My Book

by Alam, Donna

  ‘Obviously,’ James adds quickly. ‘I’m not asking you to move in because I expect you to have sex with me all the time.’

  ‘Oh, God. That’s not what I meant—I was just pointing out that your jokes are awful.’

  ‘That’s a relief.’ His sly grin is quick to rise. ‘Because why wouldn’t we have sex at every opportunity. We have so far, right?’

  ‘Yes. And no,’ I add swiftly. ‘Yes, we’ve had sex at every opportunity. But no, I’m not moving in with you. Still.’

  ‘Miranda,’ he draws out my name over a hundred syllables. ‘You’re not listening to me.’

  ‘I am. I promise I am.’

  ‘Give me one good reason why you won’t. Just one.’

  ‘Because skinned knees are easier to mend than broken hearts.’

  His response is in the pinch of his brows and I think for a moment that he finally gets it. That he understands. He sort of deflates before me, his head dipping between his shoulders, clasped hands dropping between his splayed knees.

  ‘Can you think about me for a minute.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Try not to think about yourself. Just for this one moment. Maybe I’m not offering you the Prince Charming experience you seem to think I am. Perhaps I’m thinking about me.’ His head lifts, his gaze almost pinning me in place—pinning me to the arm of the sofa—like a butterfly under a piece of glass. ‘You’re having our child, Miranda, but I’m so outside of the experience. Our child. A child that may never live with me full time. I want to be part of this process. To see him grow. To see you grow heavy with him. And I want him to know me before he makes his grand entrance into the world. I want to talk to him, maybe even sing a little. Play music, read. Feel him move inside you while we’re curled in bed watching TV.

  ‘Whatever you think of me, whatever you can or can’t see yourself doing, please don’t shut me out from this experience. I’m asking for eight weeks. At least to begin with. Longer if it all goes well, maybe even up to his birth.

  ‘You talk about blurred lines, but if you give me this time, I’ll do whatever it takes. If you don’t want to sleep with me, I’ll keep my hands to myself. We’ll keep this purely platonic. I want to be part of your life, Miranda. But if you can’t see that ever happening, at least give me this.

  * * *

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Hmm?’ I turn from the window and watching the blur of buildings that is London. Not that we’re going very fast. In fact, it’s much the opposite. Maybe the blurring has more to do with my tired eyes.

  ‘Sorry? What did you ask me?’

  ‘I asked if you were okay.’ His hand covers mine where it’s pressed to the seat between us, his thumb caressing my knuckles.

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I answer with a small smile. I think small smiles are the order of the day because I don’t have the energy for anything else. Truthfully, I am exhausted. It was a huge relief to find I’d slept in and that James insisted on getting his driver to take me into work. What I didn’t expect was that he’d come with us, too.

  ‘You look tired.’

  I shoot him another small smile. ‘I always look grotty after I’ve been crying.’ Also, after last night, I barely slept. And when he said thing between us could be purely platonic, he wasn’t joking. Last night, I’d lain in his arms, in his bed, and the only touches that passed between us were chaste. Over T-shirts, arms entwined. Honestly, it’s no wonder I look terrible because once his soft snores started to sound, I just cried and cried.

  I am an awful person.

  A selfish bitch.

  How couldn’t I see that he wanted more than sex?

  Please don’t cut me out of the experience.

  How did I get to this age without realising I’m an awful human? I try to stifle a sigh. I’m not even looking forward to going to work this morning, and I’ve always considered work my happy place. It’s the corner of the world I can control, and that makes me calm. When I slip into a cute dress or a nice shirt and a tailored pair of pants ready for the office, I’m in work mode. I’m all business and I take pride in my position and in my work—I’m a professional.

  There, I’m not the girl who pet sits, or who happens to be the only form of communication between her parents. Discounting their rows. I’m not the twenty-two-year-old who got herself pregnant by sleeping with the wrong man.

  But today while at work I won’t be any of the good things. I’ll just be the girl who made the very decent and very lovely man sitting next to her very, very sad.

