The Two of Us Read online

  ‘Weird, huh?’ I say to James Bond.

  James doesn’t answer, it’s not even eight o’clock and cads never rise before eleven unless their lives, or King and country depend upon it. Neither of these things applies to me, but I do have a meeting this morning with Joe, my producer at the company I shoot commercials for. So I get up, open the curtains, and shuffle off to the bathroom to clean up Ivy’s vomit and do what needs to be done behind closed doors.

  Ivy is propped up in bed when I get back to the bedroom, holding a mug of coffee with one hand, a book with the other. She’s reading a novel by someone I’ve never heard of, a wad of pages held back behind her left thumb.

  The cafetiere is standing on a tray on top of the chest of drawers, along with a mug and a small jug of milk. I pour myself a coffee and, as I’m ahead of schedule, I climb back into bed.

  ‘How’s the book?’

  Ivy rotates it in her hand, looking at the cover (Bohemian plaza, sunset, shadows, silhouettes) as if the answer to the question is printed there. ‘Well, it won all kinds of prizes, apparently. But if it wasn’t for book club I’d probably ditch it.’

  ‘You totally should,’ I say. ‘Swap it out for something with vampires.’

  Ivy laughs. ‘It’s not that I never have – quit a book – but I dunno . . . it’s a bad habit to get into.’

  ‘Seriously? There was a woman on the tube last week clipping her fingernails.’

  ‘Ugh, you’re joking?’

  ‘Not joking. Just letting them ping off all over the carriage.’

  Ivy puts a hand to her mouth. ‘Stop, you’re going to make me barf again.’

  ‘Exactly. I’ll take a book-quitter over a public nail-clipper any day of the week.’

  Ivy nods as if considering the wisdom of this. ‘You’re probably right, but I don’t want to disappoint Cora – it was her choice.’

  ‘Will she even remember?’

  ‘You never know with Cora. She doesn’t know what day it is, but she can quote Dickens down to the dot and comma.’

  ‘Bah, humbug.’

  ‘Exactly,’ says Ivy, turning her attention back to the book.

  ‘So, how’s the sickness?’ I ask. ‘Feeling any better?’

  ‘I won’t miss this when it passes,’ she says. ‘You hear about it, but God, it’s dismal. A hangover every morning, without any of the upfront fun.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say.

  ‘I should think so. You have a lot to answer for.’

  After Ivy told me she was pregnant, and after I knelt in a puddle and mumbled the words ‘I love you’ into her jumper, we spent the rest of the day in a state of happy, excited perplexity. Ivy explained her silence over the previous several days – a mixture of anxiety, confusion, and uncertainty. She worried that I would be unhappy, that she’d misled me, that I would want out of this relationship. And I explained that none of this could be further from the truth. We finished our coffee and our relationship slipped smoothly onto the next cog – we walked to the deli, bought falafels, bread, humus, meat, sparkling fruit juice and cheesecake; we went back to Ivy’s, picnicked on the sofa, then Ivy passed out in front of the TV. We didn’t make love.

  We have not, in fact, made love one single solitary time since the day before my dad gave us his bed and jinxed everything. I worked it out; it’s been forty days and forty nights – that’s an abstinence of biblical proportions.

  I put my coffee cup down and place my hand on Ivy’s thigh.

  ‘You poor thing,’ I say. ‘You know what I’ve always found works wonders for a hangover?’

  Ivy lowers her book, looks at me over the top of invisible spectacles. ‘You are kidding, right?’

  ‘No,’ I say, moving my hand further up her thigh.

  Ivy places her hand on top of mine, halting its progress. ‘You do know that I don’t have an actual hangover?’

  ‘Yeah, but the princi—’

  ‘I have a foetus the size of an olive in my uterus, and it is flooding my body with hormones that make me feel like I’m hungover.’

  ‘Of course,’ I whisper, ‘of course . . .’ my hand still on Ivy’s thigh. ‘But it might also work on olive-sized, hormone-squeezing foetuses.’

  ‘I have sick in my hair.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘I mind. Shut up and drink your coffee.’

  I have cash in the bank, equity in the flat, two functioning kidneys inside my body. But for all of the above to remain exactly where they are, I need to make some money and make it soon.

