The knife went into Xander again. He did not know the name of his own son.
‘Tell me his name.’
He spoke quietly, but there was an insistence in it that would not be brooked. It was the old woman who answered.
‘It’s Joey,’ she said. ‘Joey, pet—say hello.’
Reluctantly, the toddler twisted his head briefly. ‘’Lo,’ he said, then went straight back to the cartoon.
He must be gone three, Xander thought. I have a three-year-old son, and I never knew. I never knew…
The storm of emotion swirled up in him again, but he forced it back. The elderly woman was looking at him. She had a steady gaze. Did she realise who he was? He assumed so. He had recognised his son instantly. It would not be hard to see him in Joey, and know that he must be the boy’s father.
His throat convulsed, and again he had to take a deep, steadying breath. He opened his mouth to speak, but the old woman was before him.
‘Clare, love, Joey needs his tea. The programme will be over soon, and he’ll realise he’s hungry. I’d do something quick for him, if I were you. Eggy soldiers is always nice, isn’t it?’
She spoke cheerfully, calmly, as if she were not witnessing a man discovering his three-year-old son.
She was right to do so, Xander realised. Whatever else, his son—Joey—must not be upset. What must be settled now would not be helped by his giving voice to fury, his emotions. Abruptly, he sat himself down on the rather battered sofa, opposite his son. He said nothing, just watched him watching the television with a rapt expression on his face, interrupted by bursts of childish laughter.
My son!
The storm of emotion in Xander’s breast swirled, then gradually, very gradually subsided. But deep inside his heart seemed to swell and swell.
Clare put the eggs to boil. She got out the bread, and popped it in the toaster. She fetched some milk, and poured it into Joey’s drinking cup. She set out a tray with his plastic plate with pictures of puppies on it, and started to pare an apple for his pudding. She worked swiftly, mindlessly.
She mustn’t think about this. Mustn’t do anything. Just give Joey his tea.
When it was ready she carried it through. The programme’s credits were rolling, and Joey had returned to the real world. He looked about him.
‘Time for tea,’ he announced. Then he focussed on the man looking at him. ‘Hello,’ he said. He looked interestedly at the man who had started his life four long years ago.
Xander looked at the child who was his. Emotion felled him. For a moment his brain went completely and absolutely blank. What did he know of children? His own childhood was so far away that he never thought of it—his father had been dead, his mother too. He had no memories of them.
Cold iced in his spine. If he had not come today, sought out the woman who had walked out into the night four years ago, his own son would, like him, have had no memories of his father…
That will not be…
Resolution steeled inside him. His son would have a father, and memories of a father, starting right now.
‘Hello, Joey,’ said Xander. ‘I am your father. I’ve come to see you.’
Clare felt the knife go through her throat, and she gasped aloud. Xander ignored her. So did Joey. Joey tilted his head and subjected Xander to an intense look.
‘Fathers are daddies,’ he announced.
Xander nodded. ‘Quite right. You’re a clever boy.’
Joey looked pleased with himself.
‘Clare, give Joey his tea. He’s a growing boy.’ Vi beckoned to her, and cleared some space on the table by her chair. Shakily, Clare crossed and put down the tray.
‘Soldiers!’ shouted Joey, pleased. ‘Eggy soldiers.’ He seized one of the fingers of toast and plunged it into one of the two eggs with the end sliced off, starting to eat with relish. Around his neck, Vi was deftly attaching a bib.
It was all, thought Clare, with a sick, hollow feeling inside her, intensely normal.
Except for one thing.
She rubbed a hand over her brow, her eyes going to the man sitting on Vi’s old sofa. The man who was her son’s father. This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t. Wave after wave of disbelief was eddying through her. So much shock. Last night had been bad enough, but now this… This was a nightmare. She couldn’t think, couldn’t feel. Could only watch, with a strange unnatural calm, how Xander Anaketos was watching his son—her son—eat his tea.
