Baby Blues and Wedding Shoes (26 page)

“I honestly can’t remember. One minute
we’re both leaning on t’railings, side by side. Next minute we’re
full-on snogging. Bugger me he can work his tongue!” Sharni’s
cheeks flamed at the memory but her eyes were alight and
sparkling.

Helen regretted asking for details. She
couldn’t imagine Derek in a passionate embrace; it was like
imagining her parents having sex.

“Did you go back to his place?”

“Hell no, can you imagine the stink if
I didn’t come home? My folks’d call the cops.”

“Did Derek say he’d call? Has he
called?”

“No to both. Someone came on the
balcony, Ben I think, and Derek broke off. Not sure if Ben saw but,
by the time I’d said hello to him, Derek had gone. That’s bad,
isn’t it? He woulda stuck around if he’d liked me?” Sharni’s
chocolate brown eyes sought out Helen’s, tears beginning to well,
her face a picture of misery.

Helen wasn’t sure what to say. She was
pretty sure the kiss had meant nothing to Derek – he had never
shown any interest in Sharni before. But then, would he? Sharni had
been a student; it would have been unprofessional to have made any
move at the time. Sharni was beautiful and ridiculously clever;
what man wouldn’t love her? What to advise?

“You need to contact him. You can’t
leave it like this, you’ll go crazy.” Helen was suffering enough
waiting for Marcio to call and she was pretty sure he was
interested in her.

“I can’t call him!” Sharni’s voice was
a squeak.

The waitress arrived with Helen’s
breakfast and they were quiet while it was deposited on the table.
Helen’s tummy rumbled at the smells emanating from the plate of
food.

“You don’t mind if I tuck in?”

“No, sure, go ahead.”

They sat in comfortable silence while
Helen ate. She wracked her brain for something useful to say.

“You could send him an email? Maybe not
even mention the kiss. Ask him a question about photography; let
him make the first move?”

“What if he doesn’t?” Sharni’s voice
was barely audible over the hubbub in the café.

Helen turned to look at her, thinking
it was time for honesty. “Then you’ll have your answer.”

When a week had gone by and she still
hadn’t heard from Marcio, Helen found her conversation with Sharni
reverberating round her mind like an irritating song that wouldn’t
shift. Did she have her answer?

Chapter
Thirteen

“You’ve got mail.”

The sultry American voice echoed around
the studio flat, causing Helen’s heart to jump to the back of her
throat. Despite her pulse racing like an intercity train, Helen
forced herself to complete the editing layer she was working on,
removing some litter from one of her Barcelona pictures.

Clicking
Save
, Helen took a
couple of deep breaths before clicking over to her inbox. Few
people emailed her, as her friends tended to text and her mother
always phoned if she needed to talk.

“Marcio, you are so going to be in
trouble for leaving it ten days before emailing me!” Helen strove
for a light-hearted tone, despite being alone in her flat. Her
voice was husky from lack of use; it sounded alien to her.

Lunch with Sharni had been her only
contact with the outside world since returning from Barcelona ten
days before, as she worked hard on preparing some of her
photographs for wider release. She hoped one or two might be
suitable for travel magazines or holiday companies, giving her a
chance at a new source of income.

Trying not to yell at her laptop to
hurry up
, Helen stared out the window at the rain. It had
been pouring for days now; grey relentless rain that brought the
sky to within inches of the rooftops. The claustrophobic atmosphere
matched Helen’s frame of mind. Everything felt
heavy
. She
had spent half a day filling out forms to claim maternity
allowance, aware that it wasn’t going to make a dent in her
mortgage payments, never mind enabling her to purchase nappies,
baby-grows,
food.
If she didn’t manage to make some
significant money in the next couple of months she would have no
choice but to move back to Devon.

At least I had the sense to register
as self-employed when I worked for Daniel
. She laughed a
mirthless laugh: there were so few positives left in her mind from
her time with Daniel it seemed fitting that qualifying for full
statutory pay counted as one of them.

