Happy Endings (14 page)

The only good thing about working at To Bean or Not to Bean was the occasional team member who made it a bit less like hell. Therese O’Donnell was twenty and fresh off the plane from Ireland. She had dark Irish hair, fair skin, huge green eyes and high cheekbones. She also had a laugh I could hear every day for the rest of my life.

‘You look terrible, what happened, get hit by a bus?’ said Therese when I walked into the office behind the counter. Therese was having a cup of coffee and reading a Rough Guide to Thailand. Therese wanted to travel the world and I had no doubt she would. Probably not on the wages she earned at To Bean or Not to Bean, but she’d find a way.

‘Not exactly. Late night, too many drinks and old age.’

‘Jesus, Jack, you’re not old. You’re what twenty-seven, twenty-eight?’

‘Twenty-nine, actually.’

‘Shit, better call the old people’s home. There’s a man in his late twenties, could die any minute,’ Therese said and then laughed that laugh. ‘Where’d you go, anyway?’

‘Just out with a mate. A couple of pubs and then a club near Covent Garden. I didn’t get home until nearly two in the morning.’

‘Not a great example for your staff now is it?’

‘And you’ll be fired if you’re not back from Thailand and out there serving coffee in five minutes,’ I said. She smiled at me and her eyes sparkled and lit up the room.

‘Better not piss off the boss – hung-over to hell,’ she said, putting her book away before she walked past me with a smile.

The ten hours at work went by slowly, but at least with Therese working next to me it was fun. I was technically her manager, but because I didn’t care much for my job and would be leaving soon one way or another, it didn’t feel like that. By eleven o’clock I was dead on my feet and itching to get home and into bed. Therese had other ideas.

‘I’m going out for a few drinks with friends, fancy coming along?’ she said with a glint in her eye.

I looked at her for a moment and a thought floated around my subconscious. She was exactly my type of girl. If I was twenty-one again and she had asked me out for a drink, I’d have bitten her hand off. She was still just my type in many ways: a raw bundle of dreamy flotsam hoping the wind would blow her some place nice.

‘I probably shouldn’t. Don’t want to cramp your style.’

‘I don’t have style,’ she said, smiling, and then she looked right at me. I’ve never been one to think girls fancy me. In fact, I’ve always been the opposite. Therese, however, was giving me a look that definitely made me feel like she might. ‘I have something much better than style.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Come out and I’ll show you, old man.’

It was late and we were alone in the shop and suddenly I found myself feeling vulnerable because I thought how easy it would be to do something silly. How easy it would be to make a mistake. I felt vulnerable because for the first time since I started dating Emma, I had that pang of lust and desire for someone else.

‘Maybe next time.’

‘You’re on,’ she said with a smile. ‘Now you’d better get home before the clock strikes midnight.’

‘Night. Have a good time.’

‘Would be better with you there.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Next time, then,’ she said with the same flirtatious glint and I found myself reddening. Luckily, before she could see how embarrassed I was, she blew me a kiss, turned around and walked off into the night. For a brief moment I considered going for a quick drink, the lights of London were still burning brightly and in the distance I could hear the melodious bass of club music, but I could also imagine Emma lying in bed waiting for me. I closed up and walked towards the tube station alone.

On the ride home, I thought about Therese, just starting out, just beginning her journey, and although I was only eight years older than her I felt so much farther along. So much more complicated than just a drink and a shag on a Saturday night. I would have neither. I’d go home, where Emma would already be asleep. I’d probably have something to eat before I slipped into bed next to her and dozed off, the bright lights of the big city fading quickly to dreams.

Emma

Something wasn’t right.

It had been two days since I waved goodbye to Jack outside the flat. They’d sent the car as promised, a sleek, silver Mercedes that appeared at eight o’clock on a Monday morning, slipping through the mist while we peeked through the curtains. Jack was doing his best to be supportive, but he was tense and awkward. He’d told me I could go and that he was happy for me, but I knew deep down he didn’t want me to leave. The thing was, I didn’t just want him to tell me it was all right to go: I wanted him to
want
me to go.

We drove for just over an hour until we arrived at the huge mansion in Berkshire where the film would really begin. The house was gorgeous. It looked like something straight out of a Jane Austen novel. There was even a huge lake in front of the main house and acres of garden to explore. I was so excited and energised by the thought of it; the magic of the silver screen had finally touched me.

But that was two days ago, before I realised my period was late. I’d been as regular as clockwork since I was a thirteen-year-old girl. I was never late. My period hadn’t come and I knew what that meant.

At first I put it down to the stress of everything with Jack, the wedding planning with my mother and the film. Then I sort of forgot about it and pushed it to the back of my mind, hoping it would go away by itself, or rather come. But on the second morning I woke up in a mad panic. My room was beautiful, I was living the dream, but it could all be about to come crashing down around me. I burst into tears. How could it have happened? I’d been on the pill since I met Jack. Why when my life was about to take off, when I was about to realise my dream, would I get pregnant? In what sick, twisted world was that fair?

There was a knock at my door. I quickly sniffed up my tears, grabbed a tissue and blew my nose.

‘Em.’ Rhys’s whispered voice came through the door. ‘You all right?’

I was only in my pyjamas and I looked awful, but I got out of bed and let him in. I needed someone.

‘Morning,’ I said and attempted a brave smile.

‘I heard tears – you all right?’

