Reversing Over Liberace (19 page)

“But you were and I should have known better.” But he still slipped me one of those gorgeous, shy smiles. “Won't happen again. If it does, you have my permission to slap my face and Moulinex my groin, all right?”

“All right.” The car pulled up at the kerb, behind Jazz's Skoda. “Thanks for the lift.” I started to get out. “You don't have to hang around, you know.”

Cal was getting out, too. “A gentleman always shows a lady to her door,” he said, following me up the path. “Door, lady—lady, door.”

“Oh, very funny.” I turned awkwardly on the step. “I'm back now. So. You can, you know, go.”

“Right. I'm sure everything is going to be fine. Luke, I mean, why would he?”

“Thank you, Mr. Erudite and his amazing Clarity Orchestra, for that thought.” We stood and stared at the night for a bit. “It's a long drive back, would you like some coffee?” I looked at him sternly. “I really
do
mean coffee.”

It was only when I'd opened the door and led him through to the kitchen that I put a lot of thoughts together. Cal, the used condom, the kiss. Some poor girl, somewhere, who liked Cal enough to perform some high-level gymnastics on the shelf-like Metro seat with him, was walking about unaware whilst he was snogging me against a barn wall.

The kitchen was empty. I boiled the kettle and nearly slammed the mug of coffee down in front of Cal. “So, what's your girlfriend's name?” I asked, trying for nonchalance, but only getting as far as shrill.

“Um. Jessica?”

“Don't you
know
?”

“Sorry, I thought I was being Luke there. Thought maybe you were rehearsing what you'd say when you saw him next?”

“
No
. I meant
your
girlfriend.”

“I don't have one. There was somebody a while back, couple of years now, but she…she took off with someone else.”

“I think,” I hissed, between gritted teeth, “that is a lie, Cal.”

His face blanked. It was as though somebody had taken a sponge and wiped every trace of emotion away from the inside, except the expression in his eyes. Hurt, and trying to hide.

Today couldn't get any worse, could it?

The kitchen door flew open and Clay shot in as though he'd been shoved from behind.

“Oh, bloody hell, Will! OC's doubled over on the living room floor, we can't move her and she says her waters have gone.”

Cal was already out of his chair, but I was panic-propelled, and made it to the living room while he was still circumventing the dresser. “OC?”

Sure enough, there she was, bump pressed into an accommodating beanbag chair, rocking gently and moaning. “Will? My bag is upstairs, my records are all in there, we need…oooooooooh…we need to get to the hospital.”

Jazz looked at me over her head. “She was carrying on about it being a false alarm until a second ago.” I looked at where he and Clay were trying to avoid looking, a big wet patch on the carpet, half the bean bag and OC's shoes.

“I just thought she'd pissed herself.” Ash was on the other side of the room, mobile to his ear.

“Any luck with the hospital?” Clay asked.

“Still engaged.”

“We have to go.” I hardly dared to look at Cal. I'd just accused him of being as bad as we suspected Luke of being and now I needed his help. “Cal can drive one car. I'll go in the back with OC. Jazz can bring the boys in his car.”

“Ooooooooooooooooaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggghhhhh!”

“And hurry!”

Everyone was electrified. Clay, Ash and Jazz got into the Skoda, and I helped OC to her feet, despite her protests that she couldn't stand.

“You wanted an active birth, girl.” I hauled on her arm until she rested her entire bodyweight against me. “Looks like you've got one.”

“This…isn't
active
…it's bloody…
torture
!”

Cal had a look of concentration on his face that didn't quite cover up the darker stuff underneath. Even with a pregnant woman clutching at his shoulder there was a splintered quality about him, as though the black-eyed jokily abstracted personality overlaid the real, fractured man underneath, like a metal casing over a broken watch. Gently, tenderly, he helped OC through the door, her other hand clenched in mine, driving her nails into the back of my wrist, and together we eased her down the steps and into the back of his Metro.

“Oh God,” she said in a sudden moment of pain-free clarity. “Please don't let my baby be born in here. Please get me to a nice, clean hospital.”

“Doing my best.”

