Don't Go Breaking My Heart: Break Up to Make Up / Always the Best Man

She swallowed. She couldn’t tell him here. Not like this. The backs of her eyes stung. How could she tell him that at first she’d been too thrown by what should have been the happiest news of her life to know what to do? Then, just as she’d been gearing herself up to ring him and say ‘Guess what? You’re going to be a dad!’ it suddenly wasn’t true any more.

She hadn’t been able to tell him. She hadn’t been able to tell anyone. Only Mona. And Mona only knew because she had been there when it had started, had held her hand at the hospital. Then she’d taken her home and hugged her until the tears had run dry.

Those were things he should have done! He should have been there. And she’d been so angry at him for being thousands of miles away she hadn’t been able to talk to him.

Her lip did a micro-quiver, but she bit down on it before it developed into the real thing.

The one time she’d really needed him, he hadn’t been there for her. And it didn’t matter that the sensible side of her brain understood that he hadn’t known, that he’d have been there if he could have been. The messy, illogical side of her couldn’t quite forgive him. Somehow it had summed up all that was wrong with their marriage—Nick happily bounding along, oblivious to her feelings.

Even now the anger was raging inside her.

‘It doesn’t matter now, Nick. It’s water under the bridge. We both know it would have ended sooner or later. We just don’t work as a team.’

His voice was emotionless. ‘So you say.’ He let his gaze wander round the room and she saw him stare as something caught his interest.

She twisted her head to catch a look. Over in the far corner a woman sat with a baby, trying to comfort it as she waited for its milk to warm in a jug of hot water. Adele turned back to look at him. He looked downtrodden.

He shrugged it off. ‘Just as well all that “trying for a baby” stuff was a disaster. What a mess that would have been.’

She nodded. The words were caught up in the back of her throat with her next breath.

She wanted him to make a joke of it as he had done all those months ago. Every time the pregnancy test had been quietly negative he’d given her a hug and said, ‘Never mind, we’re having fun practising.’ She’d loved him for making her smile, even though she’d known he was bitterly disappointed too.

She needed him to do that now, to make the sick feeling go away.

But he looked blank, as if all the cheeky humour had leached out of him. And even worse was the knowledge that she had been the cause. She’d eventually brought him down to earth and it was killing him.

Nick picked up the tray. ‘Are you finished?’

Yes, she was finished. The whole thing was finished.

The sun was low in the sky as they got back on the motorway, giving a warm glow to clouds that otherwise had an ominous hint of steel. Nick stared out of the passenger window. Adele was back in the driving seat—in more ways than one.

‘How are we going to handle the party, Nick?’

What was to handle?

‘How do you mean? We walk in, we smile, we talk, we eat, we leave.’

Adele sighed. ‘As always, you haven’t thought this through, have you?’

He hunched down in his seat a little further. ‘Obviously not.’

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic.’

Maybe there wasn’t, but it made him feel better. Adele had sat as judge and jury on their relationship and she wasn’t about to share the power and let him have a second chance. He understood that now.

‘OK, OK. What have I missed?’

‘Look at us! We’ve both got faces like a wet weekend. No one’s going to believe we’re love’s young dream. Phoebe sussed us out in an instant.’

His eyebrows inched up. ‘She did?’

‘Women spot these things. Your sisters will be on to us in the blink of an eyelid.’

‘We’ll have to smile an awful lot more and convince them.’

Adele went quiet and they sat with the sound of the engine for company for a while. Big fat splashes started appearing on the windscreen and he realised that it wasn’t rain this time, it was snow—big, fluffy flakes of the Christmas-card variety.

Adele turned the wipers on and the action seemed to kick-start her brain again too.

‘It feels too much like lying to them, Nick. I don’t like it.’

‘All we’ve got to do is be civil to each other, talk, smile a bit. We can still do that, can’t we? We don’t have to be all over each other on the dance floor or anything.’

She didn’t sound convinced. ‘I suppose so.’

‘We can split up and circulate. All my family will be there and they’ll want to hear about my job in LA. Hell, they’ll be wrestling me to the ground and demanding free tickets to the première if I know them!’

Miracle of miracles, Adele cracked a smile.

‘OK. That sounds like a plan. We arrive together and we circulate as much as possible, meeting up every now and then for a progress report. Your sisters will all be keen to fill me in on the latest news about our myriad nephews and nieces—that should take up a fair chunk of time.’ She nodded to herself as she stared at the carriageway. ‘Yes. It might work. But only if we keep our distance from each other.’

It was crazy enough to work: stay apart to convince everyone they were together.

If only Adele didn’t seem so overjoyed at the prospect of avoiding him for the whole of the evening.

As they drove further north, the snow eased off. They’d obviously driven under the snow cloud and out the other side. They reached the fringes of the Lake District and the temperature dropped further. A thin coating of snow carpeted the valleys and clung in drifts to the craggy peaks.

But this wasn’t fresh snow. There must have been a fall last night. He had no idea if more was supposed to be on the way. He did, however, know a woman who would.

‘Adele? What’s the weather forecast for this area today?’

She hesitated—he guessed she was considering feigning ignorance; she hated being thought predictable—but instead she gave in and spoke in a weary voice.

‘Rain with the possibility of icy showers, clearing towards evening. That’s what the man on the radio said, anyway. We should have seen the worst of it by now.’

‘Good. The roads are clear enough at the moment, but I wouldn’t like it to get any worse. That would really slow us down.’ He checked his watch. ‘It’s just before four. We’re a little behind schedule, but we should still be there with an hour or more to spare.’

Adele’s smile was wry. ‘Be careful, Nick. You’re starting to sound organised.’

‘What I really meant to say was: shouldn’t we be going south if we’re heading for Scotland?’

‘That’s more like the Nick Hughes I know.’

She missed out the and love. He smiled anyway. ‘I don’t like to disappoint a lady.’

Nick laid his head back on the headrest and closed his eyes. What he’d said was spot-on. She wasn’t the only one disappointing her spouse. He might have just brushed over the truth of it with a joke, but just once he would like her to look at him the way she had in the early days of their marriage. She’d thought he was wonderful then. He hadn’t changed; he was still the same old Nick, but nowadays everything he said and did seemed to be wrong.