Bob Hinshelwood's Other writing
   Life lived within is also lived without. 

I - The sad-happy couple

He had waited half-an-hour for the girl to turn up – but she did not. Sandy had been attracted when they met in the pub down the road just a few days ago. Nice name she had, Maryam. 

Sandy was now nearly thirty and had wondered when he should consider settling down to a conventional life. Could he ever, after what happened, settle down to a life at all. He knew it could not have been with Laura, and certainly not after that commotion with her ambitious father. Sandy’s reaction had always been to turn around and face the opposite direction from which trouble came. 

He shuffled from foot to foot as he waited with irritation and disappointment. He felt something was changing. He had been changing. He’d had four years of dark brooding since Laura.

He frequently scoffed at himself for being too settled already. The comfortable life in London, living well enough from the family firm selling carpets, his gem of a terrace house near enough to the fashionable Notting Hill carnival. He was never sure if his life had yet started properly, or if it was already finished and dead. He had not thought much about it, nor could he concentrate on his father…. the project. He’d destroyed his dad! Hadn’t he! It seemed not worth going over yet again, that drawn-out thinking about what it all meant. It was the same with his journalism; a few thoughts about places to travel to, up and done the country, seaside, hills, views, histories of poets and writers. Once they’d gone to magazines, he’d forget the places. There were never people he’d met, just vistas and architecture.

He was now thoughtful about the girl he had been waiting for this evening. Better that than the mournful recent times. She was not just a desire. There was something else about her that he had responded to when they had started chatting last week. She seemed gentle – well, at first. And despite that softness, there was an energy. Her engaging voice and manner contrasted with her formidable dressing-up for an ordinary evening in a pub. It was almost a ‘uniform’ for meeting people. He had supposed there was another side to her. It made her interesting.

            Was he really spending his life waiting for someone to turn up? It was as satisfying as a red traffic-light. He had once been told by a smart young woman that if he wanted to settle down he should not pick up a sexy-dressed woman looking for free drinks in a pub. Her advice had come back to him. It had originally been a joke and he had looked with excitement at her well-dressed body. The evening with that one had been good. But they had not met again. 

            What did he want to do with himself and the rest of his life, - it seemed a long way ahead. The girl from last week seemed so different, and she had certainly got him onto all this thinking. He’d thought of her occasionally during the week. Clearly, ships not passing in the night.

He left the spot outside the restaurant, with two thoughts. First, he told himself, women always disappeared – it was not possible for anyone to live up to the promise he expected. What a disappointment. Don’t bother – about her, or anyone else, for that matter. On the other hand, he was consumed with a determination that he had not had on previous dates he’d tried, suffered or enjoyed. His casual unconcern had left him and left him himself resolved not to be a failure. Only occasionally did he follow a conversation with a date. And this girl, Maryam, had surprisingly accepted; surprising, considering…. He did wan to found keep connected with this girl. It was no longer just the girl herself, or his desire. This was refusing to be defeated. Although he knew it was not just that.

            He fought these thoughts. The girl did not matter. He said – almost out loud. She was a tart anyway. She must be because only a tart would go to a pub on her own, dressed up as she had done. She had talked, and he had listened to her for an evening and then made a date for a meal. It was just a pick-up. He was sure she did not matter, not in herself. Not to him; he was letting defeat get the better of him, just fighting on till he won – just for the sake of it. He took the bus a couple of stops, strolled into the same pub, where they had picked each other up. She was not there – of course. A momentary thought made him wonder if he should return to the restaurant, to see if she had at last turned up. But he put the thought away. She did not matter. He sat down in the corner with a bottle of Export and let his mind cloud over with blankness. He hadn’t insisted on taking her phone number. He was right not to have bothered, wasn’t he!

She had told him an odd story that evening four days ago. Most girls nowadays would give you a story of being abused when they were kids. Mostly, he dismissed what they said; they made it up as if it was to be expected. He looked across the dark room to where they had sat and chatted earnestly. In his mind’s eye, he still saw her there, her dark exotic features, and full strong figure, still outlined in his memory against the dirty panelling of the wall. She had delicate hands that held her glass like a caress. Her face had beautiful features, high cheek bones, and large eyes. There was a keen darkness to her, a ‘darkness of sunshine’, not of threat, he told himself; and admired his own poetic words. She had stared at him intently with those dark eyes whilst he listened. She seemed to have told her story many times before, but it still seemed she was interested to tell him. She sat with her body firm, upright, and strong with dignity despite the story she told. Her kindly, interested calmness was magnetic. Sandy thought she was a woman who could look after herself. She had told him of her mixed and dubious background without embarrassment.

She enjoyed a mixed ancestry. Her father half-Irish and half West Indian from Liverpool, when young had been to Marseille on the ships, and met her Egyptian mother, she becoming pregnant. Such disgrace appalled the Egyptian family that they had returned to England, as guilty renegades. Although as she told her story, Maryam conveyed a somewhat distant humour about these foolish attitudes. They had had this one child. Her father had told Maryam she was like a soft warm breeze when she was born. Indeed, she did seem to have continued to grow up rather like that, Sandy had remarked to her. 

Her two parents quickly arrived in England and a different freer life than they could have expected in Alexandria. Her parents did marry, but back in England, in an English fashion. Her mother forbade her father to go to sea again, and so he found connections with the Irish tinkers and also an entry to a travelling fair for the summer season. This gave him a nomadic life around the country. In the winter a tinker, wandering the streets in suburbs of major cities, sharpening knives and scissors, he’d sit on the kerb at street corners with his portable grind-wheel; a colleague and companion repaired woven cane-work chairs. They both sang strong, mysterious melodies with their Irish voices to the mixed reception of their customers. In summer, he worked in the travelling fair. The families gathered each year before Easter at the warehouse in Portsmouth where they repaired the sideshows, oiled the Victorian machines, and mended the special costumes. 

From a young age Maryam had paraded outside the tent with a show called the Follies Bergère. The girls who featured in the show were the rather worn wives of the fairground men. By law, Maryam herself was not allowed to perform at the age of ten. But outside the booth she could march up and down, parading her good looks, and pouting at the crowds below her. She and a couple of others were supposed to tempt certain kinds of men who wanted a change from robust buttocks and boobs. That the girls enticed men to a disappointment was not apparent till they’d paid the entrance fee of course. She enjoyed the shiny costumes on her slim body, though they tore quite easily, and she was severely told off by the seamstress responsible for them.

Her father had thought it was a stupid name, Maryam. But he had not felt it his place to say so. Instead feigning to be a true Catholic, he called the girl, Maria, and stuck to it – stuck to it until Maryam had been in her teens and old enough to decide for herself; and then she would not answer unless called by the name Maryam.  

Maryam liked the name. But she liked Maestri better. She liked it because of her grandfather, a Master Carpenter trained in Spain. And because the name sounded like a mystery, which was what she wanted to be. And in spite of all the history she gave Sandy that first evening, she sustained the air of a mystery person. Sandy told her he liked the mystery about her, “You’re interesting.” She refused to give him her phone number till they had met again. She told him she had grown up now and was no longer Maestri, but of course she still liked to mystify.

            “Mostly blokes look at my body. And then they’re not interested in what comes out of my mouth.”

            “Well,” he protested charmingly, “I’m interested.” And he sipped his beer from the warm glass clutched in his hands. His eyes shone straight into hers as he drank. He was determined not to glance downwards at her shape while she was speaking.

            “Are you? Interested?” She sounded unconvinced.

            “Tell me what happened next.” He had felt embarrassed for some reason at his sexual interest in her, and that she had been so sure of it. Despite how dressed-up she looked, she wanted to be listened to and not stared at. He decided to get back to what was safer. “D’you still work in fairgrounds?” 

            “No,” she sipped a little of the gin-&-T he had bought her, and she seemed in a far place, far away. “That was a long time ago. I’m an old woman now.” She chuckled, uncertain about continuing with her story. “Of course, I like being looked at. That was what I was telling you about parading in front of the side-show.” She looked  mischievously at him. He knew she was playing with him, just for fun. It was fun. 

            But he said seriously, “You’re not old,” a kind of dutiful response. They seemed to be back on the physical topic which was difficult to negotiate. She seemed to be inviting him to check his reactions to her body, expecting him to make a pass. But also, a kind of warning to him that she would not approve of any blatant sexual interest. For her it came naturally to slip into a teasing, suggestive mode of talk when it was too soon to be intimate. “I’d say you were about twenty-three.”

“Wrong.” She announced happily having got the conversation back to a lighter level. “It’s more. But I bet that’s your age!”

He was surprised. It could have been a rebuke – that he was too young. Sandy had looked at her and known that he could have replied to her about their ages, and that would have been back to the game about looking at her body. “Anyway, tell me about the fair.”

            “Mum looked after the women in the sideshow, rouging their lips and shaving their armpits.” She looked a bit uninterested, but then said, “Dad did heavy work, setting up and taking down the large structures and machines. He collected the money from the big rides. He was a workman. His hands were all greasy and warm. I think Mum was still linked, in her own mind, with Egypt. Eventually she went off with an investor. He was an Arab who put money into the fair at the beginning of the season, to get a set proportion of the takings at the end. He wanted me to come with him and Mum as well.” She looked as if that was so unreasonable. Sandy wondered if she was saying that the Arab fancied Maryam as well as her mother. One would not have blamed him. But Maryam stayed with her father. Or rather stayed with the fair where her father was at the time. She was a bit vague. “Dad had a bad accident – crushed by a large piece of machinery they were taking down when they struck the fair to move on. It’s a common enough accident in that world. Several bones and joints never returned to normal again. He lost his sight in both eyes, and his neck was sort of broken so he could not control the right side of his body. He became very stiff. And developed furious tempers, and they only slowly righted themselves. He was a wreck. That’s why Mum went a-roving, you know.”

The fair-master’s wife took Maryam even more under her charge, taught her bookkeeping and the ordering of supplies and provisions for the business. She helped her with her periods and told her about babies. Maryam’s father, after about a year or so as a chronic invalid nursed by the fair people was thrown out because of the cost he was in the wintertime. Maryam was kept on till she was eighteen doing work as a way of paying off the cost her father had been.

At eighteen she had left the fair. She had decided to look for where her father had gone. Another girl told her they could do better for themselves in television. They had gone off to London together, but her friend, Janice, had soon abandoned Maryam and had ended up in club life in London. Maryam declined that route for herself, although got some bruises doing so. She went back to Liverpool, her Nan’s town, but her Nan had died. No-one in her street had heard about her father. That was a while ago, she has been looking for him for nearly ten years now.

            She waited. “Your father was a good bloke?” he asked, genuinely interested.

            “Yeah, I suppose. Till his accident.” She was pensive and unhappy. “I missed him when he was sent away.”

            “I bet,” he said brightly to avoid her gloom. “Mine’s dead, too,” as if it were nothing.        “What do you mean?” She looked at him  sharply and anxiously.

“I mean, I bet you missed him. When he died, didn’t you.”

“He’s not dead,” she said anxiously. “I know he’s not.” It was clear how much she wanted to think he was somewhere for her to find. 

“Perhaps he is. He couldn’t look after himself, could he?” It was difficult for Sandy to know what to say to stop her getting sad. And he had probably been clumsy. But now they had something in common. There was a silence for a long time, and then she looked at him whilst he said nothing. “I don’t know. I never thought he was gone. I always thought he could look after himself. I am still chasing him somewhere.”

“Let’s hope you catch him up. Do you want another drink.” It seemed best to divert from this conversation.

“No…” She still had half the first one in her glass.

“I think I will.” Sandy was feeling tense now.

“I’ve got to go,” she said rather flatly, but not moving. “You don’t talk much,” she said as if giving herself a reason for going.

The accusation seemed unjust. “I’ve been listening.” But it seemed pleading to defend himself.

“Oh, yes.” She conveyed disbelief as if she wanted to add that all he’d done was to look her over with his eyes and get his hands on her. She didn’t quite say that, but continued, “I bet you haven’t listened to a thing I’ve said.” She was gathering her things from the bench beside her. “Why don’t you say more. You haven’t told me anything.” But she made it sound as if she did not care at all.

“I’ve been listening to you. It’s what you wanted.” He was confused by her. “Isn’t it?” It made him start defending himself and demanding from her. “You told me about your father, looking for him all these years because he loves you and wanted you to have a nice name. You see, I thought you wanted to be listened to.” 

“Don’t do me any favours.” She was cutting and hitting to hurt. She stood up and moved round the table. Her movements were elegant almost dancing. She was graceful but also vibrating with some hostile energy.

He stood and put an arm around her shoulder as she passed him and they turned together towards the door. He was hanging on to her because he had no idea why she had suddenly changed. Later, he realised they should not have talked about her father – or his father.

“I’m not doing you any favours,” He tried coaxingly. “Why don’t you do me one. Let me take you home?” He was trying to get back to a jocular mood with her again.

She walked away as if oblivious to his arm around her, and he had to walk with her, avoiding the pub table and chairs to keep his arm in place. When they got to the door, he had to release her and let her go through first.

Outside the air was fresh and open and clear. They seemed to have come out of a sudden heavy cloud. She seemed to unfreeze for a moment. “Thanks for the drink.”

“I’ll take you for a meal one evening.” He persisted rather hopelessly, “soon.”

“Yes,” she unexpectedly said, but without enthusiasm, “anytime.”

“Next Thursday.” He was calling after her as she moved away And he added “I’ll tell you all about my Dad, too.”

“OK. Thursday is fine.” She hesitated in her movement away, and she was talking over her shoulder to him, He told her a restaurant and a time. “Fine,” she called. 

He watched her walk away down the street. A couple of large men turned their heads as she passed them. One called out something to her, but she didn’t look back at him. Nor at Sandy. He stood in the street, looked down at his watch as if he could make it move on to next Thursday. He felt confused. He didn’t need to go chasing women.

So now he sat on his own in the pub again with these memories. Her sudden change of mood…. It was not surprising she had not turned up at the restaurant. He sat looking glumly over his glass. Distantly watching the corner where they had sat together thinking about their fathers that evening previously. It was almost as if looking hard enough would make her appear again.

Then he noticed the barman looking over at him, and Sandy wondered if he wanted something. He was idly drying up some glasses; he looked young and diffident and as if he was not sure about Sandy. “Alright?” Sandy asked in the empty pub. He was about to order another beer. There was hardly anyone at the bar and the barman kept wiping. “You waiting for someone?” he called out. “There was a girl in here at lunchtime. Funny name she gave – Musty or something. Know her?”

He nodded, “Yup.” He tried to sound casual but interested. “Her name is Maryam. She couldn’t make a date. I wasn’t too bothered. Nice girl.”

“Maryam?” he enquired. “Yeah, a funny name. She left a note.”

“Well, it will be for me,” Sandy continued casually. He went over to the bar and ordered another pint. The barman put  folded piece of paper on the top of the bar and then pulled the beer. Sandy left the paper there till the pint was full, was passed over to him and he’d paid. He brought the pint back to his seat, with the piece of paper, dropped it on the table, and let it rest there a while. ‘Now,’ he said to himself, ‘I don’t really care what she’s written to me.’ But looking back later, he felt pleased. Then he opened the envelope.  He was very casual. It said in careful letters: ‘I don’t know your name so I don’t know if you will get it. I found my father. I will be in Liverpool tonight. Come and meet us.’ The message finished with her father’s address – no signature. He looked at his watch and sighed. Now he had to make a decision.

…..ooooo00000ooooo…..

Blind, paralysed and still alive, he greeted Sandy generously. Maryam looked on kindly. The old man seemed to have got the situation a little distorted, since he assumed the couple, who in fact had met only once, were solidly united partners. Not only was he pleased to have been found by his one daughter, but pleased also that she was nicely hitched to a good and decent man. Maryam smiled not wanting to disabuse her father of his pleasure about Sandy. She had no idea if Sandy was gentle and good. As far as she knew, he could instead be an unreliable lecher who would pick her up and drop her as his impulses dictated. But he had come chasing her on the night train – lechers wouldn’t bother to do that, would they?

            The home in Liverpool which cared for the blind old man, Shaun, was run by a non-profit charity, run as a co-operative in which the cared-for invested their family savings, without losing their rights as shareholders and beneficiaries to any income the home energetically made. State benefits and private donations were accepted, local lotteries and many cultural activities in the neighbourhood contributed funds to support the looked-after residents. Not surprisingly those admitted, in whatever shape and health, had a longevity significantly better than comparable services elsewhere. Shaun played his part singing his Irish songs on the appropriate occasions – at dances, music hall entertainments, and whatever community activities warranted his gifts. Maryam was inexpressibly proud, not just of her achievement at finding him at last, but at finding him so talented, energetic, active, and generous at his age – not so old in fact, but still long after he should have died.

            “My boy,” he started in his contented and lively way. His voice was loud in his small room where he sat in the wheelchair the carers, mostly volunteers, always helped him into pushing him to the window as if he could enjoy the view. “If you want to bless the girl, we both love best, then rescue the world from moneychangers in their nowadays temples”, He laughed with a gaiety that was unusual for Sandy. “Decapitate capital.” He guffawed. And Maryam and Sandy happily followed suit. 

            “Certainly will, sir. Had a few ideas of that kind myself,” he said proudly, but he had not, of course, considering he’d lived the idle life on his father’s shares and investments. His father, the creative businessman had invested so much labour and time in his company, he thought it should have been a treasure trove for him and all his workforce, many from the poorest parts of London. Not a bit of it, he complained, as the whole enterprise was skinned and thinned out by banks and investors; and indeed by those who invested in the investors. The plan was, well, to do away with all investors! “They are a headless lot. Let’s chop all their heads off. They won’t notice what they’ve lost!”

It seemed of course that the late night jollity was well-received by Maryam. Sandy saw her looking at him with some interest, no doubt wondering about Sandy’s unspoken ideas. She seemed an innocent woman, younger than Sandy but probably several years older than she looked. She turned and held her father’s hand, “Who cares about money? I’ve got a Dad. Dad’s are more important, aren’t they.” She looked at Sandy, as Shaun held tight to Maryam’s hand.

             Sandy then held his other hand and Shaun gripped them tightly in his dark blindness, making an ineradicable connection between the three of them. “You want to hear a strange story,” he said. 

They both nodded, but Maryam decided she’d better agree out loud to the blind old man, “Yes, Dad.” And she sat in a chair next to her father. Sandy sat on the side of the bed the other side of the wheelchair. They remained linked together in the chain of hands they had made.

“Well,” he started with a note of thrill in his voice, “Your Mum,” and he squeezed her hand. “She was called Monica when I met her, and I often called her ‘Nickers’, because some of the lads around the fair thought it was funny. No, that’s not the story.” And with energy in his telling, he lifted their two hands up a few inches and down again. “But we often went around together, in amongst the shows and tents. Sometimes holding hands.” He had a dreamy look in those blind eyes. His dark skin seemed to glisten with some excitement. And solemnly he said, “She left me. She left us,” and he squeezed her hand again. “We never saw her again, did we. You should try to find her. Perhaps out there in Egypt with her rich bloke.” He looked tearful. If one ever wondered if blind people cry with their eyes, well, now you know – they do. “It makes one feel racist.”

            “Perhaps, I can find her now. Now I have found you. What was the man’s name she went off with, to Egypt.”

            “Let me tell you the story first. See, we were a good couple, till the accident. Then it was hopeless. She didn’t want a crippled black bloke; and of course I didn’t want to be crippled. But you know you can’t choose. But she did. Well after a while she did choose. She pushed me around in the wheelchair for a few months till they shoved me out of the fair altogether, because I wasn’t any use to them. I had a bit of money, because there was some insurance. For my paralysis, and the blindness. But it wasn’t so much. I was useless, so she had to take me away. But she had nowhere to go, and nor did I. We went back to the village in Ireland where my Dad came from. All he said was ‘go and find your Mum’.” Shaun looked sad again. It was a story about nobody wanting him. Maryam squeezed his hand then. Not a happy story.

            Sandy was restless. Maryam looked at him, “I’m going to stay,” she said. The old man turned his head, unclear about what the two members of his now-discovered family were negotiating. Sandy nodded, feeling unsure what to do, or what was expected. And he turned toward the door, walking down the corridor. After a minute or so, she came running after him, “You shouldn’t leave me like that. Where are you going? Where are you staying?”

            He looked completely uncertain. “I thought I might have been staying with you. Where are you staying? You staying here? In the home?”

            “No,” she said slightly exasperated that he was not understanding her. “Wait for me.”

            “Of course,” he said, relieved. And he walked on to the front hall where there were a couple of seats he could sit on to wait till she came. He could understand she wanted time with her father alone. To hear the rest of the old man’s story. So he simply waited.

            In fact, it was a couple of hours she spent with her father. When she came down the hall to where he was still sitting, he was musing on the complete reversal of his life. He stood up, She said, brightly, “Come on,” as if he had kept her waiting, “I’m hungry, man. He said he thinks there may be a sandwich shop just close. So, we must ask someone.” She looked around and went to the glass door with a sign ‘Office’ above it, and looked in. She went inside to ask for the shop. When she came out, she frowned, “It’s half a mile. Come on.”

            So they walked together down the road. She put her arm in his as if they were familiar companions. She had a lively walk, and he felt her body moving against his. She was slim and quite tall, a physical presence. He looked at her face again. Her mouth was sensuous with full lips, no make-up but a smooth dark skin. Her nose was rather large, and her chin a little smaller than need be. But it was her eyes one noticed, large and brown and he’d noticed how intensely she looked when someone spoke to her. The fringe was not well judged, but her dark hair was wavey to her shoulders. She took care of her appearance in a relaxed way. She was not dressed up to impress, today. He felt they were good to be walking together. He squeezed her arm against his side. Eventually, he said, “You’re a pretty girl.”

            “Oh,” she said walking on without looking at him. “I’ll fuck anyone who wants, But not right now. I’ve just found my father. That’s a big thing in my life.” He felt her response a protest. And he wanted to protest. 

But of course, he had just been thinking about her body and her attractiveness. And he squeezed her arm gently again, and said jokingly, “Ok, we’ll leave that till later.”. But she said nothing as if he was just being practical. “Let’s talk about your father. He must have been quite a nice bloke.” But they were just passing the sandwich shop, and she pulled him into the doorway.

When they had ordered what they wanted at the counter they sat down, and she replied. “I don’t remember him much. He was always busy with the things around, and then off doing his knife sharpening. He never talked to us like he did just now.”

“Did he finish the story he wanted to tell us?”

