Dear Thing (23 page)

Claire squinted at the screen. With the legs curled up like that, she couldn’t tell. ‘Do we want to know?’ she asked Ben.

‘Don’t you think it’s better if it’s a surprise?’

Romily looked up from her book. She had it propped just above her belly. ‘You don’t want to give little Thing a name?’

The technician laughed. ‘You call it Thing?’

‘It’s sort of a nickname,’ explained Claire quickly, in case the technician thought they were strange for giving a baby such a detached name. Though the technician had been very
kind, not registering any surprise at all when Romily explained that she was the surrogate and that Claire and Ben were the real parents. ‘Romily’s daughter started using it and it stuck.’

‘I like it,’ said the technician, typing something into her computer. ‘It’s better than some of the names I’ve heard, believe me. Last week I had a couple who’d named their baby James Tiberius Kirk. After the
Star Trek
captain?’

‘That’s a lot to live up to when you’re not out of the womb yet,’ said Romily. ‘Kid might not even like space travel.’

‘Well,’ said the technician, ‘Thing appears to be perfectly healthy and a good size. Do you want to keep a photograph? One copy or two?’

‘One will be fine,’ said Romily. She went back to her book.

Claire took the photograph out to the waiting room while Romily got herself dressed again. She and Ben stood, their heads close together, staring at it. At their future.

‘I can hardly believe the baby’s grown so much,’ she said.

‘All that organic food is paying off.’ Ben kissed her cheek. ‘Does it feel real to you now?’

She traced the baby’s outline with her fingertip. ‘You know, it does.’ She grinned at Ben. ‘It really does.’

She held it against her body, close against, as if Thing were growing inside her.

IT WAS JARVIS’S
idea: a day on the coast near the end of the summer holidays, to get to know each other better. He borrowed a Mercedes saloon from a friend even though Romily told him she had a perfectly good Golf, and packed a picnic even though Romily told him she really did know how to make sandwiches, and picked them up outside her flat in the morning. He waited in the car for them, motor idling, while they gathered together the metric tonne of stuff that was necessary for a day on the beach. Posie insisted that she should ride in the front seat, so Romily sat in the back by herself and closed her eyes and listened to the rock music on the radio and the breeze blowing in through the open windows and the steady stream of conversation between her daughter and her father. They seemed to have a lot to talk about. Posie, of course, could talk to anyone when she had a mind to, but Jarvis had a treasure of anecdotes from his travels around the world with a camera, and he held Posie rapt.

The stories weren’t told for her benefit, but Romily couldn’t help but listen. He’d ridden an elephant in India and
been spat at by llamas in Peru; had his tent ransacked by baboons in Botswana and lain in wait for seven days for a Bird of Paradise in New Guinea. He’d had malaria despite the tablets and lost two stone. He’d broken his wrist falling from a tree in Bolivia and he’d climbed back up anyway to carry on shooting the macaws because it was two days’ trek to the nearest hospital and he reckoned he might as well get the footage before he was forced to take a week off in La Paz in a sling.

Romily had dreamed of a life like that, once upon a time. Not the broken wrist, obviously, nor the malaria. Jarvis clearly had no regrets that he’d left England; he’d been having all sorts of adventures while she’d been in a small flat changing nappies and classifying someone else’s insect collection at work.

Her mind drifted away off to sleep and she didn’t wake until they were on the chain ferry to Sandbanks. The tang of sea air came through the windows and she sat up straight, taking in the sky that seemed much bluer down here, the noise of the ferry, the seagulls wheeling overhead. Posie was nearly jumping up and down in her seat. Jarvis drove them to a car park and Posie was out of the car almost before it stopped.

‘Be careful!’ Romily called to Posie, who was hurtling over the dunes. Jarvis, carrying the picnic basket and a blanket and Romily’s hold-all filled with clothes and buckets and spades and sun cream and hats, loped ahead and casually took Posie by the hand. Romily followed, carrying the towels, placing her feet carefully in the sloping sand. Her centre of gravity had changed. By the time she got to the beach proper, Jarvis had already dumped the equipment and he and Posie were running towards the surf, whooping.

Posie was wearing her swimming costume under her clothes, but she hadn’t bothered to take them off of course, so they were going to get soaked. Romily considered going after her and divesting her of her shorts and shirt, but they were having such a good time already and she had spare clothes. So she spread out the blanket a nice distance from the closest family and sat on it, kicking off her sandals and burying her feet in the warm sand.

