The Two of Us Read online

  Joe laughs. ‘It’ll open doors.’

  ‘I know,’ I say, ‘ones with engaged signs on the front of them.’

  ‘So you’ll look at it?’

  I don’t have to say another word; Joe’s instincts are as sharp as broken glass. I hesitate a split-second too long and he knows he has me.

  ‘Excellent,’ he says, already scrolling through numbers on his phone. ‘I’ll set something up. Time is it?’

  ‘Two minutes to twelve.’

  ‘Great,’ he says, phone to his ear now. ‘It’ll be two past by the time we get to the Goose, you can buy me a pint to say thank you.’

  ‘I don’t really have time f—’

  ‘Shut up,’ he says, ‘you’re my best man, now; you’re obliged. And anyway, what else have you . . .?’ Then, into the phone, ‘Michael! Let’s talk arseholes.’

  Joe would have stayed in the pub all afternoon, but after two pints I lied and told him I had to go and meet Ivy. Joe sulked and played the ‘you’ve changed’ card, but I countered with the ‘promise of sex’ card, which beats all others in this vintage game. Even if it is a lie. Better that than reveal my true hand and the Ace of ‘Oh my God we’re having a baby’. Too soon for that.

  When I get back to Wimbledon Village I stop off at an organic grocer’s and then the butcher’s to buy ingredients for a boeuf bourguignon. The grocer’s is merely expensive; the butcher, though, is a cleaver-wielding, blood-spattered criminal. What the grinning psychopath behind the counter charges for a modest-sized fillet of beef is roughly the same as a meal for two in a Brixton restaurant. And if the mansions, supercars and garish corduroy trousers weren’t enough, the relative cost of our groceries tells you everything about the difference between mine and Ivy’s postcodes. And for the first time since we’ve been together, I have to wonder how a make-up artist (even a good one) can afford a spacious two-bedroom flat in The Village. Maybe her parents gave her the deposit; her dad is a retired lawyer so it’s possible. Or maybe she bought twenty years ago before prices became what they are today; she is, after all, old enough.

  However she came by the flat, she’s not answering the door. I’ve rung the bell four times now and my left arm is aching from holding a bunch of flowers behind my back. It’s possible Ivy has popped out for some reason – milk, bread, fresh air – but the bedroom curtains are closed, making me reasonably confident she is simply taking a nap. I call her phone, but of course it goes straight to voicemail. The midwife isn’t due for another thirty minutes, so I sit on the wall and eat raw chestnut mushrooms while I wait for some sign of life. After another ten minutes I call her phone again, and when she doesn’t answer I try the doorbell, the knocker and shouting through the letterbox. I’m about to knock again when a voice – it sounds like a laryngitic elf – asks if he can help. I turn to see an awkward, red-faced boy, half in and half out of the neighbour’s doorway.

  Whenever Ivy is away for more than two days her neighbour’s teenage son, Harold, feeds Ivy’s goldfish, Ernest. I’m guessing this is Harold.

  ‘Harold, right?’

  ‘Who are you?’ Harold’s cracked, half-broken voice sends the ‘you’ up, down and back up again.

  ‘Fisher,’ I say, extending my hand.

  Harold (and who calls a child Harold this side of a world war, anyway?) looks at the bags of groceries and bunch of flowers on Ivy’s doorstep. ‘Fisher?’ he repeats, looking at me suspiciously.

  ‘William Fisher,’ I say. ‘Ivy’s . . . you know, boyfriend, man . . . friend.’

  Harold says nothing.

  ‘I’m meant to be meeting her,’ I explain. ‘But she’s not answering.’

  ‘You should come back later,’ he says.

  ‘We’re meeting somebody in fifteen minutes.’

  Harold shrugs, steps back into his house and goes to close the door.

  ‘Wait!’ I tell him. ‘Wait. You have a key, don’t you? Can you let me in?’

  Harold looks at me like I’ve just asked if he has a ski mask and a knife. ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ he says, leaning away from me.

  ‘Listen. Harold. Someone is coming to see us in fifteen minutes and Ivy is asleep. If she misses our visitor, Ivy will be massively pissed.’

  Harold mimes swigging from a glass. ‘Drunk?’

  ‘No, not drunk. Pissed off. We have a very important meeting.’

  ‘Maybe she’s out?’ Harold suggests.

  ‘Her curtains are closed.’

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘What? What’s what about?’

  ‘Your meeting.’

  ‘Well, it’s not really any of your business, is it, Harold?’

