Over the next few weeks, as morning sickness kicked in and Tilly felt tired and emotional, she found herself appreciating more and more, if that was possible, the quiet, calm, steady presence of Ken. He was happy to fuss around her if she needed it or leave her alone if that’s what she wanted. He took over the cooking after Tilly found certain smells of raw food made her gag. He brought her tea and ginger biscuits in bed every morning to help stave off the sickness. He drove up to Michelhampton in search of fresh pineapple, when the local shops were out of it and Tilly found herself craving it.
He was the perfect supportive housemate. She could talk to him about anything. And her fears that she might miscarry again were slowly diminishing, with each week that passed.
Although there was still the one thing they had not discussed. She kept telling herself she was waiting for the right moment. It came, eventually, one balmy evening when they were sitting outside in the garden in the sunshine.
‘It’s a gorgeous evening,’ Tilly said. ‘Remember when I first came and we had all those weeks of cold grey weather? Hard to imagine that now. I love it here in the summer.’
Ken smiled. ‘I knew you would. You seem so much healthier, pet, than when you first arrived. The Dorset air’s done you good.’
‘I feel so much better,’ she said.
‘It’s so good to see. When you arrived, oh pet, I was so worried. You were so depressed, you didn’t seem to care what you did or what happened to you. It was like you were self-destructing, all that drinking and everything. Now you’ve got that little baby coming it’s as though you’ve … got more to live for.’
Tilly gazed at him for a moment. This was her chance, to tell him what had happened on that terrible day.
‘Dad, I know you were worried. And you were right to be. I was in a bad way. Do you want me to tell you how I ended up at Jo’s?’
He reached for her hand. ‘Love, if it’s going to help you for me to hear it, then tell me.’
And so Tilly took a deep breath, and while the sun sank into the sea and her father sat listening quietly, his hand squeezing hers as though to lend her strength, she told him the whole story.
The day after Ian told her their marriage was over, he’d brought Naomi round to their house. Tilly had spent the day watching TV, mopping up her tears.
‘Oh. You’re in,’ he said to Tilly. ‘I wasn’t expecting …’
‘Where else would I be?’ she replied. ‘I’ve got no job. And this is still my home.’
‘Right. Well. We’ll, um go elsewhere,’ he said, leading an embarrassed-looking Naomi, whose neat little baby-bump was unmistakable in the clingy black dress she was wearing, back to the front door.
Tilly had put herself to bed in the spare room, where she’d moved as soon as Ian had dropped his bombshell, and cried herself to sleep that night. In the morning she realised Ian had not come home. She went to make herself some tea and found there was no milk.
That was it. That was, for some reason she could not now work out, the final straw. No milk, and Ian had spent the night with Naomi, while he waited for her and her baby-less womb to move out. No milk. No chance of a decent cuppa to take the edge off her pain.
She’d opened the cupboard where they kept medicines and pulled out everything she could find. Half a packet of paracetamol, some ibuprofen, a couple of codeine tablets, some tablets for treating diarrhoea. And there was a half-bottle of whisky in the house somewhere. She gathered it all together, took it upstairs to the spare room, where the duvet was still crumpled and tear-stained from the night, and got into bed. Methodically she began swallowing pills, taking a swig of whisky after each. How many would it take? She had no idea. She vaguely hoped she’d just fall asleep and not wake up. That would be perfect. Blissful slumber forever, and a big fuck-you to Ian.
Halfway through she vomited. Most of it went over the side of the bed but plenty more over herself. Got to keep going, she told herself. No point stopping now. She forced more whisky down her throat, and that was the last thing she remembered.
*
Everything was white. Bright, glaring, uncomfortably white. That was her next conscious thought, though for a moment she wondered if she was truly conscious. Or had it worked – was this it? Was this the life beyond? A brutal, cramping pain in her stomach and the urge to vomit told her it wasn’t. Gentle hands helped her sit up and lean over a cardboard dish. There were tubes attached to her, a needle in the back of her hand, something in her nose. She gagged – there was nothing to be sick on – and collapsed back against starched pillows.
‘There now. Feeling any better? Have a sip of water, perhaps.’ A plastic cup was held to her lips and she took a sip, most of which trickled down the side of her face. She opened her eyes. The gentle hands belonged to a male nurse, whose name badge read ‘Timothy’.
‘Hello. Nice to see you with us,’ he said, with a smile. ‘If you’re feeling up to it, your friend’s outside. Desperate to see you, she is. May I tell her she can come in?’
‘Wh-who is it?’ Tilly asked, her voice coming out as a croak.
