The French House

by Nick Alexander

  ‘Fuck!’ I say to no one in particular.

  I sit and stare at the wall for a few minutes, and then realising that I can’t even think clearly until I get out of Iain’s stress-filled space, I shower, dress, pack my things into the smallest corner of the spare room, and step outside. It’s icy cold, but the sky is blue and the sun is shining.

  I only have to walk two hundred yards before I come to a Starbucks, and lured by a comfy sofa in the sunny window, I enter.

  Armed with a mug of tea, I attempt to call Victor’s mobile, but yet again it is switched off.

  I sip my tea and run a hand over my belly. I think about the fact that I need to see a gynaecologist to check that everything is OK, and think about the fact that the man I’m supposedly dating, the father of this child, is, or at least was, a gynaecologist. He was my gynaecologist. The fact that he isn’t even aware that he has probably fathered a child seems really quite obscene.

  Clutching at straws, I desperately try his number one ‘last’ time. Uttering, ‘Well be damned with you then!’ I cast the phone back into my bag.

  I take another sip of tea and stare out of the window. At the end of the street I can see a vast billboard carrying an orange advertisement for easyJet. Which is pretty much the only answer here.

  I sigh deeply, retrieve my phone from my bag and call SJ.

  ‘Are you at home?’ I ask. ‘Because I think I need to book a—’

  ‘I was just this second going to call you,’ she interrupts.

  ‘Right. So can I come over?’

  ‘You’ve got a visitor,’ she says. ‘Someone’s here to see you.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. A very angry someone.’

  ‘Iain?’

  ‘No! Not Iain! Victor’s here. Can you come over? Because he’s doing my head in.’

  ‘Victor? He’s there?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘What’s he doing there?’

  ‘Just come over, will you?’

  ‘And he’s angry?’

  ‘Oh yes!’

  ‘You haven’t told him about the baby?’

  ‘No,’ SJ says. ‘I thought I’d leave that to you.’

  ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ I tell her. ‘About half an hour, I expect.’

  ‘Take a Valium,’ she says.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘If you’ve got any Valium, take one now.’

  ‘I don’t do Valium,’ I say.

  ‘Shame,’ she says. ‘I think you’re gonna need it. Maybe bring a crash helmet instead.’

  ‘Don’t let him go till I get there, OK?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s going anywhere,’ she says. ‘Not until he’s given you a right bollocking, anyway.’

  ROUND ONE

  By the time I get to my old flat, my stomach is knotted with stress. I ring the doorbell, and it is Victor who opens the door. His expression alone is enough to communicate that he hasn’t calmed down in the intervening half an hour.

  ‘She’s out,’ he says. ‘We have the whole place to fight in.’ He gestures inwards, indicating that I may enter, which, seeing as it is my flat, rather annoys me.

  Feeling more nauseous than ever, I walk past his rigid body without making contact. ‘I already spent all morning fighting with Mark’s boyfriend,’ I tell him softly. ‘I don’t want to fight with you at all.’

  ‘Well, I do,’ he says menacingly, as he closes the door behind me.

  Because the hard surfaces of the kitchen seem somehow better suited to the tense atmosphere of this reunion, that’s where I head for. I’m hoping to end up in the soft furnishings of the lounge later on, but we’re clearly not there yet.

  When I reach the kitchen, I pause just inside the doorway in the hope that I can force a hug to soften things up, but as Victor squeezes past me he raises one hand to hold me at a distance – a shocking first.

  ‘Victor?’ I ask, my fake smile fading. ‘What is the matter?’

  ‘The matter?’ he asks, crossing to the farthest corner of the room and folding his arms defensively. ‘I’m so fucking angry, I can barely speak,’ he says.

  I stare at him warily. His eyes are cold and glassy. He looks like he has lost weight. In fact, with his new beard, he looks so different that he looks like someone I barely know at all.

  It crosses my mind that if anyone should be angry here, it’s me. But expressing that isn’t going to help, so I say, ‘OK. Why are you angry? Let’s start there.’

  ‘Why?’ he spits. ‘Why?!’

  I swallow hard. ‘Yes,’ I say in a pleading tone. ‘Why?’

