Dear Thing

by Julie Cohen

  But that’s not how relationships worked, not in real life. People weren’t purely teachers or purely pastoral staff. They weren’t either pupils or children.

  She wasn’t really staying late at school to put up a bulletin board. She was here because she was too afraid to be anywhere else.

  ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘you’re always welcome to come here and play it for me. I’d love to hear more and help you if I can.’

  He didn’t say anything, and she took the drawings back to the bulletin board and began to pin them up. Behind her he picked out a melody, hit a wrong note. She tactfully ignored his mumbled swearing and waited for him to try it again. The clock said half past five. Ben was probably finished by now. He was probably on his way to his car, a photograph of the scan in his pocket, or more likely in his hand because he was poring over it, taking in every detail.

  ‘They don’t even fucking care about me,’ said Max suddenly, and there was so much anger and hurt in his voice that Claire forgot about his head of house and about her husband holding the photograph of his baby. She went to Max and sat down across from him.

  ‘Who doesn’t?’ she asked gently.

  ‘Dad and Jemima. Dad’s always at work, or up in his constituency running surgeries or whatever, and Jemima has the gym and her clubs and her charities and her hair. They send me away to school so they don’t have to deal with me. I even learned how to play this thing at a fucking holiday club when they went to South Africa.’ He looked down at the guitar with loathing.

  ‘But you’re good at it. You’re very good at it.’

  ‘I might as well be playing a bin lid as far as they care.’

  ‘Jemima’s your stepmum?’

  Max grunted. ‘Half my dad’s age. It’s disgusting.’

  ‘What about your real mother?’

  ‘She’s on her third marriage. I don’t see much of her, either.’

  ‘So the mother theme—’

  ‘It’s in my head. I made it up.’ He played it, quickly and harshly, crashing the chords together. ‘Listen, don’t think I’m crazy or anything. I don’t like sit around pining for the perfect parents I never had, despite that song. It’s just, it would be nice to be noticed once in a while. And I keep thinking about what would happen if Jemima got up the duff.’

  ‘You’d have an ally,’ said Claire. ‘My brother and sister were good friends to me growing up.’

  Max shook his head. ‘It would go one of two ways. Either Jemima would throw herself into it, like a new cause or a new fashion, and the thing would be spoiled rotten, or she’d ignore that one too, and it would have a miserable life. Either way, I hope it never happens.’

  ‘Your dad must care about you, if he fought for custody of you.’

  ‘I don’t think he had to fight very hard. Plus, it looks good that he has me. Politically.’ He played four notes, upbeat like an advertising jingle. ‘That’s my dad’s theme. Always on message.’

  Claire bit her lip. ‘Have you talked to your head of hou—’

  ‘I’m not going to talk to Mr Doughty. He and Dad are like this.’ He pressed his fingers together.

  ‘What about—’

  Max played his militant march again.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it anyway,’ he said. ‘I just want to play music. Okay?’

  Claire stood up. Briefly, she touched Max’s shoulder.

  ‘Play all you like. As long as you don’t mind my listening.’

  Dear Thing,

  Grown-ups are complicated. They hardly ever say what they mean. You have to look under the surface of their words and try to figure out what’s really going on. Some grown-ups, maybe even most grown-ups, carry secret feelings around, hoarded and shielded inside them within layers and layers of protection. Sometimes they don’t even know themselves that those feelings are there until they burst out, fully formed.

  It doesn’t make any sense, does it?

  Babies, on the other hand, are simple. They need food and warmth and changing and love. They might like a toy or two and they like watching sunlight as it filters through cool green leaves.

  You don’t know how lucky you are, Thing. Hold on to it for as long as you can.

  15

  Hormonal Madness

  I CAN DO this whole pregnancy thing, no problem. I’ll sail through it. I’ll hardly notice.

  And pigs might fly.

