Love Nest (3 page)

2

Even though her reflexology appointment had run over, making her slightly late, Gemma Meehan was first to arrive at the café where she was meeting her younger sister Bridget. No surprise there, Gemma thought as she took a corner seat and ordered a cup of peppermint tea.

She’d have loved a cappuccino, but caffeine was banned until her future baby, Chudney, as Alex, her husband, insisted on calling it (he’d laughed for about an hour when he’d heard that Diana Ross had cruelly named her daughter that), was safely in her arms. Although then Gemma would be breastfeeding, so caffeine would be off limits too. And then – who knew – but with luck there’d be another Chudney. In other words, no coffee for another – what? – three, four years? Never mind. For her unborn children she would do anything.

‘Stop it,’ Gemma said, almost out loud. She was getting ahead of herself again. There were no children. And whether there ever would be or not was all down to what happened in the next hour or so. At the thought of the conversation she was about to have, her heart began to pitter like rain on a tin roof. Calm down, she told herself. And by the same token, no negative vibes at Bridget’s lateness. Though she could have texted to let her know.

Gemma sighed. She’d spent twenty-one long years making allowances for Bridget. From the moment their mother had returned from the hospital jiggling a screaming bundle, all Gemma could remember was Bridget being a nuisance, albeit a cute one. As soon as she could crawl she snatched Gemma’s toys away. Ripped up her drawings. She blew out the candles on Gemma’s eighth birthday cake. Every time Gemma cried or complained, her parents told her not to be so silly, that she had to make allowances. That babies couldn’t be expected to understand the rules.

But the day never came when Bridget did start understanding the rules. Gemma loved Bridget – the maternal feelings that had always been at her core ensured that – but she couldn’t help feeling frustrated at times. While Gemma worked hard at school and even harder at her ballet, Bridget was always bottom of the class. What was worse was she never seemed to care. Gemma was mortified if she came home with an even vaguely bad report for anything, but Bridget didn’t give a damn. Mum and Dad would shake their heads and sigh and say, ‘Darling, you really must try harder,’ but she’d just giggle and the subject would get dropped.

Gemma had gone to ballet school, where she had literally worked her arse off – living for a while on two apples and a glass of milk a day in order to get herself down to the seven stone achieved by the top pupils. Bridget meanwhile had dropped out of school after her GCSEs (two Ds and an E) and gone off to Spain, where she’d worked in a bar for a couple of years.

By the time Bridget had returned with a fiancé, Pablo, Gemma had a job in the corps de ballet of a small company based in Manchester. It wasn’t the fairytale life she’d envisaged – the work was physically gruelling, the money was rubbish, and with every day that passed her dream of making prima ballerina became less likely.

But she’d never know if that dream might have come true, because shortly after she’d met Alex, who was up in Manchester working on a case, she’d badly sprained her foot, and that was the end of Gemma’s professional career. But it didn’t really matter because she was so deeply in love. Five months after they met Alex had proposed to her with a vast diamond and sapphire ring, which his grandmother had been given by her Rajah boss while working as a governess in India just before the war.

Gemma resigned from the ballet company, moved to London to be with Alex and found part-time work teaching dance to toddlers, which left her plenty of time and energy to plan their wedding.

Meanwhile, Bridget had discovered that Pablo had another fiancée back in Malaga, and was working in a shoe shop, although she got fired after a few months for unpunctuality. She went off to India for a while and came back with a gastric disorder that made her farts smell of rotten eggs and a dolphin tattoo on her left shoulderblade. She quickly found a job as dogsbody at a small business selling bras online, which Gemma thought sounded fascinating, but again she was sacked after a few months for spending too much time in chatrooms. Mum and Dad were very sympathetic and let her move into their house in Norwood until she sorted herself out.

It didn’t bother Gemma. She was used to it. But it infuriated Alex.

‘Here we are declining all offers of financial help for the wedding and there’s your sister still getting your poor mum to do all her washing and make her vegan meals,’ he fulminated.

‘But I don’t want Mum to do my washing,’ Gemma pointed out. Mum was a terrible cook, after all, and never properly sorted the lights and darks. Anyway, she was blissfully happy with Alex. They could look after themselves, why begrudge her sister?

