Laura Iding - Pregnant with His Baby!

‘No,’ she said, turning her back on a wildly gesticulating Sue so that she could concentrate on what he was saying.

‘Alberto has run away.’

It took several moments for the blunt statement to penetrate. When it did the blood drained from Dervla’s face. She swayed.

‘Oh, my God, no, is he …? How long? The police …’ She sank into the chair that Sue placed behind her knees and whispered, ‘I feel sick.’

Sue took the phone from her limp grasp and with a marshal light in her eyes waded right in.

‘What the hell have you said to her? No, she damned well isn’t all right!’

‘I’m fine, Sue, will you give me—?’

‘You’re not fine,’ Sue contradicted. ‘She nearly passed out, you blithering idiot.’

Dervla, struggling to contain her nausea, groaned; with the best intentions in the world Sue was making matters worse. She could just imagine how Gianfranco would react under normal circumstances to being called a blithering idiot, but these were not normal circumstances—his son was missing.

If anything happened to Alberto she could not bear to think of how Gianfranco would react. He adored the boy. So did she.

I should be there with him.

Consumed with guilt that she wasn’t there when he needed her most, Dervla got unsteadily to her feet. This was not a moment for wimpy fainting.

The next blistering instalment of Sue’s indictment came to an abrupt halt as she said, ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry. When … how …?’ And began to listen.

‘He’s all right, Dervla. He rang his dad from Calais.’

With a gasp of relief Dervla snatched the phone from her friend’s hand. ‘Is it true? Alberto is safe?’

‘He’s fine, cara, though he won’t be when I get my hands on him.’ This grim observation drew a weak laugh from Dervla. ‘He took a slight detour from the school excursion and ended up in Calais. You’ve got to admit the boy has ingenuity. He rang from the ferry. Apparently he’s on the way to England.’

‘Here! Well, at least you know he’s safe. I wonder what on earth made him do something like that?’ she puzzled. Alberto was about the most unmixed-up adolescent she had ever met. He was a total stranger to teenage angst. ‘It’s just so unlike him.’

‘Who knows why a teenager does anything?’

Something in Gianfranco’s voice made her wonder if he knew something that he wasn’t telling her. It hurt that he was excluding her again.

‘Can I do anything?’

‘Yes, that’s why I rang.’

Not because you needed to hear my voice. For a moment she longed with every fibre of her being for Gianfranco to want and need her as much as she did him. She wanted him to feel the same aching emptiness she did at this moment. She wanted him to love her.

Then on the heels of the thought came guilt. What a selfish, self-centred cow I am, she thought in disgust. Gianfranco was already feeling as bad as he could. His son was out there alone and, no matter how mature he seemed, Alberto was still a child and he was the only part Gianfranco had left of the woman he had loved—so Gianfranco already knew about the aching emptiness.

‘Anything.’ The word emerged with far more force than she had intended.

‘That’s a rash offer.’

‘It’s a genuine offer, Gianfranco. I love Alberto too, you know.’

‘I know. He speaks very highly of you too.’ This time she was sure the edge in Gianfranco’s voice was unmistakable.

‘Try not to worry,’ she said, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say that wasn’t ‘I love you’.

‘I’m sending Eduardo over with the car. He’ll be there in about half an hour. If you could meet Alberto off the ferry and take him back to the house?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

‘Fine, I’ll see you then,’ she said, trying to match his businesslike tone and, she suspected, failing pretty comprehensively.

She put the phone down and turned to Sue. ‘You got the gist of that?’

Sue nodded. ‘You’re riding shotgun on the kid until Dad gets here.’

Dervla nodded.

‘And after that?’

‘After that, I suppose …’ Dervla’s slender shoulders lifted. ‘I don’t really know,’ she admitted. ‘He’ll be here in about half an hour. I suppose I’d better get my things together.’

‘I put your holdall in my bedroom.’

‘Thanks.’ Sue followed her into the bedroom and watched while she unzipped the bag to check the contents.

‘So you’re not coming back, then?’

‘I suppose that depends.’

‘On whether you choose Gianfranco or a baby?’

Hearing it put so bluntly made Dervla blanch.

‘You know, I never even knew you wanted a baby. I thought you were totally all right with the situation.’

‘I was, or at least I thought I was,’ she amended huskily. ‘Maybe,’ she speculated, pushing her hair from her face with the crook of one elbow as she bent forward to pick up her toiletries from the floor, ‘I’d just never met a man whose children I wanted to have.’

‘You really love him, don’t you?’

Dervla gave a laugh, pulled a scarf from her bag and, bunching her hair at the base of her neck, wound it around to secure it there. ‘He’s the only one who doesn’t seem to realise I do, which, considering he’s supposed to have a mind like a steel trap, is kind of ironic.’

‘You could tell him?’

Dervla turned and angled her helpful friend an incredulous look. ‘It’s the last thing he wants to hear.’

‘Maybe he should hear it. What are you going to do about the fertility treatment?’

‘I suppose I’ll just have to forget it.’

‘Can you?’

Dervla’s face creased with anguish as she admitted, ‘It won’t be easy. It was much easier to accept never having a child of my own while I knew there was no hope, but now …’ Dervla stopped, unable to continue as her voice became totally suspended by tears.

Her visit to the fertility specialist had opened up all sorts of possibilities she hadn’t let herself think about before.

Before Gianfranco had entered her life she had genuinely believed that she had accepted her infertility. There were, after all, other things in life than children.

It didn’t make her any less of a woman.

Or did it, in Gianfranco’s eyes at least?

She had never been able to push the question from her mind. He was such a terrific father to Alberto it seemed impossible to her that he wouldn’t want other children and a woman who could provide those children.

As it turned out her fears had been totally unfounded. Gianfranco didn’t want her babies.

‘The chances of me conceiving naturally are virtually zero. Or “entering miracle territory”, to quote the fertility specialist I saw.’

‘You’ve already been to see a specialist?’

Dervla could understand her friend’s surprise. It was a bit of a turn-about for someone who had always said she couldn’t understand women who put themselves through repeated courses of IVF when statistically the chances of conceiving were so low.

‘I know I said there was no way I’d put myself through that sort of thing, but at the time it wasn’t a viable option for me. If you can’t have something it makes life easier if you tell yourself you don’t really want it.

‘The doctor was cautiously optimistic, but this is a new technique and they’re looking for suitable patients to be involved in a clinical trial. The chances are it wouldn’t have worked anyway,’ she said, zipping the bag and hefting it onto her shoulder.

Was she going to allow her reluctance to let go of that faint possibility kill her marriage stone-dead?

‘Marriage is about compromise,’ she said, as much for her own benefit as Sue’s. Halfway to the door she stopped and turned, her eyes filled with tears she refused to allow to fall.