The Family Trap (3 page)

Why the fact that it’s in a caravan makes it worse, I have no idea. But it does.

Paul has the grace to look sheepish. ‘It’s a pretty big caravan,’ he tells me, as if this makes it any better. ‘There are separate bedrooms. Sharon and Hannah can share.’

Oh, well. Silly me. That’s all fine then.

‘I couldn’t say no, Stella. This means the world to Hannah. It was all she wanted to do for her birthday, you know how sporty she is. And with us moving away and all … You do understand, don’t you?’

Well, of course I understand. He only found out he even had a daughter six months ago; of course he wants to spoil her and take her away on holiday, and probably go fishing and kayaking and mountain biking – all the things I most definitely wouldn’t want to do. And all the things I imagine Sharon will jump at.

But taking your ex on holiday? Isn’t that a bit inappropriate – particularly the week before your wedding?

When I say this, his face crumples, and I know he doesn’t have any answers that will make me feel OK about it. He won’t deny Hannah this. And I shouldn’t ask him to.

Still, it hurts. Paul knows I’ve always felt insecure about pocket-sized Sharon, with her zest for life and her yoga and Pilates – the woman practically has a sign around her neck that reads:
Paul’s ideal partner
.

‘You’re the only woman I want to be with, Stella,’ he tells me whenever I share my fears.

It doesn’t make me like Sharon any better.

‘Come on,’ he says now, nudging me in the ribs. ‘Don’t be a grump about it. What’s a week in a freezing cold caravan when we’ve got our whole lives together to look forward to?’

‘As long as it’s not so cold you’re cuddling up to keep warm,’ I grumble.

‘You could come too, if you wanted,’ he says with a grin. ‘There’s plenty of room.’

‘Ha! Right. Like that’s not my idea of hell.’

‘Exactly. And you’ll be so busy with Lipsy and the baby you won’t be thinking about me at all, will you?’ He puts his face to my hair and inhales. ‘Whereas I’ll be thinking about you every second.’

‘You’d better be, Smart-boy.’ I give him my best stern look and then relent and allow him to kiss me. His lips are warm and insistent; I could never get tired of being kissed this way if I lived to be a hundred.

A passing orderly hisses, ‘Get a room,’ and with a wry smile, Paul allows me to come up for air.

‘Don’t get so caught up in baby stuff that you forget to finish packing,’ he says as I extricate myself from his arms. ‘Two weeks tomorrow and it will be just me and you.’

Hmm. Not quite. My hand falls automatically to my stomach. But this whole Sharon thing has discombobulated me: I can’t seem to get my head back into the right place for new baby news. There’s this crushing sensation in my chest that I don’t recognise. I guess I’m just really tired.

Paul watches a man wheel himself down the corridor and looks off, his expression faraway. ‘Me and you going on our new adventure,’ he says, and I smile to myself and reach for his hand.

One of the things I love about Paul is the way he takes the whole “what’s mine is yours” thing so literally. The new adventure in Derby isn’t really ours – it’s his. The recession hit Smart Homes badly; many estate agents, especially small independent ones, have been struggling to survive. And in Milton Keynes, with the glut of cheap new houses being sold off by the bigger agencies, Smart Homes didn’t stand a chance. By Christmas, Paul was already operating on a skeleton staff of one – himself – and searching for new ways to make money. When the offer came to head up a new rental agency in Derby, Paul considered it a lifeline. Smart Homes was his baby, the business he’d built from scratch. I knew the day he closed the door to the office for the last time would be devastating for him. How could I refuse?

This was just after he proposed, by the way, which made it even harder to for me to say no.

‘It’ll be a fresh start for us, Stella,’ were his exact words, and the relief on his face told me more about the stress he’d been under than I necessarily wanted to know.

One phone call from an old college friend and Paul had it all worked out.

‘We can rent to start with, but I’ll sell my flat here as soon as the market picks up and we can buy something ourselves. Together. A little terraced house, perhaps. Something you can renovate, a little project for you. What do you think?’

He had me there. Last year I had big plans to get into property developing – my plans came to nothing, which is a whole other story, but now Paul was offering us both the chance to start again.

But once he’d demonstrated that driving from Derbyshire back to Milton Keynes only takes an hour and a half, and promised that we would make this journey each and every weekend, I jumped on board with as much enthusiasm as if the idea had been mine all along.

