These Days of Ours (9 page)

But the chocolate roulade slumped.

‘I hate doing this,’ said Charlie, to general laughter. ‘My wife’s much better than me at making speeches. But then she’s better than me at most
things.’

Becca tried, and very nearly succeeded, in looking humble as the crowd crammed into the conservatory looked her way.

‘But, today I have a job to do as daddy to this little lady here.’ Charlie bounced Florence Susan in his arms. The blue eyed, chrysanthemum haired Flo giggled, as she did most of the
time. ‘I want to introduce her to all of the people she’s going to love as she grows up.’

Aww
said almost everybody. Kate nudged Julian; his face didn’t fit the occasion. She assumed he was trying not to choke on the shabby chic of Becca’s new glass extension. A
bunting sceptic, Julian looked uncomfortable among the patchwork cushions, the rattan chairs, and the old trunks repurposed as storage. ‘Storage for what?’ he’d hissed. ‘Yet
more dusty old tat?’

‘That lady in the corner,’ said Charlie, pointing Flo’s pudgy forefinger, ‘is your godmother, Kate.’

There was a smattering of applause, as if being godmother was a talent, even though so far all Kate had done was buy a silver rattle. She nervously readjusted the enormous hat that would ruin
all the photos of this red letter day.

‘I suggest you be very very naughty whenever she babysits,’ said Charlie. The gentle joke got a huge laugh; this was an easy audience.

‘I’ll teach her to swear!’ called Kate, regretting it when an elderly guest muttered, ‘Well really!’

‘Thanks!’ Becca winked from where she stood behind Charlie, like a presidential candidate’s wife. All in red, with a ruffle at the knee, she carried her ‘baby
weight’ with glorious aplomb. Not for Becca the new mum uniform of stained tee shirts: she was hyper groomed, her eyebrows waxed and her lips plumped with collagen. With her new bottom-heavy
figure she was a glamorous update of a pagan fertility icon, glowing with life. Around her neck, her name hung in flowing gold letters; Becca modelled herself on Carrie Bradshaw from
Sex and the
City
with the doggedness of a cult member. Three years into the new millennium, it was clear that this new century – and motherhood – suited her.

‘We don’t really care what you’re going to be when you grow up.’ Charlie lifted Flo to look her in the eye as the Indian summer sun silhouetted them in gold. ‘We
don’t give a monkeys whether you’re the Prime Minister or you sweep the streets. We just want you to be happy, little Flo. We want you to know you are loved.’

‘Hear hear!’ shouted Kate’s dad from where he stood sandwiched between a refurbished birdcage and a tailor’s dummy wearing an antique nightdress.

More clapping, but Charlie wasn’t quite finished. ‘Come back, Becca,’ he said, as she beetled off to fill glasses and make personal comments. He laid his arm around her
shoulders, as if to anchor this vivacious vision to his side. ‘Most of you know what we went through before Flo came along.’ The atmosphere changed, the smiles turned tender.
‘We’ve had a cot ready since 1997.’

Behind her, Kate felt Julian smother a sigh. Raised in a family of stiff upper lips, he abhorred such sharing. Recently she’d noticed him avoiding Becca; he was, Kate suspected, bored of
the constant battle for ‘ownership’ of Kate that Becca waged. Any minute now he’d start lobbying to go home.

‘I always knew my wife was one in a million but I didn’t know she was brave and determined and . . .’ Charlie smiled. ‘I’ve run out of superlatives. It’s all
thanks to Becca’s refusal to give up that, after losing two dearly wanted babies, we have Flo.’ He sounded slightly strangled now, and the room willed him to carry on. ‘My wife
and my daughter. I’m proud of you both. I’ll look after you both. Always.’

Kate wiped her eyes as she clapped with everybody else.

Stooping, Julian said into her ear, ‘Becca certainly is one in a bloody million, thank the lord.’ He ignored Kate’s rebuking elbow in his ribs. As Becca approached them,
fielding congratulations and compliments, he whispered, ‘I tell you, that baby is
glue
. Flo’s holding that marriage together.’