  ‘You fucked off.’

  ‘I didn’t fuck off,’ I say, starting to feel annoyed myself now. ‘I needed a break.’

  ‘A break . . .’ Victor repeats angrily.

  ‘Yes. I wasn’t feeling well, and my boyfriend was being horrible, and there were dead cats in the water supply, and I was cold and lonely, and I needed a break from that hellhole.’

  Victor fumbles in his pocket and produces a folded slip of paper. ‘And this?’ he says.

  I peer at the paper, but don’t cross the kitchen to take it from him. I’m feeling a little scared of him, no doubt because he’s reminding me of Ronan when he was on one of his drunken benders.

  ‘I don’t know what that is,’ I say. ‘Have you been drinking?’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ Victor says. ‘Unless you count tea. This is the note you left.’

  ‘I tried to phone you,’ I explain. ‘You were ignoring my calls, so—’

  ‘I wasn’t ignoring them,’ Victor says. ‘You see, that’s what you’re like about everything. I dropped my phone in the fucking toilet. So it’s fucked. Sorry ’bout that. But shit happens, you know?’

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘Well, I couldn’t get through, that’s all I was saying, so I left you a note to explain where I was. But I still don’t see why you’re so angry.’

  ‘Did you even read it?’ Victor says.

  ‘I don’t need to read it,’ I say, my irritation now creeping into my voice. ‘I wrote it.’

  ‘Here,’ he says, proffering the letter.

  I sigh angrily and cross the room to take it – at arm’s length – from his grasp. I rescan the letter.

  ‘I know what’s in the note. I wrote it. And?’

  ‘Well, that’s not a note that describes a weekend break, is it?’ Victor says. ‘It says you’re sick of everything and sick of me, and you’re leaving.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ I protest. ‘It says . . .’ I reread the letter, but as far as this page is concerned, he’s actually pretty close. ‘OK. Well I felt really let down, Victor.’

  ‘You felt let down?’

  ‘It’s maybe a bit harsh,’ I say, unnerved by his rage. ‘But the second page—’

  ‘A bit harsh?’

  ‘Yes. But the other page . . .’

  ‘There was no other page.’

  ‘Yes there is. I wrote two pages.’

  ‘No there wasn’t,’ he says. ‘That’s it.’

  ‘But you saw the second page. You must have.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘You must have, Victor. It said that I love you and I need a break, and . . .’

  ‘CC,’ Victor says. ‘There. Was. No. Second. Page.’ He crosses the room and snatches the letter back from me before retreating again to the other side of the room. ‘Look,’ he says, waving the sheet at me. ‘You even signed it at the bottom. At the end.’

  ‘I know I did. But then I felt bad, and I added a second page.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t find it.’

  ‘How could you not find it?’ I ask. ‘The two sheets were folded together.’

  ‘Only they weren’t,’ he says. ‘Cut the crap, CC. You walked out on me, and now you’re feeling bad, and—’

  ‘So you don’t believe me? Again?’

  He shrugs.

  ‘Jesus, well doesn’t that make a fecking change,’ I say, unable to contain my own anger any longer. �
�You don’t believe me when I tell you the food’s making me ill, or when your crazy aunt is putting tarot cards under the shutters, or when I tell you she has been putting dead kittens in the water supply. There’s a real theme there, Victor. Can you spot it? Go on. Have a go. Try. Win yourself a fecking prize.’

  ‘It wasn’t her,’ Victor says flatly.

  ‘What?’ I say, so angry that the ‘wh’ of what whistles past my lips.

  ‘It wasn’t Distira,’ Victor says. ‘It was Carole.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It was Carole. OK? I know that. So I do believe you.’

  I shake my head. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I saw the cats. In the bag. I took them over there and dumped them on the kitchen table, OK? And Distira didn’t even know. It was Carole.’

  ‘But why? Why would she do that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Victor says. ‘Maybe she was jealous? Maybe she’s fucking crazy. Maybe all women are. How should I know?’

  ‘Well now you know,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t making things up.’

  ‘Yes. I know. I believe you.’

