Lucy Gordon - The Pregnancy Bond

‘Olympia is my producer; she trusted me with the assignments that made my name. I almost owe her my career-no, dammit!’ He checked himself, muttering curses under his breath. ‘No! What am I saying? It’s you I owe things to, that time you supported me so that I had nothing to do but hunt for assignments-I haven’t forgotten.’

‘Yes, you have,’ she said, but without rancour. She’d calmed down now. ‘And why shouldn’t you? It’s a long time ago. Never live in the past.’

‘Kelly-’

‘I’m the past; she’s the present-’

‘Kelly, please-’

‘And all our divorce did was recognise that. Now, I’m going to put the rest of the things in the sink.’

FOR the next few minutes Jake helped her clear away, and Kelly gave up the attempt to make him go. She washed and he dried, until at last he said, ‘I don’t know where to put things away in this place.’

‘Leave them and sit down while I make some coffee.’

When she took the coffee in a few minutes later she found him sprawled on her sofa, dead to the world. It was a familiar sight. How often in the past had she yearned for him to return, only for him to collapse with jet-lag as soon as he walked in the door?

The clink of the cups roused him and he pulled himself upright, rubbing his eyes, then closing them again at once.

‘Long flight?’ she asked sympathetically.

‘Ten hours. I’m dead.’

He got to his feet, yawning and stretching, and began to wander around her apartment. ‘Nice,’ he observed. ‘Shops nearby, that little park outside, not too far from the college, just the right size.’ He was opening doors as he spoke.

‘Hey,’ she said indignantly. ‘This is my home.’

‘It’s all right, I’m only snooping,’ he said, so innocently that it was a moment before she realised he’d admitted the offence. He’d always done that. It was how he got away with murder.

‘Anyway, I already know what your bedroom looks like because people were leaving their coats here,’ he observed, standing in the doorway and regarding the double bed.

‘Come away from there,’ she said firmly.

‘What’s this one?’ he asked, swinging around to another door. ‘Let me discover your dark secrets.’

‘This’ was the tiny second bedroom that was filled with boxes.

‘I haven’t been here long and there are things I haven’t found a place for,’ Kelly explained. ‘So tonight I just tossed them all in there. I’ll get around to it soon.’

‘That’s not like you,’ he observed, letting her lead him away.

‘What isn’t?’

‘Leaving things. You were always so tidy.’

‘I guess my priorities have changed. I’m too busy to fuss about things these days.’

Jake sat down and immediately moved to reach for something that had been sticking into his back. It was a book.

‘Hey, what’s this?’ he demanded, studying it. ‘Moving On, In Bed and In Life!’

‘Marianne gave it to me,’ she chuckled. ‘It’s one of those New Age psychobabble things. Just a laugh.’

‘A laugh, eh? And all these bookmarks? Are those the places where you’re laughing hardest? Or did Marianne put them there?’

‘Some are hers, some mine.’

‘Which is which?’

‘Work it out. You met her tonight. The way you two danced you must know her very well by now. You should have followed up. She’s ready to move on and, goodness knows, you must be. Did she give you her number? Because if not I can-’

‘Will you let me organise my own sex-life?’ he demanded, harassed. ‘And what does this mean?’ He was stabbing the book which was open at a chapter headed ‘Time For a Toy Boy?’ ‘Did she mark this?’

‘No, Marianne’s done toy boys,’ Kelly said cheerfully. ‘If she wanted another one she wouldn’t be bothering with you. Let’s face it, Jake. You hardly qualify, do you? What are you? Thirty-eight?’

‘Thirty-two, as you well know.’

‘Are you sure? I’ve always thought-I mean you look-well, anyway, thirty-two is still past your best, and-’

‘All right, all right,’ he said, grimly appreciative of this wit at his expense. ‘So I take it the bookmark’s yours?’

She glanced over and shrugged. ‘Sure.’

‘Nice reading matter you go in for, Mrs Lindley,’ he said scathingly.

‘Miss Harmon, and it’s none of your business what I read.’

He recited aloud. “‘Don’t be half-hearted about the change you’re making. Feel the sense of liberation as you chuck out unwanted possessions”-would that include unwanted husbands, by any chance?’

‘Oh, don’t be a dog in the manger. You were bored to tears with me. You’re just mad because I made the first move to end our marriage-unless, of course, you consider Olympia the first move, which you could-’

‘Do not,’ he said dangerously, ‘mention her again.’

Kelly shrugged. ‘OK. Nuff said-about everything. Give me back my book.’

