What's Yours Is Mine (10 page)

“Grace, you can't seriously be
considering
this?”

“Why not? It's perfect! The baby would almost be mine. Just think—a baby!
Our
baby!”

Tom takes both of my hands in his. “Grace, Grace. Take a step back a moment. It's a nice idea, but your sister is hardly Miss Reliable. Who knows what she'll be thinking tomorrow morning. There's no point getting your hopes up.”

“Until today, I didn't
have
any hopes.” I follow him as he goes into the bathroom and splashes cold water on his face. “Please, Tom. Think about it. This is as close as I'm ever going to get to having a child of my own. I know it's complicated, but we can do this. I
know
we can.”

Just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should
.

“You were prepared to consider adoption,” I press. “What's so different about this? At least this way the baby would actually be yours.”

“And Susannah's.”

“So what? She's right: her bad habits can't rub off on an embryo. It's not as if she's going to want to keep the baby either. Please, Tom. You'd think about it if it was anyone but her.”

His head snaps up. “Grace, I want a baby as much as you do, but you haven't thought this through. Susannah may legally sign the child over to us, but that's not going to be the end of it. There'll never be an end to it. She won't ever let you forget the baby is hers. I'm just not prepared to go down that path.”

My chest tightens. I want to argue with him, but I can't. Susannah's been jealous of me all her life. Who knows what games she'd start playing after the baby was born. I can only imagine the trouble she'd cause once we got to the teenage stage and the child was old enough to know the truth, playing us off against each other, acting the cool aunt and undermining Tom and me whenever she got the chance.

I turn away, my eyes filling with angry tears.
I don't care
. If she spent the next thirty years gloating and causing mayhem, it would be worth it.

“I'm sorry,” Tom says firmly. “But the only person I want to have my baby is you. If that can't happen, then I'd rather not have a child at all.”

“TOM'S AGREED TO
give it a try,” I sing jubilantly, pushing a large mug of coffee across the kitchen table towards Claudia. “It took me a week to talk him around, but in the end, he said yes.”

She wraps slim brown fingers around the warm china. “Are you sure that's wise, Grace?” she says doubtfully. “This is a huge decision. You don't want Tom going along
with it just because you've worn him down and he's too tired to say no. Having a baby is tough enough on a marriage even when you both want it.”

“Oh, he really wants to go ahead,” I say blithely. “He was just worried Susannah would change her mind and let me down. He's as keen as me now.”

“Really?”

“It was just cold feet. All men get nervous when they stare nappies in the face for the first time. You said yourself Blake wasn't keen on the idea of kids at first, but he's marvelous with the twins now. As soon as the baby's here, Tom will fall in love with it.”

“Of course he'll love it once it arrives. That's not the point,” Claudia argues. “He's the one who's going to be sharing his DNA with your sister. This is a
lifetime
commitment. If you force him into something he doesn't really want to do, he'll never forgive you, especially if anything goes wrong.”

I read online that negativity is bad when you're trying to conceive. I don't want to think about all the things that could go wrong. I just want to focus on the positive.

“I thought you liked Susannah. I thought everybody did.”

“Come on, Grace. Don't be like that. Your sister can be good company, but this a totally different ball game. I don't want you getting caught up in something you'll come to regret.”

I get up from the table, and busy myself arranging a packet of Hobnobs in two neat semicircles on a plate. All
week, I've had to listen to my mother telling me the same thing in my head. I don't want to hear it. Why can nobody understand what this means to me?

“If the worst happened, and Blake left you,” I ask suddenly, “would you regret that baby?”

Her hands flutter to her swollen belly. “Of course not. But—”

“Or the twins?”

“Grace, you're talking apples and oranges. It's not the same thing.”

“It is to me.” I put the plate on the table. “I know Susannah's not ideal mummy material, Claudia, you don't have to tell me. But she's not going to be this baby's mother.
I
am. I'm going to be the one to raise it. She's just baby-sitting it for me.”

