For Better for Worse

Outwardly nothing had changed; if anything she was even slimmer, the sickness she was still suffering occasionally leaving her looking slightly paler than normal, slightly frailer perhaps; but so far there was nothing about her body that proclaimed that she was pregnant.

She touched her still flat stomach, closing her eyes, willing herself to reject the image she could see in the darkness.

‘I can’t help it. Can’t you see that? Can’t you understand? I don’t have any choice. Damn you, stop doing this to me. It isn’t my fault… I don’t want you…’

As she said the words out loud, she felt physically sick, and then, as she opened her eyes and glanced down at her body a second time, she realised that her hands were pressed protectively across her stomach, almost as though she was trying to prevent the baby from hearing what she was saying about it. The baby… It wasn’t a baby. There wasn’t going to be any baby. There couldn’t be any baby.

* * *

‘Zoe, what is it… what’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ Zoe responded tersely.

Next to her in bed she could feel the restless movement of Ben’s body. She heard the faint sigh he expelled.

‘I’m just a bit tired, that’s all,’ she told him shortly. ‘Why should there be something wrong just because I don’t want sex?’

Ben winced as he listened to her.

Sex—was that all it had become to her? Even though she had her back to him and was lying over a foot away from him, he could sense her tension.

He wanted to reach out to her and to hold her, to explain to her that it wasn’t the fact that she was too tired to make love to him that bothered him, but the fact that he knew she was lying.

She had been too tired last night, and the night before, and yet he had known she was lying beside him awake, long after anyone who was genuinely tired would have been deeply asleep.

Miserably Zoe clenched her muscles. What was wrong with her? She still loved Ben, she knew that. Only this evening, watching him with his head bent, his shoulders hunched as he worked on the restaurant’s weekly wages-just one of the extra and unpaid tasks Aldo had foisted on him—she had been overwhelmed by a tide of emotion so strong that she had had to blink away the tears it brought to her eyes. Yes, she still loved him; it was just that, sexually, something within her froze into a desire-obliterating block of resentment at the thought of making love with him.

It was a reaction she couldn’t explain even to herself, and even now a part of her almost wished he would overrule her, take hold of her and love her, help her to obliterate even if momentarily the emotions she was trying to reject.

It amazed her sometimes that neither Ben nor anyone else had actually guessed. Some days she felt as though the full horror of the truth was written clearly in her face for everyone and anyone to see. And surely Ben, who purported to love her, must somehow sense… must have some awareness of what she was suffering? Or was he merely concerned with his own emotions, his own needs?

No one seemed to care about her, not Ben, lying now with his back towards her, sulking no doubt because she had refused him sex; not her mother, who was so preoccupied with her own life that she barely had time to speak to Zoe on the phone any more, never mind listen to her.

* * *

‘Ben, Zoe… I’m glad you could both make it.’

Clive looked preoccupie

d as they were shown into his office and Zoe was aware of Ben’s tension.

Irritably she glanced at him. What was there for him to be tense about? He was getting what he wanted, wasn’t he? Why didn’t he simply relax and enjoy it instead of permanently looking for problems? If he wasn’t worrying about the hotel he was worrying about his present job. Only yesterday he had made some comment about Aldo being increasingly difficult.

‘Well, it won’t be for much longer, will it?’ Zoe had responded unsympathetically.

‘No,’ Ben had agreed quietly. ‘I don’t suppose it will.’ And after that he hadn’t said anything else. Didn’t he realise that sometimes she simply did not feel like reassuring and supporting him; that sometimes she was one who needed… ?

‘I thought it was time we got together so that I could update you on what’s happening,’ Clive was saying.

‘There isn’t a problem, is there?’ Ben asked him quickly.

Zoe watched as Clive carefully realigned the papers on his desk with precise, controlled movements.

‘Not a problem exactly,’ he responded. ‘It’s just that things may not go ahead as quickly as we’d originally hoped. I’m seeing the architect next week and…’

‘Doesn’t he think the house is suitable—is that it?’ Ben pressed, while Zoe stared at him and frowned. Wasn’t Ben listening to what Clive had said? He had just told them that nothing was wrong, and yet as she looked back at Clive again she saw in his eyes a flicker of both hesitation and respect as he studied Ben.

‘No. It isn’t that the house isn’t suitable,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s just that Adam Wheelwright, the architect, feels that it could be difficult getting planning permission—that it might take rather longer than we’d originally believed. I’ve got his plans here, as a matter of fact. He’s done a fine job on them; there are two different sets, the first showing the conversion to the restaurant and the second showing the later stages of extending the house into a hotel complete with conference suite and leisure complex. He’s drawn up the designs in such a way as to ensure that the basic layout of the grounds will hardly be altered at all. He feels that will be a plus point when it comes to applying for planning permission.’