Baby It's Cold Outside

‘Oh you’re going to explain,’ he said. I’d never heard him quite so angry. Well, maybe once, but I didn’t like thinking about that time. ‘Talk.’

Tansy sat down again while Jamie leaned against the fireplace like a disapproving Victorian father. I sat down on the sofa opposite Tansy.

‘I don’t know where to start,’ she said, picking up her wine again.

‘Well how about,’ Jamie said, ‘you start at the beginning and you carry on until the part where you arrive on my doorstep with a kid?’

His voice was very calm, but I could tell he was very close to exploding. Tansy obviously knew it too. She took a breath.

‘Things were pretty bad between us at the end, remember?’ she said. Jamie nodded, grim-faced.

‘You were talking about coming back to the UK, and I thought there was more to do in Africa…’ She looked into her almost-full wine glass, then back up at Jamie. ‘I said some horrible things to you.’

‘I can help people here, too,’ Jamie said.

Tansy nodded.

‘I know that now,’ she said. ‘I was a bit worthy back then.’

The ghost of a smile crossed Jamie’s lips.

‘You mean you were wrong,’ he said.

Tansy gave him a look that was verging on disdainful.

‘The day before you left,’ she said. ‘Remember how awful it was?’

‘Kids died all the time,’ Jamie said, turning to me. His eyes were distant as he remembered. ‘You never got used to it, but we lived with it. We got on with helping the ones we could help. But that day was rough. There was a lot of malaria about and it seemed all the kids nearby were suffering. We had a queue outside the centre, we were letting in as many patients as we could but we had kids sharing beds. It was heartbreaking…’

Tansy shifted on the sofa and stroked her little boy’s hair. Her eyes were full of tears.

‘That day, so many died,’ Jamie went on. ‘So many. And all I could hear was the women crying, wailing, for their lost children.’ He shook his head. ‘But the kids never cried. They just lay there, so weak, looking up at us. Trusting us to make them better. And we couldn’t.’ He swallowed. I was close to tears too but I didn’t want to interrupt his story.

‘I was upset,’ Tansy said. ‘Jamie and I hadn’t been intimate for weeks, months maybe. But that night, I just wanted to be close to someone. To feel…’

‘Yeah, okay,’ I said. I really didn’t need to hear the details of MY Jamie’s make-up sex with this woman. ‘I get the idea.’

Tansy turned her attention to Jamie.

‘And then, when I woke up, you were packing,’ she said. ‘And we fought again. And then you left.’

Jamie shrugged.

‘It was the right thing to do,’ he said. ‘If I’d stayed we’d have been in a never-ending cycle of making up and breaking up.’

‘You’re right,’ Tansy said. ‘You’re right. And then I got sick. Really sick. I had malaria too. First they took me to hospital in Mombasa – then, when I was strong enough, I flew home.’ She paused. ‘I don’t remember much about it.’

Jamie didn’t speak. Tansy twirled her wine glass in her hand. I willed her to drink some more so I could legitimately top up her glass – and mine – but she didn’t.

‘When I’d been home a few days the doctor told me I was pregnant,’ she said. ‘I was shocked at first, but it was knowing that I had a reason to recover that got me through.’

I thought about saying something, then Jamie gave me a warning glance and I thought better of it.

‘I was a mess, Jamie,’ Tansy said. ‘I was weak and depressed, and I didn’t know what to do. By the time I’d got it all clear in my head, Parker was born. Then there was baby stuff, and work…’

‘Work?’ Jamie prompted.

‘At the hospital in Boston,’ she said. ‘And one day a week at a mobile clinic working with pregnant women in the suburbs.’

‘You’re helping people at home,’ Jamie said.

She nodded.

‘So there was never a good time to tell you.’

‘Why now?’ I said. ‘Why are you here? Now?’

Tansy looked at her son again. Her son. I still couldn’t think of him as Jamie’s.

‘Parker got sick,’ she began. The hostility I’d been feeling towards her since she arrived finally spilled over.

‘Oh well isn’t that awful,’ I said, my voice laced with possibly unforgivable sarcasm. ‘So what is it you want from Jamie? A few pints of blood? A smattering of bone marrow? A kidney?’

Tansy flinched as I hissed at her. Then she looked at Jamie again, calmly ignoring my outburst.

‘He’s fine,’ she said. ‘It’s all under control. He’s got …’ she named an illness that I’d never heard of, but Jamie nodded.

‘Is it serious?’ I asked.

Tansy made a so-so gesture with her hand. ‘Could have been,’ she said. ‘It affects his digestion so when he first got sick he got really thin and he had no energy. It was awful. He was disappearing in front of my eyes. He’ll never be cured but we keep an eye on his diet, and there are pills he can have if it gets bad. Sometimes he has to go into hospital if he has a really bad attack but that’s not happened for a while.’

Jamie looked thoughtful.

‘It’s hereditary, right?’

‘Can be,’ Tansy said. ‘I’ve been tested and I don’t have it, so it could be you.’

Jamie shook his head, as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. I didn’t blame him.

‘And of course this affects you too,’ Tansy said, looking at me again. ‘I heard you were getting married and I wanted to warn you that any kids you have could have it too.’

I stared at her. This was too much to take in.

‘I was going to email you,’ Tansy went on. ‘But Mom went mad. She said I had to do it face to face.’

‘She sounds like a very sensible woman, your mother,’ Mum said, from the doorway.

We all jumped and I wondered how long she’d been there.