The Two of Us Read online

  ‘Well, it wasn’t exactly planned.’

  ‘Twins,’ he says, rubbing his stubble as if I’ve just told him I have cancer. ‘Fisher, mate, I’m sorry. Are you okay?’

  ‘I think so,’ I tell him. ‘I think I’m pretty happy, actually. I mean, I am. Happy.’

  Joe lays a hand on my shoulder and squeezes, he nods, smiles at my bravery.

  ‘Accident then.’

  ‘Kind of . . . not exactly.’

  I think back again to the first time I made love with Ivy, me asking (obliquely but unequivocally) if we needed protection. Ivy shaking her head, smiling, ‘It’s okay.’ So what exactly did that ‘It’s okay’ mean? Because I’ve just seen high-definition evidence that tells a subtly different version of events. Not that I’m saying it’s not okay, I’m pretty sure it’s magnificent, but I can’t shake the feeling I’ve missed a key detail somewhere. Events have happened so fast and out of sequence that sometimes – drifting off to sleep, for example; zoning out in front of a movie; rattling along on the Underground – I find it hard to assemble, order or . . . how did this happen? . . . even believe the facts. Once or twice I’ve come close to asking Ivy what she meant that night, but the timing (nausea, fatigue, quiet intimacy) is always off, and the unasked question feels raw and accusatory.

  Joe nods as if he understands. Maybe he does. Maybe he can explain it to me.

  ‘You know what they are?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘You wanna pray they’re not boys. Take it from me; they’re a fahooking nightmare. You ever been kicked in the sisters by a three year old?’

  ‘Not since I was three, no.’

  ‘Well I have,’ he says. ‘I’m sitting on the floor doing a four-piece jigsaw, and Sammy just walks up like he’s going to hug me, then – Bam! – little bastard hoofs me full tilt in the nadgers. I’m telling you, if I ain’t firing blanks by now it’ll be a genuine miracle.’ He downs the last of his pint. ‘’nother?’

  ‘In for one, in for two,’ I tell him.

  As it turns out, I was in for five, and I now have an early hangover. Not how I’d planned on meeting Ivy’s parents.

  ‘How’s your head?’ Ivy asks.

  ‘Fine,’ I say.

  I don’t know why I’m lying; it just feels like the appropriate response. Like I’m honouring tradition. I need sleep but we’re in Ivy’s Renault Kangoo, driving west on the M4 at eighty-three miles an hour. I tried resting my head against the window, but even with my folded-up jacket as a pillow the vibrations were shaking me sick.

  ‘Now you know how I feel every morning,’ she says, a little too smug for my liking.

  ‘Don’t blame me, blame . . . your ovaries.’

  ‘You told Joe then?’

  The plan was to wait until I had been innocuously introduced to Ivy’s family, then – maybe two weeks later – break the news to her parents and mine and then everybody else.

  So much for plans.

  ‘Sorry, couldn’t really help myself.’

  ‘And? What did he say?’

  ‘He was very happy for us. Said parenthood is a blessing.’

  Ivy laughs. ‘Right. I’m sure.’

  We drive in silence for a while; it’s dark and the motorway lights are hypnotically soothing.

  ‘You okay?’ Ivy asks. ‘You’re quiet.’

  That’s because I was thinking about the first time we made love. Wondering what you meant by ‘It’s okay’. Do you remember that? Don’t get me wrong, I’m deliriously happy and everything, but . . . well, what with you being full of twins now, what exactly did you mean by, ‘It’s okay’? But as ever, the question (redundant anyway in the face of the glaring biological facts) is prickly and the timing stinks. Ivy is radiating happiness after this morning’s scan, we’re both reeling from the news that our babies are plural, and we’re meeting Ivy’s parents in a couple of hours where we have to pretend we’ve been dating for eight months and we’re not pregnant.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Okay, I mean. It’s just . . . it’s all just a bit . . . unexpected.’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ says Ivy. And then, ‘Did you ever think about how many you wanted?’

  ‘Kids?’

  ‘No, pints,’ she says. ‘Of course kids.’

  ‘Less than I just had pints,’ I tell her. ‘You?’

  Ivy doesn’t hesitate. ‘Three. That’s what I always wanted, ever since I was a little girl. But . . . well, I’m not a little girl anymore, am I? I’m forty-one next birthday.’