So, with Cal in front and Jazz following, we drove slowly and carefully through the streets towards the hospital, both of them with their noses nearly touching the windscreens, shuffling the wheels through their hands and checking the rearview mirrors every ten seconds, even though the roads were almost deserted. It was like a Mr. Magoo procession. On the backseat, still gripping my hand, arm, and anything else she could reach, OC huffed and puffed and groaned like an airlocked boiler.

“Every two minutes,” I said, from the back, in a slightly high-pitched voice since OC had her nails currently embedded in my thigh.

“What?” Cal glanced at me in the mirror.

“Her contractions. Every two minutes.”

“Is that bad?”

“Not for the baby, no, but it might be for us. Can you go any faster?”

“I can do my best.”

We arrived at the hospital and, in something of an anticlimax, OC was wheeled away out of sight. Bree joined us, and I and the five men sat along the maternity ward corridor listening to the shrieks. We were lined up like students waiting to see a particularly punitive Head.

A midwife popped her head out of a room farther down. “Are you with Oceana?” she asked, and when we all nodded, went on, “So which one of you is the father?”

The lads all exchanged looks.

“Oh, come on. I need someone in here to hold her hand and give some encouragement. I'm not asking you to deliver the baby.”

“Um, none of us are the father,” Clay said hesitantly.

“What, five men and not one of you the expectant dad?”

There was much shaking of heads among the boys and muttering like a Greek chorus. “I'll do it.” Jazz eventually stood up. “As long as it really
is
just holding her hand. I don't want to have to look at anything nasty.”

“Don't worry, that's my job.” The thankful midwife whisked Jazz in through the doorway. I hoped that OC was too far gone in labour to protest. Jazz had never even so much as seen her in a bikini.

Cal sidled over to me and held out a coffee. “Peace offering. Although I'm not
quite
sure why, but I got the feeling back at the house that maybe we'd declared hostilities?”

I swallowed a scalding mouthful. “I've seen the condom.”

“As far as statements go, I usually prefer ‘I've seen the light'. But, anyway, go on, tell me about this”—he lowered his voice, conscious of the fact that, in a maternity ward the word condom is probably not to be spoken—“item. Where have you seen it and what is it to do with me?”

“Backseat of your car. Which, unless you're in the habit of picking up ladies who charge by the hour, puts you firmly in Infidelity Land.”

Cal stared at me. “Just a minute. You're accusing me of shagging some girl, then leaving a used Durex on the backseat of my
car
? How big a slut do you think I am? No, don't answer that. I already know I'm not exactly
Good Housekeeping
's Bachelor of the Year, but, urrrggghh, Willow.”

I dropped my eyes and drank more coffee to cover my confusion. “Well, what was I supposed to think? I mean, it
looks
used and everything.”

“It
is
used, you bloody stupid woman.” But his voice was softly amused. “I put components into condoms to transport them. Water can wreak havoc with computer bits, and the small ones get lost so easily. I tuck them inside a Durex and they're waterproof, easy to find and”—confidentially—“they can't get you pregnant. Right, you finish your coffee. I must have a word with Ash. I think we might have a bit of ground to make up, him and me.”

And he left me standing, plastic cup melting into my fingers, feeling a complete tit.

Chapter Twenty

“A little girl, six-pounds-ten,” I announced to Katie on my slightly late arrival at work next morning. “Born at twenty to two, six weeks early, but mother and baby doing well, although Jazz has got a big bruise on his forehead from where he fainted onto the gas-and-air machine.”

“Jazz?” Katie hesitated her fingers over her keyboard like a stop-frame animation. “What was Jazz doing there?”

“Long story.” I threw my coat at the back of the chair. Today, I was determined to be bright and breezy, to push any thoughts of those mobile messages to the back of my mind. To concentrate not on
possibilities
, but on
actualities
. “Have you still got that furniture catalogue you brought in when you were buying a new wardrobe?”

“I think I filed it.”

“Good. I want to start choosing stuff for the flat.”

“Yes.” Katie grinned at me. “Nice big bed with handcuff-compliant headboard, two-seater sofa and a champagne bucket. What more do you need?”

