Baggage & Buttons (36 page)

‘O god I’m sorry, I need help,’ she groaned, as she
stopped and covered her eyes. ‘Did he notice? I’ll be so embarrassed if he
did.’

‘I think he’s used to woman checking him out, especially
down there, probably didn’t give it a second thought if he did see. Come on,
keep walking I need caffeine.’

‘What’s wrong with me?’ she sighed as we headed off
again.

‘I think you need sex. I’ve heard pregnancy can affect
women’s sex drives. Why can’t you just have a one night stand like normal?
You’re not even showing yet, no one needs to know.’

‘I’d know and it just seems wrong. I think it should
be illegal to have sex when you’re pregnant anyway.’

‘Why?

‘Well no wonder so many kids are screwed up. You’re
nestled in your mum’s tummy, all warm and cosy in bed fast asleep, then all of
a sudden this giant one eyed sausage bursts through the door and scares the
shit out of you. If that’s not bad enough, he lulls you into a false sense of
security by leaving and then “Ta Da” he’s back, then he’s gone, over and over
until he completely terrifies you by spraying you with something sticky. Babies
have to be fucked up for life from that.’

‘Lexi,’ I laughed. ‘You’re off your head at the
moment.’

‘Seriously Mia, it must traumatise them? Right?’ she
asked as she looked at me. I tried to pull myself together when I realised she
was actually being serious.

‘I seriously doubt it would Lex, a penis wouldn’t make
it into the womb and at the stage you’re at they aren’t fully formed so they wouldn’t
have a clue. Millions of women have sex while they’re pregnant, I’m sure if
anything conclusive had come out that it was bad for the baby we’d know about
it. Just go and get laid for god’s sake, it’s your hormones making you all
crazy.’

‘You hate babies, when did you become the pregnancy
expert?’ she asked as we queued up for the coffee.

‘Since my best friend got knocked up Lex. I’ve been
reading up it on the web so I could support you and try and understand what you
were going through.’

‘You really did that for me?’ she asked, looking all
touched.

‘Yes of course I did, you’d do it for me.’

‘O god,’ she sighed.

‘What?’

‘You’re only like the best friend ever, I feel all
emosh,’ she groaned as she looked at me, her eyes filling up.

‘See hormones Lex, you never get emotional like this
and you cried over my letter last week too. Go and sit down, I’ll bring you
your coffee,’ I said, rubbing her back as she sniffed.

We finished our drinks and headed off for our second
counselling session. It went quickly and I managed not to cry this time, as I
discussed my fears that Gabe and I were moving too fast. She only asked me
questions, never gave advice and I ended up convincing myself that if it felt
right to spend so much time with him, then there wasn’t a problem.

I left the session feeling much happier and Lexi came
out tear streaked, but said she’d got some stuff of her chest and it had gone
better too.

We made our way back to the apartment with our Chinese
and as soon as we got in the lower door, Lexi made a beeline for the stairs.

‘Where do you think you’re going Clarke?’

‘Upstairs to eat, I’m bloody ravenous. Another thing
I’m blaming on this damn pregnancy. Why?’

‘Post box, four weeks of mail. I can’t believe you’ve
forgotten already.’

‘Shit sorry.’ She rummaged on her key ring and opened
up box number five, which was rammed with post. ‘Christ where’s this all come
from?’ she exclaimed. I sighed and shook my head and headed up without her. I
was in the kitchen as she came in with an armful and dumped it on the dining
table. ‘Here you are.’

‘You sort it Lexi. I’m sorting out dinner, I can’t do
everything around here. I also need to show you how to use the washing machine
again, as you seem to have forgotten how to do that too.’ She groaned and sat
at the table and sorted it into piles, for me, for her and possible junk. My
pile was the biggest, Lexi only had three envelopes and opened them as I
spooned out the Chinese onto the plates and organised the trays and soy sauce.

‘Shit good job you reminded me. My appointment at the
clinic’s tomorrow morning at ten.’

‘Lexi, you could’ve have missed that,’ I scolded. ‘You
need to make sure you check for post every day. What else did you get?’

