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  “How d’you mean you don’t know how she’s going to cope?” Fi said, flicking the switch on the electric kettle. “Has somebody asked her to look after their baby?”

  “Not exactly,” Ruby replied with faux nonchalance, a smile hovering at her lips. “Actually, she’s pregnant.”

  “Yeah, right.” Fi gave a half-laugh.

  “No, honestly. My mother is having a baby.”

  Fi came over to the table and sat down. “C’mon. This is some kind of wind-up.” Connor, who was lying over her shoulder, started to whimper. She began rubbing his back.

  “Nope. She’s due in January.”

  “But how did she get pregnant?”

  “Usual way, I suppose.”

  “Duh. I meant how did she manage it at her age, and didn’t you once tell me she had blocked fallopian tubes?”

  Ruby explained that one of Ronnie’s tubes might have spontaneously unblocked itself.

  “I just can’t get my head round this,” Fi said. “You’re going to have a baby brother or sister. At thirty-two. It’s unbelievable.”

  At this point Ben came bursting in. He was wearing Bob the Builder pajamas and the hat and eye patch from the birthday pirate outfit Ruby had given him. He smelled slightly of pee-soaked diaper. Fi clearly hadn’t got round to changing him from the previous night. “My godda baby bruvver,” he piped up. “Him’s called Connor and he does ukky rabbit poos and he makes pukes on me.”

  “I know, sweetheart,” Fi said. “But he doesn’t mean it. And you like Connor really, don’t you?”

  Ben picked his green plastic pirate sword off the table and began waving it violently in the air, perilously close to Connor’s head. “No,” he announced. “He can stay for eleventeen more days. Ven we have to send him back to his own garden.”

  Fi gently removed the sword from her son’s hand and put it down on the table. She gave Ruby a shrug to indicate that she had no idea why Ben assumed that Connor had originated from, or belonged in, a garden. “Probably all tied up with the j-e-a-l-o-u-s-y thing.” Ben was now demanding to have his sword back. “Tell you what, sweetie,” Fi soothed, “why don’t you get up to the table and do some Play-Doh?”

  Ben gave a vigorous nod and climbed onto a chair. As he knelt at the table, he began pulling the plastic lids off the tubs of Play-Doh.

  “I can really understand how Ben feels about Connor,” Ruby said with a half-laugh.

  Fi asked her what she meant. Ruby explained how, when her mother had announced that she was pregnant, she had laughed at any suggestion that she might feel jealous. “Then, last night I dreamed that I went round to my parents’ and they didn’t recognize me. Old as I am, I can’t help feeling I’m about to lose my mum and dad to this new baby and that they’re about to push me out of the nest.”

  Fi made the point that Ruby had, in fact, left the nest at eighteen when she went to university.

  “I know,” Ruby said. “But when I woke up this morning, the feeling just seemed to overwhelm me. I keep trying to stop it, but I can’t. The other thing I keep thinking is that I’m thirty-two and it’s me who should be getting married, having babies and getting all the attention. Not my fifty-year-old mother. I think I’m a tiny bit jealous of her, too. No. Correction. If I’m honest, I’m a lot jealous. I know she didn’t get pregnant on purpose, but it’s like she’s stepped onto my turf. God, do I sound utterly pathetic and self-centered?”

  “Maybe, a bit,” Fi said. “But I’m sure most women in your position would feel the same. The natural order of things is for couples to have children and then at a certain age they become grandparents. They don’t try to compete with their children by having more babies. In your family the natural order has got skewed and you feel you have no place. Not only has it come as a shock, but it’s also pissed you off. Look, you only found out a few hours ago that Ronnie’s pregnant. You have to give yourself time to get used to it.” She patted the back of her friend’s hand. “It will get easier. Honest.”

  Ruby nodded. “I know. But the other thing I’m worried about is her health. I don’t know much about it, but I imagine that carrying a baby at fifty can be really risky.”

  “Yes, but at her age she’ll have the most senior and experienced doctors looking after her. They’ll be on the lookout for problems and they’ll be monitoring her. They won’t let anything happen to her.”

  “But what about the baby? I know Mum’s had the amnio and all the other tests, but suppose there still turns out to be something wrong with it? These tests aren’t infallible, are they?”

