Clive and Tristan fling themselves onto her and cover her with kisses. ‘We’ll have to throw a chocolate-themed baby shower,’ Clive announces grandly.
When they’ve calmed down, we hand around Chantal’s scan picture again and we all have a coo.
Tristan turns the picture round, trying to work out which way up it is. ‘Do you know what sex it is?’
‘A girl,’ Chantal says. ‘My little girl.’ The mother-to-be is bursting with happiness and pride.
‘Who’s the daddy?’ Clive asks with a glorious lack of tact.
‘That, we’re less sure of,’ she admits. Chantal tucks her scan picture back into her Anya Hindmarch tote. I wonder, does Ms Hindmarch do baby-changing bags? I smile to myself – our friend has got a lot of lifestyle adjustment ahead of her. ‘Sorry to steal your thunder, Lucy,’ Chantal says, ‘but I bet you can’t top that one.’
‘Mmm,’ I say, sounding sheepish. I’ve kept my left hand firmly hidden until now, but I produce my ring finger with a rather half-hearted flourish. ‘Da-dah!’
Jaws drop all around the table.
‘That’s one hell of a diamond,’ Chantal notes with admiration in her voice. It is, indeed, the sort of ring that would be more at home gracing my friend’s elegant fingers.
‘Crush?’ Nadia says.
‘No, no, no.’ I bat away his name with impatience. Why do my friends keep trying to fan the flame of hope there, when clearly there is none?
‘Not Marcus?’ Chantal says with a frown.
‘Who else?’ Now there are audible gasps around the table. I sound a little snappy when I say, ‘Of course it’s Marcus.’
My friends exchange bemused glances. ‘You promised that your little fling with him at Christmas was just that,’ Chantal says.
‘Well, I was wrong.’
‘Do you want me to do the whole thing with the cake again?’ Clive asks, but he sounds unenthusiastic. ‘I can go and get one.’
‘No, no, no.’ This is the reaction I should have expected, but I had hoped for more. ‘I just want you to be happy for me.’
No one leaps in to say that they are.
‘Look,’ I say, ‘I really hoped that things would work out with Crush, but they haven’t. We hit one little rocky patch and it’s all fallen to pieces. Maybe we weren’t so perfectly suited after all.’
My friends don’t look convinced.
‘I know Marcus,’ I continue. ‘I know him so well.’
‘That should make you realise that he isn’t great husband material,’ Chantal points out.
‘I think you’re a fine one to talk,’ I say crisply. ‘Fidelity has never been your strong suit either, but you’re expecting Ted to make a go of your marriage. Marcus isn’t perfect, but then neither am I.’ I think how easily I let Crush down and my shame just won’t go away. Am I such a great catch that I can demand nothing less than perfection in a man? ‘There’s no such thing as Mr Right. Marcus loves me – in his own flawed and imperfect way. And I love him – in my less than adequate way too. We’ve come through a lot together. Isn’t that enough? Our relationship may not be ideal, but it’s enduring. How many people can say that these days? I’m not getting any younger. I want to settle down. I want a baby. I want to know who the father is.’
Chantal cringes at my barbed comments, but says nothing.
‘I can’t throw stones either,’ Nadia says. ‘I’m married to a gambler, but it doesn’t mean that I love him any less. You have to do what feels right, Lucy.’
As I’m wringing my hands, the light is catching my ring. ‘I can’t waste another five years trying to find someone else who might or might not eventually want to marry me.’
Statistically the odds are against me getting married at all. There are currently not enough men to go around in the UK – we’re nearly a million short, ladies. How does that feel? And that’s counting all men – even the crappy ones with halitosis, pot bellies, comb-overs and a fetish for leopardskin undies – not just decent husband material. Which means that an awful lot of us single women of a certain age simply won’t be able to get married unless we jump on a plane and go to Alaska or some place where there’s a distinct shortage of girlies. Now I want to burst into tears when I should be feeling deliriously happy.
