CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE #3
‘How the hell is it going to be that?’ she raged, almost wanting to hit him.
How could he sit there looking so unfazed by the fact that his life was never going to be the same again?
‘According to this message you are the father of the child this girl is carrying,’ she cried furiously, having to spell it out to try to make herself believe it, as if she wanted to, when obviously she didn’t.
‘Yeah, but …’
‘You’re sixteen, Aiden. Sixteen! And who the hell is she, for God’s sake?’
‘Her name’s Pearl …’
‘Yes, I can see that at the end of the message, but why is she sending emails to your father telling him what’s going on when you should have told us this yourself?’
‘Well, I kind of guessed you’d go off on one, and there’s this …’
‘This what? Baby? Is that the word you’re looking for?’
‘It wasn’t, but hey …’ He glanced at his father who was listening quietly, seeming to have nothing to say.
‘For God’s sake,’ Cristy shouted. ‘What’s the matter with you two? First you,’ she shot at Matthew, ‘and now you …’
‘Hey, hey!’ Matthew interrupted. ‘For the record, I’m married and I was not under age when …’
‘Is she?’ Cristy raged at Aiden as a whole world of other horrors suddenly rose up from the chaos.
‘Is she what?’ he asked.
‘Under age?’
He screwed up his nose as he thought. ‘I think she was sixteen a couple of weeks ago, so technically not any more.’
‘But she was when you … Oh for God’s sake, I don’t even know what to call it.’
‘Shagged?’ he offered helpfully.
Certain Matthew smirked, she rounded on him again. ‘So this is the kind of parent you are, allowing your son, who’s only fifteen …’
‘Sixteen now,’ Aiden reminded her.
‘But fifteen when the child was conceived, if this girl is six months along.’
‘No, sixteen,’ he insisted. ‘It happened last August.’
Finding herself dumbfounded she turned back to Matthew. ‘Have you been allowing him to sleep with girls in your house?’ she demanded. ‘Knowing you, you encouraged it …’
‘Hang on, hang on,’ Matthew objected. ‘I’m every bit as furious with him as you are, so I’m not the one you should be attacking here.’
‘He’s your son …’
‘And yours. Maybe they got it together here, in this flat?’
Cristy glared at Aiden. ‘Did you?’ she demanded, desperately shutting out the image of it.
He shrugged. ‘Maybe, once or twice, but it was no big deal …’
‘No big deal?’ she echoed incredulously.
How the hell was she supposed to get through to him, when nothing ever seemed to faze him, not even the fact he could be guilty of statutory rape, and facing at least eighteen years of child maintenance, not to mention a lifetime of fatherhood, when he wasn’t even an adult yet?
‘Did it not occur to you to use a condom?’ she demanded. Talk about horses and stable doors!
He grimaced. ‘I kind of thought I did …’
‘How can you not know?’ He was beyond belief.
‘Well it happened a few times,’ he said, ‘and maybe for one of them I just kind of forgot, or ran out …’
Not sure if Matthew was laughing again, she turned her wrath back on him, still wanting to blame him in spite of knowing it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to anything. ‘Have you met this girl?’ she demanded.
He held up his hands defensively. ‘The first I heard of her was when I got the email,’ he assured her. ‘I rang you straight off and you …’ He stopped as her eyes narrowed – if he tried to blame her … ‘And now we are where we are,’ he finished lamely.
Aiden was texting.
‘Put that damned thing down,’ Cristy snapped at him.
Letting it drop into his lap he regarded her innocently.
‘So who is she?’ she asked. ‘Are you still seeing her?’
He shrugged. ‘You already know her name’s Pearl. She joined our year when we started sixth form, and yeah, I still see her around, at school, obvs, and hanging out here and there …’
‘So she’s not actually your girlfriend?’ Was that better or worse? Cristy had no idea.
‘We saw each other a few times, but it was never, like, official.’
‘Well you obviously had sex with her, so what exactly does make it official?’
‘It’s just a decision you come to after a few dates, or maybe longer than that, and then you tell everyone else when you feel ready.’
Her eyes widened again. ‘And does imminent fatherhood make you feel ready?’ she asked scathingly.
Shrugging again, Aiden said, ‘It’s not an issue. We both agreed we didn’t want it to be serious.’
‘But now she’s pregnant and apparently thinks it’s serious enough to send an email to Dad … Did she tell you she was going to do that?’
‘Never mentioned a word. I didn’t even know myself – about the baby thing – until a couple of weeks ago …’
The baby thing? What kind of son had she raised? ‘And you didn’t mention it when you found out, because?’
