OMG Baby! (8 page)

‘Oh, you are, you are.’ He smiles, stroking my bottom.

‘Behave yourself!’ I hiss.

He shakes his head. I put a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing as he struggles down to the floor in front of me.

‘What are you doing?’ I whisper half-heartedly.

Max lifts the tutu skirt over his head and I’m pushed forward with my hands against the door for balance as he slides a finger into my pants and pulls them to one side. I look at the ceiling as I feel his tongue. Next door, the toilet flushes and the heels clip-clop to the sink. I look down at the shadow of the tiger tattoo showing through Max’s white shirt and notice that his feet are half underneath the door. Whoever it is will see he’s down there. Then I feel his beard tickling the tops of my thighs, his tongue and fingers on me and I don’t care anymore, even when another set of footsteps tip-taps in.

‘I think there’s someone shagging in there,’ says a Birmingham accent.

There’s shuffling and silence, and then the door bangs closed.

Max appears from the froth of the tutu skirt. He stands up, flashes a smile. ‘There’s about to be someone shagging in here,’ he growls. ‘Come here.’

L
ater
, we rejoin the reception. I look at his tanned hand in mine, feeling naughty and cool and happy, and I think I look good in this new green dress that I treated myself to. It’s one of those wraparound numbers, low cut but flattering.

As we pass through the tables, I catch a snatch of conversation in a Birmingham accent. ‘It was those two in the toilets.’

I look down into the face of Leather Dress. She turns round to watch us walk by. I point at Max and give her the thumbs-up.

Things are looking and sounding a lot more raucous. A fat man in pinstripes is wearing a pair of edible pants on his head. The vodka luge has worked its magic. We manage to slip past it without participating and take our place at Lucy’s round table, in the middle of the room. Platters of tapas are being served and I’m starving.

‘There you are! Have you been shagging in the toilets?’ asks Lucy, as we settle into our chairs. ‘You’ve been ages.’

‘There’s your proof we haven’t, then: I’m lightning fast, aren’t I, Viv?’ Max starts peeling a prawn.

‘He’s known as “the Under-a-Minute Wonder”.’ I smile lovingly. ‘I was getting changed,’ I explain.

‘Don’t you think all weddings should have at least one incident? Either people shagging in the toilets or maybe a fight,’ says Lucy. ‘Champagne here!’ she calls to a passing waiter.

‘I hope I didn’t ruin your duet,’ I say, stroking her back.

She laughs. ‘It was great, Viv, if a bit random.’

‘I thought I was rescuing you. I thought . . . Oh, never mind.’ I can’t say I thought she was humiliated – she obviously wasn’t. I was.

‘Here, have some champagne.’ She passes me a glass. ‘The thing about Reuben is, to him sex is just a natural part of life.’

‘Of course it is.’

And now tell her you’re pregnant.

‘We do want to be pregnant, and that’s what he was sharing with everyone.’

‘Good, then. Wish I was going to Ibiza in the morning,’ I say to distract her, and she turns and looks seriously at my face.

‘Thanks for everything, Viv,’ she says with tears in her eyes. I decide to leave breaking my news until after the honeymoon. It’s not all about me, as she often reminds me.

‘You’re welcome.’

We look at each other in an uncharacteristically sentimental way until we come over all awkward and self-conscious.

‘Anyway, look at you, married!’

‘Yes!’ She smiles and raises a glass. ‘To you, Viv, and to me being married before you. You owe me five pounds.’

‘To me. I am amazing.’ I take a sip of champagne.

‘
Devil nectar!
’ screams Angel, and I put the glass down like it’s hot. Luckily Lucy has turned back to Reuben.

I take a wedge of cheese and a slice of bread, press them together and, while no one is looking, shove as much of it as I can in my mouth and chew purposely like a cow. I must have food. I must eat a lot of stuff fast. Max puts a hand on my thigh. I glance his way, swallowing and preparing to go in for another bite. He’s looking at me funny. His eyes have gone all dreamy. I take the bite.

‘All right?’ I ask with my mouth full.

He keeps looking at me as if he’s never seen me before, his eyes moving over my face.

‘Do I have cheese in my hair?’

‘I love you, Viv,’ he says.

I nod, swallow and put down the bread, looking around for a drink of something that isn’t champagne. ‘Can you pass that jug of water?’

He pours water into my glass and I take a good long drink, eyeing the tortilla cubes on the platter.

‘I love you, Viv,’ he says, as I suddenly make a lunge to grab some.