‘We are still coming back here at weekends, aren’t we?’ I ask him now, thinking of Phoenix and that little rosebud mouth. Thinking of the new baby, and how I’ll need my family around me too. ‘Even though you’ll be managing the new agency, you will still get time off, right?’

He sighs and shakes his head, dragging his attention back to me. ‘We’ve been through this a hundred times, Stella. It will be fine. Lipsy is a big girl now, and she has Robert and your mum and dad to help her out. This is our time now. Just you and me. You have to start to let go.’

Well, he’s right. Of course he is. But letting go is always easier in theory, I’ve found.

Like letting him go now, knowing that tomorrow night he’ll be sleeping in a caravan with the mother of his child. The mother of his
other
child …

‘I love you,’ he says. His expression is the one I love best: besotted and completely soppy.

‘I love you too. And I’ll be here all ready and waiting for you when you get back.’

And so will the baby he still knows nothing about.

‘Bye, nearly-wife.’

I go up on tiptoes and kiss him one more time. ‘Bye, nearly-husband.’

‘And you’re OK about Sharon coming with Hannah and me?’ he asks again.

I bite off the ‘What choice do I have?’ and nod instead.

‘I hope you all have a lovely time,’ I say. Which is an out-and-out lie. But the moment for my news has passed; there’s no way I could suddenly announce my pregnancy now. It will wait. News this big can wait a week, right?

With a kiss and a happy grin Paul walks away, confident and impenetrable, not a single cloud on his horizon. I’m watching his back – OK, I’m admiring his back, which always has the power to stir me: broad shouldered, clad in a tight-fitting T-shirt, just yummy – when I suddenly have a horrible, stomach-wrenching thought.

I remember what happened between Paul and Sharon eight years ago. The reason they split up in the first place.

I turn away from Paul’s retreating form and lean against the wall. My head is spinning, and not just from hunger and tiredness.

Why didn’t Paul know he had a daughter until last year? Because he broke up with her mother when she found out she was pregnant, is why.

Which does not bode well for my current situation at all.

There’s no reason to think he’d do the same to me, of course. No reason at all.

Chapter 3

‘He’s so beautiful. He’s the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen. Apart from you, I mean.’

I’m holding baby Phoenix in my arms while Lipsy snacks on toast and marmalade. She looks tired, but also radiant, the way only new mothers can. In about seven months’ time it will be me sitting there looking tired but radiant.

Or maybe just tired, me being so much older and all.

I push the thought away and focus back on my daughter. I won’t think about the next new mum-to-be. Now is not the time.

‘I missed you last night,’ I tell Lipsy. It’s true – the house seemed empty without her. Robert came in looking like a ghost after visiting hours ended and crept straight up to bed. I should have basked in the solitude, but all I could do was fret. When I arrived back at the hospital this morning I expected to find Lipsy exhausted and in tears with the stress of it all. I underestimated her. She’s taking it all in her stride.

‘Yeah, right,’ she says, reaching for a plastic cup of orange juice. ‘I bet you were living it up, making the most of your last night of freedom before the house gets overtaken by baby things.’

I laugh at this. ‘Last time I looked, the house was already taken over by baby things. I can barely move for soft toys and changing mats and boxes of clothes.’

‘Speaking of boxes, how is your packing coming on?’

‘Fine.’ I look at Phoenix’s face, watch his breath go in and out, the little tremble of his lips. ‘Lipsy, are you sure you don’t mind me moving so far away?’

The words are hardly out of my mouth before she sighs and rolls her eyes. ‘Mum! I’ll be fine. I’m not a little girl anymore, you know.’

‘I had noticed.’

She looks at Phoenix and then smiles at me. ‘Right. Still, I’m glad he came on his due date. I wouldn’t have wanted to go through that on my own.’

It’s not lost on me that she seems to consider Robert’s presence insignificant, but I let it go for now. I also don’t bother to remind her that while Phoenix might indeed have arrived on his due date, everyone – doctors included – expected him to be at least a month premature due to her tender age. I thought I’d have a good six weeks with her and the baby before I had to move out.

But there is no way I would have missed it, wedding or no wedding.

‘I would never have let you go through that on your own, Lipsy,’ I tell her. ‘Even if Phoenix had arrived late, I’d have stayed behind until you were ready for me to leave. Paul can move up on his own if necessary, you know that. If you want me to be around longer, all you have to do is ask.’

