Pedigree Mum

‘Has there really?’ Kerry asks, feigning wonderment as the woman at the judges’ table calls the assembled crowd to attention.

‘Everyone?’ she calls out. ‘We just had a quick chat among ourselves and decided to award a very special prize to the team who put in so much effort, only to have it all destroyed …’

Mia and Freddie gawp at their mother expectantly.

‘… Team Tambini-McCoy with their treasure island – at least that’s what we think it was before the unfortunate event – so if the children would like to come forward …’ All six surge towards the judges’ table, their rowdiness garnering the odd look of disdain as they return, delighted, with their booty.

Admittedly it’s just an ice cream token each, but Rob is dispatched to the old-fashioned red and white striped kiosk with the children dancing around him as if they’ve scooped a major prize.

Anita stretches out her slender honey-tanned legs on the blanket. ‘So …?’ she says when Rob is out of earshot. ‘How did it go?’

Kerry pulls off her canvas plimsoles and digs her toes into the warm sand. ‘Okay, I guess. He’s still adamant that nothing happened.’

‘Which is feasible …’

‘Yes.’

The small pause is filled with the blur of children playing, and there’s a palpable sense of relief among the kids now the competition is over. Kerry glances at her oldest friend, the one who made all those summers in Shorling so special, and to whom she’d write excitable letters in multi-coloured felt tips during the long months until her next stay at Aunt Maisie’s. When Kerry turned seventeen, her parents had been filled with a new sense of adventure, perhaps relieved that they no longer felt obliged to take their only child back to Shorling every summer. Her father bought an ugly beige campervan – nothing so stylish as a VW camper – and he and her mum took to trundling around France while Kerry started holidaying with friends. The year it had happened – the motorway crash just south of Bordeaux – Kerry and Anita had been in a rowdy resort in Crete. As the red sports car had cut up the campervan, and Kerry’s dad had braked suddenly, veering into the forest below, Kerry and Anita were probably downing fierce cocktails in the Banana Moon bar. What if Anita hadn’t suggested the trip, and Kerry had gone on holiday with her parents instead? She still plays the ‘what if?’ game occasionally.

‘Kerry?’ Anita says gently.

‘Uh-huh?’

She indicates the small crowd clamouring around the ice cream kiosk. ‘Look at poor Rob. The kids are probably confusing the hell out of him. Imagine, having to remember six ice cream flavours all at once.’ They laugh as, surrounded by children, he throws up his hands in mock surrender. ‘You do believe him, don’t you?’ Anita adds.

Kerry nods. ‘Yes, I suppose I do. I’ve only been here a month, but maybe I’ve already lost touch with the real world, you know? I mean, the fact that people make friends in the office and go out after work. It’s all perfectly normal, isn’t it? You socialise with the other teachers …’

‘Yes, of course I do.’

‘Though you don’t have sleepovers.’

‘Er, no.’ Anita gives her a wry smile. ‘No one would dare. You wouldn’t believe what staffroom gossip is like.’

Kerry chuckles. ‘It’s different for Rob. He’s had an awful time since his new editor arrived, and I think he just had to let off a bit of steam.’

‘We all need to do that sometimes,’ Anita says.

Rob and the children are heading back towards them now, the two girls charging ahead of the pack.

‘I still can’t believe what I did to him, though,’ Kerry says, shaking her head.

‘God, I know,’ Anita laughs. ‘What a bloody great waste of a cake.’

Chapter Thirteen

Jack’s, three weeks later

Jack’s might be thronging on a Friday night, but on a rainy Monday evening at the start of October it’s an entirely different story. Nadine, who’s been pleasant enough since Rob spent the night at her place, had hung around in the office after everyone else had left.

‘Not like you to work late,’ Rob had remarked, which had come out sounding ruder than he’d intended.

‘Are you implying I’m a slacker?’ she’d responded with an arch of her brow.

‘Of course not,’ he’d replied quickly, before adding, ‘You okay, Nadine? You seem a bit fed-up today.’ She didn’t seem to be working, at least not on anything obvious. She was just sitting at her desk, rearranging her novelty pens with the fluorescent gonks on their ends and flicking idly through the latest issue of Mr Jones. Then she’d closed the magazine, and her eyes had met his across the office.

‘Um, actually I’m not okay, Rob,’ she’d said. ‘D’you have time for a quick drink?’

So here they are – even Nadine is a member of Jack’s, it transpires – with Rob waiting to be served in the basement bar. At a quarter to seven, they are the only customers in the place. Apart from Theresa with her clipboard on the door, there’s no sign of any staff either.

