d want to be blind not to notice you’re dying to get pregnant, Emma. I know you love children, it just takes time, that’s all.’

She nodded, not sure if she was relieved or not. Pete knew she wanted a baby but hadn’t a clue of the desperate, agonized longing she had for one. Or of her conviction that she couldn’t have one because it was all her fault, that the worst-case scenario was just waiting to happen. She wasn’t simply slow getting pregnant: she was infertile, barren, hopeless and useless as a woman. She knew one thing: she didn’t want to talk to him about this deep-seated fear, not yet.

‘Pete,’ she interrupted, ‘we have to talk about it, but I don’t think I can do it yet, please? Soon, hopefully, but not now.’

‘If that’s what you want, OK. But we’ve got to talk about it soon, Em. We’re young, we’ve got loads of time.

I promise.’

Emma couldn’t speak. She sat with her lips pressed tightly together, almost not believing they were having this conversation. Pete thought he knew how she felt, but he didn’t. He was trying his best, but nobody could understand this except another woman. That was the tragedy.

It would pull them apart if she let it.

She reached over and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Thank you. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you, Pete.’

Her mother was polishing the brass knocker on the front door when they arrived. ‘Hello, dears,’ she said vaguely.

‘I’m polishing.’ She went back to her task, ignoring them.

Pete and Emma exchanged glances.

Inside, Emma was surprised to see Kirsten there, although not surprised to see her sprawled on the couch reading the beauty supplement to one of the Sunday papers.

Her sister was not the sort of person to help out with cooking lunch if she could possibly get away with it. The roast could ignite in the oven before Kirsten would stir from her prone position.

‘Oh, hi, guys,’ she said, looking up briefly.

‘Have you seen what Mum is doing?’ Emma asked.

‘Polishing something, isn’t she?’ Kirsten said, focused on her magazine again.

‘Polishing the front-door knocker, Kirsten, which is strange behaviour for her on a Sunday morning. Mum never does housework on Sundays, apart from cooking.

Don’t you think she’s behaving oddly?’

Kirsten sighed heavily and laid down her magazine, as if to say it was obvious she wasn’t going to be left in peace to read it. ‘Not really, Emma. She’s ridiculously houseproud, you know that. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her doing any housework.’

Emma began to lose her temper. ‘Kirsten, do you ever notice anything except what’s going on in your own private little world?’

Her sister sniffed. ‘I don’t know what your problem is, Emma. I’m the one in the middle of a nightmare.’

‘What do you mean?’ Emma perched on the edge of the couch.

‘Patrick and I are fighting. He’s such a bastard. You don’t know how lucky you are, Emma.’ Kirsten looked meaningfully at Pete, who had taken up one of the papers and was pretending to be immersed in the sports section so he wouldn’t get roped into any argument.

‘What happened?’ Emma said flatly. She wasn’t interested in Kirsten’s histrionics today. As a result of the usual skyscraping Visa bill, Patrick had probably made a mild comment about her shopping addiction and how she’d have to cut back. He never lost his temper, amazingly for someone who lived with Kirsten. ‘I suppose you’ve been shopping like there’s no tomorrow as usual? You should have shares in Gucci by now.’

‘You can mock, but it’s serious this time,’ Kirsten retorted. ‘Very serious.’

Emma couldn’t believe this. ‘Describe “serious” to me,’

she said acidly.

‘He’s talking about going to stay in his brother’s house for a few weeks.’

‘Bloody hell!’ Emma was shocked out of her coolness.

‘You can say that again,’ Kirsten said moodily, getting up and leaving the room.

Emma followed her. ‘Where’s Dad?’ she asked, seeing no sign of him anywhere.

‘Some emergency at Aunt Petra’s, apparently. She’s probably just found the remains of the gas man she locked in the garage when he went to read the meter ten years ago. I hope Dad hurries back soon, I’m ravenous.’

She gazed into the oven with the helpless expression of a time-travelling Victorian faced with the space-shuttle controls.

‘You are so useless around the house, Kirsten.’ Emma checked out the roast and, seeing as it was nearly done, turned the temperature down and started preparing the vegetables.

‘I better learn, then. Patrick says he has no intention of keeping me in the style to which I’ve become accustomed and that I can get a job. Sorry, the exact words were “bloody job”.’

