Making Your Mind Up (7 page)

Cressida was running a bath when her cell phone launched into its jaunty tune. Locating it under the pile of clothes she'd just discarded on the bed, she made her way back through to the bathroom to choose which bubble bath to add to the gushing water.

“Cressida? Hi, it's Sacha.”

“Hi, Sacha. How are you?” As if she didn't already know the answer to that question.

“Oh, busy busy. Rushed off my feet as usual. What's that noise in the background?”

“I'm running a bath.” Reaching over, Cressida selected the bottle of Marks & Spencer's Florentyna and shook a generous dollop under the taps. Then another dollop for good measure.

“Lucky you! Having a lovely relaxing bath at five o'clock in the afternoon,” Sacha exclaimed. “I wish I could do that. Now listen, Robert's stuck in a meeting in Bristol and I'm up to my ears with clients. God only knows what time we're going to be able to get away. OK if Jojo comes over to you?”

It wasn't the first time Sacha had asked this. Not even the three hundredth time. Sacha appeared to spend her life bobbing around in a sea of clients, only the top half of her head visible—although, naturally, her neat blond hair remained immaculate.

“No problem.” Cressida swirled the bathwater with her free hand, generating foam. “That's fine. I'll give her something to eat and she can help me in the garden later. What time will you be over to pick her up?”

“Well, the thing is, I'm being pressured to take the new clients out to dinner so I don't know how late it might be. And Robert thinks he may not be back before midnight, so…”

“How about if Jojo stays the night with me? Would that be easier?” Cressida wondered what Sacha would do if she told her she wasn't able to take Jojo. One day she must try it, see what happened. Sacha would rather chop off her own arms than miss out on the opportunity to woo her precious clients and make yet another spectacular sale.

Actually, it might be fun.

“Cress, you're a star!” Having gotten what she needed, Sacha put on her I'm-in-
such
-a-hurry voice. “That's great; I'll give Jojo a ring and let her know. Well, it's chaos here so—”

“You'd better get back to them,” Cressida said helpfully.

“I really must. And you can get back to your bath!
Ciao!
”

Cressida switched off the phone. Was it just her, or was everyone else driven nuts by the annoying way Sacha trilled
Ciao!
at the end of every phone conversation? Whatever possessed a woman who'd been born and bred in Bootle to say
Ciao
? Maybe it was something that was drummed into you on training courses when you were learning to become a hotshot, high-flying photocopier saleswoman.

Oh well, who cared? At least she had Jojo tonight. She'd put up with as many
Ciaos
as Sacha could throw at her for that.

Lying back in the bath, Cressida ran her hand lightly over the familiar silver scar traversing her stomach. How different might her life have been had that scar never needed to be made? She closed her eyes and imagined herself, twenty-three again and still happily married to Robert. Both of them had been so excited by the prospect of the baby that although they knew it was far too soon, they had been unable to resist rushing out and buying all kinds of baby paraphernalia. It had been the most joyful shopping spree of Cressida's life. To be a mother was all she'd ever wanted.

Back at home that evening surrounded by onesies, tiny knitted hats, a satin-lined Moses basket and a musical mobile that played nursery rhymes, Cressida had begun to experience the first excruciating knifelike pains in her stomach. She had crawled on all fours to the phone, petrified and plunged into icy panic, and tried to contact Robert, who was out playing cricket for his works team. Unable to reach him, she had been on the verge of dialing 911 when the pain had intensified and everything had turned black. When Robert finally arrived home at ten o'clock that night, he found her unconscious and barely breathing on the bathroom floor. An ambulance rushed Cressida to the hospital, where emergency surgery was carried out to save her life. The pregnancy had been ectopic, and her fallopian tube had ruptured. The degree of hemorrhaging was so severe that a total hysterectomy had been the only option.

When Cressida woke up to find Robert weeping silently at her bedside, she knew her life was over. Their longed-for child was gone and, along with it, any chance of motherhood.

Cressida wanted to die too. They had tempted fate, and fate had been tempted. Would this have happened if they hadn't bought all those things for the baby?

