Chapter 59

'Oh, well hi there! I was beginning to wonder if my deodorant wasn't up to scratch.' Magdalena smiled her trade mark ear-to-ear smile and put down her empty coffee cup. 'Where's Takao?'

No point faffing about. Time to come straight to the point.

'Okay, here's the thing,' said Ray. 'If you were one of those stroppy, scary actresses I'd have made up a really good lie. But since you're so nice, I'm going to tell you the truth.'

Magdalena raised an eyebrow.

'Flattery gets you everywhere. Now I'm far too ashamed to admit that I'm incredibly stroppy and the original bitch from hell.'

Ray pulled up a chair and sat down opposite her.

'Takao isn't here,' he said simply. 'He had to go out, and I know that sounds terrible but it really was an emergency.'

Carefully, Magdalena crossed one slim, stockinged leg over the other.

'I see. So who's going to cut my hair?'

'That's up to you. If you can wait thirty minutes, Corinne will be able to do it for you. She's our senior stylist. Otherwise, I can do it now.'

'And you are?'

'I'm more junior than Corinne,' Ray said truthfully.

'Or there's option three, I could walk out of here and find another salon,' Magdalena pointed out. 'I mean, forgive me, but I do believe you're a trainee.'

'I can cut hair.'

'A chimpanzee can cut hair,' Magdalena said reasonably. 'How do I know you won't leave me looking like a chewed knot?'

Ray blinked.

'I wouldn't, I promise. But if you aren't happy when I've finished, you can shave all my hair off.'

Magdalena's mouth twitched. She hadn't been a star so long that she couldn't remember those impoverished drama student days, when getting her hair done for nothing by a trainee was all she had ever been able to afford. And she'd never come out with a bad cut, had she?

'There's an offer I can't refuse,' she told Ray. 'You've appealed to my sense of adventure. Okay, deal.'

'You won't regret it.' Praying fervently that she wouldn't, Ray stood up and reached for the comb and scissors. 'Anyway, how could you tell I was a trainee?'

'Recognised you from the TV. Last time I was over here I caught you on that programme giving your sandwiches to the homeless guy.' Utterly relaxed, Magdalena sat back and watched in the mirror as Ray worked diligently away. 'Takao Kinomiya salon . . . guy with blue and green hair . . . call it spooky intuition if you like, but I just put two and two together. Okay if I ask you a question now?'

'Go ahead.' Having clipped up the back sections of Magdalena's glossy tortoiseshell-blonde hair, Ray held his tongue between his teeth and began to cut.

'What was the emergency?'

Ray glanced up.

'You mean with Takao?'

'I'm a curious person.' Magdalena apologised. 'It drives me mad not knowing stuff. Back hom I'm a member of Nosy Parkers Anonymous.'

'My pregnant flatmate rang up,' said Ray. 'To tell me that he was in labour in a phone box a few miles away. I wasn't here, so Takao went off to pick him up and take him to hospital. Before the baby pops out, fingers crossed.'

'Or legs,' said Magdalena. 'So he's the father?'

'God, no.' Ray grinned. 'Takao's just . . . helping out.'

Magdalena looked dubious.

'Are you sure?'

'Of course I'm sure!'

'I mean, I don't want to sound big-headed here, but to race off without even stopping to let me know . . . abandoning me in order to help out some unimportant friend-of-an-employee . . . doesn't sound the tiniest bit weird to you?'

'Well, now you put it like that.' Ray frowned, then shook his head. 'But it isn't what you're thinking. Takao isn't the father and they definitely aren't having an affair.'

Magdalena was by this time truly engrossed.

'So who is the father?'

'Ah. Now it starts to get complicated,' said Ray. 'My ex-fiance.'

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It was one of those dilemmas, Max realised, where you can't make up your mind how you feel.

On the one hand, he had never been so glad to see anyone in his life.

On the other, he couldn't help wishing Takao didn't have to see him like this, with his wet trousers sticking attractively to his legs and his shoes making squelching noises with every step. Not to mention the fact that he appeared to walking like John Wayne.

Elegant or what?

'Nearly there,' said Takao, both arms supporting Max as he helped him towards the double-parked black Lotus.

'What can I sit on? I don't want to mess up the seat.'

Takao shot Max a sidelong look of exasperation.

'I don't give a stuff about that. Who do you think I am?'

Puffing a bit but managing a smile, Max said, 'I don't know. Maybe Bruce?'

But to reassure himself, Max took off his thick coat and arranged it over the passenger seat before climbing in to the car.

Oh dear, what with him and his massive stomach there was barely room for Takao as well.

'When my sister was desperate to go into labour, she ate a chicken vindaloo,' Takao said companionably as they pulled out into the stream of traffic. 'According to her, it shocks the body into action.'

'I had lunch with Hiro,' Max told him. 'Better than a curry any day.' He wiped the perspiration from his upper lip and sank back into the seat with a sigh of relief. 'This is so kind of you. You should have let me call an ambulance. I hope you didn't rush off leaving some poor woman's head in the sink.'

Max was joking. Praying that – unlike her New York hairdresser – Magdalena Rosetti wasn't the litigating kind, Takao said, 'We were pretty quiet.'

