Page 18 of The Three of Us
Steve looks towards the door as it creaks open. ‘Ah, speak of the devils! Come on over and find yourselves a couple of chairs.’
Molly gets up and kisses her mum as her dad shakes hands with the other men around the table.
‘Now, what will you two have to drink, and who else haven’t I asked?’ Steve carries on, wallet in hand. ‘Jack, what will you have? And Molly? Usual?’
Jack stands up. ‘I’ll come with you to the bar.’
Molly tries to say something. To ask for just the orange juice, without the vodka, but she can’t think of a decent excuse, so she says nothing. Nobody will notice if she just sips at it, uses it for the toast and then leaves the rest. She knows it will be easier than having to explain.
It’s quite busy today. Saturday afternoons in the rain, with nowhere else to go, tend to bring half the village out for a drink and a meal they don’t have to cook for themselves, and the horse racing being shown on the giant TV screen is the clincher, here in the heart of East Anglia where racing seems to be in the blood.
The general noise of so many conversations going on around her makes it hard for Molly to join in, so she takes the opportunity to sit back and just think. She knows she has decisions to make. Not about keeping this baby, because she absolutely will, whatever Jack might say. That, at least, is non-negotiable. But there’s also who to tell, and when. Her parents will be thrilled, and so will his. A first grandchild. And while they are all here together, already in a celebratory mood, she could so easily tell them here, right now, today… but she has to tell Jack first, and that’s the bit she worries about. She’s known for five days, but she just keeps chickening out. It’s not what he wants. She knows that. Not part of the plan.
Of course, the test had been positive. There had never been much doubt about that, really. She had wrapped the test stick up tightly in the pages of an old newspaper so Jack wouldn’t find it, and had been just about to dump it in the bin outside when she’d realised paper is recyclable and pregnancy tests are not. Which bin to choose? The last thing she wanted was for some busybody to start moving the screwed-up bundle from one bin to another and her secret tumbling out onto the pavement. In the end, she had taken it around the corner and, when she was sure nobody was looking, had separated the test from the newspaper and deposited them both in someone else’s bins. She knew it was ridiculous. Jack was hardly likely to go rummaging in the rubbish, at home or anywhere else, but why take the risk?
Steve comes back from the bar, balancing a tray, and plonks her drink down in front of her. She can almost smell the vodka from here. He must have got her a double. She nods her thanks and wonders how she is going to avoid drinking it. Because she may not know a lot about pregnancy but she does know that babies and booze don’t mix.
‘You okay, Mol?’ Jack has squeezed in beside her and has already downed a couple of mouthfuls of his pint on the way back from the bar. ‘Are you coming down with a cold or something? You’re looking a bit peaky again.’
She smiles at him and puts her hand on his knee. ‘Fine. A bit tired, that’s all. Must have been the travelling yesterday. And the effects of that huge dinner at Mum’s last night. I have no idea where I’m going to find room for another one already.’
‘Do your best. I’m more than happy to finish up what you leave.’
‘I swear you’ve got hollow legs!’
Richard and Jennifer are handing over their present now, and Jack’s mum is happily tearing at the paper. It’s a hairdryer, which she seems really pleased with, although Molly is fairly sure she has at least two already.
Everyone is reading menus and moving discarded wrapping paper about to make room for their drinks, and the two dads are half-turned towards the TV screen, waiting for the first race to start. Molly feels happy, safe, surrounded by the familiar, so glad to be back home. But, as she rests her hand over her invisible bump, she’s scared too. This is not a secret she can keep for long.
Pouring an unwanted drink into a plant pot is an old trick, but not one she’s ever had to try before. If the little spider plant on the windowsill beside her ends up dying an alcohol-induced death, then she’s sorry, but it had to be done.
‘Your glass empty already, love?’ Jack turns as she sits back down from her visit to the Ladies and spots the glass she has tried to hide behind her menu. ‘Want another?’
‘No, one’s enough. I don’t think my stomach could stand it. I must be getting old!’ she jokes, pushing the remains of her dessert away, only to see Jack’s spoon swoop down into the bowl and scoop up the last chunk of apple pie and the scrapings of cream. ‘I feel like I could just curl up and sleep for a week after all that food.’
‘Well, maybe not a week, but you can have a lazy evening and a lie-in tomorrow if you want. Our train’s not until the afternoon.’
‘I know, but I’d quite like to get out and see a few people while we’re here. Maybe take a walk with Flossy in the morning and pop in on Sian?’
‘Your mate who married the vet? Yeah, sure, you do that if you like. I’m sure you’ve missed having a dog to walk, and seeing your own friends. Not sure all that girly gossip’s for me though, so I’ll give it a miss, if you don’t mind.’
Molly nods. ‘That’s fine.’
Everyone’s getting up to go now. Brenda is stuffing her presents into a carrier bag that has mysteriously appeared from her coat pocket, Richard is jiggling his car keys in an irritatingly impatient way, and a barmaid is clearing away the last of the plates.
‘You coming straight back with us?’ Molly’s mum asks. ‘Or going back to Brenda and Steve’s for a while?’
Molly looks to Jack for the answer, but he just shrugs his shoulders. ‘I’m easy,’ he says, leaving it up to her.
‘With you,’ Molly says, linking her arm through her mum’s. ‘I fancy an evening in front of the telly. Is there a film on?’
‘Bound to be if we hunt through the channels,’ her mum replies. ‘Something all Hollywood glamorous, I hope. If only I had somewhere to go where I could unleash my inner Marilyn and wear posh dresses and make-up and six-inch heels!’
Molly laughs. She can’t imagine her practical country-girl mum in anything but brown tweed or a plain pleated skirt and home-knitted jumper, with perhaps the occasional horse-patterned scarf around her neck. But everyone has their dreams…
They say their goodbyes to Jack’s family and head back along the lanes towards home.
‘So, how is big city living?’ her mum asks, when they have managed to put a good few yards between themselves and the menfolk coming along behind. ‘All you hoped it would be?’