“Ugh, okay, okay little man.”
She blew a raspberry into his neck. He stopped struggling for a moment in order to give a delighted squeal and a baby giggle, before he renewed his escape attempts.
“You’d better come in,” she said, her smile dying as she looked from Gus to me, and that hollow feeling took over my chest again. I followed her to the beanbags and nearly went flying as my foot caught on a particularly solid one.
“Oh yeah, mind out for Beauty,” Kira said, picking her way through the various obstructions with that fairy-like swiftness then flinging herself back into a beanbag with Gus still in her arms. I looked down at a huge mound of black and white fur on the ground. The smell emanating from it could be likened to rotting cabbage, and the creature’s face, with its large tongue lolling out as it slept, was about as far away from ‘Beauty’ as I could imagine it was possible. I carefully stepped around it and over the pool of slobber it had created, and walked to the beanbag area to sit on the solitary wooden chair. The baby had launched himself from Kira’s arms and was now fighting in earnest with his sleeping bag.
I was a planner. I tended to run conversations through my mind before I actually embarked on them. So, I’d already decided what I wanted to say to Kira, already run through all her possible responses. I hadnotfactored a huge dog that smelt of arse and an infant into the scenario. But then, it was safe to say that Kira was the most unpredictable person I’d ever met. Being with her reminded me of a family trip to Alton Towers when I was eleven, and Henry (who was six) and I had ridden together on the biggest rollercoaster. Despite being younger, Henry had laughed his way through the terror of the ride with his arms straight up in the air. I’d held onto the bar for dear life, not liking being out of control, and completely unable to give in to the thrills. When I’d come out the other end, white as a sheet and sombre, Henry had been beaming and begging my mother to let him go again. Mum, who was emerging from her depression at that stage, was finally starting to notice things again – like how cautious and wary I’d become, how risk averse. She’d kissed me on the forehead, cupped my face and told me, not for the first time, “Let yourself go darling. Life’s there to belived.” It made me angry at the time. Didn’t she realise that I couldn’t let myself go anymore? Somebody had had to keep things together over the last three years. At the age of eleven, after my mother’s descent into depression, I already knew that the worstcouldhappen, and it’s better to be prepared for it when it does.
Kira made me feel like I was back on that rollercoaster. Once again I was out of control and I couldn’t take my hands off the bar. I couldn’t do it when I was eleven, and I still couldn’t three decades later.
“Is there a reason why you’ve turned your flat into an animal sanctuary slash nursery?” I asked.
“Bah!” I tore my eyes away from a beanbag-encased-Kira and her bizarre but disturbingly arousing nightwear (a pair of tiny shorts with small badgers over them, and a tight tank top with a large red-eyed badger face on the front with the words BRING IT in bold underneath) to look over at the baby and see that he had emerged victorious from his sleeping bag. How he’d managed to unzip the thing and undo the buttons required in the few seconds he’d had available was a mystery to me, but Superbaby was very much free, and he was making use of this freedom to crawl towards me with alarming speed and efficiency.
“Gus!” All three of our heads whipped around to see a young girl standing in Kira’s bedroom door, wearing pink pyjamas covered in small, black skull-and-cross-bones. “It’s way past your bed time.” The girl moved to us, snatched the baby up from the floor with cool efficiency, settled him on her hip, and turned to me.
“Hello, Mr Lucas. I’m Rosie Grantham.”
“Hello, Miss Grantham,” I said, once I’d recovered from my shock. The little girl, who couldn’t have been more than ten, looked completely unphased by my presence in the flat, as if meeting a famous politician was an everyday event for her. I’d met world leaders with less poise.
“You can call me Rosie.”
“Okay, Rosie.”
“And, by the way, I’ve forgiven you for being a Tory.”
“Oh, well . . . thanks?”
“I didn’t think I would,” she continued. “But your policies have redeemed you since the cabinet reshuffle. I imagine that you simply adapted your politics to be in the party most likely to be in power, so that you would be in the best position to effect change.”
My mouth dropped open. Nobody had ever called me out on this issue. I’d never admitted to anyone other than Henry why I had chosen the Tory party. Even if someone thought that was what I’d done, I doubted they would have the balls to say it to my face.
“Now, Auntie Ki Ki,” Rosie continued, turning her attention to Kira, who was still sprawled on a beanbag. “Gus should be in bed.”
“But he escapes his sleeping bag and climbs out of his cot,” she protested.
Rosie rolled her eyes as she tucked her brother back inside his sleeping bag, but this time with it the wrong way around so that the zip was at the back.
“Night night, Auntie Ki Ki,” she told her. Kira held out her arms and wiggled her fingers. After another eye roll, Rosie dropped down next to her with her baby brother still in her arms. Kira dragged them both on top of her on the beanbag and kissed both of their faces multiple times before blowing raspberries into their necks. Rosie’s stern expression melted away as she giggled, and the baby was laughing so much he was doing little snorty wheezes.
“Love you to the moon and back, gorgeous things,” Kira whispered after the kissing session. The baby gave her a slobbery lick on her cheek and Rosie gave her another hug.
“Love you more, Auntie Ki Ki,” Rosie Grantham whispered back, then pushed up from the floor with her brother and made her way back to the bedroom.
“Bye, Mr Lucas,” she called from the doorway. “We can talk about your plastics waste policy when I see you again. I’ve got some ideas.”
“Right, yes,” I forced out, still in a state of shock. “Great.”
The bedroom door slammed and I was left staring at Kira.
“She’s . . . unusual,” Kira said through a smile. “Got you pegged though, huh?”
“What on–?”
“They’re Libby and Jamie’s kids. I told them to have a break for a night.” There was a scratching sound, then I watched as the huge pile of stinky fur lumbered over to me. When it had made it to my chair, it sat its massive arse down on the floor and shoved its large head onto my lap with its snout in my groin. Kira giggled. “That’s how she says hello. Beauty and the kids are kind of a package deal. Gus can’t sleep without her by his cot.”
Traumatised by the dog drool that was soaking through the material of my Saville Row suit, I was, yet again with this woman, at a complete loss.
