‘Yes. My cousin. I just haven’t seen him in a while, that’s all.’
‘I didn’t know I had a cousin in Catford.’ Joe looked up. ‘Are you on my mother’s or my father’s side?’
‘Ha! He’s just a bit drunk,’ I said weakly. I put my arm round his shoulder. ‘Aren’t you, cuz?’
Joe grinned and encircled my thighs in his arms, making me stumble. I steadied myself and smiled at the policemen. The shorter, older cop studied me down the length of his hooked nose.
‘I don’t think you’re telling the truth,’ he said, his voice soft, almost curious. He turned to his partner. ‘She’s not telling the truth, guv.’
‘No, she’s not,’ the taller, sterner one said, keeping his eyes on me. I opened my mouth to protest but the cop continued.
‘But I’m afraid I don’t care.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but it’s the end of our shift. I’m going home to my wife. We’re trying for our third baby and it’s right in the middle of her ovulation and Reg here,’ he indicated the smaller cop, ‘is going home to read his caravan magazines and probably have a wank.’
Reg nodded.
‘And you.’ He rounded on Harriet, pointing an accusing finger. She straightened to attention.
‘I don’t know how you got my personal number but you’re to stop calling it or I’ll arrest you. Again.’
At the word ‘again’, Harriet threw a sheepish glance my way then nodded ingratiatingly.
‘Of course. It won’t happen again. Sorry, Dale,’ she said, her voice syrupy.
‘And don’t call me that,’ he said in a low voice, a flicker of embarrassment visible in his stern demeanour. ‘It’s Smith. Sergeant Smith.’
After seeing the irate coppers off, I turned to Joe.
‘I’ll call you a cab,’ I said, turning to go inside.
‘Got nowhere to go.’ He blinked and looked through my open front door. ‘Hydrangea!’ he blurted, making me stop in the doorway. ‘Ivy!’
‘You know, I think he’s a bit mad,’ Harriet said. ‘Shall we get Dale back?’ She pulled an iPhone from her dressing gown pocket.
‘Not mad. Hydrangea for Ivy. She in?’
‘My grandma?’ I said, puzzled.
‘Yes. Ivy. Helped her choose a climbing hydrangea. Could I come in and see how it’s going?’
‘I don’t think so, young man.’ Harriet pursed her lips.
‘How do you know my grandma?’
‘Met her at the garden centre. Go to browse. And talk. Old ladies like to talk.’
‘You go to garden centres to pick up old ladies?’
Harriet let out a horrified gasp. ‘I knew it! I knew as soon as I saw him. He has a fetish!’
‘Interesting fact about hydrangea,’ Joe said, ignoring Harriet. ‘Looks like “Hi, stranger” to a lip-reader.’ He swayed in his sitting position and blinked slowly. ‘Could I possibly come in? Ask Ivy about the rooting?’
Harriet’s face puckered.
‘She died,’ I said.
‘The hydrangea?’
‘My grandma.’
‘Oh.’ Joe blinked. ‘That’s terribly sad. I liked her a lot.’ A tear ran down his nose.
For a moment the three of us, four if you counted Brutus, who was watching the scene with chocolate-brown, intolerant eyes, sat and stood quietly.
‘So,’ Joe sighed, ‘I best be off.’ He stood and swayed. ‘It was lovely meeting you all.’ He gave a pathetically fragile smile.
I gazed across at the empty common wondering if what I was about to say was stupid and would get me murdered, assaulted or vomited on. He’d been betrayed. I’d been betrayed. I felt a kinship. Plus he sort of knew my grandma.
‘Look, I guess you can sleep on my sofa.’
Joe looked stunned. ‘Really?’ His eyes watered and his chin dimpled.
‘Really, dear?’ Harriet said.
‘For one night only. I’ll call you a cab first thing in the morning.’ I took him by the elbow to guide him. ‘First thing, OK?’
He nodded weakly, his subconscious already closing down for the night.
‘Goodnight, Harriet,’ I said.
‘Yes, dear.’ She watched us walk inside, a worrying hand at her chin.
‘You’re too kind. Most hospitable. I’ll be sure to let Hamish know you need a rise.’
I sighed. ‘Great.’