‘Her name’s Jo,’ Timothy replied. ‘You’re here because of her.’ He adjusted the drip in her hand, checked a urine bag (with horror Tilly realised she was also hooked up to a catheter) and then opened a door. Tilly realised she was in some sort of private room, presumably off a main ward.
‘Oh thank God!’ Jo rushed in, sat on the side of the bed and gathered Tilly into her arms. ‘Oh my God, Tils. Thought you were going to … going to … God. Don’t ever, EVER, fucking do that again, all right? Thank Christ you’re still here.’
‘Wh-what happened?’ Tilly remembered there’d been no milk. And that pills and whisky had felt like a good alternative.
‘Your dad rang me. He’d been trying to ring you all morning. You’d told him something about Ian leaving you? God, Tils, what’s happening? You should have rung me. I’d have dropped everything … Your dad was worried you weren’t answering, and he had a bad feeling, and so he asked me to go round. I found you … called the ambulance, and here you are.’
‘Dad knows?’
Jo shook her head. ‘No. I didn’t want to tell him you were all right, in case … you weren’t. Didn’t want to tell him what you’d done. No parent should need to hear that. Fuck’s sake, mate, I know things are crap, but what were you thinking?’
Tilly opened her mouth to answer, and realised there was no answer. She had not been thinking. She’d just … gone under. As though her life was a surfboard and the waves had been growing in intensity, and that last one – Ian leaving her – had knocked her off. She’d been submerged, underwater too long, and pills had felt like the only way out.
Jo reached over again and hugged Tilly, her long dark hair across Tilly’s face, her tears wetting Tilly’s neck. ‘Tell me. What’s Ian done?’
Tilly told her about Ian and Naomi, and watched as her best friend’s jaw dropped wide open. ‘The utter git! How could he! After all your years together, all you’ve been through. Bastard. Oh, mate, why on earth didn’t you call me at once, that day? I’d have come straight over and drunk that Prosecco with you. After giving Ian a piece of my mind. Can’t believe you’ve been holed up by yourself after that, for two days. No wonder you … Anyway, the thing is, you don’t have to deal with it all by yourself, right? You’ve got me. And that lovely dad of yours. We’ll look after you. Just promise me, Tils, you’ll try to help yourself, too? Christ if I’d lost you today … I don’t know how I’d have …’ Jo pulled a wad of tissues from the box beside Tilly’s bed and blew her nose loudly into them. Tilly reached out and took her hand, oddly feeling as though it was now she who needed to comfort Jo, and finding that was somehow easier than being the one needing comforting.
‘Listen,’ said Jo, her voice hoarse. ‘You’re coming to stay with me when you’re out of here. I’m not going to take my eyes off you.’
‘Thank you. You’re the best friend anyone could ever have,’ Tilly said. ‘I suppose I should tell Ian.’
‘Fuck Ian. He doesn’t deserve to know. I’ll pop round and collect a few things for you and tell him you’re convalescing with me. I’ll tell him you’ve had appendicitis or something, and have been operated on.’
‘I think I was sick …’
‘You were. I’ll clean it up.’
‘Can’t tell Dad.’
Jo reached out and stroked Tilly’s face, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘We’ll have to tell him something, Tils. He’ll be so worried. I’ll let him know you’re all right, then it’s up to you when or if you tell him the whole story.’
Tilly turned away and closed her eyes. She didn’t even want to think about whether she wanted to tell her dad or not. It was all too much.
‘Tired?’
‘Feel like shit.’
‘Not surprised. The doctors say it was a good thing you vomited in the bed. It was glugging that whisky that caused that. Got most of the pills out before they had chance to do much damage. You’re going to be all right.’ Jo took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘You are one lucky lady, Tils.’
*
Ken was silent when she finished talking but retained his grip on her hand. A small muscle was clenching in his jaw, and Tilly knew he was struggling with his emotions. At last he sighed and shook his head sadly.
‘Oh, pet. Jo just said she thought it had all got too much for you. Made it sound like a kind of breakdown. To think I could have lost you. That you were that bad. I … I had no idea.’
‘I know,’ she whispered. It was hard for her to believe she’d felt that was the only solution. She put a hand on her tiny bump. If things had been different, if Jo hadn’t found her when she did, this little life inside her would never have had the chance to begin.
‘Your friend Jo. My friend. I love that woman.’
‘So do I, Dad.’
‘Did you ever tell Ian?’
She shook her head. ‘No. And I’m not going to. He thinks it was appendicitis, still. He gave up all his rights to the truth when he ended our marriage.’
