‘Of course not. God, Nadine. It’s your flat and, like you say, it’s Friday night …’ His mind starts to whir as he tries to conjure up an excuse as to why he must leave right now.
She puts down the bowl on the worktop and starts removing pink glasses from the wall cabinet to line up on the worktop. One … two … three … four …
‘Do they, um … know?’ he asks as a fifth glass joins the others and the cupboard is, mercifully, shut.
‘About the baby?’ She laughs. ‘Of course they do, Rob. They’re my best friends.’
‘But isn’t it a bit early? I mean, you haven’t had a scan yet, I’d have thought you’d want to keep it quiet …’
‘Rob, these girls are
the most important people in my life
,’ she declares. ‘Why wouldn’t I want to share it with them?’
Rob is momentarily stuck for words.
Because it’s too early, anything could happen …
‘Wouldn’t it be more, er … comfortable if I wasn’t here?’ He checks his watch, willing her to say yes.
‘No, of course it wouldn’t.’ Nadine sighs, fixing him with those gorgeous blue eyes which have the effect of stirring something within him, despite the almighty mess he’s found himself in. ‘Last night was really nice,’ she offers hesitantly, touching his arm.
‘Yes, it was.’ He musters a smile.
‘You were very sweet.’
‘Er … thank you.’
This doesn’t mean I’m ready to meet your friends en masse …
He swallows hard. While he’s slowly getting used to Nadine’s extreme youth, the thought of spending an evening with a bunch of similarly-aged girls is quite terrifying. What will they talk about – clubbing, the tribulations of teenage complexions or, heaven forbid, chart music? The Top 20 hasn’t bothered Rob’s consciousness for at least a decade.
‘Come on, Rob,’ she chides him, ‘cheer up. This is a special night for me – a sort of celebration. And they’re so looking forward to meeting you.’
‘Really?’ He frowns.
‘Of course they are! We’re going to be parents, Rob, and they want to share that.’ Her eyes sparkle like sequins.
Although it’s tempting to snatch his phone from his pocket and announce some fictional crisis, he forces a grin and says, ‘Okay, if you’re sure.’
‘Great, I’m so pleased. You know, you’re not nearly as stuffy as people think.’
*
‘You’re adorable, Rob,’ Sasha gushes as he stands in the middle of Nadine’s living room, clutching two drinks.
‘Gorgeous,’ agrees Jade, pulling up her knees to her chin on the sofa and exposing several miles of tanned limb beneath a diaphanous turquoise dress.
‘I told you, he’s not so bad,’ Nadine says fondly, while Harriet flops a head onto her shoulder. Sasha, Jade and Harriet are Nadine’s friends from ‘way, way back’ – which probably means about eighteen months, Rob surmises. Unlike Nadine, with her chic make-up and neat crop, these girls are all of the glossy-lipped, swishy blonde hair variety, like some girl group thrown together for a TV talent show. Rob feels as if he has accidentally stumbled into a branch of Claire’s Accessories.
‘I can’t believe you’re having a baby, Nads,’ Sasha announces, clutching her pink glass. ‘It’s the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life.’
I very much doubt that
, Rob thinks darkly, crunching a cashew.
‘It’s amazing,’ gushes Jade. ‘How d’you feel, Rob? Are you
so
excited?’
‘Of course,’ Rob replies. ‘It’s absolutely terrific.’
Harriet giggles. ‘You’re going to have an adorable little baby. Look at the pair of you – you’re so lovely together. I know it’s all happened really quickly but don’t you think,’ – she looks around at the others – ‘that some things are just meant to be?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Jade declares, already appearing a little tipsy as she drains her glass. The girls are drinking ‘Pink Ginger’, a mocktail of Nadine’s invention consisting of ginger beer (to counteract nausea), elderflower and rhubarb cordials, plus a generous splosh of vodka for her friends. To Rob’s mind, it tastes like liquid seaside rock.
Jade fixes her large, rather scary kohl-rimmed grey eyes on Rob. ‘So what names are you thinking of?’
‘Er, we haven’t yet,’ he replies.
‘How about Joshua?’ Harriet offers. ‘I always thought Joshua was sweet, or Freddie …’
Nadine laughs huskily while Rob busies himself by straightening up the little bowls of snacks on the low table. ‘He has a Freddie already,’ Nadine explains, ‘so that’s kind of out.’
‘Whoops,’ Jade giggles, clasping a hand over her mouth.
