Save Her, page 10
‘I’m pregnant.’ She brandished the pregnancy test in shaking hands, holding her breath in anticipation.
‘Oh shit.’ He stood up abruptly, his face leached of all colour. ‘But– But we were careful. You are on the pill, right?’
‘Yes, but nothing is a hundred per cent safe,’ answered Sophie.
Greg sat back down hard. His chair creaked in protest. ‘Well, we will just have to take care of it.’
For a minute, she did not understand his meaning. She opened her mouth to say as much, but he carried on talking. When it hit her, her legs weakened. She had not even considered an abortion. To be honest she hadn’t thought about anything apart from telling him. This was never something she expected to happen to her. But hearing Greg say it so nonchalantly made her feel sick. Did he even realise that there was an actual human being growing inside her?
‘I’m quite far along. I didn’t recognise the signs until my clothes started getting tighter. I’m not sure if that’s possible anymore. It might be too late.’
‘Nothing is impossible when you’ve got money. Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll sort it for you.’
Sophie moved and sat in the chair opposite him. His colour had returned to his face and he flashed her a quick smile and stared at his iMac, typing away as if she wasn’t there, dismissing her as if she was a lowly intern.
‘But don’t you think we should talk about it? Discuss our options?’
He looked at her, incredulous. ‘What options? You’re not keeping it?’
‘But why not? I’m not saying I want to, but I’d like to consider it. This is a human life we are talking about.’ Tears pricked her eyes and she rubbed them away.
‘Sophie, it is a clump of cells. Nothing more. I do not want children. I thought you knew that. My work means more than anything to me and nothing is going to get in my way. I am going to make Cavendish & Sons the giant of venture capitalism and I can’t do that with a baby.’ He said the word ‘baby’ scathingly.
‘And what about what I want?’
Greg leant back in his chair, he sighed heavily. ‘I thought we were on the same page. I thought we both wanted the same things. Look, I don’t want to be a jerk, but I know what I want from life and I want a partner that wants the same things.’
‘So, what you’re saying is, I have an abortion, or we break up?’
‘Well, you make it sound so crude. There is more to it than that. I don’t want to raise a baby. Don’t you think it would damage the child to have someone in its life that resents it? If you want to keep the baby you can. But I can’t be a part of it.’
She got up and left the room.
She wandered down the hall to her office in a daze. She saw no faces and registered nothing, so lost was she in her turmoil. Sophie had never considered becoming a mother. Her own childhood had never instilled any maternal desires. For her whole life her only focus had been her own survival and making a place for herself in the brutal, suffocating jungle of a world.
In her earliest memories she was self-sufficient, looking after herself with no one to help her. She had never contemplated bringing life into the world when it was a daily struggle to get by. But now, she was thinking about it. She had money, a home and a stable relationship. Why shouldn’t she bring a child into the world? What better way to heal the wound of neglect by giving her child everything she never had? Her child would want for nothing. Her child.
When she got back to their flat, Flora was practically bouncing off the walls with happiness. Her face was flushed and her eyes sparkled.
‘I’m engaged!’ she shouted thrusting her hand in Sophie’s face. A large diamond ring glinted in the sunlight. Before Sophie could congratulate her, Flora had flung her arms around Sophie, holding her so fiercely she could barely breathe. She relaxed into the embrace and took comfort from her friend’s warm body wrapped around her. Tears welled up and she let them fall. Let Flora think she was crying with happiness at her engagement. Not at the awful decision she was about to make. Flora pulled back with matching tears in her eyes. She wiped away Sophie’s tears.
‘Sophie, I’m so happy, and it is all down to you. You knew Sam was right for me from the start. Now we are going to be a proper family. You and Greg, me and Sam. It is going to be perfect.’
Greg had taken Sophie out for dinner that same night. She took it as a good sign. She thought that he was going to apologise for his knee-jerk reaction and they would talk properly about this. She could not have been more wrong.
‘Have you booked an appointment yet? I’ve been thinking it over and if you do decide to keep it, you’ll have to move away. I don’t want to risk anyone looking at it and thinking it’s mine.’ He talked to her as if discussing the finer details of a contract at work. Not the most life-changing decision she could ever make. To end the life of a baby or not. Her baby. His words poured cold water on the fledging idea she had had to raise the baby alone with Flora’s help until Greg changed his mind. Surely once he’d seen the baby, he’d change his mind. She should have realised that Greg would have thought everything through. Ever the businessman.
She was reminded of a night, early on in their relationship, when Greg had had a bit too much to drink and admitted that his father had gotten a girl pregnant. When she refused to terminate or move away he bought the building she was living in and had her evicted. Alistair had used every tool at his disposal to make her life hell until she had no choice but to take his handout and leave the area, never to return. This must be what Greg was planning.
‘Don’t you care about me at all? How can you talk about this so callously? I thought you loved me? Why aren’t you more upset about this?’
Greg shushed her. ‘Calm down. Of course I love you. But I love the real you. The one that is driven and career-focused. I do not want a housewife whose only conversation is about children. If you continue to act like a different version of Sophie then I will act like a different version of Greg. Only the real Sophie gets my love and devotion.’
