The Secret of Happy Ever After (33 page)

‘You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?’ he said, and there was a forced levity in his voice that made Anna flinch. ‘How long have you been thinking about this, without bothering to talk to me?’

‘This isn’t something I did on a
whim
,’ she said, angry that he seemed to be making out she’d tricked him into it. ‘You knew I wanted a big family. It’s all I’ve been thinking about for the past year. Our baby. Our family.’ Anna could feel the tears coming up her throat, a tidal wave of hormones running riot through her body, soaking the tiny bundle of cells in all the essential emotions. Stress. Family politics. Her own all-embracing love for it.

Somewhere deep inside herself she knew she was being irrational and unfair, that she’d let the powerful cocktail of hormones and fermenting broodiness sweep over her usual common sense. She was ashamed of her selfishness but at the same time she wasn’t. This wasn’t about her, it was about someone else. Something else that relied on
her
to make it happen.

Phil had his head in his hands. ‘I, I, I . . . For God’s sake, Anna. The whole point about being a parent is that
nothing
is about you any more,’ he spluttered unhappily, but then he looked up and saw how shell-shocked she was at his reaction.

Anna was finding it hard to breathe.

At once he pushed his chair away from the table and was kneeling by her side in an instant, his arms around her. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. It’s not that I don’t want us to have a baby, it’s just that . . .’

‘Don’t say it.’

He was silent for a few moments, rocking her backwards and forwards in his arms while Anna tried to sort out what she thought.

It doesn’t matter what you think
, said a voice in her head.
Or what he thinks. If the baby’s here, it’s here
.

‘We’ll be OK,’ she said, stroking Phil’s head. ‘It’s going to be OK.’

Anna wasn’t sure who she was talking to – Phil, the swirling cells inside her, or herself, but Phil’s only response was to squeeze her tightly and to say nothing, and that wasn’t the reaction she was after either.

17

Anna woke up the next morning expecting the world to feel different, but she felt disappointingly normal. Pongo still barked at exactly twenty to seven to be let out; and Chloe still took twenty-five minutes in the bathroom while everyone stacked up outside like circling planes. The only real hum of excitement was that it was the beginning of the girls’ holiday, and the start of her own week off.

This time, the girls were taking a night flight out to New York to see Sarah, so instead of the usual bleary-eyed rush to the airport with Becca hustling and panicking all the way, it was a semi-normal Saturday. Phil took Lily to her swimming lesson, and Chloe went off to get shopping lists from Tyra and Paige, now reinstated as an Apricot, thanks to her family’s investment in a Powerplate. Becca insisted on doing her shift at the bookshop, even though Anna had assumed she’d be taking the morning off.

‘I don’t mind, honestly,’ she said, already at the door with her denim jacket on when Anna grabbed her own bag to go.

‘But you’ve got the house to yourself.’ Anna couldn’t believe that Becca would pass up the chance of a quiet hour or two. ‘Stay in. Watch telly. Get your stuff out of Chloe’s bag while she’s not here. You need to relax, Becca. You’ve been revising so hard.’

Becca didn’t deny that; she’d been working late every night. ‘If I stay here I’ll just feel I should be revising.’ She paused and gave Anna a nudge. ‘I
like
your shop. I’d be hanging out there even if I didn’t have a job. Come on, let’s walk over via the mobile coffee van and get a pastry.’

‘OK,’ said Anna, touched that Becca was choosing to spend some time with her of her own volition. She’d been planning to go to the shop via Boots to get a pregnancy test, but it could wait. She didn’t mind spinning out that excitement a little longer; she wanted to give herself as much chance of a positive as possible.

They set off towards the town centre, chatting about Becca’s exam timetable and Chloe’s irritating new habit of talking about herself in the third person as if she was narrating her own reality show. Becca was interested in Lily’s bedtime reading, and offered to keep it up while they were in New York, something that made Anna’s heart glow with happiness. It was a warm spring day, and her whole body felt light and full of possibilities. She could almost feel the hormones surging through her system like the multi-coloured chocolate pipes on the old Willy Wonka book jacket.

