‘I think you must be mixing him up with someone else.’
‘Oh, well, maybe I’m wrong. Nice man all the same. Anyway, I hope you two have a lovely Christmas together.’
‘And you,’ Ellie replied, and felt a slight sense of unease.
Chapter 56
MANDY
‘Not long now, my little kidney bean,’ Mandy told her baby bump, as she rubbed moisturiser into her expanding breasts and belly. ‘Everyone’s really looking forward to meeting you and, in a few weeks, you’ll be here causing me sleepless nights for the rest of my life. But I don’t care. You can throw anything at me and I’ll always be there for you.’
She glanced into the bedroom mirror to check on her stretch marks, and was grateful to see they hadn’t extended any further.
Mandy was now staying full time with Pat, and living off her redundancy money. With all the big changes in her life, she was grateful to Pat for helping her. She had registered Mandy with her own doctor, enrolled her in antenatal classes at her local health centre, assisted her with her birth plan and even volunteered to be her birthing partner. She’d also kept the cabinets stocked with everything she needed: vitamins, minerals and folic acids. At times, Mandy would’ve preferred for Pat to take a step or two back, but with nobody else but Chloe on her side, she was reliant on her for support.
It had been five months since she’d had the altercation with Paula and Karen, and she didn’t wish to speak to them. She’d ignored all the texts and phone calls, even those from her mother and Kirstin. She was still angry and disappointed that they hadn’t tried to understand her point of view and recognise her need to have this child. But along with her rage there was an underlying sadness that they weren’t there to experience her pregnancy with her, like she had been with them.
‘You’re doing the right thing,’ Pat had assured her. ‘With your history of miscarriages, you need to stay away from anything or anyone that causes you stress.’
Mandy agreed, but it didn’t stop her from feeling sad.
Pat and Chloe’s almost constant presence helped to offset Mandy’s loneliness, and they’d been by her side through everything: her hormonal tears, her mood swings and her morning sickness. They were her family now, she realised; a hermetically sealed unit joined together by a man who no longer physically existed.
Now permanently living in Richard’s bedroom, her clothes hung next to his in his wardrobe and her perfumes sat beside his aftershaves. She slept only on one side of the bed, leaving room for where Richard would have been, and she cuddled his favourite jumper through the night, bringing it close to her face in the hope that somehow the baby might catch his scent.
Pat and Chloe had assembled a wooden cot one afternoon, and this now stood at the far end of Richard’s room. Next to it was a stack of blue-and-white coloured baby clothes that Pat had bought, convinced that Mandy was carrying a boy.
Mandy screwed the top back onto the bottle of moisturiser and slipped her shirt on. She realised they had never discussed how long Mandy would live with them after the baby arrived, but she already knew she didn’t want to leave. She felt safe in that room, as if Richard’s spirit was there with them, keeping them comfortable and protecting them from the people outside. They had all been concerned that the media might find out about the story, and based on the way Mandy’s family reacted, she knew the world would view her as a freak.
She lay on her side trying to find a comfortable position, and looked up as she often did at the collage of photographs Richard had pinned to the wall. Each night she’d pore through them, as well as others in albums, to learn more about him. There were photos from when they’d visited Disneyland and also at the family’s cottage in the Lake District. In one photo, Richard and Chloe perched on bikes below a tiled house sign reading Mount Pleasant. It looked like such a calming place, and she wondered, had he had the chance, if Richard would have taken her to the family cottage; if he would have shared that special place with her. Mandy had seen so many pictures, with such regularity, that she felt like she knew his facial expressions and mannerisms as well as she knew her own.
Three other photos featured a teenage Richard in a hospital bed, surrounded by his friends. She assumed they must have been taken during his chemotherapy.
Her attention was drawn to two images of a young woman whose face seemed familiar. Mandy tried to remember why she recognised her and then it dawned on her – she was the girl who’d sent Richard nude pictures of herself, the ones she’d seen on his old phone. Mandy grabbed the phone back to check and sure enough, the girl was there in all her nakedness.
She was about Richard’s age, so about a decade younger than Mandy, and it showed. Her breasts were perky, her stomach washboard flat and she pouted her lips in a way that only a young woman can get away with. Mandy felt an instant dislike for the unnamed girl, particularly at a time when she felt so dowdy and profoundly pregnant. But she’d rather have her swollen, lumpy and stretch-marked body than be a collagen-plumped stick insect, she thought bitterly.
