Lucy Gordon - The Pregnancy Bond

‘As never before is right,’ she said wryly. ‘He never really has needed me, or anyone. And you’re wrong about Jake. He’s a very strong-minded person.’

‘They’re the worst,’ Dr Ainsley told her, and hung up.

She had a cup of tea and tried to think logically. In a few minutes she would be sharing a home with Jake, while carrying his child. To all appearances their divorce had never happened.

That was what she had to fight, and she must do it by keeping her thoughts clear. She was not a wife, but a divorcée, a free woman, answerable to no man. The baby was off limits, and she was no longer in love with Jake. The slightly heightened heartbeat that she could sense was apprehension about what lay ahead.

She wondered how they would greet each other when he arrived. It would set the tone for the future, so, Hello, darling, was out. Nice to see you, didn’t sound quite right somehow.

Glancing out of the window, she saw that the ambulance had just drawn up. A last quick check of Jake’s room showed that everything was in place. By now they would have hauled a wheelchair up the stairs and she began to listen for the doorbell.

But it didn’t ring.

Looking out again, she saw the ambulance still there, but no sign of the occupants. Puzzled, she opened her front door just in time to see Jake turning the corner to begin slowly climbing the last flight of stairs on his own two feet. Behind him were a male and a female paramedic, making frustrated efforts to help him and being firmly snubbed.

‘I can manage,’ Jake growled. ‘Don’t either of you dare touch me.’

Kelly had tried to plan her greeting, but at the sight of him driving himself on, perspiration streaming down his deadly pale face, all her calculations went out of her head and she yelled, ‘Do you have no common sense?’

‘None at all,’ he gasped. ‘Never did have. Don’t you know that by now?’

‘I do but I tried to forget it. Silly me! Where’s your wheelchair?’

The female paramedic was holding it. ‘Here. But he won’t let us use it.’

‘Yes, he will,’ Kelly said grimly.

‘No, he won’t,’ Jake grated, reaching the top stair. ‘You see? I told you I was fine.’

‘You’re not fine,’ she raged. ‘You’re soft in the head. It would serve you right if you ended up back in hospital.’

‘No way!’ said the female paramedic with feeling. ‘Now we’ve got rid of him, we’re staying rid.’

‘I once thought the same,’ Kelly muttered. ‘It’s not that easy.’

At last they were gone and she could confront Jake, who’d made it to the sofa and was looking at her with the wry, sheepish expectancy that she knew of old. It meant he’d done something thoroughly insane and was hoping to buy his way out of it with charm.

Well, not this time, buster!

‘It’s a pity they won’t take you back,’ she snapped, ‘because if they’d have you, I’d send you. You had to be a show-off, didn’t you? You had to be clever. You had to be “Jake Lindley who’s never fazed by anything”.’

‘I just wanted to prove I could make it alone.’

‘Well, you couldn’t, so what have you proved? Only that you’re an idiot, and I knew that already.’ Now the dam had broken there was no stopping her. Words poured out as the feelings of outrage swept her along.

‘C’mon, Kelly,’ he said at last. ‘I know I shouldn’t have done it, but-’

‘No buts. I’m fed up with your buts. You shouldn’t have done it, but, no, it’s not good enough for you to be like anyone else. Big, glamorous TV image, but behind it there’s just a bird-brained adolescent. You ought to be shot.’

As soon as the words were out she clutched her hair, horrified at herself. She’d said it often in the past, half laughing, and he’d laughed back. But she wished she’d bitten her tongue out before she’d said it now.

‘I thought I had been,’ Jake said wryly.

‘Oh, no, Jake, I didn’t mean that. It just-I don’t know-’

‘It’s all right. You weren’t thinking. Welcome to the club.’ He managed a frayed grin.

‘Oh, heavens!’ she said wretchedly. ‘It was a dreadful thing to say, wasn’t it?’

‘It was so dreadful it was entertaining. I’d laugh if I dared. Will you please forget it?’

‘Thanks,’ she said, sincerely grateful for his understanding. ‘Now go to bed and let me atone by a bit of fussing. Or are you too macho to admit you need to lie down?’

‘Nope.’

She took his bag into the bedroom and he followed, sitting down on the bed and taking her hand in his thin one.

‘I’m sorry, Kelly,’ he said, speaking seriously. ‘If you think I’ll be too much trouble I’ll go back to the hospital.’

‘Hah! As if! You heard what that paramedic said. You can stay here but you have to behave yourself.’

‘Yes, ma’am!’ he said meekly. He dropped her hand, since she didn’t seem to notice that he was holding it.

‘Let me unpack for you.’

‘Thanks, but that’s something I really can manage for myself without collapsing. I don’t want to be more trouble to you than I have to be.’

‘Fine.’

She got out of the room quickly to hide the fact that she wanted to cry.

For a while she saw little of Jake. He slept long hours and was often only just awakening as Kelly left for her classes. At first she would make him some tea before leaving, but he discouraged her, insisting that he could do this much for himself.

Kelly was there for the first visit of the district nurse, a pleasant middle-aged woman called Emily, who changed Jake’s dressing, checked that he was taking his medication, made him comfortable, and stayed for a coffee and chat. She confirmed that he’d taken no real hurt from climbing the stairs.

‘He just overtaxed his strength, but he’ll make that up now.’

‘Is that why he’s sleeping so much? He seemed much livelier in the hospital.’

‘Partly that,’ Emily agreed. ‘Also he strikes me as a man who’s been on pins for some time. Now he feels more able to relax.’

Kelly gave her a key to the front door, in case Jake should be dead to the world next time. In fact he usually was, and for a while it seemed Emily saw more of him than Kelly did herself. Gradually he grew more wakeful. In the evening they would eat together, but he would return to his room immediately afterwards, and she had the feeling he was deliberately keeping out of her way.

She soon learned that her financial calculations were way out. Without Jake’s money she couldn’t have managed. They never spoke of this, but she knew he sensed it, and straight away embarked on a campaign to make her accept more. The battle was unspoken, but real, and since Jake was a canny fighter he won almost every round.

He’d never been the most alert of men when her needs and feelings were concerned, but now he seemed to have an extra sense that enabled him to head her off at the pass. She came home one day to find her kitchen adorned by an expensive, top-of-the-range microwave. He’d bought it over the phone and it had been delivered that afternoon.

He explained that since living alone he’d become used to microwaving his own food, and now there were several dishes that would be easy on his injured stomach and could be cooked this way. Soon Kelly had fallen in love with the machine. It reduced her cooking time to a minimum, made her crowded life manageable and, above all, it didn’t smell of grease.

Round One to Jake.

Round Two started with a visit from Olympia. She gave Kelly the barest greeting that courtesy demanded before vanishing into Jake’s room for the rest of the evening. When she emerged he was already asleep. Olympia gave Kelly a little lecture on not disturbing him and made a tinkling remark about ‘poor Jake’ being confined in ‘that little rabbit hutch’.