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Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Endpages (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Concerto: A composition for a solo instrument or instruments accompanied by an orchestra. Often constructed in three parts: exposition; development; and recapitulation. Sometimes drives people to murder.
PART ONE EXPOSITION (#ulink_a16e19de-b60f-5e44-bd2d-a591a061b921)
Chapter One (#ulink_48f6f9d4-9fe6-502c-9bc7-3858a0f9248c)
-Will-
You know those days when everything is so right, so perfect, that you think something must go wrong? That something must smash through your happiness like a hammer, sending it splintering into tiny little pieces that you can never gather together again? Today is one of those days.
Because it’s an archetypal moment, isn’t it, getting the twenty-week scan? You can stop crossing your fingers a little bit as you look at that small creature that you and your wife – or your girlfriend, whatever works for you – have made. You have confirmation that the foetus is healthy, no weird abnormalities. Everything’s on track. Plus you get to find out its gender. And you can share it around, the news of the family line continued, and everyone is so proud and pleased and gives you champagne. If you’re the dad, that is. If you’re the mum you have to make do with apple juice.
And it actually looks like a human being, now, your little creation. Not like at the twelve-week scan, when it was just a shadow creature, inside your wife’s wonderful, magical belly. OK, right, sorry. You expect medical academics to be technical. Inside her perfectly ordinary womb where the foetus will gestate along the lines of the normal processes for homo sapiens. Actually, sod that. As I was saying, in Ellie’s magical belly, it didn’t look like much. But now it does. And doesn’t Ellie know it! At every red traffic light on the drive home from the hospital she is holding the scan image up to my face.
“He totally has your nose,” she shouts over the music we have blaring out of the CD drive. Ellie’s stuck on our latest favourite CD, a rousing piano concerto by some guy called Max Reigate. I guess she hopes that by playing it so loudly the baby will hear and give her a friendly kick, or something.
I twist my head slightly to see the scan photo, eyes off the road for a moment.
“Um, Ellie, I’m not sure that’s a nose.”
“OK, then, he totally has your p—”
“Ellie!” I warn her. “That is so wrong. There are some comparisons you shouldn’t make.”
She shrugs. “OK, fair one. But he looks like you.”
And even though I know she is wrong, and there is no way she can tell yet whether it looks like me, I don’t mind. Because I’m going to be a dad. Finally, after all those months of Ellie dragging me into the bedroom, ovulation stick in hand shouting ‘Now, now, now!’ (a real romantic, Ellie) I’m, touch wood, going to have a son. I would have been happy with a daughter too, of course. But, you know how it is – I’m a boy, I want another boy. Not in that way. In a proud, paternal, ‘this is my share of a football team’-type way.
So there’ll be all sorts of celebrations later, when Mum and Dad come round. I texted them from the hospital to say all was well and to tell them it’s a boy. I can’t wait to show them this latest picture. They’ve been on the whole journey with us, my parents. They knew, of course, that we were trying. There’s only so many times you can offer Ellie champagne and shellfish before she cracks and fesses up to the real reason she’s turning them down. Better that than have people think you are dull, in Ellie’s philosophy. Then when we kept cancelling brunches because Ellie wasn’t feeling too well, they twigged. Mum drew me to one side and asked me, point blank, if we were pregnant. I just gave her holding statements initially – it was mine and Ellie’s secret, at first. But then, after the twelve-week scan, I gave her the news. ‘It’s early days, yet,’ I said, ‘but all being well, you’re going to be a grandmother.’ She looked a bit funny at that, kind of a false smile, but I reckon it’s because she still thinks of herself as being about eighteen, and the G-word scared her.
First, though, we’re doing the crib, me and Ellie. We promised ourselves that. Now that we know there are no anomalies, we can actually start building a life for our new little baby. Our new little boy. For when he arrives. So when we get back, we head up to the room that will over the coming months transform from ‘spare’ to nursery. Ellie settles herself down in the nursing chair, and I lay out the instructions on the floor in front of her.
“I think I know what we have to do now,” I tell her. Capable and efficient, that’s the kind of father I’ll be.
“What’s that, darling?” she asks.
I point at the diagrams in the instructions for the crib.
“Look, it’s simple: quick nail here, quick screw there – ”
“Oh darling,” Ellie says, putting a hand over her brow in a mock faint. “All this DIY porn’s enough to make a girl weak at the knees.”
“Behave!” I tell her. But obviously I’m pleased. Because we went through a phase, for a few months, when she just could not do innuendo or sex or anything else apart from curl up on the sofa feeling tired and nauseous. So I give her a little kiss on the belly and continue with the theme.
“Now, I seem to have lost my hammer – will you dig it out for me?” I growl, in what is maybe a porn star accent, if they all come from the Deep South.
