The Secret Life of Evie Hamilton - Catherine Alliott [35]
‘Oh,’ I croaked. The horse. I swung my legs out of bed. A mistake. I sat on the edge, holding my head. ‘Tell him we're on our way.’ I quavered to the carpet.
Ant's side of the bed was empty, I noticed. I got up tentatively and tottered off to find my clothes, fumbling around the bedroom like a blind woman, listening to Anna's voice on the phone, downstairs in the hall.
‘Yes, I'm so sorry… oh, did she? Oh, my mum's hopeless, yes, we're on our way!’
She mustn't know, was my overriding panicky thought as I pulled on my jeans and grabbed a T-shirt. She mustn't know that this was anything other than a normal day. I clutched my T-shirt to my breast and sat down suddenly on the edge of the bed, remembering last night. Last night, when Ant had come home, quite late from an evening meeting in college – and late was normal, but not as late as this – I'd confronted him.
‘You see?’ I'd said, with a mixture of fear and triumph. ‘See, Ant, it can't be your child. We were going out together, even engaged!’
And then I'd watched his face turn grey as I knew it would; watched him crumple, defeated into a chair, his gentle eyes pained. I'd listened, as he explained that yes, it could be his. That this had indeed happened while we were going out together, this thing with the barmaid – a one-off, a one-night stand – because he'd felt so trapped. Felt he was going insane.
‘When, exactly?’ I'd whispered, hanging on to the back of a chair. ‘When had you felt so trapped? Felt you were going insane?’
‘After lunch, at your parents' house,’ he muttered. ‘One Sunday. When Caro told us she was pregnant.’
My mind skittered back, foraging. But I remembered. Caro and Tim had been married for about three months, Ant and I engaged for one. And Ant and I had just returned from a much-needed break in Scotland, deciding, while we were up there, that our wedding would also be in the village church, like Tim and Caro's, but smaller, a more low-key affair. It was, after all, only a short while since Neville's funeral at the same venue. Ant had been quiet in Scotland. He'd fished a lot, whilst I'd walked, or read, but people were quiet when they fished, weren't they? This, then, would have been our first family gathering since… our first Sunday lunch for some time.
Mum, with half a bottle of cooking sherry inside her – and this would have been shortly before she left home – was on flying form: outrageous, confrontational, dancing to Fleetwood Mac in her cheesecloth dress as she stirred the Bisto well after two o'clock, Dad unamused, glaring at her. I imagine there comes a point in every marriage when what was once charming becomes intensely irritating.
I seem to remember things getting a bit tense, and Dad telling her to cut it out and get the bloody lunch on the table, when Caro announced she was pregnant. Three months pregnant, a honeymoon baby, and everyone was thrilled. Everyone forgot their irritation in that moment. Dad hastened to the cellar for a bottle of champagne, Mum hugged Caro, yes, everyone was delighted: the first grandchild, the first Milligan, Dad said proudly as he popped the cork, and Ant and I joined in the congratulations. And I was genuinely thrilled, because, after all, I was getting married soon, so no sicky feeling inside, not like when she'd got engaged before me, and delighted for Tim, really delighted for Tim, so then why, oh why, on the way home in the car, had I casually wondered what he thought of me coming off the pill? Ant? After all, we were getting married in a couple of months, so even if I got pregnant immediately, it wouldn't show. And it might take us ages; it had taken Sally Armstrong fourteen months!
Ant had cleared his throat. Then he'd reminded me, gently, that we'd thought we'd wait a year, hadn't we? Have a year of fun – which we badly needed in the circumstances – and enjoy being young-marrieds. And I'd said, yes, but, Ant, I'm not getting any younger. I'm twenty-six,