Cocktails for Three (15 page)

In the early days, she had tearfully insisted on hearing about his wife, about his family; about every last detail. She had shaken with misery and humiliation each time he'd left; had thrown accusations and ultimatums at him to no avail. Now she behaved almost as though each evening, each night spent in his arms, were a one-off; a self-contained bubble. It was simple self-preservation. That way disappointment could creep up on her less easily. That way she could pretend— at least to herself— that she was conducting the relationship on her own terms; that this was what she'd wanted all along.

She looked up, to see Ralph still waiting for an answer and, as she saw his expression, felt her stomach give a little flip. He was staring straight at her, his eyes glistening slightly, as if her answer really mattered to him. She took a gulp of wine, playing for time, then pushed her hair back and forced herself to smile unconcernedly.

“In a year's time?” she said lightly. “If I could be anywhere, I think I'd like to be lying on a white beach somewhere in the Caribbean— with you, naturally.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Ralph, his face crinkling into a smile.

“But not just you,” said Roxanne. “A posse of attentive waiters in white jackets would see to our every need. They'd ply us with food and drink and witty stories. Then, as if by magic, they would discreetly disappear, and we'd be left on our own in the magical sunset.”

She broke off, and took a sip of wine, then, after a short silence, looked up. As she met Ralph's eyes, her heart was thumping. Does he realize, she thought, that what I have just described is a honeymoon?

Ralph was staring at her with an expression she'd never seen in his eyes before. Suddenly he took hold of her hands and drew them up to his lips.

“You deserve it,” he said roughly. “You deserve it all, Roxanne.” She gazed at him, feeling a hotness growing at the back of her throat. “I'm so sorry for everything,” he muttered. “When I think what I've put you through . . .”

“Don't be sorry.” Roxanne blinked hard, feeling tears smarting at her eyes. She drew him close across the table and kissed his wet eyes, his cheeks, his lips. “I love you,” she whispered, and felt a sudden swell of painful, possessive happiness inside her. “I love you, and we're together. And that's all that counts.”

Chapter Nine

The hospital was a large, Victorian building, with well-tended gardens at the front and a fenced area for children to play in. As Roxanne and Candice got out of the car and began to walk along the path towards the main entrance, Roxanne started laughing.

“Typical Maggie,” she said, looking around the pleasant scene. “Even the hospital's a bloody picture postcard. She couldn't have her baby in some grim London hell-hole, could she?”

“What do we want?” said Candice, squinting at a colour-coded signpost with arrows pointing in all directions. “Gynaecology. Labour suite.” She looked up. “We don't want that, do we?”

“You can visit the labour suite if you like,” said Roxanne, giving a little shudder. “As far as I'm concerned, ignorance is bliss.”

“Neo-natal. Pre-natal. Maternity,” read Candice, and wrinkled her brow. “I can't work this out at all.”

“Oh, come on,” said Roxanne impatiently. “We'll find her.”

They strode into the spacious reception area and spoke to a friendly woman at a desk, who tapped Maggie's name into a computer.

“Blue Ward,” she said, looking up with a smile. “Follow the corridor round as far as you can go, then take the lift to the fifth floor.”

As they walked along the corridors, Candice glanced around at the beige walls and pulled a face.

“I hate the smell of hospitals,” she said. “Horrible places. I think if I ever had a baby, I'd have it at home.”

“Of course you would,” said Roxanne. “With pan pipes playing in the background and aromatherapy candles scenting the air.”

“No!” said Candice, laughing. “I'd just . . . I don't know. Prefer to be at home, I suppose.”

“Well, if I ever have a baby, I'll have it by Caesarean,” said Roxanne drily. “Full anaesthesia. They can wake me up when it's three years old.”

They arrived at the lift and pressed the fifth-floor button. As they began to rise, Candice glanced at Roxanne. “I feel nervous!” she said. “Isn't that weird?”

“I feel a bit nervous, too,” said Roxanne, after a pause. “I suppose it's just that one of us has finally grown up. Real life has begun. The question is— are we ready for it?” She raised her eyebrows, and Candice gazed at her critically.

