Lying for the Camera chapter 9

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8(i)

Chapter 8(ii)

Bloody man hadn’t even texted her. That told her everything she needed to know, as if she couldn’t have guessed. She’d thought of cancelling their date half a dozen times. What was there even to say? He clearly wasn’t going to be supportive of anything. She was on her own. Just like last time.

Which was fine. She’d done it before and she could do it again. She didn’t need a man to stand beside her and hold her hand. Especially not a man who couldn’t be trusted not to bolt. Hattie had enough strength for herself, and she’d find enough strength to go through with a termination. But she’d be damned if she was going to pull together enough strength for Tom Metcalfe as well.

She didn’t cancel. She called the doctors’ surgery instead and made an appointment with her GP. She’d tell Tom tonight. Maybe at the end of dinner, rather than the beginning. He deserved an hour or two of squirming before she let him off her hook. And she deserved to enjoy the meal, seeing how hard she’d worked for it. But it was the last time she’d let Tom take her out and next time she’d make sure to find a guy who wasn’t petrified by the thought of a second date.

Might as well make him regret what he was losing. She picked out one of her favourite dresses: a fifties-style halterneck with wide circle skirts, white with bunches of cherries printed on the fabric. She’d re-dyed her hair after the photoshoot, back to her preferred scarlet. Lush red lips and dramatic eyes completed the old-school Hollywood look she was after. The halterneck of the dress did incredible things to her cleavage and the skirt ended just above her knee, showing off her curvy calves and ankles. She sprayed perfume around her wrists and behind her knees, and clipped sparkly costume jewellery into her ears and round her neck.

With any luck, he’d faint at first sight of her.

Serve him right.

Promptly at seven she heard a knock on the door. Hattie didn’t answer. She wandered into her kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine. The second knock was louder.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” she called out, then sat on the sofa, put her feet up on the coffee table and drank her wine.

Five minutes later, Tom knocked again. “Hattie, can you at least let me in?”

She grinned. She was really going to enjoy this.

“Oh, sorry. Forgot you were there.”

She finished her glass, checked her face in the mirror over the mantelpiece, then went to the door.

He was leaning against the wall in the corridor. His anxious smile hadn’t reached anywhere near his eyes. He’d stuck his hands in the pockets of his suit trousers. Nice suit, she noticed. It was a warm grey that matched his eyes and cut perfectly to fit his tall frame. Hattie watched as he took in her appearance, satisfied to see his eyes widened and his mouth fall open.

She waited.

He swallowed, opened his mouth, closed it again, and cleared his throat. His eyes ran slowly down her body, lingering in all the right places, then back up again.

Eventually he nodded. “You look… great.”

“Thanks. You don’t.”

He looked thinner than before and there were shadows under his eyes. Had he been working too hard? Forgetting to eat? She almost put out her hand to touch his sleeve, then remembered. She tightened her lips and metaphorically girded her loins. It was more likely, after all, that his haggard appearance was simply a result of too many sleepless nights having waking nightmares about a baby.

Their baby.

“So, are you ready to go?” he asked.

“I’ll just get my bag.” She’d deliberately picked a small clutch. Black and beaded, it looked stunning with her dress, but more importantly, she couldn’t quite fit the information from the clinic in it. She’d arranged it so that the leaflets stuck out of the top, for Tom to see the bold type which said ‘Pregnancy’, rather than the small print which talked about the kinds of services they offered.

In the taxi on the way to the restaurant, they barely spoke. Every possible topic seemed to be fraught with potential conflict. He daren’t ask whether she’d heard from the advertising agency. She wasn’t interested in the Morocco shoot. Neither of them wanted to deal with the memories inextricably linked to the shots he’d taken for his exhibition.

It was a relief to get out of the enclosed space of the car. He waited for her to straighten her dress – a dress he was sure she’d picked for maximum distraction purposes. He’d chosen the Italian restaurant because it was known for its generous servings, but now he was glad to be somewhere loud and full enough that it would be easy to keep their conversation private. A smartly dressed waiter with an East European accent showed them to a table tucked away in a corner and brought a basket of Italian bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar to dip into it while they ordered their meal.

“Can I bring you anything to drink?” the waiter asked.

“Hattie?” Tom asked politely.

She met his gaze defiantly. “A large glass of white wine.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. She was drinking alcohol. That had to mean… “You can make that a bottle,” he said to the waiter and glanced at the menu. “The Didier Dagueneau. But we’d like a bottle of sparkling mineral water as well.” His stomach was more or less recovered but he wasn’t going to take any chances.

“Certainly, sir.”

Hattie picked up her menu and hid behind it. He smiled wryly. Subtlety had never been Hattie’s forte. But surely he’d read the cues correctly? Her bag was resting on the table and he could make out the logo of the Pregnancy Advisory Service. She’d decided this pregnancy was as bad an idea as he had, then. He relaxed back into his chair and watched her. If he did this right, there was still a chance of getting back to where they were before. He’d cancelled the booking for the musical, but dinner and sex with Hattie was still an excellent date.

“The fish is always very good here,” he said, mostly to provoke her into speaking to him.

