The Woman Before Me (16 page)

I could hardly breathe, staring up at the dark ceiling, your cruel words pinning me down.

“Whenever she’s pissed off with him, angry at all the nights he’s working at the school, she gets in touch. And she knows I still want her. I can’t cope with it anymore.”

I remembered the night of the séance. The scent on your skin.

“Where do you do it?” I don’t know why knowing was important, but it was. I needed to picture the scene in my head.

“In their bed.”

“Their bed?” I sat up on an elbow so I could see your face. “You go to their house?”

“Afterwards, Emma cries. She always says it’s a mistake, that she loves her bastard husband. That she won’t have sex with me again; it must be the last time. I try to persuade her. I can’t carry on like this, just waiting for her to text me. I think it’s best if I get away from this place. Don’t you see, there’s no future for us.”

But you had nowhere to go and I wasn’t going to give you up that easily.

“Jason. We’re going to have a baby.”

I watched your face, saw the disbelief in your eyes.

I placed your hand on my stomach. “You’re going to be a father.”

You thought it was a trick until I showed you the pregnancy stick as proof. But then you did something I hadn’t expected; you cried. You reached for me, clinging to me like a child, and sobbed. You put your hands on my stomach and I felt their heat.

Then you put your lips to my neck, in the dip above the collarbone. Your breath was hot. “We’re going to have a baby.” You said it like a prayer, soft and musing. I was light-headed with relief, caught up in the embrace.

“But I don’t love you, Rose.”

You sounded so sorry, so pathetically sorry for me. Like it was something you couldn’t control.

“Could you?” I asked, barely audible. “Could you love me?” A begging plea. I had no shame.

You didn’t answer for a while. “I swear to you, Rose – I will love our child.” And you touched me again, on my stomach, making a pledge. I knew that you wanted the baby. Really wanted it. Even more than you wanted Emma.

I could have said that I didn’t want you to stay with me for the sake of the baby, but that would have been a lie. I wanted you at any price, even without love. And if a baby kept you with me and away from her, then that was enough. I would make you love me. Or, at least I would make you stay.

I cradled you, rocking slowly, thinking of our baby. I wasn’t going to let Emma take you from me.

As you slept, all my gnarled and broken thoughts turned to her. The bitterness of jealousy was turning to the sweeter taste of hate. The woman you’d had before me. My tears kept coming as I rocked to the sound of your breathing. Gold curls had fallen across my wrist and I thought of Samson’s strength, of how, like Delilah, I wanted a knife, a blade to take your strength away, to stop you from leaving. But my weapon was more subtle, hidden deep in my womb.

24

Over the following months you were so careful with me. There were no more arguments, only silence. I thought we were going to be a normal family, just like I’d always wanted. For once, everything was going my way. The baby that I carried was safe, nothing could harm it.

Pregnancy made me happy. It also made me primitive, like a vixen preparing a burrow for her litter, all soft and warm with my secret, but snappy and on edge with the outside world. I stayed at home, lying on the sofa with my knees tucked under and a blanket over me. I didn’t want to go out; as the nights drew in, the winter began to bother me and I would turn the heating as high as our old boiler could muster, put jumper over jumper to keep the cold out.

At 20 weeks we went for a scan. The jelly was cold on my tight stomach as the radiographer pressed with her probe and a grainy image appeared on the monitor.

“Now, I’m just going to do some basic checks and then I’ll tell you what I see.”

The probe beeped and she and I intently studied the screen. A fuzzy white image bounced up and down on a sea of black and white blobs. I saw an arm raise, a leg kick out.

You absorbed the image on the screen, your hand clamped to my leg.

I saw our baby’s profile and then, like it knew we were watching, it turned its face towards us. I could have wept.

The radiographer moved her probe to the baby’s back, measuring its spine. “Everything looks good. The spine is complete, and the head and heart look good too. From the length I’d say nearly 21 weeks.”

I nodded. “My due date is March 22nd.”

“And do you want to know the sex, if I’m able to tell?”

I knew he was a boy as surely as if I’d already met him. But you nodded, needing proof.

The radiographer concentrated again, her probe moving low on my abdomen, searching.

