The House Swap: An absolutely hilarious feel-good romance

by Jo Lovett

  ‘Uncle James?’ she said. ‘I said how many bones are there in a giraffe’s neck?’

  ‘This is your fault.’ Ella pointed at James as she hauled herself off the sofa. ‘A giraffe obsession was the natural next step from the alpaca one. You deal with cervical vertebrae questions. I’m going to get mince pies.’

  ‘Yes, because no-one’s eaten anything for at least an hour,’ Patrick said.

  ‘You have to over-eat on Christmas Day.’

  ‘Uncle James. How many?’ Daisy had her head tilted to one side. James had a sudden rush of memory of Laura looking at him that way, which naturally led him to think of Cassie. He didn’t want to think about Cassie. He pondered the question. He had no idea. Giraffes’ necks were definitely very long.

  ‘Maybe about a hundred?’ he said.

  ‘No!’ Daisy was grinning from ear to ear. ‘Seven. Lots of mammals have seven neck bones. Humans. Mice. Whales. Platypuses.’

  ‘Wow. That’s genuinely interesting and it’s also some seriously good knowledge for someone who’s just turned nine,’ James told her, his heart swelling with, what was that, extreme fondness? Love?

  It was love. He did love his nieces. He loved them a lot. Could he love a child of his own?

  Maybe. Definitely. But could he look after it satisfactorily, love it enough? Well, yes, he could definitely love it enough. But could he love it right? Probably not. He’d have no idea how to be a father.

  He needed to stop thinking about Cassie.

  ‘Do you want some more giraffe facts?’ Daisy asked.

  ‘I certainly do.’ And he really did. Just to watch the way she chortled when she caught him out.

  ‘Thank you so much for reading the kids a story. The perfect Christmas present for tired parents,’ Ella said, handing James a glass of pink champagne as he came back into the room after a riotous bedtime.

  Patrick’s brother and family were also staying, and they had three lively children, all under ten. Five kids in one bedroom didn’t seem like a recipe for a lot of sleep but it did seem like they were going to have a lot of fun tonight as long as their parents turned a blind eye.

  ‘Time to celebrate them all being in bed, and some peace and quiet.’ Ella took a sip of her own drink.

  It had certainly been a noisy day. Strangely, James hadn’t minded the noise and chaos. In fact, he’d enjoyed it.

  ‘Not a problem. I’m actually feeling very smug at the moment. Lottie has some seriously impressive Harry Potter knowledge. And apparently I’m outstandingly talented at doing different Harry Potter characters’ voices.’ He’d genuinely enjoyed it. Who’d have thought? ‘What about a Christmas game of poker?’

  A couple of hours on, they all pushed matchsticks towards Ella while she sucked her cheeks in the way she always had when they were kids and she’d beaten James at something and was trying to look nonchalant.

  ‘You’ve been practising,’ he said.

  Ella stopped sucking her cheeks and laughed out loud. ‘Yes I have. Poker’s very addictive. Also, I’m never going to let my little brother beat me.’

  James shook his head. ‘So ridiculously competitive.’

  ‘Said the most competitive man ever.’ Ella shook her head right back at him and they both laughed. ‘Hot chocolate before bed, everyone?’

  ‘And a couple more hands of poker?’ James said.

  A good hour later, everyone downed cards and matchsticks after the others begged Ella and James for mercy, and Patrick went off to make the hot chocolates.

  Watching the fire’s embers wane, lazily enjoying the others’ conversation, James reflected that this was the best Christmas he could remember. Probably the best of his life. Last year, he’d spent Christmas skiing with a group of single friends, who he wasn’t even that close to, basically to avoid Ella and his thoughts in the aftermath of their mother’s death; and he’d spent New Year at a party with Emily and a group of near-strangers.

  This year he was here for Christmas and he’d agreed to go to Matt and Becca’s for New Year’s Eve. Both immeasurably better. And he wouldn’t be with Ella now if he hadn’t done the house swap and met Cassie.