“Oh, that was just…” she started as if it was just an amusing story, “Well,” she corrected herself, “actually he did. He said his wife got fed up with him, pushing him around in a wheelchair and so on, and doing everything for him. So, he said, she took up with this Egyptian man. I did know she was carrying on.  Then after he had to leave the fair, they went off by train. She got him off at the terminus, what is it? Liverpool Central? She left him there and went to find a toilet. And didn’t come back. He was stuck there he said, in his wheelchair, he couldn’t move himself properly because he couldn’t see. And she never saw him again. It took hours he thought before someone noticed him and he was calling out, so the ‘social’ came and took him away to somewhere to spend the night.” She talked fast, and matter-of-factly, but obviously she was sad for him. “He thinks she just went off with the Egyptian.”

“But what happened to you then?”

“Oh, I was only about thirteen or something, and they had left me with another family in the fair. I never saw either of them again. Till today, and I found him.” She paused, and then said reflectively “I don’t think I’ll bother to find her.”

“No,” he said, a little shocked. “That’s quite a story. Your Mum must have been desperate.”

“Desperate, yes,” she said emphatically. “And pretty bloody hopeless.” They continued in silence finishing their sandwiches.

“Where are we going to stay?” she asked him. 

            “I’ve been thinking about that. I don’t know anyone, or anywhere, in Liverpool. But I looked up the Youth Hostel, and he gestured towards his mobile on the table. “We can go there.”

            She looked up at him, with her encompassing eyes. “You don’t think I’m going to fuck you in a youth hostel dormitory, do you?” She had an earnest look as if she had suddenly thought he was insane. And he was indeed a bit shocked. She certainly knew how to surprise him with the unexpected. But then she burst out laughing at him, “You thought I wanted to give the dormitory a thrill?” And she went on laughing. “Nah. We’ll find a cheapy hotel.”

            “I don’t have a lot of money,”

            “Oh, I’ll get us some money.” She looked at her watch, “I’m going back to see him. To Dad. I’ll be a couple of hours. You go and find a cheap hotel. Cheaper the better perhaps.” And she stood up as the chair squeaked back on the hard floor. “I’ll meet you at the front door at say, six. Six-ish. See if there’s a pub with a room.” And she left the shop. He stood and did as she had indicated.

            There was a pub not far away, and he booked a single room. He lay on the bed for a while wondering if she really wanted her own room. But he decided to make his own decision – he liked her. She could quarrel when she got back. He returned to the father’s care home at the time they arranged, and she was waiting outside the door in the cold street, with the bags they had left. She put her arm in his as before and he took her to the pub.  

            She pouted when she walked into their room. She stared at him with her earnest eyes again, “We’re sharing the room, are we? You really think I’m going to sleep with you, don’t you?” He stared back, but nodded his head slightly, and looked round to see if there were an armchair he could sleep in. Then she burst out laughing again, “You’re great to tease. Course I’ll sleep with you. So nice of you to ask.” And she laughed with gaiety again. She seemed beautiful, and happy, and a complete stranger to him.

            They took a moment to wash and relax and then went downstairs to the bar. It was quite large and dark with the smell of long evenings with beer-drinkers. She told him where to sit and then said she would get the drinks. She went over to the barman, and Sandy watched her getting into talking to the barman. She moved her body in a lythe and noticeable way. Eventually, he pulled a couple of pints of beer, and two shots of whiskey, and she went with the barman to a corner of the room and started moving a couple of tables to leave a space. The bar was accumulating a few customers, mostly men. He went to a cupboard, and found a microphone, while she brought the drinks back to Sandy. She was smiling. He asked, “What’s happening?” and she just shook her head slightly. She threw the whiskey into her throat and picked up the beer to go over to the corner.

            She began to sing to the room. There was no backing music. It was haunting. Some of it was quite lewd. And the crowd in the bar all turned to watch, some laughed, and some cheered and some were clapping in rhythm. She was suddenly a star. She was good, no doubts about that. And watchable. His friend had become an instant public spectacle. The room was filling up. After half-a-dozen songs, she carried the microphone with her and came to sit on Sandy’s lap. She sang Lily of Laguna into his face, “Same old heart is longing for his lady, every time.” She gazed into him and the room erupted into laughter and singing with her and scoffing. In the noise she whispered into his ear, “Get me some money out of your wallet.”

            He whispered back, “I got none.”

            “Well get me something that looks like it,” and she laughed in his face while he did as she asked. She moved back to her singing corner. At the end of the next song, she announced into the microphone that it was getting hot in the room. And slowly, and meaningfully she took off her blouse. So she stood in her pert pink bra, she tucked the card from his wallet into one of the cups. There was then shouting and hooting from many of the fascinated men. At the end of the song, she suggested into the microphone that other people might like to put something a little bit valuable into her…. ‘cups’; and she pointed at the two sides of her bra, So she walked around the room with her blouse in one hand and the microphone in the other, singing and allowing anyone to touch her bra and put a note in, and some did and some just enjoyed feeling her breast. And she didn’t seem to mind. She sang one more song. Handed the mike back to the barman and beckoned Sandy to leave the room with her. They got back to the room. She was pink and elated. She invited him to take the notes from her bra, which he did, and he counted them. He retrieved two twenties and five tens, and his driving licence.

            She lay back on the bed and stared at him as if challenging him to undress her. Which he did, then she sat on the edge of the bed and undressed him. He stood in front of her as she sat, and she pulled him forward, kissed him on his lean tummy, and held his penis. It liked her. They made love. She was energetic, and he was passionate. However, little they knew each other personally, their bodies found each other deeply.

            Sandy slept soundly but woke early. She was sleeping with her back to him. He kissed her shoulder. She mumbled thickly, “God, I thought you’d never wake. Let’s go again.”

.....ooooo00000ooooo.....

They were quiet over the pub’s breakfast. 

            “I knew you were different,” he said thoughtfully.

            “Glad you like me.”

            “I’m not sure I’ll get used to this.”

            “That’s the idea,” and as she bit into a piece of toast, she winked at him. “You know,” she then said, equally thoughtfully, “If you love me, I think I could love you back.” There was a pause, “That’s not happened before.” He could feel himself blushing, and he was embarrassed at not controlling it. She was watching his face, and said, “I think you’re falling in love with me.”

            “Maybe,” and after a pause, “That’s not happened to me either. I suppose, sex was always for fun. Not sex for love, whatever that means.”

            “Yes, Sandy, whatever that means. I guess we’ll be finding out.” He nodded but said nothing. An express train had run through their lives. 

Later in the day, they had coffee in the bar before she went back for the afternoon to see her father.

“That was a great performance last night, Maestri.”

She looked at him and said curiously, “You like my nickname?”

“I like your mystery.” He replied ambiguously.

“I’m not normally that cheap.” She looked a little embarrassed, “It’s never been a problem. But…” She hesitated and looked away to the wall across the room. “But did it bother you.”

“No, no,” he replied instantly as if he might have been pushing some thought away.

“You weren’t bothered? Jealous or anything?”

He hesitated and wondered, “Well, a bloke’s girl shows her tits to a pub full of half-soaked drunks – what do you mean. Who’d be jealous of that?” He smiled but wondered if it looked a bit false.

“She turned directly to look at him. Do you want me to be your girl?”

“It could be considered.” He seemed to completely avoid the sincere question she’d asked.”

“Fuck you,” She looked away disappointed and angry. “If it’s just fucking you want, we can do that any time. “We both hit the knob last night, didn’t we. So stick to that.”

“Sorry, Maryam. It is a love thing really, I think. Just, as I said, it’s not happened before.”

“Course, it’s OK.” And she seemed to be relaxed again. “Love hurts, as everyone says. You’d better kiss it better.”

“Where does it hurt, Maestri,” as he relaxed too and became more playful with her again.

“In the genitals of course!” And she laughed. They both laughed. 

“You want me to kiss you there? Now?”

“Of course. That’s what I said wasn’t it?” But she edged her chair near to him, took his face in both her hands and kissed him on the lips.

“So being in love is teasing, is it? With a bit of sex thrown in?”

“That’s it.” But then she was looking serious. “We just agreed, we’re going to teach each other what love is, because sex, we’ve both done a lot of that. But now comes love. And we’re both novices.” He nodded agreement and wondered what he could teach her. She seemed so confident, and as it were, in charge of his feelings. She went on, “For me being in love with you means making every single day for the rest of your life to be the best day of your life.”

He nodded, but seriously wondered if her enthusiasm was getting overstretched. He said with sincerity. “That sounds like a good aim. Of course, it’ll be impossible, because nobody is perfect. We all screw things up. But it could be a good start.”

“OK, how can I make this the best day of your life Sandy?”

He thought for a moment, “By being my girl, I suppose.”

She thought for a moment and said, “No. That’s making today the best day of my life.” And she laughed in her joyful way. He smiled, looking at her as if she were more beautiful than the Venus de Milo.

“But,” she said, teasing again, “before I’m your girl, I must go and see my Dad again today.”

“Yep, you two have got to get to know each other. But us two have got to get to know each other too.”

“Yes, true. You were so good the other day.”

            “Because I listened to you?”

            She looked down at the white marble table-top, shrugged her shoulders and whispered, “Yes.” He was looking at her, suddenly shy; and she added. “Now, I have to listen to you.” She looked up into his face.

            “You don’t have to,” he replied. But you might need to know a few things  about what you’re getting into. While you can still get out, if you think it best.”

            “No, I don’t think it is best.” She looked at him with a moment of concern, “Don’t you have to get back to London to some job or other?”

            She seemed concerned about having dragged him off to Liverpool without notice. “I work at home mostly. I get money from magazines. Simple articles, reviewing books sometimes, novels I think the magazine readers will like.” She didn’t look immediately interested, only that he didn’t need to rush back to London. 

He, on his part, still didn’t know if his interest was the beginning of a real commitment, or just the draw of a female body. She seemed so very different. She drew him right into her and maybe she could just throw him out at any moment. And that energy and inventiveness she’d shown in her performance yesterday. She was a performer. “Go on,” she said, “I’ll listen to you. I want to, Sandy. I won’t go to see Dad till this afternoon. We’ve got loads of time for ‘Us’” It seemed, she emphasised the last word to reassure him that he was as important as her father was.

So, anyway, he confessed “I spent a while in prison.” He said it bluntly. She looked up surprised, almost as if she expected it might be a joke. “I don’t usually tell people that. But because it’s you, I did. You need to know. But I should say, right now, I don’t believe I did anything bad.

            “Sounds bad,” she said in a neutral way as if she should be told more.

            “Your father might not think it bad. Even if you do.” It seemed now an issue between them – how bad had he been? “He wanted to decapitate capital. I suppose I did too.”

            She looked at him in a sharp way, “Good for you. What did you do?”

            “I sank a ship,” he told her calmly, “An oil tanker.”

            “Wow, that must have taken some muscle-power. I should have looked at your biceps when I had the chance.” She laughed, but cut it, when she realised it had been no laughing matter for him. He remained looking sadly serious.

            “It didn’t get us anywhere. I’ll tell you the story. I had finished at university doing geography. But when I was there a group of us talked about the problem of extracting all that oil and burning it off. It was before the problems of the climate got into the press, and that kids movement started, about their future. We knew about it early on. It was only a group of six, and two of us had been engineering students. After they qualified, they got work together on a tanker, and they were able to set up something on board that could blow out the pumproom, and a tank. We organised it to have a small boat to take off those two colleagues. We got quite enthusiastic as we planned it. It had to be somewhere in a busy shipping lane so that the rest of the crew could be rescued. Then we had to wait till the two engineers were on a ship with flammable light crude (that’s with methane) we waited for it to come up to the North Sea.” He stopped as she seemed bored. “You don’t need all these details, I guess, But the technicalities were a part of the excitement. They were on the tanker, and we followed in a small boat. When they set the charges on board they jumped overboard, after dark`. And we got them on our small motorboat. They set off the explosions inside the tanker with a remote device, and it simply flooded the tanker with burning oil. All the crew got out; no-one died. Thank goodness. Although they could have.”

            She was looking with a degree of cautious admiration. “Go on.”

            “So, we did it alright. You could have seen it in the papers. But it was like that Exxon Valdez catastrophe earlier. But it was in a busy part of the sea and we were rather obvious. In any case, we did it in order to be able to make the case and draw attention to risk – all that pollution and the effect on the climate, So, in a way getting caught was a part of the plan. In fact, the media chose to scorn us. They didn’t carry our real message which we’d intended. And we were just irresponsible hooligans. You could say that we failed. And they gave us good sentences. I got four years. 

            “Hmm, What a waste. I mean the effort, if it came to nothing. You did four years in jail?” She sat back in her chair and said, unsentimentally, “So, I’ve just fucked a jailbird. That’s a first for me. But judging by last night, I might want to specialise in that activity.” He laughed with her. But his shame took away a lot of the compliment and the humour for him. 

She changed mood again, “We’ll go upstairs and pack and move out. There’s a lot to do today. I must go and see him this afternoon, till they throw me out. We need somewhere to stay. We can go looking for somewhere.” Then she looked as if suddenly in doubt. “Do you want to get somewhere together? Or – it was just a one-nighter?” She suddenly looked anxious, “Was it, San?”

            “I’d like to give it a go with you, Maryam.” She relaxed and smiled. Her smiles were ever more beautiful for him. 

            “Give me your hand,” she said and leaned forward. She put it against her breast. “Ah. Yes, I think my tit has fallen for you. What about you? I know a part of you that has the hots for me.”

            “You’re crude,” he said, “I love it.” And his mood was back to its usual relaxed hopefulness. She was pleased about the impact she had made on him. “We’re going to make this a different relationship. Aren’t we?”  she said with an enquiring look. “For both of us.” 

            “It feels like that too – for me.” And for a moment her beauty exploded like fireworks in front of his eyes. He felt breathless. And she smiled modestly as if she knew exactly what he was feeling about her.

            “Next time,” she wagged her finger at him in mock disapproval, “you tell me what happened to your father. But we’d better get busy, now. I’m going to walk with you to see what sort of flats we could rent up here. Then, you go into the town and sort one out. And if it has two bedrooms, and is on the ground floor, we can have him to stay.” They walked outside; there was passion in their brief kiss as they stood and made ready to start a life together.

.....ooooo00000ooooo.....

He knew he could never tell her what happened to his father – as he had never told anyone. His mother knew, of course. But she disowned Sandy as soon as he’d got out of jail. She had simply shut down when he had asked her to meet him off the train when his sentence finished. He had the same reaction to her as she had to him – he decided that mothers don’t matter.

            But if it was a father that mattered, he had his secret turmoil. And despite his firm resolve not to tell anyone what had happened, he wasn’t surprised he weakened. After she’d spent her day with Shaun, she called Sandy to meet her at the care home. He took her to a flat he’d found ready for immediate occupation. It did have two bedrooms but was not on the ground floor, although there was a lift. When she discovered that she said, “That’s not quite what the doctor ordered.”

            He winced, “We’ll discuss it.” He looked at her to gauge the effect of their first disagreement. “I had to load my card with the deposit, and we’re committed to renting for three months.”

            She was quiet for a moment as determination built up in the expression on her face, “We’ll have three months to find the right place, then.” 

            “OK, okay. We can do that.”

            And then she attempted to return to a light-hearted mood. “If I keep giving you fucks, then you might do what I want.”

            And he made an attempt to join her mood, “I think you want to get a little fucking too.”

            “Quite right, my man.” And she took his hand. Let’s go and get a meal somewhere posh, to celebrate.” And then her smile came back to her face, “To celebrate our first home.”

            So they wandered off to explore the locality. As they found a promising Indian restaurant with a friendly waiter, and lots of spare tables that did not encroach on them, he said, a little apologetically, “Maybe we’ll have to use your card for this.”

            She started a bit and looked at him, “What card?” He was worried, there was no way he could pay for a celebratory meal, even if she went to do her pub stunt afterwards. “You know very well,” she said, “a man is around to provide and protect! Don’t you?” And he could then see the mischievousness in her face. She opened her bag and pulled out a tissue to wipe her eyes as if she might cry in a moment and then putting the tissue away again, she pulled out her card and put it on the table. She looked up at him, as he relaxed. “I love teasing you. Don’t get used to it. Please!”

He smiled, “You’re a handful. I love it.” And they both grinned and chuckled. After a moment he wondered, “How is it we’ve come so close and become stuck together. It’s like super-glue.”

She shrugged her shoulders, “It’s just….” She paused for effect, “You’re quite a catch. I’m putting everything into it.”

“You’re quite a catch, too. You can have all of me.”

She put out her hand on the table to touch his, “I’ll take all of you,” she sat back as the waiter took orders. “And I want a ground-floor flat so he can wheel out through the windows into the air whenever he wants.”

“Like you say, we’ve got three months. But I think we’d better do it together.”

“Yes,” she said severely, “We’d better do that.” After a dish of poppadoms arrived, she said. “Now, we’re here so you can tell me about your father.” And she waited.

There was a persisting silence which she did not break, until eventually, “Sandy, you don’t want to tell me, do you?”

“No,” he said, “But I think you are the one person I want to tell. And the first person I’ve told.” She remained silent for him to honour her with whatever it was that was so hard to tell.”

“Well first of all, before I got out of jail, he committed suicide.” Sandy was silent as if holding a lot in. 

“You think it was because you’d been in jail?” she asked bluntly.

“A lot of people thought it was just that. Because I was in jail. My mother thought it was because of that.” He looked very serious, and she did too. “And I thought it was because he was so ashamed of me. But I don’t know if it was that.” Sandy’s eyes were dry, and just staring at the wall above her head. “What he told me was he was proud of me. That we had been making a protest, a good protest. He was proud,” Sandy looked at his hand. Hers was still on his hand. “It was worse than that – he was not successful. It was a failed suicide. They brought him round from all the pills he’d taken. My mother had found him and called an ambulance.”

Maryam was looking at him, her expression as dark as her skin. But her eyes soft as if she might shed the tears for him. “I thought you said he was dead?”

“He is. They sent him to a mental hospital, or a psychiatric ward. With locked doors. You know. Nurses with muscles, and syringes with sedatives. His suicidal feelings changed into paranoid ones. Well, as I say, he wasn’t really paranoid because the things he was frightened of were actually frightening. He got into an argument with some other paranoid bastard who stuck his lunch fork into my Dad’s ribs. He bled in minutes – must have hit the heart, I suppose. And…. my Dad…. died.” He looked straight at Maryam, “I’ve never told anyone. My Mum knows of course. But we don’t speak. About anything.”

“You’ve had a bad time. Jail. A dead father. A mother who wouldn’t speak. She won’t meet? Is that right?” She was looking impassive but sympathetic. “I’ll make it all up to you, Sandy. I’ll love doing that.”

He smiled, “Ok, you do that for me.” And he relaxed as the food came and they began to eat. “The problem is getting close to you – or anyone – makes me afraid of being left on my own again eventually. You know?”

“That’s OK. We’ll get a steel rope to tie us to each other. Right?”

            “You can make light of the heavy things, can’t you. That’s wonderful.” He looked at her, and she squeezed his hand she was still holding. They were very quiet for most of the rest of the meal. When they got up to leave, a middle-aged couple, with a night off from their adolescent children, looked at the sad-happy couple as they walked from the restaurant. “We’ve both got a lot of heavy things we’ve had to cope with. Being light-hearted is wonderful. It is like the beautiful icing on a cake.”

II - No laughs with Laura

Laura, he thought to himself as he walked on his errand, had been a bright girl at school in the same class. They were never interested in each other at that age. She had seemed, to the adolescent Sandy, to be a self-contained package who invited little interest. There were others. Other girls, more open, or at least accessible, to the anxious girl-boy curiosity. It was later when he was exploring what to do after university that they connected again. He was considering a working opportunity at an energetic industrial company that made camping gear, a lot of it was specialist for climbers or for holidays in extreme arctic or desert conditions. He had an appointment to see the ambitious owner of this specialist company. It was Laura that happened to walk through the reception area as he was waiting. He jumped up and they recognised and greeted each other as old friends. He even kissed her on the cheek. The receptionist looked on curiously. behind her desk. She pretended to be consulting some timetable or other, it was of interest that the Company Director’s daughter was amorously, it seemed, meeting an eligible man.

            In fact, the amorousness was entirely a formality for Sandy. Laura was a maturing young woman who wore the right clothes, went to the right hairdresser, and knew about acceptable greetings. Whatever relevance the school connection had, the Director did employ Sandy in the company. 

Eventually, and perhaps belatedly after months, Sandy realised that he was being groomed as a potential son-in-law. As the receptionist had anticipated! In his lazy way, Sandy seemed to have slid into something that took him longer than it should to recognise. He and Laura were courting. Mostly it had taken the form of family dinner parties to which he and one or two other employees were invited. But when the family bought theatre tickets for just the two of them, Sandy and Laura, to go to a play by a distant relative of theirs, even Sandy began to realise what role he was being edged into. Charles, who liked to be called Charlie, was Laura’s father, and seemed as stiff and formal as Laura was, and in complete contrast to Sandy’s own relaxed father who in the distant past had joined with him and his school mates in a soccer team, even with Sandy’s sister, Yvonne, as a timid and unsuccessful goalkeeper.

            With his own father, Sandy was friends. But with his potential father-in-law, he was an employee. It was quite different. He had to reflect on the position he had suddenly realised he was in, with a new family. There was no relaxed and homely connection around the family, but a difficulty of even a warm connection with Laura herself. With such pressure on him it was difficult to know his own mind. There was of course the prospect of having a unique position in the prosperous company. He decided that before the topic of marriage came up, he and Laura should explore their capacity for love and intimacy. It sounded sensible. But he wasn’t sure if she was just another conquest, not  casual but not enduring.

He talked with Luara about some of the quite successful and therefore experienced affairs he’d had through university in his brief relations with young women students, sometimes only one-night acquaintances. She listened more as if she had nothing to contribute to his reminiscing. 

“That was the best one,” he remarked about a girl he described with an exceptional cleavage, whose name he could no longer remember. “But, love is about warmth as much as excitement, Laura.”

She nodded, “Hmm.” And as if she already knew, she said, “I know.”

He was trying to encompass her in a discussion that made intimacy and love part of an ordinary life, ordinary living conditions. After all he was being asked to consider a lifelong commitment. He wondered if it would seem interesting, even experimental, to consider a night with Laura with whom he had never seriously thought of as sexual. He could see her body was slim and shapely but also somehow it seemed… well, the word ‘ungiving’ came to mind.

            After they had been to their second evening together at the theatre, he invited her to come back to his home for a quick drink. She accepted, probably thinking he would discuss the prospect of marriage. As they sat in the rather well-appointed living room with the softest armchairs, he said as he sat in one of them, “We are becoming a sort of couple. I like that,” he said formally, “You are a very beautiful woman. Any man would want a woman like you, Laura. Do you think we might start to be a couple.”

