On a Beautiful Day Page 9

  She had to wrench her gaze away from those sorrowful hangdog eyes of his. ‘I don’t mind going through it,’ she persisted. ‘I can cope. I can do it for both of us.’

  ‘But I can’t! That’s what I’m trying to say. I can’t cope, Laura. Seeing you like that – I couldn’t handle it.’ He pushed the printout away from him. ‘I’m sorry, but . . .’

  ‘We could adopt, then. We could foster! We could find a sweet orphaned baby and . . .’

  But he was shaking his head with such awful finality that her voice trailed away. ‘I don’t . . . Where has all this come from? I had no idea. I thought we’d moved on.’

  Laura flinched. Moved on? ‘You can’t just move on from wanting a baby,’ she cried, louder than she’d intended. The power chords of an Adele ballad chose that moment to end, and the pub fell uncomfortably quiet. She leaned forward, lowering her voice. ‘You can’t just switch it off, like it was never there!’

  ‘No, but . . . You went quiet on the subject. I thought we’d both agreed.’

  ‘No! When did we agree? I went quiet because I didn’t want you to feel under pressure. I was hoping it would just happen for us, without making a big fuss, getting all stressed again.’ Tears were rolling down her face; she felt frantic for him to understand, to change his mind. He couldn’t mean it, surely? ‘I thought you wanted us to have a family!’

  ‘I did! But if it’s not going to happen, then—’

  ‘It could still happen, Matt, that’s the thing. If we go to the clinic, it could still happen.’

  They had reached deadlock. She could feel the argument starting to loop around, to close in on them like a stranglehold. And he was shaking his head again, apologetic but firm. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said.

  Her lips trembled. She had to gulp for air because it was as if she had forgotten to breathe. I don’t think so. He was saying no. He didn’t want to have a child. All her hopes and wishes and plans and . . . and he had somehow moved onto a different side; he was off with Elaine, getting excited about a job in Newcastle. A small sob escaped her throat and she put up a hand to shield her eyes, no longer wanting to look at him.

  ‘You’re upset,’ he said calmly. ‘And I’m sorry. We should have had the conversation, we should have talked about this sooner, rather than making assumptions about what the other one wanted.’

  She still couldn’t speak. Upset, he said. Upset? He’d just stamped all over her heart and ripped up her dreams, and he had the brass neck to sit there and comment on her being upset? She wrenched herself up from the table, just wanting to get away from him, and stumbled unseeingly towards the pub door.

  ‘Laura!’ he called after her. ‘Come on, we can talk about this—’

  Her legs felt wooden and strange, as if they didn’t belong to her, as she staggered past the bar, ignoring the barmaid’s concerned expression, past all the other couples and workmates enjoying their Friday-night drinks. Oh God, oh God, she thought, I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it. Misery propelled her through the door into the warm evening air, and then, once outside the pub, her energy drained away and she found herself leaning against the wall, sliding down onto her haunches. There was rough brick against her back, the scent of diesel and drains, but all she could think of was Matt’s face, his sad apologetic face as he shook his head. I don’t think so. No.

  Now what? she thought despairingly, as the conversation whirled around her mind like a ride on the waltzers. Now what?

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Right! Can we have those PE bags emptied, please, and dirty things put straight into the washing machine? Both of you get changed, and find a book to read on the journey. Dad wants us to be ready for six-thirty.’

  ‘Ungggghhh.’ Grace, Eve’s thirteen-year-old daughter, was rolling her thickly eyelinered eyes up to the ceiling and pretending to hang herself there in the smart, magnolia-painted hallway. ‘Do we have to go? I can’t believe you booked somewhere with no Wi-Fi. That’s like going back to the Dark Ages. Can’t I just stay with Flo for half-term?’

  ‘No! We’ve been through this,’ Eve replied, bending down to take off her shoes. They were meant to be going to the Peak District for a half-term holiday in approximately two hours, there was no time to waste rehashing an already well-worn argument. ‘It’ll do you good to have a break from your phone. We’re going to have lots of fun doing other things. Family things.’ Long energetic walks and bike rides in the great outdoors, a trip to Chatsworth House. Card games in the evenings, a log fire if it was chilly, her and Neil managing to unwind for once. Maybe, just maybe, she’d pluck up the courage to tell him about the lump . . .