‘I loved Crush,’ I tell them. ‘But that sometimes isn’t enough. We didn’t last five minutes. When push came to shove, there was absolutely no substance behind us.’
‘Perhaps you’re being a little hasty in giving up on him so soon,’ Autumn ventures. ‘You must have hurt him very badly.’
‘I know that.’ I feel myself sag. ‘But he won’t even talk to me,’ I remind them. ‘He refuses to eat my chocolate.’ They, quite rightly, look shocked at that. ‘How can I hold out any hope that he might take me back?’
My friends say nothing. So, no one has any smart answer for that question. ‘I’ve made up my mind. I’ve chosen Marcus’s bed and now I’m going to lie in it. That’s how it’s going to be. All I want is for you to support me in my decision,’ I sniff.
The girls are galvanised into action. ‘We do support you,’ Nadia tells me. ‘All of us.’ She looks around at the others and they all nod furiously.
‘We’ll do anything we can to help,’ Autumn assures me.
‘I want you all to be bridesmaids,’ I say tremulously.
They all nod again until their heads are in danger of falling off. ‘We’ll love that,’ Nadia says.
‘Even if I pick really crap dresses, you have to promise to wear them.’
‘We will,’ they say in unison.
‘Can I be a bridesmaid and wear a crap dress too?’ Clive asks.
We all burst out laughing and that breaks the tension.
‘If this is really what you want, Lucy, then you know that we’ll give you all the support and love that you can cope with,’ Autumn says. We all hold hands around the table.
‘Thanks,’ I say, really teary now.
‘When’s the wedding going to be this time?’ Autumn asks.
‘Same time, same place,’ I tell them. ‘Marcus never cancelled the wedding. He knew somehow that we’d be together.’
Everyone goes, ‘Awhh.’
‘So we’re all going back to Trington Manor,’ Chantal says with a wry smile.
I know. Trust my wedding to be at the same venue as our brilliant jewellery heist. Is nothing ever straightforward in my life?
‘That means that the wedding isn’t very far away,’ Autumn notes.
‘A matter of weeks.’ I’m not even going to calculate the exact time as that would scare me far too much.
‘You should use a wedding planner,’ Chantal says. ‘There’s so much to do. I can recommend a great one.’
‘Thanks.’ It even seems too difficult to decide on that at the moment. ‘I’ll certainly think about it.’
‘One word of advice,’ Nadia says. ‘Please don’t buy the dresses until the very last minute. Just in case.’
‘That’s a horrible thing to say!’ We all giggle. But despite what my friends think, this time I really do believe that Marcus and I can make it together.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Nadia lay in Toby’s arms. She and her son had been back at home for a week now and she couldn’t have been any happier. Lewis had settled into his own room again without any hiccups, thank goodness, and she’d slipped back into her routine as a housewife with a renewed energy. Toby had put his heart and soul into proving that she’d done the right thing, and it certainly felt good to be back in his arms once more.
Her husband glanced at the clock. ‘I have to go to work.’
‘Mmm.’ Nadia stretched out along the length of him. ‘Make love to me again.’
But Toby was already flicking back the duvet. ‘I’ll be late.’
She smiled at him. ‘Do you think it’s time that we made another baby? I don’t want Lewis to be an only child.’
Toby slipped out of the bed. ‘This isn’t the time to talk about it.’
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‘I’d love more children,’ she said. ‘And we’re getting ourselves straight now, aren’t we?’
‘Let’s not rush things,’ her husband said.
There was sense in that, she knew. Toby might have stopped gambling, but there was a huge backlog of debts to clear – every day the postman seemed to bring yet another stack of bills. The truth of the matter though was that she wasn’t getting any younger and there was never a right time to have a child. If you even stopped to consider the expense, then no one would ever be brave or mad enough to have kids. ‘Couldn’t we at least start to consider it?’
‘Sure, sure,’ Toby said, but she could tell that he was distracted.
