A Friend of the Family (30 page)

‘That, Tony, is an
incredibly
interesting question,’ said Millie, appearing in the doorway with yet another glass of wine in one hand and the other hand on her hip. ‘Yes, Sean,’ she said, ‘why did you propose to me? Hmm?’

Sean dropped his head on to his fists and took a deep breath. ‘Millie,’ he said, ‘not now. Not here. Please. Can’t this wait until we get home?’

‘No,’ said Millie falling on to her chair and staring straight at Sean. ‘No – it can’t wait until we get home. I want to have this conversation right now.’

‘But this is private, Millie…’

‘Oh come on,’ she said, ‘Tony’s your brother. He’s
family,
Sean – we can talk in front of him. And anyway, you should listen to your big brother – you might be able to learn a bit about life from him.’

‘Eh?’ Sean looked up at Millie and sneered.

‘Yeah – he’s a
man,
Sean. Look at him.’ She stood up and walked round the table towards Tony. ‘Look – he’s got broad shoulders.’ She grabbed his shoulders and squeezed them. ‘He’s strong, Sean. He can run a business
and
own his own home
and
drive a car
and
hold down a
relationship and
still
find time to think about other people. You could learn a lot from him, you know.’

‘Since when did you care about things like cars and flats, Millie? I thought you were supposed to be this cool, easy-going chick with all these socialist ideals about how status and money and property don’t matter. But you’re not, are you? You’re just like every other woman – you just want some man to look after you…’

‘I do want some man to look after me, Sean. I just want some
man.
That’s all. Not a kid who freaks out at the first sign of responsibility. Who thinks that pregnant women have got some kind of lurgy. I mean, has it ever occurred to you that I’m scared, Sean, that maybe I’m as freaked out about having a baby as you are? Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean that I’m preprogrammed to know how to deal with this. I’m terrified, Sean. My identity is being stripped away with every day that passes. You think I
like
being pregnant? You think I like having my body taken over by something?’

‘Well then why are you having it, Millie? Why the fuck are you having this fucking baby if you don’t fucking want it? Eh?’

‘I
do
want this baby, Sean. I want this baby more than anything. All I’m saying is that it’s not easy being pregnant and… and… I
need you to want this baby, too.
That’s all…’

The room fell absolutely silent and Millie’s last words were left hanging in the air like an unanswered doorbell.

Millie stared at Sean beseechingly. Sean stared at the ceiling, drumming his fingertips against the table-top.

Tony stared at his fingernails and tried not to move too much in case Millie took her hands off his shoulders.

‘Right’ said Sean, eventually, slamming his hands down on the table and sighing, ‘that’s it. I’ve had enough. I’m out of here.’ He stood up and pulled his jacket off the back of Tony’s sofa.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, I’ve had enough of sitting here having my personal life dissected in public and being told I’m not good enough, so I’m going.’

‘Well, I’m coming with you, then,’ said Millie, taking her hands off Tony’s shoulders, much to his disappointment.

‘No, Millie, you’re not.’

‘Yes, I am.’

He threw her an icy glance. ‘You. Are. Not.’

‘We need to talk, Sean.’

‘Yes. You’re right. We do need to talk. But not here, not now and not tonight.’

‘OK – fuck off, then. Fuck off. I’m going to stay here with Tony. Tony’s going to look after me, aren’t you, Tony?’

She grabbed his shoulders again and Tony nodded vehemently. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘of course.’

Sean stopped in his tracks for a moment and looked at them both. He opened his mouth to say something and then shut it again. ‘Whatever,’ he said, throwing his hands up in the air in defeat, ‘whatever.’ He turned and was about to leave the room when he stopped and turned again and stared, not at Millie but at Tony. He
stared at him for what felt like about fifteen minutes before finally pointing at him and saying, in a soft voice that sounded drained of anger and full of sadness, ‘I thought you were my brother.’ He left the room, then, and ten seconds later they heard the front door slam close.

‘OK,’ said Ness, walking into the room with a trayful of coffee and chocolates. ‘Who’s for coffee?’

Millie burst into tears.

Brother Merging

‘There you go,’ said Tony, passing Millie a large cup of peppermint tea and sitting down next to her on the sofa.

‘I’m really sorry, Tony.’

‘What for?’

