Five Unforgivable Things

‘Oh, I think it is.’ Beth stood up, bounced onto her toes and did an exaggerated twirl. ‘It’s just me, hankering after what I can’t have and dreaming about what might have been, just like everybody else. Hairdressing’s okay, really, and I am pretty good at it, though I say so myself, but the best bit about coming away like this is the not having to stand up all day, listening to people’s boring holiday stories. It wouldn’t be so bad if I had a proper holiday of my own to look forward to. Still, this will do for now. Pool first, is it? I still feel all hot and sticky from the journey. Then I’ll take you up on the offer of that drink you promised me.’

‘I’m not so sure about that. Not now you’ve nabbed the best bed. Just look at that view. And what have I got over on my side of the room? A kettle, a pile of tourist leaflets and three steps nearer to the toilet! Whatever happened to democracy?’ Jenny stood with her hands on her hips, trying to look stern, but there was a twinkle in her eyes that made it clear it didn’t really matter. ‘We could have tossed for it.’

‘Now who’s moaning?’ Beth laughed, burst into a rousing chorus of ‘Don’t Cry for me, Argentina’, and disappeared into the bathroom with a swimsuit in one hand and a bottle of screw-top wine she’d just grabbed from the mini-bar in the other.

***

‘We need to go into dinner early tonight.’ They’d spent most of Thursday, barring a break for lunch, having their backs pummelled by a rather over-zealous and over-talkative woman with green fingernails and a white coat, and then lazing about in the water to giggle about it and get over it. Now Jenny was drying her still-tangled hair under a particularly noisy dryer in the ladies’ changing room. It didn’t seem to occur to her just how loudly she was speaking.

‘Ssshh!’ Beth put her index finger up to her lips, noticed how horribly wrinkled it was from being too long under water, and put it down again. ‘We don’t want the whole hotel to know.’

‘Sorry!’ Jenny mouthed, now so quietly Beth could hardly hear her at all. She flicked the switch off to silence the dryer and put it back into its holder on the wall.

‘So, why do we have to eat early? I thought eight o’clock worked really well last night. Just right for a few drinks before and a bit of TV after. What’s your hurry? Or, more to the point, what’s your game? I know you’re up to something.’

Jenny didn’t answer straight away, choosing to fiddle a bit more with her hair before throwing her damp towel into the wicker laundry bin provided and turning back towards her. Beth was sure she was looking especially shifty, the way she used to when she’d broken a plate and didn’t want Mum to know, or when she’d sneakily borrowed a top from her or Nat and tried to put it back without owning up to the streaks of make-up down the front.

‘And, while we’re at it … You told Natalie this place was somewhere at the seaside, and it’s not, is it? We’re miles from the sea. Now, why would you do that? What if she expects a postcard or a stick of rock or something? We won’t even be going back with sand in our shoes!’

‘Oh, Beth, you are always so suspicious.’

‘With every reason, it seems to me. Now, come on, spill!’

‘Well …’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, there’s someone I’ve arranged for us to meet. This evening, at half-past seven.’

‘Now we’re getting somewhere. The truth at last. So, what sort of someone? And why’s it so secret that you couldn’t tell me before now? Or Nat? What are you up to, Jen? It’s not some internet date or something like that, is it? Someone you were too scared to meet in the flesh without a chaperone? Because I’m not playing along unless you tell me. And I don’t fancy playing gooseberry either. I’ll get a table for one at eight and then have an early night, and you can go and meet your mystery person by yourself!’

Jenny was squirming now. ‘Nat’s got enough on her plate, with the wedding to sort out. I didn’t want to add to that. And if I’d told you any sooner you might have blabbed. Or refused to come with me. And I needed you to come with me …’

‘So, one: this is going to worry Nat, and two: I can’t be trusted to keep my mouth shut. Charming, I’m sure! So, who the hell are we meeting, Jen?’

‘Well … look, it might all come to nothing. I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, that’s all. It was hard enough to track her down at all, and even harder to talk her into meeting up.’

‘Her?’

‘Yes. It’s Laura.’

‘Ollie’s Laura?’ Beth’s eyes had widened almost as much as her mouth, which was now gaping open in shock.

