26. Millennium Claret
A vintage with potential.

Gaynor lay on Sam’s sofa wrapped in Sam’s towelling dressing gown, her feet in his lap.

“I told Lizzie I was going to Chloe,” she said. “And I told her to tell Sarah.” She picked up the cup of tea Sam had made her. “I didn’t realise she was so pissed she wouldn’t remember.”

Sam massaged her toes gently. “She felt pretty bad about everything. Thought she’d talked you into something you’d regret for ever.”

Gaynor shook her head. “I was getting a bit maudlin but I wouldn’t do that. Chloe phoned at seven and woke me up. She’d gone into labour suddenly and couldn’t get hold of anyone. Oliver was away at a conference and didn’t hear the call. Marie, her mother, is on holiday in France and she hasn’t spoken to Victor since he told her he was also Gabrielle. Oliver got the message and made it to the hospital eventually, of course. But Chloe was panicking, so I went.”

Sam stroked her instep. “You’re lovely.”

“I was ever so worried about seeing her,” Gaynor said. “But when I got there, I was just worried for her. Oliver was in there and I was waiting outside and it just went on for hours. I heard her screaming at one point. She looked at Sam, stricken. “I felt so helpless.”

“But the baby’s gorgeous,” she went on in softer tones. “Ever so tiny of course – he’ll be in an incubator for a few days, but he’s perfect!”

“And so will yours be,” said Sam. “Ours,” he corrected himself gruffly.

She pulled her feet away. “Look, you don’t have to…”

He grabbed both ankles and pulled them back again. “Don’t be silly.”

“What about Debra?”

“I’ll tell Debra.”

“What did she say to you?”

“Nothing much. She just made it sound as though you’d come round, shoved the note back at her and didn’t want to see me.”

“She told me you didn’t…” said Gaynor indignantly.

“I know and I’ll speak to her. She’s very protective but this is my life. Mine and yours. She’ll be fine when she sees how happy I am.”

“Will you be happy?”

He hesitated for a moment, and then gave a long, thoughtful sigh. “I can’t tell you I shall never get low, Gaynor. I am, as your friend Lizzie so eloquently puts it, ‘a flake’.”

“You’re not, she didn’t mean that!”

“I am and she did and that’s OK.” He began to roll a cigarette. “I do get depressed. It’s usually worse in the winter. It’s like the light goes out. Everything is suddenly grey and bleak and my mind is clouded. It’s a sort of blindness. I know the sun is there, colour is there. But I can’t see it. It’s a strange feeling.” He paused. “But I come back out of it. I fight it. It may never happen again. Or it might. But I will still love you. I will still be here.”

“It frightened me,” she said. “It frightened me when you were sitting there in that chair when I came back from taking David home. When you were talking in that voice.”

“I know.” He began to stroke her feet again. “But all I can say to you, Gaynor, is that I am not David, I am not your father. I am me, and me is different.”

He turned his face to look into her eyes. “You see, I understand it now. I know what happens. And that’s how I know I am getting better. For years I didn’t realise what it was. At times, especially at the end of my time at work, I could feel myself spinning down and a great fear would engulf me. I’m sure now I was badly depressed in my teens but nobody noticed. And then my marriage and Eleanor dying finished the job.”

Gaynor leant out and took his hand. “You don’t have to say all this.”

Sam nodded. “I do. You need to know everything – what you are taking on.” He reached for his lighter.

“Anyway, to help yourself with depression, you’ve got to accept it, which is the reverse of what you might think. So I do. But I fight it as well. Not by trying to walk through walls but by realising what is happening to me, then trying hard to go on again. Learn to live with it, not in it, they told me. I try to do that.”

“I know.” She felt guilty, as though she had been selfish and unsupportive.

“I get depressed and I wish I wasn’t, but the great thing is I can say that to you. Even a few months ago, when we met, I was just belligerent and would have gone into denial rather than have this conversation. Now I can admit it and tell you what’s going on, or try to.”

“Yes,” said Gaynor. “And then I can cope with it.”

“I do understand your position,” he said seriously. “Your history. Your present as regards David. And your fears for me and you and the fears you must have for our baby. Given both sets of scars and the history, there are going to be times when our needs clash – that’s inevitable.”

He was holding her hand tightly. “But I am always here for you. I hope you know that. I’m very much in love with you, Gaynor. With you I think I will be OK. I think I will find contentment. I think I will play music again, see the sun and feel its warmth…”

He smiled at her. Tears were running down her face. She nodded.