‘What did you do, Kirsten?’

Kirsten blinked a couple of times. ‘Slept with someone else.’

‘Oh. Do you love him?’ Emma asked tentatively.

‘No. I was pissed, it was a mistake really. Well, not totally because he was very good,’ she added reflectively.

‘You

stupid cow!’ Emma was furious with her sister.

Talk about reckless behaviour. Imagine doing that to poor, trusting Patrick.

‘What people don’t know about doesn’t hurt them,’

Kirsten retorted, ‘and what do you know about it anyway?’

she added sarcastically. ‘Miss Bloody Perfect! Just because you’ve never had the urge to have a fling doesn’t mean the rest of the world feels the same.’

‘I’m not Miss Perfect,’ shouted Emma. ‘I’m upset because I care about Patrick and because you don’t give a shit about this guy. If you loved him, then I’d stand by you every step of the way, but you don’t. He was nothing more than a quick drunken shag. You just don’t give a shit about other people, do you, Kirsten?’

It was all coming out now. Emma couldn’t stop herself.

Her mouth was running away with her, saying all the bitter, resentful things she’d been thinking ever since Kirsten had blankly refused to even discuss their mother’s condition.

Together, they could face whatever was wrong with Anne Marie and tell their father what they feared. But without Kirsten’s help, Emma was afraid to take that first step.

‘Self-absorbed doesn’t come close with you - you’re self obsessed!’ she hissed.

They glared at each other across the kitchen, Kirsten’s eyes blazing.

‘You think you’re the sensible, dutiful one, don’t you?’

spat Kirsten. ‘For sensible, read “walked on”!’

‘I don’t want to break up the heavyweight boxing final of the year, but I think one of you should come and get your mother inside,’ said Pete, peering round the kitchen door as if expecting to get hit with a flying saucepan.

‘What’s she doing?’ Emma asked, row forgotten.

Pete grimaced. ‘Listen,’ was all he said.

The sisters could hear their mother shouting, roaring really: ‘Get away from here, you bastards! Get away!’

‘Jesus,’ said Kirsten, shocked.

‘I tried to make her come in but she won’t,’ Pete said.

They rushed to the front garden where AnneMarie was standing at the gate, waving her fists belligerently at bemused passers-by. ‘Get out of here!’

‘Oh, Christ, I can’t look!’ said Kirsten and rushed back into the house. Pete touched his wife’s hand briefly and then they both approached AnneMarie.

‘Come on in, Mum,’ Emma said in her softest voice.

‘Let’s have a nice cup of tea, shall we?’

Hannah had spent the past month practising what she’d say to David James.

I’m leaving because I’m pregnant, so thanks but no thanks to your fantastic job offer in Wicklow. And thanks for all your faith in me, promoting me from office manager and giving me a real career.

No matter how she said it, it still sounded terrible. Halfhearted and ungrateful.

She was getting used to the idea of being pregnant, and was secretly thrilled at the idea. She’d been reading pregnancy books and was policing her daily intake of calcium and all the right foods. Although he too was delighted at the idea, Felix still kept trying to give her glasses of wine in nightclubs and couldn’t understand why she didn’t want him smoking near her. Telling people was the difficult part.

The rigorous self-control bit of Hannah hated having to tell anyone she was unexpectedly pregnant. An unplanned pregnancy smacked of some flibbertigibbet who let things happen to her rather than made them happen.

Her mother had been delighted at the news and they still had to brave a visit to Connemara where her father would be let loose on poor Felix.

‘Your father will be delighted,’ Anna Campbell had insisted on the phone. ‘He loves children.’

Felix wanted to get married before they went visiting the various in-laws, and Hannah, who had visions of her father yelling blue murder about being denied a big bash for his only daughter, was inclined to agree with him.

Anna Campbell wouldn’t mind being presented with a fait accompli as far as the wedding was concerned. Stoic was her middle name. Hannah would have quite liked to have met Felix’s family first, but he was strangely reticent about them and Hannah, who understood that, didn’t push him.

But before weddings and family reunions, Hannah simply had to tell her boss. For some reason, she hated doing it.

She’d picked a Friday evening so she could skive off afterwards without having to face David’s disappointment for the rest of the day.

‘Can I talk to you for a minute?’ she asked him at five thirty that evening.

