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Maybe she was just looking for the weight of tension, but would Harry normally go out to the gym when she was over? Had he met her eyes for a normal length of time when she’d asked for the chicken balls? For sure Cole had refused to speak to her since her return from France, had ignored every single phone call, every message left, pleading with him to let her explain.
It’s not like I meant for this to happen, Bea had typed what felt like a hundred times over by now. This isn’t my fault. Maybe if she typed it another hundred times, she’d start to feel like it was true.
At least her relationship with Nora didn’t seem, on the face of it, to be too shaken. In fact, Nora never mentioned it, even going so far as to awkwardly try and change the subject if Bea ever tentatively approached it. After being able to talk to Nora about anything and everything since, well, the moment Bea could talk, it felt slightly painful.
She’d contacted Sarah too, of course. She’d jacked in her job and bolted to her mother’s house in Wales (she’d literally fled the country) and the horror and the guilt and the shame of it made Bea want to rip off her own skin with her fingernails. Bea remembered how she’d used to get so annoyed by how nicey nice Sarah was. Sarah was so nice, in fact, that she’d taken the time, somewhere in the midst of the demolition of her life and her marriage, to send Bea a short but polite message, saying that while it was Cole she blamed, not Bea, she’d appreciate it if Bea would stop calling, and leave her alone. And – after a brief paroxysm of indecision about whether or not agreeing to leave Sarah alone allowed for one more response confirming that she would indeed be doing that – Bea had decided to respect her erstwhile friend’s wishes.
Bea had also heard very little from Daisy in the past few weeks. She wasn’t ignoring her, not as such, more avoiding her. Bea had been desperate for some of her American friend’s straight-talking sympathy, but after the third of fourth invitation somewhere for a bottle of something and a catch-up had been awkwardly swerved, Bea had gotten the message and stopped asking.
Weirdly, it was Cleo who was being the most normal around Bea. Maybe she was just taking her cue from Nora and refusing to get involved, but where Bea had expected only snide comments and recriminations from her best frenemy, Cleo had been kinder to her than she ever had been in the decade or so Bea had known her. So maybe that was something…
Harry called out his farewells from the flat door and Nora wandered back through to the front room, holding her handbag in one hand and her mobile phone in the other, idly checking her messages.
“I wonder what’s so important,” she mused, her thumb working the touch screen. “It’s going to be a ballache finding somewhere for dinner short-notice in the city in December.”
She was referring to Daisy’s enigmatic message of earlier that day, Bea realised. She’d messaged all four of them saying she had important news she needed to share.
“I think she’s back with Darren,” Bea shrugged, folding another Order of Service as neatly as she could manage. “It’s that time of year, isn’t it? Everyone wants someone to snuggle on the sofa with and watch Christmas films. Everybody wants somebody to kiss at midnight…” Her voice tailed off, remembering that this year, of course, when Big Ben chimed in another January, it would be signalling the end of her best friend’s wedding day. Cole would be there, of course and so – as Nora had confirmed – would Sarah. Not having anyone to kiss at midnight would probably be the least of Bea’s concerns.
Nora gracefully folded herself back down into her sitting position and grabbed up her glass of wine.
“Oh dear,” she laughed, surveying the unimpressive piles of completed Orders of Service. “We’re not being all that productive this evening, are we?”
“Oh, don’t worry, Mel,” Bea assured her, trying to keep her voice light, folding up another and adding it to the pile. “You’ve still got, oh, three weeks.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Daisy made sure that she was fashionably late, glancing around the rammed gastro-pub as she arrived. Across the exposed kitchen bar, Nora looked up from her menu, meeting Daisy’s eye contact and waving her over. Already there was a bottle of white wine ordered, opened and empty, four equal glasses poured out. Cleo and Bea were there already too, smiling expectantly. Sarah hadn’t been able to make it over from where she was staying with her mom – December train fares were extortionate apparently (and, of course, Sarah currently had no income) – although Daisy did have to wonder if the negative RSVP had more to do with Sarah’s unwillingness to be sat around a table with the woman who’d once boned her husband and kept it secret for two years… who knew.
