The Two of Us Read online

  ‘You think I should say no?’ I say to Ivy.

  Ivy doesn’t answer.

  ‘Obviously I could hold out for something better,’ I tell her. ‘But I have you two to think about now, don’t I?’ And I place my hand on Ivy’s tummy.

  Ivy makes a noise as if she’s about to speak, and then begins to snore.

  Chapter 7

  Ivy is ten weeks pregnant today, and all of a sudden the pregnancy feels significantly more real than it did when I last saw her thirty-one hours ago. Yesterday and today Ivy is working on a promo for a new band all the hip kids are into. The shoot didn’t wrap until late last night and she had an early call today, so we spent a rare night apart. When I woke this morning there was a picture message waiting for me on my phone.

  The picture is a close-up shot of soft female stomach – the faint scar travelling from top to bottom of the image confirms that this soft female stomach belongs to Ivy. Using what I’m guessing is a lipstick, she has drawn a voice bubble emerging from her belly button. It contains the message: 10 weeks preg today! Xxx

  And just like that, this thing has approximately ten times the gravity it had yesterday. I called Ivy straight away, but it went through to voicemail. I wrote and deleted five different responses before settling on a roman numeral joke – X! – which surely came off as nothing more than an apathetic kiss. I wrote an explanation, but it seemed hugely patronizing so I deleted that too.

  Joe and I just spent an hour and a half discussing the loo roll commercial with the ad agency. I think it went well but I found it hard to concentrate. The ad involves a giant bunny, and the notion kept snapping me back to Ivy’s message – 10 weeks preg today. I found the knowledge heavily isolating. Everybody getting excited about costumes and casting and bad gags, and me wanting to tap the side of my mug with a teaspoon and announce: Guess what, everyone? I’m having a baby! But Ivy and I are keeping the news to ourselves until we’ve had the twelve-week scan a fortnight from now. So I pretended to listen and take notes, and when everyone else laughed, I joined right in. It seemed to do the trick, though, and Joe is convinced we’ve got the gig. Travelling back to Brixton on the Victoria Line, I’m a mixed sack of emotions. It’s a two-day shoot and I’m paid by the day, so it’s a good amount of cash for the increasingly-imminent-family fund. On the other hand, it’s still a commercial for toilet paper.

  More than that, though, something has been scratching at my subconscious all day and I can’t quite get hold of it. I think it has something to do with underwear. Ivy is taking me for supper tonight; she’ll bring a bag with a change of clothes in it, and maybe she’ll stay for the weekend or maybe we’ll decamp to Wimbledon. It seems neither of us goes anywhere lately without a pair of underpants in our pocket – and half of the time those underpants need a wash. It’s never occurred to me to ask for a drawer in Ivy’s flat or to offer her one in mine – maybe because it feels like a pretty flimsy offer considering our situation.

  Walking back to my flat I pass a key-cutters, and all of a sudden I know what I need to do. Or maybe I’ve known since this morning, when I walked past the same kiosk on my way to the tube.

  Next stop is a cheap jewellers where my request to purchase an empty ring box is met with stark incomprehension.

  ‘It’s a surprise for my girlfriend,’ I explain.

  The girl behind the counter wears three gold hoops in one ear, four in the other and a stud through her top lip. ‘What, an empty box?’

  ‘Yes, no, I’m going to put something in it.’

  ‘Wot?’

  ‘A key.’

  ‘Wot?’

  ‘For my flat, you see. I want to put it in a box – the key, for a surprise.’

  ‘We don’t sell boxes.’

  I do my most endearing smile. ‘Is there any chance you could just give me one?’

  ‘I shouldn’t fink so.’

  ‘Well, what’s the cheapest thing you’ve got?’

  The stud in her top lip slides forward and back in its piercing. ‘She got her ears pierced?’

  ‘Why, how much are the earrings?’

  ‘Fourteen ninety-nine.’

  ‘Perfect.’

  The girl opens a drawer beneath the counter, selects a pair of silver earrings and drops them into a purple, faux-suede, heart-emblazoned pouch.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I say with infinite patience and politeness. ‘Could I have those in a box?’

  ‘These come in a bag,’ she says. ‘’s got a heart on it.’