  ‘You’re as young as the man you feel.’

  ‘I suppose I’d let the idea go,’ she says. ‘But now that we’re having two, three wouldn’t necessarily be beyond the realm of possibility.’

  Out of the corner of my eye I can see Ivy looking at me, waiting for a reaction.

  ‘We didn’t find out what they are, did we? The babies?’

  ‘No,’ says Ivy. ‘Too early.’

  ‘Right, of course, my head’s a bit . . .’

  ‘You didn’t answer,’ Ivy says.

  ‘Answer what?’

  ‘Whether three kids would be beyond the realm of possibility?’

  ‘I didn’t realize it was a question.’

  ‘It’s a question.’

  ‘We’d need a bigger flat,’ I tell her.

  ‘Fine,’ she says, and whether she’s backing off or closing the deal, I don’t know.

  After two hours of driving and sitting in traffic, we stop at a Welcome Break services to pee, refuel and buy Skittles. I also buy flowers for Ivy’s mother and a bottle of red wine for her father. The final leg of the journey takes a little over an hour, but by the time Ivy rolls the car into her parents’ driveway, the flowers have wilted and my hangover has progressed from an idea to the real deal.

  In a scene reminiscent of our arrival at my dad’s house two months ago, Ivy’s parents are out of their front door before either of us has released our seatbelt. Ivy’s father is a bear of a man, standing half a head taller than my six-three; a head that’s as large, uneven and pockmarked as a month-old Halloween pumpkin. It’s the sort of head that would give children – and some adults – bad dreams. They say women grow up to look like their mothers, and I’d worry about that if the discrepancy between Ivy and her mum wasn’t so profound as to be practically unfeasible. Mrs Lee is a small, plump woman with bulbous eyes and mad, haystack hair that begins far back on her large, domed forehead. And you have to hand it to Mother Nature for making something as beautiful as Ivy from such interesting genetic ingredients. What the Lees lack in photogenicity, however, they make up for in enthusiasm. Despite being at least twenty years older than my own father, they are both alarmingly energetic.

  ‘Baby girl,’ says Mrs Lee, kissing her daughter. She turns to me, looks me up and down and nods as if appraising a pair of curtains. ‘And you must be William. Now come on,’ she says, patting my bottom, ‘give us a twirl so we can get a proper look at you.’

  ‘Eva! Leave the lad alone,’ says Ivy’s dad as I turn unsteadily on the spot, a bottle of wine in one hand, a bunch of wilted flowers in the other. ‘You’re like a shrew, woman.’ He takes his daughter’s head in his giant hands and kisses her on the forehead, the tip of the nose and then the lips. ‘Hello, Flower,’ he says, and Ivy hugs him around the neck, lifting her feet from the ground and dangling from his shoulders like a child.

  And if I have a daughter, I’m calling her Flower, too.

  ‘These for me?’ says Mrs Lee, taking the drooping roses before I have a chance to answer. ‘Oo, you must have been naughty. Ha ha, only joking. Come on, let’s get ’em in some water, they look worse’n you, lad. You all right, William? You look a little queasy.’

  I haven’t said a word so far, and I’m afraid to try in case I let slip that I am the father of their lime-sized twin grandchildren.

  ‘Inside, woman,’ says Ivy’s father. ‘You’ll scare him off. I’m Ken, by the way,’ and he slaps me on the back so hard I nearly drop the wine on his dr
iveway.

  ‘Wine,’ I finally manage, holding the bottle out to him.

  ‘Looks like a good ’un,’ he says. ‘Let’s get her open.’

  We cross the threshold of the Lee residence, and I’m beginning to entertain the idea of relaxing, when another inflated male specimen charges towards us across the expansive hallway. I brace myself for a crippling impact but the guy – he must weigh close to eighteen stone – swerves past me, and lifts Ivy off her feet. ‘Sis,’ he says, swinging her around in a full three-sixty that makes me wince for the safety of our secret unborn babies. ‘Crikey,’ he says, ‘you put on weight?’

  ‘If you don’t want a family pack of Skittle puke in your ear,’ says Ivy, ‘you’d better put me down right now.’

  Ivy’s brother laughs and hoists her even higher.

  ‘Frank!’ Ivy says, thumping him hard on the shoulder. ‘I’m not kidding, put me down, you gibbon.’

