at all in favour of aligning her pots of pens with their various neon rubbers and fluffy gonks on their ends.
Although he tries not to stare openly, occasionally Rob sees her take a brush from her red patent bag and actually groom a gonk’s hair. I’m going out with a girl who collects novelty pens, he muses, although ‘going out’ doesn’t really describe it. For one thing, on the nights he stays over at her place, they rarely venture out. They still don’t have a great deal to talk about, he realises. But they’ve watched a few movies, and she has taken to cooking strange meals – not triggered by any particular cravings but because, as far as he can gather, she’s never actually cooked much before. Last night she made some kind of Mexican beany starter, leaving an explosion of vegetable choppings and little puddles of bean juice in her wake. ‘I love cooking for you,’ she announced, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand as his eyes watered from all the chilli.
Then they went to bed. Rob has felt so wretched these past two months, it’s been a relief to lose himself with a sweet, young girl with a beautiful, delicate little body who seems, amazingly, to want him. What will happen, though, when the Bethnal Green house sale goes through? Although she seems to expect it, the thought of living at her place full-time makes him uneasy to say the least.
It takes an enormous amount of willpower for Rob to switch his attention back towards the half-written feature on the screen. His intro reads: ‘It’s Spring – get a six-pack in the time it takes to scoff a burger.’ Despite the gaudy Christmas lights winking outside, the issue they’re working on now is all ‘spring clean your body’ and ‘put the spring back into your love life’. (Eddy, ever fond of a cliché, has gone overboard for the ‘reinvent yourself’ angle.) Two issues containing Rob’s sex columns have already been on sale. To Eddy’s delight – ‘see, I said you’d be a natural, Robster!’ – they’ve provoked a flurry of emailed questions from readers, some of such a technical nature that Rob is flummoxed as to how to respond.
By 6 p.m. he’s almost finished the feature. It’s Thursday – late night shopping – and Nadine, who’s looking impatient now, wants to start checking out buggies and cots. It takes another half hour before he makes his way over to her desk.
‘Sorry about that,’ he says.
‘That’s okay.’ She smiles prettily, having reapplied her cherry-red lipstick (how does she always get it so immaculate? he wonders) and customary eyeliner flicks in preparation for the shops. As they head for the lift, Rob can’t resist taking Nadine’s small hand in his. God, this is weird, he thinks, a thought that darts across his brain without warning several times a day. Here we are, virtually a couple now, having a baby. A couple who, less than an hour later, have taken possession not just of a buggy but a car seat, cot, bouncy chair, play mat and wall hanging featuring hand-appliqued gambolling bunnies, all to be delivered within the next five working days.
‘Oh, look at that!’ she cries. He’d been trying to casually manoeuvre her out of the baby department of the store before his credit card melts in the machine.
‘We don’t need that, do we?’ He eyes the cripplingly expensive quilt.
‘Well, I suppose it’s not essential, but we don’t want our baby sleeping under a tatty old blanket, do we?’
‘No, of course not, but I’m sure there are cheaper—’ He stops abruptly as she picks up the quilt. The bags he’s clutching already contain a changing mat, several fleecy rompers in gender-unspecific lemon and mint, plus a knitted toy mouse in a scratchy red coat which doesn’t look terribly baby-friendly to Rob (but hey, what does he know?). And now Nadine is choosing a rotating night light which projects pictures of sheep, and cooing over a hand-painted wooden trolley filled with bricks (which the child won’t be capable of pushing until he or she is at least a year old – but again, he says nothing). Rob is flagging now, but Nadine is showing no sign of ever wanting to stop. He chews his lip as she browses anti-stretch-mark oils in a mums-to-be boutique off Oxford Street, and stuffs his traumatised Visa card back into his wallet as she chats with the salesgirl.
‘Massage in the oil at least twice a day,’ the woman advises her. ‘That way, you’ll keep the skin supple so it’ll accommodate your growing bump.’ She beams at Rob. ‘You’ll do that for her, won’t you?’
‘Of course,’ he blusters, sensing himself flushing. At least she didn’t assume he was her dad, dragged out on bag-carrying duties.
‘God, you’re so uptight,’ Nadine chastises him as they leave the shop.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Looking all embarrassed when that woman said you should massage me.’ She laughs disparagingly. ‘It is natural, you know, to take care of your pregnant girlfriend …’
The carrier-bag handles are biting into Rob’s hands, and he dumps them on the pavement as he scans Oxford Street for a cab. ‘I’m not embarrassed. It just a bit public, that’s all.’
‘Hmmm.’ She narrows her eyes at him. ‘Maybe it’s just an age thing. I guess men of your generation just aren’t that comfortable with nudity.’
Rob snorts involuntarily. ‘Oh, right, so I’ve become a man of my generation now, have I? Well, I’m sorry but there’s not much I can do about that.’ Funny how his age didn’t seem to matter while she was ravaging him in his drunken stupor. He glances down at the numerous shopping bags at his feet. ‘Those night lights are rubbish,’ he adds. ‘Mia had one and it broke within two days.’
‘Well, we’ll be more careful, won’t we?’
‘No,’ he insists, ‘I mean they have a design flaw. The rotating bit rests on a little spike and it’s just not sturdy enough to withstand any knocks—’
‘Rob,’ she cuts in, ‘I don’t feel too good.’
‘There are other kinds of night lights,’ he continues, still scanning the street for a cab. ‘They’re little glowing things to plug in which seem to work better and are less complicated …’
‘My stomach hurts,’ Nadine murmurs.
He looks down at her, realising now how pale she is, and how fragile-looking in her little black jacket and red knitted dress. ‘Maybe it’s that bean thing you made last night. To be honest, I’ve been a bit, um, flatulent in the office …’
‘I’m not flatulent,’ she snaps, waving as a cab approaches while Rob gathers up their bags. ‘I’ve got a pain in my stomach, okay? I’m worried, Rob. This doesn’t feel right.’
‘You don’t think something’s wrong with the baby?’ He feels sick with panic as the cab pulls up alongside them.
‘I don’t know. I’ve just got these pains …’
Something changes then, and Rob no longer cares that she’s chosen a silly sheep night light or seems overly hung-up about stretch marks as they climb into the cab. He puts an arm around her and holds her hand tightly as they speed towards the hospital.
Chapter Thirty-One
Whenever Rob is due to pick up the children, Kerry experiences the same dilemma. Should she be polished and fully made-up, suggesting that she’s swishing off on a lunch date followed by copious afternoon sex the instant his car’s pulled away? Or slump to the door in scabby jogging bottoms, hair unwashed and face raw from sobbing? Reminding herself that trying to project some kind of image would imply that she actually cares what he thinks, she quickly pulls on a corduroy skirt, pale grey sweater and brushes on mascara and tinted lipgloss. Harvey-the-Clown is coming for his first proper lesson today and, after her watery-eyed moment last time he was here, it feels important to present herself as a properly functioning human being.
Rob, who’s arrived now, does look different these days. While he still favours his usual weekend attire of smart jeans and expensive-looking cotton sweater, there’s also a cloud of tension