Not What They Were Expecting (13 page)

She looked again at the grey and black blob on her desk, tracing the length of Bompalomp’s spine where the midwife had pointed it out – gently for fear that she could damage the image. She was looking forward to getting it uploaded and out to some people who’d wanted to see it. Her bruv for a start. You go away to Australia for a gap year with the idea you’ll come back as a different person. Well, he might need to change quite a bit to keep up with his family – a pregnant sister who was doing her best to be exiled from the family, and a dad becoming a slightly homophobic gay rights campaigner who might end up in prison. Oh and a mum who seemed to want to be a reality TV star. He was going to need to try a bit harder than a bartered-for shell necklace and a shoulder tattoo to top that. She went to check if he’d loaded up any more photos to Facebook, then she was definitely going to get on with some work before home time.

***

In the Hope & Anchor ahead of the lunchtime rush, James was on his second pint. Around him, shell-shocked colleagues were beginning to shift from sullen despair into booze-fuelled joviality. It wouldn’t be long before it switched to bitter rage at the decision of the bosses to shut down their department in favour of a team at another site as the last big aftershock of the merger.

James could see that Kam was right with his theory of the stages of pub-based acceptance of redundancy. After the collective shock and anger wear off, he always said that it was then that people’s individual personalities really came to the fore. He reckoned you could tell by five pints who was going to be all right and in better jobs by the end of next week, and who was going to sit at home in their underpants for the next ten months, growing bad facial hair and searching for a porn fantasy too depraved to have made it onto Google. And that’s just the women, James thought to himself, remembering Kam’s old line.

He took out his copy of the scan picture and looked at the outline of the baby that would arrive at about the same time as his redundancy pay would run out. Then he turned it around because he thought he was looking at it upside down. And again, because he thought it might look clearer if it was on its side. He still couldn’t really make out what he was looking at but it still got to him, in his gut and his heart. At some point he was going to have to tell Becs what had happened, but he wasn’t quite ready for it yet.

He decided to leave it for a couple pints – figure out what the beer predicted about how he was going to fare over the next while.

Part 2

Chapter 16

‘So have you got your lunch?’

‘I’ve got my lunch.’

‘And you’ve remembered your files?’

‘I’ve remembered my files.’

‘You’ve got enough healthy snacks?’

‘Banana – yep.’

‘And the unhealthy ones?’

‘Biscuits check. Marshmallows check. Pack of Wispas check.’

James was bustling around the kitchen, fully dressed and smelling a bit of shampoo, cleaning surfaces and putting the last of the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher. Rebecca was a step or two behind him, struggling with a skirt button, and grabbing food from the larder, while trying to remember where it was that she’d left those work files so she’d be able to find them easily this morning.

‘Is there anything you need taking to the dry cleaners?’ James asked.

‘Not since yesterday, no.’

‘I’ve got my appointment at lunchtime so it would be no bother.’

‘Honestly, everything I own is wrapped in flimsy plastic now, darling.’

‘And any requests for dinner?’

‘Ooh, a bit of chicken liver paté, followed by a prawn cocktail and a giant and bloody rare steak.’

‘Any requests you’re allowed to have in your parlous condition?’

‘Pff. A Loyd Grossman?’

‘I’ll see what I can do…’

Rebecca leaned back unsteadily as she tried to get her work shoes on at the cramped kitchen table. Using the back wall as support she raised up her knee to get a better angle on the low heel with its stiff leather, and she quietly cursed the warmer spring weather that made wearing boots out of the question. They’d become tight, but at least the bending required in pulling them on had been minimal. Now, though, her legs seemed endless – and not in a good way. She just couldn’t reach the end of them, but couldn’t let James see her struggling as he’d want to help. She was not losing the independence of putting on her own footwear, at least not yet. And certainly not after the last time she’d had a real backache and reluctantly asked for help. He’d nearly made her knee herself in the face while pushing her foot into a trainer. That explanation for a broken nose would have raised a few eyebrows at the office, and would only have had the midwives bothering her more. She managed to stamp her left foot down into the heel of her shoe before James could offer her his assistance while he was distracted ferreting around for damp tea towels to fill out the half load of washing he was putting on.