  ‘Fine,’ he says, going again to close the door.

  ‘Harold, wait.’

  Harold closes the door.

  ‘Git,’ I say loud enough for the spotty twerp – and half of the neighbours – to hear.

  I try Ivy’s phone again, and again it goes straight to voicemail. I’m halfway through a rambling message when Harold reappears, holding a door key.

  ‘Harold!’ I say, like we’re reunited buddies. ‘Mate, thank you.’ But as I reach for the key, Harold withdraws it.

  ‘I’ll check,’ he says.

  ‘You’ll what? You bloody won’t, give me the key.’

  Harold holds the key behind his back.

  ‘How do I know you’re who you say you are?’

  ‘What? Who else would I be?’

  Harold shrugs. ‘Burglar. Rapist. Murderer.’

  ‘With a bag of fucking groceries?’

  ‘No need for that,’ says Harold, and he looks genuinely offended.

  ‘Harold, listen, sorry, but if Ivy’s in her pyjamas and finds you poking your head around her bedroom doorway she’ll freak out. And neither of us wants that, do we?’

  Harold blushes scarlet, the hand holding the key falls to his side and I make a grab for it. He’s a strong little bastard, though, and his arm stays welded to his side like an iron rod.

  ‘Just give me the fucking key, Harold.’

  ‘Get off me,’ he says, his cracked voice jumping at least an octave.

  I try to pry the swine’s fingers open, but he’s got the grip of a farmer and his bony fist does not yield one iota.

  ‘Give it to me, you little b—’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  I spin around to find Ivy standing in the doorway. Her hair is tousled and she’s wearing short shorts, a vest and no bra. I can’t see my own face but I can see Harold’s, and whoever loses this blushing contest, it’s not for lack of a damned good effort.

  ‘You were sleeping,’ I say.

  ‘Key,’ says Harold, holding it up like a talisman.

  ‘He wouldn’t let me in,’ I say.

  ‘You snatched,’ Harold says plaintively. ‘I didn’t know who you were.’

  ‘I told you! I’m her manfriend, I’m Ivy’s . . . manfriend.’

  ‘Christ,’ says Ivy in a not-quite-shout. ‘Will you two stop squabbling.’

  It takes the vast majority of my willpower not to tell Ivy that Harold started it. Even though I’m pretty sure he did.

  ‘Sorry,’ says Harold.

  ‘Thank you,’ says Ivy. ‘We’ll be okay now.’

  Harold smiles at Ivy, glares at me, and slinks back into his house.

  I pick up the flowers and show them to Ivy. ‘Flowers,’ I explain.

  Ivy shakes her head and it dislodges a hint of a smile. I pick up the groceries and follow her up the stairs. And my word, she does look good in those shorts.

  While Ivy showers, I put the flowers in a vase and the ingredients in the fridge. The kitchen and living room comprise a single open-plan area, the boundary between the two ‘rooms’ delineated by a waist-high breakfast counter. A baby could crawl unimpeded from the fireplace to the under-sink cupboard where Ivy keeps cling film, cleaning products, rubber gloves and bleach. From the kitchen the baby has access to the hallway. Crawling past a flight of steep stairs the little bund
le of joy will come to a small bedroom (or modest-sized nursery) on the left and a bathroom on the right. The latch on the bathroom door doesn’t close, giving easy access to further ground-level cleaning products and a toilet brush. If the infant is lucky enough to survive this treacherous expedition, he or she will arrive at the master bedroom where, as far as I know, there is nothing lethal or spectacularly unhygienic. The floorboards, however, are in a sorry state (‘original’ an estate agent would tell you) and on more than three occasions I have ripped a bloody great hole in my sock on a Victorian splinter or proud nail.

  I’m pondering all of this from the sofa in the living room when the doorbell rings, and I am suddenly convinced the midwife will take one look around this death-trap and mark us as unfit parents. The bell rings a second time.

  ‘Can you get that?’ shouts Ivy from the bedroom.

  The midwife, a rotund lady with a thick Caribbean accent, introduces herself as Eunice. I lead her up to the flat, muttering non-sequiturs about the banisters and stair gates and child-proof locks and DIY and floorboard sanders.

  ‘Plenty of time for that, darlin’,’ says Eunice, smiling, but at the same time casting an appraising glance around the flat. ‘Let’s worry ’bout mum first. She home?’

