by Lisa Jewell
‘Well. Sort of. You know.’
‘No – what d’you mean?’
‘Well, I’m dealing with it.’
Tony thought of Millie’s tragically unhappy demeanour and shrugged. ‘That’s not what Millie says.’
‘What Millie says? You mean, Millie’s been talking to you about it?’
Tony picked a piece of lettuce off the table-top and fiddled with it. ‘Not really – but she said she hadn’t seen you for a while.’
‘What is this?’ said Sean, starting to look a little edgy. ‘And why are you phoning Millie all of a sudden, anyway?’
Tony let the piece of lettuce leaf drop on to his table-mat and wiped his hands slowly on his napkin. ‘I’m not phoning Millie “all of a sudden”,’ he began calmly. ‘I just decided the flat needed a bit of oomph, remembered that Millie was an interior designer, gave her a ring and she happened to mention that she hadn’t seen you for a while. And given the circumstances –’ he cupped his stomach again – ‘I just thought it was a bit strange. That’s all. There’s no need to be so defensive.’
It fell silent, save for the sound of Ness and Millie’s laughter floating from the kitchen.
‘So,’ said Tony, ‘what’s going on?’
Sean bridled a bit and wriggled in his seat. ‘Things are just a bit awkward at the moment, that’s all.’
Tony threw him a tell-me-more look.
‘It’s my book. Look – I didn’t tell anyone about it at the time, but I’ve had writer’s block for weeks, right. Couldn’t write a fucking word. And then I went home last week to do some washing and stuff and something just clicked.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘It just started to flow. And I realized that it was Millie causing the block – it was being at Millie’s, away from familiar surroundings. And the bottom line is this: I’ve got two months to finish this book, and I can’t write at Millie’s. It’s nothing personal.’ He turned his hands up in a gesture of futility.
‘Well, can’t you go round to see her in the evenings, then? When you’ve finished writing?’
‘You don’t “finish” writing, Tony. It’s not like a job, you know. You don’t just close your briefcase at five-thirty and go home. Sometimes I don’t even get into the flow until six o’clock. I’m working till gone midnight most nights.’
Both men stopped and looked up when they realized that Millie was back in the room.
‘Discussing my absentee boyfriend?’ she said, slipping back on to her chair and topping up her glass of wine.
‘Yeah,’ said Sean, ‘I was just trying to explain to Tony about writing, about how it’s a bit different to pissing about with Christmas cards all day and then going home at five-thirty.’
‘Look,’ said Tony, ‘this is none of my business – your problem and all that. But now that it’s out in the open, Ness –’ he gestured towards the kitchen – ‘is she allowed to know?’
Sean shrugged. ‘Whatever,’ he said, ‘apparendy we’re going to be making a big announcement at Mum’s party anyway…’
‘I told you I didn’t care,’ hissed Millie. ‘It was just a suggestion, that was all.’ She picked up her wine glass and took a big, angry gulp. Sean and Tony both stared at her, but said nothing.
‘Everyone ready for their main course?’ trilled Ness, bouncing into the dining room with a large knife in her hand.
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ said Millie.
‘No, no, no,’ said Ness, gesturing at her to stay sitting, ‘I’m fine. You relax.’
She left the room and the bright, Ness-inspired smiles fell from their faces.
‘So,’ said Tony, pouring himself another glass of wine, ‘how are you feeling, Millie? How’s it going?’
‘Oh, it’s just delightful,’ she said, knocking back more wine. ‘I’m exhausted, moody and constantly nauseous. Every morning I wake up, throw up, go to work, throw up, get through the day somehow, come straight home because I’m too knackered to socialize, throw up, wait for a couple of hours for my boyfriend to phone, realize that he’s not going to, call him to find out that he’s deep in the throes of creative joy and has no intention of coming to see me, hang up, cry for an hour and then go to bed craving a cigarette. Then I wake up the next morning, all alone, throw up, go to work and start the whole process all over again. It’s marvellous…’ She beamed at them, showing off her big white teeth. ‘Never been better. Thanks for asking.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Millie,’ snapped Sean, ‘I’ve explained this to you a hundred times. This is just temporary. Once the book’s finished things’ll get back to normal, I promise…’
‘Normal? What the fuck is normal, Sean? You mean you mooching around the place whinging about me not being as much fun as I used to be? Or maybe you mean staying out all night taking coke with my friends while I’m lying in bed worrying myself sick about you? There is no “normal”, Sean. Not until you accept this pregnancy and start dealing with it.’