  Joe wants to discuss an ‘exciting script’. And whilst I’ve learnt to treat Joe’s enthusiasm with suspicion, it’s hard not to get my hopes up. I’ve pitched for two jobs since we wrapped my last production a little over two months ago. I got neither. Two months with no income is worrying enough, but with an imminent extra mouth to feed, it’s costing me sleep. Joe and I have worked together for several years and have become close friends, so how I dress this morning should be of no consequence. Particularly as Joe only ever shops at Primark and only then when his wife drags him there. However, I am not Joe’s only director and he is not the only producer at the Sprocket Hole, so it does no harm to remind everyone what a cool, go-getter William Fisher really is. So I put on my second-oldest jeans and my newest shirt – the pink article I bought in Wimbledon Village a month ago. I’m still not convinced about the shirt, but Ivy seems to like it.

  ‘You look nice,’ she says.

  ‘I am nice,’ I tell her. She’s still in bed, still reading. ‘Will you be here when I get back?’

  Ivy shakes her head. She widens her eyes in silent enquiry.

  ‘What?’ I say.

  ‘I’ll be at home, in my own flat.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’

  ‘Because . . .?’

  ‘You need to feed Ernest?’

  ‘The bloody goldfish is the least of my worries.’

  ‘Oh, right, I . . . Shit! The midwife, of course. Sorry, babes, what time?’

  ‘I can’t believe you forgot,’ Ivy says, and she seems genuinely pissed off.

  ‘I didn’t, I was just thinking about work. I was—’

  ‘I can’t do this on my own, Fisher.’

  ‘I know, and you won’t have to. It’s just . . . my mind was . . .’

  Ivy is smiling. It’s a small smile, lips rolled slightly in, eyebrows a notch higher than necessary. It’s the smile she saves for occasions when she has dropped a hook and I have swum towards it, bitten and taken the entire thing, sinker and all into my gullible mouth.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t,’ I say.

  Ivy affects innocent incomprehension. ‘You wish I wouldn’t what?’

  ‘Bait me.’

  ‘I don’t bait you.’

  ‘Yes, you do. You’re like . . . Baitey Davis.’

  Ivy laughs, and the sound of it – an uncontrived, childlike chuckle involving nose, tongue and teeth – is like fingers on the back of my neck.

  ‘I’m Ludwig van Baithoven,’ she says, clapping her hands together and doubling up at her own joke.

  ‘I know, I know, you’re a masterbaiter!’

  The gag clangs to the floor, echoing in the sudden absence of laughter. Ivy forces a polite laugh. ‘You!’ she says, shaking her head and finding her page again. ‘Ahh . . . Baitey Davis . . .’

  I’m racking my brains for a Baiter to salvage the moment even though I know it’s gone.

  ‘And anyway,’ says Ivy, in a tone heavy with reprehension, ‘it was a shit wish.’

  ‘Sorry. I wish you wouldn’t bait me and I had a goldplated Ferrari.’

  And right there: her compulsion to mock me and her unwavering belief in the Wish Fairy, they’re absolutely in the top ten things I love about the woman who barfs in my bathroom. I wouldn’t claim they entirely compensate for my enforced chastity, but they certainly take the edge off.

  Besides the sex, two additional things of significance have not happened in the month since Ivy told me we are having a bab
y and I told Ivy’s jumper I love her:

  I haven’t repeated my declaration.

  And Ivy has not answered it.

  I want to tell her again, but I worry the words will lose their potency if I say them every time the urge takes me. And, because Ivy has yet to say those three words back to me, I’m worried I might come across as needy. There’s a scene in The Empire Strikes Back that El and I thought was just about the coolest thing in the world – in all of outer space, in fact. Just before Han Solo is frozen into a slab of carbonite, Princess Leia tells him that she loves him. And, as he braces himself for a potentially fatal ordeal, Han looks at Leia and says, simply, ‘I know.’ As a boy I’d never considered how that nonchalance – ‘I know’ – must have made the Princess feel, but as a love-struck father-to-be I can make a pretty good guess. I’d worry about this more, but considering I had a mouthful of wool when I first announced my affections, I’m reasonably confident Ivy never heard me.

