Page 40 of One Day at a Time

‘Why don’t you be the one to arrange it then? Make the first move? You could do with having a few people around you in the same boat.’ Jessie nodded to the corner table to make her point. ‘That lot over there have all become such good friends since they started that wee group. They gossip mercilessly about each other behind their backs, but it’s always good to have someone sharing the same experiences.’

Jessie never started the gossip in this village, but like Val, she listened and stored every detail, so that, together, they were the human equivalents of Weirbridge Wikipedia.

Maddie decided Jessie was right and pulled out her phone. She thought about forming a WhatsApp group with both of the other pregnant mums, but decided to start with solo texts, just as an introduction. Baby steps. Literally.

She fired off a text to the woman who’d been sitting to her left on the mat last night. Orla, that was her name and she’d said that she was having a girl. Her husband had been pretty quiet and had avoided conversation – although Val had got most of the essential facts about his life out of him, including name, age, job and the area they lived in. If the Weirbridge Wikipedia service didn’t work out, Val could just work as a one-woman census collector.

Hi, this is Maddie from the class last night – brunette, pregnant, with chatty lady. Would love to take you up on that coffee. Fancy meeting soon? Mx

She then sent the same text to the woman who’d been sitting on her right. Sheena. She didn’t know what she was having either, so it made Maddie feel a bit better about her inability tomake up her mind as to whether she wanted to know if she should be decorating for a girl or a boy. Given that Maddie didn’t have a room to decorate, she’d decided that the decision could wait.

She pressed send just in time to thank Alyssa for the mug of tea that she’d brought over as she joined them.

‘I was thinking,’ Alyssa said, in a tone that immediately made Maddie fear for what was coming next. ‘I’d love to throw you a baby shower here at the café. What do you think?’

Maddie decided she was right to fear. A baby shower was just so… public. And public events tended to shine a spotlight on the reality. For Maddie, that reality was that she had no family, only a few friends, and there wouldn’t be a daddy of the baby popping in to act bashful and claim that parenthood would be a 50/50 delegation of responsibilities. However, she also didn’t want to hurt Alyssa’s feelings.

‘Could we perhaps wait until I’ve told Dylan? I still feel weird about everything and don’t want to deal with the whole “who’s the dad?” question until I’ve told him.’

Alyssa lifted one of the slices of buttered toast from the plate in the middle of the table. Every day was started with carbs around here. ‘And when will that be?’

Maddie shrugged. ‘Next week, hopefully. His tour ends on Sunday, and he’s been given a two-week break before the record company wants him to go into the studio, so he’s coming home for a week or so. He says he wants to sort out all the stuff he’s put into storage.’ She didn’t say that she was counting the days, longing to see him, desperate to share this pregnancy, and sick to her stretched stomach over how he’d react. Would he be furious with her for not telling him sooner? Or would he understand that she just hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell him because she was afraid she’d take away his one chance of the life he’dalways wanted? How many singers got that close to their dream? She couldn’t live with herself if he gave that up to come back here for her and the baby. They still had time to see how the opportunity over there played out. If it fizzled out and he came home for good, then he’d never resent her for holding him back. And if his career did take off over there… Well, she’d cross that bridge if she came to it.

She didn’t want anything from him – not money, or marriage, or to tie him down, but she did want to keep their friendship going forward. And if amicable co-parents were all they’d ever be, that was okay, because all that really mattered here was that their child would grow up feeling loved. Although, given that right now the baby was going to be surrounded by a menagerie of strong, brilliant but occasionally batty ladies, a male influence would go some way to balancing that out.

Alyssa nodded sympathetically and Maddie knew she understood the dilemmas. ‘Okay, well just let me know about the baby shower. And, hon, maybe you should think about telling him on the phone. It might be a bit of a shock if you turn up to collect him at the airport looking like that.’

Alyssa’s words floated around in Maddie’s mind for the rest of the day and she had to admit her pal had a point – maybe she should tell Dylan on the phone before he got here. It was only a week until he came back. Before now, she’d been able to justify not telling him on the basis that she didn’t want him to blow this opportunity, but at what point was that no longer an excuse? And why wasn’t her mum still here so that she could talk to her about it?