Sean looked desperately at Tony and then at Millie. ‘Look, do we have to talk about this here and now. Can’t we talk about this later…?’
‘Oh, why bother, Sean? Tony already knows everything, anyway.’
‘Knows what?’
‘Well, he knows how to treat a pregnant woman, for a start.’
‘Pregnant?’ Ness stood in the doorway holding a big platter with what appeared to be half a cow with twelve heads of garlic and a Christmas tree on it. ‘Who’s pregnant?’
Millie raised her eyes to the ceiling and sighed. ‘I am,’ she said.
‘Oh my God!’ Ness let the platter drop to the table. ‘Oh my God!’ She ran around the table and hugged a shell-shocked Millie. ‘Oh, that’s fantastic! How far gone are you?’
‘Nine weeks – nearly ten.’
‘Oh my God! Sean – come here!’ She dragged him to his feet and squeezed the breath out of him. He smiled grimly. ‘That’s just the best thing ever. Oh God – the wedding. What are you going to do about the wedding? Shotgun? Or maybe you can wait until your baby’s older. Oh, it could be a page boy or a little flower girl. God – a baby – I can’t believe it! This calls for some champagne. Tony, that Mumm in the fridge – is it OK to…?’
Tony nodded and Ness ran back into the kitchen. Sean turned back immediately to look at Millie. ‘What did you mean by that last comment, exactly?’
‘What comment?’ said Millie, impatiently.
‘Oh, the comment about Tony knowing how to treat a pregnant woman. What was that all about?’
‘Nothing,’ said Tony, immediately wishing that he hadn’t.
‘What?’ Sean threw him a look.
Millie raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Look, I just happened to mention to Tony that I was suffering from terrible morning sickness and he very kindly went to Holland & Barrett and bought me all these remedies.’
‘Remedies?’
‘Yes. Ginger and lemon and things.’
‘And…?’
‘And he dropped them off at my flat.’
‘Tony’s been to your flat? You’ve been to her flat?’ He turned and looked at Tony.
The jingle of glasses signalled Ness’s return with the champagne. ‘There we go,’ she said, ‘Tony, clear a space, will you? You do the champagne, Tony – I’ll serve the food. I can’t believe it, you two,’ she said, carving the cow, piling it on to people’s plates and spooning viscous gravy all over it, ‘first you’re getting married, now you’re pregnant – artichoke, Millie? – and how long have you been together?’
‘Three months, nearly,’ muttered Millie, draining her glass of wine.
‘Amazing,’ said Ness. ‘And to think – some people can be together for years before they even move in together.’ She threw Tony a meaningful but playful look which he chose to ignore. ‘So, how long have you known?’
‘A couple of weeks,’ said Millie.
‘Did you know?’ she asked Tony, passing plates around the table.
Yes,’ he said, topping up the last glass of champagne, ‘Sean told me – last
week.’
‘And you didn’t say anything – you sly old bugger. How did you manage to keep that to yourself?’
‘Sworn to secrecy,’ he said, passing round the champagne glasses.
‘Yes,’ said Millie, ‘we didn’t really want to tell anyone until the first scan.’
‘Of course,’ said Ness. ‘So it’s top secret, then?’
‘Yes – just for another couple of weeks.’
‘God – Bernie is going to be ecstatic! Her first grandchild. A toast,’ she raised her glass, ‘to Sean and Millie – and Millie’s bump.’
They all picked up their glasses and clinked them together passionlessly. ‘To Millie’s bump,’ they intoned, ‘cheers.’
