Bella Summer Takes a Chance (32 page)

‘Ta-da!’ Faith brandished a large tray piled with bowls, setting it down before us with a look of infinite pride. ‘In honour of your deal, we are officially celebrating. And since we always go out to dinner I thought we’d do something really special. So I’ve made us the perfect celebratory dinner. Here we have the finest caviar! And there’s more. What’s caviar without– Wait a minute.’ She hurried back into the kitchen. ‘Champagne!’

‘Faith, thank you.’ I laughed. ‘This is great. So, when you say you “made” dinner, you mean…?’

‘I bought the caviar in Selfridges and opened the appropriate containers according to the recipe, yes. Although I did make the toast.
Without
crusts. You’re going to need more bread for tomorrow. It took me a few goes to get it right. And I sliced the lemon, and chopped the onion. By the way, don’t ever ask me to do that again, it’s dreadful. And I popped the champagne, of course. I was within my comfort zone there. And for pudding… Lola’s cupcakes.’ She leaned down for Frederick to kiss her. He’d been puckering since she emerged from the kitchen. The more I saw them together, the more I felt like they really were meant for each other.

It was easy for me to say I wanted to be in love, but my friends had made me realise that there were as many definitions of love as there were people in the world. Marjorie had three kinds in one lifetime. Kat was off the scale in one direction, head over heels, whereas her love for James was built through friendship. Faith and Fred were different still. There was no mad rush to their love, no rough edges or places where it needed to bend unnaturally. It managed both the excitement that Kat felt with The Hairy Biker and the comfort she’d had with James. It seemed our Goldilocks had found the bed that was just right.

‘To B.’ Frederick raised his glass. ‘May your CD climb swiftly to the top of the charts. And we’re not just celebrating B.’s success tonight are we, Faith, my peach? Do you want to tell her?’

She blushed. ‘Well, yes. Is that selfish, B., am I stealing your thunder?’

‘Faith, it’s just the three of us. There’s hardly thunder. A light rain shower at best. What’s your news?’

‘I’m changing jobs.
The Guardian
has offered to hire me!’

We squealed with glee, hugging and jumping up and down in a three-way clench.

‘You’ve finally done it, congratulations!’ I shouted as I kissed her. ‘Faith, seriously, you deserve this. After so much hard graft you’re finally on your way.’

‘You’re both on your way,’ Fred said. ‘I’m so proud of both of you. B., I want to remind you that you lied about your music when we first met. No, don’t deny it. You said you “sing sometimes” but I heard you in your room, every night, singing, practising. And I saw you, night after night, writing your music. I know how hard you’ve worked, even if you don’t like anyone else to know. But now’s the time to shout about it. And Faith, darling, you must hold some kind of record for the most shitty assignments in one journalistic career. You deserve this break. Well done to you both. And now I feel like Dorothy talking to the Wizard. I don’t think there’s anything in that black bag for me.’

‘What are you talking about?’ I said. ‘You’ve only got the best flatmate
and
the best girlfriend in the entire Western hemisphere.’

‘You’re right, B., you are tremendous. And you, Faith, are the love of my life.’

Faith looked as stunned as I did.

‘You too,’ she said quietly. ‘You’re the love of my life too, Frederick.’

‘Really?’ He sounded shy.

When she nodded he moved to the floor. To one knee. Faith and I both gasped. ‘Then would you do me the honour of officially being my flatmate?’

Faith laughed. ‘I’d love to!’

‘Good, because, aside from loving you with all my heart, I cannot stand my flatmate another second.’

‘Surely he’s not that bad,’ I said.

Fred held his hand up. ‘Last weekend was the last straw, B. He binned my Lush face mask. You know, the one I keep in the fridge. He thought it was hummus that had gone off. Honestly, I don’t know which I resent more, his ignorance of basic grooming or his audacity for throwing away my things. Believe me, he is that bad.’ He kissed his new flatmate.

I welled up. Of course I did. It was just the icing on Faith’s already tasty cake. After so many years of kissing frogs, she’d finally found her queen. Er, prince, she’d found her prince. Hadn’t we all been through a lot. And we’d all come out okay. Well, Kat’s story was still being written. I worried about her, especially with the custody hearing coming up. James wasn’t budging about having the boys with him.

I excused myself to let Faith and Fred share their moment, and went to call Kat from the other room. She answered on the first ring. ‘You okay?’ I asked.

