Happy Endings (15 page)

But, if I keep it then my film career will be over before it’s even started. I’m so torn, Kate. I really wish you were here. I can’t talk to Jack about it yet, but I need someone. I’ve been talking to Rhys, he’s the only person who knows, but I can’t help but feel like his advice is a little one-sided. He told me I shouldn’t keep it because there would be other chances to have children, but maybe only one chance to be a film star. I understand where he’s coming from, I do, but having an abortion isn’t as simple as just going in, having it done and then getting on with your life like it never happened. It’s the pain of knowing you stopped a life before it had the chance to even begin. The potential that little embryo had that was crushed because of a decision made by me, their mother, the one person who should have been protecting them. I’m sorry I’m going on. I’m just such a mess and writing to you felt like the only way of getting it all out.

It feels like the rug has been pulled out from underneath me, which is terribly sad because that’s not how you should feel when you find out you’re pregnant, is it? It should be one of the greatest moments of your life, not the worst. I love and miss you so much. I’m sorry this is how you had to find out. I wanted to call you, but when I looked up the time difference it was like two o’clock in the morning and I had to get this off my chest now.

I hope all is well and you’re having a ball in Chiang Mai. I can’t believe you kissed Jez. Although I had a look at the photos and I can see why. Still, at least you didn’t have sex with him. A kiss is one thing, but sex is something else. I hope we can talk soon. Your BFF.

Love Em X

Kate

‘Down in one,’ said Orla with a devilish grin.

I picked up the shot glass, full to the brim with something called a multiple orgasm, and felt my head, already swimming with other saucily named cocktails, give me a little warning. I was going to feel like absolute shit in the morning. I didn’t care though. I was in Sydney with my newest backpacker buddy and I was enjoying myself. Tomorrow could wait.

‘Ready,’ I said and the next moment the multiple orgasm was working its way down my throat, burning me with its high alcohol content and then making me almost vomit, but I managed to keep it down.

‘Another multiple orgasm!’ yelled Orla to the barman and my head groaned. Two young boys looked across at us.

‘I’ll give you a multiple orgasm, love,’ one of them said with a pithy grin in a Yorkshire accent.

‘I doubt you could give me one,’ Orla replied in an instant, cutting the boy down with a single line. His blokey smirk turned quickly to a boyish frown and he turned back to his mate and they walked away. Orla looked at me and we burst out laughing.

After Jez and I said goodbye, I embarked for the first time on travelling solo. I took the sleeper train up to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. Chiang Mai was beautiful and because I signed up for an organised tour I wasn’t alone for very long. I did an elephant hillside trek with a small group of ten people for three days, which was spectacular. I met a couple from Brighton and we bonded straight away. Marc and Jo were lovely and made being without Jez bearable. After our trek, I spent the rest of the time in Chiang Mai with them, before we travelled back to Bangkok together. The only downside of being with them was they made me think about Ed. Marc and Jo were having a wonderful time. They were so happy, and loved travelling together. It made me wish even more that Ed had decided to come with me. They gave me a glimpse of the life I had dreamed about. After I said goodbye to them in Bangkok, I hopped on a plane to Sydney and left Asia and all my memories of Jez behind.

After the relaxing, chilled-out vibe of Thailand, being back in a large cosmopolitan city like Sydney was a bit of a shock. Every day became a routine of introductions, trips to tourist attractions and trying to find that elusive travelling friend. I soon realised how lonely travelling could be. I spent two whole days without talking to anyone. I spent a lot of time at the Travellers’ Contact Point on George Street so I wouldn’t feel utterly alone. I was ten thousand miles from home and knew no one. It was at that point I realised I had to make a bigger effort to meet people. I spent the best part of a week going through the same generic conversations trying to find a travelling mate before I met Orla.

I was on the ferry coming back from Manly, one of Sydney’s beautiful northern beaches. We had the usual backpacker conversation about where we’d been and what our plans were before we swam into the deeper waters of personal history, and it was there I always started treading water.

