‘I’ll talk to him, Sarah,’ Hector is saying. ‘I know that’s not what he wants. It’s just a knee-jerk reaction.’
‘Well, I’m not so sure it’s a bad idea,’ she says miserably. ‘What’s the point of carrying on with a relationship where there’s nothing left between us? You know, Hector, we don’t speak any more, we don’t laugh, it’s just like, “What’s for tea?”, “Did you pay that bill?”, “We need oven cleaner.”’ She shakes her head wearily. ‘I think it’s just naturally reached the end. That’s that.’ Tears start to slide down her cheeks and she sniffs loudly, smearing them away with her fist. On her lap, Jake raises his head and looks at her face. Seeing her crying, he sits up and picks up Bert the bear, then presses it into her hand. ‘I love you, Jake,’ says Glenn’s voice. Jake watches his mum but Bert has no effect on her, so he climbs down from the sofa and leaves the room. I glance at Hector, then I follow.
Upstairs in his room, Jake is kneeling by a large red plastic toy chest. The lid is thrown back and Jake is rummaging furiously around inside. He’s talking away so I move nearer to the door to listen.
‘. . . get the . . . sky-diving Action Man, that’s the best one, and, and, and the giant pirate ship. No, too hard to carry . . . Oscar the owl, he’s my favourite, except for Bert, and maybe the alphabet desk. Take Bob the Builder’s remote-control scrambler, that’s good, and my Thundersaurus Megazord . . . What about Maurice the Monkey? No it’s stupid, doesn’t even look like a monkey, not a proper tail . . . Spiderman ball . . . Just got to get these . . .’
He’s pulled a number of toys out of the chest and tossed them into a rough heap to one side. Now he’s loading them into his arms, scrabbling and struggling to carry them all. He’s obviously getting his favourite toys together to go somewhere, but where? His little pale face is crumpled with concentration as he stands up, arms full of toys.
I back into the bathroom as he heads towards the landing, and hide behind the door. I hear him pass, still muttering.
‘All my best things, gonna let her play with all of them, gonna make her happy again. Dropped the Spiderman ball, bouncing down the stairs. Get it later. She can play with all these, whenever she wants, and all my other stuff. But these are my best ones.’ And he heads off down the stairs.
I was thinking that he was planning on running away and was packing what he saw as the most important things to have with him when he’s alone and fending for himself in a world where child killers seem to lurk on every corner: a Spiderman ball and Oscar the Owl. But as I tiptoe down the stairs behind him, it becomes suddenly very clear what’s going on.
He lurches into the living room, head tipped back to allow room for the things in his arms, bumping into doors, sofa arms, Hector’s outstretched feet; then crouches slowly and allows all the toys to tumble out of his arms on to the floor. Hector and Sarah are watching him curiously. Hector glances at me: I’m standing in the doorway, arms wrapped round myself, tears flowing, eyes fixed on Jake, who has selected an Action Man from the pile.
‘Mummy, do you want to play with my sky-diving Action Man? It’s my best one. You throw him up in the air and his parachute opens and he floats down again. Look.’ He holds the toy out towards his mum, who looks at it for a moment, then takes it and wafts it in the air a couple of times.
‘That’s great, Jakey, thanks,’ she says, smiling wetly, and puts it on her lap. Jake watches her, then goes back to the pile of things. ‘I-I’ve got Thundersaurus Megazord. Look, it morphs into three different dinosaurs.’ Nimbly he demonstrates exactly what the toy does, then folds it all back up and holds it out to his mum too. It joins the Action Man on her lap.
Over the next few minutes, we all watch with astonishment and sadness as Jake returns to the pile of toys, selects one and holds it out to Sarah with a brief description of what it can do. She stretches his stretch Homer (‘You can pull his arms and legs out really far, and he always goes back to how he was’), drives his remote-control car (‘When it bangs into something, it flips over’) and pretends to battle on his treasured Gameboy (‘It’s got Pokemon Yellow game’) until eventually she leans down and opens her arms to him, smiling through tears.
‘Come up here, Jakey, come on, come and give me a cuddle.’
He puts down the Magna Doodle he’s holding and climbs on to her lap, wrapping his arms tightly round her neck, pressing his face to her cheek.
