by Fiona Gibson
Pillows propped up behind him, Rob is now back in bed with fingers poised over his keyboard. This month’s column is addressing all those men out there who are under the illusion that nipples should be twiddled like old-fashioned radio knobs. My breasts, he types, are what I think of as fun pillows, so take your time and enjoy … What did that cab driver call him again? Big shot journalist? My nipples, he continues, are the super-charged epicentres of a zillion tingly nerve endings … Yeah, Eddy will love that. Plus, miraculously, spilling out such ridiculous prose is helping to chase away those gloomy thoughts …
‘Daddy!’
Rob’s heart lurches.
‘Daaaad!’
Shit. Freddie’s awake. Something must be really wrong. He never wakes in the night here, he loves his cosy bed in the huge spare bedroom … Hurtling out of bed and across the landing, Rob manages to locate Freddie’s bed in the semi-darkness.
‘What’s wrong?’ he whispers, instinctively reaching out to touch his son’s clammy forehead.
‘I had a dream, Daddy.’
‘Shhh. It’s okay, darling. We’re at Nanny and Nonno’s, remember? Everyone else is asleep, we mustn’t wake them …’
Across the shadowy room, Marcus shifts beneath his covers on the bottom bunk, while Mia mutters quietly in the bed above. Ollie, who’s on a camp bed at the far end of the room, doesn’t even stir.
‘I can’t sleep.’ Freddie sniffs into the sleeve of his PJ top.
‘I’ll lie with you for a little while,’ Rob whispers. ‘Move up a bit. But we’ve got to be very quiet, okay?’
‘Yeah. I had a really scary nightmare, Dad.’
‘What about?’ Rob is now in bed with his son, stroking his hair. It’s been so long since he’s lain close to one of his children, it causes an ache in his heart.
‘Bad cheese,’ Freddie mutters.
‘What?’
‘Cheese with germs in.’
‘Oh, love.’ Curling an arm around Freddie, Rob pulls him close. ‘That was just Nadine. There are certain things you shouldn’t eat when you’re having a baby but you needn’t worry about that.’
‘Yeah, only ladies have babies.’
‘That’s right. Now hush, try to go to sleep.’
‘It comes out their vagina, Mummy said.’
‘Um, yes.’ Christ, how about we wake everyone up and have a little where-babies-come-from talk right now?
‘Can you see germs?’ Freddie whispers.
‘What germs?’
‘The cheese ones.’
‘No, not just by looking with your normal eyes. You’d need a microscope …’
‘It is germy then!’ Freddie exclaims.
‘Shhhh!’ Rob sighs, feeling suddenly, achingly tired, as if his bones could crumble like the thin, salty crackers his father likes. ‘Well, there are good and bad germs.’
‘I wanna see the germs in Nanny’s cheese.’
‘Freddie, please go to sleep …’
‘Can I have a microscope?’
‘Shush!’ It’s gone 2 a.m., and Mary will be rousing everyone at eight thirty for her customary Sunday breakfast: eggs, salamis, a great mound of pastries and amazing coffee he’s never managed to replicate at home, despite investing in various hideously expensive gadgets. Picturing his mum’s breakfasts, coupled with the steady rhythm of Freddie’s breathing, gives Rob a warm feeling inside. As he finally drifts off, the day’s worries start to float away and he’s a proper dad again, before the split – before Shorling, even – when they all lived together in Bethnal Green in a rather gloomy little house, but happy as anything.
Rob is properly asleep now, back with Kerry at home, and his old mate Simon in the editor’s chair. In his dreams, Rob is carefully crafting a lengthy feature about vineyard tours in Umbria, and all is right with the world.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Mary Tambini loves nothing better than having her boys here, her beautiful Roberto and Domenico and all the children, who bring this big old house to life. She’s worried, though, which is probably why, at 2.47 a.m., she decides there’s no point in tossing and turning in bed, and pads lightly downstairs to the kitchen instead. Here, waiting for the kettle to boil, she mulls over the day’s events. Rob’s bedroom light was on, she noticed as she passed his door on the landing, resisting the urge to check he was okay. He’s a forty-year-old man, she reminded herself, not a little boy anymore. He can stay up as late as he wants.