  “No, they’re not, but with the right care, the overwhelming likelihood is that they’ll both be fine.”

  Ruby let out a slow breath. “I just hope you’re right.”

  Fi decided to put Connor in his crib. While she went upstairs, Ruby finished making the coffee and chatted to Ben, who had been busy molding Play-Doh.

  “So, what are you making, Ben?” Ruby said, opening one of the kitchen cupboards and looking for a plate to put the croissants on. She was out of luck. There wasn’t a clean plate to be had.

  “My is doing green eggs and ham.” He held up two green lumps of Play-Doh and another flatter, pink piece. “You like some?”

  “I’d love some,” Ruby said, turning on the hot tap and starting to rinse a plate covered in dried-up masala sauce. “You know I used to read Green Eggs and Ham when I was little.”

  “Dat Sam I Am,” Ben announced gravely, “he’s a bad boy.” He maneuvered himself down from the table, toddled over to Ruby and offered her some green egg to try. Crouching down to his height, she put it up to her mouth and made yum-yum noises. “Those are great eggs, Ben. Brilliant.”

  “You give this one to your mummy.” He handed her another egg.

  “Oh, thanks, Ben. I know she’ll love it.” Ruby slipped the egg into her trouser pocket.

  “Do you have a mummy wiv a zsgusting fat tummy and bloody stretchmarks?” It was clear from Ben’s bright, unperturbed expression that he was simply parroting Fi’s words and had no real idea what he was saying.

  Fi appeared just in time to hear what he had said. Her face immediately became filled with panic. “Oh, Gawd, now Ben’s picking up on all my anxieties,” she whispered to Ruby. “I can’t get anything right. Seeing me all pathetic and feeble is going to make him feel even more insecure than he already is.”

  “Come on, Fi, he’s fine. He’s just repeating stuff. Stop beating yourself up. You’ll get your figure back. It’s just going to take a bit of time, that’s all.”

  At this point Ben announced he wanted his blanket. He jumped down from the table and ran off toward the living room to find it, losing his pirate hat as he went.

  Fi reached for the Daily Mail, which was lying on the table and covered in Play-Doh bits. She swept them away and prodded a picture. “But how do all these Hollywood celebs get their figures back so fast? I mean look at Mia Ferrari. She only gave birth a month ago and here she is at some premiere in a dress I couldn’t have got into even before I was pregnant.” Fi squinted at the picture. More prodding. “Look, she’s not even wearing a bra. See how high her nipples are. My boobs are practically down to my knees. And look at my stomach.” Fi lifted her tracksuit top and yanked a flap of fatty stomach over her trouser waistband. “It’ll take me at least six months to get rid of this lot and even then it never really goes back to how it was.”

  Ruby took the plate of pastries over to the table. “Look, you know as well as I do that these women have dieticians and fitness trainers. You’re tall, you’ve got blue eyes I would give an arm and a leg and a fair amount of offal for and you’ve always had a wonderful figure. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t get it back.”

  “Yeah, but when?” Fi said, giving a throaty laugh and biting off a chunk of croissant. “It’s the breast-feeding. I just can’t stop eating. Maybe I should just carry on stuffing my face until Connor’s weaned and then get all the fat liposuctioned.”

  “God, I wish you�
�d change the record,” came a male voice. The two women looked up. Saul had walked in. “Rubes, please knock some sense into my wife and tell her how beautiful she is. I keep doing my best to convince her, but it’s like talking to a brick wall.”

  “I’m doing my best,” Ruby said, “but she won’t listen to me either.”

  Saul stood behind Fi, placed his palms on her shoulders and bent down to kiss the back of her neck. “You know, you’re still my shiksa goddess,” he said, getting all smoochy and forcing Ruby to look the other way and pretend she hadn’t noticed.

  “You mean that?” Fi said.

  “Like you have to ask. Look, I’ve got the audition for the fish-sticks commercial at twelve. I should be back by three. Then you can go for a nap and I’ll tackle the washing up. You OK with the kids until then?”

  “Stop kvetching.” Fi loved practicing her Yiddish. “I’ll be fine. Go, break a leg, already.”

  Saul turned to Ruby. “Tell me honestly, do I look like Captain Bird’s Eye to you?”