‘OK,’ said Ness, settling herself into her seat and tucking her hair behind her ears, ‘now – don’t be scared of the garlic. I know it looks a lot, but Nigella says that when you cook it for that long, it loses its pungency – so it won’t make your breath smell, I promise…’
Tony prodded his food with his fork and looked across at Sean and Millie. Ness had engaged Millie in a conversation about pregnancy that Millie had latched on to like a hungry dog with a bone. Sean was chewing resentfully on a piece of meat and staring into the middle distance.
They looked like strangers, he mused, like the result of some disastrous attempt at dinner-party match-making.
They made their way through dinner in a civilized fashion, making conversation about babies and work and family and everything other than what they really wanted to be talking about. Millie finished her champagne and held her glass out when the bottle went round for second helpings. Ness opened a third bottle of wine at some point and then, after an incredibly rich chocolate mousse that nearly blew Tony’s mind, she brought out the brandy. Now, every drinker has a weak spot – the drink that they can’t resist even when they know they don’t need it, the drink that takes them to a place on the pissed ladder that no other drink can – and for Tony it was brandy. It was his favourite drink in the whole world but it always made him a little bit mad – and not mad in a good-times, Tequila kind of a way, but mad in a rankled, bitter-old-man sort of way. And by the time Ness and Millie went into the kitchen to clear up, he’d had three tumblers of the stuff.
Sean glanced tersely across the table at Tony.
‘What were you doing at Millie’s?’ he hissed.
‘Christ, Sean – are you still banging on about that?’
‘What were you doing?’
‘Look,’ said Tony, leaning in towards his brother and lowering his voice. ‘It was nothing. Millie mentioned that she was feeling really ill, I happened to be in Holland & Barrett, felt sorry for her, bought her some stuff – that’s all.’
‘But you went round to her place – to Millie’s place.’
‘Yeah, I know. How else was I going to get her her stuff. I was in town, I was passing, I dropped it off. No big deal.’
‘But why didn’t you say anything? I don’t understand.’
‘There was nothing to say, Sean. I bought her some stuff. I dropped it off. At least I was doing something.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I mean, she was ill, you were being fucking useless. It didn’t take much effort, you know. You could have done it yourself if you’d thought about someone other than yourself for more than a minute…’ Tony’s voice was getting louder and Ness stuck her head around the doorway to see what was going on.
‘What are you two getting all yappy about?’ she said.
‘Nothing,’ said Tony, ‘nothing. Just brother stuff.’
Ness, who as an only child thought that anything that happened between siblings was somehow enchanted, smiled at them indulgently and went back into the kitchen to talk babies with Millie.
‘I can’t believe you went to my girlfriend’s house and you didn’t tell me. Imagine if I went round to see Ness and didn’t mention it – wouldn’t you think that was weird?’
‘No. Not really.’
‘Well, I would.’
‘Well, I’m sorry, then. Next time I do something nice for someone who you’re being a cunt to, I’ll remember to let you know.’
Sean’s face started to redden. ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘I phoned you up one time, the only time in my life I’ve ever asked your advice about anything, expecting you to be supportive and understanding and instead you’ve just used it as an excuse to pester my girlfriend and make me look like a toerag.’
‘I haven’t had to make you look like anything – you’ve done a bloody good job of that all by yourself. Look, you phoned me for advice and I gave you my advice. And ever since then you’ve done nothing but ignore it. So stop putting this one on me. You’re fucking up single-handedly and you know it.’
‘Christ! I can’t believe you, sitting there all holier than thou, all arms-folded, looking at me like I’m a piece of shit. You haven’t exactly made a shining success of your own life, have you, Tone? Your own wife ended up shagging another man and you just let her go.’
‘Huh!’ said Tony, not even attempting to lower his voice now, ‘you can talk. Jesus. Just because you wrote some fucking book and all the papers are running round going, “Ooooh, Sean, you’re so fucking marvellous”, you think you can get away with anything. You think it doesn’t matter that for the first twenty-eight years of your life you were a useless slacker who never did anything worthwhile. You’re spoilt, that’s your fucking problem, spoilt rotten. Never had to work for anything in your life, had it all given to you – council flat, money, dinner at Mum’s every night…’
‘Ha!’ Sean got to his feet and started pointing at Tony wildly. ‘Me spoilt?! Me?! That is so fucking funny I think my sides have split. Who gave you the loan for your first business, hmm? And have you paid him back, yet? Er, no – I don’t think so. All those cosy little meetings you and Dad used to have about “business”. Who the hell ever sat down with me, eh? Who ever asked me what I wanted to do? Who offered me money and taught me all they knew? All you had to do was sneeze and Mum would get the fucking snot framed and call you a genius. You were always made out to be this fucking golden boy who could do no wrong.’
