A Funny Thing About Love (34 page)

So Will was taking the plunge even with a baby on the way. He must be confident. Carmen could not allow thoughts of Will's impending fatherhood to take her on a downer, so she threw herself into celebrating with Marcus and Sadie. They drank champagne, pigged out on lovely food from M&S as none of them was gifted with culinary skills, and watched their favourite films
for the festive season:
Some Like it Hot
(Carmen),
The Wizard of Oz
(Sadie),
It's a Wonderful Life
(Marcus). Everything was bathed in a happy glow, just like being in a Richard Curtis film after all. She had her lovely friends, she had a lovely boyfriend who loved her and told her again on Christmas morning when she called him, and she had the promise of a new career.

‘This has been the best Christmas ever,' she said to her friends as she and Sadie ended Christmas Day eating crackers and Stilton, possibly a little too much Stilton, but hey, it was Christmas.

‘What time's Leo getting back tomorrow?' she continued.

‘He's not.' Marcus was not partaking of the cheese fest. He sat next to her on the sofa, arms folded.

‘I thought he was due back on Boxing Day?'

‘He's not coming back.'

Surely he couldn't mean that? Marcus and Leo were the perfect couple – well, of course Marcus hardly saw Leo because of his work, but she knew how much Marcus loved him. He was the love of his life, he was always saying.

‘He's left me.' A pause. ‘For his personal trainer, Darius. Apparently all those early mornings and late nights when I thought he was slaving over the Dow Jones he was shagging Darius.'

‘Oh my God, Marcus, I'm so sorry.' She looked across at Sadie, who seemed as shocked as she was. ‘You should have said, I've gone on and on about Daniel.'

‘I didn't want to ruin Christmas for everyone. Anyway, fuck him, he's made his choice. I hope he'll be very happy with his pea-brained fuck buddy. It's funny, because on New Year's Eve I was going to ask him to marry me. I'd even bought the ring from Tiffany's – what a fucking idiot! How could I have got it so spectacularly wrong?' Everything about Marcus radiated hurt and betrayal. He stood up abruptly. ‘D'you mind if I go to bed? I've got the most appalling headache.'

Carmen wanted to put her arms round Marcus, tell him everything was going to be alright, just as he had done for her, many, many times, over the years. But she knew her friend, knew he wouldn't allow it. She waited until she heard his bedroom door click shut. ‘You didn't know, did you, Sadie?'

‘I had absolutely no idea. Poor Marcus. He's devastated, but you know he won't show it. Well, he might to you, but no one else.'

Carmen hardly slept that night. She lay awake bathed in the orange glow of possibly one of the poshest street lamps in London, thinking of Marcus and wondering how she could possibly help her friend. How she wished she could make things better, as if things like this could be made better.

In the morning Sadie left early to visit her gran in Egham; Carmen had also intended to leave on Boxing Day as she was due to spend the day with Daniel and Millie, but once she'd packed, she realised that she couldn't leave her friend.

Millie answered the phone when Carmen rang. ‘I got my wish, I got my wish!' she squealed, almost unintelligible with excitement.

‘So Father Christmas did bring the
High School Musical
karaoke set?' Carmen replied, secretly pleased that Millie liked the present that she'd persuaded Daniel to buy.

‘No, not that! Mummy has come back! And she says she's going to stay! Thank you for giving me your lantern, Carmen; it's all because of you that I got my wish!'

Carmen suddenly had a horrible sick feeling that she knew could not be blamed on the Stilton. ‘I'm so pleased for you, Millie, but can I speak to your daddy now?'

The way Millie described things, it sounded as if Imogen was back at the house, but that surely couldn't be, could it? The little girl must simply mean that her mummy was visiting. Daniel came on the phone. ‘So you've heard the news? I imagine half of Brighton has – Millie has been beside herself.' Even Daniel sounded more animated than usual.

‘So can you tell me what's going on?' Carmen asked, aware that her voice sounded brittle.

‘Christmas Day night we're just back from my sister and there's a knock at the door, and there's Imogen. Oh God, Carmen, I wish you could have seen Millie's face.' Perhaps not the most sensitive of comments under the circumstances, but Daniel probably wasn't thinking straight.

