Five Unforgivable Things

‘Do you want me to slip in there and have a word with Dan? In private? Tell him what’s happening?’ Mum asked, her forehead creased into a frown, as she pulled a mirror from her handbag and had a last check of her lipstick. She looked, like me, as if all she really wanted was to get on with it, get it over with, as quickly as possible.

‘No, Mum. It’s not as if there’s anything he can do. And you whispering in his ear in front of that lot in there could hardly be less private, could it? Let him enjoy his own wedding, eh? No point all of us worrying ourselves sick, is there? Ready, Lin?’

Linda nodded as she pulled my hem into line and did a final tweak of my hair. ‘Then, let’s get in there, shall we? There’ll be time enough to tell Dan afterwards. When it’s too late for him to change his mind!’

They both laughed in a muted, nervous kind of way, but a little piece of me wondered if it was true. If he was only marrying me because of the baby, and now there was no baby …

The bells stopped ringing then and, having spotted us waiting in the open doorway, the organist started up and everyone suddenly stood and turned and stared. It was too late to do anything but go through with it. I grabbed Mum’s arm and pulled my flowers hard against me. Then, taking a big collective breath, all three of us stepped over the threshold and into the church, and made our way, very slowly, up the aisle.

***

Was that it? The moment I sealed my fate. Our fate? Walking down the aisle without telling him? Without saying a word? I knew it was the baby – the accidental baby – that had brought us there, to that day, that church, that rushed decision we might never otherwise have made. And now there might not be a baby, I could have stopped it all, the whole charade. Not that he ever complained, but it must have crossed his mind from time to time, later on, mustn’t it? That I’d tricked him somehow, not given him the choice. I was wrong. I know that now. I could have – should have – just told him, stopped the wedding, set him free. Or at least given him the option. But I didn’t.

It wasn’t easy to think straight. Everything was happening too quickly. I was bleeding, I was in pain, I wasn’t in control. Yes, I know they just sound like excuses now, but it would have taken more courage than I could muster to stop it. All those people, all that expectation, and no convenient bus waiting to whisk me away, blood-stained dress flapping wildly in the wind.

I loved Dan. Reliable, responsible, oh-so-conventional Dan, wearing a new suit and a carnation, and already there, waiting for me at the front of the church. Not only for me, but for our little blob of a baby too, because we came as a package now, didn’t we? One hidden away inside the other, like Russian dolls.

I should have told him the package had come undone, that our plans were already unravelling like an unruly ball of string. I should have given him the choice, to tie the knot or let it go, but I didn’t say a word, until it was too late.

It was the first big lie in our relationship, the first truly unforgivable thing I had ever done. And no way to embark on a life, a marriage …

I think I may have been paying for it ever since.

***

According to Rich, who’d travelled down by train early that morning with three more of Dan’s friends, and with the sole intention, best-man duties aside, of having a bloody good time, the reception was a hoot. Knowing how much booze that lot were able to put down their gullets, and Rich in particular, I was surprised he was able to remember it at all.

‘These country folk sure know how to party, don’t they?’ he said, perched by the side of my hospital bed, with one elbow on the blankets, and working his way through the grapes he’d brought with him, spitting the pips into his hand. ‘Drinking cider and chomping through mounds of food – delicious, by the way – and dancing the night away like there was no tomorrow. How your dad manages to get up and milk cows after a night like that I’ll never know. I take my hat off to him. My head’s still pounding like a sledgehammer, and I left before any of them. And the price of a taxi at that time of night, you wouldn’t believe! It was only five miles to our hotel too. Should have walked.’

Dan chuckled. ‘Walked? Staggered, more like, knowing you lot. And down those little dark lanes? You’d have ended up in a ditch.’

‘Bit rough though, wasn’t it? You two missing your own reception.’

‘At least we made it to the wedding. That’s the most important thing.’ Dan squeezed my hand and I felt my new ring push its way gently into my flesh. His eyes were looking watery again and he quickly rubbed a sleeve over them. He’d been with me all night, dozing beside me in a chair, and had held my hand this morning, just as he was doing now, when the scan had shown us what we already knew. The baby was gone.

