Chapter Seven Netta
Chapter Seven
NETTA
‘I can’t go.’
‘The hell you can’t, Netta!’ spat Freya. ‘Read it out to me again.’
‘Hang on a sec.’ Netta left the phone on her desk and darted through the maze of tables and chairs to snib the classroom door shut.
Back at her desk, she wedged the phone between her shoulder and her ear and scrolled back to the top of Morrison’s email.
It had lain hidden in plain sight among a deluge of advertising crap and Asos restock notifications since last Friday afternoon, his unfamiliar email address not having caught her attention.
She coughed to clear her throat then read out loud.
NOTEBOOK
Morrison Maplestone
To: Netta Phillips
Dear Netta,
Thank you for reaching out and for being discreet about your discovery.
I would like the book back but, for various reasons, I’m unable to travel to Australia at the moment, and I don’t trust the post. I know this is an unusual request, but I’m hoping you might be able to deliver it to me personally.
I will, of course, cover your return travel to London—first class—and your accommodation and expenses for as long as you choose to stay.
I would also like to offer ten thousand pounds as an incentive for not sharing the contents of the diary with the media.
Please let me know if this is a possibility and, if so, when you’re able to come to the UK.
Kind regards,
Morrison Maplestone
‘I can’t go because I have a job, Freya.
I can’t casually take a week off when the summer holidays are just around the corner.
And if I go after the term finishes, then I’d miss Christmas.
And how would I explain that to Pete?’ she asked.
‘“Oh hi, Pete! I’ll see you in a week or so, I’m just flying to London now to return something I can’t show you to Morrison Maplestone.
Have a nice Christmas!”’ Netta’s chair creaked as she pulled her legs up into a crossed position.
‘Somehow I don’t think he’d like that very much. ’
Freya groaned. ‘Oh, but Netta, seriously! How many times in your life have you been offered a free first-class ticket to London? To anywhere? And you’ll probably even get to meet him!’
‘You know why I can’t go back there,’ Netta said quietly.
Netta was met by a rare silence at Freya’s end of the phone line before her friend spoke again, her tone gentler this time, as though she knew she was treading on shaky ground.
‘I know you said you’d never go back. But what if going back is exactly what you need to do to get some closure?
And I bet everyone’s forgotten about it by now, anyway.
I don’t think Mitch is even on the telly anymore. ’
For a moment, anger flared in Netta’s chest and the urge to tell Freya to back off and mind her own business was almost impossible to suppress.
Freya might’ve been one of the only people she’d confided in about Mitch, but that didn’t mean her friend had even the slightest idea what it had been like for her after the affair had blown up.
The paparazzi had stalked her. The tabloids had torn her to shreds.
She hadn’t been able to go anywhere without fear of being recognised.
She’d even had to start using a different version of her name, for God’s sake.
Nobody could possibly understand the pain of it without having been through it themselves.
Netta closed her eyes, drew in a long breath, and expelled it as slowly as she could. ‘I’m not going. End of story.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘One hundred per cent. Look, sorry, Freya, I have to go.’
Netta hung up before the threatening tears could spill but the familiar dirty weight had already settled on her shoulders, joined now by the additional burden of Morrison’s proposition.
She felt ill—a swirling anxiety-fuelled nausea clouding her thoughts.
But there was no decision to make. Not really.
Because no amount of money could make a trip back to London worth it.
She’d just have to work out another way of getting the diary back to him.
Reading over the email one last time—still stunned that there was an email from Morrison Maplestone in her inbox—she typed her reply.
***
As she drove home from work, Netta allowed herself to be buoyed by the fact that today was pregnancy test day.
Thank God for early detection tests—who had the patience to wait until the day before their period was due?
She spent the commute blissfully distracted by visions of herself pushing a pram around the botanical gardens.
Curled up on the couch with Pete and the baby.
Choosing little outfits. She had a good feeling about this one.
Pete wasn’t home from work when she arrived, but she went straight to the bathroom, too anxious to wait.
He would understand, and if it was positive, she would pop the test on the kitchen bench where he always left his car keys so he’d see it as soon as he got home, with a little note saying, ‘I’m on my way, Daddy!
’ Her heart almost burst at the thought of it.
She pulled a pregnancy test from the bathroom cabinet and held it reverently in both hands as she sent a wish out into the universe: Please let this be the day I see two lines.
