The Whole Truth

Outside in the garden, Nell’s kids are playing football with their dog, taking it in turns doing penalty kicks. They’re eleven and nine, the kids. Jake would be twelve now. No longer a little boy, but not quite yet anything else. Sometimes, before Alex got pregnant again, I’d catch myself fantasizing about how they’d have been together, him and his cousins. Jake was never much interested in sport, but would he be out there anyway, if he was here now? Part of me hopes he’d have done it to be kind, or to please his mother, or because he liked dogs, but there’s another part that would want him as surly and uncooperative as any other twelve-year-old. I’ve learnt the hard way that it’s only too easy to start beatifying a child who’s no longer there.

Audrey Sheldon catches my eye now and we exchange a look; kind on her part, slightly self-conscious on mine. Alex’s parents understand better than anyone what we went through when we lost Jake, but Audrey’s sympathy is like her lemon cheesecake – nice, but there’s only so much of it I can take. I get to my feet and start collecting plates. Nell’s husband, Gerry, makes a half-hearted attempt to help me but I clap him chummily on the shoulder and push him firmly back down in his seat.

‘You brought all the food. My turn now.’

Alex gives me a grateful smile as I collect her dessert plate. Her father’s been badgering her gently to ‘eat up’ for the last ten minutes. Some things about parenthood never die. My mother does the same to me. In twenty years’ time I’ll be doing it myself. God willing.

Out in the kitchen, Nell is stacking the dishwasher, and though she’s doing it all wrong I resist the impulse to intervene as I know it’ll just piss her off; Alex says dishwashers are like barbecues – men just can’t stop themselves muscling in. Nell smiles when she sees me. I like her, I always have. As bright as her sister, and just as forthright. They have a good life, she and Gerry. House (detached), skiing (Val d’Isère), dog (cockerpoo allegedly, but judging by the size of those paws there’s at least a quarter polar bear in there). He’s an actuary (Gerry, not the dog) and if I’m honest I find Dino a good deal more interesting, but the only person I’ve ever said that to is myself.

Nell is looking at me now, and I know exactly what that particular look means. She wants to Have A Word. And being Nell, she pitches straight in. Just like her sister.

‘I’m a bit worried about her, Adam. She doesn’t look well.’

I take a deep breath. ‘I know what you mean, and this bloody heat isn’t helping, but she’s getting regular check-ups. Far more than most women in her position do.’

But most women in her position haven’t been hospitalized for high blood pressure and ordered to take complete bed rest.

Nell leans back against the worktop and reaches for a tea towel, wiping her hands. ‘She hardly ate a thing.’

‘I’m trying, really –’

‘And she looks completely exhausted.’

She’s frowning at me. Because whatever this is, it has to be my fault, right? Out in the garden Ben scores a goal and starts running around the grass with his T-shirt over his head. Nell glances over at them, then fixes her eyes back on me.

I try again. ‘She’s not sleeping well – you know what it’s like in the last trimester. She can’t seem to get comfortable.’

But Nell’s still frowning. Nicky is now yelling that the goal was a cheat; Gerry gets up and goes to the window, calling to his sons to play nicely in that sententious parental tone we all swear we’ll never use. Something else about having kids that never seems to change.

‘Look,’ I say, ‘it’s tough with the job but I’m doing as much around the house as I can, and we’ve got a cleaner coming in once a week for the rest.’

Nell is watching her boys. ‘We were talking earlier,’ she says, without looking round. ‘She says you’ve moved into the spare room.’

I nod. ‘Just so I don’t wake her up. Especially given I’m now getting up at stupid o’clock four days a week for the bloody gym.’

She turns towards me. ‘Quitting still a bummer?’

The look that comes with the words is cool but not unkind: Nell’s an ex-smoker too. She knows all about nicotine displacement strategies.

I try a wry smile. ‘A bastard. But I’m getting there.’

She eyes me up and down. ‘And toning up a bit too, I see. Suits you.’

I laugh. ‘Well, that’s a bloody miracle, considering I’m on a packet of Polo mints an hour.’

There’s a pause and then, finally, she smiles. But it’s a forlorn one. ‘Just look after her, Adam, OK? She’s so stressed out – this baby means so much to her. I don’t know what she’d do if –’ She stops, bites her lip and looks away.

‘Look, Nell – I’d never let anything happen to Alex. Not now, not ever. You do know that, don’t you?’

She glances up, then nods, and I wait. I know what she wants to say, and why she’s having so much trouble doing it.

‘It was in the paper,’ she says eventually. ‘He’s out, isn’t he? Gavin Parrie.’