‘Thank you. I’m starving.’ I smile. ‘Pass the pepper?’

‘Vivienne, look at me.’

I turn to admire him. I completely see why girls have always loved this old friend of mine: they think he’s hot. He looks like he’d be dirty, and he is! I give his hand a squeeze, feeling totally peaceful and happy.

‘Marry me, Viv,’ he says.

‘What did you say?’

He slides a ring box across the table. ‘I said, Vivienne Summers will you marry me?’

I
open
my eyes and glance at the window. It’s light. It must be about eight. I always gauge the time in the morning by the amount of daylight, but then, I’m quite often late. What am I, a human sundial? I must get a clock. I turn over with the familiar churning of nausea, remember Angel, remember the wedding, the proposal, remember that I said no.

I see Max is not in bed. I sit up, nudging the curled-up bulk of Dave at the foot of the bed, smell the smoky tang of coffee.

‘Max?’ My voice is croaky and thick with sleep.

‘Here,’ he says quietly, sitting by the window, sketching, wearing old shorts. He smiles, with an unlit rolly hanging from his lower lip. I run a hand through my hair and watch him. The blind is partly open, showing a band of white sky.

Dave turns onto his back and stretches, his claw mittens snagging the cotton duvet, his curled sage-leaf tongue unfurling in a fishy yawn. I tickle his white belly fur, looking at Max.

‘Let me see that?’

He makes it from stool to bed without straightening up and rolls up to me, chucking the pad on my legs – a set of sketches of my naked back.

‘Off, Dave,’ he says, sliding the cat to the floor with a foot, and turns to lie flat on his back with the cigarette in his mouth.

‘They’re nice,’ I say, curling into him. ‘Why are you pretending to smoke?’

‘Flavour.’

‘I think you’ll have to quit.’

‘Quit pretend smoking? Jesus, you’re hard.’

‘Please get me a biscuit. I feel sick.’

I hear him a second later rummaging around in the kitchen. On the bedside table is the ring box and the ruby and diamond ring Max gave me, round as a fish eye, grandma-style ornate, old-fashioned and cool. Max returns with tea and a packet of Hob-Nobs.

‘Thanks,’ I say with a comedy lisp.

‘You are welcome.’ He caresses my back before wandering to the sash window, sliding up the lower half and lighting the cigarette. ‘Commitment shy, fucking hell,’ he says, blowing smoke out of the window.

‘I’m committed.’

He grunts.

‘I am.’

He turns, taking a long suck on the cigarette before letting it drop into the alley.

‘I love you. I’m committed to you.’

He snorts and turns his back on me, looking down into the alley. ‘There’s a tramp down here asleep under your window.’

‘My last suitor. Waiting for me sent him mad. He now thinks he’s a dog.’

‘Marry me, Summers, before I go the same way.’

‘He’s not exposing himself again, is he?’

Max looks out into the alley. ‘It’s hard to tell. Oh no, it isn’t – it’s fucking obvious.’

‘Memories are all he has,’ I say dreamily.

Max slides the window shut. ‘Just marry me,’ he says.

‘Why, though? Can’t we just stay as we are? We’re happy. We’re having a baby.’

‘No. Marry me today,’ he says, pacing.

‘Too soon.’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Too soon.’

‘In five years.’

‘Too soon.’

He laughs. ‘Marry me next Valentine’s Day?’ he says, spinning round and pointing.

‘Too obvious.’

‘Marry me on the anniversary of Elvis’s death.’

‘What?’

‘Or the anniversary of John Lennon’s death?’

‘Not on someone’s death day.’

‘Marry me on Midsummer’s Day.’

‘When is it?’

‘Well, love, it’s mid and it’s summer.’

He lies beside me on the bed and I curl towards him. How can I explain I just don’t want to get married? I love him fiercely. I want to hang out with him for the rest of my days. I just can’t face the idea of a wedding. After obsessing over three weddings with my ex, and planning the minute details of Lucy’s wedding, the whole scene seems a bit tired, a bit over and done with. I literally could not bear to choose a venue or a bridesmaid’s shoe, a cake decoration or a ceilidh band. I’m done. I’m having a baby and that seems the most important thing and all I can cope with.

‘See this baby, Max? I’m actually growing it inside me, and I’ll push it out of me. That’s committed, and you can’t tell me otherwise.’

He kisses my hair. ‘It is. Rather you than me.’

‘So that’s enough, right? Ask me to marry you after I’ve done it.’

He thinks about this. He sighs. ‘Just wear the ring.’ He leans across me and grabs the box, ‘be engaged to me.’

