Part 16 (1/2)
”That what? You thought you wouldn't tell me. Have you spoken to Matthew about it?”
”Well yes, but only because he suspected too, so I had to. And we agreed that the chance is so small that everyone would be better off if we just forgot about it.”
”When did you talk to him?”
”Ages ago, I can't remember.”
”When, Katy?” asked Ben aggressively.
”Well, Christ I don't know,” said Katy, totally fl.u.s.tered. ”I guess it must have been after we saw them at the first antenatal cla.s.s. I thought I'd never see him again after the reunion, but then when he turned up at the cla.s.s I had to talk to him.”
”So you and him have been having these talks for weeks and all along you have let me think that the baby was mine.”
”Ben please, you make it sound so terrible. I was trying to do the right thing, I promise you. I wasn't trying to deceive you on purpose.”
”What? Making me think all the way along that this was my baby when you knew it might not be. Don't you think I had the right to know? You obviously thought that Matthew did.”
”No. It wasn't like that. I didn't choose to tell Matthew, he guessed and I had to talk to him to stop him ruining everything. I couldn't let him ruin it for nothing. Please listen Ben,” begged Katy. ”You are the father.”
Ben was silent, staring through the window into the distance. Katy daren't speak for fear of saying the wrong thing yet again. She silently prayed for a miracle. Finally Ben made his parting shot.
”It doesn't matter how small the chance is Katy, there is still a chance and I don't know how I can live with that. But what is certain is that you lied to me. Not only about the baby but also about Matthew. You are not who I thought you were Katy. And to think I thought I wasn't good enough for you.”
Tears were streaming down his cheeks now, almost as fast as down Katy's.
”Of course you're good enough for me, Of course you are Ben. And you're right, I'm not good enough for you. What I have done is terrible but I was trying to do the right thing. I never wanted to hurt you.”
”Well you just did.”
Ben turned and headed out of the room.
”Don't go. Please don't go Ben,” said Katy, stumbling after him. ”I need you. I can't do this alone. Ben please. Please don't leave me.”
Ben turned around briefly, almost unrecognisable in his despair, lines having suddenly appeared on his young face. He stared at her for a moment. Then turned again and walked out of the door.
Katy slumped to the floor and wept like she had never wept before, just as the dead crabs tumbled still muted onto a pier somewhere in Alaska in the dead of night.
Chapter 18.
She wasn't sure what time it was. She looked up and the crabs were gone, probably already having their insides ripped out by some surly Alaskan. Katy felt like her own insides had been wrenched from her body. This was no normal crying. It was a torrent, an almighty avalanche, a wild typhoon of a cry that threatened to drown and quite possibly deafen her. Every time she felt she might be mastering the storm another front came from nowhere and flattened her without mercy.
She was still slumped in the hallway where Ben had left her, unable to summon up any purpose to moving. Her hands and her forearms were soaked with tears as she had long ago drenched the tissues she had stuffed up her sleeves from her earlier clean-up.
Finally she managed to comprehend that she needed help. That this was not going to die away without some kind of external effort. She hauled herself onto her hands and knees and made slow progress towards the phone which sat on a side table on the opposite side of the hall. She slumped again when she reached it, as though she had just run a marathon and sat for a few moments trying to regain some sort of steady breathing. She took a deep breath and picked up the phone to dial Daniel's mobile.
Of course it went straight to voicemail. She slumped again, listening to Daniel's message whilst trying to summon up the energy to speak.
”Hi guys. I must be doing something really important or screening my calls and just don't want to talk to you. Anyway leave me a message and I will call you when I have finished collecting my award for creative genius in advertising.”
”Daniel. Daniel. Pick up the phone. Please pick up the phone,” she said in between the sniffs.
Eventually she remembered that she was talking to a mobile answer machine so he wouldn't be able to hear her.
”Daniel, call me now. Ben knows everything and he's gone, for good. What am I going to do? Just stop everything and call me Daniel. I need you.”
She put the phone back then winced as the baby gave an almighty kick. She looked down to see some kind of limb desperately feeling the very edges of her belly for any kind of gap that might lead to daylight.
”This is really happening,” she thought, staring at the small mole hill travelling across her front. ”I am really going to have a baby alone.”
The tears started to flow again, not a storm this time, more an irritating drizzle, the type that never seems to end.
The drizzle continued whilst Katy miserably contemplated her life as a lone parent. When the phone finally sprang to life, Katy answered before the second ring.
”What am I going to do? Ben's gone. Gone for good,” she blurted out before Daniel could even say h.e.l.lo. ”He came and it was fine and then stupid, stupid me thought he must have worked it out. That he might not be the dad. But he hadn't worked it out had he? And he kept shouting at me to explain and so I had to tell him everything and so he stopped shouting but he wouldn't say anything. Nothing. He just stared and looked so sad. I have never seen him look so sad before. Then finally he said that I was not worthy of him. That he couldn't get over the lies. And he's so right. Of course he's right. I've been so, so stupid. And now what am I going to do? How am I going to tell the baby what I've done. That it's my fault it doesn't have a daddy. That I totally screwed it up. That I have ruined its life even before it was born.”
”I'm on my way,” replied Matthew.
The line went dead before Katy had time to drop the receiver on the floor. There was an unhealthy crack as it struck the wooden floorboard followed by the sound of a soft purr confirming that the caller had moved on. The shock of Matthew's voice left Katy numb. Almost on auto-pilot she picked up the phone and dialled 1471 then returned the call. It went straight through to voicemail.
”h.e.l.lo, you are through to Matthew Chesterman. I'm sorry I can't get to the phone right now but if you leave your name and number I will call you back as soon as I can. Please wait for the beep. Thank you.”
”Pick up the phone,” muttered Katy, realising full well this time that he couldn't hear her.
The beep sounded.
”I thought you were Daniel. If you get this, I don't think you should come here. Just stay away Matthew, please.”
She replaced the receiver and shuffled back through to the lounge and collapsed on the sofa. The Discovery Channel had moved on from the crabs and was now showing wild moose mating in some remote-looking wooded area. The ritual looked particularly unjoyful conducted in mute. Katy watched as the male finished, clambered off, shook himself then surveyed the rest of the females before wandering nonchalantly over to his next target.
”Typical man,” she thought before realising that she had behaved exactly as the detached looking male moose. Had she not wandered from mate to mate without any fear of the consequences?
The action changed. Now the male moose was running quickly through dense forest. The screen went black before showing a scene of the moose lying dead on the floor as two hunters reloaded their guns.
”I so deserve to be shot,” thought Katy.
The baby gave her another almighty kick.
”My G.o.d, there's a baby, a real baby,” she cried. ”I can't even wish to get shot in peace.”
The baby kicked her again.
”Alright, alright. Enough already.” She flew up from the couch, marched into the nursery and surveyed a cot in bits on the floor and a pile of plastic carriers full of untouched baby retail.
She grabbed the nearest carrier bag and emptied it onto the floor. She knelt down and began tearing cellophane and cardboard as though her life depended on it. She flung packaging into one corner and its contents into another, shrieking in frustration every time an item appeared to not want to be parted from its wrapping.
By the time she had finished ransacking the plastic bags she had worked up quite a sweat. She caught sight of the screwdriver left in the room by Ben ready to make up the cot. She seized it and began attaching screws to pieces of wood with no idea if they were in the right place. Before long she somehow had a cot that resembled an avant-garde teepee for dwarfs. By now she was breathing very fast but she daren't stop, daren't slow down because that would allow her mind to wander away from her artistic construction towards something much more destructive.