Baby Blues and Wedding Shoes (17 page)

Turning sideways, Helen looked at the
bump stretching her summer dress. She had chosen the dress
deliberately because it hung loose, but it was still obvious she
was pregnant. Concealing a sigh, Helen packed her things back into
her bag. It was cool in the toilets and she wasn’t in a hurry to
return to the heat outside. Part of her wondered if she was hiding
long enough to ensure her helpful stranger hadn’t returned to the
lobby. Pushing the thought away she rubbed her belly and felt a
flutter of a kick. It made her shiver.

“Where do we go from here, my
darlings?” she said quietly. The kick came again, followed by
another further round her ribcage. “Back to work I guess.” She ran
her wrists under the cold tap once more to prepare for the heat
before making her way back to the lobby.

Her footsteps rang out as she walked
slowly across the tiles. She realised she had been unconsciously
scanning the room for the stranger whose name she didn’t even know
and was furious at her behaviour.

He’s long gone. No man is going to look
twice at you now.

Despite the thought, her heart still
dropped a little when she failed to find him waiting for her. With
a little laugh at her own foolishness she headed for the door.

Marcio took a step back from his bedroom
window when he saw the woman in the sea-green dress hurrying away,
even though there was no way she could see him from the ground. He
wandered around the room feeling as if he’d misplaced something,
before heading to the coffee machine to make an espresso. While he
waited for the gurgling to finish he analysed the sense of disquiet
in his gut.

Should I have waited in the lobby,
found out her name, taken her for a drink?
Once upon a time he
wouldn’t have thought twice, despite the bump. Now he was sworn off
women he wondered at his level of interest.

There’s a story there, that’s
all
, he decided, as he stripped off to shower.
No wedding
ring and not the sort to be in that condition alone. Not through
choice
. He couldn’t say why he thought that, but he
instinctively knew it to be true. Part of what made him a good
writer was his instinctive sense of the truth of a story, no matter
what was visible on the surface.

Although he’d taken the job willingly
enough, writing food and travel reviews was starting to chafe. It
was nice to travel but there were no stories in food. Not from a
customer’s perspective. Where was the emotion, the passion? Those
were his kind of stories.

They don’t pay the bills though,
Marcio thought bitterly
. And lord knows there are plenty of
those.

He let the hot water pour over him,
washing away the sweat but not erasing the memories. As a writer he
hated clichés but he knew they evolved from universal truths and it
was a truism for him that once bitten meant twice shy. It was a
need to live the romantic dream, the fairy story, which had left
him wide open for hurt and humiliation. From now on the only
stories worth following were those that could be done at a
distance.

Chapter
Three

Helen lowered herself onto a park bench
and slid off her shoes with a sigh. She was in a tiny courtyard,
one of dozens she had wandered through in search of the perfect
picture. It was peaceful, away from the main tourist areas and the
places dominated by the festival. Leaning back she looked up at the
azure sky through the leafy branches and then gazed out at a café
on the opposite side of the courtyard, where enthusiastic Spaniards
were enjoying lunch.

That is what makes this city
different
.
Away from the tourists and the business district
– and it is possible to easily escape both, even in such a small
city – Spanish life wanders on unheeding.

Next to her on the bench, an old lady
sat chatting to a child in a buggy. Helen smiled at the child, its
face smeared with chocolate, and it crossed the language barrier in
a heartbeat. A toothy grin answered hers and the little face lit
up. Helen unconsciously rubbed her hand across her ever-expanding
stomach.

Thinking about motherhood terrified
her: her future felt like a dark room and she couldn’t find the
light-switch no matter how hard she groped around the walls. She
gazed at the grinning baby and a flicker of anticipation shone in
the darkness. The tiny innocent face, a perfect miniature not yet
lined by life, made her wonder would her own babies would be like.
Will I still be able to love them unconditionally, even though
they’re part-Daniel?
The question was too hard to answer so
closed her mind to the memories, repeating the mantra
Happy
Pregnancy, Happy Babies
to herself. She needed to save the
anger, hide it even from herself.

Helen looked around the courtyard and
tried to focus on the present, on how nice it was to just stop and
take it in. The soft crooning of the old lady rolled over her and
for the first time she didn’t mind that she spoke no Spanish:
Crooning was the same in any language.

Bedraggled pigeons pecked about
hopefully. One tatty brown bird had given up and was sat, forlorn
and pathetic, at her feet. She had some crumbs from her muesli bar
but chose to save them until her departure; it was too peaceful to
have the moment broken by a flock of scrabbling birds.

Her gaze meandered across the courtyard
to the café, where groups and couples sat having lunch and drinking
coffee, not with the frenetic mayhem of a Pret a Mangé but slowly,
as if it were a Sunday afternoon. She marvelled at how many of the
customers appeared to be Spanish, rather than the pink and white
tourist rabble.

Are they holidaying too, or is the pace
of life just that much slower here? I can’t imagine people sitting
out like this in London. In the City they barely stop to eat unless
it’s a business lunch.

The gentle hubbub of conversation
interwove with the highlights and flashes of laughter. It felt like
sitting next to a bubbling brook or on the beach as waves lapped
and dragged at the stones.

If I’d come here a year ago, I would
have condemned them all as lazy. I was so caught up in the City way
of work work work. Now it’s hard to figure out what it was all for.
What’s the point in working in an office like a pit pony for fifty
weeks of the year so we can afford to sit around drinking outside
coffee for the other two?

One thing Helen loved, doing freelance
work, was being outside instead of trapped behind tinted glass. She
was aware of the seasons passing; she knew how the weather changed
during the day. She felt more connected to the world somehow; more
rooted in reality. It more than made up for the loneliness.

