Page 7 of The Work Husband

‘And also, we wanted to ask⁠—’

‘Tell them the name first.’

‘Okay then. It’s…’

‘It’s Arthur,’ they said together.

‘That’s gorgeous.’ I beamed down at the sleeping baby. ‘Hello, Arthur.’

‘Artie for short,’ Molly said. ‘And Art when he’s bigger, if he wants to use that.’

‘Except I call him Artoo-Detoo.’ Ben beamed delightedly.

‘You. Do. Not. Call. My. Baby. Artoo. Detoo.’

‘It’s cute. It suits him.’

‘It’s ridiculous⁠—’

‘You said there was something you wanted to ask us.’ It was Sam’s turn to defuse the threat of a row, and I smiled gratefully at him.

‘Oh. Yes.’ Molly leaned over and picked up her glass, taking a sip of the champagne after staring at it for a second as if she’d never seen such a thing before. ‘Will you be his godparents? I mean, not that we’re planning to have him christened or anything, although my mum wants us to.’

‘It would be more of an honorary title,’ Ben explained.

To my surprise, I felt tears pricking my eyes. I’d only just met this tiny person – I knew nothing about him, and yet I was being offered this significant role in his life, and being offered it with Sam. We’d have to remember to send him Christmas presents forever and ever. We’d take him for thrilling yet age-appropriate days out. One of us might even make a speech at his twenty-first birthday party.

It felt as if, in those few moments, Arthur had become more than our friends’ baby – more even than a person in his own right. He’d become a chapter in Sam’s and my story, a link in the chain that was our life together.

‘We’d love to, wouldn’t we?’ Sam squeezed my hand.

‘Of course. We’re honoured. Thank you so much for asking us. But are you sure? I mean, who else…’ I couldn’t think of a tactful way of asking whether we’d be job-sharing with other, more qualified candidates, so I let my words tail off.

‘My sister’s going to be godmother too,’ Molly assured us.

‘And my mate Danny from uni,’ added Ben. ‘He’s got four-year-old twins. He got started early.’

On my lap, Arthur stirred, his tiny hands moving up to his face again, and made a sound that I imagined was like the bleat of a newborn lamb – not that I’d ever met any newborn lambs.

‘He scratches his face.’ Molly sprang to her feet. ‘I don’t know how to stop him. His nails are like the world’s tiniest razor blades.’

The bleat turned into a cry.

‘What’s the problem, little dude?’ Ben asked. ‘You’ve been fed.’

‘God, if only there was Google Translate for babies,’ Molly sighed. ‘I mean, how the hell are you meant to know what they want?’

‘You’ll figure it out.’ Sam stood up too. ‘Can I take him for a bit?’

I glanced at Molly, who nodded gratefully. Carefully, I lifted up the tiny body, supporting his head awkwardly with my hand. Sam took him from me and hoisted him up to his shoulder, then began walking slowly up and down.

‘You’re just figuring out the world, aren’t you?’ he soothed. ‘It’s all kind of big and confusing, isn’t it? But you’ll be all right. Mum and Dad have got you, haven’t they, Artoo— Artie?’

As he paced steadily, the baby’s cries tailed off and then stopped. Over his shoulder, I could see Artie’s eyes, fathomless blue, gazing out at the world. I wondered how much he could see and what he made of it all.

But one thing was clear – he knew that Sam’s arms were a safe place to be. As I watched the two of them, listening to Molly and Ben recounting the horror of the birth, how hours of pain and boredom had ended in the drama of a C-section and then the instant relief and ecstasy of holding their newborn for the first time, I felt something I’d felt an inkling of before, when we’d brought Milton home and he’d curled up on Sam’s lap and gone to sleep.

It was like a place inside me I’d never known was there was suddenly apparent – or not so much a place as a space. A space that might one day be filled by my child – mine and Sam’s. It wasn’t a painful feeling, or even a yearning, not yet. It was just an awareness of something that would one day be an important, missing thing, like when you’ve got the edges of a jigsaw puzzle done and you know that you’ll gradually fill in the middle until there’s only one gap left.