1 May 2004
I feed Zoë up, like the baby bird she reminds me of. I tell her she’s cute, which she is. Even though she’s three years older than me, she makes me feel like the older one.
After almost seven weeks of TLC, she’s a different person. Her skin has cleared up and she’s stopped drinking and, with the money I’ve loaned her, she’s moved into a nicer hostel.
I won’t lie. Seeing her blossom makes me feel good too. I needed a project to keep me on the straight and narrow. We have sex sometimes, but only because it’s easy. We’re not in a relationship.
What she needs now is work, so I take her to the Girasol before the bank holiday, to see if Ant might give her a trial shift. If she worked alongside me, I could keep an eye on her. She chats to him for a while, then gobbles up his trademark full Spanish breakfast, followed by a Creme Egg brownie, and I feel proud. When she goes to the loo, Ant comes over.
‘You know she’s in love with you, don’t you?’
‘Don’t be stupid, we’re friends.’
But when she comes back, I see her through his eyes. My mouth goes dry. Her glow isn’t only about better nutrition and laying off the hard stuff. She’s reapplied her lipstick in the toilets and, if Ant is right, that’s for my benefit. The sounds of the cafe – ‘Toxic’ on the radio, kids squealing, the hiss of sausages in the pan – grow louder and more menacing.
How do I pull back from this without destroying her?
‘You OK, Greenie?’ she says, her head cocked to one side.
‘Let’s go back to my house.’
She winks, as though she knows exactly what I’m after. She couldn’t be more wrong.
The moment we’re in the den and I’ve closed the door, she’s pawing at me and trying to kiss me and I feel revolted, not with her but with myself.
‘Zoë, stop, please. Sit down. I need to say something.’
‘Am I in trouble?’
I stand in front of her. ‘Look. I really care about you and we’ve had some great times together. But I think we should cool it a bit.’
Zoë looks puzzled. ‘But . . . you love me, don’t you?’
‘I do love you. As a friend.’
‘No. No. It’s more than that.’
‘I meant it when I said you were beautiful, Zoë. And the sex was amazing but we’re both too fragile to commit, right?’
She says nothing.
I plough on. ‘We can still support each other but I don’t think we should be in each other’s pockets. We need to work out what we want to do with our lives and—’
‘I’m pregnant.’
My sympathy wanes: it’s a low blow to lie about that. ‘No, you’re not. We always use something.’
‘If you don’t believe me, go buy a test. I’ll pee on a stick in front of you.’
There’s a note of triumph in her tone that makes my stomach turn over. ‘You’ve done a test already?’
Zoë nods. ‘Yesterday. My period hasn’t come and my boobs hurt, so I went to the family planning centre. I was going to tell you tonight. Look, I bought this.’ She reaches into the new bag I got for her and pulls out a cheap teddy, smaller than her hand. ‘Only from Woolworth’s and I got it in yellow because that way it won’t matter if it’s a girl or a boy—’
I snatch it out of her hand. ‘You can’t have a baby, Zoë. You can’t even look after yourself.’
‘We look after each other, don’t we? And it’s not like we’re going to struggle for money. It’s a bit soon, but accidents happen.’ She grins cheekily but her eyes won’t meet mine.
‘You wanted this.’
‘No. The condom must have split or something . . .’ Her hands reach towards me and it makes me think of waking in ICU, the panic and fear as those figures moved towards me, taking my blood, inflicting pain . . .
Then, there was no escape. But this is worse. ‘Fucking hell, Zoë. You have no idea what a disaster this is.’
‘It’s not a disaster. It’s a shock, yeah, but you’ll get used to it—’
‘No! I won’t. I’ve never wanted children.’ The day the doctors told me my heart problem was probably inherited, I knew I couldn’t inflect this on a kid.
She smiles indulgently. ‘All men feel like that to start with. But you’ll make a great dad. You’re kind and you’re patient and—’
‘You have no idea what I’m really like. Not a bloody clue. I’m damaged, all right?’
‘I’ve seen damaged, Joel Greenaway, and you ain’t it. I’ve seen things that would fry your rich boy brain, but this is a new life. Between us, we can give a kid the best childhood.’
It’s as though she’s reading the script from her favourite soap. The hot anger inside me fights against the urgency of making her understand. ‘Zoë, stop! This is a daydream. We have to put a stop to it, OK? I’ll come with you. I’ll pay. Whatever you need. It doesn’t mean you’ll never be a mother, but you can’t have my kid.’
For the first time, she hears me. ‘You bastard. I thought you were different. But you’re as much of a user as the rest of them.’
‘No. I wanted to help you, but this isn’t the way.’
Her expression turns defiant. ‘Fine. I’ll do it alone. But don’t think I won’t get money, the CSA will take one look at your house and you won’t have a choice.’
I’m dizzy, disorientated. I need to end this farce. ‘They won’t let you keep a baby, you realize that. With our history?’
‘I’ve been clean for ages, even before we got together.’
‘Fuck’s sake, Zoë. It’s not all about you.’ I pull up my shirt. ‘See this?’ I point at the bump of my ICD, still foreign and grotesque even though it’s been a part of me for four years. ‘I’ve got a heart condition. Remember that night on the Level, when I first knew you? I died and this was all that brought me back.’
Doubt crosses Zoë’s face. ‘You had a fit.’
‘It wasn’t a fit. My heart is fucked, OK? I could pass it on. That’s why I don’t ever want to be a dad.’
Her hand touches her flat stomach. She’s not acting now. ‘The baby could be sick?’
I nod. ‘There’s a high chance I was born with whatever it is, so a baby could be too.’
‘No! I bought a pregnancy magazine. Its heart is already beating. I’m taking vitamins, I know it’ll be OK.’
For a few moments, I try to imagine becoming a parent. I don’t want to be with Zoë, but could we raise a kid together?
A kid with a heart that could fail at any time . . .
‘I didn’t get sick till I was seventeen years old, Zoë. But then I got really sick and now I don’t live, I exist. It’s why I’m still at home with my parents, why I’ve done drugs. Please, I’m begging you, don’t inflict this curse on a child.’
Her face crumples and she runs out of the den. I won’t follow her because she needs time to accept this, but I know I’m right – for her sake and my own.
Yet even as I neck beer after beer, I can’t forget her expression as she finally understood her dream of a happy family with me could never come true. I don’t think I’ve ever hated myself as much as I do right now.
And there’s only one thing I can think of that’ll wipe away the memory.