After the Party (24 page)

Lulu nodded her assent, but Jem could tell that she did not really understand. Then she changed the subject. “And what was the other thing?”

“What other thing?” replied Jem.

“You said ‘first.' What's ‘second'?”

Jem grimaced. “Oh God, remember that guy I told you about?”

“The single dad?”

“Yes, the single dad. Well, while Ralph was away we spent a bit of time together . . .”

“You did?”

“Yes. I mean, nothing controversial, just a couple of play-dates. But I think by the time we had our second playdate I'd got myself a bit wound up, into some kind of daft romantic delusion and it's possible that he might have gotten the impression that I was sort of . . .”

“Interested?”

“Yes, interested. Not that I did anything even vaguely
provocative, I really didn't, it was all very aboveboard, just two people killing some time together. And then Ralph came back and I remembered why I liked him in the first place and he's been so brilliant with the kids and helping out around the house and I just stopped thinking about this guy completely, and then last week he turned up on our doorstep.”

Lulu clamped her hand to her mouth and widened her eyes. “No!”

“Yes. Nothing happened but he was just a bit odd with me, a bit, I don't know, disapproving. I think it was pretty clear that whatever had been going on between us, which was, as I say, virtually nothing, was over. And he just seemed a bit . . .
angry
about it. Anyway, he left and that was that but then I bumped into him again. Just now. Outside your house.”

Lulu's eyes widened further. “What, out there?” She pointed toward the front door. “Just now?”

“Yes. Literally. He was on his own and it wouldn't be so weird if it wasn't the second time it's happened.”

“You mean you've bumped into this man outside
my house
before?”

“Yes. A few weeks ago. Just after Ralph went away. I was on my way home. He was alone that time too.”

“How weird,” said Lulu, stirring the teapot with a big spoon. “I mean, it's not as if there's anything on this road. It's a dead end, doesn't go anywhere, and he's hardly going to walk all the way up here for a kebab from the Golden Triangle. Unless . . .”

“Unless what?”

“Well, there's a place on the corner down there. A hall where they have meetings. AA. NA. All the As. You know. I wonder . . .”

“His daughter's mum is a junkie.”

“What!”

“Yes. He told me all about her. They live apart because of it. She doesn't even see her little girl.”

“My God, that's so sad.”

“I know. But now I'm wondering.”

“Yes. It does kind of make sense. Well, it makes more sense than him hanging around outside my house on the off-chance that you might be passing by.”

“Yes,” agreed Jem, “I suppose it does.”

“You know,” said Lulu, narrowing her eyes at Jem in a way that normally signified that she was about to impart sound but potentially irritating advice, “I think you need to draw a line under the Single Dad thing.”

“I have!” cried Jem. “Totally! It's not my fault he keeps showing up places.”

“Isn't it?”

Jem pinched at some fluff on her cardigan and didn't reply.

Lulu plucked Blake from Jem's lap then, her way of signifying that the conversation was over. She held Blake like a tiny dancing partner and twirled him around the room, her silk skirts scraping the wooden floors, picking up biscuit crumbs and cat hair, her dark shiny hair swirling around her shoulders like a cape. Lulu was the mother that Jem wished she could be—spontaneous, fun, worry-free. Blake stared into her eyes as they spun round, looking slightly alarmed.

“I wouldn't,” said Jem. “He just had a full feed before we left. There's a high probability he might . . .”

But it was too late. Blake had just been sick all down the back of Lulu's vintage wedding dress.

R
alph looked at Jem and gulped.

“Seriously?” he said.

“Yes. Seriously.”

“I mean,” he continued, “you've done the test?”

“Yes,” said Jem, “I've done the test. I've done the test three times. I am really, properly, officially pregnant.”

“Fuck.” Ralph pulled the palm of his hand down his face and sat on the bed. “But I don't get it. We used a condom.”

“Yes, I know, but you and I both know that we don't use condoms properly, that we never have done. There has always been a chance of this happening.”

