The Pregnancy Bond Read online

  He told her of his lonely childhood without brothers or sisters.

  ‘We moved around a lot with Dad’s job, so I never got the chance to make friends. I kept wanting my parents to have more children so that I’d have someone to play with. But they never did. Then when I was fourteen they died.’

  ‘So now you think you’re going to get someone to play with?’ she teased.

  And he grinned and said, ‘Reckon that’s it.’

  Now she was carrying his child again, as unplanned and unexpected as before. But nothing else was the same.

  She wondered how she could have missed the clues. But years of failing to conceive again had convinced her that it wasn’t possible, so the signs had slid past unnoticed, or at least misinterpreted. The tetchy mood that she recalled from last time had returned, but she’d mistaken it for the strain of working so hard.

  Here she was at the beginning of her ‘new life’, and suddenly she was back in the old one.

  ‘No,’ she muttered aloud. ‘I’ve played this script before and I’m not doing it again. I get pregnant, Jake does the decent thing, and I’m left feeling grateful. Not this time. No way. I’m a big girl now. I’ll look after myself and my baby without help from him.’

  My baby! It had a melancholy sound. It should have been ‘our baby’. There were so many moments that she was going to miss: telling Jake that he would be a father at last, seeing his eyes glow with joy, sharing the birth with him.

  She must forget about all those things, because Jake didn’t really want her. He’d wanted the glamorous creature of the party, but that hadn’t been the real Kelly. Even the pencil-slim figure would soon blur and thicken.

  But for how long? Suppose she miscarried again? That, too, she would face alone if it happened. And it was better that way.

  ‘He needn’t even know I’m pregnant,’ she went on to herself. ‘I’ll say I have to work, and not visit him again. He’ll go back to Olympia and I-’ She pressed her hand over her stomach, the fingers splayed, and a smile came over her face.

  Suddenly it hit her. She was going to have a baby, Jake’s baby, the child she’d waited, longed and prayed for, all these years. Her smile was not only one of tenderness. It was a smile of triumph.

  This was the true beginning of her new life, not as the sexy imp who’d briefly captured Jake’s volatile fancy, but as a strong woman who could cope alone, depending on no man.

  ‘Who says it’s too late?’ she whispered. ‘It might be too late for us, but it’s only just starting for me.’

  Next day she found Jake sitting in a chair by the window. He seemed stronger, but there was a tension about him that made conversation difficult.

  ‘Does the doctor think you’re any better?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m making progress. Slow but sure, that’s what he keeps saying.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’m fine. I got a good mark for my last essay.’

  ‘And your job?’

  ‘That’s easy.’

  ‘But for how much longer?’ he asked slowly.

  Time seemed to stop. ‘What-do you mean?’ Kelly asked.

  ‘You’re pregnant, aren’t you?’

  ‘What? Jake, for pity’s sake-one little giddy spell-’

  ‘At precisely three o’clock in the afternoon.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘That’s what happened last time. Dead on three o’clock.’

  She stared. ‘You can’t possibly remember that.’

  ‘We were hurrying to catch a bus. It left at ten past three and when we reached the bus station I said, “It’s only three o’clock.” And the next minute you turned green. Yesterday it was three o’clock again.’

  ‘Well-that’s a coincidence.’

  ‘You’re pregnant.’

  This was the last thing she’d expected. How had Jake remembered that detail all these years when she hadn’t remembered it herself? With disaster staring her in the face she tried belligerence. ‘Well, what if I am?’

  ‘I just thought you might want to tell me,’ Jake said, looking out of the window.

  ‘Why?’

  He digested the implications of this for a moment before saying quietly, ‘No reason.’

  ‘Let’s stick to what we agreed, Jake,’ she said desperately. ‘Friendly, but no strings.’

  ‘All right, then as one friend to another tell me what happens now. Are you planning to marry the father?’

  ‘That doesn’t concern you.’

  ‘Tell me,’ he insisted, like the old, determined Jake.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Live with him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your decision or his?’

  ‘Mine.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Jake, I’m warning you-’

  ‘Do you even know who he is?’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Well, let’s face it, you were spoilt for choice when I last saw you-Kelly!’

  He was talking to empty air. Kelly had stormed out.

  She ran most of the way home, driven by her anger. She stopped finally in a tiny park where there was a duckpond, and sat on a bench. How shrewdly she’d planned a way of dealing with the situation, and then she’d fallen at the first fence.

  Yet she’d still travelled far. Once she would have been in tears at this point. Now she didn’t want to cry. She wanted to wring Jake’s neck. How dared he suspect her of sleeping around? Even if she had worked hard to give him that impression.

  A mother duck, with six frantically paddling ducklings in tow, made her way determinedly across the pond. Kelly smiled at the sight, and felt herself calming down. As her thoughts regained some sort of order she realised that Jake might have done her a favour by doubting the baby’s parentage.

  He’d seen her ‘belle of the ball’ act, and been fooled by it. Good. Anything was better than having him suspect that he was still the only man she’d ever slept with. What he was thinking would make life simpler. The truth would merely make it impossible.