I assisted Joe in the removal of boots and jacket but left him to take off his own jeans. I grabbed a duvet from the spare room and as I tossed it over him on the sofa, my dressing gown fell open revealing my swollen belly straining in a t-shirt I’d outgrown two months earlier.
Joe lolled his head and peered at me. ‘You’re fat.’ He smiled merrily. ‘Got any reggae-reggae sauce?’ he added, then lay back and began snoring.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I sat at the kitchen table kicking my foot against the table leg. Joe’s incessant snoring and the constant ping of his phone had kept me awake, and I was scowl personified. The cordless phone next to me shrilled and I answered it with a grunt.
‘Oh hello, Emma dear,’ Harriet said in her usual cordial manner. ‘I was just ringing to make sure that young man didn’t murder you in your sleep.’
‘Nope,’ I said, glaring at the snuffling lump on my sofa. ‘Still alive.’
‘He didn’t try anything on, did he? He’s not a sex pest? I did worry about you taking that strange man into your home. I said to Arthur, those officers really ought to have taken him away. Put him in a cell for the night.’
‘I’m fine, thanks,’ I said, and took a sip of herbal tea. What I needed was a strong black coffee. ‘I’ll get rid of him when he wakes up.’
‘He’s still there?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Well, if he gives you any trouble when he wakes, you just scream. I’ll be listening out.’
We said our goodbyes and I waddled down the hall to the bathroom. When I returned I found Joe lying on his back, rubbing his eyes.
‘Oh good morning,’ I said in a passive-aggressive manner. ‘Sleep well?’ I trundled to the kitchen.
I was making myself a coffee, goddamn it. The baby could deal with the caffeine jitters for a day. Joe sat up and looked over the back of the sofa, confusion rippling across his crumpled face.
‘Who are you?’ he said, his voice gruff with sleep.
I raised my eyebrows and spooned coffee into the pot. Joe scanned the room then looked down, realised he was sitting in his boxers and arranged the duvet over himself.
‘Did we . . .’ He looked warily at me. ‘You know?’
‘Hardly.’ I crossed the kitchen to the kettle.
‘Whoa,’ Joe said. ‘You’re pregnant.’
‘Oh, so you can tell the difference between a pregnant person and a fat girl this morning?’
Joe considered me, wary and baffled. His hair had dried in the most ridiculous of directions.
‘So we didn’t . . .?’
‘No, we did not.’ I flicked on the kettle and turned to him, hands on my hips. ‘You knocked on my door in the middle of the night offering me pie. Well, offering Hamish pie. My neighbour called the police. But I told them you, well . . . you were crying about your . . . You apparently knew my grandma, but—’ I stopped. I couldn’t be bothered to explain the entire logistics. I was grumpy but losing the will to maintain it. I just wanted to go back to bed. Joe sat on the sofa, the duvet clutched to his bare chest, confused and disorientated. The only noise was the kettle boiling.
He cleared his throat. ‘Well, I guess I’d better get going. Your boyfriend can’t be too happy about me being here.’ Joe looked about the floor for his clothes.
‘I don’t have a boyfriend,’ I said as the kettle flicked off.
‘Oh. Partner,’ he said, standing and wrapping the blanket round his waist. It would have taken all the strength of Zeus not to ogle his chest. Solid and big, with just the right amount of chest hair. I turned and busied myself with coffee-m
aking.
‘Nope, no partner either,’ I said.
‘Oh. Right.’ Joe sounded awkward.
‘But I’m not an inseminated lesbian, if that’s what you think.’ I spun round. Joe held his hands up in defence and faltered.
‘Ow. Ow. Ow.’ He sat back down and put his head in his hands.
Perched forlornly on the edge of the sofa, the duvet pooling round his middle, he took slow breaths. I felt twinges of pity. I guess finding your fiancée straddling someone in your bed was cause for a little drunken behaviour. And I’d survived the night without being murdered or sex-pestered.
‘Your clothes are still in the washing machine. Do you want some coffee?’ Joe moved his head a fraction, displaying one grateful eye welling up.
While Joe had a shower after being sick in the toilet I flicked through my recipe book looking for a pancake recipe solid enough to sit at the bottom of Joe’s tender stomach and stop him vomiting in my bathroom.
