Stretch, 29. Damian Lanigan
on existing relationships. Indeed, this view seemed to be increasingly widely held. Here was a generation on the cusp of their thirties, the women with their best gestating days behind them, and the slither, thud and squeal of childbirth was as yet utterly unheard. The difference was, amongst our disparate circle, that the book was now closed on who would be first to drop. Tom and Lucy had, it was rumoured, ‘been trying’ for six months, which was interesting as I had found them trying for somewhat longer. Tom was already an authority on school fees and IQ-enhancing dietary supplements. Interleaved with The Economist and EuroMoney in their magazine rack were copies of Spawn, Your Foetus and Perineal Suture Today, or whatever those baby-zines are called. Anyway, I stood there outside their Downing Street-style door, and as soon as Lucy opened the door, the beam on her face told me everything. The master race was goosestepping into town.
I managed a hurried, ‘Oh, you clever girl!’ and an awkward hug and air kiss before unconvincingly bolting up the stairs for their toilet to avoid unnecessary kerfuffle. When I reappeared I hailed Tom, who was unloading wine from a case.
‘Well done, you grubby little fucker. I knew you’d muster a chubby eventually.’
Tom and Lucy were moving between the sitting room and the doll’s house kitchen, laying out bottles and decanting snack foods, mainly those gnarled and weighty crisps that are about four quid a bag, and some sweaty-looking black olives.
Lucy walked over and gave me another hug. ‘Aren’t you happy for us?’
Happy, no. Nauseated, yes. I avoided eye contact as she withdrew.
‘Cnava drink?’
‘Oh, Frank, you’re such a charmer.’ She tried to make it sound jovial, but there was an undercurrent of exasperation. Or hurt.
‘Leave him alone, Luce. What do you want, Frank?’
‘Champagne. Can I throw my coat somewhere?’
‘Yeah, chuck it in our room but come down quickly, we want to ask you something.’
I went upstairs, feeling a little scared. They were obviously going to give me some duty to perform, and to be honest I just don’t do duties, as a rule, they’re a bit too close to responsibilities.
I had always found their house unsettling. It was, effectively, a miniature replica of both their family homes, perhaps an acknowledgement that their parents had been right about most things after all. Every wall that wasn’t cream was magnolia and the doorframes and skirting boards were an unrealistic icing-sugar white. In fact the entire house was a cake, a three-hundred-grand cake: from the outside, it was pastel-pink with three big sash windows again painted pure white, all of which suggested Battenburg. Their tiny bedroom where I was now dumping my coat was baby-blue, with a snowdrift of duvet swathing the wrought-iron bed. The curtains were pale blue and white gingham. There was a Renoir print. The whole thing whispered ‘fondant fancy’. I understood the frisson that burglars must feel when they crap in the houses they burgle as I draped my disgraceful brackish overcoat on the bed.
Back downstairs Tom and Lucy were standing parentally by their glacier-white christening-cake mantelpiece, swirling their champagne in their glasses. The huge brass-framed mirror behind them held me in its placid stare. Tom looked conspiratorially at his wife, who nodded at him.
‘Well, Frank, we got you here early because we’d really like you to be godfather to our baby.’
He was beaming like a maniac. She was grinning at me with her eyebrows raised. I panicked.
‘Oh, my God. I don’t have to do anything, do I?’
They both thought about it for a moment and then looked at each other quizzically.
‘I think you have to renounce Satan, but not much else.’
‘No, I mean, if anything happens to you two, do I have to do anything?’
‘Well, that’s a bit of a negative thought, Frank. We hadn’t really got that far.’
‘No, of course not, I’m sorry, I just don’t want to let anyone down.’
Tom’s brow creased. ‘For Christ’s sake, Frank. Come on! We’re trying to tell you that we like you and we want you to be our child’s godfather. Ey? Ey?’
He was prodding me in the stomach now.
‘Yeah, I know, I’m sorry. Yes, yes, OK – “I’d love to be your child’s godfather”, or whatever you’re supposed to say.’
This was as gracious as could be expected in the circumstances, and I dived for a snout to see me straight. Lucy looked at me a little ruefully and then at Tom. ‘Er, Frank, sorry to be a pain, but would you mind if you didn’t? It’s not for us, of course, but you know what they say, “We’ve got someone else to think about now”, and …’ Lucy couldn’t bring herself to look at me. There was a tiny, important pause as I fought myself like a lion, lighter in one hand, fag cocked in the other. To my amazement, and to that of Tom and Lucy, I got all reasonable out of nowhere.
‘Sure, no problem, mate. Do you mind if I slip into the garden and have one?’ Or are there some particularly sensitive fucking lupins you’re worried about? I saw myself out thank you and sat in their stony high-walled courtyard really getting stuck in to my Lucky. I had undoubtedly scored valuable points with this charmingly executed act of selflessness, but wondered whether they would compensate me adequately for the damage I was doing myself by holding it all in. Already that comma of protein in Lucy’s guts was exerting so much power, and not even sensate yet.
As I blasted away, I fixated on it marinading away with its proxy ASH membership, and plotted future godfatherly daytrips to Longleat, the two of us locked inside my car, me chaining my way to emphysema: ‘No, I’m sorry, Jemima/Hugo/Candia/Alexia/Moon Unit, you can’t open the doors in a safari park, or you’ll get your face ripped off by a mandrill. We’ll stretch our legs in an hour or two. Would you like one while we wait?’
This thought gave me sufficient succour to re-enter the house without a scowl on my face, but I knew that I wasn’t going to be particularly perky that evening.
By seven-thirty there were about sixteen to twenty people gathered there, almost all of whom I’d met before. Six or seven were in fact veterans of the university parties. I no longer saw any of them apart from at Tom’s. They certainly didn’t stop by at O’Hare’s that often. The remainder were Tom and Lucy’s workmates, but indistinguishable in outer appearance from the old guard; tall, with a money sheen rising quietly from their hair and skin and clothes, like vapour from an oil puddle.
I wandered over to Lucy and asked her which girl was the one they’d set aside for me. ‘Sadie, over there by the stereo.’
There was a glamorous girl in black with Italianate hair and make-up. I was fearful but excited.
‘What, with the black dress?’
‘Nononono. The girl next but one to her – in the jeans. Sadie, she’s my cousin, down from Gloucestershire to do teacher training. My uncle’s a farmer and she was bored with the rural grind. She’s fun, I think you’ll really like her.’
She was wrong on three counts. Firstly as she was ginger, there was absolutely no way I could fancy her. Not a chance. I can’t stress to you strongly enough how far off my radar gingers are. Secondly, she was a public sector worker. This is a big problem for me. I don’t gel with the vocational mentality. Mainly it’s because they’re all left-wing and skint, which just won’t do at all. Thirdly, I didn’t deserve her. One look was enough to establish that.
I turned to Lucy. ‘I’m not sure she’s quite right.’
‘Don’t be so negative, Frank. Also, she wants a Christmas job, and I said you might be able to get her in at the restaurant. What do you think?’
‘Fuck. I probably could actually.’
‘Brilliant! Let’s go and let her know.’
‘OK