‘For making you fall out with your brother, for ruining dinner, for being a complete bitch.’

‘Oh, don’t be stupid. You haven’t ruined anything. Tonight was always going to be a bit of a sticky one.’

‘Yes, I know, but I shouldn’t have brought it to your dinner table. The last thing I wanted to do was drive a wedge between you and Sean. I just lost control tonight. Christ – I can’t believe I’m drunk, Tony. Look at me, I’m
drunk,
with a baby in me.’

‘Oh, well…’ said Tony, not really knowing what to say, as getting plastered while pregnant was pretty indefensible in his book, but not wanting to upset her even more. ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine.’

‘Yes, I know it’ll be fine. But that’s not the point. It’s just – it just seems to show a lack of respect, that’s all. Poor little thing.’ She stroked her belly tenderly. ‘Poor tiny, defenceless little thing who’s only just growing fingernails and already your mummy and daddy are
fighting and rowing and making you drink disgusting things.’

Tony glanced down at Millie’s tiny, rounded stomach and felt a deep longing rising inside him. There was a baby in there – a tiny, thumb-sized little baby.

‘So, he’s got fingernails, has he?’ he said looking at the bump in wonder.

‘Uh-huh. And little sockets in his gums for teeth to grow in.’

‘Wow.’

‘And this week, apparently, he’s developed little vocal cords – so he can start making noises in there. Imagine that?’

‘Amazing,’ said Tony, ‘can I touch it?’

‘Of course,’ said Millie, pulling open her cardigan a bit.

Tony put his hand out flat and cupped the little bump that looked more like the result of a big curry and a bit of trapped wind than a pregnancy.

‘You won’t be able to feel anything, yet,’ she said, ‘the baby’s moving around but it’s too small for you to feel.’

‘No. But it’s just… it’s amazing, isn’t it? A little human being in there. I just want to…
connect.
You know?’

He looked up at Millie and smiled and Millie smiled back at him. ‘Do you know something,’ she said, ‘Sean’s never once done that. He’s never touched our baby.’

‘Seriously?’ Tony took his hand from Millie’s stomach.

‘Uh-hm. I don’t think he’s ever even
looked
at it. Well, not deliberately, anyway.
Christ.
What am I doing? What am I doing, Tony?’ She looked at him beseechingly and then let her head fall on to her hands. ‘Fuck. I’m going
to be a single mother, aren’t I? A bitter, haggard, old single mother who gets pissed while she’s pregnant. Christ, I’ll probably become an alcoholic and neglect it. It’ll be taken away by the social services and I’ll never see it again. Oh, Jesus, Tony –
what am I going to do
?’ She started sobbing again.

‘Here, here,’ said Tony, picking up one of her hot, clenched little hands and squeezing it gently. ‘Things will work out, Millie. Honestly, they will.’

‘I mean, a few weeks ago everything in my life was perfect. I’d met the man of my dreams, he proposed to me, I got promoted, everything was going so well. Every day was like a little scene from a film, you know? Like this idyllic golden world that seems out of your reach most of the time, that looks like it’s happening to everyone else – except it was happening to
me.
I honestly didn’t think that life could possibly be any better. I thought I was the luckiest, most blessed girl in the whole world. And now… and now… my boyfriend hates me, I’m up the duff, I’ve got no social life, no fun… no waist. And now I feel like my life is like a depressing documentary. You know, like one of those women you see on the TV and you think, “How the hell did you let this happen to you? How could you have been so
stupid?”
I mean, how could I ever have looked at Sean and thought he’d be a good dad – or even a good husband, come to that? Was I that desperate?’

‘He doesn’t deserve you, Millie,’ said Tony, ‘He doesn’t deserve either of you.’

‘He doesn’t, does he? I mean, do you think he even
noticed I was drinking tonight? Hmm? Do you think it occurred to him what I was doing? God – maybe he was mentally encouraging me. Hoping I’d have a miscarriage or something…’

‘Oh come on, Millie – I think that’s probably a bit harsh, don’t you?’

‘No. I don’t. You don’t know how cold he can be, Tony. I never saw it before. He was always like this excited puppy dog – he was so happy about everything all the time. I couldn’t ever have imagined Sean being unhappy. And then I told him I was pregnant and it was like a light switched off somewhere inside him. Like these big, steel doors came down, whoosh –’ she demonstrated the doors coming down with her hands – ‘and that was the last I saw of the old Sean. Gone. For ever. And I don’t know how to get him back, Tony. How do I get him back – hmm? How?’

