I cast a cursory glance over my phone bill, started to toss it aside without reading it, and then stopped. There were many more itemised calls than I usually made. I scanned down it, checking the numbers and the times, and then I went to the phone and called Hugh.
‘Get over here, I have something to show you,’ I told him, and hung up.
He let himself in the front door with his key and looked me over from top to toe. I was wearing mismatched flannel pyjamas, thick woollen socks and Stanley’s bobbled cardigan. My hair was probably sticking up, too, and I hadn’t washed my face yet.
‘I’m happy to see that you didn’t order me over here to seduce me,’ he said.
‘June made a bunch of calls from my phone,’ I told him, holding up the itemised bill. ‘Look. I didn’t make these calls because I don’t know the number. It’s a Reading one, though. And she called it twice on the day that she left.’
Hugh took the phone bill and peered at it, ‘So?’
‘So June told me that she only knew one person in Reading, and it was someone who was the spitting image of George Michael.’
He sat down beside me. He smelled good, as if he’d recently got out of the shower. ‘Do you think this is his number? Your mystery George?’
‘I don’t know.’
He pointed to the telephone. ‘Ring it.’
I knew he’d order me to do that, which was one of the reasons why I’d told him to come over. I took the phone and carefully punched in the number.
It was picked up after two rings. ‘Hello?’ a male voice said.
A wave of panic went through me and I hung up.
‘What?’ said Hugh. ‘What happened?’
I looked at the phone. ‘I freaked out.’
‘Was it him?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did it sound like him?’
‘He only said “hello”. I don’t remember George saying “hello” to me. I have nothing to compare it to.’
‘I’m not punching anybody else unless I know it’s the right bloke. You’ll need to call him again and ask him.’
I dialled in the Reading code, and then I stopped. ‘What do I say? “Hi, remember me, you made me pregnant”?’
‘That would work.’
I put down the phone. ‘I don’t know that it’s him. I would be much more certain if I could find out his address and go there and see him. Is there any way we can do that?’
‘I tried once to find someone’s address from their phone number. It’s not as easy as it sounds.’
‘A woman?’ I decided I didn’t want to know. ‘Never mind. How do you do it?’
‘I think there are Internet sites. But listen, El, you shouldn’t have to sneak around for this. It will be a lot easier and more direct if you just ring him again. If it doesn’t work, we can try to find his address.’
I took a deep breath and punched in the number.
‘Hello?’ The voice was definitely male, deep, and a little bit irritated. I tried to picture it coming out of George’s goatee-surrounded mouth.
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Um, I’m not sure if I’ve got the right number or if you know who I am, but this is Eleanor Connor, and I—’
‘Eleanor Connor? Oh, hi, Eleanor, yeah. I know who you are.’
Hugh was watching me, his eyebrows raised in enquiry. I screwed up my face, trying to figure out if I recognised the voice.
‘I, uh, listen, I know this is weird, but I really need to talk with you about something important,’ I said.
To my surprise, he said, ‘Okay. Can you meet me this afternoon at four?’
‘Uh. Yeah. Sure.’
‘I’ll be in the Railway Tavern near the station. See you then.’
‘Um - okay. Just one thing, though?’
‘What is it?’
‘What’s your name?’
I heard him snort a laugh. ‘John,’ he said. ‘My name is John. But most people call me George.’
He hung up and I buried my head in my arms on the arm of the sofa.
‘Eleanor? You okay?’
‘That was probably one of the most humiliating things I have ever had to do,’ I said to the sofa. ‘The guy was clearly not interested in seeing me again after that one night and I’ve just rung him and asked him his name.’
‘The guy’s a dick,’ Hugh started, and then evidently remembered this was the father of my child. ‘Sorry. I mean, he should have told you his name when you met him and he should have called you after you slept with him. It’s not your fault. You shouldn’t be embarrassed.’
‘Well, I am. He said to meet him at four o’clock in the Railway Tavern.’ I looked at Hugh pleadingly. ‘Will you come with me?’
‘I don’t think—’
‘Please, Hugh. This whole thing is too weird. I want you there so I don’t freak out and run away. You can go as soon as I’ve sat down with him.’
‘I don’t really fancy being chaperone to you and your lover.’
‘You won’t be a chaperone, you’ll be my moral support. I’ll tell him you’re my brother or something.’
Hugh sighed. ‘If there’s one thing last night proved, it’s that I’m not your brother.’
Heat went through me at that, and I squirmed in my flannel pyjamas.
After a moment of silence, Hugh stood up. ‘All right. I’ll come. You owe me several thousand pints, however.’
I stood outside the Railway Tavern, shifting from foot to foot.
It had taken me two hours to figure out what to wear. On the one hand, I didn’t want to appear so pregnant that George would take one look at me and run out the back door of the pub. On the other hand, I didn’t want to not look pregnant, or else he might not see the urgency of the situation. I finally settled on a loose tunic-y dress over maternity jeans. This had the added bonus of slightly more than hinting at my wowza cleavage, just to remind him of a possible reason of why he’d slept with me in the first place.