‘Got your phone?’

‘Check.’

‘Got your keys?’

‘Check.’

‘Got your purse?’

‘Check.’

‘Got your Bompalomp?’

‘All present and kicking and correct.’

Scouring the kitchen bench for the house keys and money she’d confidently claimed to already have, Rebecca couldn’t imagine a time it would be possible to misplace Bompalomp. By twenty weeks her belly had caught up and overtaken her breasts as the first thing people noticed about her. The level of uncertainty and doubt in people’s eyes as they considered whether to offer congratulations on her news, for fear of misinterpreting the extra weight, was waning as the bump became more pronounced. And the movement in her belly was feeling like something really moving about in there. It had been a few weeks since The Quickening, when she’d realised that the nervous butterflies she’d been feeling hadn’t been her, but had been her short-term tenant.

She’d been feeling Bompalomp move for weeks before she realised what it was. As James had said at the time, it rather takes the edge off the wonder of the moment you physically feel new life inside you when you realise that for ages you’d been mistaking it for a fart brewing. But now the movement was a lot clearer, and comfortingly there at times across the day. It felt like a conversation between the two of them now; little feathery nudges to say thanks for the sugar rush, or turn the stereo up I like this one. It was definitely much better now it didn’t feel like intestinal burbling, and was much less confusing. She reddened thinking of the time in a presentation to the partners when she thought she felt Bompalomp, but it actually
was
a fart brewing, which she didn’t do enough to get under control until too late.

‘Well, shake that ass and get a wriggle on, you’ll be late,’ James nudged.

‘I’ve plenty of time, stop nagging.’

‘You’ve missed the 8.17, you know after the 8.20 the hungover sweaty men mean it’s standing room only.’

‘Are you going to be OK?’

James paused briefly from his hustling around the kitchen.

‘Absolutely fine. A quick in and then out. Plenty to tell them about and I’m sure this is going to be my last time, so it’ll be nice to say goodbye to the gang. Al the Alkie, Methadone Mick, Decades-on-the Dole Dec Dolan…’

‘OK, well. Let me know how it goes and if there’s any news.’

‘If there’s any word on that vacancy as a doorman at the lap-dancing club you’ll be the first to know, I promise. Well, after I’ve introduced myself to the girls in the dressing room to check they’re feeling safe under my protection, obviously.’

‘I better go. Good luck!’ Rebecca kissed James on the cheek, grabbed her homework and headed for the door as he put the kettle on. He was fishing the teabag out of his mug as the front door opened again, Rebecca whirled through to the kitchen, grabbed her phone, lunch, snacks and purse, and spun back out again.

‘Have a good day you two,’ he shouted after her as the front door slammed shut.

Quarter past eight, he was dressed and ready to take on the day. He sloped into the through lounge and fired up the laptop on the dining table. When he was actually working he never got down to it as early as this. They do say you have to work harder to get a job than you do when you have one. Still, he was glad to not be in the office, away from the politics, and the sheer mindlessness of the job half the time. They’d be due the Tuesday pep-talk, free doughnuts and a lecture from Hopkins on how great it was to be a member of the FPD family. He was delighted to be away from the bullshit. He texted Kam to ask how he was doing in the office jargon bingo game he usually ran. Kam texted back to ask him if he was still collecting tattoos and watching Jeremy Kyle. He fired a quick response back:

Yep watching JK. Your mum’s been on. The DNA test results aren’t good and Hopkins is actually your dad. Explains why you’ve still got a job though. Didn’t know she was such a good dwarf wrestler either ;¬)

He got his response from Kam straight back:

Bollocks to that, I want a lie detector test. Your dad in law got his JK appearance date yet?

God, that was a thought James sent back something else insulting and sordid about Kam’s relationship with the firm’s managing partner, but got nothing in reply. The meeting must have got underway in earnest. He was glad he wasn’t there.