‘Sure. Come into my office in five minutes,’ he said.

He was still on the phone when Hannah went in and stood, feeling like a schoolgirl about to be bawled out for faking period pains for the second time in a month in order to miss games.

David smiled at her as he listened to the person on the phone and gestured to her to sit down. Oh hell, she thought miserably, sitting. She felt terrible. He must guess what she was going to say. Surely guilt shone out of her like a beacon. But what did she have to feel guilty for? She was pregnant and engaged to be married. What was wrong with that. Absolutely nothing!

David put the phone down and sat back in his chair with a sigh.

Temporarily buoyed up, Hannah launched into her spiel at breakneck speed: ‘David, I’m pregnant. Felix and I are getting married and we’re going to live in London.’ There.

Done it.

‘Oh,’ was all he said. Hannah had expected more. She wasn’t sure what, but more …

‘So I won’t be able to take the job in Wicklow, even though you were so good to offer it to me,’ she rushed on, frantic now to fill in the gaps in the conversation and get out of there.

David steepled his fingers and looked at them thoughtfully as if trying to figure out some arcane puzzle that lay hidden therein. ‘That’s a pity,’ he said, without looking at her. ‘We will miss you round here and I had great plans for your future. You’re a natural at this game.’

‘Sorry,’ she said lamely, looking down at her own hands now. She was sorry she hadn’t worn her engagement ring to give her confidence, but she deliberately hadn’t been wearing it into work until she’d officially announced it.

‘Felix is a lucky man,’ he added lightly. ‘Do I get asked to the wedding because I inadvertently introduced you?’

Hannah instinctively felt that the last thing David wanted was to be at her wedding to see her marry Felix.

‘We’re probably going to get married abroad,’ she said, avoiding eye contact. ‘I’ll work out my month’s notice here, naturally.’

‘Naturally,’ he said. ‘Hannah…’

The way he said her name, softly, caressing, made her look up at him. He normally sat up so straight in his chair, ramrod straight in an almost military way. Now he was leaning against the desk with his arms resting tiredly on it and the lines on his face made him look suddenly old. He needed a holiday, Hannah thought fiercely. He worked so hard and never took time off. A few weeks away, letting the sun tan the strong, hard planes of his face and lifting the lines that seemed ingrained around his dark eyes: that’s what he needed. But she wouldn’t be around to suggest it in a half-bossy, half-motherly fashion, the way she might have before.

‘Don’t lose touch, will you?’ he asked, his eyes boring into hers. He looked sad somehow, terribly desolate.

‘I won’t.’

She got up to go and he did too, walking towards her to open the door.

Impulsively, Hannah threw her arms round him. It was the closest she’d ever come to him before, apart from that strange pub lunch when he’d held her hand. As her arms went around his shoulders, his closed round her waist, pulling her closely to him.

Suddenly, he lowered his head to hers and kissed her gently on the lips, his five o’clock shadow grazing her chin.

It was a kiss redolent of regret. Not hard and sensual, the way she’d imagined he’d kiss, yet intensely moving all the same. For some strange reason, Hannah wanted it to go on: she wanted to feel his huge hands circling her waist as if she were a slender little thing; she wanted to feel his body crushed against hers and to run her fingers through the salt-and-pepper hair. She wanted to bring him home and tell him he needed a day off, a week off, and …

He pulled away slowly. ‘I meant that,’ he said. ‘Don’t lose touch. I’m your friend, Hannah, and I’m here if you need me. There’ll always be a job for you here.’

Nodding, Hannah hurried out the door, scared that if she didn’t get away, she’d say something she’d regret.

‘What did he mean there’ll be a job for you?’ said Gillian, who’d been standing conveniently beside the photocopier which stood outside David’s office. For a second, Hannah was horror struck at the notion that Gillian might have witnessed the kiss, but then she realized that David’s blinds were down.

‘I’m leaving, Gillian,’ Hannah said far more pleasantly than she felt. She may as well tell them all now.

‘Leaving?’ asked Donna, who was tidying up her desk.

Hannah nodded. ‘Felix and I are getting married. We were going to anyway,’ she said with a sidelong glance at Gillian, ‘but I got pregnant, so we’ve pushed the date forward.’

Gillian was magnanimous in victory. Her most hated enemy was leaving and she could afford to be nice.