‘Good,’ Sascha says. ‘Because I want to tell you about all the joys of being pregnant.’
For the next hour I listen to Sascha tell me about her nausea and her sore boobs and her constipation and her constant headaches that she can’t take anything stronger than half a paracetamol for.
‘Which is pointless,’ she says. ‘Paracetamol barely touches the sides. And then there’s the mood swings.’
I raise my eyebrows. ‘Sascha,’ I say with a smile. ‘I don’t think the mood swings are anything new.’
‘Don’t you start – that’s what Geoff said.’ She laughs. ‘But honestly I can go from being ecstatically happy to big snotty crying in minutes. It’s exhausting.’
‘Do you have any weird cravings?’ I ask.
‘Not yet, but give it time,’ she replies. ‘I’m only at the ten-week mark and baby is only the size of a strawberry.’ She holds up her thumb and forefinger to indicate the size.
‘That’s a lot of symptoms,’ I say, not really knowing what else to say or how I can be helpful in any way.
‘It is a lot of symptoms.’
‘But worth it of course.’
She puts her feet up on the chair next to her and drinks from her mug. ‘Absolutely worth it,’ she says. ‘When I’m not too exhausted to remember my name.’
‘Are you going to stay awake long enough to come to the lights switch-on this evening?’ I ask.
‘I wouldn’t dare miss it,’ she replies. ‘What would people think?’
‘They’d think you were pregnant,’ I say.
‘Exactly, and it’s too early for anyone else to do any speculating.’
Before I leave she asks me if I’m all right and I shrug, still thinking about Ben and Moby’s.
‘It’s just a job,’ she says as if reading my mind. ‘It doesn’t mean anything.’
I know, as soon as she says the words, that she’s right, but I can’t let it go. Even when she’d been telling me about all the unglamorous symptoms of early pregnancy all I could think about was Ben and that Moby’s coffee cup. I should have seen it as a sign as soon as he produced it.
*
Ben doesn’t come to the great Christmas lights switch-on, but I barely notice because when my aunt and uncle arrive, I see Miranda is in her wheelchair.
‘Before you say anything,’ she says as I walk up to her. ‘I’m fine so don’t make a fuss.’
‘You can’t be fine, you hate being in your wheelchair,’ I reply.
She takes my hand in her cold, gnarled one and gives it a squeeze.
‘I’m not the chair’s biggest fan,’ she says, ‘because of what it represents; but I’m also coming around to the idea that it helps me live the life I want to live. It’s been a high-pain day – I don’t know why, maybe because of the rain – but I knew that if I wanted to come to the lights switch-on and the carols then I had to use the chair.’
‘So you’re starting to get worse?’ I ask.
‘I have good days and bad days,’ she says. ‘The same as ever.’
‘What can I do?’ I ask. Sometimes I feel as though my aunt and uncle are keeping things from me, protecting me from the full extent of Miranda’s illness.
‘We’re doing fine,’ James says, touching my arm. ‘The bungalow is perfect thanks to you.’
‘But…’
‘Honestly, Ellie, we’ll tell you if we need anything. I promise.’
James wheels Miranda off to find a good place for her to see the lights and Sascha comes over, handing me a cup of tea in a polystyrene cup.
‘It’s just a teabag floating in an environmental disaster I’m afraid,’ she says. ‘But it’ll keep your hands warm.’
‘I’m worried about them,’ I say, looking over at my aunt and uncle.
‘I know you are, El, but you have to let them be as independent as possible for as long as possible. You know that.’
I nod, but before I can say anything else Dawn Hudson, the mayor of Sanderson Bay, takes to the stage wearing full ceremonial robes to begin the countdown.
‘As always we have a whole host of volunteers to thank for getting the town ready for tonight in some very wet weather,’ she says. ‘And a special thank you to Eric Andrews and the lifeboat crew for all their hard work. After this there will, as usual, be carol singing over at Eric’s Model Village.’
We all cheer and applaud.
‘Now let’s get these lights switched on!’ Dawn shouts and we begin to count in unison.
‘Five… Four… Three… Two… One…!’
*
Ben finally turns up halfway through “Once in Royal David’s City”.
‘Stop obsessing about Moby’s,’ Sascha whispers at me through gritted teeth when I nudge her. Geoff is singing the bit about the oxen very loudly and slightly out of tune on the other side of me. ‘I’ve told you, where he works has nothing to do with why he’s here, I’m sure of it.’
‘Shhhh,’ Bessie hisses from behind me, poking me in the back with a very sharp finger. Sascha looks at me as though it was me who was talking and we both start singing again.
Carols at the Model Village after the lights switch-on is a long-held tradition dating back to when Eric’s father first built the model village in the 1950s. Everyone is welcome and there is a five-pound entrance fee and all the money goes to the RNLI to help the lifeboat volunteers across the country. After we’ve sung about a dozen carols – both traditional and more bizarre, a recent addition being a song called “I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” – accompanied by Clara on the keyboard, there’s mulled wine and mince pies for everyone. Carols at the Model Village definitely marks the start of the festive season in the Bay, although tonight I’m not feeling that festive if I’m honest.
I look over at Ben again who is deep in whispered conversation with Eric. I notice nobody is poking him and making him stop talking. Typical.
Then I notice Ben hand Eric a wad of cash in twenty-pound notes. I nudge Sascha again and she looks over, just in time to see Eric take the money from Ben.
‘A bribe for something probably,’ I whisper. But Sascha rolls her eyes and carries on singing. Bessie pokes me in the back again.
‘Could it be,’ Sascha says after the carols are over as she sips from her cup of hot orange squash – the non-alcoholic alternative to mulled wine, ‘that you’re obsessing about him not because he works at Moby’s but because you have feelings for him.’ She drags out the word feelings in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable.
‘No,’ I say abruptly, knowing that she might have hit the nail on the head.
‘Moby’s gave up on the café a year ago when you bought your aunt and uncle out,’ she goes on. ‘Why would they still be sniffing around now?’
I shrug. I know I’m being irrational, but all I can see is that desperate look on Miranda’s face when she told me that the money Moby’s was offering was not to be sneered at and all I can feel is the guilt that I’ve carried around all year because, although I’ve never known the price Moby’s offered, I know it was a lot more than I bought the café off them for. Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing after all, if I should have asked, no begged, them not to sell to Moby’s and to let me run the tea shop I’d been daydreaming about as I sat in the university library in York not writing my PhD. Should I have let James and Miranda take the Moby’s money while I actually gave that PhD a shot?