‘You’re sure you won’t hang around and see if Johnny and Bill get back? There’s a great pub out near Rosehill that lets dogs in. And kids.’
Zoe seemed torn.
‘Go on,’ urged Natalie. She felt like making amends for her own negative mood in any way she could.
‘If you ask Megan nicely, she’ll give the boys some doggie drops for Toffee,’ said Rachel. ‘And she keeps a stash of headache tablets in the pantry too.’
‘I’ll see you later maybe,’ said Zoe, and she ushered the boys out into the corridor where they clattered their way towards the kitchen.
‘God, I feel like I’ve just gone deaf,’ said Rachel, twisting a finger into one ear. ‘Is it just me or has it gone very quiet?’
‘No.’ Natalie realised she hadn’t really thought about what she was going to say. She felt as awkward as a teenager, and about as rational.
Rachel seemed to be grasping an imaginary nettle, and she did it with more grace than Natalie thought she’d have managed herself, had their situations been reversed.
‘I’m really glad you’ve come over,’ she said. ‘I’ve got something I need to tell you. To get out of the way.’
Here we go, thought Natalie, and fixed her happy face as her stomach dropped with misery. ‘OK.’
‘I am pregnant.’ Rachel didn’t look thrilled, but her eyes searched Natalie’s face and she could tell Rachel was trying hard to say the right thing. ‘Nearly six weeks now. I haven’t told anyone else because it’s such early days, but I wanted you to know.’
‘Congratulations.’ Natalie tried to summon up her earlier reason, but inside she was kicking and screaming like a red-faced toddler. How could someone who hated their ex, who didn’t even have a happy family to offer a baby, be luckier than her and Johnny? How could that be fair?
‘Don’t say “congratulations”.’ Rachel flinched. ‘I’m not going to pretend it isn’t a massive shock because it is. It’s so random. That’s not what you want to hear,’ she added quickly. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Well, no. Maybe it’s better that it’s random.’ Tears of frustration were building up on her eyelids. ‘Makes it less . . . personal.’
‘Natalie, I weighed up how hard it would be to tell you, and how hurt you’d feel if you found out.’ Rachel reached out and touched her sleeve. ‘I really, really appreciate how kind you were when Kath turned up. It meant a lot to me. I wanted to be honest with you.’
Natalie acknowledged it with a brave nod. She could tell Rachel was tied up in knots, and she tried to be generous. ‘Have you told him? The father, I mean?’
Rachel’s face had begun to lighten, but now the faint lines around her forehead tensed again. ‘Yes,’ she said, and paused. ‘It’s not Oliver, though,’ she added in a rush of honesty, ‘it’s George.’
‘George – Fenwick?’ Natalie frowned, and a whole new wave of unfairness broke over her head. ‘Blimey, when did that happen? I didn’t even realise you were . . .’ She paused. ‘Dating.’
‘We’re not, really,’ said Rachel, unhappily. ‘I mean, we’re seeing each other now, but it was just the one night. I know that’s all it takes, but that’s what I mean by random.’
Natalie looked her in the eye, and bit her tongue before she said something really cruel.
She kept it to herself, since it didn’t reflect well on her general humanity, but Natalie had a complicated system when it came to being happy for other pregnant women, based on how long they’d been trying, how hard they worked, how much they loved their husbands. Rachel’s miserable split from a man who’d denied her a chance of a happy marriage was one thing, but to get pregnant totally by accident by a single man who’d barely even met her . . .
‘That is complicated,’ she said instead, and hated how much like her mother she sounded.
Rachel covered her mouth, and for a second, she looked exhausted. ‘I know. Please don’t tell anyone. I just wanted you to know. To be honest, half the time I can’t believe it’s happening to me, and the rest of the time I’m terrified.’
Natalie struggled between furious jealousy and sympathy for the woman sitting in front of her. Rachel was well on the way to being a friend, she reminded herself. Don’t let your baby obsession spoil everything. It’s already driving a wedge between you and Johnny.
Easy to say. Much harder to do.
