34
First things first. She’d charge her phone and then call Mel.
‘Where the fuck have you fuckin’ been?’
‘You know where I’ve been,’ Polly sighed. I mean, she loved Mel, but honestly… sometimes…
‘Yeah, but no phone call?’
‘I forgot my charger.’
‘Couldn’t you have used your mother’s phone?’
‘Battery dead? Duh… No numbers?’ Polly didn’t feel much like explaining to Mel that she’d also been glad of a break from being constantly in touch with everyone. To have some time to think. To let things sift through her mind.
‘How are things with you and Fen?’
‘Fabulous, Polly. We’re all sorted now, and – well – we might have a candidate for the honour of sperm donor.’
‘Who?’
‘Fen’s brother! She’s asked him and he’s agreed – on principle, anyway. We’re all going to meet up in a couple of weeks to talk it through. Don’t you think that makes perfect sense? True, it’ll be a bit weird. Still, it’s the closest we’ll get to having our own biological child together. God, I’m so excited. Aren’t you pleased for me? Spike will be off the donor list.’
‘Yes, of course I’m pleased for you, you doughnut.’
‘So how did things go with your mum? How long did Spike stay for? Did you get a chance to speak to him? Properly?’
Where to start? she thought. ‘Mel, are you free? Can you come over? You can bore me rigid about your loved-up trip with Fen, and I can fill you in on everything that happened in deepest Devon.’
‘Ooh. Something happened, didn’t it? Right. Just finishing supper and then I’ll be right over!’
Polly and Rowan had picked up a McDonald’s at Gordano service station, and after Polly had thrown the cartons into the bin and called Mel, she checked her phone for any voice or text messages. Several missed calls. Dialling 121, she hoped that at least one of those voicemail messages would be from Spike. In the end, there were two.
The first one said:
Polly. I’ve arrived safely. Look, I can’t talk as I’m staying at Bam’s parents and I’ve just sneaked out into the garden… [muffle muffle]. What? [Calling to someone else.] Yeah, sure, in a minute. [Back onto the telephone.] I’ll call you soon, Polly. Kiss Rowan for me. Oh, and… [phone line dead].
Second message:
I’ve just got back from the hospital, Poll. Look. I’m coming back next Saturday. It’s the earliest I can get away. Damn. Gotta go… Yes, yes, just coming. Saturday, Polly. I… well, you know. [Click.]
Polly hung up and stared at her mobile. What did all that mean? Hospital? Was he okay? What did he mean, coming Saturday? Was that this Saturday, or Saturday next week? Oh God, if it’s this Saturday then that’s the same day as the screening of Vanessa’s film starring yours truly. Polly tapped in her message code once more to listen to them again. Nope. None the wiser.
Still looking at her phone as if it was a traitor, she let the other messages in her voicebox play.
The first one began:
Polly? It’s me, Max. Look, this whole Sarah thing. It was a mistake. She means nothing to me. You’re the one I love. Surely we can work something out. Ben keeps asking when he can play with Rowan. It’s killing me. Ring me. Text me. Bye.
She sighed. The nerve of that man.
Next message:
Polly, what do I have to do? I called round the shop, and Donna wouldn’t say where you’ve gone. C’mon, babe. We’re good together. You know we are. Yeah? Don’t give up on us. This is silly.
Unbelievable.
And the next and final one:
Polly, Polly [clearly drunk and slurring, sound of pub in background], don’t be such a stuck-up cow. Sorry, sorry. [Singing Lionel Richie now… ] “I just called to say…” [Then to someone else – presumably in the pub.] What? Ah, fuck off, you cunt. [Into phone.] Not you, Polly… I… Ah bollocks.
‘Mummeee!’ cried Rowan, tugging at her mother’s skirts. ‘Want Daddee. Where’s Daddy?’
She gazed down at her beautiful child, with her big eyes and that dimple on her right cheek. ‘He’s gone to see Bam’s mummy and daddy, darling.’ Rowan had never looked more like Spike. ‘C’mon,’ said Polly, ‘it’s time to get you washed and ready for bed.’
*
Later, after more ‘Where’s Daddy?’s, and a reading of Spot the Dog , followed by two Meg and Mog books, Rowan was finally asleep. Sneaking out of her child’s room, Polly tried Spike’s phone, but it went straight through to voicemail.