‘I like those natural names,’ Sasha muses, ‘like Summer or Autumn or Rain …’
‘Hail would be good,’ Rob mutters under his breath, striding back to the kitchen. ‘Or Thunder. Yep, Thunder Tambini has a certain ring …’ He blinks at the open shelves Nadine has arranged with all manner of quirky ‘finds’, as she calls them: little tin vehicles, a green crocheted frog, a glass paperweight with Dolly Mixture sweets trapped inside. While he found her single-girl’s flat a tad too cutesy for his taste on his first visit, it now feels claustrophobic. Horribly un-baby-friendly, too, with all her itsy-bitsy chokeable trinkets all over the place.
Rain
, he reflects. Great, if you want your child to be in psychotherapy by age six.
He is a little drunk, too, he realises now as he leans back against the baby-blue fridge. The kitchen is strewn with fairy lights – it’s like being in a bloody grotto – and Rob is overwhelmed by a pang of missing his old life. He craves Kerry and his children, all crammed around the slightly too-small table in their old kitchen in Bethnal Green, with its naff faux-teak units and the children’s drawings Blu-Tacked wonkily all over the cupboards.
The unrecognisable music has been turned up now, and the girls are shouting to be heard over it. He rejoins the group and tries, gamely, to join in, but they keep talking over each other and it becomes impossible to follow their conversational threads without bellowing, ‘Sorry, what did you say?’ like some wizened old man with an ear trumpet.
Escaping to the bathroom, Rob lands heavily on the loo seat and fishes out his phone from his pocket. Without considering what he’s doing, he calls Kerry’s number.
‘It’s me,’ he whispers.
‘Rob? What d’you want?’
‘Um …’ He realises he has no idea what he intended to say. He just wanted – no,
needed
– to hear her voice. ‘I er … wanted to say sorry for being so negative about the dog thing. Just wondered if the kids were excited when they met him?’ He puts his head in his hands, realising that what he really wanted to say was,
I love you, Kerry. I love you so much and I want you back.
‘Hmmm,’ Kerry murmurs. ‘Yes, of course they were delighted. They’ll tell you all about it tomorrow and you’ll see him – Buddy – when you pick them up. Don’t worry, though – he’s been briefed not to home in on your crotch.’
‘That’s good, haha.’
There’s a small, tense pause. ‘Where are you?’
‘Um … at, er … the flat.’ He clears his throat. ‘Nadine’s place …’
‘Sounds like a party.’
‘It’s … a sort of girls’ night in.’
Kerry snorts. ‘What, like a sleepover?’
Rob senses himself flushing, and some part of that drink – the rhubarb component most likely – fizzles chemically at the back of his throat. ‘Not exactly, no …’
‘Are they painting their nails and applying face packs?’
‘No, they’re just … playing music and chatting, and I just wanted to call—’
‘Er, Rob,’ Kerry cuts in. ‘I’m kind of busy.’
‘Oh.’ His stomach slumps. Christ, the girls are singing now, punctuated by bursts of high-pitched laughter. He thinks of Kerry curled up on their knackered old sofa in Shorling and almost chokes with yearning.
‘You can’t do this,’ she adds.
‘What?’
‘Phone me out of the blue like this, just because you’re feeling out of your depth or whatever it is, and want something old and familiar.’
He frowns so hard, it causes his skull to throb. ‘You’re not old and familiar, Kerry.’
There’s a bitter laugh. ‘I’m going now.’
‘Oh … okay.’
‘
Please
don’t do this again. It’s not fair and it’s not very good for me right now.’ Her voice trembles as they finish the call.
Now Rob feels even worse. He didn’t plan to upset her – it’s the last thing he wants. He just wanted to say something nice to the woman he loves, and all he could think of was to praise her for going ahead with the dog thing.
You’ve done the right thing
, he’d wanted to say,
if it makes Freddie and Mia happy after all they’ve been through. Christ, get them a whole bloody pack of hounds if you want to, and I’m sorry, so sorry for everything – for Nadine and the baby and fucking up so badly, and if I could do anything to make it not have happened, then I would …
But it’s too late for that. What Rob must do now is go back into the living room where the girls will have decided that his unborn child should be called Fern or Crocus. For a short while he’ll have to pretend to be enjoying himself, just to be polite. Then he’ll feign another migraine and take himself off to his cold, empty house, feeling as if his heart could break.
