‘Yes–yes!’
‘What if they’re faulty?’
‘Both of them? No chance. Lou–you’re pregnant.’
‘I can’t be!’
‘According to those tests you bloody well are!’
They both just stood there, hardly daring to move in case they chased away the blue lines.
‘Could it be Phil’s baby?’ asked Deb, cringing as she said it.
‘It’s not possible–I haven’t slept with Phil in ages,’ said Lou. ‘It has to be Tom’s.’
‘Thank God for that,’ said Deb, crossing herself internally.
Oh God, Tom!
What on earth would he say? thought Lou. After one incident of love-making with him, she had fallen pregnant.
Would he feel that she had trapped him? Like Phil had with Sharon?
She was pregnant! She clung onto Deb for comfort. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry so she plumped for both.
‘What do I tell Tom?’
‘I’d say “Tom, I’m pregnant”. I think you’ll find that’s all you need to say for now.’
‘Deb, I’m pregnant!’
‘Lou, you’re pregnant!’
They both screamed and hugged each other and started dancing and bouncing around, like a pair of spaced-out Tiggers.
That was how Tom found them five minutes later when he called in to see if Lou was feeling any better.
That evening, Tom lay back on the sofa grinning and in his arms lay Lou, also grinning. They had grinned so much, their facial muscles hurt.
‘A baby next spring,’ said Tom dreamily. ‘Season of new birth–could that be any more perfect?’
‘I didn’t know how you’d take it,’ said Lou, ‘seeing as we’ve only slept together once.’
‘Don’t remind me,’ said Tom with amused sarcasm. ‘Move in tonight then you can sleep in my bed and let me be all gentle with you.’
That sounded awfully tempting, thought Lou, as something coursed through her veins which felt rather like very strong sweet wine. But not yet.
‘Please, Tom, I need to finish off my business with Phil first, totally and completely,’ said Lou. ‘I don’t have affairs. I’m not that sort of person. It doesn’t sit well with me to do things this way round.’
‘We’re going to have a baby together, isn’t that finished enough for you?’ Tom asked. His voice had a wobble in it that she hadn’t heard before.
‘No,’ said Lou. ‘Give me one more day. Just one. Then we can plan for us.’
Tom nodded, pretending to understand. Was she playing for time? Giving Phil the chance to win her back? What if he rolled out a major charm offensive tomorrow? Phil Winter was so confident, so
cocksure
. He cuddled Lou until she had to leave his arms because she felt queasy again. Her hormones were all over the place. She was ripe for being manipulated. What if Phil played on that and convinced her that the best place was there with him in his big warm house and big warm bed? Tom knew this wasn’t logical–after all, Lou was carrying his child. But feeling something and knowing something were totally different things.
Lou came back down the stairs and resumed her place snuggled up next to him. He put his hand on her tummy. He wanted his baby to get used to knowing he was close.
‘I still can’t believe it,’ said Tom.
‘
You
can’t believe it!’ said Lou. ‘Not that I want to bring Phil into this, but the amount of accidents we had–and nothing–and only once with you and then “bingo”.’
Phil again
. Tom tried to laugh off his name being brought into their intimate moment by rubbing his nails imperiously on his shirt.
‘Well, I must have supersperm.’
‘What sex would you like?’ asked Lou.
‘Any sort of sex, I’m busting for it.’
‘No–what flavour baby would you like, you nut?’ said Lou, hitting him with a cushion.
‘Honestly, Lou, I know it’s a cliché, but as long as it’s OK, I really don’t mind.’
What if she went back to Phil and he never saw his child?
‘I’ve decided that if Phil wants to put up a fight tomorrow, I’ll just get the divorce when I can. He isn’t going to settle for a quickie and I’m not going to let myself get worked up about it.’
‘I’d settle for a quickie,’ said Tom, dodging the cushion again. He wrapped his arms around her tightly, savouring her…just in case this was the last time. The thought of her seeing Phil tomorrow terrified him. He hadn’t wanted to come over all caveman but he was built to protect, it was just the way God had made him, and he was far too old and set in his ways to fight against it. He wanted to go with her tomorrow but of course she had said no.
‘What if we had twins? One of each,’ said Lou. ‘Phil’s twins were really beautiful.’
Phil Phil Phil.
