One Thing Led to Another (19 page)
‘Now, how is the little mite?’ she adds, unperturbed.
‘What? Oh, the scan. Yeah, good thanks Jocelyn,’ I say. ‘Its heartbeat’s going strong, my blood pressure’s all good.’
‘Great. Daddy come then?’ She says it like this is the second of a hundred planned questions and she needs to say them really fast in order to get them all out.
‘No he’s teaching.’
‘Teaching? I thought he worked in a bar?’
‘Yeah he does.’ My conscience squeezes my insides. ‘He’s teaching in a bar. New barman, you see. He’s teaching him the ropes.’
I pick up the
Mirror
from Jocelyn’s desk and walk over to mine before she asks me anything else, cursing myself for that astronomical cock up. It never ceases to amaze me how huge, fat lies just fly out of my mouth. It’s as if I committed the ultimate scandal when I got pregnant in the first place and now I think ‘what the hell!’ A few more mini scandals won’t hurt. Except they do, I just don’t know how to stop.
Anne-Marie is standing on a stool writing out the new Features List on the whiteboard when I get to my desk. Next to my name she’s put:
Murdered swinger
Dating Guru Dog
I still love my elephant man
I am too busy concentrating on this to notice the message written on a Post-it stuck to my screen. It is written in Anne-Marie’s hand-writing and starts: HE WANTS YOU BAAAD, GIRLFRIEND…Which really makes me laugh because she never uses phrases like that. Our new black intern from
Atlanta, does. The note continues…Laurence called, 10.10a.m., he says meet him tonight, 8p.m., Angel station. Wear something foxy, he’s going to spoil you!
I read the note, forget, for a joyful, fleeting moment, all my worries and all the complications, before my stomach swarms with realization and dread.
‘Did you um…’ Anne-Marie is still writing on the whiteboard, I talk to her back, unable to swallow. ‘Did you actually speak to Laurence? Anne-Marie? Chat to him about the baby, about him being about to be a father…or anything…by any chance?’
Because if you did, I will kill you. And then myself. What sort of fantasist would that make me look!
Anne-Marie continues writing on the board and I’m not sure she’s heard me then she mumbles, so vaguely and quietly I have to crane my head to hear it.
‘The scan…yeah, um…‘ I can’t tell if she’s deliberately trying to make this agonizing for me – she can be warped like that – or if she’s just trying to zone in. There’s an awful few moments where I anticipate the worst and then she says, ‘No, no, come to think of it. I didn’t actually speak to him.’
I mouth ‘thank you’ and internally punch the air.
‘He obviously tried to call you.’ She steps down from the stool and turns to face me. ‘But he must have got diverted to Joss’s phone because he left a message. I just took it down for you.’
‘Oh.’ I beam at her now. ‘Thanks, Anne-Marie. That’s really great.’
Jocelyn comes waddling around the corner, thighs brushing, her bright hair swinging. ‘So, has she seen it?’
‘Abso-bloody-lutely!’ Anne-Marie clicks the top back on her marker pen and smiles inanely at me like a proud aunt. ‘She’s a fucking lucky bitch, that’s for sure. The most romantic
thing Greg’s ever done is to invite me to a Vegan March and even then he was dressed up as a pig so it wasn’t exactly…’ she makes a thoroughly un-erotic face, ‘erotic.’
I can’t concentrate for the rest of the day, excitement fizzing up inside me, making me feel that should it spill over, I’d start laughing manically and never be able to stop.
An email from Vicky slightly takes the sheen off things…
Dead bored, client cancelled, nothing to do but sit here and ponder your love life (you know you love it.) So how’s it going? Have you practically got his n’ hers dressing gowns now? Is it making you feel different living together? Bet it is…!! You are SO Ross and Rachel! Rich is doing my head in, haven’t seen him for about a fortnight. He spends all his time locked away working on his screenplay (so deluded) When he does finally come downstairs I can’t get a word out of him.
I email her back, giving nothing away:
From:
[email protected]Nope, sorry. No declarations of love just yet and the chances of me getting a dressing gown that matches Jim’s (Have you seen Jim’s dressing gown?) are nil. p.s. Rich is clearly a frustrated ‘artiste’, try to give him a break?!
