‘It’s not as simple as that,’ Gemma said, exasperated, before he could list any more possessions.
‘Look, Dad’s owed a lot of money and, until that comes through, we
need to—’
‘Oh,’ Spencer cut in.
‘I meant to tell you.’
Gemma turned towards him, not sure she wanted to hear what he was about to say.
‘What?’
‘They’ve gone bust.
Melvilles.
Stu rang the other day.
They’ve done a bunk, the site’s closed down, nobody’s getting paid.’
‘
What?
’ Gemma’s heart almost stopped.
‘But they can’t do that!
They owe you nearly ten grand – I worked it out.
What are we going to do?’
He shrugged.
‘There’s the compensation.
That should be a good whack.’
‘Yes, but have you actually applied for it yet?
Nobody’s just going to hand it over, are they?’
‘All right, all right!
No need to go on at me.
Don’t you think I’ve got enough to deal with right now?’
‘I’m just saying .
.
.
’
Darcey shoved her plate away suddenly, making them jump.
‘Why does everyone keep arguing all the time?
Stop arguing!’
Then she threw down her cutlery with a clatter and ran out of
the room.
Gemma bowed her head, then tried again.
‘I’m just saying,’ she began, but Spencer held up a hand.
‘Don’t,’ he said.
‘Just don’t.’
Later that evening Gemma sat at the kitchen table trying to juggle the bank statement with the latest bills that had arrived earlier, and let out a sigh.
They were in trouble.
Big trouble.
As she totted up the amount they owed and compared it with their bank balance, she was seized by a cold grip of panic.
She’d been counting on the money Spencer was owed, and
without it they were seriously in debt.
Push had come to shove, and now she had to bring in some readies, fast.
There were no two ways about it.
Should she ask her dad if she could borrow a few thousand, just to tide them over?
Spencer would go nuts if he knew she was going behind his back, but she was starting to feel desperate.
Mind
you, the last time she’d seen her dad, at the weekend, Judy had been there and Gemma had ended up being kind of curt with her.
Well, okay, a little bit rude.
Barry might not want to dip in
his wallet for a daughter who couldn’t bring herself to be polite to his new woman.
The calls had now dried up from the no-win, no-fee lawyers, who’d been keen for Spencer to make a personal-injury claim against the scaffolding firm, but Gemma was starting to wonder if
they’d been too hasty in rejecting their offers of help.
Vultures and blood-suckers, Spencer had called them, but maybe it would be worth stepping down from the moral high ground if it meant
they’d get some kind of payout?
She sighed.
Spencer would never go along with it, she knew.
The scaffolders were a small family firm and a lawsuit could well bankrupt them.
Skint or not,
Spencer was too principled to do such a thing.
She felt as if they’d motored along bumpily so far, but now the fuel tank was empty and they’d petered to a halt.
With Spencer turning his back on responsibilities, Gemma knew that
the future of their family rested in her hands alone.
She would have to be brave, strong and resourceful; she needed to step up and somehow get them moving forward again.
But how?
‘That was a gusty sigh,’ said Harry, walking into the kitchen just then.
He’d come round to watch the Champions League match with Spencer and was now heading towards the fridge
in search of more beers, at a guess.
(Sky Sports: another expensive thing she should probably cancel.
Just as soon as she plucked up the courage to break the news to Spencer.) ‘Everything all
right?’
She tried to smile, but it was an effort.
Then she gave up.
This was Harry, one of their oldest friends, after all.
‘Not really,’ she admitted.
‘We’re a bit skint, to be
honest.
I’m going to have to get a job to keep us going.
Just wondering what I can do.’
‘Ah.’
He pulled out two green bottles, then narrowed his eyes and pulled out a third.
Easing off the metal top, he poured the contents into a glass and handed it to her.
‘What
sort of thing were you thinking of?’
‘I’ve got some sewing to be getting on with,’ she said.
‘Curtains for Mrs Bradley at the school.
And Eva Walker’s just asked me to make her three bridesmaid dresses
.
.
.
’ She spread her hands, feeling helpless.
‘That’s about it.’
‘Okay.’
Harry sat down at the table with her and picked up the red electricity bill that had arrived that morning.
This payment is now overdue.
‘And how much will you
charge them for that?
