Thanks For Nothing, Nick Maxwell by Debbie Carbin
Author:Debbie Carbin [Debbie Carbin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2008-03-09T16:00:00+00:00
Chapter Fourteen
WHAT DID THAT mean? Does he love my baby? Does he want my baby? Is he going to smother me to death with a pillow one minute after giving birth then snatch the baby and run off to Cyprus and raise it as his own?
It’s a lovely thought, but somehow I doubt it. Much as I might like to fantasize about it, Hector is not the father of this baby, and never will be. As far as I know, no procedure exists that can unravel a pregnancy and start it again with a different sperm. But he looks like a father, doesn’t he, standing there waiting while I put my coat on. Have you ever seen anyone look more like a father?
Just over three weeks have gone by since then and tonight, Friday 8 December, is the night of the Horizon Holidays Christmas Party.
These are usually really good dos, with a bar and disco, lights, fog machine and loads of blokes – some of them even halfway decent. Just between you and me, though, I have already been there with most of the decent ones. I never like to go back over old ground, but at least it means I don’t have to buy my own drinks.
Here I am, in my room, throwing size-ten clothes into a pile on the floor with no hope in hell of getting into any of them. Finally I understand what it feels like to be uncomfortable in clothes. I have got a new top to wear though, so all is not hopeless. While I have a quick shower, let me fill you in on what’s happened since the scan.
Immediately afterwards, Hector took me out for some lunch, which was lovely. Nowhere posh, not like that Madeleine’s place in Fieldwood Park that we know he goes to. But I wouldn’t really be comfortable there. He did suggest La Bougie but I don’t think I want to set foot in that place ever again.
‘Why not?’
‘I went there with Nick once, back in August. It would just bring back memories.’ I’m thinking about that brutish friend of Nick’s with the scary tattoo and the anorak, and I close my eyes and shudder a bit. Hector’s looking at me and as I shudder we can just see him pressing his lips together and frowning.
‘Fine, not La Bougie then.’
My eyes open and focus on him, but he’s looking away now, impatiently jangling his car keys.
‘I don’t know about you, but I could go for some salad,’ I suggest. ‘What about Pizza Hut?’
He turns to me, his features softened, and smiles. ‘Oh, Rach, I don’t want to take you there. It’s not remotely—’
‘Not remotely what?’ I’ve got this strange feeling he was about to say ‘romantic’.
‘Classy. I mean, is it? It’s lunchtime so they’ll have the buffet out and you won’t be able to move for gargantuan fat people troughing off the food table. It’s like a study in gluttony.’
Of course he wasn’t going to say romantic. Why would he say that? We’re ‘just good friends’.
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