Did The Earth Move?

by Carmen Reid

  Best to lie back, breathe gently and catch it in little wafts.

  He couldn't help but be impressed with her. She worked, she cooked, she decorated, she gardened, she looked good, she was bringing up the children so well and she did it all alone. He thought guiltily that she must be busy every moment of the day. His own weekday evenings were spent socializing, going to the cinema, going out for dinner with Michelle. In this household, he knew, evenings were a rota of baths, bedtime stories, loading the washing machine, folding socks and collapsing onto the sofa at the end of the day. He'd often wondered why she hadn't found someone else to take his place, and now he suspected that she didn't ever have the time. Why was thinking about sock-folding making him feel sad? And what the hell was that bleeping?

  He had been lying there for about twenty minutes now and had thought the low bleep sounding every minute or so was coming from the street, but now he was sure it was in the room.

  Bleep... bleep... he tried to follow the sound. He flicked on the sidelight, got up and walked slowly round the room.

  Bleep ... under the bed? Lifting up the sari, he saw a small black pager with a flickering red light.

  Hmmm . . . He flicked the back case off and removed the offending low battery. He didn't think she had one of these. Even the probation service had stretched to a mobile phone for Eve. He put the pager on top of the chest of drawers and went back to bed, not giving it another thought until the phone rang late the next evening and a heavily accented male voice, slightly disconcerted by Joseph, explained that he was a friend of Eve's and was she there?

  'No, she's gone away for a few days.'

  'I see ...'

  'Can I pass on a message at all?'

  'Yes ... are you a friend of the family?'

  'I'm Joe – Anna and Robbie's dad.'

  'Oh, I see . . . ummm.' Pause. 'Please tell Eve Nils rang and ... she won't be able to help right now . . . but I might have dropped my pager when I was round ... when I came to visit... a few days ago.' Awkward clearing of throat.

  Joseph felt a surprising lurch of his stomach as he realized he was talking to Eve's lover. He had begun to suspect that there was a man floating around in the background. It wasn't something he'd had to confront until now. A dropped pager under her bed had given her away.

  'Actually, there is a pager lying on the bookcase in the hall. A small black one. Maybe Eve found it and forgot to mention it to you before she went away.'

  'Ah.'

  'Do you want to come by and you can check if it's yours?' Joseph found his curiosity was hard to resist.

  Nils sounded relieved and they agreed a time the following evening.

  'The Dutch vet who looks after the cats. I think he wants to be Mum's boyfriend' – this was all the information Joseph could glean from Anna. Nils was not very different from how Joseph had pictured him. A chunky, blond guy with a big physical presence.

  He took up the whole doorway and made the solid front door seem lightweight. The pager disappeared into his large hands and, after a quick check, into the pocket of his overcoat.

  'Hello. How are your cats?' he'd asked Anna and Robbie who had come to the door to see him.

  'Well, thanks then.' This to Joseph. 'Sorry to trouble you. How is Eve doing? Is she going to be back soon?'

  'I'm not sure,' Joseph had told him, realizing he was taking some comfort from the fact that Eve hadn't told Nils where she was. They obviously weren't that much of an item . . . Oh for goodness sake. What did he know? What should he care? But he realized he did care and he wasn't sure what to make of the feeling.

  When Eve phoned later that evening to speak to the children, after the long menu of the day's events she made him go through, he told her: 'A friend of yours came round to pick up something he'd left here ...'

  'Oh?'

  'Nils.'

  'Oh ... What did he leave?'

  'His pager. Anna found it in the sitting room,' he heard himself adding because he suddenly didn't want to hear anything from her about who this man was and what he meant to her.

  'Oh,' Eve answered and, knowing perfectly well that Nils was never in the sitting room, wondered why Joseph wasn't telling her he'd found it in her bedroom. She couldn't help giving a little giggle.

  'He isn't really a friend, you know,' she said.

  'Oh,' from Joseph.

  'Casual sex ...' she whispered.

  'Oh!'

  'I don't really want a relationship now ... But a bit of adventure, just once in a while . . .' Her voice had dropped to a whisper. Why was this giving him goosepimples?

  'It's high time I got over you.' She made this sound jokey. But there it was, all naked and out in the open: she still had to get over him.

  She took a steadying breath and added: 'How is Michelle?'

  'Oh, fine,' was all he said.

  'Good,' Eve replied and then asked to speak to the children.