            “A couple?” she said as if the idea was unfamiliar to her.

            “Well, we are two people in our twenties, attracted to each other. It is natural to have an affair.”

            Again, she seemed to be taken aback, her posture stiffened, “An affair? With you?” She paused, “I thought we might be moving towards an engagement. You know, my father would be pleased about that.”

            “Of course,” he said, “I see that. But marriages usually start with an affair. A loving, you know. The bodies have to love each other, don’t they? The formalities, they come after the personal loving. Don’t you think?”

            She seemed very much out of her depth at this point. He could almost feel sorry for her lack of experience and sophistication despite her wealthy background. “Have you brought me here so that we… so we sleep together tonight?” There was a hint of indignation in her voice, though she was trying to suppress it.

            “It is an offer, Laura. But,” he added with some significance, “only if you want to.” She picked it up as having a particular significance – he would proceed to an engagement if, and perhaps only if, they had satisfactory relations in bed. She wondered if she should leave immediately. But it would then be an end to what her father was planning for her. But if she stayed, then what would her father think of her? And of this lecherous man?

The other factor that must have clogged her mind was that, as a virgin still, she ought to be having just those experiences all her friends had long been having. “Well,” she looked at him with a perfectly practiced smile. “OK. So long as you don’t let it get out and my father hears we’ve slept together. A secret,” she said, and the wide, practiced smile grew more intense.

“Of course. Yes, Laura.” And he added with the same insincerity, “Who would have thought of you as such a seducer.” In fact, he felt no sexual appetite for her at that moment.

            She was rather pale, and felt compelled to say, “You know, Sandy, I’ve never done it before.”

            “That’s alright. I have.” He wondered if that was said quite right. It might not have sounded as intimate as it should. “I’m sorry, I should not have said that. What I mean is, I can teach you lovely things about your body. I can worship it with mine.” However, to be honest, his body was not impelling him in that direction. And indeed, she did not seem reassured. He put his hand out and touched hers lying limp on the arm of the chair. She did not move. “Hold my hand. Softly. And gently.” She did so acquiescing, passively. “Let’s go,” and he stood up, still holding her inert hand. When they were standing, he kissed her on the lips and she let him, but any enthusiasm he felt in her seemed limp and reluctant. He was not surprised. His ardour was less than desire, more a curiosity about what intimacy with a reluctant woman would be like. In fact, unfortunately, and not unsurprisingly, the whole of their further intimacy was dominated by that inert compliance. Though he was able to complete his sexual act, they neither seemed satisfied. 

            Very soon, she said,” I should get home. But thank you very much.”

            “Yes,” he said, “I will take you home.”

            “That’s not necessary, Sandy,” but she allowed him to ride in the taxicab with her. And when they arrived, he got out on the pavement with her and asked if he could kiss her. She put up her face and offered her lips. “Thank you, Sandy.” There could have been tears in her eyes. She knew it had not been a success. And she had no idea why it had not been one.

            “Thank you, too. Laura.” They both knew that would be the final moment of their ‘affair’.

            But it was not the final act of friendship. In a kind of a way, it made it easier to continue the work relationship, both knowing the secret they shared. It was however only a few months later that he was arrested, and Charles, her father, regretted bitterly ever letting his daughter meet Sandy. He was, in Chalie’s mind, a criminal terrorist. But Laura never fully regretted her experience with him. And years later, she did contact him to remind him of their secret. And this was after his pulsing encounter with Maryam.

III - Expecting

Sandy’s life was now free but divided. He could pursue his journalism anywhere, but it was necessary to return sometimes to his small but elegant family house in London which he had rescued, those years ago, from his mother who refused to keep it, or eventually to enter it. It had seemed such a sad journey, every time, to travel from Liverpool to his lonely home in far-away London, every week or two. The long-term solution, if he and Maryam were to be welded and wedded as they continued to hope, was to let it out for a goodly rent. However, the actual practicalities were not immediately surmountable. Why? His circumstances prevented the upgrading needed to comply with the conditions to rent. The agent had looked at the leaks, the wiring, the cracked glass panes and so on. He had almost gone pale with disapproval of the neglect. “Best to sell it old chap,” was the simple verdict. But that for Sandy was inconceivable. Despite his aversion to sentiment, all those shattered memories of his father and mother and even Yvonne with her female love-partner in Sydney. The memories he’d grown up with as a child clutched like limpets to his skin. So he’d just lent it as a lodging place to another old school-friend, and her sloppy and slutty and neglectful ways did not enhance the condition of the house. Now his increased commitment to gushing sentiments had broken through the concrete barriers he’d always tried to erect, and the house stood as a museum of plunder from his past. He didn’t try to explain it to the letting agent whose advice he was seeking. So it was only every couple of weeks he came back to stay, and because of the living past it seemed a foreign world from his true one now with Maryam.

            And it was some years after that bleak encounter with Laura that he met up with her again. Out of the blue, she made a new approach!  He met her for a drink in a pub. She was brisker and knew her own mind better, or seemingly knew it. She told Sandy how in all the years since, she had never had intercourse again, even though she had married. The husband, chosen by her father, had been much older, smoked a lot and had early coronary disease, which carried him off in his late forties.

            “But, you must have tried to have sex with him. Your father would have wanted a grandson, no?” 

            She looked down sadly, “No, we never tried. I always assumed he was basically gay. But he never ‘came out’.”

            “But that’s a deceit. A marriage under false pretences.” Sandy looked shocked. And once again he had that feeling – her life was sort of missing. It was as if there was only the shadow of a real person inside that frame. 

            “Perhaps we were both false,” she admitted, as if she had heard what Sandy had just thought. She seemed to talk about herself and not live herself. Yet, something had changed, he could sense.

            “You were both doing what your father wanted. Right? I think that time before I was arrested, we were doing the same, Laura.”

            She shrugged, “Oh, I didn’t know what I wanted then.” And again, looking down sadly, “ You know he died last winter?”

            “No, I didn’t know. I’m very sorry, Laura. Very, very, sorry. It must be a big loss for you. He was everything to you.”

            “Yes, Sandy, he was. I have a big hole. But, do you know, and it might be terrible to say it, but it is a new chance for me. I have been thinking if it is a big hole, I have a chance to fill it – fill it with ‘me’! To find out, not what my Dad wanted of me. I wonder if you understand.”

            “I do,” he said thoughtfully and slowly, “I do understand. I think you have probably  discovered something very important about yourself. You’ve got a chance now. That is very interesting. It’s not too late.” He wondered, a little anxious, “I guess that contacting me again is something about trying to find yourself, is it?”

            She looked at him curiously, “Perhaps it is. I hadn’t thought about it like that.”

“I know. You are right; I was only ever your father’s choice. Not yours.”

“Sandy. Do you have a good relationship going?”

            “I do.” And he wondered what Maryam would think about this conversation. Laura looked away. He wondered if she was disappointed. Had she had some expectations? After this long time. For a moment, and for the first time, he felt something different from his gentle pity for her. There was a yearning woman in front of him. But did she know what she was yearning for? Was it really him? Her one successful ‘seduction’!

            “You must think I am a useless wasted person, Sandy.”

            “Well, I think you’re a woman with a big hole in your heart and you are actually beginning to fill it with something real. Perhaps it’s happiness, perhaps its sadness. But it is brave of you.”

            “Brave? No, I just have no choice.” He had no thoughts to add to that. “You know, Sandy, after our, erm, time – you know, in bed, what was it four years ago, five – I felt so ashamed of what I’d let you do. No, what I had done with you, I mean. But also, I had a crazy, crazy hope that I might be pregnant. I could never have told my father – or mother. I’d just have had to run away.” She looked at him. Perhaps she was wondering if she did sound as crazy as she felt, if she was as crazy as she had been then.

            “Of course, our moment of loving has been on my mind – since you got in contact. But no, I had never had the thought we might have made a baby. I guess that’s the difference between a man and a woman?”

            “Could be.” And then she mused, “Laura and Sandy. Would you have married me, if I had been carrying a baby, your baby?”

            “Well, that is a thought. Back then, yes, perhaps I would have married you. But now, I think it might not be the right thing at all.”

            “No, I’m not asking you now. We think differently now we’re older.” Then, she looked almost beseechingly at him. “But there is one thing.” It was a look that almost no man could refuse in a woman, “I would like to ask one thing.” She stopped.

            He was wondering what she was going to say. He wondered if she wanted more sex with him. If she had not managed it with a husband, she might be considering again that first time with him. Perhaps again, and perhaps…. Well, what might she be wondering, hoping? If he was the one and only time, did she somehow need to recreate that specialness? Is that what she wanted; to try again? “Go on Laura. You can tell me. We can keep secrets between us.”

            She laughed, “Oh so you never told anyone about ’us’?” she spoke as if it had been a powerful private affair, and she laughed, perhaps with relief. “Doesn’t your wife know about our secret?”

            “No, Laura. I promised you. I wouldn’t tell. Of course, she knows I have had relationships before her, and she’s had relationships. But she doesn’t know about you, or anything about our time – in bed, as you called it. It is a good way of putting it. Laura, let me ask you; Are you wanting another… well, encounter? With me? See if it could improve or something.”

            She looked at him straight, and serious, “I want you to make me pregnant.”

            He was taken aback, “Oh. Laura, I see. I do understand. And don’t be nervous. As I said you are a brave woman in discovering what you want. And what you are. Actually,” he said in a reflective way, “I feel really quite honoured.”

            “You feel honoured. But the answer is ‘no’. I can see.”

            “Oh, god, I don’t know. I am truly honoured, I am the person you’re asking. But it is true I have another life, and it would be very complicated. Very – wouldn’t it? But I would have to decide which is important. Most important.”

            “So the answer’s not definitely ‘no’.” And there were some tears beginning to come from her eyes onto her cheeks.

            “Laura,” he said, almost alarmed, “I’ve never seen your tears before.” His heart went out to this sad, bereaved, lonely woman. But, as he had said, now something brave in her. That was different. She stood up from her seat and walked out of the door. He hesitated and knew he shouldn’t leave her on her own. He found her outside the pub standing still with her tears still coming. He put his arm around her for comfort. It was like hugging a flagpole. Then suddenly she collapsed into his arms, her legs were hardly supporting her as he held her tight. She felt suddenly soft in her arms, sobbing loudly. “It’s, OK,”  he said, but her sudden collapse into this emotional state was so unexpected – actually, inconvenient, as inconvenient in his life right now as it could possibly be. It was powerful. Her emotions were actually very powerful. And suddenly exposed as never before. And they had a power over him. He felt so pressed as if he ought to please her; to please her with whatever she’d ask of him. 

            “I want to go home,” she sounded like a small child at that moment.

            “Yes, you need to go home, a nice warm, cosy home with someone who loves you.”

            Her sobs began again quietly. He held on to her but watched the road for a taxicab. Eventually, when she was calmer, a taxi came along, and they got into it. She mumbled the address and he told the driver.

            Her mother was out doing the usual elderly lady things, so he wondered if he should stay. “Please, I’m….” she started, “Please don’t leave this poor thing. I’ve never been so ashamed of myself. I should never have told you what I needed.” And her tears, began to come again. “Damn and bloody,” she said. “I never swear. But now’s the time. I do not want to be pitied. Even though, I’m…. pitiful, Aren’t I?”

            “You do need some care and pity. Like anyone else” He wanted to be firm with her, and to resist being drawn in too far.

            “I do, don’t I. But, Christ… For Christ sake, Sandy, I do.” Her sobs came, and in between, “I’m sorry, Sandy. I should let you go. And you should let this lump of limp shit, stiffen up into concrete again.”

            He really didn’t know what to do. Could he leave her? When she was in this state. But it really wasn’t his responsibility and he needed to protect his own life. And yet he had agreed to meet her.

            “For god’s sake, Sandy, screw me, and then go.”

            “You’re talking like a whore, Laura.”

            “I know. But, I am a whore; I want to be a whore.” She was shouting desperately. This often seemingly dead body was now alive, alive with need and lust, accumulated hunger over the course of her thirty odd years.

            “You want to be a Mum,” he said with some inspiration. But he was feeling aroused by her needy body.

            “Then make me one.” She put her hands round his neck and gripped him with passion. “No-one will ever know, I promise.”

            “OK, then. My god you’re beautiful. You’re a beauty when you want to be.” And he tore at her blouse till he could hold her breasts in their bra. “Let’s be gentle with each other, beautiful one.” And she undid his trousers, while he stroked her face carefully. 

When they were both naked, she suddenly bit him on the chest. Hard. “I’m hungry.”

            He felt a moment of anger with the pain, and then he smiled at her passion, a passion in this once marble-like statue. She was a sleeping beauty who had woken up. “Beautiful bitch.” He muttered. And she lay back waiting for the pumping penetration and pumped back at him as actively as if she’d never done it before. Which she had not.

            Afterwards, they lay, uncomfortable together on the settee. She struggled out from underneath their tumbled bodies to sit beside him. He lay with his head on her thighs. “If I’m pregnant, I will have the baby, you know.”

            “If you have a baby, I will become its father, you know.” And it made her grunt with satisfaction. At that moment she was completely relaxed; she seemed completed. 

His mind began to swim back to the reality. “You know, Laura,” he looked up at her from her lap, her breasts, her face, “I am going to have to tell my wife. I don’t think I can keep this a secret, however wretched I’ve been to her.”

“I don’t care.” Laura was in a different world.

            Then he got up dressed and left quickly, a peck on the cheek and wishing her well. She remained dreaming. Later she texted him, “I think I had a breakdown this afternoon. Got you involved, Sorry. X’ He thought it better not to reply but did not delete it from his phone. 

            He continued his life with Maryam and her father. Except that, in his shock he insisted Maestri came with him to the London house. Just in case. He did not tell her why – just that he needed her – and she felt needed and seriously complimented. Some three weeks later, Laura texted again to say “Nothing has happened, I think. So, I’m infertile, or your sperm are substandard – ha. Try again? Please X’.

            But he had a bright idea. Phil, one of his lecherous friends called on him for a drink and they went to a pub that their group of friends inhabited (almost infested) in Notting Hill. Listen Phil,” Sandy said, “I’ve had a bit of trouble with a girl. She wants a baby from me.” They laughed together in a scoffing male way, which hid their concern for the girl. “Laura, she’s called. Do you think you could oblige?” Again, they laughed together as if discussing some farmyard animal that needed to be taken to stud.

            “Could do. Just to oblige, of course. Sounds interesting, I don’t often get asked for my services like that. What’s she like?”

            Sandy waved his hand like a wobbly balance. “She wanted a baby from me, but I don’t suppose it will matter.”

            “Why you?

            “Oh, it is someone from a long time ago. It doesn’t mean anything now,” he lied. He wondered if he would really want Phil to be the father.

            Two weeks later, one morning, he had an email from Laura, just a grinning face, and a very brief message. In the evening, Phil called round again, looking a bit dishevelled and red around the eye. Maryam was out somewhere, singing in some  low-dive pub. So, Phil walked in. “I called around at that address this evening, she let me in but was surprised. You hadn’t let her know you’d made the suggestion to me?” Sandy didn’t respond. “Anyway, she was flabbergasted; her ‘gast’ was ‘flabbered’. Completely. I don’t think I filled the bill exactly. She threw a vase at me.” He pointed to his eye, “It hit me. That’s why I can’t open my eye.” Sandy laughed unsympathetically. Phil responded, “Thanks, buddy. I’m sure I’ll get over it.”

            “Sorry Phil. Come here.” They went into the kitchen and Sandy got a sponge of cold water and held it to Phil’s eye. “I think it’s going to be a nasty one.” And he added to his male colleague, “Wounded in the sex war. I’m sure the military would recommend you for a medal.” 

Phil laughed weakly. “It’s the bruised ego that needs treating as well. I think I’ll go home and put it in a splint.”

“There is something else.” 

Phil looked up at him, suspiciously, “What?”

“I got an email. It came this morning. She is pregnant after all.” Phil gasped and put his hand to his wounded eye. “Sorry Phil.”

“Yeah, you should have told me.”

“Well, it was only this morning.”

“Yes, the very day.” They were quiet. Soon Phil left. 

.....ooooo00000ooooo.....

After they had come together in Liverpool, they knew they were inseparable. Of course, they had known that from the beginning, but neither believed what they knew. It took them three months in the flat there, with Shaun from his care home. But the practical situation was obvious – no searching for the right ground-floor flat, no expensive outlay. They had all moved to Sandy’s house in London. So, within a very short time, they were settled again. Maryam had got herself a temporary job as a receptionist at an art centre. Sandy made contacts with old student friends, and he started up writing a political opinion column occasionally for a weekly paper. It felt free and settled and undisturbed to work at home, now. Visiting the Editor sometimes for coffee and inspiring political chats. Shaun coud suffle in his chair into the garden of sunny days when he felt the warmth.

Every time Maryam came home, the vision of her face in the doorway and her lithe eager body thrilled him anew. He told her as always to sit down, and recited the usual alternative, “Booze or snooze?”

            “I think a little booze quickly and sit for a moment with you.”

            As he was going out of the door to fetch it, he turned and said, “Every time you come in through the door, it knocks me over, your beauty and that feeling that it is for me. I can never get over it.”

            “I know. It is lovely you say it. You say it every week when I come home from my pub-singing. And it is lovely you say it every week.” Her eyes were twinkling with humour. But she also meant it sincerely. It was the core of their relationship, to be able to exchange the most extravagant of compliments at any moment, relevant or not, appropriate or not. He brought her the weak gin-and-tonic she liked. And sat as always next to her that always gave them both the feeling that home was now completely home with each other. He knew that on this occasion he had to do something more, something else. 

He lay back with a sigh and his drink in his hand as if the world was a perfect place. It had taken a couple of weeks after they got here, to write the text he wanted; but of course he never used it. He went to it, “I have to tell you something. I have been unfaithful.” She looked at him, a hardness took over her face.

“What does that mean? Someone important?” She was staring at him.

“No,” he looked back, her harsh look making him feel nervous, a sinking sump of doom in his tummy. He had not seen that look on her face before. At least not since that first spurt of rage at their pick-up meeting in the old pub.

“Well, that’s OK.”

“Actually, not quite important.”

She stared back at him again.

“What does that mean? Listen you can go screw who you like. We can have that.” But she was sounding angry. “So long as you don’t bring their knickers back. And I can do the same. There’s a lot out there, would like to have my knickers off.” She sipped her drink viciously.

“No, I don’t want that sort of relationship. It’s a bit of a long story.”

“You’d better tell me every bit, hadn’t you.”

“I’m glad you’ll listen. You are too good for me. Just as you are too beautiful.”

“Let’s cut that stuff out till I  know what I’ve got to listen too.” So he related the story of Laura and his indiscretion with her.

“So she might be pregnant from your ‘indiscretion’ as you call it.”

“No, she is pregnant. The text that came the other day said she is. The test was positive.”

“That’s more than an indiscretion, Sandy. And she doesn’t want to abort it because she wants a baby. And given what happened with Phil, she wants your baby! And I thought I’d have a quiet few moments with you before going to bed and sleeping happily till morning.”

“I’m sorry. Laura. But I guess saying sorry makes little difference.”

“That’s true. Something true you’ve said, you deceitful bastard.” She took another vicious sip. “So what do you expect me to do?”

“Well, you might up and leave – well, perhaps I should say, you’ll kick me out.”

“ Yes, I bloody well could do that. But I know I am not going to. Actually, you know I won’t do that. You think you can take me for granted, you bastard.” Sandy sighed; how could he have so hurt this woman he loved so much. She went on, “No, I suppose you don’t take me for granted. My guess is you’re feeling shit about it – probably as hurt by what you’ve done, as I am.” She took another sip and finished her drink. She held out the glass for more. “Strong, this time.” When he returned with her refill, she continued, “If I knew how to punish you badly enough, it would probably make us both feel better.” She lay back against the back of the sofa as if she felt quite defeated.

He cleared his throat as if he was choking, “I’ve spoilt everything.”

“Is it everything? Well, it is a bloody great deal, my friend. Even if we do work this out, how can I trust you ever again. You’ve kept this a secret for weeks, you said. You could keep any number of these ‘indiscretions’ secret for ever. Couldn’t you?” She looked at him again fiercely and sipped her drink.

“There is not anyone else in my life – not like Laura, she’s…..”

“She’s cuckoo, you know. Psychotic, the psychiatrists say.”

“I know.”

“It’s good you know,” she said sarcastically.” Another sip. “What do you want to see her for?”

“I don’t want to see her. Well that’s not the absolute truth. I do feel sorry for her, and somehow, I seem to be some irreplaceable brick in her life, in her mental make-up even. But I could bear to not see her again, though I think I’d feel bad if she feels I am vital to her.

“So, if I said never see her again, you’d agree, would you? And absolutely not see her. Not even in secret as you have been doing.”

“It was actually only once I’ve seen her…”

She interrupted, “Once was enough for all this,” and she spread her hands as if indicating the world. And she slopped her drink. She began to gulp the rest of it. And held out the empty glass for more.”

“I know. But there is a bit of a problem. If she does have the baby – and I think she will – you would not want me to have anything to do with them.”

“Oh, fuck, Sandy. If you’re the father, of course you’ve got to be the father, see the baby. Be with it growing up. Why don’t you bugger off and marry her?” Maryam was in tears. She was getting through her third g&t. “We’re in love, Sandy. You and me. Me with you, and you with me. We were going to be a model for how the whole of humanity should love each other. We’ve often said it.” She was crying fitfully, “You have spoilt perfection, I could have had perfection, You could. I could have given it to you; and you could have given it to me.”

“Well, we could still be near perfection.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she scoffed.

“Maybe we could be a model for how humanity can get over the mistakes it makes.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, indiscretions, yeah, yeah, yeah.” She put her hand to her head. “Of course, you’re right. I know, I know. We all make mistakes. It doesn’t mean you don’t love me. I know. There’s perfection amongst the imperfections. My Dad is perfect. But he’s blind and he’s paralysed – what imperfections eh? But he can still be perfect.” She was beginning to sound a bit drunk. But in vino veritas, with wine we speak the truth. “I’ve got to get to bed and see in the morning.”

“Do you want me with you, tonight?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Sandy. Of course I do. Course you sleep in my bed. Just because your willie has been up some stinking cunt doesn’t mean I don’t want the rest of you – perfection amongst the indiscretions – remember, do you? Unless you want to go off after your psychotic whore.” She stood up and held out her hand to him so that he stood up. But he then held her tight to him, and after a moment she held him to her as tight as she had ever done. Sandy was wondering silently if their impassioned row had woken Shaun; but said nothing. It would be ups to hain to bring it up if it worried him.

