Pedigree Mum

by Fiona Gibson

  ‘Um … yeah.’ And now he’s fiddling with the sugar bowl on the kitchen table and won’t look at her at all. What’s going on?

  ‘I … I don’t want to sound nosey,’ she adds, ‘and I know it’s none of my business but—’

  ‘Kerry, it’s all a bit embarrassing,’ he says quickly.

  She frowns. ‘What – for you or Brigid?’ She’s being way out of order now, prying too much, but she can’t stop herself.

  ‘For her, I guess,’ he mutters.

  Kerry studies his face. ‘I don’t see why. I mean, we’ve all been drunk, haven’t we? We’ve all launched ourselves at someone and regretted it, not that she should have regretted it with you, but maybe, if she’d been sober …’

  As Harvey fixes his gaze on hers, Kerry detects the slightest hint of a smile playing on his lips.

  ‘What’s funny?’ she asks, more intrigued than ever.

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all …’ He splutters with laughter and clasps a hand over his nose and mouth.

  ‘There is! What happened, Harvey? Please tell me. I promise I won’t breathe a word. I won’t mention it to Brigid that you’ve said anything – honestly …’

  He rakes back his hair, convulsing with laughter now.

  ‘You can’t sit here in hysterics and not tell me!’ she exclaims.

  ‘Okay,’ he blurts out. ‘I will – but I feel crap about this. I’d never normally talk about something that happened. I’m not one of those guys who brags about—’

  ‘Just get on with it,’ she cajoles him.

  He takes a sip of his tea and inhales deeply, as if trying to compose his thoughts. ‘All right,’ he says finally. ‘The other night, I discovered that certain people are, er … attracted to clowns.’

  Kerry regards him quizzically. ‘Well, I suppose you do come into contact with lots of mums at parties. And you know what we’re like, spending so much time with small children. We tend to get a bit overexcited in the presence of an adult male.’

  ‘Er, yeah, I guess so.’ He sniggers and blushes a little. ‘But it’s sort of more than that.’

  She frowns. ‘What is it, then?’

  He grins then, pausing as if figuring out how best to explain it. ‘Um … it would seem that some people – probably the tiniest percentage, I don’t think official figures have been collated …’

  ‘Figures about what, Harvey?’

  ‘Er … about people who fancy clowns, like a fetish-type thing.’

  ‘Really? You mean they want to …’

  ‘… Do it with Coco in the big top.’ He blinks at her, his shoulders trembling with mirth. ‘Yeah, that kind of thing.’

  ‘A sort of clown-shagging urge?’ Kerry says, snorting with laughter. ‘Are you serious, Harvey, or just making it up?’

  He, too, is laughing hysterically. ‘It would appear that it’s a real thing, Kerry. Wig, face-paint, red plastic nose – the lot.’

  ‘You’re kidding! And Brigid likes that kind of thing—’

  ‘Um, yeah …’

  ‘You did it with your full outfit on?’

  ‘No!’ He virtually shouts it, causing Buddy to flinch.

  ‘Well,’ Kerry says, still dissolving in laughter, ‘she was laying it on with you, and there’s no shame in it, you know. God, you deserve some perks of the job after the crap you put up with from all those kids …’

  Harvey grabs her arm. ‘Kerry – truly, it wasn’t like that …’ He tells her then – about Brigid fluttering off to have a shower, having left firm instructions for the costume to be donned in preparation for her return.

  Kerry is laughing so much, she fears for her beleaguered pelvic floor. ‘And you absolutely, honestly didn’t do it? Go on, please tell me. I won’t breathe a word …’

  ‘Absolutely not. I swear on my life. Listen – she reappeared wearing a Pierrot costume and virtually chased me down the street. And then she realised she’d locked herself out, so I had to get Ethan to charge over with warm clothes for her to put on over her skimpy little white tunic thing – all he could think of to bring were his jeans and smelly old duffel coat – while we waited for the emergency locksmith.’

  Kerry takes a moment to process all of this. ‘And you honestly didn’t do it with her in costume?’

  ‘No! God …’

  She raises a brow. ‘Come on, saucy clown man.’