  As he lay in her bed now, Joseph found it hard to get the giggled, whispered line out of his head 'A bit of adventure ... just once in a while.' He didn't want to think of her having adventures with anyone else.

  He didn't want her to share this room with someone else. He didn't want Anna and Robbie to grow up loving the man who would be sharing this room with her. So what the hell did he want exactly? He lived in another city. He was with someone else... he was getting married, for God's sake. What the hell had he expected Eve to do? Not get over him? Ever?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Michelle had come long minutes ago, when she was straddled over him and he was really hard and grasping inside her, when she'd felt him push up and up. She'd run her tensed hands over his lovely stomach, then down to his protruding hip bones and thrown her head back, feeling his fingers squeeze hard over her breasts. 'Yes, yes, yes ... oh yes, yeeeeees, oh Joe, yes.'

  And still he'd ground away under her, up, down, up, down, trying to get some traction in the relaxing, softening wetness.

  She'd bent down over him, so she could lick his ear, nipples brushing over his chest, and urge: 'Come baby, come baby,' reaching under his buttocks to knead them and thrust him in. But she could already feel him start to deflate and grow softer until he slid out altogether.

  'Oh, Christ,' he groaned and opened his eyes to see her hurt, angry face over his. 'What is the matter with you?' she demanded.

  What indeed? She was lovely. Honey hair framing her face, lean honey-blond arms and legs parted over him. He could feel her wet pubic hair resting heavily on his. He looked at the breasts balanced just in front of him and struggled to sit up and suck at a nipple.

  'Oh, don't bother,' she said, pushing his face away.

  'I love you,' he said. 'I'm sorry, I don't know what this is about.'

  There was a long silence, just the two of them breathing, eyes averted from each other, thinking through a cluster of confused thoughts, before she blurted out: 'You don't want this, do you? You can't want it.'

  He didn't know what to say in reply, he honestly didn't know any more.

  'Every time we've made love since you said we could start trying for a baby, you haven't been able to come. I don't need to be Brain of Britain to work out what's going on,' she said. It was true. It was obvious. And he just didn't know where to go from here. Or, more like, where to come from here.

  She swung one long leg over, so she could move off him, and faced him now with her arms crossed over her breasts.

  'You don't want me enough, Joseph,' she told him angrily. 'You don't want us to start a family and you can't get that bloody woman out of your head.'

  He didn't know what to say. It was complicated

  ... It was Eve, it was Anna and Robbie, it was Michelle ... it was him. He had two children. It was as if this had only just become a reality for him. He had just come back from London, to Michelle who had told him within about half an hour – the very expensive diamond flashing on her hand as she waved it about in excitement – that the Italian hotel she'd wanted for the wedding was available, t
hat she just needed a deposit cheque to secure it... oh and thank goodness he was back in time because tonight was a very good night for ... trying.

  He'd acted the happy guy. He'd looked through the hotel brochure – although they still hadn't had another conversation about whether or not his children would be allowed to come to this wedding – he'd let himself be led to the bedroom, although he was really tired, and somewhere in the back of his mind were all the doubts, worries and troubles which were now spilling out to the fore.

  He wasn't ready for another baby. Things were quite complicated enough with Robbie.

  And then Eve ... what the hell was that stuff going on there that night when . . . ? Should he really be marrying Michelle just yet? Maybe this was all way too fast.

  'Haven't you got anything to say?' she was asking him furiously now.

  'Of course I do, Michelle,' he told her. 'But it's difficult to explain without hurting you. I don't want to hurt you...' He stroked just once, gently down her face.

  'Are you still in love with her?' Michelle's hands were gripped tightly to her upper arms.

  'I don't think so. But I miss my children. I really miss them.' He detected just the slightest of cracks in his voice and tried to clear his throat.

  'Poor Joe,' she said and put an arm round his shoulder. "That's why we need a baby of our own. A new family for you and me to belong to.'

  'Michelle. I can't just drop the other two and start from scratch. They need a dad too. Are you really going to be able to share me with them?' His voice was low, barely above a whisper, but she caught every single word.

  'You should never have gone down to babysit,' she said, snatching her arm back from him, 'I knew this was going to be a mistake. She's trying to get you back, trying to get you to feel sorry for her.'

  He wanted to laugh at this: 'Eve?' he heard himself ask. 'Sorry for her? She's the most together person I know and anyway, she's got everyone.' He felt the choke at the edge of his voice again.

  Something in Michelle's face changed with this and he knew he'd said far too much.

  'Me? Or her? Joseph. It's your choice.'

