Greenwich Park(13)

I watch Rachel as she smokes, eyelids down. Suddenly, she snaps her eyes open, like a doll. ‘So,’ she says. ‘Tell me more about Rory and Serena.’ She says the names Rory and Serena as if they are a single word, or the name of a TV show. ‘Well, Rory works with Daniel, like I told you,’ I begin. ‘You might have seen their new development – it’s the big glass building right on the river, past the Trafalgar Arms?’ I gesture down the hill, past the market, towards the river – pointlessly, since you can’t see it from here.

This is the development that the papers hate. A massive regeneration scheme, the demolition of loads of old social housing to make way for luxury flats. As well as the sniping about it in the Evening Standard, there have even been pieces in the Guardian and the local papers – mutterings about social cleansing, foreign money. The ‘keep London shit brigade’, as Rory calls them.

There was even talk of a protest at one stage – Lisa, the secretary, apparently saw something on Twitter or Facebook. She printed it out, placed it on Daniel’s desk, without comment. A march against gentrification, they called it. ‘Anarchists and weirdos,’ Rory had muttered. Still, they’d had to tell the client. Now, there’s more security around the site; big bull-necked blokes in black polo shirts patrol the perimeter like nightclub bouncers, walkie-talkies crackling at their hips.

‘And what about her? Serena? She’s a photographer, right?’ Rachel exhales, releasing another plume of smoke. The sun slips behind the clouds.

I frown. Did I tell Rachel that Serena was a photographer? I must have done, though I don’t remember it. ‘Yes,’ I say slowly. ‘She is. It has been a lifelong passion for her.’ I blush, realise I’m directly quoting the line from Serena’s website. Rachel won’t know that, I tell myself. ‘She has her own studio, on the other side of the park.’

Rachel nods, as if considering this. ‘And Rory. Is he excited about their baby and everything?’

The question catches me off guard – I had been concentrating on staying out of the way of her smoke. I put my glass down, unsure how to answer. Of course he’s excited about their baby. What does she mean?

‘I mean, you know,’ Rachel twirls the cigarette around in the air, ‘you were saying the other day that Daniel was being super supportive with making all the furniture, and getting really emotional at the scans and everything.’ She starts turning her lighter sideways and upright, then sideways again, like a Tetris piece that won’t fit. ‘Is he the same? Rory?’

‘I think they are both delighted.’

Rachel is gazing downwards now, into the creamy surface of her Guinness glass, tapping her cigarette rhythmically against the edge of the silver ashtray. She looks lost in thought. I wonder if she is thinking about the father of her own baby. But before I work out how to frame the question, she takes her sunglasses off and speaks, as if she has read my mind.

‘It wasn’t just a casual fuck or anything, you know.’ She tilts her chin up, squinting into the sun, so that she can look me in the eye.

‘Oh, I didn’t … I hadn’t assumed …’

‘Yeah, well,’ she says gruffly, casting her gaze down again. ‘I did love the guy. The dad. It just, you know. Didn’t work out.’

She brings her cigarette to her lips and takes another long inhale, spreads her bitten fingernails out on the table. She starts again with the lighter, tapping it onto its base, then its side, then its base again. Her eyes seem to pinken a little, her pale fingers tense.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah, fine,’ she mutters. ‘Sorry.’

Unsure what to do, I place one of my hands over hers. She stares at my hand, and for a moment I wonder if the gesture was too intimate. It is the sort of thing I can misjudge. But then she looks up and smiles, her eyes looking slightly wet.

‘Cheers, Helen.’

I smile awkwardly, though I’m not sure what she is thanking me for. She doesn’t say anything more. I feel my curiosity growing like an itch, a buzzing in my ear that won’t be batted away.

‘Do you mind if I … ask what happened?’

Rachel pulls her hand out from under mine and starts fiddling with her phone.



‘Oh, you know. We met at work. I was working at a music venue. Behind the bar.’ She shrugs. ‘Anyway. We liked each other. I didn’t mean to get pregnant. Obviously. Who does, right?’ She laughs. I try to force my face to smile, even as I feel my jaw tighten, my leg start to tremble slightly under the pub table.

‘I did want it to be something more. But after I got pregnant, I found out …’ She rubs her thumb against her index finger, as if sifting for the right words. ‘Well. He already belonged to someone else.’

I nod, hoping my face is sympathetic. I mean it to be. I know she’s not the first to have an affair with someone who is taken. I try to affect a casual voice.

‘How did he react? When you told him about the baby?’

Rachel smiles sadly. ‘He doesn’t know.’ She sighs, tapping her nearly finished cigarette and pushing her pint of Guinness away. ‘I haven’t seen him in a while. I just … thought maybe it was better to leave it.’

I hesitate. ‘Don’t you think you should tell him?’

She looks at me, seriously. Then nods, slowly.