One Night Stand (38 page)

Authors: Julie Cohen

She straightened up and rejoined me on the leather couch.

‘Why did you want to be like me?’ she asked me. ‘You were Stanley’s favourite. And Sheila’s. They were ashamed of me.’

‘You always seemed so free, and beautiful. You could do what you wanted and get away with it.’

‘But you said what I wanted was selfish.’

‘That’s exactly why you’re so free.’

‘It’s also why I’m alone,’ she said.

We were quiet for another moment. I didn’t feel angry at her any more. I felt sorry for her. Love hurt and made you worried and frightened. But it was better than the alternative.

‘I didn’t have sex with Hugh,’ she said suddenly.

I looked away from Jojo and at her. ‘What?’

‘I wanted to. He’s very tasty. We were hammered on whisky that night. He brought me home and we carried on drinking and I took my dress off and dropped it on the floor. He picked it up and gave it back to me.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘No. He said -’ June smiled, rather theatrically, the expression she got when she knew she was the centre of attention.

‘He made me promise to keep it a secret,’ she said. ‘But I can’t keep secrets, and besides, I don’t want to. He said that he couldn’t have sex with me because he was in love with you.’

I stared at her.

‘But - that’s not right. Hugh slept with lots of women. And he and I hadn’t even—’

I stopped before I gave away the secrets of my love life.

‘Oh, Ellie doll, he told me all about it. We were completely pissed. He said he’d been in love with you for seven years or something like that. Ever since he’d met you. And that all the other girls were a distraction.’

I couldn’t say anything.

‘All blondes, he said they were. And redheads. Never a brunette like you.’ She reached over and tousled my hair. ‘Or like me. I guess it was too much of a reminder for him. Let me tell you, I was horribly annoyed with you, darling. You ruined my fun without even knowing. No wonder I was tempted to get my own back.’

‘That can’t be right,’ I said. ‘Hugh can’t be in love with me. Because—’

Because if Hugh was in love with me, if Hugh had been in love with me all along, he hadn’t broken my heart.

I’d done that all by myself.

The doorbell rang. The police. June and I stood up at the same time to answer it, except when I stood, I was seized by a wave of pain across my belly and back that travelled up to my head and down to my feet, stealing my breath.

I clutched my stomach, which had gone rock hard, till the contraction passed. Then I straightened up and my brain started working again, realising where I was, who was with me, who wasn’t with me, and that my baby had evidently heard me when I’d asked him or her to hurry up and be born.

‘Oh, shit,’ I said.

I had just about caught my breath and begun to look around me when another contraction came, which meant they were less than five minutes apart, which meant that the baby really was planning on being born soon. I held on to the back of the couch, bent over it, staring down at the cushions and trying to breathe through the tightness and pain.

I need to get to the phone
, I thought.
To call Hugh
.

Except it wasn’t Hugh I had to call. It was Reuben.

The contraction finished, leaving me doubled over the couch. Wanting Hugh. His big hands on my back, massaging. His calm voice in my ear. His excitement and his compassion.

His love, which I’d thrown back in his face by choosing Reuben.

I heard the click-click of June’s high heels on the floor and the softer, heavier tread of someone with her, obviously a police officer.

‘What’s going on?’ the police officer said, and I thought I must be going through some sort of labour-related madness because he sounded exactly like Hugh.

I straightened up and turned around.

It wasn’t a police officer. It was Hugh.

Wonderful, beautiful Hugh, his hair rumpled, his shirt unironed, his hand clutching a copy of
The Throbbing Member of Parliament.

I was so relieved to see him that my eyes filled with tears.

He ran to me. ‘Eleanor, are you having contractions?’

I nodded and another one hit me and all I could do was stand and try my best to breathe.

‘Steady, El,’ Hugh said, putting his arms around me. ‘Slow and easy, that’s it, good girl. June, have you called an ambulance?’

‘We’re waiting for the police,’ she said, and though I was staring at Hugh’s shoulder, trying to breathe slowly and not to sob, I could tell that he had spotted Jojo on the floor.

He didn’t let me go, but he did say, ‘What the hell is that?’

‘That’s why we’re waiting for the police,’ June answered. There was another knock at the door. ‘Oh, here they are now,’ she trilled, and went off again.

The contraction passed. I relaxed my grip on Hugh’s arms a little bit. But not much, because it felt too good to touch him.

‘Why did you come?’ I asked him.

‘It’s a bloody good thing I did, I don’t fancy your chances of getting through labour successfully with only June and a bloke bound up in gaffer tape to help you.’

‘But why did you come?’

‘I finally read your book,’ he said. ‘I had to ask you what it meant.’

‘The Chancellor—’ I began, but then another contraction came and all I could do was hold on.