Hattie rolled her eyes at him. “What kind of a person comes to a restaurant like this and chooses the fish?”

He grinned. “An idiot?”

She laughed. But her face quickly grew serious again and he saw her straighten her shoulders in that way she had when she was scared of something. “So, about this baby.”

No need to string it out when he was happy with the decision she’d made. “You’re not going to have the baby. That’s fine, Hattie.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled at her.

Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened in shock. Or maybe anger.

“What the hell?” Anger, then. She slammed her hand on the table, hard enough to frighten the waiter who had returned with their drinks order into a swift reverse and hover manoeuvre. “That’s not up to you, you bastard.”

He shook his head and put up his hands in a gesture of defence. “I didn’t say it was.”

He gave the waiter an quick glance and indicated that it was safe to put the bottles on the table.

“You just told me not to have the baby,” she shot at him.

“No, I anticipated the decision you’ve already made. Otherwise, Hattie, what are you doing ordering a large glass of wine to drink?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe making my own decisions about my own body?” Her voice was loud and people at the nearby tables were turning round to look at them. He tried to look calm and reassuring.

It was almost working until Hattie got up from her chair, grabbed the bottle of wine and took a deep slug straight from it. He didn’t try to stop her, knowing that a fight would only make things worse. He could already see a couple of phones held up in their direction. They’d be on twitter in under a minute and he had no ambition to become the next viral internet sensation. So he sat and waited for her to come to her senses.

As he’d hoped, she didn’t like being ignored. She waved the bottle in his face “Not going to stop me, huh?”

“Your glass is just there, Hattie. When you’ve stopped being so childish, maybe you’d like to use it?” He knew he’d made a mistake as soon as the words left his mouth. She wouldn’t react well to being called childish.

She picked up an olive-studded ciabatta roll and threw it at him. As weapons went, it didn’t do much damage. The crumbs could just be brushed off. But he wasn’t going to let this descend into a fullscale food fight. He grabbed her wrists and held them firmly. Not tight enough to bruise, but enough that she couldn’t pull away.

“No more.” He held her gaze until her eyes flickered and he could sense the edge of her wrath subside. “Hattie, I am not the enemy here.”

Wide eyes looked at him in disbelief. “Four days,” she bit out. “Four days without so much as a bloody text message, let alone a damn phone call. And now you think you can just turn up and tell me to get rid of it? You bastard, of course you’re the enemy.”

Ah. No wonder she was angry. “I was ill.”

He didn’t let go of her, but she was sitting down again and their arms were resting on the table. He began to rub small circles with his thumbs against the soft skin on the inside of her wrists.

“Stomach bug,” he explained. “Everyone on the shoot got it. I was barely conscious until yesterday morning.”

For an instant, her eyes darkened with compassion, but then the flash of heat returned.

“Yesterday morning. And since then?”

He could make excuses. He’d been weak and tired, and the flight home had exhausted him. But he owed her the truth, if nothing else. He sighed. “Since then I’ve been trying to work out what to say. And failing. I’ve dialled your number a hundred times and never had the guts to let it ring.”

She pulled her hands away from his and opened her mouth, but a discreet cough made her pause. Their patient waiter glanced between them, his eyebrow raised just a fraction of an inch.

“Are you ready to order?”

He hadn’t even looked at the menu. Hattie stared at hers for approximately three seconds. “The gnocchi and then the saltimbocca.”

“And for you, sir?”

“The same.”

Without the menus, there was nowhere to hide. He poured a small amount of wine into his glass, then tilted the bottle in Hattie’s direction. She shook her head.

“Water?”

“No.”

He picked up his glass, but didn’t drink. He wasn’t thirsty.

Hattie leaned forward. “You didn’t have to find the right thing to say,” she told him quietly. “There isn’t a right thing. But I needed to hear your voice. To know that you’d seen my message.” Her fingers tightened around the edge of the table. “Mostly, I just wanted to know you were in this with me. But it’s fine. You’re not, and so I’ll deal with it myself.”

“It’s not you, Hattie,” he said helplessly. What was he supposed to say when she said there wasn’t a right thing to say?

She shrugged. “I know that. It’s all you. But that doesn’t actually make things any easier for me. How’s it supposed to help when I’m changing my thousandth nappy or getting up for the tenth time that night? What difference do you think it’ll make when she’s asking why her daddy doesn’t come to sports day or when she’s a teenager who doesn’t think she was good enough for her dad to stay and love her?”

Oh, God, no. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She was still talking. Lecturing him. He fumbled around, loosening his collar. His throat was still too tight. He reached for his wine glass and gulped the contents down. She’d stopped talking and was looking at him expectantly. “You’re not actually planning to have the baby. Are you?” And if that last question had sounded desperate, that was because he was.

Her eyes, her beautiful Hattie-eyes, clouded with emotion. Anger, still. Disappointment. Something he couldn’t identify but hated himself for doing to her.

“Why shouldn’t I? You may not be capable of taking that kind of responsibility, but I am.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Christ, why couldn’t he say anything right? “Hattie, what about your career? You said Andy loved you. This is supposed to be your big break. I thought that was what you wanted.” She was the one with the big dreams and the castles in the air. Surely she realised what having a baby would do to that?