  He wondered what she was doing for Christmas. Knowing her, she’d probably have made special Christmas food for the alpacas and chickens, and be spending the entire festive period surrounded by family and friends in person and online. He’d love to hear her Christmas stories. He’d love to hear her voice. He’d love to tell her about his own Christmas. He’d love to call her full stop. Probably better not, though.

  Twenty-Eight

  Cassie

  Cassie picked her phone up and looked at it. Then she put it down and looked out of the window at the white-blanketed garden. The first massive snow dump of the season was always breathtaking. Every year, she was stunned anew by its beautiful, sparkly smoothness. And next year, all being well, she’d have a baby to introduce to snow. A baby who she’d seen on her twelve-week scan yesterday. A baby whose father deserved to know about its existence.

  She picked up her phone again.

  So this was it. She was finally going to tell James about the baby. She should probably have told him after her eight-week dating scan but she’d been too paranoid that something might go wrong.

  ‘Cassie. Hi.’ That lovely, gravelly voice. He sounded quite surprised to hear from her – understandably – the only interaction they’d had since he visited Leonie’s grave had been a few texts. But he also sounded pleased. Soon he was presumably going to be a lot more surprised and a lot less pleased.

  ‘Hello.’ Eek. She couldn’t just go straight in with it. Hi, James. I’m twelve weeks pregnant. I thought you should know. No. She needed to find some small talk from somewhere. She should have planned this. ‘Happy new year.’ It was definitely okay to say that even towards the end of January.

  ‘Happy new year to you too. How are you?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m good, thank you. How are you?’

  ‘Yep, great. I’m seeing Ella and her family a lot more. We spent Christmas together. It’s great. All good.’

  ‘I’m so pleased to hear it. Everything’s good here. We have our first big snowfall of the winter today. Later than usual, so it’s been particularly exciting. The animals are all well. Dina and Laura are well.’

  ‘Great.’

  Okay. This was silly. She was just going to go for it.

  ‘I called because I have something to tell you,’ she said.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘It’s actually something really big. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to say it and then I’m going to end the call to let you digest the information. And then there’s no need for you to say anything at all, ever, if you don’t want to. I mean, it will be entirely up to you. I’m not expecting anything from you. I mean, I’d be very happy to hear from you if you’d like to get in touch, but there’s no obligation.’ For goodness’ sake. She really should just stop babbling and get on with it.

  ‘Okay.’ He sounded as though he was laughing slightly. He probably wouldn’t be laughing in a couple of minutes’ time.

  ‘So. The reason that I called is…’ Woah, this was hard to say. ‘It’s that I’m three months pregnant and you’re the father, and I’m keeping the baby. And no need to say anything. I’ll go now.’

  She pressed the red button and ran to the loo and threw up.

  Twenty-Nine

  James

  The phone had gone dead. James moved it so that he could see the screen. Yes, Cassie had in fact hung up. She had told him that she was pregnant and she had ended the call. She had told him that she was pregnant with his baby.

  Pregnant.

  Pregnant.

  He’d genuinely thought for a moment that she was going to say that she loved him and could they try a relationship of some kind. Pretty arrogant of him. Good job she hadn’t realised that he’d thought that.

  Anyway, focusing on the essentials, she was pregnant. She was going to have a baby and he was the father. />
  Wow. Just. Mind-boggling.

  If you were going to get this kind of news, you really didn’t want to be in the back of a taxi on your way to an important client meeting. You’d want to be home alone, or in the middle of the park or the countryside or somewhere, alone. Alone, basically. With time to think, to react, to try to get your mind working again. Right now, James’s mind was completely stunned. He had no idea what he thought.

  The taxi was pulling up outside the client’s offices. Maybe he could cancel the meeting. Pull a sickie. Go home and call Cassie back. Yep. That was a good idea. He’d go with food poisoning. That could come on very suddenly and didn’t have to last long so you could be back in action the next day totally unsuspiciously.

