‘Why do they call it morning sickness?’ She hears Olivia groan. ‘It lasts all bloody day.’
‘I had a friend who had this during the entire pregnancy,’ Saffron says. ‘Can you imagine? Her gynaecologist told her it would be over at three months, but it went on for nine. Ghastly. They had her on all sorts of drugs, but nothing worked.’
‘Oh God, that’s horrific,’ Olivia says. ‘Thank God this is going to be over soon.’
‘You’re definitely not having it?’
There’s a silence. ‘I can’t,’ Olivia says in a soft voice. ‘What would I do with a baby? There’s no room in my life, and frankly I’ve never been one of those women whose biological clock started ticking. Either mine wasn’t working or I didn’t have one.’
‘What about adoption?’ Saffron asks. ‘Would you ever consider that?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.’
Everyone looks up as Anna rushes into the living room.
‘Paul,’ she blurts out urgently. ‘I have an idea! We could adopt Olivia’s baby!’
‘What?’ Paul shakes his head. Did he understand her correctly?
‘No, no, I am serious! She does not want a baby and we do. Doesn’t it make perfect sense?’
‘Oh Anna,’ Paul says sadly. ‘I don’t think she wants to have a baby at all. Listen to her, she’s been throwing up for days. The last thing she wants is to go through a pregnancy. It’s a wonderful idea, but I don’t think it’s ever going to happen.’
‘Why not ask?’ Holly interrupts. ‘It is a wonderful idea, and you won’t know unless you ask.’
‘Do you think?’ Paul says doubtfully. ‘I think it’s incredibly presumptuous.’ ‘
It’s not!’ Anna insists. ‘Imagine if she said yes! This could be the answer to everything. I swear, Paul, do you not think it is too much of a coincidence that Olivia is pregnant and does not want a child? And here she is, staying with us, when we have been trying for a baby for two years and now we are talking about adoption? I think God brought us all together for a reason, and I think this is it. I swear to you, I really do.’
‘God brought us together for what reason?’ Saffron and Olivia have come down the stairs.
Paul looks down at his plate, not wanting to be the one to ask.
Anna waits until Olivia sits down, then looks straight at her. ‘Olivia…’ She is suddenly nervous. ‘You know Paul and I have been trying IVF, and it has not worked. Well, we were thinking that, um, maybe, now you are pregnant and you do not want the baby… we were thinking that if you would consider having the baby, perhaps we could adopt it.’
It is far more difficult for Anna to say this than she realized. She has always been impulsive, has never had any problems with asking for what she wants – you don’t get to run the third most successful Internet company in the UK without knowing how to ask for what you want, but this is so important to her, something she wants so badly, she is uncharacteristically nervous, terrified the answer will be no.
‘God… I… I don’t know what to say.’ Olivia is shocked. Has never truly considered adoption as an option. For it’s not simply that she doesn’t want a baby, it’s that she doesn’t want to be pregnant, doesn’t want to be any place other than where she was a few short weeks ago. She wants to pretend this never happened.
She doesn’t want to have a growing bump, to have everyone ask her when the baby is due, only to turn up after nine months with no baby. She doesn’t want to – oh horror – throw up for the next seven months.
But can she deal with an abortion? She has never had any particularly strong feelings about abortion. It’s never been an issue that she’s had to consider. Of course, she must know people who have had them, but if they have, they have never turned to her for help. It has never been a factor in her life until in a few weeks ago.
She has tried not to think about it. Not to think about what she will be doing – that there is a life growing inside her which she has the ability to end. She hasn’t thought about that but has merely thought of the one thing she wants, and the quickest way to achieve it – to turn the clock back.
‘I don’t know,’ she repeats, thinking for the first time about carrying a baby to term, what that would mean, giving birth and then giving a child away. ‘I didn’t seriously think… hadn’t thought…’
‘We realize you’ll need to think about it. Obviously,’ Paul interjects. ‘And we don’t want you to feel any pressure or to do anything you don’t want to do, but if you did decide to go through with the pregnancy and put the baby up for adoption, we would love to adopt your child.’
