A Friend of the Family (27 page)

But then he reminded himself that this was just the first step back towards the sunshine and the good times. That was why he was here. Because the only person in the whole world who could offer him the glitter he craved so much was sitting alone in a beautiful Pad-dington flat being dragged into the gutter by his selfish younger brother. Because the two of them together could take on the world and make everything golden again. And because there was no way that she’d love him until he loved himself and he couldn’t love himself like this. He had to be thin. It was the only way.

He took another sip of his wine and politely asked Tonia if she’d been on holiday lately.

Nachos with Ned

At seven o’clock on Tuesday night, Sean’s mouse hovered over ‘word count’. He held his breath and clicked it:

Nearly 30,000 words. That was nearly a third of a book, could even be half a book if he didn’t overcomplicate things. Fuck. He was going to make it. He was going to get this book finished. He’d received a diffident little e-mail from his agent yesterday morning, asking him about his MS and when he might expect it. If Sean had received that e-mail a week ago it would have sent him into a paroxysm of terror and he’d have started hyperventilating. As it was, he’d smiled to himself and calmly penned a reply informing his agent that, although
he might not quite make the deadline, everything was progressing very nicely and he should get it to him by July. He’d been working flat out, hadn’t seen Millie for a week, hadn’t seen
anyone
in a week. He’d been working late into the night, going to bed when it was nearly morning, getting up late and starting the process all over again. He hadn’t even watched TV.

Millie, obviously, wasn’t pleased with this turn of events, but that was tough shit, quite frankly. He’d already put his career on hold for her, put his whole
life
on hold for her. He’d explained to her exactly what he was going through, that he’d got into a groove and that if he took himself out of the space he was in right now, everything might come to a grinding halt again. She’d said that of course she understood, in a tone of voice that suggested that she really didn’t. ‘When can I expect to see you again?’she’d said in her clipped, polished English. ‘I don’t know,’ he’d said, ‘when it feels like I’ve reached a natural break.’ He could almost hear the subtext in her voice: ‘But I’m pregnant, what in the whole world could possibly be more important than the miracle of life?’

But right now this
was
more important. It was more important than babies and relationships and eating three proper meals a day. It was more important than anything. And he, of course, had his own subtext. It wasn’t just the book, it wasn’t just making deadline – it was being away from her. It was doing him good. Rediscovering his old routines and habits, drinking PG Tips instead of English breakfast, going to bed whenever the
fuck he wanted, not having to consider anyone else’s preferences. He had no idea if he’d be feeling this way if she wasn’t pregnant, but he suspected not. Un-pregnant Millie had been unpredictable and exciting – he’d wanted to hang around with her and take on board her preferences because he never knew where he might end up and there was always some form of pay-off, be it a great night out, a surreal encounter or the discovery of something new and exciting. Pregnant Millie was just a drag, to be quite honest. There was no longer any promise of the unexpected. He found it really hard to relate to her while she was in this condition. It was like she’d found Jesus or something.

He still thought about what Tony had said to him and he knew that he was right. He did need to make decisions. He did need to think about the future, but the problem was that he didn’t have room in his head to think about it at the moment. He still loved Millie; of course he did. But he didn’t really know what he felt about weddings and babies and the future. Every time he tried to free up some mental disk space to ponder the situation his head would crash and he’d start thinking about his book instead. Millie, her flat and her cats all felt like a distant, lost world, like something from his past.

He looked at the time on the computer screen again. Ten past seven. He re-read the last bit of text he’d written and realized with some surprise that he’d reached a ‘natural break’. He could easily jump on a train, make his way over to Paddington, spend the evening with
Millie. But he didn’t want to. Not in the slightest. But he did have this sudden need to get out of the flat and talk to another human being.

He gave his predicament a moment or two of thought and then picked up the phone and called Ned.

Forty minutes later Sean was installed on the sofa at Beulah Hill watching Buffy
the Vampire Slayer
with a beer in one hand and the remote control in the other. Mum was in the kitchen delightedly rustling up a big plate of nachos for her boys, Ned was stretched out full-length on the other sofa reading
heat
magazine and picking his nose, and Goldie was lying in front of the TV with his front paws in the air, snoring contentedly. Sean breathed a sigh of relief. This was nice, he thought, this was right. He was back where he belonged.

He’d managed to sidestep all the questions from Mum about him and Millie. No, they hadn’t set a date; no, it probably wasn’t going to be a summer wedding; no, he had no idea whether it was going to be religious or civil. He and Millie were having a long engagement, he’d said, and Mum had smiled and looked more than satisfied with that. ‘That’s good,’she’d said. ‘There’s no point in rushing into anything, is there?’

He still had no idea when he was going to tell his family that Millie was actually pregnant. Luckily, she was being cautious about it, wanted to wait until she was twelve weeks gone, until she was ‘safe’. She’d told her sister and a few close friends, and Sean had told Tony, but apart from that no one in the whole world knew
about it and Sean liked it like that. Other people knowing wasn’t going to make Millie any more pregnant than she already was but it would make it harder for him to pretend that it wasn’t happening.

‘How’s the book going?’ said Ned, putting down his copy of
heat.

‘Brilliant!’ said Sean, appreciating Ned’s unwitting diversion of his thoughts away from the more problematic areas of his life. ‘Yeah – it was a bit shaky to start off with, but now it’s going really well.’

‘What’s it about?’

‘Well, it’s about this bloke who falls in love with this woman…’

‘What – you’re writing a
romance
?’ Ned looked appalled.

