An Autumn Crush (28 page)

She didn’t answer and he took that as a sign she daren’t tell him he was right and that she did have a great time with Piers Rumpole-Kavanagh. He sighed heavily and stood.

‘I’ll go. I’ve made a cock of myself. Or rather “a knob”. Yet again.’

‘I love you as well,’ Juliet blurted out in a very wobbly voice. ‘I don’t know how or when it happened but it did and I’ve been miserable as sin since you told me
that you and Chianti were going out.’

‘You are fucking joking,’ said Steve, raking his hand through his hair. ‘I’m sorry for swearing. I’m in shock. Bloody hell.’ He sat back down on the sofa
again before he fell, because his legs suddenly felt as shaky as Juliet’s voice.

‘No, I’m not joking. And you are the least knobbish person I know,’ said Juliet, loving it as Steve reached out for her hand and held it tenderly, then raised it to his lips
and kissed it. He made her feel delicate. No one had ever made her feel like that before.

‘I can’t take this in,’ said Steve. His eyes were filling up with tears. ‘What a barmy bastard week this has been. What next?’

‘Steve.’ Juliet took a deep breath.
In for a penny
. . . She might as well tell him everything. ‘Steve, I’m pregnant. By you.’

He was now gripping onto her fingers as if they were the only thing keeping him from falling off a cliff.

‘A little baby us,’ was all he said, before his tears broke out, making a large, wet and joyous exit from his blue, blue eyes.

In her room Floz was crying too, softly. It was over, finally. An email had appeared on her screen from a man she didn’t know – a Chas Hanson. The name was vaguely
familiar, but she couldn’t remember why. She had opened it to read:

Then she recalled that Chas was the name of the man who Nick had once told her was his oldest friend – the brother he had never had. That’s
why the name was familiar.

The next day Steve parked the hired Merc outside his mother’s semi and wondered if it would have any wheels on it when he saw it again. Even the fact that Steve was as
big as a brick shit-house wouldn’t have stopped a druggie having a go at breaking in to see if there was anything worth nicking and trading for a five-quid fix. It had been a tough enough
estate when he was growing up in it, but it did have a lot of decent – if poor – families living in it. Now it looked more like a landfill-site than a housing estate. Every time he came
here he felt claustrophobic from the weight of bad memories.

But today, nothing could dampen his spirits. Juliet Miller loved him and he was going to be a daddy. He felt the uplift of joy so strongly, he was convinced he could fly if he raised his arms.
His child would never have to go out in unwashed clothes with an empty stomach, and he or she would know what it was to be loved and protected.

Juliet had wanted to come with him that morning and see his mum. She wanted them to announce together that they were having a baby. Juliet thought she knew what to expect, but she didn’t.
In all the years they’d known each other, Steve hadn’t even let Guy over the threshold of his home. He loved his mother but he was ashamed of her and the state of the house. The
‘scruffy’ names he was called at school by some rotten kids still rang in his ears.

Despite spending so much time with Juliet recently, Steve hadn’t done it at the expense of neglecting his duties to his mum. But recently she seemed to have totally given up. He suspected
she didn’t even try to make it to the toilet any more or feed herself if he wasn’t there, but yet she always had access to booze.

‘Hello Steve,’ called Sarah Burrows, emerging from behind her scrubbed front door.

‘Hello, darlin’,’ returned Steve. ‘You and Denny all right?’

‘Yes, fine,’ said Sarah with a smile, too bright to be truly convincing. ‘I checked on your mum last night and took her some soup, but she didn’t eat much. I had to feed
it to her, Steve. But not much of it went in. I tried to clean her up . . .’

‘Oh, Sarah. You shouldn’t feel that you have to babysit her. I might have to move back in for a bit again.’

The thought of it filled him with dread, but over the years he’d had to do it occasionally. This time, he suspected that she wouldn’t have the strength to protest as she usually did.
Juliet would understand, of that he had no doubt.

‘I’ve seen Artie Paget’s lad delivering booze for her,’ said Sarah. ‘I hate to tell tales but I . . .’

Paget
,
Paget
,
Paget
. That damned name again. Another generation of Pagets intent on fucking up their lives.

‘Thanks for telling me, love. Give young Denny my best – and thanks, Sarah. Thank you for caring.’

The shrill
dring
of a cooker timer went off in the kitchen behind her. Probably to tell her that a thick, bubbling stew was ready for Denny’s lunch, thought Steve. Something to fill
her boy’s stomach, made with love. His eyes filled with water as soon as Sarah’s door closed.

His mother was wrecked on the sofa again.

‘Hiya, Mum,’ Steve said softly. He touched her hand and she pulled it away.

‘What do you want?’ she mumbled. ‘I haven’t got anything for you.’

‘It’s me, Mum – Steve. I’ve got some great news.’

‘Oh, it’s you.’ Christine Feast’s head nodded on her thin neck. He looked at her lolling back against the tatty orange sofa and the tears rolled from his eyes.
That’s the sight he remembered from every Christmas Day, his mum pissed and incapable, either with or without one of his transient stepdads in the same state. He lived on fish fingers that
he’d learned to fry for himself, in between the meals he got at the Millers’ table. He swore one day he’d have kids of his own and share in the childhood he’d never had. So
many times now, he’d imagined him and Juliet having those babies – and now they were. How he wanted his mum to share in his joy. She wasn’t that old. There was still time for her
to get better.

‘Mum, you’re going to be a grandma,’ he said. ‘My girlfriend’s having a baby.’

Mrs Feast opened her eyes but there was nothing behind them that told him she’d understood. Then she was seized by a cough that racked her emaciated body. Steve went into the scruffy
kitchen to get her a glass of water. He wondered how it could have got so messy so quickly. He’d scrubbed it the last time he’d been here, even wire-wooled all the muck out of the tile
grout. But he could never get rid of that rotting smell, however much bleach he used.