It was a possibility too horrible to contemplate. The more people told her that of course she hadn't caused it to happen, the less Cressida believed them. Awash with self-recrimination and grief, she sank into a depression so deep it was as if all the happiness had been sucked out of the world. She was trapped at the bottom of a well, its sides slippery and black. Nobody could help her to feel better because there was nothing that could
make
her feel better. People talked encouragingly about adoption, but Cressida wasn't ready to hear them. Everywhere she went, she saw pregnant women proudly displaying their bumps, parents out with their children, mothers holding newborn babies, and fathers playing rambunctious games of soccer with their sons.

Sometimes she saw frazzled housewives losing their tempers and yelling at their toddlers. That was when the knifelike pain ripped through Cressida's stomach all over again, and she had to rush away before she could do something stupid.

But at least, as everyone was forever telling her, she and Robert still had each other. Their marriage was rock-solid. Together they would gain strength and get through this.

In fact, their marriage was so rock-solid that eleven months after the night their lives had changed forever, Robert changed them again and moved out of the house overlooking Hestacombe village green. He told Cressida he wanted a divorce and Cressida said fine. Compared with the loss of their baby, losing Robert paled into insignificance. It barely registered on the scale of her grief. Besides, how could she blame him? Why would any normal healthy man in his right mind want to stay married to a twenty-four-year-old wife with no womb?

If she'd been physically capable of divorcing herself, she'd have done it too.

That's not to say she wasn't hurt by Robert's next action. But then again, men were thoughtless. Having by this time moved into a rented apartment in Cheltenham, he embarked on a whirlwind romance with a fiercely ambitious young sales rep called Sacha, who had just moved down from Liverpool to join the company. Cressida and Robert's divorce went through, and four months later Robert and Sacha were married. Six months after that, Robert arrived on Cressida's doorstep one day to tell her that he and Sacha had just put in an offer to buy one of the houses on the new estate on the edge of the village. Taken aback, Cressida said, “What, you mean
this
village?”

“Why not?”

“But
why
?”

“Cress, my apartment's too small. We need somewhere with more space. I like Hestacombe and this new house is perfect. OK, so we're divorced.” Robert shrugged and said reasonably, “But we can still be civilized toward each other, can't we?”

Her heart heavy, Cressida said, “I suppose so. Sorry. Yes, of course we can.” She felt ashamed of herself. Robert had been through the mill as well. She should be glad that at least one of them was managing to rebuild their lives.

Robert looked relieved. Then he said, “Oh, and I suppose I should tell you that Sacha's pregnant. That's another reason for the move, so we'll have room for the baby and an au pair.”

Cressida felt as if she'd been plunged into a vat of dry ice. Her tongue was sticking to the roof of her mouth, but she managed to stammer, “G-gosh. C-congratulations.”

“Well, it wasn't exactly planned.” Robert's tone was rueful. “Sacha really wanted to concentrate on her career for the next few years, but these things happen. I'm sure she'll cope. As Sacha's always saying, women can have it all these days, can't they?”

It was as if he was stabbing her with a long gleaming blade, over and over again. Struggling to breathe, Cressida somehow fixed a bright smile to her face. “Absolutely. Having it all, that's what it's all about.”

Stab stab.

As if realizing he might not have been too subtle, Robert shoved his hands into his pockets and said defensively, “I'm sorry, but you can't expect me to go through life not having children, just because of what happened to you.”

You
, Cressida noted. Not
us
.

“I don't expect you to do that.”

“I've met someone else. We're having a baby. Don't make me feel guilty, Cress. You know how much I wanted a proper family.”

She nodded, wanting him to leave. Badly needing to be alone. “I do. It's OK, I'm f-fine.”

Relieved, Robert said, “Good. That's that, then. Life goes on.”

Now, lying back in the bath, Cressida studied her orangey-pink painted toenails and gave them a wiggle. Life had indeed gone on. She had thrown herself into her work as a legal secretary and in her spare time had redecorated the entire house, because any form of activity was better than sitting down and thinking about the family she had lost.