Standing at the elegant, curved bar, Rob glances back at their table and wills someone to materialise and serve him. He’s only planning to stay for a quick one, just to be nice; he’ll hear her woes (she really does look miserable now, all pale and hunched in the corner) then get home sharpish. In fact he isn’t entirely comfortable about being in a drinking establishment with Nadine at all, not after last time. He’s managed to smooth things over with Kerry by the skin of his teeth. He’s accepted the Ramsays’ offer on the house and, after making an utter arse of himself, now feels ready to embrace that new life on the coast.

Ah, there are signs of life from the nether regions of Jack’s. From a back room emerges the stunning red-head who’d presented him with his birthday cake, and he waits for her to recognise him.

‘Yeah?’ she says blankly.

‘Er, a Kronenbourg and a tomato juice please.’ Weird drink, a tomato juice. No pleasure in it as far as he can work out. It probably has negligible calories, though, which is clearly high on Nadine’s agenda. Come to think of it, he isn’t entirely sure she actually eats. Maybe she gleans her nutrition from the garnishes in drinks.

‘Here you go.’ The red-head places the drinks on the bar – Nadine’s has a sliver of celery stuck in it – and takes his money without thanks or any hint of being human. Perhaps she’s an android, Rob reflects as he carries the drinks back to the table. Or maybe there’s a secret rule that over-thirties aren’t supposed to be in here.

‘So,’ he says, taking the seat opposite Nadine.

She pulls a tight smile.

‘Everything all right?’

‘Like I said, not really.’ She twizzles the straw in her drink.

‘Er … is it something to do with Eddy?’

‘What?’ She looks aghast.

‘I mean …’ Rob scratches his chin, relieved that the red-head has disappeared into the back room again. ‘I just wondered if it was something to do with work, if you were worried about—’

‘I’m not worried, Rob,’ she says sharply.

‘Oh! Well, that’s good. You shouldn’t be. I know you’re only the editorial assistant but—’

‘Only the editorial assistant?’ she repeats.

Shit, this is hard work. He’d give anything to be down in Shorling now, snuggled up with Kerry and the kids, watching a movie together.

‘What I mean is,’ he explains, ‘you’re just starting out and I know things are a bit shaky in the company at the moment. But Eddy’s obviously really happy with you and I’m sure your job’s secure …’

Nadine purses her lips and shifts in the plush red seat. ‘Well, I am worried but it’s not about work.’

‘So what’s—’

‘I’m pregnant, Rob.’

‘Are you? God!’ He emits a strange combination of gasp and laugh and glances down briefly at her stomach, which appears to be frying pan flat, then back up at her face. Her expression has settled into one of extreme distaste, as if a terrible odour is drifting up from her glass. ‘That’s er … amazing,’ he adds. ‘That’s really incredible news. Wow!’

Nadine blinks slowly. ‘Yes, that’s what I thought too.’

Rob bites his lip, wondering why she’s selected him, alone, to share her news. ‘I didn’t even know you had a boyfriend,’ he adds, regretting it instantly: since when was Nadine’s love life any of his business?

‘I don’t,’ she says.

‘Well,’ he says with a stilted laugh, ‘I might be ancient but as far as I remember it does take two people to make a baby.’ Nadine looks down at her drink and stirs it unnecessarily. Poor girl, he muses. It was obviously a one-night stand, and maybe the heartless git has left her in the lurch. ‘Um,’ he goes on, ‘are you sure you really are pregnant and it’s not just a false alarm?’

I did the test at the end of last week,’ she replies flatly, ‘and I’ve thought of nothing else all weekend.’

‘Of course,’ he says, relaxing a little and quickly deciding that the role of sympathetic older, wiser colleague is the one to adopt. ‘It’s a huge thing, Nadine. I mean … you’re only twenty, aren’t you? It’s a big, big change. If you ever want to talk, or grab a coffee or something …’

She raises her brows in mock amusement. ‘To talk about what, Rob?’

‘Uh, the pregnancy, having a baby …’ He shrugs lamely.

‘You’ve had a lot of experience of that, have you?’

Jesus, he thinks, there’s no need to be like that, to keep arching those brows in such a, such an … arched manner. He’s only trying to be a friend, when he could be at home packing up the last bits and pieces.

‘I know my kids are older now,’ he says huffily, ‘but I can just about remember the baby stage.’