  This time, I can’t stifle my sigh.

  ‘That sounded very pensive.’

  ‘Not really. Why were you up so early this morning?’ I ask, turning to him. James’s bed is always a pleasure to sleep in—it’s like sleeping on a pile of clouds—but I’d found no peace in it last night and had woken tangled in the high thread count sheets. Panic and disorientation were quickly followed by the realisation that James wasn’t in bed next to me. He says he’s a light sleeper, that he doesn’t need the help of an alarm clock to wake him because he has his own alarm clock built internally. But I’ve rarely found it to be the case. It’s usually me that wakes first, often with his hand on my breast or pressed between my legs.

  But not this morning.

  The bed was empty, his pillow cold. But then he’d appeared in the doorway of the bathroom, his broad shoulders almost filling the space. He’d lifted his hand to scratch his cheek, his bicep tanned and taut, and I’d watched a lone rivulet of water snake its way down his body from collarbone down, disappearing as it was absorbed into the downy white cotton towel wrapped low on his hips.

  The moment seemed to span the distance between us as I watched him, watching me. And I’d thought for a split second he’d make his way back to bed, that’d we’d reset what had broken between us.

  Not broken, but bruised, maybe

  But the moment passed when he made his way to the dressing room.

  ‘I didn’t sleep very well.’ His brow furrows and I see the truth in his words in the dark smudge beneath his lowered lashes. ‘I got a call from the states which necessitated getting out of bed. I just tossed and turned after it.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. I remember you getting up.’ I was too far gone at that point to even lift my head. ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Yes. Just another day in the lift of a precious artist. Someone I’m representing, new to the pressures of the art world, and suffering a crisis of confidence. It happens occasionally. I just wish they would learn to schedule their melt downs around British Mean Time.’

  ‘Part businessman, part counsellor?’

  ‘And all tired. So much so I’d had the most lurid fantasy while listening to him drone on and on. He was hanging from the ledge of a tall building—’

  ‘And you were trying to talk him down.’

  ‘I’m supposed to, but instead, I put my size forty-four shoe over the top of his fingers.’

  ‘That’s a little harsh.’

  ‘It’s not all bad. His death would only help increase the value of his catalogue. I’d certainly be richer.’

  ‘But unable to spend it on account being sentenced to a fifteen-year prison term.’

  ‘I’m sure once my lawyer has finished describing his personality, and how this is the fourth time he’s interrupted my sleep, any jury would see my point of view.’

  I chuckle softly as his phone begins to ring.

  ‘It’s going to be one of those days.’

  James pulls the phone from the inside pocket of his jacket, glancing down at the screen, then at me. ‘I have to take this,’ he says with a note of apology.

  I raise my hand—it’s all good—and turn back to my window watching the people pass on foot quicker than the car crawls along this route. But it’s a surprise when James launches into, what sounds like, perfect French. His tone is low, and the flurry of words sound very sexual for a business call. But that’s just the nature of the language, isn’t it? Everything sounds e
rotic en français.

  It almost sounds like he’s purring, dammit, because along with neck kisses, foreign languages do it for me, a spark igniting low in my belly and shimmering across my skin. And I used to have the maddest crush on my French teacher at school. Monsieur Dumas, or Mr Dumb Arse as the other kids used to call him. But not me. The man might have had an unfortunate taste in shirts, and a touch of halitosis, but his accent warmed him to me.

  Warmed me in a very particular place.

  ‘J’imagine que je te reparle bientôt. Oui, d’accord.’

  He hangs up and even I, with limited high school French, can tell he didn’t end the call with a goodbye.

  ‘More trouble?’

  ‘You could say that.’ He looks pensive for a beat, his expression clearing just as quickly. ‘About last night,’ he begins, but I cut him off, because this is my cue.

  ‘I’m sorry. About everything. I know I’m not the easiest person to deal with, and it seems pregnancy has just made a colossal bitch out of me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that’s true.’

