Discovery
Discovery
IN FEbrUARY JOAN SENT PHOTOS OF IVAN TOTTER-ing around the kitchen floor, arms extended, a look of fierce concentration on his baby features. We’ve had to put locks on the presses , and gates at the stairs, top and bottom . I can’t turn my back for a second .
Ellen showed Leo the photos, and studied his face as he looked at them. He’d held Ivan on his lap when they’d met in Ireland, and had shown no sign of unease. She imagined a baby with his dark, dark eyes.
In May Claire told Ellen she was planning to give up the lease of the sandwich bar and find a place of her own. ‘I’ve outgrown it,’ she said. ‘It’s time to move up to bigger and better.’
‘Can you afford it?’
‘I will next year. Big changes then.’
In June Danny and Bobbi flew to Ireland for a holiday, and Ellen travelled to meet them. She went alone, Leo having been sent to a conference in Leeds. She was sorry she couldn’t introduce him to her oldest friend, but looked forward to meeting the woman who’d caused Danny to cross the Atlantic.
‘I’ve heard so much about you,’ Bobbi said. She was striking, with a halo of brown curls and eyes almost as dark as Leo’s, and clear glowing skin, and teeth that looked too white and perfect to be real. She wore a short blue tunic with little bells around its hem, and flat brown sandals. Her toenails were painted red, with silver rings on both little toes and a thin chain around one ankle. She looked like she got plenty of exercise and ate foods that doctors recommended.
Danny looked good too, hair bleached and skin tanned from the Californian sunshine, making his teeth look whiter. His sweatshirt had Led Zeppelin on it. He gave her a Supertramp tape called Brother Where You Bound . ‘Put that in your Walkman,’ he said.
Ellen gave them fridge magnets of the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace, and a concertina of postcards showing London sights. They ate hamburgers, and Bobbi asked for ketchup for her chips, which she called fries.
They were very much a couple, jumping into one another’s sentences, indulging in mutual gentle teasing, Bobbi taking chips from his plate when she’d finished her own. Ellen was sorry again that she didn’t have Leo to present to them.
Towards the end of the meal, Danny showed her his mobile phone, which was roughly the same size and shape as a peat briquette. ‘It doesn’t work over here yet: I just brought it to show you. It can make calls all over the US.’
‘Wow.’
‘His new toy,’ Bobbi put in. ‘He calls me from a diner to tell me he’s out to lunch from work. Like I need to know.’
Ellen envied them, living together. She was still dividing her time between Leo’s house and the flat, not wanting to be the one to suggest a more permanent arrangement.
They both hugged her on leaving. ‘Next time, you come to us,’ Bobbi said.
‘I’d love it.’
In July Ellen turned twenty-six, and Leo took her out to what had become their favourite restaurant, Italian and chic. After dinner, the chef, Giovanni, appeared at their table with a slice of tiramisu that held a single lit candle. ‘For you, bella ,’ he said, placing it before her with a flourish. ‘ Buon compleanno .’
Ellen hadn’t ordered dessert. Leo must have arranged this. She thanked the chef, flushing with self-consciousness as heads turned in her direction.
‘Surprise,’ Leo said, and she laughed and thanked him too – and abruptly she remembered the proposal she and Ben had witnessed, on the one and only night they’d gone out to dinner.
She regarded the dessert with its creamy layers and powdered chocolate topping – tiramisu was one of her favourites – and felt a small hopeful fluttering. She’d heard of rings being hidden in desserts – was this what was happening now? They’d been together a year and a half – was it time for the question?
She picked up her spoon and pushed it in, meeting no resistance. She began to eat, feeling Leo’s eyes on her.
‘Good?’
She nodded, still fluttering inwardly. She tasted soft biscuit and coffee and mascarpone. She took another mouthful, and another. ‘Want some?’ she asked, but he shook his head.
He drank coffee and sipped brandy. She ate some more, telling herself there was still time, still hope – but she found nothing. She set her spoon down on her empty plate.
‘Delicious,’ she said, her smile just a bit too wide. He wasn’t ready yet. She quashed her disappointment.
In the middle of August they flew to Ireland for Joan’s twenty-fifth birthday, which was to be a grand affair. ‘I missed out on a big wedding,’ Joan said, ‘so this will make up.’ They erected a marquee in the family home’s garden, which was considerably bigger than the little patch of green behind the house Joan and Seamus had bought, and forty guests sat down to eat.
Next day Leo and Ellen had lunch in a café on their way back to Shannon, and Ellen ate a chicken salad that caused her to dash to the nearest toilet when they landed at Heathrow and left her unable to countenance food for three days.
Six weeks later, following a missed period, she did a pregnancy test and got a positive result. She was still on the pill – but so had Joan been. Had it failed Ellen too, or had the vomiting at Heathrow caused a break in her protection? Not that it mattered. All that mattered now was that she was pregnant.
She lowered the toilet lid and sat on it, still holding the wand with its two clear lines. She was pregnant with Leo’s child. They’d skimmed over the idea of children, in a kind of a sometime-in-thefuture way. How would he feel when she told him the future had arrived?
She was having his baby. Despite being unsure of his reaction, hers was positive. He’d be happy too. He would. Next month they’d be together two years. It was time, more than time, to move forward.
She must tell him. She must tell him in person, which meant waiting for three days, with him gone to Manchester on business till the weekend.
But she couldn’t keep it to herself, so she told Claire after work that evening.
‘What? Are you serious? I never knew you two were trying for a baby – that’s brilliant!’
‘We weren’t trying. This wasn’t planned.’
‘Oh . . . What did Leo say when you told him?’
‘He doesn’t know yet. He’s away – I won’t see him till Friday. Don’t tell anyone, and don’t ever tell him I told you first.’
‘Credit me with some intelligence,’ Claire said. ‘Look, whatever happens, whatever you decide to do, I’m here for you.’
Ellen looked at her. ‘What do you mean, whatever I decide to do?’
‘You and Leo, I mean. Whatever you both decide.’
‘There’s nothing to decide. I’m pregnant, and I’m having the baby.’
‘You mean with or without him?’
‘What? No – I mean with him. Of course with him. Claire, we’re in a loving, long-term relationship. We mightn’t have planned a baby right now, but we’ll have it. There’s no question about that.’
‘Right,’ Claire said. ‘In that case, congratulations. I’m very happy for you both.’
But what if Ellen was wrong, and Leo didn’t want this accidental baby they’d made? What if he’d never really seen children in his future, or not for another few years? A baby undeniably changed things, complicated things – but a baby also turned a loving couple into a family. Surely he’d want that? And he was thirty-six now, older than a lot of first-time fathers.
In fact, mightn’t the news serve to prompt the marriage proposal she was more than ready for? Wouldn’t it make sense to seal the deal with a wedding, like Joan and Seamus had done, when Ellen told him of his impending fatherhood?
Her own father floated into her mind’s eye. Ten years on, she could think about him dispassionately now. She could regret the fact that she was going to have his grandchild and he would never know, only because it meant that her child would be deprived of a grandfather.
His parents hadn’t been told of Ivan’s birth, and Ellen was equally disinclined to tell them about this pregnancy – or about a wedding, if and when it came to pass. What was the point?
It was sad, but it was life. Now she must look to the future, and leave the past in the past.
And the future was bright – wasn’t it?