‘I hate long engagements.’

‘Wear it for me. Look like someone loves you.’ He balances the box on my tummy.

‘Okay. But will you ask me again after?’

‘I’ll ask you again every day for ever.’

M
y second meeting
with Rainey happens that morning by accident. I’m walking towards the row of shops near my flat when I see her. My eye is drawn to the shape of her. I feel a kind of silent shout in my chest as I recognise her hair, and her style, the long scarf, turquoise and green like a swirl of sea. I call to her and she turns with a knowing look on her face as if we’d arranged to meet. I jog over to her across the road, and as I get close, she opens her arms and pulls me into a jangling silver and rose-scented embrace.

All my words fall over themselves with relief that she’s still here and I offer to buy us breakfast. She wants a gluten free muffin and coffee, so I get them to take away and we walk into a little square park.

‘It’s amazing to bump into you like this. I only came out to get breakfast,’ I say. She smiles into the air. ‘We’ve started this bad habit on Sundays, getting croissants from the café,’ I jabber.

‘I like this area,’ she says.

‘So expensive. I live in the scruffy bit.’

‘Alone?’

‘With Max.’

‘The father of your child. I’d like to meet him,’ she says. She places her feet down like a dance, her toes spreading in the sandals. Step, pause, sway, step. I dawdle beside her.

‘Oh, well, I’d like you to meet him.’ I smile at the thought of Max.

‘Why do you live with him?’

‘Er, I love him. He makes me happy . . . It’s the usual thing, et cetera.’ I smile at the side of her face, looking for her meaning.

She keeps her eyes fixed on the path in front of her feet. ‘Love,’ she sighs. ‘Vivienne!’

‘What?’

‘I’m surprised. I thought you’d be more realistic, with your background.’

‘Nope. Die-hard romantic.’

‘Have you asked yourself what’s special about this man that makes you want to turn over your whole life to him?’

God, this is a bit of a downer. I’d like to explain the full complement of feelings, the many reasons why I’m in love with Max, but I’m not going to dissect them and pin them out like a rat in a biology lesson for her approval.

‘He’s always in a good mood,’ I say.

‘Huh,’ she marvels at that. ‘Is he a simpleton?’

‘He’s just, you know, very positive. You should meet him. You’ll fall in love with him. I can’t understand how the whole world isn’t in love with him.’

‘Please!’ She indicates her stomach. ‘I’d like to keep my coffee down.’

I laugh and she steps up the pace and moves towards a crescent in the path where there’s a bench. I follow, sitting beside her while she throws crumbs of muffin for a gang of pigeons. One has a club foot and a limp, but she makes no allowance for that with the crumbs and it doesn’t get any.

‘So when do I get to fall in love with this demi-god of yours?’

‘Well, are you free today? Now, even?’

‘I’m stranded, actually. I have had to leave my hostel,’ she says, crumbling the muffin into pieces, ‘but I’m not ready to leave London.’

I feel a spike of panic and have to remind myself that I’m in control.

‘Why do you have to leave the hostel?’

‘Tiresome reasons. Apparently it’s for travellers, not for stayers. They have big signs up all over the place.’

‘But where will you go?’

‘Madrid, I think. I have an unfinished affair there.’

God, so what then? She just travels round the world having affairs? How forward-thinking and bohemian. ‘Of course, I could go to Madrid today. I have hospitality arranged, but I felt something between us. I’d like to stay for a while to see how that pans out. Have I imagined it?’

I try to hold on to a relieved laugh in my chest. I know I’m falling for this powerful-magnetism thing, but I can’t help it. I really think it’s Angel bringing us together. I’ve been thinking about her and she’s felt it.

‘I don’t think you have imagined it.’ I turn to her. ‘There is definitely something. It’s never been there before when you were here. Could it be to do with my pregnancy, do you think? Oh, what am I saying? I don’t know!’ I take a breath, looking out at the flower beds before grabbing her hand onto my lap. ‘I’d absolutely love you to stay longer. I want us to know each other.’

She smiles at her hand as she gently slides it back onto her own lap. I notice the yin and yang tattoo on her inner wrist as the bangles slip.

‘The sad part is,’ she says quietly, ‘that it’s out of the question. London is prohibitively expensive, especially now I haven’t a place to stay.’

‘You can stay with me!’ I blurt. ‘It’s only a one-bedroom flat, but there’s a sofa bed.’ Her eyes shine as she turns to me, those beautiful green and blue flecks like jelly slivers. She’s curious, head tilted to the left. I immediately feel exposed. ‘I mean, you don’t have to. I’m not trying to, you know, tie you down. Ha, ha. No, I understand. Madrid. Unfinished affair. Wow.’