  ‘Now you believe me,’ I say. ‘But not before. It took Carole to tell you, didn’t it? My word alone wasn’t enough!’

  ‘CC! The whole thing sounded crazy. Even you can see that.’

  ‘Even me? Even I can see that?’

  ‘I mean . . .’

  ‘I know what you mean. And yes. The whole thing sounded crazy because it is crazy. Only I’m not the crazy one, am I?’

  ‘Maybe not, but—’

  ‘Maybe? Maybe?! Victor, you just said yourself that it was Carole. So now you know that I wasn’t making anything up. And what I can’t quite get, what I’m finding absolutely unbelievable, is that you’re not even here to apologise. You’re here to have a go at me. How do you manage that little acrobatic feat, eh?’

  ‘I never actually said that you were making it up.’

  ‘That’s exactly what you said,’ I spit.

  ‘I didn’t. I just said that Distira wouldn’t do that, and I was right.’

  ‘Well, that must feel so good,’ I say, aware that I’m starting to sound like a bitch, but unable to control it.

  ‘It feels better than being told that my aunt is trying to poison me!’ Victor says, shouting now.

  ‘Really?’ I say, shouting back. ‘So no regrets, then? No apologies? Nothing?’

  ‘Why should I?’ Victor says, turning bright red now. ‘Why make this about me? What about you? Running off with your little gay friend at the first sign of trouble.’

  ‘My little gay friend?’ I shake my head and glare at Victor. ‘How fucking dare you! Mark’s one of my closest friends. And you know it. And if I called him, it’s because he, at least, trusts my judgement.’

  ‘Right, but—’

  ‘When you, you didn’t believe a word I was saying.’

  ‘That’s not fair, CC. You’ve known Mark for years,’ Victor says.

  ‘What, so now you’d need to know me for fifteen years before you can take my word that someone’s putting dead cats in the water tank?’

  Victor’s nostrils flare. ‘If you’re gonna bang on about the same stuff over and over, then this is pointless,’ he says. ‘We’re just going round and round here.’

  He sounds like he’s losing, which gives me a fresh burst of energy. ‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘It is pointless, because if you can’t even take my word for—’

  ‘I suppose you’re staying with him as well? At Mark’s?’ Victor asks, interrupting me.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I suppose that’s where you’re staying? Mark’s?’

  I shake my head. ‘No, Victor,’ I say. ‘I’m not. I’m staying here tonight.’

  ‘But SJ said I— Never mind.’

  ‘Sorry. This is my place, remember?’ I say meanly. ‘And SJ is my friend.’

  Victor stares at me in silence for a moment, his mouth slightly ajar, then says, ‘Fine, if that’s the way you want it.’ He turns and heads down the hallway, then reappears from the lounge with a hefty backpack. ‘I’ll find somewhere else to stay,’ he says.

  ‘You could try my little gay friend,’ I shout after him. ‘Maybe he’ll put you up.’

  ‘I have friends,’ Victor says. ‘Don’t worry about me.’

  As he heaves his backpack on and turns to leave, I open my mouth to call him back. But then the door slams, and it’s too late. He has gone.

  I suddenly realise that because I don’t know where he is going, I have no way of contacting him, and lurch towards the front door. But as I reach for the door handle, and as his silhouette behind the patterned glass shrinks, pride holds me back, and my hand drops to my side.

  After Victor’s departure, I pace angrily up and down the kitchen for ten minutes, unable to find a way to release the energy trapped in my body from so much anger. Tears would help, and I’m kind of expecting them to burst forth at any minute, but for the moment there is nothing but a trembling rage. I pace up and down a few more times, and then, feeling like a caged animal, I pull on my jacket and rush out of the front door before beginning to stomp my way up Primrose Hill, and then on into Regent’s Park.

  The air is so cold that it hurts my lungs. The view down to central London is stunningly crisp and clear, but my vision is too red-tinged right now for me to be able to appreciate it.

  By the time I have lapped the park twice, I’m starting to feel calmer and when a glance at my phone reveals that over an hour has passed, I realise that I am also incredibly hungry. I decide to head back.

  SJ opens the door wearing an apron. The flat reeks of vegetable soup.

