Least Said by Pamela Fudge Page A

it. It all became about apportioning blame elsewhere and a small weight gain on my part was enough to be held up as a contributory reason as to why I wasn’t conceiving. I’d tried to be understanding of Jon’s obvious insecurities but it hadn’t been easy.
    Tina had become aware of this and it was her dire warning to Jon that he would lose me if he continued to heap all the blame on me that brought the turn-around in our marriage. The warning did the trick but, unfortunately, it came too late to prevent the affair that had almost certainly resulted in my pregnancy and the birth of William.
    I’d been making an appearance of eating while these thoughts had been running through my mind, though the food could have been made of cardboard and the wine been water for all I tasted of it.
    It appeared Tina had been carrying the conversation along and was saying. ‘Oh, yes, I remember you telling me all about it – and the fact that you had a coughing fit when you almost swallowed the ring. Trust you to glug back the champagne, instead of sipping it,’ she teased.
    I forced myself to laugh along with everyone else, and described the waiter banging me furiously on the back - continuing even after the ring had shot out of my mouth and landed on the next table, where it sat twinkling away in the middle of another diner’s steak meal.
    To Will’s enormous and very apparent delight we were all four of us waiting to meet him at the school gate and he raced to throw his arms around each of us in turn.
    ‘Can we go to McDonalds?’ he pleaded, breathless with excitement. ‘All of us?’
    We looked at each other dubiously, and it was Bette who saved the day by agreeing, ‘Why not? We should all try something at least once in our lives and you can’t dismiss it if you haven’t tried it.’
    ‘Take away, or eat in?’ Calum looked at each of us in turn.
    ‘In, in, in,’ William shouted, beside himself with excitement, ‘and Daddy. He won’t want to miss it.’
    Following a phone call, Jon was waiting outside the restaurant when we got there and it was noisy and busy inside. While Calum and Jon took Will with them to order the food, and Bette went off to the rest room, Tina and I bagged a table big enough to seat the six of us.
    ‘Are you really all right, love?’ she asked. I shrugged, and she continued, ‘I do know what you’re doing, Wendy, and as your friend I’m insisting that this really has got to stop.’
    I looked at her as if I didn’t know what she was talking about. ‘What?’ I asked.
    ‘All this brooding on the past, expecting someone who is little more than a stranger to step back into your life for the sole purpose of destroying it. It just isn’t going to happen.’
    Her words, so sane and sensible, snapped me back to reality and I felt the huge weight that had been sitting on my shoulders lift once again – just like that – and suddenly smiling, I heaved a huge sigh and said, ‘You’re right.’
    She laughed and gave me a hug. ‘Aren’t I always?’
    Everyone arrived back at the table at the same time, and we were soon tucking in to our own preference and tasting everyone else’s too, talking and laughing at the same time. I couldn’t think when I’d enjoyed a meal more – even though I regularly spent more time than I would have chosen to partaking of the various choices offered by this particular fast food chain, due to William make a bee-line for the place in any given town.
    I think Bette spoke for us all when she said, ‘Do you know, this is quite delicious and I can’t believe what I’ve been missing. I think I should have had tea instead of coke, however, as I’ll now be hiccupping all night.’
    ‘Try this, Auntie Bette.’ Will offered her a bite from a chicken nugget, and she accepted, chewing with every appearance of enjoyment.
    ‘So, what’s on your calendar for the next few weeks?’ Tina asked, as we drove across town after taking Bette home and seeing her safely