| |
HETTIE SAT ON THE EDGE of the bath, holding the pregnancy test, her eyes fixed on the faint blue line that confirmed what she’d already known. She’d booked three days off, and she had a mental to-do list running through her mind: tell Alexander; book a doctor’s appointment; tell Mum; plan the rest of her life with a baby/child...
Baby. Such a little word for such a huge thing. She stood up and rested her hand on her abdomen. No sign of anything yet, although her boobs were definitely bigger.
She had to stop putting it off. Get showered and dressed, and get over to Draymere.
She could hear the faint sounds of work on the yard from her bedroom window. The clatter of forks against wheelbarrows, the occasional shouted comment. She wouldn’t go out to check up on them. They could do perfectly well without her. Funny, a few weeks ago the thought of taking three days off would have caused a control-freak panic. She raked her hair into a scrunchy and squared her shoulders.
She had bigger things to panic about now.
She didn’t even know if Alexander would be at the Gatehouse. They hadn’t spoken since the night of her mum’s wedding. She could call him first, but then she’d have had to tell him why, and this conversation really ought to be face to face.
––––––––
CELIA WAS IN THE GARDEN, which startled Hettie when she opened the gate. She had wire baskets and potted plants arranged around her and her hands deep in a bag of compost.
‘Hettie, how lovely. But if you were hoping to see Alexander, I’m afraid he’s gone away.’
‘Oh.’ Hettie stopped on the brick path. She frowned and her eyes travelled over the front of the Gatehouse. ‘I don’t suppose you know where?’
Celia brushed her hands on the front of her top and stood. ‘He might be in Wales, but he was rather vague. I think he does that on purpose. Was it important, what you wanted to see him about?’
‘No. Well, yes, it was really. But I expect it will wait.’ Hettie forced herself to smile at Celia, but she felt as if she’d been brought down at the very first hurdle. Shit timing on Alexander’s part. How long had he gone away for? She couldn’t tell anyone else until he knew. Somewhere in Wales. ‘Is it the place he went to before? Anglesey?’
‘Ah, yes, it might be.’
‘Celia, would you do me a favour? I sent Alexander a card. It had a painting of a sunset on the front. He probably didn’t keep it, but could you have a quick look and see if it’s in the house?’
‘You know, I think I might have seen it.’ Celia slipped off her clogs before going through the French doors, and pushed her feet back into them when she came out, waving the card.
Hettie took it from her and turned it over to read the dedication on the back. Sunset – view from Porth Wen – An original painting by Efa Moss. ‘Perfect! Thank you, Celia.’ She hugged the older woman. ‘I hope he’s not mad at you for giving me this.’
‘You’re going? All the way to Wales? That might get you in trouble as well.’
It was a bit late for that. Hettie had to bite her lip to stifle nervous laughter.
––––––––
SHE WENT BACK TO HARDACRE first, to throw some spare clothes in a bag and to ask Monica to look after Kitten for her. She decided to take the dogs. If all else failed she could at least know they’d had an outing to the beach. She called her mum to tell her she’d be away for a few days.
She started the Landy, then took a heavy breath as she turned the ignition key. ‘Look after us, Landy. We’re off on a fool’s journey.’
Two-hundred-and-something miles. Google informed her the drive would take four hours, although that would be in a normal car. No matter, she had her dogs on the bench seat beside her, food and a bottle of water. And it felt oddly liberating to be taking off on impulse. If she did actually find Alexander, and he didn’t run when he saw her, she would have him on his own, away from the distractions of Draymere, the yard... and their history. The wilds of Wales might just be the perfect place to tell him.
––––––––
THE JOURNEY WAS ARDUOUS. The Landy rattled and groaned, covering the miles torturously slowly. Hettie hung in the slow lane, gripping the Landy’s oversized steering wheel as caravans and pensioners overtook her. Pig spent the first fifty miles barking at every passing car before giving up and settling on the blanket she’d laid over the plastic seat. The heating wasn’t working, hadn’t been for months. She thought she’d put on enough clothing to compensate, but after two hours of driving in the draughts that filtered through the doors, she was getting bloody cold.