Daisy nervously smoothed her dress over her stomach as she made her way across to her friends. She wasn’t showing yet and probably wouldn’t for a fair while, but still, it had become somewhat of a nervous habit over the past few weeks. She might not have a bump, per say, but already her jeggings and work chinos were feeling uncomfortably tight, forcing her into dresses. At least the festive season prevented her from looking suspiciously formal.
After a round of greetings – Daisy realised that this was the first time she was seeing her friends since they’d returned from Nora’s hen weekend (she’d been a little distracted, after all…) – Daisy settled down into the chair left for her, concealing her smirk as Cleo pushed the fourth glass of wine towards her encouragingly.
“So, come on!” Bea demanded, characteristically unbothered with preamble. “What’s the big news?”
“Did you get that promotion?” Nora asked, all excitement.
“Oh, no. It’s not that.” Daisy felt a little pang – she doubted the board would be considering her for that new managerial role once she informed them that she would be going on maternity leave in half a year’s time. She rallied. “It’s more exciting than that!”
Bea and Nora exchanged a glance. “Are you… seeing someone new?” Nora tried again, after a moment.
“Or, seeing someone again?” Bea bluntly clarified their drift. Oh. So they thought she’d gotten back together with Darren. Oh, the irony.
“Not really,” Daisy smiled. “But you’re getting warmer.”
Her three friends swapped baffled looks.
“So… this isn’t anything to do with Darren?” Cleo asked, after a moment.
Daisy sighed. “Well, actually, yes. It does have something to do with Darren I suppose. And that’s why I need your help.”
“He’s not bothering you, is he?” Bea’s brows had snapped together threateningly.
Daisy laughed again. “Oh, god, let me just tell you what’s going on, before I get the poor guy in even more trouble.” Where to begin? “Well, do you remember when I had that bad norovirus thing?” It took only that for ever-quick Cleo to join the dots; she pressed her lips together like she was stopping herself from reacting. “And I’d just felt so shitty for weeks and weeks. And when we got back from Paris I thought, this is ridiculous, I’m going to ring the doctor. And when I was making the appointment, the receptionist was clicking through the booking calendar and said, super casual like, “you don’t think you could be pregnant, do you?”
The twin expressions of worry that Nora and Bea had been sporting melted away, as they realised what the truth of the matter was; Nora put her hands up to her mouth and pressed her fists against her wide smile.
“And I immediately went, oh no, no – but then I thought, actually, when was the last time I got my period?” Daisy continued, smiling. She was laughing about it now, but she’d remember that moment as one of the most defining – and horrifying – moments of her life. “And so, I bought a test. And then another one. And another one.” She laughed. “And after three positive results, it finally started to sink in.”
Nora could take no more; she leapt to her feet and threw her arms around the still sitting Daisy, squealing into her ear. “Oh my god, oh my god!”
“Wait, wait, wait! I’ve got pictures.” Daisy fumbled in her bag for her scan pictures and spread them out across the table top. Her eyes felt hot and prickly with tears. She’d already told her mom and older sister over Skype, of course, but this was the first time she’d been able to feel the excitement, the hugs, the joy that news of her child’s existence brought to the world. She crossed her arms in her lap, picturing that little bean, somewhere deep behind her pelvic bone, sensing its mother’s heart racing and blood rushing and wondering what on earth was going on out there.
“What did Darren say?” Cleo asked, after a few minutes of passing the little square scan pictures around and indiscriminate cooing. “Is he excited? Horrified? Both? Somewhere in between?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t told him yet. I don’t suppose any of you guys have kept his phone number actually, have you?”
The girls exchanged a look as they shook their heads.
“I might have his email address still saved,” Nora offered.
Daisy laughed sharply. “Well, I suppose that’s marginally better than sending him a Facebook message.”
“Marginally, yes,” Cleo agreed, wide-eyed.
“Oh god, can you imagine? ‘Dear Darren, how are you? Please see attached. File name, 12-week-scan-dot-jpeg. Can we discuss. Best, Daisy Frankel.’”
“Best?” Bea snorted. “You’re currently incubating his sperm into a person. You can stretch to “kind regards,” I think.”
“I need to get his number,” Daisy groaned. “You don’t think Harry has it do you, or Cole?”
