Chapter 53
'You make the best mashed potato in the world,' said Ray. The candles flickered romantically in the centre of the table, lighting up his eyes. 'Will you marry me?'
'Do the washing-up and I might consider it,' Max told him. He watched Ray dig enthusiastically into the tureen of extra-peppery, extra-buttery mashed potato and pile a third helping on to his plate. 'Actually, there's a favour I've been wanting to ask you.'
'Don't tell me.' Ray held up his free hand. 'Let me guess. Takao can't cut hair to save his life and you want me to do it for you from now on.'
'Um, no.'
From across the dining table, Florence chimed in with: 'My son is unbearable to work with and you'd like Ray to march into his shop tomorrow morning and fire a poison dart into his neck.'
'Not that either.'
'Hang on, I've got it,' Ray crowed triumphantly. 'You want me to ask Kai if he'd make a fly-on-the-wall documentary about you having the baby! You want him to film the birth so we can all watch you, panting like an animal, yelling your head off and flashing your bare bottom to an audience of millions.'
Florence was laughing so hard she almost choked on a piece of beef. Ray leaned across and patted her on the back.
Max, smiling at them both, said, 'Well, you're getting closer.'
Florence began to choke again.
'Not seriously,' said Ray, appalled. 'You can't want it to be filmed. Not . . .' he flapped his hands, in revulsion, in the general region of his own groin, '. . . oh, surely not!'
'Of course I don't want to be filmed.' Max put down his knife and fork. 'But I'd like you to be there with me.'
'Be where?'
'At the hospital. While I'm doing the panting and yelling bit.' He looked hopefully at Ray. 'I'm supposed to have a designated birth partner, you see. They keep asking me at the hospital if I've chosen anyone yet. And . . . well, if you're happy to be involved, I'd really like it to be you.'
Ray stared at Max, dumbfounded.
All that blood.
And awful stuff gushing everywhere.
Agonising screams of pain.
That hideous disinfectanty smell that hospitals have.
The sight of needles . . .
The very real likelihood of fainting during a grisly bit and crashing to the ground, sending all the sterile instrument trolleys flying and probably fracturing his own skull into the bargain.
'Of course I'll do it. I'd love to be your birth partner,' said Ray.
'Will you? Really?' Reaching over Max clasped Ray's hand and squeezed it with delight. 'Oh, thank you! I'm so glad.'
'Me too,' Ray fibbed. Touched and flattered, maybe. Squeamish, definitely. But glad? Not really.
Oh well. Florence raised a knowing eyebrow as soon as Max had disappeared into the kitchen to fetch the blackberry tart.
'Liar.'
'If he wants me to be there, I'll do it,' Ray whispered back. 'Maybe it won't be so bad after all.'
With wicked relish, Florence murmured, 'What if it's worse?'
Ray shrugged. He had to be brave, he couldn't give in.
Basically, when someone does you the honour of asking you to be their birth partner, how can you say no?
KRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKR
The next day, after work, Ray was sitting in the window of a café on Montpelier Street when he saw Kai making his way along the pavement towards him. Without thinking, Ray tapped on the glass.
When he came in, Ray admired his dark suit and deep-red shirt.
'Look at you, all dressed up.'
'Business meeting. I've been holed up all afternoon in offices over in Rutland Gate. Just finished five minutes ago.' Pulling out a chair, Kai ordered a coffee from the pretty waitress, then glanced at his watch. 'What are you doing here anyway? I thought Takao dropped you home from work these days.'
Ray shrugged. 'It wasn't worth going home. I'm meeting Max at the Chelsea and Westminster in half an hour. We're being given a guided tour of the maternity wing.'
Kai leaned back in his chair.
'Well, I can understand it being helpful to Max, but why do you have to go too?'
Bravely, Ray said. 'I'm his birth partner.'
He might have known he couldn't expect to fool Kai, who wasn't taken in fir a minute.
'Oh dear.' Kai looked amused. 'And you can't think of anything worse.'
Ray's resolve – to be strong and cheerful and lie valiantly through his teeth – promptly collapsed. Indignantly he demanded, 'Well, can you?'
Kai started to laugh.
'There are lots of worse things and you know it.' His espresso arrived and he began heaping sugar into the tiny steel cup. 'Come on, birth is a miraculous thing. It's the most moving experience in the world.'
'That's easy for you to say.' Ray gave him a wry look. 'You're not the one Max's asked to be there, are you?'
'But if he did ask me, I'd do it,' said Kai, surprisingly. 'Like a shot.' He held up his hand before Ray could open his mouth. 'And no, don't even think about it. Max wants you to be his birth partner, not me.'
Ray sighed and with his index finger scrawled his initials in the foam of his cappuccino.
'It's not that Ii don't want to be there for Max. I'm just terrified I'll faint or be sick or something. I don't want to ruin his big day.'
Kai smiled and shook his head.
'You won't do that. Once it's all happening, you won't even think about passing out. Seriously,' he reassured Ray in a trust-me voice. 'You'll be fine.'
To his amazement, Ray realised that he was reassured. Not totally. But a bit. Kai had psyched him up, like a boxing coach. Oh yes, he could do it, he could, he really could-
'You'll be an honorary uncle,' Kai told him with a grin. 'Uncle Ray.'
Ray pulled a face. 'Mad Uncle Ray.'
'Don't worry about that. Mad uncles are the only kind to have. Much more fun than the sensible ones.'
'Did you have one?' said Ray, interested.
'When I was a kid? Oh yes. Mad Uncle John. He'd take me on cat-tracking expeditions.'
'Where you would . . . ?'
'Find a cat and follow it. Wherever it went. Up trees, along walls, through gardens-'
'And cat-flaps,' said Ray.