‘What about your lover?’

‘Oh, he won’t mind,’ I say, thrilled to have a lover, who is Max.

‘Well, if you’re certain,’ she says casually, watching the pigeons.

‘Of course. You go to the hostel and get your things and I’ll—’

‘I have everything with me here.’ She lifts a quilted cloth shoulder bag.

‘Oh. Oh, well, even better,’ I say, as I stand.

This is blowing my mind a bit, I’m not ashamed to admit. I go over my plan to seduce Rainey. This new development fits with my plot to keep her around so she can be a good granny. What’s more, it’s time we understood each other for better or worse, and if she’s staying with me for a little while, so much the better. I’m fully in charge, controlling it.

‘I’m really pleased you’re staying,’ I say. ‘We can finally get to know each other.’

‘Vivienne, in many ways we are each other. Am I right?’

I glance at her and nod, realising I don’t know her from Adam.

Wandering back through the park, I begin to feel like a little girl who’s invited the whole street of kids round for a go on the Soda Stream. I should have checked with Max. I glance at Rainey and she looks up with her sparkly, smiling eyes. I have to take a risk – nothing ventured and all that – and Max will understand. Anyway, it’s my flat and Rainey will only stay for a little while. They’ll get on like a house on fire. What could go wrong?

W
hen I open
the door of the flat, I’m hit by the smell of shit. Dave’s crouching in the litter tray, tail twitching, staring innocently.

‘Oh, sorry, Rainey. Er, the cat, it’s a bit smelly.’ I flap the door a little, but she slips through with one sideways step and stands in the narrow hall corridor staring at Dave as he half-heartedly scatters litter granules. They ping against the radiator. He turns, steps out of his tray, shaking one back paw, claps eyes on Rainey, recoils and hisses as if she’s Nosferatu.

I smile apologetically, but her eyes are fixed on Dave, who’s now backed against the wall, back arched, tail puffed, growl-hissing.

‘What a horrible cat,’ she says.

‘He’s not normally . . . I don’t know what’s got into him.’ I swing my bag at Dave and he scarpers under the coffee table.

‘Viv?’ Max calls from the living room.

I nod Rainey in the right direction and we step into the room, where Max, in shorts and nothing else, is strumming his guitar in front of the television with the usual unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

He looks up at Rainey and smooths his wild hair down a bit. ‘Oh, hello,’ he says.

‘Max, this is Rainey Summers, my, er—’

‘I’m Vivienne’s birth mother,’ says Rainey.

‘Unbelievable – we just bumped into each other,’ I say, moving to switch off the television.

Max carefully sets down the guitar and stands towering over her. ‘Nice to meet you,’ he says, offering her a hand to shake.

She smiles but keeps her hands in her sarong. ‘I never shake hands because of cross-contamination,’ she says.

‘Max Kelly,’ he says, pulling back the redundant hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

‘That’s an Irish accent. Am I right?’

‘Dublin.’

‘You prefer London?’

‘Women keep me here,’ he says, catching hold of me as I tidy up. I’m swung off balance and my hand brushes his tanned stomach, low where a line of dark hair disappears. ‘Whoa, there, girl – she can’t get enough of me!’ Max laughs, and Rainey snaps her eyes away.

‘Rainey, would you like tea?’ I say.

She shakes her head, her eyes moving around the flat and over Max and then to me.

‘Cava?’ asks Max, and she smiles coyly.

‘Well, only if you’re having some.’

‘I always have a glass about now on a Sunday.’ He swaggers off to the kitchen.

‘No, he doesn’t,’ I explain, in case she thinks he’s an alcoholic, but she just shrugs and sits in the shabby leather armchair taking in the flat. I scan it myself, looking for anything odd – underpants hanging from the ceiling light maybe – but of course it’s just my not-very-cool flat: cheap wood laminate and whitewash with the usual low-level messiness.

‘I feel this space has good energy,’ Rainey declares finally. ‘Which room will be mine?’

‘Er, there aren’t many rooms as such, but this sofa folds out into a bed.’

‘Ah, OK, but I’ll need a room of my own. I’m not being selfish, but there are certain rituals I like to perform before bed and in the night that will require total privacy, and I couldn’t tolerate an animal in the vicinity.’ Her gaze falls to the coffee table, where Dave softly growls in the shadows, eyes glowing like green coals.