  Her courage was returning as she headed out of the park.

  When she reached her apartment the telephone was already ringing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jake said as soon as she answered. ‘I really didn’t mean it the way it came out. It was just that you- Never mind. Can you come back here?’

  ‘No, but I’ll look in tomorrow.’

  ‘Promise?’ His voice was urgent.

  ‘I promise.’

  He was answering letters when she arrived next day, but he shoved the whole lot aside to greet her eagerly. His colour was better and his voice stronger.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he demanded.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Have you seen your local doctor?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why, for Pete’s sake?’ His eyes narrowed with sudden suspicion. ‘Have you made any decisions yet?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, understanding him. ‘I’m going to have the baby. I want it.’

  He relaxed slightly. ‘Then you must take proper care of yourself. You’ll just have to take money from me after all.’

  At the words ‘have to’ Kelly tensed. ‘I don’t have to do anything, Jake.’

  ‘It’s common sense. You can’t study and do a job if you’re pregnant. You mustn’t take risks.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll be careful.’

  ‘But not with any help from me, eh? Well, that tells me all I need to know.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean by that-’

  ‘You know exactly what I mean.’

  ‘Jake, understand this: nothing has changed between us. I am having a baby. I am, not we are.’

  She thought he became a little paler, but he spoke calmly. ‘You’ve already made that quite clear. But I told you before that I owe you, and I’d like to help.’

  She didn’t answer, but crossed her arms and looked mulish. It was Jake’s turn to grow annoyed.

 
‘And what about when the baby’s born? Have you thought of that, you mad woman? You can’t support yourself. You have to let me support you.’

  ‘I don’t have to do anything,’ she said through gritted teeth.

  ‘That’s just fine talk. In practical terms you do have to do what’s best for your baby, and that isn’t the way you’re living now.’

  ‘Will you stop giving me orders? You can’t do that any more.’

  ‘I never gave you orders.’

  ‘Oh, sure!’

  ‘I never did,’ he yelled.

  ‘Of course not. Why bother giving orders to someone who scurries to do whatever you want without waiting to be asked?’

  He stared. ‘You make me sound like a bully.’

  ‘No, you weren’t,’ she conceded with a sigh. ‘You just never thought. And that’s as much my fault as yours because I never forced you to think. I always gave in too easily.’

  ‘And you’re doing it again,’ he pointed out.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Rushing to take the blame, like that. You shouldn’t do it.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘You should stand up to me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t let me be so overbearing.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Except now, because I happen to be right.’

  Kelly sighed and threw up her hands at this inevitable end. ‘That’s for me to decide,’ she declared.

  ‘So what are you going to do for money? Or are you planning something really stupid like leaving college?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she yelled back. ‘I’ll find another way of making money.’

  ‘How?’ he demanded remorselessly.

  ‘Put a lodger in my spare room. I don’t know. I’ll think of something. But I’ll tell you this, Jake. I won’t be asking you for permission.’

  ‘Kelly, will you see sense?’ he roared.

  ‘I have seen sense. I saw sense the day I booted you out.’

  ‘Don’t be so-where are you going? Come back here. Kelly!’

  Dr Ainsley caught up with her in the café a few minutes later.

  ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘That was the best entertainment we’ve had for a long time.’

  ‘I suppose everyone heard every word.’

  ‘Well, neither of you bothered to lower your voices. Great stuff. And you did my patient a world of good. I haven’t seen him so lively since he came in here.’

  ‘We were arguing about my pregnancy. You didn’t-?’

  ‘Not guilty. I was pretty sure he’d spotted it for himself by the way he was looking at you when you turned green.’

  ‘At exactly three o’clock in the afternoon. Just like last time, apparently.’

  ‘He remembered that?’

  ‘Jake always says his mind is like flypaper. Things stick to it for ages. It’s very useful for a journalist.’

  ‘Ah, yes. That must be it.’ A figure appeared at the entrance of the café. ‘Look who’s here.’ He raised his voice. ‘Well done, Jake. And you’re barely out of breath.’

  He shifted for Jake to seat himself opposite Kelly, but then settled down again in his own seat.

  ‘I’ll stick around as referee,’ he said. ‘Retire to your opposite corners and when I say so, come out chucking cream buns.’

  ‘That’s all the cream buns in this place are good for,’ Jake observed. ‘Kelly, after you dashed off I realised that you’d been brilliant.’

  She’d recovered her temper enough to smile. ‘If you’d realised that years ago I might never have thrown you out.’

  ‘May you be forgiven! I walked out.’

  ‘Seconds ahead of getting my toe in your rear.’

  ‘End of Round One,’ Dr Ainsley declared. ‘Kelly gets it on points.’

  ‘She can have Round Two as well, since she came up with the perfect answer,’ Jake said.

  ‘So tell me how I was brilliant.’

  ‘You said you’d take a paying lodger.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Meet your first lodger. I’ll need somewhere to crash when I get out of here, and with my rent you’ll be able to leave that crummy job and-don’t shake your head like that. It makes sense.’

  ‘Nothing you’ve ever said has made sense, and the idea of us stuck under the same roof again when we’ve only just escaped each other-get real!’