Rich looked uncomfortable, and I knew it wasn’t just because of his hangover or the hard plastic chair he was sitting on. He wasn’t good with emotional stuff, and the sight of his best mate on the verge of tears was not something he knew how to deal with. ‘Well, I just wanted to look in before I left,’ he said, bundling the last of the bunch of grapes, which by now wasn’t much more than a collection of stalks, back into their paper bag and dropping them on the bedside cabinet. He held out a hand to shake, but Dan walked around the bed and pulled him into an awkward bear hug.

‘Thanks for coming, mate. And, you know … for not losing the rings and everything.’

‘My pleasure. And I’m sorry about the baby.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

We watched in silence as Rich walked away down the ward, turning to wave before heading out towards the lifts.

Dan idly lifted up the paper bag, opened it and peered inside. ‘Grape?’ he said, plonking himself down on the bed and holding it out to me.

‘I don’t really fancy them now. Not having seen him spitting all those pips.’

‘Cup of tea, then?’

‘I’d love one. Although, now I’m not pregnant any more, I suppose we should push the boat out and have a proper drink. Of course, we may have to improvise a bit until we get out of here.’

‘Champagne, to celebrate?’

‘Well, maybe not celebrate exactly, in the circumstances. But at least to toast our future together, as we didn’t get to do it at the reception. Which reminds me, I never got to hear your speech, did I? Or the best man’s.’

‘Good job. They were rubbish anyway.’

And that was how our married life began. Just the two of us, where there should have been three, trying desperately hard not to cry, and sipping weak hospital tea with our eyes shut, pretending it was bursting with bubbles.

NUMBER TWO (#ulink_1e780511-514d-5ee1-90ae-b6f1b179c54c)

Chapter 10 (#ulink_8688c650-ebc1-5b69-a18d-5caaa16e68fc)

Natalie, 2017

‘Welcome home, you two.’ Natalie watched her sisters drop their coats and bags in the hall and went back to stirring a bowl of pasta sauce on the hob. She lifted the wooden spoon, licked it carefully – they were family so nobody would mind – then put it back into the pan. ‘So, what did you get up to on this spa break of yours?’

‘Oh, you know, just chilling out really,’ Beth said, bounding into the kitchen and sniffing the air appreciatively. ‘Lettuce leaves for lunch, a bit of swimming, some woman bashing away at our backs and rubbing our heads too hard. That kind of thing.’

‘Did you get to the beach?’

‘Not really the weather for it.’

‘And we didn’t get a lot of time,’ Jenny cut in, slipping into a chair and fiddling with the cutlery Natalie had already laid on the table. ‘So, sorry we didn’t bring you anything back.’

‘I didn’t expect you to.’

‘When’s Mum home?’

Natalie tilted the steaming pan and started spooning the sauce over plates piled high with too much spaghetti. ‘Sunday, I think. I’ve not heard from her. She didn’t take her phone. I found it on the hall table.’

‘Typical!’ Beth carried two of the plates to the table and went back for the third.

‘Got any Parmesan, Nat?’ Jenny was already twirling the pasta inexpertly around her fork and dropping most of it back onto the plate.

‘Anyone would think I’m the only one who lives here! You know where the fridge is.’

‘Don’t bother yourselves, either of you,’ Beth said, using her best put-upon voice. ‘I’m still standing. I’ll get it.’ She rummaged around in the fridge, tore open a bag of ready-grated cheese, poured it into a bowl and sat down with it still in her hand. ‘And thanks for cooking, Nat. It’s been a very long journey and I’m famished.’

‘Not that long,’ Jenny said. ‘But I think all that sea air must have made us hungry.’

Natalie wheeled her chair over to the table and slid it into her usual place. ‘I’ve missed this,’ she said when they were all settled and eating. ‘I know you were only gone two nights, but …’

‘Better get used to it, girl. You won’t have us two around all the time once you’re married, you know.’

‘I know. It’s like the end of an era, though, isn’t it?’