No One Could Have Guessed the Weather (21 page)

Christy knew this remark was directed at her, just as she knew her continuing obsessive secrecy was all about avoiding tut-tutting and raised eyebrows and too-long pauses before halfhearted congratulations, so she adopted a mama-grizzly tone and directed it back to Vaughn.

“I don't give a damn what anyone else thinks. This is only about my family.”

“I rather think, Christy, that this is all about
you
,”
he replied.

“I'm not feeling very well,” she said. “I'm afraid I'll have to go back to the inn.”

“No one's going anywhere at the moment, baby.” Vaughn pointed to the window, where at least four inches of snow were piled up on the outside mantel; picture-perfect had become
The Shining
.

Julia glanced at Christy, whose face had blanched and whose eyes were like piss holes in the snow. Then she glanced over at Vaughn. He was shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, reacting physically to the unusual feeling of being stuck somewhere he didn't want to be, in this case a wood-framed cottage inside a snow globe, complete with two color-coordinated Christmas trees, small shouting children, and the ever-present threat of someone trying to start a board game. He was staring at the bottles of whiskey on the table with the meditative intensity of a Buddhist monk. It was obvious that his attitude to his impending new fatherhood could best be described as ambivalent and, even as Julia was furious with Christy for keeping it all secret, not to mention her weird jealousy as she was reminded of how much she would have liked a third child herself if she had not been so terrified of postpartum psychosis, she wanted to protect Christy from the way Vaughn could be when he decided to, and so she decided to get a grip.

“I'm
delighted
for you both,” she said, chivvying Lucy and the girls to round up the others for lunch and absentmindedly handing Vaughn cutlery to set the table with, forgetting that he had not done such a thing for at least thirty-five years.

(He obeyed, of course; the situation had all the elements of the first act of a play. Not a tragedy, perhaps, but certainly a drawing room farce.)

“Yes. It's wonderful,” replied Christy. “The best news ever.”

(Who else, Vaughn wondered, was going to come bouncing in through the door, overhear the end of a conversation, misconstrue it, and utter an ill-timed revelation?)

“I'm so glad you feel that way.” It was Kristian, who had entered carrying the coal bucket and ran over to embrace Christy by vigorously rubbing his chest against hers to avoid putting his blackened hands on her.

“You know I've thought for a long time we needed to get out of the city and so I'm just thrilled that you support us. It'll mean so much to Julia. Right, darling?”

Christy looked at him, confused. Kristian looked at Julia, confused.

“You have told them, haven't you?”

“Told us what?”
said the Snow Queen snowily.

“We're moving to L.A. in the New Year.”

There was a pause. Then Christy burst out laughing.

“Good one.” She looked at Julia. “
You? L.A.?
You loathe all that sunshine and positivity. What you gonna do? Grow organic vegetables and build a henhouse?”

“Well, yes,” said Kristian, his lower lip starting to tremble.

“You can't leave the city, Julia. You only look right next to concrete and glass. And you're not safe driving a car. I've never heard such a ridiculous idea.”

But to Christy's amazement, Julia walked over to her husband and put her arm around his waist.

“No, Christy. We are going. Next month. The kids are starting school there. I'm sorry, I tried to say something, but you've been in a strange mood for weeks and . . . now I know why . . .”

Kristian felt nervous. He was concerned that he was in trouble for doing something, but he had no clue what it might be.

“Christy's
pregnant
,” Julia explained, and although this was part elucidation, it was not all.

“I need a drink,” said Vaughn.

“Absolutely,” said Kristian, suddenly feeling on safer ground. “Let's celebrate. I'll get the champagne.”

“No, no,” said Vaughn. “I'll have whiskey.”

Christy hadn't been listening to any of this. A sudden hopeful thought had struck her.

“Are you feeling. . . .
okay
,
Julia?” she began, with a meaningful look at Kristian. “Isn't this sort of thing, a mad irrational decision that could have catastrophic consequences for your life, exactly what the doctors told you could precede a manic episode?”

