Page 20 of One in Three

‘Can you call her again now? Just to make sure?’

‘Absolutely.’ I unplug my phone from its charger on the counter. ‘Make sure Tolly eats the sausages as well as the hoops. I’ll be back in a minute.’

I go outside and walk down to the vegetable garden, where I can be certain I won’t be overheard, and pace up and down between the broad beans, my mobile in my hand. Every time I call Caz, it feels like another surrender, the yielding of yet more precious family terrain. Asking her for her co-operation legitimises her role in the parenting of my children. But Bella needs her father to be at the play. Our divorce came at the worst possible time for her, when she was on the cusp of adolescence; every relationship she has with a man going forward will follow the template set by the one she has with Andrew. I don’t want her to grow up attention-seeking and needy because he failed her.

My fingernails dig half-moons into my palms. This woman didn’t even know my daughter for the firsttwelve years of her life. She broke up my son’s family before he’d even said his first word. And yet now she has a legitimate claim on them, a half-share of their precious, swift-flowing childhoods. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ve lost my husband to this woman, but the thought of her mothering my children cuts straight through to my soft underbelly.

I pull up her number, but to my relief, the call goes to voicemail, and I hang up without leaving a message. I’m still seething over the fact that Caz will be the one celebrating Bella’s big night with her, and I remind myself firmly that this isn’t about me. Andrew will be there for Bella, which is all that really matters.

When I go back inside, Bella has disappeared upstairs, leaving her plate of untouched cheese on toast on the table. Tolly is crawling around on the floor, trying to feed his sausages to Bagpuss.

‘Leave him alone,’ I scold, rescuing the cat and depositing him on the ancient, hair-covered sofa by the back door. ‘He’ll be sick if he eats those.’

‘I’ll be sick ifIeat them,’ Tolly says.

‘They’re hot dogs, not sausages. You like hot dogs.’

‘No, I don’t. They look like willies.’

‘Bartholomew!’

Tolly giggles, covering his mouth with dimpled hands that have yet to lose the fat of babyhood, his brown eyes dancing with mischief. I try to hold my stern expression, but it’s impossible. Tolly scrambles to his feet and launches himself at me full throttle, and we tumble back onto the sofa, laughing, as Bagpuss leapsout of the way. My little boy snuggles into my lap and I stroke his wild mop of russet curls, filled with overwhelming love for my son. Tolly, my unexpected, glorious autumn baby, squeaking in under the wire just before I turned forty.

I’d never expected to have another child after the problems I had with my first pregnancy. I’d had two miscarriages before Bella was conceived, and then my waters broke at just thirty-five weeks. After seventy-two hours of stop-start contractions and drugs and exhortations to push, to pant, to breathe, to give it one more try, I was finally rushed into theatre for the emergency C-section I should have had two days earlier. Bella was absolutely fine, a healthy six pounds two ounces; after her initial check-up, she didn’t even have to go to the NICU. But I’d lost a lot of blood, and all that pushing and trying had all but torn me inside out. No more babies, the obstetrician warned. Not that it was likely to happen anyway.

I had a healthy, beautiful baby girl in my arms, and whenever I felt a lingering sadness at the rabble of children I’d never have, I only had to look into her deep blue eyes to be overwhelmed with gratitude for what Ididhave.

And then, five years ago, I skipped a period. I didn’t pay it too much attention at the time; thePostwas undergoing some major restructuring – for which read redundancies – as it attempted, like every other legacy media institution, to compete with online news sources, and what with everything else that was going on inmy life, my stress levels were through the roof. But then I’d missed another cycle, and suddenly I couldn’t stand the smell of eggs. My silhouette went from Olive Oyl to Jessica Rabbit overnight. I had been thrown a miraculous lifeline, just at the moment I thought I’d drown.

I’d known from the beginning the odds of a successful pregnancy were stacked against me. My age and previous history didn’t bode well, and then I started spotting at ten weeks. My obstetrician insisted I give up work, and rest as much as possible. Leaving thePosthad been a risk, even for just a few months, with so many jobs being cut and hungry young freelancers willing to work for half the pay and no benefits; but I didn’t hesitate. All that mattered was my baby. And somehow I managed to keep Tolly safe. I reached my second trimester, and then my third. Everything looked good. The baby seemed healthy, all my scans and tests came back normal. I got to thirty-five weeks, then thirty-six, and thirty-seven.

At thirty-eight weeks, I was dropping Bella off at school when I collapsed in the middle of the playground. Had it not been for the quick thinking of another parent, a doctor who recognised the signs of pre-eclampsia, both Tolly and I would almost certainly have died.

There’s very little I remember about the next ten days. I have a few hazy memories of the ambulance ride to hospital, of sirens and lights and Andrew, white-faced, rushing along the corridor as they wheeled me into theatre, gripping my hand so hard I thought he’dbreak my fingers. Tolly had been hastily delivered via Caesarean, safe and well, but they’d struggled to stabilise me as my blood pressure soared and my blood refused to clot properly. At one point, as my organs started to shut down, the doctors told my parents and Andrew to prepare for the worst. He even brought Bella in to say goodbye. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for her, a twelve-year-old child, facing the loss of her mother.

Andrew’s face was the first thing I saw when I regained consciousness. He was fast asleep in the chair next to me, his head pillowed on his wadded-up jacket, still holding my hand as if he had never let go. He looked drawn and grey and ten years older than when I had last seen him.

He opened his eyes as I stirred. ‘Louise?’

If I had ever had any doubt that he loved me, it vanished then. I had only ever seen him cry twice before: at the death of his mother, and the birth of our daughter. ‘Don’t try to speak,’ he’d said anxiously, leaping up and pouring me a cup of water from the jug beside my bed and holding it to my lips. ‘They had to intubate you. Your throat will feel sore for a while.’

‘The baby—’

‘He’s fine. At home with Min. She’s been looking after him while I’ve been here with you.’ He sat on the bed next to me and took my hand again, mindful of the IV line taped to the back of it. ‘I thought I’d lost you,’ he said thickly. ‘Oh, God, Lou, don’t ever do thatto me again. I couldn’t bear it if I lost you. I love you so much.’

The room had suddenly filled with medics, checking charts and monitors and IV bags, making adjustments and tapping away on iPads, frowning in concentration. I’d leaned back against the pillows while they’d bustled around me, smiling exhaustedly as Andrew kissed the back of my fingers. Our son was safe. Our children wouldn’t have to face growing up without a mother. Our family had survived, and we’d be stronger than ever because of what we’d been through together. Everything was going to be OK.

A week later, Andrew left me.

Chapter 5

Caz

My right heel snaps as I step off the escalator at Sloane Square. I pitch forward, arms windmilling as I try to keep my balance. ‘Goddammit!’

The tide of commuters shows no mercy. I hobble to the side before I’m mown down, leaning one palm against the wall and hingeing my knee behind me to check my heel. It’s totally fucked. Even if there was a heel-bar nearby, which there isn’t, and I had time to wait for them to fix it, which I don’t, the heel hasn’t come unglued, it’s completely snapped in two. There’s no way it can be repaired. These are my sensible M&S granny shoes, the ones I can actuallywalkin. Now I’m going to have to spend the rest of the day teetering around in the four-inch stilettos I keep at work for date nights with Andy.

I hitch my bag back onto my shoulder and stumble unevenly down the King’s Road. I haven’t even had my first coffee and my day has already gone to shit. First the invitation, plopping onto our doormat this morning like a giant embossed turd, and now this.Bloody Celia Roberts. She probably jinxed me with some kind of voodoo spell over the invite involving chicken feathers and the blood of virgins.

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