'I still can't believe this is happening. I'm actually going to have a baby.' Max clutched his stomach as another contraction began to take hold.

'Did it upset you, seeing Hiro?'

'Oooh . . . no.'

'What did he want?'

Breath in, breath out . . . phew.

'Just to have sex with me,' panted Max.

Takao almost cannoned the Lotus into the lorry in front. Christ, don't say Max had!

Max laughed at the expression on Takao's face. 'No, I did not.'

Relief flooded through Takao's system like nicotine.

'We're getting a divorce.'

'Well, good.'

Max shifted on his seat. 'I'm really sorry, you should have sat me on a bucket. I've leaked through everything.'

Takao glanced across, taking in the flushed cheeks and damp strands of hair clinging to Max's forehead. He couldn't begin to describe how he felt about Max.

Aloud, he said, 'Oh well, better get out then, and walk.'

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By the time they reached the maternity wing of the Chelsea and Westminster, Max was puffing away like a bicycle pump. Directed to the waiting area by the receptionist while his hospital notes were located, he leaned on Takao for support before sinking gratefully on to an uncomfortable orange plastic chair. A television was on in the corner, showing an episode of Oprah. Three other couples were there too, two women and one man panting away just like he was, while the rest of the men – looking deeply self-conscious – rubbed their partner's backs.

Max realise he was squeezing Takao's hand. How on earth had that started?

'D'you want me to do that?' Takao nodded at the men, keeping his voice low.

Embarrassed – because actually he did – Max whispered, 'Don't worry, I'm fine.'

The situation grew more surreal over the course of the next few minutes. Max watched the nurses flitting back and forth past the door of the waiting room. Apart from the occasional groan, the only sound in the room came from the TV in the corner, where Oprah was hosting a timely debate on the subject: 'My Kids Wrecked My Life'.

Nobody had the nerve to change channels. The expecting clutched their stomachs and concentrated on their breathing. Two of the men silently watched a teenaged boy on the TV jab a finger at his weeping mother and yell: 'Mom, ah wish ah'd nevah bin born!' The other man rubbed feebly at his wife's spine with one hand while surreptitiously turning the pages of Caravanning Today with the other.

The next minute, without speaking, the wife slid down from her chair and arranged herself on all fours on the floor. She crouched there, panting like a dog, then glanced over her shoulder, snatched Caravanning Today out of her husband's hand and snarled irritably, 'Robert, did I say you could stop massaging my back?'

Max stifled a terrible urge to laugh. He found a clean tissue in his pocket and stuffed it into his mouth.

Over on the TV, Mom yelled back, 'Well, ah hate you too, ya little shit!'

Takao's chair was shaking. He was trying as hard as Max was not to laugh. Leaning across, Max whispered, 'You don't have to stay.'

As he said it, the other woman, not to be outdone – let out a howl like a mountain wolf and moved down from her own chair to lie curled up on the extra-durable – i.e. texture of a Brillo pad – beige carpet. She began to hum, then chant a mantra.

'Omi matani . . . omi matanai . . .'

The woman's eyes were closed. She rocked gently from side to side in her floral dungarees. Her husband, more embarrassed than ever, muttered, 'That's it honey, you're doing great, you're swimming with the dolphins . . . just picture yourself swimming with those dolphins . . .'

Max snorted and buried his face in Takao's shirt. Takao was shaking so much he couldn't speak.

'You'd better go,' Max gasped.

'You're joking. I wouldn't miss this for the world.'

'Mr Granger? Max Granger?'

His eyes still streaming with suppressed laughter, max looked up at the nurse before him. Hooray, they'd found his notes at last; not he could go and lie down somewhere and get loads of drugs.

'That's me.'

The nurse consulted Max's maternity notes, then glanced at Takao. 'And you're the birth partner?' She frowned, recognising his face from somewhere. 'It says here R. Kon.'

Takao looked at Max. getting him out of that phone box and into hospital had been Takao's prime concern. Once that had been achieved, he supposed his job was over. What he should be doing now was wishing Max good luck, driving back to the salon and letting Ray take his place here.

But that was the last thing he wanted to do.

'Are you R. Kon?' The nurse sounded doubtful.

Max, no longer laughing, searched Takao's face. Why wasn't he making a bolt for the door, for freedom? Surely Takao was desperate to get away from this madhouse.

'Hang on, I've seen you on the telly,' said the nurse. 'You're Takao Kinomiya.'

Takao took Max's hand.

'If you want me to stay, I will.'

'But . . .' Oh God, Max realised, suddenly overcome, I do want you to stay, more than anything. 'But you'd hate it. Look, it's really kind of you, but you don't have to be polite . . . you've done so much already.'

'this isn't being polite and I wouldn't hate it.' Takao barely trusted himself to speak, he was so terrified of saying the wrong thing. 'I don't want to go, okay? I want to stay. Please.'

They gazed at each other, not daring to move. The nurse, watching them both, clicked and unclicked her pen a few times and glanced ostentatiously at her watch.

'So long as you don't start swimming with the dolphins,' Takao added as an afterthought.

The woman rocking from side to side on the floor in her straining floral dungarees looked up indignantly.

'I heard that.'