Now, as she sits at the kitchen table, her hands cupped around her mug of tea, what happened today seems even stranger and more impossible to figure out. Yes, she’s had a few months to get over the shock of Roberto leaving Kerry and taking up with that girl – that Nay-dine – yet it still seems … ridiculous. There’d been no warning whatsoever. He’d just blurted it all out on the phone, leaving her and Eugene shocked to the core. When Mary had called Kerry she, too, had sounded stunned, but also strong and determined, and had tactfully avoiding saying anything bad about Roberto. Not that Mary would have blamed her. God, she could wring his neck sometimes, the silly, silly boy …
She’s not angry now, though – more concerned, because she has never seen him looking so stressed, not even when that new editor arrived and all his old friends were thrown off the magazine. And he’s started smoking again. He might be able to fool the children with his minty gum and mouthwash but she detected it straight away.
Is he still awake, she wonders? Would it be completely wrong of her to go up and try to talk to him? She doesn’t see why she shouldn’t. After all, the family will still be here tomorrow so she’s unlikely to have the chance of a private chat. The central heating pipes judder ominously as Mary gets up from her chair and treads softly upstairs.
His light is still on, and she taps the door gently. ‘Roberto?’ she whispers. No reply. Another tap. ‘Roberto? Are you awake?’ Still nothing. She hesitates before pushing the door open, then reassures herself that he must have fallen sleep – while reading, probably – with the light on. But when she steps into the room, Roberto’s not there. The covers have been thrown back, as if in haste, and his laptop is sitting open on his bed.
Mary is a modern woman; she shops online and is on Facebook, mainly to keep in touch with Eugene’s side of the family in Verona. Roberto has been working on a document, she notices, and his laptop is running on battery power. Should she save the document and shut it down for him, or is he planning to come back and work on it? It’ll probably save automatically if it runs out of power, but she wouldn’t want to risk him losing anything important. Mary gets up and checks the bathroom – no one there – then peeps around the door of the biggest bedroom where all four of her grandchildren are sleeping soundly. Ah, there’s Roberto, fast asleep with Freddie in his arms. The image of the two of them snuggled together causes a lump to form in her throat. This is what it’s about, she thinks, her vision blurring. This is family. Mary wishes Nadine could see this. Maybe then she’d be less keen to dump her baby with a stranger and have an almighty strop about cheese …
Mary pads quietly back to Rob’s room and perches on the edge of his bed, turning the laptop towards her. She’s about to press save, but can’t resist a little peek at what he’s been working on. Such a talented writer, Roberto – although he’s recently stopped sending his father copies of Mr Jones, she’s noticed. ‘It’s taken a different direction,’ he explained. ‘Not sure it’d be your kind of thing anymore.’
Mary’s eyes flick across the screen. So many men give my breasts a cursory tweak before moving onto the main event. She squints at the text, as if she might have misread it. My super-sensitive nipples, she reads on, are not radio knobs … kiss and lick my lovely sumptuous … At that, Mary stops. Why is he writing as if he were a woman – the kind of woman who refers to her breasts as ‘pleasure centres’? The phrase ‘fun pillows’ leaps out at her. Mary shivers in her apricot Marks & Spencer’s nightie. Is this what he’s lowered himself to now – writing pornography? Is he desperate for money the
se days?
She stares at the screen, seeing just a haze of type now as her mind races. Perhaps this isn’t a magazine feature after all, but a fantasy. Maybe Rob is one of those men who – she can hardly bring herself to consider the possibility – thinks he was born the wrong sex. After all, it’s written in the first person – ‘fondle my domes of love’. Mary’s throat feels dry and tight, and she wants to run through to Eugene to tell him what she’s just read. Does this mean their baby son, who loved his rusty old Tonka truck and Scalextric set, is one of those men who doesn’t feel right until he’s had his body pumped with female hormones and his penis removed?