So what was the internet offering him this morning, he wondered as he opened his email. It needed to be something good. He was going to be supporting a family. But this was his last chance to really find the thing he wanted to do. The job, the career, that he’d be able to tell Bompalomp about with some pride. He imagined a little kid, a boy – no, maybe a girl – saying ‘my daddy’s an accountant’.

Didn’t exactly seem exciting.

‘My daddy’s a partner at a niche City insolvency company’ wasn’t really working either. But then the only way to get future Bompalomp (a boy again now) really impressed with a job was to imagine him saying ‘my daddy’s an astronaut’ or even ‘he’s a fireman!’

It’d be pretty cool to be a fireman actually. He wondered how much training you’d need to be able to do it. He wouldn’t mind the shifts so much, and he’d really be getting out there and doing something that made a difference. And everyone loves firefighters – none of the political connotations of the police or armed services. What kind of pay did it get though? Might make the mortgage tricky. He was pretty sure none of the neighbours were in the emergency services. Maybe they’d need to move. A place in the country would be good for the kids (kids plural now was it?). But no, hadn’t he always wanted street-smart urban kids as comfortable at the Festival Hall as at the urban farm, learning to rap at the community centre, and happy to run around the Tate on a Saturday? Actually, maybe not – thinking about what those kids would be like, he couldn’t help feeling they’d permanently be in need of a slap. And anyway, they didn’t exactly live in the fashionable heart of the big smoke, their kids were going to be suburbs kids through and through.

Fair enough though, it was what he’d always wanted – even if the reality hadn’t been quite what he’d hoped for during those years trudging around Europe in a camper van being home-schooled. That had been chess, crosswords, and art class all day, and he could stop schoolwork pretty much whenever he felt like it if he said he wanted to read or go and look for strange bugs in the woods. Sport didn’t feature much – having a football team to support was about the only time his parents had disapproved of something that was a bit tribal.

At thirteen they’d finally come back to England and he’d needed to go into a proper school. He’d been looking forward to it for forever, but was on the back foot since day one, when his mum hadn’t been together enough to get him his uniform in time and he had to go in wearing his regular clothes. That they’d been quite obviously ‘European’ was bad enough – when he’d taken his bike to the park, there’d been definite pointing and sniggering at the unnecessary purple patches and bits of leather on his jeans, while the flappy collar and multiple materials on his baggy shirt made him feel self-conscious whenever he got up speed. But now, wearing them at school – he probably would have rather been in his pyjamas or naked like some kind of bad dream.

The nicknames had started straight away. The one that seemed to take hold was ‘Children in Need’ – even more than ‘French Exchange’. It was something to do with the school having allowed pupils to wear their own clothes for the charity telethon. The idea that he’d got confused about the date, and that maybe he was in fact a child in need himself because his family couldn’t afford a uniform, combined to help the name stick. For years both his class and older kids across the school would call the name out – or the snappier Pudsey – and he’d respond. The thing is, he didn’t really mind too much, because it was such a relief to be part of something.

It probably helped that school coincided with a growth spurt that had him the tallest in his year, and he wasn’t exactly skinny, so mastering a dirty look and a threat of violence usually took the edge off things. For a while his size got him picked early at games, but teachers and peers alike soon realised that size didn’t matter when you’d barely touched a ball for a lifetime. He would’ve quite liked to run around a bit more, but he didn’t mind that he was stuck in goal all the time too much, and his best pal – Simon the boy on growth hormones – was always told to be centre-half, so there was somebody to talk to.

But back to the task at hand. Seven automated emails from recruitment sites, but nothing suitable that he hadn’t already seen. It was ironic that as the economy got in better shape, it meant that a job for him was getting harder to find. Not so many businesses failing, and fewer sacked people trying to make it on their own. But he wasn’t going to settle – there was no reason that this couldn’t be a chance to get further ahead. If it wasn’t for his youthful indiscretion, that is. Now he had to weigh up the thoroughness of every HR department before he even got started, so he could get his approach right. He guessed it was one of the few times that he was pleased that his damn hippy parents had given him an embarrassing first name. He’d decided to stop using it when he was a teenager to stop getting picked on, and now it added a degree of cover sometimes.