It was still on her mind when she got home to Val’s house later that night.

‘You’re looking awfully serious there, ma love. Is it because you know I’ve done fajitas for tea and last time I used cinnamoninstead of the fajita spice? They’re the same colour and I don’t know how to tell when I can’t find my specs.’

‘They did taste pretty interesting, but I don’t think Gordon Ramsay will be on the phone for the recipe.’ Maddie plonked herself down at the kitchen table and pressed her thumbs into the ache at the bottom of her back. Jessie was meticulous about her taking breaks throughout the day at the salon, but Maddie had overruled her and booked in extra clients today because she really needed some extra cash to get everything she needed for the baby. She’d just about fainted when she saw the price of prams and cots.

‘I’ve just been thinking all day about telling Dylan. I keep putting it off because I want to do it in person, but Alyssa made the very good point that picking him up looking like this could be a desperate shock to the system. Urgh, the thing is, Val, part of me still doesn’t want to tell him at all, because no matter what he decides to do, I’m about to change his whole life. This could force him to come home for good before he’s ready, then I’ll have ruined his career before it has a chance to get really started. When should this become his decision to make and not mine? And if I’m honest, I think there’s more to it than that…’

Val was still over at the cooker stirring the chicken in the pan, but she said nothing. If the Olympics had a category for chattiness, Val and Jessie would be in a tussle for the gold medal, but Val also had an uncanny way of letting you talk when you were trying to work through something in your own mind. It was like some kind of spy-like reverse interrogation superpower and it sucked Maddie in every time. Now, she was coming up with answers to questions she hadn’t even asked herself before now.

‘I think I don’t want to do anything that will spoil what we have already. I really look forward to his calls. To hearing his voice. It’s starting to feel like a long-distance relationship on mypart, and I don’t know if these feelings are coming from me, or from some hormonal surge caused by the baby. I just know that I’m… attached. Yep, that’s the best way to put it. Attached. To him. And if it wasn’t for the baby, I think I’d have gone over there by now and maybe explored if there could be anything more between us.’

‘Can’t you still see if that’s the case when he comes back?’

‘No, because even if he does decide to give us a shot, I’ll never know if it’s for me or for the baby. If he stays here with us, I’ll always wonder if we – as in, me and the baby – held him back from pursuing his career over there. Maybe he’ll wonder that too, and I couldn’t stand the thought of him resenting me for doing that to him. I know I’ve said all this to you before and you must be sick of listening to me debate this with myself, but I still don’t know what to do so it just keeps going round in my head.’

Val put a plate loaded with fajita wraps in the middle of the table, then brought over the pan of chicken, onions and peppers in what Maddie hoped was a fajita sauce this time. She put it on a pot stand next to the wraps, and then added three large ramekins of sour cream, guacamole and salsa.

‘Well, he is every bit as responsible as you for the fact that wee one is there in the first place.’

‘He isn’t though, Val. I told him I was on the pill. And I was. I just didn’t realise?—’

Her words were cut off by the ringing of her phone, so she dug into the handbag that she’d hung on the back of the chair. Dylan’s name flashed on the screen. She thought about rejecting the call and calling back after dinner, but she knew he might be out of reach later.

Val had already picked up the pan and swooped it back round to the hob. ‘Go ahead and take it, pet. This can wait. And I’ve got the second half of Saturday night’sStrictlyto watch anyway.’

‘Thanks, Val,’ Maddie said gratefully, as Val disappeared off into the living room to catch up on her show.

‘Hey, how are you doing?’ Dylan put on a Tennessee drawl, before reverting to Glaswegian. It was only a voice call, so she couldn’t see his face. ‘Did I sound convincing there? It’s my pitstop accent. No one understands a word I say if I speak normally, so when we stop at gas stations on the road, I try to sound like Garth Brooks. Not sure if I’m pulling it off, but I’ve managed to get the right coffee and doughnuts every morning for the last week.’