smiled.
‘I must be coming down with something. I just feel … out of sorts.’
She felt his forehead. ‘You’re not hot.’
‘I’m not?’ He looked at her in surprise and then felt it himself. ‘I feel hot. It’s this guy at work.’ He shook his head. ‘So odd.’
Ruth frowned and studied him, not used to seeing him so inarticulate.
‘It started out well.’ He swirled his wine around his glass. ‘I met a man called Gabe outside the office. A homeless guy – well, I don’t know if he was homeless, he says he has a place to stay, but he was begging on the streets anyway.’
At that stage the baby monitor began crackling as Pud started to cry softly. Just a gentle sleepy moaning at first. Knife and fork down and with the unfinished plate pushed away, Ruth prayed for him to stop.
‘Anyway,’ Lou continued, not even noticing, ‘I bought him a coffee and we got talking.’
‘That was nice of you,’ Ruth said. Her maternal instincts were kicking in and the only voice she could now hear was that of her child, as his sleepy moans turned to full-blown cries.
‘He reminded me of me,’ Lou said, confused now. ‘He was exactly like me and we had the funniest conversation about shoes.’ He laughed, thinking back over it. ‘He could remember every single pair of shoes that walked into the building, so I hired him. Well, I didn’t, I called Harry –’
‘Lou, honey,’ she cut in, ‘do you not hear that?’
He looked at her blankly, irritated at first that she’d butted in, and then cocked his head to listen. Finally, the cries penetrated his thoughts.
‘Fine, go on,’ he sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose. ‘But as long as you remember that I was telling you about my day, because you’re always giving out that I don’t,’ he mumbled.
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ She raised her voice. ‘Your son is crying. Do I have to sit here all night while he wails for help until you’ve finished your story about a homeless man who likes shoes, or would you ever go and check on him of your own accord, do you think?’
‘I’ll do it,’ he said angrily, though not making a move from his chair.
‘No, I’ll do it.’ She stood up from the table. ‘I want you to do it without being reminded. You don’t do it for brownie points, Lou, you’re supposed to want to do it.’
‘You don’t seem too eager to do it yourself now,’ he grumbled, fiddling with his cufflinks.
Halfway from the table to the kitchen door, she stopped. ‘You know you haven’t taken Ross for one single day by yourself?’
‘You must be serious, you’re actually using his real name. Where has all that come from?’
It was all coming out of her now that she was frustrated. ‘You haven’t changed his nappy, you haven’t fed him.’
‘I’ve fed him,’ he protested.
The wails got louder.
‘You haven’t prepared one bottle, made him one meal, dressed him, played with him. You haven’t spent any time with him alone, without me being here to run in every five minutes to take him from you while you send an email or answer a phone call. The child has been living in the world for over a year now, Lou. It’s been over a year.’
‘Hold on.’ He ran his hand through his hair and held it there, clenching a handful of hair with a tight fist, a sign of his anger. ‘How have we gotten from talking about my day, which you always want to know so much about – second for second – to this attack?’
‘You were so busy talking about you that you didn’t hear your child,’ she said tiredly, knowing this conversation was going the same place as every other similar argument they’d had. Nowhere.
Lou looked around the room and held out his hands dramatically, emphasising the house. ‘Do you think I sit at my desk all day twiddling my thumbs? No, I work my hardest trying to juggle everything so that you and the kids can have all this, so that I can feed Ross, so excuse me if I don’t fill his mouth every morning with mashed banana.’
‘You don’t juggle anything, Lou. You choose one thing over another. There’s a difference.’
‘I can’t be in two places at once, Ruth! If you need help around here, I’ve already told you, just say the word and we could have a nanny here any day you want.’
He knew he’d walked himself into a bigger argument, and as Pud’s wails grew louder on the baby monitor, he prepared for the inevitable onslaught. Just to avoid the same dreaded argument, he almost added, ‘And I promise not to sleep with this one.’
But the argument never came. Instead, her shoulders shrank, her entire demeanour altered, as she gave up the fight and instead went to tend to her son.
Lou reached for the remote control and held it towards the TV like a gun. He pressed the trigger angrily and powered off the TV. The sweating spandexed women diminished into a small circle of light in the centre of the screen before disappearing completely.
He reached for the plate of apple pie on the table and began picking at it, wondering how on earth this had all started from the second he walked in the door. It would end as it did so many other nights: he would go to bed and she would be asleep, or at least pretend to be. A few hours later he would wake up, work out, get showered and go to work.
He sighed, then on hearing his exhale only then noticed that the baby monitor had become silent of Pud’s cries, but it still crackled. As he walked towards it to turn it off, he heard other noises that made him reach for the volume dial. Turning it up, his heart broke as the sounds of Ruth’s quiet sobs filled the kitchen.
‘So you let him get away?’ A young voice broke into Raphie’s thoughts.
‘What’s that?’ Raphie snapped out of his trance and turned his attention back to the young teen who was sitting across the desk from him.
‘I said, you let him get away.’
‘Who?’
‘The rich guy in the flash Porsche. He was speeding and you let him get away.’
‘No, I didn’t let him get away.’
‘Yeah you did, you didn’t give him any points or a ticket or anything. You just let him off. That’s the problem with you lot, you’re always on the rich people’s sides. If that was me, I’d be locked up for life. I only threw a bloody turkey and I’m stuck here all day. And it’s Christmas Day, and all.’
‘Shut
