Deranged Marriage (21 page)

I looked at her. ‘They’ll freak.’

‘No they won’t, not if we explain things to them properly. Holly I am not worried about our clients leaving us over this, anyway I am certain that won’t happen, but only if we’re honest with them in the first place.’ Francesca looked serious, the situ-ation was serious but at least she hadn’t fired me. I probably would have fired me.

The thought of calling all my clients filled me with dread. Actually the thought of talking to Joe did as well. There was a lot of dread about. My increasing body weight was dread. However, I knew that I had to do it. Both things.

‘Can we work out an official line?’

‘What for Joe, or for your clients?’ Freddie quipped.

‘Both,’ I replied.

Francesca said I was to tell our clients the story from my point of view. It didn’t sound too bad in the retelling, or should I say in our interpretation. I was going to warn them that George would be portraying me in the worst light he could, whilst protesting my innocence. It was complicated. I was going to tell them that George was in the grip of madness and believed we should enforce a marriage pact made ten years earlier. Then warn them that he would probably tell of an incident that passed between us, when we both had too much to drink. I was to assure them that the whole press invasion, if it were to come to that, was a highly exaggerated chain of events. I wouldn’t tell them about the pregnancy just yet, as we were still keeping it under wraps but I would promise them that whatever happened, their interests would be looked after as well as ever. I had to persuade them to stick with us because I knew that although Francesca was fantastically supportive, if I lost clients over this then I wouldn’t have a job.

I would tell them that any press invasion would not affect my professional life and I would explain that Freddie and Francesca would personally be ensuring that. Finally I would beg them to stay, if necessary. I might have to take the same line with Joe.

‘Can you take a paternity test now?’ Francesca asked. I hadn’t told them about what the doctor said, although I wasn’t sure why.

‘No, I’ve been told it’s dangerous for the baby. I could lose it and anyway apparently there are some ethical issues as well. My gynaecologist said I would have to wait until after the birth.’

‘That’s bad.’ Freddie looked upset.

I just shook my head, but deep down I was relieved. How can I explain? I didn’t want the baby to be George’s. I couldn’t cope with what that would mean for the future. For a start it would mean no more Joe, although I think that was going to be the case anyway. It was too confusing and too complicated and even if I could have a test, I didn’t want to find out that the baby was George’s and the way my luck was going, I believed a paternity test would confirm my worst fears.

‘How will Joe feel about that?’ Francesca asked.

‘To be honest, I think that Joe is going to be upset about the fact I slept with another guy and that will preoccupy his thoughts first of all. Then, he’ll want to know, but not at the expense of the baby’s health, although I am not sure I can say the same for George. Shit, I can just imagine George turning up with some horrible, private doctor who will do anything for money and demanding we take a test and then hurting my baby.’ This scene became so vivid in my thoughts that I became slightly hysterical.

‘OK, I vote we keep the baby issue from the press, and from George, for as long as possible. You’re barely showing any signs of pregnancy, so no one would guess.’ Francesca tried to reassure me, but I wasn’t convinced.

‘But I have hospital appointments and antenatal and stuff like that. Actually I have no idea what I have to do but I will have to go out.’

‘Just wear baggy clothes. I think the best thing is to hope that the press interest dies down before anyone finds out about the baby.’

‘Francesca, I think I should resign.’ My stomach was knotted and I just couldn’t see how any of this could make any sense to anyone: clients, Joe or me.

‘No way. You have worked hard and successfully for my company and now you need this job more than ever. I’m going to set you up to work from home. Freddie will run the office side of things and we’ll hire other people if we need them. After all it is time we expanded the business.’ I loved the way Francesca was making out I was almost doing her a favour.

‘I’m worried about my clients, they’ll probably go elsewhere.’ In my mind, the conversation with my clients had gone badly: ‘I’m sorry Holly but we can’t have someone as loose as you working for us, especially as you’re in the media. We have reputations to uphold and your actions will reflect on us adversely. Therefore we are rescinding our account with Francesca Williams PR, effective immediately.’ They would all say exactly the same.

