Baby Be Mine

4  
    ‘Did Christian get away okay?’ Mum asks a few days later. Christian set off this morning to return to LA for tour rehearsals. He’ll be there for a week.
    ‘Yes,’ I reply into the receiver. We’re talking on the phone.
    ‘Barney will miss him,’ Mum says.
    ‘Not as much as I’ll miss him.’
    ‘Oh dear, I hope you don’t mind me not coming.’
    ‘No, of course not. Don’t worry.’
    I asked my parents if they’d keep me company while Christian was abroad this time, but Mum had some important bridge game to attend.
    ‘It’s a shame he has to be away so often,’ she comments. ‘I don’t like the thought of him mingling with all those sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll types. Why he can’t just stick to writing fiction, I don’t know.’
    ‘Yes, you do know,’ I say with annoyance. ‘He didn’t get a new book deal.’
    ‘But why? I thought his first one was quite good.’
    ‘I thought it was great!’ I hear my dad chip in, in the background. ‘I want to know what happened to Dr Whatshisface!’
    ‘Tell Dad he’ll find out in March.’
    ‘You’ll find out in March, apparently,’ I hear my mum say.
    ‘March?’ my dad exclaims. ‘That’s almost a year away! I thought his next one was coming out in September?’
    ‘Put Dad on,’ I tell my mum. She does so. I explain: ‘The first one came out last September and flopped, so his publishers want to try releasing the next one in a different season.’
    Around the time I found out I was pregnant, Christian’s Johnny Jefferson biography was published and was a huge success. His publishers had released it in the autumn against the other heavy hitters in the lead-up to Christmas, and a year later, they assumed his first book in his new crime series would be able to hack it in the same competitive market. They were wrong.
    They’ve pushed back the release of his second book to next March and are yet to offer him a new book deal. His dream of writing fiction has had to be put on hold for now, hence his saying yes to another celebrity biography.
    ‘I’m sure it’ll be a huge success!’ Dad booms, slightly too buoyantly.
    ‘Thanks, Dad,’ I reply, with a small smile that he can’t see.
    ‘Give me the phone,’ I hear my mum say. She comes back on the line. ‘Let me know if you want me to come down on Saturday.’
    ‘No, it’s okay, Mum. Christian will be back on Monday so it’s probably not worth you making the trip for the sake of a day and a half. I’ll take Barney to the beach or to a playground or something. I’ll be alright.’
    ‘Call me if you want to chat.’
    ‘I will do if I can find the time,’ I promise. We hang up and I sigh loudly. ‘Alone Again’ . . . That bloody song is driving me nuts. I switch on the radio, hoping to find something else to get stuck in my mind. An instantly recognisable tune fills the living room and a shiver travels all the way up my spine and into my head. I fumble for the off switch, but it’s too late. I’ve heard it now. The damage is done.
    That was the song Johnny wrote for me.
    He said he loved me. He once told me he’d never loved anyone.
    The phone rings, making me jump. I snatch it up.
    ‘Hello?’
    ‘Meg?’
    ‘Bess!’ I exclaim. It’s so good to hear from my friend.
    ‘Hey, how are you?’
    ‘I’m alright.’ I sigh, unable to project enthusiasm into my voice.
    ‘You’ve heard, then,’ she says.
    ‘Heard what?’
    ‘About Johnny?’
    Silence.
    ‘Oh, you haven’t heard,’ she says.
    Apart from Christian, Bess is the only other person who knows about my relationship with Johnny – if you can call it that. There were rumours in the industry when I quit working for him so suddenly, but no one knows for sure what happened, and my confidentiality clause prevents me from telling anyone, even if I wanted to. I shouldn’t have told Bess, but I couldn’t help myself.
    ‘Tell me,’ I urge Bess, dread seeping into the pit of my stomach.
    She cuts to the chase. ‘He and his girlfriend are both in hospital after overdosing.’
    My heart jumps.
    ‘It was an accident, apparently.’
    I can’t speak.
    ‘Meg?’
    ‘I didn’t even know he had a girlfriend,’ I say dully.
    ‘They met in rehab.’
    ‘Fat lot of good that did them.’ I manage a bitter laugh.
    ‘Are you okay?’ Bess’s voice is hesitant.
    ‘I’m fine,’ I reply curtly. ‘Nothing to do with me.’
    ‘I know you don’t mean that,’ she says gently.
    ‘Stop. Just stop,’ I