Stephanie has finished expressing and is showing her breast milk to Adam, holding it up to the light like a fine wine. It’s a great little breast pump, they all agree.
‘My turn next!’ says Emma, but no-one laughs and right on cue the baby wakes upstairs.
‘What someone needs to invent,’ says Adam, ‘is a chloroformed baby wipe.’
Stephanie sighs and trudges out, and Emma decides she will definitely head home soon. She can stay up late, work on the manuscript. The phone buzzes again. A message from Dexter, asking her to schlep out to Surrey to keep him company.
She turns the phone off.
‘. . I know it’s a long way, it’s just I think I might be suffering from post-natal depression. Get in a cab, I’ll pay. Sylvie’s not here! Not that it makes any difference, I know, but. . there’s a spare bedroom, if you wanted to stay over. Anyway, call me if you get this. Bye.’ He hesitates, says another ‘Bye’ and hangs up. A pointless message. He blinks and shakes his head, and pours more wine. Scrolling through the phone’s address book, he comes to S for Suki Mobile.
Initially there is no reply, and he finds himself relieved, because after all what good can come of it, the phone-call to an old girlfriend? He’s about to hang up, when suddenly he hears the distinctive bellow.
‘HELLO!’
‘Hey there!’ He dusts off his presenter’s smile.
‘WHO IS THIS?’ She’s shouting over the sound of a party, a restaurant perhaps.
‘Make some noise!’
‘WHAT? WHO IS THIS?’
‘You have to guess!’
‘WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU. .’
‘I said “guess who?”. .’
‘I CAN’T HEAR YOU, WHO IS THIS?’
‘You have to guess!’
‘WHO?’
‘I SAID YOU HAVE TO. .’ The game has become exhausting, so he just says ‘It’s Dexter!’
There’s a moment’s pause.
‘Dexter? Dexter Mayhew?’
‘How many Dexters do you know, Suki?’
‘No, I know which Dexter, I’m just, like. . WAHEY, DEXTER! Hello, Dexter! Hold on. .’ He hears the scrape of a chair and imagines eyes following her, intrigued, as she leaves the restaurant table and walks into a corridor. ‘So how are you, Dexter?’
‘I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m just, you know, phoning to say I saw you tonight on the telly, and it got me thinking about old times, and I thought I’d phone and say Hi. You looked great by the way. On TV. And I like the show. Great format.’ Great format? You clown. ‘So. How are you, Suki?’
‘Oh, I’m fine, I’m fine.’
‘You’re everywhere! You’re doing really well! Really!’
‘Thank you. Thanks.’
There’s a silence. Dexter’s thumb caresses the off button. Hang up. Pretend the line’s gone down. Hang up, hang up, hang up. .
‘It’s been, what, five years, Dex!’
‘I know, I was thinking about you just now, because I saw you on TV. And you looked great by the way. And how are you?’ Don’t say that, you’ve said that already. Concentrate!‘I mean, where are you? It’s very noisy. .’
‘A restaurant. I’m having dinner, with some mates.’
‘Anyone I know?’
‘Don’t think so. They’re kind of newfriends.’
Newfriends. Could that be hostility? ‘Right. Okay.’
‘So. Where are you, Dexter?’
‘Oh, I’m at home.’
‘Home? On a Saturday night? That’s not like you!’
‘Well, you know. .’ and he’s about to tell her that he’s married, has a kid, lives in the suburbs, but feels that this might serve to underline the sheer futility of the phone-call, so instead stays silent. The pause goes on for some time. He notices that there’s an epaulette of snot on the cotton sweater he once wore to Pacha, and he has become aware of the new scent on his fingertips, an unholy cocktail of nappy sacks and prawn crackers.
Suki speaks. ‘So, main course has just arrived. .’
‘Okay, well, anyway, I was just thinking about old times, and thinking it would be nice to see you! You know for lunch or a drink or something. .’
The background music fades as if Suki has stepped into some private corner. In a hardened voice she says, ‘You know what, Dexter? I don’t think that’s such a good idea.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘I mean I haven’t seen you for five years now, and I think when that happens there’s usually a reason, don’t you?’
‘I just thought—’
‘I mean it’s not as if you were ever that niceto me, never that interested, you were off your face most of the time—’
‘Oh, that’s not true!’
‘You weren’t even faithfulto me, for fuck’s sake, you were usually off fucking some runner or waitress or whatever so I don’t know where you get off now, phoning up like we’re old pals and getting nostalgicabout “old times”, our golden six months that were, quite frankly, pretty shitty for me.’
‘Alright, Suki, you’ve made your point.’
‘And anyway I’m with another guy, a really, really niceguy, and I’m very happy. In fact he’s waiting for me right now.’
‘Fine! So go! GO!’ Upstairs, Jasmine starts to cry, with embarrassment perhaps.
‘You can’t just get pissed-up and phone out of the blue and expect me—’
‘I’m not, I only, Jesus, okay, fine, forget it!’ Jasmine’s howl is echoing down the bare wooden stairs.
‘What’s that noise?’
‘It’s a baby.’
‘Whose baby?’
‘My baby. I have a daughter. A baby daughter. Seven months old.’
There’s a silence, just long enough for Dexter to visibly wither, then Suki says:
‘Then why the hell are you asking me out?’
‘Just. You know. A friendly drink.’
‘I havefriends,’ says Suki, very quietly. ‘I think you’d better go and see to your daughter, don’t you Dex?’ and she hangs up.
For a while he just sits and listens to the dead line. Eventually he lowers the phone, stares at it, then shakes his head vigorously as if he has just been slapped. He hasbeen slapped.
‘Well, that went well,’ he murmurs.
Address Book, Edit Contact, Delete Contact. ‘Are you sure you want to delete Suki Mobile?’ asks the phone. Fuck me, yes, yes, delete her, yes! He jabs at the buttons. Contact Deleted says the phone, but it’s not enough; Contact Eradicated, Contact Vaporised, that’s what he needs. Jasmine’s crying is reaching the peak of its first cycle, so he stands suddenly and hurls the phone against the wall where it leaves a black scratch mark on the Farrow and Ball. He throws it again to leave a second.
Cursing Suki, cursing himself for being so stupid, he makes up a small bottle of milk, screws the lid on tight, puts it in his pocket, grabs the wine then runs up the stairs towards Jasmine’s cry, an awful hoarse rasping sound now that seems to tear at the back of her throat. He bursts into the room.
‘For fuck’s sake, Jasmine, just shut up, will you?!’ he shouts, instantly clapping his hand to his mouth with shame as he sees her sitting up in the cot, eyes wide in distress. Scooping her up, he sits with his back against the wall, absorbing her cries into his chest, then lays her in his lap, strokes her forehead with great tenderness, and when this doesn’t work he starts to gently stroke the back of her head. Isn’t there meant to be some secret pressure spot that you rub with your thumb? He circles the palm of her hand as it clenches and unclenches angrily. Nothing helps, his big fat fingers trying this, fumbling with that, nothing working. Perhaps she’s not well, he thinks, or perhaps he is just not her mother. Useless father, useless husband, useless boyfriend, useless son.
But what if she is unwell? Could be colic, he thinks. Or teething, is she teething? Anxiety is starting to grip. Should she go to hospital? Perhaps, except of course he’s too drunk to drive now. Useless, useless, useless man. ‘Come on, concentrate,’ he says aloud. There’s some medicine on the shelf, on it the words ‘may cause drowsiness’ — the most beautiful words in the English language. Once it was ‘do you have a t-shirt I can borrow?’ Now it’s ‘may cause drowsiness’.