“But I thought, I thought you couldn't get pregnant when you were breastfeeding?”

“Yeah, so did I. But there you go. Clearly I was wrong. We were both wrong.”

Ralph looked up at Jem, who was standing in the doorway holding a towel-wrapped Blake across her belly. He looked so small, suddenly, so fresh and newly arrived. How was it possible that so soon after his appearance in their lives, there could be another on its way?

He took a deep breath and considered his position. He had only just gotten to grips with the concept of his new son. His new son was still very much His New Son. It had taken him
five months to bond with him. He had only ever wanted one child to start with and now he was being told that a third was on its way. “Right,” he said in a voice pitched at pragmatic, yet thoughtful. “So, what are your thoughts?”

Jem sighed, then joined him on the bed. “I have no idea,” she said. “All I know is that I cried for half an hour nonstop after I took the test.”

“Oh, Jem.” He pulled her to him by her shoulder and buried his face in the crook of her neck. “Why didn't you tell me before?”

“Because I thought it was wrong,” she replied. “Because I thought that if I took another test it would give me a different answer, one I actually wanted to see. But, ha, it didn't. So there you go. And no, I have no idea what to do about it. No idea whatsoever.” She looked up at him sadly. Ralph could see now that the rims of her eyes were red and swollen. “What about you?” she asked. “What do you think?”

Ralph sighed. “I, er, I might need some time to digest this.”

Jem shrugged. “That's fair enough,” she said. “It took me a while. But, Christ, I have digested it now and I still don't have the first fucking clue how I actually feel about it. I mean, look”—she gestured at the baby on her lap—“look at him. I mean, he is so utterly perfect and blissful and I should be jumping up and down with joy at the thought of another one. But—”

“No, I know,” interrupted Ralph. “Timing.”

“More than that, though, it's more than that. It's about dynamic, it's about me. I just don't think I would be cut out for a big family. I just don't think I've got the guts and the gumption. You know. I'll never get my career going properly, the house would be a bomb site, I'd spend all day screaming at people, I would not be a very nice person, and I know it's another person to love—another little Scarlett, another little Blake—but
quite frankly, right now, I don't want to love anyone else. Quite frankly my hands are full with people to love. And I know,” she continued, “that it is so horribly ironic how hard I tried to hold on to the two babies we lost, how empty I felt when they'd gone, how destroyed I was, and now I am considering taking this baby away deliberately. I get that. It computes. But still, it doesn't really change anything. Because having a third baby, having a baby now, well, that just doesn't compute at all.”

Ralph sighed and nodded. He had thought it all his life: if you didn't want to have a baby, you didn't have it. It had always struck him as the essence of a civilized society, that the means were there to reverse a terrible mistake and to choose your own destiny. Everything that Jem was saying to him made perfect and utter sense. Everything she was expressing was utterly sound and level-headed. In a way Jem was taking a masculine approach to the situation, a practical, realistic approach, and he respected her for that. But still, he thought, there was something oddly indigestible about the scenario. He wasn't sure what it was, because he didn't particularly want another baby and he certainly didn't want Jem to be unhappy, but neither could he quite stomach the thought of slaughtering the new life in Jem's womb. It seemed barbaric.

“Look,” he sighed, “let's just sleep on this, shall we? And God, you never know, things might just, you know . . .”

“Yes, you're right. We've got a fifty-fifty track record on keeping babies. It's very early days.”

“Yes. We could be fatalistic?” he suggested, happy with the noncommittal nature of the concept.

“Yes. We could,” said Jem, getting to her feet and stroking Ralph's cheek gently, “we could be fatalistic. But not for very long.”

R
alph received an email from Rosey the next morning. He had not expected to receive an email from Rosey. He had not, as far as he could remember, even given Rosey his email address. But there it was:

[email protected].

