A Spot Of Bother

47

Ray didn’t turn up the following morning. Or the following evening. Katie was too cross to ring the office. Ray was the one who needed to make a peace offering.

But when he didn’t turn up the day after that she gave in and called, if only to put her mind at rest. He was in a meeting. She called an hour later. He was out of the office. She was asked if she wanted to leave a message but the things she wanted to say weren’t things she wanted to share with a secretary. She rang a third time, he was away from his desk and she began to wonder whether he’d left instructions that he didn’t want to talk to her. She didn’t ring again.

Besides, she was enjoying having the house to herself and she was in no mood to give it up before she had to.

On Thursday evening she and Jacob laid out the Brio train set on the living-room carpet. The bridge, the tunnel, the freight crane, the chunky track with its interlocking jigsaw ends. Jacob arranged a crocodile of trucks behind Thomas then crashed them into a landslide of Lego. Katie arranged the trees and the station and made a mountain backdrop from Jacob’s duvet.

She’d wanted a girl. It seemed ridiculous now. The idea that it mattered. Besides, she couldn’t quite picture herself kneeling on the carpet mustering enthusiasm for Barbie’s visit to the hair salon.

“Bash-crash. It chops the driver’s…it chops…it chops the driver’s arm off,” said Jacob. “Nee-naw, nee-naw, nee-naw…”

She knew nothing about petrol engines or outer space (Jacob wanted to be a racing driver when he grew up, preferably on Pluto), but in twelve years’ time she preferred the prospect of body odor and Death Metal to shopping expeditions and eating disorders.

After Jacob had gone to bed she made herself a gin and tonic and sort of looked at the latest Margaret Atwood without actually reading it.

They took up so much space. That was the problem with men. It wasn’t just the leg sprawl and the clumping down stairs. It was the constant demand for attention. Sit in a room with another woman and you could think. Men had that little flashing light on top of their heads. Hello. It’s me. I’m still here.

What if Ray never came back?

She seemed to be standing to one side, watching her life pan out. As if it was happening to someone else.

Perhaps it was age. At twenty life was like wrestling an octopus. Every moment mattered. At thirty it was a walk in the country. Most of the time your mind was somewhere else. By the time you got to seventy it was probably like watching snooker on the telly.

Friday came and went with no sign of Ray.

Jacob said he wanted to go and see Granny, and it seemed as good a plan as any. She could put her feet up while Mum did a bit of child care. Dad and Jacob could do some man stuff at the aerodrome. Mum would ask about Ray but in Katie’s experience she never liked to spend long on the subject.

She rang home and Mum seemed unnaturally excited by the prospect. “Besides, we’ve got to make some decisions about the menu and the seating plan. We’ve only got six weeks to go.”

Katie’s heart sank.

At least Jacob would be happy.