Baby Blues and Wedding Shoes (21 page)

“Why not,” she shrugged. “I can delay
my flight another day.”

“Great!” Marcio was genuinely pleased.
He felt surprising gratitude for the words that had helped him come
to terms with being jilted and he was eager to return the favour,
nothing more.

“Where are you staying? I can pick you
up mid-morning. I’m assuming you didn’t hire a car?”

Helen told him the name of her hotel
and he took a note, forbearing to comment on its cheapness or seedy
location. As a single mum-to-be money was obviously tight. No
wonder she reacted at the fact that he was staying at the Hotel
Arts – she wasn’t to know he was no more paying for his room than
he did many of his meals. Once word was out you wrote reviews,
people were amazingly accommodating.

He walked Helen to the nearest Metro
station and resisted the urge to take her right back to her hotel.
She could clearly take care of herself if she lived in London and
it wasn’t his place to shield and protect her.

Chapter
Seven

Marcio threw his coat on the bed and
went to stand at the window without turning on the lights. The bed
pulled at his body like a gravitational field but his mind fizzed
too much for rest. There was no point lying down: no amount of
smooth Egyptian cotton was going to rock him to sleep. He selected
a decaf from the pile by the coffee maker and waited while the
machine burbled into life. Through gauze curtains he could see the
moon’s reflection dancing on the sea.

Beautiful night for sailing. Except
it’d be dawn by the time I got her out on the water.

When his drink was ready he carried it
to the corner of the room and pulled himself onto the window ledge.
With his back resting against the glass he let his eyes track the
bobbing rays of moonlight while he tried to make sense of the
thoughts drifting round his mind.

Helen’s words had stuck like a catchy
song.
Bravery. Quite a lady. Proud to know. Bravery. Quite a
lady. Proud to know.
For the first time since his wedding day
Marcio felt his heart unclench. All the love that had congealed
into hatred ran to liquid again and pumped free. His eyes itched
and he rubbed at them impatiently.
There’s no point regretting
it now. Or missing her. She made her choice. Just because it makes
sense now doesn’t mean it doesn’t fucking hurt.

Marcio sipped his coffee and gripped
the cup, resisting the urge to hurl it across the room. Anger at
his fiancé turned inwards.
I was so wrapped up in my own
humiliation I never considered what she had to go through. I might
have all the bills but I can pay them off. How long will the scars
of that day take to heal in her family?
He shuddered.

He knew and loved her folks, as much as
he once loved her: the church was central to their lives. They
would perhaps have come round eventually to the idea of a gay
daughter, even if they chose to ignore it as much as possible.
But to tell them in such a way, on such a day
. To stand at
the altar, turn to face the congregation and calmly announce there
had been a mistake must have taken courage he could only dream
of.

Considering the scene now as a
reporter, rather than a principle in the bad drama that played out
that day, he had to admire her dignity. She had taken Leandra’s
hand, looked her in the eye and smiled. With a nod in return to say
that she too could face the consequences, the girls had stood
calmly hand-in-hand amid the chaos, leaving him red faced and
gawping like a landed fish.
Thank god the priest let me
escape.
Helen is right: I would have laughed myself sick if
I’d been watching rather than participating.

Helen. It kept coming back round to
her. He didn’t want to consider another woman in his life but she
kept turning up both in his mind and in body.
And what a
gorgeous body it is
. Cool cream skin, all curvy with her
approaching motherhood. It made him yearn after a future he thought
he had left at the altar.

Her throwaway comment of what the
father had said,
Get rid or get out
, echoed in his mind as
he drained the dregs of his drink
.
Marcio could feel the
heat flooding his face as he thought about it.
Who thinks of
getting rid of their own kid, however badly timed the announcement
or whoever the mother is?
In any circumstance it would be
unthinkable.
But his own fiancée? And someone as smart and sexy
as Helen? What kind of monster does that?