However, it didn’t stop Mandy from wondering how close the girl and Richard had been; clearly they were intimate enough to send each other naked selfies and for her to be on his wall, but had there been anything more between them or was it just sex-text fun? Was she the girl he’d used over half a pack of condoms with? Mandy felt an overriding, irrational need to know who this girl was.
She turned on her iPad and headed to Richard’s Facebook page. It didn’t take long to find her – Michelle Nicholls. She discovered she lived in a village around ten miles from Pat’s house. Michelle hadn’t set her profile to private so Mandy was able to scroll through all her posts. The more she read, the more begrudging she became. She managed to establish that Richard and Michelle had been in a relationship for about ten months, possibly only ending shortly before his death. Mandy wondered if it had been around the same time he had sent his swab to Match Your DNA.
But while Michelle had kept many of their photographs on her Facebook page, Richard had deleted most of her from his. It was a small triumph for Mandy but she did wonder why Chloe or Pat hadn’t mentioned her.
As the next few days passed, Mandy couldn’t stop returning to Michelle’s profile and skimming through her most recent posts. She and Richard appeared well suited to each other; in her pictures she was always smiling on nights out at bars, with friends in restaurants or on holiday. Mandy wondered what Richard saw in her, apart from the obvious. Was she intelligent? Did she make him laugh? Could she hold herself in a conversation? Or was it just that she was good in bed? Why wasn’t this gorgeous girl enough for him? She was clearly besotted with him. Why did he feel the need to get his DNA tested to find his real Match?
At first, Mandy put her curiosity down to her hormones, but she gradually accepted that there was more to it than that. Pat and Chloe had told her so much about Richard but there was a side to him that only a girlfriend would know. Mandy wanted to know what kind of man Richard was as a partner and how it felt to be loved by him.
She needed to meet Michelle, so she opened Facebook Messenger and began to type.
Chapter 57
CHRISTOPHER
‘Where’ve you been? I’ve been trying to get hold of you all morning.’ Amy sounded frustrated when Christopher finally answered her call. He glanced at his phone and saw he’d missed eleven calls from her that day. He slipped the plastic mask from his face so he wouldn’t sound muffled; his skin felt clammy and was greasy to the touch.
‘Oh, well, maybe I’m wrong. Nice man all the same. Anyway, I hope you two have a lovely Christmas together.’
‘And you,’ Ellie replied, and felt a slight sense of unease.
Chapter 56
MANDY
‘Not long now, my little kidney bean,’ Mandy told her baby bump, as she rubbed moisturiser into her expanding breasts and belly. ‘Everyone’s really looking forward to meeting you and, in a few weeks, you’ll be here causing me sleepless nights for the rest of my life. But I don’t care. You can throw anything at me and I’ll always be there for you.’
She glanced into the bedroom mirror to check on her stretch marks, and was grateful to see they hadn’t extended any further.
Mandy was now staying full time with Pat, and living off her redundancy money. With all the big changes in her life, she was grateful to Pat for helping her. She had registered Mandy with her own doctor, enrolled her in antenatal classes at her local health centre, assisted her with her birth plan and even volunteered to be her birthing partner. She’d also kept the cabinets stocked with everything she needed: vitamins, minerals and folic acids. At times, Mandy would’ve preferred for Pat to take a step or two back, but with nobody else but Chloe on her side, she was reliant on her for support.
It had been five months since she’d had the altercation with Paula and Karen, and she didn’t wish to speak to them. She’d ignored all the texts and phone calls, even those from her mother and Kirstin. She was still angry and disappointed that they hadn’t tried to understand her point of view and recognise her need to have this child. But along with her rage there was an underlying sadness that they weren’t there to experience her pregnancy with her, like she had been with them.
‘You’re doing the right thing,’ Pat had assured her. ‘With your history of miscarriages, you need to stay away from anything or anyone that causes you stress.’
Mandy agreed, but it didn’t stop her from feeling sad.
Pat and Chloe’s almost constant presence helped to offset Mandy’s loneliness, and they’d been by her side through everything: her hormonal tears, her mood swings and her morning sickness. They were her family now, she realised; a hermetically sealed unit joined together by a man who no longer physically existed.
Now permanently living in Richard’s bedroom, her clothes hung next to his in his wardrobe and her perfumes sat beside his aftershaves. She slept only on one side of the bed, leaving room for where Richard would have been, and she cuddled his favourite jumper through the night, bringing it close to her face in the hope that somehow the baby might catch his scent.