If you don’t mind me asking.’
Gemma looked away.
‘Well .
.
.
’
‘You
are
charging them, aren’t you?
What’s your hourly rate?’
‘The thing is, I know Mrs Bradley’s a bit skint, too,’ she said defensively.
‘Her poor husband’s been out of work for three months now, and their daughter’s
getting married in May and has gone totally Bridezilla on them, so .
.
.
’
Harry gave her a look.
‘Tell me you’re not doing this for free.’
‘No!
I asked her to bung me twenty quid, and maybe ask Mark – that’s her husband – to do some gardening for us.’
‘Twenty quid and a bit of gardening?’
He looked appalled.
‘And how long’s it going to take you?’
‘She’s providing all the curtain fabric,’ Gemma countered.
‘And I don’t mind doing it, so .
.
.
’
‘Don’t avoid the question, Gemma Bailey.
You’re worth more than that, and Helen Bradley knows full well you are.
She’s taking advantage of you, that’s what
she’s doing.’
He swigged his beer and eyed her thoughtfully.
‘Anything else lined up?
Have you seen any jobs advertised in the paper that you want to go for?’
She shook her head glumly and turned the electricity bill over so that its red letters would stop shouting at her.
‘I’m actually kind of scared, Harry,’ she confessed.
‘Spencer’s so .
.
.
not himself.
I feel like we’re falling apart.
If I could just get something – anything – to pay off some of our debts, it would be a start, but .
.
.
’
‘There’s a job going at The Partridge,’ he said.
‘Lunchtime cover, and a couple of evenings behind the bar.
I know it’s not the best job in the world –
it’s not the best pay, either, I’m afraid – but I’m sure Dad would give it to you, if you were interested.’
Gemma was silent for a moment as she mulled over the offer.
Pulling pints and washing glasses for Bernie Sykes was a far cry from her old job at Pop, designing outfits and managing a production
line.
But beggars most certainly could not be choosers.
Will had no trainers, the electricity bill was overdue along with all the others, and now that Melvilles, the developer, had left them high
and dry, they didn’t have a prayer of making next month’s mortgage payment.
Of course, being idiots, they had chosen not to take out insurance against future loss of earnings.
‘We
won’t need that,’ Spencer had assured the bank manager at the time.
‘I’ve never had a day off sick in my life.’
That was back then, of course, when they still had optimism on their side.
‘I’ll take the job,’ she said.
On the day of her scan Saffron must have checked her phone for new texts or emails at least nine hundred times, or so it seemed.
No word had come from Max in reply to her
suggestion about meeting her there, though.
No reply to her letter whatsoever in fact.
She was taking that as a big fat
No, thanks
both to her and the baby.
So there you had it.
However hard she tried to be Zen and cool about the whole thing – so what, anyway?
plenty of women went it alone, and they and their children were perfectly happy – it was difficult
to ignore the hope that lit up inside her like a flame as she reached the hospital and began following signs to the maternity wing.
Max might be there in the ultrasound waiting area, she thought,
increasing her pace with a new urgency.
She’d walk through the door to find him rising to his feet expectantly, his eyes searching out her face.
Is this okay?
his expression would ask.
Are
we
okay?
It could happen, couldn’t it?
It really could!
She held her breath as she entered the waiting area, but he wasn’t there.
Of course he wasn’t.
Why had she even kidded herself it was a possibility?
He was probably planning a
snowboarding weekend with that foxy Mia right now.
Maybe they were already out on the slopes: France, Italy, or somewhere further afield, like Colorado.
Snow dazzling in the winter sunshine.
A
gorgeous wooden chalet, no expense spared.
Schnapps and a hot tub for the après-ski .
.
.
Don’t think about that.
What’s the point?
You were only with him for a few weeks; you shouldn’t have expected anything else.
She sat down, feeling very alone as she noticed that all the other people in the waiting room were either couples or fully-fledged families.
Two toddlers were racing around, one on a mini
fire-engine, kicking his heels enthusiastically against the sides, the other with a fairy wand and a runny nose.
Saffron flinched as the fire engine narrowly missed her toes, and she tried to smile
in a ‘How cute!’
way, but didn’t feel remotely prepared for this scary new world of wobbly-headed babies and small wild people.