‘It’s funny how one thing leads to another, isn’t it?’ said Becca, running her hands through the honeysuckle climbing along the park railings. ‘If you hadn’t met Michelle in the café with Pongo, you wouldn’t have been friends, and she wouldn’t have asked you to run the bookshop, and you wouldn’t have got me a job, and I wouldn’t have met Owen . . .’

‘Yes,’ said Anna ironically. ‘It’s all down to me.’

‘I mean it,’ replied Becca. She looked happy, and it struck Anna that she hadn’t seen Becca this happy in a while. Revision stress had put a crease between her eyes that was still visible even now. ‘I think I’ve already got my ideal job.’

‘Well, you can put it on hold for a while when the exams really get going,’ said Anna. ‘You’ll need that time off for relaxation.’

Becca didn’t say anything. She bounced her palm along the railing tops.

‘And just tell me if there’s anything I can do to help, won’t you?’ Anna went on. Even now she felt a flood of relief that she’d never have to sit another exam; she still had anxiety dreams about writing essays about Hamlet’s inner demons in the nude, under a giant clock. ‘My mum used to bring me tea every ninety minutes to stop my brain dehydrating. By the time I sat my exams I practically had tannin poisoning.’

‘Did your parents go to university?’ asked Becca.

Anna shook her head. ‘No, I was the first one in the family. My dad was a builder like his dad, and Mum was a nurse. She went straight to training college, but these days she’d probably have been encouraged to do a proper medical degree.’

‘So it was quite a big deal, you going.’

‘I suppose so.’ Anna remembered the look on her parents’ faces when her results arrived. As if they were proud and scared of her at the same time. Five As. Their daughter, ‘the brainbox’. ‘They wanted me to do all the things they didn’t. But that’s what parents do – they want the world for you.’

‘Did you
want
to go?’

‘Oh, definitely. I always wanted to be surrounded by books. If I’d been a bit cleverer, I’d have liked to have stayed at uni forever, doing research.’ Anna sighed. ‘But I think the job I’ve got now is almost as good. Better, maybe. I don’t think they’d have let me do a doctorate in children’s stories. Unless that’s what you call a Mickey Mouse degree?’

Becca half laughed, half groaned. ‘Anna, that’s the kind of crap joke Dad would make. You’re catching it off him.’

‘Am I?’ Anna pretended to look horrified.

This is
really
nice, she thought, slipping her heavy book bag onto the opposite shoulder. This was a proper, sharing conversation, the kind she’d always hoped they’d eventually have. Maybe that confession about Owen meant they had crossed a bridge.

‘Where did you go to university?’ Becca asked her.

‘Manchester. I’d have loved to go to Cambridge,’ said Anna. ‘No one at my school was really encouraged to apply, so I never bothered. If I had my time again, I would. Definitely. Just to warn you, I
will
be coming to visit.’

Becca chewed her lip, then said in a rush, ‘I know everyone thinks I’m going to walk in but what if I get there and everyone’s way cleverer than me? I mean, it’s not hard to look clever at Longhampton, not when half the sixth form’s hungover on Monday morning – don’t tell Dad that, by the way – but Cambridge . . . everyone’s going to be a genius. What if I get the grades, but I can’t do it? What if I get there and I don’t
want
to do it?’

Anna had never heard Becca say anything remotely negative about her plans for law school, and it surprised her. She wondered how long she’d been worrying about it without letting on.

Becca had stepped up her pace, as if walking was the only way of getting the words out. ‘Dad thinks it’s easy for me. Just a matter of reading the books and turning up for the exams. What do you think he’d do if I don’t get in?’

‘He’d still love you,’ said Anna. ‘Whatever you do.’

Becca didn’t reply, and Anna grabbed her arm to stop her walking on.

‘Becca?’ she said, leaning forward to meet her downcast eye. ‘I mean it. Whatever you do, we’ll all love you and support you. Your dad’s proud of you, but don’t let that feel like extra pressure, because it’s not. He just wants you to do everything you can. University’s not like school. It’s about growing up and learning how to set yourself challenges, finding out who you are. You’ll meet so many different people, and yes, some will be cleverer than you, some won’t be. But you’ll be the one there, having the time of your life. Doing amazing things and stupid things and things you’ll never do again.’