‘Mum, I’ll be fine. You and Paul are moving eighty miles up the motorway. It’s not like you’re going to the other side of the world, is it?’

Lipsy might be more perceptive than I’ve ever given her credit for, because when I fall silent at this, she says, ‘You really miss Bonnie, don’t you?’

I nod.

‘And Los Angeles really is the other side of the world,’ she adds with a rueful smile. ‘Is there no way at all she can come back for the wedding?’

‘Apparently not. Flights are expensive, and they’re saving up for their own wedding. Anyway, it’s no big deal. I’ll see her at Christmas. It’ll just make it even more special.’

But now I’m wondering if I’ll be able to fly out for Bonnie’s wedding. According to my calculations, I’ll have a three-month-old baby in tow by then. Not the best circumstances for transatlantic travel. When my best friend announced her move to America with high-flying Marcus, I took it in my stride, too loved-up with Paul to feel the full impact of being Bonnie-less.

I’m feeling it now.

‘But Christmas is, like, ten months away, Mum. Aren’t they coming back over the summer? What about Cory?’

Cory is Bonnie’s stepson-to-be. Although younger than Hannah, he’s used to his dad’s international job expeditions.

At least Bonnie doesn’t have to worry about Marcus dragging Cory’s mum out to the States with them. She’s more the hands-off type. Unlike Sharon.

‘Bonnie said that Cory’s flying out for the summer holidays. She also said Marcus only gets two weeks holiday a year. How crazy is that?’

‘Vacation,’ Lipsy corrects. ‘They call it vacation out there.’

I just roll my eyes at this.

‘Couldn’t she come over on her own?’ she asks.

‘Money,’ I repeat. ‘Lack of. But don’t worry about it, Lipsy. I’ll be fine. You’re still up for being my chief bridesmaid, right?’

She grimaces, and I give her a little kick. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that bridesmaid dress and you know it.’

‘If I fit into it,’ she says, prodding her stomach, which is practically shrinking before our eyes. Oh, to be so young and elastic. When my time comes I’ll probably have a jelly belly for a decade.

Lipsy crams the last bit of toast into her mouth then holds out her arms. Reluctantly, I hand Phoenix back, smoothing a strand of wispy black hair off his forehead as I do. The hospital bed is high and wide, but visitors aren’t allowed to sit on it. Instead I’m perched in a red plastic tub chair that is only just wide enough for my bum.

‘Is Phoenix going to be OK sleeping in with us, do you think?’ she says as she settles him for a feed. I’m both fascinated and a bit weirded-out, watching my daughter breastfeed. It’s amazing to see my little girl being so grown up – feeding a baby with her own body! – but it also seems like a very private thing, intimate, like when I come across her and Robert sitting on the sofa, gazing into each other’s faces as if they contain the secrets of the universe.

Some things aren’t for a mother’s eyes.

‘He’ll be fine,’ I reassure her for the hundredth time. ‘Besides, it’s only for a fortnight. Then you can have your dream nursery, can’t you?’

Phoenix’s nursery-to-be is actually my bedroom. Once I’m gone, Lipsy and Robert plan to redecorate and install a proper cot bed with matching furniture from John Lewis. Actually, the cot bed is already in there, and the furniture is flat-packed and stacked against the wall next to my wardrobe. There are piles of boxes under the window and heaps of plastic bags shoved under my bed – it’s wishful thinking that Lipsy is going to miss me. She clearly can’t wait for me to vacate the premises.

Until then, Phoenix will sleep in his bassinet in the room Lipsy and Robert share.

‘Have you had the windows open, you know, to air it?’ she says.

‘You’re sounding like an old woman,’ I tell her, laughing. ‘Next you’ll be telling me not to go out with my hair wet in case I catch a cold.’

She raises her eyebrows. ‘You mean I sound like you, then.’

Touché.

My daughter and I get on so much better now; the imminent arrival of a baby certainly helped us bond again after I let her down so badly last year. The fire, while not directly my fault, was made a hundred times worse by my failure to keep up with the house insurance. But we managed. Together. Once she forgave me – and once she got fed up living with her grandma, which didn’t take too long. Much as I love my mother, she does have a way of driving a person crazy. I’d rather live in a burnt-out shell than under my mother’s roof for more than a week, which is exactly what I did do. You could never say I don’t put my money where my mouth is.