‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered.
‘No, I’m sorry.’
We left the canal and took the steps up to the road. Perhaps it had just taken him by surprise. It had taken me by surprise.
He looked at his watch again. ‘Ten to. We better step on it.’ So we started walking faster, soon doing a comical walking race, laughter spreading through us like medicine.
We arrived and quickly picked out a collar and a bag of toy balls.
‘Want some fish?’ asked Jeremy with a grin.
‘Oh go on then, just one of the little bastards.’
‘So what d’you fancy watching? One of my new Almodóvars? Ooh - no, I know what.’ He produced it with a flourish: Strictly Ballroom.
‘Oh yes! Haven’t seen that in ages. Perfect.’
He went to put it in the machine and then turned round. ‘Actually, how about that as your prize - more dancing lessons? Whatever you like - ballet, salsa, tango… How about flamenco, you’ve never tried that.’
‘Wow. Why haven’t I? There’s a school round here, I think.’
‘Yes. But how about an intensive week in… Seville. No, it’s got to be Granada. And it’s compact, you’re less likely to keep getting lost.’
‘Oh. My. God.’
‘The perfect escape from the jellyfish of London - all that self-assertive stamping. Who knows, perhaps you’ll meet a black-eyed bailaor with a strong but supple backbone.’
‘Bailaor?’
‘Dancer.’
‘If I do I promise I’ll bring him back for you. You’re really spoiling me, I should refuse but—’
He silenced me with another kiss then pressed the controller to start. ‘Ready to lap up Paul Mercurio and his paso doble?’
We had a whole weekend of flamenco films: the Carlos Saura trilogy, Gitano starring Joaquín Cortés as a granadino gypsy… The visceral discord and melancholy of the music - those songs of the outcast - resonating with my dejection. We sighed and laughed; Jeremy told me I was doing well.
But back in my flat at one in the morning I was Googling fertility clinic + single woman and sperm donors. Finding websites supporting single-mothers-by-choice, reading articles about women who’d taken matters into their own hands and were now pictured with a smiling baby on their lap.
I think that’s how it happened. It was such a strange juxtaposition. I didn’t plan it; I wouldn’t even call it an idea. But it was there: the pre-decision, the pre-existence, the pre-conception… of a flamenco baby.
Chapter 2
quizás adv perhaps, maybe
I didn’t even like kissing. Boyfriends’ reactions had lain along the spectrum from amusement to exasperation; one had even suggested I needed counselling. With Jeremy it was different: childlike, but at the same time…
‘Yol?’ He looked over from his desk. ‘Please…’
‘Okay, nearly finished this one and then I’ll stop.’ I held the blind away from the window so it didn’t clank as I wiped it. He was frowning at the screen. ‘Stuck?’
‘No - just don’t want this bit to happen.’
‘Give them a break.’
‘They’ve got to earn it with some suffering first. And how are you doing today?’
‘Oh…’ Tears in my Weetabix. The tacky but innocent gondola mug had been viciously binned, along with a flutey birthday card I’d kept in my bedside table drawer. ‘Definitely earning my happy ending. He hasn’t called.’
‘Did you want him to?’
‘No. But you’d think… I dunno. And Helen says nobody can cover for me at the wedding, but I don’t believe her for a minute.’
‘Well it’s a swanky gig - she’ll want it to look right.’ Jeremy had an unflattering theory that my hair had secured my place in the Trio, my harmonising so well -visually if not always temperamentally - with darkly Irish Helen and auburn-haired Kirsty. ‘But hey, you need to check these dates.’ He pushed a notepad towards me. ‘You can’t go at half-term - that’s when the flamenco festival is. And Easter’s all booked up. So I’ve got a hold on the 1st March, when you’ll be all fired up after the festival. What d’you think?’
‘I suppose the school won’t mind as long as my pupils get their ten lessons… Heavens,’ I said, looking at a white-walled interior with a hazy pink Alhambra visible through a barred window. Another page listed my daily classes: Flamenco Choreography (Beginner), Flamenco Technique (Beginner), Spanish…
‘Bloody hell, Jeremy!’
‘You’ve got to do an online test for Spanish so they know what group to put you in.’
