Since she had picked up James’s message telling her that he was on his way to collect Finn from school, Stephanie had frantically been trying to call him back. Not today. She was always happy for Finn to see his father, just not this afternoon. It had taken her a few sleepless nights to decide that Michael was worthy of an introduction to her son. And then a few more anxious days before she could bring herself to suggest it to both Michael and Finn. A couple of weeks into her new relationship, she had started to mention Michael’s name casually around the house. She had had no idea whether this was the right way to let your child know you had a new partner without traumatizing them for ever, but she didn’t really know how else to do it, and to have sat Finn down and made a big announcement would have made way too big a deal out of something that was still a casual affair.
Finn had been remarkably laid-back about the whole thing which made her worry that he hadn’t quite understood what her relationship with Michael was, so one day, when she was cooking him his favourite fish fingers and beans, she had said, in as blasé a way as she could manage, ‘You know Michael is sort of like my boyfriend?’
Finn had merely rolled his eyes and had said, ‘You’re too old to have a boyfriend,’ which hadn’t made her feel any better.
Then, two days later, he had said to her out of nowhere, ‘Arun’s mum’s got a boyfriend.’
She’d waited to see if he added anything else and, when he didn’t, the only thing she could come up with was, ‘Oh? Has she?’
‘Like you,’ he’d said, and then he’d gone off to play with Sebastian and that had been that.
Michael had been a slightly harder prospect. Not because she thought he wouldn’t be interested in Finn – he always asked about him and he hadn’t yet yawned when she was in the middle of a story about some cute thing or other that Finn had done and which she knew, deep down, could only be fascinating to a parent – but because asking him if he wanted to meet her son was like asking him if his intentions were serious. It felt only one step away from asking him if he wanted to settle down.
In the end, though, it had been him who had suggested it. They were at the opening of a gallery in Shoreditch, once again surrounded by the self-appointed beautiful people who lived in the surrounding area. In truth, Stephanie was getting quite worn out with the amount of culture she had been asked to ingest lately. They had been to exhibitions and concerts and installations, all of which seemed to happen within a half-mile radius of Hoxton Square and all of which seemed to attract the same thirty-five people.
Stephanie had never been comfortable with the whole Hoxton thing. It all felt a bit late-1990s and a little too self-consciously cool. Michael’s friends were mostly artists or musicians, although she suspected that half of them actually had day jobs in accounts departments and the other half were squandering their wealthy families’ money. They had a way of making her feel inadequate without, she was sure, meaning to, with their obscure references and their shabby couldn’t-care-less chic, which, she knew, took them hours to perfect. She always felt overdressed, and overstyled and altogether too … conventional. Without fail, they were nice to her and made an effort to include her, but sometimes she yearned to have a conversation about something down-to-earth, like what was on the TV or a film she’d seen that didn’t have subtitles.
Anyway, two of those friends had brought their children to the exhibition, a boy of six and a girl of eight. Both were precocious in the extreme and were pontificating with their parents about the meaning behind the paintings in a way that made Stephanie want to slap them. Or maybe it was the parents she had wanted to slap, she couldn’t be sure. Michael had mentioned that Stephanie had a son and, somewhere in the ensuing conversation, had said he was looking forward to meeting Finn and, what was more, that it was one of his greatest regrets that he had never had children of his own. Pia, his wife, had, of course, never wanted them. Of course, the friends had said knowingly, leaving Stephanie none the wiser.
Later she had asked him what he had meant, and he had said that Pia was a model and that her foremost preoccupation had always been preserving her figure. Now Stephanie felt inadequate in two additional ways. First, his wife had been a model, a woman picked out from the crowd because of her physical perfection, which was never something that was going to make any normal woman feel great, and second, implicit in what he had said there had been the suggestion – admittedly Pia’s suggestion, not Michael’s – that childbirth disfigures a woman’s body. She had just about managed to stop herself from sharing her paranoia with Michael, knowing that nothing was less attractive than exposing your neediness for reassurance that you were attractive, and she had steered the conversation round to the pleasure and satisfaction that came with having a child and how that made any amount of physical sacrifice worth it. She had felt a bit sorry for Michael by the time she’d finished because she’d got rather carried away and it wasn’t his fault that his wife hadn’t wanted to have a baby. It had suddenly seemed like the natural thing to do to ask Michael if he would like to come over and spend some time with Finn, and he had agreed readily.
The plan was that Michael would meet her at her office at the end of the day and they would travel home together. Michael and Finn could spend some bonding time together while Stephanie cooked dinner and then Finn, who would be on his best behaviour, would go to bed without moaning and leave them to enjoy each other’s company. Now James’s voicemail had changed all that.