  ‘But I hate family things!’ Grace was groaning, meanwhile.

  Eve could feel the stress-twitch of a tic under her eye. She always got one before they went away. Plus they’d been a person down in the office that day and she’d been flat out with work. And Frances, her boss, had tasked her with sorting out the office team-building away-day for September, which was exactly the sort of forced jollity she loathed. ‘Look—’

  ‘Mum, she’s just moaning because she won’t be able to Snapchat her boyfriend,’ jeered Sophie, who was ten years old and thought she knew everything. (To be fair, in this instance she apparently knew more than Eve. Like the fact that Grace had her first boyfriend. Since when?) ‘And he’ll probably go off with someone else who doesn’t have spots and fat legs. Ow!’

  Grace had launched herself at her younger sister, fists flying. ‘Shut up, stupid bitch! What do you know about anything?’

  ‘Girls! GIRLS!’ Eve cried in horror. ‘Grace! Do not use that word about your sister. Or about anyone! And Sophie, don’t you—’

  But her words of motherly wisdom were soundly ignored, as Sophie lunged to grab Grace’s hair, and Grace kicked out in retaliation. ‘Ow! Mum, tell her!’

  ‘Get off me!’

  ‘I hate you!’

  Goodness, her daughters were so loudly emotional about everything! They wore every feeling on their faces, they voiced their opinions with wholehearted passion, they screamed, laughed, yelled. It always made Eve flinch because she, by contrast, had learned at an early age to shut down these feelings, to keep them in check. ‘What’s so funny?’ she remembered her dad snapping once, whirling round at her when she and her sister Rosalind had been giggling about something silly. Eve had been so afraid she’d wet her knickers and then he’d shouted at her for that, too.

  ‘Girls, please,’ she cried now, trying to pull them off each other. ‘Stop it! This minute!’ Firm and in control, that was what the parenting guides advised. Calm and clear; no need to ever raise one’s voice. But when your offspring were actually brawling on the hall carpet, it turned out that a calm, clear voice had zero effect. Then, of course, her phone picked that moment to start ringing. Neil, probably, telling her he was going to be late again. Or some annoying cold caller, just to really tip her over the edge. ‘Will you BE QUIET?’ she screeched at her still-wrestling daughters, snatching up her phone.

  Both girls stared at her in surprise and Eve turned away, shaken by her own outburst. For a second she’d sounded like a crazed harpy, a mad old fishwife. For a moment she’d been tempted to wade in and dish out a few slaps herself. What was happening to her? She had never screamed at them like that before, never. There went that tic again.

  Belatedly remembering the phone in her hand, she tried to compose herself. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Is that Eve? It’s Lewis. The guy on the bike?’

  Lewis. Oh God, him. Ever since their unexpected encounter she’d been driving like someone who only recently passed their test: nervy and hesitant, hands clamped at ten to two on the wheel, braking down through the gears with exaggerated care each time she slowed. ‘Hello,’ she said again. ‘How . . . How are you?’

  Behind her, Sophie was hissing something defiant to Grace, but Eve swung round with a look of such fury that both girls quailed and fell silent. ‘I’m not so bad,’ Lewis was saying in her ear. He was Scottish, t
hat’s right, with that shaggy coppery hair and the low musical voice. ‘I was just calling to—’ He broke off, and she cut in quickly.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, sensing his awkwardness. ‘I owe you some money.’ And then, not wanting her daughters to get wind of what had happened – she hadn’t even told Neil about the accident, too ashamed – she hurried into the kitchen and shut the door behind her. Let the girls rip each other’s hair out while she wasn’t looking, she no longer cared. ‘Was the bike a write-off? What’s the damage?’

  He hesitated again and she immediately feared the worst. Oh no. The Taylors’ boiler had given up the ghost back in February and then the tumble drier had died shortly afterwards; it wasn’t as if they were swimming in cash right now. ‘I did ask about getting it repaired,’ he began, apologetically. ‘But because the frame has been bent, the guy in the shop reckoned that having it sorted will cost more than the actual bike did in the first place.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said, grimacing as she leaned against the worktop. So it was going to be a whole new bike then, in other words, which would be what: five hundred pounds? A thousand? After one small slip of concentration: ouch. Meanwhile, where was she supposed to find that sort of money?

