‘I know.’ Brigid shakes her head. ‘Gorgeous, though, don’t you think? Lovely eyes.’
‘Er … yes, I did notice that.’ She grins.
‘You should call him,’ Brigid adds.
‘Oh, sure, after implying that he not only killed his wife but thought it was probably for the best, seeing as she had some toileting issues …’
They start laughing again, prompting the children to turn and look at them quizzically. ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t hold that against you,’ Brigid sniggers.
‘What about you?’ Kerry asks. ‘You were in full-on flirt mode unless I was misreading the signs …’
‘Oh, that was just to remind you how it’s done. Go on – you still have his number, don’t you? It’s almost as if it’s meant to be, you two meeting through Buddy like that. I told you dogs were good for that kind of thing …’ Then an oversized snowball hits Kerry on the side of the head, and soon she and Brigid are under siege, screaming and laughing beneath a hail of missiles, all thoughts of James forgotten.
Snow has been falling in soft flurries since Saturday, but Rob barely registers the white rooftops as he and Nadine leave her flat on Monday morning. It’s proper snow, too, the kind that Mia and Freddie love: fluffy and light, demanding to be caught in mittened hands.
‘
More
snow,’ Nadine remarks.
‘Uh-huh,’ Rob says, although he couldn’t care less about the weather. Today, rather boldly, they have taken the same day off work, because they are going to see a scan of their baby. The pavements are slushy and, without thinking, Rob takes Nadine’s stripy-gloved hand protectively in his. He’s startled by the realisation that he wants – no,
needs
to look after her. Just a week ago he was still wishing the baby wouldn’t happen: that it would fade away, sadly but also – he hates to admit this – conveniently too. Although he wasn’t naïve enough to believe that this would magically fix things between him and Kerry, it would certainly be easier than having a child with a girl with whom he’d exchanged less than a dozen words prior to his fortieth birthday. However, Rob is ashamed of this now, and determined to man up about the whole business. As they step into the packed Tube carriage, with him managing not to ask someone to give Nadine a seat as she is
with child
, he simply wants reassurance that the baby is okay.
By the time they reach the hospital, Nadine has become chattier, like an excited girl. She is all buttoned up in her black wool jacket with a soft blue mohair scarf at her neck, plus a little pull-on black knitted hat and her customary red lipstick. She looks lovely, Rob thinks. He must hold it together for her sake.
‘I don’t want to know the sex, do you?’ she asks as they make their way along the bland, beige corridor.
‘No, I’d rather not,’ Rob agrees.
‘But what if we see?’ she asks excitedly. ‘What if there’s, you know – a tiny little willy swinging about?’
‘I honestly don’t think we’ll see at this stage.’ Rob chooses his words carefully; he knows how sensitive she is about him having gone through this twice before (although what is he supposed to do – pretend Mia and Freddie don’t exist?).
‘Yes, but what if we
do
?’
‘Well,’ Rob says, ‘we’ll just pretend we haven’t. Anyway, it’s pretty blurry and hard to see anything in real detail.’
Nadine shoots him a look as they take a right turn through swinging doors towards the reception desk. ‘I wish you weren’t so blasé,’ she murmurs.
‘I’m not, I’m just saying …’
‘Well, I think it’s a pretty big deal,’ she retorts in earshot of the receptionist as she whips the appointment card from her bag.
They are directed to a waiting area where Rob pushes coins into the vending machine (coffee for him, nothing for her; these days she only tolerates mint or fennel tea). He carries it to his seat, trying to think of safe conversational topics that won’t have Nadine accusing him of being blasé, or convey that he is in any way anxious. He is, though, mainly due to Nadine’s tiny, bird-like body. While Kerry breezed through both pregnancies, looking more magnificent by the day, he fears that Nadine will struggle to carry the child once it’s beyond the size of a crumpet.
‘So,’ he says, perching on the seat beside her, ‘d’you think they’ll be speculating about why we’ve both taken the day off?’
Nadine shakes her head. ‘I wouldn’t think so.’
‘Don’t you think they must have an idea, though? I mean, Frank and Eddy have both seen us coming back from lunch together. I know we don’t talk much at work but surely they must have picked up on something?’ He takes a sip of gritty Americano from the cardboard cup, reflecting on how quickly he’s fallen into a pattern of staying over at her place every second night or so.
‘Well, I’ve told Eddy,’ she says.
‘What?
You mean you’ve told him we’re seeing each other?’
‘No … I mean he knows about the baby.’ She blinks at him, a small smile fluttering across her lips.
