Baby Be Mine

has started to stir.
    ‘Do you want to go?’ I ask tentatively.
    ‘No, you’d better.’
    I nod and head up the stairs. Actually, that wasn’t a smart suggestion. Who knows how Barney will react to seeing Christian again. He won’t remember him, surely? Not at his age. My nerves return. I hope he doesn’t cry. Please don’t let him cry.
    ‘Hey,’ Christian says gently as I carry him into the living room. Barney lifts his head and peers down at him. He stays sitting on the sofa. I almost say, ‘Go to Daddy’, but I catch myself in time and my head spins at the thought of what would have been a horrendous faux pas. Christian doesn’t attempt to take him from me, so I decide against handing him over for the moment.
    ‘He’s grown,’ Christian comments as I sit down again.
    Barney wriggles out of my arms so I put him on the floor and he walks over to his toys.
    ‘Walking!’ he exclaims. ‘But of course he would be by now.’ He doesn’t say it in a terrible way, but I still feel tense.
    ‘He says quite a lot, too,’ I reveal. ‘Barney, what are you playing with?’
    ‘Tains,’ comes the response.
    ‘Trains,’ I say to Christian.
    ‘I gathered that,’ he replies with a wry grin.
    We both fall silent.
    ‘How’s your Contour Lines biography coming along?’
    ‘Done and dusted. In the editing stage at the moment.’
    ‘Brilliant. Are you happy with it?’
    ‘It’s not bad. Considering.’
    Considering what you’ve been through and you still managed to write a book . . . We leave that unsaid.
    ‘When does it come out?’ I ask.
    ‘September.’
    ‘It should do well. Great Christmas present for Contour Lines fans.’
    ‘Let’s hope so.’
    Again we fall silent. He watches Barney playing with his train set and sips at his tea. I hand him another chocolate biscuit.
    ‘I like your beard.’
    ‘Er, thanks,’ he replies, embarrassed.
    I do. It actually suits him.
    ‘You haven’t changed,’ he comments, glancing at me. ‘Looks-wise, in any case.’
    We meet each other’s eyes before looking away again.
    ‘I didn’t know if we’d ever see you again,’ I say after a while.
    ‘I just needed some time.’ He stares at Barney. ‘He’s grown so much.’
    I watch him for any sign of tears, but he seems remarkably calm. I wonder if he has anyone in his life, if that’s why he appears so strong. I daren’t ask.
    ‘You seem so, I don’t know . . .’ My voice trails off.
    ‘I’ve come to terms with it.’
    ‘Have you?’ I ask hopefully.
    ‘I didn’t have a choice.’
    ‘No.’ Please don’t hate me forever.
    ‘I don’t hate you, Meg.’
    Did I say that out loud?
    ‘If that’s what you’ve been thinking,’ he adds.
    Okay, then, so no, I didn’t.
    ‘I didn’t want to feel bitter anymore,’ he explains. ‘It’s . . . exhausting. I couldn’t go on like that.’
    I take a deep breath.
    ‘That’s not to say I forgive you,’ he continues, glancing at me.
    ‘No, of course not,’ I reply quickly.
    ‘But I’ve missed him.’
    He gets down on the floor and starts to put together some more pieces of the wooden train track. Barney ‘helps’ him by unhelpfully taking it apart again.
    ‘Oi, you! Give that back!’ Christian says in a funny voice. Barney’s face breaks into a toothy smile. ‘Oi!’ Christian says again and Barney starts to giggle as he tickles him.
    It’s hard not to laugh at the sight. It’s hard not to feel hope. So I do laugh. And I do hope. And I pray for happier times ahead.

 
  Chapter 46  
    Christian comes to visit again a week later – and a week after that. Soon it’s his publication day and he invites us to his launch party in London. We go – Bess comes, too – and we’re so proud to hear his editor talking about him and what a pleasure he is to work with. He gave me a proof copy of his book to read before it came out and it’s nail-bitingly gripping. I’m crossing all my fingers and toes that it sells well so he can get on with the thing he loves most: writing crime fiction instead of following disturbed celebrities around the world and watching from the sidelines as they get up to all manner of grief.
    Dana is back in rehab.
    Johnny is not.
    He wasn’t involved in her latest attempt to sink into the depths of depravity. He was away in Big Sur, writing. The press made out that she was angry with him for leaving her alone in LA – that this was her way of getting back at him. Of course, I shouldn’t believe anything the