‘’Ello, ’ello, ’ello, what ’ave we ’ere?’ I thought I heard a policeman say, but I couldn’t swear to it because my spasming midsection was forcing all the blood into my head where it roared in my ears, so I thought I was probably making it up.

‘We need to get to the hospital, she’s in labour,’ I did hear Hugh say. My contraction finished, I looked up and saw I had made up all the ’ello ’ello stuff because the policeman was a woman.

‘And the man on the floor in gaffer tape?’ she asked.

‘He’s a criminal,’ I said, ‘you need to arrest him.’

Jojo struggled and kicked and grunted.

‘And,’ June said, directing her words at Jojo, ‘he’s got a really small penis.’

‘Listen, we need to get Eleanor to the hospital,
now
,’ Hugh said.

The policewoman looked at me, and then looked at Jojo, and then she looked at Hugh and June. ‘I’ll call for back-up,’ she said, and lifted her radio.

I missed what happened after that because another contraction came and all I could understand was Hugh holding me, smoothing my hair, and murmuring words of encouragement. I leaned into him and breathed through the pain, and when I opened my eyes again he was looking steadily at me. The same way as he’d looked at me for the past seven years. When we’d laughed, when we’d argued, when we’d made love.

‘I heard that you’re in love with me,’ I said.

His grip tightened.

‘What does your book mean, Eleanor?’

‘What on earth is going on here?’

It was Reuben. I tore my gaze away from Hugh and saw him striding into the room. A policeman followed him.

‘She’s having the baby,’ Hugh told him.

‘My ex tried to knife me,’ June added.

‘I’ve made a horrible mistake,’ I said.

‘Right,’ cut in the policewoman, evidently used to dealing with crazy people, ‘let’s get this lady to hospital. I can take you, madam, and one other person, and the rest of you are going to have to stay and explain this man on the floor to PC Unwin. Are you the father?’ she asked Hugh.

‘I am,’ Reuben said, stepping forward.

My body chose that moment to have another contraction but I used it as an excuse to cling on to Hugh as hard as I could. He rubbed my back and spoke soothingly in my ear and when I was done I didn’t let him go.

‘Reuben,’ I gasped, ‘I’m sorry. You’ve been brilliant about this whole baby thing but I’ve made a mistake.’

He frowned. ‘What do you mean? Do you mean it’s not mine after all?’

‘Oh, it’s yours. But it’s just as much Hugh’s. Hugh’s been with me since the beginning. He’s helped me and he’s treated me as if I were carrying his child. And I’ve made up my mind.’

I took a deep breath, willing the next contraction not to start until I’d said what I needed to.

‘You can see this baby as much as you want, and be as much of a father as you’d like to be. But I’m moving back to Reading as soon as I’ve had the baby. And I want Hugh with me when I give birth, because I want Hugh to be my child’s daddy.’

Reuben had tried. He really had. But he couldn’t hide the expression on his face at that moment, and it was pure relief.

‘Eleanor,’ Hugh said, and I turned to him.

‘You’re the Chancellor,’ I told him, and then another contraction hit me, stronger than all the rest, and I screamed.

‘Right, we’re going now,’ said the policewoman, and she took one of my arms across her shoulders and helped Hugh help me out of the flat and down the stairs.

‘I’ll bring your bag,’ Reuben called after us. I glanced back and saw him standing in the doorway. June pushed past him and shouted.

‘Good luck, sweetness! And remember, ask for all the drugs you can because it really bloody hurts!’

It wasn’t till we were in the back of the police car, the blue lights flashing as we threaded through Chelsea traffic, that I could turn to Hugh.

‘My book means I love you,’ I said to him. ‘I think I always have and I never knew it. I never knew you loved me, too.’

‘That first day at university,’ he said, his voice shaking but strong. ‘You opened the door and that was it. I’ve loved you ever since, even though you’ve driven me crazy. I couldn’t leave you. I couldn’t say anything in case it meant I lost you. I’ve stood by and watched and I’ve waited and I’ve tried to settle for second best, but it was never enough. And when you told me you were pregnant, all I could think was that your child should have been mine.’

He pulled me into his arms so tightly I thought he would never let me go.

‘It is yours,’ I told him. ‘We both are.’

The First Day

Epilogue

She was red and blue and wrinkled and I had never seen anything more beautiful.

The midwife wrapped her in a blanket, my daughter, and gave her to me. Her dark eyes opened and blinked at me.

‘Hello,’ I whispered to her.

Hugh, beside me, as always, pulled his chair closer. ‘She looks like you,’ he said, and reached out a gentle hand. The baby opened her fist and grasped his finger.

‘Emily May,’ I said.

‘Emily May,’ he repeated, and the name in his voice made it all seem more true. ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Emily May.’

I watched him watching her. I knew the expression on his face because I’d seen it every day for the past seven years.

‘For a writer, I’m spectacularly unobservant,’ I said, and Hugh smiled at me.

‘You got there in the end.’