Hi there Ralph! Seems like a long time since we said goodbye to you! Hope it was good to get back to dear old Blighty and that the weather's being kind to you. Just thought I'd send over some of these photos I took while you were over. Me and Smith have parted ways so it seemed a bit strange to have all these photos of you. Anyway, I really enjoyed hanging out with you in SM and hope all is well with you and your lovely family. Lots of love, Rosey xx

Ralph absorbed Rosey's words: “Me and Smith have parted ways.” They didn't seem quite to make sense. Only a month ago they had been a full-fledged couple, not necessarily following quite the same path but clearly committed to each other. And now they were no more.

Ralph tried to ignore the little wave of excitement and pleasure that came over him. The remarkable Rosey was single. The
remarkable Rosey was free. But the remarkable Rosey was also, he quickly reminded himself, over five thousand miles away and not the mother of his children. He opened the attachments. The first one was a shot of Ralph and Rosey that one of the guys from her band had taken in the bar after their gig in the community hall. She had her arm around his shoulder and her head was angled toward his. His body language was more neutral. It was taken before Ralph got drunk so he still looked relatively fresh-faced. But Rosey looked incredible. The light from the street had caught the side of her face and her smile was enigmatic, her full lips furled up like petals. Ralph remembered her words, in the street, outside her apartment: “You could paint me from memory.”

Now he could paint her from a photograph. He sent the picture to his printer and listened to the sound of it churning through it while he worded a reply.

Hi Rosey, thanks for the photos. I wonder what happened to that tan?! Actually, I do still have most of it and summer's on its way so should be able to start topping it up soon. I was really sorry to hear about you and Smith. And kind of surprised. You seemed like such a solid couple. I hope you're both okay.

Being at home has been great. I'm not quite sure how to put this without sounding weird, but spending time with you really helped me sort some stuff out in my head. You were a really good sounding board and opened my eyes to a lot of stuff that I hadn't considered before. I have a new appreciation of everything that is good about my life (which is pretty much everything really) and I owe a lot of that to you, so thank you, I am in your debt.

He paused as he was about to sign off, because there was something else he wanted to say but he was not quite sure how appropriate it was to say it. But then he realized that he had nobody else to share this with and he really needed another point of view, so he went ahead.

Some unexpected developments on my return, however. Jem is pregnant again. We're both slightly shell-shocked by this development, as you can imagine, with our little one still so young and we've got a lot of talking and thinking to do. Some sleepless nights ahead, I suspect!

Anyway, thanks for getting in touch and if ever you find yourself in London, would love to meet up, possibly over a proper European beer!

All the best,

Ralph

He contemplated signing off with a kiss, as Rosey had done, but decided against it. A kiss was tiny, but still significant, especially in the light of what had happened on Rosey's doorstep in California. He read and reread his mail three times to check that it contained nothing that if Jem were to read it she would find upsetting or suspicious, and then he clicked on send. But even as he did so he had an overwhelming sense of having pushed a tiny domino, flicked a tiny switch.

Then he wandered toward his printer and picked the photo from the tray. He stared at it for a moment before slotting it tenderly and with some purpose in between the pages of his sketchbook.

J
em had not been to the local playground for nearly a month. She had walked half a mile out of her way and taken buses to get to alternative playgrounds. She had, in fact, taken painfully circuitous routes to get to all her usual haunts in her efforts to avoid a street meeting with the increasingly mysterious Joel. But today she had decided to take a chance.

She had just about managed to convince herself that there was no way he'd be there on this random afternoon, but he was. Of course he was. He sat on his usual bench, wrapped in his usual overcoat. His newspaper was folded on the bench next to him and he was peering at his daughter over the rim of a large paper coffee cup. He didn't see her at first and it occurred to Jem that she could sneak to the other side of the playground and hide behind the climbing frame. But Jessica, lovely, bouncy, overexcitable Jessica, scuppered this fledgling plan and came scooting across the playground toward them hollering Scarlett's name. Joel lifted his head and acknowledged Jem with a small smile and a slight nod.