“Sure thing, mister,” Ellie trills. She starts to heave herself up from the nursing chair. I think about the toolbox Mum and Dad gave us – the toolbox to end all toolboxes, as they put it. It’s downstairs, heavy, and as yet unexplored. Bit gittish to make my pregnant wife go fetch.
I gesture to Ellie to sit down.
“It’s all right, I’ll get it,” I say. “You stay here and grow our child.” No objection from Ellie. I troop off downstairs and open the hall cupboard. Toolbox. Toolbox. Ah, there we go – the edge of it peeking out from under a stash of Sainsbury’s bags that I keep meaning to organise. I drag it out of the cupboard and open it up. It really is the toolbox to end all toolboxes – two layers, the first one full to the brim with nails and screws and Allen keys and lots of other things that probably have names but damned if I know what they are. No hammer in the top layer though, so I lift the plastic out and look in the bottom section. Screwdrivers, a wrench, a spirit level… But no hammer. Odd. I would have thought that was a pretty basic ingredient. I look at the outside of the box for a contents list. Yes, there we are: easy-grip claw-hammer. Should be here, but it isn’t.
“That’s really weird!” I call to Ellie as I climb the stairs.
“What?” she shouts back.
“No hammer,” I tell her, as I reach the nursery, slightly out of breath.
She sighs. “Do you need me to come and look?” she asks, preparing again to haul herself out of the nursing chair.
I shake my head. “It’s genuinely not there. I’ve emptied everything out. I checked the contents listing on the side of the box, and there’s supposed to be a hammer, but it’s not in there.”
“Perhaps they borrowed it before they gave it to us, and forgot to put it back?” Ellie suggests.
“Maybe.” Bit annoying though. I wanted to build the crib this afternoon. “Bit odd, though, right?”
“Don’t worry, we can ask for it later,” Ellie says. “Can we not work round it for now?”
I think. How to hammer a crib when you haven’t got a hammer?
Aha! Master plan.
I leave the room for a moment and dart next door. Ellie probably thinks my master plan involves giving up. But no! I return to the nursery with one of my most clod-hoppery shoes, hidden behind my back. I bring it out with a flourish. “Let’s give this a whirl,” I say. Because OK, the shoe doesn’t come with a claw or an easy-grip handle. But I bet it can smash its way through anything.
Chapter Two (#ulink_90cc9103-3458-52ae-924d-0ccc7ffbc031)
-Ellie-
Thank God for the man-brogues. Because I cannot be doing with another Gillian-ism interfering in our plans. Or Will suggesting that we go over to his parents’ house to get the hammer now. We are seeing them enough as it is. I don’t just mean this afternoon. I mean all the time. Will’s mum is like this totally omnipresent – totes omnip, is that a thing? – invasion into our lives. So just one bit of this one afternoon without her… Well, Will’s flash of initiative is a blessing.
That’s what the deposit for this house was all about. Oh, don’t get me wrong – I’m super grateful. I mean, who wouldn’t be for a two-bed house walking distance from central Kingston, when most people in their early thirties are still living back with their parents, or in the boot of a car somewhere? But the house is, what? A five-minute drive away from Will’s parents? A fifteen-minute walk. And they even came house-hunting with us. Imagine that. Your mother-in-law telling you how to decorate your downstairs loo in the most modern ‘relaxing’ trends. Approving your master bedroom, but suggesting replacing the dimmer switch with some brighter lighting. Yeah. Exactly. Freaky. Maybe that’s why she made us get a two-bedroomed place. So we could have separate beds. Unlikely, Mrs S. But you see the point – totes omnip. Wants her son near her at all times. Even if that means randomly stealing hammers so he will go over to their house to find them. Like an Easter egg hunt but far less rewarding.
So now that we have the saving shoe, we can start to assemble our little life. I even get myself out of the nursing chair. A bit of a struggle, it’s quite deep, but it’s perfect in other ways. The chair belonged to my parents. They get to be part of the nursery, that way, even though they’ll never be able to visit it. While I hold the pieces of the crib in place, Will begins to tap the nail gently with his shoe. I’m about to tell him to put some welly into it, when he gets a drifty look on his face, and stops with his non-hammering.
“How about Leo?” he asks.
Ah yes, baby names. For when this creature in my belly emerges, demanding its own identity (and probably my identity too, at least for a couple of years, if all the doom and gloom mummy mags are to be believed).
“Leo Spears… Hmm, certain ring to it,” I say. “Assuming, of course, that you think a boy can’t be called Britney? Or there’s always Asparagus. Ass for short?”
Will rolls his eyes comically. “Enough with the ‘Spears’ jokes! Anyone would think you didn’t want to take my name!”
I put up my hands in a peace gesture. The crib falls to the floor in pieces. Neither my holding nor Will’s shoe-hammering skills are enough to keep it secure. “Peace. Leo is certainly a contender. Now come on, put some muscle into that shoe-hammering, and let’s try to make Leo his new sleep home. Assuming he will actually sleep, at some point.”