‘Well, not Ollie’s any more, obviously, seeing as she left him months ago. But I kind of hoped that now the dust has settled, I might be able to talk her into coming back. Ollie misses her so much. I miss her. But there’s something you need to know, Beth. Because you’ll realise anyway, as soon as you see her.’

‘She’s not married someone else, has she? Or got engaged? Not so soon. Ollie will be heartbroken if she has. Not that he isn’t already, poor bugger.’

‘No. Not married.’ Jenny picked up her bag and started back towards their room. ‘But she is six months pregnant.’

Chapter 7

Kate, 1979

We opted for a January wedding. It was long enough after Christmas for the shops to be open again and decoration-free, so we could at least hope that any presents would be wrapped in something other than silver foil with robins on it. And for the trains to be running at half empty again, with the fare prices back to normal. But soon enough to beat the bulge. The last thing I wanted was for my tummy to dominate not only the photos, but the gossip too, on what was supposed to be the most wonderful day of my life.

Mum had taken the news well. Naturally she would have preferred her only daughter to be a shining example of purity, gliding down the aisle in a dress like a meringue, but the thought of an imminent grandchild soon overrode all that. And she liked the fact that I’d told her first, before Dan’s mum, who she had still to meet.

‘You must let Trevor and me help pay for the wedding,’ she insisted. ‘I know you say it won’t be a grand affair, but maybe we could cover the cost of the car or your dress or something. And buy the pram. Grandmas always buy the pram, you know. It gives us the right to first push round the park!’

I liked seeing Mum so happy. I had wondered if the inevitable reminders of her own wedding day might have been a bit much for her, but she didn’t say anything. Only that Dad would have been so proud, and would have loved to be there, taking me down the aisle. And that being asked to do it in his place was absolutely the next best thing.

She drove down with Trevor. They offered us a lift too, but I knew I’d rather go on the train. That way, Dan and I, and my friend Linda from work, could all travel together. Linda had agreed to be my chief bridesmaid – my only bridesmaid – and the Campbells had offered us rooms at the farm the night before the ceremony, and for a few days afterwards too, if we wanted to stay on. We let Mum take all the bags in the car, though. My dress and Linda’s, our posh handbags and new satin shoes, Dan’s suit, and a big vanity case stuffed with toiletries and lipstick and lemon-scented shampoo. All we had to carry with us was a packed lunch that Linda and the other girls at work had insisted on putting together, made up of all the posh things we would never normally have eaten but that felt somehow appropriate for a bride and groom on their way to seal their fate. Smoked salmon sandwich triangles with the crusts cut off, strawberries (God knows where they got them from in January!), fancy chocolates in an even fancier box. There were a couple of quail’s eggs too, still in their shells, and wrapped up tightly in foil, although none of was quite sure what to do with them, or if we actually fancied trying them at all.

But it was the thought that counted and, by the time we arrived, a good hour ahead of Mum and Trevor, and with Dan and Linda already a bit tipsy on the wine I had righteously, as a woman in a certain condition, refused to drink, it dawned on me at last that we were really going to do this. In less than forty-eight hours I was going to be the new, and ever expanding, Mrs Dan Campbell.

The dress. What can I say about the dress? We did try a few bridal shops, Mum and me, and a couple of local dressmakers who worked from their front rooms, but apparently it takes time to make one, a proper posh one anyway, and time was something I didn’t have a lot of. With all the detailed measuring involved, I also knew damn well that, weeks later, the thing would never fit the way it should, unless I came clean about being up the duff. And why should I? To some total stranger.

So, we trawled around the ordinary shops, the department stores and boutiques, looking for something at least partially white, and long, and a teensy bit loose. What we found was pretty, in its own hippy kind of way. It was made of thin creamy-coloured cheesecloth, with several layers of lining to give it a bit of shape and stop the sun shining right through and revealing my knickers, a wide lace-edged neckline, and a big bow that tied at the back. I twirled about in front of the full-length mirror in a changing room no bigger than an under-stairs cupboard, and tried to imagine myself wearing it in the church. Was it just a touch too ordinary? A touch too flimsy? Would I be too cold? What would it look like from behind? That was the view everyone was going to get throughout the ceremony, after all, except for the groom and the vicar. I bought it, though. Or Mum did, insisting on paying for the shoes too.