‘Yah,
Suesse
, thanks. I thought you might be James. He is threatening to call tonight.’

‘So you’re still talking without the lawyers? That’s good, right?’

‘I’m not sure. We are talking with the lawyers too. Lots of talking. Getting nowhere.’

‘He’s still going to go for custody?’

‘The caseworker came over today to check up on me and meet with the boys. I hated having her here. It was an invasion of privacy. She was judging everything she saw.’

‘Well, it’s just a process that everyone has to go through,’ I said like I’d ever met a caseworker in my life. ‘She probably wrote only glowing things about you. I wouldn’t worry.’

‘I’ll worry until the judge gives me custody.’

‘Of course. I know you will. What’s your lawyer saying?’

‘He’s not telling me very much. It will all depend on what James’ lawyer says about me. If he paints me as an adulterous mother who is breaking up the family, then, I don’t know.’

There wasn’t much I could say to comfort her. It was all down to the judge. We hung up with Kat still feeling awful and me feeling ineffectual, and very worried for my friend.

Chapter 27

Even though I knew, I
knew
, my relationship with The Dad was doomed, I dreaded telling him. I felt sick to my stomach from the moment I called him to suggest we meet. We tried chatting normally. I told him all about my lunch with the A&R man, but it was like pouring water down a blocked drain. Our conversation kept getting stuck in the S-bend.

Of course he looked incredible when we met for dinner. The Last Supper. Why did his height ever bother me? He smelled good and was kind and courteous as always. Maybe even more so. He knew something was wrong. I didn’t waste time. It would have been much worse to try sitting through dinner with that cantaloupe of angst in my stomach. So I let him have it straight out. He let me talk, let me finish. Then I asked him. Are you still in love with Elizabeth? He sighed. He looked sad. He said yes. I had nowhere to go from there. I wasn’t angry. I said it wasn’t fair to me. He agreed. I said I had to go, that there wasn’t anything left to say. He let me go, asked if I’d talk to him again when I felt ready. I said I didn’t know. I did know one thing. I wasn’t going to go out with him again.

It felt like one of those times when I should take myself away a bit to reflect (wallow?) in solitude. I didn’t get my reset button when the spring Zurich assignment was cancelled. An autumn day trip to Brighton wasn’t the same thing, but the sea air did clear my mind.

It was one of those unusual days that tempted us to think that Brighton was the San Tropez of the British Isles. Except that instead of hot sand, crystal blue warm water, a gentle sea breeze and the smell of sun cream, the wind howled down the pebble beach, churning the water into metre-high whitecaps. But the sun was glorious and my second ice cream was nearly as good as my first.

The pier was busy with pensioners taking advantage of their retirement to catch some weekday sun. The gulls bickered overhead, trying to hold steady in the gales, and I listened for the snippets of conversations that passed my bench. Mostly I thought about my future. Despite my disappointment over The Dad, and the tears I’d shed, in a way it confirmed that there was more out there for me. If I met someone like him, who made me feel the way he had, then I could meet someone else. Someone who wasn’t in love with another woman. I wouldn’t measure myself for a nun’s habit just yet.

As I wandered up the pier, my new phone rang.

‘Are you still in Brighton?’ Faith asked. ‘Shit, that figures. I’m in Winchester. We’ve got to get back to London. Kat just called. Clare’s gone into labour!’

‘But she’s not due for another week. I thought first babies were always late.’

‘Tell that to Clare’s womb. Baby
It
is eager to meet us. Which station do you go to? We may as well take a taxi together. Call me when you’re five minutes away, okay? God, I’m so nervous for her.’

‘Have you talked to her? Is she okay?’

‘B., she’s trying to push an eight-pound infant out something the size of a Smarties tube. Of course she’s not okay. I’ll see you at the station.’

Ready or not, the baby was coming.

‘What do you think we’ll have to do?’ I asked Faith in the back of the cab from the station.

‘Damned if I know. Kat says Clare wants us all there, but maybe she’ll let us stay in the waiting room. Moral support might be enough.’

‘You think so?’

‘No. I think we’re going to be on the front line.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’ There were few things less appealing than the prospect of seeing your best friend’s business end.

The Shag didn’t look any more pleased at the prospect when we saw him at the vending machine.