‘Really?’ Rob blows out a big gust of air. ‘God. When did you tell him?’
‘On Friday when you were out at the dentist’s.’
‘What, three days ago and you haven’t mentioned it to me?’ Rob glances around the waiting area. Three other couples are chatting happily, clearly unencumbered by the prospect of workplace scandals.
‘You were with your parents most of the weekend,’ she says coolly.
‘I was back last night, Nadine.’ Rob shoots her a vexed sideways glance. He doesn’t know what disturbs him more: the fact that Nadine chose not to mention this, or Eddy knowing the whole of Friday afternoon, but still managing to act normally – asking him to sort out some budget issues, and praising his last Miss Jones column. His editor might be an utter buffoon but he is, clearly, a pretty fine actor too.
‘Look,’ Nadine says with a shrug, ‘I’m sorry, Rob. You know me and Eddy go back a long way. I just felt he should know, that’s all, and I had to talk to someone …’
What about your three best friends – wouldn’t they have sufficed?
‘What did Eddy say?’ Rob asks huffily.
Nadine smiles. ‘He thinks it’s great.’
‘Really?’
So he doesn’t think I’m a dirty old man?
‘Yes, of course. He likes you, respects you … said it’s made him see you in a whole new light.’
Hmmm, bet it did …
‘Nadine Heffelfinger?’ A young blonde woman with a neat, slicked-back ponytail has appeared in the waiting area. Nadine leaps up eagerly. She and Rob follow her down another short corridor and into a small room, where the sonographer greets them with an automatic smile.
‘Hi,’ she says, ‘I’m Kirsty, now if you could hop up please, Nadine …’ Jacket and hat are quickly handed to Rob. He takes a seat as Nadine lies down, with belly exposed and a faint curve of a baby bump, or is Rob imagining that? And in an instant it appears on the screen: a blur of white like the snow outside and there, as clear as day, his child. Head, legs, arms. A beating heart.
‘Look,’ Nadine murmurs, her eyes wet with tears as she turns to him. ‘Look at our baby.’
‘I can see,’ Rob manages to say, although he’s finding it hard to speak. So it’s real. It actually happened, that night with the lemon cake and all that vodka.
‘We’ve got a good, strong heartbeat here,’ the sonographer says, dragging the white plastic gadget across Nadine’s blemish-free skin.
‘Oh, thank goodness,’ Nadine says. Without thinking, Rob reaches up to grasp her small hand; she coils her fingers around his and squeezes. How could he have wished that this wouldn’t happen – that they’d come here to be told there was no heartbeat at all? ‘Rob, are you okay?’ Nadine smiles at him.
‘Yes. Yeah, I’m fine.’
‘Well, everything looks as it should be,’ the sonographer says, ‘but I know it’s an emotional time for both of you.’ She smiles kindly, this freckle-faced girl who barely looks older than Nadine, and nothing about her suggests that she’s judging Rob for fathering this little blur in the snow. Here in this darkened room, he doesn’t feel judged or ashamed. If only, he thinks wildly, they could stay here until the baby comes.
He and Nadine are still holding hands as measurements are taken and dates calculated, and for those few moments, Rob can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else.
‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ Mia asks, making her rubbery mermaid plunge through the meringue-like suds in the bath. She and Freddie are still happy to share bathtime, for which Kerry is hugely grateful; so much easier to sluice them both down at once.
‘It’s a girl, stupid,’ Freddie retorts from the tap end. ‘Mermaids aren’t boys. They have boobies.’
Kerry is perched on the loo seat while Buddy dozes on the bath mat at her feet. She is aware that, if she were truly efficient, she would be using this opportunity to fold towels, or scrub out the bath toys box where slimy stuff lurks. Instead, she is leafing sleepily through a nine-day-old Sunday supplement. She flicks to the food page, studying a celebrity chef’s ‘warming family lunches’. Mia and Freddie would probably delight in pumpkin risotto with crispy sage if she were a proper mother who’d trained them to enjoy such sophisticated flavours from birth. On this count, she’s failed. Most of Freddie’s vegetables are abandoned or flicked off his plate, and what hope is there if he won’t even tolerate sweetcorn? It’s bright yellow – and sweet, for God’s sake. The perfect child-friendly food.
‘I don’t mean mermaids,’ Mia says carefully. ‘I mean Daddy and Nadine’s baby.’
Kerry shuts the magazine.
Nadine.