“And afterwards? She's just going to go back to being its aunt?”

“Yes. Look, she hasn't bothered to see her own children for five years. I don't suppose she'll even remember to send this one a birthday card. Even if she does try to interfere now and again, she can't be worse than most mothers-in-law. Look at yours. You said she drives you crazy over the twins. I can deal with Susannah, especially once she goes back to America. I probably won't hear from her from one year to the next.”

“So you're OK with the fact that your pretty, badly behaved little sister is going to be spending the next nine months living with you, and your husband, who will also happen to be the father of her child?”

The wind is suddenly taken out of my sails. I hadn't even thought of it like that.

Suddenly I picture Susannah swelling with pregnancy, ripe with Tom's baby. The baby I can't give him. The baby he'll share with my sister. My sexy, alley-cat-morals sister.

No. Even Susannah wouldn't stoop that low. And Tom would
never
—he doesn't even
like
her!

Claudia is twisting the bronze-and-turquoise bangle on her left wrist, a sure sign that she's nervous or upset. For a moment, I'm puzzled; and then understanding dawns.

“This isn't about Tom,” I say shrewdly. “You don't want her near
Blake.
”

“Blake has nothing to do with this,” Claudia retorts guiltily. “It's you and Tom I'm worried about. I like Susannah, you know I do, but she's trouble. She wants what you have; she always has. And if she can't get it, she'll wreck it for you. Remember what she was like when she came to stay with you in London? She nearly got you fired when she started sleeping with your boss. She stole your grandmother's cameo brooch from your bedroom and sold it. She nearly wrecked your wedding when she turned up stoned. It's like she can't help herself. She's had her eye on Tom for years. If you can't see that, you're blind.”

“That's ridiculous. She thinks he's middle-aged and boring, she's often said so.”

“It's not about Tom. It's about taking what's yours.”

“I think you're being paranoid.” I smile. “She's going to be pregnant, Claudia. I think that'll cramp even Susannah's style.”

“So pregnant women aren't sexy?”

“You know that's not what I meant.”

“Blake loves me being pregnant,” Claudia says crossly. “He finds it a total turn-on, he says it's like I'm walking around with a sign saying ‘I've been fucked' over my head. If he had his way, we'd be at it every night.”

“If that's the case, I'd definitely keep him away from Susannah.”

For a moment, Claudia looks disconcerted. She snatches a Hobnob from the plate, and munches it defiantly while she regroups.

“What about your mother?” she demands. “What would she have to say about this?”

Grace knows fine well I wouldn't approve—

I straighten up. “If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be in this position in the first place.”

Every Wednesday afternoon for the past five weeks, I've left work early and made the four-hour round-trip to Surrey, where I've sat beside my mother's bed, listening to the rhythmic hiss and whoosh of the ventilator, counting down the minutes until I can leave. I always stay for an hour, timing it precisely. Sixty minutes that feel like a year.

I have nothing to say to her anymore. I know it's childish and unfair, that I'm just looking for someone to blame; but I'm still so
angry
.

We both jump as the kitchen door slams open, and Susannah bounces across the threshold, her blue eyes shining, cheeks pinked by the chill. Wrapped in one of my classic black wool winter coats, her dreads hidden under a
scarlet beret, she looks unexpectedly pretty and young and
normal
. I'm suddenly reminded of the sister I grew up with, the girl who shimmered with happiness whenever you looked at her, always ready with a warm hug and a generous smile. A golden girl: literally and figuratively. I so much wanted to be her then. To be the sister everyone loved, rather than respected.

“You'll never guess!” she cries.

“You got a job,” I say dryly.

She looks surprised. “Actually, I did. How did you know?” She flings her beret on the table, shaking out her dreads. “So, that artist friend of Ned and Paul's, Michael? We met up for coffee in Oxford this morning. He's a really cool guy, we totally got on. He took me into the gallery to meet everyone, and they seemed to like some of my ideas, said I had a good eye or something, I don't know. Anyway, upshot is, they offered me some work—only a couple of afternoons a week, and it doesn't pay much, but they'll let me hang some of the shows, and Michael says I can use his studio when he's working at the gallery, too.”

