Page 201 of Private Lives

‘But lying there in that hospital bed, it gave me time to think about everything, and, well, about us . . .’ Her lip quivered.

‘Jess, I’m sorry it had to end the way it did.’

‘I thought so too,’ said Jessica, the tears still dribbling. ‘Considering . . .’ she added softly.

Sam felt his instincts prickle.

‘Considering what?’

The silence seemed to go on for ever.

‘Sam, I’m pregnant.’

He stopped dead, unable to draw breath.

‘You’re . . .?’

‘Pregnant.’

He was in complete shock. His brain seemed to have shut down, his mouth could barely open.

‘How?’ he said finally.

‘I think you know how people make babies,’ she said with a small laugh.

‘But when did you find out?’

‘When they take you into ER, they need to check before they X-ray you because it can hurt the baby, so they did a test and, well, there it was.’

‘Is it mine?’

‘Is it mine?’ she repeated incredulously. ‘You’re unbelievable! Do I need to remind you that you were the one that went off and had an affair? I have always been one hundred and ten per cent faithful to you.’

His eyes were transfixed on her belly, wondering if you could see anything yet. He reached his hand out; his fingers were trembling.

‘But do you want to keep it?’ he asked carefully. ‘I mean, your career and everything? Is it the right time?’

‘Yes, I want to keep it,’ she said, her eyes beginning to glisten again. She took his hand and placed it on her completely flat stomach. ‘I want to have our baby,’ she said. ‘It’s always the right time for him.’

Sam looked up sharply.

‘Him?’

‘It’s twelve weeks old, Sam,’ she said proudly. ‘I’ve had a scan, and while they can’t tell the sex for sure yet, I think it’s a boy.’

Sam really didn’t know what to think. His head was spinning. Could he really be the father? Twelve weeks – he tried to count back, but so much had happened in the last two or three months, it was hard to get it straight. He knew he’d gone to see Jessica on the Slayer set, but he really couldn’t remember having sex with her. Then again, he was drinking pretty heavily back then. I can’t remember having sex with Katie Grey either, he thought mournfully.

Jessica snapped open her handbag and pulled out a photograph the size of a Polaroid. It was just a grainy still, a swirling black and white mass, but it was still possible to make out a head and a curled body. Sam drew a finger across the tiny person and felt his heart swell. His son.

‘You are happy?’ she said eagerly.

Suddenly he could hear Jim Parker’s words at the Robotics premiere: You need stability. A wife. A family.

Back then, the very thought of it had terrified him, but somehow, standing here, watching her place her small hand on her pregnant belly, he knew he had to step up to the plate and accept his responsibilities. He had promised himself that he would change. Was this where the real change started happening?

He felt a wave of sadness for a life that had filled him with such excitement an hour earlier and was now sailing swiftly out of reach, like a branch on the rapids.

‘Yes, of course,’ he said uncertainly. ‘It’s just . . .’ He wanted to say, ‘I’ve met someone else, someone I really like, someone I can see myself having a future with’, and he wanted to tell Jessica the truth, that he no longer loved her, that he had spent the last two months breathing a sigh of relief that he was free of her. He looked back at the scan. But here was a baby, a real living thing that they had created together. That had to be worth something, didn’t it? Perhaps it was everything.