“It'll do for now.” Besides, with those few necessary items installed, perhaps Luke and I could think of moving in. Together.

“So, give me all the details about last night.” Katie tapped a final key and swivelled her chair around to face me. “Was it fantastic?”

“I don't know about
fantastic
.” I thought back to last night. To the lightness of the Cal's touch on my face, the intense, breath-holding elasticity of the kiss. “It was a bit confusing. I mean, half the time he treats me as if I'm a slightly amusing diversion, and the other half, he makes me feel like I'm the sexiest woman alive.”

“
What
?”

“Cal. He…oh. You meant OC's baby. That was…um…yes, very Madonna. I mean, mother-and-baby Madonna, not pointy-bra and ‘Like a Virgin'. Well, obviously not like a virgin. Otherwise we wouldn't have been there and…”

“Willow. Shut up. Now, tell me about this making you feel like the sexiest woman alive, and what Cal has got to do with it.”

A quick check to make sure that Neil and Clive weren't knuckling their way around the outer office picking fleas off each other, and then I gave Katie the whole story, or at least the edited highlights thereof. I cut out the misunderstanding about the condom, obviously, and any mention of odd messages on Luke's mobile. I'd just got to the bit about getting home to find OC in labour, when the phone, on what is laughingly described as my desk, rang.

“Willow?” It was Luke, sounding breathless and disturbed. “I've been trying to get you all morning.”

“I was out with the dogs, then I dropped in at the hospital. Sorry.” Then I wondered why I was apologising. After all, wasn't this man two-timing me? “My sister was having a baby.”

“Only it occurred to me that you might ummmm…” Still disturbed, very nervous. Not at all Luke-like, in fact. “Is there any chance that you…yesterday, might you have borrowed my phone?”

My mouth opened and closed a few times like a guppy feeding-frenzy. “Ummm.”

“Only I noticed some messages had been accessed, and I was worried that you might have, that you could have got a wrong impression.”

My heart entered freefall. “Mmmm?”

“It, oh, this is all very difficult. I'm afraid that I have to tell you something. I…God this is hard. I lied to you. Please forgive me.”

Shit. In fact,
shitty
shit. This was precisely what I did not want to hear. Tell me it's a mistake, Luke. Tell me it's all a misunderstanding. But please, oh God, please
don't tell me you lied. Tell me you love me.
I almost spoke across him. “It's all right. It doesn't matter. I don't mind, whatever it is. Please, I don't mind.”

“No, Willow, I want, no, I
need
to explain. You see, I lied when I told you my mother was dead. In reality, she left my father. It was, everything was confused. But she…she and I have been in contact. She's the one who sent me the messages, you see. But I didn't tell you because, well, I didn't, and I'm sorry, and when I realised that you might have misinterpreted what you saw, then, forgive me, Willow.”

Katie raised her eyebrows at the way I kissed the receiver. “Nothing to apologise for. Luke, honestly, I quite understand.”

“Oh, but.”

“No. It's fine. Everything is fine.” And it was. The sun, which had probably been shining since about five o'clock this morning, had just broken through the cloud in my own personal sunrise. The erstwhile grey, sunken mass which had been my hope for the future was now leaping about in a pink tutu, singing a million Broadway songs, tap-dancing like a pro. “You don't need to explain any more, Luke. I'll see you tonight.” Oh, and prepare for the shagging of your life, I didn't add, but only because Katie was listening.

“You really are the most fantastic woman I've ever known.” Luke's voice was quiet now, the relief in it almost oozing down the line. “Have you ever thought about entering the Church, because you make confession soooooooo sexy.”

I giggled. I couldn't help myself. “Luke, you are shocking.”

“Yeah. And that's not all I am right now. God, woman, you make me horny. Any chance of getting away at lunchtime and meeting me in the flat?”

I was supposed to be going to the hospital to see OC and the baby, but, “I'll see what I can do.” The release of the tension that I'd been holding since I'd turned his phone on was bubbling through my blood. That and Cal's incredibly sexy kiss, which had revved my whole system and left it ticking on standby all night.

“Luke?” Katie was waiting when I put the phone down, her scandalometer clearly reading into the red. “What's happened?”