I held it again now, staring out at the fields, the steeple of the small village church poking its old head above the lines of leaf-stripped trees. I was in the same bedroom I’d had that first time I’d visited the farm, but sharing with Linda this time. A vase of holly, packed with fat red berries, had replaced the flowers, but everything else was just the same. I had hoped we might have snow to make things just a little more magical, but despite a harsh grey sky and a chilly draught that seeped in through the gaps around the ancient windows, it had not obliged.

Linda and I had unpacked the bags all over the bed, declaring the room a girls-only zone and banning Dan, and in fact anyone of the male persuasion, from crossing the threshold at any time from now until the wedding was over, and were now giggling like tipsy teenagers as we moved an old towelling dressing gown, trying to guess who it belonged to, and hung our dresses in its place on the hook on the back of the door.

‘You sure you want to do this, Kate?’ Linda said, shoving the messy heap of toiletries and underwear aside and flopping down flat on her back on the eiderdown.

‘It’s a bit late to ask me that now, isn’t it?’

‘Of course not. It’s never too late, right up to the bit where you say ‘I do.’ A cousin of mine did a runner the moment she stood in the church doorway and saw all those people inside in their fancy hats, all standing up and turning to look at her when the organ started knocking out the music. She said that was when it all became real. What she was doing, and committing to, for ever. All that expectation on their faces. Up until then it had just been a fantasy thing, the chance to dress up and be the centre of attention. She ended up being that, all right, legging it down the road in her wedding dress and hopping on the first bus that came along!’

‘Linda! I’m not going to do anything like that, all right? I am getting married because I want to.’

‘And because you have to.’

‘Oh, don’t say it like that. I didn’t have to do it at all. There are always other options, but we chose not to take them. So, no, I am not backing out. And neither is Dan.’

‘Fine. Just felt I had to ask. A bridesmaid’s duty and all that. Especially as you haven’t got a dad to do it.’

‘Is that what dads do? Is that why you see them whispering a few last words to the bride before they come arm in arm down the aisle? It’s the ‘last chance to stop it all’ speech, is it?’

‘Do you know, Kate, I think it quite often is. Really. Even when dads have spent all that money they will still abandon the whole thing if they think for a moment that their precious little girl might be making a mistake.’

‘Oh, stop it. You’re making me cry now.’ Thinking about my dad did that, a lot. Would he have approved of Dan, considered him the right choice, or urged me not to be hurried into something I might regret? I’d never know, would I?

‘Sorry. Had to be done. But now I am going to be the perfect bridesmaid and make sure you are extra specially cosseted and super-happy, like a beautiful blushing bride should be.’ Linda bounced back upright, swung her legs over onto the faded rag rug beside the bed, and made for the door.

‘Blushing?’

‘Well, I could have said blooming, but we don’t want the guests to put two and two together, do we? Now, where’s the toilet? I’m bursting after all that drink I put away on the train.’

***

‘Ready?’ Linda put the hairbrush down, tweaked a few loose strands around my face, and gazed into the mirror.

‘I think so.’

‘You look lovely.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And Dan will think so too. He’ll be bowled over, I just know it.’ Linda looked at her watch. ‘In around … forty eight minutes. Assuming he turns up!’

‘Well, if he doesn’t, he won’t be hard to track down and drag back, will he? Not in a village this size, where most of the locals have shotguns! And he’s not likely to get lost or stuck in traffic, either, when the church is only five minutes down the lane.’

‘I guess the wedding’s going ahead, then! How are you feeling? Nervous?’

‘A bit sick, actually. And I’ve got butterflies in my tummy, bumping around so much they must think they’re having a party!’

‘Want a tablet? ‘

I put a hand on my tummy and shook my head. ‘Better not.’

‘Brandy?’

I laughed. ‘I’d love one, but …’

‘Better not?’

‘It’s no joke being pregnant, is it? So many things I can’t have, can’t do …’

‘Is sex allowed?’

‘Linda!’

‘Well, it is your wedding night tonight. It’s expected. And it’d be a shame not to, wouldn’t it? Grounds for annulment if the deed doesn’t get done, so I hear.’

‘Probably not in our case, with a baby on the way. It’s pretty clear the deed’s already been done! And who says either of us would want an annulment anyway? This marriage is for keeps.’

