JONATHON - Book 2

Chapter 12

He took the tray upstairs and placed it over her lap. He didn’t think she had been crying again. He sat on the bed and pulled her into the crook of his arm and they drank their tea and ate their biscuits. When they were finished he placed the tray on the side and she made to snuggle down.

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘This isn’t finished yet, Bea. There’s more. I know there is. There’s more about babies and we are going to set the record straight once and for all. There’s to be no more evasions and half-truths. I know it’s got something to do with Caro.’

She gasped, so he knew his hunches were correct.

‘She didn’t?’ she blurted out and saw the look on his face.

He hadn’t been sure, but she had just completely given the game away.

‘Oh, you’re going to be so cross,’ she said fearfully.

‘Yes,’ he warned her. ‘I think I am. Spill!’ he ordered.

He sat in total, stunned silence as she related the whole episode. The contemplated IVF treatment, donor eggs, Jonny’s sperm – she blushed at that – he just pursed his lips together. Caro offering her womb – he blew out his cheeks and gazed at the ceiling.

‘Bugger,’ he said quietly and Bea didn’t dare scold, she didn’t dare.

Then the question of nannies and au pairs to help with the raising of a child. She didn’t think she had left anything out.

‘And you didn’t think to discuss any of this with me? Or Diurmed?’ he queried in total and angry amazement.

‘It was never going to happen, Jonny. It was just wishful thinking. Like you wishing you could....’

‘No!’ he thundered and she flinched. ‘That’s not the same at all!’

‘I’m sorry, Jonny.’

‘You’re sorry!’ he spun off the bed away from her. That didn’t nearly cover it. He couldn’t be in touching distance of her.

‘Are you going to leave me now?’ she sobbed. He sighed deeply. Oh God!  Always; always, it came back to that.

‘Beatrice Elizabeth,’ he said. ‘One of these days I am going to …’

‘Leave me?’ she cried out.

‘marry you. I’m a Catholic. You were a nun. You know what those vows will mean. We will take our marriage vows before God. No one is leaving anyone! We’re stuck with each other for life!’

‘And now you’re sorry,’ she sobbed.

‘No, I am not sorry. But you are going to be unless you shape up!’

‘Oh, are you going to take me to Brother Ignatius then?’ she flung at him dangerously.

He pursed his lips and drew in a hissing, scolding breath; that was vicious; that was very near the mark.

‘The only man who will ever sting your backside is your husband, woman. And you are very close to finding that out!’

‘Wife beating is grounds for divorce!’ she told him.

‘Catholics don’t do divorce... what the fu.....you’re going to leave me now? I can’t leave you, but you can leave me?’

‘Unreasonable behaviour.’

‘Yeah, right. It’s not unreasonable to take a stranger’s eggs and fertilize them with your husband’s sperm and put them in your sister in law’s belly and then pass the kid off as your own? And just how were you planning to get me to fertilize them.......? No. Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know...... something to do with turkey basters? I still don’t get how my sperm..... forget it. Maybe I could cut out the middle man and just shag whoever myself!’