“I don't know, Christy,” Julia replied frostily. “What's your excuse?”

“We want food! We want food!”

Vaughn shuddered. Max and Robbie were marching in at the head of a line of children, Lucy and Richard laughing indulgently behind them. Julia, who had now totally lost interest in her perfect hostess thing, plonked the lunch onto unwarmed plates with the gracelessness of an underpaid school dinner lady and poured herself a four-unit glass of red wine while Christy stared accusingly at her. They both sank into their chairs and sulky silence, leaving it to Lucy to hurl herself once more unto the breach by regaling the table with stories on a tangential holiday theme.

The first was about a job in Yorkshire she had once had with her friend Camilla. Lucy and Camilla, wearing green tights and red sweaters to give a sense of elfishness, had been employed by a farmer to take five live reindeer, dressed up with bells on their horns and red coats with a white furry trim, round to local fairs in nearby country towns. Then they would charge the parents of small children for the delight of a ride in a sleigh, a small cart on wheels that had been covered in festive wrapping paper, to visit Santa, who would inevitably be an unemployed actor of wide girth who would equally inevitably encourage Lucy and Camilla to sit on his knee. Kristian smiled encouragingly at Lucy, hoping that this monologue might continue with an amusing anecdote not involving bottom pinching, a moral, or perhaps an unexpected insight into Lucy's personality, but no, Lucy had finished at the point where it was simply a humiliating but successful business opportunity.

“What happened to the reindeer in the spring?” he asked.

“Oh, two of them caught TB off a badger and died, and I think the other three . . . you know . . .”

Kristian did not know, so Lucy was forced to make a small throat-slitting gesture with the forefinger of her right hand.

“When you cure reindeer meat, it tastes like prosciutto,” said Richard cheerfully, kissing the side of Lucy's face. Then he looked over at Vaughn. “We're going to hear the patter of tiny feet ourselves soon.”

Before Vaughn had time to begin to make sense of this, Lucy elbowed Richard in the chest and explained.

“We bought a puppy—it's coming in a week. Right, boys?” Max and Robbie elbowed each other in the head, fell off their chairs, and rolled on the rug.

“It's my lovely little girl at last,” giggled Lucy.

Christy looked up, triumphant. She had been waiting for a wry joke or a wistful comment to indicate that Lucy had secretly always wanted another baby. She had been looking forward to this on the journey.

“Would you like to have another baby?” she asked.

Lucy did not bat an eyelid. By now she was used to the inappropriately personal question as small talk. It was, she knew, simply a fact of life in New York.

“God, no,” she replied. “I'm far too old.”

“You could adopt,” Christy retorted, feeling quite desperate now. (She knew Lucy was several years younger than she was.)

“No, I'm temperamentally unsuited to the process. I wanted to get a puppy from the dog rescue, couldn't see why we couldn't give a home to some runt thrown out of a lorry on the Interstate (Julia had told Christy that this was how some English people dealt with unwanted pets—Christy had found it very disturbing), but honestly, after five minutes of them telling me about all the questionnaires I'd have to fill in, and making a date for the accommodation inspection, and practically having to swear on the Bible I'd never go away on a holiday, I told them, no, that's okay, I'll just buy one.”

“Darling Lucy,” said Richard affectionately. “Please don't equate the adoption process with dog rescue.”

“All I'm saying is, unless I could be handed a child from somewhere, and preferably one of at least five years old, I wouldn't want another one. Does that sound terrible?”

“No,” intoned Vaughn. “It sounds eminently sensible.”

And he downed another triple whiskey with a ruthless, manly efficiency that made the other two men feel soft and inadequate. (Kristian, in particular, made a mental note never to use moisturizer again.)

So that was that. Christy fell silent. There would be no validation for her reproductive superiority. Lucy changed the subject.

“Now, who wants to hear about the summer I waitressed in the Aloha Motel in Atlantic City, where I had to wear a grass hula skirt and balance a live parrot on my shoulder?”