  ‘Actually, mate.’ He leaned forward to speak to the driver to ask him to take him home, and his colleague Pranav knocked on the window, grinning away at him. James contemplated for one second spinning the food poisoning yarn to him and then realised that without any vomit or green features as evidence, he wasn’t going to look particularly convincing. Okay. He was going to have to do the meeting.

  He got out of the cab, had his hand pumped up and down a few times by Pranav and paid the driver.

  ‘I just need to send a quick message,’ he told Pranav. He couldn’t leave Cassie hanging completely.

  Got a meeting. Will call later.

  Also, congratulations.

  Okay. That had sounded a bit odd, but he couldn’t not congratulate her, could he? Given that she’d been going for IVF with a sperm donor, this had to be good news for her. She was bound to be pleased. Unless she thought an anonymous sperm donor would be better than him.

  Good grief. She was pregnant with his baby.

  They should have been more careful.

  They were inside the building now and Pranav had definitely just said something to him but James had no idea what.

  ‘Sorry, mate, I think I misheard what you just said. Could you tell me again?’

  It was extremely difficult to concentrate on the answer and it was also extremely difficult to concentrate in the meeting.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Pranav asked him on the way out.

  ‘I’ve got a bad headache,’ said James, making a snap decision. ‘I’m going to take the rest of the day off.’

  He put in some calls to cancel the other two meetings he’d had lined up for that afternoon and started to walk the couple of miles back to the flat, to clear his head.

  The walk didn’t help. By the time he got home, he still had no idea what he thought about the baby.

  Well, that wasn’t strictly accurate. He did know some things. He knew that he was happy for Cassie, because she’d wanted a baby so much. He knew that he was going to have to be involved in the baby’s life because there was no way that he’d be able to live with the knowledge that there was a child in the world who could have an involved father but didn’t because he, James, had made the decision not to be involved. That would be doing to the baby what his own father had done to him, and he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he did that. He also knew that he wanted the absolute best for the baby, and for Cassie, obviously. And that, even though he was of course going to be involved, he had no role model in his life and he’d probably inherited shit-parent tendencies from both his own parents and he’d probably mess up repeatedly, so it was a good job that he was going to be involved from afar.

  And he also knew that he had absolutely no idea what to say to Cassie.

  No idea at all.

  He really couldn’t speak to her.

  He’d send her a quick text to let her know that he was thinking of her, but was busy. And then he’d get on with some work in his study, the mind-numbingly boring number-crunching kind, that you did have to concentrate on because otherwise you’d make a mistake.

  Maybe while he was working his subconscious would figure out for him what he should say to Cassie.

  He put the kettle on and tapped out a message.

  So sorry, manic day. Speak very soon. Congratulations again.

  One grey tick, two grey ticks.

  It didn’t help his number-crunching, or his subconscious, that he kept glancing at his phone to see if the ticks had turned blue.

  They went blue about an hour in. And then he got a reply.

  She’d sent a photo, with a caption.

  It was a scan photo. Easily recognisable because they all looked the same. Friends and colleagues liked to show them to you and, really, as a non-parent-to-be, it was hard to be that enthralled by them. Just a black and white grainy picture of the inside of a uterus, which was always a bit weird if you knew the owner of the uterus – probably not a very New Man reaction, so he’d never say it out loud, but definitely weird. And a blobby thing which was the start of a baby.

  He read the caption.

  The baby. Picture from 12 week ultrasound. Next one will be at around 20 weeks, to check for anomalies.

  God. Anomalies. That was when they’d discovered that Cassie had lost her baby. She’d be beside herself with worry until then, presumably. He should send her a message to try to comfort her in some way. She’d been a great help when he’d confided in her.

  Am guessing that this will be a worrying time for you and that you’ll be nervous until the next scan. As you said to me when I visited Leonie’s grave: one step at a time. One day at a time.