‘And think,’ Anna knows she is too eager, too excited, but she can’t help herself, ‘you would still be around, still be part of the child’s life.’
‘I need some time.’ Olivia looks first at Paul, then at Anna. ‘I think it’s an incredible offer, but I need some time to think about it.
‘Of course,’ Anna says. ‘Take as much time as you need.’
Under the table, Will strokes Holly’s hand. They are sitting next to each other. They have barely been able to function throughout this meal, have certainly not been able to keep their hands to themselves.
Their hands have been clasped the entire time. Will lays down his knife and reaches down to where no one can see, resting his hand on Holly’s leg, or running a finger stealthily around her wrist, sending shivers of electricity up and down her spine, an electricity she hasn’t felt in years. An electricity she never expected to feel again.
The others may not see, but they know. The air around Holly and Will is fizzing. Holly may think she is being subtle by not looking at Will, not giving any indication that anything has happened, but there is now a thread joining them, a thread that may not be visible but can clearly be felt.
Saffron sees. She clears the plates, and on the way back from the kitchen her eyes are drawn to Will’s hand drawing quickly back from Holly’s lap. She already knew, of course, but she is too caught up in her own troubles to give it much thought.
For Saffron did think she could handle the alcohol. She thought tonight would be like all those other nights when she could happily sip her water or her juice and not feel the taste of alcohol on her tongue, not feel the happy buzz as the vodka loosens her up, makes her warm and silly.
But as the evening progresses it is becoming harder and harder to think about anything other than alcohol. Her mind is barely focused on the conversation; she loses herself in a fantasy of everybody leaving the room so she can grab the bottles of wine, tip her head back and pour them down.
It is so real, she has to physically stop herself from reaching for a bottle, grabbing it and drinking the contents, there and then, in front of everyone.
She can’t sit still. She keeps jumping up from the table, her body suffused with an itch for which there seems to be only one cure. And yet there is the part of her that doesn’t want to and knows she shouldn’t, but she’s pretty certain she doesn’t have the strength or the willingness to fight.
*
When Saffron stepped into her first AA meeting, she knew she didn’t have a choice. Her meagre earnings from various advertisements were all being spent on alcohol, and she was beginning to lose jobs. She was becoming known for being unreliable, turning up hungover or, worse, drunk.
At first, she would just drink at night. Like everybody else, she told herself. She was young, in her twenties, and that’s what they did at night. When she hit thirty, she tried telling herself the same thing, while the drinking progressed and her career stopped rising to the heights that all the press had predicted.
By her early thirties, she stopped being the next big thing, started being a has-been. It was her agent who brought her into AA, and she was sober from her very first meeting, knowing there wasn’t another choice.
Ninety in ninety. Ninety meetings in ninety days. For the first time since arriving in America, she felt she had a home, had a fellowship of people who truly understood he
r, who listened without judgement, supported her with what felt like, extraordinarily enough, unconditional love.
She vowed, back then, never to drink again. She did exactly what she was told to do: don’t drink; get a sponsor; work the steps. She thought she was fine. Recovered? Perhaps. Others described themselves as recovering alcoholics, a process that never stopped. They talked, Saffron included, of having a progressive disease, one that didn’t go away or get better, one that would inevitably lead to death if they gave in to it.
‘I’m Saffron and I’m a grateful recovering alcoholic,’ she got used to saying. Yet at some time over the last few months, she stopped thinking of herself as recovering and started thinking of herself as recovered. Which is when the problems started.
And now, just like those days of old, Saffron finds herself wishing the evening was over so she could drink in peace. Wishing she could escape to run down to that lovely cosy pub and settle in a corner, drinking herself into oblivion.
She misses Pearce. Misses him so very much. She misses her life – the simplicity of it all. And as lovely as it should be, here in the country with the friends who have known her for ever, she’d rather be somewhere else.
She’d rather be drinking.