            He’d been through a range of emotions, momentary rage, guilt, righteous justification, abject confession, even the need to feel her punishment. They went upstairs clinging to each other and to bed. 

            Breakfast was a very silent cup of coffee, he’d made. They indulged in cream with it. Just to perfect it.

            Eventually, she flicked her bedraggled hair out of her face, and told Sandy she had the solution.

            “It is a big ask, a big ask to ask of a slut-fucking arse-hole like you. I want you to swear to me that you will never see this woman without me being present. I want to know her, and her baby when it comes. I want it to grow up with a father and be a step-mother as well. I want to be with the slut mother – to be on her side and I want her to be on my side. No more slippery secrets with this whore. That’s what I want.”

            “Granted,” he said.

            “And one more thing. If you ever have another of your little indiscretions, I want to know immediately. Right? No waiting two months before telling me because you have to. I don’t want an open marriage. I. Do. Not. Want. An. Open. Marriage. At least not now. We could renegotiate later if it is appropriate. But now – forget it. Right Sandy?”

            “Right Maryam. It is clear and agreed.”

            She stood up and came around the table. She told him to stand and to give her the most powerful cuddle he had ever given her. “Christ, Sandy, you’ve got power in your body haven’t you. It makes me feel randy again.” But she went back to her seat, sat down, and said. “Now, I have a secret that I have not told you. I have secret thoughts, too. I have been thinking for some months, every month in fact, whether we should have a baby. Now this slut makes it important to ask you. I want us to have a baby. A baby that will be just as important to you as hers.

            “OK, Maestri. The least I can do, isn’t it.

            “No, wrong answer. I don’t want you to have my baby out of duty or recompense or whatever. I want you to want to have a baby with me, our baby. I would like our baby to be loved by you – in fact to be loved by you more than you’ll love hers. Got it.”

            “Got it, Laura. And I think you know that is exactly what will happen.”

            “Oh god, Sandy. You’ve given me a bad time since last night. Give me another hug. And I want to hug that powerful body, and to feel your sharp mind and that caring heart of yours. How could I come to hate you so much as I did last night?”

They were silent in each other’s hug for several minutes.

“And one more thing. You have not yet told me that fucking tart’s name.”

            “Oh, haven’t I?” he said innocently. And they both laughed. “It is Laura. But if you like we could call her FT, short for…” But he did not finish as she kissed him passionately on the lips.

.....ooooo00000ooooo.....

They had been settled for a couple of months, when she  asked at breakfast before Shaun’s care-worker came to get him up, “You must have been in touch with your whore! You been to see her yet.”

            “Maryam, you.ve got it wrong. I’d tell you everything. I haven’t been to see her. Or even contacted her. What’s made you suddenly bring it up? I would tell you if there was anything alive in that direction. You know I would.”

            She sat back. Her coffee cup was at her lips, and she was staring at him as he spoke. “OK,” she said as she put the cup down. “That’s the correct answer. I wonder when I’ll get the true answer?”

            “It is the truth,” he said a bit sulkily. “What’s brought this on?”

            She shook her head, “Oh, nothing.” Sandy looked downcast. “Sorry. I just had a bad night, perhaps.” She didn’t sound convincing.

            “You know I’d tell you everything, now. After that last time we talked.”

            She shook her head again. “Course I know you’d tell me about another whore, wouldn’t you. It’s not that I don’t trust you to tell me. It is just that I don’t trust you to keep away from that tart – or any of your other tarts.” She grimaced. “I’ve got a head full of tarts, Sandy. I know you’d tell me, but I keep wondering if you’ll sit down like before and start off with something you’ve done.”

            “I haven’t done anything with any tarts.” He felt he had to justify himself. But then he changed direction to try a bit of humour to relieve himself – and maybe to relieve her. “The only tart I’ve screwed recently is you, Maryam.”

            And she did smile. “And you’re the best tart-screwer I’ve ever had.”

            “And that’s because you’re the best tart I’ve ever screwed.”

            “Now then, be careful. Be careful.” Her smile hadn’t faded, but it hadn’t broadened. He nodded, accepting the rebuke. “I’m not a tart.” She held up a warning finger. “You rescued me from that. Credit where it’s due. Credit to both of us.”

            “Ok, let’s settle with that. And I’m sorry it’s difficult to trust me.”

            She didn’t respond – forgiving or not forgiving. “In fact, I’ve got something to tell you, now.” And there were suddenly lines of worry on Sandy’s face. She noticed and said quickly. “Nothing to worry about. It couldn’t be better news.”

            And then his face lit up, “I had been wondering.”

            “Yes, so had I. I did a test yesterday, and I am.” He jumped up and went around the table to hug her from behind her chair. She took one of his hands and pressed it to her lips.

            “I don’t need to say it. But it is wonderful, Maryam.”

            “Yes, it is. But not so quick…. There is something I must say.” He looked at her curiously. Why, he wondered, was she not more happy? “I know you will tell me if your dilly-dalliancing goes on.”

            “It won’t happen.”

            “But if it does, I just don’t think I could cope. Sandy. I’d kill myself; and the baby. I’d have to punish you.”

            He was still behind her with his arms around her. He held her tighter.”

            “It won’t. Nothing will go on. I’m in control of myself.”

            “Not always.” He shook his head as if there was nothing he could do about this frustrating conversation. “And by the way, Sandy, shouldn’t you be in touch with your Laura.”

            “Would you mind, Maryam?”

            “Course I’d mind. But it’s your baby. So just keep in touch with her. Damn you. Damn you both.” She was stressed. “For nine months you have got to be mine.”

            “I know. I am yours. Do you want to be around when I call Laura?”

            “No, I damn well don’t. I don’t want you going off to see her. Ring her when I’ve gone to work. Arrange when we can go and see them, see her and the…. pregnancy. I want to meet her. You and me. Show her we’re a couple. Us.           

So after she went to work, he immediately got out his phone and dialled Laura. It was the first time he had made a contact with her since their indiscretion those weeks before. When she heard his name she became breathless, but calmed herself immediately.

            “I never expected to hear from you.”

            “It’s because I am going to be a father.” He spoke jovially, more than he felt. “How’s it going Laura?”

            “Good. It is still going. But I am being sick all the time.”

            “Yeah. That’s not nice. But it proves everything is normal, doesn’t it?”

            “It’s normal enough.

“I want to discuss the situation with you.”

            “Sure, of course.” 

And then she said, “So are you coming over – maybe this afternoon?” He  was silent. “Or shall I get over to you?

            “I’d go for either,” he said equally jovially. “But,” he  went on seriously, “let’s just talk for a moment on the phone. I have told my partner the situation.” 

She went quiet, and he had to call ‘hallo’ to which she responded coldly, “What did she say?”

“I told her straight after your last email. When you told me you were pregnant. Well, she wasn’t pleased. I will tell you what she requested. And I agreed to it. She says I have to be a present father for our baby, yours and mine. But basically, I am Maryam’s partner. Hers and hers alone.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“Wait a minute. She says I have to see the baby, and you of course. But she has to be present whenever we meet. I agreed to that. If the baby’s mine, I am the father, and I want to be.”

“That’s OK,” Laura said cautiously.

“And she wants to meet you.”

“And do I want to meet her?”

“What do you mean?

“Well, will there be a nasty scene.”

“No, not at all. We are all grown up enough.”

“I don’t know if I am, Sandy.”

“Can we try. Otherwise. I won’t be able to see my baby. Or, be its Dad.”

“OK, OK. Where shall we meet. I do want you to be involved with the baby. The midwife says everything is fine. Soon they’ll be able to look at it with their machines. They may be able to tell soon if it’s a boy or girl.” Then she added, a little hopelessly, “Couldn’t you come round first. Just for a few minutes.” Laura was becoming anxious. What interference was his partner going to be? She had not expected to have to meet this partner. She would much prefer it to be all secret. She found her stiffness coming back, and she was not going to try to fight it at this moment.

            “She agrees that it is very important that I should be the father of the baby that I have actually fathered. I very much want to be close to my baby, Laura. I have to be careful with my partner, who was pretty upset about our little affair.”

“Hardly an affair.”

“But with a baby, it is important to all of us. My partner – she is called Maryam….

“Yes, I know, you told me. She’s foreign.”

“Actually yes, sort of foreign. But I might say, also very beautiful. I know it is going to be difficult, difficult for all of us, but Laura, I do love her.”

“So you told me, too.” Laura was now stiff as concrete, stiff as a gibbet waiting for someone to hang. “Are you going to tell me she refuses to let you see us. You’re a wimp, Sandy.”

He sighed, “I know. It is true. The one who comes out of this worst is me. By a long way. But no, she is not refusing to let me see you and the baby, not at all. Just that she wants to be present. She would be the baby’s sort of step-mother. Hardly the real one, but someone in the background. In the shadows. But the main point is that Maryam would prefer it if you and I do not meet without her being present too.”

“Hmmm, is that different?”

“Perhaps it isn’t. It means two things. One is that we will not be having an affair, you and me. That has been clear hasn’t it. And I am sorry if you thought it could be – between us. But nor can we just go our separate ways. The other thing is that if you agree, Maaryam and I  can be involved in helping at times, whatever you may need. It makes sense. If the baby is familiar with us, we can do a bit of relief looking-after, I believe it is called.”

“What you say is sensible.” And Laura stiffly said no more, as if good sense was absolutely not what she wanted.

“So, if you would like us to meet, then we can, altogether. I think Maryam is quite keen to meet you, despite all the difficulties. But it would be good to do that, if you wanted us to join with you a little bit in making the family that the baby has.

“Very sensible.” She repeated.

The phone went dead. And that left Sandy uncertain about how they will all proceed. It was all in Laura’s hands. And perhaps it has to be. She had the biggest burden – bringing up the baby; and she has the biggest disappointment as she has not got the relationship she wants for the baby.

            Sandy sighed. Complications. Life is unexpected treachery. So there was no alternative but to wait on her.

…..ooooo00000ooooo…..

In the course of time, when the pregnancy was at six months, Sandy got a text – at last. ‘She is a little girl. All going well.’ He immediately wrote back – ‘Do come and see us. Have a cup of tea and we can admire the tummy.’ But there was no reply. Until at seven months – ‘I think it is still alright, but they’re not sure. Do come and see me.’ That was then a testing moment – should he and Maryam go – together?

            So they did. 

            He texted her on a Saturday morning, to say they’d come around. Again, no reply. And when they rang the bell where she lived, there was no answer. They waited and had a chance to look at the outside of a pristine modern mansion with a garden all around four sides, and a handsome porch over the front with an elegant balcony right across the first floor. Later in the evening when they were sitting together and he was stroking Maryam’s three-month pregnancy, Laura’s text came – ‘I couldn’t see you this afternoon.’ So Sandy replied, ‘Shall we call tomorrow?’ Again, Laura did not reply. So on Sunday afternoon they tried again. Laura answered the door, looking surprised. But without a word she stood back inviting them in and went to make the tea. And to compose herself.

They were all three silent, Sandy gazed almost hypnotised at the tummy. Eventually he said, “This is Maryam.” Maryam was sitting tensely next to him. Laura nodded slightly, because it was obvious. “Tell me, Laura, about it,” he nodded towards her tummy. “Is everything alright? I mean with the baby.”

“Our baby,” she said pointedly, “I think so. They say it will be OK. I’ve got the beginnings of blood pressure. So I have to relax and take it easy all the time.”

“Who’s looking after you?” he asked anxiously.

 “Damn you. I’ve got no-one looking after me. Have I?” Other women might have shed tears at this point. Laura simply stared at Sandy as if he were completely responsible for her plight. He picked up his cup of tea and sipped it. 

Maryam decided to intervene at this point, “Perhaps we can help.” Laura had not looked in Maryam’s direction even once since they arrived, and she did not now. 

Laura shrugged, “I should think you’re the last person I’d want helping, aren’t you.”

To which Maryam replied in her confident way, “Of course. But I’m giving up work. I’ll have some time. See,” she patted her own tummy, “I’m expecting too! Three months, me.” 

Laura opened her eyes wide. “You!”. She suddenly let out a sigh. And this time she looked directly at Maryam. It was as if she could relax – for the first time in months. “You’re three months? Oh, so you know what it feels like.” She looked relieved as if Maryam was a fellow sufferer. As if it was Sandy who was now a foreign ornament in the room. Laura stood up and crossed the room to give Maryam a big hug. There were tears in Laura’s eyes, though not in Maryam’s. “We can help each other, Maryam.” It was the first time she’d used Maryam’s name. 

Sandy thought, ‘My god. Women together.’ The whole configuration of the three of them had changed. Laura and Maryam were two that were company, and he was the crowd. But he was pleased; he was greatly relieved that there was some accommodation that the women could agree on. And indeed, it may be possible for Maryam to look after Laura. He thought he had better leave them to it, and he leant back, remained silent and watched. The volte face was astonishing. What a difference a baby makes to a woman. Laura took Maryam off to show her the preparations she had made for the baby. The cot, the changing table and piles of packets of disposable nappies, the books on breast-feeding.

Sandy sat in his seat waiting. That’s how to make a woman happy, really happy. Not just give her a baby, but give her a companion who is pregnant too. And, he realised, he would be a father twice within a few months. How the world can change in an instant!

IV - Thankful heavens

When the two women returned from their tour of the future, they were comparing bellies, as they stood admiring each other. Their attention so different from the exhibitionism of clothes and make-up, and their shapeliness, which had been the usual preoccupation. Now, they were absorbed inside themselves and each other. Suddenly Maryam looked over her shoulder at Sandy sitting watching them as if lost in a distant mist a mile away on his own. She was suddenly caught up in an idea that for all her wonder at what was going on in these two tummies, she’d got a problem of holding on to Sandy. Would he be off on his pleasures somewhere else? “Are you OK, over there? Sorry you can’t join in the tummy culture.”

            “You forget,” he said, hoping the note of bitterness was not noticeable, “You’ve only me to thank. Both of you.” And he laughed in a slightly forced way. “Come and let me hold you both.” And he patted the settee either side of him.

            “No thanks,” Laura said, “We’re OK.”

            The women looked at each other. Maryam looked awkward. Her mind was whirring. She said to Laura, “I need your lav, darling. You know, it is pressing on me,” she added as an excuse. 

Laura explained where to go upstairs. Then she turned to Sandy, and said quietly after Maryam had shut the door, “She’s black!”

            Sandy suddenly felt furious as he saw all the insufferable prejudices of the wealth class. But he said in a kindly voice, “Yes, she is exotic, isn’t she.” He knew it was barbed and could make Laura feel her own ordinariness. 

            But Laura ignored it and went back to her tummy, stroking it. But she did sit down next to Sandy on the settee. “You know, if you’d married me, you would own the company after Dad died. We could have been well-off, comfortable, lived an easy life with a family.

            Sandy thought about that offer for a moment, “I’m having two babies, Laura. Isn’t that riches enough?” 

            After her own moment of thought, she said, “Don’t you love me at all? Not one particle of love?”

            It made him think. What were his feelings for Laura. “You’re giving me a baby, Laura. How could I not love you, and thank you, and be indebted to you. I had never thought, till these last few months, about being a Dad. Now I feel overwhelmed by you, and Maryam.”

            “Mine will be proper white.” Laura seemed unaware of the burden of prejudice and privilege in her words.

            “You are proper white too,” he said as if giving her a matching compliment. “But Maryam’s will be proper too, in its own way. Proper black…. if you like” He was trying to make it sound equivalent. Laura nodded as if she tried to understand the equality he implied. “But, I’m OK with both.”

            “I always read what you write in the paper, you know. I don’t always understand it. It is very clever, some of it. I don’t think my Dad agreed with it all. But I was convinced because I know you.”

            “I do like to write down my thoughts. And….” Maryam was coming back into the room. But he went on, “And I have my own baby starting off. It’s my novel, I call the novel ‘my baby;. You remember, I was in prison; well, this is a novel starting with that story. But instead of it all going wrong, this group of friends get it right. And they achieve a great success with the tanker because it makes everyone think about how we are going wrong using up all this fuel and polluting the atmosphere and the oceans.” Laura was watching him as she sat close. It was as if she was trying to understand how blowing up a tanker could possibly be a success. 

Maryam sat down in the armchair opposite with a frown as if she was watching Sandy and Laura coupling. “I think we’d better get going, Sandy,” Maryam said, “And leave Laura to get on with her afternoon.” She stood up again.

Laura stood up and looking at Sandy, said, “OK.” And innocently, “Three lovers!” And suddenly went very red in the face. Sandy stood too, and Laura advanced on him and gave him a shamelessly passionate kiss on the mouth in front of Maryam. He felt Laura’s tummy pressing on his, and he put his hands on her hips to press the new baby into him; his new baby.

As they walked away along the street, Maryam said to Sandy, “This is going to be difficult for all of us.” It was not a question and required no answer. But he put his arm around her waist. She stopped immediately and turned to give him a fiercely passionate kiss standing in the middle of the pavement. As she finished her ‘message’ with a stroke of her hand down his cheek and his neck, she said, “You’re a lucky bastard, aren’t you?” And they walked on. “I don’t know how we’re going to manage this.” He put his arm around her again with the intention of comforting her. “And don’t play on my good nature,” she spat, “because sometimes I don’t have any. I am going to give you a good kicking when we get home.”

“Don’t forget,” he said meaningfully, “it is our home. It isn’t hers.”

“I know that.” And she sounded a little appeased. And then, “You’re going to have to work bloody hard to convince me of that.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Hmmm,” she smirked as if she was half-convinced and half-suspicious. “She has got your baby.”

“And you’ve got my heart. It’s you that keeps it beating.” She chuckled as if mollified a little by his poetic love. They were approaching their house. Shaun was at the window as if looking out for them to come home. He wanted an account of where they’d been and got from them a severely edited version of that moment in history. Maryam, unusually, said little and left it to Sandy.

She went to get herself a glass of gin ‘to recover’ she said. Shaun was nodding his head as if thinking about what Sandy had been describing. “No booze anywhere in this house,” she said slamming back into the room.

“I’ll go and get some,” Sandy said quickly wanting to appease her, feeling like a weak sort of footman to her majesty.

“Oh no you don’t. I’m coming too. In case you bump into another case of shiny tits and fall in love with them.”

“Come then.” It was not a friendly invitation. Just necessary. Outside the house again, as Shaun’s shut eyes gazed at them, Maryam slowed down and stopped walking. Sandy turned to her, and said abruptly, “What now.” It was getting too much for him, She glowed with rage. Her skin two degrees browner. It was as if she was enclosed in a cone of blood-spattered darkness.

“I’ve got to say something to you. I don’t know what. But here goes.” And words poured out as if on their own. “I just want to tell you something. What I’d like to do to you this evening. I’d like to go to our pub. On my own and do my singing for them. And open my bra cups for their tips. You know how they like my nipples. And then I’d beckon the most beautiful of them – longish dark hair, a beautiful physique. A flat tummy leading down to something which is excitedly showing how my beauty and my willingness have got to him. I’ll kiss him and kiss him and go on to the rest of him.” Tears were boiling over in  her eyes. And she quietened. “I won’t do it to you – just for your sake. But it’s what I want to do – just to hurt you. That’s how much I am hurt. And you will never make up for it. I’m hurt for life. I’m scarred. Right here.” And she pointed to where her heart is.

He put his hand there too – on her left breast. And she sobbed. She said with her head down, “I’m not going to make it, Sandy. Am I?” She pressed her tummy to his. “You were my perfection, and now you’re my devil.” She pushed him away, “Get out of my life.”

“Let’s get drunk,” he said blandly, but was aghast at how she was taking this. He had spoiled everything. It was as if the universe had ended its entropy and was now a dead and a flaccid thing he would never be able to do anything with. “Let’s get the drink.”

“I’ll get the drink,” she said sharply and started off without him. “Go and keep Dad company,” she sounded slightly kind for a moment. She turned slightly as she marched away from him.

He returned to the house and went into Shaun’s front room. Shaun heard him come in and turned his head as if nodding a welcome. “Enough to make you an alcoholic, aren’t they. These women.” Sandy spluttered, and Shaun laughed quietly with him. Sandy felt useless. Perhaps they should emigrate to Australia! “You need anything Shaun?”

“You know, lad, I’ll tell you. It’s no good. I know she wants to look after me… but, it’s…. no good. I’m sorry for her. She wants to do the best. But I’ve been here a couple of months and I need my friends. Sandy, lad, I want to go back to that home.”

“We can find a nice home here.” Shaun was silent. Sandy reflected, “No. I see.” 

Nothing was going right, and Sandy felt he’d got two unhappy people to manage. Well, it was three unhappy people including himself. Shaun interrupted these thoughts, “Listen lad, I’m not asking to go to a home. I know I’m helpless. I don’t want to be. But there’s no choice. You know, my lad, I want you to listen, to understand something. I need to go back to my old home, back there in Liverpool. I’ve got all the people I know in that place. I’ve got my investment there, you know. A part of it is mine. It’s where I belong, and it belongs to me. Sorry, Sandy. You’re my people. And that place in Liverpool is my place. There 200 miles apart.” He smiled, in case Sandy was looking in his direction. “That’s where I need to be. And I need you to be there with me, both of you.”

“OK, I’ve got you Shaun.” The problems were dizzying. Could they move back to Liverpool. And what about Laura, then? “I’ll talk to Maryam, Shaun.”

“Sandy, I want to talk to Maryam. Sandy, I don’t want to be a lump of baggage you all have to stash away somewhere.”

“I’ve got it Shaun. I’ve got it. We’ll all talk about it. We’ll get you back to your place.”

Shaun smiled. “OK, lad, you’ve got it. Thanks, lad. That’ll suit me. And if you felt like moving back up there, that would make it bloody perfect.” Sandy cleared his throat as if about to interject. Shaun held up his hand. “I know. You got a bigger problem right now, haven’t you? Two bloody babies! Glad I’m not you.” He laughed out loud as if it were a kind of sympathy with Sandy. Sandy said nothing. Would Maryam let her Dad go back to Liverpool? Would she demand to move to Liverpool too? Shaun was a bit restless having had no response to his reference to Sandy’s divided loyalties. Sandy remained in Shaun’s room till Maryam returned with a bag of clanking bottles. 

They remained with Shaun and started on the bottles, with desperation. When Maryam had supplied each of them with a drink, she sat on a chair near to Shaun. Sandy cleared his throat nervously and turned to Maryam, “Shaun is wondering about going back to Liverpool.” Again, he felt himself to be a passive irrelevance, just filling Maryam in. She shrugged her shoulders as if she knew already. Shaun, as usual, stared blankly out of the window, unaware of course what Maryam’s reaction was. 

