Second Honeymoon (29 page)

‘Yes?’

The knitted hat leaned nearer the mouthpiece.

‘It’s Ben’. ‘Is it?’

‘Yes,’ Ben said without rancour. ‘It’s me’. ‘Take your hat off’.

Ben pulled off his beanie and pushed his face towards the camera. Maeve pressed the door-release buzzer to let him in. He came up the stairs at a slow and heavy trudge.

Maeve met him in the doorway.

‘Sorry, dear. You looked like one of those posters for Brixton Academy’.

Ben grinned at her.

‘Good’.

‘I’m afraid your father’s on the phone’. Ben shrugged.

‘I thought we might go out for a beer—’ ‘Well,’ Maeve said, returning briskly behind her desk, ‘all he ever does at the moment is go out for beers, so I don’t see why one of them shouldn’t be with you’.

‘OK,’ Ben said amiably. He wandered over to his father’s office and gestured through the doorway. Russell
waved and motioned to his son to sit down. Ben leaned against the door jamb and folded his arms and looked at all the photographs of Russell’s clients slowly and consideringly.

‘Come away,’ Maeve said behind him.

Ben took no notice.

Russell said, ‘Well, let’s be in touch at the end of the week,’ and put the phone down. Then he looked at Ben. Ben was gazing at the picture of an actress who’d been photographed, for some reason, in a leopard-print trilby.

‘Well,’ Russell said, loudly enough for Maeve to hear him quite clearly, ‘what brings you here?’

It was early still, so the bar was only occupied by a few people left blurrily over from lunch. Russell put his glass and Ben’s beer bottle down on a table below a mirror engraved with art nouveau lilies.

‘Is this an emergency?’

‘Not really—’

‘I mean, no phone call, no warning, you just turn up in the office, which I seem to recall you only ever doing once before when you were out all night after your A levels—’

‘I just thought I would,’ Ben said. ‘It just occurred to me. Going home would have been such a big deal’.

‘What do you mean, going home?’

‘I mean going to the house would have been such a big deal’.

‘Six stops down the line—’

Ben sighed.

‘Not geography, Dad. Other stuff’.

Russell picked up his glass and took a swallow.

‘I don’t know why it is, but when any of you children come and seek me out I feel instantly defensive. Have you come to tell me that you and Naomi have broken up?’

‘Only sort of—’

‘What d’you mean, sort of?’

Ben turned his beer bottle round as if he needed to read the label on the back.

‘It’s just,’ he said, ‘that we need a bit of space’. ‘You
have
broken up’.

‘No,’ Ben said patiently, ‘we haven’t. We’re going to live together’.

‘I thought you were living together’.

‘We’re going to live together,’ Ben said, ‘in our own place’.

‘Good for you’.

‘Yeah. Well’.

‘So I suppose you need money for a deposit?’

Ben shook his head.

‘We haven’t found the place yet’.

‘Ah’.

‘We can’t start looking until things are a bit calmer’. Russell closed his eyes briefly.

‘What things?’

Ben said carefully, ‘Naomi and her mum have never been apart before’.

Russell gave Ben a long look.

‘I see’.

‘It might take her a bit of time to come round to the idea’.

‘Of Naomi leaving to live with you’.

‘Yeah’.

‘Sometimes,’ Russell said, ‘I get the feeling that I’m living in one of those unfunny family comedy series on television’.

‘Why?’

‘Because you’re going to ask me something to which I’m going to say no and I can write the scenario for both speeches in advance—’

‘Dad—’

Russell sighed.

‘Ask me anyway’.

‘It’s hard for Naomi,’ Ben said.

‘I’m sure it is’.

‘Her dad walked out years ago and it’s just been her and her mum’. ‘Plus you’.

‘She’s cool with it,’ Ben said. ‘It’s more me. I want to live like I want to live. It’s not her’. ‘But Naomi can’t decide?’ Ben took a mouthful of beer.

‘She’s decided. It’s doing it that’s hard. So—’ He paused.

‘Yes?’

‘I thought I’d give her some space. For a while’. ‘And come home’.

‘Yes’.

‘No,’ Russell said loudly. He looked down at the table. ‘It’s appalling at home, already’.

Ben said nothing.

‘There are too many people and too much laundry and too many what you would call “issues,“ already. Mum is exhausted. I am – well, never mind what I am. But there is no room for you to come home, Ben, there is no more
energy’.

‘I could,’ Ben said calmly, ‘sleep on the sofa’.

‘No!’ Russell said, almost shouting. ‘No! The sofa is the last indoor space left’.

