A Very Accidental Love Story (7 page)

Suddenly, after all my panic and stress and shock … I find myself without a single word to say. And now there’s silence. Horrible, awkward, bum-clenching silence.

‘You’re rearing Lily on your own and believe me, I know how difficult that can be, Eloise,’ Miss Pettifer says to me, sounding almost gentle now, which, in the state I’m in, I’m oddly grateful for, ‘but may I ask you a very personal question?’

I nod mutely.

‘Do you have any contact at all with Lily’s dad?’

Lily’s dad.

Oh shit and double shit. I can’t believe she just asked me that. And worse, is now looking expectantly back at me, waiting on an answer.

‘Well, not exactly …’ is the best I can manage, totally thrown at being caught on the hop like this.

‘It’s just that, in years to come, it’s highly likely that Lily will want to know more about him and to spend time with him too. Which is only right and fair, of course. In an ideal world, children should grow up knowing each of their parents, even if they happen to live in a single parent family. They have a right to know both parents equally well, regardless of circumstances. We have several other children here who all come from wonderful one-parent families and although they may not live with Mum and Dad, they at least have regular contact with each. Unlike Lily, I’m afraid.’

I’ve absolutely no answer to that so I just stare back at her, as calmly as I can.

‘I’m so sorry to have to persist, Eloise, and I appreciate that this is uncomfortable, but it’s your daughter I’m thinking of and so I really do need to ask you these questions. You see, even if you have no dealings whatsoever with this man, he still is the child’s father and as such he does have rights.’

‘Yes … I know that, but you see …’

And the best of luck finishing that sentence, I think to myself.

‘I know you must feel very strongly about not allowing him access to Lily, and undoubtedly you have your own personal reasons for this, but really, I’ve seen all this happen more times than you can possibly imagine in the past and I can assure you it’s inevitable. Remember, if he wants to see her, he can easily go to the family law courts and request visitation rights and no judge in the land would deny that to any father. Trust me, you don’t want to have to deal with Lily when she becomes a teenager accusing you of never allowing her to see her dad. It just wouldn’t be right, not to mention it’s completely unhealthy for her. I know it’s none of my business, but I would beg you to take my advice; build bridges with this man, no matter how difficult it is for you. Because mark my words, if you don’t, the day will come when Lily
will
.’

‘No she won’t.’

She looks over the desk at me in dull surprise, probably unused to being contradicted.

‘Excuse me?’

‘What I mean is, Lily won’t be able to track down her father.’

‘I’m afraid I’m not with you.’

‘She won’t be able to find out who he is or where he is, because I couldn’t even tell you that myself. I was never in a relationship with him. That is, I don’t know his name or where he is or … In fact the truth is … I don’t know anything about him at all.’

Then I suddenly backpedal and have an urge to clamp my hand over my mouth, realising that makes me sound like some spray-tanned, bleach-headed tarts who got up the duff after a one night stand with a bloke whose name they now can’t even remember.

And now Miss Pettifer is peering curiously at me over the rims of her glasses, and I can practically read her thoughts. God almighty, never would have had this one down as someone who’d be a bit of a goer of a Friday night on the town, after a few shots of vodka and Red Bull. Hard to imagine Miss Prissy newspaper editor in a pair of leather trousers and a cropped-top bra, falling drunk out of some nightclub at five a.m., draped round some unknown fella she’s only just met and is about to drag home for a quickie one night stand.

‘And no, I promise, it’s not what you’re thinking either,’ I tell her with a heartfelt sigh, knowing I can’t circle around this any longer.

The time has come for the truth.

Hard to blurt it out though; this is not something I ever talk about, barely even think about most of the time. Aside from my family, no one really knows the truth, the whole truth and nothing but, which is exactly how I like to keep it.

But seeing Miss Pettifer looking expectantly at me, waiting for my answer, I know I’ve no choice but to tell her.

‘I had Lily by artificial insemination.’

