by Simon Booker
‘But surely he should pay for the upkeep of—’ began my father.
Harriet cut him short. She sounded calm and reasonable, as though she’d been thinking deeply and had reached an irrevocable decision. She put a hand on her stomach.
‘I don’t want him to have any part in this baby’s life. Or mine. If either of you try to contact him, or his wife, I’ll never speak to you again. I mean it.’
I said nothing. Dad remained silent, watching as she sipped her tea.
‘I’ve got a decent job now, thanks to Richard,’ she said. ‘And who knows what might happen with the musical, right, Tom?’
I tried to sound optimistic.
‘Broadway here we come.’
‘Ealing or Tooting?’ said Dad.
Lame, but it did the trick. Harriet smiled and seemed to relax.
‘I’m going to stand on my own two feet and raise this baby, like millions of women every day. It won’t be easy but I’ll be fine. I’ve got Mum and Dad. And Nan.’
‘And us.’ The words were out of my mouth before I knew it.
Harriet’s voice was a hoarse whisper, her eyes suddenly glazing with tears.
‘Really?’
I could see my father cursing himself for not beating me to it.
‘Tom’s right,’ he said. ‘You’ve got your parents and your grandmother.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Most of all, you’ve got us.’
For a second, I thought Harriet was going to start crying but she gave a huge smile, reached across the table and pulled us into a three-way hug. Maybe it was wrong, but as the clinch continued I couldn’t help thinking Dad had a point about Damian meeting his obligations. Dodgy diamonds or no dodgy diamonds, there was no shortage of money.
The clinch went on too long. He was the first to break it.
‘Sod this place and the hell with tea. We need champagne.’
I opened my mouth to speak but he got there first.
‘Don’t start whining about foetal alcohol syndrome. I’m talking Veuve Clicquot at The Ritz – my treat.’
‘Maybe one sip,’ said Harriet, smiling.
It was hard not to smile back, especially as a wave of, like, clarity seemed to wash over me, bathing me in the warmth of a certainty I’d seldom known. If you love someone, you embrace their baggage, right? For all his faults, my father had accepted my mother’s illness when he married her. For richer, for poorer, for better, for worse… etc., etc. Okay, they’d had a more complicated ride than he’d let on and their marriage was disintegrating, but at least they’d had something that had lasted, something real.
Glancing at him now, watching him don his stupid hat and clocking the crow’s feet around his eyes, I felt a wave of something like tenderness.
TBH, there was also a flicker of renewed hope about my chances with Harriet. Bottom line? Damian was now out of the picture. One down, one to go…
RICHARD
PREGNANT?!
Tom got his response in first, appearing to take the news in his stride and volunteering our support, which was a colossal cheek but earned brownie points with Harriet. Clever sod.
A taxi took us to The Ritz, where I ended up downing most of the eye-wateringly expensive champagne myself. Apart from a few token sips, Harriet abstained, for obvious reasons, while Tom made a fuss about drinking no more than half a glass because he had to get to Soho for his pushbike then ride the bloody thing home. All in all, the impromptu celebration fell flat.
As for the big picture, the situation could have been worse. The baby’s father could have been Tom, in which case I’d have had no choice but to retire gracefully and watch the woman I adored live happily ever after with the son I couldn’t bring myself to like.
I’d done my best, believe me, but no matter how I tried to tell myself that it was unfair to visit the sins of the father on the lad, there was something inside that made me need to keep him at arm’s length. The shrink I saw tried to convince me that my feelings were only natural – the law of the jungle, an atavistic throwback neither good nor bad, simply a primal reaction to finding myself raising another man’s child. That the other man in question was my own father made my feelings even less blameworthy – or so the shrink said – but I couldn’t stop the guilt from overwhelming me. On bad days, the rage at George would rise to the surface before being replaced by guilt over how I’d treated Tom, and so the cycle would repeat and continue, repeat and continue, on and on, ad infinitum, ad nauseam…
Walking along Piccadilly, Harriet declined my offer of a cab home, studiously avoiding any mention of The Wolseley, which was on the corner. I gave her a chaste hug then walked back to Belsize Park, mulling everything over as the thin, grey November light gave way to a gathering gloom and the champagne buzz morphed into a headache.
I spent the rest of the afternoon dozing fitfully on the sofa, waking from a nightmare about giant rats. The flat was in darkness.
I showered then donned my dressing gown. In the kitchen, I popped something in the oven (M&S’s sticky sesame chicken with spicy potato wedges) and settled in front of the laptop, smoking one cigarette after another.
On a whim, I googled Damian Vance’s name. There wasn’t much. He didn’t appear to have given any interviews about his good deeds, something I found both impressive and annoying. The man was noble and self-effacing – an irresistible combination. Certainly Harriet thought so.