When he did eventually sleep, Marcio’s
mind was full of screaming babies and a swish of copper hair that
kept disappearing around out of view.

Helen didn’t sleep any better, but due
to heartburn and Ty-Kwando kids rather than because of thoughts of
Marcio. Too tired and uncomfortable to worry about the party, she
tossed and turned on the lumpy hotel bed and cursed the thought of
spending another night there.

When Marcio arrived to collect her
mid-morning she was all but ready to tell him the party was a
mistake and what she yearned for was her own bed, complete with
feather pillows and clean sheets.

Coming out the lift, she saw him
standing in the lobby, clean-shaven and smartly dressed for the
party, and her heart skipped about like her unborn babies. He
looked like a shy school boy who was unsure how he had ended up in
his current predicament. She guessed that he wasn’t a novice when
it came to women, so surmised that his nervousness was because she
was the first woman he’d spent any time with since being jilted at
the altar. If she had known his nervousness derived from the wave
of desire that had swept over him seeing her in the sea-green
summer dress, she would have legged it up the stairs and packed her
bags immediately. She found it hard enough dealing with being
single and pregnant, without considering the idea that she was
still sexy and desirable.

Silence filled the car like fog as they
drove into the hills.

This feels like a date,
Marcio
thought ruefully, glancing sideways at Helen who was staring
straight ahead, her face inscrutable.
I’m meant to be staying
away from women and here I am, heading out of the city to a family
party with a hot chick I hardly know
.

Eventually they managed a stilted
conversation about wine making but as Helen knew little about wine
and Marcio kept losing his train of thought, they were both
relieved when Marcio swung the car into a private driveway and
announced their arrival.

Helen peered out the window, taking in
the ancient farm buildings, the vineyards stretching in each
direction, the bunting hanging from the trees. A lead weight
dropped into her stomach.

“Marcio, this is a private celebration.
Should I be here?” She heard the wobble in her voice.
Maybe you
should have thought to ask before you left the city
.

“Not at all, mother’s parties are
neighbourhood affairs, it isn’t just family; you’ll be fine.”

Another doubt assailed her. “I don’t
speak a word of Spanish and all I can say in Catalan is
On es el
lavabo?”

Marcio grinned, his blue eyes twinkling
in appreciation. “A useful phrase for a woman in your condition.
For your information, it’s in the last building on the right.”

“It’s okay for you to be so flippant,
you’re bilingual. You can’t imagine what it’s like to be surrounded
by a wall of noise, trying desperately to make sense of it.”

“You’ve obviously not spent much time
with toddlers!” He laughed and opened his car door. “My nephew
Harry is eighteen months old and
he
knows what he’s trying
to say but none of the rest of us do, so his babbling gets louder
and his gestures more emphatic until he cries from the sheer
frustration of it all.”

He walked round the car to Helen’s side
and hooked his arm through hers. He was about to lead her into the
garden where the party was already in full swing when he saw the
look of horror on her face.

“Don’t worry; you’ll have grown an
extra layer of skin before they’re that old. And being twins
they’ll always speak a language to each other that you don’t
understand.”

“If that was meant to be comforting, I
think you need to work on your technique.” Helen threw him a
disgruntled look and clung on to his arm.

Marcio led her round the side of the
buildings into the garden at the back. There was no real
demarcation between garden and vineyard, so the space was open and
endless.

“Wow!” Helen gasped. “It’s gorgeous.
You grew up here?”

“Well, no, actually we grew up in
Surrey. We came to live here when I was twelve. But yes, most of my
siblings had their best years here. I’m the eldest,” he added in
clarification.

“Eldest of how many?”

“Seven.”

Helen turned to stare, not merely at
the number but at the nonchalant way he said it, as if every person
in the world had six brothers or sisters.

“Seven! There aren’t that many people
in my entire family. Not still alive at any rate.”

“I said I came from a big family. I
have five sisters and one brother – he’s one of the twins – I think
they should all be here today. I’ll introduce you but, don’t worry,
no one will expect you to remember names.”

