The Two of Us (17 page)

‘I would,’ I say, ‘but if I don’t go now I won’t go at all.’

‘Another time,’ Frank says.

‘You bet,’ I tell him, but I wouldn’t advise him to bet much.

I don’t know how long I run for but I’ve covered a heck of a lot of Wimbledon Common, and I am exhausted and breathless when I trot back down our street. I’ve certainly been
gone long enough for Frank to finish his breakfast –
my breakfast
– get a shower and cover his hairy barrel with some clothes. Or so you’d think. I hear a loud
thunk
as I enter the flat, the sound – it transpires – of the bathroom door closing behind Frank. As if the big hairy brute was peeping through the blinds, waiting for me to
stick my key in the lock before running, giggling, to the bathroom. Ivy is lying on the sofa, reading.

‘Hey, babe,’ she says, heaving herself into a sitting position and resting
Catch-22
on the arm of the sofa.

While I lean against the doorjamb, stretching, Ivy swings her legs off the sofa and shuffles over to the kitchen area where she picks up a tea towel and fills a pint glass with water. At
nineteen weeks pregnant with twins, she looks alarmingly large and moves with corresponding ponderousness.

‘Here.’ She hands me the water.

I drink half of the water in one gulp and use the tea towel to mop the sweat off my face and neck.

‘Sorry about the sausages,’ she says, falling back into the sofa. ‘And the boeuf bourguignon.’

‘It’s fine,’ I say, going to sit in the armchair.

‘Uh huh,’ Ivy says, and she points at the floor in front of the sofa.

‘Don’t know why you’re worried about a little sweat,’ I say. ‘It’ll be covered in sick and pee and poo in a few months. Everything will be.’

‘Wonderful, isn’t it,’ says Ivy, and she places her hands on my shoulders and begins massaging the muscles. I relax into her hands, and she kisses the back of my neck. In the
distance I can hear Frank singing under the shower. I can’t make out the song, but it sounds as if he can at least hold a tune.

‘Someone sounds happy,’ I say.

‘Bear with him,’ Ivy says. ‘It’s been hard for him. I know he can be a bit of a galoot –
a lot
of a galoot actually.’

‘A galooteus maximus?’

‘Yes. Very clever.’ Ivy presses her thumbs into the meat of my neck, working upwards from my shoulders to the base of my skull. ‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘. . . I know
you’re not meant to have favourites – brothers and whatnot – but, well, Frank’s mine. Closest in age, and he always stood up for me in school.’

My scalp and temples tingle under Ivy’s fingers and I emit a low moan, which I hope communicates both that I am listening and that I appreciate what Ivy is doing to my head.

‘It was worse in secondary school,’ she says. ‘My scars, you know. In little school, I don’t know, maybe the kids were too innocent, or maybe they were just too afraid of
getting in trouble. But when I went to secondary . . . Scarface, Freak Face, Bride of Frankenstein . . .’

The commercial production Ivy and I met on was called ‘Little Monsters’ – four commercials featuring kids transformed into various horror staples: vampire, werewolf, zombie
and, of course, Frankenstein’s monster. Not for the first time, I wonder how awkward that must have been for her.

‘There was one bastard,’ Ivy continues, ‘Aaron Harding. He used to call me Humpty – as in, couldn’t be put back together again. And of all the names, that one stuck
the longest. He’d hum the nursery rhyme in class and the other kids would start laughing. And when I blush, my scars stand out like streaks on bacon . . . no, like . . . sorry, I’m
rubbish at similes.’

‘At least you know what one is.’ I begin to stand, but Ivy pushes down on my shoulders and continues to manipulate the muscles of my back. ‘We’ll ban it,’ I
say.

‘What, similes?’

‘No, Humpty Dumpty. You numpty.’

‘Very poetic.’

‘It’s your literary influence,’ I say.

‘What, numpty?’

‘Sure. As in numptious, numpacity, numpate.’

‘I’d quit while you’re ahead, if I were you. So, this was in my third year, and Frank, because of how our birthdays work, he was only one year behind me. And he’s always
been a whopper – he was ten pounds something when he was born, God help my poor mum. Anyway, by the second year Frank was playing rugby for the third year first team. Same as horrible
Harding.

‘Excellent,’ I say. ‘So he smashed him?’

Ivy laughs. ‘Frank? He’s a softy, he’s never hit anyone in his life. No, it was better than that. He started a rumour that Harding had a tiny penis.’

‘And did he?’

