Chapter Six

Chapter Six

         Grace arose to another beautiful autumn day. It was already late in the morning; she had called Laura to tell her she would not be in til late in the afternoon. She and Tammy had been out the night before, eaten at the Shanghai Nights and then carried on to a trendy bar where they had remained til the early hours of the morning. Unlike most people, Grace rarely suffered with hangovers and so she swung her legs out of the bed, pulled back the covers and opened the curtains. She slipped on her dressing gown and slippers and headed for the stairs. Pausing briefly outside the guest room, she decided to let Tammy sleep a little longer.
         The house was soon filled with the smells of frying bacon, toast and fresh coffee. Tammy stretched sleepily in her bed, looked around the Green Room with a smile on her face. She held onto her head, which still seemed to be spinning. Yawning, she got up, ran a brush through her hair and put it in a ponytail. Downstairs, Grace was singing along to a Four Tops song, and not too out of tune either. Locking the bathroom door behind her, she sat for a long while on the seat of the toilet, feeling quite awful. She retrieved her toiletry bag from the cabinet and searched it frantically for her painkillers. Pressing two tablets from the silver wrapping, she gulped them down with a glass of water, then returned to the toilet seat where she sat for several minutes, her head buried in her hands, before turning on the shower.
         The bathroom quickly with steam from the hot running water, and she slipped out of her boxer shorts and t-shirt, her sleeping attire, hoping she would feel refreshed after a power shower.
          “Tammy, are you up yet? Breakfast is ready”, Grace called from the bottom of the stairs some minutes later.
          “Just drying myself off and then I’ll be down”, she replied. As she brushed her teeth, she had a nosy peek inside Grace’s cabinet. She was not surprised to see Grace used good quality toiletries, and also had good taste in perfume. Tammy pulled on her black Nike sweatpants – previous lovers told her it made her bum look even sexier – a bra, and cropped top. She was proud of her toned body, at the age of thirty-five she could easily compete with women ten years younger than her. She applied some of Grace’s moisturiser, sprayed on her perfume and smiled at her own reflection, then headed down for breakfast.


***

         Lucy sat in the semi-darkness of her living room. It was a true sign of winter being right on the doorstep that it had in fact gone dark so suddenly. Dark times in deed. She switched on the reading lamp on the table beside her sofa and pulled her feet under her. For several long minutes she stayed there, motionless except for playing with her bottom lips with thumb and index finger, a childhood habit she hadn’t managed to shake.
         She looked down at her other hand, trembling slightly, fighting back tears. Everything was so bloody unfair. All her dreams, her hopes, had come crashing down her when Adam returned to his wife, and now this.
         Placing a protective hand on her still flat stomach, she sobbed quietly and whispered ‘I am so sorry, so very sorry’ into the room, speaking, she knew, to her unborn child. ‘Please forgive me’ she continued, not sure whom she was speaking to now. The baby of course, but also to Adam, to Dennis and the boys, to God, to herself.
         She grew impatient now, pacing the floor, looking out of the window onto the quiet street. Not a soul moved outside. After a while, she saw the headlights of a car coming down the road and craned her neck to see who it might be. Bloody fool, she thought, did you really think that was going to be him? A red car zoomed past and disappeared into the dark distance.
         The sobbing ceased, however silent tears were still falling. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and walked to the drinks cabinet and poured herself a large Southern Comfort. She settled back down on the settee, took a large sip of her drink and instantly felt the alcohol warming her up as it glided down her throat. The hot sensation felt great and she sipped again, and then let out a sad, heavy sigh. She placed the glass on a coaster next to the reading lamp, rose and walked to her office where she switched on the light and retrieved a large black leather folder from the bookshelf lining the wall. On her way out, she grabbed a packet of cigarettes and her lighter. It bore the picture of the Little Mermaid, a memento of a visit to Copenhagen with Adam, she realised, then pushed the thought from her mind. Too painful to think of the good times now, she thought, and returned to the living room and her drink.
         She woke up several hours later with a stiff neck. She checked her gold watch; three-thirty in the morning. Good job the boys were with Dennis, and no work in the morning either. The leather folder had dropped onto the floor; the crystal glass was tipped on its side, empty. Next to it, the bottle of Southern Comfort was almost empty. She sat up and, placing her head in her hands, felt as though the entire room was spinning. Picking up the folder, she lit another cigarette before, once again opening up this Pandora’s box of wonderful but painful memories. It was filled with poems that she and Adam, over the course of the past year, had written for each other and exchanged either accompanied by romantic cards, a single red rose, or simply by email.
         It was difficult to think that now, in spite of the words that were flowing like waves in front of her very eyes, reality was so very different. Who would have thought? This was only one of the thoughts that kept recurring. Who would have thought that when she packed up her things, the boys’ toys and clothes, removed her wedding band and set out on a life dedicated to Adam, things would have turned out like this? She felt angry, cheated, hurt.
         She stubbed the cigarette out and poured another drink, spilling some onto the wooden floorboards as she did so, then leaned back into the comfortable sofa. For the briefest of moments she allowed herself to feel guilty for poisoning her body in this manner, for poisoning her baby. Had things been as they were supposed to, as fate dictated, there was no way she would be committing these sins right now. She’d be curled up on this very sofa with a cup of camomile tea or hot chocolate, with Adam rubbing her feet, telling her how beautiful and radiant she looked, how pregnancy suited her. Don’t go down this road! She tried to force herself not to think of the baby as something real.
         She wondered what Adam might be doing at this very moment in time. Was he asleep? At four o’clock in the morning it was safe to assume that he would be, however the thought alone of him being able to have a good night’s sleep when she was going through living hell filled her with anger. Not able to help herself, she wondered if he had slept with his wife since finding out Lucy was expecting his baby. The very thought of Adam having sex with anyone other than herself, especially in current circumstances, made her feel sick, and she rushed to the bathroom, holding a hand in front of her mouth but making it to the bathroom on time.

