One Thing Led to Another (22 page)

‘Oh come on, he was pissed.’

‘He said it, Tess.’

‘I’m sure he did, but did he mean it? He’s never said it since, has he?’ I look directly at her now. ‘Anyway, his feelings had obviously changed by the time we went to Norfolk. We’re just friends, Vicky. It’s a shame, I know, but that’s the truth. And anyway, if it was going to happen, it would have by now, surely.’

‘You said it yourself, Jim of all people knows that things don’t always happen in the right order?’ says Vicky, hopefully.

‘I know but look, you know how it’s meant to be. Look at you and Rich, fell instantly in love, couldn’t live without each other from the start and you’re
still
madly in love.’

Vicky makes a puffing sound with her lips.

‘Well you are, aren’t you?’

‘It’s not all passion and swinging from the chandeliers.’

‘No, but you’ve got Dylan, you haven’t got loads of time. But you’re still in love with each other.’

‘I don’t really know anymore.’

‘Oh Vicky, you are.’

‘We haven’t had sex for ages. We’ve barely communicated for weeks. He’s obsessed with this stupid thing he’s writing, spends hours up in the spare room thinking he’s some sort of genius when he could be helping out with me and Dylan.’

Vicky surprises me with her lack of support. She was always into him doing his writing, his amateur dramatics. They were always the fun couple that did themed parties and put on plays and did choreographed dances at their wedding. I’m worried, now, that a light really has gone out in their relationship and I just haven’t noticed.

‘Maybe he’s offended you’re not supporting him.’

‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘But the bottom line is, he’s pissing me off. He’s all jolly and friendly to the neighbours and Mr Life and Soul of the Party but what actual use is he to me, as my husband?’

‘That’s a bit harsh.’

‘Oh I don’t mean it,’ she sighs. ‘We’re just going through a rough patch that’s all. We just don’t like each other that much, you know?’

‘Shit, I’m sorry and I’ve been so wrapped up in myself I haven’t even asked how you are.’

‘It’s alright,’ she says, ‘nobody asks you about your relationship once you’re married. And anyway.’ She smiles at me now. ‘This is just the reality of being married. That mad passion you had at the beginning, that feeling that everything about them, everything they do and say is absolutely fascinating, it does die eventually, you know. Or else it sort of gets buried deep, and unless you bother to dig, now and again, you forget it ever existed.’

‘God, sounds depressing.’

‘It’s alright,’ she says, seeing the look of dismay on my face. ‘We’re not getting divorced just yet you numpty! It’s just, this is the reality of being married, Tess. It’s not like it is in the films, it’s real life.’

‘Three weeks after Eliza arrived, Nick confessed he’d slept with an Israeli air hostess whilst away on business. “How could you?” I said, “Our second daughter barely out of the womb!” He looked at me – I was feeding her at the time – eyes cold as ice. “It’s taken two babies to realize I didn’t want any,” he said. Then he turned around and walked out.’

Camilla, 34, Richmond

Yesterday was awful. Jim and I went to a barbeque at Vicky and Rich’s house; the first of the summer. Gina was there too of course, plus the usual suspects from Vicky and Rich’s work and a couple of next-door neighbours. I know exactly what Vicks will have been thinking, ‘Let’s get all our lovely mates round, the sun’ll be shining; Rich’ll get his barbeque shirt on, charm the crowds and I’ll remember why I married him.’

Right, well, it didn’t exactly go to plan.

For starters, it pissed it down so we all had to make do with grilled sausages eaten on our laps in the lounge. Not able to take on his usual role as King of the Barbie, Rich tried his hand at Domestic God but only succeeded in irritating Vicky
by getting under her feet and ‘annoying people by laughing too loudly’. (Like she can talk…Poor man can’t do right for doing wrong at the moment. I can definitely see his side of things.) Finally he’d had enough and trundled upstairs, no doubt to work on his epic. To cut a long story short, the atmosphere left a lot to be desired already without Jim getting drunk,
dirty
drunk. More drunk than I’ve ever seen him in my life.