It took me a while to realise that the pains might be more than just nerves. The sick feeling was getting worse, and my back was hurting. It reminded me of the worst kind of periods, the ones that creep up on you and strike right out of the blue and take your whole body over. From okay to agony in minutes, so all you want is a bed and a hot water bottle, and to be left alone to curl up and cry. But this couldn’t be a period, could it? I hadn’t had one of those in a while. And the chances of being left alone, today of all days, were absolutely zero.

‘I think I need to have a bit of a lie down, Lin.’ I turned away from the dressing table and stood up, clutching the edge to stop me from wobbling. ‘Just for a moment or two. I don’t feel quite right all of a sudden. How long have we got?’

She checked her watch again. ‘Twenty-two minutes and …’ She giggled. ‘Fifteen seconds!’

‘You know, I might have to risk a couple of tablets after all, just to sort me out before we set off.’

‘Oh, my God!’

‘What? What’s the matter?’

Linda’s hands had flown up to cover her mouth and she was staring at me as if she’d seen a ghost. Suddenly she wasn’t laughing any more.

‘I don’t want to panic you, Kate, but I think you should just take a look over your shoulder. In the mirror. Your dress …’

So I looked, thinking maybe there was a spider on my back, or my zip had burst open at the seams, but no. It was much, much worse than that. There, seeping through my lovely cream dress, right on the bit I’d been sitting on just seconds before, was a small red stain.

‘No! No, it can’t be. Not blood.’ I wanted to collapse in a heap, to sit right back down again and tell myself I was wrong, but I knew I wasn’t. ‘Can it?’

‘I’m pretty sure it is. What are you thinking, Kate? Is it normal to bleed this far into a pregnancy? Like a show or something?’

‘I don’t think so. And it hurts, Lin. It bloody hurts. This can only be a miscarriage, can’t it? I must be losing it. Oh, hell, what do we do? What do I do?’

‘I don’t know.’ She was looking as pale and helpless as I felt. ‘Call a doctor? Ambulance? For now, at least lie down flat and cross your legs or something, try to keep it in …’

‘But my dress?’

‘Come on, pull it off quickly … Okay. It’s not too bad. We can sponge it off, and stick it under a hairdryer or something. But I don’t think the dress should be our main worry here, do you? Here …’ She grabbed the old dressing gown we’d found behind the door. ‘Put this towelling thing on the bed and lie down on it, and keep still. Don’t move, okay? Shall I try to find Dan?’

‘No. Not Dan. He’ll be at the church by now. Let’s not worry him yet. Not until we know …’

‘Okay, you’re right. But we need help. Stay here, and don’t panic, all right? I’m going to get your mum … or Molly.’

‘Mum. Get Mum. Everybody else will have already left the house.’

I listened to her feet thundering away down the stairs, leaving just an eerie silence into which thumped my own heartbeat, faster, louder than I had ever heard it before.

And then, from across the fields, the church bells started to ring. Ding-dong-ding-dong. Ding-dong-ding-dong. A happy tune that just kept repeating itself, over and over, as if it was waiting for something to happen and wouldn’t stop until it did. My wedding. Mine and Dan’s.

I lay still and waited for Linda to come back. Maybe she’d have a sanitary towel in her luggage. If not, I’d wrap myself layers deep in every pair of knickers I could find, pad them out with toilet paper or cotton wool, anything to hold things at bay. For an hour. Just an hour, that’s all I needed, or maybe two. For me to get to that church, and for Mum to walk me down the aisle, and for me to stand there just long enough to say the words that would turn me into the new Mrs Dan Campbell, and to get our photos done outside.

Then they could cart me off to hospital, or confine me to bed, or hang me upside down with my legs in the air, or whatever it was they had to do. But for now, it was going to take more than a drop of blood to stop me. The bells were calling and I was going to that wedding, my wedding, come hell or high water. Or quite possibly both.

Chapter 8

Jenny, 2017

When Jenny spotted Laura coming towards them along the street, she looked different somehow. It wasn’t just the obvious pregnancy bump emerging from the front of her open coat. It was her thin, pale face, and the way she walked, slowly, with her head down, as if she was finding something vaguely fascinating about her own feet. She wasn’t looking radiant or blooming or any of that stuff. Not like a woman who had finally achieved her life’s dream. In fact, she just looked small and lost, and defeated.

Jenny rushed forward and flung her arms around her. ‘Oh, Laura. It’s so good to see you.’

‘You too.’