‘Oh, right.’ Her voice wavers and her eyes mist, causing Rob to place a hand over hers on the table without even thinking about it. ‘You mean,’ she croaks, ‘you can give me some tips on nappies and feeding and burping and all that. Yeah, that’d be great, Rob. Cheers …’

‘Nadine,’ he murmurs, shaking his head, ‘are you sure you actually want to go ahead with this?’

‘Of course I do, Rob. It’s my baby. God.’

I only bloody asked, he thinks bitterly. ‘It’ll be okay,’ he adds quietly.

‘Will it? How d’you know?’

‘I … I’m sure you’ll be fine. It’s just the shock, that’s all. Like you said, you’ve only just found out …’ He keeps his hand on hers, feeling strangely protective of this poor, accidentally pregnant girl. Imagine, though, having a baby at twenty years old. It doesn’t bear thinking about …

Nadine slides her hand out from under his. ‘That depends,’ she says.

He frowns. ‘On what?’

‘On you.’

‘I don’t understand …’ Something shifts in him then, and he senses the lighter, happier mood of the past four weeks dispersing into the slightly stale air of Jack’s basement bar.

Nadine gives her tomato juice another stir and looks up at him. ‘It’s yours, Rob,’ she says. ‘It’s your baby.’

Chapter Fourteen

James lifts a tray of unsold rare breed pork and leek sausages from the oven and flips them onto two plates.

‘I’ve arranged to have another three hundred flyers printed,’ Luke tells his father as they sit down at the kitchen table to eat.

‘We can’t afford printing costs at the moment,’ James reminds him. ‘Remember, we’re only just managing to meet the suppliers’ bills.’

‘Yeah, I know. I had a chat with Marcus’s dad and he’s going to run them off for us for free.’

James grins as Luke picks up the new squeezy ketchup bottle and shakes it ineffectually over his sausages and mash. ‘How did you manage that, then?’

‘Just explained that we need to raise our profile, and as we can’t afford to advertise the next best thing is to distribute flyers in all the right shops. They’ll be on thick, matt card and I’ve put a special taster offer on, too.’ He pauses and frowns at the apparently malfunctioning sauce bottle.

‘Yes, I understand the theory,’ James says, ‘and it’s great – but how do you manage this?’

‘Manage what?’

‘To persuade people to do things for you for free.’

Luke laughs. ‘Just my natural charm, I guess. Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with what we’re offering, Dad. It’s the location, I think. Too tucked away. I know we couldn’t afford the seafront but we need to work harder to let people know we exist.’

James nods thoughtfully. ‘You’re probably right, and I think the flyers are a great idea. Here, give me that bottle.’ Taking it from him, James removes its top, peels off the foil seal and replaces the stopper. ‘There. Think you can manage now?’

‘Oh, thanks, Dad.’ With a smirk, Luke squirts ketchup noisily all over his plate and proceeds to shovel in his dinner with enthusiastic chomps and slurps. Christ, James thinks, he’s capable of thinking creatively and blagging all kinds of favours and freebies, but he still needs his dad to open a new sauce bottle. And he eats like he’s at a trough in a farmyard, not at a kitchen table – yet is capable of engaging in extremely noisy sex under this very roof.

James blinks down at a bowl of leftover potato salad, trying to forget the terrible rumpus he heard last night, signalling that Luke and Charlotte had got back together. He should be happy for his son – he suspects that Luke is deeply in love with her – but, like buffalo copulating or people being cut open in hospital, he doesn’t feel it necessary to be subjected to every gruesome, sick-making detail.

Although James likes to think he’s a reasonably modern man, he couldn’t help thinking: What would Amy make of this? She adored her only child, coddling him like a delicate egg. (James isn’t quite sure what a coddled egg is, but it’s surely not dissimilar to a younger Luke who was still having his fish fingers cut up into dainty pieces at ten years old). But she’s been out of their lives for two years now – Luke was so aghast that he’s shunned all attempts at contact – and James is left with the task of trying to ease his transition into being a capable grown-up man. Sure, he’s full of ideas and enthusiasm. It’s the practicalities – like remembering to order butter and clean the meat slicer – that he’s not so hot on.

Pushing his plate aside, James glances down at Buddy, taking a few seconds to register the rich odour which is beginning to permeate the kitchen. It definitely isn’t sausage or potato salad and, as far as James is aware, nothing is rotting in the bin.

‘Look, Dad,’ Luke exclaims, jabbing his fork in the direction of the cooker. There, sitting in front of it, is a large turd.

