HE HAD A diary packed with meetings.
He sat on the grass and ate sandwiches and drank soda with the mother of his child.
It seemed she’d done what she’d come to do. As far as Mary was concerned, the baby conversation was over. She chatted about the devastation caused by Cyclone Lila, about the rebuilding efforts, about Barbara and Henry’s dejection at the possibility of selling a cyclone-ravaged island.
‘Maybe I can buy it,’ Ben found himself saying.
‘Why on earth would you?’ She’d hardly touched her sandwich, he noted. When she thought he wasn’t watching she broke bits off and stuffed them into her bag.
Just how bad was the morning sickness?
‘Because I can?’
‘Just how rich are you?’
‘Too rich for my own good,’ he said, and grinned. ‘It’s a problem.’
‘Where’s your dad?’
‘He died ten years ago. Heart attack. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer man.’
‘You really hated him.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I did. He was a total controller. Jake and I were supposed to go straight into the business. The power he wielded... We went into the army to get away from it. There was another dumb decision. It was only when he died that I took the first forays into commerce and found I loved it.’
‘It doesn’t mean you’re like him.’
‘No.’ His voice told her not to go there, and she respected it. She abandoned her sandwich, lay back on the grass and looked up through the trees.
‘It’s the same here as in New Zealand,’ she said in satisfaction. ‘Trees. Grass. Sky. Nice.’
‘You’d never want to live here.’
‘No.’
He looked down at her. She’d come all the way from New Zealand to tell him something that could have been said over the phone. He’d reacted just about as badly as it was possible to react. She was in a strange country, she was jet-lagged and she was morning sick.
She looked happy?
‘What?’ she said, seeing his confusion.
‘You could be a bit angry.’
‘What’s to be angry about?’
‘If you had a half-decent dad he’d be here with a shotgun. I’d be being marched down the aisle and we’d be living happily ever after.’
‘I don’t see shotgun weddings leading to happy ever after.’
‘But you’re happy without it.’
‘I’ll have a job I love, my roller-derby team, a baby I think I’ll adore to bits, enough money to exist on and trees, grass, sky. Oh, and Heinz. What more could a woman want?’
She was so...brave. He had so many emotions running through his head he didn’t know how to handle them, but he looked down at her and he thought, involved or not, he wanted to help. Despite her protestations, he knew how hard the life she’d chosen would be, and the thought of this woman facing it alone was doing his head in.
‘Mary, you won’t have just enough money to exist,’ he growled. ‘You’re having my child. I’ll buy you a decent house; set you up with everything you need. You needn’t go back to work.’
She thought about that for a bit.
He wanted to lie beside her. He was wearing an Armani suit. The grass...
‘The grass is comfy,’ she said.
And he thought, What the hell, and lay beside her.
She was gazing up through the treetops. The sky was amazingly blue. The tree was vast. He felt...small.
His body was touching hers. She was so close. He wanted...
‘Just enough for the baby,’ she said.
And he thought, What? What had they been talking about?
‘The money,’ she said, as if she’d heard his unspoken question. ‘I don’t want anything for me, but it’d be nice to think if he or she wants to go to university the choice won’t be dictated by my finances. You’re the dad. Our kid’ll be smart.’
She said it like she was pleased. Like she’d made a good decision to choose him to father his child.
He sat up again. ‘Mary...’
And once again she got what he was thinking. ‘I did not plan this,’ she said evenly.
‘How do I know?’
‘What, lie on an island and wait for a stud to be washed up? Hope to be pregnant? Why?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘You also have no idea how this pregnancy will affect my family,’ she said, in that soft, even voice that he was growing to trust. ‘They’ll hate me. They’ve been forced to back down in their accusations. Now I’ll turn up pregnant when my sister’s just lost her baby. They’ll tell me I’m rubbing their faces in it. It’ll hurt. This isn’t all roses, Ben.’
‘But did you want it?’
‘No,’ she said, and she said it in such a way that he believed her. ‘To be honest, I’ve avoided relationships. My father’s...desertion gutted me, and I’ve always thought if I can’t trust my dad, who can I trust? Like you, my family background doesn’t leave me aching to copy it. But now...maybe you’re right in one sense. Even though I didn’t set you up, I’m welcoming this baby. Somehow the night of the storm changed things for me. I do want it.’
‘Despite you not being in a position to afford it.’
‘I can afford it. I didn’t come here for money. Set up a trust or something for the baby if you want, but I want nothing.’
Nothing.
He thought of all he had here. A financial empire. An apartment overlooking Central Park. Any material thing he could possibly desire.
What would happen if he lost everything?
He’d have trees, grass, sky. Right now they felt okay.
It might get draughty in winter, he conceded, and he looked at Mary and he thought she’d just build a willow cabin or find a cave. She was a survivor and she didn’t complain. She’d care for this baby.
And suddenly he felt...jealous? That was weird, he conceded, but there it was. He was jealous of an unborn child—because it’d have a mother like Mary.
‘How’s the book going?’ he asked, feeling disoriented, trying to get things back on track, though he wasn’t sure where the track was.
He saw her flinch.
‘You don’t have to tell me.’
She thought about it. ‘That’s okay,’ she conceded. ‘Maybe I have to open up a bit there, too. It’s always been my private escape, my writing. If I’m to have this baby then I need to share.’
‘So...share?’ The request felt huge, he thought. It was only about a book, he reminded himself. Nothing else. ‘Is it proceeding?’ he asked.
‘It is.’ He could see her make a conscious effort to relax. ‘In your fictional life you’ve been drinking weird, smoky cocktails with three slutty sisters, squeezing them for information, and all of a sudden they’ve transformed themselves into dragons. Very gruesome it is, and rather hot, but you’re handling yourself nicely.’
‘A true hero?’
‘You’d better believe it.’
‘Will