Naturally, Emma has a lot of questions.
How do I feel?
What am I going to do?
Does this mean I’ll be giving Scott another chance?
What exactly happened between us anyway?
I promise to fill her in on everything when we get back to my cottage, and I’m true to my word. Over a plate of peanut butter chicken curry, I tell her absolutely everything.
‘So he just upped and left?’ Emma asks, wide-eyed. ‘Without saying anything to you?’
I nod, the image of waking up to find him gone twisting my stomach into knots. ‘Yup. He didn’t even think to leave me a note or send me a text to tell me where he’d gone. He said he thought I needed some space to figure things out, which is man-speak for “it shouldn’t have happened, but I’m too polite to say so”. I get that he had a job interview to get to, but why not tell me? We haven’t spoken properly since it happened. I don’t really need to hear him say he’s just not that into me.’
Emma heaves a sad sigh as she pushes some chicken round the plate with her fork. ‘You two used to be perfect together. What happened?’
I give a wry smile. ‘Australia happened. I didn’t want to go, he did. He told me I was being a coward and that it’d be a huge adventure for us, but I didn’t want to leave everything we had here. We just seemed to get angrier and angrier at each other, and then he told me he was going with or without me. And he did. I wanted him to stay, but I didn’t want to hold him back so I just let him go. He took his stuff, went back to his own flat and left for Melbourne a little while later.’
If my life were a soap opera right now – which it may as well be – the classic duff duffs would’ve just followed my last words. Although Emma is well-versed in the events that drove Scott and I apart in the first place, she’s still enraptured as I recount them again.
‘I remember when you told me he’d said he was going. I didn’t think for a second he’d actually go through with it. I thought once the two of you had had a chance to calm down, you’d talk it through rationally and come to a decision you were both happy with.’
I shrug, trying my best to look like I don’t care when I do. I care more than she or Scott will ever know. ‘He made his choice, and it was Australia. Can’t say I blame him really; it’s a beautiful country and you can make a really good life for yourself there if you try. I watched him pack his stuff, but some part of me thought he’d change his mind. Stupid, really.’
Emma visibly deflates and drops her gaze to her plate of largely untouched food, shaking her head.
‘So there’s absolutely no chance that you two could fix things now he’s back?’ she asks. ‘You’re pregnant with his baby, Cleo. I know he did a stupid thing leaving you the next morning, but maybe there’s still a chance for you two.’
I bristle and grit my teeth. ‘I know I’m pregnant, I was there when the doctor told me. It doesn’t mean Scott and I have to be together though. I could raise the baby on my own if I wanted to. I might have to if he decides he wants to leave again. God, what am I going to do, Emma? I had no bloody idea I was pregnant and now all of a sudden, there are all these big decisions to make and I don’t know where to start.’
She puts her food on the coffee table, shuffles over to me and gives me a hug. I didn’t realise how much I needed one until I feel her arms around me.
‘The important thing to remember right now is that you’re in control. Yeah, you have a lot of things to decide on, but you don’t have to do it right this second and you definitely don’t have to do it on your own. You do have to tell Scott though. He’s the father and he has a right to know.’
I nod, my head spinning at the thought of telling Scott my life-changing news. I can’t even predict his reaction
‘It’ll be fine, you know that right? You’ll always have me and Zara and your mum … Oh god, what are you going to tell your mum?!’
She puts a hand over her mouth to stop any giggles escaping, but it’s no good. The dam’s already burst and her shoulders are shaking. I join in with her, knowing just how volcanic my mum’s reaction will be.
‘I’ll bet you a tenner that the first words out of her mouth are “nobody’s calling me granny!” She hates the idea of getting older as it is,’ I say with a chuckle. ‘I can just see her face turning white when I tell her.’
A silence slips over the room as the laughter subsides and it’s only then that the reality of today hits me. There’s a human growing inside me, whose future I have to make huge decisions over. For the last ten weeks, this baby has been quietly growing inside me without my knowledge, until they decided to make themselves known. I’ve heard of life throwing curveballs when you least expect it, but this is on a whole other level of crazy.
Cleo Jones: baker, dreamer … mother?
*
For a brief moment when I wake up the next morning, I think I’ve dreamt the whole thing. The fainting, the finding out I’m pregnant, the heart-to-heart with Emma … it all feels like some weird, trippy dream that couldn’t possibly have happened in real life.
Except it did.
The wave of nausea that hits me as soon as my feet hit the bedroom floor is all the proof I need. I make a mad dash for the bathroom and arrive just in time. Today’s nausea isn’t as worrying as yesterday’s; at least I know there’s a reason for it now. It still brings up unpleasant memories of my bingeing and purging days, but it’s easier to push them aside than it used to be.
When I go back to the bedroom, I immediately head over to the window. I hate that Scott and I are stuck in this awkward little routine, but until we can find a way to move forward, this is what we’re left with. Like clockwork, I see his tall wiry frame walking down the road, coming to a dead stop outside my cottage. His hazel eyes flick upwards to my bedroom window and I’m standing there, exactly as I have been for the past eight weeks.
Scott lifts his hand in a sort of wave and flashes me a hopeful smile. I feel the corners of my mouth pull upwards and return the wave as best I can. The anger doesn’t feel as strong today, even if the image of waking up to find him gone is still burned on my mind. Instead, I feel sick. Not just morning-sickness sick, but sick to my stomach that I have this huge secret that affects him, but he has no idea about it. No matter what’s gone on between us, Emma was right last night. He’s the father and he has a right to know about the baby.
Now I have to find the words to turn his world upside down.
*
I can barely concentrate at work when I get there. Although mixing up batters and decorating fairy cakes is second nature to me, I keep making mistakes and it doesn’t go unnoticed by my colleague Fred.