Spike? she said, leaving a message, I’ve only just picked up your messages. Sorry, my battery had run out. Call me.
She wandered back downstairs to her kitchen, wondering if and when he’d call. Even though she’d only been gone a little over a week, she felt that both she and everything had changed. She’d found her mum and lost Spike all in the course of a few days. And now her home didn’t feel like home anymore. She felt disconnected, and dog- tired.
Probably everything catching up with me , she thought, as she surveyed her kitchen, thinking how shabby it looked. How the cupboards could do with painting, and the walls too. She wondered which colour would suit the room best. Maybe blue. Or a Farrow & Ball French grey. The whole kitchen could do with a spring-clean, she decided.
And that was how Mel found her, at a quarter past nine when she let herself in with her own keys.
‘Hallooo!’ she called out.
‘In here!’
Polly, up to her elbows in soap suds. Marigolds on. Tin cans, jars and condiments out of the cupboards and stacked on the worktop, as she scrubbed away at the shelves inside. Full washing machine on the go, dishwasher thrumming away. Mel nearly tripped over the mop next to a bucket of soapy water.
‘Watch the floor! Pass that paint brush, would you, Mel?’
Mel stood her ground. ‘Stop!’ she said. ‘What on earth is going on?’
Polly put down her J-cloth and turned an anguished face towards her friend. ‘Oh God, Mel,’ she said, not realising what she was going to say until she said it. ‘I think I might very well be nesting.’
‘Don’t be so daft.’
‘No really.’ Pushing back a stray strand of hair from her face, Polly peeled off her Marigolds. ‘My boobs hurt, and suddenly I can’t bear the taste of coffee – or tea, either!’
‘For God’s sake. Sit down, you’re making me nervous.’
‘I can’t,’ she said, pacing the floor.
Mel grabbed her arm. ‘This is nuts. You can’t be pregnant. It’s a stomach bug, that’s all. Are you feeling sick?’
Polly nodded.
‘There you are, then – enteritis!’ Mel squinted at her friend. ‘Have you missed your period?’
‘No.’
‘See?’
‘I am pregnant, Mel. I just know I am,’ Polly insisted.
‘Right,’ said Mel, putting her hands out in a calming way. ‘Have you told anyone else this silly notion of yours?’
Polly shook her head.
‘Good. How about Max? You haven’t told him, have you?’
‘Of course not. I’ve not done a test to confirm it yet, have I? And, in any case – if I am pregnant…’
‘But that’s the point, Polly,’ said Mel, grabbing her by the shoulders. ‘ If. You don’t know for certain that you are.’
‘No, but if I am pregnant then I’m pretty sure it’s not Max’s baby…’
Mel now stared goggle-eyed at Polly. ‘Sorry, am I missing something here? Should I be calling in the men in white coats because you’re up the duff via immaculate conception?’
Polly pulled out a chair to sit at the table, and Mel joined her. ‘Okay,’ Polly began. ‘Here’s the thing… If I am pregnant – and I’m pretty sure that I am. One, because I could be, and two, because I had these same symptoms only a couple of weeks after I was pregnant with Rowan. Remember?’
‘Yes, I do. And I remember that at the time you thought it was that norovirus. Which could be what you have now. Vomiting virus.’
Polly fixed her with a glare – it didn’t matter how much her friend tried to persuade her otherwise, she knew her body. ‘The point is,’ she continued, ‘if I am pregnant then it can’t be Max’s because we always use condoms. Industrial-strength condoms at that. What with Max being paranoid about not getting anyone pregnant ever again after Claire…’
‘I still don’t understand…’
‘If I am pregnant then I’m ninety-nine per cent certain that the baby is Spike’s.’
‘Spike’s? How—?’
‘Shut up and I’ll tell you.’ Polly relayed the whole story about how her trip to her mother’s ended with her sleeping with Spike. And about him taking off in the morning for Kettering – and the reason…
‘Where the bloody hell’s Kettering?’
‘Exactly… that’s what I said…’
‘Shit. That Spike sure has determined sperm. I always said he’d make a great sperm donor… What? Shut up! Just kidding.’