‘Not according to Frank. But it wasn’t big enough for the rumour not to take, either. Frank started calling him Acorn instead of Aaron, then the rest of the team are calling him
Acorn, then everyone in his class and then everyone in school. Funny thing is, by the end of the fourth form no one was calling me Humpty anymore; in fact the whole name-calling thing in general
had pretty much stopped. But they called Harding Acorn until the day he left.’

‘All thanks to Frank.’

‘All thanks to Frank.’

Ivy’s favourite brother is still in the shower, gargling the chorus to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

‘So he’s a softy?’

‘As a kitten.’

‘Do you reckon I could take him in a fight, then?’

Ivy laughs so loudly and abruptly that I feel her spit, snot or both splash onto the back of my neck. ‘God, sorry!’ she says. ‘It’s just . . . remember in
Tom and
Jerry
, how the bulldog would slam Tom from side to side like a ragdoll?’

‘Before my time,’ I say. ‘Was it in colour?’

Ivy flicks me on the ear. ‘Any more of that and I’ll set my bulldog on you.’

In a variation on the previous evening, Frank falls asleep in front of the TV, whereas Ivy is as lively as a 5-year-old full of chocolate cake – telling me about her day,
asking about mine, fidgeting in her seat and offering thoughts and opinions on everything from the Saturday-night movie to the colour of my socks. After Frank comes abruptly awake (his
sister’s wet finger in his ear), he takes himself to bed and Ivy announces that we are going for a walk.

‘It’s almost eleven,’ I tell her.

‘So?’

‘And it’s winter.’

‘Yes?’

‘And you’re nineteen weeks pregnant. With twins.’

‘I know,’ says Ivy, ‘second trimester, baby! Now get your coat.’

To say she jumps up from the sofa would be an exaggeration, but she is on her feet in under a minute, which, under the circumstances (approximately twenty extra pounds of bodyweight) is pretty
impressive.

It’s past chucking-out time, and the open expanse of mulchy grass is quiet as we circle the duck pond and head towards the denser woodland of Wimbledon Common proper.

‘Spooky,’ says Ivy. ‘Are you scared? I bet you are.’

‘Bloody freezing is what I am.’

Ivy’s arm is looped through mine and she pulls me tight against her side. ‘I’ve got heat to spare,’ she says. ‘Snuggle in.’

‘I hope you’re not planning on making a habit of this.’

‘Shh, don’t ruin it. I’ll be crashed out on the sofa for the next seventeen weeks. Enjoy it while you can.’

‘Doesn’t sound long, does it? Seventeen weeks.’

‘Nuh huh; four of us soon.’

‘I expect we’ll spend a lot of time up here, with the twins. Picnics, bikes, kites.’

‘Treasure hunts.’

‘Paper boats.’

‘See those trees?’ Ivy says.

‘I can’t see anything.’

‘They are
teeming
with conkers in the autumn. Hundreds and hundreds of them.’

‘Better hope we have boys, then.’

Ivy shoves me with her shoulder. ‘I was conker champion of our house, thank you very much. Trick is to soak them in vinegar and bake them.’

‘Isn’t that cheating?’

‘That attitude is why you will ne—’ Ivy stops walking. ‘Shh, look . . .’

‘What, where?’ Ivy takes my chin in her hand and points my head towards a stand of thin sparse trees. Something moves and a pair of eyes glint out from the tangled undergrowth. My
heart quickens. ‘The fuck is that?’

‘Womble.’

‘Can you eat Womble?’

‘Yes, but they make better slippers.’

I laugh under my breath.

‘Hang on, what happened to those slippers I bought you?’

‘They made my feet hot, and Uncle Bulgaria’s fur made my ankles itch.’

Ivy sighs. ‘I should take them back.’

‘God no, I love them. Just not . . . on my feet.’

The Womble darts out from the bushes as if it’s going to attack.

‘Jesus Christ!’ This from me.

‘Calm down, it’s only a fox.’

The fox is maybe twenty yards away now, facing us down, challenging us. I’m acutely aware of my own breathing as the three of us stand regarding each other in the thumping silence.

‘How fast can foxes run, do you think?’

‘Don’t be such a wuss,’ Ivy says. ‘It’s more afraid of you than you are of it.’

‘Debatable. I hate foxes.’

‘What have foxes ever done to you?’ Ivy says.

‘What have they ever done
for
me?’

‘Well, they eat rats, for a start. No foxes and you’d be tripping over rats the size of babies.’

‘Nice image. Can we go home now, please?’

