The Art of Friendship (28 page)

Pete yawned, without covering his mouth. She saw his tonsils, pink and healthy.

‘Late night last night?’ said Janice.

Pete stretched, raising closed fists above his head and revealing a pale slender midriff, rippled with muscles. ‘Yep. I didn’t get in ‘til after three.’

The waitress came and took the order and Janice said, reluctant to let the subject drop, ‘So you went to that party after all?’

Pete raised his eyes lazily to meet hers. ‘I couldn’t see any reason why not.’

Janice pressed her lips together. ‘I thought your father and I made it clear that you weren’t to go to any more parties.
Not,’ she said, glancing at Keith, ‘after what happened at the last one.’

‘Look, let’s not argue,’ said Keith. ‘Let’s try and keep things…pleasant.’ He lifted his glass and said, ‘I propose a toast to Pete. Congratulations on finishing your exams.’

Janice put the glass to her lips and glanced sourly at Pete. The starters came – watercress soup for Janice and Keith, barbecued chicken wings for Pete. They ate in silence for a few minutes and then Janice put her spoon down and laid her napkin on the table. ‘Have you seen anything of Laura these last few weeks, Pete?’

Pete pulled meat off a wing with his teeth and said, ‘Not much.’

‘And have you spoken to her at all?’

He licked the fingers of his right hand. ‘No.’

‘Don’t you think you should?’ said Keith, finally stepping up to the mark.

Pete shrugged and shifted in the seat. ‘I don’t know what to say, do I? I mean, what is there to say?’

‘You could say sorry,’ said Janice flatly.

‘She’s expecting your baby, Pete,’ said Keith. ‘At the very least you should tell her how you feel about that and whether you’re willing to support her in any way. Though of course if she decides to have the baby and keep it, you’ll be legally bound to pay maintenance until the child is independent.’

Pete slouched even further into the seat, his legs sticking straight out in front, his neck supported by the back of the chair. He folded his arms across his chest. ‘But that’s ridiculous. How can I support a baby? I don’t have any income.’

‘You could always get a job,’ remarked Janice acidly.

‘A summer one, maybe,’ said Pete, not noticing, or perhaps choosing to ignore, her sarcasm. He’d never had a job in his life. Another mistake. Money and creature comforts had always
come too easily to Pete. It occurred to Janice then that she and Keith had failed him. He was so ill-prepared for independence. But it was an uncomfortable thought – if they had failed as parents, how much of what Pete was could be laid at their door? She knew she was to blame, but it seemed unfair to hold Keith responsible for a child that wasn’t even his own.

‘But I’m going to be at uni for the next three years,’ he protested. ‘I won’t have any income worth talking about. I’ll be surviving at subsistence level.’

Hardly, thought Janice. Not with a father as deep-pocketed and generous as Keith.

‘There are other ways of providing support besides money,’ said Keith.

‘Like what?’

‘Taking your responsibilities seriously. Being a proper father to the child in the long term, emotionally as well as financially. And once you graduate and start working you’ll have a good job and you’ll be able to afford maintenance then.’

Pete stared at Keith, horrified.

‘For up to nineteen years.’

‘Nineteen years! But I didn’t ask to be a father. And I don’t want to be one.’

‘At least he’s honest,’ observed Janice drily, and she couldn’t help but take some pleasure in his discomfort. She took a swig of wine. ‘Though it’s a pity you didn’t think of that
before
you got Laura pregnant, Pete.’

He glared at her from under his pale eyebrows and she thought back to the sacrifices she had made to raise him. The education she might have had – and still mourned to this day. ‘And while you’re busy feeling sorry for yourself, have you given any thought to the effect this’ll have on Laura’s life? If she has the baby, she’ll probably never get to uni. Or if she does, she’ll have to take a year out and it’ll be a real
struggle for her. In fact, without the support of her family, it’ll be absolutely impossible. And is it fair that Patsy and Martin should…’

‘Okay,’ said Keith, cutting her off.

She swallowed the anger – rage not only at the injustice for Laura but for her own lost dreams, her sacrificed ambition.

Pete raised his eyebrows, gave a small shrug. ‘She shouldn’t have it then. She should have an abortion.’

Janice counted to ten. Before she’d got that far, Keith said glumly, ‘That’s what I thought. But it’s not your – or my – choice to make. It’s entirely up to Laura. But it’s only fair to let her know where you stand, Pete. You can’t just ignore her and pretend it never happened. You did sleep with the girl.’