“I’m in love with you too,” she said.

* * *

Sam had lit a fire. “I should really get this chimney swept,” he said, as a belch of smoke came back into the room. They both sat looking at the flames.

“I felt terrible when I was so awful to you when you told me you might be pregnant,” he said. “I felt a real bastard.”

“I think that was the expression Lizzie used.”

“I bet it was.”

“It doesn’t matter now.”

Sam picked up another log and tossed it into the smouldering grate. “It does. But it was only because I hurt so much. Sometimes with me, that turns to anger. I wanted you so much. I couldn’t bear the idea of you with Victor. It was just a shock, the thought of you still having sex with him. I’d been in your house. I’d seen your bed…” He stopped and said more quietly. “And I shouldn’t have said that about Danny. I’m sorry.”

Gaynor suddenly giggled. “He came in the wine bar the other night and still tried it on. He is such a dick! Ooooh!” She squealed as Brutus leapt on to the sofa and landed in the middle of her stomach. “Oh you darling,” she said with real pleasure. “I’ve missed you.”

“Why haven’t you got a cat, if you like them so much?” Sam asked, leaning over and stroking the grey furry head.

Gaynor pulled a face. “Victor isn’t an animal person. Thought a cat would leave hairs on the furniture.” She ran a hand down Brutus’s spine. He purred loudly. “But I always wanted a Burmese. I told you, my Godmother had one called Sidney – he looked just like this. He used to chase bits of screwed-up paper all over the room.”

Sam leant out and tore a corner from the newspaper on the small table next to them. He scrunched it up in his hand, watching as Brutus immediately sat up, alert. “Go on!” he said tossing it away to the other side of the room. Brutus leapt after it.

Gaynor smiled. “I used to do that for hours with Sidney. I used to love going to stay with Eve. She was my absolute refuge from home. The person I could turn to when everything got too awful.”

She suddenly felt sick. “Sam – there’s something I have to tell you too. It’s horrible and I’m ashamed of it but you have to know. So you know what you’re dealing with, as well.”

He looked at her calmly. “Go on.”

“I was pregnant once before.”

He sat very still. Just his fingers moved, gently caressing her ankle.

She said quickly: “It was when I had started my relationship with Victor. You know, just started – I was still in this grotty bedsit and I don’t know how it happened – I was on the pill – but I think I’d had a bug or been sick or something and anyway…” She stopped. Sam’s fingers went rhythmically on.

“Anyway, I told Victor and he said straight away he’d pay for everything – it was like there was no question and I did say, perhaps… but he said we’d have one later – that he wanted to have some time first with just the two of us. Because we were so special…”

Her voice broke a little. “And I told myself that was best too because I didn’t know what was going to happen then – if we’d even last – and I had no money and nowhere nice to live and…” She stopped once more and gave a bitter laugh, trying hard not to cry, “…funny how things come round again. And then, back then, it seemed more important to keep Victor – I know that sounds awful.”

Sam shook his head silently.

“And then later,” Gaynor rushed on, “when I thought we were trying to have one – when I thought that it was my fault that we couldn’t, that there was something wrong with me, then I thought it was my punishment… I don’t know how he could do that to me…” She began to sob.

Beside her Sam’s hand had stilled. She looked up, dreading the expression she might see on his face. But he had tears in his eyes too. “Oh you poor, poor thing. He took her in his arms. “It’s OK, darling. It’s OK…”

“Why did he do it?” Sam asked, when Gaynor had blown her nose and he’d piled more wood on the fire. “To have a vasectomy without even consulting you? It’s pretty unforgivable.”

Gaynor shrugged. “Said he didn’t want any more children and couldn’t trust me not to get pregnant. He was too busy working through his ‘gender issues’ to have a screaming brat in the house. I don’t know…” She shook her head. “I still can’t believe it either.”

She lay back in the cushions. “But I don’t want to think about him. I feel like a drink. I haven’t had a glass of wine for weeks.”

“I should think not.” Sam looked ruefully at his tobacco. “I suppose I’ll have to stop smoking.” Gaynor suddenly sat up again. “Sam, what are we going to do?” “Looks like we’re going to have a baby.” “I’m a bit scared.”

He leant out and pulled her towards him again, putting her feet gently on to the floor so he could put his arms right round her.

“So am I,” he said.