“You look tired, actually,” she said. “Are you feeling OK?”

“I'm great,” said Roxanne at once, and tossed her hair back. “Never better.”

But as they rose up in the lift, she stared at her tinted reflection in the lift doors and knew that Candice was
right. She did look tired. Since that night with Ralph she had found it difficult to sleep; impossible to wrench her mind away from their conversation and what it had meant. Impossible to stop hoping.

Of course, Ralph had said nothing definite. He had made no promises. After that one short conversation, he had not even referred to the future again. But something was going on; something was different. Thinking back, she'd realized there had been something different about him from the moment he stepped in the door. Something different in the way he looked at her, and talked to her. As they'd said goodbye he'd stared at her for minutes without speaking. It was as though inside, behind his eyes, he was coming to the hardest decision of his life.

She knew it was a decision that couldn't be hurried; that couldn't be arrived at in a snap. But the stress of this constant uncertainty was unbearable. And they were both suffering because of it— Ralph looked more tired and strained these days than she'd ever seen him. She'd glimpsed him the other day at the office, and had realized with a shock that he was actually losing weight. What mental hell he must be going through. And yet if he would only make up his mind and take courage, the hell would be over for good.

Once again, a surge of painful hope rose through her, and she clasped her bag more tightly. She shouldn't allow herself to think like this. She should return to her former, disciplined state of mind. But it was too hard. After six frugal years of refusing to hope or even think about it, her mind was now gorging itself on fantasy. Ralph would leave his wife. They would both, finally, be able to relax; to enjoy each other. The long hard
winter would be over; the sun would come out and shine. Life would begin again for both of them. They would set up house together. Perhaps they would even—

There she stopped herself. She could not let herself go that far; she had to keep some control on herself. After all, nothing had been said. Nothing was definite. But surely that conversation had meant something? Surely he was at least thinking about it?

And she deserved it, didn't she? She bloody well deserved it, after everything she'd been through. An unfamiliar resentment began to steal over her, and she forced herself to breathe slowly and calmly. Over the past few days, having let her mind break out into fantasy land, she had discovered that beneath the joyous hope there was a darker flip-side. An anger that she had suppressed for too many years. Six whole years of waiting and wondering and grabbing moments of happiness where she could. It had been too long. It had been a prison sentence.

The lift doors opened and Candice looked up at Roxanne.

“Well, here we are,” she said, and gave a little smile. “At last.”

“Yes,” said Roxanne, and exhaled sharply. “At last.”

They walked out of the lift and towards a swing door marked “Blue Ward.” Candice glanced up at Roxanne, then hesitantly pushed the door open. The room was large, but divided into cubicles by unnamed floral curtains. Candice raised her eyebrows at Roxanne, who shrugged back. Then a woman in a dark blue uniform, holding a baby, approached them.

“Are you here to visit?” she said, smiling.

“Yes,” said Roxanne, staring down at the baby in spite of herself. “Maggie Phillips.”

“No, it'll be Drakeford, won't it?” said Candice. “Maggie Drakeford.”

“Oh yes,” said the woman pleasantly. “In the corner.”

Roxanne and Candice glanced at each other, then advanced slowly down the ward. Slowly, Candice pushed back the curtain of the final cubicle, and there she was, Maggie, looking familiar but unfamiliar, sitting up in bed with a tiny baby in her arms. She looked up, and for a still moment none of them said anything. Then Maggie gave a wide smile, held up the baby to face them and said, “Lucia, meet the cocktail queens.”

Maggie had had a good night. As she watched Roxanne and Candice advance hesitantly towards the bed, eyes glued on Lucia's tiny face, she allowed herself to feel a warm glow of contentment. A bit of sleep, that was all. A bit of sleep every night, and the world changed.

The first three nights had been hell. Utter misery. She had lain stiffly in the darkness, unable to relax; unable to sleep while there was even the smallest chance that Lucia might wake. Even when she had drifted off to sleep, every snuffle from the tiny crib would wake her. She would hear cries in her dreams and jerk awake in a panic, only to find Lucia peacefully asleep and some other baby wailing. Then she would fear that the other baby's cries would wake Lucia— and she would tense up with apprehension, unable to fall asleep again.

