‘Are you cooking, sweetheart?’ Candida asks.
‘We’re, er … having a sort of stir fry,’ she mumbles, lowering her eyes and flushing pink. ‘Rob did ask me to go to his mum and dad’s but it’s family time for him.’
Jens raises a greying eyebrow. ‘So you have children already, Rob.’
He nods morosely. ‘Just the two.’
‘And they live with their mother?’
‘Er, yes, on the south coast. I see them most weekends, though.’ Jens scowls, as if not entirely sure that Rob is telling the truth, and a terse silence descends. ‘So where are you staying in London?’ Rob barks, too loudly.
‘We’re at Charles and Alicia’s round the corner,’ Candida says brightly, as if Rob should know immediately who she’s referring to:
Oh, Charles and Alicia! Do give them my love …
‘Excuse me a minute,’ he says, pushing away his vomit-like meal and bounding up from his seat. He strides across the sparsely-populated restaurant, wondering how, in one neat move, he’s managed to transform Christmas Eve from being a lovely occasion, bubbling with excitement as his children set out Santa’s mince pies and beer, to being grilled about his career prospects by a terrifying Swiss man. Rob doesn’t even need the loo. He just craves a few moments’ respite from Jens’s booming voice and the creeping sense that his natural charm is faltering somewhat.
From inside the locked cubicle Ron hears someone coming into the gents and sploshing noisily into the urinals. He sits on the loo, hiding, until the man goes away, and decides he needs to think up some safe conversation topics. That’s the only possible way he’ll get through this dinner alive. Idiotically, in an attempt to establish some common ground, he had planned to announce that his own father is Italian, but realises now how lame that would sound: ‘So you’re from Switzerland, Jens. Well, my dad’s from Verona. How amazing that you both come from other countries!’ No, that won’t do at all. Something about Switzerland then? Banks, mountains, being neutral during the war … Christ, Jens would probably stab him with his steak knife for that. It would be as crass as meeting an Austrian and asking if they like
The Sound of Music
…
What about cuckoo clocks? They could have a fascinating discussion about novelty timepieces. No, that’s even worse. And now he’s thinking about Kerry, who’s probably in a flurry of last-minute wrapping right now, with a glass of wine at her side. His mobile rings, and he almost cries with relief when it’s her.
‘I was just thinking about you,’ he blurts out.
‘Were you?’ There’s an awkward pause.
‘Yeah. I, er … was just wondering how you were getting on with things. Wrapping presents and doing the stockings and all that … have you put out mince pies?’
‘For Santa?’ Her voice softens. ‘Yes, of course we have, and a carrot. All the usuals.’ She reverts to a more business-like tone. ‘Anyway, I’ve just remembered, Mia really wanted gold pens in her stocking and I’ve forgotten to buy them.’
‘Gold pens,’ he repeats flatly.
‘Yes, gold ink ones, I mean. Kind of rollerball things, you know? She’s been doing these brilliant Tutankhamun drawings and wants to colour them in gold, so …’
‘But she’ll open her stocking first thing with you, won’t she?’
‘That doesn’t matter. If you could get them and give them to her at your mum and dad’s …’
He runs his tongue over his lips. ‘Er … I’m sort of out at the moment.’
‘Well, there must be a late newsagent’s open, couldn’t you just—’
‘Kerry,’ he interrupts, ‘I’m out having dinner with Nadine and her parents.’
‘Oh.’ There’s a pause. ‘So … how’s that going?’
Aware of the weirdness of conducting a phone conversation in a toilet cubicle, he lets himself out and inspects his waxy face in the mirror above the hideous scallop-shaped basins. ‘It’s absolutely fucking terrible.’
‘Is it? Oh dear …’
‘It’s not
funny
. Her dad obviously hates my guts, looks like he’d happily smash the water carafe over my head …’
‘And why would he hate you, Rob?’ Kerry’s voice trembles with mirth. ‘What could this man, the father of a pregnant twenty-year-old, possibly have against you?’
‘It’s probably because I ordered risotto,’ he snaps before ringing off, the gold pens request evaporating immediately as he steps out of the gents.
Rob pauses, taking a moment to examine his fingernails before rejoining the table.