  ‘I would, because you’re right, I haven’t thought about you and your thoughts and your fears. Your worries and concerns. I’ve only though about me. About how I feel.’

  ‘Have you thought about how you feel about me?’ he asks carefully.

  ‘You know I like you, and you know I’m scared. But I am going to move in with you.’

  His expression lightens, lightens a hundred times, and he reaches for me when I hold up my hands. I’m not warding him off, exactly. But tempering his response.

  ‘I’m making no promises. I don’t know how it might look or what will happen, or if it’ll even work, but I’m willing to give it a go. For you. And for our baby.’

  ‘And what about for you?’

  ‘Well, that’s part of it, too.’ I look down at my hands, not sure what else to say.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re not my dirty secret. And I want you to know, I think you’re pretty special. But I watch my parents hurting each other, and I think about what Cameron did to me, and I don’t see how there can be such a thing as love, because even if it dies, surely it would leave some sort of residual energy.’

  ‘I—I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘You can promise me you’ll try never to hurt me.’

  ‘Miranda—’

  ‘This is a huge leap of faith for me and I’m not even sure what’s on the other side.’

  ‘I’ll be there. I’ll be your other side.

  ‘I need to hear you say it. Say that you’ll try not to hurt me—you need to promise me, James. As the mother of your child, as the woman you want in your bed. Because believe me when I say, you hurt me, and you’ll be hurting our child, too.’

  ‘I would never do anything to harm either of you.

  I don’t stop him this time as he reaches for me.

  33

  James

  ‘James!’ Out in the garden, Dad straightens, though I notice he’s a little less straight these days, his soldier’s carriage giving way to old age. ‘You didn’t say you were calling today, did you?’ His words tiny puffs of white in the crisp morning air, and though he looks a little confused, I know there’s nothing to worry about there. The man is as sharp as a tack still.

  ‘Do I need an appointment to catch up with my old man these days?’

  ‘I might still have been in my pyjamas watching the morning news.’ He’s right. It is a little early to be making unannounced social calls, but after dropping Miranda at her office, I found myself unprepared to start my own workday.

  ‘But clearly, you’re not wearing pyjamas.’

  His aged brown cardigan matches a pair of baggy corduroy gardening pants, his feet in a pair of rubber shoes from the same colour palette. A few more weeks and he’d be able to wear his ensemble as autumnal camouflage.

  ‘Just let me finish pruning back your Mother’s roses and then we’ll have tea.’

  My Mother’s roses. They run the length of the garden now, wild and colourful all summer long, but I remember a time when they were just a row of neat little bushes, tended to by her slender hands.

  ‘I’ll go in and put the kettle on.’

  Rufus’s tail thumps the floor as I step inside, though he doesn’t move from his basket. These days, it seems you’ve got to at least open the fridge to get him up from the floor. After a quick stroke, I brush clumps of his golden hair from the sleeve of my jacket and make my way into the kitchen.

  This room has undergone some remodelling, but the rest of the house is largely untouched since my mother passed. I’m sure she wouldn’t be very amused at dad’s housekeeping skills, I think, as I pull a wad of old newspaper out from the sink, and last night’s dinner preparation—vegetable peelings—fall from the paper to the brown tiled floor.

  So much brown in this place.

  I clean up the mess, then fill the kettle, placing it on the stove top before pulling a couple of mugs out. Dad appears at the back door.

  ‘Tea or coffee,’ I call over my shoulder.

  ‘Tea. Coffee in the afternoon. Always tea before lunch.’ He makes his way to the kitchen sink and washes his hands, drying them on a piece of kitchen towel before he turns to address me.

  ‘What’s on your mind, son.’

  ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘You’ve better things to do than have tea with your old man before nine o’clock in the morning. You must’ve been in the car an age getting out here.’

  ‘It wasn’t too bad,’ I lie, leaning back against the kitchen worktop and folding my arms. ‘I suppose I’ve come for a bit of advice.’