For the moment, though, Natalie battened down her negativity, and managed to smile as if she meant it. ‘Thanks for telling me,’ she said. ‘And thanks for telling me why.’
Rachel smiled back, though tears were running down her face. When Natalie went to hug her, she realised she was crying too.
23
When the baby was just in her own head, Rachel found it surprisingly easy to carry on as if nothing untoward was happening.
It wasn’t an issue around the kennels, since Megan and Freda didn’t know, and Natalie didn’t want to talk about babies at all. It wasn’t even completely impossible with George, who treated her more or less the same as he always had done when he called in on various pretexts – most of which even Megan could tell were made up.
They carried on with their twice-weekly dates, but the biggest difference there was that there were no kisses at the end of them. Somehow it seemed wrong now. The first night, as he’d walked her to her car, George had bent down as if he was going to kiss her, and without knowing why, Rachel had kissed him on the cheek. He’d looked at her, surprised, and that had been it.
I need us to be good friends now, thought Rachel as she drove back, not to set up more complications. But there was a heaviness in her stomach that she couldn’t explain away.
George had come with her to the first proper check-up at the surgery too. She’d mentioned it casually, and he’d obviously taken more notice than she’d thought at the time, because he was waiting outside in the car park when she pulled up, parking her shiny new Range Rover next to his battered Land Rover.
‘You’re sure?’ she’d asked, leaning out of the window. The waiting room would be full, but not with anyone she knew. People he’d know though.
‘I’m sure,’ he’d said. ‘Want to make sure you concentrate.’
The check-up made it very real all of a sudden. She had a due date – December 20th – and an appointment for a first scan. And with that, Rachel knew she couldn’t put it off any longer: she’d have to tell Val.
Rachel waited until Megan had taken the dogs out for the first lot of walking, and Freda was safely installed in the office, manning the enquiry desk.
Then she went right to the top of the house and dialled her parents’ home number from the old telephone on the upstairs landing, and stared at herself in the mirror while it rang. Her mind was blank, apart from a nagging feeling that she should have asked George to check Gem’s vaccinations along with those of the other dogs.
I used to be good at telephone calls, she thought. I used to spend all day on the phone.
Val answered just as she was about to hang up. ‘Oh, Rachel,’ she gasped. ‘I thought it was going to be Amelia. Grace’s poorly.’
‘Should I get off the line?’ asked Rachel.
‘No.’ Val didn’t add, ‘so long as you’re quick’, but the implication was there.
‘Um, how are you?’ Rachel remembered a colleague once telling her that the best way to frame bad news was to pitch an even worse story first, but she couldn’t think of one, barring Dot’s keeping a hundred-thousand-pound diamond necklace next to her piccalilli, and an emergency marriage licence in a shoebox. That might just distract too much.
‘I’m fine, Rachel.’ Pause. ‘Are you all right? Are you lonely?’
‘No, not at all!’ She swallowed. ‘Look, Mum, I’ve got some news – I’m having a baby.’
The pause on the other end of the phone stretched out so long that Rachel could hear the front door bang, and her dad come in with the paper. She wondered if her mother had passed out.
‘They didn’t have your magazine, Vally, so I got y
ou some mints!’ he called, and Rachel’s throat squeezed at the years and years of gentle domesticity her parents had shared. That wasn’t going to be her child’s pattern, for good or bad.
Get a grip, she told herself. That’s not the life you wanted either. You went to quite a bit of trouble not to have a life like Mum and Dad.
‘Sorry, love,’ said Val, faintly. ‘Your father came in, I’m not sure I heard you properly. What did you say?’
‘I said, I’m having a baby.’ Rachel tried to make her voice lighter this time. So Val would know to be pleased.
‘How?’ Her mother sounded winded. Not angry or disapproving, but baffled, as if Rachel had told her she was growing a third leg.
‘Oh, the usual way. Man meets girl. Stork finds house.’
‘Rachel, don’t be flippant. I thought you might have gone off and had whatever it is those single women have done. Artificial insemination or something.’ Val sounded huffy. ‘I mean, you don’t have a boyfriend. Not that you’ve told me about,’ she added.