He took her hand in his. ‘Look, if you stop with this baby nonsense and be my Sophie again. I’ll marry you right now.’ He stroked her hand gently. ‘We are the dream team. We are good for each other. Together we can take on the world. I want to marry you and have you as my wife. We don’t need children. We are better than that. I don’t want children. Ever. Is that something you can accept?’
Sophie thought about the alternative. She would have the baby, be driven from Manchester and would most likely turn to drink like her mother with nothing and no one to support her. She would not be able to see Flora. If she did see her it would not be the same, knowing that Flora was married to Sam and living the life she used to have, that they no longer lived next door to each other. She had spent most of her life seeing Flora every day. Could she picture a life without seeing Flora all the time? Or worse, Flora might choose to leave with her, and they would try and raise the baby together. But then Flora would not be with Sam. Could she really risk the happiness of her best friend? She thought of the way Flora’s eyes danced as pure, unadulterated happiness poured from her. Sophie knew if she were to have this baby, that unequivocal happiness would be tarnished. After everything Flora had been through, she did not deserve that.
‘I mean, look at your mother. She turned into an alcoholic. Do you really want to take that risk?’
‘Okay.’
Greg’s handsome face lit up. He moved around the table and got down on one knee, pulling a small black box from his pocket. The other diners in the restaurant clapped and cheered as Greg swept her into his arms and kissed her when she said yes to his proposal. Just as she did with Flora, she let Greg think her tears were of joy. Not devastation and grief. She reasoned with herself that she could always try and change his mind. Okay, she just wouldn’t have this baby. That didn’t mean she couldn’t have one in the future.
Greg organised everything. He came to each hospital appointment, whether to support her or make sure she followed through with the termination she wasn’t sure. But she was glad he was there. She had gone numb inside, unable or unwilling to acknowledge the gravity of what she was doing. Greg was on first name terms with her doctor, so she sat there mutely. She signed the consent form shoved into her hands. The words ‘dilation’ and ‘evacuation’ leapt out at her, but she was paralysed inside, unable to speak or question anything.
The next thing she knew she was in an operating theatre with doctors and nurses milling around her. It was like she was watching the world through a broken television. She could see and hear the people around her, but the sound wasn’t working properly and everyone was blurry and unfocused. This had happened ever since the proposal. She was a co-pilot in her own body, no longer fully in control.
When she woke up from the operation it felt like only five minutes had passed when Greg helped her get dressed and bundled her back to his house. She stayed in bed for a whole week, unable to function or focus on anything. Greg had decided that now they were engaged they were moving in together and so her stuff appeared around her.
Flora came to visit. Greg had must have come up with a lie as to why she was ill because Flora never mentioned anything. Just brought her soup and stroked her face. She could hear Flora talking but only a few words actually processed. ‘Moving in with Sam’, ‘neighbours’, ‘fever’. But her consciousness was too fragile to process anything, because to engage with the world would mean acknowledging her loss.
She slept fitfully and barely noticed whether it was night or day. Time was no longer a concept she bothered to acknowledge. Her mind was empty and she only moved when Greg or Flora came in to feed or wash her. A strange man entered the room, but Sophie did not attempt to move. She presumed he must be a doctor as he used various instruments to check her temperature and blood pressure. She could hear the buzz of his voice but could distinguish no sounds, like her brain was out of practice and no longer understood the English language.
She was in the hospital. That was the first thing she realised. Someone must have fixed the broken TV that was her mind. The world around her came into focus again and she now recognised words and sounds. Time became a construct she understood and she felt time passing once more. She heard the doctor’s word’s, ‘womb infection’ and ‘damage to the cervix’. She put a pillow over her head to block out the sounds, to try and avoid hearing the rest of the doctor’s words. But the pillow was an ineffective barrier and the word ‘infertile’ struck her like a knife in her heart. She would never have a baby.
The only reason Sophie was able to work through her grief at the future she could have had was because of Flora. Seeing her and Sam thriving together and living next door to her made the pain lessen each day. There were days that she wondered whether she should tell Flora. At the moment, she thought that Sophie had had a nasty infection. Well in a way that was true, she had been infected by the Cavendish family poison.
19
Flora was starting to hope that her life would become normal and drama free. She and Sam were slowly breathing life into the house at Trelawney Close. Before she went over to check on the progress, she decided to have a quick swim. Sophie liked the regiment of a gym but Flora liked her exercise a bit more laidback and less intense.
There were only a few things Flora could remember with clarity when it came to her parents. It was getting difficult to remember the sound of her mother’s voice or the feel of her father’s bear hugs – but one of the few things she did remember was regular trips to the swimming pool. She could hear the echoes of her parents’ laughter as they tried to coerce her into leaving each time. If she concentrated hard enough, she could just about recall her dad’s voice. ‘Come on, Flora. I swear you must have been a fish in a previous life. It’s time to go.’
Now she liked immersing herself in the water and the memories it brought. She had also grown to love the swimming pool politics.
