Sins (52 page)

The termination of a pregnancy was illegal, but there were doctors who performed such a procedure–if one was desperate enough, or rich enough. Ella felt that she had been lucky. One of the other girls at
Vogue
had guessed her condition and under pressure from Ella had given her the name of a doctor who she had ‘heard’ carried out safe terminations in properly sterile conditions–for a price and only on word-of-mouth recommendation from someone else in the know.

‘You are perfectly healthy,’ he had told her this morning after he had said that her test had indeed confirmed that she was pregnant. ‘There is no reason why you should not give birth to a healthy child.’

‘But I can’t have a baby,’ Ella had wept. White-faced, she had then told him about her mother, whilst he had listened, nodded and then told her to see his nurse to make an appointment to come in in another week’s time for a D and C.

It might now be fall, with the leaves on the trees in Central Park turning the most glorious shades of crimson and gold, but the sun was still warm, too warm for her autumn coat over her new plaid autumn miniskirt and its toning deep plum cable-knit jumper, which she was wearing with a pair of suede boots from Biba, which Janey had sent to her, and which had been sighed enviously over by the whole of her office.

Fall. In less than a month now Brad would be back in New York. He had written to her the previous week to say that he was in the process of finishing his book, and making arrangements to return to the city and that he was very much looking forward ‘to seeing you again and taking up from where we left off to go somewhere very special’.

Once those words would have thrilled her and filled her heart with excitement and joy. Once. For a very brief window of time between going to bed with Oliver and realising the nature of the unwanted consequences of having done so.

Oliver himself was preparing to return to London. She had seen him briefly the previous day when he had come into the office to discuss with the fashion editor the photographs he had taken on the desert shoot. From what Ella had heard,
Vogue
’s legendary
chief editor, Diana Vreeland, had declared them absolute masterpieces.

Ella knew that he had seen her because he had looked at her, but to her relief he hadn’t made any attempt to speak to her. That was exactly the way she wanted things. They had nothing to say to one another, after all. She would be relieved when he had gone back to London. Once, the fact that he was here would have been enough to have her worrying and anxious, but now the deeper and more pressing fear of her pregnancy had pushed all the other feelings she might ordinarily have experienced to one side. Dr Goldberg had warned her to buy herself some painkillers. He had written down what she must get. She had put the piece of paper away safely, hadn’t she? Anxiously Ella opened her handbag to check.

Oliver was just leaving the
Vogue
building when he saw Ella coming down the street towards it, a slender attractive figure in her plum and black coat and her suede boots, the sun shining on her hair. Something unfamiliar and unsought stirred unexpectedly inside him. A desire, a need to go up to her and…and what? Claim her? He might have had shagging rights with her for a handful of days, but that was over. She didn’t look particularly happy, he noticed. In fact she looked downright unhappy, her face paler and thinner than he remembered it. What was the cause of that? A fall-out with the boyfriend?

Instead of going in the opposite direction as he had
intended to do, he turned, his loping stride taking him towards her.

She was still fussing around with her handbag. Typical of a woman, Oliver thought as he reached her and said her name, putting his hand on her arm as he did so.

Oliver! Ella’s open handbag slipped from her suddenly numb fingers, disgorging its contents onto the sidewalk.

Immediately she was bending down, ignoring the dizziness caused by her sudden descent, frantically trying to collect her belongings, but Oliver had squatted down in front of her and his hands were quicker than hers, and bigger, enabling him to gather things up with more speed than she could.

She really was incredibly sexy now, Oliver decided smugly, thanks to him. Already he could feel his body responding to her proximity. Mentally he weighed up the chances of persuading her to share a farewell fuck with him, his mouth curling into the smile he would use to begin coaxing her. He had her purse in his hand, and her lipstick, along with some pieces of paper, one of which had a business card stapled to it. Idly he turned them over, and scanned what was written on it. He had always been a nosy sod, according to his mother.

The words, once read and understood, became a physical force that swung the world off its axis, before it shuddered jarringly back again. He looked from the pregnancy test result he was still holding, to Ella’s white face.