Please let Marcio be coming home
soon.
Helen raised her prayer to the grey skies, as her email
account finally appeared on screen.

Nascent hope died stillborn when she
saw who the email was from. She knew that address, it wasn’t
Marcio’s; it was from Dawn.

Green eyes filled with tears, as Helen
stared blankly at the brightly lit screen.

I’m such an idiot. Whatever magic we
had wasn’t enough. And who can blame him? What man wants to take on
three people in a relationship, particularly when two of them are
going to be needy, noisy and not theirs? I should have known that
life doesn’t play out like a Freya North novel.

For one precious weekend it had seemed
that it might. Now she wished the weekend had never happened.
Before she had met Marcio she had been resigned to her role as
single parent. Her time in Spain had offered a different vision of
what life could be like. Now even though the dream was short-lived
its loss reverberated through her life like the echo of a gong.

A heavy blanket of loneliness fell on
her, smothering hope. As the clouds became lower and darker outside
her window, turning the morning into night, tears streamed down
Helen’s cheeks, mirroring the rain coursing down her grimy window
pane.

When Helen eventually raised her head
she felt drained and shaky from her tears, but better able to face
things. Marcio wasn’t coming back, that much was clear. Time to
pull herself together and get on with life.

She stretched her arms above her head
and cricked her neck left and right.

“Time for tea,” she declared
decisively.

Levering herself out of her chair she
waddled over to flick the kettle on. While it filled the flat with
a rumbling crescendo, Helen went back to her laptop and clicked
open Dawn’s email. She might not be a single sexy Spanish guy but
she had become a loyal friend since Helen’s sojourn in her house.
She wondered why she was emailing: Dawn was of her mother’s
generation and much preferred to use the phone.

My dear Helen,

Apologies for the e-mail communication.
John is at home and I do not feel able to talk freely on the
telephone. I would very much like it if we could catch up for a
girly chat, if you are free?

I am happy to come over to your flat,
or we could meet at Pops?

Maybe you could text me, as I am
heading to town this morning.

Much love

Dawn

“Girly chat? Text me? What is going
on?” Helen laughed at Dawn’s strange message. “One of her daughters
must have been home on a visit; she’s gone all trendy on me. Well
kiddies, at least Mummy has a use as an agony aunt. Pops is going
to start charging us rent.”

Ignoring the boiling kettle, Helen shut
her laptop with a click and reached for her phone. Time to brave
the rain.

The scent was so familiar Helen felt the
floor lurch underneath her feet as her knees went soft. Gripping
onto the door frame she willed the riotous butterflies in her tummy
to be still. She knew that smell; it brought to mind a swaying
yacht and the bright blue sky bisected by billowing sails. Helen
searched the faces in the café for a familiar pair of blue eyes,
willing herself to believe he might be in Pops instead of some
restaurant in Barcelona.

Silly girl
, she admonished, when
her eager gaze met only the puzzled stares of strangers.
You are
so desperate to see him again you are jumping at ghosts and
shadows. Of course he isn’t the only man in the world who wears
that scent.

Dawn was sat in the same corner Sharni
had occupied the week before. Helen realised it commanded a good
view of the door whilst remaining obscured in the gloom. That
wasn’t like Dawn either; she normally sat in the window to engage
in her favourite people-watching pastime.

Dawn rose to her feet as Helen
approached and leaned over to kiss her warmly on both cheeks.

“You look both tanned and pale
darling,” she said, as Helen took off her dripping raincoat and sat
down.

“And you are very observant,” Helen
laughed, hoping Dawn would be too preoccupied with her own worries
to delve further. She was even less inclined to talk about Marcio
now it seemed her holiday fling was just that.

“How was Barcelona? Was it very tiring?
I can’t imagine how much more exhausting it is carrying twins. I
found it hard enough carrying one at a time!”

“Barcelona was hot and sunny.” Helen
flicked her damp hair pointedly over her shoulder and grimaced.