He disappeared into the shower while she went downstairs and started to prepare breakfast. In a short while, she’d get Lewis up. It wasn’t often that her son stayed in bed longer than they did, so it was nice to enjoy the peace. For the first time in a long while, there was a kernel of contentment at the centre of her being and Nadia sighed happily to herself.
She’d just finished buttering Toby’s toast when he came into the kitchen, hair still damp from the shower. He looked more handsome than she’d ever seen him. ‘I love you,’ she said. ‘Have I told you that today?’
Toby hugged her tightly. ‘Whatever happens,’ he said, ‘I want you to know how much I love you too.’
She smiled at him. ‘I know that.’
‘Please don’t ever forget it.’ He kissed her hard on the mouth. ‘I have to go.’
With that, Toby left for work and Nadia noticed with a strange disquieting feeling that he hadn’t even touched his toast.
The nagging feeling of unease didn’t leave her all day. She took Lewis to the playground, but while her son played happily in the sandpit, she sat watching him restlessly, staring across the tops of the houses and into the distance, though she didn’t know why.
Afterwards, the shopping had been accomplished on autopilot, as had the washing and ironing. Now she was cooking dinner and still the feeling prickled over her like an unscratched itch.
Was it something that Toby had said that was bothering her? Was it something in his demeanour? As always, the spectre of his gambling was close to hand and she wondered if he’d done something stupid.
He was due home at six o’clock, but that came and went. Nothing unusual there – Toby was often delayed if a job didn’t go according to plan, which was more often than not.
Nadia gave Lewis his dinner, then she sat on the living-room floor and played a counting game with him, but she struggled to keep her concentration and ended up being pasted by a four year old.
By seven o’clock she was starting to get worried. If Toby was going to be really late, then he’d usually call. She tried his mobile, but it went straight to voicemail. The chicken vindaloo that she’d made was starting to dry up in the oven, so she added some water to the dish in a bid to salvage it. Lewis didn’t want to go to bed without saying goodnight to his dad, but with a bit of fuss and a few tears, he’d eventually capitulated.
When eight o’clock had passed and there was still no sign of her husband, Nadia started to pace the floor. The dinner was burned and she’d covered the remnants of it with tinfoil. She was calling Toby’s mobile every few minutes, but still it went unanswered by her husband. Eventually, she called his parents in case he’d decided to drop in and see them, but they hadn’t heard anything from him either and now she’d worried them too.
On the computer in the office, she looked for the number of the other plumber who worked for him. When she finally found it, she punched Paul’s number into the phone. ‘Hi, Paul,’ she said when he picked up. ‘I just wanted to find out what time Toby left tonight. He’s not answering his phone.’
‘I was about to call him again too,’ Paul said. ‘He didn’t turn up on the job today and I’ve got a problem that I need to talk to him about.’
‘He didn’t turn up?’
‘No. Usually he calls me, but I’ve heard nothing. Is anything wrong?’
‘I don’t know,’ Nadia admitted. ‘I’ll get him to call you as soon as I hear from him.’
She hung up and stared at the computer in front of her. A cold dread gripped her stomach. What on earth had happened to Toby? Instinctively, she went to look at the web history. Where had he been visiting on the internet? Was he back to his old ways already? But there was nothing to show that her husband had been on the gambling sites again. Now what? For lack of any other good ideas, she pulled up his personal filing cabinet and looked at the recent emails he’d received.
The first one that she saw made her feel sick inside. Part of her didn’t even want to open it, but she knew that she had to. Nadia clicked the mouse and the email sprang open in front of her. It was an e-ticket for Virgin Airlines. The seat had been booked only yesterday, yet the flight had left this morning. And it was for a one-way trip in her husband’s name to Las Vegas.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Autumn stroked her brother’s hand. He still lay in his hospital bed, bruised and unmoving. An array of machines beeped comfortingly around him, monitoring him and miraculously performing functions that Richard couldn’t while he was unconscious. She’d slept on a fold-out bed next to him or, more accurately, she’d stayed awake all night staring at her brother and hoping for some signs of recovery.
