Not What They Were Expecting (7 page)

‘And do you think he was doing it?’ Kam asked.

This was the second time James had been asked that question. The first time it had been Rebecca, when they were sitting in together on New Year’s Eve. They’d been talking about the year ahead of them, and thinking that this time next year there would be three of them, and being up at midnight would probably be a daily occurrence. Then, in the middle of romanticising sleeplessness, Rebecca had gone quiet and asked him did he think her dad was gay.

His mistake had been how he’d reacted. He said, ‘What? Gay? I hadn’t really thought about that…’ in such a way that it was obvious that it was something he’d been thinking about a lot, and that he thought that Howard probably had done it. To him it had felt like the sort of thing you hear about all the time, the stuffy conservative family man with a double life, having angry self-loathing encounters in public parks. But he hadn’t wanted to let her know he was thinking that. It would have felt like providing proof that that was precisely what everybody who ever heard about it would think.

Rebecca didn’t say anything after his overly-mannered denial, but she seemed to shrink a little.

‘Would it be a problem if he was?’ he’d asked her.

‘He’s my dad,’ she’d told him. She said it wasn’t the gay thing that was the problem, it was the cheating aspect. If it was true. But what else could he have been doing?

He is the sort of man who would talk to strangers in a lavatory, James had pointed out, although he was pretty sure it took more than a remark about the weather and a bit of a peek to get arrested for cottaging these days.

‘It just makes everything complicated,’ she’d said.

James had told her that everything was going to be fine. He didn’t mention he’d been having sleepless nights waiting for something to appear in his dad’s paper. That he thought they’d dodged a bullet with the crime news in brief round-up that just mentioned several men had been arrested in the station toilets as part of a crackdown. Still, he knew in local newspaper terms, an ex-councillor in the nick was going to be trouble. He assumed Rebecca hadn’t made the connection yet. She wouldn’t have spent years hearing about how these stories got put together in the same way he had, the little battles between all the personalities involved. The likelihood that someone, somewhere, with a grudge would be out to stitch him up.

But it hadn’t happened yet, and so he just had to keep positive. There were topics he’d been getting good at avoiding. He was keeping quiet about all the crap going on at work, and focusing on the good stuff with the baby. He’d deleted from the laptop’s browser any trace of the research he’d done on the problems stress can cause during pregnancy – reading what he’d read about stress looked like it could be so stressful it would just make the risks they talked about in the articles all the more likely. No, he was going to make sure that Rebecca got through this as serenely as possible, and that was an important part of what being a good dad was going to be all about.

‘Well,’ James finally said in answer to Kam’s question, ‘I think if he was going to do that kind of thing he’d be more of a local park or common guy. Bit of fresh air and dog-walking to go with his blowing strangers. “Exercise, James! Important to get your exercise!”’

‘Ah but if he feels like degrading himself, wouldn’t a glory hole in a filthy public bog be the place to go? “As a successful businessman I’ve always appreciated a bit of rough trade!”’

‘But as he’s often told me, he’s a man that likes to do things face-to-face,’ said James.

‘Might be tricky if he’s on his knees or bending over…’

‘Good eye contact and a firm handshake are his watch words.’

‘What’s the hand shaking?’ asked Kam.

The two men spent the duration of the rest of a pint with smutty gags about Howard’s predicament, each more tenuous than the last, and each getting a bigger laugh. James couldn’t quite help thinking: what if Rebecca could hear him now? Or his parents, who’d endlessly made sure he knew better than the macho bullshit that goes around homophobia? But Jesus he’d needed this.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Kam, as they ran out of steam, ‘I thought your folks were screwed up, but poor old Becky’s trumped you, eh?’

‘Yeah, I guess so, said James. ‘Hey, what’s the angriest button on the keyboard?’

‘It’s the “alt grrr!”, pops, I told you that one in the first place.’

‘Oh yeah, fair enough. Pint?’

Chapter 8

‘Well congratulations, that’s lovely news! Of course we can’t really be friends any more, but I’ll try to remember to keep sending you a birthday text. Although I’m making no guarantees about one for the baby.’