‘OK, Dad’. ‘What?’

‘I said,’ Ben said, just as calmly, ‘OK, Dad. It’s OK. I won’t come home’.

‘What?’

‘I thought it was worth asking. That’s all. No big deal. I’ll sleep on Andy’s floor’. ‘You can’t—’ ‘Why not?’

‘Your mother will never forgive me’. Ben said kindly, ‘She won’t know’. Russell stared at him. ‘Won’t you go straight to her?’

‘No’.

‘Why not?’

‘Why should I?’

‘Good Lord,’ Russell said.

Ben looked at the lilies on the mirror.

‘It’s not a big deal, Dad’.

‘I thought it might be’.

‘Nope’.

‘But I wish you didn’t have to sleep on Andy’s floor’. Ben glanced from the lilies to his father. ‘Done it before’.

‘Not for long. Not for possibly weeks’. ‘Doesn’t bother me’. Russell gave a faint groan. ‘Ben, I’m so sorry—’ ‘It’s OK’.

‘No, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. And I’m wrong, quite wrong. Mum will kill me. I’ll kill myself. Have the sodding sofa.
Have
it’.

Ben stirred uneasily in his chair.

‘It’s OK, Dad, honest—’

‘No!’ Russell said almost shouting again. ‘I can’t turn you away to sleep on the floor, of course I can’t. What am I thinking of?’ He put a hand out and clasped Ben’s arm firmly. ‘Come home, Ben, and have the sofa’.

Ben looked at his father’s hand, and then at his face. Then he smiled. ‘Cool, Dad,’ he said.

Rosa telephoned Kate to say that she’d been made employee of the month. Her photograph had been put in a frame on the manager’s desk and she had been given a metal badge, like an elaborate medallion on a pin, to wear on her uniform jacket.

‘Brilliant!’ Kate said. She had the telephone held to one ear and the baby was asleep on her other shoulder. As long as he was on her shoulder, he slept deeply; the
moment she transferred him, however gingerly, to the carrycot, he woke up and cried. ‘Thank you,’ Rosa said.

‘Rose,’ Kate said, summoning all the generous energy she could manage, ‘this is good! I mean this is progress, real progress. You’ll be able to think about your own place again any minute’.

There was a beat and then Rosa said, ‘Oh, I don’t think so’.

‘Why not?’

‘Oh,’ Rosa said again, ‘you know. The old reason’.

‘Debt?’ ‘Mmm’.

‘D’you mean you’re intending to stay at home until you’ve paid off everything?’

There was another brief pause and then Rosa said, ‘Not – entirely just that,’ and then she said quickly,

‘How’s the baby?’

‘Asleep. As long as I hold him’. ‘Goodness—’

‘It’s amazing the things you can do with one hand. I even put my jeans on this morning, except the zip won’t do up. Not by miles’.

‘Has he got a name yet?’

‘No,’ Kate said, ‘he’s called Baby. Barney calls him George’.

‘I’ll be round soon,’ Rosa said, ‘or he’ll be old enough for school and I’ll have missed him’.

‘Rosa—‘

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ Kate said.

‘What nothing? Are you OK?’

‘Yes,’ Kate said, ‘I’m fine. I’m going to ring off now because my arm is aching. Bye bye, star saleswoman’. ‘Bye,’ Rosa said.

Kate dropped the telephone on to the sofa and collapsed beside it, transferring the baby from her shoulder to her lap. He opened his eyes to check on his surroundings and then, satisfied, closed them again. It was so hard, so abidingly hard not to tell Rosa about Ruth’s visit, but Ruth had been so fierce in making Kate promise to tell no one that she had had to agree.

‘No one knows,’ Ruth had said. ‘No one. Only you. I only told you because you’ve just had a baby’.

‘But you must tell Matthew, if, that is, if it’s—’

‘Of course it’s Matthew’s,’ Ruth said, ‘of course it is. And I will tell him. I will. But nobody must know before he does. Nobody’.

‘But,’ Kate said pleadingly, ‘this is so lonely for you—’

‘Yes,’ Ruth said.

She had left soon after. She had left before Kate could ask her what she planned to do after she had told Matthew, what she was going to do about her flat, her job, her future. She had left as abruptly as she had come, and after she had gone and Barney had said, in some surprise, ‘What was that all about?’ Kate had had to go back and check on the baby as if some disruptive high wind had whirled through the flat and left chaos in its wake.

Very gradually, she eased the baby off her lap and on to the sofa. Then she lay down beside him and put her
face as close to his as she could get it.

