Chapter Seven
Anouska
Monday 13 January
Anouska was so engrossed in her group chat messages with Ellie and Jess that she didn’t even hear Zach come in. She started when he said, ‘Still up, sweetheart?’
She quickly locked her phone and put it in her bag. That didn’t look guilty at all, she thought belatedly. ‘Yes, I was finishing up some work.’
Zach kissed her passionately on the mouth. ‘I feel as if I haven’t seen you for ages. How was your day?’
‘Oh, you know, just catching up with things in the office and with Leigh-Ann.’
‘How’s she doing?’ When Anouska hesitated, he said, ‘Everything OK?’
‘Yeah, she could do with some help, that’s all. I’ve been away a lot recently. I was thinking I might start cutting back on my trips for a while once I return from S?o Paulo.’
‘Hurrah! I get my girl back!’
Not quite, thought Anouska, and she wasn’t lying by using Leigh-Ann as the reason she was curtailing her travel; she simply wasn’t divulging the whole truth.
‘Actually, I’ve been thinking,’ he said.
‘Should I be worried?’ Anouska teased him.
‘No, not at all. You should be elated.’
She frowned and he continued. ‘How’s about you and me, just the two of us, start looking for a long-haul holiday somewhere?’
Anouska paled, and Zach must have seen something in her expression as he said, ‘No, hear me out. You said yourself you’re going to cut back on your trips, how about in a few months we go on one of these all-inclusive breaks? We could shop around for a good deal. I certainly have plenty sources of inspiration on where to go at my fingertips.’ He smiled.
With the travel bookshop part of his business, he wasn’t wrong there.
‘We could go on safari to the Masai Mara, or trekking in Nepal…’
Anouska’s eyes fluttered closed. No, not now. Another panic attack was bubbling up from inside her. She knew the signs.
Normally, she’d have bitten his hand off to go on a break, and not cared where they went, but Kenya involved injections for yellow fever and she’d need to take malaria tablets. Plus, in a few months she’d be five months pregnant.
‘Or,’ Zach said, possibly noticing her change in breathing, ‘if that’s too strenuous we could maybe bag a good price on an all-inclusive at a Sandals resort in the Caribbean.’
Anouska’s vision swam and she struggled to stay upright. Zach was moving in and out of focus.
‘Anouska, are you OK?’ He sounded awfully far away.
‘I’m not feeling very well.’
‘Let me get you some water.’ Zach’s voice was laced with concern.
She sipped the water gratefully, and gradually she was able to refocus and breathe normally again.
‘You’ve been overdoing it. It’s just as well you’re going to travel less for work.’ Zach pulled her to him and kissed her on the head.
‘Probably. I think I’m going to turn in, get an early night.’
He smiled fondly at her. ‘Sounds like a plan.’
Anouska relaxed into Zach as they snuggled together in bed not long afterwards, both too tired for different reasons to engage in any energetic pursuits. They had a good life together. She just wasn’t sure how he would react to any change in it. Guilt crept over her at the thought of the next day’s appointment, an appointment he’d miss. She hoped he’d forgive her.
As Zach was drifting off to sleep, she said, ‘By the way, Mum phoned today. She’s coming for a shopping break.’
‘Oh?’
‘At the end of the month.’
‘End of the month? Sounds lovely. And you’re sure you’ll be here?’
‘Yes, we checked our schedules.’
‘Great, it’ll be nice to see Maura again, when I’m not working. Anouska, I’m shattered. Can we talk more about this tomorrow?’
Did she detect a note of irritation in his tone? She realised also that once her panic attack had passed, he hadn’t mentioned the holiday again. Was he pissed off about that? She’d never know. Aargh. Hormones were so annoying, all this self-doubt.
‘Sure.’ Anouska kissed him on the cheek and within thirty seconds he was asleep. She lay there studying him as his dark hair flopped over onto his face. He really was handsome. He wasn’t the tallest man in the world, at five feet eight, but he was hers and she cherished him. Their baby would be beautiful. She wondered if it would be a boy or a girl. What would they call him, or her? Did she care if it was a boy or a girl? Now that she was having a baby, would she want more than one? If so, how many? So many questions. She decided she didn’t care if it was a boy or a girl, as long as it was healthy.
She tossed and turned, willing herself to go to sleep. She was exhausted, and now that she was pregnant, until she managed to make arrangements to take some of the weight off her shoulders and poor Leigh-Ann’s, she had to ensure she took care of herself. She stroked her stomach, whispered, ‘Night, Bean,’ and started counting elephants; it had always worked as a child. The last thing she remembered was five hundred and seventy elephants.
Tuesday 14 January
‘Morning, sweetheart. Here’s a caffeine injection for you. Did I hear you say last night your mum was coming?’
Struggling to wake up, Anouska cleared the grit from her eyes and gingerly sat up.
‘Sorry?’ She yawned.
‘Is Maura coming in a few weeks?’
Anouska reached for her coffee cup, yawned again then said, ‘Yes, she’s arriving on the thirty-first.’
‘That’s great news. I know you haven’t seen much of her recently. And, with you not travelling so much for a bit, that’ll work out well.’
Anouska nodded her agreement. She was too tired to form any more sentences right then.
‘Right, I’ve got to go to work. You dropping in tonight for some food? You haven’t been in for a while. Todd’s beginning to get a complex.’ Zach planted a kiss on her lips and headed for the door.
A wave of nausea struck Anouska and she managed to blurt out, ‘Sure, see you later,’ and wave Zach off, before she sprinted for the toilet. She got there in the nick of time, depositing the contents of her stomach into the toilet bowl. Bloody morning sickness.
As she freshened up, a thought occurred to her: How on earth was she going to keep her pregnancy a secret from her mother when they were living in the same house?