‘You’re pregnant.’

There was no point denying it. Not with him holding the evidence in his hand.

‘Yes,’ Ella agreed, as they both stood up. ‘It was an accident. I don’t know how it happened.’

When Oliver gave her a disbelieving look, she insisted, ‘I was on the pill. It shouldn’t have happened. Anyway, you don’t have to worry about it. I’m having a…a termination. It’s all arranged.’

‘You’re getting rid of it?’

His forthright words made her flinch, and want to cover her still flat stomach protectively with her hand, but she managed to resist doing so as she confirmed, ‘Yes.’

‘And this is the doctor who’s doing it?’ Oliver demanded.

‘Yes. Not that it’s any concern of yours.’

She was beginning to feel shaky and close to tears. She couldn’t let him see her crying, as though…as though what had happened between them meant something when it hadn’t meant anything at all.

Not trusting herself to say any more, Ella sidestepped him and then almost ran the rest of the way to the
Vogue
building, not daring to look back, and only relaxing once she had reached the comparative safety of her office. It was only then that she realised that she had left her pregnancy confirmation and D and C appointment card with Oliver. Not that it mattered. She was hardly likely to forget the date and time, was she?

How could she have been so reckless and rash? Rose’s hand shook as she touched her newly cut hair. Its shortness still felt strange after wearing Josh’s long bob for
so long. It was too late to regret what she had done now. What had been done could not be undone. There was bound to be comment–and criticism–questions asked, and feelings hurt because of her secrecy, but right up until the last minute she had not been convinced that it would actually happen and that she would go through with it. But then Josh had rung to say that he needed to see her urgently about something that Patsy had told him, and that had tipped her over the edge–or rather, her pride had seized her by the hand and dragged her over it–and she had made her decision. Maybe she would regret it but at least it would protect her from the humiliation of being told by Josh that he was really sorry that she loved him but that he loved Patsy.

The palms of her hands felt damp. He would be here any minute.

Would he come alone or would Patsy be with him? Would he–they–accuse her again of clinging to him out of pitiful unrequited love? If so, she had her answer ready.

Josh arrived five minutes later, taking the stairs to her workroom two at a time. Mercifully, he was alone. She could tell it was two at a time because of the sound of his feet on the stairs and because that was the way he always took them. Like an early warning system, it gave her time to prepare, time to compose her face into a smile that was friendly but not loving, warm but not tender, welcoming but not needy.

She stood up as he came into the room, watching him as he came to a halt several yards away from her.

‘I’ve got something important to tell you.’

He hadn’t noticed her hair.

‘If it’s about the partnership—’

‘Fuck the partnership,’ he interrupted her.

Her heart was racing, which wasn’t good, and neither was the familiar ache of sweetness and vulnerability flowering inside her in all its helpless, insidious treachery.

‘I’m not going to America.’

The shock was almost a physical blow, sending her reeling back from what it might mean. She tried to sound normal.

‘Patsy won’t be very pleased about that.’

‘Fuck Patsy as well,’ Josh stated. ‘Don’t you want to know why I’ve changed my mind?’

‘If you want to tell me.’

‘I’m not going because of you.’

Her chest tightened against her inhaled breath.

‘I can’t leave you behind.’

He was shaking his head as though he found the admission bemusing.

‘The truth is that I don’t want to leave you behind.’ His voice was softer now, and warmer. He was coming towards her. He reached for her hand and smiled at her. ‘I’ve been a fool, Rose. What I really wanted has been there in front of me all the time, but it was only when I was about to walk away from you that I recognised what I’d be losing.’

She could feel herself trembling.

‘I’m staying here and we’re going to get married and—’

Rose shook her head. ‘I can’t marry you.’ ‘Why not?’

‘I’m already married. Pete and I were married a week ago.’

‘
What?
Why? Why have you married him when you love me? And don’t try to deny it because I know that you do, even if it took Patsy to show me what I should have seen for myself years ago.’

‘He asked me. And…it seemed the right thing to do.’

