Deranged Marriage (16 page)

The buzzer interrupted my thoughts and as Freddie announced himself over the intercom I let him in.

I could hear him bounding up the stairs, and he stood at the door looking like the cat who got the cream.

‘Let me in,’ he said, impatiently, as he pushed past me.

‘Why the big grin?’ I asked.

‘Just had a good shag last night, you know.’

‘Actually, I do. Who was she?’

‘No one you’d know.’ Freddie coloured slightly, suggesting the opposite of his words.

‘It better not be anyone at work or I’ll castrate you.’

‘Course not,’ Freddie replied, filling the kettle.

‘So?’ I pulled two cups out of the cupboard and reached for the instant coffee.

‘Instant? You are so bourgeois,’ Freddie said.

‘I’m not sure that you mean that. I thought instant was common.’

‘Actually. bourgeois is the new common.’

‘So, no more details?’

‘Nope. What about you? How is life in the land of the romantics?’

‘Perfect. It’s been so nice since the court appearance. First off I am relaxed, and second Joe and I are happy and I don’t snap at him all the time and, of course, George is nowhere to be seen.’

‘Holly, touch wood quickly, I hate it when you say things like that, it’s like you’re tempting fate.’ I humoured him by touching wood.

‘Sorry. And the other thing is that I’ve stopped being sick.’

‘I didn’t know you were being sick.’

‘Oh yes, practically every day, it was the stress. Anyway, it’s stopped now.’ I smiled, Freddie didn’t.

‘Holly, you know I teased you the other day about putting on weight?’

‘Yeah, but that was stress too, anyway, it’s barely noticeable.’

‘I know. But...well I thought you might take up smoking again, you know when George was stressing you out.’

‘I did, but I couldn’t bear the taste, just shows how effective giving up was.’

The kettle had boiled and I made the coffee. He was leaning against the cooker looking perplexed. I handed him the coffee.

‘Can I ask you something without you shouting at me?’ he said.

I nodded, confused by the strange look that had appeared on his face. ‘As long as it’s not about the fact that I’ve put on weight. I feel bad enough about that already.’ I giggled, Freddie didn’t.

‘Holly, can you in any way be pregnant?’

‘What?’ I laughed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, I’m on the pill.’

‘And you take it regularly?’

‘Like clockwork, you know how organised I am. I get out of bed in the morning, take a shower, then I drink a glass of fruit juice and take my pill before getting dressed. Freddie, why did you say that?’

‘When was your last period?’

‘Don’t...’ I was about to tell him that I didn’t know, and then I remembered I
didn’t
know. Stress can be insidious, I know, I’ve seen what it can do. People lose their hair and all sorts, and I was really under stress. I had been trying to come to terms with my best friend turning into a madman, then it was the harassment, then the court threats. Almost three months of torture. Shit, three months.

‘Holly, please, tell me. I had this hunch...I thought you looked, well you look different, if you’ve missed your period do a test.’ I looked at him, surprised that he would be the one to notice such things. Even if he was totally wrong. ‘Hol, don’t look at me like that, my sister was pregnant last year remember, she phoned me up daily as soon as she found out with symptoms. I never thought her harassing me would come in handy, but it has.’

‘Freddie, I told you, I’m on the pill, and anyway, stress can affect you in many ways you know.’

Freddie had grabbed his coat and abandoned his coffee. ‘Where are you going?’ I asked, confused, scared, and unsure. ‘I’m going to buy you a pregnancy test kit.’

‘I don’t need one.’

‘I think you do.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Tell me when your last period was and I’ll stay.’ He looked at me with concern and a bit of impatience. I shrugged as I looked back at him, then watched him leave the flat.

I clutched my coffee waiting for him to return, but I didn’t drink it. It was all so absurd. How could I be pregnant? I’d know. I’m sure I’d know. There was no way on earth that I wouldn’t know something that big. I hadn’t even put on much weight, just a few pounds. Freddie was being melodramatic.

The coffee cup slipped from my hand as something entered my mind. I walked to the sink to get a cloth but I held on to it for dear life. No! I screamed to myself. This could not happen. There were too many things, no, too many bad things. I was not pregnant, because I would know if I was.

It seemed like hours before Freddie came back, and I had mopped up the spilt coffee and regained some of my composure. Freddie had scared me, but that was all, and as soon as I took his negative pregnancy test I would then go to the doctor and tell him about the stress and see what he could do for me. Everything would be sorted, Freddie was definitely wrong.