  ‘Oh.’ A ripple of pleasure seems to lighten the lines on his face. Am I so bad at asking for help? ‘Well, as you know, I don’t have much of a head for business, but I can make a soldier out of a man.’ Dad shuffles over to the breakfast bar having exchanged his rubber boots for a pair of dogeared slippers, pulling out a high stool.

  ‘I think it’s a bit late for me.’

  ‘I’ll say it is. Some men are born to take orders. Some are meant to issue them.’

  ‘What about me? What was I born to do?’

  ‘According to your mother, to give her a head of grey hair.’ He chuckles, glancing down at the buttons of his cardigan, which are fastened incorrectly. ‘Eurgh. Stupid elderly fingers.’ His head lowers as he concentrates on putting the issue right. ‘You, my boy, are a one off. They broke the mould after you.’

  ‘That was probably a good thing.’ Especially given my behaviour over the last twenty-four hours. Fuck, she looked so forlorn when she climbed out of the car, several streets away from the office, of course. Some things don’t change. Though she promised this will all change after the wedding this weekend.

  I’d hoped she’d come to the wedding as my date, but that is apparently asking too much. Beckett’s and Olivia’s day must not be spoiled, no matter how I feel about her going alone. No matter how I feel about her running the fucking show.

  ‘Would it surprise you to find I’ve come for a bit of life advice?’

  ‘Go one.’

  ‘You know, it’s always hard to tell what you’re thinking.’

  ‘Me?’ His body retracts with surprise. ‘Where do you think you get it from?’

  ‘Dad, I wear my heart on my sleeve. I’m like Mum.’

  ‘Ha! You’d like to think so. Still rivers run deep with you. You like to give people the impression you’re as open as a book, but what goes on inside here,’ he taps his temple, ‘and here,’ and then his chest over his heart, ‘is rarely up for discussion.’

  ‘Well, it is today.’

  ‘Out with it, then.’

  ‘I’m going to be a father.’

  ‘I take it congratulations are in order?’ he enquires carefully.

  ‘Yes. I’m happy about it. I think we both are.’

  ‘Then why are you frowning, hmm? I take it you’re not together.’

  ‘No.’
r />   ‘I don’t understand you young people. In my day, you found the one that made you happy and then you did your damndest to make sure they’d never want anyone but you.’

  ‘That’s just it. I do want her. I find I love her, Dad.’

  ‘Ah. A terrible business, love. Isn’t it?’ Yet he smiles and I find myself smiling back at him. It feels weird.

  ‘I’ve definitely had more fun times.’ More fun times with Miranda than he’d care to hear, that’s for certain. But then last night was the kind of fun you only find in the dentist’s chair. And in the car this morning, too.

  ‘Love,’ he sort of grumble-huffs. ‘It’s like slicing your chest open voluntarily with a rusty spoon, then letting them have a good old rummage through to see if they find anything they like. What about this girl then? Has she found anything she likes about you?’

  So many ways to answer this question. But I’ll keep it simple and smut free.

  ‘She’s scared.’

  ‘Of you?’ He sounds offended.

  ‘She’s younger, but not too young, obviously.’ I rush on. ‘Maybe it shouldn’t work, not on paper, but it does. If only I could convince her to take a chance.

  ‘Well, you’re a lot to take on. But children need fathers, so you carry on.’

  ‘I’m trying. And it’s not bringing out the best in me. I’ve manipulated her into moving in with me.’

  ‘Hmph.’

  ‘That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say?’

  ‘Did I ever tell you that your mother was engaged to another man before I came along?’ I just about catch myself from cursing, because fuck no, he has not. ‘Hmm. She was due to get married the following month, but I wasn’t going to stand for that.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Well, she told me she loved this other chap. What could I do?’

  ‘Please don’t tell me you locked her in a basement somewhere.’

  ‘Ha! As if I could’ve gotten her to do anything she didn’t want to. She was as stubborn as the day is long. The looks of a thoroughbred and the obstinacy of a mule.’