  When he’d pressed Send, he took a proper look at the scan picture.

  And, in fact, this blob, his blob, didn’t look exactly the same as the other blob scan photos he’d seen. It looked… It actually looked quite beautiful. It was going to grow into a person. It was going to grow into his baby. And Cassie’s baby, obviously. Their baby.

  He needed to google to check exactly what the twelve-week scan showed.

  Yep. Wow. There was a lot you could see, it seemed. Nowadays some scan machines could even see the sex at twelve weeks.

  Woah.

  He needed a glass of water.

  Wow.

  He should really send another message to Cassie.

  The baby looks beautiful in the scan. Speak later.

  He still didn’t know what he was going to say to her. He’d have to leave it until tomorrow to speak to her. Maybe the day after. He needed some time. He needed to speak to her soon, but when he did speak to her, he was going to have to get it right.

  Thirty

  Cassie

  It was eleven o’clock in the morning. Cassie took her book and sat down on her cushion on the bathroom floor to begin her daily four hours of nausea. She knew from friends and the internet that a lot of people had randomly timed morning sickness, but hers was like clockwork, almost to the minute from ten past eleven to ten past three. Sometimes she vomited, sometimes she didn’t, but she always felt like she had gastric flu for the entire four hours. It had happened every single day for the past couple of months since she was about six or seven weeks pregnant. This was a time when she was hugely grateful that, as a writer, she could choose what hours she worked; she’d been doing a lot of evening writing recently, when she was nausea-free.

  The best thing to do was to hang out on the bathroom floor with some cushions and books and then if she did vomit the loo was right there, which was necessary, because the vomit was often quite projectile. It was just one of the many spectacularly unglamorous things about pregnancy. She’d happily take every one of those things, though, if it resulted in a baby to love at the end of it.

  This was a great book. She was really enjoying it. It was very engrossing.

  Three chapters in, she suddenly realised that she was… three chapters in. And she did not feel sick. What time was it? The chapters were quite long. It had to be after ten past.

  It was actually nearly twenty to twelve. As in, nearly half an hour after the nausea usually started. Had she got the time wrong?

  By half twelve she was still reading and she was really hungry. She hadn’t managed lunch at actual lunchtime for two months. She had
a late – and large – lunch every day at about half three, when she’d recovered from the nausea.

  Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. She wasn’t feeling sick at all. Had her pregnancy symptoms all just gone? Had the same thing happened again? Was it her? Did her body kill her babies?

  She needed to do something.

  Dina answered immediately, thankfully. ‘Honey, don’t panic. We’re going to get the next ferry and we’re going to get you to the clinic for a check-up.’

  Cassie messaged James, through tears, while they were on the ferry. The bastard had said he’d ‘speak later’ and then she’d heard nothing, for three weeks, the arse, but she couldn’t bear the thought that he’d be thinking that she was still successfully pregnant if it was all going to go wrong.

  Sudden diminution in pregnancy symptoms. Having scan this afternoon.

  There were double blue ticks immediately and then her phone rang.

  ‘Cassie. Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I hope so much that it’s okay. I’m so sorry also that I haven’t phoned. I picked up the phone so many times and then I just didn’t know what to say other than I love you and I know that wasn’t the right thing to say. But of course I should have phoned. I’m so sorry. And more importantly right now I hope so much that the baby’s alright. And I want to be involved. If it is alright. I should have told you that three weeks ago.’ James sounded hoarse.

  Cassie was crying too much to be able to speak. ‘Thank you. I’ll let you know,’ she said between gulping tears, and pressed red.

  ‘Everything’s fine. You’re a couple weeks into your second trimester. It’s very common for early symptoms to reduce or disappear after the end of the first trimester. Your baby’s looking very well. I’m printing photos for you.’ The sonographer was a very jolly, smiling woman called Ore, and Cassie could have kissed her, except she was busy crying again, big, snotty tears.