‘Just a Uni letter detailing what we were supposed to
attend freshers’ week and a card off your mum wishing me good luck with my
studies,’ she waved it at me to let me see the front. ‘You have a fair bit,
shall I leave it here for you?’

‘No pile it on my tray will you, I can open it when we’ve
eaten.’

I devoured my chow mein, fried rice and crispy
seaweed. I loved the stuff and always ordered a container of each and halved
them so I’d enough to have a second meal the next day. Lexi would just eat all
of hers in one sitting. She’d a crazy appetite, when she actually ate, which
seemed to be a lot at the moment.

I picked up my mail and set my tray on the side and
started working my way through it. It was mostly confirmations of the monthly
direct debits I’d set up for our regular bills. Mum and Gerry had insisted on
paying for everything, except food and alcohol, which was really generous of
them. They’d set up a monthly standing order to my account to cover them all,
so I could put them in my name to help my credit rating. I had a freshers’ week
letter as well, which would have been helpful if we’d received it in time. I
shook my head as I looked over at her, but she was already engrossed in an xbox
game. There was also a good luck card from mum too, as well as another from my
sister and a couple of cards from friends, welcoming Lexi and I to our new
home.

I recognised Christine’s writing on the last envelope,
as dad’s PA she did pretty much everything for him. I immediately felt guilty, I
hadn’t contacted him since thanking him for the apartment when we moved in.
He’d put it in my name and was paying £1,000 a month into my bank account to
fund my spending, like he’d done with Georgie while she was at Uni. I knew it
was a drop in the ocean to him, but decided I needed to grow up and start
making an effort with him. I opened it and found, as usual, he was a man of
very few words. It was a moving in card, no mention of my degree at all,
something he found very distasteful for his daughter to be doing. It simply
read
Mia, Hope you enjoy your new home. Richard.
Christ he couldn’t even
sign it off with “Dad” let alone any pleasantries, kisses or declarations of
love. I figured I should at least be grateful that Christine hadn’t completed
the message inside as well.

I sighed and decided to call him and try and fix up a
day to meet him at half term, we’d never move forwards if someone didn’t make
the effort and I had to accept that if I did want him in my life, it seemed I
was going to have to be the one to try and make that happen. I cleared up our
plates and got myself a coke, leaving Lexi shouting at her game, then headed to
my room with my phone. I stared at his name and number for a while, before
plucking up the courage to dial.

‘Richard Kensington,’ came the deep well to do, very
serious, voice.

‘Hi dad it’s me.’ There was complete silence at the
other end and I realised he still didn’t recognise my voice and was obviously trying
to work out if it was me or Georgie, that was assuming he still remembered he
even had another two daughters. ‘It’s Mia,’ I clarified.

‘What’s wrong Mia?’

‘Nothing’s wrong, I just rang to say hello.’

‘Do you need more money?’

I shook my head and rolled my eyes, our first
conversation in weeks and he assumed it was financially related. He hadn’t even
said hello back.

‘No dad, I’m more than fine for money what with the
allowances from you and mum thank you. How are you?’

‘What can I do for you then?’

Jesus he was seriously hard work and did he ever
answer a question?

‘I just rang to see how you were and to see if we
could maybe meet up in half term? It’s in a few weeks.’

‘Why? What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing’s wrong, I just thought it would be nice to
spend a bit of time together and try to get to know each other.’

Silence, again. This time it was a lengthy silence.
Normally I’d fill a silence, I’d try to break the awkwardness with anyone, I’d
babble on about rubbish, but never with dad, he always put me on edge. One
didn’t normally speak to Richard Kensington unless one had been expressly
invited to do so.

‘I’m rather busy in October Mia, I’m not sure I have
any free time.’

‘Christmas then? I’ll be going home for a long weekend
as soon as term ends, I could come to London to meet you.’

‘I don’t know my schedule.’

‘You’re really not making this very easy are you? I
just thought it might be nice to have lunch or something, we hardly ever see
each other and I’d like to work on that. Is that too much to ask?’ I sighed,
wondering why I was even bothering. I heard a deep sigh at the other end of the
phone.