Plastic toys and nappies and random, unpredictable
crying fits .
.
.
She didn’t have a clue about any of it.
How would she manage when she was solely responsible for her own child?
Don’t think about that.
Plenty of time to learn the ropes.
Everyone else seems to manage all right, don’t they?
She lowered herself into a seat and tore into a bag of Skips, trying not to look at the way the couple opposite her were holding hands.
The man was looking at the woman with such tenderness it
made her want to cry.
She wished someone was with her to look at her in that way.
She wished someone was with her, full stop.
But who?
Zoe – her first choice after Max – was on the
other side of the world and couldn’t exactly pop round.
Her friend Kate was up to her eyes in work for her new start-up business.
And her mum had been so flustered about not wanting to upset
Eloise, and yet do the right thing for Saffron, that Saffron couldn’t bring herself to mention the scan.
As for Eloise .
.
.
she’d heard nothing more from her sister since that awful
Sunday dinner.
‘She’s taken it badly,’ her mum said down the phone, ‘but I’m sure she’ll come round.’
‘Do you think?’
Saffron replied doubtfully.
Eloise had always been a sulker.
Saffron and Zoe were the hot-headed sisters, who’d flare up in a row, shout and rage, then get over
it five minutes later, but Eloise had the stamina to prolong a grievance for hours – days, sometimes – by dint of glowering and cold silences.
And these were teenage arguments over the
most trivial of things: stolen tights, borrowed hairbrushes, who was better at remembering the words to ‘Rapper’s Delight’.
How long would the cloud of sulk last, when it came to
Saffron’s accidental pregnancy?
A month?
A year?
The baby could be grown up and starting driving lessons before Eloise deigned to ‘come round’, as their mum optimistically put
it.
‘Course she will.
Give her a bit of time.
She’s so disappointed with her own news, she’s just struggling to be glad for anyone else, that’s all.
But
we’re
glad for you – if this is what you want to do.’
Saffron wished her mum didn’t have to sound so uncertain, but never mind.
They were where they were.
She’d made her bed, she was lying on it and she would manage perfectly well on
her own, without a bloke, and without her sisters too, if need be.
Back in the waiting area, the clinic seemed to be running late.
It was already twenty minutes after Saffron’s appointment and, although three other women had been called in by
sonographers, she was still there, crossing her legs and trying not to feel impatient.
How much longer would she have to wait?
She’d told Kayla, the office receptionist, that she was out
meeting a client; she didn’t want to draw any extra attention to herself by being away from her desk for hours on end.
Besides, she was bursting for the loo.
The letter she’d received
had instructed her to arrive with a full bladder, as this gave the best scan results, but all she could think about was how desperate she was to empty it.
‘Saffron Flint?’
She got up in relief.
‘Yes, that’s me.’
She followed the stocky, fifty-something woman down a corridor and into a small consulting room with a bed.
‘I’m Marie, I’m your sonographer today.
Now, then, if you could lie
down there for me, please, and undo the top of your trousers – that’s it, just push them down a bit.
Thanks, lovey.’
Marie had a soft Welsh accent and a kind, mumsy face.
‘Is this your first?’
‘First baby?
Yes.’
Her fingers were all thumbs as she positioned herself on the bed, shoving down her stretchy black trousers and pulling up her pistachio-green shirt.
There was a
certain vulnerability about having your bare belly exposed, especially when it was newly plump and rounded, but Saffron was looking forward to seeing her baby again, being given another glimpse of
that strange, watery black-and-white world.
‘And you’re .
.
.
let’s see.
Twelve weeks and six days along, according to these dates.
Does that sound right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay, good.
So I’m going to do the nuchal-fold scan today, as you probably know.
This is where we measure the thickness of the nuchal translucency, which is a little pocket of fluid
at the back of the baby’s neck.’
Ridiculously, Saffron felt tearful at the mere mention of her baby’s neck.
How she would kiss that soft little neck!
‘And then I’ll use this measurement, along with your age, to calculate the likelihood of your baby having genetic abnormalities, such as Down’s syndrome.
Is that all
right?’
The words felt like a bucket of cold water tipped over her.
‘Oh.
Yes.
Sure,’ she stammered.