He nodded. ‘I think you’re right not to tell him. None of his business, is it? Listen, pet. If ever you feel it’s all too much and you can’t cope, I mean God forbid but if anything went wrong with’ – he nodded at her midriff – ‘well, promise me you’d talk to me? Or talk to Jo? Don’t keep it to yourself. Give us a chance to help you. A problem shared is a problem halved, don’t they say?’
She stood and leaned over him to hug him tightly. ‘Dad, I can’t imagine ever considering it again. It’s an old cliché, but I think it was a cry for help. And Jo and you have helped. As has Rob Coogan, in his way, and this little bundle of cells inside me. I’m … kind of … rebuilding myself, bit by bit.’
*
Tilly was three and a half months gone by her reckoning when she finally told Rob about the baby. She’d had a scan at twelve weeks that showed a healthy, good-sized foetus, wriggling around, sucking its thumb. She was past the point where miscarriages one and two had occurred, but her third miscarriage, the one that in many ways was the worst, had happened at fourteen weeks. Approaching that time, she’d barely been able to function, as the fear that it might all happen again threatened to engulf her. It was Ken who’d suggested she went out, to see a film, take her mind off things. And the only person locally she’d been to the cinema with was Rob, so it seemed natural to text him and suggest it. There was a new action film on she thought he might like, and she soon had an answer: yes, he’d love to go.
This time she let him collect her and drive them both to Michelhampton. Tilly had dressed in a loose shirt over jeans that no longer fastened. She’d have to buy some maternity clothes soon. The few she’d had from her last pregnancy had been left in Ian’s house.
They had time to spare before the film and went for a drink in the same pub as on the previous cinema trip. ‘You can have a glass of wine this time if you like,’ Rob said, ‘as you’re not driving.’
‘Um, actually I’d rather not,’ she said. ‘Just an orange juice for me, please.’
He frowned but got the drinks and sat down beside her, at the same table as last time. ‘Have you given up alcohol? I hope it’s not just that you felt you had too much that time when … we met.’
‘No, it’s not that.’ This was it. This was the moment she needed to tell him about the consequences of that night. ‘Listen, Rob. There’s something I need to tell you. I should probably wait till after the film because you might want to just go home when you hear what it is, but … I think now’s the time.’
She realised she was rambling. Better to just say it, get it out there. Taking a deep breath, she continued. ‘So that, ahem, that night we spent together. My memory’s a little hazy but I don’t think we … used anything. And, well, I seem to be pregnant.’ There. She’d said it. She picked up her drink and took a sip, not catching his eye, not yet ready to see his reaction.
‘Pregnant?’ he repeated, his voice half a whisper, half a croak.
‘Yep.’
‘Must be … three months?’
‘Fourteen weeks, almost. I … um … had a miscarriage at fourteen weeks once. Bit scared that might happen again, if I’m honest.’ She gave a nervous chuckle, then cursed herself for dropping that emotional bomb on him when he’d not yet had time to get his head around the fact she was pregnant. And ‘bit scared’ was the understatement of the century. Crippled with terror, more like.
‘Ah no. Don’t be scared of that. You’ll be all right. But, gosh. Well. Hadn’t really considered that I might … be a dad again. That’s if … am I jumping ahead?’
‘I’m definitely keeping it if that’s what you’re asking.’
‘That’s good.’ He smiled, and there was relief in his expression. ‘But … do you want me in the child’s life? I mean, I’d love to, and I’ll definitely pay my share and support you in whatever way you need. Of course. I hope you know that all goes without saying. I mean, it’s a shock, haven’t really taken it in. Oh God, I’m babbling, aren’t I?’
She laughed. ‘Yes, a little. It’s hard to take in. Not sure I’m completely comfortable with it yet, not after having lost pregnancies before.’
‘Pregnancies? More than one lost?’
She nodded. ‘Three. Part of the reason my husband left me. He wanted children but I didn’t seem able to provide them.’
He raised his eyebrows at this. ‘I see why you’re worried then. But there’s no reason it’ll go wrong this time, is there? If there’s anything I can do …’
‘Thanks, Rob. I guess you need some time to think about it. But I thought it’s only fair you know, and that you hear it from me.’
‘Thank you. I appreciate you telling me. Shall we go and see this film, then? I’m not entirely sure how well I’ll be able to concentrate on it, but we might as well go!’
Tilly wasn’t sure she’d be able to concentrate on it either. But telling Rob had felt like the right thing to do. He needed to know. It was his child too.
After all those years with Ian, it felt odd to think this virtual stranger, albeit someone who was fast becoming a friend, was as much involved in the making of her baby as she was.
But as she glanced across at Rob, his open, smiling face, his supportive, friendly demeanour, and she recalled his words offering whatever support she needed, she thought she could have done a lot worse in choosing a father for her child.