‘Yeah, every child knows every button to press. No matter what age we are.’
Chapter Thirty-Three
Willow would have been happy to go down to Anchor House to meet Ellis’s stepson, but Martha had made it clear she would do no such thing.
‘If we’re being forced to meet him,’ she had told Willow on the phone, ‘then we’ll do it on our own terms. Everyone can come to Tom and me. I’ve suggested to Mum that they come for lunch at one o’clock on Sunday.’
‘We’re not being forced,’ Willow had pointed out in response to her sister’s high-handedness, ‘we’re beinginvitedto meet him, there is a difference.’ Martha had ignored the comment and asked if Willow was going to bring Rick.
‘Of course I am,’ she’d said. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘I just wondered if he might have something better to do,’ Martha had said. ‘It would be perfectly understandable if he was thoroughly sick of us all.’
In the car now, as Rick drove them out of London, the address for Martha and Tom’s house put into the satnav, Willow wondered what Lucas would be like. All they knew about him was that he was in his mid-thirties and that he lived in Los Angeles and did something clever in the world of digital media, which didn’t really mean a lot to Willow. Odds-on he was one of those geeky types who only got excited when talking about software code,or computer games.
Thanks to Hollywood, she imagined that most people who lived in LA must be hugely successful and regularly hang out with the rich and famous. If Mum did marry Ellis and Lucas became Martha and Willow’s stepbrother, would he invite them all to visit him one day? Again, thanks to Hollywood, Willow pictured him owning a fabulous house with a pool in which she could dangle her toes while sipping a cocktail against a backdrop of the Hollywood Hills.
She was probably being silly, falling for an absurd stereotypical illusion, in the same way that she wanted to believe that all Parisians lived in charming old apartments with tiny balconies looking out towards the Eiffel Tower. But then as a romantic idealist, she had always found dreams were so much nicer than reality.
Just as the reality of being pregnant was a long way from the glossy version she had seen in a magazine Rick had bought home for her. All those sparkly-eyed mothers-to-be with their hair tied back in sleek ponytails as they posed for the camera with their swelling bodies pushing against the Lycra of their yoga outfits.
Yoga and skin-tight Lycra couldn’t be further from Willow’s mind. Now that the nausea had passed, she was dogged by extreme lethargy. Given the chance, she could easily sleep sixteen hours a day. Ironically, and even though Martha was seven weeks behind Willow with her pregnancy, she had already gone through a stage of constantly feeling tired, but now, so she said, her usual energy levels had returned. Hopefully the same would happen to Willow.
Every time Willow yawned, Rick would urge her to give up her job.Sometimes she was tempted to do just that, but then she would think of being alone all day in that spotless apartment with nothing to do. It was a shame she couldn’t hibernate somewhere warm and cosy like a tortoise did and wake up when the baby was due.
Apart from wanting to sleep and sleep, she had developed a massive craving for salt and vinegar crisps. Ever since the day of the fête down at Mum’s, she’d had a hankering for them. She was eating three or four packets a day. Usually at work so that Rick didn’t know. If he did, he’d go on about the high levels of fat and salt she was consuming. Bless him, he kept making energy-boosting health drinks for her to take to work. Some of which were disgusting. Kale had no place in a drink in her view. Nor did beetroot.
On the Monday after being down at Mum’s, Willow had met up with her friend Lucy and shared with her that she was pregnant. With Lucy being further down the pregnancy track than she was, Willow had been looking forward to sharing some of her worries with her friend, in the hope that she would be able to put her mind at rest. But that very evening after they’d been together for lunch, poor Lucy had had a miscarriage. There had been no warning, just awful stomach cramps that had Simon rushing her to hospital. But there was nothing that could be done to save the baby. Knowing how excited they had been at becoming parents, Willow was devastated for her friends. When she’d told Rick about it, he’d hugged her tight and told her not to worry.
‘That’s not going to happen to us, sweetheart,’ he’d said. ‘You mustn’t dwell on their loss. But you must be more careful and follow all the advice and guidelines I give you.’
‘But it seems so … so wrong,’ she’d said, quickly checking herself.She’d been on the verge of saying it was so unfair, but then Rick would want to know what she meant by that. And that was something she could never say to him, or to anyone for that matter. Because, as awful as it was, and even though she was now eighteen weeks, she still wasn’t sure she wanted the baby she was carrying. Whereas Lucy most definitely had wanted hers. God forgive her, but Willow would have readily swapped places with her friend if she could.Here, have my baby, you deserve it so much more than I do, and you’ll be a much better mother than me.
‘I want you to promise me you won’t drink any alcohol behind my back today,’ Rick said, crashing into her guilty thoughts. ‘Not like you did last weekend.’
Willow squirmed in her seat at his mentioning that again. He hadn’t said anything at the time in the garden in front of everyone, but later that night when they were in bed, he’d taken her to task. ‘I could smell wine on your breath when I came back from the pub with Tom and Ellis,’ he’d said crossly. ‘I just don’t understand why you would be so stupid and so recklessly selfish as to risk it.’
‘It was Martha’s idea,’ she’d lied, hating herself for blaming her sister.
‘I might have known,’ he’d said. ‘But I expected better from you. You need to remember that it’s not just your baby inside you, it’s mine as well. I have a right to insist that you’re careful.’
‘Don’t worry, I have no intention of drinking any wine today,’ Willow said now in answer to his request. ‘It only happened that day because Martha and I were celebrating with Mum. And as I told you, it was a very small glass of wine, no more than a thimbleful. I was just entering into the spirit of the occasion. It was a special moment for us Miller Girls, you know.’
‘Well,’ he said with a smile, ‘don’t get any ideas about doing that again today. And be careful what you eat. Especially if it’s a barbecue like last Sunday.’
‘Yes,’ she said tiredly, wishing he would stop treating her as if she were a child. She knew he meant well, but the more he fussed over her, the more she longed to be free of his endless nagging. What she wouldn’t give to be her carefree, irresponsible self! To stop being this boring stranger she was now expected to be. It wasn’t who she was, it really wasn’t.
Willow wasn’t the only one not to be her true self; Martha was also behaving differently. She had asked Willow to be sure to arrive before the others, for what purpose Willow didn’t really know, other than to lend a hand with anything that needed doing. But each time Willow offered to do something, she was told not to fuss by Martha, who was flapping about like a demented whirling dervish. A state of affairs that couldn’t have been more at odds with her expensively fitted kitchen, which was show-room smart at all times. Even today when guests were due any minute for lunch. Willow had never thought about it before, but Martha and Tom would probably feel very at home in Rick’s apartment where there was never anything out of place. Other than Willow, that was.
‘I just want things to be right when they get here,’ Martha said, when Willow asked her if there was anything wrong. ‘And just look, the weather’s on the turn. So bang goes my plan to have lunch in the garden!’
‘Don’t worry, what will be, will be,’ said Willow, helping herself to a cheese straw from a dish on the worktop. Her comment elicited a scornful tut from Martha, prompting Willow to ask, for the umpteenth time, what she could do to help.
‘For heaven’s sake, do stop trying to be so bloody helpful!’ snapped Martha. Then she sighed. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be taking my mood out on you.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind. But I wish you’d tell me what’s making you so on edge?’
‘I’d have thought that was obvious. Having Mum and her boyfriend and his stepson here for lunch is hardly normal, is it? It’s completely … completely unnatural.’