  The truth was that Saul looked nothing like Captain Bird’s Eye, who was always cast as an avuncular, ruddy-faced old sea dog. Saul was a young, olive-skinned Semite more suited to the role of biblical hero. Those being in short supply, he usually ended up singing advertising jingles or being cast as a Mafia henchman or dodgy kebab seller.

  “Maybe they’re trying to change his image,” Ruby said, trying to sound positive. “Perhaps they want somebody a bit more dashing and swashbuckling.” With his dark beard and matching long hair—grown especially for the part in Hamlet—Saul certainly looked pretty dashing.

  He laughed, picked Ben’s tiny pirate hat up off the floor and perched it on his head. With a flamboyant gesture he grabbed the plastic sword from the table and did a couple of fancy moves. “Yeah, I reckon I could buckle a bit of swash,” he said.

  “Wow, you look sexy in that hat,” Fi giggled.

  “Never say I don’t know how to turn you on,” Saul said, bending down to kiss her again. Just then Ben came back carrying a tatty and rather grubby bit of old crib blanket.

  “My hat! My sword! Daddy, gib vem back. Vey is for likkle boys, not for big mans.”

  “Sorry, Ben,” Saul said, placing the hat back on his son’s head and handing him the sword. “I only borrowed them for a second.” He scooped Ben up and gave him a hug and a kiss. “Now then, you be a good boy for Mummy until I get back.”

  Ben nodded and then lunged at his father with the sword. Saul responded with a wonderfully comic performance of being mortally wounded—complete with mad eye-crossing and desperate gasping for breath—all of which had them in hysterics.

  AFTER SAUL HAD gone, the two women sat drinking coffee. For a while Ben went back to making green eggs and ham. Then he got bored, climbed onto Fi’s lap with his blanky and began sucking his thumb.

  “So,” Ruby said, “what was the other thing you wanted to tell me on the phone yesterday?”

  “OK, you know Connor had jaundice when he was born and the doctors said we had to delay his circumcision at least a month…” She broke a pain au chocolat in half and offered a piece to Ben, but he didn’t want it. He was beginning to nod off. “He’s exhausted. Connor kept him awake last night, too, poor little mite…Anyway, we’re finally doing it next week. Of course you’re invited.”

  “Fabulous,” Ruby said, laughing. “There’s nothing I love more than watching a baby get part of his penis lopped off.”

  “Ruby, you’re Jewish, you’re not supposed to give me a hard time over this. We’re going to have enough trouble with my mother. Don’t you remember the fuss she kicked up when we had Ben done? She thinks circumcision is utterly barbaric.”

  “And she may have a point.”

  “I know. I know. And I’m not completely, totally comfortable with it—you remember the state I got into before we circumcised Ben, but Saul’s been done and there was no way we wanted the boys looking different from their father. It just didn’t feel right. Anyway, that’s not the issue. The point is that in order to keep the peace, I planned not to invite Mum to Connor’s circumcision. It was only after I’d booked the rabbi that I remembered we’d invited her to stay. She’s going to be here all next week.”

  “Can’t you make an excuse and put her off?”

  “Not really. She’s been visiting my sister in Vancouver and she hasn’t seen Connor yet. She’s really looking forward to coming and she’s even been getting on a bit better with Saul since we told her we were going to name the baby after my dad. Now everything’s going to go back to how it was. Thing is, I really don’t want to delay the circumcision any longer. Apparently, the older the baby, the more painful it is.

  “She is going to raise the blinkin’ roof just like she did last time. Saul and I are planning to have a firm and frank talk with her, but I suspect it won’t be enough and that on the day she’ll reprise the sackcloth-and-ashes role she performed at our wedding and Ben’s circumcision. So, I was wondering if you could help keep an eye on her and try to make sure she stays calm and doesn’t cause a commotion. I’m scared to death she’s going to insult the rabbi or disrupt everything with some terrible outburst. My brothers and sisters will be around, but they’re family and she won’t think twice about playing up in front of them. With you she’s far more likely to behave herself.”

  Ruby said she hadn’t had much luck in the past trying to calm Bridget down, but she would do her best. “I’ll tell her all the male royals are circumcised. That’ll impress her.”