  ‘All right,’ he says, lowering her to the ground. ‘Chillamena Willamena.’

  ‘Honestly. And you wonder why I never brought him home before.’

  Did they? Did they wonder?

  ‘Thought it was ’cos he was ugly or something,’ says Frank.

  You’d think Ivy’s parents would be above (or beyond, but definitely not behind) lookist humour, but the pair of them laugh, snort and slap their thighs as Ivy all but melts with embarrassment.

  ‘Only kidding,’ says Frank, slapping me on the exact same spot his father did. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ He extends his hand and then shakes mine with surprising tenderness. ‘Frank,’ he says. ‘Little brother.’

  ‘Little?’ I say, ‘God, I’d hate to meet the big ones.’

  ‘Big ones!’ Frank repeats, laughing as if I were the king of wit. ‘Well, you can relax for today. Big bruv number one’s in Australia, and number two’s in Edinburgh, which amounts to the same thing for all we see of him. Come on, let’s get that bottle open,’ and he snatches the wine from his father and disappears into another room.

  Whilst it’s true that, before Ivy, I had never taken a girlfriend home to meet my family, this isn’t the first time I’ve been the romantic novelty. Before I was with Ivy, I lived with Kate – the only other girlfriend I’ve held onto for more than a week – and after about three months together she insisted (ultimatums were made) I meet her parents. They were fine, but Kate turned into a posturing caricature of ‘successful daughter in grown-up relationship’. It was excruciating – she perched on the edge of any chair I sat on, running her fingers through my hair, kissing me at every opportunity and displaying more affection than she ever did in our own flat. She catalogued every restaurant and wine bar we’d been to, replayed snippets of witty conversation and even seemed to articulate her words more precisely. More than showing me off, it was as if she were making a point about herself. The whole three-day performance was reminiscent of the way my young nieces would breathlessly recount a victory in the egg-and-spoon race or stand to attention in the living room singing the words to a song from the school play. Ivy does none of that. She is the same here as she is when we’re alone, and watching her talk, joke and relax with her family in the same way she does with me, makes me feel like I belong here and reinforces how much Ivy and I belong together. It’s all I can do not to perch on the arm of her chair and run my fingers through her hair.

  Even so, it takes around thirty minutes and a full glass of wine before my nerves begin to settle. Sitting in the Lees’ living room, I allow the conversation to wash over me, interjecting only when I am expressly called upon to do so. And as the family catch up on domestic gossip, I sip my drink and take in my surroundings. The house is full of photographs of Ivy, her brothers, Ken and Eva. There are pictures hanging from the walls, standing on shelves and lining the stairway up to the bathroom on the first floor. I’m mesmerized by one in particular, standing in a small frame on the mantelpiece. According to Ivy’s mum, her daughter was six when the picture was taken; she is freckled and her teeth look gappy and wonky inside her smile. I feel a surge of love – and there’s no question, that’s what it is – for this child who is now, thirty-five-years later, carrying my own children inside her. It’s a separate affection from the one I hold for the Ivy sitting opposite me, pretending to drink her wine; it’s for the child in this photograph as she was the day she sat in front of the camera. There are no scars on the Ivy in this picture; and once I’ve realized this, I realize there are – as far as I can see – no pictures of Ivy in the years immediately after the accident. There are pictures of baby Ivy, toddler Ivy, 6- and 7-year-old Ivy . . . then nothing until the Ivy in the photographs is maybe twelve years old and then beyond. In these later pictures, Ivy is visibly uncomfortable in front of the camera, generally angling the scarred side of her face away from the lens. This was the room where it happened; where Ivy tap-danced her way through a glass coffee table and tore her face open. And looking at the child in the photograph, I wish I could warn her. But then where would that leave me and my twin babies? I have no time for the platitude that ‘everything happens for a reason’, but the fact remains – if Ivy hadn’t crashed through that table, she would have been a different woman from the one she is today. And maybe that woman would already be married by now, a mother to someone else’s children.

  ‘William?’ says Eva.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, turning to Ivy’s mother, ‘I . . . I was . . .’

  ‘Boring you, were we?’ says Frank, laughing.

  ‘Sorry,’ I repeat, ‘long day.’

  ‘I was asking where you live, love?’ says Ivy’s mother.

  I wasn’t prepared for this. And the thought of lying to this simple question throws a great big spanner into my speech centre.

