by Frances Pye
He wasn’t trying to replace his lost sons. That was totally impossible. Mark and Ben were Mark and Ben and no one could take their place, ever, ever. But he didn’t only miss them as individuals. He also missed the fact of having a child around. Their noise, their mess, their laughter, even their tears. It was one of the reasons he was so enjoying being with Paul.
So tonight had been his idea. To celebrate, of course, but also to bring some normalcy back into his and Jules’s relationship. The sex—thank God—was over and they needed to put it behind them. Forget it if they could and concentrate on being coparents. Sean had asked Lily for the name of Jules’s favorite place to eat—the Dunmore—and had made a reservation. He had a large bunch of flowers clasped in his hand along with a book about pregnancy and a minuscule white-and-yellow sleeping suit for the baby.
He reached out and rang the bell.
THE DUNMORE was not one of the newer, hip additions to London hotels. It had been around since Victorian times and the decor hadn’t changed since the thirties. But it was still the hotel of choice for many celebrities who preferred its old-world charm and traditional service to the more modern, trendy atmosphere of the Metropolitan or the Sanderson.
It was eight o’clock. The plush restaurant to the left of the marble-and-gold lobby was three-quarters full with diners and hovering, black-tied waiters. To the right, the pink-and-gray bar was empty. Apart from Martin, the barman, famous for his martinis, who was polishing glasses, and Clive Morris, who was lurking at the far end, sipping from a half-empty pyramid-shaped goblet.
It was Tuesday. And on Tuesdays Clive always visited the the Dunmore bar to talk to Martin. To find out just who had arrived that week. And, if he was lucky and Martin had been able to get a look at the reservations, who was expected. The two had had an agreement for over a year. Clive paid Martin a small retainer for his exclusive services and a series of substantial bonuses based on information received. It suited both of them.
It had been a quiet week. An older American film star had been expected but had canceled due to illness, and a famous literary lion from South America was ensconced in the Presidential Suite. Not much of interest for Clive’s readers.
He drained his glass and put it down. Time to move on. He had been romancing the concierge at the Lanesborough for some time, hoping to tempt the man to the same deal as Martin. Maybe he’d hop over there, give it another go. Last week, he thought he’d sensed the man wavering.
“That’s it, Martin. I’m off. Same time next week?”
“No problem. May be a better slate then. October’s often slow, though.”
“Yeah, yeah. Excuses, excuses.”
Clive stood up and put on his coat. Outside, in the lobby, the doorman swung open the front door to the hotel to let Sean and Jules in. Clive walked out of the bar just in time to see them disappear into the restaurant. And his nose for a story gave a little, preliminary twitch. What was Lily’s escort at the Comedy Awards doing here with Jules?
Concealed by a pillar, he watched them being seated in the center of the dining room, then walked up to the middle-aged man on the restaurant’s front desk and asked for a table behind and to the side so that there was little chance of Jules seeing him. He’d prefer Sean not to see him either, just in case Lily had pointed him out at the awards dinner, but given a choice between the two, he’d definitely take Sean. There was only a slim chance he’d know Clive, whereas Jules would recognize her friend’s ex-husband immediately. And wonder what the hell he was doing there. She’d know he wasn’t the Dunmore restaurant type. Hadn’t been even in his successful TV period.
He looked at the menu, ordered the least expensive things he could find, and settled down to watch.
SEAN MOVED the dry, unappetizing pieces of meat around on his plate. They were now on their main course and he had yet to see what it was that made this Jules’s favorite restaurant. The food was, well, “ordinary” was the kindest adjective he could think of. Everything was a touch overdone, and it all somehow tasted alike, as if it had been cooked in the same all-encompassing giant pot. He decided that he had had enough of his chicken, laid down his cutlery, and looked up to see Jules watching him with a smile.
“That was delicious,” he said.
“Liar. It was dry, overcooked, and not all that tasty.”
“Damn Lily. She told me this was your favorite restaurant.”
“It is. But not for the food. They do great breakfasts and teas here, but almost everything else is a bit dull. I love the room, the decor, the way it feels. The tradition of it. My grandfather used to bring me here for lunch when I was a child. I loved him, so I love the Dunmore.”
“I didn’t do wrong, then, bringing you here?”
Jules touched Sean’s hand for a moment. “You did very right. As I said, I love it. And the desserts make up for the rest of the food. Come on, let’s make pigs of ourselves. I’m eating for two, you know.”
Sean laughed. “No. Really?”
“Yes. Really.” Jules’s face softened. “And I owe that to you.” She leaned over the table and reached out to stroke Sean’s face, to run her fingers from his cheek to his chin.
Sean blushed. “It was nothing.”
“No it wasn’t. You gave me what I’ve always wanted. A child of my own to love. And you did it in the way I wanted even though I know you felt bad about it afterward. But you didn’t complain or presume anything from it. You were the perfect donor.” She leaned over the table and kissed Sean full on the mouth. “Thank you for my baby.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t need to say anything. Now, let’s get on with choosing our puds. I definitely want pavlova. And something chocolate.”