A couple more clicks took me to a website called ‘Joe Blogs’, written by someone with a penchant for true crime. He had written about the speculation that Damian’s late father, Jack, was the infamous ‘missing man’ in the Mayfair robbery, a heist that had titillated the whole country and resulted in a bunch of films and books. The crime had all the right ingredients: a bunch of ‘old lags’ tunnelling into a supposedly impregnable underground vault for ‘one last job’. The beauty of the crime was twofold: nobody was hurt and no one knew precisely what had been stolen. The ‘secure’ safety deposit centre had been chock-a-block with items depositors wanted hidden from the tax authorities, ex-wives or the police. If the late Jack Vance was indeed the missing man, he had evaded capture, remaining on the run until his life ran its natural course. And if the blogger was right about rumours still circulating among the criminal fraternity, he’d managed to scarper with an impressively large haul of diamonds.
Shutting down the laptop, I raised a glass in a silent salute to the late Mr Vance then made a salad to accompany the sesame chicken, my thoughts turning to Harriet. For a change.
I’ve never been one for the unexamined life but despite my stint on the therapist’s couch (in Crouch End, where else?) I seldom make much effort to ask myself how I’m feeling. In my experience, emotions bubble to the surface in their own time but take a while to catch up with events. In the case of Harriet’s surprise lunchtime announcement, I found myself feeling oddly cheerful, verging on excited. She seemed to have decided that Damian was history, in which case perhaps the old Chinese saying was true: every crisis is an opportunity.
This was her crisis, of course, not mine – unless I chose to become involved. Just how involved would depend on two things: my willingness to help, and her willingness to let me. The latter would depend on how our relationship progressed. Were we destined to be ‘just good friends’ or, as I hoped, a great deal more? With Damian no longer in the frame, did that make Tom more of a threat or less?
As for helping to raise Harriet’s child, wasn’t it a price worth paying in order to be with the woman I loved – assuming I could win her over? I was forty-nine – hardly decrepit. And without wishing to sound smug, I was comfortably off, something that hadn’t been the case when Bonnie and I had been starting out and Tom showed up, out of the blue.
I’m not suggesting that Harriet had a mercenary bone in her body but surely her new circumstances would make her look favourably on a bloke with a few quid in his pocket, not to mention a large, mortgage-free flat in a family-friendly neighbourhood. More good schools than you could shake a stick
at. Walking distance from Hampstead Heath. Was I kidding myself or was I a decent prospect? The E-Type would have to go, of course, but perhaps that was a good thing.
I opened a bottle of wine and toyed with a few mouthfuls of food, trying to focus my thinking.
I wanted Harriet but did I really want to take on a baby?
How did I see the rest of my life panning out?
The questions seemed wreathed in mist, answers hard to discern through my foggy thinking. I went to bed, still ruminating.
* * *
It wasn’t until the alarm went off at four-thirty on Friday morning that the matter seemed to have settled itself, as if a committee had convened overnight and delivered its decision. Mildly hungover, staring at my bleary-eyed reflection in the shaving mirror, I considered the verdict.
With Bonnie filing for divorce I was well placed for a guilt-free fresh start. Harriet’s new circumstances surely offered me a second chance on the merry-go-round, perhaps an opportunity to get the whole parenting thing right – a shot at redemption after my failure first time round. To my surprise, I found that the prospect of a baby made no difference to how I felt about Harriet. Put simply, I adored her. As Shakespeare has it, ‘love is not love which alters it when alteration finds’.
But while I was happy to support her and her baby, it seemed profoundly unjust that Damian should be allowed to saunter back to his wife and kids without meeting his obligations to Harriet – especially if there were any truth in those rumours about his father’s secret stash. At the very least, he should provide a lump sum that could be put in trust for the child.
Harriet’s warning was fresh in my memory.
I don’t want him to have any part in the baby’s life. Or mine. If either of you try to contact him, or his wife, I’ll never speak to you again. I mean it.
I didn’t doubt her sincerity. It was possible to imagine her honouring her contract with Silk FM, maintaining a pretence of normality while we were on-air but cutting me dead outside the studio, a prospect I would find hard to bear.
All of which meant subterfuge would be needed in getting Damian to cough up. Harriet might not thank me now for taking matters into my own hands but she’d be grateful in the long run. A trust fund for her child, guaranteeing his/her university education, somewhere to live and a future free from the financial insecurity that had plagued her own life. How could she not see me as her knight on a white charger?
How could I be anything other than Mister Right?
On impulse, I chucked away the antidepressants, my mind suddenly fizzing with excitement. Just weeks ago the future had looked bleak. Now I had a plan. All I needed was to figure out the answers to three questions. Had Damian inherited his father’s cache of stolen diamonds? If so, where were they? And how could I get my hands on them without Harriet finding out?
HARRIET
I broke the news to Nan on Sunday morning. She was on the sofa when I came downstairs, eating toast and watching Omen III: The Final Conflict.
‘I’m pregnant.’
She turned off the telly and peered over her glasses.
‘Cockweasel?’
‘Yep. He’s going back to his wife.’
‘Told your mum?’
‘No. I don’t want her to know, nor Dad, not till they get back.’
A nod.
‘Are you keeping it?’
‘Yep.’
‘Okay.’ She patted the sofa. ‘Need a cry?’
Too late. I was already crying.
* * *
Later, she served up the lunch she used to make when I was little: cheese on toast with the crusts cut off.
