Bachelor Boys (23 page)

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Authors: Kate Saunders

BOOK: Bachelor Boys
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“He doesn't realize it himself yet,” she told me, with an air of mystery, “but it's eating away at him. All he knows at the moment is that he's in the wrong place.”
Sue, the Macmillan nurse, asked, “Who is this secret someone else, then? Who's he really in love with?” (Sue knew everything about us, and often chimed in with advice. She was a vigorous, dry-witted woman in her forties. Phoebe loved her.)
“She means me,” I said. “No matter how many times I assure her that Fritz is not secretly pining for my charms. He's not, Phoebe. Whether we like it or not, Fritz is in love with Felicity Peason. End of story.”
I was sitting on the edge of the bed at the time, and I have a clear memory of Phoebe's wasted face on the pillow, creasing into a mischievous smile. “Oh, the story isn't anywhere near the end,” she said. “It hasn't even begun.”
 
“I'm back,” Annabel said down the phone, “and I need to talk to you.”
It was a Friday. We met after work (my work, that is) at the usual wine bar. I hadn't seen or spoken to my best friend for weeks and weeks. It felt like months, or years. We had never been apart for such a long time; not since the day we met in Mrs. Collins's class at school. I'd missed her terribly. Life without her e-mails and phone calls was both lonely and boring. Laying into the Chianti, I wondered why we hadn't fallen into the usual welter of gossip.
Annabel sipped fizzy water. She looked terrible. Her hair was everywhere, and her white face was unbecomingly puffy around the eyes and chin. It didn't take her long to get to the headlines.
Very quietly she said, “I'm pregnant.”
Oh shit. Oh hell and damnation. I found myself thinking, how dreadful for Fritz. I then despised myself for thinking of him first, when it was obviously far more dreadful for Annabel.
I managed to stutter out something like, “How long have you known?”
“I found out last weekend.”
“Oh, Annabel, you poor thing—what will you do?”
Her chin quivered. “I was hoping you'd know. I haven't told anyone else. Perhaps I should drown myself.”
I was frantically trying to collect my wits. Annabel had come to me before telling any of the grown-ups. She trusted me to hew a path through a forest of incredible complications, and I couldn't let her down.
“I wish you'd told me sooner,” I said, filling my voice with a confidence I didn't feel. “Come back to my place tonight—you shouldn't be alone right now. And listen, leave Fritz to me. He might be a bit annoyed at first, but there's a heart of gold under all that testosterone.”
Tears clouded Annabel's blue eyes. She let out a sob and clutched at my hand under the table.
“Really and truly,” I assured her. “He's actually a very kind man. He'd never turn his back on you at a time like this.”
She pulled her hand away and blew her nose on a napkin. In a very small voice she said, “It's not Fritz's.”
“Wh—what?”
She didn't need to say it again. She gazed at me woefully, waiting for the enormity to sink in.
I took a long breath. “Annabel, are you sure about this?”
“Of course I'm sure!”
“What I mean is, you've never really got to grips with the reproductive cycle, have you? And you've made mistakes before.” (There had been a famous scare at college, due to Annabel's vagueness over dates and her belief that you could get pregnant if a man dropped his used condom on your knickers.)
She was firm. “I've worked it out, Cassie. It couldn't be Fritz's. By the end of it all we hadn't had sex for weeks. I'd had a period and everything.”
“Well, whose is it, then?”
Another sob burst out of her. “Ben's.”
“What?”
I had one of those moments when the brain refuses to process information that is too gobsmacking. Astonishment is too weak a word for what I felt. I gaped across the table at Annabel, my mouth and eyes hanging open. My beautiful, daffy friend, the very picture of guilelessness, was telling me that she had managed to get pregnant by her ex-lover's brother.
“Okay,” I said. “Take me through it slowly. I need more alcohol. Are you ready for a glass of wine yet?”
“No thanks. What I'd really like is a cup of tea.”
I looked at her closely, suddenly fascinated to think of a new life growing inside her. “Do you need something to eat?” I dimly remembered Claudette in the early stages of her pregnancy, complaining of constant sickness while eating her own weight in salted almonds.
Annabel mopped at her eyes once more. “I wouldn't mind a bowl of soup. And some bread. And maybe a small tuna salad. And some cheese. Sorry, but I'm constantly ravenous.”
I called over a waiter and ordered food and tea. I was absolutely sizzling with curiosity, but didn't want to interrogate her until the tea arrived in case she fainted or something. Wasn't that what people did when they were pregnant?
Annabel was solemn. “Cassie, my life's a disaster.”
“Oh no—”
“Come on. I'm unemployed, I fell in love with the wrong brother and I'm pregnant. How much more disastrous can it get?”
The waiter brought us our pot of tea. Annabel slurped it thirstily. The food arrived, and she crammed in bread, soup and salad as if she hadn't eaten for a month. I decided she was starting to look less terrible. A touch of color crept into her bleached, swollen face.
She said, “It was the night after Fritz dumped me. The night after Ben came in and found me packing my stuff.”
“He told me about that.”
“I felt—it was so appalling that I was almost numb. I wanted to cry and cry, but nothing would come out. I just sat on my sofa, staring at the wall, for more or less two whole days. I couldn't eat. I was living on chamomile tea. The phone kept ringing.”
“I tried to call you,” I said.
“I know, and I'm sorry I couldn't answer. I was in shock, I think. I needed time to get used to having a broken heart. This is all so confusing, Cass—but I loved Fritz so much, or I thought I did. I mean, I had a certain idea of what love
was.