‘Oh God. And what’s this compass thing?’
‘Compás. Rhythm. Teaches you how to do the palmas - flamenco clapping. You’ll be good at that.’
‘But… look, this is too much,’ I said, as he quickly put his hand over some figures, ‘at least let me pay for their “charming apartment”.’
‘Absolutely not. Don’t worry, you can send me here for intensive guitar next time my heart’s broken.’
‘Okay,’ I said, wondering how I’d ever afford it. ‘But you’ve got to stop spoiling me… You’ve changed the standing order for the rent again, haven’t you.’
‘I’ve given you a rise, you idiot. Like I do every year.’
‘This housekeeping thing’s crazy - sooner or later you’ll be paying me more than I’m paying you. You’re daft - you could get a fortune for my place.’
‘Who else would put broad beans in my lasagnes? Grow banana trees in my builders’ rubble?’ He pushed back his chair and pulled me down onto his lap. I leant on his shoulder, enjoyed the citrus after-shave, the warmth and gentle rise and fall of his chest under my hand. Whispered thank you into his ear. I could happily have spent the rest of the day there.
‘I’m afraid I’ve got to see Andrew for lunch.’
Of course. The scent, the super-soft shirt. ‘Oh.’
‘He’s got a contract he wants me to sign and some other stuff…’
Other stuff indeed; Andrew was a literary agent who provided a very comprehensive service. I looked down at the bulge in Jeremy’s cargos and once again wondered what exactly they did. I’d tentatively asked a couple of times over the years, but hadn’t learnt anything other than that he preferred to call it making love rather than having sex. But surely it was making like in Andrew’s case; the man was just there to fill in between relationships, stoke Jeremy’s passionate fires to keep the writing on the boil.
‘Right.’
‘Why don’t you have a nap before your pupils come?’
‘Yeah, I might.’
‘I won’t be late. How about the Greek place later?’
‘Can’t - Helen’s gone and moved the rehearsal to tonight and then we’re supposed to be taking Kirsty to an Indian for her birthday. Can’t face any of it.’
‘Yes you can.’ He hugged me and then did up his jacket. ‘I’ll see you later. Now get some kip and hang on in there.’
I let him go and suddenly felt exhausted. Took off some clothes and got into bed, set the alarm for the three o’clock piece of toast that would do for lunch before the first of the pupils arrived. Put my arms round one of the pillows and imagined having Jeremy in my bed - it was his fault, starting this kissing on the lips thing. What was he doing? But then, what would be wrong with him sleeping in my bed anyway? Or me sleeping in his? It would just be friendly. But warmth was spreading down my body…
I got up and took a couple of hopefully sleep-inducing Nurofens. I stared at the calendar - not this time at the procession of heart-healing weeks, but at the glistening swarthy musculature of the air-borne male ballet dancer, the ecstatic arching of his feet, the sensual elegance of his hands. And reminded myself that Jeremy would see him in the same way as I did. In fact it had become clear, over the years, that we had a laughably similar taste in men.
Including David, of course. Greyhound-sleek on nervous and artistic energy. All half-Jewish curly dark hair - everywhere. An injured, honest guy - or so we’d believed. I suddenly felt heavy with
misery and went back to bed. I congratulated myself on having kept almost all of the lovemaking at David’s flat; at least I didn’t have to be haunted by memories of us naked together here. But the images started to arrive anyway… Oh God: sex. On past form the likelihood was that I’d be going without it for heaven knows how long - unless I got a hell of a lot less fussy. I got up and put my clothes back on.
Love and sex. Or rather love, sex and trust: was there any hope of finding one man who could offer all three? On the evidence so far, no.
But I’ll be seeing Jeremy later, I told myself, I’ll fake a migraine and get out of the Indian restaurant. And he might still change his mind… I busied myself tidying up the living room, practised a tricky accompaniment.