“It turns out that women are capable of working and raising children. I realise that’s almost impossible for a man to imagine. Especially one who’s barely capable of making a phone call.”

He flinched. But this wasn’t about him, not right now. “They say that, Hattie. But you can’t have it all and you don’t have to exhaust yourself trying? You don’t have anything to prove. Do you?”

He was squirming just as she’d planned, although she hadn’t intended to take it quite so far. But then, in that devastating way he had, he’d seen straight through her. Her stomach dropped, as if she was in a lift and the cable had broken.

Because she did have something to prove.

She let the waiter put a plate of gnocchi down and nodded at his offer of black pepper and parmesan cheese. She needed the breathing space. The food was delicious. Rich tomato sauce, flavoured with olives and capers and a lighter note of basil. She barely noticed it as she forked it up methodically, avoiding Tom’s gaze.

He didn’t think she could be a working mother.

It shouldn’t have come as such a shock. All her life people had told Hattie she couldn’t do the things she wanted. Her parents, her teachers, even her so-called friends. No one had ever been ambitious for Hattie. They’d always seen the problems and pointed out the obstacles. She’d had to supply all the ambition for herself.

But Tom was different. He was the first person who had seen that she wasn’t just another talentless wannabe. He’d made her his muse and together they had created images that were works of art. He’d recommended her to his friend and given her a great reference. He’d believed in her.

She should have guessed that was too good to last.

…you can’t have it all and you don’t have to exhaust yourself trying. You don’t have anything to prove.

Of course she had something to prove. She’d always had something to prove.

“It’s my baby, too,” Tom said in a low voice. He had finished his gnocchi and pushed the plate aside.

“It’s my body,” Hattie replied automatically.

“Right. But if you go ahead, it’ll be my child. Ours.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t expect you to pay child maintenance. I’ll take responsibility for my decision.”

“Don’t be silly. This isn’t your fault.” He laid a hand on her arm.

She shrugged. “It’s not anyone’s fault.”

“I wish it had never happened,” he said with vicious urgency.

“It’s not like I planned it.” She didn’t want the rest of her gnocchi, but she pushed the fork around her plate, making patterns in the sauce. She didn’t want to look at him and see him blaming her. If she’d ruined his life, he’d done the same to hers.

“I know that.” The anger had slipped out of his voice. She recognised his self-pity. He was going to blame himself. That’s what he did. “I should have got some condoms. We should have waited.”

She sighed and pushed her plate to the side. “I was on the pill. We thought we were safe.”

“It’s never guaranteed,” he said bleakly.

Oh, for God’s sake. “Look, I’m not completely sure, but I think I didn’t take it the night I was in hospital. I wasn’t really thinking about it then.” Anything to stop his maudlin flood of self-loathing.

He nodded slowly. “So that’s my fault, too. Hattie, I’m sorry.”

“How is that your fault? That’s my fault! I was the one who forgot.”

He twisted his lips. “The accident on the photoshoot. That’s why you were in hospital in the first place. I should have taken better care of you.”

He was still beating himself up over that? He was even more screwed up than she’d realised. “Tom, you’ve got to stop doing that.”

He was crumbling a piece of bread into nothing on his plate and he wouldn’t look up to meet her eyes. “Doing what?”

“Blaming yourself for everything.”

He shook his head. “It was my fault. Of course I have to take the blame for it.”

Damn, but it was hard not to feel sympathy when he was looking like a rock had hit him in the solar plexus. After effects of the stomach bug, she told herself. Coupled with the inner strength of a wet haddock, obviously.

“Right, fine. It’s your fault I’m pregnant, it’s your fault my career is ruined, and it’ll be your fault if I spend the rest of my life trying to make up for the fact that this child only has one half-decent parent.”

“I can’t make any promises, Hattie.”

“I haven’t asked you to.”

“You know how I feel… after Lianne.”

“I know you’re still letting yourself wallow in guilt for something that wasn’t your fault, yes.” Maybe that was harsh, but she’d had enough of pussyfooting around his hang ups.

The saltimbocca arrived, smelling fabulous, fragrant with sage and parma ham. Hattie picked at the edges of her plate.

“But it’s the same thing again, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“Why aren’t you eating that, Hattie?”

She put her knife and fork down. “Not hungry. Sorry.”

“You have to eat,” he said with an urgency that was almost desperation. “God, Hattie, you have to. I couldn’t bear it if…”

She pushed her chair away from the table and picked up her bag. “It’s my decision, Tom. It’s not about you.”

“What about the baby?”

He’d stood up, too, and taken hold of her elbow. She looked at his face, hollow from tiredness and illness, but etched most deeply with fear.

“What are you really afraid of, Tom? That I’ll hurt the baby or that I’ll have it?”

He turned his face away but she’d seen the tears. He was on the brink of collapse. She put her hand on his cheek and guided it round to face her again. She smiled softly.

“Poor Tom.”

He began to shake his head, but she stopped him.

“It’s okay, I know it’s too hard. I’ll take care of everything.”

“What does that mean?” His voice was trembling.

“It means you can stop worrying about me.” She kissed his cheek gently. “Stop worrying about us.”