  Romily was working in the conference room: just her and a council laptop, no specimens, no window. Drawer 70 remained in Amity’s cabinet. The merest whiff of naphthalene made Romily want to throw up. She couldn’t work in the study room either; Layla, one of the women who volunteered on Tuesdays, used a particularly sweet honeysuckle perfume.

  It wasn’t just scents that made her queasy. Posie had a loose tooth, and every time she wiggled it with her tongue, Romily had to cover her eyes. Even the thought of that loose tooth was enough to set her off. Along with the particular shade of brown river water on her way to work in the morning. Or warm, humid weather. Or the fuzzy side of Velcro. Or the concept of earrings.

  Basically, Romily thought, sipping her glass of water that was about to tip over the edge from refreshingly cold to nauseatingly tepid, she was a big pathetic ball of hormonal madness and she had no idea what to do about it. And meanwhile Amity’s collection sat untended upstairs.

  ‘Romily?’ Layla stuck her head into the room, and Romily instinctively held her breath. ‘You’ve got a visitor waiting in the lobby.’

  Ben? Romily jumped up, grabbed her bag and skipped down the stairs and through the ground floor of the museum to the white-painted, high-windowed lobby, a smile on her face.

  Ben wasn’t there. The only person in the lobby was a blond man with his back to her. At the sound of her trainers on the red-tiled floor he turned around. But she knew who it was already.

  ‘Hi, Romily,’ he said.

  Romily clapped her hand to her mouth. She bolted for the door behind him at the far end of the lobby. The man, startled, lifted his own hands as if to fend her off or embrace her, but she pushed past him and raced through the door into the ladies’ toilet. She only just made it in time before she vomited her breakfast into the bowl in a violent and noisy gush. She retched again, and again.

  Her hands were shaking, her eyes watering and dimmed.

  What was he doing here?

  She heard the door opening. Please no, she thought, but she couldn’t move from the toilet. Not yet.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  The voice made her heave again. Over the noises she was making, she heard the door open further and booted feet come in.

  ‘Is it the flu, or is it me?’ he asked.

  ‘Mmph,’ she said, and realized she hadn’t shut the cubicle door. She tried to do it with her foot, without moving her head or upper body, but she couldn’t find it. Apparently he had opened that too. She didn’t dare look around.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’

  She shook her head, and then had to retch again. There was nothing left of her breakfast, but her stomach didn’t seem to care. A hand appeared next to her head, holding a wad of toilet paper. The fingers were tanned and wholly familiar. She took the paper and wiped her mouth.

  ‘I think those are the same trainers you were wearing when I last saw you,’ he said. ‘Nice to know some things never change.’

  The sickness was abating a little bit, so she flushed the toilet and sat on the floor, leaning against the wall. His hand appeared again, holding a bottle of water. She shook her head.

  ‘Water will make you feel better.’

  ‘I’m okay.’ Her throat was raw. ‘Go away.’

  ‘It’s a new bottle. I haven’t drunk out of it.’

  She took it, his hand retreated, and the cubicle door swung shut again. She could see his well-worn boots and the bottoms of his trousers beyond the door, but the rest of him was out of sight. Romily took a long drink and pulled herself together enough to stand up. She
still felt nauseated, but it was a dull sinking rather than a panic, and she wasn’t sure if it was caused by morning sickness or by seeing Jarvis again.

  Trust him to follow her into the cloakroom, so she couldn’t have a moment’s peace to be sick by herself.

  She rubbed her face, hard, with her hands and came out. He stood by the sink, and aside from the tan he looked the same. Tall, rangy and a little bit too skinny, still with his unruly thick hair. There were some lines around his eyes, but she wasn’t sure if they were new or if they were more noticeable because of his tan, which also brought out the blue of his eyes.

  She forgot, sometimes, how much Posie looked like him.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘It’s been a while.’

  ‘We’re in a toilet, Jarvis. I wouldn’t mind some privacy.’ He didn’t immediately leave, so she suggested, ‘If you’re determined to have a conversation, I’ll meet you in the museum café in ten minutes.’

