mental…
‘Do you want me to post it? ‘
She just stood there and read over his shoulder.
‘Do you see that the person you’ve read about isn’t all of me?’
She could.
‘That there are other sides?’ She nodded. ‘I rang Gillian.’ Alison felt her world still. ‘I told her about you, because even though we’re over, even though it ended more than six months ago—’ and she got what he was saying ‘—she didn’t need to read about it first.’
‘I know.’
‘And there’s something else you should know,’ Nick said, ‘which you might not like and you might not understand. But I told her about the baby too. I know there are other people we need to tell…’
And she didn’t like it, because it confirmed her darkest fears.
‘It gives you the reason to stay.’
‘I’ve already got a reason,’ Nick said. ‘I already had a reason.’ He pulled her close. ‘You.’ Then he ran a hand over her stomach. ‘This one just speeds up the decision-making process.’
‘It’s not what you wanted.’
‘Not with Gillian,’ Nick said. ‘Alison, I don’t believe in accidents.’
‘So I meant it to happen.’
‘I don’t mean that.’
‘You work in Accident and Emergency, you’re going to be consultant when you get back…’ Her voice was rising. ‘And you’re standing here telling me that you don’t believe in accidents.’ She was incensed now. ‘What? Do you think my father and brother secretly wanted to die, that they deliberately—?’
‘I mean this sort of accident…’ He closed his eyes. ‘I’m not saying this very well.’
‘No, Nick, you’re not.’ She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘You really think I set out to—’
‘No.’ He interrupted. ‘No.’ He said it again.
‘Then what?’
‘We knew,’ Nick said. ‘We, more than anyone, knew. And, yes, we were careful, but not that careful.’
And she opened her mouth to argue, but nothing came out, because she’d been over and over and over their oh, so careful love-making, except sometimes it hadn’t been. Sometimes passion had overruled common sense and she was very cross with herself for that. With Paul she’d been contracepted to the neck, if there was such a word. With Paul she could have raged at the sky, at the gods, at the injustice, because she had been so very, very careful, but with Nick. She screwed her eyes closed, because the only person she was raging at was herself.
‘I knew the risks too.’ He caught her racing brain and sent it on a different track. ‘Oh, I wasn’t actively thinking…’ The words weren’t coming easily for Nick, but he was at least trying, this conversation incredibly honest, dangerously honest perhaps. ‘I’m responsible, Alison, I’ve never not been careful except with you.’ And it was raw and honest and the truth. ‘And, yes, I should have taken more care, you can throw that at me too if you want to, but I guess for the first time passion won. There was someone, you, that I was willing not to be so practical and sensible with…’ And he looked at her then and stated a fact. ‘That’s how babies are made, have been since the beginning of time. The chance was worth it at the time.’
‘Is it worth it now?’
‘Of course it is.’ He sounded very sure.
‘You want to travel.’
‘The world will still be there, waiting.’ And then he grinned. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m sick of throwing myself off cliffs. You’ve saved me another bungee-jump, yet another sodding extreme sport to show I’m having a good time.’
‘What will your parents say?’ Alison asked.
‘Trapped by a colonial!’ He rolled his eyes. ‘They’ll come round. I know you can’t leave her, Alison, and I completely see why.’
‘What about your job?’
‘I’ve got a job! I’ve been offered a year’s work when Amy goes on maternity leave next week.’ And he gave a little grimace. ‘Keep that quiet—I mean it. She’s adopting a baby from overseas and she’s beside herself—doesn’t want to tell anyone till he’s actually here.’
And someone was looking after her, because Nick would never need to know how little she had trusted him, how this gorgeous blonde sexy doctor somehow really was just that.
‘What about your mum?’
‘She’ll be completely and utterly delighted.’ And there was a wobble in her voice, a strange fizz of excitement that had, till now, when she thought of the baby been absent, a vision, a glimpse of a future, only now she could see Nick and herself and a beach and a baby.
And then she admitted something, something she hadn’t dared admit, not even to herself.
‘I’m scared.’
‘I know.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Alison said. ‘It’s not trapped that I feel, it’s.’
‘Scared,’ he offered, and she nodded, sure he didn’t really get it, except it would seem he did. ‘Scared you might love it too much?’ he said, and she nodded. ‘Scared you might lose it?’
And he shouldn’t say that, Alison thought frantically, because if he said it, then maybe it would happen.
‘I think being a parent means you’re scared for the rest of your life.’
‘I can’t stand what my mum went through.’
‘Then you’ve got a choice,’ Nick said. ‘You can hold back, never fully live, never fully love, just in case…’ Which was what she had been doing. ‘But that doesn’t work, because sooner or later living wins. Look at your mum,’ Nick went on. ‘Look at you.’ He put his hand on her stomach, the result of taking a chance, and he was right because, cautious or not, life threw in surprises whether you liked them or not.
‘I got you a present.’
And out of his laptop bag he produced not a ring but a rather tatty airplane magazine folded on one page. And it was nicer than a ring, nicer than anything actually, because it was a flight map showing all the destinations that airline went to, and Nick pointed a couple of them out.
‘There’s Sydney,’ he said, ‘and there’s London, and there’s an awful lot of world in between. You choose the stopovers.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Well, even if they are a pain, even if they are miserable and controlling, I guess I do love my family, and I’m going to be going home once a year,