‘I didn’t
sleep
with her. That makes it sounds like it was more than it was. It was just a quick shag.’

‘Pete!’ cried Janice, so loudly people turned to look.

Keith face went red. ‘Don’t talk like that in front of your mother. And don’t talk about Laura like that. It’s disrespectful.’

‘Why should I respect her?’

‘Because she’s carrying your child. And you’ve known the girl all your life. Doesn’t that count for something?’

Pete shrugged.

Keith shook his head. ‘You just don’t get it, do you? This isn’t just about you, Pete. You’ve potentially ruined Laura’s life and you’ve destroyed the relationship between us and the Devlins. They were among our closest friends. And now they won’t even talk to us. Your mother rang Patsy the other night and she put the phone down on her. Can you imagine how hurtful that is?’

Pete scowled. ‘I’m sorry about that. But it’s not like I did it intentionally. As I told you before, things just got a little…out of hand.’

‘You’re telling me,’ said Keith grimly. He took a long drink of water, and stared out of the window.

‘Everyone finished here?’ said the waiter. Janice nodded at the bowl of congealing green soup and Pete pushed his plate, half of the chicken wings untouched, into the middle of the table. The waiter cleared away the unfinished food without a word, laid fresh cutlery on the table and disappeared quickly. No wonder. You could’ve cut the atmosphere with a knife.

Pete’s mobile bleeped. He pulled it out of the back pocket of his jeans, read a message and started typing a reply. ‘Will you put that thing away?’ said Keith, uncharacteristically testy.

Pete glanced up at him with a surprised look on his face but did not comply straight away. He pressed a few more buttons, watched the screen for a few seconds, then slipped the phone back in his pocket. He fidgeted for a few moments and then picked up a clean fork and pressed the prongs into the back of his hand. He removed it and examined the row of regimented red marks imprinted on his pale skin. He laid the fork on the table. ‘Alright. I’ll talk to Laura.’

‘Good,’ said Keith, bringing his gaze back to Pete and brightening up. ‘That’s a step in the right direction, isn’t it, Janice?’

Janice, not so readily mollified as Keith, replied, ‘What are you going to say to her?’

‘Dunno yet. I’ll have to give it some thought.’

‘Good lad,’ said Keith, and he actually smiled. ‘I knew you’d do the right thing.’

Pete gave him a sideways glance, the tiniest hint of a sneer on his upper lip. Pete might have fooled his father but he hadn’t fooled Janice. She would reserve judgment until she saw what he did next. And try, perhaps, to give him the benefit of the doubt.

‘Look, can we talk about something else?’ said Pete. ‘I thought we were here to celebrate the end of my exams.’

Keith let out a long sigh, sounding relieved that, having tackled the subject of Laura, he could now put that particular unpleasantness behind him. ‘We are here to celebrate, son.’ He looked at Janice. ‘What am I thinking of? This is no way to have a celebration. Waiter! Can we have some champagne over here?’

In the car on the way home, with Pete in the back seat of the Range Rover, and Keith driving, Janice’s head began to throb. She hadn’t wanted the champagne; she’d forced it down to please Keith. Now, combined with a glass of wine, and the strain of being civil when all she wanted to do was slap Pete, she felt a bad headache coming on. She pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. She shouldn’t have had anything to drink. She should have kept a clear head. She’d thought a few drops of alcohol would help her relax and cope better with what was about to come. But it had only made things worse.

Her heart pounded against her chest and a rising panic constricted her throat and made it hard to breathe. The headache made it hard to think. She must keep calm. And she must be careful. She mustn’t say more than she had planned, more than was safe. She must stick to her story and hold fast in the face of whatever Pete might throw at her. She would let Keith tell him the bare facts but, in the end, Pete would look to her. His history came down to her – what she knew and what she was willing to tell.

She rummaged in her handbag, found two ancient-looking paracetamol and popped them in her mouth. With nothing else to hand, and desperate for relief from the pounding inside her head, she washed them down with the stale dregs of a water bottle lodged in a recess in the passenger door.

‘Are you feeling alright?’ said Keith

‘Just a sore head. Must’ve been the champagne. Once these tablets kick in, I’ll be okay.’