The water caressed her skin, small waves lapped at her, churned by the other swimmers. A cacophony of noise echoed around the space: shrieks of joy, the admonishments of parents and children shouting instructions at each other. The sounds were like a balm to her soul, drowning out any thoughts and allowing her to just be in the moment.
As Flora swam up and down the slow lane, she was particularly enjoying the tuts of displeasure aimed at a busty older lady with winter-white hair, swimming in their lane. Her watery blue eyes didn’t appear to have noticed the signs informing swimmers which direction she should be swimming in the lane. To the disgust of the regular swimmers, this older lady had the audacity to swim in the middle of the lane. Flora smirked as each judgemental middle-aged woman, one after another, aimed a thinly veiled look of disdain at the oblivious elderly lady. Everyone had to swim around her, but she didn’t seem to notice, or simply didn’t care.
Flora was not perturbed as she just slowed her pace and kept behind her. But she laughed inside at the contempt and frustration bubbling in the other swimmers. She could almost hear the diatribe they were longing to launch but couldn’t because of some unwritten English code of conduct that insisted on politeness at all times. Flora bet that if they were any other nationality, the older lady would have most likely been told, unceremoniously, to ‘get the hell out of the way’ or perhaps even pushed out of the way. But that was not the English way.
Being the only pool for miles around and given the fact the lockers, changing rooms and showers and the pool were all in one space, it would feel busy with only a handful of people in it. But Flora preferred it busy, there were more people to observe and noise to quieten her thoughts. She needed that more than ever today, given the stress she had been under lately.
The lifeguard was waiting at the end of her lane and Flora watched in anticipation for the woman to be told off. Balance would be restored, until the next faux pas was committed. Flora slowed her speed so she could enjoy the uncomfortable conversation that was about to take place between the spotty lifeguard and the clueless pensioner.
Water.
She barely had time to acknowledge the hand on her head before she was thrust underneath the water. Cold, chlorine-tasting water filled her lungs and flooded her mouth and nose. Her blood pounded behind her eyes. She thrashed her arms and legs, but she couldn’t reach the surface. Terror like she had never felt before rose within her. Her lungs screamed in agony. An unseen force was holding her down. Bubbles clouded her vision. Help me. Her eyes searched desperately for someone to help. Was that a leg? All she could see was air bubbles and smudges of pink, white and splashes of colour. The chlorine burned her eyes and nose. An intense pain surged within her ribs. Her lungs were burning. She fought hard to resist the urge to open her mouth. Her legs began to tire from frantically kicking and fighting the insurmountable pressure keeping her held under the water.
Without warning the pressure from her head was gone and she was able to propel herself upwards. She broke through the surface and gulped in glorious mouthfuls of air.
Flora looked around, disorientated. She trod water wearily as she tried to stop hyperventilating, her eyes wild with fear, looking for the person who had held her under the water. There was no one there. The other swimmers were at the opposite end of the lane, no one seemed aware that anything had happened to her.
She groped for the side thankful she had chosen a lane at the edge of the pool. Her body and hands were shaking so much it took her two attempts to gain a proper grip. She clung to the wall and tried to wrap her mind around what had just happened. Her body felt heavy and her lungs, nose and throat still burned painfully. Coughs wracked her body as her lungs expelled the pool water she’d swallowed. She couldn’t hear anything above the hammering of her heart. Looking around again, she could see that the lady she had been swimming behind wasn’t that far away. It had felt like an age that she had been under the water when apparently it had only been a few seconds at most.
No one seemed to notice that anything was amiss. The wayward older lady was at the other end of the pool now, keeping to the rules this time and swimming on the right. All around her the water churned and lapped against her skin as people made their way up and down. Men in the fast lane tore their way through the water like a shark was chasing them. The orchestra of noise and splashes of the water echoed around the room, overwhelming her overwrought senses, when only moments ago, she’d embraced the noise and loved the atmosphere. She needed to get out, but she didn’t trust her ability to move.
Someone had been holding her under the water, stopping her from surfacing. She looked around, feeling vulnerable. Looking for… what was she looking for? Everyone in the lanes around her were focused on their task. No one was watching her. Were they? She met the eyes of a man who had stopped for a break next to her. He peered at her curiously. Was it him? she thought. Did he hold her under the water? Why was he looking at her?
‘You going, love?’ he asked, motioning to the lane.
Relief flooded through her. She must have looked like she was about to swim again and he was being polite and letting her go first. ‘No… No. You go,’ she stammered, her voice hoarse from the coughing.
Her body trembled uncontrollably. She had a desperate need to escape, to get somewhere safe. Unsteadily, she pulled herself along to the ladder at the end of the pool. She had an urge to run to the changing rooms, but she was still weak and shaky. It took two attempts just to summon enough energy to pull herself out of the water. Her body was heavy, like she was now made of stone. Timidly, Flora made her way back to her locker. Every step was difficult due to the heaviness of her limbs. Her side ached and her nose and throat still burned each time she took a breath. Nausea threatened with each step she took, her stomach rolling, repulsed by the pool water. There was a very real possibility she may vomit.