Morrison Maplestone could keep his money and first-class flights.
All Netta wanted in the whole wide world was two glorious, blue, ‘you’re having a baby’ lines.
***
Pete found her on the couch in the shadowy lounge, staring at the switched-off television, when he arrived home a couple of hours later.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘Went to the gym.’
Netta sniffed and nodded, not bothering to turn to face him. She heard him walk into the kitchen and the familiar clatter of his keys being dumped on the bench.
‘You’re quiet,’ he said, stepping into the lounge. ‘Everything okay?’
Netta held the pregnancy test up. ‘Nope.’
‘Oh.’
Pete came and sat beside her on the couch, taking the test from her hand, inspecting the lonely blue line that had all but leapt off the stick and punched Netta in the heart two hours earlier.
He said nothing, but pulled her in and held her close, and the intimacy of the gesture cracked something open in Netta.
She leaned into him as another torrent of hot tears came, seeping into Pete’s shoulder.
Surely it shouldn’t still hurt this much the sixth time around?
A callus should’ve grown, shouldn’t it, protecting her from repeated injury?
But every time it happened, she shattered into smaller and smaller pieces, the disappointment and fear just as raw every time.
‘It’s okay.’ Pete stroked her hair away from her face and thumbed a tear from her cheek. ‘If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen. This just wasn’t our month.’
‘It’s never our month, though, is it?’ Netta shook her head sadly, fidgeting with the fabric of her sleeve. ‘Maybe I’m just too old. I’m forty in a couple of months. I should go and get tests done. You too. Just to see what’s going on.’
‘We didn’t wait too long. It’ll be okay.
’ He grabbed a cushion and leaned it against his leg, motioning for Netta to place her head on it, then pulled a blanket from the back of the couch.
He arranged it over her, tucking her in with care.
They sat together like that until the room was dim, Netta curled into a ball.
‘I need a shower,’ Pete said eventually, gesturing at his gym clothes. ‘Will you be alright for a few minutes? I can wait if you want.’
Netta shook her head and offered him a watery smile. ‘It’s fine. Go.’
Pete flicked the lamp on, bathing the room in a warm glow, and put the television remote within her reach. ‘Won’t be long.’
As she watched him leave the room, Netta took a deep, shuddery breath and clutched the blanket to her chest, her toes curling beneath it against the anguish coursing through her body.
It wasn’t fair. Freya had gotten pregnant by accident the first time.
By contrast, Netta had been diligent to the point of scientific about conception and it still hadn’t happened.
It was another sign, she thought, that she’d made the right decision about not going to England to return the diary.
Her life was complicated enough; if she was ever going to have a baby, getting pregnant needed her undivided focus.
Going back there and stirring up the past would be idiotically stressful, and acute stress was something she knew could affect conception.
She sat and pulled her knees up, making herself as small as she could, and picked up the remote. She took a deep, grounding breath, her lungs barely emptied when Pete’s phone chirped from the couch, where it had slid, undetected, from the pocket of his gym shorts.
A message lit up the screen.
I’ve been thinking about you too, gorgeous.
What? Netta snatched the phone up and read it again before the screen faded to black. Who the hell was Tracey?
A second message chimed through.
And I’ve been thinking about our chat a lot. If you’re not sure you still want a baby, you need to tell her.
Netta’s stomach nose-dived as her body swarmed with adrenalin, her skin suddenly covered in goosebumps. She sat stock still, the phone balanced on her now limp hand. Pete was having an affair. She stood abruptly, went to the kitchen and dumped his phone on the dining table.
She wasn’t pregnant.
Pete was being unfaithful.
This was why he’d been so nice lately. To counter his guilt.
She wrenched open the fridge door and reflexively pulled out an opened bottle of wine, desperate for any kind of buffer.
‘Wanna watch something before we go to bed?’ Pete asked, appearing at the kitchen door. ‘Ooh, I’ll have a wine if you’re pouring.’
Turning, Netta looked him dead in the eye and pushed his phone across the table with her forefinger. ‘You got a message,’ she said flatly. ‘Two, actually.’
‘They can wait. C’mon, bring the wine. Let’s watch another Breaking Bad.’
Netta replaced the wine and let the fridge door swing shut. ‘They’re from Tracey.’