‘And is she just back for Christmas or is it more
permanent?' Was it wrong of Carmen to fervently hope that the beautiful one was on a flying visit and very soon would be returning to the land of the free?

A pause. This was not looking good.

‘I think she's planning to stay.'

‘I imagine she still has plenty of friends in Brighton she could stay with?' But Carmen had a nasty suspicion that she knew where Imogen would be staying.

‘Not so many now, Carmen. She left the States in a bit of a rush. She's split with her boyfriend and it's all a bit stressful because she's pregnant. I've said she can stay with us for the time being, until she gets herself sorted.' Daniel was talking quickly, guiltily, as if he knew that what he was saying would cause pain.

‘She's staying with you?' Carmen felt the need for clarification.

‘Just for a few weeks or so. It really won't affect us. She can have the attic room.'

His not-even-ex-wife was moving back into the house and he didn't think it would affect them? Carmen suddenly felt as if the last few weeks with Daniel had been as unsubstantial as a dream. ‘Please don't say that, you know it will affect us,' she said quietly.

Daniel's tone turned defensive. ‘Look, what can I say? I'm sorry, but she's Millie's mum and I can't see her out on the streets, can I?'

‘So it's nothing more than you thinking of her as Millie's mum, and it's not anything more than that?'

‘It's nothing more than that, I swear. I love you; Imogen turning up out of the blue doesn't change that.'

But Daniel's
I love you
sounded like a man trying to convince himself, and Carmen could still not bring herself to say it back. How funny that both she and Millie had got their wishes. But she had the strongest feeling that Millie's wish would be the undoing of her and Daniel.

Marcus finally emerged from his bedroom to find Carmen sitting on the sofa. She hadn't moved since her conversation with Daniel.

‘You know when I said that this was the best Christmas ever?' she said numbly. ‘Can I just rephrase? I think it's the worst. First Leo, and I've just found out that Imogen has moved back in with Daniel and Millie. She's pregnant, by the way. Is it just me, or is everyone pregnant?'

Marcus sat down next to her and put his arm round her.

‘He told me he loved me,' Carmen said.

‘Leo told me he loved me.'

Marcus didn't say it, but Carmen knew that he thought she should get out of her relationship with Daniel right now.

Carmen didn't meet up with Daniel until the day before New Year's Eve. She told herself that she hadn't wanted to leave Marcus, who was doing his best to act as if Leo's departure was no more than an inconvenience, an act which Carmen didn't buy for a second, but also she was putting off confronting the Imogen situation. She supposed that had she been younger or could have children, she might have hotfooted it to Brighton as soon as she heard about Imogen, to lay claim to Daniel. But she had no energy for a fight.

Daniel opened the door to her when she finally went round in the early evening. For a moment they stood there – her on the doorstep, him inside the house – and it seemed to Carmen as if she was the outsider, looking in at a life that would never be hers.

‘Hi, good to see you, Carmen, come in.' Daniel kissed her on the lips, but it felt like the kiss of a stranger; Carmen waited for the kiss to become more passionate, for Daniel to take her in his arms. They hadn't seen each other for a week, the longest time they had been apart in their relationship, but Daniel simply said, ‘Everyone's downstairs.'

Carmen followed him along the hall. Imogen had
draped her coat over the banisters and left a pair of boots lying by the bathroom as if marking her territory once more in her home. The house even smelt different; she was sure she could detect a woman's perfume, a strong, sweet fragrance, slightly overpowering. Millie and Imogen were sitting on the sofa by the fire. Millie was reading to Imogen from Roald Dahl's
Danny the Champion of the World
– a book which she and Carmen had been reading together only two weeks earlier.

Mother and daughter turned to look at Carmen when she walked into the room. She had never realised that Millie's eyes were the exact blue of her mother's.

‘Imogen, this is Carmen who I told you about,' Daniel said. He seemed awkward, not his usual laid-back self. So she wasn't even going to be introduced as his girlfriend?

‘Hi, nice to meet you,' Imogen said, reaching out her hand in a gesture which seemed to say,
I'm the lady of the house
. ‘I would get up but as you can see,' she gestured at her bump, ‘it's easier if I sit.' She was probably around six months pregnant by Carmen's reckoning and was wearing a khaki-coloured wrap dress that would have made anyone else look dreary but on Imogen simply made her look like a pregnant supermodel.