HALFWAY THROUGH his roast lamb, Clive had begun to regret staying on. Sean and Jules had been friendly enough with each other but had done nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing intimate. They could be and probably were just two mates out for dinner. His nose for a story had never steered him wrong before but he was starting to think that this could be the first time. After all, what did he know about Sean? He’d been seen out with Lily, acting as if he was much more than a mere escort to her. Now he was having dinner with Jules, one of Lily’s best friends. Big deal. Nothing major in that. Maybe they both knew him. Maybe Lily had met him through Jules. Maybe he was just part of their social circle.
Clive pushed his meal aside and was about to wave for the waiter and ask for the bill when he saw Jules reach out and touch Sean’s hand. A moment later, she stroked his cheek. And he appeared to blush. And then she leaned over the table and kissed him.
Clive’s nose twitched again and more strongly this time. Something was going on. He had no idea what was happening, or why, but he intended to find out. Maybe it wasn’t the kind of thing he was looking for, but it was worth investigation. Just in case he’d found, by pure luck, the story he’d been seeking for months.
forty-three
Mara stood huddled in a phone box opposite an enormous electrical goods store. It was eight at night but the lights were still on, the doors still open, the customers still emerging with large boxes containing all the compelling morsels of modern technology. Computers, mobile phones, fax machines—you name it, Techno World sold it. And sold it.
When Mara had been living at home, her father had had only two bargain shops, both in low-rent areas, both cluttered with small stuff like toasters and clocks and kettles. Since then, he had specialized, concentrated on the growing communications and IT business. He’d kept the low prices, kept to the less-expensive areas, and every time he had had some spare capital, he had expanded. Now, there was a Techno World in every city in the UK. And Shama Mattajee owned them all, outright.
This was the London flagship, recently opened in a blaze of publicity in a modern, warehouselike building in Mill Hill. And managed by Roshan, Mara’s baby brother, now grown into a tall, handsome, fashionably dressed man according to the article she had read and the picture accompanyi
ng it. She looked over at the store through the dirty glass of the telephone box, hoping to spot him. She was sure he would be there somewhere—their father had always been a tough taskmaster and would expect the family to work as hard and as long as he did. But there was no sign of him. Just hordes and hordes of happy customers. Roshan was probably holed up in an office somewhere, counting the profits. She would have to go in and find him.
Crossing her fingers and asking Jake to watch over her, she exited the telephone box and walked into the store. Her eyes blinked at the bright neon lights and she stared around in amazement. The place appeared large from the outside, but from the inside, it was absolutely huge. And filled with the latest in modern technology. Ranks and ranks and ranks of hulking, pale grayish-cream computers, standing at attention, screens at the ready. Of tiny mobile phones, many no bigger than a business card. Of printers and faxes and discs and software. Her father had come a long way from remaindered fans and out-of-date electric razors.
She looked around. No sign of Roshan. She needed to ask someone. The staff all seemed to be wearing red-and-green-striped hats so that they were identifiable from a distance. She spotted one standing idle for a moment. “Can you tell me where I’d find Roshan Mattajee?”
Five minutes later, she was outside a faceless, brown, Portakabin-like door. The salesman she’d spoken to had been very helpful once she’d mentioned that she was Roshan’s sister. She reached out, her hand shaking, and knocked on the door. Please, oh please, may he be nice….
“Come in.”
Mara opened the door and stepped into the plain, MDF office. Roshan was sitting at a utilitarian desk, working on a computer. “Problem?” he asked without looking up, presuming that she was one of the store’s sales staff.
“Yes, er, a little,” Mara said in her soft voice. This was even more difficult than she had thought.
Roshan’s head snapped up. To see a strangely familiar woman swaddled in an outsized black sweater and long, loose skirt. “Who are you?”
“I’m Mara…your sister.”
“Mara?” Roshan got up from his desk, walked around it, and peered into his visitor’s face. “It is. It’s Mara.” He put his arms around her and hugged her hard.
Mara laughed. “Hold on. That hurts.”
Roshan pulled back and looked up at a closed-circuit camera in the corner of the room. “Come with me. Quick, come on.” He hustled Mara out of the office, down the corridor, and out of the building through an emergency exit. Once in the open air, he led her behind a pair of half-full Dumpsters. “Okay. We’re safe here.”
“Safe?”
“Dad. There are cameras everywhere.”
“He can’t watch them all, surely?”
“No. But he’s reputed to look at every tape to check up on us. Me especially.”
“Still the rebel?”
“That’s you. Anything I do couldn’t come close to you running away.”
“He’s not still angry about it?”
“Your name is never mentioned.”
“So I’m a pariah?”
Roshan shrugged. “We were all commanded not to talk to you after you left. And he’s never said anything about revoking that order.”
“But it was almost twenty years ago.”
“You know Dad.”
