Happy Endings (30 page)

‘Oh, thank you,’ I said, trying to filter through my variety of facial expressions until I found one that looked vaguely like confident. I wanted to believe that what I’d written was as wonderful as she’d said, but it was difficult.

I sat and waited, drinking my coffee and trying not to think about Emma being at home by herself. When I left she was sitting in bed watching television with a blank expression on her face. She was heartbroken and this whole thing had affected her far more than even I had expected. I was afraid to talk about it in case I opened the floodgates, but I didn’t want to ignore it either. I honestly didn’t know what to do. I was hurting too, but I knew it was different. Men don’t really become parents until the baby is born, while women are mothers as soon as they become pregnant.

‘Jack Chapman?’ a booming voice said.

I looked up and a man was standing in front of me. He was short with a bird’s nest of unruly grey hair that sat upon a squat face. He was wearing a tweed suit and holding out a podgy hand with a smile.

‘Oh, hello, hi,’ I said, getting up quickly and shaking his hand.

For a short scruffy man he had a particularly fearsome handshake.

‘Morris Gladstone, very excited to meet you,’ he said in the same sonorous voice. ‘Come through, come through.’ He gestured for me to follow him. We walked down a short corridor decorated with more framed book covers and photos of writers before we turned into a small office. Morris asked me to take a seat while he sat opposite, across a desk piled high with manuscripts. ‘Sorry about the mess; one of the perils of the job I’m afraid.’

‘Oh, no problem,’ I said, having a quick look around the room.

It was small but packed to the rafters with books and manuscripts. It had the feel and smell of an educational institution and reminded me of my old English lecturer’s office. I felt instantly at home. Morris obviously wasn’t the most orderly person in the world, but I rather liked that about him.

‘Jack, tell me a bit about yourself.’

I’d done my best to be ready for this meeting, but I suddenly felt very ill prepared. I had no idea what to say about myself. I felt like the most boring, nondescript person in the world.

‘I’m twenty-nine, almost thirty. Getting married this year to my lovely fiancée Emma. I’m originally from Australia; I moved here with my mother when I was fifteen. I live in a tiny flat in Notting Hill and I currently work at To Bean or Not to Bean on the Southbank . . .’

‘Oh, God, not that awful Shakespearean-themed place around the corner from The Globe?’

‘Unfortunately, yes.’

‘My condolences.’

‘I have to do something to pay the rent.’

‘’Tis true, Jack, ’tis true. And how about the book. Where did it come from? Where was the inspiration?’

It was difficult, at first, talking about the book and especially to a stranger. I hadn’t ever been one to really talk in-depth about my writing. It was something personal and I always found it hard to verbalise. However, with Morris looking at me intently, I started talking and before I knew it, floods of words were pouring out of me. I was telling him things I didn’t even realise myself. The book was essentially a love story, but it had darker moments, profound moments and I didn’t really realise until then just how much the death of my father had contributed to it.

‘You do realise I never do this. I always read the entire manuscript of any novel before I meet with an author, but your opening chapters were incredible, Jack, utterly absorbing. I read so much drivel, absolute tosh and some of it I even take on, so when I read something like this that truly excites me, I’m not one to mess about. I had to meet you in person and I’m glad I did. I’ll need to read the rest of the book, but I want you, Jack. I want to sign you now, today, before somebody else does. Are you with me?’

I was literally, utterly and comprehensively bewildered. He wanted me to sign there and then. I was going to have an agent. A proper literary agent. For a moment a small game of competitiveness broke out in my brain and I thought foolishly that maybe I should wait, see what other options appeared, but the game was soon abandoned. I didn’t care what else was offered and who else was offering it. Morris had rung me and he loved my work and I really, truly liked him. It was the opportunity I’d been waiting for since I was fourteen.

‘Too bloody right I am,’ I said, a smile breaking over my face.

‘You aren’t going to regret this,’ said Morris and we shook hands.

The air outside felt much lighter when I left the office. I realised quickly it wasn’t the air that was lighter, but that the pressure on my shoulders seemed to be gone. I wasn’t being naïve. I knew that just because I had a literary agent, it didn’t mean I would suddenly become a rich and successful writer, but it gave me hope. Before, I had nothing but a dream, but now I had someone else who believed in it. I wanted to call Emma and tell her but I was afraid. I didn’t want to seem like I was belittling her feelings about the baby or that I didn’t care. I didn’t know how to tell her without seeming like a callous idiot. Unsure what to do, but still on a high after the meeting, I saw a pub across the street and went for a quick drink alone to celebrate and to bask in the glow of my success.

I got a pint and sat by the window. I watched people walk past: office workers, shop assistants. The whole of London moved like a giant ant farm, everyone set on their specific role and going about their business with a blinkered determination. I’d always known I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to spend my days in air-conditioned office blocks doing something I didn’t love just to pay for a life I couldn’t afford. I’d always wanted to do something different and that something had always been writing. It was my passion and if I made it, if I actually got published and did well enough, then I’d never have to work another day in a meaningless job again. That thought made me smile and I was so happy a few tears leaked out and slid down my face.

Emma

I met Paul when I was sixteen. I was in my last year of school and Paul was nineteen and studying at St Martin’s college in London. I thought he was literally the coolest bloke in the world. He was studying photography and was one of those incredibly urbane, intelligent, sophisticated boys with the looks to match. He was tall, dark and handsome and had the most wonderful deep, sultry eyes. I was head over heels in love.

My parents, of course, weren’t enamoured of the idea of me having a nineteen-year-old boyfriend who lived in London. I used to have to sneak out to see him when he was home for the weekend and I’d occasionally get into London via some tenuous excuse. Mum would always grill me before I left and made me promise I wasn’t going to see Paul. I lied, of course. I was sixteen and in love and what did my mother know about the delicate feelings of young love? I wrote him mawkish poems and it was, for six months, the greatest love story the world had ever known. I felt like Juliet and Paul was my Romeo.