  ‘Right.’ With an abruptness that she remembered as typical, he went out and she was left alone, staring at the space where he’d been.

  ‘Shit,’ she said. She stood there for a minute or two, and then looked at herself in the mirror. She looked bloody awful: wide-eyed, slack-mouthed, and distinctly green. She splashed her face with water, brushed her teeth with her finger, and ran her hands through her hair. Nausea still throbbed dully in her stomach, but it was controllable. For now.

  She found some mints in her bag and was seriously tempted to bolt. But where? And what good would it do? If he knew she worked here, he’d find her again sooner or later. If he wanted to.

  And for some unknown reason, it seemed that he did want to.

  Romily crunched two mints at once and went to find Jarvis in the café near the museum entrance. It would be okay, she told herself. It was bound to be a flying visit. Popped in to say hello. A quick cheeky how-are-you after eight years of no contact. Just the sort of thing that Jarvis would do, now that she thought of it.

  She had to try not to puke any more, and not to talk too much, and she would be fine.

  He was sitting at a table next to one of the big floor-to-ceiling windows, stirring sugar into his coffee, and she had a split second to look at him unobserved. He wore loose-fitting khaki trousers, battered hiking boots, and a light blue cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his forearms. It wasn’t tucked in and it looked as if it had never seen an iron. Though probably in the places where he’d been, ironing wasn’t a priority. Nor haircuts. He didn’t have any bags or cases with him, which probably meant he was staying somewhere locally rather than passing through. But with Jarvis, who knew? He could have left his luggage at the airport; it could have been lost in the Andes. Or wherever.

  He glanced up and saw her, and Romily had another urge to run away. She mastered it and went to sit across from him. There was a cup and a small teapot in front of her place – mint tea, from the smell.

  ‘Are you finished vomiting?’ he asked.

  ‘I think so. It wasn’t intentional.’

  ‘That’s good to know.’ For the first time, he smiled. It was only a half-smile, with the corners of his mouth turning down rather than up. She remembered that too. ‘The tea will help.’

  She poured it out from the pot and breathed in the steam. It felt cleansing.

  ‘Um,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks.’

  ‘How did you know where I was?’

  ‘I saw Anil at the Natural History Museum. He told me you were cataloguing the never-ending Victorian spinster collection. It’s a bit of a legend in those parts, apparently. How long have you been at it?’

  ‘I started not long after you left.’

  ‘I half-expected to run into you in the field.’ He finished stirring his coffee and took a long drink, looking at her over the rim of it.

  ‘The collection is keeping me busy here.’

  ‘PhD finished?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Congratulations, Dr Summer. It’s what you always wanted.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She blew into her tea, then took a sip. ‘Where – where have you been?’

  ‘Mostly South America for the past couple of years.’

  ‘I saw your work on Discovery.’ Late one night, flicking through the channels, she’d glimpsed his name on rolling credits. Her heart had thumped, her stomach turned round. She’d stayed away from nature documentaries after that, not trusting herself to analyse every shot to try to guess who was behind the camera. Not that she knew enough about film, or about him, to recognize his style.

  Who was she kidding? She’d know his style anywhere.

  ‘Mm,’ he agreed.

  ‘Are you … back in England for long?’ She concentrated on the table.

  ‘I’m staying in London for a while. Catching up.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Silence fell. On the next table, an elderly woman was telling her companion about the queue in the Post Office.

  Jarvis cleared his throat. ‘Is the tea helping?’

  ‘Yes. I think so. Thanks.’

  She glanced up, and he was looking at her, so she looked back down.

  Over the years, Jarvis had evolved in her mind into more of an idea than a person. A set of genes, a name on a television screen that was never referred to. It was by far the easiest way to think of him. Now, she could smell his coffee and if she lifted her gaze slightly she could see one of his hands resting on the table. There was a bit of twine loosely tied round his wrist, and a half-healed cut on his index finger. He’d collected that string and knotted it one-handed, or someone had tied it around his wrist for him. It had significance, or it did not. He’d bled when he’d cut his finger. Probably sworn, put his finger in his mouth. She could feel his eyes on her. The silence stretched out again.

