“She must have finished her call,” Tom said. “What’s the deal here, by the way?” He nudged the laundry basket with his foot. “Are they from you two, Father Christmas, or what?”
“I didn’t even think of that.” For a second Coralie was stricken. “No, she’ll recognize the wrapping paper is from us. She’d work it out, I think.”
“It won’t be a problem. Marina’s bought half of Hamleys, and the Amins have gone quite mad, not to mention my own parents, who’ve sent a bloody great trampoline I’ll have to put up in the garden. You know how many times she’s been on the rocking horse? Once. The trampoline’s going to be a very expensive camp mattress for the Camden urban fox.”
“What a relief—whew.” Marina swept down the stairs in her long cashmere coat. “Thanks, Coralie.”
“Mummy!” Zora ran into the hall.
“Wait, wait till I’m on solid ground.” Marina stepped off the last step. Zora leaped into her arms. “My beautiful girl.”
When Zora finally slid down to the floor, Marina’s coat had come unbuttoned. “Oh, Marina,” Anne called from the sitting room. “When are you due?”
•••
It was darkby the time everyone had gone. Shutting the door to her pink room would communicate too obviously that she wanted to be alone. Running a bath would not in and of itself telegraph disturbance; Adam knew she lived a heavily bath-based lifestyle. But what if he did what he sometimes did, swung in with a glass of wine, sat on the toilet with the lid down, and gossiped to her? She couldn’t face being perceived at that moment, let alone perceived naked. What if she was in the bath and hedidn’tswing by with a glass of wine? Then she’d know he was angry, or disappointed, with her or others, or feeling some other negative emotion (because of, to, at, or around her). She couldn’t go down and clean the kitchen because that was what he was doing—from the top of the stairs she could hear the cutlery slotting into the dishwasher. They’d just concluded a full week of Zora-hampered communication. Now she had unlimited time to speak to him and she didn’t know what to say.
“Partner’s ex is pregnant” she typed into Google on her phone. Immediately the screen filled with first-person accounts of people whose partners’ exes were pregnant because the partners themselves had impregnated them. Her own shocking jealousy and sudden despair were both too minorandtoo weird to have a relevant search result. Adding to this mess was the issue of Adam’s birthday. She was exhausted and still quite full from her showstopping stew at lunchtime. Only the oysters remained as a birthday-level special food item, unless she wanted to rob Peter to pay Paul (get into the Christmas Day supplies early). Adam would say he didn’t want a fussmade. But that was something only someone confident of having a fuss made could say.
“You’re standing so still in the dark—are you hiding?” Adam was in the doorway.
“Sort of,” Coralie said. “Half hiding, half not sure what to do.”
“Yes.” He slid his shoulder around the doorframe and entered. “What a bombshell.”
“It was very Anne, just coming out with it. Very clap clinic and facts of life.”
“She was always like that.” Adam slumped down to sit on the floor. “When I had spots, she’d point at my face: ‘You’ve got spots.’ Thanks, I know!”
Coralie hopped up and sat on the desk with her feet on the seat of the chair. “She was going to tell Zora this week, and then us?”
“Marina?”
“I feel like she should have told us first, before she told Zora—so we could help with it? Becoming a big sister. It’s huge.”
“She seemed okay with it—Zora, I mean. She seemed happy.”
“I was fine for a few days when Daniel was born. Then I asked when we’d give him back. Marina’s due in April—that’sspring, that’s so soon. Why did she wait so long to tell anyone?”
“I don’t know what’s going on in Marina’s mind.”
“But you know what’s going on in her body.”
Suddenly all the air was gone from the room. Adam’s voice was tired and distant. “I had to say congratulations.”
“But you didn’t simply say congratulations! How much Nutella this time, Marina? Lock up your Nutella, Tom! Get lots of sleep now, enjoy it while you can!”
“I was trying to be nice. I was trying to show Zora it was fine.”
“You admit it’s not fine.”
“It’s not not-fine for me, and I’m the one this affects.”
“Oh. I see.” Coralie left the room but had nowhere to go and (seeking some kind of solace) rushed up to Zora’s bedroom, where she found Sally’s lovely artwork had left a paint smell, so she could at least feel useful by opening the window.
Adam staggered up, looking old. “So—is it not supposed to affect me? Or are you saying it’s you this affects?”
She was sobbing. “Ofcourseit affects me—for someone else to get what I want. Merry fucking Christmas, Coralie! ‘What’s your status here?’ I don’t know, Anne, housekeeper and cook? Adam’s backup prize after Marina left him? I feel like the fucking woman inRebecca!”