Over breakfast, I found out Joe was not a garden centre granny-stalker, but actually a green-fingered enthusiast who’d had his gardening desires stifled by his ex-fiancée’s determination to live in a Shoreditch loft. He’d met my grandma by the hydrangeas (which does not at all look like ‘Hi, stranger’ to a lip-reader because I’d practised it in the mirror that morning) and he’d helped her choose a climbing one in the right shade of lavender, got it to the car and offered to help her plant it. She’d accepted his proposal and they’d had a lovely afternoon in the late autumn sun with tea, cake and a lavender hydrangea. It was now dormant but sturdy, Joe explained, after popping outside to check its rooting. Joe’s phone pinged away during breakfast. He’d check it and put it down without replying.
The washing machine rumbled to a halt just as we finished our pancakes. I stood and began to empty it.
‘I’ll put your clothes on the radiator. I don’t have a drier, sorry.’
‘Thanks,’ Joe said, rubbing his hands across his stubble. ‘You’ve been really kind, when you don’t even know me.’
‘I’ve seen you half naked and I’ve wiped your vomit off the toilet seat. I know you enough for now.’ I shot him a small smile and cleared the table.
‘Ned and Sophie?’
‘Yep.’ I sat at Sinead’s breakfast table watching her sip the froth off a cappuccino. Having asked Joe the necessary questions (are you going to thieve anything, break anything or vomit on anything?) and been satisfied enough with his answer (which was ‘Eh?’) I left him on the sofa with his hangover and raced round to vent to Sinead about the most recent developments in the low-budget drama that was my life. Millie was asleep upstairs and Archie was drawing pictures next to me at the kitchen table. Uncle Mike had taken Alice and Jess to a birthday party, so it was a rare quiet day at their house. I’d needed another opinion on the Ned and Sophie situation. I’d now told Alex and Helen. Alex, ever annoyingly wise, had said it was hurtful and thoughtless of Ned and Sophie to see each other behind my back, but if I did not want to be with Ned then he was free to date whoever he wanted. She’d suggested I talk to both of them and tell them how hurt I was, that I’d need time to process their relationship but I was sure we could move forward from this. ‘Fuck that,’ I’d said. It all sounded a bit too mature and rational for my liking. I preferred name-calling, accusations then a perpetual cold shoulder with me playing the part of The Jilted from here on in. I’d been quite surprised at Helen’s reaction. ‘They’re perfect for each other,’ she’d bellowed with a throaty laugh. I’d expected Helen’s unwavering solidarity. Me and her against The Betrayers. But Helen said she’d let Sophie know she was at the top of my Shit List (apparently it was cathartic to have one) and offered to grill her for specifics.
‘Which one is Sophie? The slutty one?’ Sinead wrestled the lid off the tin of baking I’d brought round and took out a large crumbly biscuit.
‘No, that’s Helen. And she’s not a slut, she’s just . . . very . . . open.’
‘Something of hers is open,’ Sinead said. ‘So Sophie’s the stupid one?’
‘She’s not stupid,’ I said, surprising myself by defending her. ‘She just looks at the world a little differently.’
Sinead raised her eyebrows and took a bite of the biscuit. ‘Mmm. What’s this called?’
‘Afghan. But the point is, what should I do about it?’
‘Afghan?’ Sinead turned the biscuit over, inspecting its every angle.
‘It’s from Australia.’
‘So why isn’t it called an Australian? Why name it after someone from a country with known terrorist associations?’
‘Maybe they named it after the dog? Afghan hound.’
Sinead took another bite out of her biscuit and looked thoughtful. ‘I don’t know which is weirder.’
‘Yes, yes. So what should I do?’
Sinead looked me in the eye. ‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Right.’ I exhaled. Was no one going to stand in the bitterness corner with me?
‘Do you want to be with Ned?’
‘No.’
‘Do you still love Ned?’
‘No.’
‘So get over it.’
‘Fine,’ I said, bristling with injustice. ‘I’ll do that when I get home. I just have to empty the dishwasher and change the sheets on my bed, but then I’ll take a quick five minutes to “get over it” and I can start making lunch and shopping for organic cot linen, that OK?’
‘Emma,’ Sinead said, her voice soft. ‘You’re having a baby.’
‘With Ned.’
‘Yes. With Ned. And you’ll want him around. Your friends too. It’s hard enough being a parent without having to do it on your own.’
