‘Why were you so upset last night, Chlo?’
That’s what Chloe had been waiting to hear – in the car on the way home from June and George’s; in her mother’s guest bedroom surrounded by primrose wall paper; at breakfast the next morning when her mother left the room. She was still waiting, and they were in the car only half an hour from home. If he could only have asked the question she would have blurted out exactly why. She was desperate to talk, but as Alex commented on petrol prices, roadworks, her mother’s back garden (‘very overgrown, considering she’s in the gardening club – it could be so nice’) her growing anger began to form knots in her stomach. She put a protective hand on her abdomen.
She winced every time she remembered Alex’s dismissive comments last night. How could she tell him about the baby now, knowing that he would be disappointed and upset – so far from the overjoyed reaction she had previously pictured. Okay, so it wasn’t planned, as such, but they had talked about children and always agreed they would love to have them someday.
The Alex that Chloe had seen in the past few days was becoming less and less recognisable. She could have sworn she knew her husband inside out, but now doubts had begun to plague her. How many secrets does he have? Do I know him at all? She tried to think about the skeletons in her closet – not that there were many – the things she’d deliberately never told Alex. Like the time Mark had tried to kiss her after a work evening out a few months before her wedding. She hadn’t told Alex as she thought it would just cause trouble, and she’d handled it. And Mark had been steaming drunk. Besides, all people have such secrets, she consoled herself. And Alex must have them too.
Julia was simply one of them.
Isn’t it fair enough that he never told me about her if he had not foreseen her intruding into our lives?
Perhaps, she said to herself. But the point was that now she had, and for that reason Chloe felt she deserved an explanation.
She thought of all the things they’d shared. Alex’s frustrations with his parents and brother. Chloe’s confusion about her own early life – her mother always changed the subject when she asked about her real father, saying the divorce was messy and he’d cut off contact with the children soon afterwards. When her brother had moved to America, Chloe knew he had hopes of finding their dad, but so far she’d heard nothing, and now Anthony seemed to avoid the subject as well. She didn’t want to live like that, tiptoeing through life as though it were a minefield of secrets.
I’ll talk to Alex when I get home, she decided. Once we’ve had a chance to get showered and changed and we’re sitting down for the evening. Then we can have a nice long talk, and I can try to get to the bottom of what’s bothering him before I tell him about the baby. After all, she reassured herself, delaying that announcement for a day or so was of little consequence if it meant the difference between it bringing them closer together or pushing them further apart.
For the rest of the journey Chloe struggled to sleep with the radio blaring. Alex’s eyes never wavered from the road. When their house finally came into view, she breathed heavily with relief. Not long now, and it would all come out. She wasn’t letting him put her off any more.
She rushed to get changed when they came in. She turned the shower taps on and stood inert as warmth poured onto her, restoring some desperately needed vitality. She pressed her hands against her stomach, trying to picture a microscopic baby in there. Trying to imagine herself standing there in seven or eight months’ time, hands over the same skin, vastly distended by a growing baby. It was impossible to believe she would be a mother soon. What kind of mother was she going to make? Would her child grow up as she did, feeling mainly sadness when it thought of its family, or feeling duty-bound to drive 500 miles over a weekend to see a parent it couldn’t really relate to in any way, shape or form?
Could she raise a happy child?
Would she raise it with Alex, or was that doomed too, just like her own parents’ relationship? Perhaps her mother had once stood in the shower, drowning in her own fears while the water poured over.
Doubts began to flood over Chloe. Briefly, she thought of abortion. Then Alex would never need to know. Possibilities streamed through her brain, but she knew that, regardless of what happened with Alex, she wanted this baby. It’s just this wasn’t how she’d imagined feeling on finding out her first child was on its way.
It was no good. She needed to talk to Alex now, and put this thing behind them before her fears gained too firm a grip on her.
As Chloe grabbed a towel, she heard the telephone ring and Alex pick up. His voice downstairs was muffled, and she thought there was an edge to it.
She had dried herself and was beginning to towel her hair when he walked into the bedroom. She looked up and caught his eye, then he turned and grabbed his keys from the dresser.
‘I’m really sorry, Chlo, it was Mum – I need to go and check on Jamie, he’s not answering his phone and she’s worried.’
‘Now?’ she asked. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, but her heart sank at the timing. She knew that Jamie’s parents were pleased their two sons were living close to one another, so that Alex could keep an eye on his taciturn and solitary younger brother, but it meant Alex often had to deal with the fallout from Jamie’s unpredictability.
Alex’s face was dark with what looked like anger. He sighed. ‘I know, it’s not ideal, but what can I do?’
It was Chloe’s turn to sigh. She looked at her feet and nodded. After a weekend spent indulging her mother she had little right to complain if Alex’s family needed him.
He made for the door, and shouted from beyond it, ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’
The front door banged shut behind him seconds later. Chloe was left frozen, one hand holding the hairbrush, the other tightly gripping a soggy towel. Now he had gone she struggled to stay rational. What if that had been an excuse? What if he were avoiding her? Avoiding any extra time with her when she might ask him questions he didn’t want to answer? Perhaps he was really going to see Julia …
She dashed to the phone and called Jamie’s mobile. No answer. Then his home number. Nothing. She slowly straightened, making sure she didn’t catch her own eye in the bedroom mirror, and picked out her comfy tracksuit bottoms and a fleecy top, throwing them on rapidly and running downstairs. She then chopped a mountain of vegetables and threw them one by one into a hissing and spitting wok, stirring the mixture and making sure that the sizzling noise was the only thing she let past the perimeters of her thoughts. Once she had a bowl of steaming food, she turned the telly on, volume high, and munched and stared, munched and stared. Every now and again she let her gaze wander to the clock on the wall, and small calculations would flutter through her head.
She remained rooted to the spot for the rest of the evening, not daring to move lest the protective spell she’d woven around herself be broken.