‘Wait, I haven’t finished. Where was I? “Unwanted possessions. Replace them with something as different as possible. A change of partners works wonders. If years of sex with the same man has left you feeling bored-” now we’re coming to it “-your new lover should be somebody young. He’ll bring freshness and novelty to your bed, as well as strength, vigour, and a sense of adventure.”’ He set the book down. ‘You must be older than I realised. I wouldn’t have thought you’d reached the age for a toy boy.’

‘Shows how wrong you can be,’ she teased, running her hands over the tight black satin. ‘Underneath this I’m all droop and sag.’

‘Let me check the facts.’

‘You’ve seen the facts plenty of times,’ she said, fending off his hopeful hand.

‘Not these facts, I haven’t.’

‘Well, look your fill of the outside, because that’s all you’ll ever see again.’

His eyes glinted. ‘Wanna bet?’

‘Jake! Do I look as though I was born yesterday?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to find out.’

‘I’m warning you. Keep your distance.’

‘All right. Let’s get back to the subject. Toy boy.’

‘I don’t have a toy boy-yet. I was just planning for the future.’

‘And this?’ He’d found a new source of outrage in the book. “‘If you’re tired of the old self, try a new one-or several new ones.” Oh, that’s great. How the devil are you supposed to know which “you” is on duty today?’

‘Easy. You give them each their own name.’

‘So I see. You’ve written a list of names in the margin. Yvonne-’

‘Sporty,’ Kelly said at once. ‘Likes the wind in her hair.’

‘Helena-’

‘Soulful and dreamy.’ Kelly was enjoying herself. ‘An intense inner life and a hectic imagination.’

‘Carlotta?’

‘A party animal. Always ready for a new experience.’

‘Don’t the fellers get confused?’

‘Not if you keep one personality for each man.’

He stirred his coffee, not looking at her. Suddenly he growled, ‘So which of them are you sleeping with?’

‘What?’

‘Carl, or Frank? Or the mysterious Harry who “misses you terribly”?’

‘Get lost!’

‘Or is it one of the other guys who were undressing you with his eyes tonight? Not that that would take much doing.’

‘Now you’re being offensive.’

‘No way. I like a woman who’s wise to herself. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. You’ve got it-and, boy, do you know how to flaunt it! That’s OK. You missed out a whole stage of life by marrying me, I know. I don’t begrudge you your fun.’

‘It wouldn’t make any difference if you did,’ she said pointedly.

‘Not since ten-thirty this morning.’

‘Further back than that. In fact, not since- Oh, don’t let’s go down that path again. We’d end up quarrelling and what’s the point?’

‘So you’re not going to answer my question?’

‘What question?’

‘Who are you sleeping with?’

She turned slightly, resting her arm on the back of the sofa, and smiled. ‘Mind your own business, Jake.’

He acknowledged this with a quirk of the mouth. ‘I’m still in the habit of thinking you are my business.’

‘You’ll get used to things being different,’ she told him, charming and implacable.

He allowed one finger to trail across the bare skin of her shoulder. ‘I’ll say things are different,’ he murmured, his eyes on her breasts, their shape emphasised by the shine of the black satin. ‘I could get jealous.’

The admiration in his eyes was frank, and for a moment the old Kelly, the one who jumped for joy at his slightest attention, lived again. But the new Kelly firmly sat on her. She knew every trick in Jake’s book, and once you could see the strings being pulled you were safe. Right?

With a face full of amusement she said, ‘Don’t waste your time, Jake.’

‘Sure I’m wasting my time?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘So it is one of them?’

‘You’re wasting your time again.’

He removed his hand. ‘I guess things really are different. You used to tell me everything.’

‘That was when I never had anything interesting to tell. I’d hunt around in my mind trying to find something about the house or my job that wouldn’t bore you rigid when you’d just come back from Egypt or Burundi, or wherever. Then you’d go on TV and talk about fascinating things in faraway places, and I’d think, Heavens, I told him about my argument with the dustman!’

‘Maybe I liked hearing about the dustman. It was real. It kept me down to earth.’

‘And maybe I got tired of just being your “down to earth”. You did all the flying for both of us. I was just earth-bound.’

‘I didn’t even know you tonight,’ he complained. ‘I left a librarian and I came back to the last of the red hot mommas.’

‘Not mommas,’ she said quickly. ‘Not red hot or any other kind.’

He frowned. Then her meaning hit him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said with a sigh. ‘It slipped out without my thinking. I didn’t realise it still hurt you so much after all this time.’