It was a beautiful day: sunny, with a breeze coming off the sea. The beach was busy, but not crowded, full of the happy screams of children and the rhythm of the surf. Across the water she could see the Isle of Wight. She breathed in the unfettered air. From the looks of it, she needn’t have come along, as far as Posie was concerned, anyway. She was perfectly happy with her new exciting playmate. But the nap in the car had been wonderful. She wasn’t sleeping enough. And it was good to get away for a day, even if it was nowhere more exotic than the Dorset seaside.

Jarvis wore a T-shirt and a pair of battered knee-length shorts, and he and Posie were chasing the waves up and down the beach. Posie’s hair flew loose and Jarvis was laughing. No one watching them would take them for anything else but father and daughter.

How long would he stay in the country? One thing he hadn’t mentioned in his stories was a wife or a girlfriend. But there had to be someone after all this time, even with his travelling. There had to be a reason he’d come back to England in the first place. Romily knew that Posie’s notions of everyone living together in Ben and Claire’s house as a big happy family would never happen, but how were they going to rearrange their lives, the three of them?

‘Romily!’ Posie was running up the beach towards her, her
feet slipping in the sand. She was, predictably, soaked to the skin. ‘Come and play!’

‘You’re having a good time with Jarvis,’ Romily said. ‘You don’t need me.’

‘We want you!’ Posie grabbed her hand with her cold, sea-wet fingers and tugged. ‘It’s fun.’

Romily got to her feet and went along with Posie. Jarvis was waiting for them, ankle-deep in shifting water, his hair ruffled by the wind. He grinned at her, the sort of grin she hadn’t seen from him for eight years, and rare enough even back then. It made him look younger.

‘Your daughter reckons she can command the sea by the force of her will,’ he said.

‘I wouldn’t put it past her.’

‘Let’s do it together.’ Posie reached out and took Jarvis’s hand with her other one. ‘One, two, three, run!’

They launched together into the surf, chasing the wave down the slope. It foamed away from them and the sand hissed under their feet. ‘And stay there!’ yelled Posie, and then she screamed as the water came rushing back, backpedalling up the beach with Romily and Jarvis on either side.

‘There’s this thing called the tide,’ began Romily, but then they were running back towards the sea as it retreated, and up the beach again as it advanced. Breathless, laughing, with salt on their lips and in their hair, grasping slippery fingers and swinging Posie between them.

On a downward run, just as the sea was about to turn and rush back, Posie let go of their hands and sprawled headfirst into the water. Instinctively Romily grabbed for her, but Jarvis got there first and Romily collided with him. He steadied her with one arm, pulling Posie up with the other.

‘Again!’ spluttered Posie, her hair in wet rat’s-tails,
laughing. She squirmed free of Jarvis and rolled in the froth. For a split second Romily was held against Jarvis’s side. She could feel his ribs against his wet shirt, the lithe strength of his chest and arm, his quick breath.

Then he let her go and backed away a step or two.

‘I think the idea is to play in the sea, Pose, not to drink half of it,’ said Romily, wringing water out of her top.

‘Lemonade,’ said Jarvis, reaching down and hauling a giggling Posie out of the water again. ‘And then shell-hunting. Come on, explorers, let’s go.’

‘I don’t want to wear a hat,’ said Posie, scrambling up the beach to where they’d left their stuff.

‘You will,’ said Romily and Jarvis at the same time. ‘Young lady,’ added Jarvis. Romily covered her mouth with her hand.

She twisted off a strawberry stem and handed the berry to Posie before popping another one in her mouth. ‘You,’ she said to Jarvis, ‘really do know how to pack a picnic.’

The blanket was littered with sandwich crusts, empty crisp packets, crumbs of cake. Posie had commandeered a corner of it for her treasures and she rearranged her shells and seaweed in a circle, with the one fossil they’d found in the centre: a curve of ammonite. A drop of strawberry juice ran down her chin and she absently wiped it away on her bare arm.

‘We used to come here every summer,’ Jarvis said. ‘We had picnics just like this one, only I remember vast quantities of potted meat.’

‘Ew,’ said Posie.

‘Don’t knock it. It’s hard to be a vegetarian when you’re a world explorer.’