Carmen shook the beautiful one's hand. Pregnancy had made Imogen's beauty even more radiant, her skin looked glowing, her eyes were bright, her blonde hair seemed to shimmer in the firelight. Carmen tried to cheer herself up by imagining that the shimmering was down to extensive and expensive highlights and that
really Imogen had mouse-brown hair. And then there was something to cheer Carmen as she happened to catch sight of Imogen's feet. The beautiful one was wearing chocolate-brown Crocs lined with sheepskin. How ever, she had a feeling the cheer would be short-lived.

Carmen sat down in the armchair and Daniel handed her a glass of red wine and remained standing. And now Carmen noticed that Daniel was wearing Crocs as well – of the navy sheepskinned variety. She gave him a WTF look and pointed at the Crocs.

He looked at her blankly, then registered, ‘Oh yeah, they were a present from Imogen.'

Carmen wanted to say that the Crocs were an outrage and what was he thinking, but Daniel turned away from her to ask Imogen if she wanted a glass of wine.

‘I'd better not, Dan, but could I have a pink grapefruit juice? Thanks.' Her voice was low, with a slight Californian drawl. ‘I've got the same cravings for it that I had with Millie. God, d'you remember, Dan? You had to go out and buy up all the supplies from the 24-hour Tesco's.'

‘I certainly do. And I remember your craving for vegetable juice. But not just any old vegetable juice – it had to be V8, didn't it? And that was a bugger to find.' The two of them were on a cosy walk down memory lane in their Crocs and Carmen still felt horribly excluded. How could Daniel do this to her? Did he have no awareness of how it made her feel?

‘How healthy!' Carmen put in. ‘I'd have thought
pregnancy was the one time you could get to indulge a love of muffins and sweets. A kind of carte blanche for porking out.' She was half-joking, she knew from her extensive reading that a healthy diet was important.

‘Oh my God, Carmen! That's the road to pre-gestational diabetes!' Imogen exclaimed. ‘And not good for the baby at all. Luckily I had Dan looking after me, so every time I got an unhealthy craving I'd get him to make me a healthy snack.'

‘I was on houmous and crudité-making duty, practically twenty-four seven,' Daniel replied, giving Imogen the benefit of one of his gorgeous smiles. Next they'd be retelling the story of the birth. Carmen didn't think she could take it.

‘So,' Carmen said brightly, ‘when's the baby due?'

‘March.'

The same month as Nick's, Carmen thought with a pang.

‘And d'you know if you're having a boy or girl?' She was good at asking these questions, wasn't she? Imogen would never know how much it pained her.

‘I
really
hope it's a girl!' Millie exclaimed, bouncing up and down on the sofa. ‘I'd love to have a sister! If it's a girl can we call her Ruby? That's my favourite name for a girl.'

‘I kind of want the surprise,' Imogen replied. ‘But yeah, I quite like Ruby. Your dad and I nearly called you Ruby.'

‘And where are you planning on having the baby?' Carmen had to know.

‘That sort of depends on a few things.'

‘Oh stay here, Mummy, please! I'll help you with the baby and so will Daddy.'

It was like watching yourself being airbrushed out of a picture. Any moment now Carmen would have disappeared altogether.

Daniel walked over to Imogen and handed her a glass of juice. ‘Thanks, Dan. I still can't believe you cut your hair. It looks so much better long, you'll have to grow it back. I love it when it's long. Short is so severe.'

Daniel gave an embarrassed laugh and sat on the armchair opposite Carmen. ‘I don't think Carmen would agree.'

‘Oh?' Imogen directed her beautiful blue-eyed gaze at her.

Carmen shrugged. ‘I am a short hair kind of girl.'

‘And you're a writer, Dan says. I'm hoping to finish my novel before I've had the baby. I'm so nearly there.' So Imogen could add writer to her list of accomplishments, was there no end to them?

They were treated to a detailed synopsis of the work in progress as they sat down to a healthy supper of lentil moussaka, cooked by Daniel, of course. Imogen liked the sound of her own voice very much. No one got a word in edgeways. The novel sounded dire, about a thirty-something woman who falls in love with a vampire.