  Before I leave for the office, I give Ivy a final kiss. And (in spite of the aroma of sick and toothpaste) those three unsaid words are still swirling around inside my head, trying to find their way to my mouth.

  ‘Have a great day,’ Ivy says.

  ‘I . . . I know,’ I answer, and Ivy looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.

  Chapter 6

  ‘You look niyth,’ lisps Pippa, when I step through the door of the Sprocket Hole.

  I haven’t slept with her since June, almost four months ago now, and it was never more than a frivolous fling. Nevertheless, I always blush when she says anything more friendly than hello.

  ‘Shirt!’ says Gaz, our junior director, who also happens to be Pippa’s current boyfriend. He mimes tugging at a collar, nods approvingly and returns to his magazine.

  Joe looks up from his phone and regards me sardonically. ‘Pink?’ he says. ‘Matches your face.’ Then, ‘Hold on, has it got glitter in it? Is that fucking glitter?’

  ‘It’s thread,’ I say.

  ‘Looks like tinsel. Where’d you buy it, Old Compton Street?’

  ‘Yes, Joe, I bought it in Old Compton Street, from a shop that caters to gentlemen of a homosexual persuasion. Is that what you’re suggesting?’

  ‘All right,’ he says, ‘no need to get your leotard in a twist. Come on, you’re buying lunch.’

  ‘It’s five to eleven.’

  ‘I’ve been up since five-fucking-thirty. Kids, honestly, they ruin your life.’

  Gaz laughs.

  ‘I’m not joking,’ Joe says, pointing a finger first to Gaz, then to Pippa. ‘I hope you two love kittens are using protection. Ruin your life, they do, mark my fucking words.’

  Joe is attacking a plate of pie, chips and peas as if he hasn’t eaten for a week.

  I’m sipping a bad coffee and watching.

  Joe glances up from his food; one eye squinting, the opposite eyebrow officiously cocked. ‘So,’ he says, ‘how’s Ivy?’

  It was Joe that introduced us. And, according to Joe, it was immediately obvious that I had a thing for our new make-up artist. Ever since that first encounter he has adopted an attitude of vaguely threatening disapproval, as if he somehow doubts my intentions, integrity or reliability. I’d call him on it, except the revelation that Ivy is now pregnant would appear to confirm his misgivings.

  ‘She’s . . .’ She’s carrying my child! ‘. . . she’s good,’ I say.

  ‘Still at it like a pair of fruit flies?’ Joe jabs his knife forward and back in the air for emphasis.

  ‘What do you mean, still? I never said anything about fruit flies.’

  Joe shrugs. ‘’swhat you do, innit. First throes of romance an’ all that.’ He sighs, stabs three chips and shoves them into his mouth.

  ‘How are the wedding plans?’

  ‘Sooner it’s over the better. Eight fucking months she’s been planning this.’ Joe puts down his knife and fork to show me eight fingers. ‘Could build a house in that time.’

  ‘How’s Sammy?’

  ‘Potty training,’ Joe says.

  ‘Cute.’

  Joe shakes his head. ‘Nothing cute about a pair of shit-smeared Postman Pat underpants.’

  ‘But it’s not all bad, is it?’

  Joe widens his eyes. ‘What is this, you counselling me? Has Jen been talking to you? What’s going on?’

  ‘Whoa, nothing’s going on, I’m just asking about your bloody son, is all.’

  Joe looks at me like he’s not entirely convinced. ‘She’s been going on about having another,’ he says.

  ‘Another baby?’

  Joe nods. ‘After the wedding. Wants to have at least one that’s not a bastard, I suppose.’

  ‘That’s how she put it?’

  ‘She’s not getting any younger, neither,’ says Joe.

  ‘She’s younger than you.’

  ‘Next stop thirty-eight, mate. And between you and me, having a nipper puts a few extra miles on the bodywork, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘And with you being so well preserved and all. So, what are you going to do?’

  Joe laughs. ‘You can tell you’ve never held a relationship down for more than five minutes.’

  ‘I went out with Kate for over a year.’

