Dear Thing (20 page)

‘Thanks,’ said Claire quietly.

‘Well, it’s true.’ Romily accepted her cake and dug in straight away.

‘I’m sorry I dragged you both along. It was a disaster. Every
time she said “Downward Dog”, you laughed,’ Claire said to Ben.

‘The mental image was too strong.’

‘I think it might have helped with the sickness,’ said Romily. ‘I’m certainly hungry enough. This is good. Can I have another piece after this?’

‘You’re looking better,’ said Claire, cutting it for her.

‘I actually slept last night. And I’ve started this fun game at work, where I’m counting how many times Hal stares at my stomach before he’ll get up the nerve to ask if I’m pregnant.’

‘They don’t know yet?’ asked Ben.

‘It’s none of their business. And besides, I like playing with their heads.’

‘But you’ll want to take maternity leave.’

‘No such thing. My funding deadline runs out at the same time, regardless. And besides, I’m giving the baby to you as soon as it’s born. A couple of days, and I’ll be back with the bugs.’ She took a huge bite of cake, and turned to Claire. ‘Have you asked for maternity leave yet?’

‘I sorted it out before the summer holidays: six months from next Christmas. But I doubt I’ll go back. We always planned for me to leave work when we had a baby.’

‘Don’t,’ said Romily. ‘You might want that job to go back to. Something that’s your own, something to prove that you have a brain and aren’t just a nappy-changing automaton.’

‘I can’t imagine wanting anything else.’

‘Well, maybe you won’t. I did – I was desperate for it, to be honest. But you and I are pretty different.’

‘We are,’ said Claire, but today that didn’t seem like such a big problem. Maybe Ben had been right. All she’d needed to do was to spend time with Romily. ‘How’d it go with Posie’s father, by the way?’

‘Posie’s
father
?’ Ben said.

Romily blanched, her cake halfway to her mouth. ‘Er.’

‘Posie’s father has got in touch? He knows he’s got a daughter?’

‘He … er, turned up a few weeks ago.’

‘Is that why you weren’t answering your phone?’

‘Yeah. I didn’t feel like talking about it.’

‘But you talked about it to Claire?’

‘Claire gave me some good advice, actually.’

‘You gave Romily advice? And you didn’t tell me?’

‘I … thought it would be best coming from Romily,’ said Claire. And she’d been too focused on her own relationship with Ben, with the unborn baby, with her own feelings. With counting the congratulations cards that came through the post and wondering if it meant something that they hadn’t received more.

‘So what did you advise her to do?’ Ben asked. ‘Tell him to get lost?’

‘I said … I said that a child should know that she was wanted.’

‘Jarvis did not want Posie.’ He turned to Romily. ‘You told him to bugger off, right?’

‘No.’

‘What? He’s been away for nearly eight years with no interest in his child whatsoever. The man clearly has no sense of responsibility at all.’

‘He didn’t know he had a child,’ Romily said.

‘He didn’t deserve to have a child. You told him you were pregnant and he immediately left to go to the other side of the world.’

‘Well, to be fair, we had agreed for me to have an abortion first.’

‘He didn’t even hang around to make sure you were all right. He left that to me. How’d he find out about her, anyway?’

‘I told him.’

‘
You told him?
’

‘Ben,’ said Claire, putting her hand on Ben’s arm.

‘What, you gave him a ring? Suddenly, now?’

‘No, he turned up at work. I’m not exactly sure why, to tell you the truth. And he looked so much like Posie, that I …’ Romily shrugged. ‘I couldn’t help it.’

Ben got up from the table. ‘I cannot believe you want that toerag in Posie’s life.’

‘It’s not that I want it so much as I owe it to him. I think Posie deserves to know her father.’

‘It doesn’t make a big happy family, Romily. It can tear everything apart. You don’t know anything about Jarvis, you haven’t seen him or heard from him in years. Does he have a steady job? A home in this country? Does he have any other children?’

‘I don’t know. He’s quite angry with me. We haven’t really discussed everything yet.’

Ben raked his hands through his hair. ‘Okay. This is what we have to do. You have to see a solicitor and agree contact rules. You and Posie need to be protected.’

‘No,’ said Romily. Claire marvelled at her calmness, much more pronounced now than when they had been meditating earlier. ‘I don’t want it formalized. I just think Posie should maybe get to know her father, even if it’s only for a little while.’

‘She doesn’t need Jarvis. She has me.’

‘But you’re not her actual father,’ said Claire. ‘And we’re about to have a baby of our own. That’s going to change things.’