After what feels like the longest afternoon in history I’m finally on the bus home, crawling up the grimy Walworth Road with its pound shops and African restaurants, consumed by the vital question: what the hell am I going to wear? Do I go with the smock look and chance looking a bit frumpy
but not drawing attention to the growing bump which could, I’m sure, be very off putting, mainly because it’s just at that stage where I look like I ate all the pies then ordered some more. Or do I go for something tighter, feel potentially sexier, but also look fat with colossal boobs? It’s six of one and half a dozen of another.
I hang my bag on the banister and shout through to the kitchen, ‘Busy day at the office, dear?’
‘Barely drawn breath,’ shouts Jim with mock seriousness. ‘Absolutely chocka block.’
I tie my hair back and saunter into the kitchen, looking forward to our usual post-work debrief but am stopped in my tracks. ‘Wow,’ I say, drinking in the scene before me. ‘You
have
been busy.’
The place looks like Heston Blumenthal’s laboratory. Pots boiling on every ring of the hob, every inch of the worktop covered with vegetable peelings, spice refills, scatterings of flour and smears of sauce. The washing-up bowl is piled high with pans and roasting trays and all sorts of cooking paraphernalia I can’t even identify and right in the middle of all this is Jim, apron splattered with something tomato-based. He’s pulled out the extendable table and dressed it in flickering tea lights. The Divine Comedy plays softly in the background.
‘Bloody hell, whoever’s coming round is in for a treat.’
‘Nobody’s coming round,’ Jim says cheerfully, taking a heavy earthenware dish out of the oven. My smile dissolves. ‘I just thought since you’d been living here a fortnight now, I’d do us a Jim spesh, cook us something proper, make an evening of it, you know.’
‘Jim.’ I figure it’s best just to get it out now. ‘I can’t stay, I’m really sorry, I’m going out.’
‘Oh, are you?’ Jim looks at me, he looks a bit disappointed but not, I hope, actually pissed off. ‘Oh well, no worries. It was no big deal although –’ he says it with humour but I
can’t help think he is a little miffed ‘– I would draw your attention, Miss Jarvis, to the house rule?’
‘Oh no, I
know,
I’m so sorry, I feel really bad! I should have rung.’
‘Offal and line-caught cod with broad bean purée ratatouille, too…Oh well, more for me.’
‘What a shame,’ I say, thinking, bloody hell, that was close. Lucky escape on the offal front. ‘It sounds amazing Jim. It really does.’
Jim dithers about, I need to get ready but feel bad just dashing off upstairs when he’s gone to such an effort, then he says, ‘So where are you going? Have you got a work thing on? I thought you were going to tell them you needed to cut those down?’ He shoves a tray of courgette in the oven. I look at the clock and realize I have approximately twenty-five minutes to get out of the door.
‘It’s not a work thing,’ I say, his concern making me feel even more wretched. ‘I’m meeting Laurence and some other people (lies! All lies!) Just for a pizza. Sorry, I should have told you earlier…’
‘No, it’s OK,’ he shrugs, before sticking his head in a cupboard, scouring for some herb or other. ‘Well, maybe I’ll ask Gina round then, she’s back from New York.’
‘Good idea,’ I say, a smidgen jealous that she called Jim to say she was back and not me. ‘Well she’ll definitely want to show off her pictures and be up for some free food. Give her a ring now, before she eats.’
I slip out of the kitchen, have a two-minute shower – cutting my leg shaving in two places in the process – and throw open my wardrobe to weigh up the options. I try on some maternity-could-pass-as-non-maternity wear but none of it gets me excited. Then I have a brainwave – the lightweight jumper dress – not too try hard, conceals any sort of slightly inappropriate bump (I don’t want to wave it right in front of
his face. There’s plenty of time for that, when I’m enormous, and we can no longer pretend it’s not happening…) but it also shows just the right amount of leg to be sexy. I team this with suede, knee high, three-inch-heel fuck me boots and the best smoky eyes I can muster. As I grab my bag and run downstairs, I can hear Jim on the phone to Gina talking about wine, so, I assume, she must be coming. That’s good I say to myself, good he’s not wasted all that gorgeous food. But there’s another feeling there, nestling beneath the surface. A feeling that’s ever so slightly taken the edge off tonight like arriving on holiday to find that it’s raining.
‘Right I’m off,’ I say, getting my keys off the breakfast bar. ‘Have a great night.’
‘You too,’ says Jim, as he takes something out of the oven. Then he turns around, looks at me, then does a double take.
‘Wow,’ he says, vegetables sliding to one side. ‘You’re a bit dolled up, aren’t you? For a pizza on a Thursday night?’
