Dolphin-san: Oh I had the most horrible test today in college. Questions like what is health and how does the environment effect a child's development. I'm sure I failed. But anyway, I came home with this idea, so I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 14

Max had known he was making a big mistake when he phoned his mother the night before. But some things – no matter how much you didn't want them to – had to be done.

'What do you mean, he's left you?' Judy Mizuhara had barked when he had finally managed to stammer out the words. 'Max, don't be ridiculous, is this your idea of a joke? Why on earth would Hiro want to leave you?'

Quailing in the face of his mother's wrath, Max had promptly chickened out of telling her about the baby. Instead he had mumbled something about not getting on and things not working out.

'My God, that boy has a nerve! You just wait until I get my hands on him, I'll make him realise –'

'Mum, please, there's nothing you can do,' Max had begged. 'He's gone. It's not the end of the world. Marriages break up all the time.'

'Not in our family they don't,' his mother had grimly replied. 'Never before in our family.'

'Well, one has now.'

'You give up to easily, my boy. You always have.'

'Oh, for heaven's sake,' Max had yelled, exasperated, 'what was I supposed to do, tie him up and lock him in the broom cupboard?'

'Now you're just being absurd. There are ways and means, Max. If you want to keep your husband there are always ways and means.'

His mother had sounded almost crosser with him than she was with Hiro.

That had been last night. And now it was about to get worse.

As he rounded the corner, Max saw the familiar outline of his mother standing on the pavement outside his flat.

'Mum, you didn't have to do this. Truly, I'm fine.'

'You've put on weight.'

No kiss, no reassuring hug, thought Max. No words of comfort either.

Oh well, no change there.

'A bit.' He sucked in as much of his stomach as he could.

'Come on then, where's your key? Three hours on the coach, this trip's taken. You can make a cup of tea before we get down to business.'

'What business?' Fumbling, Max fitted the key in the lock. The flat wasn't hideously untidy, but his mother wouldn't be impressed when she spotted last night's saucepans still lounging in the sink.

'Hiro, of course.'

'But –'

'Don't even try and talk me out of it, Max. That lad stood up in church and made public vows. Marriage is for life,' she wagged a terrifying finger at her son, 'not for as long as it suits him. He needs to be reminded of that,' she announced ominously. 'And if you won't do it, I will.'

After a long day at work, Max was exhausted. To give himself a bit of breathing space, he went on ahead to the kitchen.

'I'll make that pot of tea. If you're staying the night, you can have my bed and I'll sleep on the sofa.' Since his mother was carrying a small suitcase, he guessed this was the plan. 'But you aren't going to be able to lecture Hiro about his wedding vows,' he called over his shoulder – quite bravely for him – 'because he isn't here.'

'We aren't all as useless as you,' his mother retorted. 'I'm going to pay him a visit, aren't I?'

Startled, Max looked around. His mother was standing in the kitchen doorway like Wyatt Earp in a crimplene shift, brandishing a notebook in one hand and a biro in the other.

'You can't do that!'

'Just give me his address.'

'I don't have it.'

'Don't be ridiculous.'

'I'm not,' Max lied, his palms beginning to sweat. 'I don't know where he is.'

He did. Word had filtered through the local grapevine that Hiro had moved in with Adrian, but he'd had enough pride not to contact him.

Largely because there was no point.

And if there was anything more publicly humiliating, thought Max, than turning up on the doorstep of the husband who'd dumped you, begging him to change his mind and come back . . . well, it was having your mother do it for you.

'I can always tell when you're lying,' said Judy Mizuhara. 'Of course you know where he is.'

Max's hands shook as he poured boiling water into the sugar bowl. Oh God, how much more of this could he take?

'Mum, Hiro's gone. He didn't tell me where. I haven't seen or spoken to him for two weeks. Now why don't you stop interrogating me, put your pen away and just go and unpack?'

For a woman who wore Hush Puppies, Judy Mizuhara could certainly stomp her feet. Taking a deep breath, Max managed this time to fill the teapot. He was emptying the sugar bowl down the sink when the stomping grew louder. The floor began to quiver.

Oh, for heaven's sake, thought Max wearily, what now? It was like something out of Jurassic Park.

The split second before he turned around, he guessed.

But since there was no chance of escape – not even through the tiny kitchen window, which would never accommodate his hips now – he turned anyway.

His mother was doing that Wyatt Earp thing again. Only this time she was clutching a copy of the paperback Max had been reading last night in bed.

Miriam Stoppard's Book of Pregnancy and Birth.

At that moment Max quite envied Hiro. He wished he'd never given his mother his adderss.

'Oh yes.' Bracing himself, he mumbled, 'I forgot to mention it. I'm expecting a baby.'

Judy Mizuhara's face went purple, then white, then purple again.

Finally, she thundered, 'Whose?'

It took Judy no time at all to dins out where her runaway son-in-law was now living.

Thirty seconds to look up the number of his insurance company in Max's Yellow Pages.

Another thirty seconds to learn that Hiro had left the office early.

Forty-five seconds to inform his startled secretary that it was imperative – yes, imperative – that she be given his new address. 'I don't care what your company policy is. My name is Dr Blake and I'm calling from St Thomas's Hospital. I need to speak to Hiro Granger regarding a matter of extreme urgency.'

At the other end of the sitting room, cringing on the sofa, it occurred to Max that his mother had been watching too many episodes of HettyWainthropp Investigates.

When it came to intimidation, Patricia Routledge had nothing on her.

'There.' Judy hung up the phone and stuck the address under her son's nose. 'You could have done that.'

Max watched her grimly shove her arms back into her sensible navy mac.

'Oh no, you can't do this.'