Then they came, and I was glad to be distracted by Olivia’s grinning chubby face as she played The Entertainer; Romilly’s wilfully wacky take on the Grade One piano pieces; chatty Alison, who used to come in a tartan school pinafore dress but was now my height and considerably better made-up. Then there was Michael - already producing a beautiful tone on the flute, an intelligent boy with a dry sense of humour. Sensitive. The sort of child we could have if…
Love, sex, trust and… children: an even taller order. In fact, I didn’t know anybody who seemed to have achieved all of these - or not with anybody I considered worth having them with. That was the problem; nobody was ever going to match up to Jeremy. He’d spoilt me, set a standard, queered my pitch - ha-ha - literally. Perhaps why I allowed him to console me so generously; the heartbreaks always seemed somehow partly his fault.
Perhaps I’d have to separate the factors. Love and trust with Jeremy, intermittently sharing him with a man; sex with whoever was healthy, attractive and available for it; and a baby with… well, whoever was healthy, attractive and available for it. Possibly the same man, initially. What did they call it on that website? Natural insemination by the donor.
I should have been getting ready to go to Helen’s, but I was back in the second bedroom, the computer helping to conjure the father of the room’s future occupant. I clicked on the sperm donor website I’d saved in my favourites - under a discreet ‘sd’, as if keeping it a secret even from myself. But up came a message: The traffic limit for the site you are attempting to access is exceeded. There were obviously bloody thousands of us; you’d think there’d recently been a war, there was such a dearth of Mr Rights.
But there were other websites. Including that of an ex-nurse who’d wasted a fortune in money, time and emotions making trips to clinics, and eventually to the donor-insemination Mecca, the States - and didn’t want the rest of us to have to suffer like she had. She smiled reassuringly at me, baby Barney on her lap; maybe I could go and talk to her - as if by fate, her office was just a couple of roads away. I started the long questionnaire for registration, wondering if I was going to press Send at the end.
Meanwhile, Helen was leaving a message on my answerphone. ‘Where are you? It’s tonight, remember?’
I looked at my watch: damn, it had to be the tube. Even then I was going to be heinously late, but they were lucky I was coming at all, in my state. Oh God, the wedding. I’d said I needed to go to Jersey for my nephews’ birthday; couldn’t I have come up with something better than that? Helen probably hadn’t even rung Annie to see if she could do it. I should have told the truth; it was going to be obvious soon enough anyway. But Helen and David were old college friends; they sometimes had lunch when she took Rupert up to his Saturday Junior’s lessons at the Academy. I wasn’t ready for her defence of him. Let the bastard explain himself, I thought, with that now familiar punched-in stomach feeling.
I stomped out to change lines, a blast of metallic air increasing my tears. It was time Kirsty and I questioned why we always had to slog over from our North London homes to Helen’s Kensington for the rehearsals. There’d been a few meetings at Kirsty’s, since baby Lily’s arrival, but I couldn’t remember the last time they’d come to my place. The unspoken rationale was that the more children you had, the less you could be expected to leave your house - even if you had full-time live-in help, no day job and a choice of cars.
Sophie opened the door, beckoning me into the kitchen with a podgy finger.
‘Are you in trouble! Want some?’ She was breaking off two pillows of Aero.
‘Ooh yes, if you don’t mind. Thought you…’ I thought you weren’t allowed chocolate, I was going to say - part of Helen’s weight-losing plan for her, that also involved after-school sports activities from which Sophie returned looking flushed and miserable.
‘Top cupboard. She won’t notice, it’s a multipack.’
I moved the chair away from the cupboard and put it under the table. ‘She will if you leave the evidence.’
‘Oh yes. Thanks.’
Bridget sailed in, swept Sophie’s bracelet-making into a box and barked ‘Bath!’
I went through. Rupert could be heard practising his oboe upstairs, and Imogen, poring over her school books in the dining room, looked up at me with disapproval - Helen’s more dazzling but less appealing offspring, in whose shadow little Sophie dawdled. Three kids suddenly struck me as insensitive genetic greed; Sophie should have been mine.
I opened the door to the vast room they called the Snug.
‘Finally,’ Helen said. ‘I’d make you a drink but we’ve really got to get on. We need to learn this Handel for Saturday, they’ve specially requested it.’
‘Right.’ I started putting my flute together. ‘Good birthday yesterday?’ I asked Kirsty, who was breastfeeding Lily and stroking her silvery-soft head.
‘Well she was a bit under the weather so we couldn’t face the restaurant. But Rob gave me a beautiful scarf. Thanks for the lovely card.’
