The next thing she heard was Paul’s voice, telling her that dinner was ready, as he squeezed her shoulder and peered at her face from alarmingly close range.
It is not easy to make a dignified performance of waking up when you aren’t even aware of having fallen asleep, when you can’t remember where you are and have drooled copiously down your chin. In the wake of her resolve to take a stronger, more assertive stance with Paul, this wasn’t a great start: less warrior stateswoman than Alzheimer’s patient.
‘I was asleep,’ she said, as much to herself as to Paul.
‘I know. You’ve been asleep most of the afternoon.’
‘I’ll just freshen up,’ she said, conscious as the words came out of her mouth that this euphemism had gone out of fashion several decades ago.
‘Take your time,’ he said. ‘It’s just me and you for dinner. I’ve heated up a pizza.’
‘Oh. Lovely.’
Even after splashing her face and wrists with cold water and reapplying yet another full mask of make-up, Helen still felt groggy and confused. She was about to go back to Paul when the news he had given her at lunch stabbed its way back into her mind. She gripped the sink, breathed deeply and gave herself a silent little team-talk. You are doing well. You are being brave. You haven’t gone home, which means you are not weak or stupid (though you may be crazy). Now you will face your son, and be yourself, proudly.
Her body felt old, wobbly and wayward, but she sniffed, practised a smile in the mirror, and walked out of the bathroom.
A slice of pizza was already cooling on her plate by the time she took her place. Paul had an untouched slice on his plate, and clean cutlery, but the shape of the remaining pizza in front of them gave the definite impression that he had snaffled a piece with his fingers while waiting for her to arrive.
Paul ceremoniously poured out two glasses of wine, making a slight point, Helen felt, of having held back on the wine until her belated appearance.
‘To family,’ said Paul, raising his glass.
Helen had no idea what this meant, nor any way of discerning whether there was a darker purpose to this choice of toast. Was it a roundabout way of forcing her to raise a glass to Larry’s new child, as part of her family? She decided not to ask.
‘To family,’ she said, taking a small sip that almost against her wishes became a lengthy swig.
‘And thank you for coming to visit me,’ said Paul.
Again, Helen was floored and perplexed by what Paul was saying. It didn’t seem ironic, but she couldn’t understand how it might be sincere, given how much they had argued. But with his constant accusations towards her of being paranoid and oversensitive, she knew she had no choice, if she didn’t want to slip into one of their old arguments, of doing anything other than appearing to take what he said at face value, which she feared made her come across as an idiot.
She had barely opened her mouth, and already Paul had somehow cornered her into a choice between paranoia and idiocy. She opted for idiocy.
‘Well thank you,’ she said, ‘for having me and for making me feel so welcome here.’
Perhaps this was the point. In the politest possible way, was he somehow turning this into a farewell dinner? Was he kicking her out?
‘You are welcome here,’ he said. ‘It’s been nice to see you.’
Nice? Was that the most enthusiastic word he could come up with?
‘And I’m really glad I met Andre at long last,’ said Helen, beginning to wonder if the two of them were capable of being pleasant to one another without conversing in stiff platitudes.
‘We’ve only been together a few months.’
‘You know what I mean,’ said Helen. ‘And thank you for lunch. It was very generous of you. I’m sorry I left in such a rush.’ They still appeared to be stuck in a tutorial conversation from an English language textbook.
‘I hope I didn’t upset you,’ said Paul.
‘Nonononono. I’m glad you told me.’
‘I’m glad you’re glad.’
‘And if I was upset it wasn’t because of you. I’m sorry I made a scene. It’s just . . . you know . . . a big thing when you divorce, and your life goes one way and theirs goes another. You never quite get used to it. It’s like a bit of yourself has broken free and is getting on with things on its own. Like having a child, I suppose.’
‘Maybe that’s the problem, Mum. You have to stop thinking of him as a bit of you, because he isn’t.’
‘No, I don’t mean it like that. I just mean that . . . that every day we make a thousand choices, and all we get to do is live on one branch of this infinitely branching tree, on this tiny thread of choices that we’ve made, but when I see you, and you talk about Larry, it’s like I can suddenly see across to this other thread out there that’s got my name on it. Or had my name on it. Do you see what I mean? I’ll always know I could have stayed with him and that thread would have been my life.’
‘But what he’s doing now isn’t what he’d be doing if he was with you. So it’s got nothing to do with any kind of life that might have been yours if you’d stayed together.’
‘I know, but it just makes you think these thoughts that it’s easier to live without. Life’s so much simpler when the alternatives fall away. If they stay around and live on, in the same city, day in day out, they can haunt you.’
‘They’re not your alternatives that live on, though. They’re his.’
‘But they feel like mine. Sometimes. I know they shouldn’t, but they do.’
‘Well, at least we’ve managed to talk about him without it turning into an argument,’ said Paul.
‘Yes,’ said Helen. ‘Exactly. It’s important that we can have a normal . . . I mean average . . . I mean just kind of a civilised conversation about him. It’s not like we have to talk about him every time we see each other, but it’s good to know that if we do, it won’t automatically become a row.’