––––––––
THE LANDSCAPE WAS DRAMATIC, the horizon so wide it was almost intimidating. She shivered and pulled the sleeves of her coat down over her hands. She made herself eat a banana, a distraction to the creeping doubts.
They finally made it to Amlwch, where Hettie stopped to let the dogs out and to ask for directions to the fisherman’s cottage that overlooked the bay of Porth Wen. The instructions she got were convoluted, and by all accounts it was going to require a bit of a hike. When she stumbled across the Aston, it was more by accident than design. Alexander’s car was parked with its nose pressed into fern. She pulled the Landy in beside it.
Dusk was falling as they all climbed out. She hoisted her rucksack onto her back, fingers crossed that Alexander didn’t turn her away. She hadn’t brought a torch for the walk back.
The path was narrow and overgrown. Doris and Pig ferreted through the undergrowth. Hettie pressed on, hoping the route she’d taken was the right one and picking her steps with care.
The brickworks came into view first. They loomed menacingly, shadowed against a fading backdrop of grey sky and silver sea. Doris sniffed the air. Her tentative bark was echoed by a reply. Digger. Hettie recognised his call. And if Digger was there, Alexander was too. She paused for a moment, subdued by the scale of the news she carried. On you go, she prompted herself.
The urgent banter between the terriers brought Alexander out of the cottage. Digger came forwards to meet her. His barking subsided, and there was a scuffle of activity as the dogs greeted each other and formed an advance party in the surge back to the cottage. Alexander remained in the doorway and even from a distance Hettie could read the shocked confusion of his body language. She followed slowly behind the dogs, picking her way through the scratchy gorse that stretched away from the footpath, until she got within earshot of Alexander. ‘Hi. Cute cottage.’
The look on his face was so comically gobsmacked, Hettie thought she might succumb to nervous hysterical laughter, which, given her mission, would not have been at all appropriate.
Alexander answered eventually, his phrasing slow and careful. ‘I assume your being here is not a coincidence?’
Hettie responded with all the brightness she could muster. ‘I needed to talk to you.’
‘And you couldn’t call?’ He was still standing in the doorway.
Hettie flopped down on the bench outside. ‘I don’t have your number, remember? And it isn’t an over-the-telephone kind of conversation I’m after. Have you got a kettle in there? I could murder a cup of tea. This place sets the bar for hard to reach.’
‘I thought it did.’
Alexander went back into the cottage, and Hettie could hear the kettle filling. She reached into her bag and pulled out the squashed sandwich that had travelled with her. The sun was melting into the sea, rippling the water black and silver, and tinting the covering cloud with a soft pink glow. It really was quite a view. So peaceful, and so isolated. She could be the only person left in the world from here. She totally got why Alexander would be drawn to the place.
He came out of the cottage with two tin mugs and handed one to her.
Hettie spoke through her mouthful of sandwich. ‘Fanks. Sit down.’ She patted the seat beside her.
Alexander lowered himself gingerly onto the farthest point of the bench. ‘So?’
Hettie swallowed, hard, on the last of her mouthful. ‘I’m having a baby. We’re having a baby.’ The words made it all so real, but there, she’d told him. Check-box ticked.
No reaction from him. Nothing. Zero. But Hettie was damned if she’d say another word until he’d given her something.
The seconds passed slowly, and they both stared silently out at the ocean. Then his arm went around her shoulders, and he pulled her closer to him. His voice was soft. ‘Wow.’
They carried on staring wordlessly out to sea. The sun disappeared, reducing their view to grey, leaving only the soothing wash of the waves to hold them in place.
––––––––
HETTIE STAYED IN PORTH Wen. There was talking to be done. Proper, grown-up conversation.
