Page 73 of A Good Heart is Hard to Find
‘Are you going to join us?’ Jason asked, who’d been sitting there grinning from ear to ear like the Cheshire Cat. ‘We’re celebrating: I’m going to father Cass’s children.’
Even Eddie looked a trifle startled.
‘No! I mean, justmaybe, but if so only by artificial—’ I protested, but Jason wasn’t listening.
‘I’m ready when she is,’he declared, trying to put his arm around me.
‘Thank you, Jason, but Orla jumped the gun a bit. I only meant—’
‘I know what you meant,’ he said, giving me a squeeze that took my breath away and so rendered me speechless and seething in silence.
‘I didn’t realize! I mean, I must have misunderstood when Dante said that Cass had …’ began Rosetta, looking doubtfullyfrom me, wheezing and tryingto fend Jason off, to Orla who was smothering laughter, and Eddie looking puzzled.
‘It’s a joke,’ I gasped. ‘Look, Jason, get off me! I didn’t say I would—’
His phone belted out a loud Bond theme, drowning me out. ‘Damn, it’s my late night customer!’ he said, releasing me so he could answer it.
I moved out of his reach, re-inflating my lungs.
‘Yes, yes!’ he said ungraciously into his phone.‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’ He snapped it shut and looked irritated: ‘I’ll have to go and open the shop up, he’s a big spender and he’s got to leave early tomorrow.’
‘I know,’ Orla said. ‘He’s going to stay overnight with me. I’d better go home soon so I can let him in, I suppose, but he’ll be ages in your shop: he always is.’
Jason got up, kissed the top of my head and said with a biggrin: ‘Tomorrow?’
About to disabuse his mind of any hopes he might have, it suddenly occurred to me that although I didn’t want quite the personal service he had in mind, there was no reason why I shouldn’t still utilize him if I did decide that I wanted to go ahead with late motherhood. Once he’d got over the disappointment, of course. I didn’t need to totally close the door on the idea justyet …
‘I’lltalkto you tomorrow, anyway,’ I agreed cautiously.
Rosetta and Eddie drifted off to a corner where they sat in an entwined heap, like puppies. They seemed to be sharing one orange juice and a packet of crisps.
Orla got the giggles as soon as we were alone.
‘Cass, your face! I’m sorry I came out with it like that, without thinking, but you really don’t have to sleep with Jasonif you don’t want to, you know!’
‘I know, and there’s no reason why he shouldn’t father my baby, now we know he isn’t Tom’s father. Poor Tom!’
‘Of course Jason might well only agree to help if you let him in on the act,’ Orla pointed out. ‘I don’t somehow think the idea of donating is going to go down well – and I think he will want to be involved with the pregnancy and the baby.’
‘If thereis one, because I’ve been uncertain about the whole idea lately. And you are right – if it worked and I got pregnant it wouldn’t be fair to Jason, because he would want more than I could give him.’ I sighed. ‘No, it isn’t going to work, is it? I’ll have to tell him tomorrow that I’ve changed my mind and I’m not going to try and get pregnant at all.’
‘Aren’t you? Is that your last word on thesubject?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. No. I mean, who with?’
‘I think we bothknowwho with,’ Orla said significantly.
‘No, we don’t,’ I snapped. ‘It’ll have to be the Saluki hound after all.’
‘Much better idea,’ she approved.
