Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
The small hospital café contained only six tables and a small counter selling hot drinks, biscuits and cakes.
Ellen had chosen a table near the window.
She’d wanted to stay in Robert’s room, but Lucy had persuaded her that they’d be far better off here at the front of the hospital ‘where we can keep a look out for the girls when they arrive’.
She’d also insisted that Ellen drink something hot and sweet for the shock and Ellen had to admit that she was grateful for the sugary tea in her hands.
‘What is it that you should’ve told me?’
Lucy took a deep breath. ‘I need to go back to the beginning. Before I really knew you. I arrived at the university before you did, remember? And I met Robert and a couple of the others. I liked him straight away. He was exactly the kind of guy I’d hoped that I’d meet there.’
It was such a strange thing to say. Even meeting someone – let alone a specific kind of someone – hadn’t been further from Ellen’s mind when she’d prepared herself to start college.
She’d been far more concerned about her course and living alone and making friends.
‘I was late starting because I had my grandma’s funeral. ’
Lucy nodded. ‘I remember. I thought that was the reason you were quiet when you first came. Robert and I had spent two days and a relatively chaste night together before you got there. But it didn’t go anywhere. For him.’
She looked at Ellen meaningfully. Robert hadn’t wanted anything more with Lucy? But she’d been stunning. And fun and exciting and all the things that Ellen knew she wasn’t.
Lucy gave her a moment to take that in and then continued.
‘And then you arrived and we all became a group. I did really like you. You came from the same kind of family as mine. Had been to a similar school. But I couldn’t tell you that because, by then, I’d decided that the only way to become one of them was to pretend that I already was. ’
‘But why did you do that? I still don’t understand.’
‘I wanted better, Ellen. I wanted a bigger life. And I was eighteen. I knew nothing of the world, had never been abroad, it was the only way I could see me really becoming part of that world that I wanted so much. And then, of course, Robert fell in love with you.’
Ellen’s heart squeezed with a fleeting memory of a young Robert, looking at her with those big honest eyes and telling her that he loved her.
Then she pictured Robert lying on that surgical table maybe only yards away from where they were now and sent another silent prayer for his safe return to her.
Lucy sipped at her black coffee. She, too, seemed lost in her memories.
‘I was always jealous of how Robert was so clearly infatuated with you. I couldn’t understand why it had never worked out between him and me.
I’m not proud of this, Ellen, but I hoped that it would run its course and I would have a second chance with him. ’
This version of events was so different to what she’d known that Ellen was having a hard time processing it. ‘But you were on and off with Ian in that time?’
Lucy nodded. ‘I know. He was my back-up plan. He was charismatic and generous and he made life a lot of fun.’
Begrudgingly, Ellen had to admit that she was right.
Despite his caustic wit and arrogance, he would always be the one to buy drinks for everyone at the end of term when she was scratching around in pennies waiting for her next grant cheque.
Of course, he could afford it, but that didn’t mean he had to do it.
He and Lucy had seemed a good match in many ways.
They were both the central characters in whatever was happening.
‘You two were the power couple of our group. Not that I would have called it that back then.’
Lucy’s laugh was hollow. ‘I can understand how it seemed like that. I sometimes wonder if that’s why he kept going with me.
He could see that we would make a good double act.
With the benefit of hindsight, I also believe that he could see something in me.
A need. Something that meant that I would put up with things that other women wouldn’t.
In his own way, I do think he needed me as much as I thought I needed him.
’ She lowered her gaze and stared into her coffee.
‘Because then you got pregnant and I knew that there was no chance that there would be anything between Robert and me.’
Shocking though it was, this made a lot more sense of the way that Lucy had reacted to Ellen telling her about the pregnancy.
How she’d couched her advice in such a way that had made Ellen seriously consider a termination.
‘That’s why you didn’t want me to have the baby.
Why you said I shouldn’t even tell Robert. ’
For perhaps the first time in all the years she’d known her, Lucy blushed to the roots of her hair.
‘I’m not proud of the way I was back then, Ellen.
And I am really very sorry for anything I said to you.
I felt…desperate. You were getting what I wanted more than anything and you hadn’t had to try, or pretend or do anything other than be yourself.
You were my friend, but there was a part of me that… that…hated you.’