  ‘I wasn’t sure if you were coming back,’ she says, heading back through to the kitchen. ‘But I’ve made masses of soup, so if you’re hungry . . .?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I needed a stomp. And yes, I’m starving. I’d love some.’

  ‘Things didn’t go well with Vicky-Vick then?’ she asks, returning to stirring the soup.

  ‘No, they really didn’t.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ she says, in a tone that so understates the seriousness of the situation that it almost makes me laugh.

  Over soup and bread, I give her a blow-by-blow account of the argument. Being my best friend, she of course agrees that Victor is being a bastard and a dickhead. In fact, she agrees entirely with everything I say. And with the mood that I’m in, that’s probably just as well.

  ‘And then he grabbed his bag from the lounge and stormed out,’ I say, finishing my story and omitting the bit where I reminded him that this was my flat and that SJ my friend.

  ‘Well, like you say, dickhead covers it,’ she says. ‘But what about the baby? What did he say about you being pregnant and that?’

  ‘I didn’t tell him,’ I say.

  She raises both eyebrows and stares at me over her soup. ‘You didn’t tell him? Why the fuck not?’

  ‘I don’t know, SJ. He was too angry. And I didn’t want to use the pregnancy to fix all of this other stuff. Because it can’t fix it. And I don’t want to use the baby to trap him. I want us to be together in spite of this, not because of it. I want to be sure I want to be with him before I tell him . . .’ My voice peters out, because suddenly I’m not sure why I didn’t tell him.

  SJ nods.

  ‘I’m not making much sense, am I?’

  ‘Actually yes,’ she says. ‘I understand, but I still think you should have told him. If you love him, that is.’

  I lift a spoonful of soup to my mouth and think about that phrase.

  ‘So? Do you?’ SJ prompts, tearing into a chunk of bread.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘I’m really not sure any more. I guess that’s the real problem. I mean, can you love someone who doesn’t believe a word you say? Someone you can’t trust to look after you when you’re ill? I don’t know.’

  ‘I know what you mean, but he’s only human. We’re all dickheads from time to time. Even you. Even me. Eve
n George.’

  ‘George is never a dickhead,’ I say.

  SJ wrinkles her nose. ‘OK, maybe George isn’t that much. But I am. I’m totally out of control at times. And he puts up with it. Because that’s what you do if you want to make things last.’

  I nod thoughtfully.

  ‘So you’ll get over this. Vic will calm down and he’ll come back, and you’ll forgive him for being a dickhead, and this will all be a funny story you’ll look back on when you’re old and your kids are all grown up.’

  These, finally, are the words that bring forth tears. Because they remind me, beyond being right or wrong, or Victor being fair or unfair, what is really at stake here. On the one hand, being a single mother and remembering the fateful argument that split us apart. Or on the other hand, growing old together and looking back on all of this as a funny episode we got over. And being visited, together, by our child.

  ROUND TWO

  Victor returns before SJ or myself are even out of bed the next morning. George lets him in, has a brief, blokey-sounding conversation with him – all action verbs and no feelings, you know the kind of thing – and then heads off to work.

  I pull on some clothes and, unsure if I feel sick due to morning sickness, nerves, or both, I head through to the kitchen, where I find Victor making himself a cup of tea.

  ‘Hi,’ he says, looking up from his mug, his face giving nothing away. ‘I thought we needed to talk, so . . .’

  ‘We do,’ I say, hesitating about crossing the room to be nearer him until the moment has passed and it’s too late to do so without it assuming more meaning than I would have intended.

  I hear SJ moving around in the bedroom next door and realise that we can’t really have this discussion right here, right now.

  ‘The thing is—’ Victor starts.

  ‘You know what?’ I interrupt. ‘I’m not even awake yet. Can I have a shower and meet you somewhere?’ My voice is trembling.

  ‘Oh, OK. Sure,’ Victor says, sounding almost as nervous as I do.

  ‘You look awful,’ I say. ‘You didn’t sleep rough, did you?’

  ‘No. I stayed with Jeremy,’ Victor says. ‘Though that amounts to pretty much the same thing.’