‘Exactly.’
They ate in silence for a while.
‘Nice pizza,’ said Helen, as she finished her slice.
‘Mmm,’ grunted Paul, through a full mouth, dumping a second piece on Helen’s plate with his fingers and grabbing a third one for himself. After another lengthy pause, it was Helen, again, who broke the silence. ‘And it is amazing that he’s had a baby, isn’t it? At his age.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘That poor child. He’s going to have an eighty-year-old for a father when he’s still a teenager.’
‘Not quite.’
‘It’s very selfish, don’t you think?’
‘I’m sure if you ask Jake, when he’s sixteen, whether he’d rather have an old dad or not exist, he’d choose the old dad.’
‘It’s just typical of Larry. Of the way he thinks of himself. That just when he should be becoming a grandfather, he flips out and decides to have another baby, even though he doesn’t like babies, just to try and make himself feel young.’
‘Mum, you haven’t spoken to him for years. I don’t think you’re in a position to guess his motives.’
‘I’m not guessing. I’m telling you the truth. I know how he thinks.’
‘What if how he thinks has changed?’
‘I’m not talking about his opinions. I’m talking about who he is.’
‘I don’t know why we’re even talking about this. I thought we agreed not to.’
‘I mean, it’s not as if he was ever going to become a grandfather, because of . . . well, how you are . . . so you’d think he might have been able to put off the crisis a bit longer.’
‘How I am?’
‘Yes.’
‘And how am I?’
‘You know. Gay.’
At that moment, the fridge shuddered off, sending the room, which had already appeared silent, into what now sounded like an extra layer of deeper silence, as if a snowfall had instantaneously blanketed the kitchen.
‘And gay people can’t have children? Is that what you’re saying? We’re all steril
e, are we?’
For some reason Helen couldn’t fathom, Paul appeared riled. Helen took a nervous sip of her wine.
‘Er . . . not sterile, but . . . I mean . . . two men can’t have a baby. Are you telling me I shouldn’t say that?’
‘They can adopt. They can have children by another means.’
‘Another means? What other means?’
‘The nuclear family isn’t the only unit that exists, Mum. There are hundreds of thousands of people who live in different ways by different rules. You can’t just assume that everyone lives or wants to live how you live.’
‘But biology is biology.’
‘Gay men have sperm, lesbians have wombs, and we can live whatever kind of lives we want. We don’t need straight people to tell us what to do.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Because you ought to know it. Everyone ought to know it. Ignorance is prejudice.’
‘But why are you using that tone?’
‘What tone?’
‘Angry.’
‘I’m not angry.’
‘You are, Paul. You’re angry.’
‘Like I said. Ignorance is prejudice.’
‘It’s more than that.’
‘More than what?’
‘This isn’t something you’d do, is it?’
Paul didn’t respond.
‘You wouldn’t, would you? Do you think it’s acceptable? To put a child through that?’
‘Through what?’
‘Through . . . having to live like that . . . in some weird set-up where they don’t know who’s who or what’s what or how many mothers and fathers they’ve got.’
’The world is full of horrible families who screw up their children. You’re infinitely better off with two gay parents who love you than with two straight ones who don’t.’
‘So you think it’s normal. You think it’s acceptable.’
‘It’s not normal, but it is acceptable, yes.’
‘You wouldn’t do it, though? Not you.’
Paul looked at his hands, his face immobile and unreadable.
‘Would you?’
He still didn’t look up, or speak. Helen’s pulse began to accelerate.
‘Paul, what are you saying? Have you got something to tell me?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you done this?’
‘No.’
‘Tell me the truth, Paul. Look at me and tell me the truth. Have you done this?’
Paul raised his head and held Helen’s stare. The room around them seemed to dissolve as their eyes locked together. Only by the feel of her heart hammering in her chest did Helen have any sense that time was still passing.
‘Yes,’ said Paul.
‘YES?!’
‘Yes.’
‘You have?’
‘I have.’
‘With a lesbian?’
‘Yes. A lesbian couple. They’re friends of mine. They asked me as a favour, so I said yes.’
‘You said yes?’
‘I said yes.’
‘When? I mean, how? I mean, did it work? Is there a baby?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes?! When? How old?’
‘Two months. A girl.’
‘A girl!’
‘A girl. Ella.’
‘Ella.’
‘But I’m not the father.’
‘What? You’re not?’
‘Genetically I am, but not in reality.’
‘Not in reality?’
‘No. The birth mother is the mother and the other mother is the father. That’s the deal.’
‘What deal?’
‘That’s the arrangement. That’s what they wanted.’
‘But if you’re the father, you’re the father. You either are or you aren’t.’
‘Well, then I’m not. She’s the father. The mother’s partner.’
‘But she’s not the father. She’s a woman. You’re the father.’
‘That’s not the arrangement.’
‘I don’t understand the word arrangement.’
‘You want a dictionary?’
‘In this context.’
‘That’s the deal. They didn’t want a father. They already had the father. All they needed was some sperm. And they’re good friends of mine and I like them and trust them, so I had a fresh AIDS test and gave them some sperm. It’s no big deal. It was a favour I did for some friends.’