I try my best to say it evenly and without embarrassment. For God’s sake, haven’t I been putting up with all sorts of rumours and sly stories circulating round the office about Lily’s parentage, ever since the day I first announced my pregnancy? All widely exaggerated and laughably wide of the mark.

Because the truth was this; almost three years ago now, dating right back to that dismal night when I turned thirty, I made one life-altering decision. Not to rush into marriage, or find a significant other to share my life with and take away the loneliness; I didn’t mind being on my own and was never particularly bothered about being single. Unlike a lot of my contemporaries at work, I was never emotionally double-parked and in a mad, tearing rush to meet someone. Singledom held out no threat for me whatsoever.

As far as I was concerned, the road to love was far too full of potholes and roadblocks to be even worth the hassle. And on the rare occasions when I did date, I’d pretty much been able to see the end of every single love affair right from its very beginning. I was someone who actively preferred my own company to that of any guy brave enough to ask me out, and who didn’t want the mess of relationships, thanks; that was my sister Helen’s department and not mine. In fact, my heart was so untroubled by emotion that it might as well have had a big ‘do not disturb’ sign permanently hanging from it.

I’d dated in the past, of course, and like everyone else could boast of having my heart smashed to smithereens back in college by ‘the one that got away’. Who’s married with two kids now and who recently rang me up out of the blue, saying he’d just been made redundant then asking me for a job. In spite of no experience whatsoever in the paper business; this guy was a chemical engineer. Mortifying, for us both, on so many levels. And certainly before I had Lily, from time to time I’d go out on the odd date. But they always seemed to me to end up like a job interview where no one ever got hired. My overall verdict on my chances of ever finding a life partner? Meh.

No, it wasn’t that I was ever lonely … Besides, how could anyone who worked a sixteen-hour day ever call themselves lonely? But dating back to that night of my miserable, pathetic thirtieth birthday, I was filled with a dark and inexplicable horror of ending up alone. Because there’s a world of difference between the epic loneliness I was so frightened of and being alone, as I was terrifyingly beginning to see.

And that’s when I absolutely knew for certain. Whatever else the future might hold for me, and even though there were times when I felt crushed under the sheer weight of it, there was one thing that I didn’t want the chance to miss out on, and that was to become a mother. That was without a doubt, the one, personal thing that I wanted out of life for myself more than anything else. A child of my own. No head space for the inconvenience of a man in my life, thank you very much, I just wanted a baby, full stop. And once I’d made the decision, it was like a tight iron band had been lifted from round my heart. No question about it, this wasn’t just the right thing to do, it was the
only
thing.

And okay, so I might not exactly have had close female friends to confide in – or indeed, any mates at all – but believe me, I’d heard enough horror stories circulating round the office to know precisely the best plan of action open to someone like me. I’d overheard bloodcurdling tales told in whispered conversations by the watercoolers, heartrending sagas about women who’d had kids with partners who suddenly became ex-partners and then spent years dragging the mother of their child through the family law courts demanding access rights. Which always and inevitably seemed to be granted.

Overnight access seemed to be the first step, followed by weekend access … Quite enough to send a shiver down my spine. Shared parentage, I just knew, would never be an option for someone like me, so instead I just went for the next preferable option.

Namely, a sperm bank, where I was successfully inseminated and successfully managed to conceive on my very first go, astonishing just about everyone at the clinic. To this day I can still remember my mother quipping at the time that even my ovaries, like the rest of me, were high-performing and anxious to get on with it.

And now here she was, my little Lily Elizabeth Emily, representing the one single personal thing I actively wanted out of life for myself and for no one else. And not for one second do I ever regret the decision I made. Lily’s the single best thing ever to have happened to me and as far as I’m concerned, let people gossip about who her dad is all they shagging well like. Because she’s my soulmate, the real love of my life. Lily’s my reason for running home every night and our precious Sundays together are what I live for, the highlight of my whole week.

There’s a long, long pause as Miss Pettifer digests this, nodding thoughtfully.

‘I see. Well, thank you for telling me. And does Lily know this?’