The mention of her name triggers a small, sharp pain, like a little tinfoil spear being jabbed into her teeth. Freddie and Mia have yet to meet her, and of course they’ll have to at some point, as Rob seems to be ‘seeing her’ properly now. Spending most of the week at her place, by the sound of it. ‘I’d rather be honest with you,’ he’d said, during their last brief conversation, as if expecting one of the ‘well done’ stickers which Mia is always so proud to receive at school. Yet, maybe things will be easier when they have met her, as at least the questions will stop:
What’s Nadine like, Mummy? I really don’t know … When can I meet her? Soon, darling, I promise …
‘I said, is it a boy or a girl?’ Mia repeats, scowling up at her mother.
‘I don’t know,’ Kerry murmurs. ‘We’ll have to wait and see.’
Mia scoops up a handful of bubbles and blows them in Freddie’s face. ‘I don’t
wanna
wait.’
‘I want a boy,’ Freddie announces.
‘Well, I want a girl,’ Mia counters.
‘We don’t know yet,’ he adds sagely, glancing at his mother, ‘’cause it’s in her tummy.’
‘That’s right, sweetheart.’ Kerry blinks rapidly, hating the fact that she still loses control of her tear ducts occasionally, always without any warning.
‘How big is it now, Mummy?’ Mia wants to know.
‘Er, I’m not sure. About the size of a grape, I’d imagine.’ Kerry kneels down on the floor to scrub at a lump of hardened toothpaste with a wodge of loo roll.
‘When’s it out?’ Freddie asks.
‘Oh. Um …’ How long until the joyous birth, he means, when Kerry will have to pretend to be at least
interested
, if not awash with delight, this child being a little half-sister or brother to Mia and Freddie. How will she pull off that one? What if he or she looks just like a newborn Freddie or Mia, despite having nothing whatsoever to do with her? ‘I’m not sure exactly,’ she replies finally, picking off the last of the toothpaste with a fingernail, ‘but there are a few months to go yet. They had a scan at the hospital and saw its heart beating.’
She sweeps her hands over her eyes on the pretence of brushing hair out of her face. A week ago now, Rob called to tell her about it, sounding all choked up and emotional. She still can’t shift the image of a blurry scan from her mind. What had he expected her to say – congratulations, or, ‘Ooh, I’d love to have a look sometime, if Nadine wouldn’t mind?’ Maybe she should. That would be the modern approach, wouldn’t it? She could start knitting some little baby bootees while she’s at it …
‘What’s a scan?’ Mia asks.
‘A picture of the baby in the mummy’s tummy,’ Kerry says curtly.
‘Can I see it?’ Freddie asks.
‘Er… . it’s not really up to me, Freddie.’
He glares at her, as if slowly deciding that she’s not quite the fabulous mother he’d once thought she was. ‘Why not?’
‘Because … it’s
their
baby. You’ll have to ask Daddy if you can see it.’
‘I wanna see it!’ he yells. ‘I wanna see the picture.’
Taking a deep breath, Kerry strokes the top of Buddy’s head. ‘Fine,’ she mutters. ‘I’m sure you can.’
‘How do they do it?’ Mia muses. It’s only now that Kerry realises her daughter has been carefully snipping away at her mermaid’s hair with the nail scissors. Synthetic blonde clumps are floating on the soft clouds of foam. ‘Do they put a camera in her, Mummy?’
‘No, it’s a special gadget that can sort of … see through skin.’ Kerry is sweating now, whether due to the steamy bathroom or the children’s line of questioning, she’s not sure.
‘How?’ Freddie demands.
‘Er …’ Kerry tries to figure out an explanation, even though she’s never been especially adept at telling the children the things they really want to know: how the TV works, why the sky is blue, where planets go in the daytime.
‘Does it make her bleed?’ Mia asks.
‘No, darling, it doesn’t
actually
—’ Kerry is relieved to snatch her ringing mobile from her pocket.
‘Hi, Kerry? My name’s Harvey. I called you a couple of months ago about piano lessons …’
‘Oh, did you?’ She frowns. ‘Sorry, I’m pretty fully booked now, don’t think I can take on anyone else …’
‘We were cut off,’ he interrupts, ‘and I meant to phone you back but stupidly, I just had your number on a soggy scrap of paper and lost it …’
‘Well, I can save your number now and get back to you if anyone drops out, if that’s okay.’
‘Oh.’ There’s a small silence as, still gripping her phone, Kerry coaxes Mia and Freddie out of the bath and into the pyjamas that have been warming on the radiator. It’s not entirely true that she can’t squeeze in another pupil. Yet right now, after being quizzed about scans and babies, she can’t rouse the enthusiasm to make arrangements. She doesn’t even know where her diary is.