Baby Be Mine

Barney – very tactical.
    ‘Hello.’ Dana beams at Joseph as she steps forward. ‘I like your costume.’ She giggles.
    ‘Not very inventive,’ he replies. ‘Yours is pretty impressive.’
    ‘I was being ironic,’ she points out smugly, as if everyone in this room isn’t already aware of that fact.
    ‘I gathered that,’ Joseph replies with an easy grin.
    ‘I think she looks like a glow-worm,’ Bess mutters in my ear and I stifle a snort.
    Johnny’s gaze hardens.
    ‘What did you come as?’ I ask him innocently.
    ‘I don’t do fancy dress,’ he replies bluntly.
    ‘No, really? I was being sarcastic’ I nod at Barney in his arms. ‘Is that such a good idea?’
    Johnny shrugs and puts him down on the floor. Barney turns around to face Johnny and jumps up and down on the spot, desperate to be picked up again. A few people in the vicinity look amused. I lift up Barney myself, hoping to dispel the attention, but then I realise it might look even odder to the strangers here. What’s Johnny doing carrying my son? Who am I? It occurs to me that some people might actually recognise me – I did use to work as his PA, after all. The bad feeling inside me grows stronger.
    ‘Let’s go to the bar,’ Johnny says to Dana.
    ‘Christ, I didn’t think those words were ever going to come,’ she replies with relief, before following him without a backward glance.
    ‘Alright?’ Joseph asks me, sensing my trepidation.
    ‘Mmm,’ I reply, glancing nervously at the other party-goers. ‘Do you mind if we go outside?’
    ‘Lead the way.’
    I head outside to the rolling gardens overlooking the city lights. It’s already dark, but the gardens are lit with fairy lights and hundreds of the aforementioned candles. There’s a children’s play area inside a giant pumpkin coach and it suddenly clicks.
    ‘Aah!’
    ‘What?’ Bess asks me.
    ‘Cinderella must be Sylvester’s wife.’
    ‘She is,’ Kitty confirms. ‘You know Sly’s dressed like the Prince?’
    ‘Really? Genius,’ I reply. ‘What about his kids?’
    ‘Ugly sisters?’ Eddie suggests.
    ‘Rats?’ Bess pipes up.
    ‘Rats?’ Eddie asks, pulling a face.
    ‘Yeah, you know,’ Bess explains. ‘Doesn’t the Fairy Godmother turn mice and rats into horses and footmen or something like that?’
    Eddie shrugs and Bess punches his arm. ‘Don’t you know anything?’
    ‘I know that I need another drink,’ he replies with a wink. ‘Come with me to the bar?’
    ‘Okay.’ Off they head.
    ‘I’d better check on the Rodster,’ Kitty tells us, making an obvious exit for our benefit. God knows why – my seventeen-month-old son is right there so we’re hardly going to copulate in the bushes.
    I wander over to a bench and sit down so I can keep an eye on Barney in the pumpkin. A pumpkin in a pumpkin. I wonder if that’s doing anyone else’s head in.
    ‘Heels again,’ Joseph points out with a grin.
    I smile back at him. ‘How was your audition?’
    ‘Pretty good, I think. Hard to tell, though. So much bullshit in Hollywood.’
    ‘You had a bit of a West Country twang, then.’
    ‘Really? I spent some time there as a kid,’ he explains.
    ‘Did you? Which part?’
    ‘Er, Dorset, mainly.’
    ‘I used to go to Somerset when my ex-boyfriend lived there.’
    ‘Is that right?’
    ‘It’s beautiful,’ I comment.
    ‘I haven’t been back for a long time.’
    ‘You lived in London, right?’
    ‘I did, but I’m pretty settled here now. At least for the time being. We’ll see if it gets me anywhere.’
    ‘Have you always wanted to be an actor?’ I ask.
    ‘Hell, no.’ He laughs. ‘I kind of got into it by accident.’
    ‘Really? How?’
    ‘A film crew came in to do a documentary about kick-boxing. The director saw – I don’t know,’ he looks a little awkward, ‘something in me and cast me as a small part in a British film.’
    ‘I thought you were trained in kung fu?’
    ‘I am, now. But I started off as a kick-boxer.’
    ‘Cool.’
    He laughs. ‘What about you? How did you end up with a . . . rock star?’ he asks in a funny voice.
    ‘I used to be his PA.’
    ‘Aah,’ he replies ominously. The whole business suddenly feels sordid.
    ‘It was complicated,’ I try to explain.
    ‘These things usually are. It makes you wonder how many other illegitimate children of celebrities there are around the world.’
    That uneasy feeling again.
    ‘I think Barney is Johnny’s only child,’ I tell him. Why would anyone else keep it