‘Well, no … But then she’s not even three yet. Hardly an appropriate conversation to have with the child, is it?’

‘You might just be very surprised at what they’re able to understand at that age. The regrettable incident which happened here earlier being a case in point. Miss Simpson was doing a little exercise with the class where each child had to tell the others what they’d all done at the weekend. So of course, they all spoke about going to visit grandparents with Mum and Dad, or else going to feed the ducks in the park, again with either Mum or Dad. Miss Simpson told me that Lily became agitated at all the other children talking so openly about their fathers. The poor child didn’t seem to understand what was going on. Then things became exacerbated when Tim O’Connor quite rudely accused Lily of not having any dad at all and asked her why; was it because her dad was dead?’

‘And what did Lily say back to him?’ I ask in a tiny voice, throat completely dried up now, dreading the answer.

‘From what I can gather, Lily stoutly told him that yes she did have a dad and that one day he’d come for her. This is when Tim provoked her, calling her a liar and saying that everyone else in class had a dad, bar her. So then Lily lashed out at him; kicking, screaming, punching, the whole works. It really was the most awful scene and deeply distressing for the other children to witness. Now in Lily’s defence, Tim’s behaviour was also completely out of line. He absolutely should not have carried on the way he did, but believe me, his parents have been notified about this incident as well. Bad behaviour of any kind isn’t tolerated here.’

I’m too dazed by what I’ve just heard to even bring myself to answer her. The words Lily used keep floating back to me. That she did have a dad and that one day he’ll come for her. Is that really what’s been going through her little mind?

And for how long, I wonder?

Suddenly I’m now finding it hard to breathe, my chest is that tight and constrained. This actually feels like taking a bullet. The same sharp, sudden, hot, searing flash of deep, flesh-ripping pain.

Because never before has Lily even asked me about her father; not once, ever. Maybe because she’s been so shielded ever since she was born, always at home or else with a nanny; it’s only since she began at preschool that she must suddenly be aware that other kids have two parents coming in to drop them off and then collect them later on. Something that she so obviously doesn’t. And what does my little girl have instead? A mother she only sees properly one day a week and Elka, one in a steady stream of nannies, who’s now about to desert her in just a few days’ time.

I do have a dad and one day he’ll come for me.

I can almost hear her little singsong, baby voice saying that, proudly, defiantly and the blow it gives me right to the solar plexus is physically making me nauseous.

I knew, of course I knew, that one day I’d have to have the awkward chat with her, that I’d have to tell her why I’m a single mum by choice – I just had no idea that it would creep up on me this fast. And how exactly do I explain to an innocent little child that I never even met her father? That he’s in fact some nameless, faceless Petri dish in an industrial estate out in Sandyford? All I know about him really is the basics; his height, eye colour, hair colour, occupation and IQ. That’s it. And worst of all, that he’s never going to come for her, because how can he? He doesn’t even know of her existence. Or of mine.

Christ alive, what chance has the poor kid got? No father and, judging by the not-too-difficult-to-read subtext of what Miss Pettifer’s telling me, an absentee mother to boot. I look across the desk at her and can almost see a cartoon thought bubble coming out of her brain saying that there are probably undiscovered terrorist cells in the mountains of Afghanistan more nurturing that I am.

The worry swirls round my brain now, dull and nauseating, over and over again. No getting away from it, I am a horrible parent whose child doesn’t even know the truth about her own parentage. A child, to my shame, that I barely see at all. And now my Lily, my little strawberry-blonde angel, is acting like Damien from
The Omen
and taking pot shots at her little classmates for accusing her of not having a dad … Oh God, now the guilt feels exactly like heartburn.

I’m just wiping away tiny beads of worry-sweat, wondering how in hell I’m going to fix this, when Miss Pettifer cuts into my thoughts as if there’s more – worse – to come.

‘So you see why I had to call you in Eloise.’

‘Yes, of course I do, and thank you for letting me know …’

With jelly legs, I make to get out of my chair, but she holds her palm up to stop me.

‘And there’s something else too,’ Miss Pettifer says.