Of course it would be great to have
people to hang out with
, she thought. Although she sometimes
grabbed lunch with Sharni or Ben, they both still had regular
jobs.

She smiled. Soon she would have a
reason to hang out with people in coffee shops, even if it wasn’t
going to be relaxed and carefree. She was under no illusions: she’d
taken to watching groups of mums out and about. The mess, the
noise, the chaos. She envied them though; they seemed to pull
together in their adversity, swapping stories of sleepless nights
and nappy explosions.

Once I meet some other mums it’ll be
easier
. It was a hollow thought. Helen had no idea how she
would be able to face them, to explain her situation. And she still
needed to work as long as she was able. There was no husband to
bring in the pennies while she tended to the young.
Thank
goodness boredom made me take up photography or there would have
been no pennies at all.

Her maudlin thoughts were interrupted
by a sudden kick in the ribs, followed by one further round.

“Oi, you two, pack it in,” Helen said
with a laugh, realising it was probably the first of many times she
would utter those words. A kick to her bladder made her get up in a
hurry and look around for the nearest toilet.

Funny how no-one ever tells you
about this bit,
she thought, searching through her bag for her
town map.

People talk about the glowing skin, the
joy of feeling movement, even the back ache and the sleepless
nights. No one ever mentions that you’ll spend half your time
looking for a public toilet, whilst waddling like a bloated whale
wearing a nappy.

Hurrying from the courtyard through a
narrow street Helen smiled at the picture she must present. The
street led to another courtyard with a covered market at one end.
She rushed into the market, hoping there would be facilities at the
back as there sometimes were, and came to a sudden stop in the
doorway. It was a fish market. Her newly-enhanced sense of smell
reeled at the malodourous wall that greeted her.

Bugger. Do I brave it and hope
breakfast stays put? Or look somewhere else?

Another kick to the bladder made up her
mind. Trying to unobtrusively breathe through her mouth, Helen
carefully threaded her way through piles of shimmering fish,
searching for the tell-tale picture that would inform her she was
in the right place. Someone shouted something in her direction and
she turned, concerned that she was somehow trespassing.

She faced a tall man in an apron, with
white wiry hair twisting round a bald patch on his head. He smiled
and spoke again in rapid Spanish or Catalan, she couldn’t tell
which. When she shrugged and shook her head he tried again in
broken English.

“Help you, lady?”

“I’m looking for the ladies,” Helen
said quickly, trying hard not to breathe in.

The man looked puzzled. She tried again
in her phrasebook Catalan.

“On es el lavabo?”

The old man’s face lit up in
comprehension and he rattled off some incomprehensible words and
accompanied them with gestures which were clearly meant to be
directions. Helen prayed she had grasped enough to find what she
needed. Experience taught her that saying she didn’t understand
would only cause him to call his friends over until someone spoke
enough English to tell her.

Nodding her comprehension, though
feeling otherwise, Helen smiled, waved, and headed off in what she
hoped was the right direction.

Trying to walk nonchalantly around the
building she eventually saw a silver door with a picture of a lady
on the front. With relief she found it was empty and hurried
inside.

“Babies, you have no idea what your
mummy is already going through for you!”

Marcio put down his knife and fork and
pushed away the empty plate. The food was okay, his review wouldn’t
be derisive, but neither would it be glowing. Glancing out the
window over the harbour, he let out a long sigh.

This isn’t the life of a writer.

He knew his friends envied him;
travelling and tasting good nosh for a living sounded so glamorous
compared with wearing a suit and sitting in an office all day. And
he knew, for him, it was infinitely preferable. But it wasn’t what
he wanted.

His unfocused gaze caught sight of
someone walking past the window and his breath caught as copper
hair lifted in the breeze coming off the water. The lady turned to
surreptitiously check her reflection in the window and Marcio saw
dark Spanish skin rather than fair English rose. He felt his heart
slow down, without realising that its beat had quickened.

Get a grip
.
She’s just a
bird, that’s all. A pregnant one at that.
He gulped down some
of the heavy red wine that had been served with dinner and felt it
burn down his throat.

A lonely one, too,
part of his
brain observed. He thought back to their second meeting, outside
his hotel. She had looked serene whilst taking pictures, her face
suffused with the glow that pregnancy gave to women to make up for
the morning sickness and expanding waistline. Not that he’d
realised she was pregnant, or that she was the same woman he’d
rescued from pickpockets on Las Ramblas.
Although I might have
guessed, with her bag there on the floor for anyone to nab. Silly
naïve gorgeous girl.

He’d studied her beauty while she was
absorbed, making a mental note of the details of her hair piled up
and the damp curl at the nape of her neck. Even though all women
were faithless he still needed to pretend he believed in love for
his novels. All stories needed romance even if life showed what a
shallow concept it was.

She had lost her serenity talking to
him. When he’d said he was staying at the Hotel Arts her face had
tensed and grown dark. He wondered for the second time what her
story was. Maybe she wasn’t what she seemed, innocent and green and
fragile.
Maybe she got herself knocked up by some barman and now
thinks all men were bastards. Who am I to say? It’s not like I
haven’t misjudged someone before.

Pulling out some money to cover the
bill, Marcio gathered up his tablet and keys. He’d tapped out some
notes during the meal and would now take the scooter back to his
hotel to finish the review and email it to his editor. Tonight was
the festival; at least there would be something more interesting to
write about than the fish course and dessert menu.

Chapter
Four

Helen adjusted her rucksack as the
straps threatened to cut off all supply of blood to her arms. Her
whole body felt swollen and full of water.
I’m surprised I don’t
slosh when I walk.
She trudged down the steps to the Metro and
let out a sigh as the cool of the station replaced the relentless
afternoon sun.
Thank god there’s time for a short nap back in
the flea-pit before I head to the festival. I’m beat.