It’s gone ten by the time Kerry has finally coaxed the children to bed, having persuaded them that, yes, they still have to go to Nanny and Nonno’s with Daddy tomorrow, but it’s only for one night. And yes, of course Buddy will still be here when they get back on Sunday.
‘It’s not one night,’ Freddie bleated. ‘It’s
two whole days
.’
And now with the children in bed it’s just Kerry and Buddy, sharing the living room sofa (her no-dog-on-furniture rule lasted approximately five minutes). When she goes through to the kitchen he trots at her heels, his gaze un-wavering as she extracts the wine bottle from the fridge and pours herself a glass. He tails her to the music room, sitting expectantly at her feet as she starts to play the piano. And when she gets up from her stool to select a piece of music from her files, he looks up, following her every movement.
‘It’s okay,’ she says, patting his head. ‘I’m just going to the loo. Back in a minute.’ She hopes Buddy’s expression indicates that that’s okay (it’s impossible to tell). Yet, as soon as she’s shut the bathroom door behind her, his distressed whine quickly morphs into urgent barks. With a sigh, she lets him in, leaving the door open and trying not to feel under surveillance as she attends to business with him staring at her.
The flush of the loo seems to terrify him, and he shoots out, coming to a panting standstill at the front door.
‘D’you need to go out?’ she ponders, clipping on his lead and stepping out into the small, gravelled front garden. ‘Yes, I guess you do.’ There, just outside the house, she spots Buddy’s bag of food, document file and a couple of bowls all packed neatly into his basket; James must have dropped everything off without knocking. Just as well it hasn’t rained.
Thanks a lot
, Kerry mutters, deciding he clearly wants as little communication with her as possible. She circuits the garden several times until Buddy pees, then takes him inside, praying his barking doesn’t wake the children as she dashes back outside to retrieve the basket.
Is he exhibiting separation anxiety, like babies and toddlers have? Placing his basket in the corner of the living room and plumping up its paw-patterned cushion, she tries to coax him into it. He jumps up onto the sofa instead, wriggling to get comfortable, and when she sits beside him he rests his head on her lap. Now Kerry can’t fetch her wine or even reach the TV remote. She is trapped, and there’s nothing for it but to sit here with her now-sleeping dog, listening to the faint rush of the waves in the distance.
Her trilling mobile makes Buddy flinch, and she snatches it from her jeans pocket.
‘Kerry? It’s James.’
‘You mean Buddy-James?’
‘Yes.’ He chuckles. ‘Look, I’m really sorry to call you so late …’
‘That’s okay. Is something wrong?’ A thought strikes her: he wants Buddy back. That brusqueness – it was all a cover-up, and he’s realised he’s made a terrible mistake.
James clears his throat. ‘I should have explained. You see, I’m helping my son with his business – he has a sandwich shop – while trying to keep up with my own
website design work. Things have been incredibly hectic lately, but this evening, when I started to think about Buddy …’ He tails off.
‘I did wonder,’ she says carefully, running a hand over Buddy’s soft fur. How on earth will she tell Freddie and Mia that Buddy has to go back? Rob was right – it
was
a rash move. Even if this hadn’t happened, all kinds of things can go wrong: illness, accidents, death … Buddy opens an amber eye and looks at her. She no longer cares about his barking outburst or the fact that he pooed outside school; it’s
just what dogs do
.
‘… He has a few issues,’ James is saying, ‘since, er, something happened at home.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘He gets really anxious,’ James goes on, ‘like if he sees or hears another dog that he can’t greet and sniff, and if a truck goes by – any large vehicle really – and there’s been some chewing and the odd, er, little accident …’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she murmurs.
‘No,
I’m
sorry. I wish I’d been more honest with you from the start.’
Kerry bites her lip. His voice is lovely; warmer and friendlier than the clipped tone he’d adopted when she’d been at his house. ‘You can come and pick him up tomorrow if you like,’ she says flatly.
‘Oh. Er … right. Okay.’
There’s a stilted pause, and Buddy shifts position so as to edge further onto Kerry’s lap. ‘My children will be away with their dad then,’ she adds, ‘and I’d rather it happened when they’re not around. The sooner the better, I suppose, before they get too attached.’ Some hope of that. The entire evening has been filled with cuddling, grooming and playing with Buddy, and he seemed to relish the attention.
‘Er, I only want him back if he’s too much for you,’ James says.
‘No,
I
didn’t say he was too much. I thought you said you’d made a mistake …’