‘I’ve worked for everything I’ve got, Sean. Yes, Dad lent me some money, and no, I haven’t paid him back – but I will if it makes you happy. I’ll write him out a cheque now, if you want. And if you’d shown even an iota of interest in anything – anything at all – Dad would have given you whatever you wanted. But you didn’t. All you were interested in was watching telly with Ned or going out clubbing with him and taking poncey fucking drugs and spending the next day in bed – while I was out earning a living and making something of my life.’
‘You call running some sad little card business making something of yourself? Jesus. How low your horizons are, Anthony…’
A small purple ball of light erupted in Tony’s head at that moment, like a miniature mushroom cloud of pure fury. His vision blurred and an overwhelming emotion flooded his consciousness: hatred. It was an emotion he’d been trying his hardest to avoid acknowledging over the past few weeks but there was no getting away from it now. He hated him. He hated Sean. He did. He hated everything about him, from his stupid fucking book to his ridiculous trendy trainers to the way he was treating his pregnant girlfriend.
‘Oh,’ he said, drawing himself up to his full height, ‘and I suppose you think having one successful book is going to set you up for life, do you? You haven’t proved anything yet, Sean, not a thing. It might just be “a sad little card business” but it’s a sad little card business that’s been around for fifteen years, that’s established, that’ll pay for me when I’m old and grey. You got fucking lucky, mate – you’ve got a lot more to prove before you can sit there and tell me you’re a success. And yeah, my marriage might have fallen apart but I worked really hard at making it work – we were together for ten years, and that’s a fucking lifetime in this day and age. You – you fuck about for years with a bunch of brain-dead bimbos and
then the minute you meet someone decent you fuck it up. I mean, what the hell were you doing proposing to Millie in the first place? Eh? What the hell was that all about?’
‘That, Tony, is an incredibly interesting question,’ said Millie, appearing in the doorway with yet another glass of wine in one hand and the other hand on her hip. ‘Yes, Sean,’ she said, ‘why did you propose to me? Hmm?’
Sean dropped his head on to his fists and took a deep breath. ‘Millie,’ he said, ‘not now. Not here. Please. Can’t this wait until we get home?’
‘No,’ said Millie falling on to her chair and staring straight at Sean. ‘No – it can’t wait until we get home. I want to have this conversation right now.’
‘But this is private, Millie…’
‘Oh come on,’ she said, ‘Tony’s your brother. He’s family, Sean – we can talk in front of him. And anyway, you should listen to your big brother – you might be able to learn a bit about life from him.’
‘Eh?’ Sean looked up at Millie and sneered.
‘Yeah – he’s a man, Sean. Look at him.’ She stood up and walked round the table towards Tony. ‘Look – he’s got broad shoulders.’ She grabbed his shoulders and squeezed them. ‘He’s strong, Sean. He can run a business and own his own home and drive a car and hold down a relationship and still find time to think about other people. You could learn a lot from him, you know.’
‘Since when did you care about things like cars and flats, Millie? I thought you were supposed to be this cool, easy-going chick with all these socialist ideals about how status and money and property don’t matter. But you’re not, are you? You’re just like every other woman – you just want some man to look after you…’
‘I do want some man to look after me, Sean. I just want some man. That’s all. Not a kid who freaks out at the first sign of responsibility. Who thinks that pregnant women have got some kind of lurgy. I mean, has it ever occurred to you that I’m scared, Sean, that maybe I’m as freaked out about having a baby as you are? Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean that I’m preprogrammed to know how to deal with this. I’m terrified, Sean. My identity is being stripped away with every day that passes. You think I like being pregnant? You think I like having my body taken over by something?’