Of course, she could be wrong. Pete might not be interested in his real father. He might not want to know. He might not press her for answers. There was always that slim chance. She grabbed onto this hope, wrapped it like a bandage round her frazzled nerves.

As soon as they stepped through the front door, Pete said, ‘I think I’ll pop over to Al’s.’

Keith looked at Janice, his usually affable face rigid with fear. She suddenly realised how much it was costing him to do this thing. ‘We’d rather you didn’t,’ he said. ‘Your mum and I want to have a talk with you.’

Pete let out a loud sigh and slapped a fist into the palm of his hand. ‘Tell me this isn’t about Laura. Again!’

Keith glanced at Janice and gave her a brave smile. ‘No. It’s not about Laura,’ he said quite evenly. ‘It’s about something else entirely.’

Pete softened. ‘Oh.’ A short pause. ‘What?’

Neither of them answered him and he fell silent, sensing at last that something was up.

‘Come into the kitchen. Let’s talk in there.’ Keith led the way and Pete followed, with Janice in the rear. Keith had forgotten to take his jacket off.

‘Can’t this wait?’ said Pete, casting an uneasy glance at his mother. ‘I want to go out now.’

‘No, I’m afraid it can’t wait,’ said Keith firmly and he looked at Janice. ‘Not any longer.’ But his decisive words could not hide his anxiety. He fidgeted with something inside his jacket pocket, then took his hand out and patted the pocket softly. His left cheek twitched involuntarily. He had never seemed old before, but he did tonight.

They all sat down round the table. Keith took up his usual position at the head of the weathered oak table and Janice sat down across from Pete. She wished now that Keith had chosen the drawing room. He probably thought this a less intimidating environment but Janice found it too uncomfortable sitting there staring at each other across the empty table. In view of what he was about to hear, she wished for greater distance between herself and Pete.

‘Well?’ he demanded, clearly irritated.

Janice took a deep breath, counted to three, let it out again. Her headache had diminished to a dull, intermittent twinge.

Keith cleared his throat, gave Pete a tentative smile and mirrored him, resting his own forearms on the table. He clasped his hands together loosely and looked at Janice, then back at Pete.

‘You know that your mother and I love you dearly,’ he began.

Pete turned his head slightly away from Keith and looked at him out of the corners of his eyes. He frowned, his expression guarded. He wasn’t used to hearing either of his parents talk openly about their feelings for him. Janice imagined that he found it embarrassing.

‘And we would never do anything to hurt you.’ Keith paused and looked at Janice for support. She tried to turn the corners of her lips into a smile, but her features were frozen.

‘Sometimes we do things that aren’t right but we do them with the best of intentions. I want you to know that your mother and I have always done what we thought was best for you. With your happiness and welfare uppermost in our minds.’

‘What are you talking about, Dad? Are you getting divorced?’

‘No, of course not! There’s something that your mum and I should have told you a long time ago. But the time never seemed right and the truth is, as time went on maybe we were a little afraid to tell you.’ Keith paused, ran his hand over his lips. There were beads of sweat on his upper lip.

‘In some ways it’s a momentous thing but in others, it doesn’t matter at all. It doesn’t change anything. Not for us. Not for me.’

Pete’s frown had deepened. He tapped the table with his nails.
Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat.
The sound bore into Janice’s skull like a drill. Pete never took his eyes off Keith.

‘But you’re eighteen now and soon you’ll be leaving home. And it’s only right that you should know the truth.’

Janice could not bear the suspense. She wished, suddenly, that Keith would say it – just say the thing she had dreaded all these years from the moment Pete opened his mouth and called Keith ‘Dad’.

‘Please, Keith,’ she whispered. ‘Just tell him.’

‘Yes, tell me,’ said Pete, with a quick, sharp glance at Janice. ‘You’re freaking me out, Dad.’

Keith faltered and bent his head. And then after some long moments had passed he raised his eyes to Pete, held his gaze firm and true and said, ‘I am not your biological father, son.’

‘But of course you are,’ said Pete quickly, a reflex response and he gave a nervous laugh.

Keith shook his head sadly. ‘No. I’m not. I met your mother when you were two-and-a-half years old. We married six months later. I adopted you the following year.’

Pete opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. ‘But…I…it can’t be,’ he said at last and his voice trailed off. He leant back in the chair, his arms hanging redundantly by his sides. He shook his head, and it gathered momentum
until he was swinging it vehemently from side to side. ‘I don’t believe you.’