OMG Baby! (13 page)

As I hesitate, Rainey gives a triumphant little smile. ‘Of course she’s not OK with it!’ she says.

‘Well, I’d rather you didn’t smoke, Max. I don’t want you dying of cancer and ducking out of parenting duties. Ha, ha.’ I look from Max to Rainey, but they stare at each other like a pair of fighting cockerels.

Max drops his cigarette into his empty can, places it on the windowsill and closes the window.

‘It’s time to rest, Vivienne – you look weary,’ says Rainey, gracefully getting up.

As she passes in a fragrant waft, she places her hand on my leg, pressing lightly for a moment in a gesture of reassurance, and I have to fight the urge to cling to her and sob wildly into her neck, begging her to tuck me in, stroke my hair, read me a story, get me a milky drink, et cetera.
Get a hold of yourself, Vivienne
. It must be neediness brought on by vulnerability because I’m pregnant. I shake my head, look at my hands.

‘Goodnight, Vivienne,’ she murmurs.

‘’Night.’ I smile.

‘Goodnight,
Lor
-raine!’ Max calls after her.

We hear the door click closed and, a few seconds later, the ritual chanting.

‘Don’t call her Lorraine,’ I tell him, and he starts to laugh, palm over his beard.

‘What?’

‘Suicidal mice!’ he says, and goes over to struggle with the squeaky fold-out mechanism of the torture bed.

‘I know – she is one crazy fruit loop.’ I sigh. ‘I was kind of hoping we’d all get on, for a while anyway. I really think she cares about me.’

‘I’m trying, darlin’, but I don’t know how she hasn’t been strangled by now.’

‘Can you try any harder?’ I smile, contemplating the sofa bed and wondering if my tolerance will hold out.

Rainey is infuriating and I know it’s unfair to ask Max to put up with her, but I just need to keep her a bit longer, long enough to cement something between us. I’ll have to find a way, try harder to make them get on.

‘God, I’m tired.’ I feel the dead weight of my body slung like a sack of porridge into the chair and my bag is pressing into my hip, but I can’t even be bothered to move.

My phone buzzes a message, three short vibrations through the bag into my thigh, and I force myself to fish it out. A text from Lucy.

I
answer
.

A
s I press ‘send
’, I notice I have a voicemail from Sarah at Tease UK. I look at Max. He’s pretending to be a suicidal mouse; my smile fades as I listen to the message.

‘Hi, Viv. It’s Sarah from Tease UK calling. Just a quick message to say thanks for coming in today. Lovely to meet you all. I presented your product to the rest of the buying team, and unfortunately, although we really liked the idea, we feel it isn’t for us at this time. We will keep your details on file, however, and will be in contact if circumstances change.’ Here she clears her throat and slips out of the reading-a-script voice to a sort of low half-whisper. ‘I wonder if you would ask your IT freelancer, Michael, to give me a little tinkle. I have a couple of projects he might be interested in. Thanks, Viv. Bye.’

I feel disappointment like a giant hand pressing down on my head. My heart clatters under my ribs.

‘Fuck it,’ I say to the ceiling.

Max frowns. I replay the message and hand him the phone.

L
ater
, we lie together, him curled behind me, his mouth near my ear. I listen to the tick of the radiator, and the occasional rumble of a night bus on the main road. Thoughts come into my head and fly off again, taking my whole insides with them.

‘You all right?’ asks Max, his voice buzzing on my earlobe.

‘No.’

‘What you thinking?’

‘Just . . . how do people make a living?’

‘That’s a morning thought. Think night thoughts.’ He strokes a hand over my belly. ‘Think about Angel.’

‘Terrifying.’

‘No,’ he whispers.

‘We don’t have any money.’

‘But we’ll get some.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Yeah.’

I turn over to face him, make out the shape of his profile in the dark. ‘Aren’t you worried?’

‘Nah.’ He lifts an arm and I rest my face against his ribs. I put a leg over his thigh and wriggle into him. ‘Careful,’ he murmurs.

‘I’m not scared of you.’

‘Oh, you’re not?’ He puts a hand on my bottom.

‘How are you not worried?’

‘Shh, don’t think.’ His hand circles.

I try to think of the bigger picture, things bigger than me – stars, death, elephants and where his hand is heading. I shift myself up on top of him and kiss him slowly.

‘I’ll take your mind off things. I have special and ingenious ways,’ he says.

‘You reckon you could?’

‘Almost definitely,’ he says, sliding both hands up my back.

I’m sitting giggling on top of Max about to take my mind off things when the overhead light snaps on above our heads. We freeze. I cover my boobs with my hands as Rainey pads through to the kitchen wearing my velour dressing gown. When she’s out of sight, I fall flat against the mattress, pulling the covers over us. She comes back through with a glass of water.

‘Could you not ever knock?’ Max shouts. She turns off the light and closes the door without an answer. I listen to her footsteps and her door closing, clutching a sheet up to my chin. Max slides me across the bed towards him.

‘I can hear her, so she must be able to hear us.’

