‘We must celebrate!’ Ed said when I got in. ‘Open a bottle.’ His face tightened. ‘Then we can have that talk you’ve been promising.’
The very sight of my husband’s face had filled me with such guilt that I insisted on going out for that bottle, just to get away.
Then there was the argument with Tony and Francesca outside in the corridor. That’s why I was so hard on him. Of course I felt sorry for Tony’s poor wife. But I lashed out at Tony because I recognized my own frailties in him. I despised him just as I despised myself.
The following night when I couldn’t put off that talk with Ed any more, I sat in the bathroom and tried to decide whether to leave him or not.
If I opened on a page with an odd number, I’d leave.
If it was even, I’d stay.
Page seventy-three.
Odd.
The page showed a picture of a happy family sitting round the table. The picture and the print swam before my eyes. Sunday suppers. Normal life. The kind that my parents and I should have had. The kind that Ed and I could still have if we stopped lying.
I don’t have to take the odd number fate has given me. Just as Daniel often rejected the heads. ‘You know deep down what you want, before the coin comes down,’ he used to say. ‘That’s why it’s such a great way to make a decision.’
And I knew, deep down, that despite Ed’s behaviour and mine, I still loved my husband. Joe had been lust. I shouldn’t have let myself go so far. Ed was my chance to turn my life around.
Yet sometimes you have to do something wrong before you can make things right.
That’s what I had to do now, today, just in case Joe’s tiny seed was already growing inside me.
So I came out of that bathroom and took Ed’s hand, leading him to our bed.
The following month I found I was pregnant. With a child that might belong to either man.
52
Carla
‘Carla? Can you hear me?’
It only seemed like a few minutes since someone in the ambulance had asked her the same question. But this was a different voice. This was Ed’s.
Carla’s first thought was that he had discovered the note with the spidery writing. She had put it in her bag, hadn’t she? But he might have gone through it. Ed had done that before on the pretext of ‘looking for change’.
‘It’s all right, Carla. I’m here now. And we’ve got a beautiful baby girl.’
A girl? Please no. If she had a girl it meant she might make the same mistakes that she and Mamma had. It would never end.
‘She’s very tiny, Carla. Just a few pounds. But they say she should be completely fine.’
How was this possible? She couldn’t even remember giving birth. Ed was lying.
He’d done it before to Lily. So why not to her?
His face was coming into view. He was bending over her. Kissing her cheek. His touch made her skin crawl. ‘You gave us all a terrible fright, darling.’
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ she managed to say.
There was an edge to his voice. ‘I could have lost you both.’
‘What happened?’ she murmured.
‘Baby decided to come early.’ This voice was different. Carla tried to turn round to see where it was coming from, but everything hurt. ‘Just as well for us that she did. Turned out you had a low-lying placenta, dear, so we had to give you an emergency Caesarean. Caused quite a stir, you did! Would you like to see your baby, now?’
What baby? Carla couldn’t see one. She couldn’t hear one either. She knew it. Something had gone horribly wrong.
‘Intensive Care is just round the corner, dear.’ A nurse in green uniform came into focus now. ‘Legs still a bit wobbly, are they? Let’s ease you into this wheelchair, shall we? That’s the way.’
‘Is it healthy?’ asked Carla faintly.
‘She,’ said Ed firmly, ‘is a fighter.’ But she saw the look he gave the nurse. It spelled fear.
‘Here we are, dear.’
That was a baby? Carla stared at the incubator. A little rat lay inside. Its skin was so pale and translucent that it reminded her of a dead baby bird she had once found outside the old flat when they had lived near Lily and Ed. (‘Leave it alone,’ Mamma had squealed, before walking her briskly on to the bus stop.)
This ‘thing’ was not much bigger than the width of Ed’s hand. Wires were sprouting out of it. Its eyes were closed. A mask was covering the rest of its face, if that’s what you could call it.
‘She’s on oxygen at the moment, dear,’ said the nurse gently. ‘Hopefully she’ll be able to breathe for herself in the next few weeks.’
Weeks?
‘I’m afraid you won’t be able to pick her up for some time, but you can talk to her.’
‘Babies can hear when you do that,’ butted in Ed. He sounded so knowledgeable, but at the same time smugly aware that he was the expert compared with her. ‘We used to talk to Tom all the time.’
‘But how can it hear if it’s so ill?’
‘You’d be surprised, dear. You can go home in a few days – the surgeon did a nice clean job, although you’ll need to rest and not lift anything heavy. You can visit baby every afternoon and evening.’ There was a little sigh. ‘We used to have a special place for parents to stay over, but I’m afraid that went with the cuts.’
Scarcely hearing, Carla continued to stare at the rat. Its puffed-up little stomach was rising and falling with a strange steady regularity. The rest of it could hardly be seen with the mask and wires. This was her punishment! This was what she got for taking another woman’s husband. And now she was going to be truly trapped – far more than before. How could she go back to work? Ed had already been against that idea, but it would be impossible if her child was sick.
Furiously, she turned on Ed. ‘Why did you get me pregnant?’
‘There, there,’ said the nurse, patting her shoulder. ‘You’d be surprised how many of my ladies say that. But you’ll change your mind when you get to know baby better.’
Ed was staring at her with a shocked look on his face. ‘Come on, Carla. You’ve got to be strong for our little girl.’
But this thing didn’t look like a girl – or a human being for that matter. ‘I don’t want to see it,’ she said, hearing her own voice rise in hysteria. ‘Take it away. I want my mother. Why isn’t she here? Get me the phone. Now. I need to speak to her.’
‘Carla –’
‘No! Stop being so controlling. Give me your mobile.’
Ed and the nurse were exchanging looks. What was going on?
‘Carla, darling, listen.’ He put his arm around her. ‘I didn’t want to tell you until you felt stronger. But your grandmother rang when you were in labour. I am afraid your mother has been ill.’
Carla stiffened. ‘How ill?’
‘She’s been treated for cancer for some time now. Your mother didn’t stay with an aunt that Christmas. She was actually in hospital. In fact she’s been in and out since then too.’
Her mouth went dry. ‘But she is better now? She is coming over to see her granddaughter?’
Ed tried to hold her but she pushed him away. ‘Tell me. TELL ME.’
His eyes were wet with tears. So too were the nurse’s.
‘Your mother died, Carla. Just after you gave birth. I’m so sorry.’
53
Lily
Back on the seafront I race away from Joe, seagulls screaming overhead. It’s only then that I realize something so obvious that I wonder why I haven’t thought of it before. If I can prove that Tom isn’t Ed’s child, I can surely stop him from having access. He doesn’t need to know who the real father is.
And, more importantly, I can prevent my husband’s wife from doing the same.
One small way to claw back some of my life. To take my child for my own.
But if Joe’s DNA matches, then my child would have a murderer for a father.
In the distance, a small boat bobs up and down on the waves.
That’s when another idea comes to me. Far better than the last.
54
Carla
Mamma had taken her last breath without her by her side? ‘But I never said goodbye,’ she sobbed down the phone to Nonna.
Her grandmother was weeping too. ‘She didn’t want to upset you.’ In the background, she could hear deep howls of male grief.