‘You have no idea,’ she said, her mouth almost touching his cheek, ‘the difference you’ve made. You have no idea how hard you’ve made some things, how you’ve made me feel, how impossible it is to imagine what it was like before you were here’.

The baby yawned in his sleep, unclenching one hand in the process.

‘I said I’d go back to work,’ Kate told him, ‘I said I would. I want to. I don’t want not to. But I can’t. I can’t do anything but be with you’.

She put a finger into the baby’s hand. He grasped it, never opening his eyes.

‘Just don’t grow up,’ Kate said. ‘Just don’t get any bigger and then we won’t have to do any of it. Either of us’.

‘Goodness,’ Edie said, ‘you still up?’ ‘Obviously,’ Russell said.

She dropped her bag on the kitchen table and took off her jacket. She didn’t look at Russell.

‘Good tonight?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

He put his hand on the wine bottle in front of him.

‘Drink?’

She nodded. She went over to the sink and ran water into a mug and drank it. Then she came back to the table and sat down, at the opposite end to Russell.

He filled the wine glass for her and pushed it a foot along the table.

‘Here’.

She didn’t move.

‘Thanks’.

‘What,’ Russell said, ‘is the matter?’

Edie reached for the wine glass, failed to, and sat back.

‘I’m just so dog tired’.

‘Um’.

‘It was a nice audience,’ Edie said. ‘Lovely, really. Not a bad house in numbers terms either. They were paying attention. It was – well, it was me’.

‘What was?’

‘It was me,’ Edie said, ‘not paying attention’. Russell got up and moved Edie’s wine glass so that she could reach it.

‘There’.

‘Thank you’.

‘I think,’ Russell said, ‘that you know so clearly what you are doing that, even when you aren’t paying attention, it doesn’t matter’.

Edie sighed.

‘It does’.

Russell looked round the kitchen. He said guardedly, ‘Well, I think you should go straight to bed now, and I’ll do whatever needs to be done’. Edie took a gulp of her wine. ‘Are they all in?’ ‘I have no idea’.

‘I can’t go to bed unless they’re all in’.

‘Edie—’

‘I can’t,’ Edie said idiotically. ‘I never could and I never will be able to’.

Russell closed his eyes.

He said under his breath, ‘Mad and untrue’.

‘What?’ ‘Nothing’.

‘Don’t
mutter
at me,’ Edie said. ‘Don’t wait up for me just to
mutter’.

Russell took a breath. ‘What needs doing?’

Edie let out a little yelp of sarcastic laughter.

‘It would be quicker to make a list of what doesn’t need doing—’

‘Look,’ Russell said. ‘Look. This is worse than when they were at school. This is worse than when they were students. Just stop trying to do everything. Just
stop
. They’ll all do more if they only know what you want!’

Edie turned her face aside.

‘I can’t let them’.

‘Why not?’

‘Because they’re poor and broken-hearted and in a mess of one kind or another and it’s all my fault’.

‘Rubbish,’ Russell said vehemently. ‘Absolute rubbish bloody
crap
. You’re behaving like this because you need to justify not wanting to let go’.

Edie put her face down sideways on the table.

‘Give me strength—’

‘Me too,’ Russell said.

Edie sniffed.

Russell ignored her.

She said, not moving from the table, ‘Why on earth did you stay up if you only want to bawl me out?’

There was a silence. Russell cleared his throat. Edie stared at the cooker and thought how the tiles on the wall behind it needed cleaning.

Then Russell said, ‘There’s something I have to tell you’.

‘She’s in reception,’ Blaise said to Matthew.

Matthew was looking determinedly at his screen. He didn’t reply.

‘She’s been there since nine’.

‘I know’.

‘She says you know she’s here’.

‘Yes’.

‘Matt,’ Blaise said, bending down to try and interpose his head between Matthew and the computer screen, ‘you can’t leave her sitting out there. You can’t’.

Matthew said, ‘The only way I’ve been coping with any of this is by not seeing her’.

‘It’s no good, you know, just ducking out—’

Matthew transferred his gaze from the screen to Blaise.

‘And d’you know what will happen if I go out to her? She’ll ask if we can go and talk and because it’ll be a public place and I can’t make a scene I’ll say yes, and we’ll go and have a coffee or something and then she’ll start saying that it can work, that she’ll do anything I want and I’ll say it’s too late, because it is, and then
she’ll cry and I’ll feel a complete bastard and say I have to go and I’ll get up and come back here and everything will be even worse, yet again, than if I hadn’t gone in the first place’.

Blaise straightened up a little. Then he sat on the edge of Matthew’s desk and stretched his legs out.