‘Cleo, that’s the second time you’ve added too much sugar to the cupcake batter,’ he says, coming over to help me with my third attempt. ‘What’s troubling you?’
I grunt in frustration and step away from the industrial mixer. ‘Everything’s going wrong at the moment Fred, and I’ve got no idea how to fix any of it.’
Once he’s made the cupcake batter with the correct ratios, he turns to me, a kind smile on his face. He might be in his seventies, but he has an unusual knack of knowing exactly how to fix my twenty-something problems.
‘Want to talk about it?’ he asks. ‘I’ll stick the cupcakes in the oven and we could shut up shop for a while?’
I shake my head. ‘We can’t shut the shop; it’s the lunchtime rush soon. I wouldn’t like to see a bunch of hungry schoolkids without their sausage rolls and cakes, would you?’
My colleague gives a knowing nod; the few times we’ve had to close over lunchtime since I’ve worked here, the aftermath hasn’t been pretty. We’ve found out just how good kids are at adopting a mob mentality.
‘You’re right,’ he says, ‘I could be doing without having to scrape rotten eggs off the windows again! There’s something bothering you though, I can tell.’
I sigh. He’s not going to let this go until he knows everything, so stalling tactics are useless here.
‘OK …’ I take a deep breath as I get ready to share my news. ‘… Yesterday, I found out I’m pregnant.’
Fred doesn’t reply right away, so the only sound in the room is the mixer whirring and rattling. For a terrifying second, I worry I’ve caused some sort of heart attack, until his face breaks into a smile.
‘Well, that’s lovely news!’ He pulls me in for a tight hug. ‘Congratulations love, I’m sure you’ll make a brilliant mum.’
I give a nervous chuckle and fiddle with a loose thread on my baker’s jacket. ‘Thanks, but I don’t know about that! I’m an only child and I’ve never really been around babies before. Not sure I’ll know where to start!’
The idea of having a tiny human who’s totally dependent on me for survival makes my head spin.
‘It’ll all come to you when you meet him or her,’ Fred assures me, patting my shoulder. ‘It’s just instinctive, trust me. With my two, the wife and I were clueless at first. But you get to learn what each cry means and what they need. And you get to watch as their personalities develop and they become their own little people. There’s nothing quite like parenthood, believe me. And if you’re worrying about me running the bakery while you’re off having the baby, don’t. We’ll organise some cover well in advance.’
I feel my shoulders relax and the weight in my chest becomes a little lighter. ‘Thanks Fred, you’ve made me feel a lot better. Maybe I won’t be so bad at this motherhood thing after all!’
I think I’m saying this to try and convince myself more than anything else. I know next to nothing about babies and the thought of raising one, especially on my own, is daunting to say the least.
However, as Fred pulls me in for a comforting hug, I get the brief feeling that everything will be just fine.
*
Since today seems to be a day for tackling huge obstacles – telling Fred about the baby wasn’t as easy as one might think – I decide to do the hardest thing I’ve ever done: tell Scott he’s going to be a father. It has to happen sooner or later, and he has decisions of his own to make about whether he wants to be involved or not.
I leave for the Silver Spoon café just after the lunchtime rush subsides at the bakery. The café is pretty much deserted, which doesn’t do much to ease my nerves. There’s no buzz of conversation to divert Scott’s attention, or any tantalising smells to ensnare his senses. The spotlight will be fixed on me and my big news. I check my phone one more time to see that my text to him definitely sent. Knowing my luck, there will have been some area-wide service outage that means he hasn’t got the text.
Maybe that means I can leave? Put it off for another day where I feel more ready to drop such an enormous bombshell? No, that wouldn’t be right, I say to myself. I can’t bury my head in the sand about this; the sooner he knows, the sooner he can decide what part he wants to play in the baby’s life.
The door swings open and in walks Scott. He looks tired and his gym clothes are crumpled; being back at his own flat has made him regress into dude-dom once again. I can just picture the plates of half-eaten, congealed spaghetti dotted around the place, along with discarded pairs of underwear and socks.
Our eyes lock and I feel my heart skip. God, he does the dishevelled look well.
Cleo, stop it!
‘Hey,’ he says, taking a seat opposite me. He looks at me for a moment, as though he wants to say something else, but changes his mind a few seconds later.
‘How are you doing?’ I ask, determined not to let any awkward silences develop. If they do, I’m done for. I don’t care that I probably sound like Joey from Friends.
‘I won’t lie, I’ve been better.’ His voice doesn’t have any of its usual warmth of humour, which I can’t say I didn’t expect. ‘Are you finally ready to talk about what happened between us? Is that why you texted, asking me to meet you here?’
Oh boy. This is going to be even harder than I thought. How am I supposed to tell him that I’m not here to rake over the nitty-gritty of our disastrous night together? I’m about to turn his life upside down and he has no idea.
‘No Scott … I … I actually have some news.’ My heart is in my mouth as I prepare to say the words out loud. I drop my gaze to the table, away from his hopeful brown eyes. ‘You know how I passed out yesterday and had to go to hospital? Well … the doctor did a blood test to see what might be causing it and …’
I trail off to collect myself. Any minute now, I’ll be rushing off to the bathroom to be sick or sprinting out the door to hide under my duvet.
‘You’re not … You’re not ill, are you?’ Scott looks genuinely worried. Once again, he goes to reach for my hand and pulls back at the last minute. ‘Cleo, if you are—’
‘No, I’m not ill.’ I have to cut him off before I can hear him say he’ll be there for me and everything will be OK: basically everything I’d secretly like to hear, though I’d never admit that. ‘Scott, I’m … I’m pregnant.’