  I place both my hands on the glass counter. ‘Listen, I don’t want a bag, I want a b—’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to please remain behind the counter please.’

  I spring back to attention. ‘I am behind the counter. I was just . . . Jesus! I just want a sodding b—’

  ‘Is there a problem?’ asks a thinly stretched male voice.

  I turn to face a middle-aged man standing behind the till, his right hand poised conspicuously beneath the counter. I look back to the girl. She crosses her arms and waggles her lip stud.

  ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘I’ll go to Argos.’

  ‘Whatevs,’ says the girl. ‘But their earrings is clappers.’

  I have no idea what ‘clappers’ means, but I’ll bet it’s not an endorsement.

  Standing in the queue at the Argos jewellery counter, it occurs to me that giving Ivy a set of keys to my flat is only marginally more meaningful than giving her a drawer for her knickers. I love Ivy; I love sharing a bed, sofa and bathroom with her even if she doesn’t close the door when answering the call of nature. And let’s not forget our child, now the size of a kumquat, with ears, nostrils and a heart that beats one hundred and eighty times a minute. The sensible thing to do – the right and romantic thing – would be to ask Ivy to move in with me completely – body, soul and underwear. The only problem I can envisage, however, is that Ivy would be out of her mind to abandon the leaf-dappled serenity of Wimbledon Village for the pungent, threatening cacophony of Brixton. But it’s my turn to be served, so I offer up a desperate prayer to the patron saint of idiots, and ask the bored counter assistant for a pair of her cheapest earrings.

  I’m drinking, Ivy isn’t.

  Two glasses of wine cost more than a bottle so I ordered a bottle, but I’m nervous and it’s making me drink too fast. We’ve finished our starters and our main courses, and are now waiting for dessert to arrive. The boxful of keys in my front jeans pocket is too uncomfortable for me to have forgotten its existence for even one second. I’ve been waiting for an opportune moment to present it, but every time there’s been a lull in the conversation, my nerve has gone and hidden beneath the table. Instead, I’ve lurched from one inane conversational gambit to another, like a teenager on a first date. Fortunately, Ivy is so exhausted she either hasn’t noticed or doesn’t care. I attempted to initiate a discussion about baby names, but Ivy said it’s too early. I asked if she wanted a boy or a girl, and she said all she wanted was a healthy child. I asked did she want a home or a hospital birth and she said could we just change the subject. I talked about the weather. You can tell Ivy would rather be at home, sleeping on the sofa in front of a crappy movie, which, considering her circumstances, is entirely understandable.

  ‘How was your pasta?’ I ask.

  ‘Nice. How was your fish?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Yeah, I like fish.’

  Mercifully, the waitress arrives with our desserts. It isn’t an opportunity, exactly, but this date has about ten minutes left to run, so it’s do-or-die time. I brace myself, take a deep breath and reach into my pocket . . . and it’s only as the box comes into view above the table-top that it occurs to me what normally comes in ring boxes.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ I say, and I only wish I’d thought a tiny bit harder.

  Ivy all but recoils in her chair.

  It’s almost certainly my imagination, but the background chatter of the other diners seems to fade out.
I am acutely aware of the guitarist in the corner, crooning quietly about – yes, amore. In the movie version of my life, all heads would turn towards me expectantly: a fat woman would pause, dessert halfway to her mouth; a lothario waiter winks encouragement; an elderly lady reaches for her husband’s hand and gazes into his milky eyes; for comic relief, a balding bespectacled man would glance at his sour-faced wife and shudder. But this isn’t a movie, this is real, unscripted unrehearsed life, and the only person looking at me is Ivy. And I have one hundred per cent of her attention – the way I would if I were waving, say, a blood-stained axe in her face.

  ‘No!’ I say, and in my haste to reveal not-a-ring, I fumble the box into my tiramisu. ‘Fuck!’

  And now I have attracted the attention of a couple at the adjacent table. I smile at the gawping woman and she winks in return.

  Ivy is clutching her fork like a horror movie starlet attempting to fend off the unfendable.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I say, finally snapping the stupid box open. ‘It’s keys.’

  Ivy looks at the keys like she’s never before seen such an item. The woman at the adjacent table goes back to her meatballs, disappointed.

  ‘For my flat,’ I say. ‘For you.’