They get to bed by midnight. Saffron kisses everyone goodnight, distracted as she plans her return to the kitchen for a drink. She goes upstairs and listens to the sounds of the house, waiting for absolute quiet, waiting until she can sneak downstairs in secrecy and drink the bottle of wine she surreptitiously hid behind the cleaning stuff under the kitchen sink.
Every time she hears a footstep, a door creak, a toilet flushing, she wants to scream with irritation, cast a spell to send everyone into a dreamless sleep.
Eventually, at one o’clock, she is certain the house is quiet. She pads out and downstairs to the kitchen, opening the cupboard door under the kitchen sink, reaching towards the back.
‘Fuck!’ she hisses as a bottle of bleach falls over, the crash shockingly loud in the stillness.
‘What are you doing?’ Saffron jumps as Olivia stands in the doorway, rubbing the back of her neck with a cold, wet flannel.
‘I’m…’ Saffron, so good at excuses, has nothing to say, nothing to explain why she is rooting around under the sink at one o’clock in the morning. She shuts the cupboard door quickly, but Olivia moves her out of the way and sinks down herself, reaching behind the bleach and Fairy Liquid to pull the wine bottle out.
She shakes her head, disappointed, resigned, and uncorks the bottle, both of them watching in silence as the wine glugs its way slowly down the plughole.
‘Why?’ Olivia turns to look at Saffron, who is torn between wanting to either slap Olivia or burst into tears.
‘Why do you think?’ she snaps, anger getting the better of her. ‘Because I needed a drink, for God’s sake. I’m an alcoholic, aren’t I? Isn’t that what we do?’ She snorts derisively. ‘Why? What a stupid bloody question. Why not?’
‘Saffron!’ Olivia is shocked, upset, her voice rising. ‘I’m trying to help you. We’re all trying to help you. Do you think any of us would be here if it weren’t for you? We’ve all bent over backwards trying to make you better, keeping the press away from you, keeping you away from alcohol. How are we supposed to help you if you’re not willing to help yourself?’
‘But don’t you see?’ Saffron hisses. ‘I’m not willing to help myself. That’s exactly the problem. I wish I was.
I’m praying for the willingness to help myself, but it isn’t there. All I want to do is drink.’
‘Sssh!’ Olivia is suddenly distracted. ‘What’s that?’
‘What?’
‘Listen. That… Oh my God, is that groaning?’
Saffron stops in her tracks and both of them move towards the door, listening to the unmistakable sound of a couple making love.
‘Is that Paul and Anna?’ Olivia is confused, the sound coming from somewhere else.
Saffron starts to laugh and, for a minute, her urge to drink recedes. ‘No!’ she whispers. ‘It’s Holly and Will.’
‘No!’ Olivia starts to smile.
‘I know.’ Saffron rolls her eyes. ‘Could you believe the electricity between them over dinner?’
‘Wow. Do you think she’s sleeping with him? Already?’
‘Oh God, I can’t listen.’ Saffron covers her ears as they hear a soft moan, a louder, distinctly male, groan.
Olivia giggles. ‘I feel like I’m back at university. Jesus. I haven’t listened to noises like that in years.’
Saffron nods. ‘Come on. Let’s go back in the kitchen. I feel like a voyeur.’
They walk back and Saffron sits down at the table, sinking her head on her arms as Olivia fills the kettle then turns to look at her. ‘I don’t suppose a cup of tea is enough to stop you wanting to drink?’
‘Hardly. But it’s better than nothing. Oh God, Olive,’ Saffron looks up at Olivia pleadingly, ‘what am I going to do?’
‘Oh darling.’ Olivia reaches down and puts her arms around her, hugging her tight. ‘We’ll help you. Just don’t drink. Not today.’
‘I know,’ Saffron whispers. ‘Just for today. A day at a time.’
‘Anyway,’ Olivia says, smiling, ‘the pubs are all closed and that wine was the last of the bottles we bought. You couldn’t drink right now even if you wanted to.’
And I want to, Saffron thinks. Still. I want to.
Holly lies snuggled up against Will, his arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders as he lies on his back, snoring gently.