They were at the top end of the high street now, nearly at the bookshop.

‘And we’ll always be here,’ Anna added. ‘Being proud of you. I know you’ve got your mum and your dad, but you’ve got me too. As a spare. If you need a different shoulder.’ She could only just get the words out past the lump in her throat. ‘I’m proud of you too.’

Becca gave Anna a watery smile. ‘I know,’ she said. Her lip wobbled. ‘Thank you.’

‘Oh, come here,’ said Anna and wrapped her arms around Becca, feeling her slim frame lean into hers, and they hugged in the street, oblivious to passers-by.

When they pushed open the door to the bookshop, Michelle and Owen were leaning on the counter, staring intently at Owen’s laptop.

‘Hey!’ he said, his eyes lighting up when he saw Becca. He stood up, towering over his sister, and Becca straightened her spine too, instead of hunching over as she had tended to when she was with Josh, who barely came up to her ear.

The crackle in the air between them was so obvious, thought Anna. If she knew Owen a bit better she might be happier about it. As it was, she only had one or two of Michelle’s indulgent stories about his shenanigans in Ireland to go on, and they weren’t inspiring.

She tried to balance that with her own experience of Owen – charming, helpful, friendly, not that punctual. But Becca was a smart girl, she argued. She wouldn’t put up with a wrong ’un, surely?

‘I’ve finished the website,’ Owen said. ‘Come and have a look.’

‘It’s not bad,’ said Michelle, over the top of the laptop. ‘Obviously there’s some work still to be done . . .’

‘Never satisfied,’ said Owen. ‘That’s your problem.’

Anna went over to look, and was suitably impressed. Owen had somehow managed to capture the friendly atmosphere in the bookshop, with the same soft colours, background music and virtual bookshelves decorated with ‘We Love . . .’ cards in Becca’s artistic handwriting. Becca – not Chloe – featured in the background, leading shoppers around the store, and Tavish popped up now and again if you moved the cursor into certain spots.

‘I love it,’ said Anna. ‘That’s gorgeous!’

‘Apart from me,’ said Becca, twisting in adolescent mortification. ‘I look
terrible
. Why didn’t you tell me you were using those photos? My nose looks
enormous
.’

‘You look beautiful,’ said Owen with a touch too much enthusiasm, then covered his reaction by turning to Anna. ‘Doesn’t she?’

Anna gave him a square look that she hoped told him that she knew what was going on. ‘She does.’

His confident grin wavered. ‘I can, er, put you on there too, if you want?’

‘No, it’s OK.’

‘Right, well, now the cavalry’s here, I can get back to next door,’ said Michelle. ‘Owen, can you get on with that upstairs? I’d like it to go live by the end of today.’

He started to argue but then saw Michelle’s expression and closed his laptop. ‘No problem. I’ll be . . . next door. Upstairs.’

Becca followed him out with her eyes, watching his slender hips in the faded jeans, then seemed to spring back to life when she realised Anna and Michelle were both looking at her. ‘Oh. Er, coffee? Shall I put the machine on?’

‘Good idea,’ said Michelle and sat down at the counter, scribbling some notes in Anna’s day book.

Anna waited until Becca had taken the coffee jug into the back kitchen to clean it, then leaned over to murmur in her ear. ‘Michelle, I don’t know if you know––’ she started, but Michelle looked up before she could finish.

‘What? That Owen and Becca are seeing each other?’

‘Yes.’ Anna was surprised. ‘How come you didn’t tell me?’

‘Tell you what?’ Michelle glanced back down at the list and crossed out a couple of to-dos. ‘I’m his sister, Anna. Not his mum.’

Something about Michelle’s nonchalance riled Anna. ‘Well, I’m effectively
her
mum. I don’t generally go in for spying on the kids but given that he’s so much older than her, and you know she’s got her exams coming up, I’m surprised you didn’t mention it.’