Maryam swigged her gin and said, “Well if we go back to Liverpool, Sandy, you are going to have to decide which of your family’s you want.” She sounded challenging.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Maryam,” he said irritably. “You know who I’d choose.

She simply said, “Yes,” as if she knew she was just trying to irritate him. “Actually,” she said, thoughtfully, “it would solve my problem, wouldn’t it. And yours, Dad.” And turning to Sandy, “Up to you, kid?”

Sandy hesitated a moment and then said decisively, “OK, Shaun, We’ll take you back. Let’s get it arranged.”

But it turned out easier said than done.

He and Maryam both lay awake that night, with heads awash with alcohol. There was love between their bodies and hurt in both their hearts. Which would win? On Friday he went as usual to see the few friends he had in London in their pub. She had often wanted to ask him who they all were.

“Well Phil is one.…”

“Oh, the one who she did the black eye job on?”

He looked at her severely, “Yes, that’s right. Why do you want to know?”

“Are they all from your ‘holiday in prison’?”

“Oh, no. Only a couple….”

“From the tanker scheme?”

“Yes, actually, they were.

“So they did time in jail, too?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Like getting blood from a stone, eh?”

“Why did you want to know?”

“Oh, I was just thinking about meeting up with a few of my old friends. They haven’t done time in prison.”

“Oh, your ashamed of it. Of me, I mean?”

“Sort of. Yes. It doesn’t go down well. Maybe your friends would like to join us sometime?

“Maybe. I’ll ask them. I was just going to see a few of mine tonight,” she said half-heartedly. Sandy looked surprised. “Sorry, Sandy, I didn’t tell you, but we only just arranged it. I’d better get changed.”

“You could come along to our pub.” He said it sounding hopeful but knowing she wouldn’t agree.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” and she added with meaning, “We’ll go clubbing, I think. That’s what I suggested.” And Maryam walked out to the bedroom to consult her wardrobe. Sandy was suddenly knocked over. Maryam was going clubbing? – what was that supposed to mean? 

He followed her. “You’re going clubbing without me?”

“Mm, hm. Could you  just shut that door when you go out.” He hesitated, wondering how to pursue his sudden alarm, at what she might be up to. 

“You likely to be back tonight then?” 

And she shrugged her shoulders. “Depends if we’re enjoying ourselves.”

But he had no idea what she might do. Or – he did have an idea and didn’t like it. He just knew it was some kind of balance against his business with Laura. But how could he chide her for that? In the end he did turn and shut the door to sit in their living room imagining, imagining. When she emerged, she was wearing a brilliant red slinky gown, off-the-shoulder, and trim and slim all the way down to her ankles. She tripped in short steps into the living room. “Go on, you’re going to be late for your friends. You’re usually there by now. He was so angry, he slammed out of the building and stalked away as if leaving behind a pile of serious trash.

It was not a happy evening for Sandy. His friends were not so helpful when he conveyed something of his hurt and suspicion – not a lot of it, but just enough to explain his preoccupied and silent frown for most of the evening. They laughed a good bit about the wretched nature of women and how blokes needed to stick together. At least in jail, there were no women to do such things to them.

He did not hurry home. He did not know if he wanted to get back, He did not want to be on his own with his imaginings about her evening. He found he could not distract himself. So, he walked a while in the opposite direction, keeping one of the others company to the bus-stop. This was a friend of one of the tanker gang, a bloke called Ed, who Sandy did not know well. He thought it important to try to unravel his own mind by asking about Ed’s life and what he did. But after the beers it fell flat into a thin silence and then he decided to wander off. But Ed remained in Sandy’s mind. Ed perpetually wore a smile on his face without any movement of his expression; it was both inviting and also his immobility was mystifying.

Coming back to the house he noticed Maryam had not turned off the light in their front room, though Shaun’s on the other side of the front door was dark, and his curtains drawn. He wondered who had helped Shaun; had he got himself into bed, or had she got back sooner than expected. He wondered if she had come back early from her clubbing. Was she even with someone she’d picked up? He slowly entered the flat. Maryam was slouched in the armchair in jeans and slippers with a drab tee-shirt. She looked a little pink and there was a bottle of half-emptied gin on the side table.

He smiled, and wondered, and moved to the bottle and poured some gin into the single glass there and drank it. Maryam watched him without a word. Eventually, he asked, “When did you get back?”

She stirred in the chair as he sat down opposite her. “I didn’t go. I didn’t want to go cruising for something without you. I’ve got everything here that I want, haven’t I?” And she shut her mouth tight in a gesture suggesting it need not be talked about. Sandy got up to fetch another glass and poured them a very full measure each. She downed it in one go and grimaced. And so did he.

            “Sorry,” he said, as if he was responsible for her glum evening on her own, changing back into her drab-looking clothes. He felt his shock earlier in the evening had wrecked her sense of her freedom.

            “Bugger, sorry, Sandy. I shouldn’t do that to you. I just wanted you to know….” She tailed off.

            “I know, it….”

            “Shut it, Sandy. I know what I did to you.” And then she stared hard at him. “Rape me Sandy. Make me pay for it.” And she lay back as if inviting him to do just that.

            He stood up and approached her, “I’ll tear those clothes off you. And fuck you till you’re bruised right inside.

            But she knew he wouldn’t go that far because of their little girl inside her, whatever Maryam deserved.

They went to bed together shortly. There was little else for them to do. There were a few tears from her, tears of anger. In the morning, they woke together clutching each other, and feeling desperate about the regular rows they were having. He put his hand on her tummy. He said, “Good morning, little one.” 

Maryam smiled, “She’s getting to know her Dad already. You were kind to us last night. I was a bitch, I know, I was.” 

She sighed and lay back. He propped himself on one elbow looking down on her, “If I were to be asked, I’d say you were the most beautiful, beautiful bitch in all the world. In fact, not just the most beautiful bitch, but the most beautiful of all the women I have ever seen; in fact, the most beautiful woman in all the world.”

She smiled in a sort of satisfied way, “And if I were asked, I’d say you talk the most ridiculous drivel of anyone in all the world.”

They both smiled weakly, “Nice to be good at something, Maryam. Go on, go and see to your father. He needs to get up.” 

So she went off to do her duties. When she had settled Shaun in his wheelchair in front of the window, she went back to their bedroom. Sandy was still in bed, “Oh,” she said, “so I’ve got to get you up as well, have I?”

Sandy got out of bed too, and stood in front of her, “Put on that red silky dress for me today.”

She looked puzzled, “What now? I can’t go to work like that.”

He smiled at her. No, you can’t. It’s just for me. Do your act tonight in the pub wearing that evening gown. I want to see all those grubby blokes dribbling. Get them to put the money down your cleavage with their filthy working hands.”

“Are you serious?” she stared at him wondering about his fantasies about her, and other men.

“Yes. I’m serious.”

She looked away and tossed her head in a confident way. “OK. If you want me to. It’d be fun.”

“Then you’ll know what a beautiful bitch you are.” He laughed and she laughed, too. And she mock-slapped him in the face. 

It felt like they might have turned a corner. “Get back on the bed. I want to rape you.”

“Alright. I’m all for it,” she said enthusiastically.

Afterwards, she lay on top of him, and she said, “Can you still keep it stiff inside me? I want it there, even after we’ve done that. When you are there, I feel filled up with something, nourished with something. Please don’t let it slip out. Can you feel me squeezing it?

He held her tight, “Yep, I can feel you holding on to me.”

“And I’ve got our little one there too.” She relaxed and lay on top of him, her face in his neck. “I feel so cheap, sometimes. I’ve been thinking all night about it. It’s like I’m a cheap wine-glass, and now I’m full of fabulous vintage wine.” But his erection was subsiding even as she kept squeezing him. “I’ve got to tell you what I was thinking all night. But I want you in me while I tell you.” But he was still slipping out. “You make me a woman when you are there. It’s not just sex.”

When he flopped out, she just said, ”Oh!”

“You have our little one there. You are a woman alright. What do you want to tell me?”

She felt between her thighs to reach for him. She held his now-soft flesh in her hand, “I’ve got you still.” She looked into his face a couple of inches from hers. “Yes, I’ll tell you.” Her eyes looked moist. He kissed her right eye.

“What does my beautiful, beautiful need to tell me?”

“Oh,” and her head flopped back on his shoulder. “I don’t know what you do. It’s never been like this with anyone. It’s not just sex. You make me feel a woman. It goes right back to that first time when we met in the pub. Do you remember? Just feeling your arm around my waist. I was nearly in tears. I had to snap at you, or I’d have started crying. I’ve only ever got little bits of feeling like this when I’ve been helping my Dad. But you do it….” She seemed lost for words. “…. more.” He listened to her, “I don’t suppose you can know what it is like, trying to feel a woman. I’ve got you to fill me up. I’ve got our little one who is filling me up.”

“And this evening when you do you act in that silken dress with your silken body, everyone will know you’re a woman.” She chuckled at his generosity and hugged him. “Maybe it is different for me. It isn’t that I feel a man when we’re together. It is….” and felt lost for words, too, “…. I feel I am with a real woman, wrapped in a woman, perhaps. Not just our genitals but our hearts.” And after a pause, he said, “I know you want to call our little one ‘Grace’ , because it is the most beautiful name of all for a woman, but I want to call you ‘Grace’.” And after another pause. “I’ve had to think about this a lot, but Maestri, if you want to go off with another one somewhere, perhaps you should. Because I will know it is not the same as with us. We complete each other; it is not just having a cum-climax.”

“I don’t want to go off with men. That’s just grubby. Sometimes I used to feel just like a sewer that blokes poked around in. I’m not saying there wasn’t satisfaction in it. There was, and I needed it. But it was being used. And using, of course. Like you are saying, we complete each other, now somehow. You got it right. It is a good way of saying it.” She shook her head as it lay on his shoulder. And I thought that your Laura might take it away from us. But she won’t, will she. She couldn’t take it away, I know now. I’ll be your Grace, for you, for ever. But never call me that in public. Right? It is just private between us.”

            He nodded. And after a while, he said “We talk like that on Fridays – in our group, the regular friends in the pub. We talk about women from the past. We’ve all had our journeys around the ‘vaginas of London’ as we say. It’s amusing for blokes to talk like that. I wish you could come and meet them. Just because you’re different. They are all envious of me, because I have you. They all know I have something different with you. Perhaps. I’ll tell them to come to The Swan this evening and watch you, the incomparable you. They’ll be so jealous, they’ll throw me out of the Friday group.” He chuckled at the thought of it.

            “Well, ask them, if you want. And tell them their money goes to a good cause.” And she paused briefly, “Us.” And they lay together, just being together, and knowing what it meant to each other.

“But I have to tell you what I still need to tell you. I’ve got our little Grace inside me, but it makes me think, night and day, I want my mother. I’ve never had that feeling since she left.” She paused. “Well, there was a moment when it all happened when I met you in the pub and I nearly cried. I thought of her, in a different way. I knew her as the one I was wedded to as well. Everything changed at that moment. And then I forgot it. Until last night and I knew what I’d been feeling for so long. I realised I was longing to go and find her now. I felt I owed her everything, as I owe you everything. And isn’t that horrible for my Dad? He’s looked after me as much as I’ve looked after him. And now I need her.”

She was silent. Sandy knew it must be something to do with her becoming a mother now. “We’ll go and find her.”

…..ooooo00000ooooo…..

Vacancies in Shaun’s old care home didn’t come up very often and there was no place for Shaun to go back to for some time, even if he jumped the waiting list. It was not a place for the elderly. The disabled, like Shaun, could last decades. Shaun remained depressed. But Sandy had a good idea – well, he thought that it was a good idea! 

It was Sunday afternoon, Maryam had a job in a pub now, serving. Although occasionally she sang. Her relaxed breeziness increased the clientele. The publican was pleased with her. Sandy often came to sit at the back to enjoy a free beer from time to time. She was wiping tables after the Sunday roasts had been served and eaten. He was sitting in his corner watching the beauty of the woman he loved. She knew she was being watched and loved him for it. She stood up straight and looked out of the window trying not to catch his eye. She wished she could be wearing the long slinky dress tight down to her ankles, bare shoulders and a good cleavage with all it suggested. She looked down at her grubby apron and swore to herself, ‘Why does living have to be so bloody difficult? Life is cruel.’ She had taken him away from his friends – it was Shaun she was referring to. And now she had to get him back to them. She went on with mopping the tables.

Sandy called softly to her, “Maestri.”  She stood up again and looked at him. She was smiling to herself. But not to him. “We could set up another home, another co-op. He could be the founding member.”

“Well, there’s a project for you, Sandy.” And she bent over the next table. “You just need to buy a big premises; do it up; put in the safety measures and all that; then find the handicapped and disabled with money to invest. You’d only need two hundred grand or something. Five-hundred grand. Mybe it’s a million. I don’t know these things. So, why not?”

“I know. Complications, eh?” he said with some sarcasm, but amused. “You know something, Maestri,” he continued with equal sarcasm, “difficulties are there to be solved.” She didn’t respond. But it had set him thinking. 

Maryam knew about fundraising apps on her phone and she wondered if she’d suggest the impossible to make fun of him. But Sandy was looking hard at her, and she realised he had an idea. And then it struck her. “Oh, Sandy. You’re not thinking of that, are you? Are you?” She threw the cloth on the table as if exasperated. He frowned and she regretted her impatience with him. “Sorry, Maestri. Yes, it’s an idea. But…. well, you know.”

“If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, it would be a solution. But not an easy one, of course.” She came and sat next to him, her busy cloth resting in her hand. “Well, I was thinking that a jailbird like you must have lots of friends and acquaintances who could do a con-job on your rich-Laura lady with the free-standing mansion. You must know a scammer. Just what we need, Sandy-boy.” She looked at him with the mischievous look that he hadn’t seen for months. And she flicked the cloth at him. 

“Well, that’s what you were thinking.” And he whispered, “Grace,” out of affection. “But I thought, supposing, if…. She and I had a wedding, I’d have access to all the cash in the company her father left her, wouldn’t I?

“A wedding? You and her?” she looked into his face; he could see her eyes were moist. So he kissed her with softness and passion till she pulled back gently. 

“Would you do that? For me and my Dad?” Her eyes moistened again. “I’d hate you and I’d love you.” She remained quite still, looking at him, thinking about him. “Would you like to be married to her?” He shook his head slowly. “I think teasing can go too far,” she said, but it seemed more as if she was asking a question: whether he was really teasing. Or was he meaning it?

“Sometimes, I think, Maestri, you decide too often what I should do and what I should think. But this time the call is yours. If you really think we could cope with me and Laura being wedded, or not. I’ll do whatever you say. Is it best for us and you and what you want? Best for Shaun, for the babies? I would use her, use Laura. I would. I would use her love for me, which I think, unfortunately, is genuine enough.”

Maryam looked at him. She put her head on his shoulder and sobbed twice. Then she stood up and went back to a table and tried to look as though she was cleaning.it.

Sandy knew he was living as a parasite. She earned the regular money, what there was in barmaid wages, and tips, and of course from her occasional singing act. He worked freelance for a publisher, copyediting and formatting books for publishing, an occasional political article if he could think of an angle on a current issue. Actually, it  was better paid but much less of it. Less work meant more time for his own literary work. He liked reviewing new novels for magazines etc, and occasionally for the great national press. And the  occasional political essay, which his student mates would have cheered. He and Mayam did not spend a lot. They had enough, just being together. They had not wanted more. Until this suggestion….

            She looked up from her busy cleaning, “How much do you think she’s worth?”

            “I wouldn’t know such things, but it is international. Her father was pushing to expand everywhere. So I suppose a few million, or perhaps quite a lot of them.”

            “A lot of millions, you mean? Wow.” She went on scrubbing the next table-top. “If we just asked her for money for such a good cause – a care home?”

            “I shouldn’t think she would understand ‘good works’ like that.”

            “You could just ask her – her beautiful man! She might give him a few millions if she’s got plenty.” She looked up from her table-top, but he didn’t respond. “You could promise her another child if she did.” And she chuckled as if it were a joke – a joke against herself.

            Then he said, “I wouldn’t do that to you.” After a pause, “I wonder if my bloke Phil would oblige. I could promise her that.”

            “She gave him a black eye last time, Sandy!” and he nodded, “Where did you meet that bloke?”

“Well, I’ll tell you.” He hesitated, “I shared a cell with him for a while.”

“Oh,” she looked non-committal. “Was he part of your tanker gang?”

“No, no. We were all separated in prisons round the country.” 

He seemed reluctant to say more, So, she went on. “So, what did he do to get himself in prison, banged up with you?”

            He didn’t answer at first, so she stopped her cleaning duties and sat down again. “GBH.” He said quietly.

            “Go on.”

            “He beat up his girl-friend. He beat her so badly, smashed her arm it had to be amputate. At the elbow.” He said it with no expression, in a matter-of-fact way.

            “Oh, a nice man. Wonder why you’re friendly with him,” she said with a significant mocking tone.

            He put an arm around her. He put his other hand gently under her chin and lifted her lips to his, “I wouldn’t do that to you, would I?” And then, “Or would you like it a little rough sometimes?”

            “No. No, I, would, not,” she said with a mock threat in her voice. Then, more seriously though a little light-hearted in her familiar way, “You’ve got a whole gang you meet on Fridays. Perhaps she’d like to choose.” He smiled for the first time in this conversation.

            “I guess, like you say, I could just ask her if she’d like to do a bit of ‘good-works’ with her money. Something her earnest young man (that’s me) would be impressed by.” Maryam nodded. “But,” he added, “I’d have to take her out for dinner or something, On our own.”

            Maryam threw down he cloth, “Not allowed,” she said quickly and with force. “That won’t happen.”

            He shrugged his shoulders in acceptance, “Of course not. We’ll all go out for dinner. The last night out before her baby comes. Then I can ask her, and you can stay silent while I chat her up.” 

This time she shrugged her shoulders. “So what will you do for me?” she asked frivolously.

            “Find your Mum.”

            But it didn’t happen quite like that.

V - Re-orienting. And how

They were sitting in the back living room, with the garden glistening outside after the rain and the plants were dripping quietly as though cleaning themselves and starting back to flourish again. There was a buzz on his phone, and he looked at the text. Laura’s baby had come early. Her blood pressure had shot up. She nearly died. And because of all the stress, the baby nearly died inhaling its own mucus. But they had both survived. It was a little girl as expected. Maryam and Sandy looked at each other. There was an irony, or worse. They had been contemplating Laura’s future whilst she had been fighting this life-and-death saga.

            “I should have been there, Maestri. I should have been with her. Someone should.”

            “Perhaps we both should!”

There plans were shelved, and they set off immediate to see her in hospital where she was kept while being treated for her eclampsia.

            The little girl, to be known as Elaine, happily lay in Sandy’s warm and relaxed arms. It had only had attention from the busy nurses, and then from a deeply depressed mother terrified of having another epileptic fit and longing for her dead father. Laura hardly spoke; Maryam looked on from a distance as if on Mars. Sandy bonded with Elaine in her first comforting contact as he stood in amazement by the hospital bed. A nurse told him to sit down in the stiff ward chair and be careful not to drop the little thing. Maryam then sat down too, on the bed her back to the invalid. Laura gazed blankly at her baby with sedated eyes. It was a miraculously happy-unhappy situation.

            Sandy stood and stepped across to the bed to put the baby in Laura’s arms. She didn’t move until the baby was lying beside her. Elaine was wriggling and an arm or two waved slightly. Laura sat up heavily and Sandy moved the baby onto her lap and against her chest. Sandy sat close to Maryam and watched Laura. Maryam did not. But she placed her hand on her own visibly swollen tummy. She stood as if uncomfortable. Brushing Sandy aside she bent and kissed Laura on the lips quickly. Sandy stopped a passing nurse to explain he was the father. The nurse knew. He asked to take the baby home while they treated Laura. That was immediately refused, and he could see the baby was already snuggling into the thin gown Laura was wearing as if looking for the nipple. Laura was awake enough to look for her nipple as well. And as they watched, mother and baby linked up together. Laura’s eyes were lifeless as she looked at Sandy as if trying to say ‘thank-you’.

            The nurse explained that Laura would be coming home in two days or so, once the medication was settled. When the nurse went on to do her business, Sandy said to Maryam, “They’ll have to come to our place.”

Maryam looked at him as if he was holding a gun to her head, “No, we’ll go to her place.”

Sandy nodded, “Good idea.” He sat back on the bed, touched the baby on the head, who did not notice as she nudged into her mother’s soft flesh. “Laura, we’ve decided. When you both come home, we’ll have to be there to look after you.” Laura did not move, “You understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Can we both move in then. You know? Maryam as well?” and he added quietly, “And Maryam’s Dad?”

Laura put out one arm while the other cradled the baby and reached as if for Maryam. Maryam sat on the other side of the bed. Laura leaned into Maryam and muttered quietly, “Thank you.” Her eyes shut as if she were so sedated she was about to sleep awkwardly propped against Maryam. The little baby had almost found the nipple, but a fold of the cotton nightie was pressed with the nipple into the baby’s mouth. Sandy smiled and pulled it out of the way, and the baby seemed to know what to do to get the nipple into its sucking mouth. It seemed like a tableau of conjoined bliss all of a sudden. The busy nurse pulled the curtains around Laura’s bed. Maryam looked across at Sandy, whose attention was riveted on the baby at the breast, literally a few hours old. He was wholly occupied, ‘what women can achieve’! – and he was hypnotised by the baby in complete union with its mother.

Sandy stood and stooped and kissed Laura, too, on the lips as a kind of congratulations, and then went to look for the nurse again. He explained they would like to take Laura and the baby home now. They could look after them full-time. He felt his heart beating. It had stirred everything inside him. The scene had triggered every gland in his body to pour its secretions out into his bloodstream. 

“I’d have to call the doctor and see if she can take her own discharge. We like to get everything settled, And they’ve both been pretty ill since yesterday.”

“I know. But we can give the medication to her. And the other lady, she’s a nurse, you know.”

The nurse nodded. Who is she?”

It was none of the nurse’s business really. But “She’s my sister,” he lied. 

The nurse looked surprised, and looked at him to see if he was joking. “I’ll tell the charge nurse and we’ll let the doctor know. So after half-an-hour the doctor came and seemed to have accepted what they wanted. He explained the drugs, and what they needed to watch out for. She needed twenty-four hours watching for a few days. He told the nurse to give Sandy the phone number of the ward if they were anxious about anything; and of course, the general practice and a community nurse and the emergency hospital services. He explained about epileptic fits, and so on and so forth. Sandy and Maryam listened as intently as they could. It was all agreed, and the doctor booked an out-patient appointment for two-days’ time, on Friday. He seemed to be relieved to have got a spare bed.

