The Two Lives of Lydia Bird - Josie Silver Page 0,75

pull the note from my bag and smooth it out flat against the steering wheel.

Hey Lydia,

I noticed you didn’t have a tick sheet so I’m going to hazard a guess that you hadn’t intended to take part tonight. For the record, me neither, really. It’s not my usual thing, but that’s kind of the point – I’m trying to do stuff out of my ordinary because doing my usual hasn’t been working out too well for me lately. Anyway. I wondered if I could buy you a cup of coffee sometime, or tea, or a vegan chai-latte-skinnydip, if that’s your bag. I think I’m ballsing this up and I’m running out of space, so here’s my number. I’d really like to see you again.

Kris

His blue-ink handwriting is neither scruffy nor meticulous, and there are no sign-off smilies or kisses to feel afraid of or scorn at. It’s brief, but as I read it for a second, slower time and hear the words between the lines, I learn several things about Kris. He’s been through a tough time of some kind. I find myself doubting he’s been through as tough a time as I have, and then I instantly feel bad for it. I should know better than to make those kinds of assumptions.

So, I can assume he’s had some sort of hiccup, romantic probably, but going on the fact he turned up alone tonight at a dating event, he’s managed to hang on to his sense of self-assurance, or he’s brave, or a little of both. I don’t add desperate, because actually none of the people at the event tonight seemed particularly desperate. And, lastly, he doesn’t appear to take himself too seriously, if his chai-latte-skinnydip joke is anything to judge him by. It’s all I have to go on, and together with our brief meeting, it’s enough to allow him to slide his bum on to a seat in the waiting room of my life.

Friday 14 June

‘I’m as fat as I’m tall,’ Elle grumbles, flopping on my sofa. ‘I’ll have to stay here until I give birth now. I can’t get up.’

‘You look magnificent,’ I say, ‘all Earth Mother.’ I make mudra signs with my thumbs and index fingers and try to look yogic.

‘Magnificently round,’ she huffs. ‘Are my feet even still there? I haven’t seen them for a month. And it’s too bloody hot in here.’

I turn away to open a window so she can’t see me laughing. Elle isn’t a glowy, content pregnant woman. She’s a grumpy, demanding one. When I saw David at Mum’s last week he confided that he’s increasingly terrified of her; he described her as occasionally Jekyll but mostly Hyde. Every centimetre their daughter adds to Elle’s waistline reduces her patience threshold accordingly. Mum tried to make David feel better by telling him pregnancy had a similarly temporary psychotic effect on her moods too, but then went on to say how she’d fractured two of my father’s fingers when she twisted his hand during a contraction. If she could have the day I was born over again, I think the only change she’d effect would be to break three. Or four. Or go the whole hog, twist his arm clean out of its socket and scupper his chances of ever becoming a half-competent surfer. Anyway, the point is that poor David now has to add fear of injury during the birth to his already too-long list of worries about Elle and the baby. He’s a planner; he really isn’t keen on situations he can’t control with numbers and damage-limitation lists.

‘Tea?’ I ask.

Elle scrubs her dark fringe out of her eyes with the flat of her palm. ‘Because I’m not hot enough already?’

I bust out a line of ‘Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?’, even though I know it’s only going to make her scowl even more.

‘I’ll never look hot again,’ she moans.

‘Get over yourself,’ I laugh. ‘Iced water?’

She shrugs with grudging acceptance. ‘Even though I’ll need a wee straight after and I won’t be able to get up off this bloody sofa.’

‘I’ll heave you up,’ I say, heading for the kitchen. It hasn’t escaped my notice that our roles have slowly switched round since Elle became pregnant. Last year she pretty much kept me sane; this year I’m trying to return the kindness. In her early months I kept her supply of ginger biscuits replenished, and lately there are always ice cubes ready in my freezer because she’s perma-hot regardless