‘Thanks. I live for those texts, whatever random month they come in. Last year I was blessed with messages in both April and October.’

‘I always get your day mixed up with the queen. Or somebody else, anyway…’

Rebecca knew they weren’t officially telling people outside family about the pregnancy for another week, but it wouldn’t count telling her old pal Sophie. She wouldn’t classify it as good news, and conceivably wouldn’t remember it at all as it didn’t make a direct impact on her life.

The two women had met at university, and their friendship had been one not quite of opposites attracting, but rather opposites reassuring each other that they were making the right decisions so they didn’t end up like the other. In Sophie, Rebecca had a friend who would do a lot of the things she wouldn’t, someone who took chances, would be spontaneous, inhale glamorous drugs when offered, and get involved in complicated affairs. And seeing the messes that Sophie ended up in as a consequence – how she felt her friend was trapped with an obsession with status and looks, constantly wrestling with the nagging idea there might be something else better out there – these made Rebecca feel happier about herself and her choices. It helped her remember she was getting what she wanted from life.

Sophie meanwhile had always said she couldn’t imagine how Rebecca didn’t go mad with the restricted life she lived. Looking at the wealth of experiences she’d had compared to those of her stay-at-home friend confirmed to Sophie that the drama in her life was worth it. However, all of Sophie’s other friends were people she’d met while pursuing her career or some form of excitement and were more like herself. It was nice to have somebody she could talk to about her latest trauma, who wouldn’t take the conversation and make it about themselves, or wouldn’t store up any admission of insecurity as a weapon for the next time they had a falling out.

‘You know you’ll never pass the birthday knicker test again now,’ Sophie told her.

Sophie had, since the age of nineteen, had a ritual. The annual Knicker Test. Back then she’d prepared for a big night at a university ball by spending money meant for books and food on lingerie from Agent Provocateur to impress her new boyfriend. But even money for books and food could only stretch so far, and all she’d bought had been a pair of knickers. Rebecca, who had the room in halls next to Sophie and would soon move into a student house with her, remembered being stunned at the price of them. It was more than she could imagine spending on pants for a lifetime. But they had looked and felt beautiful when she was examining them on Sophie’s cluttered desk, after her big trip to the shops to get them. They looked pretty amazing on Sophie too, Rebecca had had to concede, when her friend had walked out into the halls corridor wearing just them, a pair of heels, and a ratty old T-shirt bunched and tied above her waist. One of the other girl’s boyfriend’s, who’d popped over to revise a bit of French literature, seemed to think so too, much to the evident displeasure of his girlfriend.

The bra that would go with the pants would need to wait until she got another cheque from her parents or the student loans people, Sophie had said at the time. ‘Or you could just pop down to the by-pass looking like that, and make the money in no time,’ Rebecca had suggested. The rest of the big end-of-term night out had been fabulous for Sophie, and Rebecca remembered she’d had a pretty good time at her first ball too, although it did seem mainly to be a typical night of getting pissed and snogging the same people you always did, just in prettier clothes. The boys in their dinner jackets had seemed even more inclined than usual to pretending their fingers were guns and they were James Bond. Sophie and her boyfriend hadn’t lasted, and the bra had never been bought (‘Let’s face it, I don’t really need one with these bee stings anyway,’ Sophie had reflected), and the knickers had been wrapped up in the crepe paper and box they had come in. But every year they were taken out on Sophie’s birthday and tried on, to make sure she was managing to look as good as she had at nineteen. And she’d pretty much managed it. There was a year in her late twenties when the heels had started getting a little higher to get the same effect, and she wouldn’t do the test without just a touch of make-up, but she was still happy with the outcome.

Sophie seemed to be under the impression that this test was something everybody did. For years Rebecca had wondered how Sophie could even imagine needing to do such a thing every birthday, and what it was her friend was worried about. Sophie always looked great – a walking advert for the slimming effects of a vodka diet. But, at about the same time there was an increase in the height of the heels that Sophie needed to get the right level of bum pertness, Rebecca had noticed maybe not everything in the mirror was where it had once been. It gave her more of a jolt than she expected, never having been that worried about her looks, and always assuming that what she had she’d keep and she’d keep what she had. Her reaction to this development had been that maybe it was another sign that it was time to start thinking about a family, rather than to reach for the taller stilettos.