‘I might eat snake, maybe.’

‘Snake is delicious.’ He poured the last of a tube of crisps into his hand and tipped them into his mouth. ‘I never found a fossil on this beach, though. I’ve got a boxful of fossils that I found further along the coast.’

‘Bet I can find more.’

‘I’ll take you up on that. In a minute.’ He leaned back on his elbows, his legs stretched out in front of him. Romily found herself looking at his feet. They were dusted with sand, long, lean and familiar, as familiar as his body had felt an hour ago in the surf.

In a different world they might have been here as a family. She would have heard about his childhood picnics already. She would probably be sick of hearing about his childhood picnics.

‘You’ve got a big family, haven’t you?’ she asked, memory tickling. ‘Still in London?’

‘Spread out all over the South of England. You can’t throw a stone without hitting one. They’d like to meet you, Posie.’

‘You’ve told them about her?’

‘Yes.’ He raised his eyebrows as if he expected her to object, but she didn’t. She was too relaxed, and besides, he had a right.

‘They probably all hate me for not telling you sooner.’

‘No. That is, my mother does. But my sisters say I am a feckless gadabout and that they’d think twice about telling me, too.’

‘They say that?’

‘Not in those words exactly. But I know them well.’

‘I’m going to have a brother or sister soon,’ volunteered Posie. ‘We call it Thing.’

‘Posie.’

‘Yes,’ said Jarvis. ‘How … when is the baby due?’

‘At the beginning of January.’

‘You and Ben must be pleased.’ He pulled his leg up, away from her.

‘And Claire’s pleased too,’ said Posie. ‘Claire has decorated the nursery already. I saw it, it’s yellow like sunshine. I don’t mind sharing it. They have a spare room for you, if you want it, Jarvis, because I know you don’t have a house in England.’

‘Posie, leave it.’

Jarvis frowned. ‘Claire decorated the nursery?’

‘Yes, Claire doesn’t have good eggs so Romily is having the baby for her. She and Ben used artificial respiration.’

‘Insemination, Posie, and that’s enough. Why don’t you build a sandcastle.’ Romily pushed buckets and spades in her direction. She felt Jarvis’s stare.

‘Okay,’ said Posie, and went a little way off to start digging sand.

‘Ben is still married to Claire?’ Jarvis said, in a low furious tone. ‘You’re acting as their surrogate?’

‘Yes. It’s no big deal, Jarvis. I volunteered.’

‘What are you, fucking stupid?’

‘Pardon me?’

‘I take that back. You’re clearly not stupid, but you must be insane.’

‘Jarvis, this is none of your business.’

‘You’re carrying Ben’s baby. It’s yours and Ben’s.’

‘Genetically it’s ours, but legally—’

‘Legally! As if that matters. You’ve been in love with Ben for years.’

It was like a punch in the chest. ‘How—’

‘I’ve got eyes, Romily. You might call him your best friend, but I was never fooled by that. He’s some sort of god to you – who knows why.’

‘You don’t know anything.’ The two of them were both on their knees now, face to face, talking in a cross between shouts and whispers. Two metres away, Posie dug in the sand, humming quietly to herself.

‘Your capacity for self-delusion hasn’t changed at all,’ said Jarvis. ‘Do you really think you’re going to be able to give this baby away?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course I will. Ben and Claire want this baby. It’s theirs.’

‘You couldn’t give up Posie, and you didn’t even love me.’

Romily put both her hands on her stomach. ‘It’s different.’

‘The difference is, this one is Ben’s. Or maybe you’re using this baby as leverage to finally get Ben for yourself.’

‘Like I used Posie as leverage to get you to stay? Oh no, wait – I didn’t do that, did I? You said you wanted freedom and I let you have it.’ Romily scrambled to her feet and grabbed her sandals. ‘I’m not having this conversation with you. I’m going for a walk. Look after Posie for me.’

Jarvis said something else, but she didn’t hear it. She was walking rapidly across the soft sand towards the dunes. A path led her through them between tufts of spiky grass.

How did he know? She’d never told him. She’d never told anyone, except for the pages of that notebook. She’d been hiding it for years with everything she said and did. She’d even chosen Jarvis initially because he was the opposite physical type to Ben.

Except she’d built her entire life around being near Ben, and now she was having his baby.