“Oh, lovely. That explains the tan.
What about the paleness? Are the babies keeping you up at
night?”

Glad to seize on the excuse, Helen
nodded. It was certainly true that she wasn’t sleeping.

“And how are you?” Helen looked closely
at Dawn. She also looked drawn, as if she had lost weight. It had
only been a couple of weeks since they had last caught up and Helen
was shocked at the difference.

Dawn began playing with her fruit
smoothie, stirring round and round with her black straw. Without
making eye contact she sighed deeply, paused, then said, “I think
John is having an affair.”

Helen sat quietly assimilating the
information. She still didn’t know John very well. During the two
weeks she had spent at Dawn’s house she had seen more of her
brother Terrance than her husband. John was off playing golf around
the world or attending meetings in his role as non-executive
officer to various companies and charities. Dawn had made light of
it but Helen could tell she had hoped she would see more of her
husband when he retired, rather than less.

Eventually, when it was clear Dawn
wasn’t going to add anything more, Helen said softly, “what makes
you think that?”

“Oh, you know; something and
nothing.”

She looked up at Helen and her pale
blue eyes were washed with despair.

“He’s never at home! I can’t believe
he’s playing golf all the time he’s away. No one can play that much
golf. And even when he is home we barely talk anymore unless to
discuss what’s for dinner or something one of the children has said
or done.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s met someone
else though does it? John is used to travelling; he spent his whole
life at sea. Maybe he finds it hard to be at home now he’s retired.
Forty years of habit is going to leave quite a deep groove.”

Dawn exhaled and the sound was so empty
of hope it made Helen’s soul ache. It seemed even if you had the
family home and the thirty-year marriage it still didn’t guarantee
you never felt lonely. She wasn’t sure what to suggest to Dawn. It
did rather seem that John might not be as in love with his wife as
he had been three decades before. But what did Helen know of such
things? What advice could she offer when she couldn’t even inspire
a man to call her after an amazing weekend together?

“Have you tried to talk to him?”

“Challenge him you mean?”

“No, I don’t think you should do that,
not unless you have some actual proof. No lacy knickers in his
suitcase or dodgy phone calls?” Helen tried to keep her voice
light, to show how little she thought either of these things were a
possibility, and prayed she was right.

Dawn shrugged. “No, nothing like that.
Just a feeling.”

“Talk to him!” Helen urged again. “You
can’t make guesses. You said he’s home at the moment. Book a table
at your favourite restaurant, pour him a large glass of wine, and
try and pin him down.”

“I’m scared.” Dawn’s voice was so low
Helen had to strain to hear it over the noise of the coffee machine
and the chef’s singing in the kitchen.

“What can be worse than not knowing?”
Helen thought privately that not knowing was the most awful feeling
in the world.

“What if I’m right; what if he leaves
me? What will I do then?”

Helen thought back to a time, not that
many weeks ago, when she was asking the same of Dawn.

She reached her hand across the table
to give Dawn’s slender fingers a squeeze of support.

“Strength will come.”

When she got home Helen disabled the
voice on her email account, turned off her telephone, and assigned
her weekend with Marcio the mental file marked
History
.

Determined nonetheless to take
something positive from the experience she decided to follow
Marcio’s sister’s advice and join a baby group.

When the midwife had given her details
of antenatal groups for mothers expecting twins Helen had dismissed
them, with the view that swapping stories of swollen ankles and
weird dreams was a recipe for misery.

Now, though, she thought it might be
nice to have other mums to talk to once the babies came. Sharni and
Dawn were great but one friend shuddered at even the thought of
childbirth and the other had lived it all so long ago it had
entered the realms of blurry memory.

Digging out her pregnancy notes, Helen
began calling the numbers on the sheet. On her third attempt she
found an antenatal group that still had a vacancy. It was money she
could ill afford but she decided it was probably a sound
investment.

Chapter
Fourteen