‘I don’t know, Millie. I really don’t know. Sean’s a… Sean doesn’t know how to share. He never did know how to share. If something was his then no one else could get close to it. And if Mum ever made him give one of his toys to someone to play with, well – he’d disown it. Say he didn’t want it any more. Get a new one…’ Tony shrugged and looked at Millie.

‘Are you saying that Sean’s sulking because I’m like his toy and now he’s having to share me with our baby?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘it’s a theory.’

Millie fell silent and stared at the floor for a while. ‘Fuck,’ she said. ‘I think you’re right. I think that’s it. God, Tony – what would I do without you? It’s just like
– being with you – it’s like having my very own grown-up version of Sean. I mean, you look like him and sound like him – you even smell a bit like him. But you’re emotionally intelligent and he’s emotionally spasticated. I wish… I wish I could just sort of
merge
the two of you together. Oh God – does that sound funny?’

Tony looked at her, trying to hide the amazement in his eyes. ‘Er, no – not really. But, which bit of Sean would you keep in this merging process?’

Millie sighed and thought about it. ‘God – I don’t know, I really don’t know. His… his…
Nothing,’
she said eventually. ‘The way I feel at the moment, there is nothing about Sean I would like to keep.’

‘So, this merger – it would just be me, then?’ said Tony, laughing nervously.

‘Yeah – I suppose it would be.’ Millie laughed too.

‘Maybe without the, er… extra covering, though, eh?’ He patted his stomach and laughed again.

‘No,’ she said, ‘I’d keep the covering. I like the covering.’

‘You do?’

‘Yes. It’s cuddly.’

Tony digested the word ‘cuddly’ for a second, wondering if he liked it or not.

‘Remember the other day, Tony – when you came round to my flat?’

He nodded.

‘And you said that thing – that thing about how if it all fell apart with Sean, there’d be people to hold me up?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I think it might, you know? I really think it might all fall apart. I didn’t at the time, when you said it – I thought you were being melodramatic. But now, I’m not so sure. I look at Sean now and I can’t see any of the things I fell in love with. They’re not there any more. All I see is this stroppy, selfish
boy.
And unless the old Sean comes back… I don’t think I want to be with him, Tony. And if that happened – if I was all on my own – would you…
take an interest
?’

‘Take an interest?’ said Tony. ‘Of course I’d take an interest. I’d do more than take an interest, Millie – I’d do absolutely anything.’

‘Would you?’

‘Yes. I’d go anywhere, take you anywhere you wanted, do anything and everything for you and the baby. I’d… God – money, time, whatever you wanted, whatever you needed. You and the baby are the most important things in the world.’

‘Are we – really?’

‘Of course you are. More important than anything. I’d do anything for you both – absolutely anything.’

Millie looked straight at Tony and Tony saw her eyes filling with tears. ‘God, Tony, if you knew how much I’d been wanting to hear that. To feel like we’re special and important.’

‘How could anything be more important than you two?’

‘Thank you, Tony. You have no idea how much that means to me.’

‘I just can’t believe that someone as beautiful as you
and as special as you and as
amazing
as you could ever have ended up with someone who doesn’t appreciate you. It doesn’t make any sense. You should be… adored and pampered and looked after and protected. You should be treated like a queen.’

Millie smiled at him and put a hand on his arm. ‘Stop it,’ she laughed, ‘you’ll have me believing it in a minute.’

Tony grabbed her hand. ‘I want you to believe it, Millie – you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.’

‘Thank you, Tony,’ she said, ‘thank you so much.’And then all of a sudden, she threw her arms around him and hugged him. Tony put his arms around her and hugged her back and for a few seconds he stopped breathing.

Ness was upstairs in bed, the room was dimly lit by one lamp in the corner, the David Gray CD was still playing on repeat. Tony was full of brandy and wine. Millie felt warm and strong and smelt of clean hair and rosemary. This felt like a post-date clinch. This felt like…
something.
He pulled away from Millie, slowly, until he was eye to eye with her.

There were mascara runs under her eyes. He wiped them away with his thumb. ‘You deserve so much more, Millie,’ he said.