The Baby Surprise: Juggling Briefcase & Baby

Dangled abruptly at arm’s length, Freya started to cry again.

‘No, no, don’t cry…your mother will be here soon…just hold on…’

But Freya didn’t want to hold on. She was miserable and uncomfortable and missing the reassuring solidity of his body. She cried and cried until Lex, who had been pretending to himself that he didn’t know what needed to be done, was driven to investigating the bag he had seen Romy take to the Ladies with Freya in the pub, what seemed like a lifetime ago.

He did know what had to be done. He just didn’t want to face it.

‘Where are you, Romy?’ he muttered.

The bag contained fresh nappies and a pack of something called baby wipes. Lex made a face, but took the bag and the baby into the bathroom and looked around for a towel. He had a nasty feeling things were going to get messy.

Cursing fluently under his breath, he spread the towel as best he could one-handed, and laid Freya, still screaming, on top of it.

‘Please stop crying,’ he begged her, wrenching at his tie in dismay at the task ahead of him.

In response, Freya redoubled her cries.

‘OK, OK.’ Lex dragged his hands through his hair and took a deep breath. ‘You can do this,’ he told himself.

He rolled up his sleeves and studied the fastenings on Freya’s dungarees. So far, so good. Gingerly, he pulled them off her and then, averting his face, managed to unfasten the nappy.

‘Ugh.’

Grimacing horribly, he tugged the dirty nappy free, holding it out as far away from him as humanly possible, and put it in a waste-paper basket. Then he braced himself for the next stage of the process.

‘God, what am I doing?’ Lex muttered as he pulled off some sheets of l00 paper. ‘I’m Chief Executive of Gibson & Grieve. I make deals and I make money. I negotiate. I direct. I don’t wipe bottoms. How did I come to this?’

And then—at last!—came the sound of the door opening. ‘Lex?’ Romy called.

‘In here.’

When Romy crossed to the bathroom door, she saw Lex crouched on the floor, a fistful of l00 paper in his hand and Freya kicking and grizzling on a towel in front of him. Both of them looked up at Romy as she appeared in the doorway, with almost identical expressions of relief.

‘Oh, thank God!’ said Lex in heartfelt tones. ‘Where have you been?’

‘With Willie, then I went to the kitchen to find Freya some supper.’

Romy looked from her daughter to Lex. She had never seen him less than immaculate before, but now his hair was standing on end, his tie askew and his sleeves rolled up above his wrists.

He looked so harried that she wanted to laugh, but it seemed less than tactful when he had clearly been doing his best.

‘She was crying,’ Lex said defensively, as if she had demanded to know what he thought he was doing. ‘I thought she needed her nappy changing but I’m not really sure what I’m doing…’

Romy could only guess what that admission had cost him. ‘It was very brave of you to have a go at all,’ she told him. ‘Shall I take over now?’

‘She’s all yours.’

Lex couldn’t get up quickly enough. He watched as Romy cleaned the baby and put on a clean nappy with the minimum of fuss.

‘You make it look so simple,’ he said almost resentfully, and she glanced up at him with a smile.

‘Practice,’ she said.

Freya was wreathed in smiles once more. Romy lifted her up and kissed her, and the tenderness in her expression closed a fist around Lex’s heart and squeezed.

Turning abruptly on his heel, he went back into the bedroom, where a plate of bread and butter with some ham and a banana was sitting on a side table. Freya’s supper, presumably. Lex dreaded to imagine what she would do with that banana.

Not his problem, he reminded himself. Thank God.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he called back to Romy as he retrieved his bag and briefcase. ‘What time are we expected for dinner?’

Romy appeared in the doorway with Freya. ‘Drinks at seven thirty.’

‘Fine. I’ll have time for a shower and can change these trousers.’ Lex shook each leg in turn. Between Freya and the snow, he didn’t think they would ever be the same again. ‘I don’t suppose you know which is my room?’

Romy settled Freya into the plastic chair that she had fixed to the table. She handed her the plate of bread and ham and turned to face Lex, drawing a breath.

‘This one,’ she said.

‘All your stuff is in here,’ said Lex. ‘You might as well stay here, and I’ll take your room.’

‘This is our room.’

Halfway to the door, Lex stopped. Frowned as he realised what she was saying. ‘You mean…?’

‘I’m afraid so.’ Faint colour touched Romy’s cheeks. She hadn’t been looking forward to breaking this to Lex. ‘There seems to have been some kind of misunderstanding when Summer rang up,’ she said carefully. ‘They thought that because we were bringing a baby, we were all together.’

‘Didn’t you tell them that’s not the case?’

She hesitated. ‘Not yet.’

‘Why on earth not?’

‘I wasn’t sure what to do.’

Edgily, Romy walked over to the window and pulled back the curtain. Outside, the snow was still swirling in the darkness while great, fat flakes piled up on the window sill. If they weren’t careful, they would be snowed in here, and then what would happen?

Lex eyed her back in baffled frustration. ‘What do you mean, you weren’t sure? You could just tell the truth!’

‘The thing is, Willie was so pleased.’ Romy turned from the window, trying to make Lex understand what it had been like. ‘He was supposed to be showing me some charter, but he really just wanted to talk about you, and how happy he was to discover you weren’t at all like your reputation. There he was, expecting some soulless businessman, and you

turn up with a baby and start bonding with his beastly dog… Willie was absolutely delighted to discover that you were a family man after all!’

‘But I’m not Freya’s father,’ Lex objected, pacing back from the door. ‘We told him that.’

‘I know, but that only makes it better from his point of view. Apparently his mother was a single mother who struggled without any support from her family or his father or anyone, and helping single mothers is a big issue with him.’

Romy fiddled with her bracelets. ‘He just assumed that you and I were.’ Somehow she just couldn’t bring herself to say ‘lovers’. It was too close to the truth. And too far.