‘Oh, thank you so much, Jake. Thank you, my darling boy.’
Hector and I stand up and head towards the door.
‘Sarah, we’re going now,’ Hector says. ‘Don’t get up – we can see ourselves out. Let me know if you need anything.’ She nods at us over Jake’s shoulder. ‘Good. And I will talk to Glenn. I promise.’
‘Thanks, Hec. See you later, Rach,’ she whispers, rubbing Jake’s back. As we’re walking back down the hall, I hear Jake’s voice saying, ‘Did you like playing with my best things, Mummy?’
Sarah smiles over his shoulder and rubs his back. ‘Oh, Jakey, yes I did, and it was so kind of you to bring them all down for me. But you know, I’m a grown-up and grown-ups don’t really play with toys any more.’
Jake sniffs and leans back to look at his mum’s face. ‘But Daddy used to play Star Wars with me. I was Darth Vader and he was Obi Wan Kenobi. We always used to play that.’
‘I know, love. I wish we could go back to that too. But Daddy’s not here at the moment, it’s just the two of us. Just you and me, the terrible two. OK?’ And she pulls him forward for another tight hug.
But look over her shoulder, at Jake’s face. Have a really good look. Can you see his face slowly changing? His eyes open wider and his mouth turns up from desperate sadness to grim determination. And unheard, he whispers one word into his mummy’s hair: ‘Daddy.’
Chapter Twenty-one
SO TODAY IS my last day at work. At least for a while. I’ve had a letter signed by Vivien Attwood telling me that I am entitled to eighteen weeks’ paid maternity leave, after which time I may take unpaid leave or return to work part time, details to be arranged when it’s convenient to me. I’m to phone in and discuss it with Jean nearer the time, once I know for sure what working pattern suits me and the baby best.
Can you believe that I’m not even worrying about it? What, worry about money and work, when I’m due to be cut open and have a human being dragged from my depths? I don’t think so. There is no room left in my head to worry about anything else.
‘Fuck, Rach, your hair looks awful today.’
‘Oh my God, Rachel, have you heard that we’re all getting a twenty-five per cent pay cut?’
‘Quick, Rachel, there’s a carnivorous dinosaur loose in DP, we’ve all got to evacuate.’
I’m oblivious to everything. I just hope Val drags me out of the building if there’s a fire, because I know I won’t notice the screaming alarms, the freezing-cold water sprinklers and the panicked stampede of everyone else towards the stairs. I will be still sitting there at my desk, dripping with water and smoking slightly, when the fire-fighters burst through the door from the corridor.
The operation is next Thursday, by the way. Did I mention that? Six days away. Yep, 5 April. A date that will from now on and for ever be significant in my life. Just the plain old fifth of April.
When I come back to my desk after a toilet break, there’s a yellow square of paper stuck to my screen saying ‘Chrissie rang’, in Val’s handwriting. It’s Val’s last day today too. Oh, only for a week though. She’s off to Lake Garda with Keith tomorrow.
Anyway, I take the paper off my screen and stare at it in my hand for a few seconds before screwing it up and dropping it in the bin. Chrissie is still off sick, bless her. It must be so stressful being a selfish, home-wrecking bitch. Anyway I really don’t want to hear anything she’s got to say at the moment. The image of Jake’s desperate attempt to cheer up his mum with his best toys the night before last is still haunting me.
I’m going to call Hector. I haven’t spoken to him yet
today. And now I have no fear of him pulling a ‘for-God’s-sake-what-now?’ face. I needn’t have worried about that anyway.
‘I have a very sensible telephonist,’ he told me yesterday, when I told him about the scene I imagined of him with his colleagues, making faces at the phone. ‘I can always leave your name with her, and when you call, get her to tell you that I’m in a meeting or out of town or something. Job done.’
‘McCarthy Systems,’ the receptionist says. I’m trying to picture where she might be sitting, what her surroundings are like. Obviously it’s not a pasting table on the other side of a partition. I’m thinking yucca plant, pictures of Sydney Harbour, red carpet with footprints in it.
‘Hello, may I speak to Hector, please?’
