Chapter Text
April 2010, St Mary’s Hospital
It’s gone as well as can be expected. The bairn’s fine, healthy, but the doctors want Noel to stay a day or two longer for observation so they can monitor her blood pressure. According to Noel, it’s because they don’t want to have the death of the saviour of modern rock ‘n’ roll on their hands. Naturally, she’s not keen on it, wants the comforts of home and Peggy (who’s making her way down to stay with them) fussing over her.
It’s utterly predictable that Noel won’t complain or say a word about the agony of labour, but is more than ready to kick up a fuss about something as inconsequential as staying in a private hospital room, the best that money can buy, with a highly trained medical team on call, for a mere two days.
It’s already running from evening into night. She'd woken from a fitful sleep in a sulk, wanting the baby and then wanting to go home. Colin’s with her now, good-humoured and coaxing, with more patience than Sara has left in her, so she’d taken the opportunity to step out for a quick fag.
She’d quit smoking when Noel did, ostensibly in solidarity but in reality from the sheer inconvenience of having to go outside to the garden every time she wanted a smoke. But her girlfriend of several years has just had another man’s child, so she thinks she’s entitled.
She doesn’t have a pack or a light with her, but she has the vague idea that she could bum one off someone, which is when she turns from the hospital exit and sees him, standing underneath a street light.
He looks older, much older, even though it can’t have been more than just over a year since she last saw him. His face is lined, sallow. There’s a vacant, dead-eyed expression on his face. Not hollow, but the suggestion of something worse than emptiness. Noel has it sometimes, too, when she thinks no one’s looking.
Sara stops. And thinks.
The thing about Noel is that she’s direct, funny, sometimes blunt, with her disarming Mancunian cheek and bright blue eyes. She looks after the people she loves, can be generous to a fault. Endearing, even when she’s grumpy or in a mood. Easy to like, easy to love. It makes people think that what you see is what you get, and not look deeper or ask any other questions.
But Sara’s been with her a long time, longer than she’d imagined when she first started seeing her. For better or worse, she loves her.
So Sara knows, maybe better than anyone, that Noel is — well, she’s selfish.
It’s not that she doesn’t think about the consequences of her actions or that she doesn’t feel sorry about them. She’s not like the friends of hers in the business that Sara’s met either, who gorge themselves on attention, drugs and the fine things that get handed to you on a platter when you’re gorgeous, and talented, and the world loves you, but only for now. Noel is steady, self-contained, and doesn’t believe in regret. She generally doesn’t want much, apart from the money and the security it brings, both of which she has in spades.
But in the rare instances when she wants something, really wants something — she takes it. Never mind the price, never mind who pays.
It’s been like this for most of the time they’ve been together. There’s something about Noel that makes people loyal, often beyond reason. That makes them want to do things for her, give her things, or accept situations, make compromises, that they would never imagine otherwise.
(Case in point: Sara, here, playing the supportive girlfriend, while Noel has someone else’s — probably Paul Weller’s — baby.)
But however disastrously and messily the band had ended, Noel has never said a word against Liam about it. She’d cursed the label up a storm, complained at length about the extortionate lawyers' bills, and had a litany of things to say about the press that was liberally punctuated with vivid and imaginative Mancunian swearing.
But not saying a thing about Liam, not even mentioning his name — that means Noel feels guilty. That she believes it’s at least partly her fault.
Given how Colin’s sitting with Noel and the bairn now, it’s not surprising, if Sara thinks about it, that Liam would be here. Barred from entry, but still lurking outside the gates. Like a dog banished by its mistress that doesn’t know where else to go. In spite of her own misery, she feels a stab of pity.
‘Liam,’ Sara calls out.
He startles, sees her, then looks shamefaced to be caught. Takes a deep drag from his cigarette to hide it, hand obscuring his face.
‘Bum a fag?’ she asks.
He passes one over to her and lights it for her, while she takes the opportunity to study him.
She’s never really known what to make of him, and the feeling’s been mutual. It used to amuse Noel, the mutual bafflement with which he and Sara regarded each other. Sara had neither the interest in coddling a grown man, nor the inclination to throw herself at him (or any man), which she understood from Noel and observation to be the two reactions he inspired in women. He, on his part, seemed a little thrown without the usual script to follow.
But he was polite enough, and — for all the carry-on in the media about loud-mouthed rock ‘n’ roll antics — quiet, for the most part, which was more than Sara could say for most men. She used to think it was a regressive hangover from their Irish Catholic upbringing, how Noel would fuss over him and nag, butter his toast and fix his hair, like a mother would. But she remembers seeing, too, the way he’d once shoved himself in between Noel and a pack of paparazzi who had gotten maybe a little too close, with a snarling, determined ferocity.
He’s tapping his feet against the gravel, antsy with unspoken questions. It’s clear what he wants to know from his face, but he’s not sure if he’s allowed to ask.
She decides to put him out of his misery.
‘She’s fine. Bairn’s fine, too.’
He visibly relaxes, although there’s still something strained about him.
‘A boy,’ she adds.
A flicker of something terrible and tender crosses his face, before he hides it away. Nods in acknowledgment at her words.
‘D’ye … ’ She hesitates. She’s not sure it’s her place; it probably isn’t.
He shakes his head. They both know if Noel had wanted him there, he would be. She doesn’t. There isn’t much more to say.
They stand together, smoking in silence.
When she’s done, she thanks him again for the fag. He nods again.
As she walks away, she realises he hasn’t said a single word to her the whole time she’s been here.
When she turns back to look at him, there are tear tracks running down the side of his cheeks, as he rocks back on his heels, eyes closed, face tilted to the sky.