‘No they won’t. None of this questions your professional judgement. What we’ll do is convince them that we’ll plug them whenever we can. It’s all publicity after all. You’ve got a pretty good relationship with them, and they value you, so you know that they’ll be fine. We just need to ensure that we explain the situation and they don’t find out from anyone else. Call them when Freddie has found out when the story is going to break, not before. And Holly, go home. Take the laptop, I’ll send someone over to install the e-mail network, another phone line and anything else necessary. Is that all right?’

‘Francesca thank you so much. I don’t know how I’m going to get through this but your support and Freddie’s means the world to me.’ Fresh tears streamed down my flushed cheeks.

‘Shit, you can tell she’s hormonal,’ Freddie said. Francesca smiled.

‘When the story breaks, we’ll issue a press release giving our side. We know the media, and we know it has the attention span of a gnat. We’ll ride the short storm and then one day we’ll look back and laugh. Well, maybe we will.’ Francesca squeezed my hand. She should have been sainted for letting me stay on.

Dixie booked me a cab and I went home feeling slightly better. At least I had a job, I wasn’t going to be a ‘single mother on social’ cliché. Which I know sounds snobby, but at least I could afford my child, even though it hadn’t been planned. If I needed to salvage something from this, it was a tiny vestige of pride. That gave it to me. But what I needed to do next would take it away.

I got home and changed out of my office clothes into a pair of grey exercise leggings and a hooded sweatshirt. Then I set my laptop up on the small wooden dining table that sat behind my sofa in the living room. I grabbed a faux suede cushion from the sofa and wedged it behind me on the wooden chair. My new office. I inserted the lead into the laptop then plugged it into the wall. I stopped there, there was no point in switching it on because I couldn’t focus on work and besides I didn’t know what work I should be doing. Instead, I rooted around in a drawer until I found a pen and pad, then I sat back into the cushion and started writing a list.

Lists, I find, give clarity and focus. I also believe that they give me a semblance of control. The first part of my list consisted of everyone I needed to tell about the situation: Joe, my parents (who I was still seeing at the weekend, although not to announce my engagement any more but to tell them that their daughter was knocked up and didn’t know who the father was). At this point my list broke down as I broke down. My actions would hurt so many people. I stopped thinking about myself for a moment and thought of others. When I returned to the list, I wrote my sister’s name, and Lisa’s. Actually Lisa wasn’t someone I would worry about, but I knew Imogen would be full of disapproval. Imogen had always been an angel. An angel that liked to tell her younger sister what to do.

I thought for a second how much easier I could make this by having an abortion. It was late, I knew that, and when the doctor had mentioned it I fobbed him off. Probably because I worried that if I thought about it for more than a second it might be a good option, or at least an easy one. But I couldn’t. I had never been broody, but all of a sudden I felt totally maternal. There was one overriding certainty in the whole mess, and that was that as soon as I found out I was pregnant I wanted the baby. When my thoughts were just tuned on that, I felt euphoric. When they strayed to the practical side of my life, I was desolate.

Time seemed to pass so slowly. I was at home by lunchtime, and although it seemed like hours it was only minutes. I had never felt such loneliness as I did now. There was only one thing for it. I had over five hours to get through before Joe was coming round; the only person I could talk to was my baby.

I didn’t know if it was a bit too soon to be chatting to my unborn child, but I felt comfortable with the thought. It was a bit weird at first, not knowing what to say, but I soon got the hang of it.

‘Hello, little bump. I saw you yesterday, and you looked a bit like a new potato but I know that you are going to be beautiful.’ I felt very emotional. I was talking to someone that I didn’t know, but who would soon take over my life. ‘I haven’t given you the best start that I could, but I promise you that I will get better. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I’d never intentionally hurt you. I am afraid that your welcome to the world might be in the public eye a bit. I will do everything to avoid it, but if that’s the case then we will deal with it. I want to tell you about your father, but all I can say is that it’s one of two men; one I love deeply as a lover and the other I used to love deeply as a friend. I hope and pray that Joe is your father because he’s so wonderful and if you can be a bit like him, then you will be very special. I will bring you up the best I can.’ I wiped away the tears.