It would have been easier if my father was dead because then at least I’d have some level of closure, of sentimentality. I’d be able to tell people about him without that all-too-familiar pang of embarrassment and anger. My dad? Oh, he fucked off when I was ten years old because he was too much of a coward to hang around and be a proper father. Because he thought his band was going to be the next big thing, the new Beatles, and he couldn’t do that and raise a family. I knew Orla and I were going to get along when we bonded over absent fathers.

‘Dad left when I was five,’ said Orla. ‘Haven’t seen the good-for-nothing bastard since.’

‘Mine left when I was ten. He tried for a few years, if you call trying turning up on birthdays and the occasional weekend with useless presents.’

‘Men. Complete shits or what? You won’t catch me in a relationship anytime soon,’ said Orla as the Sydney harbour bridge and the opera house suddenly came into view. It was the first conversation we had and I felt like I’d known her my whole life.

Orla was exactly what I needed in Sydney. She wanted to have fun and so we did. We moved into a house together in a suburb called Glebe. It was trendy and cool, a bit bohemian and perfect for my six-week stay. It felt more like a little town with wonderful cafés, pubs and a market at the weekend. It was a bit like living back in London, but so much better.

Orla and I hit the town nearly every night. I hadn’t done that much drinking since university, but I needed it. If being with Jez had been an experience in relationships and love, Sydney was cathartic in that it gave me the chance to let my hair down and feel young again. There were plenty of days when I would have put my feet up, made a cup of tea and read a book, but Orla would drag me off to do the Coogee to Bondi walk or to a gig in the city. She made me realise that what I had in London wasn’t living, it was accepting without asking if I could do better. If Jez made me see how much I loved Ed, Orla made me realise how much I didn’t want life to just stay the same when I returned.

I spent a few days thinking about changing everything when I got back, but the one person I really wanted to talk to was Ed. Trouble was, I knew Ed. He wasn’t the type to crave change, to stop what he was doing and choose a different path. Ed was stuck in his rut, but, more importantly, I think Ed quite enjoyed it.

‘I can’t take it anymore,’ I said to Orla.

After our third multiple orgasm, we’d gone on to a club to dance till we dropped and it was nearly three in the morning when we finally staggered home.

‘You don’t have to take it,’ said Orla. ‘Stand up for yourself. Girl power!’

‘But you don’t know Ed. He hates change. He won’t do what I say and jack it all in and start over. I’ll forget what this feels like and I’ll slip back into my old life again. I know it.’

‘Stop it, will you. Stop talking bollocks and look at yourself. There’s nothing you can’t do and if Ed doesn’t want to join you, then fuck him.’

‘But I love him, Orla. I do love him.’

‘And if he loves you, he’ll stop sitting around on his arse and do whatever you want.’

‘But that’s the problem though, isn’t it.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I don’t know what I want. I used to think I wanted our old life in London, but then I didn’t. I used to think I wanted to settle down, be a housewife, have kids and all that, but now I don’t know. Maybe I’ll never know what I want. Maybe I’m destined to always be running. Destined to be like my fucking dad.’

‘Don’t say that. Just because you don’t know what it is you want, doesn’t mean you’re anything like him. He left a little girl, a whole family.’

‘But what if it’s just in me? Maybe we can’t help who we are. Perhaps we’re destined to be like our parents whether we want to or not.’

‘You don’t believe that.’

‘Then why did I kiss Jez in Thailand? Why am I running away from everything back home?’

‘You’re not running, Kate, you’re living. There’s a difference. Just because you want something different, something more, it doesn’t mean you’re running. It means you’re searching. Most people piss about through life, do fuck all, have a couple of kids, work in shit jobs they don’t like to sustain a life they don’t care much for. Just the fact you’ve realised that and want more means you’re miles ahead of all the eejits back home, digging holes and burying themselves deeper and deeper without even realising it.’