Frank was conceived on a pool table in a Greek taverna. I hardly expected to see the guy again let alone have his baby. But Stef came to visit when Frank was five months old. That was ten years ago now and we’ve been married for five.’
Claire, 30, Worcester
Angel station echoes with wet footseps and every time a dark head emerges at the top of the escalator, the gathering thump-thump of my heart. I am standing beneath the clock, next to a busker playing ‘Have I Told You Lately That I Love You’ on the pan pipes, self-consciously folding my arms across my dress and trying – in vain – to breathe in.
I spot another dark head coming up the escalator. Oh God, is that him? It’s the right, dusty-dark skin tone, the long, elegant nose. I walk towards the barrier giving a little wave, the nerves making my fingers flutter like leaves. I’m arranging my facial muscles to look calm and collected when the man lifts his head up and I realize oh, it’s not him at all.
I look at the clock, it’s now 8.10 p.m. Ten minutes late and no phone call, no text, no ‘I might be a bit late’, which is a bit weird since he’s the one who organized this whole
evening but I’m not unduly worried. By 8.15 I
am
worried. By 8.23 I’m pissed off. But then, just as I’m about to consider the option that the little scally has stood me up and whether I should leave a semi-abusive message on his phone, there he is, the eyebrows first, then the dark, mischievous eyes, darting from one side of the concourse to the next. The way he looks self-conscious as if he doesn’t want me to see him looking for me, is really, incredibly cute. He’s wearing perfectly worn-in cords and a loosely knitted, expensive-looking polo shirt. All is naturally forgiven. But then he could have been wearing a nylon shellsuit and all would have been forgiven.
‘Oh, so you finally decided to rock up then, what time do you call this?’ I say, coyly, reaching on my tip toes to give him a kiss. But he doesn’t kiss me back, he looks down so I miss his mouth and get the middle of his nose.
‘Sorry.’ He takes my hand at least, swings it back and forth. ‘I…’ He looks around, wipes imaginary sweat from his brow. ‘I had something to do in town and it took longer than I thought.’
‘Oh right.’ The queasy emptiness of disappointment. ‘Well if something’s happened or you’ve just had a really shit day then.’
Then no, NO! don’t say we can do this another time!
‘No it’s cool.’ He eventually pecks me on the mouth. ‘Come on, let’s go, let’s walk and talk.’
‘So, how are you, good day?’ asks Laurence. We step outside into a sudden beam of sunshine, the air smells of wet tarmac and roses from a nearby flower stall.
I went to the doctor’s to hear my baby’s heartbeat, the one that’s beating right now, with mine…
I decide that might just be too much information
.
‘You know, usual nonsense at work. I have to do an interview next week with this woman who reckons her cocker spaniel guides her on her choice of men.’
‘No I meant, how are you? You know…’ he looks at my stomach. He has a look of Gina when he does this, like I might smell if she got too close. ‘Do you feel sick? I mean, is there anything you can’t eat? Is there anything you’ll only eat, like I dunno, pickled onions, isn’t that what pregnant women eat?’
Laurence lights a cigarette and takes a hard, sucking drag before blowing the smoke out sideways. I look at him and laugh.
‘No, sick bit over thanks. There were a few nasty accidents at the beginning, but I promise I won’t barf on you in the restaurant. Just perfectly normal cuisine will do. Only thing I really can’t eat is shellfish, pate, and un-pasturized cheese.’
There’s no mention of Bedales.
We walk along Upper Street, navigating the heaving crowds of young, free (and babyless) types whose weekends begin on Thursday nights simply because they can’t wait till Friday. The weather’s been undecided of late – buckets of rain followed by brief explosions of sunshine and consequently rainbows, one of which arches the sky now, making the puddles we’re dodging glisten, multi-coloured.
We swerve to avoid a man with a dog and Laurence’s left hand brushes mine. My instinct is to grab hold of it but there seems to be a great chasm between us. Laurence seems distant, it’s in his body language, the way he’s smoking with one hand and has the other in his pocket.
I ask him about his day too but I don’t get much out of him except the fact that he’s pissed off with his boss, who’s an ‘arrogant cock’ (Laurence does have a touch of the wronged teenager about him sometimes, it comes from being permanently lectured by his lecturer dad) and pissed off with the chef who’s ‘a useless cock’. That’s it then, I decide. He’s just pissed off full stop. It’s nothing to do with me, or the baby,
or anything I’ve done and once he sits down and gets a drink inside of him, he’ll be fine, I’ll be fine, everything will be fine.
