Chapter 52
It was only a few days before a preview copy of
Hello landed on the doormat. Mel took
the copy to Christian immediately and they sat at the table looking at it
together.
“You happy with it?” she asked as they reached the
end.
“Yeah, is cool,” he said quietly.
“You OK?” she said, he had been so quiet since the
shoot.
“Fine,” he said.
“Have I done something wrong?” she asked.
“Nope”
He could be so infuriating sometimes, a man of so
few words you just wanted to shake his head, just to see if some would topple
out. At times Mel really couldn’t be
bothered, to sit there and have a whole conversation with him, this was one of
those times, getting up she began to move towards the stairs.
“I’m worried about leaving you,” he suddenly
blurted out.
“Pardon?”
“I have to go away on tour for a week,” he
explained, “and I don’t like the thought of leaving you here.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure you can look after yourself properly.”
“I’m 19 years old,” she said in exasperation, “I’ve
been looking after myself for years.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No”
“The baby.”
Great – here came the lecture again!
“There’s nothing wrong with the baby.”
“I can’t help but worry though,” he replied.
“Don’t bother,” she snapped back, carrying on
walking to the back of the room.
“Of course I’m going to bother, I’m the father.”
“And everything is fine.”
“It’s not Mel, you’re not getting any bigger, you
haven’t been to the doctor for ages, we haven’t had a scan, how do we know
everything is normal?”
“I know everything’s fine,” she argued.
“Please Mel,” he was begging now, he had managed to
reach her and was now holding her tightly to him, “please just do it for me.”
“OK,” she agreed reluctantly, I’ll go and see the
Doctor later in the week.”
“And then phone me and let me know how it goes?” he
asked.
A day later and Christian had gone, a1 were touring
the country to promote their latest single, and with the press camped out on
the doorstep Mel felt that all she could do was sit and wait for him to
return. She hated the fact that every
time she opened the door to get the milk she was greeted by blinding
flashes. So she sat in every day,
watching TV and waiting for him to return to her. Was this what it was going to be like being a
Popstar wife, just sitting around by herself the whole time?
For a day she had been excited, it was nice to have
the place to herself, free run of the TV without Christian hogging it to watch
strange Norwegian satellite channels, but now she was here on her own she had
changed her mind, it wasn’t fun at all.
It had also made her realise that she had no one –
not a single friend in the world that she could call up and chat to, she had
left them all behind, given them all up for Christian. For a moment she had almost considered
ringing Karen and Steph, but then had come to her senses a second later … she
really didn’t have anyone.
She spent many evenings just sat on the floor, a
glass of wine placed on the floor beside her, crying her eyes out. She’d cry and drink until she was giddy with
exhaustion and then would collapse on the floor into a cold sleep. She would then sleep until lunchtime, when
she would eventually struggle to get herself up to watch a few hours TV before
the drinking began again at
“I’m going mad,” she would often whisper to herself
as she sat on his favourite chair, wrapped up tightly in his big jumper, she
buried her nose deep in to the fabric and sniffed it. He hadn’t been in touch at all yet, and she
couldn’t help but sit there and wonder why.
On the third day Christian finally rang.
“Hello babe,” his cheery voice sounded down the
phone.
“Where are you?” she asked, sniffing back the
tears.
“
“Why didn’t you ring me before?” she asked.
“I couldn’t get any signal up here, I wanted to,
but this was the first chance I got.”
She sat there in silence, still trying to get rid
of the tears that had covered her face most of the morning.
“How have you been?” he asked, filling the silence.
“Good”
“How did the doctors go?”
“Fine,” she lied.
“What did they say?”
“They said I had some condition”
“Shit! Is
everything OK, is the baby OK?” he asked, the anxiety showing in the tightness
of his voice.
“Baby’s fine,” she said, “my body’s just reacting
differently to the pregnancy.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I won’t really get any bigger – but
everything is fine, the baby is still fine.”
“You sure?”
“Positive”
May be now this would finally convince him that
everything was OK.
“Is that even possible?” He asked, “what’s the
condition called?”
“Not sure, had one of those long medical names,”
she explained, “but it’s like Sonia in Eastenders.”
“Eh?”
She had forgotten, popstars don’t watch soaps.
“It doesn’t matter,” she dismissed.
“Look, I’m going to have to go sweetie.”
“Ok – love you,” she replied.
“See you soon.”
The phone line went dead.