you whimpering off with your tail between your legs,’ he retorted, following her with the dog in his wake.
That was a mistake, because he almost had her for the second time when Murphy stood up and walked round the table, and, seizing her chance, Julia called him all excitedly, and his tail thrashed and cleared the board.
‘Oh, dear, what a shame, we’ll have to start again,’ she said with a wicked grin, but he wasn’t having it.
‘I can remember where every piece was,’ he said, and proceeded to reset the chessmen in place.
‘Your knight wasn’t there.’
‘Yes it was.’
‘No. It was there. Your bishop was there.’
‘Rubbish. How could my bishop have got there? Let’s face it, Jules, I’ve thrashed you,’ he said, lounging back on the sofa and crossing his ankle over the other knee. ‘Just admit it.’
‘Never.’
‘I never had you down as a cheat,’ he said softly, and she stopped in her tracks and stared at him.
‘I wasn’t cheating! I was just teasing, Max. Trying to lighten the atmosphere.’
He swallowed. ‘What’s wrong with the atmosphere?’
‘I don’t know, but ever since I mentioned the DVDs you’ve been funny. Why don’t you want to see them?’
‘I do,’ he lied. Well, it wasn’t really a lie, but he was scared and sick inside, and emotions he’d buried too long ago were bubbling to the surface. And he didn’t want to deal with them.
She got up and cleared away the chess pieces, folded the lid of the coffee-table over and straightened it, then dimmed the lights and switched on the television. ‘OK, then,’ she said quietly. ‘This is the next one—the babies in hospital. We were about to watch it the other night when you walked out.’
‘Just put it on, Jules,’ he said gruffly, his left hand wrapped tightly round the stem of the wine glass, and, before he knew what she was going to do, she’d started the disc and had taken hold of his right hand, wrapping it in both of hers and snuggling up against his shoulder.
‘OK, that’s Ava. She was stronger. She was born first, and, although she was smaller, she was better developed and she’s heavier now than Libby. And that’s Libby. She had to have much more help with her breathing, and there were a few days when—when we thought we might lose her,’ she said a little unsteadily, and he realised she was struggling just as much as he was. Her fingers tightened on his, and he squeezed them back, as much for himself as for her.
‘They look tiny.’
‘They were. Twins are always smaller. They’ve only got half as much room, so considering that they do pretty well, but by the time they were delivered my uterus had reached its limit and it was in danger of rupturing. They had to do two operations to free the adhesions, and then finally they couldn’t release any more and they had to deliver them. But I hung on as long as I could.’
‘It sounds awful,’ he said, wincing at the thought. It must have been so painful. Why on earth hadn’t she contacted him? Although God alone knows what use he would have been to her, haunted by his demons.
‘It was. And I was so scared. I nearly called you. If you’d rung before, I would have done, but then my phone was stolen and all I could do was get by, minute by minute, and then the crisis was over.’
‘I would have come,’ he said gruffly.
‘Would you?’
She turned and looked at him, and he met her gentle, searching eyes briefly before he turned away. ‘Yes,’ he said with conviction. ‘I would.’ Even though it would have killed him.
‘Max, can I ask you something?’
He looked back at her, and his heart started to pound. ‘Sure.’
‘Who’s Debbie?’
The wine sloshed over the rim of the glass, soaking his hand and running over the arm of the sofa. He leapt to his feet and got a cloth, dabbing and blotting and rubbing with it until she took it out of his hand and pulled him back down gently onto the sofa beside her.
‘Max, forget that, talk to me. Who is she? Why was your mother so surprised that I’d never heard of her? And what did she do to you that’s made you so shut down inside?’
He stared at her, his breath rasping, then he closed his mouth and swallowed. He could do this. He owed it to her—and he should have told her years ago.
‘She was my girlfriend,’ he said, his voice sounding strange to his ears. Rough and unused. Like his feelings. ‘She was pregnant, and she got pre-eclampsia. They did a C-section, but she was fitting when they took her into Theatre, and she died. So did the baby. My son. He lived for fifteen hours and seven minutes. He was twenty-six weeks. That’s why the DVD—’
He clenched his jaw, holding back the tears, keeping it all under control. For an age she said nothing, but then she dragged in a shaky breath and said, ‘Did he have a name? Your baby?’
‘Ye—’ He swallowed and tried again. ‘Yes. I called him Michael. It was my father’s name.’
‘Oh, Max.’
The tears welled in her eyes and splashed down over her cheeks, and she covered her mouth with her hand and tried to hold in the sob.
He couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t watch her crying for Debbie and their tiny son, or for him, so locked in grief that he couldn’t even watch a film of his own daughters without replaying his baby’s short, desperate hours. He couldn’t watch it, or her, because, if he did, if he let the feelings up to the surface, they’d tear him apart like they had before, and he couldn’t take it all over again.
‘Oh, Max,’ she murmured, and he felt her fingers stroke away the tears that he could feel running soundlessly down his cheeks.
‘It’s OK, Max, I’ve got you,’ she said gently, and he realised that, far from tearing him apart, it felt good to let it go, because Jules was with him, and he wasn’t alone any more.
And so with a quiet sigh he turned into her arms, and for the first time in fifteen years he let the tears flow unchecked.
HE SLEPT until nine the following morning, the only time she’d ever known him to sleep late.
Even jet-lagged, he’d never slept for so long, so she crept into his room at eight to check that he was still breathing and found him lying spreadeagled on his front across the bed, snoring softly. The covers had slipped off one side, but the room was warm, so even though he was naked he wouldn’t be cold.
The urge to pull the covers up over him and creep in beside him and take him in her arms almost overwhelmed her, but instead she tiptoed out and went back downstairs and put the washing on, then let Murphy out into the garden for a romp. He brought her his ball on a rope, and she threw it for him a few times, but it was chilly out, and she didn’t like to leave the girls. They were getting so adventurous, and even in the playpen she didn’t trust them not to get up to mischief.
So she went back inside, and she put the radio on quietly and folded the washing that had aired overnight on the front of the Aga and made herself a coffee. Then, just when she was convincing herself he hadn’t been breathing at all and she’d imagined it, she heard the boards creak and the water running in the bathroom, and she gave a sigh of relief and relaxed.
They’d talked for hours last night. He’d told her all about it; about how he’d met Debbie, and how excited they’d been when they’d found out she was pregnant. And he talked about little Michael, and how he’d held him as he died, and how he’d vowed then never to put another