‘I have now. Sort of. And this wasn’t planned but I’ve decided to go ahead and . . .’ Rachel grimaced at her own reflection. These weren’t words she’d ever thought would come out of her own mouth. ‘Take the chance to be a mother.’
‘Well, congratulations,’ said Val. She sounded about as happy as the last three people who’d said that, thought Rachel.
The mouthpiece went muffled as if she’d covered it with her hand. Rachel could make out her mother saying, ‘It’s Rachel. She’s having a baby . . . Yes, a baby. No, not the dog. Her. I don’t . . .’
Then her dad came on. ‘Hello, love. Congratulations! Is it right what I hear? That you’re going to be a mum? Wonderful news!’
‘Thanks, Dad.’ Rachel’s emotions churned again at her father’s genuine warmth. ‘Bit of a shock.’
‘You were a bit of a shock. So was Amelia. All babies are. I’m very pleased for you, love. Are we going to meet the lucky dad?’
‘Yes, well, that was what I was calling about.’
‘I’ll put you back onto your mother,’ said Ken. ‘She’s gesturing.’
‘Mum,’ said Rachel, heavily, as the phone changed hands. ‘I thought it would be nice if . . .’
‘Who is the father, Rachel?’ Val’s voice trembled. Such soap-opera conversations weren’t really in her repertoire.
‘His name’s George. He’s a vet I’ve been seeing, he treats the dogs here at the kennels.’
‘But you’ve only been there ten minutes!’
‘I know. It’s like I said, a bit of a surprise. But that’s life, isn’t it? Anyway, I was wondering if you and Dad would like to come and stay for the weekend. You can meet George properly, and see what’s been going on here. You might like to have a look round the house and see what you’d like to have of Dot’s.’ She tried a joke. ‘You don’t have to take a dog home with you, but if you’d like one, there’s a really lovely spaniel here that’d suit you.’
‘You can’t bring this George home to see us?’
‘Mum, I can’t leave Megan here on her own with all the dogs. It’s not fair. And George is really busy with work – it’s still lambing season.’ Rachel tried not to think too hard about what ‘bringing George home to meet the parents’ would be like. They were two obstinate adults, not a pair of teenagers who’d been caught out. At least if they met in her own house, she’d be able to control the dynamics, and divert too many awkward questions.
‘Well, if that’s the only time you can fit us in, then I suppose that’s the best time,’ said Val, and then immediately corrected herself. ‘I didn’t mean that to sound critical, Rachel. It’s just . . .’ She struggled. ‘I never know what to say to you. I never know whether you want me to be pleased or not.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Rachel was thrown by the strange, sad tone in her mother’s voice.
‘I don’t mean anything. Now, what dates are we talking about?’ Val continued, sounding more like herself. ‘I’ll rearrange some of my hospital rota. Can we bring anything? Have you been to the doctor and had your check-up? I can ring Amelia if you want, and see what things she has left from Jack.’
Rachel leaned her head against the wooden banisters. Now it was really starting.
‘To be honest, Mum, I’d rather you gave me some advice about running a fête,’ she said. ‘I’m holding an Open Day to raise some money for the dogs. Next month. Don’t say anything. I know it’s not like me.’
The pause on the other end was only just shorter than the baby pause.
‘What a nice idea, Rachel,’ said Val. ‘Have you thought about what you’ll do if it rains?’
Rachel let her mother furnish her with plentiful advice about the importance of keeping a good float on every stall. Maybe it was her way of making everything normal again.
Downstairs, the kitchen was deserted, apart from Gem, who lay waiting for her at the threshold. Megan’s jacket was thrown over her favourite chair, nearest the Aga, suggesting that she’d arrived back from her walk, but there was no sign of her or Freda, who normally took it as a signal to start elevenses.
‘Are they both in the kennels?’ she asked, as Gem followed her through to the office.
Sure enough, Freda and Megan were both in the kennel office; Freda was at Rachel’s laptop, while Megan leaned over her from behind, trying to help her understand what was going on.