Mary feels dizzy and nauseous as she saves the feature and shuts down the laptop. Taking a moment to compose herself, she gets up to turn off the light, then makes her way back to her own room. She slips back into bed beside Eugene, deciding that, no matter how much she loves her husband with every cell of her being, she can never tell him that their darling son would like his bra to be removed by someone’s teeth.
Chapter Thirty-Six
‘Eddy? Hi, it’s me, Nadine.’
‘Hey, how you doing?’
‘Fine, I suppose.’ She frowns and shifts position on the sofa. There are frequent kicks now, and she loves the feeling, imagining her baby dancing or somersaulting.
‘Still with the in-laws?’ There’s a trace of amusement in his voice.
‘No, I’m not. It didn’t go very well, to be honest, so I’ve come home early. Caught a train this afternoon.’ She slides a hand over her small bump, wondering if the baby can sense it there.
‘Why? What happened?’
‘Oh, the dad was okay – wasn’t exactly the fun, jolly type that Rob had made him out to be, but at least he didn’t fly off the handle when I dared to suggest that I might go back to work one day, or make a big fuss because I wouldn’t eat their unpasteurised cheeses …’
‘They didn’t try to force-feed you, did they?’ Eddy sniggers. ‘Maybe they were just concerned. After all, you are supposed to be eating for two …’ There’s a babble of voices in the background, and music, and Nadine senses that he’d like to wind up this call as quickly as possible.
‘It’s not funny, Eddy. His mum was horrible – a dried-up old cow who kept calling me Nay-dine.’ She slips into a Yorkshire accent: ‘“Ah can’t see the point of having children unless you’re going to spend eighteen years wiping their bums and strapped to the sink.” Old bitch!’ She blinks away a tear. ‘And to think she’s going to be grandma to my baby …’
‘Well …’ He pauses. ‘… You think.’
Nadine blinks at the star-shaped fairy lights – her only concession to Christmas decorations this year – which she’s artfully draped around the Debenhams print. Part of the strand is dangling down but she doesn’t have the energy to put it back up.
‘I told you, Eddy, it probably is Rob’s.’
‘Well, let’s bloody hope so.’
‘That’s nice,’ she says coolly, remembering Eddy’s lack of concern over the split condom that last time.
He sighs, and she senses exasperation gusting down the phone. ‘Oh, sweetie, I didn’t mean it like that. But I’m sure you’re right – it is far more likely, the way I’ve treated my body these past few years …’
‘I don’t think it comes down to how much drink and drugs you consume, Eddy—’
‘Of course it does!’ He guffaws. ‘It’s in every magazine you read, isn’t it? Including ours. It’s a pretty safe bet that I’ve annihilated ninety-eight percent of my sperm by now.’
God, he’s such an idiot. Why did she never realise what an absolute self-centred little jerk he is? Just as well she’s with Rob now …
‘It’s working out with you and Robster, though, isn’t it?’ he asks.
‘D’you really care if it is or not?’
‘’Course I do.’
She sniffs loudly. ‘Um, yes, I think so… . I mean he’s sweet to me and everything … but there’s his kids – what am I going to do about them? They hardly said a word to me today, and I don’t know how to behave with them, whether to try and make friends or just leave them be …’
‘They’re probably a bit freaked out. I’m sure they’ll be fine …’
‘And what about his mother?’ she charges on, feeling her heart rate quicken, which can’t be good for the baby. ‘It wasn’t just the childcare and cheese thing, Eddy. She hated me, I could see it in her eyes, the way I’ve ripped her perfect son’s marriage apart …’
‘For God’s sake, Nads, she can’t have been that bad.’
‘She looked like she wanted to stab me with that cheese knife!’
‘Oh, babes.’