‘So?’ he says, kissing my collarbone and moving down.

‘So we can’t do it now,’ I say, tapping him on the head.

He appears from under the covers, hair sticking up with static, and rolls onto his back. His erection makes a tent of the sheets.

‘What will I do with this, then?’ he says.

‘I don’t know. Think of something horrible.’ We lie on our backs. I stare up into the grainy darkness. ‘Has it gone?’

‘Almost instantly.’

‘What did you think of?’

‘Your mother.’

R
ight
, it is now time to take matters into my own hands. I’ve woken up bouncing with energy, not at all sick. We are going to start the day positively and everybody will be cool. I hum to myself as I set the table for breakfast. Max is confused, as he usually eats children’s cereal with water from a Tupperware tub, standing up.

‘This morning I’ve decided we’re all having a lovely family breakfast together,’ I announce as Rainey saunters in wearing a purple and yellow kaftan in almost see-through material. Max is already sitting at the fold-out dining table, with his triple shot of coffee, sulkily reading the paper.

‘I don’t eat wheat—’ begins Rainey.

‘I know you don’t, but I’ve made you a lovely fruit salad and sprinkled it with seeds, see?’ I show her the bowl as I put it on the table.

‘No fruit for me, thank you, dreamboat,’ says Max without looking up from the sports section.

‘No, for you, my love, I’m making a bacon sandwich.’ I smile lovingly and ruffle his hair. Is this a bit like dealing with adolescents?

I go to the kitchen to get the sandwich and my banana and toast. I’m going to be a great mum if I can handle these two. The whole flat smells of coffee and toast and bacon, morning show on the radio, red autumn sun flickering through the blind; we’re like a breakfast-juice ad in here, except we don’t have juice and no one is talking to each other, but you know what I mean. I go through to the table where my mother and fiancé sit in silence.

‘So what’s your plan for today?’ I ask Rainey.

‘My “plan”? We are corporate, aren’t we?’ she says, picking the kiwi out of her salad. ‘Of course I don’t have one.’

I smile sweetly. This family breakfast is going to involve a nice conversation if it kills me.

‘What about you, darling?’ I ask Max.

He looks up, grinning. ‘Well,
darling
, I’m going to the studio, and after that I’m going to see Guy.’

‘Guy?’ asks Rainey.

Max glances over at her. ‘Trust me, you don’t know him.’

‘Oh, I’m not remotely interested in the sad snippets of your life. I was just trying to make conversation,’ she says.

‘Good,’ I say, looking at Max’s lowered eyebrows – he looks like he’s just been stung on the nose by something he didn’t see coming. ‘Then I might come with you to the studio this morning,’ I say to distract him. He drags his daggers back from Rainey and looks at me, his face softening.

‘Grand,’ he says.

‘I’ll just have to call work.’ I smile.

‘I may have to leave for Madrid this afternoon,’ says Rainey, pushing aside her full dish of fruit. I try not to stare – that fruit cost me nearly a fiver in Marks & Spencer.

‘What . . . but why?’ I say desperately.

‘I’m in the way here. You clearly don’t have time for me, Vivienne.’

‘I do. I have time.’

‘No, you don’t,’ says Max.

Rainey puts her head to one side and smiles sadly. ‘You’re very busy. I see how it is.’

‘But don’t go to Madrid yet. Let’s have lunch today. I’ll meet you.’

Her eyes flick from me to Max and down to her lap. ‘No, I think I need to move on,’ she says.

‘You’re probably right,’ says Max.

‘How about I meet you at Baker Street Tube Station? There’s a vegetarian restaurant down the Marylebone Road. We can talk.’

She sighs, tilts her head the other way and says, ‘Uhm,’ while sighing again. ‘All right, I’ll meet with you, Vivienne, but nowhere special – I have very simple needs.’

Max’s laugh is muffled by the huge bite he’s taking of his sandwich. He wipes brown sauce from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘Something amusing you?’ asks Rainey.

He nods, chewing, and points at her. He mimes laughing, holding his ribs. He looks her in the eye, rams the last of the sandwich in his mouth and saunters to the kitchen with his plate.

I smile, nervous as a knock-kneed goat in a temple. Rainey looks at me with exaggerated patience, pressing her lips together.

‘I might . . . I’m just going to get dressed, then,’ I say, pointing to the bedroom.

She nods. ‘Do, Vivienne, but please God not that green dress. It really doesn’t help you.’

I
t’s
one of those crisp late October days, sunny, blue skied, with just the right amount of red and orange leaves floating about – a perfect picture of autumn. I’m walking hand in hand with Max to the studio in my spot-sponged green dress, looking at my belly in shop windows. I happen to think this dress really does help me, skimming as it does over my small bump. I’m proud of pregnant me. I like to think there are two of us in here and one of us has to look after the other one and that’s why I asked a man to give me his seat on the train. The funny thing is he just got up. He didn’t ask for scan pictures or a doctor’s note, didn’t speak, just stood up and let me sit in the indentation warmed by his bottom and Max, in his unzipped biker jacket, hung his hands over the bar above the seat and looked down at me. He’s quiet because:

We’ve just agreed he should sell his motorbike in Spain rather than bring it back, and he loves that bike like one of his own limbs. It was his idea to sell it. I merely agreed and said it was ‘sensible’, which I now know is a word he can’t stand and something he never, ever wants to be.