  ‘Stop it,’ he sniggers. ‘You reckon I’m desperate, don’t you? You think that, even if it meant complete humiliation for me, I’d still do it because wearing a flashing bow tie is the only way I can get laid.’

  ‘Of course not. Actually, I imagine it was probably a bit … freaky.’

  ‘Well,’ he says, grinning, ‘let’s just say I decided it was safer to sneak back at half six next morning, under cover of darkness, to collect my car.’

  They’re still giggling as Kerry sees him out, wishing him luck for the play, or rather that he should break a leg.

  ‘When does it finish?’ she asks.

  ‘Not until early May. I’ll be coming home for the odd few days here and there, but I won’t be able to fit in regular lessons.’

  ‘That’s fine, just give me a call when you’re ready to start again.’

  Harvey smiles warmly, gives Buddy a goodbye belly tickle and briefly kisses Kerry on the cheek. As he drives away, it startles her to realise that she already feels a little bereft. She also wonders how she will possibly manage to maintain a normal expression next time she sees Brigid.

  *

  Six days later, as ten-foot waves smash up onto Shorling’s seafront, Kerry opens the newspaper to see that Luella Hunt, a young English actress with a curtain of impossibly glossy flaxen hair, has been spotted stepping out in Manchester with an ‘unknown friend’.

  She studies the paper for long enough to satisfy herself that Harvey Galbraith looks just as fetching in a hastily-taken paparazzi shot as he does in the flesh.

  PART THREE

  Training

  ‘Try not to show your frustration, even if your new friend doesn’t seem to understand what you want him to do.’

  Your First Dog: A Complete Guide

  by Jeremy Catchpole

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Four months later

  It has been one of those seasons which will forever be entwined with another person. The spring of James, Kerry reflects, opening the birthday card he sweetly posted to her, despite the fact that they see each other twice or three times a week. The spring of visiting galleries, museums and going for long country walks with Buddy and the children, all terribly grown-up.

  ‘James is just my friend,’ she told the children in response to their inevitable question a few weeks ago.

  ‘He’s your boyfriend,’ Mia insisted.

  ‘No, sweetheart, he’s not. He’s a friend I like very much and enjoy spending time with.’ Eugh. However she tried to phrase it, it sounded so horribly corny. Why couldn’t she talk about James while still sounding like a normal person, instead of some dreadful self-help book? In fact, the thing she has with him – whatever it is – is deeply pleasant in a relaxing, warm bath kind of way. Perhaps because he’s so mature and capable, diligently researching opening times and special exhibitions as they explore the Sussex coast, Kerry doesn’t feel as if she has to put on a pretence of being some sort of alpha female. She is unembarrassed when they stop for lunch and she pulls out her purse, discovering it’s smeared with an oozing chocolate coin because her bag had been resting against a radiator.

  ‘That’s what I like about you,’ James joked. ‘Always prepared for sudden famine.’

  The coastal explorations are enjoyable, and at last it feels as if she has carved out space to do things for herself. Me-time, as the magazines smugly call it. Cuckoo Clock’s production company have moved her onto a more prestigious – and better paid – series of nature documentaries aimed at older children and teens, requiring atmospheric scores and no lyrics. So she feels justified in rewarding herself by taking the odd
weekend day off to browse through sculpture gardens with James, or have tea and cake in the weak spring sunshine in the grounds of a stately home. At last, it no longer seems vital to spend her child-free weekends working in order to fill the hours.

  Yet it also feels … slightly odd. Sometimes James says peculiar things, such as, ‘I thought that went really well’, as if willing her to agree, or perhaps in preparation for filing a report. Occasionally, she’d love him to exclaim, ‘Have you ever seen a duller exhibition than that? I was actually starting to contemplate suicide in there. Come on, let’s go and get smashed in the pub.’