  She wished he’d go away.

  ‘You haven’t got the flu, have you?’ he said. ‘You’re pregnant.’

  That startled her enough so that she looked up, full into his face. ‘You can tell?’

  ‘It was a wild guess.’

  ‘I’m fatter, aren’t I?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  He’d withdrawn his hands from the table, and had them on the arms of his chair, as if he were bracing himself.

  ‘Happy?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Yes, it’s all going well, so far. Aside from the throwing up, which was supposed to have stopped by now.’

  ‘Is it—’ He cleared his throat again, and continued in his offhand tone. ‘Is it Ben’s?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Great. Great. Well, as I said. Nice to know some things never change. That you got what you wanted in the end.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll be getting back to London. I’ll give your regards to Anil.’

  ‘I … okay.’

  ‘Bye, Romily.’ Jarvis turned and headed for the café exit.

  Without him looking at her, she was free to stare as he left. His hands in the pockets of his trousers, the loose tails of his shirt. The way the hair at the crown of his head fell in an untidy and entirely familiar whorl.

  ‘Shit,’ she said to herself, and then she was up, hurrying after him, digging in her bag. ‘Jarvis. Wait.’

  He stopped near a display of brochures. ‘It’s all right. I wasn’t expecting a welcome committee.’

  ‘I have something I need to show you.’ She found her purse, opened it and pulled out the photo. It was a school photo from last September and the corners were worn. Posie’s jumper was clean and her fringe was freshly cut, but her hair was beginning to unravel from her plaits. Her smile turned down slightly at the corners, as if she were making an ironic comment on the process of school photographs.

  Romily gave it to him. Her fingers, she noticed, were shaking. Jarvis took it.

  ‘Who’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s my daughter Posie,’ said Romily. ‘Short for Mariposa. It’s Spanish for—’

  ‘Butterfly.’

  ‘She was seven in February.’

&n
bsp; He turned it over to look at the blank back. There was no explanation there. He turned it over again and looked at it while Romily gnawed at her bottom lip.

  ‘Seven years old,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She doesn’t,’ he said slowly, carefully, ‘look like Ben.’

  ‘Ben isn’t her father.’

  The photograph fluttered to the floor. Jarvis grabbed her by both shoulders.

  ‘Romily, what have you done?’ he shouted.

  16

  Discovery

  THE ENTIRE CAFÉ – the entire museum – went silent. Jarvis, so laconic until now, towered over her, his face furious. Romily tried to back away, but she couldn’t escape his grip.

  ‘Not here,’ she said. ‘Let’s not do this here.’

  ‘You were the one who shoved that photograph into my hand. What are you playing at, Romily? Is she mine? Am I her father?’

  ‘Outside, please. Please, Jarvis.’ She was suffocating. She was going to throw up. She was going to faint. ‘Please,’ she said again.

  He abruptly let her go, stooped to retrieve the photo, and strode out through the lobby, his boots making crisp and angry bangs. She followed him out through the sliding glass doors into the warmth of summer. Without looking at her, he struck off in a random direction, still walking fast. She trotted to keep up with him, gulping air.

  ‘Am I her father?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fucking hell!’ He yelled it. A pedestrian stepped quickly to the side.

  ‘I don’t blame you for being surprised,’ she said.

  ‘Surprised? That’s a bloody understatement. “Hello Jarvis, nice to see you, it’s been a while – oh, and by the way, here’s a photo of your kid”!’

  A flock of pigeons took flight. He kept on walking, the photograph in his fist.

  ‘I wasn’t sure how to tell you,’ she said.

  ‘About seven years ago would have been good!’

  ‘You knew when I got pregnant – when we, you know, when we talked.’

  ‘When we agreed that it had been a mistake, you mean – that you didn’t want a baby, and that you weren’t going to have it?’