“I don’t think so hun,” Nora said, apologetically. “They weren’t exactly bezzie mates or anything, were they?”
“I’ll have to Facebook him and ask him to call me. At least I didn’t get around to de-friending him. Having to send him a Friend Request first would just have been the pits.” Daisy eyed up the obviously untouched fourth glass of wine, feeling that despite her continued low-level nausea she quite possibly had never wanted a drink more in her life than she did in that moment, imagining her soon-to-be-had call with her ex-boyfriend turned unexpected baby-daddy.
“Okay, well just make sure that it’s actually Darren who’s calling you from an unknown number before you go blurting anything out,” Bea advised wisely, as she picked up her own glass. “You don’t need to be telling some telemarketer from an Indian call centre that you’ve gotten yourself up the duff.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Cleo bustled herself through the revolving doors into the hotel lobby with more haste than class, shaking the smears of sleet from the shoulders of her dark coat and crossing her fingers that her hair wasn’t too frizzy. It had only been a short dash from the nearest tube to the venue, but, still, she wished that she’d been able to cram her umbrella into her diddy clutch bag.
Removing her damp coat and throwing it over her arm, Cleo followed the signs for the Oaklands Christmas Party through the warren of a hotel, noting that she wasn’t noticing any familiar faces. She’d been going for fashionably late, but maybe she’d veered into the offensively late bracket. She’d spent a little bit longer in the bath than she’d meant to, and far too much attention to her makeup (which, please god, had hopefully managed to stay put through the pressing fug of the tube journey and the spitting shower of sleet).
As she approached the atrium for the second-floor function area a blank-faced man in a dark suit appeared as if from nowhere and offered to take her coat and scarf to the cloakroom; Cleo gave up her damp, wintery burden gratefully. This place was even fancier than she’d anticipated. There had been talk that it would be. The headmaster’s ancient PA had finally retired that last summer, and with her went the tradition of a limp three-course turkey dinner in the little reservable area near the toilets at the pub a couple of roads away from the school. The PA’s replacement (who didn’t look like she was long out of secondary school herself…) had absolutely no interest in the fusty local, nor a mandatory novelty jumper rule. Cleo smoothed her palms against her new cocktail dress nervously. A stupid expense (particularly this close to Christmas) – but when she’d seen it in the shop she knew she had to have it. It was a soft and shiny material in rose gold which slouched forward a tad daringly off of her shoulders and hung loose across her frame, allowing it to flow over her body, catching the sheen of the lights. It felt festive and decadent and sexy (Cleo hoped that she herself would accordingly follow suit).
The broad space of the function room was lit at low-level only, but the white, silver and blue colour theme served to brighten the area. It felt more like a wedding than an office Christmas party, each round, white-clothed table sporting huge centre-pieces – oversized martini glasses filled with prickly sprigs of holly and soft, fat plumes of white feathers. Glitter-dipped laser-cut snowflakes in shades of gleaming silver, snow white and ice blue hung from the high ceiling, like something out of Frozen. Bright strands of silver lametta draped from the branches of a distastefully large real Christmas tree taking up one entire corner of the room. The standard rust-coloured hard-wearing carpeting detracted from, but didn’t ruin, the general effect.
Spying a work mate taking an artfully-angled photo of the tree, Cleo made a bee-line over to her.
“You look amazing,” Tia told her, approvingly, aiming an air-kiss in the vicinity of one cheek, then the other (events like this were weird, thought Cleo – it’s not like they greeted one another in the staff room like that). “Have you got a drink?”
“No, not yet. I’m going to pace myself. Don’t want a repeat of last year and all that!” Cleo laughed self-depreciatingly.
Tia raised one expertly-threaded eyebrow. “Well, don’t wait too long. There’s a budget behind that free bar, you know.”
Cleo double-took. “Free bar?”
“Yup. The management board has put an undisclosed sum behind the bar as a little festive bonus. You know, in lieu of us getting paid actual festive bonuses? But when it’s gone, it’s gone,” Tia shrugged, taking a generous gulp from her generously-large glass of white wine.
Cleo glanced behind her – that definitely explained the popularity of the bar area, which was already thronged with people. “Well, in that case,” she laughed. “I wouldn’t want to miss out on my bonus!”
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