I wouldn’t have minded if it had been the final of the World Cup or he’d won the lottery or something else that warranted that level of inebriation, but it was a family barbie for God’s sake ( a daytime one at that ) and Jim was careering round Vicky’s lounge like that guy from
Shameless.

At one point, he went to put his can on a table, misjudged and fell into mousy Amanda, neighbour to the left of Vicky and Richard, who has a blushing problem at the best of times. She let out a yelp like a hyena, toppled sideways into the mantelpiece and ended up knocking down a vase which then smashed into smithereens. (She was mortified. Jim was too, for about five seconds, until the short term memory loss kicked in.) Jim can drink, don’t get me wrong, but his drunk self is usually just a more vivacious, cheeky version of himself, not this staggering, slurring alky that I didn’t recognize.

The worst thing was, I felt somehow responsible for him. Whereas before I got pregnant I would have laughed and pointed with the best of them, shouted ‘nice one Ashcroft!’ Just like Gina did. (Before plying him with more booze so that she could laugh at him some more.) This time, I felt I had to apologize for him as if everyone was thinking, ‘and you chose to procreate with
that
?’ Except I didn’t so much choose to as just ‘ended up doing’, of course. Not that I could really stand on a chair and shout that disclaimer at the top of my lungs.

Vicky took it all in her stride as usual, chatting to the
swaying, hiccupping state before her as if he was behaving completely normally. But whereas anyone asking him whether he was excited about the baby would usually have him launching into an endearingly animated monologue about how many inches it is now, how it can suck its own toes and all manner of other useless trivia that he hoovers up from the back of my
Bundle of Joy
book; this time he responded with a dismissive shrug. He said, ‘I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be excited about yet.’

‘You know what it is, don’t you?’ said Vicky, taking me to one side on the landing. ‘He’s pissed off with you, about Laurence, for Laurence calling you in Ikea. I mean, come on! It’s obvious, he’s
jealous.
Men always get drunk when they’re jealous.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said, thinking he’s not getting away with it that lightly. ‘He’s been getting pissed and acting like an idiot all week. He’s probably having one of those helpful pre-baby crises that men like to have. It’s a pity the women carrying their babies can’t get loaded as well, or else we might have the luxury of having one of those too.’

That shut her up.

Still, once at home and in front of the telly – having single-handedly propped Jim up all the way back then thrown him on his bed where he immediately fell asleep with his shoes on – I pondered what Vicky had said today, and in the Coach and Horses last week. True, the drunken antics – the night with Gina, with Awful and now the barbeque – had all come after the night he cooked for me – the night I couldn’t stay in because I was going out with Laurence. It suddenly occurred to me: could Gina have told him the vital detail? That I was actually going on a date with Laurence, not just meeting him and some friends for an innocent pizza? A quick text confirmed that no, she had not. (Gina is lots of things but she is not, to be fair, a grasser. What comes around goes
around, after all.) But even if she had, OK, I would have broken a house rule, but that’s it, it’s just a technicality. It would piss him off but it wouldn’t break his heart. It certainly would not mean that this bizarre behaviour was some sort of Shakespearian display of unrequited love.

It only takes the events of the very next morning, to confirm things on this front.

At 10 a.m. Jim’s shuffling out of the bathroom as I’m about to go in. Skin all flushed from the heat of the shower, water dripping from his eyelashes.

‘Morning.’

‘Oh, mornin’,’ he croaks, as if he’s forgotten I live here. Then, when I don’t move out of his way. ‘Everything alright?’ He doesn’t say it unkindly, but I can tell, what with the tight-lipped smile, that I’m annoying him. ‘Did you want to say something?’

‘Me? No.’

Doesn’t he remember yesterday? ‘I just wondered how your head was that’s all.’

