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  By mid-afternoon, some sort of semblance of normality had returned to Rivermede. Heather was informed that there would be another vegetarian for dinner, and Ruby and Ivy were safely installed into Freddy’s bedroom. Freddy’s empty underwear drawer made the perfect crib.

  I was hastily despatched to Portdeane Tesco to buy whatever baby bedding I could, along with a bulk supply of nappies, wipes, and a couple of spare babygros, as Ruby seemed seriously ill-equipped

  Trying not to sound like a nosey-parker, I attempted to ascertain what future plans she had in place. Ruby was unforthcoming, either through shyness or because, as I rapidly began to suspect, she had no plans. It transpired, with more prompting from Pearl who was showing remarkable and uncharacteristic restraint, that a housemate had accompanied Ruby to the birth, and less than twenty-four hours later Ruby had been discharged back to her student house. She had little or no baby equipment, preferring to carry Ivy in her sling and sleep with her by her side.

  Ruby seemed to think she would manage, although she confessed she and her housemates had had very little sleep over the last two weeks. Ivy was a very grizzly baby. Ruby was determined to breastfeed, despite struggling with seriously cracked nipples. It was not just free and natural, she declared, but also better for the baby.

  ‘Of course it is, dear,’ Pearl agreed, ‘but is it best for you? You should have seen the state of me after I’d had Becca. My nipples were never the same again. Have you tried putting her on the bottle?’

  Ruby had not. I was despatched back to Tesco again, just on closing time, and was able to snatch a tin of newborn formula and a set of bottles from under the security guard’s nose.

  ‘It’s an emergency,’ I pleaded, as he attempted to bar my way. The store manager was more sympathetic as I explained about the arrival of our unexpected guest. She held one checkout open for me and even suggested I might like to purchase a sterilising unit at the same time, which involved more dashing back through the store to the appropriate shelves.

  Dinner was a remarkably civilised affair. Ivy and her drawer were carried into the dining room and, with her little tummy full, she slept peacefully as we ate.

  ‘She normally wakes up every twenty minutes or so,’ Ruby remarked. ‘I’ve never seen her look so content.’

  Pippadee slept equally as peacefully, curled up on a dining chair next to Pearl.

  ‘What advice has your midwife or health visitor given you regarding feeding?’ Pearl enquired.

  ‘I’ve only seen the midwife once since I left hospital.’

  Ruby’s support network seemed very thin on the ground. By the end of the meal, I could see that Pearl was as concerned as I was about Ruby’s situation.

  ‘We have to get her to stay here,’ Pearl hissed when Ruby excused herself to visit the bathroom. She turned to Freddy. ‘You can’t let that poor girl go back to London, to a bedsit. We have more than enough room here for her and the baby.’

  ‘It’s up to Rubes, really, isn’t it?’ was all Freddy had to say.

  ‘Maybe if you asked Ruby if she’d like to stay, it might help,’ I suggested, wishing I wasn’t sat so far down the table I was out of kicking distance. He still looked as white as a sheet.

  ‘She just wants to get back to her studies as soon as she can. She’s heading for a first.’

  ‘How can she go back to her studies when she has Ivy to look after?’ Pearl snapped.

  ‘There’s a crèche at the uni.’

  ‘But she hasn’t even got a pushchair!’ Pearl exclaimed, sounding as exasperated as I felt. ‘Let’s buy the girl a pushchair and a cot; it’s the very least we can do. We need to make a list.’

  ‘Her flat’s on the third floor. There’s no point having a pushchair. She won’t get it up the stairs.’ Freddy pointed out.

  ‘Even more reason for you to convince her to stay here,’ Pearl replied. ‘Rebecca, list.’

  The list grew over the course of the evening without any contribution from either Ruby or Freddy, who passed on dessert – a wonderful lemon meringue pie, M&S’s finest. The new parents retired upstairs as soon as Heather began to clear away.

  ‘I want you to take that girl shopping first thing in the morning,’ Pearl told me. ‘Whether she wants to or not. I will not have that baby going short.’

  I shared Pearl’s sentiments, although I pointed out we were in a fortunate position in that we were financially secure and could afford to make the necessary purchases. I reminded her Ruby was a student and obviously in a strained relationship with her parents, who were perhaps not so well-off or able to provide for their grand-daughter. This only fuelled Pearl’s determination that Ivy should be spoilt.