On the fourth night, at two in the morning, Lucia had refused to go back to sleep. She had cried when Maggie tried to place her in her cot, thrashed about
when Maggie tried to feed her, and screamed protestingly when, in desperation, Maggie began to sing. After a few minutes, a face had appeared round Maggie's floral curtain. It was an elderly midwife on night duty whom Maggie had not met before, and at the sight of Lucia, she shook her head comically.

“Young lady, your mother needs her sleep!” she'd said, and Maggie's head had jerked up in shock. She had expected a lecture on demand feeding or mother-baby bonding. Instead, the midwife had advanced inside Maggie's cubicle, looked at her shadowed face and sighed. “This is no good! You look exhausted!”

“I feel a bit tired,” Maggie had admitted in a wobbly voice.

“You need a break.” The midwife had paused, then said, “Would you like me to take her to the nursery?”

“The nursery?” Maggie had stared at her blankly. Nobody had told her about any nursery.

“I can keep an eye on her, and you can have a sleep. Then, when she needs feeding, I can bring her back.”

Maggie had stared at the midwife, wanting to burst into tears with gratitude.

“Thank you. Thank you . . . Joan,” she had managed, reading the woman's name-badge in the dim light. “I . . . will she be all right?”

“She'll be fine!” Joan had said reassuringly. “Now, you get some rest.”

As soon as she had left the cubicle, wheeling Lucia's crib, Maggie had fallen into the first relaxed sleep she'd had since Lucia's birth. The deepest, sweetest sleep of her life. She had woken at six, feeling almost restored, to see Lucia back in the cubicle again, ready for feeding.

Since then, Joan had appeared at Maggie's bedside each night, offering the services of the nursery— and Maggie had found herself guiltily accepting every time.

“No need to feel guilty,” Joan had said one night. “You need your sleep to produce milk. No good wearing yourself out. You know, we used to keep mothers in for two weeks. Now, they shoo you all off after two days. Two days!” She clucked disapprovingly. “You'd be home already if it weren't for the baby's jaundice.”

But despite Joan's reassuring comments, Maggie did feel guilty. She felt she should be with Lucia twenty-four hours a day, as all the books recommended. Anything less was failure. And so she hadn't mentioned Joan to Giles or to Paddy— or, in fact, to anyone.

Now she smiled at Roxanne and Candice and said, “Come on in! Sit down. It's so good to see you!”

“Mags, you look wonderful!” said Roxanne. She embraced Maggie in a cloud of scent, then sat down on the edge of the bed. She was looking thinner and more glamorous than ever, thought Maggie. Like an exotic bird of paradise in this room full of dopey-eyed mother ducks. And for an instant, Maggie felt a twinge of jealousy. She'd imagined that straight after the birth she would regain her old figure; that she would slip back into her old clothes with no problem. But her stomach, hidden under the bedclothes, was still frighteningly flabby, and she had no energy to exercise it.

“So, Mags,” drawled Roxanne, looking around the ward. “Is motherhood all it's cracked up to be?”

“Oh, you know.” Maggie grinned. “Not too bad. Of course, I'm an old hand now.”

“Maggie, she's beautiful!” Candice looked up with shining eyes. “And she doesn't look ill at all!”

“She's not, really,” said Maggie, looking at Lucia's closed-up, sleeping face. “She had jaundice, and it's taken a while to clear up. It just meant we had to stay in hospital a bit longer.”

“Can I hold her?” Candice held out her arms and, after a pause, Maggie handed the baby over.

“She's so light!” breathed Candice.

“Very sweet,” said Roxanne. “You'll be making me broody in a moment.”

Maggie laughed. “Now, that
would
be a miracle.”

“Do you want to hold her?” Candice looked up at Roxanne, who rolled her eyes comically.

“If I must.”

She had held scores of babies before. Little bundles belonging to other people, that aroused in her no feeling other than tedium. Roxanne Miller did not coo over babies— she yawned over them. She was famous for it. Whether she was genuinely uninterested, or whether this was a defensive response deliberately cultivated over the years, she had never allowed herself to consider.