Slowly the whole party of four began to prepare and to move as a linked-up train, the baby clutched to the nipple, Maryam with her arm around the sleepy Laura, and Maryam’s other hand reaching for Sandy’s. The ward watched.

Sandy drove his substantial Volvo with all these precious people. Laura, leaned against the side of the car, still very drugged. Her little Elaine clung to her in the only way a newborn can – with her mouth. Sandy drove carefully, and they arrived at Laura’s mansion. The afternoon was beginning to become a warm springtime. Something seemed to be regenerating. Laura sat immediately on her settee and went to sleep. Sandy made a cup of tea, and Maryam went back to tell her father of the new arrangements. He would be coming with them to the mansion, and soon. She told him, they’d all be making the move back to Liverpool.

            News of Laura’s fit in the hospital had pre-empted Maryam’s meet-up with the Friday club in The Swan. And so they had to put it off till some suitable time, probably a Friday so Sandy’s gang of goons could see what they were really jealous of. Maryam was not too disappointed. She really did not need to feel grubby male hands in her cleavage, even if they were giving her money, and they didn’t always. But if it amused Sandy for the time being she’d go along. But only for the time being. In a few months little Grace would change her life. The real business was to get Shaun settled with the friends he needed. Obviously, she and Sandy were engaged in their own lives, and even if Sandy was around at home all day writing his articles and the great novel, Shaun was unendingly on his own. She acknowledged to herself she needed practical discussions with Sandy and not only love-discussions. 

            In fact, Sandy was quite understood and was amenable, and they made plans. Laura’s illness settled down quickly, and so perhaps did her obsession with loving Sandy. She had her Elaine who loved her more than Sandy ever could.

…..ooooo00000ooooo…..

Sandy agreed to do it. They decided it should be when Maryam had gone off for the lunchtime cleaning in the pub. There was no threat any more to Maryam if she left Sandy with Laura in the house together. She knew, knew absolutely, that Sandy’s love was for the little Elaine (and for Maryam herself of course). And Shaun was there too, with them – he was wandering around in his wheelchair plotting the layout of furniture and rooms in Laura’s house, their new abode.

“We’re a big family now, aren’t we?” They were both sitting down for a snack lunch, Laura and Sandy, with Elaine, too, in the corner in her carrier. Shaun could hear there was a confidential ring in Sandy’s voice and he squeaked on his tyres into the front living room. “We can all stick together if you’d like. I know we are taking liberties with the house, Laura.”

“No,” Laura said, “You’re looking after me.” The sedation was much reduced and tailing off. “And Shaun, too, you’re looking after him as well. He’s a nice old man. Not much like my Dad. It’ll soon be a couple of years since I lost him. I think he’d be pleased I am settled in the old house. He and my Mum had it for thirty years. Do you like it here?”

“ It is fantastic. Would you stay here always?” Sandy began to broach the tricky conversation. “Or do you think it might be an idea we got somewhere for us lot, the four of us? Well five.” And he glanced over his shoulder at Elaine.

Laura was suddenly alert now. It was as if the relaxed lunch had been interrupted by his prepared questions. “You want to move us?”

He was surprised that Laura had picked up his intentions. But he realised she could always discern the worst. But she had said ‘us’. “Shaun is going to go back to Liverpool. He’s lost all his old friends up there.”

“And Maryam will want to go with him, She’ll go with him, Sandy?”

“Yes, she will, Laura.”

“And you’ll go with her, too. I know.” And she looked sulky.

“Mmm,” Sandy murmured doubtfully. “You think I’d leave Elaine. And you?”

“Well, Sandy, you won’t stay with us. Is that what you trying to tell me.”

“No, not that, actually.” He hesitated. “I wouldn’t see our Elaine. I think you wanted her to have a father.”

“Some father you are,” she said bitterly. He nodded not sure what exactly she referred to, but supposed he should have committed to her, Laura, rather than to Maryam. And she said clearly, “You’d have to choose, her, or us.” He nodded as if he knew he was in a painful cleft stick. The, with a bright smile,“Well, there’s another solution, I can think of, Sandy.” She stopped, looking in the air as if she was catching brilliant ideas out of the ether. He could see her as such a sad person.

Of course she had hit on the same idea, but he said, “OK, what’s your good idea, Laura?”

“We could all move together. You hadn’t thought of that, had you? 

He nodded wisely, “Well we started by assuming you’d stay here, whatever happened.”

“You’d leave me on my own? Who’d look after me?” He realised she was not only sad but vulnerable, and frightened.

“To tell you the truth. I did have the thought that we could all move together – you and Elaine with Maryam and hers. But would you really give up your house here?”

She was looking around at the ceiling as if more ideas could be found there. “No, of course I wouldn’t give it up. I’d let it out. But ‘she’ wouldn’t want me tagging along. You know that, don’t you. Interfering, she thinks. Waiting for you to get fed up with her – that brown skin and her haughty look.”

“I think she feels very fond of you, Laura. She would love it if you came. You’re both mothers and so on.”

She looked darkly at him, and no tears. She was halfway between rage and misery. “It was terrible when you went off with her. We were going to get married, remember? She’s just a sex-machine, Sandy, isn’t she? Face it. We could have had so much more. And she’s just….” She hesitated to continue. But she went on, “…. She’s just a pub cleaner. What’s she worth?” Sandy was shocked by her bitterness. He must have shown his shock, because she suddenly changed direction, “Sorry, Sandy, sorry. It’s my worst side. I’ve had nearly a year hating you. And her. And I know you are actually thinking of me and my future and Elaine’s. I do know that. And I always told myself never to let you see how much I blamed you for letting me down.”

“Oh, Laura. That’s so important you’ve told me. It is so important we’ve had this conversation.”

“But don’t you tell her about it. Not a word.”

“Well, I’ll try. It might be difficult because she knows all that. She’s a woman, she can read you. She’s a Mum – nearly. She knows exactly how you feel about her.” He was nodding as if needing her to agree with him.

“I could feel fond of her. She’s a lovely person. I do know that. I just like to see what isn’t lovely.”

“Yes. Of course, of course. You need a lot of support, she needs support. Shaun needs so much too. And the babies….”

“A lot for you to carry, Sandy. Isn’t it?” And he nodded to indicate she had spoken very wisely. “And who supports you?”

“Well, all of you, I suppose.”

“Yes, well….” She paused and looked as if she was struggling to say something important. He waited. Would she return to her bitterness, or was she struggling to see a hopeful possibility? And eventually it was a positive gesture, “I can do my bit. So long as you don’t look down on us. We’re not a farmyard of helpless chickens. Don’t do the ‘big man’ thing.” 

He was surprised, he didn’t realise he could be doing anything like that. Indeed, he knew the two young mothers and the disabled Shaun could not be just his burden. He would never carry them all. it had to be a team effort. “No, I’m not that big. It’s got to be mutual all around. I’ve got it.” He sat back, “There’s another thing I wanted to mention to you. I wanted you to meet a friend of mine.”

“Oh, you’re matchmaking now, are you? You don’t get it, Sandy. You really don’t.”

“He’s a nice bloke, quiet. He’s reliable. Will you meet him with me?” 

At this point she really was near to tears. She looked as if she would become patronising again about his good intentions. Again, it seemed a struggle for her eventually to say, “I’ll consider it.” And he was not sure if she really meant she would consider a different kind of solution.

 “He’s called Ed. Let me know if we want to go down that road.” Shaun had been calling out; he’d got the front wheels of his chair caught in the fringes of one of the handwoven Afghan carpets. “I’d really like you to meet him. But of course, say ‘no’ if you don’t want to. You know I love you in my own way, and how I want the best for you. And for our little Elaine.”

…..ooooo00000ooooo…..

So on the following Friday after he and Maryam got back from a quick two-day reconnaissance trip to Liverpool, his friends met them both at the pub (known to the frequenters as the ‘Pig Trough’). Though Maryam had only a few minutes to dress for her role, she did look stunning. Now visibly pregnant as well as provocatively inviting. Phil and Ed, and the other two – Ron, handsome, and Claude (known as Lord, sometimes), not quite handsome – were moved to a polite silence. Laura and Elaine had arrived much earlier and had sat on their own. Laura was nervously sipping a white-wine spritzer. When Sandy arrived, he moved her out of her corner and introduced her to the group pulling up a chair for her to sit next to Ed. Ed looked at her next to him with some interest. But she was drawn to Phil across the table. He seemed interested in her austere figure adorned with Elaine sleeping on her lap surrounded by the buzzing energy of the pub. Not much was said this Friday, with two unexpected and interesting-looking women in the process of young motherhood. Not at all the comfortable and familiar Friday evening company for these nervous bachelors.

For half-an-hour Maryam sipped and drank two gin-and-tonics and then she stood up to do her act with the pub’s microphone. Sandy’s friends looked with astonishment, clapped and hooted her. They were clearly appreciative, though they did not give any money. Indeed, with her prominent tummy there was a general reluctance to engage with her ‘chest of money’, as she always announced it to be. She didn’t mind because she felt the wide appreciation for her appeal as a person, and maybe as a future mother.

Just before the party split up around ten o’clock, Sandy whispered to Ed to ask Laura out for a date – which he did. But Phil had already asked her, and she had accepted. Sandy was a bit concerned, given Phil’s GBH history with the previous girl-friend. 

There was a lot else Sandy had to do as well – to keep Shaun informed of progress in getting him back to his old friends, seeing if he could help Laura find a partner, suitable and safe, taking in Maryam’s responsibility for finding a care home or even the idea of starting one up. Wow, he told himself – ‘wow’. 

More than anything was his delicate task of managing Laura as she had all the money to back what they needed to do. It involved engaging with her as a central player without having to give her the love and intimacy she craved from him, which would disturb Maryam – and would disturb him as well. He also needed Laura too as the mother of Elaine, his precious ‘little’. Occasionally he desired Laura’s taut body with which they had made little Elaine. But although he knew Laura’s body would be given willingly to him and as dutifully as she could, it would only have been sex. And, seriously, he had moved on from that by meeting with the enticing Maryam now a couple of years ago. 

In a calculating way, he shamefully thought of it as something he could keep in reserve to tempt Laura with if she needed more persuading. But he pulled back in his shame from thinking that through. He wondered to himself how he could even consider such a plan; was it just bald sex in him still? He supposed it was, and he’d still use it for desire and manipulation. Now Laura had considered coming with them, it had been such a relief. And especially as he had somehow got her to think of it as her own suggestion. His head filled with all these thoughts that had made the predicament such a complicated maze for him to extract them all. Nevertheless, now introducing Ed may have been going a step too far.

He found himself apologising to her, “Laura, I’m sorry. I am trying to re-arrange your life, aren’t I? It’s just that I owe you so much – so much for our little Elaine. And I feel bad I cannot make you completely happy, give you what you completely want.”

Surprisingly he found her responding with a chuckle, “No you’re not very good at giving me what I want!” She looked him in the eye in an intimate way, not sexual but confidingly. “I’ve got a date. With your friend, Phil.” She was smiling at him, as if she might now be getting her own back by choosing Phil. “But,” she said, almost happily, “I haven’t had a date, not since we went to the theatre together those years ago. Do you remember?” Sandy nodded. She chuckled again. “It’s Phil. And I gave him a black eye, last year, when you were doing your match-making then.” 

Sandy nodded again, “I remember.”

She was smiling, “I smashed one of Dad’s favourite ornaments on his head. It was an antique seventeenth century vase.” 

She was still smiling at him and he presumed she was flattered to be dated. So he added jocularly, “Well, I think the black eye recovered well enough.”

“But,” she said also jocularly, “the vase didn’t.” Then she became more serious. “Tell me something Sandy, “Is he OK? I mean is he safe? He wagged his finger at me for a moment when he was asking me for the date. He described the black eye he got as GBH – my grievous bodily harm on him. Was he just joking, Sandy?”

“A good point, Laura. You must ask him; I’m sure he’ll tell you all about himself on the date if you ask him about it.” 

“It  was just the way he spoke about GBH – as if it meant something for him.”

“You’ve got a sensitive soul there, Laura. Ask him about it. It is true I met him when I did my prison stretch. So he’s got a tale to tell you.”

At that her face dropped, no longer light-hearted. “I had forgotten that, Sandy. You did time, didn’t you. I’d forgotten all about that.” She was going pale, as if she had agreed to a seriously risky thing in accepting a date with Phil. “I’d forgotten. So, you two….” She was  wondering what Phil and Sandy had in common.

“Oh, don’t worry too much. But always on a first date with someone, stay in public and don’t go off with anyone on your own. That’s just a rule for everyone.”

“Is it? We didn’t stick to it when we dated.” She looked puzzled and now worried. And indeed, Sandy did think she had touched on something. There was the issue of Phil. Was he a reformed character? Or would he end up beating Laura till she lost a limb? It was important for him; she was the mother of his baby, and he should give the consideration and care and actually the safety she and the baby needed. She looked into his face, now. Hard and anxious. “I’d better cancel the date, hadn’t I?”

Sandy shook his head slightly, “Not necessarily.” He now felt he’d failed his friend, Phil. 

She was looking at Sandy intently. “I was offered a date by Ed, too.”

“You had a good evening, Laura. Two offers. You’re a lady in demand.”

“Don’t joke me, Sandy. Just because I’m shy as a woman and backward. What’s Ed like? Has he done prison time?”

Sandy smiled gently and shook his head, “Not at all. He’s a good guy.”

“I didn’t speak to him much.”

“He’s a bit shy. So…. a bit like you. You might have more in common and be a better match.” She flicked her loose hair back and looked reflective. “He’ll look after you and be careful. And” Sandy added, perhaps a little recklessly, “and you’ll want another baby at some point?” He posed it as a question. But she took it as a directive.

“Oh God, I’m not thinking of that yet. For heaven’s sake…. And if I want another baby. I’ll be coming for you. So, if you’ve got me right, be prepared.” She could have been jokey but there was an element of a return to her habitual bitterness. 

Sandy put his hands on her shoulders to reassure her and move away from that tricky issue. He was about to say something else, but she pulled herself away from his hands and moved off to say goodbye to Phil and re-arrange her two possible dates. Ed had disappeared, so she did come back to Sandy to ask for Ed’s phone-number.

…..ooooo00000ooooo…..

Maryam was also nervous about all the arrangements. But for her it was a need to get her father back to his friends. She was walking home from the pub, her special performing gear nicely folded in a small backpack. She knew her pregnancy was getting too swollen to carry on with her singing. She had been leaving it all to Sandy, all the arrangement that followed her demand to take her father back to Liverpool. The autumn evenings were getting darker and she did not want to walk in the dark. Anyone from that pub audience could have decided to drunkenly follow her. She knew that her precious tummy-cargo made her more anxious about keeping safe. And she noticed the Volvo coming towards her. Sandy – the perfect gentleman – had come to collect her. After all that her life had been how could she have expected to emerge into such an enriching group of people with her own Sandy as her wonderful man?

            As she got into the car with Sandy, she noticed Laura in the back seat, clutching Elaine. She was suddenly nervous again, about what this meant. She feared more complications. Or was Shaun OK? Had he had an accident?

            “What’s happened? Is everything OK? Do you want something Laura?”

            “No, no,” Sandy said hurriedly, “Everything is alright. It is all right. I think that Laura has sorted things out.” 

            He paused for Laura to tell Maryam, and Laura started, “We just thought it best to make sure you got home alright.” And she stopped as Elaine became restless when she started speaking.

            So, Sandy finished what they had come to tell her, “Laura says she could come with us to Liverpool and let out her house in London for rent – and a little income to help out with two families and looking after Shaun.”

            “Is that what you want, Laura?” Maryam asked, as if bringing Laura with them might not be as sorted as Maryam had thought.

            “It’s up to you, Maryam. I don’t suppose you’d want me around.”

            “Oh, don’t say that.” Maryam replied immediately, and not very honestly, “We’ll need each other. A lot – two mothers. We’ll be two mothers looking after each other. Won’t we?”

            Laura added, “It’s good for Sandy, too.” And she sounded a bit cynical, knowing that Sandy had more or less jumped at the idea. “He won’t have to be a Dad in two places, rushing up and down the country.”

            Sandy laughed as if it was an insignificant point. But he had felt profoundly relieved.

            Maryam had been musing about how she had caused all the problems. She had taken Shaun for herself without thought and brought him to London. She regretted so much how she’d dragged him out of the secure situation he had been comfortable in. She was only a cleaner and was never going to be earning enough to provide for the necessary care and accommodation for her father. She sat in the car watching the road, and Sandy realised that Maryam must have a reaction to how important Laura was becoming to the whole group of them. They were all going to depend on the money Laura would be willing to contribute.

She loved her singing routine but not a money-spinner, even though she knew it required talent that she had. Sandy was thinking along parallel lines as he recognised her very mixed feelings. He knew she loved it because it took her back to ages ago when she had shown herself, and her small body outside the Folie Bergere at the fairground all those years ago as a child, and loved the wolf-whistling as she twisted in a particular way in front of her audience, strutting and stumbling on high heels which she was not used to at the age of ten. She had told him of the exhilaration of a grown-up ten-year-old. Back in the time when she had a father who was still whole and undamaged, and a Mum who loved her. She would often say it connected with the thrill of Sandy, a new experience which had jolted her onwards. He had somehow made her alive – inside. How had he done it? She did not know, but she seemed to create life in him as well. Now real life seemed to entail dodging arrows pointing opposite directions.

Now, her real talents seemed to be doomed as she became more visibly and magnificently pregnant, and the less she could be an object of semi-pornography. 

VI - The maternal bond

Maryam often spent time in Shaun’s room. Sometimes they were silent for long periods, being together. A weak sun was coming in through the window like a shy guest. This day she was determined to speak. She knew it might be hard for her father – and for her. His hand was on her tight tummy that had been growing for some seven months. It had been the arrival of Laura’s little Elaine that seemed to convey a pressure, a moment that could not be missed.

She sat in a chair opposite his wheelchair in Shaun’s room in Laura’s semi-palace in London. Her hand was holding his. Sandy was quiet and had promised not to interrupt.

            “Dad, you know you are the big one for me. My greatest. I need to ask you something. We’ll show you something first. Feel me, feel what I am expecting.”

            “Of course, my child. My dear child.” She pulled on his arm so he could feel her tummy as it stretched around the baby inside. “There you are,” he said, as if talking to a visitor, “And you are called Grace. Your Mam tells me you are a good missy.”

            “Do you remember, when I was a baby?”

            “Of course, my child. We loved you so much.”

            What was my Mum like. Can you tell me about her?”

            Shaun became suddenly grave as if he’d prefer to keep away from the topic. He cleared his throat, “Beautiful. She was a beauty. Exotic, dark. As you are. I believe you are still. You know I often see her still in front of me when I can see nothing else. I was a man in love. I was already in love with you too, before she gave birth to you.” He stopped. “She changed you know. After you were born. She told me I had changed. It was like that. We kept disagreeing. We never disagreed before. Well, we didn’t always disagree. We both loved you.” He continued to look grave. “I suppose you want to show the baby to her.”

            “Yes, Dad.” She was looking grave too, “Sorry, Dad.”

            “It is her grandchild too. We still have something to share.” He looked sad.

            “You still love her, don’t you.” He nodded his head. “Sorry Dad, to bring it up.”

            “Don’t feel sorry. Being sad and regretful is not wrong. I’ve known it for a long time.”

            “Do you know how to get in touch with her.”

“No, of course not. I would have told her – told her you were expecting. She must want to know, don’t you think.”
            “I don’t know what’d want from me. But I want her to know.” They were silent. “It’s more than wanting her to know. I want her here. I want her when I go into hospital, you know, hold my hand with the labour pains.” They were both silent again, “You’ve got no idea how we could find her?”

“I suppose it would mean going to Egypt.” Then he said, “And you couldn’t do that. Not when you’re so near having the baby.”

She looked at him, “You couldn’t go either.”

“When the baby’s come, we could go. So long as everything is alright.”

“What do you mean ‘alright’?”

“She got sick after you were born. In those days there was not much could be done. We were back in Egypt then. It took her a while to get better. I wondered if she blamed me somehow and that might have been what changed us.”

“You couldn’t go, could you?”

He said nothing for a while, then, “I’d come. I’d want to share it with her. Whatever she thought. She went off with someone you know. He was much older than her, much older. I have even thought she might be single again.”

She said, carefully, “And you thought she might want you back?” he made no reply to that. “We could try to take you. Do you have any idea where you’d start if we could get you there?”

“Not really. Well, I know the district her family lived in. It was a long time ago. We’d go and ask around. How’d you get back in touch with me?”

“Oh, there’s websites you can try chasing people. I wrote to about six people with the same name as yours. Someone remembered you in the house where you’d been. I told you all this. But that was in England. I don’t know what’s possible over there – in Egypt.”

He looked thoughtful. “You don’t speak any Egyptian, do you.”

“Not a bit, Dad.”

“Hmmm.” He remained sad and thoughtful. “Well,, after the baby, and you’re back on your feet, join a class. Learn a bit of Arabic. Make friends with the teacher. Get them to put you onto someone from Egypt, someone we could take with us.”

Maryam sat up; she took a deep breath as if the baby were stirring inside her. “That’s a plan, Dad.” She seemed restless, “We’ll do it. But you don’t have anyone I could write to  now. I want her here when the baby comes.”

“You’ve only got a couple of months. I suppose you could write to the Embassy there. There might be a consul in Alexandria.”

“I’ll ask. But did her nationality change to British when you married?”

“We never married, officially.”

“Ah.” She felt helpless. “No address of relatives over there? Where did you live when you were there?”

“As soon as we met, I jumped ship. That was in France. Then she was pregnant, so we went off to Alexandria. We stayed for a while in her parents’ house, we stayed briefly. They did not approve, so we quickly came to England. I worked on a ship, and it paid for her cabin. More like a cupboard.”

“But you may have that address for her parents.”

“Could do, but you’ll have to check through loads of stuff. There’s stuff here in London, in Laura’s house. There’s stuff stashed in my old care home, back in Liverpool. You’d have to look though it all – all my life’s records. You’ll find what sort of bloke I’ve been – well, what I was before this,” and he opened his left hand out as if inviting a look at his wrecked body.

“But you went back when you had me?”

“Right. We did that. I’ll have the address somewhere. There was someone in the next ziqaq – that’s a sort of alleyway. It was all poor and crumbling. Might not be there still.” His good hand moved to where he kept his smartphone with the talking app. But, he shook his head. “I don’t know where it will be. You’ll have to go and find my papers.”