Ben turned to her. ‘Whose side are you on?’

‘I wasn’t aware that there were sides. Children need people to love them. It’s obvious.’

‘It’s not as simple as that.’

‘But it sort of is,’ said Romily. ‘I think.’

‘I’m going to have a shower.’ Ben left the room. Claire and Romily exchanged a look.

‘Sorry for dropping you in it,’ Claire said.

Romily was rather pale. ‘I think that’s the first time Ben and I have had an argument.’ She took a long breath, and Claire could see she was genuinely shaken. The calmness must have been an act. ‘Though I suspected this was how he’d react, which was why I didn’t tell him.’

‘If you’d met up with him instead of me last week, do you think you would have made a different decision?’

Romily frowned. ‘I don’t know. It’s done, anyway.’

‘How did Posie take it?’

‘She doesn’t know yet. I thought … I thought they should meet each other first.’ She stood up. ‘It’s getting late.’

‘For what it’s worth, I think you’ve made the right decision. Ben will come round. He always does.’

Romily bit the inside of her lip, but she didn’t answer.

‘
WHY ARE WE
going to that same park again?’ asked Posie from the back of the car.

‘We’re meeting someone there.’

‘Oh.’ Posie’s voice lost its petulance. ‘Who is it? Is it Ben?’

‘No. It’s Jarvis.’ Romily glanced in the rear-view mirror.

‘Oh. Oh, okay.’

‘Do you like Jarvis?’

Posie considered. ‘Yeah, he’s all right. He’s been to Guatemala.’ She pronounced the word carefully. ‘Did you know that?’

‘I didn’t, no.’

‘Well, he has. And he bought me an ice cream.’

‘Is that to say that you would like anyone who bought you an ice cream?’

‘I don’t know. No, I don’t think so. I wouldn’t like Dennis Farmer if he bought me an ice cream.’

‘Who’s Dennis Farmer?’

‘He’s a boy at school. He picks his nose.’

‘Posie, everyone picks their nose at some time or other. You should probably give him a chance.’

‘Not everyone wipes it on your maths paper when you’re not looking.’

Romily had to concede that point. ‘So you do like Jarvis. Regardless of the ice cream.’

‘He’s a wildlife photographer. So that’s pretty cool. I could maybe do that. It would go with all the exploring.’

‘It certainly would.’

Posie went quiet, and when Romily glanced back again, she could see that her daughter was thinking. Romily smothered the urge to say anything more, just as she’d been smothering the urge not to come to the park this morning. She’d been half-expecting a phone call from Ben, either to apologize or to tell her off some more, but he hadn’t been in touch. Claire, on the other hand, had texted
Good luck!

She didn’t like having argued with Ben. While it was happening, she’d felt oddly in control, even though she was saying things that she wasn’t certain that she meant. But then afterwards, the impact had hit her. He’d never disapproved of her before. They’d always worked on the assumption that they thought the same way about most things.

‘I know what’s going on,’ said Posie from the back seat. Romily pulled herself out of her thoughts.

‘Is this another one of your theories?’ she asked.

‘You’re meeting up with Jarvis again and asking me what I think of him because he’s your new boyfriend.’

Romily laughed aloud. ‘Oh. Oh dear – no, Pose. That’s not true.’

‘I don’t mind if he is.’

‘He’s not my boyfriend.’

‘Why don’t you have a boyfriend, then?’

‘Because I’ve got more important things in my life. Like
you, for one. Here we are.’ Romily parked the car with mingled dread and relief. It was sunny today, and the park was busy. From here, she could see across the field to the play park, where a now-familiar figure was already waiting on the bench.

Posie ran on ahead; Romily tried to keep up, noticing, as she had for the past week or so, that she was beginning to move with the pregnant woman’s waddle. Jarvis was watching them approach.

‘Hey,’ he said, standing up, his hands in the pockets of his trousers.

‘Hi,’ said Posie. ‘Do you pick your nose?’

‘Posie!’

‘I’m going to refuse to answer that question,’ Jarvis said. But he was smiling now, in that way he had with the corners of his mouth turned down.

‘Romily says that everyone does.’

‘I’ll bow to Romily’s expert opinion.’

‘
I
don’t.’ Posie plopped herself down in the middle of the bench. Jarvis sat beside her, leaving space at the other end for Romily.