So Will raises his shoe again, and I bend down a bit so I am holding the struts of the cot in place.
Will raises the shoe and – Christ – he brings it down hard. It’s like he’s auditioning for the film gong-man, or hitting that bell thing they used to have at the Hoppings Fair, to test your strength, that Dad used to take me to, when I was a kid, up in Geordieland. Except now it’s with a shoe.
“Careful!” I say, because if I’m to be a mother, I need to exercise control when people get a bit carried away. Even though Will does look kind of hot, all biceps and sweat. Perhaps we could just abandon the crib-building and have chair-sex in the nursing chair. The baby websites say that’s an excellent position. Or maybe it’s a bit wrong to have sex in a chair from your dead parents’ home, in which you intend to breast-feed your first-born. I don’t know. I’m still finding the balance.
But Will doesn’t seem to notice either my reprimand or my lascivious looks, because he does it again. Even harder. The sound ricochets round the room. Thwack. Now I am actually worried about the crib.
“Will, gently! You’ll break the casing!”
He brings the shoe down hard again. That’s it. Enough. I’m not letting Mr Alpha Male Dad split this crib. It’s nice. John Lewis nice. And the shoe isn’t bad either – not yet ready for re-soling.
I seize his hand as he is on the upward swing of the shoe, ready for another shot.
“Stop it!” I shout.
He turns to look at me. And, do you know, his face is not as sexy as his biceps right now. Kind of red and sweaty and frowning.
“It’s fine,” he says, shrugging off my hand. And he takes another swing.
Then it happens, like I said it would. The casing for the nail breaks. The heel of Will’s shoe comes ricocheting off. He’s overdone the machismo. We should just have had sex.
Will drops the shoe.
“Damnit!” he says, leaning over to examine the hole in the casing. I lean in too. It’s all split and cracked. Like I will be after… Jesus, I must stop reading those magazines. Focus on the crib. There’s no way that’s going to hold a nail, now.
“Four hundred quid down the drain, then,” I say.
Will looks despondent.
“Or we just hold it together with gaffa tape,” I add, to cheer him up. Classy mummy, I’m going to be. What would Mum have said, if she knew I was already letting my mothering standards slip? Probably nothing. She probably would have kissed me on the head, told me to run along, then it would all magically have been fixed when I came back. SuperMum. All she needed was a cape.
“I can’t believe I just broke Leo’s crib,” Will says. It seems Leo is now definitely Leo. Which is fine. But he’s not here yet.
“It’s only because you’re so big and strong,” I say, a hand on his bicep. OK, it’s not actually as bulging as I imagined, but it’ll do. “How about we try and break our bed as well, hey, before your parents get here?”
Will looks at me. Surprised, maybe. Or not – I mean, with this bump, how difficult would it really be to break the bed? Me on top, like some kind of ex-show pony, its belly too big to compete, but still gamely trying to straddle fences. Huh. Maybe I don’t really want sex. Not the pregnant reality of it.
But no, it’s initiated now. And Will, because he’s great really, isn’t he, despite destroying his child’s new home, he’s slowly kissing me from my neck to my belly. Yes, maybe my bump is glorious. Maybe it’s sexy. It’s of sex, anyway. And it seems Will doesn’t want to break the bed, but would rather break the chair instead. So he sits back and invites me onto him and I straddle him in the very chair in which I used to see my mother sit. Maybe it’s part of the mourning process. Or maybe it’s just a very nice way to spend an afternoon. Either way, the baby sites were right. It’s a very good position. The baby doesn’t get in the way at all – it is just me and Will, for a little while longer. And I perform to standards of which any woman would be proud.
Chapter Three (#ulink_481993c1-4af6-5950-b74f-a611cc424cc5)
-Will-
“I still can’t believe I broke my son’s bed,” I say to Ellie, as she peels herself off me. I take a covert look at her bump. It really is becoming impressive now. She’s a mother way before I’m a father.
“What, you broke me?” Ellie asks in mock consternation, looking down at herself.
I laugh, but I’m serious. It’s not a great portent of my ability as a father, is it, getting so carried away in a show of my shoe prowess that I damage his new bed? If I do that to furniture, how am I possibly meant to help keep the child alive, in those precious two weeks of paternity leave?
Ellie sits on my lap, side-on, and wraps her arms round my neck for support.
“We’ll get it fixed. Reclaim our hammer from your parents. Stick some superglue in the cracks, then give it a really good precision blow.”
A precision blow sounds good. I consider saying this to Ellie, but she might take it wrong, like I didn’t just enjoy the sex. I did. Obviously (and I’m hoping the chair has survived unscathed). But she keeps saying that if I find the bump too big or unattractive, we can be intimate in other ways. So she might think the request for a precision blow (job) is a pointed one. That sex is no longer fun.