“Do any of them speak English?” Helen’s
voice was barely audible.

Marcio stopped and faced her. Placing
his hands on her shoulders he waited until she made eye
contact.

“You’re being silly. This is just a
party; you’re not
meeting the family
, only mother even knows
you’re coming. There are no expectations. My sisters will adore you
because you’re pregnant and Fabian won’t really care because he’s
nineteen, so I’m afraid, to him, you’re just old. And they all
speak English to some degree. The elder girls were all over five
when they left the UK so they’re bilingual and you won’t see much
of the younger ones anyway, they’ll be in the pool.”

Helen stood passively while Marcio
spoke and all she could think was how gorgeous his blue eyes were
and how much she suddenly wished she
were
here to meet the
family. She wondered if Mia knew what she was doing when she left
this man standing at the altar.

Nodding her understanding, Helen looked
over Marcio’s shoulder to see a group of girls with their heads
together, obviously speculating who the pregnant woman with their
brother was.

“Er I think it might be time to make
some introductions, and quick explanations, if you don’t want your
entire family to think you’ve been keeping secrets.”

It was Marcio’s turn to look
disconcerted. “Good god, it didn’t occur to me they might think the
babies are mine! It’s only been a few months since the wedding; if
that rumour gets back to Mia she’ll think I was unfaithful.”

“I’m so sorry, you should never have
invited me.”

“Nonsense. Let’s go nip any gossip in
the bud and it’ll all be fine. I’m glad you’re here.”

Even though the words were said without
any thought, Helen felt her heart surge. The warmth flooding
through her blood told her she was rather glad to be here too.

Chapter
Eight

An hour later, Helen’s head was reeling
with too many names, too much standing up and definitely too much
noise. Taking a few minutes to rest on a bench under a sprawling
olive tree, Helen breathed in the fresh afternoon air and surveyed
the scene in front of her.

A dozen children under five were
chasing each other around tables and between legs, while Helen
could count at least three tiny babies being passed from arm to arm
like dozy rugby balls.

She’d been offered each of the bundles
in turn and had initially declined. Eventually the smirk on
Marcio’s face had forced her to succumb and the effect had been
unexpected. For the first time in weeks the prowling fear subsided
and a small hope peeped out its head. Her particular rugby ball was
asleep and nuzzled under her chin without stirring. Helen had
buried her nose in cotton-soft hair, breathing in the indefinable
scent of baby.

For a blissful ten minutes she had
stood swaying gently, her existence defined by providing nurture.
Then the baby had made an appalling noise, like an exploding drain,
and had emitted an equally indefinable but considerably less
pleasant smell. Helen had stood helpless, unsure what to do next,
when a grinning father took the child from her, leaving just a
lingering odour and the regret that every delightful nappy would be
her chore and hers alone. Turning, she had caught sight of Marcio’s
expression, somewhere between amusement and tenderness, and all
thoughts of soiled nappies had evaporated.

As she sat in the shade hoping to go
unnoticed for a while, Helen decided that the party was proving a
mixed blessing. On the one hand she could begin to appreciate the
joy of belonging to a large family. Coming from the nuclear version
herself, it was a new experience; the constant ebb and flow of
banter and teasing, intermingled with snapshots of life quickly
sketched out for those who hadn’t caught up in a while. Around her
in this garden an entire society was flowing freely, from tiny
squalling infants to distant octogenarian aunts. On the other hand,
being here in this place was opening up a dark hole inside Helen’s
chest. She felt as if her heart was being squeezed by a giant
unforgiving fist. This dynamic, undulating ribbon of life that was
being floated so temptingly in front of her was not hers for the
taking. Her family unit would continue to be small, with not even a
father of her children to add to the numbers.

Watching Marcio now, meandering amongst
his family, his face lit with joy, his teeth shining in the sun as
he laughed at some joke or other, Helen felt an ache of envy.