Is that all he can say? It’s easy for him to be dismissive when he’s sitting in a bar surrounded by friends with a drink in front of him. Her bottom lip is wobbling now, her vision fuzzing through tears. She’d never imagined that pregnancy would make you feel like this – highly emotional, prone to dramatic mood swings – or maybe that’s just her, and the situation she’s found herself in. She just needs someone to talk to. Sure, Nadine has plenty of friends, but while they still come over for the odd girlie night, she’s noticed that they’ve become slightly less keen to hang out with her. ‘We didn’t think you’d want to come,’ Jade said the other day when it transpired that she, Sasha and Harriet had been out shopping together. Why wouldn’t she? Pregnant women still buy clothes. They still meet up with friends to gossip and chat … don’t they? Or are they supposed to wear rags and live as hermits?
‘Anyway,’ Nadine tells Eddy curtly, ‘I’ll let you get back to your night out.’
‘I’m at home actually, just having a few festive drinkies with Frank and Ava and a few others.’
‘Oh. So, er … they heard everything you said just then.’
‘No, of course they didn’t …’
‘Well,’ she says coolly, ‘say hi for me.’ You could have invited me, she thinks as she finishes the call; but of course, she was supposed to be at Eugene and Mary’s grand old house in Kent, charming these supposedly lovely people to the point at which they’d get over the Rob/Kerry break-up and welcome her into their family.
Nadine places her phone on the table. She pictures Eddy and the others all lolling around in his beige, minimalist flat, with his ridiculously huge Christmas tree (silver baubles only) where she used to spend the night occasionally until that last time, three days before her encounter on the sofa bed with Rob.
Don’t be so bitter, she tells herself out loud as she undresses in the bathroom in preparation for a lovely long soak. Negative feelings can’t be good for the baby. Eddy gave her that first big break, after all, when she barely had a qualification to her name. There she was, just eighteen years old, with a paid junior position on a trashy little soft porn magazine called I’m Hot, whereas most of her friends had ended up doing unpaid internships for what felt like forever. Making it clear that he fancied her, Eddy then took her with him to a short-lived free weekly magazine, teasing her that if she didn’t make the grade, she’d be the one handing it out at Tube stations in the pouring rain. Finally, when he landed the editorship of Mr Jones, he forced out that hatchet-faced assistant and brought Nadine in instead.
She’d felt blessed, even when it had become clear that he was sleeping with Ava as well. ‘What’s the problem?’ he’d asked, all big, innocent eyes when she’d confronted him. ‘You’re a sweet girl, Nadine, but it’s not like we’re a couple. I’ve never lied to you.’
Revenge – that’s why she’d orchestrated the thing with Rob. That and the fact that he’s gorgeous, of course (she’s always had a thing for older men with dark Italian looks). Anyway, what was good enough for Eddy was good enough for her, so she’d gone for it, even though Rob had been off his face and the sex had been a bit of a non-event. The worst thing was, he’d talked in his sleep that night on her sofa bed. ‘Kerry,’ he’d muttered, ‘you’ve got all the duvet again.’ In the morning, Nadine had reassured
herself that he wouldn’t have stayed if everything had been rosy at home, so none of this was her fault really. In fact, she’s probably done him a favour in making it possible to escape a life sentence in the dreary seaside town she’s only been to once, with her grandma, where everyone looked about eight hundred years old. Rob hadn’t wanted to move. Didn’t he admit it that night?
She steps into the bath and sinks into the soothing warm water. Yes, she decides, examining her sugar-pink toenails as they poke through the suds, Rob Tambini probably thinks she’s the best thing that ever happened to him.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Now Kerry remembers why normal people go out, as in, venture beyond the boundaries of their own home when on a date (she is trying not to think of tonight as a date, but what else could it be, really?). That way, the state of your house doesn’t matter. You can turn up all freshly showered and blow-dried and no one will guess that your kitchen is strewn with sheet music, plus the numerous Christmas cards and home-made decorations which have yet to find a home. However, tonight, Kerry hasn’t had a choice. Asking Brigid to babysit would have meant her having to bring Joe along too, or dropping off Freddie and Mia at Brigid’s (not ideal on a school night although, intrigued by his surly attitude – a teenage boy in a four-year-old’s body – they would have enjoyed the arrangement hugely). With a hollow feeling in her stomach, Kerry realised she had no one else to ask.