We staggered along further, the slight chill of the night air keeping us going and sobering us up slightly. I didn’t know what to think anymore. I didn’t know if I was running, living or doing something else, something worse or something better.

‘I suppose I’ve always blamed myself in some ways for Dad leaving.’

‘But that’s crazy. You were ten. I stopped blaming myself years ago, when I realised it was all his fault. He was a drunk, lazy bastard who couldn’t handle having kids. Not my fault.’

‘Do you think it’s part of why you’ve been travelling so long?’

‘God no,’ said Orla with a smile. ‘I’m having the time of my life. After Dad left, Mum spent her days raising kids, working two, sometimes three, jobs to pay the rent, blaming men for everything and being miserable. I knew I didn’t want that for me. I wanted freedom. You only get one shot at life, best not to spend it miserable.’

I’d spent the best part of my childhood sitting at the top of the stairs or locked in my bedroom listening to my parents fight, fingers in my ears, praying it would be over soon. Then I spent my teens wishing Dad would come back because the arguments were better than feeling abandoned. It seemed better for Mum to be crying because he was there than not. I felt trapped in the middle of their relationship. It was no wonder I wanted to run away as fast as I could, but maybe Orla was right. Maybe this wasn’t running and perhaps for the first time in my life, I was actually just living. The problem was, I didn’t know.

I was at a café on Glebe Point Road the following morning. Orla had to go into work. She worked illegally at an Irish pub in Bondi and would go in randomly whenever the owner called her. All cash-in-hand. I was feeling a little worse for wear, but it was February and back home it was probably cold or wet, while I was bathed in a beautiful warmth. I had a cappuccino and a bacon roll and I started thinking about my father.

I knew Orla was right about it not being my fault he left. How could it have been? I was only ten. It didn’t stop me spending most of my teens blaming myself though. I’ve always hated him for that. For making me feel like it was my fault when it was all about him and his dreams. When you’re a kid, you idolise your parents. You put them on a pedestal and think of them as these all-knowing super beings that can do no wrong. We think our parents are infallible, but in reality they’re people just like us, doing their best, making mistakes and making it all up as they go along.

Dad was only thirty-two when he left. Just another useless bloke having another mid-life crisis and chasing a teenage dream. That didn’t stop his little girl from lying awake night after night, listening and hoping to hear the front door open and her daddy’s voice. When I look back, I realise now just how much his leaving shaped my life and my relationships. Maybe to him he needed to escape and that meant more than two broken hearts. I had to get away, but I wasn’t breaking hearts or leaving behind a child. If I’d stayed with Ed, who’s to say that five or ten years down the line I wouldn’t have run away too and left behind far more than just a pissed-off and disappointed boyfriend. I was doing this now to stop that from ever happening.

To: Emma Fogle

From: Kate Jones

Subject: Oz

Em,

Oh Em. It does seem like a cruel twist of fate, but you shouldn’t think for a moment like this is the deciding moment in your life. I understand it’s a big decision, but remember: you’re young, beautiful and talented. I don’t think this is your one chance at being an actress. If you decide to have the baby then you will figure out your career later. If you decide to have the abortion, you know I’ll support you and be there for you every step of the way. Whatever you decide, you have me. And Jack and Ed too, of course. And maybe instead of thinking of it as this awful thing, think of it the other way. You’re the lead role in a huge film production opposite Rhys Connelly or you’re going to be a mum to a wonderful little baby. Either one is something I know you’ll be brilliant at and love to pieces. Try and think of this as a positive thing instead of something negative.

I remember how you felt after the first abortion. I remember the look on your face when you told me. I just, and I’m not trying to tell you what to do or persuade you either way because this is your decision, but if I was there and you asked me straight out what you should do, I think you know the answer. I know you, Em. And if you do decide to keep it, Jack will be a wonderful dad and you’ll be the best mum in the world.