A dramatic silence ensued in which Helen waited for the others to be impressed.
‘Well, I have to say it and I hope you’ll excuse the pun,’ Elizabeth spat through a flurry of pastry flakes, ‘but that is positively the biggest load of bollocks you have ever come out with.’
Janey laughed derisively at the same time. ‘Oh Hels, come on!’
‘I know what it sounds like, that’s why I didn’t tell you where we were coming,’ Helen said, her voice fighting off a wobble, ‘but if I don’t get pregnant soon, I’ll die. I want a baby so, so much. Believe me, you two have it a lot easier not wanting children, but I don’t care who laughs at me any more, I just Want. A. Baby.’ Then she turned her head suddenly skyward, blinking hard, a little ashamed at her outburst but more than that, hurt that they of all people were mocking her.
Janey and Elizabeth exchanged the slightest of glances but each knew what the other was thinking. She’d always been so light about the fact that she hadn’t caught on. How many times had she led their joking about it? Neither of them had had the slightest idea that her pain ran so deeply.
Elizabeth plunged her hand into the picnic basket again, in a brave effort to break the heavy silence that had descended upon them like a thick, depressing cloud.
‘So, let’s have a good look at this lot. What have you made us then, Hels? What feast have you concocted this time?’
‘There’s egg and cress, beef and horseradish, goats’ cheese and tomato …’ Helen began to reel off, dabbing at her eye, trying to make it look as if she had something in it ‘… sausage rolls, spicy scotch eggs, chicken filo parcels, lemon Swiss roll, banoffee tarts, Victoria sponge, crisps, Twiglets, there’s a red hummus and onion dip, strawberries dipped in dark chocolate and there’s some Diet Coke and wine.’
‘That all?’ said Elizabeth and Helen blurted out a laugh and the mood was lifted once again.
Aw bless, thought Elizabeth, as she spotted all the little flags on the sandwiches; everything was homemade. Who the chuff could be bothered making real puff pastry these days but Hels? If she did have kids, their sandwich boxes would be the envy of the school.
That little thought bubble gave her another taste of her friend’s desperation and how very severe it must be to trick them into travelling so many miles to do something as ridiculous as this. How had she missed this before?
‘Pass me an egg and cress, would you, please,’ Helen said, all tears abated.
‘When are the fish and Disciples arriving?’ Elizabeth asked, rummaging deep before handing over the clingfilmed triangle bearing an egg and cress sticker.
‘I know you’re a pig … I didn’t want you moaning that I’d dragged you all this way and I hadn’t fed you,’ Helen said, managing a little smile.
‘I’ll have a beef, please, and pass the plonk seeing as I’m not driving,’ Janey said with a deep sigh. ‘Tell me you haven’t forgotten an opener.’
‘It screws,’ Helen said.
‘That’s appropriate!’ Elizabeth snorted and got her usual disapproving look from Janey.
The latter then gasped suddenly and said, ‘Oy, I hope we’ll be all right, sat here on this bloke’s genitals. I can’t afford to get pregnant.’ She looked worriedly down at the segment of chalk line disappearing up her skirt. ‘My Head of Department is about to peg it – I’m in line for his job.’
‘Oh nice!’ Elizabeth said, batting back some disapproval for a change.
‘Cough, cough, cough – I’m sick of listening to him,’ Janey went on. ‘That’s a lifetime of fags for you,’ and she nodded a warning in Elizabeth’s direction. ‘I think they’ll get rid of him in an early-retirement swoop – he’s been with them for about four hundred years so he’ll get a good pay-off. Mind you, he’ll probably spend it all on Bensons, knowing him. It’s only a matter of time before the vacancy comes up; he’s always flaming off ill and I’m running the place as it is so I don’t want any surprise sprogs knackering up my career hopes, thanks very much.’
Helen tilted her head. ‘Well, all I can say is that not all of those women on the TV programme took their pants off when they sat on him.’
‘Oh great!’ said Janey, shifting her bottom off the white line. Not that she believed in stuff like that, but it didn’t hurt to make sure.
Elizabeth poured herself a glass of the wine and reclined to let the gorgeous September sun shine down onto her face. She was too comfortable to move from her position on the ancient willy. Mumbo jumbo crap, she thought inwardly, but she was here now and might as well enjoy it, as it really was a cracking day for a picnic.
Chapter 1
The following February
Her arms and legs spasmed outwards, she let loose a very loud scream and then Elizabeth awoke to find herself not on a nose-diving plane but on the seven thirty-six to Leeds and the focus of half a crammed carriageful of ‘glad that wasn’t me’ faces. However, not even their cold-water stares, the probability that she had been snoring and two mega-strength coffees slopping around her digestive system could keep Elizabeth’s eyes from shuttering down again – she was exhausted. She was last off the train and, in fact, had the fat, sweaty bloke sitting next to her not caught her with the hard edge of his briefcase as he heaved his carcass out of the seat, she might well have slept through to Barnsley again on the return trip. She had better buck up for later; she was hardly going to be the life and soul of Helen’s birthday party face down and asleep in her minestrone.
As usual, the train station was full of suits zipping in straight lines to their destinations clutching a laptop case in one hand and a grabbed breakfast bag in the other. As usual, there were a few early shoppers making a leisurely way up to the main city stores and managing to get in the way of the rushing executives, who did not take too kindly to having lumpy human obstacles on their own personal work paths. And as usual, there was a large contingent of big-bellied workmen staring at women’s breasts from the scaffolding as their more industrious colleagues worked on extending the station, yet again. The train used to dump Elizabeth right in front of the ticket barriers, but these days it deposited them all so far away on one of the new platforms that she almost needed to catch another train from there to the exit. That morning, it felt a particularly long way.
At least the ten-minute walk in the crisp February air served to startle her brainwaves into some activity, and by the time she had reached the great, smutty-bricked offices with the giant blue Handi-Save sign above the entrance she felt considerably more human and less like a dormouse again. It was an old, weary-looking building in the middle of a sea of younger, more dynamic structures, with its exterior reflecting the majority of the people on the inside – dull, tired and uninspiring. She pushed open the giant stiff revolving door that had given everyone who had worked there for any length of time a deformed bicep. It was easy to spot a longtimer at Handi-Save for they all had one arm bigger than the other, like a male Fiddler crab. Yep, she felt decidedly better for the walk.
‘Flaming Norah, you look rough,’ said Derek the security man. He, being ambidextrous, had two massive arms. ‘Good night, was it?’