  ‘But the better news – for you – is that my bike was shite anyway,’ he went on, ‘so we’re talking a couple of hundred quid, rather than a couple of grand.’ He gave a cough, sounding uncomfortable about the situation. Not as uncomfortable as Eve was, though.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, trying not to sigh. It wasn’t his fault, after all. ‘And . . . how about your T-shirt? Can I pay for it to be cleaned or . . . ?’

  ‘Naw, you’re all right,’ he said. ‘Bit of Vanish and a cold-water wash, it came out okay.’ He laughed. ‘I sound like my granny.’

  ‘Very resourceful,’ she said, managing a shaky laugh herself. Okay, a few hundred pounds. It wasn’t the end of the world, she supposed. She could put in some overtime between now and the summer holidays. ‘And your arm’s okay? It’s healing up? I did wonder if we should have gone to A&E so that you could have it stitched.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘No bother.’ There was another strained moment of silence and then he rushed in with a question. ‘How about you? I mean, what you said to me, at the end. Have you been to see anyone?’

  ‘Have I been . . . ? Oh.’ She cringed, having forgotten that she’d told him about her lump like that, blurting it out in some misguided attempt to explain herself. ‘No,’ she confessed stiffly after a moment. ‘Not yet.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘I think you should.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Surprise had sent her all Victorian and formal. This had better not turn into a lecture about mindfulness, she thought, hackles rising. If he dared start giving her some sales pitch for one of his crummy wellness retreats . . .

  ‘Look, I know it’s none of my business but . . . it’s important. These things can accelerate quickly, if they’re aggressive. You need to get it checked out.’

  Her jaw dropped in shock, that in a matter of moments he’d cut straight to the personal. Personal, verging on intrusive. None of her other clients knew a thing about her, other than that she could transform a messy set of accounts into something acceptable to the tax office – and she liked it that way. Just because she’d knocked him off his wretched bike, by accident, it didn’t give him the right to ask difficult questions or lecture her on her health! ‘Well,’ she began, but then in burst Grace, looking aggrieved.

  ‘Mum, will you please TELL HER that—’

  ‘I’m on the phone,’ Eve snapped, making shooing motions. ‘Go and pack your things!’ Thankfully Grace merely pulled a face and stamped out again, and Eve was able to close the door, feeling frazzled. She hadn’t even started on her own packing yet. Hadn’t she said to Neil that trying to get away on the Friday night was a bad idea? It wasn’t him who had to organize everything, to corral their daughters and remember to pack towels and swimming costumes and the first-aid kit. She would be packing gallons of wine too, that was for sure. Maybe she’d start on a bottle after this phone call, in fact. Or maybe she would lie on her bed and scream into the pillow.

  She took a deep breath. No, she wouldn’t. Eve was not the sort of person who screamed into pillows, who lost her temper with her children. Usually. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said, switching to a more businesslike tone, just as he asked, ‘You’ve got kids?’

  She sighed. There were a million things to do before Neil got back, and he’d expect everything to be ready. ‘Er . . . yes,’ she replied through gritted teeth. Not that it’s any of your business. She opened the cupboard and pulled out baked beans, coffee, tea, porridge oats ready to pack. ‘So you’ve got my email address,’ she went on, wanting to get shot of him now. ‘And if you send me your bank details, I can transfer—’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ he interrupted. ‘But, Eve . . .’

  It felt oddly intimate, him saying her name like that. It caught her off-guard, slicing through her brisk facade. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ll go with you, if you want – to the doctor, I mean. If you’re scared. I don’t mind.’

  ‘What?’ Her hand froze around the packet of chocolate digestives.

  ‘To the appointment. I’ll go with you.’

  ‘I’m not scared,’ she retorted hotly, snatching a bag and stuffing the groceries into it. Pasta sauce. Spaghetti. A tin of olives. Honestly, to think that this guy – this lad – with whom she’d exchanged barely two minutes’ worth of conversation, had the nerve to think he knew anything about her . . .

  ‘Great, so make the appointment, and give us a shout if you change your mind. Just a thought. I know my mum didn’t want anyone to know at first. Took her three months before she told anyone else in the family.’