‘So what about tonight, will she be—?’
‘Lily will be fine with Bridget, she’s brilliant with babies,’ put in Helen.
Kirsty didn’t look too happy about handing over her most precious possession. Only the previous year she’d been in my position, but along came sweaty but sweet Robert, whose conversation seemed to be limited to his IT work and the frustrations of the Northern Line, and Bob’s-your-uncle - or rather husband and sire; unexpectedly - or expediently - the man of her dreams.
‘Ready?’ Helen was positioning my music stand.
We were off. My part was easy, Annie could have sight-read it. In fact she was a sickeningly good sight-reader and could probably whip through all the second flute parts…
‘Yolly! Here, put a ring round the repeat signs,’ Helen said, handing me a pencil. ‘From the top.’
Next time I play this, I thought, David will be standing there on the groom’s side, watching the bride walk down the aisle. Perhaps wondering whether one would ever again walk down an aisle for him. Or feeling damned relieved to have got shot of a woman so intent on doing so…
‘You’re lagging behind,’ Helen said to me. Lily started to grizzle.
‘Come on girls, let’s get it right - we’ve still got to go over a few of the other pieces.’
Wedding marches: staggering there was one we didn’t know. And, call me a bitter old bag, but this was up there with the most hideously pompous; a triumphant I’ve-bagged-a-stockbroker of a tune, as bad as the comedy Mendelssohn that wills a trip on the altar steps…
‘Oh for God’s sake!’ Helen said, glaring at me. ‘Look, if we can’t get this right tonight we’re going to have to fix another rehearsal. And with Rupert’s music scholarship exam coming up, I really am up against it… You seem to be in some kind of dream.’
‘I’m not, I can assure you.’
‘Well what’s the matter then? You’re all over the place.’
The nephews’ birthday story just wasn’t going to cut it. Maybe I needed to elaborate - my sister wasn’t well (with what?), she needed me there to help her with the party…
‘Yolly?’ Gentle now, and that was my undoing.
‘David and I have broken up. I can’t face Saturday, he’ll be there
and…’
‘Oh no,’ Kirsty said.
Helen put down her flute, a hand going to her mouth.
I was delving in my bag for a tissue, but I saw it: the worried look between them. The hesitation, waiting for me to explain. Explain what they already knew.
‘You knew, didn’t you.’
Helen had her mouth open; Kirsty needlessly picked up Lily.
‘You knew about Lucy.’
Helen shifted in her seat. ‘Okay, I’d heard something, but I thought it was just—’
‘Then why the fuck didn’t you tell me!’
Lily broke into a wail.
‘I wasn’t sure… somebody said something at the Academy but… I couldn’t believe it,’ Helen mumbled.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Kirsty said, her eyes wide.
‘Well you can get it from the horse’s mouth on Saturday, can’t you?’ I pulled my flute apart and packed up.
‘Look… please… sit down, Yolly. Come on, I’ll get you a drink.’ Helen started to step round the music stands towards me but she wasn’t quick enough; I was off.
‘They knew about Lucy and didn’t tell me,’ I said, pointing to the Greek salad on the menu.
‘Is that all? Sorry, I meant food-wise. They’re just cowards, and probably weren’t sure… come on.’
He, of course, was no coward; later he’d make me call them. But for now he distracted me by suggesting we book one-to-one flamenco classes before the Granada course.
The waitress came to take our order. I let Jeremy do the talking, while I looked at the pale shine on his hair, the way the candlelight emphasised his cheekbones. Wondered if the person who invented the term sight-for-sore-eyes was a heartbroken girl enjoying the soothing beauty of her gay best friend.
‘So… was it nice, dear?’ I said in my best Margot Fonteyn voice. We’d read that she’d asked this of Nureyev after he’d been with a boy.
‘Of course. With men is very quick. Big pleasure,’ he replied in his hilarious Nureyev accent. But he started to look thoughtful, twiddled his wine glass. ‘I’m sorry, I know it’s awful timing, but I’m going to have to go out to Spain for longer than I thought. I’d completely forgotten that I said I’d go to the Sitges carnival with Vicente.’
FLAMENCO BABY Page 2