“Rose thinks it’s a boy,” you said.

She smiled. “Well, Rose, you’re right.”

My heart whooped in joy as my good luck took my breath. I wanted so much to have a boy like you.

How awful it would have been to bring another Rose into the world.

The hotel kitchen, for years my second home was now a cage, and work had become a chore. My hands, scarred with ancient burns, trembled as I melted fat, fearing the spits. I skirted the pointed steel edges of the tables, wary of the knives I had previously handled without a care. I was vulnerable in pregnancy. Happiness was so new to me that I was terrified of it being stolen away.

It was hard for you, I know, stuck in the house all day, and I began to worry. You’d stopped showering and caring what you looked like. Your mobile phone was in a drawer, switched off, and I knew you were doing that for me. For our son.

I made sacrifices too, just to keep you busy: we’d go to the local pub on the corner where I endured the drunken shouting, or to the cinema where I’d flinch at the loud soundtrack assaulting our baby’s paper-thin ears. I’d read somewhere that a baby in the womb can hear the outside world. I worried about giving him frightening dreams, and I couldn’t soothe him. I sighed with relief when the credits rolled and the lights went up. I went to watch those films for you, to keep you from thinking about Emma.

Still, you were leaving me. Not physically, but slipping into a world which I feared. It was the world my mother had visited on her ‘loony’ days. I heard the flatness in your voice, your dull eyes, and remembered Mum’s depression, how it stole her away forever.

So I got you a job.

Chef knew of a fancy French restaurant that needed a wine waiter, but you hadn’t got the relevant experience. I lied to Chef about your qualifications. He eventually wrote you a personal recommendation, and on the day of the interview at Auberge I gave you half the rent to buy some clothes for the interview. You came home a different man. Wearing a white linen jacket and beige trousers, you could have passed for a Frenchman and the restaurant owner offered you the post on the spot.

Since I told you I was pregnant you never spoke about leaving me again, but your love for Emma was still between us like a sheet of glass. I checked your wallet, and saw her photo was still inside, staring back at me with wide hazel eyes, her blonde hair as yellow as the sun. With your new job you came home late but I never looked at the clock when I heard your key in the door. You started carrying your mobile again, and it would beep if you got a text, but I still never asked who it was. If you’d been with her I didn’t want to know. You came home to me, that was what mattered. I was carrying your child.

It was February when I started to think about the box room I used for Rita’s things, and decided to make it a nursery. I was heavily pregnant by this time, and pulling boxes and suitcases around was tough, but I sorted through, chucking away what I didn’t want. I wanted to start afresh, and I felt finally able to let go of the past. I gave away the lamp from Rita’s sitting room, a sewing box that I’d never seen her use, her footstool. I called a local charity shop, and two volunteers came to collect the furniture, cheerfully loading their van with her walnut dresser and oak rocking chair. Without those old things the room was bare, a blank canvas. A new beginning.

The next day I entered a shop I’d stood outside many times, looking at the window display of Victorian rocking horses and jointed teddy bears in jackets. I gripped my purse where I kept the grainy ultrasound picture, and thought of the tiny arm that had waved to me on the screen. The memory gave me courage. The smartness of the shop was daunting. The glass doors slid aside and the air conditioning assaulted my sinuses but I didn’t care. My eyes greedily consumed the mock rooms, each one individually designed for an absent child.

“May I help you?” From the cluster of idle shop assistants a smart brunette came over, an eager smile tilted on her pink lips.

“Oh, I’m just browsing.” I took a step back.

“Any particular colour?” she persisted.

“Blue.” I said. “Definitely.”

“So it’s a boy?” She came forward as if to touch my bump, and I shrank back. “Then I must show you our fabulous New England range. It’s just arrived.” I followed her, watching how her hips swayed as she trotted along in her high heels. Her ankles were slim, and I guessed she had no children of her own.

The room she showed me was perfect. Cream walls were bordered with swans and geese drawn in duck-egg blue, and matching curtains. The cot was a reddish brown, the colour of maple syrup. I touched the wood, feeling its comforting sturdiness.

“Isn’t it just to die for? It’s cherry wood, imported from America. And we have a matching changing table and chest of drawers.”