  ‘In . . . a flat?’ I try.

  ‘Blimey,’ says Ivy’s dad. ‘Must’ve been a very bloody long day.’

  ‘Kenneth!’ chides Eva.

  ‘We moved in together,’ blurts Ivy, which is a departure from the agreed script.

  Everyone goes quiet.

  I avoid all eyes and stare into space with an inane smile glued onto my face.

  ‘That was quick,’ says Ken.

  I take a large gulp of my wine.

  The carriage clock on the mantelpiece ticks.

  ‘Well,’ says Ivy, ‘we thought we might as well, seeing as . . .’

  I snap my head around, staring directly at Ivy: No!

  ‘. . . seeing as how I’m pregnant!’ and she says these last five words in about nought-point-five seconds, on an ascending scale with each syllable twice as loud as the last, so that by the time she hits ‘pregnant’, she’s shrieking.

  And now, so is her mother. ‘Pregnant! With a baby?’

  ‘Twins!’ Ivy says.

  ‘Twins?’ shout Ken and Frank and Eva.

  ‘Twins,’ I say. And I pull the kind of face you might make if you were admitting some minor faux pas like walking mud into the hallway or breaking a garden gnome.

  ‘Blimey,’ says Ken, getting up and leaving the room.

  Eva is crying, kissing Ivy and rubbing her belly.

  ‘Fast worker,’ says Frank, winking at me with what I hope is a form of fraternal affection.

  I give him an imbecilic thumbs up.

  When Ken returns he’s carrying five champagne glasses in one huge hand and a bottle of cava in the other.

  ‘You can have a teensy splash, can’t you, Flower?’ he says to Ivy.

  ‘Of course she can’t,’ Eva says, putting her arm around Ivy as if to protect her. ‘Silly.’

  Ivy scrunches up her face. ‘I’ll pass.’

  Ken rolls his eyes and pours for the rest of us. ‘To the twins,’ he says.

  ‘Needn’t have bothered making up the spare bed, hey?’ says Eva.

  ‘No use shutting the stable door after the horse has shot his bolt,’ says Ken, and whether it’s a slip of the tongue or the world’s worst joke, the effect is the same on my complexion.

  ‘So, William,’ says Frank, �
��how long have you two been together?’

  ‘Oh, gosh, it must be . . . let me . . .’

  ‘Long enough, nosy-bonk,’ says Ivy.

  ‘Clearly,’ says Frank.

  ‘What do your mum and dad make of it all?’ asks Eva.

  ‘It’s only my dad, I’m afraid, but—’

  ‘Oh, darling, I am sorry, I—’ Eva puts a hand to her mouth.

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ I say. ‘It’s okay, honestly.’

  ‘Oh, William,’ she says. Then, after a pause where it looks like she’s trying to eat her own bottom lip: ‘So, what about your dad? What does he make of . . .’ she mimes a big pregnant belly.

  ‘He doesn’t know yet,’ I tell her. ‘You’re pretty much the first.’

  ‘Right,’ says Ken, levering himself off the sofa. ‘We’ll put that straight right away.’ He picks up a cordless phone from its cradle. ‘What’s your dad’s number?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  Frank grins, enjoying my discomfort.

  ‘Oh, Kenneth, put that thing down,’ says Eva half-heartedly.

  I look to Ivy for help. She smiles, shrugs.

  ‘Number,’ demands Ken.

  And that’s how Dad hears the news that he has two new grandchildren on the way – over speakerphone with three perfect strangers shouting excitedly in the background. And to give the old man credit, he takes it like a champ. Unlike the Lees, Dad knows exactly how long Ivy and I have been together, but he doesn’t comment, doesn’t blow my cover. Once the euphoria and crossfire has died down, once two-dozen kisses have been blown down the telephone line, Ken and Eva start the business of getting acquainted with Dad, asking what I was like as a boy, do I have sisters or brothers, how many grandchildren does he have, where does he work, and all the other stuff that’s so important to parents of grown-up children. Once we realize we’ve become surplus to requirements, Frank, Ivy and I move through to the kitchen.

  Frank opens another bottle of wine, despite me assuring him I don’t want anything else to drink.

  ‘Not going to let me drink alone, are you?’ he says. ‘We’re family now.’ And he pours two glasses.