Five months later she heard that Sacha had given birth to a seven-pound baby, a girl. That had been a hard day. Robert and Sacha named their daughter Jojo, and Cressida sent them a card she had made herself, to congratulate them.

Another milestone survived.

When Jojo was two months old, a nanny was hired and Sacha went back to work. Astrid, who was from Sweden and far more of a fresh-air fiend than Sacha, could be seen every day pushing Jojo in her Silver Cross stroller around the village. Keen to practice her English, Astrid stopped to chat with everyone she saw, which was how Cressida, arriving home from work one afternoon, found herself trapped into discussing the weather.

“The clouds, up in the sky, they are like major white pillows, do you not think?” Having been instructed that all English people loved to talk about the weather, Astrid always made this her opening gambit.

“Well, yes. Like…um,
big
white pillows.” Cressida was lifting a supermarket shopping bag out of the car.

“But I believe there may be raindrops later.”

“Rain, yes, probably.”

“I am Astrid,” the girl said proudly. “I am working as a nanny for Robert and Sacha Forbes.”

Cressida, who already knew this, tactfully didn't say, “Hi, Astrid. I'm Cressida Forbes, Robert's first wife.” Instead she said, “And I'm Cressida. It's very nice to meet you.”

Astrid beamed at her, then turned the stroller around and said brightly, “But I must not be forgetting my manners! I have also to introduce you to Jojo.”

Cressida held her breath and looked down at the baby lying in the stroller. Jojo gazed inscrutably back at her. Waiting for the familiar stabbing pain in her stomach, Cressida was relieved when it didn't come. She'd been terrified that she'd resent this baby for not being hers. But now she was here she knew she couldn't possibly resent an eleven-week-old infant.

“She is so beautiful, don't you think?” Astrid spoke with pride, leaning forward to tickle Jojo's chin.

“Yes, she is.” Cressida's heart expanded as, in response to the tickling, Jojo broke into a gummy smile.

“Such a good baby, too. I am enjoying very much looking after her. And are you having children as well?”

There was the stabbing pain. She knew Astrid meant do you have children, but this time Cressida didn't correct her. Clutching the supermarket bag containing her lonely meal-for-one, a packet of cookies, and a single pint of milk she said, “No, I'm not having children.”

“Ah, well, never mind!” Astrid beamed at her. “You are still young, lots of time to have fun and enjoy yourself first, eh? Like me! We can have our babies in a few years, can't we? Whenever we like!”

* * *

For eight months Astrid had been the perfect nanny. Cressida often thought afterward that she owed practically her entire relationship with Jojo to a moment's carelessness on the part of Astrid's mother.

Cressida had been coming out of Ted's shop one morning with her newspaper and a naughty packet of Whoppers when she had seen Sacha's company car heading down the High Street toward her. Screeching to a halt, Sacha stuck her head out of the driver's window and said, “Cressida, can you save my life?”

She was looking decidedly harassed. On the brief occasions they had met before, Cressida had been struck by Sacha's air of calm and superefficiency. Her clothes were efficient. Even her hair—neat and short and expertly highlighted—was efficient. Today, by way of startling contrast, there were milk stains on Sacha's sweatshirt and her hair was uncombed. Strapped into her baby seat in the back of the car, Jojo was wearing a T-shirt and a bulging diaper and was screaming her head off.

“What's wrong?” Cressida was alarmed. “Is Jojo ill?”

“Astrid's mother's in the hospital with multiple fractures. Crashed her car last night into a bridge. Astrid's gone to Sweden to see her and she doesn't know when she'll be back because there's no one else to look after her little brother.” As the words came tumbling out, the volume of Jojo's wailing increased. Sacha's knuckles whitened as she gripped the steering wheel. “And Robert's away on a bloody management training course in Edinburgh, and in two hours' time I'm due in Reading to pitch for the biggest account of my entire career. If I don't get there on time I don't know
what
I'll do—”

“Where are you going now?” Cressida cut in, because Sacha's voice was on a hysterical upward spiral.