‘Are you okay? We’ve all been so worried about you.’

Laura looked past Jenny at Beth and gave a little wave. ‘Hi, Beth. I didn’t know you’d be here as well.’

‘Sorry about that.’ Jenny linked her arm through Laura’s and started to lead her towards the door of the pub where they had agreed to meet. ‘I just thought …’

‘Safety in numbers? Or that it would be easier for two of you to grab me if I tried to run away again?’

‘No. No, not at all. But you’re family, aren’t you? Or as good as. And I thought, hoped, that if we both came, you’d feel more … well, loved, I suppose. And missed.’

‘Right.’

They found a table in a corner and took off their coats.

‘Wow! It’s real, isn’t it?’ Jenny gazed at Laura’s unfamiliar shape in awe. ‘You really are having a baby!’

‘Of course I am! Did you think I was lying? Or that it was just wishful thinking?’

‘Sorry. Course not. It’s just so lovely to see, after all the previous … Oh, you know what I mean. Let me get everyone a drink. White wine, Beth? And …’

‘No alcohol for me, obviously. Just an orange juice, please.’

Jenny went to the bar. There was a queue, but leaving the others alone together for a while might not be a bad idea. Beth could be very persuasive when she wanted to be. And someone had to persuade Laura to come home, for Ollie’s sake, before he drank himself into a hospital bed, or worse. If only Laura’s new no-alcohol rule applied to him!

When she returned to their table, they were talking about something totally different. A book they had both read, and the TV adaptation of it that had got them both swooning over the leading man. Jenny put the drinks down in front of them and waited for a lull in the conversation.

‘Oh, it’s so nice to be back together,’ she said, taking a sip. ‘It’s just like old times.’

‘No Nat? Kate? I’m surprised you didn’t hire a minibus and bring the whole family.’

‘Don’t be daft. Mum’s gone off somewhere herself for a few days anyway, so she doesn’t even know we’re away from home. And Nat’s up to her eyes in wedding planning. Oh, I do wish you’d come, Laura. We’d all love you to be there. You do know where it is, don’t you? And the date?’

‘Of course I do. Unless she’s done a massive u-turn, the details of this wedding have been set in stone for what seems like years! But … oh, you know. It’s still weeks away. A long way off. Anything could happen. You didn’t tell her, though, did you? Nat? About finding me?’

‘No. Poor girl’s got enough to worry about.’

‘Is that what I am?’ Laura cut in. ‘Just another thing to worry about?’

Jenny put her hand on Laura’s. It was surprisingly cold. ‘Well, we have been worried. All of us. You’ve no idea how hard I had to work to track you down. Finding your aunt, and then twisting her arm to get even a hint of where you might be.’

‘So, why did you?’

‘To start with, it was just curiosity. To find out where you’d gone and to make sure you were okay. But then, when I dragged it out of you about the baby … that changed things. And the truth is that I brought Beth with me because … well, if I couldn’t get you to come back home, then I hoped maybe Beth could.’

‘I haven’t said anything about coming back home.’

‘No, I know. But now you’re having a baby – Ollie’s baby – I thought maybe you would. Or at least think about it. Babies need two parents; parents who stick together whatever life throws at them …’

‘Of course they do. And you know about that more than most. But this is different.’

‘Is it?’

‘You haven’t told him, have you?’

‘Ollie? No. It’s been hard not to, though. I haven’t told anyone at all, not even Beth until this afternoon. I promised I wouldn’t, so I won’t.’

‘So, why haven’t you told him yourself?’ Beth had been saying very little up until now, but she’d finally asked out loud what Jenny had been dying to ask ever since she’d first found out, although she wouldn’t have chosen to come out with it quite so bluntly. ‘Only, I do think he has a right to know, don’t you? Unless he’s not the father, of course.’

There was a stunned silence, broken only by a strangled sob coming from somewhere deep down in Laura’s throat. ‘Is that what you think of me, Beth? Really?’

‘I don’t know what to think, actually. I thought you left because you couldn’t give him a baby, and now here you are, clearly several months gone – which is what you both said you wanted so much – and you’re cutting him out of the equation altogether. It doesn’t make any sense to me.’

‘Beth!’ Jenny turned towards her sister and tried to stop her from saying anything else, but it was too late. Laura was already up and shoving her arms down the sleeves of her coat.