‘I guess, because I wasn’t the only one she was getting it on with last August. There was Tim Watts and Dylan Fullbright …’
Seizing the lifeline, Cristy said, ‘So there’s a chance one of them could be the father?’
‘Who knows? I haven’t asked. Maybe there’s not even really a baby. Girls make this stuff up all the time.’
‘Well, this one has had a scan because she attached it to the email, so I think we can assume there is a child.’ To Matthew she said, ‘You need to talk to her parents.’
‘Me?’ he protested. ‘How about we talk to her parents?’
‘You better check first that she’s told them,’ Aiden advised. ‘If they don’t already know it’ll be a helluva way to find out, you and Dad turning up on their doorstep all reach for your guns …’
Cristy almost laughed, out of hysteria more than humour. ‘What matters here is that we establish whether or not the child’s yours,’ she declared, knowing she had to calm down, but seeming unable to. ‘Is she the kind of person who’d say it was, even if she wasn’t sure?’
‘I don’t really know her that well.’
She stared at him. This was turning into a farce and if Matthew laughed again she might just swing for him. ‘Why aren’t you taking this seriously?’ she shouted at him. ‘You surely can’t think it’s something we can just brush under the carpet and pretend isn’t happening?’
‘I am taking it seriously,’ he insisted, ‘but you’re right, there are a few steps to go through before we start getting excited …’
‘Excited?’
‘Sorry, wrong choice of word. I should have said … something else. Anyway, I’m with you that we need to find out if Aiden’s really the father. As that’s going to involve a DNA test we need to make sure she’s on board for it. If she isn’t, well then she won’t have any claim on him, will she?’
‘Which doesn’t exactly put him in the clear, and I for one want a definitive answer.
So, this is what we’re going to do … You, Aiden, will contact her tonight to ask for the test, and you, Matthew, will reply to her email telling her that’s what we’re doing.
Unless, of course, she’s ready to admit there is no baby and the scan is just something she downloaded for …
I don’t know, a bit of fun? Would she do that? ’ Really grasping at straws now.
Aiden regarded her thoughtfully. ‘I guess, she might,’ he said. ‘I mean, I’m not saying she did, but …’
‘Stop! Just stop,’ Cristy cried, holding up a hand, and she turned to the fridge to snatch out a bottle of wine.
‘I’ll have one of those,’ Matthew told her as she filled a glass. ‘And you, Aiden …’
‘Yeah, sure,’ he said readily.
‘I’m not offering you a drink,’ Matthew said, ‘I’m telling you to get going on the contact Mum’s just suggested. With any luck, once this girl knows we’re getting into the science, she’ll come clean and admit it’s some sort of prank.’
Prank. Oh please God let it be that.
As Aiden slouched off to his room, already texting someone, Cristy took her glass to the sofa and slumped down wearily.
She could hardly believe that this, and the farewell to Janina, were happening in the same day, but they were and as disorientating as it felt maybe it was also grounding in its way.
She’d become far too caught up in Sadie’s story, was perhaps too focused on David as well, when what she ought to have been doing was putting a lot more effort into making sure her son didn’t go off the rails.
He had so much potential for it that the only surprise was that something like this, or worse, hadn’t happened before.
Could it actually get any worse?
Knowing it could, she took a gulp of her wine.
‘Do you think he is the father?’ she asked, as Matthew came to sit with her.
‘If there really is a child, then apparently it’s possible,’ he replied, watching her move along the sofa to put more space between them.
He moved too, closing the gap, and tapped his glass to hers.
‘Grandparents,’ he smiled, looking exactly like his son and sounding just as absurd. ‘Never imagined that this soon.’
Going to sit on the other sofa, she said, ‘Why am I the only one who’s upset about this? I’d have thought you, of all people, would realize what a disaster it’s going to be if he really is the father.’
‘You mean because I’ve recently had a baby I didn’t plan for?
’ he countered. ‘A bit different in my case, but yeah, I guess you’re right, it will be disastrous and expensive and consuming …
It’ll be a lot of things we can’t even foresee right now, but at least he’s not talking about getting married. ’
Was he for real? Had he actually just said that? She eyed him carefully, and finally, as the penny slowly dropped, she realized why he wasn’t anywhere near as worked up over this as she was and she almost wanted to weep.
‘You’re seeing this as a way of keeping us together, aren’t you?
’ she challenged. ‘You think, if there is a baby we’ll both be responsible for it, because Aiden isn’t capable, and we’ll share custody visits and baby bathtime and nappy changes and he can meet Bear, his uncle who’s practically the same age as him … ’
‘It might be a girl,’ Matthew put in quickly. ‘And I’m not sure Bear will be the uncle, will he?’