We continue on past The York where students sit on the cobbles outside, cradling pints of cider. I think back to all the times we made this walk from the tube to my house on balmy summer evenings when we were going out. Laurence always held my hand back then, firm and warm like he was proud of me. Despite not always being the most reliable boyfriend in many ways, he was always the one to instigate public displays of affection: he’d have me sit on his knee whilst he stroked my thigh in the pub, sneak up behind me and slip his hand down my top when I was standing at the bar. But that was OK because he was not some leering bloke, he was my boyfriend. My cute-as-hell, amazing boyfriend. Of course I’d protest, girlishly, roll my eyes in agreement when Gina looked at us and laughed, ‘Jesus man, she’s going to turn into bread if you knead her anymore,’ but secretly I loved it. Of course I bloody did!
‘So where are we going then?’ I say, cheerfully, looking up at Laurence and trotting to keep up. I’m secretly hoping it’s Frederick’s near Camden Passage or maybe he’s gone for cosy and intimate at The Elk in the Woods or gone French and candlelit at Le Mercury. I really don’t mind as long as we get to eat soon, otherwise I am at risk of eating my own arm. Laurence doesn’t answer and I worry that perhaps it’s not the etiquette to ask. Then, he suddenly stops in the street, stubs his fag out and says, ‘Just wait there.’
He disappears into a smart looking restaurant with dark wood tables and stark,white tablecloths.
This has got to be it, no doubt he knows the management. Laurence is such a networker, he probably knows everyone in the catering business. He’s probably reserved some little nook just for us.
He chats briefly to the barman, me standing on the pavement
feeling like a bit of an idiot. Then, rather than usher me in like I expect him to, he strides towards the door, swings it open, mumbles some expletive then marches on ahead, leaving me behind. ‘Come on, let’s just go,’ he says, lighting another cigarette. I try to keep up like some stupid confused lapdog. ‘What happened?’ I shout over the traffic.
‘Nothing,’ he says moodily.
‘Did they pretend they knew nothing about your booking?’
‘Yeah, something like that. He was just a tosser anyway, let’s go somewhere else.’
We walk on and on, the day has faded to a cool, lilac glow and I can feel the life force slipping out of me, and my 10 p.m. curfew – at which point I lose the ability to communicate, fast-approaching. We cross the road to Le Mercury. Something about the noisy clatter of my stiletto boots is suddenly making me feel ridiculous, overdressed. Clearly this is not panning out to be the occasion I had envisaged.
My hopes are lifted however when Laurence storms inside and starts talking to someone who looks like the manager. He’s probably family, I think, Laurence has got something up his sleeve I just know it. But then I can see the man looking around as if for spare tables, then shake his head and gesture, apologetically. Laurence looks flustered and walks towards the door. My mood plummets.
He hasn’t booked anywhere has he? Like so many of Laurence’s big ideas, grand gestures, it just didn’t materialize. I’m getting a horrid, all-consuming sinking feeling that this whole evening is a bit of a chore for Laurence, that I am an inconvenient distraction from whatever he was doing beforehand. That he’s changed his mind.
He’s strutting towards me now that same petulant expression in his face. ‘Come on,’ he says again, ‘let’s go.’ But I’ve had enough. I stop in the street and fold my arms. ‘You didn’t book anywhere did you?’
Laurence turns around – his eyes are dark and pretty as a fawn’s (God, I wish he wasn’t so beautiful) – and gives me a self-incriminating huff.
‘I don’t mind (that’s a lie) but just tell me because you know, I’m pregnant, I just need to eat. Otherwise I’m going to start digesting my own stomach.’
Laurence rubs his forehead and sighs as if puzzled by how this could possibly have happened. ‘OK, look I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I was going to take you to this wicked French restaurant, spoil you rotten and make it really special. But then I got waylaid and you know how it is, I just ran out of time.’
‘Is it the baby Laurence? Because if it is, just tell me. If you’ve changed your mind?’
‘No it’s not the baby.’
We end up in Pizza Express – which is fine if I had been led to believe it was going to be that sort of night, but sitting there, totally overdressed in my mini dress, smoky eyes and heels, I feel utterly humiliated. We even have to go for a drink nearby because there aren’t any tables free until 10 p.m. By the time we actually eat I am so hungry I practically inhale the pizza. Then that’s about it, that’s the sum total of our ‘romantic’ night. We make small talk and a weak attempt at gazing into each other eyes, as if by running through the actions, the feelings will come but I know his heart’s not in it and I wonder if mine is still. He’s made me feel stupid, and already, sitting here munching on dough balls, the bright overhead lights blaring, I’m not sure we can go anywhere from here.