I mumbled imperceptibly and twisted my mug round on the table.
‘Go home, take some time to feel sorry for yourself but then move on,’ she said, taking out another biscuit. ‘And give me this recipe, it’s bloody fantastic!’
‘Emma?’ Archie said, putting down his crayon. ‘I made this for you.’ He pushed his picture towards me.
‘Aw thanks, Archie.’
Stick figures in varying colours and sizes dotted the page. One had yellow hair, big round breasts and looked like it was carrying a large red carrot.
‘What’s this?’ I said, pointing to a round circle with a cat inside it.
‘That’s you.’ He pointed to the cat. ‘And that’s the zombie baby in your tummy. And that’s Melody.’ He pointed to the big-boobed stick figure holding the red carrot. ‘She wipped off a zombie arm.’
‘Excellent,’ I said, looking at Sinead, who casually helped herself to a third biscuit.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Back at the cottage I found Joe, bare-chested, a pink towel round his waist, watching the beginning of Love Actually with a cup of tea and a piece of shortbread.
‘I love Richard Curtis films, don’t you?’ he said with a grin.
‘Ah yeah, but I’m a girl. It’s in my DNA to like Richard Curtis.’
Joe chuckled at the TV while I made myself a cup of tea and joined him on the sofa, wondering why I didn’t have the urge to ask him to leave. Perhaps it was more I didn’t have the energy. His phone pinged again.
I had no idea how long I’d been asleep but I opened my eyes to see Joe, still in my pink towel, wearing 3D glasses and giggling at the TV. It appeared he was giggling at Ice Age 3. It was dark again. The entire day had disappeared in a movie-watching, cookie-eating, dozing fog.
I stretched and checked my cheek. ‘You’re still here.’
Joe glanced sideways and smiled. His stubble was thicker.
‘Yes. Still here. And I did see you dribble. But I figured it was fair, as you saw me vomit.’ He turned back to Ice Age and laughed at the sloth.
‘Great.’ I hefted myself up to a sitting position and wiped at my cheek. ‘I usually reserve cheek dribble for my nearest and dearest. You are neither. And I only heard you vomit. Thank god.’
&nbs
p; ‘Sorry about that.’ Joe patted my sock-covered feet. ‘I don’t usually drink that much. It’s just . . . at the moment . . . you know.’ He stared at the TV and swallowed.
‘You were pretty drunk last night.’
My stomach rumbled with pregnancy starvation. An irrational ‘bacon and marmalade sandwich’ kind of hunger.
‘Ye-es. I drink and then, unfortunately, I cry.’ A flicker of sadness crossed his face and he looked at me with a wry smile.
Joe being open unnerved me.
‘Me too. Give me a few gins and I’ll bawl all night,’ I said, trying to lighten the conversation. ‘I once cried for two hours at a party because a Tracy Chapman song reminded me of a three-legged dog I saw on a poster at a Hoxton bus stop.’
‘You’re strange.’
‘I was drunk. And you’re the one sitting on a stranger’s sofa in a pink towel wearing 3D glasses.’
Joe glanced down at the towel. ‘You have a point.’
His phone pinged again; he looked at it then replaced it on the arm of the sofa. It bothered me that he never replied.
‘What’s with the constant messages? And why don’t you ever reply?’
‘It’s my family,’ he said, removing the 3D glasses. A small smile lifted one corner of his mouth. ‘Well, my sisters-in-law.’
‘How many do you have?’
‘Three. And they all want to accommodate my “recuperation”.’
‘That’s sweet.’
He nodded. ‘Yep. I can convalesce in Malta, my eldest brother works on superyachts; in Scotland, next elder brother works in forestry, or Tahoe, my last elder brother is a snowmaker.’
‘I’d convalesce in Malta. So you’re the youngest?’
‘I’m the baby who needs looking after.’ He picked up the phone. ‘Half these messages are them discussing me. I’m not required to reply.’ He grinned, showing a fondness for their fuss.
‘Why don’t you go and stay with any of them?’
He shrugged. ‘The wives, they all talk. A lot. They whatsapp, they viber, they text, they group-skype, they call. They’re wonderful, really great, but . . . I’d rather do no talking at the moment. Just, you know, keep to myself for a bit.’
How Not to Fall in Love, Actually Page 15