‘You can’t do this alone,’ she said. ‘Kids are a money pit. Worse than old houses.’
‘I’m not alone, Nan. I’ve got Mum and Dad and you.’
‘We won’t be around forever.’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘That’s exactly what I said when your granddad buggered off. “I’ll stand on my own two feet.” And I did, but by Christ, it was hard.’
I took her hand.
‘I’ll be okay, honestly.’
She withdrew the hand. A steely tone entered her voice.
‘I was seventeen,’ she said. ‘My dad chucked me out. I never saw him again – or my mum. Do you have any idea what it was like in those days? Single mothers weren’t allowed to exist, not like today.’ She closed her eyes and gave a small shudder. ‘The things I did to survive…’
She tailed off. When she opened her eyes, they were watering. I’d never seen her cry or heard her sound so serious.
‘No one would blame you if you had an abortion,’ she said. ‘Then you could go to Hollywood, like you’ve always wanted.’
I couldn’t believe what she was saying.
‘What I’ve always wanted is kids,’ I said. ‘Annie, Dot and Freddie, remember?’
‘What about your career?’
I sighed.
‘I’ve been at it years, Nan, and look at me – I’m hardly Meryl Streep.’
She took a tissue from her sleeve and blew her nose.
‘Harriet,’ she said, ‘I love your mum, and I’ve never regretted having her, not for one second, but if I’d made a different decision I’d have had a different life.’
I opened my mouth to speak but she was in full flow.
‘I worry about you. You’re too timid. You should go to Hollywood, give it a couple of years, see what happens.’
‘And who’d look after the baby?’
She said nothing for a moment then admitted defeat.
‘So you’re keeping it?’
‘Yes, Nan. I’m thirty-five and I’m earning a few quid for once, and if I went to LA I’d be just another wannabe actress, working as a waitress while trying to get a foot on the ladder, and what if I failed?’
‘There’s only one failure,’ she said. ‘Not trying.’
‘I have tried,’ I said. ‘For years and years and years.’
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her about The Thoughts, or how they made the idea of trying to crack Tinseltown impossible to imagine.
‘Okay,’ she said, tucking her tissue into the sleeve of her cardigan. ‘I won’t say any more – except babies completely take over your life so you’re going to need all the help you can get, especially when it comes to money.’
‘You did a great job with Mum. I’ll do my best to be like you.’
‘Fine words butter no parsnips, Harriet.’
‘I’ll buy my own parsnips.’
‘It’s not about fucking parsnips!’
It was the first time I’d heard her swear. She took a moment to regain her composure.
‘From what you told me, Cockweasel’s got plenty of cash. He needs to step up. Does his wife know?’
‘No.’
‘Then tell her.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s partly my fault, too. And I don’t want to wreck his marriage or blight his kids’ lives.’
She blew on her tea and took a sip. I could tell she was making an effort not to lose her temper.
‘Either you find a way to make him cough up or I’ll tell his wife.’
I froze, eyes widening in disbelief.
‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘If you don’t tell his missus, I will.’
‘You wouldn’t dare.’
She met my gaze.
‘Try me.’
* * *
I was still reeling from her threat when Tom and Richard texted within half an hour of each other, asking if I was okay and did I feel like lunch (Richard) or a trip to Columbia Road flower market (Tom).
I’d neglected both men over the last few weeks – too preoccupied with Cockweasel – but had spent masses of time with Richard, if only at Silk FM, so I decided to hang out with Tom. If his dad was miffed, his text didn’t show it.
OK, have a good Sunday. Hasta manana. x
Tom and I had seen each other semi-regularly, e
ither in person or via FaceTime, restricting our conversations to the musical. He and Zara had been rehearsing and the show was really starting to take shape – although I still wasn’t sure about the stuff set in prison. Tom knew masses about messed-up families, so he could write about them in a way that would connect with an audience. To me, the jailhouse stuff seemed an unnecessary complication, but it was his project, not mine, so I told him what I thought then left him and Zara to it. She told me she was having a blast and promised to take me to Nando’s as a thank-you for getting her the gig.
I could tell Tom still liked me but I knew he’d backed off because of You Know Who. (Maybe Richard still liked me too, but he was harder to read.) Anyhow, things were different now. The baby changed everything. I was setting out on a solo adventure with no co-pilot. Man plans, God laughs, as Nan likes to say.
The flower market was a riot of colour with crowds of hipsters, families and old timers mingling in the November sunshine. I thought Tom might be planning to buy me a bunch of flowers but we just mooched around, taking a selfie or two before wandering into a tapas place and ordering food and drinks – beer for him, coffee for me. He didn’t order any meat but I saw him casting an envious glance towards a plate of chorizo so I’m not convinced he’s really a vegetarian, but it’s nice of him to pretend. I can’t say I felt relaxed but at least The Thoughts seemed to be having a day off.
‘Can I ask you a question about Damian?’ Tom said.
‘If you must.’
‘How does a dentist afford a Porsche?’
I sighed. What was wrong with everyone?
‘He’s not any old dentist, he’s Harley Street.’
‘So his wealthy patients subsidize his pro bono maxillofacial work?’