‘Fine,’ he says, nodding, beer fumes exuding from every pore. Then he sighs, and solemnly announces, ‘I think I need to lie down.’

And that’s the end of that. Jim doesn’t mention anything at all about the night before and taking his cue, nor do I. When we meet, two hours later as arranged for coffee at the Uplands cafe; he just sits down, Adidas top zipped up, hair even more freestyle given that he passed out whilst it was still damp, and casually chucks a newspaper in front of me.

‘You look a lot fresher after that hour’s kip,’ I say, cheerily, ordering a cappuccino. ‘You look almost human.’ Then I realize that the newspaper he threw in front of me is not a newspaper at all, it’s a property paper. South London Property.

‘There’s a few gooduns in there, have a look,’ says Jim,
casually, not even looking up from the menu he’s now reading. ‘We could arrange some viewings for next week if you like, I’ve circled a few I think have potential.’

My face falls.

‘Oh, thanks.’

We haven’t even mentioned me moving out since I moved in. We’ve talked about it theoretically, mainly me getting stressed about the logistics, but we haven’t actually talked about me flat-hunting, not yet.

I open the paper, the blow still raw, making my blood pump and the words blur.

I suppose I thought we’d put it on the back burner, that we knew it was something I had to do, but that we didn’t want to think about – I know I didn’t. Clearly, as far as Jim is concerned that’s not the case at all. Clearly he can’t wait to get rid of me.

I watch him, legs crossed, twirling his hair, oblivious – seemingly uncaring – to the mayhem going on in my head. It’s not like him to be so crass.

‘So…’ when I speak, my voice sounds strangled. ‘When do you think I should be buying somewhere?’

‘You what?’ mumbles Jim, not really listening. Then, having ordered a black coffee from the waitress, ‘Well, we’re in July already, and you don’t want to be traipsing around places when you’re heavily pregnant, so –’ he folds the menu and then his arms ‘– in the next month or so?’

Whatever happened to ‘you can stay as long as you like’?

Whatever happened to the house rule that said I should start flat-hunting ‘once the baby is born’ to avoid getting cosy?

Too late, I realize, I already got cosy.

‘OK,’ I say.

Get a grip, Tess, you just presumed. Typical you, you always presume.

‘Good idea.’

‘I thought the one in Camberwell sounded good,’ continues Jim. My God, he’s keen, he’s even done his homework. ‘Kitchen/diner, big bedroom – so there’s the option of making it into two, or at least things won’t feel too cramped if you have to share with the baby…’

I try to picture me in a flat on my own with a baby – feeding it; dealing with its crying in the middle of the night. The reality’s so different from the idea. And I’ve got used to living at Jim’s, more than that, I
love
living at Jim’s. I love having someone to eat breakfast with, to cook with, someone to remind me to defrost the chicken. I got used to Jim laughing at the radio in the morning, his first hour-long wee of the day and his crap taste in films. I can’t imagine having nobody to chat to about my day at work or to jump on my bed on a Saturday morning like we’re kids at boarding school, or even to bicker with, like we’re married.

‘Camberwell’s miles away,’ I say, fighting the tears that now threaten to fall.

‘Well you’ll be hard pushed to afford anything around here,’ says Jim. I can’t believe how matter of fact he’s being. ‘For £190,000 you’ll be looking at ex-council in east Dulwich, whereas in Camberwell, you might, if you’re lucky, get something in a nice small block.’

‘Right,’ I say, ‘I don’t know if I realized that.’

‘My God,’ I sigh, as we’re gathering our stuff, ready to leave the café, I’m eager to talk, as if by talking I’ll reduce this sudden anxiety I’m feeling, let the air out of it. ‘Six months ago I’d never in a million years have imagined me being a single mum. If you’d have told me I’d be buying a flat on my own for me and my baby, I’d have laughed in your face!’ I try to sound jovial, but inside I feel anything but.

‘Oh,’ says Jim, ‘really.’

I carry on.