Mrs Feast leaned forward and started retching.

‘Here, Mum, there’s some water.’

She let him lift the glass to her lips. Her fingers closed around his as she drank; they were so cold despite the furnace of heat in the room. Then she started gasping for breath and clawing at
Steve’s shirt and desperately attempting to pull air into her lungs. And Steve didn’t even hesitate to ring an ambulance. At last the authorities might be able to do something for her
where he had failed.

There was a big difference in the Juliet Miller of Friday night, pre-Steve visit, and Saturday morning post-Steve leaving. In between her bouts of queasiness, Juliet was
wrapped up in a light and airy bubble of
luuurve
. She emerged from her bedroom stretching and floating like someone out of a Rock Hudson and Doris Day film.

‘Good morning, Floz. You can stop worrying about me now for I am in seventh heaven,’ said Juliet, seeing her flat-mate unloading the dishwasher in the kitchen.

‘Morning,’ replied Floz, busily flitting around the kitchen making coffee and slotting bread in the toaster so Juliet wouldn’t see how rough she looked. Her head was banging as
well. Brandy might have knocked her out, but it charged a price for the privilege. ‘Are you both okay?’

‘Steve’s gone to his mum’s to check on her. He wouldn’t let me go with him. I know she’s an alcoholic and I can imagine the state she’s in, but still . . .
she’ll be my baby’s grandma. I should meet her after all these years.’

‘Have you never seen her?’ asked Floz.

‘Never,’ replied Juliet.

‘Poor Steve,’ said Floz. ‘What made his mum end up like that?’

‘He never talked about it,’ said Juliet, appreciating then that Steve had never played the ‘poor me’ card, which he could have if he’d been a true attention-seeker.
‘Guy once told me that she came from a family of alcoholics herself. I expect she just followed what she knew. Some people don’t fight hard enough, do they? They just accept the path of
least resistance.’

Floz nodded. A picture of her ex-husband Chris crossed the front of her mind. They had so much pressure on them when they were married. Did he sleep better in a police cell with his stomach full
of strong lager than he ever had sober with responsibilities? Was alcohol really a maligned saviour?

‘When he gets back, we’re breaking the news to my mum and dad. I can’t imagine what they’ll think. There’s quite a lot for them to take in.’ Juliet reached
for her bottle of Gaviscon and gulped it from the bottle-neck. She’d never had heartburn before. What a bloody awful side-effect of pregnancy that was.

‘They’ll be thrilled,’ said Floz, turning to the fridge, giving Juliet little chance to see the heavy puffiness around her eyes.

Juliet dissolved into giggles. ‘Me and Steve Feast! Having a baby? Jesus, I didn’t see that one coming. I’m meeting Coco for lunch to tell him the good news. Fancy
coming?’

‘Thanks, but no. I’m spending the day writing Father’s Day cards,’ replied Floz.

‘That’s appropriate,’ laughed Juliet and disappeared into the bathroom.

Steve sat by his mam’s bed. In a hospital nightie, she looked cleaner than he could ever remember seeing her. She was unconscious and because of that he could take her
hand without her moving it away.

He thought she’d never liked him. He couldn’t ever remember her saying she loved him or giving him a kiss. Or holding his hand, and he’d so wanted her to take him by the hand
and lead him to school like all the other kids’ mams did.

He stroked her rough knuckles and curled her fingers round his own, pretending that she was holding him back. He knew it was pathetic to try and draw some love from her, as if she had any within
her to give him.

‘Mam, I’m going to be a dad,’ said Steve again, hoping she could hear him this time. ‘You’re going to be a nana. I bet you’ll like that, won’t you? I
bet that makes you well again and gives you something to want to live for.’

He knew when the baby arrived that he would shower it with cuddles and take it to school and give it memories of a parent with big loving hands who held it tightly because it was important. They
say you didn’t miss what you never had, but Steve Feast would have argued against that, because he had a gnawing ache in him for the warmth he had missed. He’d slept with loads of women
hoping to find affection, even for a little while. And he had – but it wouldn’t have compared to having his mam walk him to school one morning with his hand inside hers.

But Juliet Miller was different. With her he could almost forget the coldness of his past. Her feelings for him were honest and he loved the way her arms were possessive of him, even in sleep.
He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, make her his wife, give his baby a name and a home.

Steve held his mum’s limp hand, then with a sudden burst of consciousness she pulled it away. Then her chest buckled and machines started bleeping and nurses flooded in from all directions
and he was once again pushed away from her.

Steve phoned Guy at four. He didn’t ring Juliet because he didn’t want her in a hospital in her condition, around death. He wanted to look after Juliet, not for her
to have to look after him.

By the time Guy arrived at the hospital, Mrs Feast had gone. She would never see her grandchildren, she would never get well again. Steve sobbed on his shoulder, as Guy had sobbed on his once,
wanting to turn the clock back and take someone’s pain away, heal them, make them happy when they had no inclination to do it for themselves.

Perry and Grainne were absolutely delighted about the baby news, though a little shocked to hear that Steve was the father and that he and their daughter had been conducting a
‘secret romance’, which Juliet had decided to call it instead of a ‘shag-fest’. It was a confusing time though, with such lovely news to celebrate in the middle of such
sadness for Steve.

On the Monday night, Juliet awoke to find Steve sitting on the corner of her bed looking at an old picture of his mum as a much younger woman. She was posing for the camera in an overgrown
garden with her boy. Steve was holding his hand up to be taken; Mrs Feast’s hands were clasped in front of her.

‘Hey,’ said Juliet, her arms closing around him from the back. ‘Get some sleep.’

‘I should have done more to help her,’ sniffed Steve. ‘I should have forced her into a rehab place.’