‘So you’ve found yourself a
zuckervati
,’ Jens is declaring loudly across the room. ‘He’s twice your age, Nadine. A grown man with a family he hardly sees. Children of his own he doesn’t care about …’
Rob winces, rooted to the spot. What the hell does this man in his disgusting shirt – murky green with contrasting white collar – know about his family? He’s just told him he sees his kids almost every weekend, for Christ’s sake. He can hardly do more than that. Anyway, how dare Jens pass judgement on Rob’s parenting when, as far as he can gather, he can only be bothered to shift his paunchy arse to visit Nadine about once a year?
‘A
zuckervati
,’ Jens repeats. ‘I can hardly believe this is what you’ve settled for.’
Now, what could that possibly mean?
Zucker
… sugar.
Vati
… father, perhaps? Sugar daddy?
‘Jens,
please
,’ Candida hisses. ‘Let’s not spoil the evening.’
‘It’s not like that, Daddy,’ Nadine murmurs. ‘Age doesn’t come into it. It’s not relevant …’
Their table is obscured by an alabaster statue of a woman clutching an urn from which blue-tinted water is dribbling. Realising he must look bizarre, loitering by the loos rather than rejoining the happy group, Rob takes out his mobile again and pretends to check his texts.
‘So is he divorced?’ Jens wants to know.
‘Not yet, Daddy, no.’
‘Well, it would be nice to know if he’s planning to marry you – I assume he’s already living with you in the flat …’
‘Um … we’ve haven’t even talked about getting married yet,’ Nadine replies wearily. ‘And he’s sort of between homes at the moment. He’s mostly at mine but the sale of his house has got caught up in a chain so there’s been a delay there. It should all be sorted very soon.’
‘Hmmm.’ Jens pauses. ‘And what happened to the other one you were seeing?’
‘What, you mean Eddy?’ she asks. ‘That was just a casual, on-off kind of thing.’
‘At least he’s closer to your age, and an
editor
…’
Rob can sense his blood coagulating as he makes his way back to the table. He takes his seat and snatches the menu that’s the precise glossy orange of a cling peach.
‘What d’you fancy, Rob?’ Candida asks sweetly.
He can barely speak. So, Nadine had an
on-off kind of thing
with Eddy, did she? He glares at her, wondering if it was on or off at around the time he slept with her, and if there’s a chance that the baby …
‘How about sharing a crème brûlée, Rob?’ Nadine suggests with a smile. ‘Or a lemon sorbet?’
‘Oh, yes, Nadine was telling me your father’s Italian,’ Candida witters nervously. ‘You must have had some lovely sorbets in your time!’
Rob blinks at this assortment of ridiculous people with whom he has been forced to have dinner. He feels his upper lip sticking to his top teeth as he replies, ‘Not really, Candida … in fact I think I’ll pass on dessert. I really couldn’t eat another thing.’
*
‘I promise you, it was nothing,’ Nadine insists, buttoned up to the neck in fleecy pyjamas as they lie side by side, without touching, in bed. ‘It was just … you know. A friends-with-benefits thing.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake. This isn’t a movie, Nadine.’ Rob turns away sulkily.
‘Well, what else am I supposed to call it? We were never serious. It was just …’ She tails off lamely. ‘A bit of fun.’
Rob glowers at his brown suede slippers neatly paired up on her lilac bedroom carpet, their backs worn shiny and completely flattened by his heels. He’s almost living here now. As well as his slippers, he now keeps his dressing gown, some toiletries, six pairs of boxers and a decent Italian coffee percolator at her place. All of this – like them becoming a couple – seems to have happened without him considering what’s actually going on, and whether he wants it.
‘Who else have you shagged from the office, then?’ he asks flatly.
‘That’s
completely
offensive,’ she snaps. ‘There’s no need to be so spiteful.’
He presses his lips together, his heart pumping away at what feels like twice its regular speed. They travelled back in the cab from the restaurant in near silence, Nadine mistaking her father’s rudeness as the cause of Rob’s ill-humour.
‘Have you done it with Frank?’ he blurts out.
‘
No!
Jesus, Rob …’
‘That new post boy with the dyed yellow hair?’
‘Shut the hell up.’
‘It’s just …’ He pauses. ‘I realise I know so little about your past …’
‘So I’ve
got
one,’ she barks. ‘I’m young, Rob. I’m not forty years old, I don’t look baffled if someone asks if I’m on Twitter …’
He breathes deeply, sensing what he managed to eat of the risotto shifting uneasily in his stomach.