‘But I have got lots of love and you’ll get it all, and more, and whatever happens I will protect you. Hopefully I will give you a good life and I promise that although I might be very sad at the moment I will laugh a lot, because laughter is so important. Your maternal grandparents will love you too. I don’t know if you’ll ever meet your other grandparents, it scares me to think about that, so I am sorry, but I will sort it out when you come into the world properly. And in the meantime I promise to look after myself, which means that I’ll take care of you.’ The tears streaming down my face stopped me in my tracks, then the buzzer went.

Not expecting anyone, I answered the intercom to be told there was a delivery for me. I waited at the open door, and was presented with a basket of things. It was from Francesca. In the basket were a whole load of vitamin supplements and a book on pregnancy by Dr Miriam Stoppard. The courier looked terrified as I sobbed while signing his docket.

I think it was a relief that I had a package to focus on, because I had really run out of conversation with my belly. Then I did what I always did when I felt low; I tucked myself into bed and read. This time I was reading about pregnancy.

I could have skipped quite a lot, like the section on deciding to conceive and how to conceive, but I read it. I wanted to devour every word. I was still reading it when the buzzer went again. I looked outside, it was dark. I then realised that the buzzer was telling me Joe was here.

I knew I looked a mess, but there was nothing I could do or wanted to do about that. This wasn’t the sort of conversation when you needed to look glamorous. It wasn’t the sort of conversation you normally had, full stop. As I watched Joe appear from the stairs, I looked at him long and hard because I knew that I might need to memorise his beautiful face in case I didn’t get to see it again.

So much can change in the space of a few days. I had gone from being engaged to the man I loved, to here. With the days’ tears still etched into my face I saw him look at me questioningly, I let him into the flat, sat him down with a glass of wine and prepared to answer his questions. He was wearing a black V-necked jumper over a pair of black Prada trousers. Joe had more designer clothes than I had, and I used to tease him about that. Tease him about how scary it was for a girl to be worse dressed than her man most of the time. I wondered if I ever would again. If there would be any more of that intimate familiarity. His hair was shorter than normal, he must have just had it cut. Would I see it grow longer? I resisted the urge to touch it.

‘Holly, what’s wrong?’ He sat on the sofa and drank his wine. At that moment I would have loved a glass, but resisted the temptation. I was drinkless. He pulled out his cigarettes and I went to get him an ashtray. Again, I had the urge to light up, more because I knew it might calm the storm that was raging in my stomach. I hoped my baby wasn’t going to get sea-sick.

‘Joe, you have to listen to me. I need to tell you something and I need you to promise to listen to every word I say. This might be the most important conversation of our lives.’

‘Shit Hol, you sound so dramatic.’ He didn’t know the half of it.

Then he did. My words tumbled out, but they carried the whole truth. I left nothing out, my honesty was brutal. When I had finished I saw that his eyes were moist.

‘You slept with George?’

‘Yes.’

‘When we argued?’

‘Yes.’

‘And now...you’re pregnant?’

‘Yes, Joe.’

‘And you can’t be sure who the father is?’

‘Not without tests.’ I was struggling, the tears that wouldn’t go away were waiting to return and I was feeling sick and dizzy. It was all I could manage.

‘And George is going to the papers with the marriage-pact story.’

‘Looks that way.’

‘And he doesn’t know you’re pregnant.’

‘No. But I have a feeling I can’t keep it from him forever.’

‘You know that when he finds out he’ll hound you even more. He’ll be convinced that it’s his baby and he’ll use it to try to get you to marry him.’

‘I know.’

‘I want a test,’ he said, suddenly. I looked at him and a pang of love shot through me.

‘I can’t, it might harm the baby, or even bring on a miscarriage. We can’t find out until it’s born. Joe, what do you want to do?’

‘I don’t know. I have no idea. I never in a million years imagined that I would be having this conversation with you.’

‘Me either.’

‘I need to leave now.’

‘Of course you do.’ We stared at each other for as long as we could bear it, and then we both turned away. He stood up and very hesitantly he walked out of the flat. He faltered as if his feet might change their minds and turn around; but he never looked back at me, not once.