So instead, I just nuzzle her neck and tell her she is wonderful.
“We’ll be good parents, won’t we?” I ask her.
She nods her head. “We’ll still be you and me. So we’ll be the best.”
“You already are the best,” I tell her. “But I really do need to do some work on my lecture before my parents come over.”
Ellie looks at me. “Really? Post-coital work? That’s a first.”
“It needs to be done,” I say. “Just like you did.” I kiss her and gently nudge her from my lap. I ease past her out of the room. “I’ll take the bedroom, if that’s OK?”
“Such bad sleep hygiene,” she says. I can hear the roll of eyes in her voice.
“So are babies,” I retort.
“Touché,” says Ellie, with what must be a smile.
Good. Banter situation normal. No blame for my crib-breaking (which is good of Ellie because, really, spending £400 on a crib only to break it is not ideal).
I shower, get dressed, then prop myself up on the bed, surrounded by my papers…and nothing really happens. I’m still annoyed with myself about the crib. It’s silly, really. Such a small thing. And it can’t have been a very good crib if me hitting it with a shoe damages it. Really I was just health and safety testing it. Imagine if little Leo, banging it with a plastic beaker (because that’s what they do, isn’t it, babies, bang things?), had been able to break the nail-housing, and the nail had sprung out and blinded him. Or the side of the crib had given way, letting him roll out, then roll down the stairs – unthinkable. The ultimate parental nightmare. So really I should be pleased with myself. And just buy another crib. Or take it back. Say it was defective.
But before that, I really must try to work on my lecture. I’ll kick myself if I’m up on the podium, staring out at the audience, and just thinking back to the afternoon when I couldn’t be bothered to work. I have some of the bullet points already. I just need to flesh them out, then add the extra research my student is doing.
‘Intro – Natasha Richardson’ the first bullet says.
Fine, I can deal with that. I speak softly to myself, practising.
“The world was shocked when actress Natasha Richardson – wife of Hollywood legend Liam Neeson – seemed perfectly fine after a skiing fall, carried on acting normally and then, hours later, died. That phenomenon, which we are studying today, is known colloquially as ‘talk and die’, medically as epidural haematoma, and is my area of specialism. It occurs when a head trauma leads to blood building up between the skull and the dura mater, causing pressure on the brain and, if unrelieved, that pressure can be fatal. In Natasha Richardson’s case, it was. She was unusual, though, because hers was caused by a skiing accident. The vast majority of cases in reality are caused by a violent act – so your classic baseball bat or hammer-blow to the head.”
Or a hit with a shoe, I could add. But it’s not a comedy. And I can’t dumb the thing down any more. It’s already pretty simplistic – film star’s wife, skiing… Maybe I should just invite them to eat popcorn. But the faculty head said I had to make it accessible. Start with a human interest story, reel them in. Which is what I’m doing. And I chose skiing specially – one of the jollier examples. Well, not jolly exactly – I still can’t watch films with Liam Neeson in without feeling sorry for him. But a skiing accident is in a sense jollier than the usual causes of our friend epidural haematoma – the domestic row between husband and wife escalates to a saucepan on the bonce, or the burglar gets carried away with his baseball bat. At least with skiing, no one is inflicting the pain. I chose well. So why the self-doubt? Have I been working too hard? I suddenly feel tired. Exhausted actually. Overwork and tiredness, that’ll undermine anyone’s self-confidence. I have had pretty disrupted sleep, I guess, over the last few months, what with Ellie getting up in the night, then all the tossing and turning as she tries to find a position comfortable for sleep. And sex, you know, is tiring – I read that men are hormonally conditioned to be sleepy after sex. Plus maybe I tired myself out from that other hammering too, with the shoe. I don’t know where that came from – all that energy, all that force. Maybe sexual tension. Maybe Ellie knew I needed some kind of release. Wherever it came from, it’s not there now.
So I put my papers to one side, and curl up in foetal position on the bed. Max Reigate’s music floats back to me from the car journey, and all those other times we have listened to it. That moment, after the climax, the great build-up, where everything is calm again. The chords are in harmony, surrounded by happy little triplets of notes lilting about, rather than the aggressive earlier accents. And all is resolved. That’s what I need. To absorb that calm, from the CD. But then Ellie will know I’m not working. So I’ll just have to curl up here and secretly let the imaginary music calm me. Even though the refrain in my head will be hard to drown out. The refrain that says: ‘You don’t know how to be a father. You don’t know how to deliver a public lecture. You’re not equal to what lies ahead.’
Chapter Four (#ulink_0d67f23a-3fc8-5439-9de6-7b78570a770f)
-Will-
I’m woken by Ellie shaking me.