‘I haven’t told you the clincher yet.’ Polly looked down at the table. ‘We didn’t use a condom.’
‘Oh, Polly. You are such a plonker. Does he know?’
‘What? That I’m a plonker?’
‘Oh, ha ha.’
‘No. He doesn’t know. How can I tell him I might be pregnant – when I thought it was safe? And now that he’s having a baby with Bam.’ Mel watched helpless as her friend burst into tears.
*
In the middle of the night, Polly was woken by Rowan’s cries of ‘Da-a-a-a-deee!’ Polly’s heart almost breaking as she entered Rowan’s bedroom to find her sitting bolt upright in bed, tears streaming down her face, sobbing for her father.
She hadn’t seemed to miss Spike so much or suffered nightmares when she was in Devon, where the fresh air and Brian’s attentions had managed to tire her out. But now, as Polly held her child in her arms, it wasn’t easy to dispel Rowan’s conviction that there were great big spiders lurking in the shadows, and that Daddy was the only person who could dispatch them.
Polly wondered whether it might have been better all round if Spike hadn’t returned to the UK. She’d been doing just fine on her own, and Rowan certainly hadn’t missed what she never had. Now what was to become of them? How much worse was it going to be when Spike set off for Australia? How would Rowan cope, let alone her?
Polly sat and comforted her child, Rowan’s little arms flung about her mother’s neck as they rocked back and forth until it was hard to tell just who was comforting whom.
In the corner of the room, a spider snuck back beneath a skirting board, while outside the night gathered around. The lights of a plane, passing far above them, winked in close formation, and a star, which might well have been the planet Venus, twinkled in the sky.
*
The shop was busy the following day, so Polly had little chance to buy a pregnancy testing kit. Even though Mel kept ringing to ask if she’d done it yet.
‘Duh,’ said Donna – handing over the phone once more to Polly. ‘It’s your mental friend again.’
‘Mel. Go away. I’ll do it tomorrow, right?’
‘You make sure you do.’
But the next day was every bit as frantic, as Polly caught up with all that had been happening in the shop while she was away, and then there was the stocktaking.
‘There’s something different about you,’ said Donna, squinting at Polly as she unpacked a box of hair slides.
‘Don’t be daft,’ she said. ‘Good old country air, I expect.’
Donna stood and closely regarded her, making Polly feel as if she were being scanned by an airport security guard.
‘No, it’s definitely summat else.’
Anxious to put Donna – who could give a bloodhound a good run for its money when sniffing out a piece of juicy gossip – off the scent, Polly added, ‘Maybe I look more relaxed because I’ve finally made my peace with Suze.’
‘Ah,’ said Donna, visibly relaxing her guard. ‘That’ll be it then. Glad she’s okay now. Did you hear about…’ And as Donna prattled on, in her element, about the latest piece of Clifton-based scandal, filling Polly in on the goings-on at The Arcade, Polly’s mind slipped into cruise mode.
It was when she heard Donna say ‘…and that Dr Sutton has gone and died or something. You know, that batty old battleaxe who lives on… lives on… oh, where is it now?’
Polly straightened up. ‘Canynge Crescent?’ she said.
‘That’s the one.’
*
On her way home, Polly drove past her dream house on Canynge Crescent, where outside was staked a For Sale sign. She parked her car up and sat for a few moments gazing at the house she remained convinced should be hers. If she won the lottery. Or was the sort of mercenary cow who could quite happily sponge off her rich mother.
Polly started to wonder about the old lady who’d lived in the house. Had she died at home, or in one of those awful residential homes? Did she have any relatives? Would they be the ones selling up, hoping to maximise their inheritance? Had they even visited during her final illness? Or had it been very sudden?
She pulled out her notebook to jot down the name and number of the estate agent handling the sale, making a mental note to look the house up on the internet. See how much it was on the market for. Because – well, you never know. Yeah, right.
She turned her ignition key to start the car engine and head off home. Tomorrow was Saturday – the day of the screening of the film down at The Scout Hut, on the harbourside. Tomorrow might also be the day when Spike returned for their “Big Talk”. Her stomach squirmed with butterflies, and it was a toss-up between whether it was from the anticipation of seeing Spike or the thought of the possible horrors that might entail from Vanessa’s film.