“He’s not mellowed with age?”
Roshan laughed. “Not likely.” Mara’s face dropped. “What is it? What are you doing here anyway? Years of nothing and then you turn up in my office.” He stared at his sister. “Were you hoping for something from him?”
“It’s my daughters.” In a few simple, short sentences, Mara described the trouble she was in to her brother. “So I need a family. And money. For the central heating. And the roof.”
“I don’t know.”
“They’re his grandchildren.”
“But they’re yours.”
“Yes.”
“And you were banished from the family.”
“I have to see him, Roshan. I have to at least ask.”
“It won’t be nice. Even if he does give you the money, he’ll expect something for it. And it’s bound to be something you won’t want to give. You know Dad.”
“Whatever it is, it’ll be better than living without my girls.”
“What did you want me to do?” Roshan looked scared. “Support you?”
“No. Don’t worry. I don’t want to mess up your life. All I need is his address. I won’t tell him where I got it, I promise. I’ll say I saw the house in the newspaper and did some research.”
“When are you thinking of going?”
“Sunday? After lunch? He was always at his mellowest then.”
“I don’t know.”
“Please, Rosh. I don’t have time to find out on my own. Please? I promise I won’t betray you.”
forty-four
Jules closed the door behind the Harrods delivery man. She walked through to her living room, sat down, and started to open the package. No doubt it was another gift from Sean. When they had first started arriving, she’d been delighted. She loved getting presents. But a giant teddy bear, two stuffed seals, a pair of tiny Nike sneakers, and three books on motherhood later, and she was getting tired of the endless stream of baby-related deliveries. Tired and worried.
She pulled a hand-carved, hand-painted mobile, to hang over a crib, out of the package. A ring of bright planets and stars. It was beautiful. And expensive. And not the gift of a disinterested party.
At Lily’s barbecue, when Jules had first told Sean she was looking for a donor, she had explained that the baby was going to be hers and hers alone. That she would not expect or want anything from the father apart from the initial sperm. She could not have been more clear. But when she’d called him to say thank you after the first gift arrived, he’d spoken about the baby as if he were going to be around when it was born. As if he’d have an important role in its life. As if he already loved it.
Over the last week or so, she had tried gently to remind Sean of their original deal. But it seemed he hadn’t heard her. Otherwise, why all the packages? A dinner, a small farewell present, that would have been acceptable, but the growing pile of gifts seemed to indicate that Sean was thinking of himself as a father. And if that were true, she needed to dissuade him. And quickly. She didn’t want to hurt him—without his contribution there would be no baby—but she needed to make it plain to him. The child was hers to love and be loved by. No man was going to come between her and it.
She picked up the phone and dialed his mobile. He answered after one ring.
“Jules! Did you get the mobile?”
“Yes. I wanted to talk to you about it.”
“Did you like it? Great, isn’t it?”
“Of course I liked it. It’s beautiful.”
“I thought it’d look great over the baby’s crib. We need to give him something to look at. Keep him interested in his world.”
“Him? His?”
“Well, for now. Until we know. I can’t go around calling our baby ‘it.’”
Oh, no. Our baby. He did believe he was going to be a part of this. “Sean, I don’t think you should be buying so many things for my baby.” Listen to me, Sean. The word is “my.”
“It’s okay. I can afford it.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“And I’m loving looking for things. I saw the most wonderful new buggy the other day. Triangular, very light, folds up very small. I got all these brochures. I thought I’d go and get one next week.”
“Please don’t. I want to get my buggy myself.” My buggy, Sean.
“Do you? Fine, of course you do. Maybe we could go together? The shop’s a bit of a trek, in Barnes, but I could pick you up?”
“No, no, no. I want to do this alone.”
“Okay.”
“Sean, the baby’s mine.”
“Course it is.”
“And I need to prepare for it in my own way. I want to choose my own thi
ngs. It’s part of the pleasure of it all. Planning the room, buying the clothes. The crib. The car seat. And the buggy.”
“Okay. Okay. I just wanted to help.”
“I know you did. And the gifts have all been lovely. But they’ve got to stop. All right?”
“Yeah. All right.”
“It’s not that I’m not grateful, but I’ve been looking forward to doing all this for years. I want to buy the things I’ll need for when it’s just me and my baby, by ourselves.” There. She couldn’t be clearer than that unless she actually told him to go away.
“I suppose I just wanted to feel part of things.”
“I know. But this is my time now.”
“Your time.”
“You do understand?”
“Yes. Yes, course I do. Your time.”
“But thank you for the mobile. The baby’ll love it, I know.”
“You’re both welcome.”
Jules put down the phone. Sean seemed to have understood, but something told her that this was not the end of it. Looking back, she thought he’d given in too easily. She hoped she was wrong. She hoped he’d taken what she said on board and was now ready to accept his nonexistent role in her baby’s life. If she was right…well, she would just have to be more forceful next time. Much more forceful.
forty-five
“This is amazing.”