Genetic abnormalities.
Down’s syndrome.
Somehow she had overlooked the fact
that this was why she was here at all.
She had been so focused on eating healthily, taking folic acid, avoiding falling down Tube-station steps again, not receiving a reply from Max and, more
recently, how on earth she was going to patch things up with Eloise that it hadn’t occurred to her to worry about anything else.
‘Just to confirm: you’re thirty-eight,’ the sonographer said, clicking something on the computer.
‘Yes.’
Old, in other words, to be having a first baby.
Her midwife had actually written ‘Elderly primigravida’ on her notes.
(‘Elderly?’
Saffron had yelped
when she saw it.
Elderly was a word she associated with wrinkled grannies in bath-chairs.
Apparently you were considered ‘elderly’ if you had your first baby at thirty-five, though.
Great.)
‘Let’s get started then.
I’m just going to smear some of this gel on your tummy.
It might be a bit on the chilly side, I’m afraid.’
Saffron held her breath as Marie picked up a transducer and pressed it quite hard at the base of her belly.
By now, all sorts of terrible thoughts had rushed into her head.
What if the
baby’s heart had stopped beating?
It happened, didn’t it?
A sudden, unexplained death.
She didn’t think she could bear it if the baby was motionless on the ultrasound screen.
‘Let’s see .
.
.
here we are.’
There was movement.
A waving anemone of baby limbs.
Alive and kicking.
Saffron allowed herself to smile for a moment.
Hello, you.
‘Okay, so let’s just get a good clear view .
.
.
There.
Now I can take a few measurements.’
The sonographer clicked her mouse from point to point on screen and pressed various
buttons.
‘Is the baby all right?’
Saffron asked, unable to bear the silence.
‘Give me a minute and I’ll go through everything with you, as soon as I’m done.’
Click.
Click.
Click.
Saffron was starting to feel twitchy.
Why wasn’t Marie saying anything?
She’s just doing her job – be patient.
Stop worrying.
I can’t help it.
I wish Max was here.
Why didn’t he come?
Why didn’t he even reply?
‘Right, we’re done,’ Marie said, pulling sheets of blue paper towel off a roll and handing them to Saffron.
‘Do you want to clean yourself up with this first, while I
just crunch the numbers?’
Marie looked shifty, thought Saffron in alarm, wiping off the goo from her belly and doing up her trousers.
Was it her imagination or was the sonographer avoiding meeting her eye?
Was it bad
news?
Was she putting off telling her something?
‘So, Saffron.’
Marie sat forward in her chair.
A tiny gold cross rested on her plump, freckled cleavage.
‘Taking measurements of the nuchal fold – the fluid at the back
of the baby’s neck – and combining that in a calculation with your age gives us a risk factor.’
Yes, yes, you said that already.
Get on with it.
‘It’s important to remember that it’s only a percentage of risk, and not a diagnosis, okay?’
‘Okay.’
She had a bad feeling about this.
A really bad feeling, right in the marrow of her bones.
Please let the baby be all right.
Please, Marie, don’t tell me anything
terrible.
‘When we measure the nuchal fold, if we get a thickness of three millimetres or more, then that can indicate an increased risk of Down’s syndrome.’
Saffron swallowed, her throat horribly dry.
‘Right.’
‘Now your baby is measuring exactly three millimetres – so that does put you into this category of risk, but only just, okay?
And remember this is simply a screening process,
it’s not a certainty.’
Oh no.
Please no.
‘Given your age and this thickness, I’ve calculated that there’s a one in thirty-six chance of your baby having Down’s syndrome.
That being the case, I think it’s
wise for you to have an amniocentesis, which is a secondary test, to give us a clearer idea of what’s happening.’
Saffron felt numbed.
All colours seemed to have been leached from the room.
A one in thirty-six chance was not exactly brilliant odds, especially when it came to gambling on your baby’s
future.
She nodded shakily, trying to absorb the news.
Five minutes ago she’d been worried about her full bladder and her ex-boyfriend whizzing down the slopes at Courchevel.
Now she felt as
if the ground had fallen away in front of her, revealing a whole new chasm of worry.
‘Where .
.
.
’ She took a deep breath.
‘Where should I go for this other test?
Or can you do
that here?’