She and Alex had got married in a beautiful ceremony at the Orangery in Holland Park. Alex and Bridget had a bit of a spat on the day because Bridget insisted on wearing black. Gemma let it ride. She was too busy having the happiest day of her life; or the happiest day until Chudney was born.

On honeymoon in South Africa, Gemma threw her pills away. Six months passed. Then another six. Gemma was only twenty-seven, so she was sure there was nothing to worry about. Nonetheless, she decided after another six months that they’d see a doctor. In the meantime, they put the flat on the market. Around that time she lost her job, when the ballet school she worked for went under. Although she was upset, she decided not to look for another one. She hoped not working would minimize stress levels and boost her chances of conception. It also gave her plenty of time to find the perfect family house.

‘Don’t you think you might be jumping the gun?’ asked her friend Lila, having sat through another lengthy summary of the properties on the short list.

‘Absolutely not. John and Alison only started looking for a new place when she was six months pregnant and they had a nightmare. Builders in with the baby, all that drilling and dust. I’d hate that.’

In the end it took five months of surfing the net, tramping round estate agents introducing herself, poring late into the night over school league tables. But then just three weeks ago – the day before their first appointment with fertility doctor to the stars Dr Malpadhi – she found 16 Coverley Drive.

Gemma couldn’t resist. She reached into her bag and pulled out the glossy details that by now were etched on her heart. The four bedrooms so beautifully decorated, one for her and Alex, one for each baby and one for guests – even Bridget, if she cooperated today. The lovely light kitchen/diner with its granite work surfaces and Mexican tiles and flagstone floor backing on to the seventy-foot mature, west-facing garden. Gemma wasn’t quite sure why west-facing was so good, but everyone’s voices dropped in a hushed kind of way at the mention of it and, as for mature, well, that had to be better than immature, which made her think of a garden making fart jokes and crying when it didn’t get its own way.

Then there were the things you didn’t see, though they were reflected in the price – the Ofsted-rated outstanding primary school just down the road. The town with its cutesy shops, where people still greeted each other in the street. The station, ten minutes’ walk away, with its commuter trains for Alex.

OK, the decor was too flamboyant for her – all primary colours, dhurrie rugs and strange metal figurines. Gemma was a more restful, neutrals kind of girl. But such details were cosmetic. She wanted this house so much. And amazingly, picky Alex wanted it too. Terrified that the market was bottoming out and soon prices would start to soar again, they put in an offer for a hundred grand less than the asking price and, after a week of haggling, managed to settle on a discount of fifty grand.

It was theirs. Except it wasn’t. Because they still had to sell Flat 15. Flat 15, Alex’s bachelor pad, which had seemed so quirky and cool when she’d moved in, but which was now a millstone that no one wanted to buy, that was holding them back. Flat 15, which was all wrong for a family – because families didn’t live in city centres and open-plan lateral spaces, they lived in two-storey houses in the suburbs where there was fresh air and good schools and no tramps slumped asleep in doorways. That was how Gemma had grown up and it was what she was determined to provide for her own babies.

But luckily the Drakes of Coverley Drive were still looking for a property of their own, so for now they were happy to wait. And Flat 15 had to sell eventually. In fact, a viewing was taking place right now. Gemma shut her eyes, focusing all her energies into making this one a success. She’d done everything the programmes advised, made fresh coffee that morning, left vases of flowers everywhere, put out photos of her and Alex looking fun-loving and carefree. She’d even lit some sodding vanilla candles that made her sinuses ache but that were allegedly irresistible to home buyers. This time it had to work.

Gemma regrouped. Selling the flat was not her only concern. She had work to do with Bridget too. Time to focus on that.

The door opened, letting in a blast of freezing air.

‘Hiiii!’ called Bridget from the threshold.

She was wearing a rainbow-striped jumper, a blue beret with sequins on it and no make up. She had two pigtails tied with rubber bands and she had put on a bit of weight since the last time Gemma had seen her at Christmas, before another long trip to India. Weren’t you meant to
lose
weight there with all the curries and dysentery and stuff? ‘Stop it,’ Gemma told herself. Bridget wasn’t a dancer, she could be any weight she wanted.