‘I don’t think we’ll be having blonde, brown-eyed kids, though–do you?’ said Tom, shaking his black hair at her, fighting back the nervous, almost tearful tremor in his voice.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ laughed Lou gently.
As they sat, each with their thoughts, Tom suddenly started muttering to himself. ‘No, we can’t, can we?’ he murmured. ‘No way. I’m sure that’s right. Of course, of course. How stupid!’
‘What are you on about?’ said Lou.
‘Wait a minute.’ He unwrapped himself from Lou, bolted quickly out of the room and came back a few minutes later carrying a huge encyclopedia and grinning widely.
‘Lou, I think you might get your quickie divorce after all,’ he said. Taking a pad out of the dresser drawer, he
started to draw little coloured circles on it. All this stopping at the petting stage had obviously sent him a bit loopy, Lou thought.
She realized she would have to make love to him very soon in order to save his mental health.
The next morning, Lou checked herself in the mirror and added a little more rouge to her pale cheeks. She hoped the remission of morning sickness would last until this dreaded task was over. In saying that, the prospect of ‘morning sickness’ still thrilled her, because it was under the umbrella of pregnancy symptoms and she was quite prepared to suffer double, even treble sickness tonight, but
please God
just let her get through this morning with some dignity.
She felt pretty good, actually. She applied some red lipstick for courage and nodded at her reflection. She was ready.
1, The Faringdales looked different somehow. She felt no emotional attachment to the house she had moved into as a bride. It was hard to believe she had lived there for ten years. Her life there seemed a million light years away, even though four months ago, she had not even thought of clearing out a drawer or ever heard of Tom Broom. When she got to the front door, the instinct wasn’t even there to walk straight in. It was no longer her
home. She knocked and Phil opened it and brought her in effusively.
How long was it since he had seen her? She looked like Lou, but different. It sounded nuts to say it, but she looked like an older version of the young spirited Lou he had fallen in love with–the Lou she would have naturally grown into, had she not been worn down by his treatment of her.
‘How are you, love?’ he said. She wasn’t wearing her wedding ring, he noticed.
‘I’m fine,’ said Lou. ‘How are you?’ He was wearing his wedding ring, she noticed.
‘I’ve made tea,’ he said, in the manner of a small child who was showing off a pasta picture to his mam. Lou let him pour her a cup. He’d got the best china out of the cabinet. It was his mother’s tea-set–an heirloom that, ordinarily, wouldn’t have come out for a visiting Monarch.
‘I’ve left the milk and the sugar out,’ he said, pointing to a bowl and a jug.
‘Thanks, but I don’t take either in tea,’ said Lou.
Bollocks, thought Phil. They’d been together ten years–how come he didn’t know that?
He got out the cake. It couldn’t have been more obvious that he’d made it if he’d iced
Made by Phil
on it. She wasn’t fooled by his trying-so-hard gesture. Did he think she was that easy to manipulate? Probably–because she
had
been that easy to manipulate in the past, hadn’t she?
‘Would you like a slice?’
‘Thanks, but not for me. I appreciate you making it, though.’
Good, she’s noticed
. He smiled inside, but outwardly forced himself to look disappointed. Lou felt nothing and moved the conversation forwards.
‘So, to business,’ she said.
‘Lou, you can’t be serious. Come on, love, this has gone far enough. What can I do to make this right?’ said Phil, flashing his best disarming smile. ‘Come home, Lou, I miss you.’
‘Phil. You miss your clothes washed, you miss your meals cooked, you miss…having your basic needs met. You don’t miss
me
.’
‘Yes, I do, Lou. Honest I do.’
This Lou was gorgeous. He could understand why it worked for people to take some time out in their marriage if they managed to find perspective like this.
Phil clicked his fingers. It suddenly came to him what this was
really
all about.
‘This is about that Sue, isn’t it?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Lou. She wondered which Sue he was referring to, but really it didn’t matter. Both Sues had played their parts in the downfall of her marriage, along with Phil–and herself.
‘But, love, that was all sorted years ago!’
Ah, he meant the first Sue. ‘No, it wasn’t. You never even said sorry, Phil.’
‘It was me that went to see her and told her not to press charges when you belted her!’ Phil’s voice rose in frustration. ‘It was me that got you out of that mess. Didn’t that say everything you needed to know?’