  And one breezy, blue-skied Sunday, Kerry feels a small stab of guilt as James drives them back to Shorling, having clearly plotted a far prettier route than the more obvious A-road. Why aren’t I appreciating this? she wonders. What’s wrong with me? This is what grown-ups do. They have nice days out together and on the way home they discuss how enjoyable it’s been. There’s nothing to remotely pick fault with because nothing ever goes wrong. Unlike those family days out when Rob was still around, she and James never arrive at a quaint country restaurant to be informed, rather tersely, that it’s 2.45 p.m. and lunchtime is over. It doesn’t even rain (or, if it does, it’s not a problem because they are snug and dry inside a particularly beautiful church).

  Perhaps Kerry’s mild unease has nothing to do with any of that, but the fact that, despite the occasional hand-hold, or an arm placed affectionately around her shoulders, James doesn’t seem to be remotely interested in sleeping with her.

  *

  ‘Well, he’s gay then,’ Anita declares, having escaped for a child-free overnighter in Shorling.

  ‘Of course he’s not,’ Kerry laughs. ‘That sounds awful, anyway – “He shows no interest in me sexually so he must only fancy men.” And he was married, you know – in fact they’ve never got around to getting a divorce. And they have a twenty-two-year-old son …’

  ‘Just because he’s fathered a child, and been married, doesn’t mean he’s not gay.’

  ‘Anita, he’s not! James is so not gay. Anyway, if we’re assuming that about any man who doesn’t want to sleep with me, that’s basically the entire male population of Shorling.’

  Anita pulls a wry smile. In celebration of Kerry’s birthday, they are somewhat thrilled at finding themselves in licensed premises after dark. They are drinking delicious mauve-tinted cocktails involving gin and a lusciously-named concoction called Creme de Violette.

  ‘What about the lovely Harvey?’ she asks. ‘Heard much from him lately?’

  ‘No, but I read that he’s in a “close relationship”’ – Kerry waggles her fingers – ‘with Luella Hunt.’

  ‘Really? That insipid little actress with a repertoire of one facial expression? Surely not.’

  ‘Surely yes.’

  Anita exhales. ‘You never gave any sign that you liked him, that’s the problem. You’ve always been all friendly-friendly with men, even the ones you really like …’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Nothing, if you’re really not interested. But when you are, you have to make sure you give off some signs …’

  ‘What, so I should have launched myself at him while he was having a lesson?’ Kerry snorts with laughter. ‘I was his teacher. It would have been unethical.’

  Anita shakes her head and sips her drink. ‘God, these are delicious. Anyway, you know what I mean. You could have just been a bit more … playful. You do fancy him, don’t you? He’s so cute, great body and I love all that dark, wavy hair. And wasn’t he brilliant with the kids at Mia’s party?’

  ‘Yeah, that did have a slightly aphrodisiac effect.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Anita adds with a shrug, ‘maybe James is just a bit shy on the bed front.’

  Kerry sniggers. ‘Not gay, then.’

  ‘Well, maybe not. And at least you do stuff together – all these outings along the coast …’

  ‘… Which can feel a little like school trips,’ Kerry cuts in, ‘only without the children – or rather, without Freddie careering around a gallery while someone says really loudly, “I don’t know why people insist in bringing small children to places like this.”’

  Anita laughs, ordering a second round of cocktails as Kerry’s phone bleeps. ‘It’s James,’ she says with a smile. ‘Said he’d text me the full schedule for my birthday treat next weekend.’

  ‘Read it out,’ Anita commands.

  ‘Okay: Hi Kerry, all sorted, hope not presumptuous of me. Pls say no if you don’t fancy it but have booked us dinner and b&b at that lighthouse we saw. My treat. He’s put two kisses,’ she adds unnecessarily.

  ‘Well,’ Anita says, ‘sounds like the tide’s turning after all.’

  ‘The Lighthouse Hotel. God,’ Kerry exclaims. ‘It’s a real lighthouse, perched on the edge of the cliffs. We passed it last weekend and I was going on about how amazing it looked.’

  ‘He obviously took the hint then, didn’t he?’

  ‘That’s the thing, I wasn’t hinting. It’s been so long since I’ve done anything like that, the possibility of staying in it overnight hadn’t even crossed my mind.’