‘I don’t bloody believe it.’ James leaps up, sending his chair clattering backwards, at which Buddy scoots out of the kitchen.

‘That’s disgusting,’ Luke observes as his father clears it up. ‘Why did he do that?’

‘Because he needed to go,’ James snaps.

‘Did he?’

James stomps out to the back garden, drops the carrier bag-wrapped gift into the bin and marches back inside. ‘Luke,’ he says sternly, ‘we had an agreement, right? I do the morning and lunchtime walks and you do the evening—’

‘We wouldn’t have to,’ Luke interrupts, ‘if you put up a higher fence that he couldn’t jump over. Then he could just have a little wander about in the garden.’ Ah yes – another of Buddy’s newly-developed quirks. For years, he had pottered about happily on the lawn, without showing any desire to escape.

‘I don’t exactly have time to build another fence right now, Luke.’ James frowns at his son, wondering if he plans to place his dirty plate and cutlery in the dishwasher or – the favoured tactic – expects them to spirit themselves into the appliance all on their own.

To avoid the issue, he wanders through to the living room and sinks into the sofa, overcome by a wave of exhaustion. He starts to flick through the newspapers he brought home from the shop. It had been Luke’s idea to add two small tables by the window, plus a rack of newspapers, to encourage customers to linger over a coffee and snack. So far, they’ve been the only ones to read them.

‘Dad …’ Luke has appeared in the doorway. ‘I was just thinking, maybe we should take Buddy to a trainer again.’

James looks up at him. ‘Remember what they said last time? That he seemed to have trouble grasping basic commands. That was a polite way of saying he’s a hopeless case.’

‘What’ll we do then?’

James studies the handsome young man who turns heads every time he saunters through town. Luke has inherited his grey eyes, but Amy’s striking cheekbones and long, rangy build.

‘Um … what would you think if we found him another home?’ he asks hesitantly.

There’s a beat’s silence as Luke studies his fingernails. ‘I’d feel bad but …’

‘Yeah, I know. Me too.’

‘I mean, I love him,’ Luke adds, ‘and he’s a great dog, but …’

Buddy trots into the room and arranges himself comfortably at James’s feet. ‘I just don’t think he gets enough attention from us two,’ he says, reaching down to tickle behind his ears. ‘Maybe that’s the real problem. He’s playing up because he’s lonely.’

Luke nods sadly. ‘He was Mum’s dog really, wasn’t he?’

James starts to speak, horrified that his eyes have started to water.

‘Hey, Dad.’ Luke lands beside him on the sofa and puts an arm around his shoulders. ‘Maybe it’s the best thing to do.’

‘You really think so?’

Luke’s phone bleeps with an incoming text, but he has the decency to ignore it. ‘Yeah. Sometimes I reckon Buddy doesn’t really like us very much.’

‘We’re too male for him,’ James suggests.

‘God knows what it is. If we advertised him, though, would we mention him being scared of everything and occasionally crapping on the floor?’

James musters a weak smile, enjoying just being here with his son, and Buddy lying at their feet. ‘I think,’ he says carefully, ‘we might just keep those little details to ourselves.’

Chapter Fifteen

It’s a bleak, wet Tuesday and Rob has called in sick. He never throws a sickie, and he despises those who do, such as fashion editor Ava who had the audacity last week to claim she’d ‘caught something’ the morning after she’d been to the lavish PR party she’d spent all afternoon getting ready for. Eddy doesn’t seem to mind skivers. Perhaps that’s all part of the new ‘dynamic’ attitude: being so ‘out there’ that sometimes you can’t be arsed to go to work.

This morning, though, Rob couldn’t face the office so he called in, feigning a migraine. Which was true, sort of. The terrible reality – that Nadine says she’s having his baby – is creating a terrible tension around his frontal lobe, as if his brain is in danger of bursting out of his skull. And now, hell, Kerry is phoning his mobile.

‘Hi,’ he croaks, digging a fingernail into the well-worn corduroy sofa.

‘Hi, hon, sorry to call you at work, hoped you’d be on your lunch break—’

‘Is everything okay?’ It’s his knee-jerk reaction. Any time Kerry calls during the day, he fears that one of his children is being stitched back together at A&E.

‘Yes, it’s fine, it’s just … I know this sounds stupid, but I’ve just been out for a walk to clear my head. Been working on those Cuckoo Clock songs all morning …’

Nadine’s having my baby rings loud and clear between his ears.