The shock of that winded Ellen. ‘You hated me?’
Lucy shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Maybe that’s too strong, but when you told Robert you were pregnant and he was so calm about it all and then you were both so happy about it, it sent me a bit crazy for a while. I didn’t want to be around you. Not that you came out with us much after that.’
‘I couldn’t be in smoky areas with loads of drunk people when I was pregnant. And I was throwing up most mornings. It was all I could do to hold it together to get to my lectures.’
Also, as soon as the pregnancy had started to show, she’d scuttled from her classes back to her room, hating the stares and whispers from other students that she was ‘that girl who got pregnant’.
She’d preferred being back in her room with Robert anyway.
Once the shock was over, and they’d got through the pain of telling their parents, they’d started to enjoy planning for the baby’s arrival.
He’d been so sweet to her, rubbing her aching calves, cooking healthy food, making sure she took her pregnancy vitamins.
Though she’d urged him to still go out with his friends, enjoy his last few months of college, he’d been adamant that the only place he wanted to be was with her.
‘Once I’d been pregnant myself, I understood it. Back then, it felt like I was losing everything. You were the only real female friend I had, Ellen.’
That was another shock. ‘What about the other girls in the group?’
Lucy shrugged. ‘I couldn’t let my guard down for a minute with them.
Anyway, once you and Robert were out of the picture, Ian was my only hope.
It wasn’t the worst thing. You know how wealthy his family were, we had a great time together, travelling around Thailand and Vietnam, planning our next steps.
Then I got pregnant too but his reaction was very different to Robert’s. ’
Ellen didn’t like to ask her whether she’d got pregnant on purpose. ‘What happened?’
‘He wasn’t ready for a child, didn’t know if he ever wanted one.
Unsurprising really. But then his family found out about the pregnancy and their only response was to offer me money to have a termination.
And my own mother told me I was a stupid fool who was throwing away the chance of a better life than she’d had. ’
Even after all these years, there was a wobble in Lucy’s voice when she said that.
Her experience had been so different to Ellen’s.
Her own mother had cried and her father had looked disappointed, but they had told her from the very beginning that they would support whatever she wanted to do.
Robert’s family had been much the same. And, once Grace was born, she’d been the apple of everyone’s eyes – they’d all adored her.
‘I’m so sorry it was hard for you, Lucy. ’
‘Well, they actually did me a favour. Ian had a very difficult relationship with his family – boarding school at eight, father who had multiple affairs, mother who spent whole days in bed – so their reaction made him go the other way. He offered to set up home with me in a flat.’
How had Ellen not known this? Had she been in such a bubble with Robert and Grace that she hadn’t even noticed that she hadn’t heard from her closest friend. ‘I’m sorry that I didn’t?—’
Lucy waved away her apology. ‘I’m sure you sent me emails that I ignored. We’re both equally responsible.’
‘What happened once you moved in together?’
Lucy leaned back in her chair, feigning a nonchalance that she clearly didn’t feel.
‘Well, when I was around eight months pregnant, he slept with another girl. I found out when she came looking for him at the flat. He denied it of course and I didn’t have the energy at that stage to push too hard for the truth.
Not long after Charlotte was born, I found out he was sleeping with a different woman every week. ’
Ellen’s hands flew to her face. ‘That’s awful, Lucy. I’m so sorry you had to go through all of that.’
Lucy smiled. ‘Hold on to your sympathy. It gets worse. That first girl told me that she believed Ian had spiked her drink with something because she didn’t remember anything.
But I didn’t believe her. Something I will always be ashamed of.
One of the other women he slept with also turned up at our flat and said the same. ’
Ellen frowned. ‘But spiking drinks wasn’t a thing back then.’
Lucy held out her hands. ‘Apparently it was. I’ve done my research.
Just not as widespread as it is now. And Ian was a very talented chemistry student.
All of those girls…’ She shuddered. ‘I had no evidence that he was using drugs, otherwise I honestly think I would have gone to the police. But I did leave him.’
The wheels of Ellen’s brain were moving slowly. ‘So do you think…’
Lucy nodded. ‘I do think that this is what he did to you, too. It wasn’t your fault, Ellen. You didn’t choose to sleep with him.’