‘Who is calling?’
‘It’s Rachel Covington.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Miss Covington, Mr McCarthy is out of the building just now. Would you like me to give him a message?’
‘No, no, it’s all right. Could you just tell him that I called, please?’
‘Of course. Although I should warn you he isn’t due back in the office until after lunch.’
Great big bums and balls. ‘No problem. Thank you.’ Arses. I really want to speak to him now.
‘You shouldn’t sit like that, Rach, you’ll get varicose veins.’ I turn to see Martin or Mike walking past.
‘Arse,’ I say out loud to him.
‘Right you are.’
I’m dithering a bit, trying not to resort to taking a call to pass the time, when Simon comes to my rescue.
‘Rach, got a call for you!’ he shouts, loud enough for everyone who’s called Horizon this morning to enquire about apartment availability to hear.
‘No, no,’ I hear Val saying as I walk past her on my way to Simon’s desk, ‘it was someone outside the window. I’ll just close it . . .’
Simon nips off for a few minutes so I can take the call in privacy.
‘This is Rachel.’
‘Hi. It’s me.’
Notice that he didn’t say ‘It’s Hector’ to identify himself from other men who might be calling me. He doesn’t need to do that any more. I sink down on to Simon’s chair with a smile.
‘Hi, you.’
‘How’s it going?’
‘Far too slowly. I tried to call you earlier but your receptionist . . .’
‘Moira.’
‘Moira said you were out of the office for the next ten years. I’m sensing a subtle message there. Something you want to say to me?’
He’s chuckling. ‘I told her to say two months, bloody woman. Ten years is just so blatant, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, definitely. You need to be far more subtle when you dump someone without telling them. Just so that they’re not ever completely sure whether you dumped them or not.’
‘Wow. You really know what you’re talking about, don’t you?’
‘I have a fair amount of experience in that area. People say that ambiguous dumping like that is cruel and that it’s much kinder just to do it outright, to their face, you know: You’re dumped, end of.’
‘I can see that some people would think that was kind.’
‘Nah, it’s not. Mum says that I shouldn’t leave people hanging but I disagree. It preserves their pride, gives them a sense of dignity.’
‘What, even when they phone you up two weeks later and sob down the phone, begging to see you again?’
Spooky. That’s actually happened to me, more than once. ‘Absolutely. Gives them a chance to be all eloquent and noble.’
‘Remind me never to be dumped by you.’
I smile. There’s no chance of that. ‘Hey, as long as you have a decent speech prepared, it’s a breeze.’
‘Somehow I doubt that.’
‘Listen, did you call me up for a reason or is it just to taunt me over how you’re ambiguously dumping me even as we speak? Anyway, I thought you were out of the office until after lunch . . .?’
‘Yes, I am out of the office until after lunch. I am out of the office right now, in fact.’
‘Oh . . .’
‘Actually, I am outside your office. By the door.’
‘Really?’ I jump to my feet and look over towards the door but there’s no one there. ‘I can’t see you.’
‘Look again.’
I am looking, haven’t stopped looking, but there’s . . . Oh wait a minute! Did you see that? Something appeared for a moment there. It’s an arm! Just an arm, waving. No, beckoning. It’s beckoning me over. I start laughing.
‘No, I still can’t see you, but there is a huge crowd of people all going towards the door for some reason – maybe they’re obscuring you.’
The arm is snatched back behind the door quickly and a head appears briefly then disappears again.
‘You are a witch, Rachel Covington. I knew it the moment I saw you, sitting there with those hounds of hell behind you, poised and waiting for your next instruction.’
‘You’re right. I told them to stand very still and slaver, and they did my bidding.’
‘Come and meet me?’
‘I am at work, you know, I don’t know if – OK then.’ I press ‘End’, yank the headset off and walk briskly over to the door.
On the other side, he walks to greet me and comes right inside my personal space. ‘Hi,’ he says, bending his head down so our faces are close.
‘Hi.’
‘Come with me. I’ve got something for you.’ He takes my hand and leads me off towards the lifts.
‘A pres?’
‘A wh—? Oh, yes, yes, a pres.’
‘Ooh, goody. Why can’t I have it now?’
