Ken locked himself in the bathroom and unfolded the instruction sheet from inside the ‘Predictor’ box, and studied it carefully. It was all simpler than he’d expected: all he needed to do was to dip the device into some of Tamara’s wee and wait eight minutes, and if a blue ring appeared it meant she’d be carrying a baby inside her; Crackle’s baby. He sat on the side of the bath and put his hands together and prayed fervently that she wasn’t pregnant, that her belly was big due to other physical causes. She didn’t know how to look after a baby, she was still a baby herself. It was him and Cath who’d looked after Storme for the first three months, before Tamara and Crackle had found a flat. Once, when he’d taken Cath on an outing to Drayton Manor Park with the church, they’d returned home to find Storme screaming with a burnt mouth: Tamara had warmed the baby’s bottle in the microwave and hadn’t checked the temperature. It was Cath and Ken who had sat up all night with Storme, spooning ice-cold sterilised water into the little scalded mouth.
It was a terrible day when Tamara and Crackle took Storme away to live in the flat. At first Ken and Cath visited twice a week, taking food and nappies and baby clothes. They played with the baby and tried not to comment on the thick crust of yellow scurf on her head, or the rank smell of her clothes. Cath took the baby’s clothes home to wash and brought them back, sweet and clean, the next time. Sometimes Ken and Cath stood outside the front door to the flat listening to Storme crying inside. On one occasion when nobody had answered the bell, Ken had booted the door and shouted so loudly that the neighbours in the adjacent flat had come out and complained about Crackle and Tamara. They told Ken that they were sick of the noise they made: the kid was always crying, and the stereo was on so loudly that their walls vibrated. Tamara had eventually answered the door. She had sleep in her eyes, and was wearing Crackle’s denim shirt and a pair of black knickers. Ken was disgusted to see that her neck and shoulders were disfigured by liver-coloured love bites. She stood on the threshold in bare feet and took the Tood and the freshly laundered baby clothes, but she was nervous and didn’t want to let them in. They had pushed by her anyway. There was broken glass on the floor of the living room, and the television screen was shattered. Cath had said, “See to the baby, Tamara, I’ll clean this up.”
Ken had asked if Crackle was still in bed, and Tamara had started to cry and said, “No, he’s not been home for two days.”
In his absence Ken and Cath cleaned the flat and fed Tamara and Storme. They begged her to bring the baby and come home with them, but Tamara said repeatedly, like a mantra, “No, I’ve got to be here when he gets home.”
At her request Ken had rung all the hospitals, secretly hoping that he would be told that Crackle was dead. Ken thought that he would volunteer to identify the body: it would give him great satisfaction to see that moronic bastard on a mortuary slab. But within four months it was Cath’s body he was looking down on, not believing, despite the evidence of his own eyes, that this woman that he loved so passionately could be dead and gone from him for ever. He was only fifty-two. How could he live the rest of his life without her?
It was easy to get a sample of urine from Tamara. He told her that the community nurse was testing for diabetes, and had left a self-testing kit. Tamara believed him. She believed everything that she was told. Ken had finally admitted to himself that she was a stupid girl. They had called it ‘learning difficulties’ at school. There had been talk about sending her to a special school, but Ken had seen the mini-bus full of special-school children as it did the rounds of the estate in the early morning, and he fought to keep her out of that bus. Cath and he had tried to teach her to read and write at home, but each kitchen table session ended in frustration and angry tears. When she was older, she got by in the world because she was pretty—until she met Crackle, who had sucked all the prettiness out of her.
Ken added the urine to the padded device, and put it high up on top of the bathroom cabinet where Tamara wouldn’t see it. He looked at his watch and noted the time. Soon he would know if she was carrying another baby inside her. He would fill the time by preparing to visit Storme. He took his shirt off and washed and shaved. As he rinsed the shaving foam from his face he looked at himself closely in the mirror and saw that he was turning into an old man. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled.
Ken forced himself to go downstairs and watch television. Tamara had possession of the remote control and maddened him by flicking from channel to channel. She lay full length on the sofa, her belly seemed more prominent than ever. A gathering of soft-drink cans and dirty cups stood on the floor within her reach. She’d been using a toast-crumbed plate as an ashtray. A haze of cigarette smoke drifted across the room from the slight draught he had caused by opening the door.
“Have you phoned the hospital about Storme?” he asked.
“I couldn’t get through,” she said, keeping her eyes on the television, but he knew by the way her finger went to her mouth that she was lying. In her slothful state she had forgotten about Storme. She was not natural, thought Ken, and he prayed once again that the ring would not have turned blue when he went back upstairs.