‘I’m sorry, Kate, I really am.’
‘But, like, which is it? Are you pregnant? Were you this whole time? What is going on?’ Kate looked quietly seething, though she kept glancing around, conscious she was supposed to be offering her sympathies. ‘Like, I’m really sorry about your dad and all, but seriously, you know what they’re saying online, right? Prime Time approached me about taking part in a panel to discuss the “Ali’s Baba Scandal”. Everyone is talking about this’ – she leaned in and hissed – ‘and now you’re here still lying about it, at your dad’s funeral.’
‘I’m not lying. Not anymore. Look, I am pregnant. I just found out a few days ago. Ask Liv, she knows. And I don’t know what I’m going to do but please, please don’t go on Prime Time. I can’t take that on top of everything.’
Kate drew back, appearing to consider this, when Marcus slipped in front of her and gathered Ali into his arms.
‘Ally Pally! You did wonderfully. Miles would’ve been so proud of you.’
Ally Pally had been her dad’s name for her. She narrowed her eyes – clearly, he was trying to get in with her so he could get on with boning her mother. Mini and Marcus had been on the verge of going on a date just a couple of months before, though with all her Insta-bullshit, she hadn’t even asked Mini what happened, she realised guiltily.
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Ali extracted herself. ‘Excuse me, I need to get some air.’
Where was Liv? She needed a buffer from all these funeral people. She couldn’t get two paces without being sucked into vortex after vortex of people emoting. Though now, after the baby bombshell, the mood had taken a turn for the better.
‘Ali! You’re glowing. What a wonderful, joyful thing to have to look forward to!’
‘Devastating about Miles but wonderful news about the baba. Mini must be thrilled!’
Everyone seemed much better equipped to deal with the bizarre baby news than the dead man in the box.
Ali finally broke free of the chapel, squeezing through a side door to the graveyard outside. She was about to ring Liv when she spotted her gesturing wildly at a very tall and ornate monument – an angel crouched on a large engraved plinth.
‘Li-iv!’ She jogged towards her. ‘What are you—?’
As she neared the monument, she clamped her mouth shut and screeched to a halt, realising Liv was not alone but in full, wild, ranting flow with Tinder Sam. Shite! Ali’d never dreamed Sam would be there. She reversed abruptly and hid behind the angel’s plinth, grateful that neither of them had noticed her – they were too engrossed in what sounded like an extremely tense exchange.
‘I can’t believe I let you convince me to come. You said she was sorry, you said she was suffering. That little spectacle in there didn’t look like remorse. It looked distinctly like she is still out there lying to everyone and refusing to face up to what she did.’
‘Sam,’ Liv sounded anguished. ‘Please, you have to talk to Ali about this. It’s not what you think. Please just wait and give her a chance to explain.’
‘I’m done with you both to be honest. You’re not much better than her, you know. The amount of times that we all hung out watching TV and I’d be chatting about baby names. And you just sat there, Liv. Making little notes for your precious thesis – mining my life for your career, never stopping to think that maybe I deserved to know the truth. You’re no different to Ali, ya know. You’re both completely unhinged. Did you never think about what you two were doing to me? I thought this would be my chance to have a family? I was so stupidly happy that Ali and I were going to have a baby. And then, I pick up your thesis and realise I’ve been going along living in some messed up Truman Show experiment she’d concocted and you were exploiting.’
Ali cringed remembering his face when she came home to find him holding the thesis, open at a picture of them both taken at an Insta event.
‘This is sick, Ali,’ he’d said. ‘You’re sick.’ She swallowed hard. He wasn’t wrong.
‘Sam, I know what you’re saying,’ Liv sounded pleading. ‘And believe me, we never meant for you to find out like that. And, I know I should have told you but I just felt protective of Ali. You don’t know what she’s been through the last two years. Miles and Ali were so so close before he got sick and I’ve just watched her crumble under the grief of losing him over such a long time—’
‘It’s not an excuse, Liv. Everyone has hard stuff in their lives. I’m not listening to anymore of this—’ Sam suddenly marched out from behind the monument and nearly collided with Ali. His face instantly clouded over with abject disgust at the sight of her. It did not feel good.
‘SAM—’ Liv was following after him but stopped dead upon seeing Ali.
For a moment no one spoke. Then all three tried for an opener at once.
‘Liv made me come but I was just leaving,’ Sam began, looking completely furious.
‘He was trying to run off,’ was Liv’s contribution.
‘I’m … having a baby, a real one,’ said Ali stupidly.
An awkward silence reigned and then Liv started to creep away, pausing by Ali’s side to whisper, ‘I let him know the funeral arrangements. I did NOT think he’d come. I also did NOT think you’d be filling everyone in on your little situation from the pulpit.’ She clumsily rubbed Ali’s upper arm. ‘I’ll be by the hearse. Good luck.’
Ali stared at the ground, listening to Liv’s footsteps fade. Sam remained silent and eventually Ali chanced a look in his direction. His face was twisted with rage and Ali crumpled into tears.
‘Please, Sam—’
‘Yes? Please what?’ His words were clipped and sharp.
‘Please …’ Ali didn’t know where to go frankly. Please don’t be mad? Please can it be the way it was? ‘Please don’t hate me,’ she tried.
‘Ali. What the hell just happened in there? Are you the girl who cried “pregnant!”? This is the second time you’ve told a roomful of people you’re pregnant before telling me you’re pregnant. Are you sick in the head? Or just desperate for attention?’
The internet was already awash with this very debate but hearing Sam say these words was too much. A crushing hopelessness invaded Ali, and any will to try to convince him to forgive her ebbed away.
‘I am pregnant, Sam. It looks like I’m maybe eleven weeks, but I need to go to the doctor to confirm it.’ At this, Sam crossed his arms, a sneering eyebrow cocked sceptically, and Ali continued, ‘I’ll piss on the wee stick in front of you, if you want. I honestly don’t know what happened in there.’ She gestured to the chapel. ‘It was weird. I felt really overwhelmed.’ She swallowed with difficulty, the same feeling rising up again. ‘I just wanted to tell my dad, I guess. I didn’t know you were there.’
‘Right.’ Sam looked deeply exasperated. ‘Look, I’m not the person to play the dead dad card with, Ali.’ Sam had lost his mum when he was little. Ali bit her lip as he continued. ‘To be honest, I was fairly certain I’d never have to see you again and that’s how I needed it to be. I was in love with you. You knew that, right? Of course you did. And still every single day you lied to me. Every minute of every hour. You sat through every conversation about names and where we would live and what our life would be like.’