‘… Anyway,’ Kerry continues, ‘I spotted this ad on the noticeboard at the newsagent’s and … God, you’re going to think I’ve gone stark raving mad …’

A baby. A real live baby. So what’s it to be – suicide by downing the entire contents of the bathroom cabinet? As far as he can recall there’s only some ancient Sudocrem and a mangled tube of Anusol in there …

‘I just think it might be good for us,’ Kerry continues, sounding slightly breathless as if she’s walking at a brisk pace. ‘I know we’re okay here but … I don’t know … it feels like there’s something missing, Rob. Well, you, obviously …’ She chuckles. ‘God, we can’t wait till you’re here, you know. Only a couple of weeks to go now …’

‘Yeah,’ he says dully.

‘Why don’t you just move down properly next weekend? You could hire a van, couldn’t you, and get Simon to help? I mean, it’s not as if there’s anything to stay for now, and the kids miss you so much …’

‘I miss them too,’ he says, feeling as if he might cry.

‘Anyway,’ Kerry continues, ‘that’s not what I called about. I just wanted to tell you …’

Rob is incapable of tuning in to what she’s saying. He is replaying what Nadine told him in Jack’s last night: ‘Maybe I should have been honest and told you we’d had sex. But you’re a lovely, decent guy and I knew you’d feel terrible about Kerry … I just didn’t want to put you through that stress …’

‘So what d’you think?’ Kerry asks.

He grips the phone. ‘About what?’

‘Rob, have you been listening to me at all?’

He’s sweating now, his entire head tensing as if being slowly crushed by some kind of enormous clamp. ‘Sorry, Kerry, just got a few things on my mind …’

She lets out an exasperated sigh. ‘That’s okay, you’re at the office, you should have said instead of letting me prattle on. All I was saying was—’

‘I’m not at work actually. I’m at home, not feeling very well …’

‘Oh, what’s wrong?’ Her sympathetic tone makes his insides twist with shame.

‘Just … a migraine.’

‘Aw, never had one of those before, have you?’ No, and I’ve never had a twenty-year-old who I barely know suddenly announcing she’s having my child …

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Taken anything for it?’

‘Er, just paracetamol.’

‘You could probably do with something stronger.’ Yes, too bloody right, like something to render me unconscious for a very long time, perhaps until the blessed release of death … ‘Anyway,’ she adds perkily, ‘all I was saying is, I’ve just seen an ad for a dog that some guy wants to rehome – family-friendly, lovely with people and other dogs, sounds perfect. There’s a photo of him and he looks adorable – a big, shaggy, cuddly thing. And I thought, seeing as I’m based at home now, and considering the kids are struggling to make friends …’ She pauses. ‘I think,’ she adds softly, ‘they deserve it.’

‘I, er, dunno,’ Rob mutters.

‘You mean you don’t think it’s a good idea?’

He tries to clear his parched throat. ‘I, um, don’t see the point …’

‘Of course there’s a point! He’d be theirs, they could learn how to look after him. Animals are good for children, everyone knows that …’

‘No, I know there’s a point to dogs, if you’re blind or in the police force or need drugs sniffing out but—’

Kerry bursts out laughing. ‘You’re mad, Rob. But yes, dogs can be useful, which just shows how intelligent and easily trainable they are.’

‘Kerry, I …’

‘Think how excited they’d be!’ she cuts in. ‘Oh, I know that picking up poo with the little black bag isn’t hugely appealing but I’m sure we’d get used to it. It’s probably like baby poo. You know how changing other people’s babies’ nappies is completely disgusting?’ God, can’t she tell there’s something terribly wrong here? How can she go on and on like this as if everything’s normal? ‘ … But your own – well, that’s different. When it’s come out of someone you love, it sort of loses its disgustingness, doesn’t it? Isn’t that weird, Rob, don’t you think?’

Not half as weird as me allegedly making a girl pregnant and having absolutely no recollection of doing it …

‘Not that I’m saying it’ll be like having another baby,’ Kerry laughs, clearly oblivious to his pain. ‘I suspect it’ll be a tinier bit easier than that. Like, there’s no weaning or night waking, hopefully, or strangers marching up to you and telling you he should have a hat on or a warmer jacket …’

Stop it, stop it, stop it. Please stop talking about babies …

‘D’you remember all that?’ Kerry asks fondly. ‘You’d come home from work and I’d be ranting on about some woman in the park who’d told me to put brandy in Mia’s bottle.’