‘Yeah, honestly, I thought becoming a single mum happened to other people, to, you know – and I can say this to you – to chavs who lived on council estates and got knocked up by blokes who’d been inside and…’

Jim snorts ‘And who are you?’ he says, ‘the Queen of Sheba?’

‘You know what I mean,’ I say, but he’s wandering off towards the door, ‘I’m only being honest.’

We walk towards North Cross Road, everything feels heavy and I find it hard to keep up.

We stop by the Saturday market, me buying two brownies that cost a silly £2 each, in the hope of cheering Jim up, maybe we can have them later, for afternoon tea? I suggest. ‘Maybe,’ he grunts, ‘if I’ve finished my work.’

We’ve just paid for them and are wandering towards home, dodging the couples and the prams that seem to be there on purpose, singling us out, the local frauds, when I see a couple walking towards us that I know I recognize but it’s not until they’re right in front of me that I realize, it’s Rachel and Alan walking towards us with Tilly in her pram.

It’s no wonder I didn’t recognize Rachel at least. Gone is the glamorous dress and glossy-haired groomedness. In its place, drawstring trousers and a faded T-shirt. But she still looks beautiful and she’s still smiling, blissfully happy. She’s obviously not one of these girls who always has to look perfect.

‘Hello you!’ I say, kissing her on the cheek. ‘Hi Alan.’ Alan gives me a nod.

‘Jim, this is Rachel and Alan. The ones I met at the bus stop, the Rachel I met for coffee the other day? And this is Tilly, their daughter, she’s so good, I don’t think I’ve seen her cry yet.’

‘So er…’ Rachel nods towards Jim.

‘Oh, sorry! Yes.’ I smile bashfully because I know what she’s getting at. ‘This is Jim as in
Jim
, as in father of my child.’

‘Hi,’ smiles Jim, used to this kind of bizarre introduction by now. ‘Wow, she really is a beauty, isn’t she?’ he says, sneaking a peek at Tilly, who’s sitting, wide-eyed in her pram. And it’s clear from the way he momentarily come out of his mood that he really means it.

We chat for a while, the conversation moves onto the labour (inevitable with anyone who’s got a baby): twenty-seven hours, room like a war zone, Rachel thought she was going to die. (It only fuels my argument for a general anaesthetic at the very first twinge.)

‘She was incredible, weren’t you babe?’ says Alan, eyes glowing with pride. Rachel shakes her head with embarrassment. ‘I tell you,’ he says to Jim, ‘when you see her give birth, you’ll just be like, wow, women are awesome.’

‘He doesn’t even know if he’s going to watch yet, do you?’ I say, nudging him, Jim doesn’t say anything. I’m a bit put out.

‘You’d be mad to miss it. You’ve got to see the birth! I mean, it’s not pretty, probably put you off sex for a while!’

Rachel laughs nervously, Jim and I do too out of politeness and something else far more complicated. ‘But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Best moment of my life.’

They tell us about the craziness of the first few days, the sleep deprivation, the all-consuming love that Rachel says took her completely by surprise. They are honest and positive, but what strikes me most of all is how much of a unit they already are. One minute a couple, the next, a family.

We say our goodbyes, cross the road to go home, but my
head’s in the clouds, whirring, thinking. I hadn’t really thought about whether or not Jim would come to the birth – I suppose I presumed he would, but what if he doesn’t? Do I even want my friend to see me in that state? Blood everywhere, probably losing control of my bowels? But then the alternative – because there is no way on this earth I’d want my mum to come with me – seems so desolate, so lonely. Suddenly everything seems a bit lonely. There’s a spreading unease in my guts, a feelings that I don’t really belong anywhere.

I just want to keep talking.

‘Rachel and Alan are nice, aren’t they?’ I say.

‘Yeah,’ sighs Jim. ‘Wasn’t sure about him but she’s lovely.’

‘The baby was cute.’

‘Dead cute,’ says Jim.

‘But they looked knackered didn’t they?’