Ivy claps her hands together. ‘Go on! Scoot!’

The fox stares at her disdainfully for a second, before turning and walking casually away.

‘See?’ I say. ‘Attitude problem.’

‘The problem with foxes is bad PR,’ says Ivy.

‘What?’

‘Did you know, for example, that foxes form strong family units?’

‘Can’t say that I did.’

‘Well, they do,’ says Ivy as she sets off walking again. ‘And they breed like crazy.’

‘Lucky foxes.’

‘And when all the cubs come along, the aunties and big sister foxes all pitch in and help to raise them. Put some human families to shame.’

‘When did you become an authority on foxes?’

Ivy hums all the syllables of
I don’t know
. ‘Must have read it somewhere.’

‘Okay, I take it back. Foxes are amazing.’

‘Fox is a good name,’ says Ivy.

‘Not on my watch.’

‘Or Vixen.’

‘Only if we have one with superpowers.’

‘What would be your favourite superpower?’ says Ivy, tugging on my arm and dragging me further into the deep dark woods. ‘For me it would have to be mind control. Or time
travel.’

‘How about night vision?’

Ivy begins on a long, tangential riff about the pros and perils of time travel. It’s been four months since we went on our impromptu road trip from London to the North-west. Ivy would have
been pregnant at the time, but we were blissfully ignorant of the double miracle unfolding behind her belly button. It feels like a lifetime ago now, and in a way it was –
two
lifetimes
, in fact. When we weren’t in bed, the car or a pub, we were rambling through late-summer countryside, walking nowhere and talking about nothing. Not unlike we are now. It will
be roughly eighteen years before we have that kind of extravagant liberty again, but in return we get picnics and kites and treasure hunts and Wombles and all the conkers a kid could wish for. From
where I’m standing – in cold mud while Ivy talks nonsensically about quantum cause and effect – it sounds like a pretty good deal. As Ivy expounds on the inherent dilemmas of
meddling with history (assassinating Hitler, saving Hendrix) I know one thing for certain – if I could go back in time to the day Ivy became pregnant, I wouldn’t change a single
thing.

I normally see El on a Tuesday, but Ivy is working tomorrow, so here we are – me, El and Ivy – at the Natural History Museum on a fresh Monday morning in
December.

The last time I saw El – six days ago, now – it followed a similar pattern to every other Tuesday: we ate pizza, drank alcohol-free beer and El fell asleep in front of a DVD. What
was different was Phil; he was more drunk than usual when he got back from the pub, and correspondingly more tearful and maudlin. Part of it, I’m sure, is the ADRT sitting in a drawer in
Phil’s office – a signed four-page testament to the fact that El is not simply ill, but dying at an indeterminate speed. The other part, Phil only hinted at, but I think loneliness has
a lot to do with it. He spends practically every waking moment with El, but it’s not the El he fell in love with. Instead, Phil is left with a bad copy of the original that can only serve as
a constant reminder of what and who he is living without. When he came back from the pub that night, Phil was so drunk he was afraid to carry El upstairs, and asked me to do it for him. El is in a
separate room now, and sleeping in a form of cot. Sitting on top of his single mattress is an inflatable, four-sided cocoon called a SafeSides. This protects El from falling out of bed or bashing
himself against the wooden bed frame, both of which are a significant risk since his tics and twitches have become more exaggerated.

‘Poor soul doesn’t even get a break while he’s sleeping,’ Phil told me through more tears.

Phil is taking antidepressants now, but it’s as clear as the bags under his eyes that they aren’t proving entirely effective. I offered again to take El out for the day, and again
Phil demurred.

When I told Ivy about it on Saturday night, she said we should ‘kidnap El’ and take him to the Natural History Museum for a day. And these are the kinds of things love is made of, I
suppose, because I have never (in our long four months together) felt closer to Ivy than I did at that moment. There have been other moments, of course – the first time we made love, the day
we first saw our babies on the sonographer’s screen, the night she asked me to move in with her – and while they have been both wonderful and profound, they were also, to an extent,
inevitable: a million couples do these things every single day. But this empathy and understanding towards both El and Phil, the desire to be involved, it just reminded me how much I love her.

I phoned Phil this morning to check he and El were home, saying little more than I needed to ‘collect something’. Neither Phil nor El has met Ivy before and her unannounced visit
provided enough shock and laughter that Phil put up no resistance when we announced our intention to take El out for the day. We ordered a taxi and it arrived before we’d finished our first
cup of coffee. I just hope Phil uses his day well.