‘NO BIG DEAL?’
‘No. We should never have got into this. I can tell you’re not going to understand.’
‘NO BIG DEAL?’
‘Let’s just drop it.’
‘Drop it? You’ve just told me I’m a grandmother and you’re telling me to drop it?’
‘You’re not a grandmother.’
‘I am. You just told me that you’ve had a baby.’
‘I haven’t had a baby. I’ve just given my friends some sperm. The baby already has four grandparents. It doesn’t need six.’
‘So the mother’s girlfriend’s mother is the paternal grandmother? Not me. Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Yeah. Apparently she’s quite keen.’
‘Oh. Right. And that’s why I’m just going to drop it, is it? Because I’m surplus to requirements?’
‘It sounds bad if you put it like that, but if I’m not being the father, you can’t be the grandmother. It doesn’t work like that.’
‘It works how it works. I’m her grandmother.’ The feel of that phrase on her tongue felt exquisite, each word a delicious new flavour. She had never thought she would ever get to say it. For years, she had been certain that the grandmother club was closed to her; now, in the space of one brief conversation, she was in.
‘Sorry, Mum. I should never have told you.’
‘I’m her grandmother.’
‘Mum, drop it.’
‘I am her grandmother.’
‘Mum, don’t come over all psychotic on me.’
‘I’m her grandmother.’
‘Right,’ said Paul. ‘OK. I think this conversation’s over.’ He stood and walked towards the door.
‘COME BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!’
Paul stopped and turned, for the first time in almost twenty years genuinely afraid of his mother. Her face bore a purity of rage that he hadn’t seen since the time, aged seventeen, when he borrowed the family car without asking and crashed it into the neighbour’s garden wall.
‘SIT! NOW!’
He sat.
‘Have you met this child?’ she said.
‘Of course. They’re close friends of mine.’
‘Take me to her.’
‘What?’
‘Take me to my grandchild.’
‘But –’
‘Take me to her. Tomorrow.’
‘I . . . I . . .’
‘This is what’s going to happen. Tomorrow morning, you are going to call in sick to work. You can say there’s been a family crisis. Then you will phone the mother of your child. You will tell her that you are visiting with Ella’s grandmother. You will ask her what time is convenient for her and for the baby, so we don’t disturb them. You will be as flexible and as understanding as possible. But you will tell them that we are visiting tomorrow.’
‘I. I don’t think you –’
‘This is not up for debate. You have made me a grandmother, so I intend to be one. Now I have a lot of thinking to do, and I have to phone Clive. Good night.’
it all sounds very modern
Clive always answered the phone after precisely three rings, even if he was sitting right next to it. This was one of his many annoying quirks. The fact that none of his quirks were interesting was another one.
The phone rang three times.
‘Clive speaking,’ said Clive.
‘Hi, it’s me,’ said Helen.
‘Hi, love. I was just thinking about you.’
‘Oh? What were you thinking?�
�
‘Just about you. Nothing specific.’
‘Oh.’
‘What’s up? How are you doing?’ he said.
‘Fine. Fine. You?’
‘Yes. Good. Just watching some telly.’
‘Anything good?’
‘No. It’s all rubbish.’
‘Oh.’
‘How are things at your end? Paul OK?’
‘Yes. He’s well.’
‘How’s his new home?’
‘Oh, it’s not new, really. He’s been here months.’
‘Is it nice?’
‘Yes. It’s a lovely house. It’s a gay commune.’
‘Oh. And it’s nice, is it?’
‘Yes. It’s nice.’
‘Good. Good.’
‘Clive? Did you hear me?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘What did you think I said?’
‘I’m not sure I should repeat it.’
‘Why?’
‘No reason. I just think I might have misheard you.’
‘So you thought you’d pretend I didn’t say anything?’
‘No. It just sounded for a moment like you said . . . I mean, it’s ridiculous, isn’t it . . . but I thought you said it was a gay commune. HA! HA! Hahahah!’
‘That is what I said.’
‘Oh.’ There was a considerable pause while Clive digested this information. After a long think, he said, ‘Well, as long as it’s nice.’
‘I’m sorry?
‘I mean, as long as he’s happy there.’
‘Well, he seems to be.’
‘Good, good.’
‘And it turns out he’s had a baby with some lesbians, but he doesn’t want to acknowledge himself as the father. He says the mother’s girlfriend is the father, even though she’s a woman.’
There was another long pause.
‘Well!’ said Clive.
‘Well?’
‘I mean. I don’t know. Gosh!’
‘Gosh?’
‘I . . . I don’t know what to say. It all sounds very modern.’
‘I’m not talking about a building, Clive. This is a person I’m talking about. A baby.’
‘I just meant the arrangement. Very modern. What people do these days!’
‘This isn’t "people"! This is my son and grandchild.’
‘Well, you always wanted to be a granny. Every cloud and all that.’
‘Er . . . thanks for your insights, Clive, and I’m glad we had this chat, but I have to go to bed now. It’s been quite a day.’
Otherhood Page 17