‘No, it didn’t.’
‘I’m sorry, then. I’m sorry I put you through all that. It was the biggest mistake of my life.’
Lou drew in a big breath. Hearing that he was sorry changed nothing. It was all too late.
‘Phil, I want you to sign the papers and for us both to get on with our lives.’
‘Lou, I can’t do that.’
Lou stayed calm. She should have known he would battle her on this point.
‘You’ll be wondering, of course, why I took the money from the business account.’
‘Well, er, yes, I was, a bit.’
‘I took the approximate value of
your
house as it stands now.’
‘
Our
house,’ he corrected.
‘I subtracted the amount that you paid for it before we were married,’ Lou went on, ignoring him. ‘I added on a fair figure, I think, for the value of the fixtures and fittings and divided by two, and that’s what I took out of the business account.’
‘That’s very cold for you, Lou,’ said Phil, affecting bewilderment now.
Lou went on, ‘If you don’t agree with the figures, we can always let the courts decide. I think they’ll find that I’m also entitled to half your business and a substantial proportion of your pension, but I don’t intend to claim that. You can guarantee that because we’ll sign for a full and final settlement. I’ve been a lot fairer than any judge would be.’
‘You, lady, are guilty of fraud,’ said Phil, trying to tie down his anger.
That was the second time she’d been accused of that recently, Lou thought with an inner giggle. She might soon have to consider getting plastic surgery, a false passport and a one-way ticket to Acapulco.
‘Let’s face it, Phil, you would have stopped my access to the joint account and denied me anything at all, had I not taken it first. This way at least I save you having to spend half of your savings on solicitors’ fees. As it stands, we’re sorted financially. The rest is just paperwork.’
He picked up his trusty mobile menacingly. The whites of his eyes were very startling against his traffic-light-red face.
‘I could ring the Fraud Squad right now.’
‘Go right ahead. But remember, you gave me authority to transfer monies. If I’d really wanted to defraud you, I’d have taken the lot. I only took my fair share. I could lie and say you gave me the money and then changed your mind. And if you want to talk about fraud…’
Lou pulled out two computer disks from her handbag and threw them on the table. ‘This one has your up-to-date accounts for the last ten years. This one has your
real
up-to-date accounts. I could send the taxman both. I’m sure they’d find enough discrepancies to keep them in a permanent job, charging day-to-day interest on the shortfall alone. Obviously these aren’t the only copies. You’ll get those when the divorce is final.’
Phil’s face suffused with even more blood. He looked like a red cabbage. He felt as if he was in a maze and every entrance was blocked off. Maybe not every one–he still had one trump card left. There was one thing over which he still had control.
‘Well, you can wait for your divorce for bloody ever,’ he snarled.
But Lou didn’t even blink. She had to be on drugs, thought Phil. Some freaky herbal equivalent of Valium.
‘I’ll make you a deal,’ she said, crossing her legs.
He couldn’t remember her having legs like that.
‘Sign the papers now and let me take them in, and I’ll refund you over thirty thousand pounds with immediate effect.’
She got her chequebook out of her bag and clicked on her pen.
‘How much over thirty thousand pounds?’ said Phil with a grumbling interest.
‘You’ll have to gamble and find out.’
‘What, and trust you?’
She held out the pen to him.
Thirty thousand quid was a lot of money and even now he knew Lou would be as good as her word. He hated to admit it, but he wasn’t going to win this one so damage limitation was his only option. He didn’t know this supremely confident and sexy woman in his kitchen. She was a very desirable stranger, though.
‘I wasn’t unfaithful to you after that Peach woman, you know,’ he tried.
‘It doesn’t matter now if you were or you weren’t,’ said Lou. ‘It was never just about another woman.’
He opened his mouth to ask what the hell else it was all about then, but some wiser part within made him shut it. He had been a total bastard to Lou, if he faced it. There were birds
before
Susan Peach. And he hadn’t exactly been there for her during that fake pregnancy episode. His life with Lou flashed past him in a few lousy seconds and it hit him then what was really happening and why. Lou was leaving him, really leaving him. His marriage was ending, his control was slipping and he felt a seismic panic rumble through him.
‘Lou, come on,’ he said, a tremble in his voice. ‘Me and you, we’ll go on for ever. Remember what we used to say about you and me going on for ever?’