‘Holly, you know I care about you, and I’m not doing this to try to hurt you?’ he said as he handed the package to me. I smiled and busied myself reading the instructions, but although I knew that there was no way I was pregnant, holding the test in my hand scared me.

‘Go pee on the stick,’ Freddie instructed.

‘I’m just reading the instructions and anyway I don’t know if I can pee to order.’

‘You’ve got one of the weakest bladders I’ve ever met, go on.’ He ushered me to the bathroom and stood there.

‘Well I can’t do it if you’re watching,’ I said.

‘I don’t want to watch, thank you,’ Freddie replied, and he smiled as he shut the door. Suddenly my bathroom seemed enormous, although it wasn’t. The loo was miles away, so I started walking towards it. I pulled the test out of the box and did as I was instructed, I peed on it. Then I washed my hands, wiped the arm of the test with a tissue, thinking how undignified it all felt. Surely modern science could come up with a more hygienic way of finding out if I was pregnant or not. I put down the loo seat and sat on it leaving the test on the side of the sink. Freddie knocked on the door.

‘I’m coming.’ I went and opened the door.

‘Well?’

‘Give it a chance, you have to wait a couple of minutes.’

‘Is there a line?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What do you mean you don’t know?’

‘I can’t look.’

‘But if you’re so confident that you’re not pregnant, you wouldn’t mind looking.’

‘Fuck off Freddie. You look.’ All of a sudden, this huge implausibility was looking a tiny bit plausible. Then increasingly so as the test sat on the sink.

‘There’s a line,’ Freddie whispered.

‘Well then, it must be wrong. Faulty tests, you hear about them all the time.’

‘Lucky I got you another one then.’

‘Well I can’t pee again.’

We battled on for a bit, while I paced round the flat. I immediately gravitated back to the kitchen where I stared out of the window. I saw George. I blinked and looked again and realised he wasn’t there.

‘Holly, please, come on. Have a drink of water and try again.’ Freddie was being sweet which worried me because although I adore him, he’s not a sweet person.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Why what?’

‘Why are you so convinced that I’m pregnant.’

‘It adds up. Firstly you get sick, then you stop, and you put on weight, and you haven’t had a period and you don’t like the taste of cigarettes. I recognise those symptoms.’

‘But you’re not an expert are you?’

‘My sister remember. I am not doing this to torture you, but if you are pregnant, and if you have been for a while, then you need to know.’

‘Did you think about this before today?’

‘No. I thought there was something, but it was only today it fitted into place. Holly, please, I might be wrong, humour me. Do another test.’

I obliged, and although it took longer for me to pee this time, I did eventually. Once I’d finished, I wiped the test again, washed my hands and left the room. Freddie walked into the bathroom as I walked out. There wasn’t enough time for me to think about it, there wasn’t enough time for me to feel anything.

I was too busy trying not to cry.

I sat on the sofa, and Freddie walked in. ‘You’re pregnant.’

‘I’m...I’m not.’ I burst into tears. Freddie came to sit beside me and hugged me.

‘Two tests, and don’t say it was a faulty batch because I got two different brands.’

‘They could still be wrong,’ I looked at him as a child would, trying to get him to take it all back.

‘They’re pretty accurate Hol.’

‘You don’t understand, I can’t be pregnant.’

‘Why not? You’ve got Joe. George has gone, Joe loves you, and you love him. What’s the problem?’

‘Did I tell you that when George issued the court summons, Joe asked me to marry him?’

‘No, you didn’t.’

‘Well he did and I said no because he only wanted to marry me to stop George from having a leg to stand on in this court case.

‘You did the right thing.’

‘Yes, but then after the case he asked me again. He said he wanted to marry me more than anything, he said that although he’d asked for the wrong reasons the first time, he now knew it was the right thing to do.’

‘Well that’s brilliant isn’t it? He won’t mind about the baby as he’s already made a commitment to you for the rest of your lives.’

‘Freddie, those tests, they don’t tell you how pregnant you are do they?’

‘No, but it can’t be much.’

‘It’s at least two months since my last period, maybe three.’

‘So?’

‘So, I don’t know...I mean I can’t be sure who the father is.’ The tears had stopped now and the fear started. I had uttered words I never thought I would ever utter. Freddie had his arm round my shoulders; he squeezed my hand, looked at me.

