It was a bright, cool summer morning, fresh and clean. The police station lay in the modern outskirts of the town, beneath the city walls. I was about to walk down the hill towards the station when I heard music, the theme from
Perched impertinently on the bonnet of a police car was Kat.
‘Hey,’ she said, offering her fist to bump. I obliged.
‘Hello, Kat. What are you doing here?’
‘Waiting for you. How was your first night behind bars?’
‘Better than some hotels I’ve stayed in. I regret the tattoo, though.’
‘What tattoo did you get, Mr P.?’
‘Just gang-related stuff. Big dragon.’
‘Your tan’s evened out. On your face. You look less like a road sign.’
‘Well, that’s something, I suppose.’ She smiled and time passed. ‘Well, Kat, I should get going. Nice to meet—’
‘Have you tried texting him, Mr P.?’
‘Of course, and calling too. He said he’d ignore them all and he has.’
‘Then send him one he can’t ignore. Here, hold Steve.’ Kat slid off the bonnet, handed me accordion-Steve then reached into her pocket and produced her mobile phone, tapping on it with her head down. ‘I shouldn’t do this. It’s a betrayal of trust, Mr P., and I feel bad. Plus there’s the cost to my personal dignity and integrity. But given that you’ve come this far …’
‘What are you writing, Kat?’
‘… and “send”! There. All done. Take a look.’
She held her phone out to me, and I read:
Albie I need to talk to you about something. Urgent. Has to be in person so don’t call me! Just meet me tomorrow eleven am on the steps of the prado, do not be late!!!! Love you still kat
‘There you go,’ said Kat. ‘I’m delivering him to you.’
‘Good God,’ I exclaimed. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘No thanks required.’
‘But … but doesn’t the message sort of imply …?’
‘… that he’s knocked me up? You do want him to be there, don’t you?’
‘Well, yes, but—’
She took the phone from my hands. ‘I can always tell him I was kidding …’
‘No, no, no, I think … let it be. But tomorrow morning? Can I get to Madrid for tomorrow?’
‘You can if you run.’
I laughed, bundled the wheezing accordion back into her arms and with a certain wariness — we were neither of us daisy-fresh — embraced Kat, and began to trot across the car park before halting and turning back.
‘Kat, I realise I’m pushing my luck, but the money I gave you yesterday — could I get it back? My wallet is in Florence, you see …’
She shook her head slowly and sighed, crouched and reached into her backpack.
‘And maybe if I could borrow twenty, maybe thirty euros more? And your bank details, so I can return the money …’
I confess I made this offer in the expectation of her declining, but she took some time to write out her account numbers, including IBAN and SWIFT codes. I promised to make good my debts as soon as I returned, and then I was off, running down the hill, running, running, running towards Spain.
There is no such thing as reproduction. When two people decide to have a baby, they engage in an act of production, and the widespread use of the word reproduction for this activity, with its implication that two people are but braiding themselves together, is at best a euphemism to comfort prospective parents before they get in over their heads.
Time being what it is, we got older. We thickened and sagged in ways that would have seemed implausible, comical even, to our younger selves, just as our son, before our eyes, began to elongate. We accumulated things; vast quantities of moulded plastic, picture books, scooters, tricycles, bicycles, shoes and clothes and coats and paraphernalia that no longer served a purpose but which we couldn’t quite throw away. Connie and I entered our forties in quick succession, and though we suspected we’d never need a bottle steriliser or rocking horse again, we found we couldn’t quite discard them, and now there was a piano, too, now a train set, a castle, a tangled box kite.