  “It might actually. Apart from you, the queen’s the only heathen my mother’s got any time for. And thanks, Rubes. You don’t know how much I appreciate this.” She took a sip of coffee. “So, what’s going on with you—apart from your mother being preggers?”

  “Oh, you know…same old same old…Shop’s fine, got this appointment at St. Luke’s—you know the one I was telling you about on the phone…What else? Oh yes, after the Double Barrel thing, this really cute American doctor overheard me on the phone telling you about my vaginal stamp. I got out of it by saying you were a stand-up comedian and that I was helping you put together material for a gig you were doing for the post office.”

  Fi simply stared at her wide-eyed. “That would be brilliant if it weren’t so totally unbelievable.”

  “OK, what would you have said? I had to come up with something. I couldn’t let him think that Double Barrel really had found a stamp in my vagina.”

  Fi said she got the point. They sat for a few moments, drinking their coffee. “By the way,” Fi said eventually, “haven’t you got another blind date tonight?”

  Ruby’s face brightened. Despite her past experiences with the men Fi had fixed her up with, she was allowing herself to feel enthusiastic about this one. His name was Duncan. As usual Fi had never met him. All she knew—via her friend Soph, who had known him for years—was that he was gorgeous. He was also a novelist, which Ruby thought sounded intriguing—not to mention rather sexy.

  “You know, Rubes,” Fi went on, “I’ve got a really good feeling about this one. I’m really sorry about the others. I admit a couple of them were a bit unfortunate.”

  Ruby thought back to the one before last and said a man with a great head of hair, nearly all of it in his nose and ears, was more than a “bit” unfortunate.

  “So, where are you meeting Duncan?”

  Ruby said he’d left a message on her answer machine suggesting a neighborhood Italian restaurant in Battersea.

  “What did he sound like on the phone?”

  “Couldn’t tell, really. He left a very short message and when I rang back to confirm everything, his voice mail was on. So, we haven’t actually spoken.”

  “I just know this one is going to work out. Promise you’ll phone me the minute you get home, to let me know how it went.”

  “Don’t I always?” Ruby smiled.

  “Call as late as you like. I’m bound to be up with Connor. This is the best excitement I’ve had in ages. It so beat
s breast-feeding and watching daytime talk shows about men who sleep with goats and the women who stick by them.”

  JILL MCNULTY WAS a jolly, welcoming soul with an accent that could have cut crystal and impeccable, old-fashioned manners. Ruby decided she was probably no more than forty, but she gave the impression of being much older. It was partly the accent and the manners, but it was also her conservative clothes and excessive neatness. Her bobbed hair, which had not so much as a strand out of place, was covered in so much lacquer that it looked like a blonde cotton-candy helmet. Her manicured nails were covered in a thin coat of neutral pink varnish, allowing her perfectly shaped half-moons to show through. Her navy woolen blazer was the kind that could be put in a car crusher overnight and still spring back into shape the next morning.

  Once she had thanked Ruby profusely for coming, she insisted on making her coffee. She disappeared to the staff kitchen. When she came back she was carrying a tray of freshly brewed coffee in a pretty pink-and-gold bone china pot. The cups, saucers and milk jug matched the pot and there was a paper doily on the plate containing carefully arranged shortbread fingers.

  From behind her desk, with its legal pad, fountain pen and silver-framed family photographs placed at anally precise angles, Jill explained how she thought Ruby could help St. Luke’s expectant mothers. She said that first-time mothers were always telling the midwives that when it came to buying baby clothes and equipment they felt overwhelmed by the choice. “Of course a lot of our mums are awfully well off,” she said as she began pouring coffee, “and simply buy everything and the best of everything at that. But a fair few are on a budget and really need some advice. That’s where you come in. I thought you could help them with their decision making. Should they opt for a pram or a buggy, or both? Is a baby bath really worth it when you can put the baby in the proper bath with you? What are the pros and cons of cloth diapers?” She handed Ruby a cup of coffee and invited her to help herself to milk and biscuits.

  She went on to say that she envisaged small informal groups of about a dozen or so mothers and thought they had enough newly pregnant women coming onto their books to justify Ruby giving talks a couple of times a month.