  ‘I think the two of you are overlooking something,’ Dr Ainsley ventured.

  They both turned to him. ‘What?’

  ‘Henry VIII.’

  ‘Ignore him,’ Jake advised, seeing Kelly’s expression. ‘He’s been breathing in too much anaesthetic.’

  ‘Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves,’ Dr Ainsley went on. ‘She was his fourth wife. They had an amicable divorce and stayed the best of buddies. She had the semi-official title of “The King’s Dear Sister”. You two have eight years behind you. I’m not talking about love, I’m talking about understanding, knowing how each other’s minds work. Whether you like it or not, you’re intertwined, connected-as in “three o’clock in the afternoon”. What’s funny?’ Kelly was choking with laughter.

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s just the thought of him as Henry VIII. Mind you, he may not have the figure but he’s sure got the attitude.’

  ‘I’ll be the perfect lodger,’ he vowed.

  ‘I’m sure you will, but not for me. Listen, you two, it’s a lovely idea, but no.’

  ‘Kelly!’ They said it together.

  ‘You’ve got windmills in your head. Both of you. And now I really am going before I get them too.’

  That night her stint at the café seemed harder than ever. The afternoon had left her unsettled and now the smell of greasy food made her feel ill. An unwritten essay loomed before her like a barrier, and when she sat down to it the blank page danced before her eyes. She knew now that she must give up that job. She’d been right about taking a lodger. But not Jake. Anyone but Jake.

  It was several days before she returned to the hospital, meaning this to be the last visit. She would confirm her refusal, say goodbye, and that would be that. She recalled another time, only recently, when she’d planned much the same thing and it hadn’t gone that way. But this time it would be different.

  Dr Ainsley intercepted her and took her to his room.

  ‘There’s something you should know,’ he said hurriedly. ‘The day before yesterday Jake discharged himself. He was so determined to get out that he just upped sticks and went.’

  ‘And you let him?’

  ‘I couldn’t stop him. This isn’t a gaol.’

  ‘But why didn’t you call me?’

  ‘Because I don’t have your number. You’re not down as his next of kin. Nobody is. He went back to wherever he calls home, and that night one of his neighbours heard him groaning and called an ambulance. It wasn’t very bad, and he’s OK now. But if he’s that determined to get out of here, he may do it again.’

  ‘But surely he still needs nursing?’

  ‘Yes, but not intensive nursing. Just rest and feeding, with a nurse calling in every day to see to the medical side. If he had anyone living with him I’d send him home to them like a shot, but he hasn’t. And he has no family, as you told me. Oddly, for such a popular man, he’s very much alone.’

  Jake was back in bed, looking as though his escape and return to captivity had exhausted him. Kelly didn’t speak at first, but went and sat beside him, his hand in hers.

  After a while he said, ‘I’ve been an idiot.’

  ‘No change there, then,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. The sight of him looking pale and defeated made her heart ache. ‘Whatever possessed you to do such a daft thing?’

  He shrugged. ‘I was going stir crazy. You know me better than anyone. Can you imagine me settling in here? I know you want to see the back of me, and I don’t blame you. It’s just that all that brother and sister stuff the doc was handing out sounded pretty good for a while. But you were right to say no. If it d
oesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work.’

  She could feel herself teetering on the edge of giving in, and made a last desperate attempt to fend off disaster. ‘Olympia’s really the right person to be looking after you, Jake.’

  ‘She’s out networking from dawn to dusk. Besides, I haven’t got enough energy for Olympia just now.’

  ‘Well, I don’t suppose she’ll be expecting you to- I mean, for a while-’

  ‘Oddly enough, I didn’t mean that. I meant the whole romantic thing. It makes me feel tired just to think of it.’

  ‘Jake Lindley, whose appearance on the box is enough to make strong women swoon?’ she teased.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ he agreed without enthusiasm.

  ‘Oh Jake,’ she sighed, ‘what am I going to do?’

  ‘Whatever you want. It’s your call.’

  She gave a snort of indignation. ‘Oh, please! You must think I have a short memory. That was what you always said when you’d just tricked me into giving you your own way.’

  ‘No change there, then,’ he said, echoing her.

  ‘But it doesn’t work any more. Besides, you saw my spare room. It isn’t even furnished.’

  ‘I’ve thought of that.’ He reached into his bedside cabinet and pulled out a slip of paper, which he put into her hand. ‘This should cover furniture and paying workmen to install everything for you. You mustn’t try to do any of it yourself.’

  The amount of the cheque shocked her. ‘But this is far more than it’ll take to-’

  ‘Put it to the first month’s rent, then.’ He made a sudden grimace, as if in pain. ‘Let me do something for you, Kelly. Let me give as well as take.’ When she was still silent he said huskily, ‘Please.’

  It wasn’t Jake’s way to say please. Whatever he wanted he charmed people into offering. She told herself it was a trick to fool her. But, looking into his eyes, she saw an anxiety that she’d never seen before, and heard again Dr Ainsley saying, ‘For such a popular man, he’s very much alone.’