He was rocked by the news, but as they sat in the cottage that evening, with the fire he’d built casting a flickering glow on their faces, he found himself in a strange, suspended state of wonder. A pleasing sensation, but surely at odds with all that was wrong and complicated about this... Or was it?
It actually felt right, and beautifully simple.
They were having a baby; of course, they were. Nature had stepped into the chaos between them and had her own say on the matter. The joke was squarely on them, the justice so damned poetic it almost made him laugh. A smile hovered on his lips. There would be difficult questions ahead; but for now Hettie was taking control, and he found himself happy to let her.
‘We made him, so it’s up to us to make bloody sure that when he arrives we do our best for him.’
‘Him?’
‘I’m guessing. But somehow I think the shag that caused this was too angsty to make a girl.’
‘You’re forgetting Gog.’ He shook his head, amused by the smug grin on her face. ‘You know which time?’
‘The day of your father’s funeral. I went back on the pill after that, so baby Redfern-Melton must have already been in place.’
‘Baby Melton-Redfern, surely?’
Hettie chuckled. She was curled in the easy chair with her legs tucked underneath her, and Alexander had pulled the wooden seat closer to the fire. His booted feet rested on the rug that the dogs were sprawled over. He uncrossed his ankles and clasped his hands together. ‘So, should we get married?’
Hettie laughed loudly this time. ‘No, we bloody should not! That would be a total disaster. Poor kid wouldn’t stand a chance in between us and our dramas.’ She looked at him, and she wasn’t laughing anymore. ‘We should be a team, and try being on the same side for once.’
He picked up the hand she was resting on the arm of the chair. ‘What were we doing?’
‘God knows.’
‘Behaving like teenagers...’ They both said it at once, which made them laugh.
He lifted her hand to his lips. ‘And what if I wanted to marry you?’
‘Until something I did made you jealous, or you hated me again. One thing at a time, Alexander. Let’s try being grown-ups first, and work out if we actually like each other.’
It was growing late. The embers glowed orange, and the dogs were sound asleep. He nodded and swung to his feet. ‘I can pile up some blankets and sleep on the rug.’
‘No need. If we’re sharing a baby, I’m sure we can manage to share a bed.’
––––––––
ON THEIR SECOND DAY together, they walked the coastal path and picked their way down the steep trail to the wide stretch of beach. The wind whipped salt spray into their faces, and the terriers scattered chaotically to bark at the white-crested waves. Their hands linked easily, and they sliced round pebbles into the water, trying to angle them to skim over the surface, but the choppy waves thwarted them. Hettie took off her boots and rolled up the legs of her jeans.
‘You’re mad. It will be icy.’
But she walked towards the swirling wash anyway. ‘Are you chicken?’
The shock of the cold made her yelp. Her feet ached with it. She curled her toes to grip the sand when the ebb muddled her balance, and then she was laughing as he splashed and crashed into the water beside her. He put his arm around her. ‘No, I’m game for anything. A mother, a father, a team.’ He repeated their mantra. She kissed him and tasted the salt on both of their mouths.
‘I’m sorry you’ve got to leave.’
‘I’ve still got a couple of hours.’
She felt him smile against her mouth.
‘Dogs! Back to the cottage!’
––––––––
THE TERRIERS STAYED outside. Hettie and Alexander lay on the rug, and the kindling that flared in the stove warmed their bare skin.
‘I’m sorry we’re leaving too. This place is really something.’ Hettie took his hand and placed it in on her abdomen.
He spread his fingers across her still-flat stomach. ‘Hi,’ he whispered, before bending to drop a kiss below her navel.
She let him talk her into driving the Aston home.
‘Don’t be a diva,’ he said when she tried to turn him down. ‘I’m not thinking of you, I’m thinking of Sprog. You’ll shake him senseless in that heap of yours.’
And she had to admit, the return journey was a lot more comfortable, and there was the added amusement of imagining Alexander making his way home in the crotchety Landy.