And I was wrong, I was missing the whole point.” She smiled sadly. “Isn't that exactly what you've been telling me for years? Anyway, then my doorbell rang. I didn't know who it was—I thought it might have been you—but I couldn't face anyone. And then I heard knocking, and Ben's voice shouting through the letterbox. He threatened to carry on shouting till I opened the door. So I did.”
“But …” This kind of decisiveness was not at all like Ben. “What did he want?”
“He said he couldn't bear to think of me being unhappy. He'd brought me a bunch of flowers, from a garage. I started crying as soon as I saw him. I absolutely howled. But I was tremendously glad to see him. Oh, I can't describe how lovely he was.” Her face regained its upward curves, and became beautiful. “He found some wine in my fridge and poured me a glass. He made me sit down like an invalid. He sat down beside me and took me in his arms. He put his coat over both of us.”
I said, “He made you a Cotton House.”
“Yes!” She was eager. “That's exactly what he—you haven't had an affair with him, have you?”
“Don't be silly. It's from when we were little. So go on—how did sperm get involved?”
“It didn't start off as sex. At first it was just comforting. He made me feel so warm and cherished, and I thought how much I'd come to love him when I was going out with Fritz—and how much I'd miss him now it was over. And suddenly we were kissing, and I wanted him inside me. I suppose I should have thought about contraception and my last period and all that. But there wasn't time. What's the matter?”
“I feel so stupid,” I said. I couldn't believe my own blindness. “It's so bloody obvious—Ben's been totally desperate to get you into bed. Oh my God, Annabel, he adores you! He's been pining for you! It's enormously romantic.”
“No. You're wrong.”
“He punched Fritz, for God's sake. He's been too silly to work out that when a dear friend gives you a constant erection, it usually means you're in love with them.”
For the first time, Annabel smiled. Her tear-bloated face was absolutely (no other word will do) radiant. “It was—he was—the sex was wonderful. But he kept saying sorry afterward. He doesn't think he can possibly be as good in bed as Fritz. And as a matter of fact, in many ways he's better.”
“Really?” (Forgive me, I was dying of curiosity.)
“He's more patient and encouraging. He wouldn't let me hurry my second orgasm.”
“Your second?” Good grief. But I had to know it all now. This is the whole point of being a best friend.
“Well, yes,” Annabel said. “After the first time—which was inevitably a bit hurried—we took our clothes off and did it properly. It was so amazing, I can't even describe it. But he hasn't been in touch since.”
“That's simply because he's an even bigger ninny than you are.”
“What do you mean?”
I reached across the table to caress her hand. “Darling Annabel, you and Ben have fallen in love, but you're both too daft to see it. This is like one of those irritating musical comedies where the lovers have a completely pointless misunderstanding till the end of Act Three. Forgive me if I'm being obtuse—but why does this have to be a tragedy? I mean, how do you feel about Ben?”
“I don't deserve to have feelings.”
“Your feelings are all we have to go on. Do you love him?”
“I shouldn't—not when I'm supposed to be in love with Fritz.”
“Annabel, do you love Ben?” I tightened my grip on her hand. “Because I know he loves you. Please say yes!”
“Yes. He's the one I really miss now. It's more than a boyfriend thing.” She smiled rather lopsidedly. “I've never been so—so
intimate
with a man. And I don't mean in a sex way. Ben's my soul mate.”
“Well, don't you think your soul mate deserves to know about you being pregnant?”
Annabel said, “He's only just getting his career together. I don't want to ruin everything for him.”
“But he's in love with you—I'd put money on it. God, it explains so much. Now, doesn't that change things?”
“I don't know.”
“I need to ask you one more thing,” I said. It had occurred to me, as I'm sure it has to you, that in the right circumstances this entire, muddled situation could fill Phoebe with untold, unbounded joy. “What about the—the pregnancy?” (I rejected “baby” as too emotive.)
Though I was doing my best to be gentle, I wasn't gentle enough. Once again, poor Annabel's eyes flooded with tears.
I said, “You want it.” I knew her. And I was right.
“Oh yes.” Her whole heart was in her voice.
There was a lump in my throat. Suddenly, the idea of a baby that belonged to my dearest friend and my adopted brother was piercingly moving.
Annabel said, “I want this baby more than I've ever wanted anything.”
“Then you're going to have it,” I said. “If Ben won't support you through it, I will. I'll go to all the classes with you, and I'll help you to bring it up. But I have a very strong feeling that Ben won't let me do anything of the kind. You must tell him—you don't know how miserable he is without you!”
Impulsively, absolutely knowing it was the right thing to do, I dived into my bag for my mobile and punched in Phoebe's number. (I knew it was Ben's turn upstairs—this couldn't have happened on a better night.)
“Hello?”
“Ben, hi, it's Cassie. Are you available for a visit?”
“Mum's gone to bed,” Ben said.
“It's you I want to see.”
Across the table, Annabel looked stricken. She shook her head and mouthed, “No!”
I ignored her. “I can be round in about half an hour.”
Ben said, “Okay.”
“Put the kettle on—we're going to need tea.”
“I can't do it!” Annabel pleaded, as soon as the call ended. “I can't just march in, as if I were demanding a shotgun wedding or something. Oh God, what will Fritz think of me? And Phoebe? Oh God! I've crashed into their family and torn them apart!”
“Annabel, get a grip. You're such a one for making a drama out of a crisis.”
I paid the bill and marched her out of the wine bar. I hailed a taxi and pushed her into it. She wasn't protesting seriously. I thought I saw signs of relief. I refused, however, to let her talk about Ben or the baby. On the journey up to Hampstead I made her tell me about her job. This was an effort for her, mainly because it all seemed laughably irrelevant now, and a long time ago.

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