Now I wished I’d invested in a balaclava, as well. Anything to spare me the embarrassment of marching into that pub and announcing to a man I didn’t know that he was the father of my child.
‘What are you waiting for?’ Hugh asked.
‘What if I don’t like him?’
‘It never stopped my parents from having a child together,’ he said. ‘You, however, would have the good sense to be civilised about it. You’ll be fine. Now get going.’
‘What if he doesn’t want to know?’
‘Then your problems are solved. You’ll bring up the baby without him and its Uncle Hugh will help you out.’
I looked at him. ‘You’d do that?’
‘Of course I bloody will, whether George is involved or not. I’m your best friend, I’m not going to abandon you.’
‘Yes, but you’ve never shown any signs of wanting anything to do with kids.’
‘Well, this one’s yours.’ He gave my shoulder a slight push. ‘Go inside, it’s ten past four.’
I hung back. ‘I’ve thought of something. If George is a friend of June’s, maybe they’ve known each other for ages. Maybe they’ve slept together.’
‘So?’
‘Well, I know it didn’t seem to bother me last night when I was getting all hot and heavy with you, but in cold daylight the thought of having sex with someone who’s slept with my mother is sort of gross.’
Hugh exhaled sharply in irritation. ‘Eleanor, even if you pick a fight with me, you still have to go in there.’
‘I’m just saying that if he knows June, he probably had sex with her. She believes people should have as much sex as possible.’ I paused. ‘Of course, you know that already. You have that in common.’
‘Eleanor, I’m not on a mission to have as much sex as possible.’
‘Ha!’ I said. ‘Now that’s a lie. You never turned down sex in your life.’
‘Actually, I have. As you should know.’
He had me there.
‘Now stop having a go at me and get inside,’ he said.
I didn’t move, because something else had occurred to me. June’s note to a Peter didn’t necessarily mean anything.
‘What if he’s my father?’
‘What? You’re joking. Is he old enough?’
I considered. ‘I thought he was in his early thirties, but men don’t always show their age.’
‘Or act it,’ he muttered, then shook his head as if to stop himself. ‘Sorry. Well, there’s something else for you to talk about, to avoid awkward silences. “You’re the father of my child, oh, and by the way, are you my father too?” It could be a double family reunion.’
‘It could also be seriously incestuous and illegal.’ I shuddered. ‘You don’t think he is, do you?’
‘Eleanor, I think you are very stupid and very unlucky. But I don’t think even you are stupid and unlucky enough to sleep with your own father by mistake. Now go talk to George, because you’re starting to annoy me.’
‘Right. Okay.’ I took a deep breath and marched forward.
As soon as I opened the door, I felt very, very sick. I stopped so abruptly on the threshold that Hugh walked into my back.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but there’s one more thing. I can deal with the humiliation, and I can deal with whatever he wants to do about this, for myself. But I’m afraid for the baby, Hugh. I’m afraid he’ll reject the baby, and the baby doesn’t deserve it.’
Hugh’s annoyance melted away in a moment and he hugged me in the doorway.
‘If you feel that way,’ he said quietly into the top of my head, warming my hair with his breath, ‘then the baby is very lucky, no matter what George does.’
That fortified me. I broke gently away from him and went into the pub.
The Railway Tavern was a popular pub and therefore it didn’t quite have the extent of nicotined dinginess that the Mouse and Duck achieved. But it wasn’t the upmarket place I would have pictured George to frequent, especially as he’d thought the Mouse and Duck was a dump.
I stood looking for him. The clientele was mostly people having a quick drink as they waited for their train. But my eyes skipped over old men drinking the afternoon away, and tired-looking women thin from booze and cigarettes. There was the usual group of teenagers trying to look older, the boys with bottled lager and the girls with alcopops. Four women on a shopping trip chatted over large white wines. A dodgy-looking transvestite with colourful dreadlocks was sucking down a pint of Guinness in the corner.
‘No luck?’ Hugh asked behind me.
‘Let’s go get a drink,’ I said, ‘maybe he’s late.’
‘The first of the many, many pints you owe me.’
I was handing over the cash for Hugh’s pint and my orange juice when I felt a tap on my shoulder.
‘Eleanor?’ a vaguely familiar voice said.
24
Up till that moment, I hadn’t thought it was possible for my stomach to both sink and leap at the same time.
I turned around. Behind me stood the dodgy dreadlocked transvestite. He wore full make-up, rather smeared around the edges, and a black hat perched at a jaunty angle on top of his beribboned hair.
‘Are you Eleanor?’ he repeated.
‘Yes,’ I said. This wasn’t George, was it, concealed underneath the make-up and hair?
No. This guy was shorter, and thinner, and even my fuzzy memory could tell that his features weren’t the same.
‘I thought so,’ he said. ‘You look like your sister.’
That was the first time I’d heard that. ‘Who are you?’ I asked.