‘I think you better explain.’

‘Remember at the beginning of December when George first came home?’ Freddie was looking at me oddly, but he nodded. ‘Well, remember I told you he tried to kiss me?’ Again, he nodded. ‘I lied.’ I stood up and walked over to the window. ‘He didn’t try to kiss me, I let him. He initiated it, but I let him. Then I let him take me to bed, and I let him...’ My body rocked with tears.

‘You had sex with George?’

‘Yes, and I still don’t know why. That’s why I didn’t tell you, or tell anyone. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so stupid, so used or so humiliated. I didn’t do it because I wanted to, but I don’t know why I did. I didn’t stop him, I didn’t protest. I let him and I even...oh shit, I even orgasmed.’ I was crying too much to continue.

‘Shit! Shit, Holly.’ Freddie came to the window and hugged me.

‘Afterwards I blocked it out. I almost convinced myself that I didn’t do it. I felt wretched for Joe, how could I have done that to him? The week after, he told me he loved me and I told him I loved him and I did and I do. That wasn’t a lie. And after I’d slept with George, he told me about Julia and his plan to marry her and how he just wanted to check that I wasn’t the one for him. And then he said I wasn’t. So I thought that he would marry her and I’d be with Joe and we’d be all right, no one need ever know about it.

‘But then George came back and even then I blocked it out, I never admitted it to myself even when he told me I had to marry him. The court case and everything, I really thought he might sue me and I thought that maybe he’d win and it was all so horrible because all I wanted was to be thirty, to be grown up and to be in love and that all happened but then it all went wrong and now I’m pregnant and I don’t know who the father is.’

Freddie looked as if he wanted to cry. ‘Holly, that was back in the beginning of December. That would make you just over three months’ pregnant. Surely you can’t be that pregnant, you’d have noticed.’

‘You think so? Everything adds up. I am on the pill and I was then, and I have no idea how it failed, but it did. I can’t be sure how pregnant I am, and until I am sure I won’t know if I can be sure about the father. I feel like such a slut.’

‘You’re not a slut.’

‘How can you say that?’

‘Because I know you, and I don’t understand this weird bond you have with George, but I can almost understand that you would do what you did without meaning to.’

‘No one else will understand though will they? Joe won’t.’

‘I have no idea.’

‘What am I going to do?’

‘You’re going to have a relaxing bath, I’m going to make lunch, then we’ll talk.’

‘OK.’

I lay in the bath covered with soothing bubbles. I touched my stomach but it didn’t feel different. My boobs had grown a bit I think, but not much. If anyone would have noticed that I guess it would have been Joe and he hadn’t said anything. But then most men would know better than to draw their girlfriends’ attention to the fact that she’d put on weight. I tried to pull myself together, as I seemed to have been doing for the last couple of months. Life was disrupting but this was way beyond that. I didn’t know how I felt about the baby, because I didn’t know whose it was. I needed to see a doctor, and I needed that doctor to tell me that I was only two months’ pregnant because then the baby would be Joe’s. If that were the case then I could put the whole sorry mess behind me and carry on as planned.

We’d have a shotgun wedding. Me resplendent in white with a huge bump and him looking smart in grey or in a morning suit or maybe black tie. A black-tie wedding would be nice. Everyone would look smart and no one would be wearing floral monstrosities. I guess I wouldn’t be able to get drunk, but that would be a good thing because then I would remember the whole day perfectly. I would carry lilies, the ones that looked like trumpets because they always reminded me of winter. And I’d have a faux fur-lined coat, and I’d look like the snow queen, although I am not sure if she was a goody or a baddy but I’d be a good snow queen. That was it, I could focus on the wedding because the baby would be Joe’s and we’d be a family. We would be a family before we planned to be, but that didn’t mean that we wouldn’t be happy. I just knew we’d be really happy.

But, if my worst fears were confirmed and I had no idea who the father was, then would I feel differently? Should I have an abortion, get rid of it before it begins to disrupt my life? I pinched myself hard at thinking such a cruel thought, but then I tried to cut myself some slack. The only innocent party in all this was the baby. And I had no doubt that it was a baby. I even thought of it as so. I have never believed in the anti-abortionist lobby. I would rather a child wasn’t brought into the world if it weren’t going to be loved, but all of a sudden I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I wanted this baby. I couldn’t comprehend not having it, with or without Joe as the father.