‘No, no, no – he falls in love with this woman, right, thinks she’s the one for him. And then she gets pregnant.’ He looked at Ned, waiting for his reaction.

‘Right. And then what?’

‘Well, she gets pregnant and wants to keep it and it’s about the guy’s perspective on the situation.’

‘Oh,’ said Ned, sounding slightly confused. ‘Right. What’s the twist?’

‘It hasn’t got a twist. It’s just, you know, women have all this power over men, make all these decisions about babies and everything and men just have to go along with it. And it’s not just babies, you know, it’s everything. All those TV adverts they have on all the time with some ‘stupid’ man being shown how to put up bookshelves or fit the car radio or buy the car insurance or scrub out
the fucking bath properly by their superior wives. It just pisses me off. There’s this attitude in this country – and it’s not just perpetuated by women, it’s men too – that men are these big, dumb, useless creatures who get everything wrong – like we’re one rung above fucking
Goldie
on the evolutionary ladder. And women are these celestial beings of wisdom and insight and emotional fucking intelligence. It’s so fucking patronizing.’

‘So what does he do, then, this bloke with the pregnant girlfriend?’

Sean shrugged. ‘Dunno,’ he said, ‘I haven’t decided yet.’

‘Is he going to
kill her
?’ said Ned, his face lighting up at the prospect.

‘No.’

‘Is he going to kill all pregnant women, then? You know, like a serial abortionist or something?’

‘No. It’s not like the first book. No one’s going to get killed.’

‘Oh,’ said Ned, looking slightly disappointed. ‘Never mind.’

Neither of them spoke for a moment and Sean did some flicking around the channels while the adverts were on.

‘Where d’you get your ideas from?’ said Ned suddenly.

‘What ideas?’

‘You know. Like
Half a Man –
where d’you get all that stuff about twins from?’

Sean threw him a look. Being separated from Ned when he went to Australia had been the inspiration for
the idea. Sean had been so shell-shocked by Ned’s sudden departure and disappearance from his life that it had got him thinking: imagine what it would be like if one of your siblings actually
died –
how would a person ever get over such a loss? Your siblings were the only people in your life who’d been there from the beginning and knew what your childhood had been like from the same perspective as you. One day you’re having physical fights on a regular basis, the next you’re sitting in a pub together drinking and enjoying each other’s company, and the next one of you disappears to the other side of the planet, possibly for ever. Sean couldn’t imagine a greater loss than that of a brother or sister and had extrapolated the idea into a book about identical twins.

‘You,’ he said, watching Ned’s reaction, ‘you going to Australia. Made me think what it would be like if you died. Or Tony,’ he added.

Ned’s face lit up. ‘You mean, I inspired your book?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Fuck!’ He smiled embarrassedly and looked pleased. ‘That’s so cool! So why didn’t you dedicate it to me, you bastard?’

Bernie walked in with nachos and beer and laid them out in front of the boys. They launched themselves at the dish like a pair of starving urchins and Sean wondered to himself why he didn’t do this more often. He’d got out of the habit when Ned went away. As much as he loved Mum and Dad and loved being in this house it just seemed slightly sad hanging out here without his brother around. In fact, when he thought about it, he owed his
book and his success to Ned in more ways than one. If Ned hadn’t gone away to Australia Sean would probably never have started writing the book in the first place.

‘Did you hear that, Mum?’Ned said to Bernie. ‘I inspired Sean’s book.’

‘Oh really – you’re a serial killer, then, are you?’

‘No – me going to Australia. Made him think about what it would be like if I died.’

Sean glanced across at Ned’s excited face and felt his stomach curl itself up like a cat. His little brother. The only person in the world who ever really ‘got’ him, who didn’t make him feel like an oddball. And the only person who Sean had ever really felt comfortable hanging around with. Until Millie, that is. He’d neglected him these few weeks since he got back. He’d been so wrapped up in Millie and engagements and pregnancies, not to mention his work, that he’d barely spared a moment for Ned. But that was going to change, he decided, everything was going to change. Whatever happened with him and Millie, whether they stayed together or not, got married or not, or had a baby together or not, things were going to change. He’d allowed her to absorb him totally into her world, draw him in with her quirky furnishings, trendy drinking clubs and unpredictability. But he didn’t belong in her world – this was where he belonged and these were the people he belonged with. His family.

He sighed contentedly and stuffed another handful of sour-cream-drenched nachos into his mouth.

*

At ten o’clock he pulled on his jacket, kissed his mum goodbye, gave Ned a rough but tender hug and wheeled his pushbike out on to Beulah Hill. It was a clear, cool night brightly lit by an almost full moon. He’d just mounted his bike when a silhouetted figure smoking a cigarette appeared around the corner.

‘All right, Sean? How’s it hanging?’

‘Oh. Hi, Gervase,’ said Sean, feeling suddenly shy. He’d never really been alone with Gervase before, and felt slightly awkward. ‘I’m good, thanks.’

‘Been to see your mum?’

‘Yeah. And Ned.’

Gervase nodded approvingly. ‘That’s good,’ he said, ‘he’s been missing you.’

‘Has he? Why? What did he say?’

‘Hasn’t actually
said
anything,’ said Gervase, ‘just a feeling I got. You’re very close you two, aren’t you?’

Sean shrugged and nodded. ‘Yeah. I guess so.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Gervase, taking a deep drag on his cigarette. ‘Nice to have a brother like that – nice to have that sort of relationship.’