I was a virgin when I met Paul and it took a few months but eventually we had sex and it seemed to make everything more intense and passionate between us. I tried to get away more often and he would come home more frequently at weekends. His parents lived just around the corner from mine, so it was easy to sneak out after bedtime or for Paul to sneak in. My parents were getting increasingly suspicious though and so we had to be careful, but the element of risk just seemed to heighten our desire for each other.

It was the summer holidays just before I was about to start sixth form and Paul was back for a few weeks. I hadn’t gone on the pill because I didn’t want Mum to find out and so we just used condoms and occasionally not even that. We were young, foolish and the thought of getting pregnant hadn’t crossed our minds. Surely it couldn’t happen to us?

My period was late. Paul was convinced it was nothing and I couldn’t tell Mum. Eventually, one afternoon I plucked up the courage to get a test. I sat alone in the bathroom and waited for the little plastic stick to tell me if I’d been a silly young girl or not. I sat, prayed and waited. I crossed my fingers as hard as I could and closed my eyes so tightly it hurt. I wanted time to stop so I wouldn’t have to find out what deep down I already knew. I was pregnant.

I don’t know how long I cried for, but it felt like forever. I would have to tell Paul and, worse, I’d have to tell my parents. They’d be so ashamed and embarrassed. I had big plans. I wanted to be an actress and I couldn’t do that with a baby. Paul was still at university and had no money. I knew what I had to do.

‘I’m making an appointment at the doctors,’ said Mum with a stoic face. She didn’t flinch, she didn’t shout, she didn’t do anything except what she knew had to be done. ‘You can’t have a baby at your age; it will ruin everything. You’re having an abortion and that’s it. And not a word to your father.’

Mum and I went in one sunny day in early August. It was all very practical and cold. We sat in the waiting room and Mum read a magazine; I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t because I was afraid that if I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop.

We left a short while later, the baby gone, and it was never spoken about again. We went on holiday to Corfu a week later and when we came back I went to sixth form. It was funny because it happened so quickly and because Mum took care of everything, I managed to almost wipe it from my memory. It was the one moment in my life when I truly needed and loved my mother. Maybe our reasoning for the abortion was different, maybe the way we handled it wasn’t the same, but without her, I don’t know what I would have done.

I’d thought about the abortion sporadically over the years, but when I felt the sickness rise up inside of me and the warm bloody trickle down the inside of my leg, and then the pain deep within me, it was all I could think about. Maybe it was karma, I thought. You couldn’t just go around getting abortions when it suited you and think it wasn’t going to come back and repay the debt one day. I don’t know if I believed that or not, whether cosmic karma even existed, but I couldn’t help but think it was some sort of payback. The hardest part though, and the bit that kept me awake, was not sharing it with Jack. I didn’t want him to know what I’d done at sixteen and maybe it was irrational, maybe it was stupid and wrong, but I didn’t want him to blame me too.

I was in the bath when Jack walked in. It was a Sunday night. It had been a marginally better day than the one before, but there was still a huge hole in my life I didn’t know how we were ever going to fill. I was trying to be happy and supportive about Jack’s meeting with the literary agent, and I was really excited for him, but I couldn’t summon the strength to show it.

‘All right, love,’ said Jack, sitting on the toilet next to me. I’d filled the bath with hot water and lots of soothing bubbles. My body still ached and I wanted to lie there and not think about anything. ‘How would you feel about a little ceremony for the baby? It wouldn’t have to be much, just a few words. I thought we could plant something.’

Jack looked at me with those gorgeous eyes and for the first time since it happened, I had the realisation that he was hurting too. I’d been so wrapped up in my own pain, I hadn’t even thought about him.

‘I’d like that.’

Jack reached out a hand and held mine.

‘I thought we could do it at Kensington Gardens. Maybe we could walk down in the morning.’

‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’

‘For being you. I wouldn’t have got through this on my own.’

‘You’re stronger than you think, Em,’ said Jack, but he didn’t know. He didn’t know how weak I was inside. He didn’t know about the other baby that Mum and I had gotten rid of. Jack was a good person. He believed I was this pure, wholesome girl, but he didn’t know this one truth, and I felt awful.

It was a chilly morning and a cool white fog lay across Kensington Gardens like a blanket of marshmallows as Jack and I walked hand-in-hand to say goodbye to our baby. Jack had bought a little potted shrub and we were going to plant it and say a few words. I hadn’t slept much the night before, trying to think what I was going to say. It felt like an impossible task. How could I say goodbye to someone I never knew but loved so much? I also wondered what Jack was thinking. Did he feel the same as me? Was he as distraught? So heartbroken? I knew Jack and he was so full of love and compassion, but how could he truly feel the same sense of loss? Jack would never know how I felt about our baby and I could never properly tell him.

We walked around until we found a nice, quiet spot beneath a clump of trees. It was slightly shaded and seemed like the perfect place. Jack had a trowel and dug a small hole. I lowered in the shrub and then Jack filled in the dirt around it. It was only a symbolic gesture, but I couldn’t help but feel a tug on my heart, as though we were actually burying my baby. Jack got up and we both stood there looking down at the shrub.

‘Do you want to say something?’ said Jack, holding my hand.

I’d been thinking all morning about what to say. Words, as usual, didn’t feel like enough to convey what I felt inside.

‘You didn’t know us. We didn’t know you yet, but we loved you so much. We’d already thought about all the things we were going to do together, all the places we were going to go and how much we were going to love you. You may not have lived for very long but you changed us forever. Sleep tight little one,’ I said and then fell against Jack, the tears coming again. Jack held me tightly until I’d regained some composure and then he spoke.