Baby Be Mine

about this. The rider climbs off the bike and pushes it into our driveway, and then goes out of sight. Barney is asleep and I’m here alone. Did I lock the front door? I don’t know. I quickly run across the living room and check that the door is bolted. It is. Are all the windows closed? Yes.
    BANG, BANG, BANG!
    The person’s at the door!
    ‘MEG!’
    Johnny?
    ‘Johnny?’ I ask through the wood.
    ‘Open up!’ he shouts, pounding at the door once again.
    Stunned, I unlock the door and pull it towards me. Johnny is standing there, his helmet under his arm.
    ‘He’s mine, isn’t he?’ he demands to know.
    I stare at him. His face is anguished.
    He pushes past me into the house. ‘I want to see him.’
    I come to life. ‘No. NO.’ I close the door behind him. ‘What the hell were you thinking, turning up out of the blue like this? Christian could have been here!’
    ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ He looks at me, incredulous. ‘Sorry, did you just ask me what the hell was I thinking?’
    I ignore him. ‘Please keep your voice down. Come through to the living room.’
    ‘I want to see my son,’ he says slowly, adamantly.
    I turn to look at him, a deadly calm settling over me. ‘You can’t. He’s asleep.’
    He looks tortured. ‘So he is mine.’
    ‘Come through to the living room,’ I repeat.
    He dumps his helmet on the sofa and slumps down, burying his head in his hands.
    ‘Can I get you a drink?’ I ask. I feel detached from my body, or rather, detached from my emotions. I feel robotic, calm, in control, yet at the same time this is totally surreal. This isn’t happening to me. It’s like I’m in a dream.
    Johnny doesn’t answer, so I leave him there and go into the kitchen. I switch on the kettle and put two teaspoons of instant coffee into a mug. We don’t have a coffee machine, so it’ll have to do. I bring it back through to him and put it on a coaster on the coffee table. I have a feeling it might stay there for some time. I sit on the sofa perpendicular to him, and then I wait. It’s not long before he raises his tormented eyes and stares at me. He looks pale, tired. He hasn’t shaved in days – not since I saw him at Christian’s parents’ house, I imagine.
    ‘I want to hear it from you,’ he says quietly. ‘Is he mine?’
    I nod. ‘It would seem that way.’
    ‘Has Christian always known?’
    ‘No.’ I pause. ‘I’m telling him when he gets back.’
    ‘You won’t have long to wait,’ Johnny says. ‘Contrary to popular opinion,’ he adds, mildly sarcastically, ‘I wouldn’t have turned up out of the blue, even if I do only have a window of a day.’
    ‘A day?’ I ask, panicked. ‘He’s not coming back until the week after next!’
    Johnny closes his eyes, irritated with himself, and then opens them again. ‘He was going to surprise you. I wasn’t supposed to tell you.’
    ‘Oh, God . . . He’s back tomorrow?’
    Johnny nods.
    So now I have even less time to prepare, to pack up all our belongings, to speak to my parents . . .
    He sighs deeply. ‘How could you let this happen, Meg?’
    Rage rushes through me. ‘How could I let this happen? I seem to remember there were two of us there when you forced me to have sex with you!’
    ‘I didn’t force you to have sex with me!’ he scoffs, getting to his feet.
    ‘You may as well have, coming into my bedroom like that when I was getting changed! What the hell were you thinking?’
    ‘Here we go again: what the hell was I thinking?’ he says irately, pacing the room. ‘What the hell were you thinking, not telling me you were pregnant? I had a right to know!’ He points at me angrily. ‘I waited for you, Meg! I waited three months for you! You could have told me! We might have been able to work it out.’
    I laugh, bitterly. ‘Are you living in fucking cuckoo land? Look at you! You’re a mess! Who the fuck would want you to be a father?’ Ker-ching goes the swear box.
    He glares at me. Seconds pass before he speaks. ‘That’s not your choice to make.’
    ‘I thought he could have been Christian’s,’ I say, a slight tremor to my voice.
    ‘How long did it take you to work out that he wasn’t? Anyone with half a brain can see that he’s mine. I don’t know how Christian hasn’t worked it out – I thought he was brighter than that!’
    ‘Don’t you dare speak about him like that! He doesn’t deserve it.’
    ‘Oh, fuck,’ he mutters, pushing his hands through his hair and collapsing