'Watch me.'

'It'll just make things worse!'

The look his mother gave him was loaded with contempt.

'You're pregnant. He's abandoned you. How much worse can it get?'

He's not here.' Warily, Adrian clutched the towel around his hips. He dimly remembered Max's furious mother from the wedding, when she had told him in no uncertain terms to stop dancing on the tables.

'You mean he's hiding upstairs, too frightened to face me? Tell Hiro his mother-in-law is here to see him and I'm not moving from this spot until I do.'

'But he isn't, I swear! You just missed him,' Adrian insisted. 'He left five minutes ago. You can search the house if you like.'

Judy Mizuhara eyed the stranger before her with distaste. If Hiro wasn't there, she wasn't about to put herself at risk by entering a house with a naked man in it.

'What time will he be back?'

This, Adrian thought fleetingly, rather depended on whether or not Hiro got lucky with whoever he was seeing tonight. But since Max's battleaxe of a mother wasn't likely to appreciate this information, he said, 'I don't know. Probably not too late.'

Just as well he was going out himself. He didn't envy Hiro one bit.

Before leaving the house an hour later, Adrian wrote a note on the back of a gas bill and propped it up in full view on the kitchen table.

Poor Hiro, the least he could do was warn him that his mother-in-law was in town and on the loose.

At the end of the road, not taking any chances, Judy Mizuhara lurked behind a postbox. She watched Hiro's friend let himself out of the house and head up the road in the opposite direction.

No sign of Hiro.

She rang the doorbell again, to check. Still no reply.

Never mind, she was in no hurry.

Grimly Judy thought, I can wait.

It wasn't a terrible anti-climax. Ray had been petrified it would be, but it wasn't. When he saw Hiro climb out of his car outside the house – looking even more handsome than he'd remembered – he found himself leaning so far out of his bedroom window that he almost toppled out.

Grinning and waving like some besotted groupie, he yelled, 'I'm coming down. You're early.'

Not very cool, maybe, but who cared?

Certainly not Hiro, who grinned and waved back, and shouted up, 'I couldn't wait.'

He took Ray to Le Vin Rose, an unpretentious candlelit wine bar in Bayswater packed with couples holding hands.

'How's your chest?' said Ray, as Hiro unbuttoned the middle button of his shirt, revealing the scrawl of faded black numbers.

'They won't go. I'm tattooed for life.'

'God, I'm sorry.'

'I'm not.' Smiling, Hiro buttoned himself back up. 'Some people are worth getting tattooed for. Did you tell Bev who you were seeing tonight?'

'I couldn't. She's still suicidal because you didn't ring her. How about you?'

'Oh, I'm not suicidal.'

'Berk. I meant, have you told Adrian yet?'

'No.'

'Every time Bev mentions your name,' Ray blurted out, 'I blush. Honestly, it's mad. I feel so guilty, as if I'm sneaking around with someone who's married.'

'You poor thing.' Hiro took his hand, curling his fingers protectively over Ray's. 'So you've had a terrible day?'

The physical contact sent shivers of pleasure zooming up and down Ray's arm and down his spine. Heavens, it was ages since he'd felt like this.

'Actually, it wasn't that bad. I went for a swim with Bryan Kutsenov in Tabitha Lester's swimming pool. He invited me to a party tonight but I ad to turn him down because I was seeing you. Still, he was okay about it.' He shrugged, flicking his blue-tipped fringe out of his eyes. 'He took it pretty well, in fact.'

'Same here,' Hiro confided. 'I had Madonna in the office this morning, pestering me to take her out to dinner tonight. Had to call security in the end to get rid of her. No, Madonna, I kept telling her, I can't see you this evening. I've already arranged to meet Ray.'

Having opened his mouth to say yes, but Hiro was joking and he wasn't, Ray promptly shut it again. Boasting wasn't an attractive quality. Besides, what if Bryan Kutsenov did contact him? Much as he liked Hiro, it was very early days. Being brutally honest here, if Bryan rang the salon and invited him out again – and this time he happened to be free – well, he'd be out of there like a shot.

Instead, Ray said gravely, 'Thank you. I'm so glad you chose me.'

'So am I. Glad you chose me, I mean. You wouldn't want to get involved with Bryan Kutsenov anyway,' Hiro assured Ray. 'You can't trust blokes like that, they'd mess you around no end.'

'Oh, I know.'

'He's seeing Daisy Schofield,' Hiro went on. 'There was a picture of them together in the paper this morning.'

Ray took a gulp of wine. He nodded sagely over the rim of his glass.

'I saw it too.'

An hour later, Ray's stomach began to rumble noisily. Too nervous to eat earlier, he was now starving.

'I've booked a table at L'Etoile,' said Hiro, 'for nine thirty.'

'You always say just the right thing.' Ray could've kissed him. This was a definite step up from warm beer and soggy pizza.

Not that he was mercenary, but it showed he cared, Ray thought hastily, hugging himself as he watched Hiro make his way over to the bar to settle their bill. In fact, the evening was going so well, he wouldn't care if pizza was all he ate.

I've met someone I really like, he thought joyfully, and he really likes me too.

'Damn.' Hiro was back, frowning. 'My credit cards expired.'

'Oh!' Ray reached for his wallet. 'I've got some money here somewhere . . .'

'It's okay, I had enough cash on me to pay the bill.' He motioned Ray to put his wallet away. 'It just means a bit of a detour. The new card's at home. I need to pick it up before we head to the restaurant.'

Dolphin-san: Yay, Max has made an appearance again! I just love his mother. And what a jerk Hiro is, not telling Ray that he is actually married, right? Anyway, mina, review as always please?

Ja Ne .