The World According to Bertie

comfortable it was to have one’s every whim catered for. Julia cooked for him and made just the dishes he liked – risotto, truffle oil salad, venison pie – while she also attended to his wardrobe, sewing buttons back on those shirts from which they had dropped, pressing his trousers, and generally making sure that he had everything that he wanted. She also drove Bruce about town in the small sports car which her father had given her for her last birthday, taking him to the gym and spa, to the squash club, and wherever else he needed to go.

For Bruce, the bargain was a good one. He was looked after in return for his company – not a bad arrangement, he felt, even if there were times when he found her a bit overbearing and perhaps just a little bit too anxious to please. Although he had his own room in the flat, it had rapidly become no more than a dressing room, where he kept his clothes and his supplies of hair gel and what he referred to as his apres-rasage. He and Julia now shared her bedroom, which was dominated by a queen-size bed on which large red cushions were scattered. On each side of the bed, there was a small table stacked with magazines –

Vanity Fair, Harpers & Queen, Cosmopolitan on her side, and on Bruce’s, Gentleman’s Quarterly and High Performance Car, all of them bought by Julia.

Julia liked to lie on top of the bed, paging through the magazines, a small plate of cashew and macadamia nuts beside her.

“This is bliss,” she said. “I’m so happy.”

“Good,” said Bruce. He wanted her to be happy – not too happy, perhaps, but happy enough. If she were to become too happy, then he feared that she might start talking about commitment and permanence, as women tended to do, and this was not on the agenda, as far as he was concerned.

246 Julia Makes a Joyful Discovery Julia had a small diary in which she noted certain facts. On one page of this diary – a day which coincided with Bruce’s moving into the flat, she had written, enigmatically, day fourteen. That was two weeks ago, and now, while Bruce sat watching television in the kitchen, she made her way through to the bathroom off the main bedroom. It was not very tidy, and there was a riot of shampoo bottles cluttering the shelf above the basin.

But from a cupboard behind that – one of those flat medicine cupboards fronted with a mirror – she extracted a small box.

From this she took a plastic tube. Her hands were shaking as she read the leaflet that came with this; the instructions were clear enough, but Julia read them through twice, just to be certain.

In the kitchen, Bruce rose from his chair and fetched a bottle of mineral water from the fridge. Pouring himself a glass, he downed it quickly and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He noticed that the fridge was, as usual, almost completely full, and this gave him a particular pleasure. He could barely remember when he had last had to do any shopping for food, which he had never liked doing very much. And now here was a constantly refilling cornucopia, including that delicious sparkling mineral water tinged with the merest hint of lemon.

He poured himself another glass of that, drank it, stretched his arms above him, and then flopped down on the chair in front of the television.

In the bathroom, Julia held the tube up to the light. A small marker tab inside would reveal the result, the leaflet had promised: a blue line would appear if the test were positive. She peered at the tab. Five seconds, ten seconds . . . a blue line! She closed her eyes and then looked again. This time, the blue line was even more clearly present.

She disposed of the tube carefully. Bruce would probably not know what it was, but she did not want to run the risk of his finding it and asking any awkward questions before she was ready to answer them. Then, standing in front of the mirror, she placed a hand gently against her stomach. “I’m pregnant,” she whispered. I’m pregnant!

Julia Makes a Joyful Discovery 247

It had been very quick, and this was the very first day on which she could perform the test after that first passionate encounter when she had shown him how to use the shower.

What a place for it to happen! But how lovely, she thought.

If it were a girl – which she rather hoped it would be – then perhaps they could even call her Doccia, which was Italian for shower. It was a very nice-sounding name, she thought –

Doccia Anderson; but no, it could be awkward for the poor child later on. One wouldn’t want a child to know that she originated in a shower; one could never tell the effects of that.

Julia looked at her watch. Where would her father be now?

Probably in his office in Melville Street, from which he ran the hotels and other businesses in which he dabbled. She picked up the telephone and dialled the number.

“Daddy?”

Her father chuckled. “Julia! And how is Daddy’s girlie today?

Working hard?”

“Of course. But I shouldn’t overdo it. Not in my condition.”

There was a silence at the other end of the line. Then her father spoke. “What did you say? What condition?”

“You’re going to be a grandfather.” She had rehearsed that in her mind, and it was what she thought would give him greatest pleasure.

Again there was silence for a few moments. Then he said:

“Please say that once more. Slowly this time.”

Julia repeated herself, but was then cut off by a whoop of joy from her father. She was now slightly concerned that she was being a bit premature in conveying the news, but her instinct had been right as to her father’s likely reaction: he was evidently thrilled. But then a hesitant note crept into his voice. “Do you mind my asking,” he said, “but who’s the young man?”

“He’s called Bruce, Daddy. And you’ll love him.”

“Has he asked you to marry him?” her father asked.