  Anita crooks a brow and giggles. ‘That tends to be the idea with hotels, Kerry. The staying overnight part.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but—’

  ‘Listen,’ she says, smirking as their cocktails arrive, ‘you’ve precisely one week to put it back into your mind, because this poor, timid man has obviously plucked up the courage to ravage you, at long bloody last. Make sure you wear some decent underwear, okay?’

  Kerry guffaws and takes a sip of her beautiful violety drink. ‘I will,’ she says, ‘but what if I’ve misread the signs, and he only wants to go because it’s of architectural interest?’

  ‘Well, I shouldn’t really tell you, but that birthday present I left at your place should put paid to any of that.’

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  She wanted a natural birth with no intervention. Nadine had made that absolutely clear, waving her handwritten birth plan in the face of some random woman in a dark blue tunic when they’d arrived at the hospital. Although Rob doesn’t like to break it to her, he suspects the woman wasn’t listening; it might as well have been a shopping list for all the interest she showed in it. Anyway, it’s a different woman now – or rather a girl with astonishingly fresh skin, her dark shiny hair pulled into a sleek ponytail.

  ‘Get the oil, Rob,’ Nadine barks at Rob. ‘Come on, I thought you were going to help.’

  They’re in a bleak little room with an iron-framed bed, walls the colour of rice pudding and her contractions are coming thick and fast. Rob extracts the white box of bottles from her enormous polka-dot kit bag – but which one out of the set of eighteen does she want? She’d told him the order in which they should be sniffed, to manage the pain and make everything lovely, while the baby slipped out effortlessly with a polite little peep. And he’d tried to mem-orise it all, in the way that he’d valiantly learnt his French irregular verbs and The Highway Code. But right at this moment, as Nadine lets out an enormous groan – far bigger than anything he’d have imagined could come out of such a tiny person – he can’t remember a thing. Even at thirty-nine weeks pregnant, Nadine doesn’t look remotely ready to give birth. Her bump is neat and compact, whereas Kerry’s were vast, almost heroic, forcing him to migrate to the very edge of their bed. The midwife is a slip of a girl too, with childlike freckles smattered across her little snub nose. Rob feels too big, too clumsy – too male – to be here.

  ‘My oil!’ Nadine commands again, causing him to grab at the first bottle his hand lands upon. As previously instructed, he shakes a few drops onto a cotton handkerchief and wafts it under her nose.

  ‘That’s the wrong one!’ she snaps.

  ‘No, honestly, it’s a clean hankie …’

  ‘I mean the oil. That’s rose, Rob, God. Oooohhh …’ Another contraction is coming; he sees the sweat beading on her forehead as if being squeezed out of
a sponge.

  ‘Which one then?’

  ‘Clary sage …’ Her face contorts with pain.

  ‘Two minutes between contractions,’ says the midwife.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Nadine cries.

  ‘It means the baby’s coming, sweetheart,’ she says, smiling and patting her hand.

  Nadine is up on all fours now in her organic cotton T-shirt, twisting her head to face Rob. ‘Clary sage, Rob, come on …’

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he mutters, feeling utterly redundant as the midwife utters soothing words, seemingly unfazed despite the fact that she looks, to Rob’s mind, as if she’s not old enough to drive a car, let alone deliver a baby. It’s amazing, he thinks wildly, what they teach them at school these days …

  ‘Clary sage!’ Nadine shrieks, but Rob’s mind has gone blank. Who the hell is Clary Sage? Oh, the oil, the oil … He grabs it from the box as she lets out another guttural moan, and the sound of her pain makes him flinch and drop the bottle. There’s a tinkle as it smashes and leaks out onto the shiny yellow floor, filling the room with a powerful bitter scent.

  ‘Have you broken it?’ Nadine exclaims.

  ‘Um, sorry …’ Hell, should he try to mop it up? An image forms in his mind of a drawing of a hospital delivery room with all the dangerous things highlighted. And now he sees a huge red arrow pointing to the floor, with the caption HAZARD – OILY SPILLAGE.

  ‘Why are you cleaning the floor?’ Nadine shouts, causing Rob to leap up, still clutching a green paper towel from the dispenser.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the midwife says quickly as another woman arrives. ‘If you need gas and air you won’t be able to use your inhalations anyway.’