Maserov was relieved to see Eleanor’s car parked outside Carla’s house. He rang the doorbell and when, after a moment, Carla answered, he held up the soft toy he had picked up from his erstwhile home. The gesture was meant to indicate that he came in peace. Maserov thought it had to be unprecedented in the legal history of every single negotiation that had ever been conducted in a common law country since the Magna Carta that the defendant’s lawyer had to help the plaintiff’s lawyer prove that the plaintiff’s lawyer was the father of the plaintiff’s child.
‘Hi Carla, um . . . Eleanor probably told you I had to bring this toy for Beanie.’
‘Yeah, she did.’ Carla saw him not as the father of her new friend’s children but as the lawyer engaged to deny her justice.
‘Would you mind if I came in and gave it to him? This is my only chance to see the kids today.’
‘No, come in.’ He followed her down the hallway towards the living room where Eleanor was sitting on the couch with the children at her feet playing with Duplo. Beanie looked up and, on seeing him, ran towards him, passing Carla with arms outstretched, calling, ‘Daddy!’
To complete the charade of innocence, Maserov leaned in to give Eleanor a kiss on the cheek. It was awkward not because of its assumed intimacy. That was the usual reason it was awkward. Today it was awkward because neither of them was a good actor and they both knew what they were there for. Still, the performance was good enough to secure a glass of white wine from Carla.
To break the silence threatening to discomfort them all, Maserov turned to Beanie and ceremoniously announced, ‘I brought you Sleep Bear.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Eleanor. ‘We can’t have a good night’s sleep without Sleep Bear.’
Maserov noticed with concern that Beanie showed no interest in the arrival of Sleep Bear.
‘What a good father you have!’ said Carla in the direction of Beanie.
Impelled by her allusion to benign paternity, Maserov took the bit between the teeth and turned the subject to his real reason for being there.
‘Oh, I don’t know if you know but I’ve made contact with your lawyer. I wanted to thank you.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ Carla replied cautiously.
‘He’s a . . . Kind of larger than life, isn’t he?’
‘Yeah, a real laugh,’ she said with discernible acrimony.
‘He didn’t tell me this but he was a few years ahead of me in law school and it was said that he put himself through by working as the entertainment director on a cruise ship.’
‘That’s what he says. Wouldn’t surprise me,’ said Carla unimpressed.
‘Whereas Stephen put himself through law school by me working as a teacher,’ Eleanor offered reflexively before realising she wasn’t helping.
‘Yes, by you and by debt,’ said Maserov attempting to smile.
‘I did it because he’s such a good father,’ said Eleanor uncomfortably.
‘Talking about fathers,’ Maserov cut to the chase, ‘your lawyer says he’s Marietta’s father. Is that true?’
‘Did Betga put you up to this?’ Carla asked.
‘Up to what?’ Maserov played dumb.
‘To finding out whether he is.’
‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ said Maserov.
‘Yes,’ said Eleanor. ‘He wanted us to take a swab of Marietta’s saliva.’
Maserov winced.
‘She knows, Stephen. She’s not an idiot.’ She turned to Carla. ‘We were never going to do it. I did genuinely want to see you again. We’re really separated. I’m not his agent.’
‘Yes, we really are separated,’ offered Maserov hopefully.
‘But whatever problems I might have with Stephen, I never have to worry about him as a father. He’s an incredibly devoted father. I knew he would remain one even when we separated.’
‘Thank you,’ said Maserov again, enjoying the unexpected praise and the respite from pursuing Betga’s demand.
‘Yes,’ Eleanor continued, ‘it made the decision to separate so much easier.’
‘What?’ asked Maserov incredulously.
‘Knowing that whatever happened, you would always be a great father to our kids. He comes over every night to see them, feed them, bath them, tell them stories and put them to bed. Then he goes back to work to try to make budget.’
‘Betga wouldn’t be leaving to try to make budget. He’d be trying to make something or someone but not budget,’ Carla snorted.
‘It’s obviously none of my business, and you know him and I don’t. But if there’s any possibility this Betga guy is Marietta’s father . . . and that he’d be a good father, she deserves the chance to know him.’ Eleanor was trying to help.
‘He does seem pretty keen to be her father,’ Maserov added. ‘A lot of men try to shirk that responsibility. He’s doing everything he can to take it on. Your daughter deserves to have a father, doesn’t she?’ Maserov asked, noticing that the little girl he was talking about wasn’t actually in the room with them. He swallowed a lot of wine quickly and was shifting the glass nervously from one hand to another as Acting Sergeant Ron Quinn came out from the little girl’s bedroom holding her against one shoulder and a disposable nappy bag in his other hand. Maserov tasted shame. The policeman must have heard and Maserov wanted the earth to swallow him. He glanced with alarm at Eleanor.
‘They’re right, Carla,’ Acting Sergeant Quinn said quietly.
Carla stood up and walked over to take her daughter from the shoulder of the older man in uniform. The policeman opened the kitchen door that led to a small back garden and Maserov watched him put the nappy bag in the outside rubbish bin.
‘He doesn’t need her to have a paternity test. He’s the father,’ Carla said.
The policeman’s step faltered just slightly when she said this but he kept on walking despite, as his colleagues might have described it, being wounded in the line of duty.
When Acting Sergeant Quinn came back from washing his hands, he poured himself a drink. Maserov wished some other person had poured it for him but it wasn’t his place to come into someone else’s house and start offering drinks. Embarrassed, he felt incredibly responsible for any discomfort his presence might have caused the policeman.
The children played quietly at the feet of their mothers. Maserov wondered why his sons had to choose this moment to be quiet.
‘You seem to know what you’re doing. You have kids of your own, I guess?’ he asked Acting Sergeant Quinn.
‘No,’ said the older man, adding to Maserov’s guilt.
Maserov stood up. He had what he came for so why did he feel so awful?
‘You coming back to help me put the kids to bed?’ Eleanor asked him.
‘I can’t tonight. I’ve got to head back to the city. I’ve got a meeting at Torrent Industries,’ Maserov announced without confidence, knowing how it must have sounded.
‘A meeting?’ Eleanor Maserov couldn’t help herself asking.
‘Yeah . . . it’s just come up.’
‘Well, you’d better go then,’ she said.
She had asked him to move out, showed little sign of wanting him around other than to help with the children, and yet news of this meeting angered her in a way neither of them would have expected. Hadn’t she just helped him out professionally by getting him into Carla’s house and then securing Carla’s admission that Betga was the father of her daughter? She’d even praised him as a father. Within minutes of all of this he’d humiliated her by bailing on her to attend some fictitious meeting at work.
As Carla said when she opened another bottle of white wine a few minutes after seeing Maserov to the door, ‘Who has a meeting at work at seven o’clock?’ Now they really were bonded; two women with small children fathered by unfaithful bastards.