I attempted another smile, but I couldn’t do it and fell into tears again. Rhys pulled me into his shoulder and I wept thinking about the possibility of being pregnant until he walked me into my room and closed the door. We sat on the bed for a minute. I was trying to wipe my face and stop the waterfall of tears that were desperate to escape and rush down my face. Rhys sat with his arm around me.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

I didn’t know what to say. Did I want to talk about and, if so, did I want to talk about it with Rhys? It was strange, but if there was one person I could talk to, it was probably him. He understood what this would mean for my place in the film. As much as I loved Jack, I wasn’t sure he could be so pragmatic about it. Jack knew what acting meant to me. He understood the sacrifices it took to be creative, he’d gone through enough of his own, but this was his child and I wasn’t ready to talk it over with him yet. Rhys shared some of the same qualities as Jack, but it wasn’t his baby and so he could be completely impartial.

‘I think I’m pregnant,’ I said, and the tears came again, gushing out, uncontrollable and raging.

‘Shit,’ said Rhys. He gripped me tighter because he knew what it meant too. He knew if I was pregnant I wouldn’t be doing the film. Shooting didn’t start until June and by then I’d be at five or six months, I wasn’t sure, but I’d be showing. I’d be far too big to play the beautiful, petite role in a romantic comedy. I was at that point in my life, at the moment when I had to decide what was important to me, what mattered and what sort of life I wanted. I was at the precipice and it was terrifying. ‘Are you sure?’

‘No, I mean, I haven’t taken a test, but I’m late.’

‘That’s all? It’s probably nothing, Em, and it doesn’t mean you’re pregnant. We’ll do a test, together, today, and we’ll get this sorted out.’

He said it with such conviction, such certainty, that for a moment I thought maybe he was right. Maybe I wasn’t pregnant after all. Maybe I was panicking about nothing.

Maybe.

I wanted more than anything to believe him. But the truth was, I knew. Something inside of me had changed and I could feel it.

‘I’ll pop out and get a pregnancy test,’ said Rhys. ‘No one will have to know.’

‘No one will know? You’re Rhys Connelly. I think if you just pop to Superdrug and buy a pregnancy test, someone will know. Probably the whole world in about the time it takes some crazed stalker to tweet it. How about I go and you stay here?’

‘Good idea,’ he said with a smile. He hugged me tighter still. ‘But you aren’t doing this alone. I’m going to be here with you, all right?’

‘OK,’ I said and that was how I ended up, three hours later, sitting on the bathroom floor with Rhys looking at a white plastic stick, holding Rhys’s hand hard, because I desperately wanted it to be negative. I so desperately wanted not to be carrying Jack’s baby.

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in my life it’s that we can’t always get what we want. Maybe that’s a good thing, because if we always got what we wanted, where would the fun be? The hope of a better life? The desire to travel to distant shores and experience new things? When Kate told me she was going travelling for six months, I was so happy for her because I knew how much she had wanted it. People questioned why she would leave a seemingly idyllic life to trot off across the globe, and in search of what exactly? But I didn’t. I didn’t because I remember her telling me after she was hit by that car how she wanted to travel. I knew what it meant to her.

‘Pregnant,’ said Rhys. We’d been looking at the white plastic stick for about a minute in complete silence. The word Pregnant had appeared and neither of us seemed to know what to say. In the end Rhys said the obvious. ‘Do you think it could be wrong?’ he asked gently.

‘I don’t think so.’

I was pregnant. It was official and no amount of praying, wishful thinking or pretending otherwise was going to change it. There was just one question that needed to be asked. This was why I needed Rhys, because only he would have the balls to ask it.

‘Are you going to keep it?’

I looked at him and burst into tears again, smothering myself in his shoulder and feeling the dampness of his T-shirt shroud my face.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .’

‘No, it’s OK. I was crying because I was thinking the same thing,’ I said, a blubbering snotty mess. ‘Aren’t I an awful human being?’

‘No. God, no. It’s perfectly reasonable to think about it, Em.’ Rhys had his arm around me again. ‘This is your whole life we’re talking about. Your whole career. This film could be the making of you. It will be. I know it. You’re beautiful and talented and you need this film. We need you to make this film.’

‘But if I have the baby then . . .’

I looked at him and he looked at me and we didn’t need to say anything because we both knew. If I had the baby, I couldn’t do the film. That would be it.

‘It’s a tough choice, Em, I get it, but think about it this way, and it might sound harsh, but you can have another baby. There will be other chances to start a family, when you and Jack are ready, but this film could be it. It might be your only chance. Don’t let one mistake ruin it for you because I know you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.’

The words seemed to make some sort of sense, but I couldn’t process them properly. Could I really have an abortion just to further my career? Was that all right? Women had abortions all the time and for many reasons. It wasn’t like I had anything against abortions. Not that I thought of them flippantly, but this was my whole career. Was it all right to give up a baby, a whole life, for another life? Then came the memory of the other one. My first baby. The one I’d had to get rid of because I was too young. That was different though. This was with Jack and I was almost thirty. Could I do it again? Could I lose another baby just because the timing wasn’t right?

Then, of course, there was Jack. Wonderful Jack. We had discussed having children one day, but it felt like that dream holiday you always talked about, to the tropical paradise in the Indian Ocean. One day. But that day was now and what would he want? I couldn’t do it without telling him, but it was my body, my life and my decision. Jack was a factor, but not the deciding one.

To: Kate Jones

From: Emma Fogle

Subject: Re: I made it!

K,

I have something to tell you. I don’t even know where to begin or how to say it. I’m pregnant. Even writing the words, it doesn’t seem real. I’m at the mansion in Berkshire with the cast of
The Hen Weekend
. The week that should have been the best week of my life. The week I was supposed to become a proper actress. A defining week, but as it turns out, it’s defining me in a different way. It feels like I’m destined never to achieve my ambition because I’m pregnant and I can’t get another abortion and I can’t do the film if I’m pregnant. I can’t get rid of another baby. I still think about the first one and it hurts enough. I’m not sure I could handle going through that again.