         The sound of the telephone ringing would usually have sent her jumping out of bed in an instant. This morning, however, she reached out to the socket behind the bedside table and pulled the plug, instantly stopping the incessant, unwelcome noise. Downstairs, the cordless was still ringing, and, with a loud beep, the answer phone switched on. She rolled onto the other side and pulled the duvet cover over her head. She just wanted to curl up and die, shut out the sound, the smell, the feel, the reminders of life outside of her wooden framed bed and her private agony.
          ‘What the hell are you doing? Where have you been?’ Mandy shouted down the phone when, well past midday, Lucy eventually picked up the receiver.
          ‘Asleep’ came the dry throated reply.
          ‘Bloody hell, Lucy!’
          ‘What? And, don’t shout!’
          ‘I’ve been ringing all morning! I was worried about you!’
         Lucy sighed. Guilt was the last thing she needed right now. ‘Sorry’ she replied in an almost inaudible whisper. ‘It’s just that…’ How could she even try to find the words, to describe the desolation, the loneliness, the self-reproach, and the hate?
          ‘Oh Luce, please don’t cry…’
          ‘I’m sorry; I just can’t seem to stop. Any tiny thought, a small reminder of him, of us, it sends my head into a spin and I just can’t make any sense of it all.’ Mandy heard her friend sobbing, then blowing her nose noisily down the phone.
          ‘Do you want me to come over?’
         The question was met by a long pause. ‘Yes. Yes, that would be nice.’
          ‘All right, put the kettle on, I will be over in ten minutes.’
          ‘OK, but I might be in the shower so just let yourself in.’
          ‘Got it, babe.’
         Mandy let herself in and put the kettle on. She was pleased to see the house appeared clean and tidy. Tidier than it had been for weeks. Perhaps Lucy was beginning to feel more like her own self again. She hated seeing her friend run to the ground, hated what that bastard was doing to her.
         She filled the teapot and left the tea to brew, then walked through the lounge and to the bottom of the stairs.
          ‘Lucy?’
          ‘Just coming! Put the kettle on, will you?’ she shouted from behind her bedroom door.
          ‘Done, it’s brewing. I made a pot.’
          ‘You’re a star’ she said, as she walked onto the landing, pulling on a red sweater. She was wearing a pair of black linen trousers, a small amount of make-up and her comfortable slippers. Her hair was tied back in a neat ponytail, and she looked much better than she had sounded on the phone earlier.
          ‘Hi’, she said, kissing her friend. ‘Thanks for coming over.’
          ‘I was worried about you. You didn’t pick up the phone. I thought you had the twins this weekend?’
          ‘I do. They’re having a sleepover at Joshua Beacon’s house. Six boys, apparently. What a nightmare, his mum must be very brave!’ Lucy smiled, probably for the first time in weeks.
          ‘You look great, Luce.’
          ‘Thanks, I feel ok. Not been sick this morning so that’s a bonus.’
          ‘You’ve been busy’, Mandy said, looking around the lounge. Everything was spotless.
          ‘Yeah, I got a complete frenzied attack of cleaning-urge. Or clearing out urge.’ She pointed to a large cardboard box by the back door as she poured them each a hot cop of tea.
          ‘What is it?’
          ‘Adam’s stuff. Things he left behind, presents, stuff we bought together, all his stupid cards’, her face looked hard, determined, ‘it’s all a pack of lies. If he genuinely felt any of those things, he wouldn’t put me through this hell.’
          ‘What brought this on?’
          ‘Oh, just a moment of clarity in a drunken stupor in the wee hours of the morning. I looked around and realised that he was everywhere, in this house. So I packed it all up, cleaned the entire house, changed the sheets. Even cleaned the fridge for Pete’s sake. His favourite brand of marmalade, a chocolate bar he bought me. Too many painful reminders, constantly bringing me to my knees, so I decided to rid myself of him.’
          ‘That sounds healthy… I think. Good to see you’ve got some of your old zeal back.’ After a long pause, she asked, ‘have you decided what to do?’
          ‘Yes… At least, I think so. I am going ahead. I want Adam out of my life, a fresh start. I want to be strong, for the boys. I don’t want this pathetic wimp of the past weeks. I hate what I became, what he did to me. No one should have that kind of power over anyone.’
          ‘What made you make up your mind?’
          ‘Oh, I don’t know. A number of things. Adam, mostly. Do I want to bring a child into this world with such an arse for a father?’
          ‘Lucy, I am proud of you.’
          ‘Why? I am about to become a baby killer. Nothing to be proud of. Just because my mind’s made up, doesn’t mean I don’t feel completely wretched. I hate myself for what I am about to do. But it’s for the best, in the long run.’
          ‘No, I didn’t mean that. I meant, for calling Adam an arse. It’s the first time you’ve let go of that ridiculous protection and removed him from that inexplicable status of a demigod.’
          ‘I wanted to believe, in him, in us. I wanted to believe in the love we had. His actions have made a mockery of all that, of me. He’s not the man I thought he was. I feel conned, cheated. I gave up everything for him and nothing was ever good enough. That tells me he was never truly going to leave, never really contemplated spending his life with me. All just a bag of lies.’
         She sounded much stronger than she felt, in her heart she wasn’t half so sure. Her voice started quivering at voicing his betrayal, the ultimate betrayal. She was determined not to cry, fearing if she did she might reconsider. If she could remain strong on the outside, determined, single-minded, then perhaps it would be easier.
         She looked at her watch, ‘the boys will be back in an hour. Shall we go for a walk? I fancy some fresh air.’