She turns her head to look at him, wanting to trace his profile with her fingers, but she doesn’t, too scared she’ll wake him. What she wants to do is exactly what she’s doing right now – drinking him in, watching him breathing, marvelling at the feeling of wanting to snuggle up with someone, wanting to stroke her fingers over his chest, rest her fist gently in his clavicle, cover his shoulders with kisses.
She knew, from the second he kissed her, that something more would happen. She had wanted to have sex, wanted to make love, but she found that she couldn’t go further than foreplay, couldn’t allow penetration, even though it seemed to be the one thing she wanted more than anything else.
It was a bridge she wasn’t prepared to cross, not yet. But oh how lovely the rest of it was. How lovely kissing was.
With Marcus, she always tried very hard not to kiss him, would close her eyes as he was thrusting into her, and lose herself in a fantasy, knowing that should she open her eyes and see Marcus’s face looming above her, any pleasure there was would disappear in a flash.
She and Will may not have had sex, but she made him come, came herself – oh how she came… And after she came, Will lay there and cuddled her, and he talked. And talked. And talked.
She was stunned. Was so used to that perfunctory kiss, rolling over to her side of the bed for a Marcus-free dream, she had forgotten that people did this, that they cuddled up and talked softly.
This is intimacy. This is what she has missed.
Perhaps tomorrow they will be able to make love, she thinks. Perhaps tomorrow she will not feel guilty. Perhaps tomorrow she will trust him enough, trust herself enough. For tonight this is all she needs. She plans on getting out of bed in a minute, going back to her own room; but before she knows it, she has fallen into a peaceful sleep.
At five in the morning, Holly wakes up. She swims into consciousness, aware that she is squeezed up against Will in the middle of the bed. She can feel his body the length of hers, and she lies for a minute trying to get used to the sensation.
She and Marcus never touched in their sleep. How odd, then, that unconsciously she would allow Will to get so close. Holly slips out of bed and pads down the hallway to her own room, grateful that the children haven’t woken, haven’t found her with Will – how stupid, she shakes her head. Not worth the risk, even though it was an accident, even though she never meant to fall asleep in his arms.
Holly lies in bed replaying every
second of the night before. From that first kiss to the stolen hand-holding under the table, to lying naked with this man she has desired more than she has ever desired anyone.
She lies in bed smiling, and when Daisy wakes up and climbs into bed with her ‘for a snuggle’, she strokes Daisy’s face and gazes into her eyes with love. How lucky I am, she thinks, to have my children, to have all these people I love right here with me. And lying in her bed, with Daisy’s arms wrapped around her neck, Holly feels, for the first time in years, entirely and unreservedly happy.
Chapter Twenty-six
‘I’m exhausted,’ Olivia announces over breakfast. ‘We’ve all been working like dogs, and I haven’t seen anything of the area. Would it be awful if we took the afternoon off?’
‘I think that is a great idea,’ Anna says. ‘God knows you all deserve it. I am going to stay, I think. We are so close to finishing those bloody floors. I will help Paul, but you could go into Gloucester, do some shopping. And Holly, if you want to leave those yummy children with me, I would love to babysit.’
‘You would?’ Holly’s face lights up. ‘That would be amazing!’
‘So you’ll come?’ Olivia turns to her. ‘And Saff? Will?’ They all nod.
‘I wouldn’t mind seeing what the shops are like.’ Saffron gets up and pours herself some more coffee. ‘I feel a bit of a spending spree coming on.’
‘You won’t find many designer labels in Gloucester.’ Paul laughs.
‘She doesn’t need any with me here.’ Anna pouts. ‘Seriously, Saff, if ever you need anything you know you just have to ask me.’
‘I do know that, and thank you, darling. I will. I just want to get presents for friends back home.’
‘Home as in LA?’ Holly asks.
Saffron nods.
‘Friends as in Pearce?’ she asks again. Saffron shrugs.
‘I would like to get something for Pearce. Not that I even know if I’ll see him any more.’
‘Have you been in touch?’ Olivia says gently.