Twenty-five days. Twenty-five days since she’d found out she was pregnant and she still hadn’t mentioned the pregnancy to Zach. Today she was seeing the midwife for the first time. She hadn’t been able to get an appointment that suited until now, what with all her meetings. She knew, particularly today, she should be focusing completely on her and the baby, but she couldn’t help reproaching herself for not having told Zach yet. He might be hurt by the fact she had gone without him, and she would have loved for him to be there. Uncertainty crept into her mind then. What if, when she told him, he still didn’t want kids and suggested she get rid of Bean? She knew she couldn’t. Now that the baby was real, she wanted it. She wanted it with a fierceness she couldn’t explain. Maternal instinct? Hormones? Who knew, but she couldn’t escape the protectiveness she felt towards her unborn child, even if she wanted to.
Anouska walked through the park to the doctor’s surgery, as the sun melted the frost on the pavements, taking extra care where she put her feet. The last thing she wanted to do was slip on the ice.
In the surgery, she pored over her iPad, head down, trying not to draw attention to herself. It was unlikely anyone she knew would be there, as she and Zach tended to keep themselves to themselves, and didn’t overly mix with the neighbours; however, it would be just her luck for someone to see her going in to the midwife and congratulate Zach before he even knew himself.
She knew she was procrastinating, but if she was truly being honest with herself, she was afraid.
‘Anouska Bennett?’
Anouska rose to her feet and followed the midwife through the double doors to her room.
‘I’m Cara. Please take a seat.’ The midwife smiled at her. She was young, not the matronly, plump nurse Anouska had conjured up in her mind.
‘So, you’re pregnant.’ It was a statement rather than a question.
Anouska nodded. ‘Two to four weeks the test I took said, but that was twenty-five days ago.’
Cara smiled. ‘Not that you’re counting. Right, that’s a start. Just so you know, those tests count your pregnancy from the date of conception. We count it from the first day of your last period.’ Cara checked Anouska’s particulars were correct then said, ‘So, when was that?’
Anouska shook her head. ‘I’m not sure. I know I had one in November, but can’t quite recall when, perhaps the middle.’
‘Nothing at all that jogs your memory, a concert you were at, someone or somewhere you visited?’
Now she thought about it, she had been in the Philippines in November. And she’d had to go and buy tampons. When was she there exactly?
‘Can you give me a minute? I might be able to work it out.’
‘Sure, go ahead.’ Cara waited patiently whilst Anouska scrolled through her phone calendar.
She’d arrived in Manila on the seventeenth of November and left on the twenty-second, and she seemed to recall having her period for most of the time there. She told the midwife as much.
‘And how long is your cycle usually?’
‘Standard twenty-eight days.’
Cara made some notes. ‘Excellent. So I have a due date for you of the twenty-fifth of August, give or take. A summer baby.’
Anouska couldn’t stop the smile from spreading over her face. She was having a baby. Later this year she’d be celebrating her baby’s first Christmas.
She could barely take in what Cara told her about future appointments, when the scans would be, ways to look after herself, dos and don’ts. She tried her best but the elation she felt at believing, finally taking in, that she was having a baby, made everything else fade into the background. As she drove to the office, she decided she’d tell Zach tonight. She had to.
‘Your four o’clock’s in the boardroom.’ Leigh-Ann placed some papers for signature on Anouska’s desk.
‘Thanks. Could you bring some coffees in, and do we have any of those cinnamon twists left we had at lunch? See if we can sweeten them up?’ They shared a conspiratorial smile.
Anouska frowned at her inbox. Two hundred and twenty-seven unread messages.
She opened her file on Bell Communications. It was a mid-sized firm, which until recently had their own in-house human resources. However, times were tough and the company had been downsizing in certain areas and outsourcing in others. Tax and payroll had been subbed out to Mumbai, and human resources was ripe for the picking. Javier LaPuente was Bell’s UK managing director, but he would be interviewing Anouska’s company for all fourteen countries they operated in, having already liaised with his counterparts in each country at a summit the previous month in Berlin. It would be a lucrative contract to win and Anouska loved a challenge. It was why she had set up the Impress Me outsourcing agency for IT and communications firms ten years ago.
She ruffled her hair with the aim of making it look tousled as opposed to greasy after a hard day in the office. Bring it on! Following her appointment with the midwife today and her connection with her baby feeling even stronger as a result, she felt invincible. She’d have no problem closing today.
‘So, you’re saying we could have all of our countries run through one hub? Your team could service all our needs worldwide?’
Anouska, ever the professional, replied, ‘That’s right. Although we’re a small corporation, we have a huge global reach, everywhere from Dakar to Istanbul, Tokyo to Tehran,’ she said, touching on some of her client’s key locations. She had done her research well.
Javier smiled, nodding at her response, and started to ask her specifics. Yes! He was hers. She had reeled him in. She recognised the signs.
At the end of the meeting, they arranged to have a conference call the following Monday prior to signing contracts. Once Javier left the office, Anouska gave a huge sigh of relief. ‘Thank God that went well.’
‘You had it in the bag the whole time,’ Leigh-Ann said loyally, and Anouska felt a rush of affection for her.
‘Do you fancy joining Lucas and me for a pizza?’ Leigh-Ann asked.
‘Thanks, but I’m going to drop in to Bean There on the way home, see if Zach or Todd can fix me something. I also might actually get to see Zach then.’
Leigh-Ann smirked. Anouska knew that meant she wasn’t surprised as Anouska was a regular fixture in the bistro. When she did leave the office at a reasonable time, which was rare, more often than not she went via Bean There and ended up having dinner at her usual table, drinking countless coffees, or the odd glass of wine, and reviewing client data on her laptop.
With Zach often at the bistro until gone midnight, there was usually nothing to rush home for. That was all about to change.