‘I don’t agree,’ murmured Kate as Becca pushed through the throng. The glue was the miscarriages. Both times Becca had been reduced to a wordless lump of suffering, clinging to
Charlie, all her vitality gone. The pain caused by the first little life losing its foothold inside Becca just before the wedding had been redoubled when it happened again, just two months after
her impulsive disclosure on Millennium Eve. Charlie put aside his own grief to comfort his wife. Having seen her well-hidden fragility, Charlie was bonded to Becca.

‘Do you approve of my conservatory, Julian?’ Becca was coy, certain of herself. ‘Reclaimed brick floor! Green oak frame! I love it when the sun streams through the glass like
this. I don’t know how you townies cope, living in filthy old London.’

‘The same filthy old London,’ said Kate, ‘you lived in for your whole life until two months ago.’

‘I suppose it’s different,’ said Becca, turning away to adjust an arrangement of driftwood and candles, ‘when you’re childless.’

Stuck for a response, Kate watched Becca pounce on another knot of guests, checking their champagne levels, beseeching them to make another circuit of the buffet table.

‘I’m sure she didn’t mean that to sound so . . . harsh,’ said Kate as she took off her hat with a great sense of relief and followed Julian into the cottage’s
quaint kitchen where the booze was laid out.

‘There you go again.’ Julian rifled through the massed ranks of bottles for the good stuff, the bottle he’d brought. ‘Making excuses. Your whole family bends over
backwards to accommodate Becca.’ He caught sight of his reflection in the window. Kate saw the momentary pause as he checked his hairline. Julian was horribly conscious of its retreat, like a
slow tide. Kate told him it suited him and Julian told Kate she was only saying that to make him feel better. When he checked himself out in shiny surfaces she wanted to take him in her arms,
reassure him, but that would mean she’d noticed and Julian would hate that. ‘Becca’s the only person I know who’s simultaneously top dog
and
underdog.’

‘You’re right,’ said Kate, gazing about her at the other female guests and wondering
when did handbags get so gigantic?
The more chic contingent looked as if
they’d brought everything they owned to the christening. ‘But that’s just Becca. I don’t mind.’

‘See!’ Julian was exasperated. Holding the bottle by its neck, he led Kate outside.

The garden – or
gardens
as Aunty Marjorie preferred – clung to its summer glory, a watercolourist’s delight of greens and blues and deep pinks. A piñata hung from
the gingerbread eaves of a summerhouse. Multicoloured bulbs snaked through the willow branches. When Kate had invited Becca to take what supplies she needed from the shop’s stockroom, Becca
had filled her car. Spotting her prey, Kate hurried across the grass, self-conscious in her oyster-coloured dress. The saleswoman at Harvey Nichols had assured her that ‘nude is so
now’, but Kate felt as if she was streaking. ‘Charlie!’

Charlie turned and smiled, knowing what she wanted. ‘Here you go.’

Accepting Flo, Kate marvelled again at the baby’s warm denseness, like a bowling ball in a nappy. She loved Flo with fierce simplicity: nothing compromised Kate’s feelings of delight
and protectiveness. ‘When will she start looking like you, Charlie?’ she laughed.

‘It’s only fair she looks like Becca,’ said Charlie. ‘She did all the hard work, after all.’

‘Nice speech.’

‘It was a bit icky. But Flo makes me a bit icky.’

‘Me too.’ Kate nuzzled the pink face, breathing in Flo’s baby smell of mingled vanilla, mud and farmyard. ‘You look as if she kept you up all night again.’

‘Gee thanks.’ Charlie rubbed the back of his head, making his dark hair stand up on end. ‘You’ll spoil me with all these compliments.’

‘At least
you
have an excuse for the bags under your eyes.’

‘You’ll always look seventeen to me,’ said Charlie. ‘Mind you,’ he added, ‘you looked really old when you were seventeen.’

‘Bloody cheek!’

‘Seriously,’ said Charlie, ‘you haven’t changed a bit.’

‘That’s so sweet. And so untrue.’ Kate’s features had asserted themselves, as if her real face had arrived after years of regrettable experiments with eyeliner and
bronzer. ‘We all change.’

A small white ball of animated fur ran past, yapping.

‘Jaffa!’ shouted Charlie. ‘No! Don’t—’

‘Too late.’ The dog had pelted straight into the new pond. ‘What
is
Jaffa?’ asked Kate. ‘I keep forgetting.’ Was he a shih tzu crossed with a poodle?
Or a poodle crossed with a pekinese?