They looked at one another, and then Josh turned and strode out of the room, leaving her alone in its aching silence.

He still hadn’t noticed her hair.

Ella had arrived in plenty of time for her appointment. The receptionist had smiled at her and ticked her name off a list on her desk, and the nurse who had then arrived to escort her to her room had been brisk and professional.

Now she was dressed in a hospital robe, waiting…waiting for the doctor to come and take away what was growing inside her so that she could go on with her life, waiting for it to be removed so that she need not fear the madness its birth might bring her.

It wouldn’t be long now. The nurse had said that she was first on the list. Soon someone would be along with a pre-med, then they’d sedate her and then…

Ollie scuffed the leaves that had fallen in the park. They made a crisp dry sound, releasing their scent into the air. During his childhood, the sights and sounds of autumn had been restricted to East End fogs and the harsh rattling coughs of the elderly. The first time he could remember seeing fallen autumn leaves had been when he’d been off school with a bad chest. His mother had taken him to work with her, telling him to stay out of sight and keep quiet, as she’d taken off her hat and coat and pulled on her pinafore in the kitchen of the house she was cleaning. His father’s house, he knew now.

He’d sneaked out into the garden whilst her back had been turned, scuffing the dried leaves much as he was doing now and thoroughly enjoying himself until right in front of him he’d seen a pair of highly polished black shoes. He’d looked upwards over the immaculately pressed, knife-edge-creased trousers and then the overcoat, until finally he’d reached the sternly harsh face of the man looking back at him.

He’d panicked then, remembering his mother’s warning, and he’d turned to flee, only to catch his foot in something and take a tumble.

He’d been terrified at first when the man had picked him up, fearing all manner of unwanted consequences, like his mother’s hand against the back of his bare legs or, even worse, his dad’s belt, but the man hadn’t said anything, simply held him firmly so that their eyes were
on the same level and looking at him in silence, his hands suddenly tightening on his arms, before he finally put him back down on the ground.

That memory was all he had of his father–everything and nothing. He had never been able to ask anything of the man who’d given him life, but he had been given that life, unlike his own child. Today its life was going to be extinguished, taken before it had properly started.

He’d reached the exit to the park before he’d even realised that he’d started to move, hailing a cab and giving the driver the address that he hadn’t known until now he’d memorised.

The receptionist listened to him, purse-lipped and frosty-eyed.

‘I’m sorry—’ she began.

‘No you’re not,’ Oliver stopped her, ‘but you bloody well will be if you don’t tell me where she is, and fast.’

A nurse gaped at him as he ran down the corridor, trying to step out in front of him, protesting, ‘You can’t go in there.’

Ella could hear the altercation taking place in the corridor through the numbing fog of her pre-med. Then the door to her room was thrust open and Oliver burst in.

‘She can’t leave now. She’s had her pre-med.’ That was the nurse, standing between her and Oliver.

‘Fine,’ Oliver told her. ‘Then I’ll stay with her until she can leave, but there’s no way my kid is going to be aborted. Got that?’

His words shocked through Ella’s pre-med, kicking her slow heartbeat into thudding anxiety.

‘I’m going to go and find the doctor. He won’t put up with this,’ the nurse was threatening.

‘You go and find him, and tell him when you do that I’ll be suing him for trying to abort my kid.’

The nurse had gone but Oliver was still there, leaning over the bed, his hands on Ella’s arms, as he insisted, ‘Come on, we’re getting out of here.’

The pre-med seemed to have taken away her willpower to do anything other than simply go along with the almost dreamlike things that were happening to her.

One minute she was lying in bed and the next, or so it seemed, she was in Oliver’s arms and then in a taxi, then a lift and then finally in another bed, where finally she was allowed to sleep.

Oliver looked down at Ella’s sleeping body, torn between elation and disbelief. What the hell had he done? The last thing he wanted was a kid. Just as his dad couldn’t have wanted him. But he had allowed him life, he had watched over him as best he could, he had provided for him and for his mother. The mark of a man. And Oliver simply didn’t have it in him to be less of a man than his father had been.