  By the time I strolled over to the house on Monday morning, Freddy had already left for work. I’d been hoping to waylay him to ask how things had panned out overnight. I found Ruby in the kitchen, Heather demonstrating how the bottle steriliser worked. Ivy was grizzling hungrily, her tiny fists clenched, her face red.

  ‘Let me take her while you do that,’ I suggested to Ruby, who was struggling with hot water and formula milk. The last thing she needed was a wriggling, screaming baby attached to her chest.

  Ivy was unswaddled and handed over. I was pleased to see she was in one of the new babygros. When Ruby sat down somewhat dejectedly at the table with the bottle of milk, I offered Ivy back, but instead Ruby handed me the milk. I sat at the kitchen table while the baby guzzled the milk with great gulps. I broke off to wind her.

  ‘She doesn’t do that for me,’ Ruby complained as Ivy gave a polite burp.

  ‘Freddy was a very windy baby,’ I smiled. ‘I used to feed him all the time, because Pearl was always working. It brings back all those happy memories.’

  ‘It doesn’t make me happy,’ Ruby muttered. She rubbed her arm across her chest. ‘Look at me. I’m leaking everywhere, so why can’t I flippin’ feed her? It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘It’ll come,’ I assured her. ‘Just keep trying, take your time. There’s no rush, is there?’

  ‘I’ve been trying for two weeks. I’m knackered, I’m sore, and I look like shit.’

  ‘Then stop beating yourself up about it,’ I said. ‘Ivy is fine on the bottle. We all want to do the right thing, but if doing the so-called right thing is making you miserable, then you are making Ivy miserable, too. A happy mum makes a happy baby.’

  ‘Yeah, but that stuff costs money,’ Ruby said with a nod at the tin of formula sat on the side. ‘And all the faff with cleaning the bottles and stuff. Breast is breast. I want to be a good mum.’

  ‘And you will be. You are,’ I said. ‘But if you are going to put Ivy in the crèche, you’ll have to express your milk for the nursery to use. You will still need a steriliser and the bottles, and a breast pump, of course. It’ll all add up. Babies are expensive things, that’s why you should accept our help. Freddy’s help.’

  ‘Maybe I won’t send her to nursery until she’s on proper food and, you know, normal milk,’ Ruby mused.

  ‘That won’t be for months yet,’ I laughed. Then I stopped laughing. Ruby was staring at me with a puzzled expression on her face. She really didn’t have a clue.

  ‘Oh God, I’m useless,’ she said, burying her head in her hands. ‘Totally useless. I don’t know anything. What am I going to do? I’m so bad at this. So unprepared.’

  A thought occurred to me. ‘Ruby, you have told your parents about Ivy, haven’t you?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. No I haven’t. How can I? They didn’t know I was pregnant. I hardly ever go home. Like I said, my mum and dad are divorced. My dad ran off with his secretary, and we haven’t really kept in touch. Mum works full time. She’s got a really good job, she’s a solicitor, and she thinks I’m this marvellous straight A student. She’s expecting me to come out of uni with a first-class honours degree, not a baby. How can I tell her?’

  ‘Ruby, you have to.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I can’t.’ Tears streaked down her sad little face. �
��Freddy was the only person I ever told until I had to go into hospital to give birth, and then like I had to tell my flatmates, but they’re sworn to secrecy. I can’t tell her, I can’t. She’ll go mad.’

  ‘Oh Ruby,’ I said, drawing her towards me. ‘You’ve been in denial, haven’t you? All this time, when you said you didn’t want Freddy to be involved and you didn’t tell your mum, it’s because you’ve been in denial about being pregnant, just hoping Ivy would go away?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ruby nodded between the sobs, her whole body shaking. ‘Yes, yes, but now she’s here, isn’t she? And look, she’s good for you, but she hates me. I know she does. She hates me.’

  Pearl was right, Ruby couldn’t go back to London. She had to stay with us, regardless of her relationship with Freddy. When Pearl emerged for her breakfast at nine, Princess Pippadee tucked under her arm, I asked if we could requisition another of Rivermede’s many bedrooms as a separate space for Ruby and Ivy. Pearl instantly agreed.