Pat and Chloe had assembled a wooden cot one afternoon, and this now stood at the far end of Richard’s room. Next to it was a stack of blue-and-white coloured baby clothes that Pat had bought, convinced that Mandy was carrying a boy.
Mandy screwed the top back onto the bottle of moisturiser and slipped her shirt on. She realised they had never discussed how long Mandy would live with them after the baby arrived, but she already knew she didn’t want to leave. She felt safe in that room, as if Richard’s spirit was there with them, keeping them comfortable and protecting them from the people outside. They had all been concerned that the media might find out about the story, and based on the way Mandy’s family reacted, she knew the world would view her as a freak.
She lay on her side trying to find a comfortable position, and looked up as she often did at the collage of photographs Richard had pinned to the wall. Each night she’d pore through them, as well as others in albums, to learn more about him. There were photos from when they’d visited Disneyland and also at the family’s cottage in the Lake District. In one photo, Richard and Chloe perched on bikes below a tiled house sign reading Mount Pleasant. It looked like such a calming place, and she wondered, had he had the chance, if Richard would have taken her to the family cottage; if he would have shared that special place with her. Mandy had seen so many pictures, with such regularity, that she felt like she knew his facial expressions and mannerisms as well as she knew her own.
Three other photos featured a teenage Richard in a hospital bed, surrounded by his friends. She assumed they must have been taken during his chemotherapy.
Her attention was drawn to two images of a young woman whose face seemed familiar. Mandy tried to remember why she recognised her and then it dawned on her – she was the girl who’d sent Richard nude pictures of herself, the ones she’d seen on his old phone. Mandy grabbed the phone back to check and sure enough, the girl was there in all her nakedness.
She was about Richard’s age, so about a decade younger than Mandy, and it showed. Her breasts were perky, her stomach washboard flat and she pouted her lips in a way that only a young woman can get away with. Mandy felt an instant dislike for the unnamed girl, particularly at a time when she felt so dowdy and profoundly pregnant. But she’d rather have her swollen, lumpy and stretch-marked body than be a collagen-plumped stick insect, she thought bitterly.
However, it didn’t stop Mandy from wondering how close the girl and Richard had been; clearly they were intimate enough to send each other naked selfies and for her to be on his wall, but had there been anything more between them or was it just sex-text fun? Was she the girl he’d used over half a pack of condoms with? Mandy felt an overriding, irrational need to know who this girl was.
She turned on her iPad and headed to Richard’s Facebook page. It didn’t take long to find her – Michelle Nicholls. She discovered she lived in a village around ten miles from Pat’s house. Michelle hadn’t set her profile to private so Mandy was able to scroll through all her posts. The more she read, the more begrudging she became. She managed to establish that Richard and Michelle had been in a relationship for about ten months, possibly only ending shortly before his death. Mandy wondered if it had been around the same time he had sent his swab to Match Your DNA.
But while Michelle had kept many of their photographs on her Facebook page, Richard had deleted most of her from his. It was a small triumph for Mandy but she did wonder why Chloe or Pat hadn’t mentioned her.
As the next few days passed, Mandy couldn’t stop returning to Michelle’s profile and skimming through her most recent posts. She and Richard appeared well suited to each other; in her pictures she was always smiling on nights out at bars, with friends in restaurants or on holiday. Mandy wondered what Richard saw in her, apart from the obvious. Was she intelligent? Did she make him laugh? Could she hold herself in a conversation? Or was it just that she was good in bed? Why wasn’t this gorgeous girl enough for him? She was clearly besotted with him. Why did he feel the need to get his DNA tested to find his real Match?
At first, Mandy put her curiosity down to her hormones, but she gradually accepted that there was more to it than that. Pat and Chloe had told her so much about Richard but there was a side to him that only a girlfriend would know. Mandy wanted to know what kind of man Richard was as a partner and how it felt to be loved by him.
She needed to meet Michelle, so she opened Facebook Messenger and began to type.
Chapter 57
CHRISTOPHER
‘Where’ve you been? I’ve been trying to get hold of you all morning.’ Amy sounded frustrated when Christopher finally answered her call. He glanced at his phone and saw he’d missed eleven calls from her that day. He slipped the plastic mask from his face so he wouldn’t sound muffled; his skin felt clammy and was greasy to the touch.