  Ivy arrives on cue, hair still wet from the shower, no make-up, beautiful. Her skin is slightly flushed from the shower, highlighting the scars on the side of her face. Ivy must be used to them by now, but it’s still new to me and I feel embarrassed and protective on her behalf whenever we meet people for the first time.

  ‘Hello, darlin’,’ says Eunice. ‘Don’t you look lovely. Not showin’ yet?’

  Ivy puts a hand to her tummy. ‘I don’t know,’ she says, beaming. ‘Maybe a little.’

  And it’s true, Ivy is beginning to show a hint of a bump behind her tight T-shirt.

  Eunice waves a hand in the air dismissively. ‘Pshh, I never bin that flat in me life.’ And she laughs deep and hearty. ‘Come,’ she says, sitting on the sofa and patting the cushion beside her, ‘sit.’

  Ivy looks as bashful as a schoolgirl as she takes a seat next to Eunice.

  ‘How far along are we, sweetheart? Ten, eleven weeks, is it?’

  ‘Nine and a half,’ says Ivy, sitting beside the midwife.

  ‘Excitin’ time,’ says Eunice, widening her eyes. ‘Very excitin’.’

  Over the next half-hour or so, Eunice asks Ivy questions, she takes samples of blood and urine, and together they fill out various forms. Besides making tea, I’m essentially surplus to requirements.

  Before she leaves, Eunice asks if we have any questions. Ivy says, no, they’ve covered everything she can think of for now.

  Eunice turns to me. ‘And what ’bout dad?’

  It’s the first time anyone’s called me ‘dad’, and the effect is astonishing. As if there’s a ‘dad’ gland buried somewhere behind my breastbone and it’s been waiting to hear that one special word before it triggers and releases a whole bunch of dad hormones into my bloodstream. The effect of these chemical messengers, it seems, is to raise a small lump in the throat of the soon-to-be father and make him grin like a monkey in a nut factory. Unlike the adrenaline fight-or-flight response, it’s unlikely that this biological quirk confers any evolutionary advantage, but it sure does feel good.

  ‘Actually,’ I say, still grinning, spurred by this surge of dad hormone, ‘I do have one question,’ and I glance at Ivy and smile.

  It’s as if Ivy can read my mind, because her mouth tightens, her eyes narrow by maybe a single millimetre and her head moves fractionally left and right in a minuscule, pleading, head-shake. But it’s too late; I’m committed.

  ‘Yes, darlin’?’

  ‘I was wondering if it’s okay to, you know . . . have . . .’ and despite the immediate medical proof that Ivy and I have had sex at least once; despite the fact that that sex and its natural consequences are the very reason Eunice is now sitting on Ivy’s sofa, I am too embarrassed to say the word. So instead, I attempt to communicate the idea of sex through a series of facial expressions, head movement and gurning innuendo.

  ‘Sex!’ shouts Eunice. ‘Ha ha, oh my Lord, yes!’ And she gives Ivy’s knee a squeeze. ‘O’course you can ’ave sex, my darlin’. But no vigorous thrustin’, okay?’

  Eunice winks at me, and Ivy lowers her gaze to the floorboards.

  After we say goodbye to Eunice, Ivy is aglow and it seems all the day’s transgressions have been forgiven. As we take the stairs back up to the flat, I am again reminded how fine Ivy looks from behind. Ivy talks excitedly as she clears up the coffee cups, takes them into the kitchen and fills the sink with water. But now that we’ve had a green light from our midwife, I’m finding it hard to concentrate on anything apart from getting Ivy into bed, and pronto. It’s as if there’s a sex klaxon going off in my head, and as Ivy plunges her hands into the hot, soapy water, I feel the beginnings of an uprising in my underwear. If not exactly battle ready, the old campaigner is certainly getting himself psyched up.

  ‘. . . don’t you think?’ says Ivy.

  I have no idea what she is talking about; the sex klaxon is still blaring inside my skull. ‘For sure,’ I say, and it seems like this is the right answer, as Ivy nods and starts drying the mugs. Ivy pushes a checked tea towel into the depths of a mug and revolves it deliberately around the inside. From where I’m standing it looks fantastically erotic, and all the primal systems are on full alert. It’s been so long since we last made love, though, that the thought of initiating sex outside of the bedroom and during daylight hours makes me itch with self-consciousness. The trick, I reassure myself, is spontaneity.

  ‘You okay?’ asks Ivy.

  ‘Fine,’ I say.

  ‘Your face is very red.’

  ‘Fancy a shag?’