  ‘It’s the only solution,’ she said. Ten minutes later, Ruby, Pearl, and I were heading up to the stairs to the first floor.

  ‘Why don’t you have the guest room for now?’ Pearl suggested, showing Ruby the room I had used when I’d come to stay the first couple of times. ‘Becca is going to take you shopping this morning so that you can choose a cot, a pram—’ she held up her hand to silence Ruby’s protests. ‘I know you might not need one in London, but you’ll need one here. You’ll need a changing table, a baby monitor, a few toys.’

  Ruby meekly nodded to everything Pearl said, and even agreed to the suggestion that Ivy should remain at Rivermede with her grandmother while I took her shopping.

  She showed little interest in the purchases, happily letting me decide on the design of the cot, the pushchair – the shop assistant recommended one that conveniently converted into a car-seat – and the changing table. Even when it came to selecting additional luxuries like a night-light-cum-mobile, she voiced no preferences.

  When Freddy returned from work that evening, he seemed equally subdued and somewhat overwhelmed at the amount of baby paraphernalia that had taken over the house.

  ‘Does it really need all this?’ he asked.

  ‘It is a she,’ I told him, ‘and she is your daughter. And yes, she does need all this.’

  ‘Even this?’ he asked, holding up the entire box set of Beatrix Potter books I had bought on impulse.

  ‘Okay, she probably doesn’t need those just yet,’ I conceded, ‘but she will, one day. One day she’ll wake up and demand you read her the story of Peter Rabbit and the Flopsy Bunnies, and you’ll be very grateful I bought them for her.’

  He shook his head. ‘You’ve gone mad. You were always the sensible one, but even you’ve gone mad now.’ And then, as an afterthought, he added, ‘How did it come to this? How did we end up in this mess, Becs?’

  ‘I think it’s too late for a lecture on the birds and bees now, Fred,’ I replied.

  ‘No, I don’t mean that. I mean this, this whole me, you, Rubes, Rivermede mess? What are we doing here? Do you know what I feel like, Becs? I feel like the victim of a shipwreck. I sailed into a storm and now I’m here, stranded on this inhospitable island and I can’t see a way off.’

  ‘It’s life,’ I replied, ‘it’s what it does to you. You have a plan in your head but then something comes along and screws it all up. God, fate, whatever, but you have to have faith that it turns out all right in the end.’

  ‘You mean we will be rescued?’ he asked. ‘Is that what happened to you, when you were going to get married and then you didn’t, and now look at all you’ve done for Pearl and her career? That turned out good, didn’t it? Is that what you mean?’

  It wasn’t what I meant at all, but I smiled at Fred and nodded my head. ‘Yes, something like that,’ I said.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I shared Freddy’s despair at the turn of events, and was very impressed by his use of the metaphorical shipwreck. It seemed appropriate given our location, but Rivermede was hardly inhospitable. I craved a sense of equilibrium.

  I was struggling to make progress on Stella’s autobiography, and I had little enthusiasm to tackle the backlog of emails received in answer to my ads for freelance work. The old adage that everybody had a book in them was not true at all, and although anyone sensible enough to pay for a professional edit was on the right track, you still had to be very tactful. And then there were my feelings for Nick bubbling under the surface. I didn’t want to have time to dwell or analyse the effect he was beginning to have on me; the effect he had always had on me.

  It was Monday, and quiz night. I hesitated about going. When Nick had dropped me off on Saturday evening, there had been no mention of when we would see each other again, but an awful lot of things had been left unsaid.

  Pearl wanted me to spend the evening in the big house. ‘We need a buffer. Freddy and Ruby don’t seem to be getting on,’ she said.

  ‘That’s because they’ve got a lot of adjusting to do,’ I pointed out. ‘We should give them some space to work things out.’

  She didn’t look convinced. My love life was no longer top priority.

  I decided I had nothing to lose by paying a visit to The Ship. In any case, I didn’t want to spend the evening sat alone in the stable block flat.

  He was there with the others, a smile on his face as I pulled up a chair. There was no air of tension between us and we kept the conversation banal, which was not that difficult with the M&Ms around. Norah Morland was apparently making a good recovery. Nick had no knowledge of the incident, so the story of her unfortunate encounter with the cess-pit evacuation lorry was relayed for his benefit.

  With a full team of six, the Twitchers romped away with the title.