Most of the time Gemma felt a bit sorry for Bridget, but every now and then she couldn’t help being just the tiniest bit admiring of the casual way she flouted the norms. Sometimes she suspected her sister was a much braver creature than her. Alex, of course, disagreed.

‘She’s not brave. She’s lazy, rude and disrespectful.’

‘That’s harsh.’

‘Well, look at her, gadding off to Goa for six months whenever she fancies it, to discover herself. She treats life like a holiday.’

‘Why shouldn’t she?’

‘Because holidays have no meaning unless they’re a break from reality.’ Sometimes Gemma wondered if her husband was jealous of Bridget’s falafel-munching, festival-attending, anti-globalization-marching existence. After all, it couldn’t be more different from his own, which was like a hurdle race. Swotting to win a scholarship to Belfast’s top private school and then to get into Oxford. To qualify as a barrister, to fight to get a pupillage and then win tenancy of his chambers and now his sixty- to seventy-hour weeks working late almost every night and at weekends, to be on top of his briefs, rarely taking a holiday in case a big case came up.

But if Bridget agreed to Gemma’s request, he’d have to change his tune. She hadn’t told him they were meeting. The plan was to surprise him with the most incredible news.

‘Oh, sorry!’ Bridget cried, as she trod on the foot of an elderly lady, who tutted in annoyance. Bridget steamed on, having not even noticed.

‘Hey!’ She pulled her sister to her bosom in a clumsy, patchouli-scented hug.

‘Great to see you. You look
fantastic.
How are you?’ Gemma suspected she was going overboard on the gushiness but she was nervous. Everything hinged on the next twenty minutes or so.

‘
Really
good!’ Bridget cried, sitting down. ‘I’m thinking about doing a degree. I’ve been looking at all the different courses.’

‘Oh, wow!’ Gemma said, though more from duty than real enthusiasm. For years announcements like that had fired her up. She’d get all excited on Bridget’s behalf, helping her pursue whatever her latest dream was by investigating it on the internet, sending off for brochures, making calls on her behalf. But by the time all the information was placed in front of her Bridget had long moved on to the next fad, so Gemma had stopped bothering.

‘I’m thinking of doing a course in popular and world music. There’s one at Leeds. Or maybe film and television. Or women’s studies. Hi.’ Big smile to the waitress. ‘A cappuccino, please. Ooh and maybe a slab of that yummy-looking chocolate cake. Anything for you?’

‘I’m fine.’ Gemma waved the waitress away with a polite smile. To stave off the nagging of ‘
Why
not? Are you eating enough?’ that inevitably accompanied such exchanges, she quickly added, ‘So no more travelling for now?’

‘Oh no, definitely some more travelling. The plan’s to earn some money – there’s a job in a sandwich shop going. Once I’ve earned enough I thought I’d go to Indonesia for some meditation. But not for a while. Say September, when the weather cools down a bit. So you’re stuck with me for the next few months.’

‘But what about the university course? Doesn’t term start in October?’

Bridget waved airily. ‘I wasn’t planning on starting this year. Maybe next year. There are more important things than courses and qualifications, you know.’

‘Mmm,’ Gemma said, congratulating herself on not inviting Alex to this meeting. Those kinds of comments irritated him like a case of prickly heat. ‘So… any news from Mum and Dad?’

‘Only the email they sent both of us.’ Their parents had moved to Spain three months ago. ‘Sounds like the neighbours are being a bit arsey about the extension.’

‘They’ll win them round, I’m sure.’

‘I hope so, because once it’s built, I’ll be out there like a shot. They won’t be able to get rid of me. Dad said he’d send me a ticket.’

Typical. Gemma smiled serenely. ‘And where are you living now?’

‘At my friend Estelle’s in Acton. Remember Estelle? Amazing woman. You should ask her to do your Tarot some time. I’m sleeping on her sofa. Not the comfiest but it’s really near this community centre which does subsidized yoga for jobseekers, so I’ve been going there every morning.’

Gemma took a deep breath. She’d ask her now. But she was thrown off beam by her phone ringing. She looked at the caller ID, planning to ignore it, but it was Dunraven Mackie. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, grabbing it. ‘Hello?’

‘Hi, Gemma,’ said Lucinda, in her upper-crust tones. ‘Lucinda Gresham here. Returning your call.’