'Mad Uncle John was built like a tank. He wouldn't have fitted through a cat-flap.' Kai was smiling, he clearly had fond memories of his eccentric, tank-sized relative. 'Oh, but he was great. He used to dress up as a pirate. The neighbours thought he was mad.'
Eccentric, outrageous, certainly not run-of-the-mill Uncle John was beginning to remind Ray of someone he knew. He though, so that's why Kai gets on so famously with Florence.
'Okay, I'll do it. When Max's baby's a bit older, I'll take it on adventures and get my bottom stuck in cat-flaps.' Ray was beginning to enjoy himself. 'And we'll go to the circus together, and the pantomime, oh, and ice-skating . . . and I'll be able to read to it, all the stories I used to love when I was little.'
'Which stories did you love when you were little?'
'God, there were loads. The Enchanted Wood,' Ray remembered. 'And all those Laura Ingalls Wilder books. And Flambards, when I was a bit older. Oh, oh, and mt absolute favourite was called Footprints in the Snow.'
Kai frowned. 'I've never heard of that one.'
'My grandmother gave it to me when I was six. It was the copy she'd had when she was a girl, so it must have been ancient. But I read that book over and over.' Picturing the old-fashioned cover with its sellotaped-together spine, Ray recited dreamily, 'Footprints in the Snow, by Racey Helps. It fell to bits in the end, of course. I remember crying when my mum said we had to throw it out.'
Their cups were empty. Kai was smiling at Ray's reminiscences. Ray smiled back at him; this was fun, he could sit here all evening exchanging childhood-
'Hell's bells, what's the time?'
Kai consulted his watch.
'Twenty to seven.'
'I'm meant to be at the hospital by seven!'
Kai stood up.
'My car's just down the road. I'll give you a lift.'
'Typical,' Ray said drily as they sped through the dusty streets to the Chelsea and Westminster. 'I'm so bust telling you what a terrific uncle I'll make that I'm late for my first antenatal class.'
'We'll make it.'
KRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKR
Returning home from work on Saturday evening, Ray pushed open the front door and sent a small, well-wrapped parcel skidding across the polished parquet floor. Bending to retrieve it, he realised that the parcel bore only his name, not his address.
Both Florence and Max were out. In the kitchen Ray took off his jacket and flicked on the kettle. Then, mystified, he began to unwrap the parcel.
When he tore open the last layer of bubble-wrap, a lump came into his throat.
He was six years old again.
Footprints in the Snow by Racey Helps.
It was the cover he knew so well, with Millicent Littlemouse and Nubby Tope sledging down a snow-covered hill on a basket piled high with sticks.
The very same cover, in the same faded green and beige colours. Only this time the spine wasn't held together with yellowing strips of Sellotape.
Opening it with trembling hands, Ray saw the date inside: 1946. Then he read the brief note Kai had tucked between the first pages. It simply said:
Is this the right one? Hope so. Happy reading. K.
Ray blinked hard. What a really, really nice thing to have done for him. How Kai had managed to get a copy of a book that had probably been out of print for the last fifty years, he couldn't begin to imagine.
Smiling idiotically to himself, Ray made a cup of tea and carried the book through tot the sitting room. He had been thinking a lot about Kai during the last couple of days. It had been lovely to bump into him again. They hadn't bickered – well, hardly at all. Kai hadn't brought up the subject of Bryan and he hadn't so much as mentioned Kai's finger-waggling blonde. They had been relaxed in each other's company, at ease with each other in a way Ray had never imagined possible before now.
Amazing, thought Ray.
Amazing, but nice.
He picked up the phone and punched in Kai's number. He answered on the fourth ring.
Ray smiled again. It was even nice just hearing his voice.
'How?' Ray said. 'How? How? How?'
'Are you impressed?'
'Hugely impressed. But you have to tell me how you did it.'
'It was nothing.' Kai sounded modest. 'Just a question of trawling through every second-hand bookshop in the country. Found this one, finally, in a little back street in Newcastle-'
'You didn't!' gasped Ray.
Kai burst out laughing.
'No, of course I didn't.' Fondly he said, 'See? I can still fool you.'
'Oh, ha ha.' Ray, going pink, was just glad Kai couldn't see him.
'If you really want to know, there's a shop on the Charing Cross Road that specialises in tracking down out-of-print books.'
'Well, it was still really kind of you,' said Ray.
'My pleasure. You'll be able to read it to Max's baby when it's older. How did the antenatal class go, by the way?'
'Oh, you know. Not so bad.' Impulsively he added, 'I'd like to thank you properly for the book. Why don't you come over for lunch tomorrow? I'll cook.'
Kai hesitated. Then he added, 'I'd have loved to, but I have to fly to Berlin tomorrow morning.'
Ray knew his cooking wasn't brilliant, but was it really that bad?
'When are you back?'
'Not sure. Mybe a couple of weeks. Well, two or three.'
Oh dear. Ray heard the change in his voice. If that wasn't back-pedalling, he didn't know what was.
Ray's blood ran cold as he realised why. Kai was fine as he was. He was already seeing someone he was perfectly happy with. And now here Ray was, muscling in . . . He was being kind to me, that's all, Ray hurriedly reminded himself. The last thing Kai needs is for me to start making a nuisance of myself, latching on to him like some desperate stray puppy.
'Oh, brilliant! Two or three weeks in Berlin? That's fantastic!' Ray forced himself to sound bright and totally unclingy. 'You'll have the most amazing time! Well better go now, I really just rang to say thanks for the book. You have a great trip, okay? Bye-ee!'
Bye-ee came out as a manic, high pitched shriek.
Mortified, Ray hung up the phone and surveyed his reflection in the gilded mirror above the fireplace.
Oh, well done, Ray. Played a blinder there, didn't you?
You know, don't you, that you sounded completely mad.
Heaven only knows what Kai thinks of you now.