  ‘Keys,’ says Ivy, still processing the situation. Her face transitions from fear to confusion to relief and back to confusion.

  ‘Move in with me?’ I say, and I hit the question mark harder than necessary. It sounds like I’m pleading.

  Ivy takes the keys, inserts her finger through the ring holding them together, realizes what she’s doing and puts the bunch down on the table as if they might be dangerous. ‘This is a surprise,’ she says.

  I do a cabaret flourish with my hands. ‘Ta-daaa!’

  Ivy laughs politely.

  ‘Is that a yes?’

  Ivy chews her bottom lip.

  ‘How are your desserts?’ asks a waiter.

  Ivy’s is untouched but melting; mine has a box-shaped indentation in its centre. ‘Delicious,’ I say, ‘but I couldn’t eat another thing.’

  ‘Madam?’ asks the waiter.

  ‘All done,’ says Ivy. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Can I get you coffee?’

  ‘Just the bill,’ Ivy and I say in perfect unison.

  We don’t talk as we walk back to my flat. It’s a cold evening with no stars, but I steer us along the scenic route, nevertheless. We stroll arm in arm, taking in the pungent air and watching the fighting drunks, passed-out tramps, strung-out whores and maniacal pimps. It’s a beautiful evening. As we turn the corner onto the relative safety of Chaucer Road, Ivy comes to an abrupt halt, pulling on my arm.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask, checking up and down the street.

  Ivy smiles, takes my hands in hers. ‘Will you move in with me?’ she asks.

  I hug her, kiss her.

  ‘Is that a yes?’ she says, laughing.

  ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

  Ivy frowns. ‘Is this . . . did you set me up?’

  ‘That’s not a very romantic way of putting it.’

  ‘I dunno,’ says Ivy, and she sets off walking again, pulling me along behind her. ‘It might just be the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me.’

  Chapter 8

  In the six weeks since El came back from San Francisco, his tan has faded and his head appears smaller, although the latter is almost certainly a by-product of his new beard.

  ‘Fuckig itches like a b. . . bastid.’

  ‘Well, let me shave the scraggy thing off, for pity’s sake,’ says Phil.

  ‘P. . . p. . . you’ll prolly kill me,’ El says, then laughs. ‘Second th. . . thoughts. M. . . maybe should.’

  El’s twitches and tics have escalated to the point where he can’t shave without cutting himself half a dozen or more times. And he’s too temperamental, too stubborn, to allow Phil to do it for him.

  ‘Anway, ’s. . . ’strendy.’

  ‘You look like a vagabond,’ says Phil, who himself looks uncharacteristically dishevelled. He has bruise-coloured bags beneath his eyes and it looks as if he’s been crying, not sleeping or both.

  El doesn’t reply; he’s engrossed in his iPad, as he has been for most of the evening. There are two pizzas on the coffee table, but Phil isn’t eating and El lost interest halfway through his second slice.

  El holds the iPad towards me. ‘Here’s a g. . . good ’un.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘V. . . video. One of my g. . . gang.’

  Phil sighs. ‘I wish you wouldn’t, El. It’s terribly morbid.’

  I take the iPad and press play. A woman is sprawled on a sofa, her left arm tangled around the back of her head, the hand opening and closing like a spastic crab. Off-screen, a male voice tells us this is someone’s wife, she’s had Huntington’s for eight years and is making this film for her seven-year-old son while she is still able. The woman slurs, gasps, groans her way through a heartfelt message; telling her son she loves him, apologizing for not being there to see him grow up. While the left hand clenches and relaxes, the woman brings the right to and from her forehead as if chastising herself for dying of this disease. At about fifty seconds in she starts crying.

  ‘Cr. . . cracks me up,’ says El, laughing disingenuously.

  Phil stands abruptly and walks from the room.

  ‘G. . . get her,’ says El, loudly.

  ‘Give him a break, El.’

  When I visit El, Phil invariably disappears to the pub for an hour, so I’m not overly concerned when I hear the front door slam.

  El grins. ‘We can have a d. . . drink now.’

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ I tell him.

  ‘S. . . s. . .’

  ‘Save it, El. Whatever it is.’

  I take my time making the tea, and when I bring the pot back through to the living room, El has shut off the iPad.