‘I’ve got tits!’ said Rebecca.

That was one of the main things she liked about talking to Sophie. She could say things like that without either of them batting an eyelid, whereas everyone else looked at her as if their sweet old nan had told a filthy joke, causing her to blush like a schoolgirl.

‘That can happen when you get hideously fat I hear,’ Sophie replied.

‘But that’s the thing! You wouldn’t notice the difference right now, weight-wise. I look exactly the same as I always do. Except I’ve got these breasts that have appeared out of nowhere.’

‘An instant boob job?’

‘Yep.’

‘Lucky bitch.’

‘It’s terrible really,’ Rebecca said. ‘People have been noticing them. It’s like being thirteen again, I’m walking everywhere with my arms folded across my chest trying to hide that they’re there.’

‘Would you like me to take you shopping for a training bra?’

‘Twice different guys in the office have asked if I’ve got a new outfit.’

‘Meaning, I hadn’t noticed
them
before.’

‘I know! I’ve seen them sneaking peeks as I walk past. This is entirely new for me.’

‘Well dear,’ said Sophie, ‘if you hadn’t been the only non-virgin in the country to insist that Wonderbra’s weren’t for you because they wouldn’t be as comfortable as your ratty old ones, you might have experienced this when you had a chance to do something with it.’

‘I think some of the older women in the office have noticed too and they’ve worked out what’s going on.’

‘Trust an embittered old hag to spot these things. Shouldn’t you tell someone before they sack you first to save on the maternity pay?’

‘They couldn’t do that could they?’ asked Rebecca. The silence at the other end of the line made her think it was the sort of thing Sophie might try and do.

‘I’m telling them next week, after the scan,’ Rebecca continued, ‘they’re always lovely about these things. At least, they always seem to be lovely.’

‘And so what else is new with you?’ Sophie asked. ‘Aside from that husband of yours being like a fumbling adolescent around your new jugs?’

Rebecca thought about mentioning that the whole issue of sex with James had got a bit cagey since the pregnancy was discovered. Sophie would be horrified and fascinated, but she didn’t want to confirm her friend’s suspicions of the horrors of family life too much. The stuff with her dad, Sophie would love too, and want all the gory details of. Rebecca would be able to say anything she wanted about it, without any judgements or repercussions from her friend, just her usual blunt ‘telling it like it is’ declarations getting to the heart of the matter. It might be helpful, ahead of the weekend’s Sunday lunch playing Happy Families. She could tell her everything she’d been bottling up for the last month.

‘No, that’s it. Nausea, knockers, not much else,’ she finally said.

The part of the conversation about her was now officially finished. Sophie could get on to the main purpose of her call, without fear of interruption.

‘Well, work has been hell for me. There’s this horrible sexual harassment case with my boss going through internal procedures at the moment. I mean really, it’s just a bit of fun, and if he doesn’t like it he shouldn’t dress like he does around the office. But of course, you can’t say that to them…’

With the careful precision of a bomb disposal expert who’s just had five pints, James guided his house key towards the front door lock. Just a couple of goes dinked the metal disc of the Yale lock before he heard the crunch of the key finding its home. He turned it 360 degrees for the first click, and again for the double lock, before gently leaning his frame against the door to ease it open silently. Inside he twisted the knob to retract the locking mechanism into the door as he closed it gently, and then slowly released it into the jamb before slipping down the snib with a muffled click. He worried that maybe coming into the house so quietly might actually be a bad idea – that Rebecca might get a fright if the first she heard of him coming in was when he got to the bed. She might confuse him with a silent cat burglar. Then he walked into the coat stand, kicked over her heeled boots, and sent two umbrellas clattering onto the wood floor.

‘Sorry! Sorry,’ he whispered as loudly as he could, ‘just me. I’ll get some water. Sorry!’

Navigating the kitchen, the stairs and a wee sitting down, James crept into bed next to his wife.