  ‘Yeah, and we all know how that ended.’

  Yes, we do: with Kate (in her own carefully chosen words) sucking a co-worker’s cock, and then walking out on December the twenty-fourth, one day before Christmas, one day before my birthday.

  ‘What I am going to do,’ says Joe, ‘is what I always do.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Whatever Jen tells me.’ Joe builds a small pie-and-pea mountain on his fork. ‘At least I’ll get a shag on me honeymoon,’ he says, feeding the pile of food into his mouth.

  ‘Lucky Jen,’ I tell him.

  ‘So,’ says Joe, rubbing his hands together in a now familiar signal that he is transitioning from hard-nosed friend mode to hard-nosed producer mode.

  ‘Here it comes,’ I say.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This is where you tell me how big your mortgage is, how much Jen spends on shoes, how much the wedding costs.’

  Joe opens his mouth to speak.

  ‘And then,’ I continue, ‘you slide a piece-of-shit script across the table and give me the “this isn’t art” speech.’

  ‘Finished?’ I nod.

  ‘This, dear friend, is where I ask you to do me the very big fucking honour of being my best fucking man.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Exactly. And it’s traditional to say thank you.’

  ‘Thank you. This would mean a great deal to me if I thought your wedding meant anything to you.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes?’

  ‘Yes, it’s a yes.’ And the truth is it does mean a lot to me, but if I told Joe he’d only take the piss.

  ‘Right,’ says Joe, holding up the fingers on one hand; he ticks them off as he speaks: ‘You need to organize a stag do – strippers but classy ones, no hookers, no pounds in pint pots. You’re in charge of suit hire, Moss Bros, cheapest shit they have. I need you to buy presents for the bridesmaids, fifty-quid budget.’

  ‘Each?’

  Joe laughs. ‘Fuck off! Between the three – get ’em wine, or something to put in their hair. Taxis between the church and the hotel, and a speech. I want it between three and six minutes long, couple of jokes, rude’s okay, but not filthy. And nothing about nutters because Jen’s aunty’s a bit . . .’ Joe indicates a loose screw in the region of his temple.

  ‘That it?’

  ‘For now, yes.’

  ‘And you’re sure about the no nutter jokes?’

  ‘Maybe just the one, then,’ says Joe, proving once and for all that he is immune to sarcasm. ‘So long as it’s funny as fuck.’

  ‘Got it,’ I say. ‘Consider me briefed.’

  Joe reaches under the table, produces a brown A4 envelope from his bag and slides it across the table.

  ‘I fucking knew it.’


  ‘I’d hate to disappoint,’ says Joe, tapping the envelope. ‘Go on, open it.’

  I slide the script halfway out of the envelope, read the name of the client printed across the top and slide the script back into the envelope. ‘It’s fucking bog paper.’

  ‘We all shit, William, don’t be such an elitist.’

  ‘We don’t all shoot films about it, though, do we?’

  ‘Here we go: I’m an award-winning director, I have to think of my showreel, you’re only as good as your last ad, blah, blah, bleat.’

  I smile; keep my mouth closed.

  ‘I like you, Fisher, I believe in you, I think you’re talented and wonderful and handsome, okay? But . . . to be truly award-winning, emphasis on the ing, you need to win more than one. Plus!’ says Joe, holding up a finger and intercepting my wounded outburst before I get past the first plosive B . . .! ‘Plus . . . you may be my favourite little director, but you haven’t directed anything since July, which, when you think about it, makes you not so much a director as some unemployed ginger bloke.’

  It’s no one’s ambition to direct commercials for a living. No one grows up dreaming of shooting toilet roll ads; the same way no one dreams of writing headlines, composing jingles, photographing burgers or being the face of low-cost car insurance. You want to write novels or anthems, photograph models, play Hamlet, shoot movies, make a million, marry a film star.

  That said, there are much harder ways to earn a lot less money.

  Joe is still talking: ‘. . . pick and choose how they earn five grand a day. Some of us, William, have mouths to feed besides our own.’

  Tell me about it.

  ‘And by the way,’ he continues, ‘the script isn’t shit.’

  I can’t help but laugh. ‘Is that the criteria now? Not shit.’