‘Fine. Christine can set something up. Is there anything
else?’

‘No that was all I rang for,’ I said with a shake of
my head. Christ he couldn’t even set a date to see his own daughter in person?

‘Well, excellent. Goodbye then.’

‘Will she ring me or will I ring …’ I stopped when I
realised he’d already put the phone down. I looked at my watch, just under a
minute, which was actually a personal best over the phone with him.

I’d really had enough of pussy footing around the
issue of why he was so absent and uninterested in my life, I decided I was
going to get to the bottom of it next time I saw him. I wasn’t entirely convinced
he was even going to remember to ask Christine to set up a meeting, so decided
I’d ring her myself tomorrow and force one and have it out with him. I mean he
hadn’t even asked how I was, how Uni was going, or how I’d settled into the
apartment. I wondered if he was so distant with his new kids? At least one
blessing was having taken Gerry’s surname, Mia Page sounded a whole lot better
than Mia Kensington. Mum had given Georgie and I the choice, when we were old
enough to understand, of which surname we wanted to have. Georgie had stuck
with Kensington, for some reason she idolised the bloody guy, but I’d asked to
change to Page, which probably hadn’t helped my relationship with him at all. He’d
been furious and had even offered money to mum to make her convince me to keep
his, which she’d refused. I took my coke back into the lounge and curled up on
the recliner.

‘Ok?’ asked Lexi.

‘Sorry what?’

‘You ok? You look kind of pissed off.’ She paused her
game.

‘Just the usual loving father daughter telephone
conversation,’ I smiled.

‘How many seconds this time?’

‘54.’

‘Wow, that’s an improvement of about six seconds, a
new PB,’ she nodded, looking impressed. ‘So why did you ring him?’

‘To ask if we could meet up in half term. He said he
was too busy and would get Christine to fix something up in December. I think
he was actually trying to avoid fixing up anything at all. He didn’t even know
it was me when I rang.’

‘Why do you persist? You always end up feeling like
shit after you’ve spoken to him?’

‘Don’t know,’ I shrugged. ‘Because he’s my bio dad and
I feel like I ought to I guess. I’ve really had enough though Lex, if we meet
I’m going to ask him to be straight with me. I can’t be doing with this anymore,
he’s either got to make an effort to be present in my life or I’d rather have
nothing to do with him. How do you do it?’

‘Do what?’

‘Have no contact and not seem to care?’

‘You look into things too deeply Mia. You’re always
wondering “why?” what did you do wrong? It’s not you, it’s him. He’s a crappy
father and human being, end of and the sooner you realise that the better. As
far as I’m concerned my parents are equally crappy, they don’t want to know me.
Why would I chase them, put myself or worry about people that obviously don’t
give a shit? My time’s better focussed on the people in my life that do give a
damn about me, like you and Mrs P.’

‘If either of them reached out though, would that
change your mind?’

‘They won’t,’ she replied with a firm shake of her
head.

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘Mia it’s been seven years since I saw my dad, if he
wanted to get in contact he would have. As far as he was concerned I was a
permanent boarder at Rowleys, he could have got in touch with me there anytime
he wanted and mum’s not interested in anything that’s not shaped like a bottle.
I’ve accepted that they don’t care and I’m not a priority in their lives. Once
you accept that with your dad, it’ll make it so much easier to move on and
forget him.’

I looked at her and sighed, she was right, why
couldn’t I just accept it and stop chasing after him? I mean if it was a guy
that treated me that way, I’d end it, cut off all ties, move on and never look
back. I’d never lower myself to chase after someone who’d made it obvious they
really weren’t interested in me. Just with my dad … I couldn’t seem to do it, I
just couldn’t accept that it wasn’t something I’d done, that maybe if I was
different, he’d love me and be more interested in me. Lexi was so chilled about
it, or at least she made out she was. I wasn’t convinced that she was totally
immune to the fact her parents had abandoned her. She admitted her one night
stands were a way of avoiding commitment, but I wished she’d open up to me
about this sort of stuff, as much as I did to her.