He stayed for another half an hour. Time for Joey to finish his tea and start playing with his toys. Clare washed up, trying to do anything to bring back normality—to pretend that her life hadn’t just crashed all around her. She started to get her and Vi’s supper ready, taking a cup of tea in to the other woman. Silently, she placed a mug of instant coffee—black, as she knew he liked his coffee—beside Xander. He gave her a long, level look that was quite expressionless. Then he returned his attention to his son, asking him about the car he was pushing around on the carpet.
‘I like cars,’ said Joey.
‘So do I,’ she heard Xander say. ‘When you’re bigger you can ride in my car.’
‘The big red one?’ asked Joey interestedly.
‘Yes, that one.’
‘Does it go fast?’ Joey enquired, making ‘vrooming’ noises with his own toy car.
‘Very fast,’ said Xander.
‘I like fast,’ said Joey.
‘Me too,’ agreed his father.
‘Can we see it now, outside?’
‘Next time. Today it’s too late,’
‘All right. Next time.’ Joey was contented. He went on chatting to his father.
All the while Vi sat and did her knitting, the needles clicking away rhythmically.
Xander did not speak to Clare until just before he left.
‘I must go now, Joey,’ he said. ‘But I’ll come back tomorrow.’
‘OK,’ said Joey. ‘Then I’ll see your car. Bye.’
Xander looked down at him, one long last look, drinking in every detail, then turned to go. Clare followed him down the narrow hallway to the front door. As he opened it he turned to her.
‘If you try and run again,’ he said, and the way he spoke made the hairs rise on the back of her neck, ‘I will hunt you down. Tomorrow—’ he looked at her, his eyes like weights, pressing into her ‘—we talk.’
Then he was gone.
‘Vi—what am I going to do? What am I going to do?’ Clare’s voice was anguished. Upstairs, Joey slept peacefully, though it had taken him longer to go down than usual. He’d started talking about ‘the man who said he was my father’. It was more curiosity, Clare thought, than reality. But she had been as evasive as she could without arousing suspicion.
A spurt of anger went through her—another one. They’d been coming and going with vicious ferocity ever since she’d shut the door on Xander.
How could he have said that to Joey? Right out—bald. Undeniable. Unqualifiable!
At just gone three, Joey was still feeling his way in using language, and Clare was never entirely sure how much he understood, how much he took in.
Now she sat, her hands wringing together, gazing hopelessly across at Vi.
For a moment Vi did not reply, concentrating on a tricky bit in her knitting. Then, without looking up, she said, ‘You know, Clare, love, I’ve never been one to give advice when it’s not asked for. But…’ her old shrewd eyes glanced at the younger woman ‘…whatever you do, it has to be what’s best for Joey. Not for you. I know that’s hard. I know you came here to me when you were very unhappy, and I know you told me that Joey’s dad wasn’t ever going to be someone who would care about him or you, that he’d just pay money and nothing more, and wish Joey to perdition, and that wouldn’t be good for any child. But—’ her voice changed a little, taking on the very slightest reproving note, while still staying sympathetic ‘—that man doesn’t seem like the one you told me about when you came here. That’s an angry man, love—and not because he’s found out about having a son. If he was angry for that reason, why did he stay here and tell Joey he was his dad? He wants to be Joey’s dad, that’s what.’
Clare just stared. ‘Vi, you don’t understand. He’s not an ordinary man—he isn’t a “dad” as you call it! He lives a life you can’t imagine—’
She fell silent. In her mind she felt time collapse, and saw again the gilded, expensive world that Xander Anaketos moved in—where she had once moved at his side, gowned in dresses costing thousands of pounds, jewels even more—a world as unreal to her now, when her horizons were bounded by finding the best bargains in supermarkets, by ceaseless careful budgeting and never splashing out on anything, as if he came from a different planet.
Vi shook her head. ‘If he wants to be Joey’s dad you can’t stop him, love.’
Clare’s expression hardened. ‘The fathers of illegitimate children in this country have no legal rights over them,’ she exclaimed harshly.
Vi gave her a long look over her knitting needles.
‘We’re not talking law and rights—we’re talking about being a dad to a little lad.’
‘I won’t have Joey hurt.’ Clare’s voice was passionate. ‘I won’t have him thinking he’s got a father, and then he hasn’t. I won’t have Xander swanning in here, upsetting him! Joey’s got me!’