Monitoring Jaffa’s doggy paddle to safety, Charlie sighed. ‘I think he’s a cross between a lamb and a cushion. The animal’s an imbecile.’

‘Becca says he’s a brilliant guard dog.’

‘The only thing he barks at is his own reflection.’

A shout carried across the garden. ‘Hey, Chas!’ a bumptious guest shouted. ‘Is that loo roll ad your latest masterpiece?’

‘Yes! That’s mine!’ shouted Charlie, adding
you pillock
in an undertone. ‘I never thought,’ he said, ‘I’d be writing scripts for puppies playing
with toilet paper.’

‘It’s my favourite commercial. Poodles. Bog roll. It’s like a mini Harold Pinter.’ Despite – or perhaps because of – Charlie’s disdain for advertising
he was a success. Headhunted again to a newly formed agency, he was powerful enough to insist on working from home two days a week. The long commute was the only way Charlie could make
Becca’s dream of a rural idyll workable. He knew, as did Kate, that Becca would have a new dream before long.

‘You’re allowed to be proud of what you do,’ said Kate.

Charlie didn’t look convinced.

‘How’s the book?’

‘Coming along, you know.’

‘Could I take a peek some time?’ Kate hadn’t read Charlie’s manuscript since what were now the olden days, when they’d gone out together. ‘If you don’t
mind, that is.’ It’s an intimate thing, to read words when they’re fresh, when they’re still attached to the writer; until recently Kate wouldn’t have dreamed of
making such a request.

The loss of the babies had not only bound Kate ever tighter to her cousin but also, inevitably, to Charlie. Gradually, Kate and Charlie rediscovered much of their old affinity. Neither Julian
nor Becca protested: Kate had underestimated them.

Now it seemed laughable that once upon a time Kate had held back from such banter with Charlie in case it unsettled their other halves, challenged the status quo.

The status quo was not so easily threatened. After that initial, juvenile partner-swap, they’d all hunkered down for the long haul. It struck Kate that all four of them were
‘stayers’, made of similar material to her parents, who had never dreamed of leaving each other, despite their ups and downs.

As rooted in his marriage as the willow tree on the edge of the lawn, Charlie wouldn’t now recall what he’d written to her in that other life, but his cold turn of phrase was
impossible to expunge from her memory; it was as word perfect as the Shakespeare she’d studied at school.

Not everything that looks like love is love
tripped as easily off her tongue as the
Hear my soul speak
line from
The Tempest
, both quotes as archaic and irrelevant as the
other.

‘Here, take this starlet to meet her public.’ Kate relinquished Flo, who was muttering bubbly sweet nothings to herself. ‘Bask in her reflected glory.’

The baby was greeted with exaggerated joy as Charlie strolled around the garden, showing Flo off to all and sundry.

‘Look at Charlie.’ Kate’s mother had been keeping Julian warm for her. ‘He’s a natural.’

‘Why doesn’t he just whip out his nipple and breastfeed?’ said Julian, shocking his mother-in-law. Some guests had already drifted away. Julian looked pointedly at his
watch.

‘There’s no need,’ said Mum, ‘for talk of nipples.’ Happily stout, she’d embraced midlife wholeheartedly, running towards bad perms and elasticated waists as
if they were old friends she’d been expecting. ‘Your dad,’ she said, ‘was like that with you, Kate. Couldn’t put you down.’

‘Where
is
Dad?’ Kate resolutely ignored the desperate, covert signals Julian was sending out that it was time to go.

‘Having a sit down,’ said Mum, patting her hair, her dress, her garish jacket into place with her endlessly fluttering and fussing fingers. ‘He gets so tired.’

‘Dad?’ Kate baulked. ‘He’s last to bed and first up.’

‘He
was
,’ said Mum. ‘The years take their toll on all of us.’

Disliking this picture Mum drew, Kate steered the conversation to safer ground. ‘Becca’s doing wonders with this garden, isn’t she?’

Julian let out a discreet sob of boredom.

‘It’s a credit to her,’ said Mum, always ready to praise her niece. ‘Why you don’t have a garden I can’t think, Kate. You and Julian paying all that money for
that flat and all you’ve got is a silly balcony . . .’