‘We’ve had some emails,’ Megan explained. ‘About adopting some dogs!’
Natalie and Rachel’s new website had started to gain momentum, after Rachel had registered it with a couple of national dog rescue sites, and enquiries were trickling in at a rate of three or four a day. Rachel was trying to put up two special pages per day, and the final one had gone up the night before.
‘Well, one dog,’ Freda corrected her, and at once, both her and Megan’s eyes turned guarded.
‘Who?’ Rachel put down the coffee mugs she was taking to rinse out and went to see. She scanned the screen over Megan’s shoulder. ‘Oh.’
Four emails in a row had the subject heading, Bertie the Basset Hound.
‘Who’s going to tell them?’ asked Freda, as all eyes – Freda’s, Megan’s, Gem’s – turned to Rachel.
Natalie was walking Bertie down by the Longhampton canal when her mobile rang in her jacket pocket.
She was in a bad mood already, because the waitress in the deli wouldn’t let her in to order a takeaway coffee, and had deliberately failed to understand her ‘cappuccino’ mime through the glass. And Johnny, who normally took out the bins without fail, as part of his husbandly duties, had left them festering for two weeks in the garage – a smell cocktail that had proved too tempting for Bertie and his Nose of Doom.
She pulled out the phone crossly and answered it, expecting to hear Johnny apologising or Rachel asking how to make an Excel document.
‘Hi, is that Natalie Hodges?’
‘Natalie Hodge, yes,’ she said automatically. Bertie was snuffling around in the undergrowth, on the trail of something disgusting, and she gave his lead a tug. He looked up at her, balefully, and she wagged a finger.
‘My name’s Maria Purcell, from Blue Sky Solutions – I’m sorry we haven’t been in touch before now.’ The woman’s voice was brisk and professional, and Natalie had to concentrate. ‘We’ve been moving offices, had some IT issues. But I’m calling to touch base and to run a few possibilities by you, if you’ve got a second? Is this a good time?’
Natalie stopped walking. She’d almost forgotten she’d registered with the recruitment agency – it was something the HR department had told her to do on the weird day that Selina had told her she was to be made redundant.
‘Um, yes, it’s fine,’ she said. She tried to refocus her brain into a sharper gear, but it was hard when Bertie was leaning over in the gleeful about-to-roll-in-something motion, his ears already caked in something noxious.
‘No,’ she mouthed, giving him the hardest stare she could manage. He rolled anyway
, closing his eyes in delight as he coated his neck in Fox No. 5, the rank stench of which didn’t come out with tomato sauce, no matter what the internet said.
Natalie toyed briefly with the idea of hanging up, dragging him away and calling back, claiming they’d been disconnected. Instead she offered him a treat from the bag in her pocket and he was at her side like a shot.
‘Are you still there?’ Maria Purcell prompted her.
You need a job, she reminded herself. This is a six-month sabbatical, not a way of life.
‘Yes, I am! Go ahead,’ she said, marching Bertie swiftly away from temptation and down the towpath.
‘I’ve actually got an amazing opportunity coming up in the next few weeks, something that I think you’ll be glad you were made redundant for,’ the recruitment lady went on. ‘I’m going to email the details over to you now. Are you near your computer?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Natalie. ‘I’m just walking my dog!’
‘Oh.’ There was a note of surprise, not entirely approving either.
Dog walking wasn’t something that went on a CV, Natalie reminded herself. No one actually gardened on gardening leave.
‘Well, maybe you could call me as soon as you get back. There’s an element of time sensitivity with this. It’s just that your experience matches perfectly with the client’s requirements and I know you’ll be thrilled when you see it. The salary is negotiable at the moment, but with your background . . .’ She could almost hear the keys tapping on the agency’s cut.
‘Of course,’ said Natalie, in her best office voice. ‘I’ll get back to you a.s.a.p.’
Natalie printed out the details as soon as she got back in, and once she’d shampooed Bertie, because the smell was unbearable within four walls, she spent the rest of the afternoon staring at the job description.