How does she do it? Make everyone
want
to help her. I work so hard at friendships, I'm conscientious and loyal, I've never betrayed a confidence; yet Susannah, careless and unreliable, never even has to try.

The Devil has all the best tunes, Dad always says.

My sister reaches past me for a Hobnob, and takes two. “Anyway, that's not what I wanted to tell you about. Where's Tom?”

“It's Saturday afternoon.” Claudia sighs.

“Watching the rugby in the pub with Blake,” I translate.

“Well, you'd better call and tell him to switch to orange juice. We don't want him falling down on the job.”

It takes me a moment or two to catch up.

“You got it.” Susannah grins, spraying a fine mist of biscuit crumbs. “I just peed on the predictor stick, and got a big fat blue line. It's time to make a baby.”

OK, so maybe I hadn't entirely thought the logistics of this bit through.

“Tell him to just do it into one of those Pyrex jugs,” I hiss to Grace. “Then I can pour it in the turkey baster and squirt it up.”

“Susannah! Do you have to?”

“Give me a break. You think actual sex is any prettier?”

“When Tom and I
make love
,” Grace says pointedly, “there's no squirting. Things just … 
flow.
”

“Well, tell him to hurry up and
flow
into that jug. We haven't got all day.”

We both turn and regard her husband. Tom is perched on the end of their bed in an agony of embarrassment, looking like he's about to bolt any second. The tips of his ears and what little I can see of his face beneath that hedge of hair are bright red. Seriously, Grace needs to give him a haircut. He's starting to look like a hobbit.

She disappears downstairs for the supplies. Grace being Grace, she didn't even have to buy a turkey baster specially:
she actually has one she uses at Christmas. Well, she did. I bet she buys a new one after this.

I sit on the bed next to Tom. “So,” I say conversationally, “do you come here often?”

“Very funny.”

“Oh, come on, Tom. Lighten up. This is the worst bit. Once it's over, your job's done. I'm the one getting stretch marks, varicose veins, piles, and uncontrollable sexual urges.”

Tom blanches. “Just kidding about that last one,” I say, lighting a cigarette.

We wait in uncomfortable silence for Grace to return. Honestly. You'd think I was asking him to make an honest woman of me.

Grace finally comes back with the jug and baster, which is rather larger than I expected.

“Are you
smoking
?” she demands.

“No, they're packaging chocolate in a new and improved form,” I retort. “Yes, Grace. It's my last cigarette. Even the condemned man gets a cigarette.”

She scowls, but shoves a china bowl towards me to use as an ashtray.

“Did you warm the baster?” I ask.

“What?”

“I don't want to get frostbite up my—”

“All right, all right,” Grace says, shuddering. “Just run it under the hot water for a minute or two. Now can we please get on with it?”

“Over to you, Tom.” I grin.

He takes the jug and turns dejectedly towards the bathroom. Moments later, he opens the door again and sticks his head around the jamb.

“Look, can you two go downstairs? I can't do it with you listening.”

“For heaven's sake.” Grace sighs. “It's not like I haven't heard it all before.”

“Me, too,” I add. “What?” I ask, as she looks shocked. “These walls are very thin.”

Grace rolls her eyes. “Oh, come on, Zee, let's go. We're not going to get anywhere like this.”

I follow her downstairs. “Any chance of a beer?”

“
One
. Have you been taking your vitamins?” she calls, going into the kitchen. “And the fish oil supplements I gave you?”

“Sure,” I lie. I hate pills almost as much as needles.

She returns with a bottle of beer and a glass. I ignore the glass, and take a slug straight from the bottle, earning another disapproving look.

“Remember, you can't have sex with
anyone
until we're sure you're pregnant,” Grace says. “We have to be absolutely sure it's Tom's.”