“We can find the alleyway if I find the address. I guess I can search your stuff while I’m waiting for the baby. Laura will know where your stuff is? But I’ll start with the stuff from the care-home up in Liverpool. Can you ring someone in the home and tell them I’ll call in and pick it up for you and we’ll be going up to Liverpool to find how to move you back there. I can still get about at the moment. I’ll find a language teacher too. That was a good idea.”

Maryam took a while to collect the papers, and before the baby appeared, she had gone through them. It was hardly a big archive, nor very significant. Not much to find, but there had been a piece of paper tucked in a book with some scribbles which could be recognised possibly as an Arab script. When she took it to Shaun, he had no means of recollecting the piece of paper, just by touch. Frustrating for both. At the same time, she started the search for a course in Arabic. There were a few but they lasted years. She was not going to pick up the language quickly, so she turned to a Mosque. Feeling burdened with her tummy now, she took a taxi over to Regents Park. They had a cultural centre. And Maryam’s looks gave her some passable ticket of entry to a friendly response from a phone-line. It was a friendliness that vanished as soon as they found she was pregnant. Wandering in with a personal enquiry and wanting to find a lost mother in Egypt did not elicit sympathy. 

Nevertheless, there was one tutor who would be available for this lone pregnant woman for individual tutorials, Jemima. Maryam’s lively approach connected with her in an immediate way. But, attending for her tutorials, it was essential to take both Sandy and a hijab. 

            Sandy had been following her investigation over the last few days while she talked with her father about her discoveries and plans. He’d taken the tripwith her  to fetch the papers from Liverpool. And he certainly agreed. But then? A trip to Egypt – with a newborn baby?

There was really no haste to go there. They could not go at this stage of her pregnancy. He ruled it out, and Maryam accepted the ruling.

“You wait, my man. I’ll be setting some rules for you when our Grace arrives.”

But it needed continuing thought. When would be a good time to go on this search expedition? There was so much else going on. The ‘tribe’, as he called them, were coming together despite the complications, and planning the wholesale move to Liverpool. Maryam excitedly told Shaun every step of her progress. And he was deeply interested in every detail. For Sandy the question was to determine exactly when they could sensibly go after the birthing and there was that extra little person who would have to be considered.

…..ooooo00000ooooo…..

Ed in his quiet way, was more persistent than the impulsive Phil, but only confident enough when Sandy encouraged him. Sandy found him tiresome. It was hard work getting Ed to think through what he could gain and could lose.

            “So, Ed, how’d it go with Laura?”

            “Out of my league, you idiot.”

            “Nonsense, Ed.”

            “Why d’you fix me up with her? She flinches when you touch her.” Sandy laughed at that. “It’s true.”

Ed was finding it difficult to think of moving to Liverpool, but dutifully accepted Sandy’s request to think about it. 

Phil however had been intrigued by Maryam, an attractive enough woman, but now pregnant which made her unknown and seemingly unknowable for him. He was certainly not going to move to Liverpool. For Sandy, however, that was a relief. He had never considered Phil in the move.

Without finding out about Laura’s resources, it was difficult for Maryam and Sandy to know what they should be looking for in their search for accommodation. On their reconnaissance in Liverpool it seemed a grey city. And they did not yet know who would be coming, so the accommodation was difficult to assess. Initially, they hunted a substantial ground-floor flat to rent, one big enough for five adults and two babies. That would include anyone they could find to take on Laura – maybe Ed if he decided to move with them.

They decided to take Laura with them next week on their flat-hunting quest. It was a three-day trip and it would show how they could manage their complex connections and tensions with each other. This time they would stay in a reasonable hotel instead of using the visitors room at Shaun’s old care-home where he still had his co-op investment. Because he could not remove it, and the home could not afford to return it to him, it showed up the disadvantage of the arrangement. It was only when one of the in-mates died that the investment would be passed over by the contract to be an asset of the coop. They needed a better system, and the hope they had was that Laura could make a substantial endowment to set them off, a hope they knew was quite different from Laura’s! One of the many unknown factors was Ed.

It was Maryam who opened the conversation. They were sheltering on a windy day in a pub/restaurant.

“Well, Laura. We want the best for each other. I know. What do you make of Ed? Sandy told me you’d had a couple of dates with him. 

She looked unimpressed. “No, we’ve got a date tomorrow. It’s a first date. I’m not used to them.” At that moment Sandy came back from the bar with a couple of gins and his beer. We should stop drinking alcohol, shouldn’t we?”

“I’m going to buy a place up here.” She had ignored Maryam’s question. “It’s what you both want, isn’t it. And it’s what I want too. I know you think I should be hitching up with Ed, but I’ll make my own decision about that. You’re getting like my father.”

Sandy’s soothing manner started to come to the fore, but Maryam got there first. “You come from opposite planets, don’t you?”

“That’s it, Maryam.”

“But planets revolve around the same sun, don’t they?” Maryam’s analogy seemed to perplex Laura who took her glass of g-&-t from the table, and looked at Sandy as if he could enlighten her on what Maryam was getting at.

…..ooooo00000ooooo…..

They had found a large, extensive flat to rent on their second trip and arranged to move into it in two weeks’ time. Laura had generously and willingly paid the deposit. Ed was feeling a pressure. And also, felt anxious about meeting Laura for a restaurant meal the next day. Just the two together, Elaine staying with her Dad. Luara was doubtful about Ed. She knew she didn’t have sex on her mind, though she also knew Ed was sexy. But what was he to her? She gave an appearance of disinterest but gave in to persuasion from Maryam. As always, Ed felt the impact of Laura’s disinterested expression.

They coincided, both being exactly on time at the restaurant. In fact, the more anxious he was the more he retreated into silence. But encouraged a little by Sandy, he knew that he should show an interest, he should ask questions of her that were not too nosey – about her feelings, or her wealth, or her disappointments, or her private hopes. Just matter-of-fact questions. He should make her feel good, admired, attractive, exceptional.

Ed had a decision he had never encountered before. She sat opposite him in the restaurant on the date that was making both of them nervous. “I never got involved in what they were up to. It is not my thing, you know.” He was speaking to Laura’s rather empty face. She was staring over his shoulder because beyond she could see the moon through the restaurant window. Coming to Liverpool meant taking up some relationship with Laura, and her baby, and perhaps giving her more babies. It was a big decision for a careful man who had always let life shape itself without his decisions. He had tended to just go from one plastering job to the next. “What’s it like being rich?”

She focused back on Ed, “It’s easy. But it doesn’t make you happy.” 

He didn’t follow that up. And just said, “Yeah, I suppose.” But his own hand-to-mouth existence, didn’t really fit with what she said. Being free of debts and banks and bosses and so on seemed as if it might be the very thing to make his life a happier one. The offer of going to some sort of house with these others who’d look after the money seemed to offer the big attraction to someone like Ed. Well, that and the staggering possibility of a woman like Laura. She was well out of the prossie-class he was used to.

The evening did not seem to be going too well. They seemed occupied with other things but were both wondering how the evening would end. To his credit, Ed remembered Sandy’s advice – ‘just tell her nice things’. The problem was first what were the nice things, and second how to slip them into an ordinary conversation. “Do you really want to go to Liverpool. Laura?”

“Liverpool? No. But I need friends.”

“You’re in love. They all say so.”

She shook her head, “Don’t know if I still am.” She was looking more interested now and engaged with Ed’s question. It was hard to tell if he was really interested in her. “I was. But he’s been a bastard to me.” And she commented, immediately, “That’s a strong word for me to use ‘bastard’.”

“He gave you a baby.”

She looked him in the eye, “You’re right.” She was thinking for a moment. “I’m a bit confused, aren’t I? He was a bastard because he pitied me. But he changed my life by giving me a baby when I asked. He’s made me everything.” She moved her head from side to side as if to convey how amazing it was that she could be changed so much.

He then tried out a compliment, the best he could find. “I’d come to Liverpool with everyone, if you go.”

It was meant to assure her she was important, but instead she looked at him with suspicion, “What?” It was as if she thought he was burdening her with making a decision for both of them. “What does that mean?” After a moment thinking about it, “I keep getting confused. You mean you want to be with me? That’s nice. You’re a good man, Ed. And you’ve got a good body. One can see all the muscles through your shirt.” Then she blushed. And in fact, so did he.

“No-one’s said that to me.” He smiled for the first time that evening. He shifted on his chair like a kid in school who had just got the best mark in the class. She did not smile but stared, still blankly. “Ed, let’s not run too fast. We’ve neither of us really earned to walk very well. If you come, I’d be pleased. You’re a good man, gentle. I don’t know what I feel about you. I’m still tangled with Sandy and I don’t want to be. And now with little Elaine, I have a whole new life. If you want to be with me, I’d like to try it out and see where we get.” 

It was a declaration that let him know where he was with her. But hardly the passion that could have touched his heart. “I’ll come to Liverpool, I think. Just to see how you and I get along. We’re different, aren’t we. You’ve got money, and I’m a labourer.”

Then she did smile, “My labourer.” But then the next course arrived, and the waiter arranged their table. When he went away and their food was in front of them, she waited a moment to say, “This conversation is like a business negotiation. But we’re really trying to be a couple, I guess. After our meal we can go home. We can sleep together. If you want, Ed. We need practice – and its lovely to practice together. Then we can decide tomorrow.”

Ed kept his eyes on his plate as he ate. But it was clear from his movements that for the first time that evening her words were warming for him. He was relaxing. Eventually, “We’ll decide tomorrow. Like you say.”

…..ooooo00000ooooo…..

The Friday group knew that if Sandy and Ed moved off, the three left – Phil, Ronnie and Lord Claude - would hardly remain a viable Friday night’s entertainment for each other. Claude had not said anything, but he had an elderly mother who at the moment did not need care but probably soon would. He kept track of the arrangements, from a distance. There was a general feeling that it was Maryam’s carefree arrival in Sandy’s life that had disrupted everyone .If she hadn’t had her unquestionable allure, she could have been resented as a disruption of their complacent weekly camaraderie. 

Maryam too wondered about the major disruption that resulted from finding her father. She could not have anticipated these various consequences, and she had been overwhelmed, not just by the newness of the experience with Sandy, but by his commitment to her relationship with her Dad as well as to herself. She had never realised that the meaning of life was the intimacy with other people, other special people. Before, as with all these others she was now mixed up with, life had seemed to revolve around money spiced up with sex.

“That’s growing up,” Sandy had said, concurring with her estimation.

“Hmmm. What can happen from a pick-up in a pub? Amazing,” and she cheekily looked into his face as if he was the only other person in the group who were meeting on this Friday evening. Laura was not there, and Maryam enjoyed being the only woman with this group of timid but lecherous men. She enjoyed being on show. And Sandy felt proud to have a showpiece.

In parallel, as the wine did its business, Laura began to show an interest in his life and, with the two glasses of wine she’d ordered for them both, Ed too enjoyed responding to her. It seemed like it was turning into a success. They returned to her house together after their serious restaurant meeting. His quietness led Laura to see the strength in him. To his surprise she could be quite animated when more relaxed and with the fortitude from the wine.

At the end of the meal both became privately pleased to be together; but then rather more tense as they arrived home, worried about retiring for their private intimacy with each other. As arranged, they both anticipated the night together.

“Does a ‘date’ always end in bed together all night? Someone said it’s called a tumble.” Laura, despite her lack of experience was more willing to confide her innocence. Ed had nothing to say to that. So she grabbed his arm and showed him the way to her room.

She tried not to sound nervous as she was not altogether uninterested, “I don’t know what you’re expecting, Ed, but I’m not very experienced at the…. er, sex thing.”

He looked at her surprised, “But you have a baby?”

“Well, yes, I have done it once. Well twice actually.” And without really thinking she added, “How about you?”

His deep embarrassment showed, “Well, not much better.” He was not going to tell her his true experience which was that he had been a few times (when he could afford it) to a prossie who he’d been told about, and he’d just lie on her bed while she serviced him.

She looked relieved and said in a practical voice, “Well we can find out together. Shall we go to bed now? Sandy can keep Elaine for a while. She realised she did not sound romantic about the invitation. “We’ll see how we get along. You and me.”

Ed had no idea what to say. “I’d like it.” And then hesitantly, almost stuttering, “We could try. I’d like to.” So they sat together on the bed. Their tumble was more of a fumble, but they found they had a lot in common – their inexperience. He was increasingly anxious as they undressed assuming she would be expecting a confident, experienced alpha-male. And he was relieved that she seemed unaffected by his diffidence. And she too was relieved that she did not have to cope with a panting hunk. With the wine and the encouragement of their companions, they were a couple enjoying a new curiosity they had always abstained from.

Afterwards, as they lay together, she said in her practical way, “There is an intimacy in inexperience.” She giggled, which was partly the wine, and partly she felt he had not put her on trial. 

Ed responded with a giggle too, and gently held her hand. “That’s a clever thing to say, Laura. You’re an impressive lady.” He realised that when he wanted, it was not too difficult to do as Sandy had advised and to pay compliments whenever they came to mind.

She smiled – instead of the excited giggle. She squeezed his hand too, and then asked the question that was always on her mind. “Do you mind me having a baby already.”

It seemed out of the blue, and as if she was thinking ahead. “Course not.” It was a quick response and could have been either polite or impulsively sincere.

She looked uncertain. “Well, we’ll find out, Ed.” She looked reluctant, “I’ve got to get Elaine. Are you going to stay? Or do you want to get home?”

He had no idea if there was a protocol for this, and just said, “What would you like?”

She was actually uncertain what she would like, but then said practical as usual, “OK, Stay. You might help with Elaine when she wakes up.”

After a couple of hours when Elaine awoke, Laura asked Ed to get the baby from the carrycot, and then she fed her. Elaine returned to sleep and Ed put her back in the cot. Laura felt wide awake and alert in this novel situation. “I liked that,” she said. Ed, half-asleep put out his hand to fondle her breast, almost as the baby had done. She chuckled thinking how her breasts had their admirers. “I always thought that Sandy would be the only man I could sleep with. And it didn’t work with him.”

Still, nearly asleep, He said, “You had a baby.”

She put her hand on his to hold it on her breast. “Perhaps we’ll have a baby.”

Sleepily, he said, “I hope so” suddenly surprising himself and wondered if he really meant it. It woke him up, now. But she snuggled down beside him under the bedclothes. She put her lips on his, as if she was going to go to sleep like that. She was going to move to Liverpool in a few days, and she could almost hope he would come with her. She wasn’t going to ask him, because she wanted him to want to come as his own wish.

Then, habitually, ‘plans’ did not go to plan. Time always takes over and seems to insist on its own plan!

VII - Settled and unsettled

The move was all arranged. But the day before, Maryam went into labour. As usual she was energetic and grateful for all the assistance she needed. Sandy hurried her off to the hospital in a taxi at four o’clock in the morning when the pains got stronger. It was a long labour but then, getting on for midnight, there was the new one, little Grace. Already everyone’s angel. Laura came in to Maryam’s room, and Sandy told Laura she had to take charge of the move, of the carriers, and ensure Shaun was OK. She had to drive the people-carrier that he’d rented (with her money!).

She immediately rang Ed to tell him to take the day off, and the next day too. He replied he couldn’t possibly as there was an urgent plastering job he had to finish. She said, impatiently that she needed him, and he’d better come straight away. She left Maryam, met the removals van, and with care negotiated Shaun into her vehicle. Just as she’d got him settled, Ed arrived.

“Too, late,” she said. “I’ve managed him.”

“Sorry,” he said, minimally.

She closed the house and left some keys with the letting agents to find tenants and checked the long journey they were about to make to the grubby city of Liverpool. Despite her efficient arrangements, she turned to look at Ed and wondered why she was going. And also, Ed had not announced if he would be coming merely to help. Or to be a part of the household. She could have stayed in London, in the wonderful old family house, and take Ed in with her. It was another arrangement she had not considered till this last minute. Could she so easily swap over from Sandy to Ed in the way that seemed to be so easily happening? 

She  resisted asking Ed. She didn’t want to sound as if she needed him. But she also wanted to know what she was facing. She got into the driving seat. Ed was strapping the carrycot into a seat behind, and next to Shaun in his wheelchair. She waited to see what Ed decided. He slid the door shut decisively, as if he was not being invited, looking through the window at her waiting in the driving seat. So in the end she had to say, “Are you coming with us, Ed? Or what?”

He came around to the passenger door and opened it as if he might get in, but said, “Am I coming too?”

Her irritation made her stiff with tension, and she stared straight ahead in the direction she would be driving in a moment. She sounded impatient, as she said, “Come with us, if you want. Or go plastering.”

He hesitated for only a second, and got in. “For Christ’s sake, I’m letting them down at work.” But it did seem obvious to him and to Laura, that she needed help to manage the journey as well as Shaun and the baby.

She began to feel lost as she drove. Lost in her heart because it was reaching in two directions. She didn’t want to discuss things with Ed while Shaun was sitting in the seat behind her. But also, she couldn’t exist in a state of not knowing what Ed wanted, and indeed in a state of not knowing what she wanted.

“You been to Liverpool before Ed?”

“Never.”

“I hadn’t. Not till the other day. We’ve got a nice place.” He did not reply. She had to confront him. “Had you decided about coming, I mean moving with us?” Again, he did not reply. She felt frustrated. “Well, stay overnight.” She was wondering about their sleeping together.

But he said, “I was wondering if I’d get to work tomorrow.”

“I don’t think you will, Ed. You’d better tell them. Anyway, if you’re moving with us, you will have to give up that job anyway.”

He did not reply. Then he looked around at Shaun who was staring blindly at the windscreen. “Are you OK, back there.”

“Yes, quite comfortable. I have to go back to Liverpool. It is home for me. I’ve got a lot of friends. My daughter’s very good to me. Looked after me for months. Are you thinking of moving up here with us?”

Again, he did not answer. “You’ll be pleased to get back, Shaun?”

“Wish I could have stayed to see the little one. They’re going to call it Grace.” He hesitated. “Yes, I can’t do much,” as if knoew he was in the way. “I need my people around me. All I can do is to talk to people.” And he began to talk about Liverpool, all the nice places to visit. “A lot of parks there. And there’s a sandy beach on the other side, over the ferry. You’ll like it.”

“I’ll need a job.”

“There’s the docks, man. What can you do?”

“I’m a builder. A plasterer. I can do most things.”

Laura joined in, “We can start a firm together, decorating and that sort of thing.”

“It’ll be easy for you, young lady. Your Dad left you money, didn’t he? I won’t be leaving  much for my young girl – just a wheelchair. Ha.” He laughed with some spirit. Ed laughed too.

“She won’t need a wheelchair. She’s wild-fire, I can tell you.” Laura laughed to emphasise her description was friendly.

“That she is. Ever since she was so high.,” and he put his hand level with his knee, though neither in the front seats could see his gesture any better than he could. “And now she’s given me a grandchild. A little girl they tell me.”

It took six hours to get there, with a stop, with feeding the baby. But they were still there before the removal van. Laura got the key from the agents, and they wheeled Shaun in. She went into the kitchen to unpack the goods for tea-making. 

“I suppose you can’t get your bearings,” Ed said to Shaun.

“I’ll find my way around – with time. Is it a big flat? I guess it is.”

“It certainly is. You want me to take you round?”

“Come on lad. Yes, show me.”

Laura told Ed where Shaun’s room would be, and Ed began to wheel Shaun around. There was a long corridor. Shaun had the best and largest bedroom with French windows out onto a small patio at the back.

Ed left him there and went back to the kitchen as Laura was busy stirring the tea pot, but said, “Pour out for everyone, I’m going to ring Maryam.” She brushed past him. He touched her on the shoulder, and she quickly looked at him, and smiled. He wondered what it would be like to be together with someone. And she a rich girl. They could start a business together. It was all looking attractive. And their mutual irritation was subsiding. 

Laura found her bag, with her phone and went into the living room.

When he’d delivered the tea to Shaun, he then found her and gave her a cup. She was putting the phone back. She was frowning at him. Matyam’s gone into the operating theatre. She’s still bleeding apparently. I want to go and see her. The baby’s alright. Sandy is doing his head in.”

He looked at his watch to see the time. “It’s five now. We won’t be back till midnight.”

“I must go and see her,” Laura said with increasing alarm

”You can’t leave Shaun here on his own,” Ed said.

“You’ll have to stay.”

“I can’t stay. You know that. I’ll lose my job.”

“You’ll get a job here. When all this….” she looked for the words, “….when we’re all sorted here.” She looked flustered and looked in her bag where she had put the phone. “It’s not just Maryam. It’s Sandy too. He’s upset.” But, she changed her mind. “Actually, I don’t  owe him anything.” Why shouldn’t she stay with Ed? “OK, sorry. Let’s stay. I’ll calm down.” She looked at Ed, “I was so frightened when I was having Elaine.” She looked at the quiet cot on the table. “Sorry, Ed. Let’s stay and get settled and wait for them. She’ll be alright, won’t she?” He nodded at her. “Come on, Ed, we’ll have a cup of tea.” And she took a sip. She took Elaine from the cot and sat in an uncomfortable-looking armchair with her baby on her lap to relax. 

Ed looked puzzled and said he’d go and get the bags in from their van. As he brought them in, Laura began feeding Elaine. When he’d finished with the bags, he came back. pushing Shaun and they all sat sipping cups of tea. It felt strange; they were all partial strangers to each other. Shaun asked Laura if she could get Maryam or Sandy on the phone, and she dialled the number giving him the phone. He spoke quietly and listened. “She’s OK now,” and he smiled at whoever was there. “She’s going to be called Grace.” And he smiled again. “Grace Mary,” and gave the phone back. “My granddaughter,” he said proudly. “I never thought that would happen.”

Ed looked at Laura in the silence. She looked at him and blew him a kiss that Shaun would not see. She seemed unusually relaxed now she’d decided Ed would stay with her. The baby was getting restless and wanted to go back to sleep after the brief feed. She mimed with her lips ’I love you’. He went pink and mimed the same back to her. She said, “After that driving, I need to go and have a nap on the bed. She stood up with the baby, but beckoned to Ed.

Ed stood saying, “I’ll come and make the bed up.” Then he turned to Shaun, “Are you OK, Shaun. You want to phone your friends?”

“It’s OK young man. I’ve got my own phone in my room. I can talk to it. Just get me back there. I’ll learn the way soon. Just push me and tell me the corners.”