‘Don’t believe her for a second,’ Romily told Jarvis. She was struck again by the resemblance between them: the colour of their eyes, the thickness of their hair. The freckles across their noses. Nervousness rose up in her like nausea, and she opened her bag to look for a mint, even though she hadn’t been sick for days now. It was as if the yoga had flicked some sort of nausea switch to off. Or maybe it was just time for her to stop being sick.

‘Are you going to push me on the swings in a minute?’ Posie asked him.

‘If you want me to.’

‘Yeah. First though, Romily won’t tell me why we’re meeting you at this park again.’

Romily gave up her search for a mint. She met Jarvis’s gaze over Posie’s head. He’d lost his half-ironic smile now. He looked, quite frankly, terrified.

‘Er,’ he said. ‘And you want to know.’

‘Don’t you have a car to get to our house? The bus goes right by it.’

‘I … think your mother wanted to meet here because it was neutral. Do you know what that means?’

‘Yes. I have the best vocabulary in my class.’

‘I’m not surprised.’ Jarvis took a deep breath.

Romily hadn’t expected him to be scared.
Good
, she thought.
You should be terrified. This is terrifying
.

‘The thing is, Posie, that …’ He met Romily’s gaze again.

‘We have something to tell you,’ Romily said.

‘What?’

You or me?
The meaning in his face was clear.
Which is better?
Romily shrugged. As if she had any idea.

‘What is it?’ Posie asked Jarvis, which seemed to settle it – for him, anyway.

‘It’s that I’m your father.’ Jarvis swallowed, took another deep breath, and sat up straighter. ‘I’m your father.’

Posie’s brow furrowed, in the way it did when she was thinking.

‘Really?’

‘Yes,’ said Romily. ‘He is.’

Posie looked from Jarvis to Romily. ‘Were you two married or something?’

‘No, we were never married,’ said Romily.

‘But did you actually have sex?’

‘Um,’ said Jarvis.

‘Yes,’ said Romily. ‘We did.’

‘So where have you been since I was born?’ Posie asked Jarvis. ‘Guatemala?’

‘Er. Partly. I didn’t know about you, you see.’

‘But you had sex with Romily. So you knew there would be a baby.’

Jarvis had a spot of colour on each of his cheekbones. Romily came to his rescue. ‘There isn’t a baby every time that people have sex, Posie. Sometimes people have sex for fun.’

‘Okay. That’s weird.’ Posie turned to Jarvis again. ‘So you and Romily made me but you didn’t know about it, you thought it was just for fun, and you went off to Guatemala.’

‘Something like that,’ said Jarvis. ‘If I’d known about you, I don’t think I would have stayed away for so long.’

‘But now you know, so you’re going to stay in England.’

‘I—’

‘He wants to get to know you better, Posie,’ said Romily, before Jarvis was pressed into more commitment than he’d planned on. ‘So that’s why we’ve met up, and why he’s told you that he’s your father.’

‘I thought we could do some things together,’ said Jarvis. ‘I’d like to spend some time with you.’

‘I think that would be all right,’ said Posie. ‘What should I call you? “Dad”?’

‘Since you call your mother by her name, why don’t we try “Jarvis”?’

‘Okay.’ Posie jumped off the bench. ‘Come and push me on the swings, Jarvis.’

‘Be right there.’

As soon as she was occupied elsewhere, Jarvis slumped back onto the bench and rubbed his hand over his forehead. He’d been sweating.

‘It went okay,’ Romily told him.

‘I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life.’

‘She’s the queen of awkward questions, that one.’

‘She … seems very knowledgeable about sex. For seven.’

‘She’s curious. I’m a biologist.’ Romily resumed her search for her mints, found a packet, and passed him one. ‘You’d thought about what she should call you beforehand, hadn’t you?’

‘Yes. Why does she call you Romily, anyway?’

‘It seemed to suit me more than “Mum”. Do you – you don’t have kids? I mean, any other kids?’

‘No. I have nieces and nephews, but this is all new to me.’ Posie beckoned to him from the swings, where she’d nabbed a free one. ‘Is she just going to accept me, like that?’ he asked.

‘It comes out later sometimes, in unexpected ways,’ Romily said. ‘She’s had quite a bit to think about lately.’

Jarvis glanced down at her stomach. His face tightened, and he got up to join Posie. Within a few minutes, her shrieks of joy reached Romily.

She put her hands on her stomach. This little thing growing inside her wasn’t going to have these issues. Right from the start, there would be no doubt about who its parents were. Posie might get over-excited and try to claim it as a brother or sister, but that wouldn’t be a problem. It wasn’t possible for a baby to have too many people loving it.