I turned the tag over, handwritten in black ink. It was over two thousand pounds. “Wow.” I said, stunned.

“It may seem a lot, but you’re buying a piece of furniture that will last for generations. Just think, your grandchildren will use it. It’s an heirloom.”

I stepped back, in love with the cherry wood, the duck-egg blue and the tiny birds. But I didn’t even have two thousand pence in the bank, let alone two thousand pounds. I felt shabby and poverty-stricken, sorry for the poor mite in my belly.

“We do have special hire purchase agreements,” she said, lowering her voice. “You could pay monthly.”

When you arrived home I kissed you, holding you as close as my bloated figure would allow. “I have a surprise for you, Jason,” I said, reaching to kiss the tender place behind the ear.

“Have you now?” you murmured, hands sliding under my top to my enlarged breasts and nuzzling my neck.

“Not that.” I took your hand and led you down the hall. “Something much better. Ready?”

I kept my grip on the handle until I could bear it no longer and threw open the door with a flourish. Inside the tiny room the cherry wood cot dominated the space, made up in readiness with blue bedding. The curtains hung from the small window, slightly too long, and squeezed next to the cot was a nursing chair, also in cherry. A row of immaculate white sleep suits hung on gingham hangers from a white rail, and on the cot sat a jointed teddy bear wearing a blue waistcoat.

In the middle of the room was pram. It was from the same shop and the pattern was Burberry check. I touched it and imagined myself pushing it through town.

You stared in silence, taking it all in, until finally you spoke in a voice that seemed to come from miles away. “Rose, what the fuck have you done?”

I felt like you’d hit me.

“We can’t afford all this stuff. How did you pay for it?”

My voice was shaking. “I got it on hire purchase, over four years.”

“Four years? That’s a fucking lifetime. How much did it come too?”

I didn’t tell the whole truth. “Two thousand.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me? You’re giving up work in a few weeks, and you know how dodgy the restaurant trade is after Christmas. Two thousand pounds? Christ, that’s three months rent!”

“Jason,” I pleaded, “it’s for the baby. I want him to have the best.”

“Oh grow up, Rose. He won’t care about this crap.” With one hand you dismissed the room, all the hours I had spent getting it ready. “He’ll be happy in a travel cot as long as he’s loved.”

I suddenly saw my beautiful room through new eyes. It was grotesque.

“I’m sorry, Jason.” I put my hand on your arm but you pushed me away. I fell back, catching myself on the pram as I stumbled to the floor.

“You just don’t fucking think, do you? It’s all about you, isn’t it?”

Suddenly, a sharp pain stabbed my abdomen and I gasped, clutching my stomach.

“Don’t push the sympathy button. I’m going out.”

The pain came again, and I doubled over, one hand holding the pram chassis for support.

“Give it a rest, Rose.”

But the pain, worse than any period cramps, circled my abdomen and I crumpled, unable to stand, terrified.

“Jason. Oh, God. What’s happening?”

“You’re trying to keep me here, that’s what.”

I bent my head low to the carpet, eyes screwed tight against the sudden grip of agony, and heard the front door slam shut.

25

Arriving back at Bishop’s Hill after her meeting, Cate couldn’t settle. Her computer screen remained blank, despite her intention to at least begin Rose Wilks’ report. Her mind kept flitting back to Jason. His anger, her decision to leave quickly and spilling the coffee all over the carpet. The abrupt end with Jason crouched on the floor, fighting back sobs.

He hadn’t been able to cope with the interview, and was defensive from the outset. He was near tears when he spoke of his dead son, and also when she’d probed about his marriage to Emma. He was a hurt and angry man. But still he stayed with Rose, and didn’t condemn her for stalking Emma. Cate wasn’t clear how he’d been able to forgive her. In fact he acted as if Rose had done nothing wrong, even though he knew she had entered the Hatcher’s home and nursed their son.

Cate hadn’t known that Rose was unable to have children. Her own stomach contracted at the thought of forever having only emptiness inside. Jason would have found that hard too, but there was something else about his behaviour that made her wary. He was hiding something and she recalled his parting words.