  Ivy regards me for a moment and then laughs. ‘God,’ she says, ‘I know!’ And in a bad impersonation of Eunice: ‘No vigorous thrustin’!’ and she laughs so hard she has to sit down and fan her face.

  ‘Funny,’ I say, and my forced laugh is even less convincing than Ivy’s Caribbean accent. But she is laughing too much to notice.

  By the time she has recovered – and it takes a while – Ivy is exhausted and says she needs to lie down for a nap. If this – laughing Ivy into bed – had been my plan along, I’d be a genius. But it wasn’t and I’m not. The moment has now passed, the klaxon is silent, and little Fisher has renounced the cause.

  When Ivy gets out of bed, for the third time today, the sun is fading and the boeuf bourguignon is bubbling nicely on the hob. This was the first meal I cooked for Ivy. I like to think of it as our special dish. Maybe it will help rekindle Ivy’s former passion.

  ‘What’s that smell?’ Ivy puts her arms around my waist and kisses me.

  ‘Our special dish,’ I say, lifting the lid on the bubbling casserole.

  ‘We have a special dish?’

  ‘Boeuf bourguignon. I cooked it the first night you came to my flat’

  ‘Oh,’ says Ivy with an expression that reveals this is a piece of trivia she had not retained. ‘It’s very sweet of you, babes, but I don’t know if I fancy something so . . . heavy.’

  ‘It’s not heavy, it’s . . . it’s rich. Rich isn’t the same as heavy.’

  ‘To be honest, I’m not that hungry.’

  ‘The midwife said you should eat plenty of iron,’ I remind her. ‘Plenty of iron in beef. Well, there should be the price I paid for it.’

  ‘Would you mind putting a lid on it,’ Ivy says. ‘The smell’s making me feel a bit . . .’ She blows out her cheeks to suggest nausea.

  ‘Yeah, ’course. We can have it later.’

  Ivy opens a window, letting in a cool breath of autumn air. That’s another thing this place has on Brixton – if you open a window in my flat at this time of night, you can get high off what wafts in.

  ‘What I really fancy,’ Ivy says, ‘is a bit of caesar salad, chicken caesar salad.’

  ‘Got a craving?’


  ‘No, just like caesar salad,’ says Ivy.

  I open the fridge but we have no chicken, no salad and no dressing.

  ‘Want me to go get the bits?’ I say.

  ‘Would you? And some pineapple? Sorry, babe, I’d go myself but I’m zonked.’

  It’s dark by the time we start eating our supper in front of some romantic comedy on the box. The salad is fine as far as salads go, but it’s a poor substitute for boeuf bourguignon and my stomach is not happy about it. Ivy takes the dishes into the kitchen then comes back and curls up with her head in my lap.

  ‘Are you disappointed?’ she asks, and whether she’s referring to the film, the salad or the celibacy I don’t know, but the answer’s the same.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Why?’

  ‘You went to all that trouble, cooking.’

  ‘It’ll keep.’

  ‘I’ll take you for supper,’ she says. ‘Friday. Anywhere, you choose.’

  I kiss the parting in her hair.

  ‘How was Joe?’ Ivy asks.

  ‘Good,’ I tell her. ‘Sends his love.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘Well, he asked after you.’

  Ivy laughs.

  ‘He asked me to be his best man.’

  Ivy swivels her head around so she is facing me. ‘That’s nice of him. You going to do a speech?’

  ‘Have to,’ I say. ‘Part of the deal. You’re invited, by the way.’

  Ivy turns back to the TV. ‘Cool,’ she says, but it’s not very convincing. ‘What was the script?’

  ‘Loo roll.’

  ‘Loo roll as in for loo roll, or loo roll as in, it’s shit.’

  ‘Both,’ I tell her.

  ‘So long as you’re happy,’ Ivy says.

  Onscreen, the rom-couple have fallen out due to some hilariously crossed wires, but somehow I think everything will work out in the end. I have nothing against genre formula; I love it, in fact. Good wins over evil, love conquers all, the world won’t end – and that’s all right by me. Wouldn’t have it any other way. What I do object to, is some Hollywood director getting paid in the region of a million dollars to do nothing more than stand behind a camera: the set-pieces are clumsy, the editing is crude, the performances predictable; there’s no craft or invention or, from where I’m sitting, any evidence of direction whatsoever. I could do that. I could do better than that. But instead, if I’m lucky, I get to shoot thirty seconds of bog roll for less money than this chancer makes on his coffee break.