  ‘So, you two obviously know each other from a long time ago,’ Marie remarked as the evening came to an end.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ I said.

  ‘When we were answering the question about the Maze at Hampton Court, you reminded Alex you’d been there together.’

  I hadn’t even realised I’d make the mistake. ‘Did I? I don’t think so. I’ve been there, that’s what I mean, sometimes I say that – we did this, we did that; you know, the royal we.’

  ‘Becca likes to put herself on par with the monarchy,’ Nick threw in for good measure. He shot me a warning glance. He obviously hadn’t noticed the mistake either.

  Marie regarded us suspiciously.

  ‘We’re going to have to stop meeting like this,’ Nick said, holding me back as the others filed out of the pub. ‘Maybe both of us coming here isn’t such a good idea. I don’t want people asking too many questions about my background.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said at once. ‘It was just a slip of the tongue. Nobody else noticed.’

  ‘I know, but I don’t want either of us being compromised. I’m not keeping my identity secret just for fun, Rebecca.’ He had his serious face on again.

  ‘You know I would never compromise you,’ I said through a forced smile.

  ‘We’re just going to have to tread more carefully,’ Nick said, not rising to the bait. ‘Perhaps being on the same quiz team is not such a good idea.’

  ‘You want to quit the Twitchers?’

  ‘Not me, you. Last in, first out. Can’t you find something else to do on a Monday evening?’

  ‘Why should I be the one to quit? I enjoy the quiz.’

  Nick sighed. ‘If I quit, Craig and company could become suspicious, start asking awkward questions.’

  ‘Then we will just have to continue as we are, won’t we?’ I said.

  ‘Becca…’

  ‘Yes, Nick?’

  He shook his head. ‘Alex. I’m Alex. You see, Becca, it’s not going to work, is it?’

  ‘Time is a great healer,’ Pearl had told me on the morning of my wedding, when I’d told her I wasn’t going to marry Nick because he’d cheated on me with Saskia Browning. ‘Everyone gets nervous before a wedding. Goodness me, your father
spent all night in the Dog and Duck on the Old Brompton Road. His best man found him slumped in the doorway at seven in the morning where the landlord had thrown him out. Forgive him.’

  I’d listened to Pearl’s platitudes, inwardly smouldering that she had taken Nick’s side when she should have been on mine. What sort of man cheated on his wife-to-be with her bridesmaid? My mother had never liked Saskia Browning, she’d painted her the villain of the piece. She had enticed Nick, connived, schemed, sunk to the lowest depths to get her claws into him because she was jealous of my happiness.

  ‘It’s just like Wedding Veils in the Spring,’ Pearl said.

  ‘It’s nothing like Wedding Veils in the Spring,’ I had retorted. ‘This is my life, not one of your trashy novels. Nor do I fancy the vicar.’

  In Wedding Veils in the Spring, the jilted bride subsequently found solace with the parish priest.

  ‘No, but the point is, dear,’ Pearl continued undeterred, ‘in Wedding Veils in the Spring, it is the bride’s younger sister who seduces the groom, jealous of her sister’s happiness. And the groom, a very weak young man with an eye for a pretty face, is very easy prey. I agree that there the similarities end.’

  Pearl had then resorted to bribes, followed by threats, in order to have her big day. I could not let her down. This wasn’t all about me. The months of meticulous planning, the caterers, the band, the disco, the honeymoon…

  ‘When you see him at the altar,’ she had finally concluded, ‘and you look into the face of the man you love – because I know you do love him, Becca dear – it will all become clear. You will see that ultimately Nick is a good man who loves you and will make you happy. I know he will.’

  And so I’d gone along with it. I believed her. I seriously thought when I got to the altar and I looked into Nick’s face, I would find regret and repentance. I would find devotion, and all those doubts about his loyalty would be quashed.

  I’d had my suspicions about Nick and Saskia for some time. At first, it had just been a mild flirting. Saskia had rented a room not far from our flat. I was glad my best-friend and my fiancé had hit it off. I asked her to be an additional bridesmaid. She was often at our flat, waiting for me when I came in from work. When Nick was on a case, he worked bizarre shift patterns, sometimes sleeping all day and out all night. A couple of times I came in through the front door and found them, heads bent close together, midway through a conversation which stopped abruptly when I entered the room.