  ‘Your mum?’ Oh God. Don’t say his mum had died of breast cancer or something. Was that why he was being such a vigilante, getting on her case? On second thoughts, she didn’t want to know. ‘I’d . . . I’d better go,’ she said in clipped tones. ‘Have a good weekend.’

  Then she hung up before he could say anything else, and sank into a chair, arms around herself, feeling vulnerable. This was what happened when you revealed a chink in your armour, when you showed yourself to be weak. This was why she shouldn’t have said anything – not a word – to anyone!

  Eve lowered her head so that it rested against the cool oak of the table, feeling very tired and very un-holidayish. Her tic twitched like a warning light and she sighed. Scared, indeed, she thought in the next moment – what a nerve. ‘Go and sort out someone else’s chakras,’ she said rudely to her silent phone. Then she got up, took a deep breath and carried on packing.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Ms Nicholls?’

  Jo was just heading out on her lunch break when her phone rang with a local number. ‘Yes, that’s me,’ she said, stepping out of the surgery into warm sunshine. Ahh, that was better, she thought, turning her face up appreciatively. She’d had back-to-back appointments all morning – the baby vaccination clinic (always a bit distressing, especially seeing the mums’ traumatized faces) and then a steady stream of minor ailments, including one infected horsefly bite, which was like something from a horror film.

  ‘Ms Nicholls, this is Mr Hedgethorne’s assistant at Nash, White and Beaumont. I’m calling about the sale of the Barkway Road house?’

  ‘Oh, yes, hello,’ Jo replied. The house in Stretford, where she and Greg had lived, bought for a song when they were newly-weds. ‘Is it today?’ she realized, with a start. ‘The completion?’

  This was a sign, if ever she needed one, of just how distracted she’d become by Rick in recent weeks. The full extent of how utterly away with the fairies she obviously now was. Because today – ‘Yes, that’s right,’ the woman was saying – today was when the new people were moving in, when the sale was finalized, money transferred. ‘I’m happy to let you know that we’ve received full payment, and that everything’s completed without a problem.’

 
Jo stopped dead in the street, a huge smile breaking on her face as this glorious news percolated through her mind. The house was sold, finally – third time lucky, after two other prospective purchasers had let them down at the last minute. She had money again. ‘Thank you,’ she breathed, grinning at random passers-by like an idiot. ‘Thank you very much.’

  Could this day get any better? Not only was Rick back from Ireland later that evening but now a large lump sum – more money than she’d ever had at one time – had just gone walloping into her bank account. Admittedly she couldn’t help feeling a bit weird at the thought of a new family moving their belongings into her former address, organizing furniture and repainting the place, maybe hacking back the dense privet hedge that had loomed so darkly over the house, almost certainly ripping out the hideous pink bathroom suite that she and Greg had never quite got round to changing . . . Even so, it drew a line under the split with Greg – it marked the end of things, proper closure. Plus she could enjoy financial independence at last, after so many tight, penny-pinching months of having to pay for two places at once. Yes, that was a really good thing. A weight off her shoulders. A new beginning, as well as an ending.

  In fact, thought Jo, arms swinging a little as she strode towards the nearby shopping parade, a celebration was due. Tonight, in fact. Let the celebrations begin tonight!

  Six hours later and still in a great mood, Jo was just backing into a space at the airport car park when her phone made a triumphant little fanfare sound. Yanking on the handbrake, she pulled it out of her bag to see a new message onscreen: Dublin to Manchester flight has now LANDED.

  ‘Hooray,’ she said out loud, turning off the engine.

  Yes, okay, so she had downloaded a flight-tracking app for the express purpose of checking to the exact second when her boyfriend returned to Mancunian soil. What of it? She couldn’t wait to see Rick again. Had it really only been a matter of days since he’d left town? Perhaps it was staying at his lovely flat all week that had made her miss him so much. She’d spent every evening surrounded by his possessions, sleeping in his bed (hugging the pillows that smelled so deliciously of him), lounging on his extremely comfortable sofa, admiring the impressive assortment of condiments in his big fridge whenever she made dinner . . . Was it any wonder that she’d been thinking of him round the clock?