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‘She said that, did she?’
‘Her friend’s, yeah. Cheryl, I think. Or Sharon. Must be a new friend, because I never heard her mention a Cheryl or a Sharon. She was taking him for a walk anyway. His name’s Tommy. Quite an old name for a baby, don’t you think? Not that I’d know.’
‘Tommy.’ His gran runs her bottom row of teeth across her top lip. ‘Kind of her to take him out. For her friend, I mean. Very kind.’
‘Yeah.’ He knows what she means. She means Naomi isn’t known for her kindness.
There is something else too, but this they leave between them like the last chocolate in a tray. Neither wants to touch it for fear of upsetting the other. Naomi liked to give gifts, organise surprises or nights out, but he can’t imagine her spending hours doing something she would find boring, not unless she had to. And she would find hanging out with a baby very boring indeed. So why was she taking her friend’s kid for a walk on her own on a chilly afternoon in April? Either she has turned over a new leaf, or…
Or what?
He knows what. The knowledge is the last chocolate. The temptation of it nudges at him. He is waiting for Joyce to pluck it from the box and hold it up so that he can say,Yes, that’s what I thought too.
‘She seemed different,’ he offers, finishes his second biscuit, breaks the third in half, quarters.
‘Different how?’ There is a firmness to his gran’s voice.
‘Older, I think. It’s been a year, I suppose. She looked more… mellow. She was friendly, but reserved, in a way, which is understandable. I feel better for seeing her. For getting it over with. But yeah, she was… nice. I asked if she wanted to go for a coffee.’
‘Oh, Sam.’ Joyce sucks air through her teeth.
He holds up a hand. ‘Not like that. Just, you know. We were together a long time.’
‘Yes, and by the time you got out of it, you were scared of your own shadow, love.’
‘I know that. I know.’
Joyce is fixing him, in the way she does. ‘But do you? I know she’s pretty, more than pretty. And I know sex is a powerful force—’
Again his hand comes up: stop. He wishes she wouldn’t say stuff like that.
But Joyce is having none of it. ‘Well, it is. Brings down governments, does sex. And young people have needs. I should know, I was one once. And I know this last year has been lonely for you, living with an old woman—’
‘It’s been fine! It’s all fine. I love living here. Let’s drop it, OK?’
This time it’s his gran’s turn to hold up a hand. ‘I’m not saying I’m not excellent company, not to mention a passable alto to your baritone, but you’re barely thirty, and hanging out with your granny listening to Miles Davis and playing chess of an evening is no life for a young man, even a kind, lovely man like you. I’m not trying to do her down, love. Just watch it, that’s all. In my experience, leopards don’t change their spots. And just because they retract their claws doesn’t mean they’re not still there in those big fluffy paws.’ She presses her mouth tight shut, seemingly finished, but then opens it again. ‘And you’re sure it’s her friend’s, this baby?’
There. The last chocolate. She has plucked it out of the box.
CHAPTER 3
Joyce studies her grandson closely and decides he looks about as comfortable as a bug under a magnifying glass on a particularly hot day. She’s thinking: oh no, here we go. Not Naomi. Please God, not Naomi.
‘My legs are aching a bit,’ he tells her, shifting in his seat – an abrupt and in no way subtle change of subject that of course, being no fool, Joyce spots straight away. ‘OK if I run a bath?’
‘Should be plenty of hot water,’ Joyce replies impassively. No point pushing it. She does not add that she could see Naomi bloody Harper in him the moment he came into the kitchen – in the high set of his shoulders, the tightness of his jaw; that she can still see her now in the slow lift of his body from the chair, the barely perceptible deepening of the lines on his brow.
Once he’s gone to run his bath, she refreshes the pot and pours herself a second mug of tea. She takes it back into the living room, and after a quick inspection of her handiwork stares out at the receding tide, the rhythmic spray white over the Cobb. There’ll be new findings on the pebbled shore. Treasure or junk, depending on your point of view. Overhead, water rumbles through old pipes. She can hear Sam whistling, the sound coming and going as he flits between his room and the bathroom.
A baby, she thinks, and tries not to think. Despite her attempts to stop it, Naomi’s far-too-pretty face comes into her mind, her wheedling tone of voice, the jokes that weren’t jokes, the coy incline of her head as she browbeat Sam into taking her out to that celebrity chef place in Langmoor Gardens with money he didn’t have. My God, she had some moves all right. Like feminism never happened. Women like Naomi let the side down. They need a poke in the eye.
A six-month-old or thereabouts, Sam said. The baby.
They both knew what the other was thinking.
And now what?
Now what?