  'Oh don't be so melodramatic. There is nothing going on between me and Eve, hasn't been for years,' and he felt his face flush because this was now a lie.

  'I'm going to be her friend,' he told Michelle. 'I'm going to be really involved with the children. Maybe it's you who needs to make the choice, Michelle? Me with my kids or not at all.'

  'And what about our kids, Joe? Where do they fit in?' she shouted back at him.

  'I don't know,' he said, 'I don't know the answer to any of this.' He was now feeling as deflated as the damp and shrivelled-up penis between his legs.

  'Well fuck you.' She got off the bed and his heart sank with the ugly, ugly words he hated to hear her say. 'Fuck you, Joseph—' she wrenched open the drawer and began to tug on underwear and a T-shirt, 'I'm 27, I want to get married, I want to start a family. If you're not up for it, I'll have to find someone else who is.'

  'Look, it's late,' he said as soothingly as he could, 'Maybe we should sleep on this and talk about it again in the morning.'

  'No!' She was brushing away furious tears as she yanked on jeans and boots, then snatched up her phone, her keys and her handbag: 'I've got to get out of here,' she shouted, 'What is the point?'

  She slammed the wardrobe door as hard as she could, tears streaming down her face now. 'I'm going to move out, Joe... I'm serious. I just don't see any point. What is the fucking point?'

  'Michelle!' He got out of bed now and fumbled to tie on his dressing gown.

  'Just fuck off.' She waved a hand in the air and there was a faint tinkling, rolling noise, then the bedroom door slammed shut behind her.

  He sat down on the bed. He couldn't think of anything he wanted to say to her to bring her back. Maybe he should just let her go. The only thing he was sure of at this moment was the huge doubt in his mind... he didn't know if he would ever be as happy with Michelle as he had once been with Eve.

  But where the hell did that leave him? Stuck in a place from which there didn't seem to be any going back or any going forward.

  He ran a hand over the baseboard of the cherrywood sleigh bed . . . with the newly laundered Irish linen sheets. He took in the architect-designed wardrobes, the polished oak floorboards, the outrageously expensive Danish-design lamp on the bedside table. It was all crap. He was still just himself, not any better, not any more important, not any more powerful or intelligent, or knowledgeable for all this stuff.

  And, even worse, this flat didn't feel like home. Had never felt like home. This place was just temporary... a beautifully designed pose... something he'd thought he could do for a while before he finally went back home. And home was still the chaotic little place where tea bags were composted, walls were covered in Blu-Tack and there was always a slightly strange mix of smells like onion soup and lavender.

  Oh God. It was far too late... she would never forgive him. And there was someone else for her too ... And poor Michelle.

  'I've completely fucked up,' he said out loud. 'How is any of this going to work out?' It was also just occurring to him what that strange tinkling, rolling sound was: the noise a heavy three diamond and platinum ring might make as it hits a wooden floor and rolls away.

  It served him right. It really did. He was never going to fall asleep now. He went into his sleek, black and marble kitchen, clicked on the Starck kettle and wondered exactly when he had turned into such a selfish prat.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  'OK Robbie, that's enough.' Eve took the little index finger off the bell and they listened to the clump, clump, clump of footsteps coming down the hall to meet them. The door swung open and there was Tom grinning, saying hello, squatting down to hug Robbie, and they were all ushered into the flat.

  Eve, carrying a parcel of home-made treats, could tell she had walked straight into a big scene. Deepa was huddled into a corner of the sofa looking stormy and Tom was being all awkward and twitchy.

  'Just sit yourselves down, wherever you like. I'm going to put the kettle on – and hide!' This was meant as a little jolly-along for Deepa, but she just stared at him and didn't make any reply.

  'Come and chat.' Tom directed this at Anna and she got up with Robbie in tow and followed him out of the room.

  'Sorry about this,' Deepa said when she was left alone with Eve. 'We're in the middle of a big fight.'

  'D'you want us to come back another time?' Eve asked her.

  'No, no, don't be silly,' Deepa said and then she was in tears.

  'Oh... silly me...' she was sort of gulping and sniffing. 'Hormones, isn't it? You're supposed to go completely bonkers by the end and I'm not even there yet.'

  'Hey, it's OK,' Eve soothed. 'You're allowed to shout, scream, cry, change your mind, eat bananas dipped in Marmite .. . whatever helps to get you through.'

  Deepa managed a little smile at this and was maybe about to say something else when the doorbell rang again.