  ‘W. . . was I a w. . . wa. . . ?’ He mimes masturbating.

  ‘Yes,’ I tell him, ‘you were, but he’ll get over it.’

  El looks genuinely remorseful. ‘I d. . . don’ wanna be l. . . like that,’ he says.

  ‘A wanker?’

  El shrugs. ‘That too.’ He nods at the iPad. ‘Don’ wanna e. . . end like that.’

  El has crumbs and scraps of food in his beard; they’ve been bothering me for the past five minutes, and I lean across to wipe his face with a napkin.

  ‘Fuck off!’ he barks, and the ferocity of it startles me.

  ‘Okay. Sorry.’ I sit back and try not to sigh out loud. I know it’s his disease and not him, but the thought doesn’t settle me – if anything, it makes me angrier.

  El clutches at and drops the TV remote. ‘Bastid!’

  I start clearing the table of pizza, using it as a pretext to get out of my chair and retrieve the dropped remote. Without saying anything or making eye contact, I place the remote on the arm of El’s chair. When I get back from the kitchen he’s watching what appears to be a cop drama. I sit down quietly.

  After several minutes, El turns to me. ‘Havn’ got a f. . . fuckig c. . . clue what’s ’appenin in this p. . . programme.’

  ‘Blackadder?’ I ask him.

  He nods so enthusiastically I have an urge to ruffle his hair, but I’m afraid the bastard might bite me.

  El doesn’t have the focus or clarity to follow an original plot anymore, but he can still remember most of the scenes and dialogue from the TV shows we watched together fifteen years ago. Phil has bought him box sets of Red Dwarf, Fawlty Towers, The Young Ones and, of course, Blackadder.

  ‘Which one?’ I ask.

  ‘Anyfink wiv Qu. . . Qu. . . Queenie,’ he says. ‘Hey, h. . . how’s y’woman?’

  ‘I’m moving in.’

  ‘’s quick. Dint kn. . . knock her up, did you?’

  ‘Funny,’ I say.

  ‘I kn. . . know, I’m f. . . fuckig h. . . h. . . ’sterical.’

  Phil returns from the pub at a little after ten, by which time El is asleep in his ch
air and I’m halfway through episode three.

  ‘God, I love Queenie,’ he says. Then, nodding at El, ‘How’s Baldrick?’

  I laugh. ‘He’s fine, sleeping like a baby.’

  ‘Appropriate,’ he says. ‘Listen, about the melodrama . . .’

  ‘Forget it,’ I tell him. ‘Honestly.’

  ‘How was he?’

  ‘Fine. Told me to fuck off when I tried to clean his beard, but other than that.’

  ‘’s. . . ’s rude to talk ’bout someone when they’re . . . inna room.’

  ‘Ah, it wakes,’ says Phil. ‘Let me clean your beard, you’re like a hairy bloody toddler.’

  El holds his chin forward for wiping. ‘Toddler?’ he laughs. ‘J. . . jus’ wait till I start sh. . . shittin’ myself. W. . . won’ be long now.’

  ‘There,’ says Phil, brightly, ‘all clean.’ His teeth are wine-stained and he’s beginning to slur his words. He flops onto the sofa and places his hands firmly on his knees, as if composing himself.

  An uncomfortable silence fills the room, all the more awkward because it has blossomed from nowhere.

  ‘S. . . s. . . spit it out,’ says El.

  ‘Now that’s the cat calling the monkey hairy-arsed,’ says Phil.

  ‘Spit what out?’ I ask.

  Phil takes a deep breath and rises from the sofa. He crosses to an antique bureau and returns with a stapled A4 document. ‘This is an ADRT.’

  ‘Thassa one,’ says El, beaming.

  Phil goes on: ‘It’s an advance decision to refuse treatment. It means that if—’

  ‘W. . . when!’

  ‘. . . El’s condition deteriorates, he will not receive treatment to keep him alive.’

  ‘Good, innit!’ says El.

  ‘His idea, I take it?’

  Phil takes hold of El’s hand. ‘Ours,’ he says.

  ‘I fuckig f. . . found it,’ says El. ‘Don’t steal my f. . . c. . . th. . . thunder.’

  ‘And we need you to witness it, please.’