Vivien Brown - Five Unforgivable Things

‘No! No, it can’t be. Not blood.’ I wanted to collapse in a heap, to sit right back down again and tell myself I was wrong, but I knew I wasn’t. ‘Can it?’

‘I’m pretty sure it is. What are you thinking, Kate? Is it normal to bleed this far into a pregnancy? Like a show or something?’

‘I don’t think so. And it hurts, Lin. It bloody hurts. This can only be a miscarriage, can’t it? I must be losing it. Oh, hell, what do we do? What do I do?’

‘I don’t know.’ She was looking as pale and helpless as I felt. ‘Call a doctor? Ambulance? For now, at least lie down flat and cross your legs or something, try to keep it in …’

‘But my dress?’

‘Come on, pull it off quickly … Okay. It’s not too bad. We can sponge it off, and stick it under a hairdryer or something. But I don’t think the dress should be our main worry here, do you? Here …’ She grabbed the old dressing gown we’d found behind the door. ‘Put this towelling thing on the bed and lie down on it, and keep still. Don’t move, okay? Shall I try to find Dan?’

‘No. Not Dan. He’ll be at the church by now. Let’s not worry him yet. Not until we know …’

‘Okay, you’re right. But we need help. Stay here, and don’t panic, all right? I’m going to get your mum … or Molly.’

‘Mum. Get Mum. Everybody else will have already left the house.’

I listened to her feet thundering away down the stairs, leaving just an eerie silence into which thumped my own heartbeat, faster, louder than I had ever heard it before.

And then, from across the fields, the church bells started to ring. Ding-dong-ding-dong. Ding-dong-ding-dong. A happy tune that just kept repeating itself, over and over, as if it was waiting for something to happen and wouldn’t stop until it did. My wedding. Mine and Dan’s.

I lay still and waited for Linda to come back. Maybe she’d have a sanitary towel in her luggage. If not, I’d wrap myself layers deep in every pair of knickers I could find, pad them out with toilet paper or cotton wool, anything to hold things at bay. For an hour. Just an hour, that’s all I needed, or maybe two. For me to get to that church, and for Mum to walk me down the aisle, and for me to stand there just long enough to say the words that would turn me into the new Mrs Dan Campbell, and to get our photos done outside.

Then they could cart me off to hospital, or confine me to bed, or hang me upside down with my legs in the air, or whatever it was they had to do. But for now, it was going to take more than a drop of blood to stop me. The bells were calling and I was going to that wedding, my wedding, come hell or high water. Or quite possibly both.

When Jenny spotted Laura coming towards them along the street, she looked different somehow. It wasn’t just the obvious pregnancy bump emerging from the front of her open coat. It was her thin, pale face, and the way she walked, slowly, with her head down, as if she was finding something vaguely fascinating about her own feet. She wasn’t looking radiant or blooming or any of that stuff. Not like a woman who had finally achieved her life’s dream. In fact, she just looked small and lost, and defeated.

Jenny rushed forward and flung her arms around her. ‘Oh, Laura. It’s so good to see you.’

‘You too.’

‘Are you okay? We’ve all been so worried about you.’

Laura looked past Jenny at Beth and gave a little wave. ‘Hi, Beth. I didn’t know you’d be here as well.’

‘Sorry about that.’ Jenny linked her arm through Laura’s and started to lead her towards the door of the pub where they had agreed to meet. ‘I just thought …’

‘Safety in numbers? Or that it would be easier for two of you to grab me if I tried to run away again?’

‘No. No, not at all. But you’re family, aren’t you? Or as good as. And I thought, hoped, that if we both came, you’d feel more … well, loved, I suppose. And missed.’

‘Right.’

They found a table in a corner and took off their coats.

‘Wow! It’s real, isn’t it?’ Jenny gazed at Laura’s unfamiliar shape in awe. ‘You really are having a baby!’

‘Of course I am! Did you think I was lying? Or that it was just wishful thinking?’

‘Sorry. Course not. It’s just so lovely to see, after all the previous … Oh, you know what I mean. Let me get everyone a drink. White wine, Beth? And …’

‘No alcohol for me, obviously. Just an orange juice, please.’

Jenny went to the bar. There was a queue, but leaving the others alone together for a while might not be a bad idea. Beth could be very persuasive when she wanted to be. And someone had to persuade Laura to come home, for Ollie’s sake, before he drank himself into a hospital bed, or worse. If only Laura’s new no-alcohol rule applied to him!

When she returned to their table, they were talking about something totally different. A book they had both read, and the TV adaptation of it that had got them both swooning over the leading man. Jenny put the drinks down in front of them and waited for a lull in the conversation.

‘Oh, it’s so nice to be back together,’ she said, taking a sip. ‘It’s just like old times.’

‘No Nat? Kate? I’m surprised you didn’t hire a minibus and bring the whole family.’

‘Don’t be daft. Mum’s gone off somewhere herself for a few days anyway, so she doesn’t even know we’re away from home. And Nat’s up to her eyes in wedding planning. Oh, I do wish you’d come, Laura. We’d all love you to be there. You do know where it is, don’t you? And the date?’

‘Of course I do. Unless she’s done a massive u-turn, the details of this wedding have been set in stone for what seems like years! But … oh, you know. It’s still weeks away. A long way off. Anything could happen. You didn’t tell her, though, did you? Nat? About finding me?’

‘No. Poor girl’s got enough to worry about.’

‘Is that what I am?’ Laura cut in. ‘Just another thing to worry about?’

Jenny put her hand on Laura’s. It was surprisingly cold. ‘Well, we have been worried. All of us. You’ve no idea how hard I had to work to track you down. Finding your aunt, and then twisting her arm to get even a hint of where you might be.’

‘So, why did you?’

‘To start with, it was just curiosity. To find out where you’d gone and to make sure you were okay. But then, when I dragged it out of you about the baby … that changed things. And the truth is that I brought Beth with me because … well, if I couldn’t get you to come back home, then I hoped maybe Beth could.’

‘I haven’t said anything about coming back home.’

‘No, I know. But now you’re having a baby – Ollie’s baby – I thought maybe you would. Or at least think about it. Babies need two parents; parents who stick together whatever life throws at them …’

‘Of course they do. And you know about that more than most. But this is different.’

‘Is it?’

‘You haven’t told him, have you?’

‘Ollie? No. It’s been hard not to, though. I haven’t told anyone at all, not even Beth until this afternoon. I promised I wouldn’t, so I won’t.’

‘So, why haven’t you told him yourself?’ Beth had been saying very little up until now, but she’d finally asked out loud what Jenny had been dying to ask ever since she’d first found out, although she wouldn’t have chosen to come out with it quite so bluntly. ‘Only, I do think he has a right to know, don’t you? Unless he’s not the father, of course.’

There was a stunned silence, broken only by a strangled sob coming from somewhere deep down in Laura’s throat. ‘Is that what you think of me, Beth? Really?’