He doesn’t talk about Chloe and I don’t ask him. He doesn’t say anything else about the baby, and I don’t tell him. I immediately slip into a carb-induced near-coma after eating anyway and can barely manage to keep my eyes open let alone have major discussions about the future.
We’re standing outside the restaurant now, it’s suddenly freezing cold.
‘Let’s go for a drink,’ says Laurence suddenly.
The thought of alcohol is for the first time, abhorrent.
‘Nah, thanks I don’t really fancy it. I can’t really drink, Laurence, I’m pregnant, remember.’
‘Come back to my place then,’ he says, lighting a cigarette.
‘No, honestly, I’m knackered.’ I fold my arms in an attempt to keep warm.
‘I’ll call you a cab in an hour.’
‘Laurence,
no.
’
‘Right.’ He looks away smiling but defeated, then pulls the collar up on his top. It suits him, draws attention to his naturally sucked in cheeks.
‘OK, well…I’ll call you this weekend then,’ he says, stepping forward, hands in pockets.
‘OK.’ I suddenly feel desperate to get home. ‘Thanks for the pizza.’
Laurence gives an embarrassed laugh through his nose. ‘Whatever,’ he says. ‘I promise to do better next time.’
A cab approaches, I hail it, kiss Laurence on the cheek and get in. We go over Blackfriars Bridge, London opening out into a fairground of colour, boats gliding beneath us, life moving on. And I know there won’t be a next time.
As soon as I put my keys in the lock I can hear laughter. Gina’s laughter.
The house smells of struck matches, stewed fruit and Gina’s perfume. Van Morrison is playing. My CD.
‘Hi guys,’ I shout, as I walk through the door.
‘Hi,’ they both shout back, in laughter-punctuated unison.
Gina’s reclined on the sofa, her newly tanned feet on Jim’s knees. There’s two empty bottles of wine and one still on the go.
‘Hey, stranger.’ Gina wipes an actual tear of laughter from her face. I don’t recall ever seeing her laugh like that.
‘How was Le Cane?’ she gives an exaggerated wink.
‘Yeah, great thanks.’ I sound completely unconvincing. ‘How was New York more to the point? Hilarious, obviously.’
The snipeyness comes from somewhere I don’t recognize. Thankfully they’re both far too pissed to notice.
‘Amaazing,’ she gushes.
‘You’ve got to see the pictures,’ says Jim.
‘Me and Michelle want to live there, I’m telling you, best city in the world.’
‘So did you pull?’ I ask, feeling suddenly sickened by New York, by this, by everything. ‘You know me,’ slurs Gina.
‘I’ll take that as a yes, then. And the food? Did you have pancakes, eggs sunny-side-up and all that? You still look skinny.’
‘Amazing, stuffed my face.’ She pokes Jim playfully. ‘But it was nowhere near as good as what I ate tonight.’
‘Oh yeah, how was the dinner, Jim?’
‘OhmiGod,
lush,
’ gushes Gina, totally cutting in.
‘Great, perfect actually,’ confirms Jim, through drunken, half-closed eyes. ‘But we’re a bit pissed, sorry.’ For some reason his apologetic grimace makes me want to punch him, square in the face.
‘You don’t have to apologize,’ I say. ‘Anyway, I’m knackered. Have a good rest of the night, I’m off to bed.’
I brush my teeth vigorously and spit into the sink. Where the hell did that come from? That feeling, just then? It was like milk turning sour, a curdling of feelings. And I didn’t recognize it, I definitely didn’t like it
.
Downstairs, I can still hear the gentle lull of ‘Coney Island’. I bet Gina went to Coney Island when she was in New York. I bet she’s telling Jim all about it. I walk onto the landing, I hear the lounge door open, hushed laughter in the hallway, the creak of the front
door. Gina’s leaving. I go into my room and watch from the window. Outside the night is black and starless and I can see the smoke from Gina’s cigarette trail behind her as she walks away. My rooms feels cold, I shut the curtains, get straight into bed and turn out the light.
I’m just drifting off when it suddenly occurs to me, the feeling, that feeling, it’s jealousy. I’m
jealous
?! Must be the hormones I think. Just the hormones, messing with your head. Two hours later, I’m still wide awake.