‘Because it’s downstairs, silly. Come on.’
‘All right, all right keep your very nice Van Heusen shirt on. It’s not me, it’s Plum.’ I’m doing the pregnancy saunter – you know the one, with your legs slightly too wide apart and your hand in your lower back. I’ve seen Casualty and I always thought that was one of those myths associated with pregnancy, like eating coal, but it isn’t, it really seems to help me put one foot in front of the other.
‘Whoops, sorry, not thinking.’ He stops pulling on my arm and puts his hand around my waist instead.
OK, we’ve gone into the lift and the doors have shut. Let’s skip over this bit and go down to the ground floor, as we are coming out of the lift again.
He brings me along the corridor to the canteen, which is virtually deserted, and takes me to a table in the corner of the room.
As we get nearer to the table he’s guiding me towards, I want you to think back for a moment to the sight of his business premises in the business park. That massive glass building with a car park and water dispensers and a pension plan. Remember it? OK, now you’ve got that in your head, what do you think the owner of that business will have bought me as a gift? I’m guessing he’s at least a mono-millionaire, if not a multi-, so I’m not ruling out the possibility that he’s got me something outrageously huge. And I’m not sure if I like that idea or not.
‘Close your eyes,’ he says. ‘Go on. I’ll guide you.’
‘OK, but if you leave me standing in the middle of a crowded room with my eyes closed for ten minutes, I will not find it funny.’
‘Don’t worry, I promise I will never intentionally humiliate you.’
‘Why do I not find that reassuring?’
‘Well, you should. I’ve never promised that to anyone before.’
‘Oh. I am flattered. Although to be honest, I’m not sure that the fact that you feel it is necessary with me, and no one else, is a good thing.’ We are making our way very slowly across the room, and I’ve got my hands out in front of me, like a game of Blind Man’s Buff. I feel like a first-class tit. ‘Can I open my eyes yet?’
‘Nearly.’
‘You know, I don’t need gifts, Hec. Your promise not to humiliate me is enough.’
‘Rachel, my darling Rachel, you have made me happy for the first time in months, years probably. I am stunn
ed that I’ve got you in my life. I want you to stay there. Please, let me get you a little something now and then, will you? Please?’
If it’s something really huge, like a car, I know Mum would tell me to do a Pretty Woman and turn it down. But I so don’t want to and anyway, why should I? I’m not a paid girlfriend; I’m here out of choice. But I don’t want anyone to think I am a sponge. Which they might, given the shape of me at the moment.
Look at my face? So serene and tranquil. You wouldn’t believe the spinning tornado of panicky thoughts going on inside there, would you?
He guides me to a chair and I sit down unsteadily. There’s a sound of slight movement and then he says, ‘Open your eyes.’
I almost can’t. The image of Richard Gere is so vivid. But when I do, I am greeted with the sight of Hector sitting on the other side of the table on which are standing two steaming mugs. I look at the drinks, then back at Hector. He looks like a dog with the tail of the cat that’s had the cream. ‘It’s . . . You’ve . . . bought me a . . . hot chocolate?’
He nods enthusiastically.
I stroke the side of the mug. ‘Oh, Hector, I love it. You shouldn’t have. Thank you so much.’
‘That’s not all.’
‘It isn’t?’
‘Nope. Rachel, I don’t want you ever to feel like I’m trying to patronize you or demean anything that you do for Plum. That’s why I haven’t rushed straight round to Mothercare and bought it.’
‘Bought what?’
‘Mothercare. Are you even listening? Anyway, I respect you and I respect that you, of course, want to do everything for your little Plum yourself. But the fact is that I am only ten minutes behind you in the length of time we have known of Plum’s existence and, well, I’m fond of the little tike.’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes, I am. So, anyway, without wanting to . . . step on any toes, meaning yours, I have bought the little ankle-biter a, er, pres.’ He reaches under the table and brings out a small parcel wrapped in yellow paper covered in tiny white bootees. There’s a tag attached that says, ‘Dear Plum, Good luck next Thursday, mate. Looking forward to seeing you. Give your mum a kiss from me. love, Hec.’
Thanks For Nothing, Nick Maxwell Page 34