‘Hi.’ I hugged him. ‘How’s it going?’

He looked absolutely panicked. ‘Kat’s in there. She’s… she’s
mean
.’

‘Who, Kat?’

‘Uh-uh, Clare.’

‘Well, I’m sure she’s just uncomfortable,’ Faith said.

‘But she’s so mean,’ he repeated. Clearly The Shag needed our help. We’d all just have to get through it as painlessly as possible. ‘She wants you all in there. Kat’s with her.’ He wiped his brow.

As we herded him back down the hall, I asked, ‘What’s happening? Is she having contractions? I’m sorry but I don’t really know the procedure. What does happen now?’

Maybe keeping him talking would make him forget about the succubus in the delivery room who was posing as his girlfriend. I couldn’t concentrate on much of what he told me, though. I was thinking about how long it could take a woman to have a baby. If it was a long labour, we might not survive. ‘How long has she had the contractions?’

‘Since this morning. No, yesterday, they started last night. But we called the hospital and they said not to come in because they weren’t close enough. They told Clare to take a warm bath and relax. That didn’t go down too well. It sort of spiralled from there.’

I patted his shoulder. ‘It’ll be okay. We’ll do this together. Ready?’

He took a deep breath and opened the door. ‘Sweetheart, they didn’t have caffeine-free so I got you Coke Zero.’

‘Do you want to
kill
the baby? I’m thirsty.’

‘Have some water,’ said the midwife from the corner where she was filling in some paperwork.

‘I don’t want water, I want sugar!’ Her head threatened to spin around as she said this. If she vomited green bile, I was going for the priest.

‘Clare, Clare, I’ll go get you something,’ Kat said, giving me a warning look. I couldn’t tell if she was telling me to take Clare’s hand, or blinking in Morse code to run for my life. I took her hand. It was sweaty.

‘Thanks, honey,’ she said, sounding normal again. ‘I’m sorry, hello B., hi Faith. I’m having a baby!’

‘I know you are, angel,’ Faith rubbed her shoulder. ‘And we’re here to help, aren’t we, B.? So you just tell us what you need and we’ll do it. This is all about making you comfortable and having this baby.’

‘I’m sorry, but you can’t all be in here,’ said the midwife. ‘Two are allowed. It’s the hospital’s policy, but any more people and I won’t be able to do my job.’

‘Oh,’ Faith said. ‘Well, I’ll just wait outside, shall I?’ She edged toward the door. The coward.

‘You can take turns,’ Clare said. ‘They can take turns, can’t they?’

‘As long as they don’t get in the way, that’s fine.’

‘Thanks. B. can stay and then Faith can come in a little later. Is that okay, Faith?’

Faith kissed our sweating friend and bolted for the door.

‘Can I do anything to help?’ I prayed her answer wouldn’t involve going to the other end of the bed. The Shag and I were huddled together at the top end as if avoiding a lava flow.

‘You can time the contractions. They won’t take the baby out until they’re really close together.’

‘How close are they now?’

‘About two years apart. Just talk to me, okay? About anything.’

‘Er, okay.’ I wracked my brain. ‘Well, I’ve found some caterers for my birthday party who make amazing miniature Asian dishes. But don’t worry, we’re ordering hundreds so nobody goes hungry. And the DJ has his own barman and waiters who are making special chocolate cocktails. I guess you won’t be able to drink them, though. It’s in two weeks, can you drink by then?’

‘Of course I can. This baby is coming out today. To-
day
. I can eat and drink whatever I want as soon as that umbilical cord is cut. In fact, here’s what I want in the recovery room. And I’m not joking about this.’ She ticked off on her fingers. ‘Sushi. Peanuts. And the stinkiest blue cheese you can find. Because I can eat it all once the– owww.’

Her hand shot from the bedside, finding its mark with precision that made Swiss watchmakers look haphazard. The Shag yelped, sinking into the bed in an attempt to relieve the pain.

Did she just grab his…? Oh, God. ‘Clare, honey, let go,’ I said. ‘Here, take my hand instead. Jesus, you’re going to castrate him.’ When she finally released, The Shag slumped to the floor, curled around his swelling gonads.

Kat arrived with an armful of juice drinks, unaware of the hospital’s two-victim rule.

‘Clare, you could have killed him!’ I said. The Shag was demonstrating the breathing technique they learned in pre-natal class.