I missed the chance to pack Rainey off to Madrid.

B
y the time
we get to the studio, he’s feeling better.

Dave runs to the door as we open it, trying to escape. Max lifts him up to the ceiling, saying, ‘Flying cat,’ holds out his front legs, points him towards me and says, ‘Cat escaping explosion,’ puts Dave round his neck and says, ‘Scarf cat,’ while Dave glares murderously. Max asks Dave what he wants for breakfast, takes him to the kitchen and scrapes fish mush onto a saucer.

In the whitewashed studio, there are four really amazing sketches of me taped up on the wall and a huge painting on a canvas next to them of me wearing the tutu, looking miserable. I examine the painting. I love it. I’m always amazed and surprised at his talent. It’s incredible that someone I know can paint like this. Up close the slicks of paint that make up my limbs and face and spilling-out breasts are yellow, purple, blue and grey, but when you step away, they cleverly make up the shadow and light of my skin. My face is half turned moodily, and I have smudged eye make-up. The thing is, this painting is a zillion times better than any of the landscapes. I can’t tell Max that, though. He comes into the room with coffee.

‘You don’t want one?’ he asks, and I shake my head. I can’t stand coffee anymore, or the smell of mangoes, or the drag marks lips make on spoons of yoghurt.

Max looks at the sketches and the paintings, standing beside me. ‘I’ll tell you something, this work is way stronger than the landscapes,’ he says, and then he laughs.

‘What?’

‘Guy has a whole gallery full of fucking landscapes he can’t sell.’

‘He will sell them, though. I mean, they’re not the kind of things you snap up on impulse, are they, landscapes? People need time to view them and think about them. These are great, though.’ I stroll along in front of the sketches.

‘I want to do a whole load of paintings of you pregnant, but I’ll do them from photos,’ he says. Then he downs the coffee in one and gasps, wiping his hand over his beard. ‘So, Viv, when are you going to get rid of your mother?’

I turn to face him. ‘That again.’

‘I Googled her. She’s no vegan hippy. She’s a businesswoman importing and exporting stuff in Colombia.’

‘I know.’

‘You know?’

‘I know she’s not vegan, anyway – I saw her in McDonald’s.’

He shakes his head. ‘She’s so full of shite.’

I sigh heavily and slump onto the floor. ‘I told you, it’s complicated. I don’t really even know her. The last time I saw her was for, like, one day, three years ago, so this is the longest I’ve ever spent with her, as an adult anyway. I wanted to get to know her . . .’ I trail off, bored of saying it. I look at him. I smile, but he doesn’t. He leans against the wall, ankles crossed, listening.

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘I can’t see why you want to get to know her.’

‘It’s hard to explain . . . It’s because I’m pregnant. I want to know my own mum. When you’re pregnant, you start to wonder about your own flesh and blood maybe. I don’t know. I know it isn’t working. I know. But if it was your family, I’d really try to like them.’

‘I wouldn’t ask you to like my family – they’re all nuts.’

‘I know! Why don’t we visit your family? We could go to Dublin.’

He frowns as if confused. ‘Why would we do that?’

‘I want to meet them, and we’ll get away from Rainey for a bit.’

‘But how much longer is she staying, Viv?’

‘I’ll speak to her. I’ll ask.’

‘Tell her,’ he says, and when I glance at his face, he’s very stern-looking. ‘She can’t stay for fucking ever, can she? She’s doing my head in with her theories and her stories and her “I don’t eat wheat” and her “Why don’t you paint something to match the sofa?” and she has you dangling like a yo-yo.’

‘Not really.’

‘You’re her puppet.’

I pretend to be a puppet. He remains stern looking.

‘I can’t stand it.’

‘I know what I’m doing, though – see, I’m indulging her.’

‘Tell her to go.’ He shakes his head.

‘I will tell her. When we have lunch today, I’ll say just another week. One more week – can you handle that?’

‘I know she’s your mother and all, but I can’t live with her.’

‘A week?’

‘I’m having fantasies about clubbing her to death.’

‘One week, Max.’

‘Apart from her being a witch, the place is too small. I want our bed back. I want you back to yourself, not stressed about her.’

‘Seven days!’

‘OK,’ he says finally, tilting back his head, staring at the ceiling. ‘I can never refuse you anything.’

‘Good, then give me a thousand pounds.’

He digs in his jeans and pulls out a crumpled fiver. ‘Here, don’t spend it all,’ he says, and I get up to kiss him goodbye. The kiss is about to turn into a full-on snog, but I break off, suddenly starving with a strong desire for one of those yoghurt and granola tubs from Pret a Manger. I whip the money out of his hand and make for the door.

‘See you later,’ I say over my shoulder.

‘Either she goes or I do!’ he shouts as the door closes.