When Ed came into the bedroom with Laura, she held the sleeping baby out to him. “You can be Dad, for a minute.” He held the baby close and gently. He remembered his baby brother born when he was six, And Laura made the bed, fetching one of the bags from where he’d piled them. “I need to lie down. And you can lie next to me.” He fetched the cot from the main room to put the baby in and lay down on the bed too. They stretched out straight beside each other. She put her hand out and laid it on his tummy. She grabbed his trousers as if it might be a lifeline. He did not move. “You’re going to be good to me, Ed – all our lives. We’ll have our own baby, and you can be a real Dad. You like holding little Elaine. You’ll be a good Dad.” He said nothing in his usual awkward way. But they seemed to be establishing a connection, however diverse they were in their attitudes and background. This new flat now seemed to be their place, a place together – for them. And Elaine. At that moment lying next to her, he and Elaine had become a couple. For both it had been a difficult and unspoken negotiation to establish real commitment. 

Laura went right off to sleep. But Ed lay awake for about twenty minutes and then got up silently to go and deal with the baggage. He took Shaun’s things into his room, and described the room, where everything was, and what he was putting where. Shaun told him to sit down. “Are you two a couple now.”

Ed shrugged his shoulders but realised there was no point in talking to Shaun with his shoulders, “No, we hardly know each other.” Shaun nodded. “She’s thinking we’ll have a baby though!”

Shaun chuckled, “There, like that. Maryam’s mother was keen to start a family. but we only had the one.” Then he enquired, “You know Maryam, I suppose?”

Ed replied with some energy and enthusiasm, “Oh, yes, I’ve met her. She’s great fun.”

“Like her Mum. It’s a long time since I’ve heard from her Mum. I still miss her. Men are born to be with a woman. But it’s not quite the same with them. Women can sometimes prefer each other.” 

Ed was certainly learning some lessons in the last few days. “I don’t know if she and I are going to get together.” He nodded his head to indicate Laura in the bedroom.

“Don’t miss your chance, son. They say she’s got a lot of money. They say we’re all going to settle here, and she’s paying for it.” Shaun spread his hands as if amazed at the generosity.

“I don’t want to be a scrounger.”

“Well, that’s one way of looking at it. But when you’re like me, you can’t help it. And there’s people love to look after you, when I’m, like, in my state.”

“I don’t suppose I’ll be in your state. What happened to you?”

“Fair-ground machinery fell on me. Broke every bone in my body. They said I was lucky to be alive.” And he added with a sort of despondent humour, “Don’t know if that was lucky, not really. You know?” and if he had had his sight, he would have looked knowingly at Ed. Ed said nothing. “It’s good to be back here – I rang one of them in my old care-home, just now. They’ll come round sometime and let some of the others know I’m back.”

Shaun chatted on while Ed listened quietly. He was trying to make up his mind to come and live in Liverpool with this group that clustered round Maryam. Perhaps he had made up his mind but did not know it. Obviously, there was something going with Laura, but could it last? He liked the old man, or the nearly-old man. And he could see how Shaun had friends; he was easy to get on with. Ed had never been good with friends, so he must have been wondering if he could keep it up being surrounded by them all the time. Of course he’d have Laura, but then again wouldn’t she get fed up…. It was indeed a big decision and he’d had so little time to get to know them all. Laura was the big unknown. It was not just her money, but would he be worth it for her? But it was all a jumble in his mind, having appeared so suddenly out of the blue.

Ed began arranging their things around the house again and separating the different things for the various people. He sat down in the living room and rang Sandy.

“She’s OK, Ed. They’re going to keep her two days. Then we can come down, the two of us. I mean the three of us. “How’re you getting on with…. Elaine?” he asked, diplomatically.

“She’s a beauty. I think I like babies. I remember my brother being born.” There was a silence, each waiting. Then Ed went on, “Listen, Sandy. We’ve got all these rooms here. Is there one for me? Or am I supposed to shack up with Laura.”

“Sandy grinned and gave a brief laugh down the phone, “What’ ya mean ‘shack up’ with her?”

“Errr….” but he did not continue.

After a moment, Sandy asked, “You don’t want her? Just be nice to her, tell her what you like about her. That’s the secret. Tell her when she makes you feel good. When you like her.  When you think she’s got nice eyes, or her body or her hair. Whatever you like – be honest though. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, you told me all that.”

“I did, Good you remembered.”

“ But I am confused. I don’t know what I like.”

“Well, does she make you feel good? Does she? Shall I tell you, and then you won’t be confused. Everyone can see you feel good when she’s sitting next to you.”

“So, do I just move into her room with her? Just like that? I’d better ask her.”

“Yes, you ask her, Ed. I’m sure that’s best. And ring me back what she says.”

So Ed did just that. Shortly, he took her another cup of tea in her bedroom, and nervously sat on the bed as she woke and looked at the mug he held in his hand for her. She sat up, and took it, sipped it and looked at him looking enquiringly at her.

“What?” she asked.

“Just a question,” he said questioningly.

“Go on.”

“Do you think I should move in here with you. I mean, erm, permanently?”

She looked back, also questioningly but a bit irritated at his indecision. But then of course did she want him to move in with her; it was all so sudden. “Well, it depends what you want, Ed.” He said nothing. After a painful silence between then, she turned to look at the wall. “OK then, you don’t have to move into this room. There’s plenty of rooms. You can go and try your luck with Maryam, if you want. Good luck to you.”

He moved uncomfortably, “I always thought I didn’t need anyone. But it seems to be changing.”

She took it that he might mean he needed her, so she said, almost impatiently, “What do you need me for then Ed. Tell me.”

He looked into her eyes as she stared back at him. “I liked the way you put my hand on your chest the other day. I liked you putting Elaine into my arms just now. We seem, kind of…. er, united! And I didn’t know that till now.” 

“OK,” she seemed to feel she had to be careful, as if he would be easy to scare away like a frightened bird. She never felt she had power in her hands, especially when with a man. “Let’s see, if you asked me what I like about you, You’ve got a great body. Strong muscles. You, kinda fill me up when we are next to each other. I  wanted you next to me when we lay down.” He was staring at her, amazed, terrified, relieved, elated…. ? He didn’t know. He said nothing.” I love it that you’re so shy, It makes me want to make you comfortable. And I will.” She could never have had this conversation with Sandy. She knew she was enjoying the difference. “I’m as shy as you, Ed. We have a job to do for each other – we’ve got to make each other comfortable. Do you understand? Perhaps we can make each other feel good, what do you think?” He put his hand gently onto her breast. She looked down at it. “Do you like my breast?”

“Do you like bits of me?” he asked. And she put her hand to touch his groin. They moved together and hugged and slowly lay back on the bed together. “I’ve never been with a woman like you before.”

She look at him, “You told me the other day, you’d never had a woman before.”

He knew he had, and now he’d given himself away. Perhaps he wanted to be completely open with this one. “I’ve paid for it a few times,” he mumbled, “It never meant anything.”

She sat up, “Paid for it? What?” She was shocked. Her moral streak had suddenly twitched and sent her rigid. “It never meant anything?” she exclaimed in loud syllables. “Really?” She realised Shaun down the corridor might be able to hear her. She collected herself. “Hmm….” She had so many thoughts crowding in. She chose the best. “You must be quite a stud if you can do it with strangers.” She realised to her surprise she was impressed if he could perform ‘in cold blood’ as it were. “I’m impressed. Get those trousers off and show me what you do to them.”

Poor Ed was completely at a loss. He knew she only imagined what he did, and that it was complete imagination. But he did feel excited by her crude talk. So he took his trousers off, and he did have a thoroughly useable implement. Perhaps instinct took over. He pushed her back on the bed, spread her arms out to the side, put his knee between her thighs and spread them. And he took his pleasure. It was deep, for him, and he took no notice of what she wanted as she called out, ‘faster, deeper’ etc. He was exhausted but recovered himself.

“There, she said, and you didn’t even have to pay for it.” And she laughed. But he didn’t. He felt exhilarated. And ashamed as if he had used her like a prossie.

“Sorry,” he said. 

“Don’t be silly,” she replied. “A bit later, when you’re ready you can do me gently. With love.” She was astonished at how much had changed between them. “That was fantastic. When will you be ready again. You were like a cruise missile. Won’t you need to recharge again. Tell me when you’re ready. Because you owe me; and I want mine.”

“OK, OK.” He put up his hands to say he understood her need for him. It had never been like this. Even the other day when they had done it for the first time.

“I can’t wait for the next one. When you’ll be ready. When will you be ready. I thought men went to sleep after and were useless for anything for a while.”

“Well, not quite.” He was pleased. And she seemed like an eager kid. But then, they were both kids when it came to this. “We can try again if you want.”

“Right,” and she looked at his limp used member.

“You’ll have to play with it,” he advised, neutrally.

“What do you mean ‘play with it’?!”

So they spent a long, slow time swapping the energy for kindness, and the force for affection.

Afterwards they lay back silent next to each other. She began to say something. “Quiet,” he said.

“No, Shaun may need something.”

“Stay,” he said and put his arm across her body as if a barrier.

“Elaine too, she will be needing something.”

“Not yet. She’s not crying/ This is our time, Laura. Laura’s time, and Ed’s time.”

She relaxed, “Us time?” she said as if wondering what that was. After a minute or so she said, quite relaxed. “You know just now, the first time we did it, I felt so powerful. I know you did all the strength. But it seems so powerful that you wanted me so much. That I could be the thing that made you so powerful. I always thought we were so powerless.” She meant women. “Perhaps we are sometimes.”

“But not all the time, Laura.” And he said slightly bitterly, “Men can be your playthings.”

She didn’t reply. That was certainly not true all the time. “I was brought up in a nouveau riche family. You know what that is.” He nodded. “It was all perfect politeness. On the surface. But underneath there was vicious competition. Only one person wins a competition. I went to university and studied all that. It was sociology. Social mobility was thought to be good. I was brought up in all that. I am just trying to discover who I am apart from all that good-mannered politeness and all that hidden competition.”

“Sounds interesting,” he said politely, but he did get a glimmer of what she meant. He’d left school with no qualifications. There had been no mobility in his family. Perhaps she’d teach him it all.

But then she got off the bed, dressed and went to check on her dependents in the correct way. She was just making Shaun a cup-of tea when the doorbell rang, and two of his friends marched in. They looked around the hallway and corridor and seemed to approve of the premises. She showed them where to find him and added cups of tea for them. Then she took the cot back to Ed, undressed and lay down next to his naked body again.

            “Thanks, mate,” she said in a very poor imitation of a London working-class accent. She laughed. But he did not.

            “You’re a posh toff, and I’m a pair of workman’s hands. Could we ever unite?”

            “We have united,” she said quickly and anxiously. Was he retreating as he always seemed to? He sighed. “We’ve had good sex. And so far as I could see, it was more than sex. Was it just like your sex-for-money women. Or was it more between us.”

            “Of course it was more,” he said impatiently. “It’s losing it one day, I may lose it, lose you. Sooner or later, that’s what counts.”

            “Yes, I know. There was a boy at college. I thought he wanted me, but he didn’t.” She paused a moment. “In fact, he told me exactly why. My tits were too small for him.”

            “Silly bastard.”

            “Fancy telling me that. I spent years thinking there was something really wrong with me, much more than my tits. I thought that must be just an excuse. I thought Sandy must have seen the same fault, and even when I had his baby, he didn’t want me.”

            “People find excuses.”

            “So don’t make up excuses, Ed. Tell me what’s really wrong with me.” He shrugged as he lay there. “Go on, tell me. Why couldn’t you make a go of it with me.”

            “Oh, for god sake, Laura, it’s not you. It’s me. I’m a failure at everything, just a grubby bloke off a building site. Why would a rich lady want me.”

            “We’ve just had two goes at finding out. Haven’t we?”

            “OK, it was  fantastic Laura. No argument there. But how long will that last.”

            “It wasn’t just animals, Ed. We were real people. For the first time in our lives. For both of us probably. I wasn’t just a prostitute down the road, a ‘convenience store’ they call it sometimes don’t they. It wasn’t just that – at least for me.”

            “Ok, I’m giving you a bad time.”

            “You’re building a brick wall, Ed.”  He thought about that. “For safety, isn’t it? Be braver. I need you to be braver. There I have said it. I need you. And always will.”

So he did stay, and just never went back to London and the job there. 

…..ooooo00000ooooo…..

A few days later, Maryam was better, filled with a pint or two of someone’s blood, and antibiotics. And eventually the three of them travelled gently by train. Ed met them at Liverpool Central with the people-carrier and brought them to the new flat. 

Two babies, a blind grandad and two couples in love. It was a complete group that now aimed to go forward, with their complexities and simplicities between them. The great leap forward for them now needed to be accomplished. And in fact, Maryam as she stood possessively inside the door of their domain realised that she had done so little to advance her own project of discovery. She now thought to herself, she must resume that search. She was, she knew, kind of pining. Was it impossible to trace her mother, even if she had sunk back hidden in the unknown crowds of Egypt.

Maryam had emerged gingerly from the van with her sore bottom and with her Grace Mary. Ed held the door and Sandy helped like a devoted footman. Laura watched from the window of the front bedroom, which she had decided was her right to choose. Her feelings were somewhat mixed. No, she told herself she could only welcome the wondrous woman. Maryam was for sure the hub around which the whole group formed. No bad feeling would occur between them. Despite Maryam’s entrancing qualities, Laura also knew that the group formed itself only by having a gelling agent, and that gel that formed them was her money. She was pleased it could be so, because keeping it to herself seemed to mean little. She would always keep these private thoughts private to herself. Like Ed’s smile which hid his neediness, she would keep to herself how much she knew they all needed her. It was like having a tribe of little children, little Elaines, clustering at her feet. She went down the stairs with her baby to meet Maryam. 

            They embraced so far as it was possible each with a tiny ‘precious’ in their arms. Grace was the newest member of their tribe. Being early out of her Mum she was thin and stringy, and being so new, she made Elaine seem a round, chubby darling of two months or so. Maryam looked around again at the house they had found. They gathered in Shaun’s bog room as Sandy brought in the bags and Ed moved the van to a parking bay. It seemed like her arrival had become the yeast in the dough. She kissed her father on the forehead as he sat engrossed in the noisy disturbance around him. Ed as always was at the back of the circle around Shaun. He watched impassively as if he was perpetually looking in on things through a window from outside. Laura edged toward him and pressed her Elaine between Ed and herself. He looked at the arrangement without responding. Shaun was speaking into the room, welcoming his daughter ‘home’, and praising her shamelessly above all others there. In his blindness she was the only one there. They watched her put the new Grace gently on his lap. At first, he wondered what the bundle was and then with a whoop of joy he knew who it was.

            As soon as he had known when the train would get them to Liverpool, Shaun had rung his two best friends to tell them to come and enjoy the reunion with his daughter, and his granddaughter. So in a moment the doorbell rang as they arrived and came into the room. This was Gordon and Donald. As Shaun announced to everyone, especially to Maryam and Sandy, this was Don-Don as he laughingly always called them. Their names linked them up together as they so often linked themselves together and went wherever each other went. There was laughter all around the room, a continuous laughter even when there was no explicit joking. Laura turned to Ed and told him to come with her to the kitchen where she would make the ever-ready ceremonial cups-of-tea, Ed to hold the wriggling baby, and she to boil the kettle. She brought in the tray of brew. The room seemed full of a crowd as seven fitted into the sparce area around the figures of Shaun and Maryam.

            Sandy called out, above the laughing moment, “This will be our champagne,” and he lifted his mug of tea to his lips. And everyone did the same. “This is our completeness,” he shouted although by then everyone was quiet and listening to him. “Shaun is our centre, our totem, our tribal mascot.” And all the laughing broke out again.

            Then Shaun took up the ceremonial joy, “You done me proud. Every one of you. You’ve buried me at the centre of where my life is. I have never seen Liverpool, and I am not seeing it now. And though I can’t see all of you, you are all alive in my eyes.” He fingered his remote-control and the chair slewed around to face all the angles of the room. Maryam kissed him again on his lips and came over to Laura and kissed her too. “It is us who have created Shaun’s tribe. Thank you, Laura, thank you. And thank you everyone for belonging to what we all now belong to.” She was declaiming as if there were a crowd of a thousand. The baby Grace was bouncing up and down in Maryam’s arms as her body emphasised all the words Maryam was declaiming.

            Ed’s head, with his smile, was slowly shaking as if to refute this occasion of joy. He stepped forward to the centre beside the wheelchair to say. “I am the newest boy in the class. I will try to belong when you want me.” It silenced everyone as if there was uncertainty whether his announcement was acclaim or disdain. 

Sandy said, hopefully perhaps, “We are all one at this moment.”

            “I have to go and lie down for a bit. It’s been a tiring day travelling,” And Maryam left the room with Grace. Ed and Laura cleared the mugs to the kitchen and Sandy went to accompany Maryam. Shaun was left with his Don-Dons, and if one listened one could hear laughter come from Shaun’s front room for the next hour till his friends left.

…..oooooo00000ooooo…..

“We did find her, Dad. Incredible. There wasn’t much hope we would. But we did. Find her. There’s six million or something there, in Alexandria. It was the address that got us there. And Jamila. She was happy to come with us. It was a free trip back for her.”

            Sandy and Maryam had stretched the bond between them to an elastic tension. Maryam, demanding to make her search of Egypt, and Sandy feeling all the time the need to ‘rescue’ Grace from the over-eager (even desperate) demands of Maryam. Shaun had kept out of it, but sided, in his own mind, with Sandy and the little baby’s needs.

Maryam had insisted, simply by persuading Laura to fund three tickets, md then she booked them. At three months Grace did not need a ticket of course, but she and Sandy and Jemima did. Sandy had then had to accept that the baby aged three months could manage the trip – with three adults to look after her. And Maryam had judged this timescale reasonably well. Grace breast-fed well, and was well attached with her mother, also feeding well, and so on. With only a few sleepless nights Grace did accept the trip, too.

After they got back from this successful trip Sandy was concerned about their business project, the new co-op and getting the system right. However, he looked on quietly as Maryam excitedly talked to Shaun. They had found Jamila at the Mosque. She was a well-educated young woman in her twenties with a British identity, but she obviously felt very identified with the Muslem community and with North Africa from where her grandparents had come. She was very pleased to accept their offer to take her with them, and she taught them some words of Arabic, although they hardly used them and left the translating to her. Starting with the address of Maryam’s family where Shaun had stayed, there was sufficient stability in the local community where memories went back a long way. 

            Amal, as she was known back home in Alexandria, had lived for a while with her second husband and given him two children. They had met the children who knew where their mother was but would not give the address. But they did say that if Shaun wished to write to her, they’d pass on any letters he sent them.

            Shaun seemed cautious, “Amal!” After they’d finished telling him, he was hesitant and silent. “Amal? It seems so long ago. We all called her Monica when we got back here.” And he was silent again for a while, “The last words she said when she left me on the station concourse were, ‘I’ll be back’ but she wasn’t.”

            “Let’s send her a sound message which we can record. She knows you can’t write. “What shall we say Dad?” Maryam’s eagerness did not seem to enthuse Shaun. “Come on, Dad,” Her enthusiasm was not abated by his silent hesitation.

            “Later, my daughter, give me a while. Give me a chance.”

            “OK, Dad. Love you.” She gave him a quick peck on his cheek, to his surprise. Dad, I love, you. And I need you. Her – I just need her. She dumped us; so I don’t love her.” Maryam was moving away from him to leave him in peace.

            “She needed her own life. Monica didn’t need this wheelchair hanging on to her the whole time.” He sounded sad.

            Maryam moved back to stand in front of him. “But she just left you on that station platform. Just like that.”

            He hesitated, “It was the best solution to get me looked after properly,” he said quietly and thoughtfully. The social services didn’t give me anything while I had a carer. Only when I was abandoned. She was probably right to do it that way.”

            “But….” But Maryam was lost for words.

            “At the time, if I‘d been able, I might have jumped under one of the trains. If I’d thought of it – and been able.” He chuckled to show he was a happier man now. She gave him another kiss on the cheek. “I’ve got a proper carer now.” And he said it in a more lively, happy tone, “Go on, go and have your own life. Come back this afternoon with a recorder or something when I’ve had a chance to think.”

            So later, she came back with her smartphone and some scrap-paper for notes. Eventually, they recorded:

Dear Amal: This is Monica’s old and crippled husband, and [Maryam took over] and Monica’s daughter, Mary. [Together] Hallo, Amal, dear. [Back to Shaun] I was found about a year ago by our wonderful daughter who is sitting beside me now. Me, still in a wheelchair as you can imagine and running through all the memories I have kept of you and us and our beautiful baby.

            [Maryam] Mum, I needed you. I need you to know some things. I need you to know, I am thirty now, and in my hands I have your grand-daughter – who is about thirty days old now. She is called Grace because she is the most gracious beauty anyone has ever seen.

            [Shaun] I know you are a different woman in a different place, in a different life, now. But that old life we had long ago is still a part of me today. And I know it may hurt, but it is still a part of you and your present life. We are both fortunate to have had it, even if it can never be lived again. And now we have a new life that our Maryam/Mary has given us.

            [Maryam] Mum, did you know that I came over to Egypt with our little Grace to show her to you. I needed you to see her. But my lovely sisters said you couldn’t come to meet us. But they agreed to send on messages to you – so here is one.

            [Shaun] I have done something wonderful, Amal. I have stayed alive in spite of my condition. It has not worsened, and I have not worsened. And I can say I absolutely understand your need to go and find your own life again. I agree completely with what you did. And Our Maryam (that’s Mary) has done something wonderful and given you a granddaughter. So our message is this; we will read it together:

            [Together] We are both successes in our different ways, and we have found each other, and can feel successful together. And now we have found you to bring into this family union however far away we are from each other. Only one more link in the chain exists, and that is Sandy, the Englishman who is little Grace’s father and Maryam’s proud partner. Please tell us you have received this – we need to feel your presence in this world around us.

Maryam and Shaun and the others in his room began to clap – Sandy and Ed and Laura. Maryam switched off the recording app. Ed was handed the smartphone to take a picture of each person including little Grace. And then a photo of all four of the family together.

            There was a silence in the room, and everyone was still, as if willing Amal to hear their voices through the ether, and to see their pictures.

…..ooooo00000ooooo…..

They had a plan they could develop, and Laura’s embarrassingly productive capital investments. Maryam recovered something of her mother – not everything but she had hopes that there might be a little more coming. Shaun had his friends from time to time and he gave his warm attention as far as he could to all those who provided the surrounding support that kept him alive. Laura was volunteered to begin their search for the property that would be the extension to the care-home facility; they’d keep up the cooperative experiment. And Ed offered his services as advisor on building works. Sandy got up early to write in peace his articles for the intellectual press. And the two babies began their long journey towards fulfilling their lives. The whole group decided things together; and they joined the overarching International Cooperative Alliance.

            Sandy had formed them, and Maryam led them and Shaun blessed them.