The Switch(54)

*

‘No,’ Fitz says firmly. ‘Absolutely not.’

‘What do you mean, no?’

‘You can’t leave!’

He points an olive on a toothpick at me. Aurora and Rupert make very good cocktails, though I was a bit suspicious about the toothpick olives, at first. Fitz says they’re ‘ironic’. Now I’ve got that floaty perfume feeling again, tucked between Martha and Fitz on the sofa, a martini glass in my hand.

‘Mrs Cotton – Eileen,’ Fitz says. ‘Have you done what you set out to do?’

‘Well,’ I begin, but he waves me off.

‘No you have not! The Silver Shoreditchers’ Club has barely begun! You’ve not met your swoony Old Country Boy! And you are definitely not done with sorting my life out,’ he says.

Hmm. I didn’t realise he’d noticed I’d been doing that.

‘Are Eileen Cottons quitters? Because the Eileen Cottons I’ve met don’t strike me as quitters.’

‘Not this again,’ I tell him, smiling. ‘I have to go, Fitz.’

‘Why?’ This comes from Martha.

I wouldn’t give an honest answer to a question like that, usually. Not if it was Betsy or Penelope asking. But I think of Martha waving me over in tears and telling me how afraid she was about the baby coming, and I tell her the truth.

‘Marian needs me. She can’t cope on her own, and Leena’s only been making things worse.’ I stare at my martini. I might be a bit sloshed. That was very indiscreet. ‘She’s been rowing with her mother. Shouting at her in the street! That’s not how we do things.’

‘Maybe it should be,’ Martha suggests mildly, swirling her ‘mocktail’.

‘Yeah, totally,’ Fitz says. ‘Those two needed to clear the air. Half the problem is Leena bottling everything up for the last year. Have you seen her on the phone to her mum? Twenty seconds of small talk and then she gets this frozen-rabbit face of total panic’ – he demonstrates, quite uncannily well – ‘and then she’s bailing on that chat like a sailor with a hole in his boat.’ He pauses. ‘Did that simile work?’ he asks Martha.

She screws up her nose.

‘Leena’s mad at Carla as much as she’s mad at Marian,’ Fitz says definitively. ‘And more than either of them, she’s mad at herself, because when did Leena Cotton ever come across a problem she couldn’t fix with a lot of effort and, what does she call it, a thought shower?’

‘It’s good that they’re expressing their feelings,’ Martha says. ‘A row is cathartic, sometimes.’

‘But Marian is fragile,’ I tell them. ‘She’s grieving. How is shouting at her going to help?’

‘Is she fragile?’ Martha asks gently. ‘She’s always struck me as very strong.’

I shake my head. ‘You don’t know the whole story. This past year, she’s had these – patches. Episodes. It’s awful. She won’t let me in the house. I knock and I knock and she pretends she’s not there. The last time was the worst – she wouldn’t come out for days. In the end I used my key to get inside, and she was just sitting there on the carpet with one of those God-awful tapes playing, the ones with some man droning on about how grief is a prism and how one must let the light enter one’s being or some such tripe. It was like …’ I trail off, noticing Martha’s pained expression. ‘What? What did I say?’

‘No, no,’ Martha says, hand to her belly. ‘Absolutely not.’

‘Absolutely not what?’ Fitz asks.

‘Oh, dear,’ says Letitia. She hasn’t spoken in so long we’re all a bit surprised; she looks rather startled herself. She points at Martha’s stomach. ‘Was that a contraction?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Martha says, breathing through her nose, ‘I’ve had them since lunchtime. They’re not real contractions.’

‘No?’ Letitia says, eyeing Martha. ‘How can you tell?’

‘Because Yaz isn’t back yet,’ Martha says, ‘and I’m not due for another three weeks.’

‘Right,’ Fitz says, looking at me with raised eyebrows. ‘Only I’m not sure the baby necessarily knows your schedule.’

‘Yes it does,’ Martha says through gritted teeth. ‘It is – oooh, oww, oww !’

She grabs Letitia’s hand, which happens to be nearest. Letitia yelps.

‘OK,’ Martha says, leaning her head back against the sofa again. ‘OK, fine. Done. What were we saying? Oh, yes, Eileen, go on – Marian’s episodes?’

We all stare at her.

‘What?’ she says. ‘It’s fine. I mean, I only go to the hospital if the contractions are … if the contractions are …’ She leans forward again, face twisting. She lets out an alarmingly animal sort of groan. I recognise that sound.

‘Martha, love … those look very much like real contractions,’ I tell her.

‘It’s too soon,’ Martha gasps once the contraction has passed. ‘Not … can’t …’

‘Martha,’ Fitz says, placing his hands on her shoulders, ‘you know when you say a client is being totally ridiculous and can’t see what’s right in front of them? Like that woman who thought her drawing room was big enough to take a picture rail?’