Richard had got himself into plenty of scrapes before, but there’d never been anything as bad as this. If only he could speak to her and tell her what had happened. Was this simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or was it something more sinister? Had someone come after Rich because of the way he was living his life? All she could do was sit here and will her brother to wake up.
Autumn had called her parents, but they were both away on business. Daddy in Geneva, Mummy talking at a Human Rights conference in New York. They’d been shocked to hear that Richard was in hospital, but not shocked enough to jump on a plane and rush back to their son’s bedside. It was typical of them – they were long on cash and short on compassion. If they could throw money at it, they were the most generous of people. When it came to giving their own children their precious time, then they were positively miserly. It had been the same throughout their lives, so why should she hold out any hope that they would change now? She looked at her brother’s washed-out face and it sent a physical pain to her heart. If her parents could see how bad Richard was, surely they wouldn’t be able to stay away?
It was lunchtime when Addison appeared at her side. She’d been given compassionate leave from her job at the Stolford Centre while her brother remained in this condition, but it pained her to think that she wouldn’t be there to minister to Fraser and Tasmin and her other students. But she couldn’t worry about them now. Richard had to have her full attention.
Her boyfriend slipped into the seat next to her and kissed her cheek. ‘How’s it going?’
‘No change,’ she told him wearily. ‘The doctors have said that he’s comfortable and that’s the best we can hope for at the moment.’
‘Why don’t you go home for a couple of hours?’ Addison suggested. ‘You look wiped out. Have a nice hot bath and grab a bit of shut-eye. There’s nothing you can do for Richard now.’
‘I have to be here when he wakes up,’ she said.
‘They’ll call you from the hospital as soon as there’s any news,’ Addison reassured her. ‘He’s being well looked after, I’m sure. I’m worried that you’re going to make yourself ill.’
‘I can’t forgive myself for not answering the phone when he was trying to call me,’ she said, anguished. ‘That’s the only time I’ve not been there for him and look what’s happened.’ She couldn’t get a picture out of her mind of Rich lying in a dirty back alley trying desperately to call her. And she’d ignored the call and had put her own pleasure first. What sort of a sister did that?
‘Do you blame me for that?’
She let out a miserable sigh and rubbed her hands over her tired eyes. ‘I feel
my loyalties are divided at the moment,’ she said. ‘And right now, Richard needs me more than you do.’
‘You can’t be your brother’s keeper all the time,’ he pointed out. ‘You’re entitled to a life of your own, Autumn.’
‘Not now,’ she said. ‘Richard needs me to be here for him, and nothing will take me away from him.’
She saw Addison’s shoulders sag with disappointment. It was easy for him to say that she should put herself before her brother, but it had never been that way and it probably never would be. All of her relationships had foundered when her partner had realised that there would always be two men in her life. Addison too would have to accept that and, if he couldn’t, well . . . ‘Maybe we should cool things for the time being.’
‘I want to be here for you,’ her boyfriend said. ‘If you’ll let me.’
‘I can’t think of anything but Richard at the moment. He has to be my priority.’
Addison stood up and squeezed her shoulder. ‘I’ll call you later,’ he said sadly. ‘See how he is.’
But she wondered, as he walked away, just how long Addison would stay around.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Every time that Crush organises a team-bonding exercise, it involves hideous clothing. For paintballing I’m wearing camouflage combats and a matching jacket that comes down to my knees. I look like a small dirigible balloon that’s crashed into a forest. My hands are encased in huge gauntlets which are playing havoc with my nice new manicure and I’m sporting a full face helmet which has flattened my hair to infinity and beyond. I spent hours doing my hair and make-up and not because I wanted Aiden Holby to think that I looked utterly gorgeous, nothing like that. I just like to make an effort in all situations. All to no avail.
I’m not a happy camper. It’s only the fact that I’m clinging onto my job at Targa by my fingertips that I’m here at all. Despite the best efforts of my agency – believe that if you will – no other offers of employment have been forthcoming. With all the expense of my forthcoming wedding, there’s no way that I can jack it in. So paint-balling I am.