A brief flash of terror commandeered Pete’s face before he regained composure. He swiped the phone from the table and punched in his code. His belly contracted with a sudden exhale as he read the messages. ‘I can explain.’
‘Please do.’ It seemed ludicrous that earlier that same evening, Netta had been waiting on the results of a pregnancy test, and now she was bracing to hear an affair confession. ‘Who’s Tracey?’
‘She’s from work. Nothing’s happened,’ he said, miserably. ‘I can promise you I haven’t touched her.’
‘But you want to?’
‘Tracey and I had a thing, ages ago, before I met you, and a few months ago she broke up with her partner and things have been a bit flirty between us since then, I guess. It’s just a bit of fun at work. We don’t see each other outside of the office.’
‘But you text?’
‘Yeah, occasionally.’
‘And you’ve told her you’re not sure about the baby?’
‘Not in those words, exactly,’ he said. ‘But I think maybe she’s put two and two together from a conversation we had the other day.’
Netta took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. ‘And does two and two make four, Pete? Is it true?’
‘No. Yes. Sort of,’ he stammered. ‘It’s true that I’m not sure about it anymore.’
‘I’m sorry, what?’ Netta felt explosive, like there were only seconds to count down before she self-destructed. ‘I thought you wanted it as much as I do!’
‘I did!’ he said. ‘I thought I did. But then when it wasn’t happening, I started thinking …’ He trailed off, his eyes trained on the table. ‘Thinking that maybe if we couldn’t, it wouldn’t be so bad, you know? It might even be a good thing.’
Netta felt as though he’d slapped her across the cheek.
‘Having a baby is a big deal, Netta,’ he said, his tone pleading. ‘It’s hard. Everything changes. And I’m forty-eight. I guess I just feel like maybe I’ve done my time, you know? With Hannah and Sam.’
‘Christ, Pete, you make parenthood sound like prison!’
‘Trust me, Netta, it feels like that sometimes! You have no idea what it’s going to be like until you’re in it.’
‘But if that’s how you feel, why did you agree to try for a baby?’ said Netta, wrestling her voice into a level, measured tone. ‘What would you have done if I’d gotten pregnant? Run for the hills?’
‘No!’ Pete’s head hung over his bare chest. ‘I know trying is important to you. And if you get pregnant, I’ll do it, you know?
Be a dad. I won’t leave you high and dry holding a baby.
I guess …’ he paused, as though working out how to devastate her as tidily as possible.
‘I guess I just don’t want it as much as you do, that’s all. ’
‘I can’t believe this is happening.’
Pete’s eyes met hers then flicked to a coffee stain on the table. He rubbed at it distractedly. ‘I don’t really know what to say.’
‘I want to see the text trail between you and Tracey.’ The words were out before Netta even knew they were on their way. She’d never pried into someone’s phone before, but there was too much at stake here and, quite frankly, fuck it. ‘From the start.’
Pete dropped heavily into a chair, his belly protruding over the top of his boxers, and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.
When he removed them, his expression gave him away— it was clear he already knew exactly how screwed he was.
He straightened a little, scrolled up to the top of the message chain and pushed the phone across the table to Netta with a defeated sigh.
Doubt writhed in Netta’s stomach. Once she saw what she suspected she was going to, she would never be able to unsee it.
She thumbed down through weeks’ worth of messages, bile rising in her throat with every innuendo, every mention of the things they used to do to each other, every revolting pet name Tracey called him.
It was way past ‘a bit of fun at work’. This was straight-up betrayal, whether it had gotten physical or not.
Pete, who had just moments ago been comforting her on the couch, who she’d thought was her safe harbour, who she’d been so sure would be the father of her baby, was no better than Mitch fucking Carlton.
She came to the end of the message chain with a jolt.
‘Gross, Pete,’ she said. ‘Is this why you were horny that night we did it in the toilet? Did you want sex with me because she sent you this?’ She turned the phone to show him the photo Tracey had sent while they’d been watching Breaking Bad. The curve of a breast, a hint of lace.
Pete’s colour drained. He shook his head. ‘No, Netta—’
‘Nope.’ She held her free hand up to him to stop and dropped the phone to the table. ‘Sleep on the couch. Or go and sleep at Tracey’s. I don’t care.’
She swept out of the kitchen and made it to the bedroom before the tears came, hot and uncontrollable, her barren body curled into a ball with her back against the door as her life—her future—crumbled around her.