Her mobile had rung as the two Pop-Tarts were coming out of the toaster, filling her cottage with the scent of a thousand and one browned preservatives. So she’d been able to wrap them up in a kitchen towel and grab her tea once Winston Nkata had filled her in on the subject of his early day chin-wag with Rosie Bontempi and her mother. It was this conversation, as reported by Nkata, that had set her on the journey to have another natter with Ross Carver. As the hour was ungodly, she reckoned she’d find him at home, which she had done. And he’d been busy since they’d last spoken. The number of cardboard boxes on his balcony had been reduced by half, no doubt due to the others’ being delivered to the Streatham flat.
He said to her, “As I’m up and regrettably awake, you may as well come in,” and he left her in the doorway as if allowing her time to make up her mind.
Aside from a pair of sweatpants that hung rather too loosely round his waist, Carver wasn’t yet dressed. He had the sort of upper body that came from weight training, though. It was swoon-worthy, as Dee Harriman probably would have put it. He went into the bedroom, but Barbara reckoned she wasn’t meant to follow him there. She heard a drawer open and then shut and in under a minute he was back with her, having changed into blue jeans and a T-shirt with the London Marathon’s logo on it. His feet remained bare, and his disarranged hair fell in curls about three inches below his ears.
Since the flat was small, the kitchen was three and a half steps from the sitting room. He went to the sink and filled an electric kettle. He grabbed a mug from the cupboard and asked Barbara if she wanted a coffee. She said that she was actually more of a tea girl and wouldn’t say no if he had any to hand. He said it would have to be Yorkshire. She said she doubted that a single cup of that would put hair onto her chest, although as far as her armpits went, one never knew.
He opened the fridge and grabbed a large jug of milk. She could see that nearly everything inside consisted of prepared meals. He took one of these, dumped its contents onto a plate, and shoved the plate into a microwave. After he’d set the time, he said to her, “Well? You’ve not come on a social call. And like I said, I’ve told you what I know.”
“You might have done,” Barbara acknowledged. “But does that mean you don’t know about Rosie?”
He looked immediately wary. “What about Rosie? Has something happened to her?”
“Yes and no. Depends on how you look at happen. She hasn’t shared the happy news with you?”
The microwave dinged and he removed the plate. He jerked open a drawer, took out some cutlery, and ate standing up, his arse against the worktop. “What’re you on about?” he asked her.
“Pregnancy is what I’m on about.”
“Pregnancy?”
“Rosie’s in the family way. She says it’s yours. She claims it’s meant to be; it’s written across the heavens, it’s a sign of your true and abiding love and all that rubbish. According to her, it’s been in the stars just short of forever. You and her, I mean. Not you and Teo.”
Ross had ceased eating although he still held his plate. He said, “How could she . . . How did it happen?”
Barbara said, “I expect it happened in the normal way ’nless the angel Gabriel introduced her to the Holy Ghost while she was washing her knickers. You seem gobsmacked, Mr. Carver. Or am I reading you wrong?”
He turned and put his plate in the sink, apparently having lost his appetite. He put a teabag in a mug and then spooned coffee into a press. As she watched him, Barbara went on. “So if Rosie is telling us the truth and you and she were dancing the mattress polka, could be that’s what Teo wanted to have a natter with you about. Rosie told her, see. That seems to be what they were shouting about—her and Teo, that is—when the neighbours heard the ruckus. She told my colleague, at first, that they were going at it over visits to their dad. But now Rosie’s claiming that it was all about the pregnancy and you. She says Teo didn’t want you. She says that Teo threw you in the dustbin or to the dogs or whatever. So I need to ask you: Was this Rosie thing a one-off or was it something else? I ask cos we’re having a bloody time of it trying to sort her out. Was she your new and true or had you been diddling her on the side while you were married to her sister?”
He went to the fridge again. This time he brought out a glass bottle of some kind of juice, pomegranate or cranberry. He poured himself a glass and drank it down. The electric kettle clicked off but he made no move towards it. He appeared to have forgotten her tea and the coffee press entirely. He said, “Are you always this crude or am I a special case for you?”