Christy struggled to conceal a yawn. She had no wish to hear the end of this story, which, if Lucy continued true to form, would be that the parrot was now deceased. Fortunately, Lucy's boys intervened by making loud groaning noises and demanding to watch television.

“Nonsense,” barked Lucy briskly. “We'll play charades. Come on, children. Follow me.” And to the other adults' amazement, they did.

Vaughn stood up and repaired to a bedroom with another bottle, where he sat on a yoga ball and thought about his life. Richard and Kristian fled the melancholy silence of the kitchen to act out
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
using Julia's incense sticks as magic wands.

Now alone, Christy spoke first.

“I'm sorry, Julia. This isn't how I wanted to tell you.”

“Ditto,”
replied Julia, but she said nothing more, and neither did Christy. They both knew this was not the right moment for their conversation, but whether there would ever be a right moment they did not know. Something big had happened between them, Christy was sure of it, and, although she should have said that she was delighted for Julia, too, she was gripped by a terrible panic that it was the beginning of the end of their friendship, which would dissolve into three illegible scribbled lines on a holiday card every year. Worst of all, she realized that in the past she would have known, but today she found it impossible to tell what Julia was thinking.

In fact, what Julia was thinking was that at least with family when they were annoying or deceitful you could shout at them or make incredibly nasty comments in front of or behind their backs or give your siblings Chinese burns and everyone would shrug and accept it. But such behavior was not possible with friends, even when they did not behave like friends. So she turned up “O Holy Night” to squeeze out the silence between them, and Christy walked out into the hallway, where Lucy and Richard were now standing hand in hand, peering into the swirling whiteness and talking about arctic exploration and one Captain Oates from Scott's tragic expedition who had walked out into a blizzard, announcing, “I'm going out—I may be some time.” Christy hoped no one was getting any ideas from this.

Lucy demanded they hush and listen to the wind as it whistled and howled around them. Now she started talking about traditional Irish music, in particular a tune that a group of sailors said they had been given by the wind. Richard listened with a kind of awe. To him, Lucy was the most fascinating person he had ever met. As Christy watched them, an overwhelming sadness came upon her.

She peeped round the door of the den to see all the children rapt in front of
The Sound of Music
, so she climbed the wooden staircase to find Vaughn. Vaughn was always able to parachute in and out of situations at will, and if anyone could haul himself out of a snowdrift, it was him. In the distance she heard his voice muttering and discovered him in the master bedroom, watching Fox News and shouting at the television.

When he saw her he calmed his tone, and told her that they were going to have to stay the night, as travel was impossible. She was amazed at his equanimity.

“I'm tired,” he said, though whether this was a general statement or specific to today she could not tell. Then he turned back to Sean Hannity.

Christy lay down beside him and absorbed the events of the day so far.
Julia. Leaving. New York.
Unthinkable. Of all the possible dramatic twists to the plot of Julia's life, this one had honestly never occurred to her. For the fact was that Christy needed Julia to get through the next stage of her pregnancy. She had planned on them going to the scans together like a glamorous lesbian couple and watching the baby wave at them in black-and-white. Julia might even be present at the birth this time, and would certainly visit Christy on a daily basis as she lay blissful but broken apart in the few weeks after delivery. Such acts were things she would never expect of Vaughn. After all, wasn't that how most women got through the vicissitudes of new motherhood? It was the daily snatched conversations over neighborhood coffees with other warriors on the front line of maternity that saw you through the battles of sleep deprivation, hormonal fluctuations, and the annihilation of your former self.

Julia's presence was vital to Christy's picture of herself and the new child. Christy had made her decision knowing that her life would change but assuming that everyone else's would stay the same.

“You'll miss Julia when she leaves,” said Vaughn matter-of-factly, switching off the TV, his eyes beginning to close.

“Yes.” Then she whispered to herself, “I didn't think I'd be doing it on my own.”

But Vaughn had heard her.

“You won't be on your own.”

And she smiled and snuggled up beside him.

“You'll have to get a nanny now. I suggest two,” and he curled onto his side and fell asleep immediately.