Stephanie had left him four messages by the time Michael arrived to pick her up. He had obviously turned his phone off, probably precisely to avoid getting a call from her telling him to drop Finn off at Arun’s or round at Cassie’s. The house phone was going unanswered, which made her think they had stopped by the park on the way home. She had also tried Cassie, of course. She was loath to drag her back from her unexpected afternoon off but she thought that if she explained exactly what the situation was and promised her another free day instead, she would be sure to understand. Unfortunately she, too, seemed to have anticipated such a call and was unreachable. Now Stephanie had to decide whether to tell Michael that there was a change of plan and let Finn down, or whether she should bite the bullet and introduce her boyfriend to her ex-husband along with her son. In the end she told Michael exactly what was going on and he made the decision for her: they were all adults, Stephanie and James were separated, where was the harm in them all being in the same room together?
By the time their cab was turning into Belsize Avenue Stephanie felt sick. She couldn’t imagine how James was going to react to the fact that she was about to turn up with a man in tow, but she was sure he wasn’t going to take it lightly. A part of her felt like it would do him good to see that she’d moved on – and that she could attract another man, and a good-looking, successful one at that – but mostly she just wanted this to be a positive experience for Finn.
Before she’d even managed to turn the key in the lock the door swung open and there was James, big smile plastered on his face and his hand outstretched for Michael to shake. Finn must have told him what was happening, she thought gratefully.
‘You must be Michael,’ James said, pumping Michael’s arm up and down manfully. ‘Pleased to meet you. Hi, Steph, did you get my message?’
‘Yes,’ she managed to say hesitantly. ‘I’ve been trying to ring you.’
James stepped back into the house to let them in. He didn’t look as though he was about to leave any time soon.
‘Finn’s in the kitchen, Michael,’ he was saying. ‘He’s been dying to meet you.’
‘Right,’ Michael said, following him through the house.
God, James was unbelievable. He was acting like he still owned the place, which of course he partly did, but anyway. Michael looked back at her questioningly, and she pulled a face that she hoped said, ‘I have no idea what to do.’
Finn was sitting expectantly at the kitchen table. James waved his hand at him, as if he was a prize exhibit. ‘Finn, this is Michael. Michael, this is Finn.’
‘Hi, Finn,’ Michael said, and held out his hand. Finn, who had never shaken hands with anyone before, stared at him suspiciously and left his hand hanging in mid-air. His face, Stephanie thought, looked as if it had been scrubbed to within an inch of its life. As did James’s, come to think of it.
‘Shake hands with Michael,’ James said, and Finn took Michael’s hand limply. He had been eating a Marmite and cheese sandwich when they’d come in and Stephanie noticed that Michael surreptitiously (or so he thought) wiped his hand on the leg of his combat trousers after Finn let go of it. Michael, she knew, wasn’t very experienced with children and she felt sorry for him, trying to find a way into conversation with her son. It would be so much easier if James would fuck off and leave them to it, but she knew what he was like: he was going to ruin it for all of them, sitting in the kitchen, monopolizing Finn’s company, making little digs at Michael and showing off about how marvellous and successful he was, although she wasn’t entirely sure how true that last one was any more.
In fact, she wasn’t at all sure how James was surviving at the moment. She made a mental note that she must sit down with him and discuss finances; it was just that she couldn’t face being on her own with him any more than was necessary, and they could hardly have that kind of a conversation in front of Finn. Anyway, he’d be showing off about something because that was what he did. So, if it wasn’t work it would be his prowess on the golf course or maybe his ability to fool two women into loving him at the same time.
Her train of thought stopped abruptly as she noticed that James had stood up from the table where he had been sitting opposite Finn and Michael. ‘Well,’ he said jovially, ‘I’d better go and leave you to get acquainted.’
He held out his hand and subjected Michael to another pumping. It was like being at a Masons’ meeting, Stephanie thought, and she nearly laughed. All they needed were the rubber gloves and the feather dusters. Or was it pinnies?
‘Nice to meet you, Michael,’ James was saying again. ‘I’m sure it won’t be the last time. Finn, behave yourself. Steph, see you soon. I’ll let myself out.’
And he was gone. Just like that.
‘I thought you said he was difficult,’ Michael said later, when they were enjoying a glass of wine on the sofa after Finn had gone to bed.
‘He is. I don’t know what came over him.’
In the end the whole thing had been a great success. Michael, no animal lover, had watched as Finn put David into the closed part of his hutch for the night and had managed to look interested. They had bonded a bit over football, although some of what Michael had said about Leeds United’s need for a new left-winger had gone over Finn’s head and he’d started to yawn a little.
Finn, no doubt led by the mood his father had seemed to be in, had been in ‘good Finn’ mode, had been polite and hadn’t talked incessantly or with his mouth full of carrots. He had dutifully gone off to bed at eight thirty, saying, ‘Nice to meet you,’ exactly as James had done, and had remained there ever since.
Stephanie snuggled up to Michael. As evenings went on which you introduced your new boyfriend to your son while your soon-to-be-ex-husband looked on, it had gone pretty well.