Lou remembered. She remembered being curled up in his arms talking through the life they were going to live, a forever life of warmth and mutual support, before he snatched back his dreams and feasted on them and left her with only the crumbs he thought to spare her.
‘Phil…’
‘Look, Lou, let’s start again. Let’s renew our vows. You always wanted to go to Italy, didn’t you? We could get married in Rome. I’ll write to the Pope and ask him to officiate at the wedding, how about that then?’
He laughed with an edge of desperation, the words tumbling out of his mouth, snagging on his throat, and Lou pitied him. He hadn’t seen this coming at all; he really did think they were going to be Fat Jack and Maureen part II.
‘No, Phil,’ she said slowly, but decisively. She didn’t want to go to Italy with him. He didn’t
belong
there with her. ‘Please, sign the papers.’
‘I just wanted it to be back like it was between us, Lou. I might have been a bit heavy-handed, but we were so good together once, weren’t we? We could be again. That’s all I wanted. I thought I was a good husband. I’ve never hit you, have I? I’m not mean with my money, am I? I buy you flowers, don’t I? We have great holidays–five-star always. And look at our house–it’s gorgeous. This kitchen cost twenty-eight grand Lou–all for you.’
He could be a good husband, he knew he could. Better than most. And he was still on the way up so there was so much more to come for them. But Lou
looked anything but impressed by his marital
CV
. She was shaking her head slowly and he
knew
he’d slipped from her heart. He’d gone too far. Their clock couldn’t be turned back.
Like an accelerated course in grief, Phil had gone through denial, anger, and sadness that morning–and all that was left for him now was acceptance.
He sighed, took the pen, got the divorce papers out of the envelope and signed them quickly, trying not to think what he was doing. Lou checked them over and tucked them into her bag, then she rested her chequebook on her knee and scribbled. Finally she stood to go, handing him over a folded cheque.
‘Thanks for the tea,’ she said, even though she hadn’t touched it. Phil seemed such a stranger, part of an old life which was now ended–a life that could have been so much better for them both if only they had tried harder. Oh yes,
both
of them–for she had played her own part in the downfall of her marriage. Like Maureen, she’d
let
her husband do those things to her. She didn’t stop them happening. She’d allowed him more than his fair share of the sunlight and let him push her deep into the shadows. Thank goodness she hadn’t left it too late to walk away.
As Phil’s hand came out for the cheque he said quietly, ‘I love you, Lou Winter. Please don’t throw us away.’
Lou’s breath caught in her throat. He sounded so desperate, so pitiable.
‘You wouldn’t have treated me like you did if you’d really loved me,’ she said, surprising herself with the strength in her voice.
‘I do love you. In my own way, I love you so much.’
In my own way
. There was nothing more to be said. It was so over.
‘Goodbye, Phil.’
As Lou walked out of 1, The Faringdales for the last time, she didn’t look behind her to see Phil standing in the window watching her go, his eyes glassy with tears. She got in the car, slipped off the handbrake and drove off. Then she pulled up around the corner and sobbed.
Phil watched her go. He couldn’t articulate the feelings inside him as she and her silver car drove out of his life for ever. There was something big blocking his windpipe that wouldn’t be coughed away. He’d been so caught up in the moment that he had forgotten all about the cheque, which he now picked up–to find that it was totally blank on the cheque side. Then he noticed two things–the first that the printed name on the cheque was
Ms E.A. Casserly
, the second was the writing on the back of the cheque.
Blue eyes + blue eyes = brown eyes. Not very likely.
He stared at it for a full minute wondering whether to get in his car and chase Lou and ask her what the hell she was playing at when she had promised him thirty grand. Then his brain began to work with the facts available. He remembered something he’d seen on the television–some medical thing–
Casualty
. Or was it a documentary? Family secrets coming to light when a father offered a kidney to save the life of his son. There was a connection with the colour of eyes that he couldn’t quite remember. Then it started to come to him as through a fog.
The bitch. The bloody duplicitous sneaky bitch!!
His soon-to-be ex-wife was forgotten as he made a frenzied leap for the telephone and stabbed in the short dial to the bank.
‘Which department, please?’ asked the switchboard lady.
‘I want to stop a cheque–NOW!’ said Phil.