‘I just can’t be bothered with stuff like that.’
‘No. Fine, then don’t. No one’s forcing you.’
He lies there, overcome by a wave of desolation as he looks up at the ornate ceiling rose.
‘So when did it finish with Eddy?’ he asks.
She sighs loudly and sits up. ‘There was nothing
to
finish. I told you – it wasn’t a big deal.’
‘Yes,’ he says tersely, ‘I understand that. I realise you weren’t on the verge of announcing your engagement and popping into John Lewis to choose your dinner service.’ He falls silent as they sit in a fug of ill-feeling.
‘Er … it wasn’t that long ago,’ Nadine says finally.
‘When was the last time, then?’
She turns to him and pulls in her lips as if faced with a tough calculation. ‘It was … three or four days before the night with you.’
‘Three or four
days
? Like, in the same week as me?’
‘Yeah?’ she says with a shrug. ‘I was single, Rob. I told you, it was just—’
‘Fun. Yes, you said.’ He jumps out of bed and marches to the window where he stares at the skyline blurred by her white gauzy curtains. ‘Can you be honest about something at least? Did we definitely do it that first night – you and me, I mean? Because it seems to me that this might not even be my child …’
‘Of course we did,’ she exclaims. ‘D’you think I’d lie about that?’
He whirls round to face her. ‘I’ve no idea, Nadine. I don’t know what to think any more. Why didn’t you mention you and Eddy before?’ He feels sick now at the dawning realisation that he might have thrown his life down the toilet for something that never even happened. His marriage, his children, his new life by the sea … all as good as lost, for something he didn’t even do.
‘I told you, Rob, it was nothing.’ She is hunched miserably on the huge white bed, picking at a fingernail.
He regards her dispassionately. ‘Did you and Eddy have unprotected sex in the same week that we slept together?’
‘Christ, you’re like … like a scary policeman, interviewing me.’ She laughs witheringly as he starts pulling on his clothes. ‘You’ll be shining a bright light in my eyes next and asking me to take a lie-detector test.’
‘For fuck’s sake, this is serious.
Did
you?’
She shakes her head, the silence stretching a beat too long before she replies, ‘Listen, Rob … I’m
sure
the baby’s yours.’
‘Great. Fine. We’ll be having a paternity test then, all right?’
‘Okay! Go ahead,’ she yells as he marches out of the room.
‘I’m calling a cab,’ he shouts back, ‘and going back to Bethnal Green. I can’t stay here tonight.’
Nadine doesn’t reply or try to follow him. Rob calls a taxi, smoking a cigarette as he paces up and down in her living room – just let her dare come through and complain about the smell – until the driver toots outside. In what he knows is a rather pathetic gesture, he snatches the fairy lights from around her horrible abstract print and flings them onto the pink rug, crushing one of the plastic stars with his foot. Then he stomps downstairs and out into the chilly night, wondering what he’ll do when his house keys are finally handed over to the new owners.
Then
he’ll be screwed, not that he isn’t already.
Rob climbs into the grotty cab with its ripped back seat, wishing with all his heart that he could say, ‘Please take me to Shorling-on-Sea.’
There are numerous ‘firsts’ after a break-up. That first online grocery shop, for instance, when Kerry realised she could now delete ‘dark almond deluxe’ from her favourites because, actually, she’s secretly always preferred cheap milk chocolate. Or the first time she glanced down into the washbasin, noting that it was entirely free of those beardy speckles, and knowing it would remain so until either: a) Freddie sprouts into a hairy teenager or b) she invites an adult male to stay the night, whichever comes sooner (her money is on her son reaching adolescence). Other firsts are more difficult: for instance, that first conversation with Rob’s parents post break-up, when Mary had cried even more than she had. And the first time (shamefully, not the
only
time) Kerry found herself obsessively Googling Nadine Heffelfinger at 2 a.m., and pored over her breathless book reviews on the
Mr Jones
website. (
Heffelfinger
. What kind of name is that? Sounds like a long-handled back scratcher. ‘Ooh, got a bit of an itch below my shoulder blade. Luckily I can reach it with my Heffelfinger.’)
This, though – the first Christmas without Rob – is a big one, and Kerry has laid down some firm rules for herself: