“You’re crying,” he said. “Please don’t cry. What did I say? What’s wrong? Tell me. Please, Beth. What is it?”
“It’s your timing,” I said viciously. “It completely sucks.”
He frowned. “My timing?”
“Yes, your bloody timing! Why couldn’t you have waited until next year to tell me all this?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe because I’ve already waited thirty years to tell you, and that feels plenty long enough?” He reached across the table to take my chin between his fingers, lifting my head up to look at him. “Maybe because I felt like I was going to explode? Because I was so scared another Tom or Jake or Jaimie might pop out of the woodwork? Pick your reason. Look, what’s this all about, Beth? Please tell me.”
I pulled my face away from his hand, swiping the tears away from my cheeks. “You should have waited until next February to say something.”
He frowned. “Why February?”
I met his eyes. “Because by February, I’ll be pregnant. Hopefully. If all goes to plan. And when I presented you with a fait accompli, you’d have thought, Well, that’s not ideal, but I love Beth, so I’ll love her child too.”
Mark was still frowning. “Why might you be pregnant by February?”
“Because I’ve got an appointment at a fertility clinic in the New Year. To be . . . inseminated with sperm from a carefully chosen sperm donor. And now you’re going to want me to change my mind, aren’t you? And I just can’t, Mark, all right? I’ve waited to be a mother practically as long as I’ve waited for you.”
I took a deep breath. Faced him. “I love you. I do. More than Mount Everest and the second-and third-highest mountains put together.”
“K2 and Kanchenjunga,” Mark supplied, looking gutted and baffled at the same time. “They’re the second-and third-highest mountains.”
“Thank you. Mount Everest, K2, and Kanchen whatever you said. Look, I’m really sorry, but I have to do this. I have to. No matter what. I’ve waited so long. And nothing and nobody is going to stop me. Not even you.”
WINTER FIVE
33
“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
Mark smiled at me. I smiled back, pulling him in for a long, sweet, loving kiss.
There was applause. We drew apart to join in, Mark putting two fingers in his mouth to produce a long, drawn-out wolf whistle that had his sister mock scowling at him in a manner quite inappropriate for a bride dressed in lacy, low-backed satin finery.
Mark laughed, throwing his head right back, his hand finding mine.
“She looks so beautiful,” I said emotionally. “Doesn’t she look beautiful?”
“Stunning.”
But I wasn’t listening. I was too busy trying not to sob at the gorgeousness of the parade of flower girls following Rosie and Giorgio down the aisle. Giorgio’s three nieces—who had flown in from Rome the day before with the rest of his family—all utterly adorable with their dark hair, dark eyes, and frothy pink dresses. Delicate, graceful. Touchingly proud of the role they were playing.
Far better than the lumbering cart horse of a bridesmaid I’d have made, what with being almost nine months pregnant.
“You don’t want me ruining your wedding photos,” I’d told Rosie when she’d broached the subject.
“You wouldn’t spoil the photos.”
“I would. People would look at them in years to come and say, Didn’t you look lovely? What a wonderful dress. But goodness, whoever’s that? She looks about to pop! No, sweetie, it’s your day, not mine. Let Giorgio’s nieces do the honours.”
“Oh, all right,” Rosie said. “But don’t think you’re getting out of organising my hen do.”
“Better have it soon, then,” I said. “Unless you want to make it a hen do–cum–baby shower?”
In the church, I was suddenly overcome by emotion. I’d been ultra-emotional those past few weeks anyway, but what with the occasion and being in church, my feelings were suddenly even more heightened.
“I wish . . .” I began to say to Mark, and as usual, he read my mind.
“I know,” he said, handing me a tissue. “He would have been so fucking proud, wouldn’t he?”
I blew my nose. “He would. He really would.”
“Think I did an okay job standing in for him?”
“You did an amazing job.”
“Good.” He kissed me again, putting out his hands to haul me up from the pew seat.
Only I didn’t take them straightaway.
“Beth?” he said, noticing my frozen expression.
“I think . . . I think we’d better wait until everyone else has left the church before we leave,” I said.
He frowned. “Why? Won’t they be waiting for us for the photographs?”
“I think I might have”—I lowered my voice—“wet myself.”
Mark sat back down again. “Wet yourself?” he repeated, far too loudly for my liking. “What d’you mean, you’ve wet yourself?”
“Well, I’m sitting in a pool of water. So either I’ve wet myself or my waters have just broken.”
“Christ. Really?”
“Trust me, this is not something I’d lie about.”
“Isn’t it too soon?”
“It’s only a week early, so no.”
“Well, come on, then, we need to get you to hospital.”
“I’m sure there’s no rush,” I said, just as a wave of pain spasmed through my belly. “Ow! Shit! Ow!”
“Jesus Christ.” Mark ran a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “Come on, you need to get up. Here, wear my jacket.” He shrugged his suit jacket off, helping me on with it and pulling it down as far as it would go over my wet patch, guiding me carefully from the pew.
“We need to cause as little disruption as possible,” I said. “Go and discreetly tell your mum why we’re putting in a disappearing act while I slip off to the car.”
“Will you be all right on your own?”
“Yes, of course. Go on.”
Mark viewed me doubtfully. “Okay,” he said and hurried over to Sylvia.
Unfortunately, the news he had to impart caused Sylvia to squeal loudly enough to draw the gaze of the entire wedding party in her direction and Rosie to say, “Whatever is it, Mum?” So Mark ended up having to make an announcement, and the next minute, Rosie was jogging across the churchyard towards me with Sylvia and a baffled Giorgio in her wake, the hem of her wedding dress dragging across the soggy grass.
She arrived, breathless and emotional. “You just had to upstage me, didn’t you?” she joked. “Couldn’t help yourself.”
“Sorry,” I said, sniffing to try and hold back the tears.
She hugged me, and I did my very best not to get snot down the embroidered beading of her bodice.
“I can’t believe you’re going to do this huge thing without me,” she said, sniffing herself.
“You just did a huge thing without me,” I reminded her. “Congratulations, kiddo.” Then a fresh wave of pain gripped me, and I cried out.