Simon Beckett - Where There's Smoke

She believed that, even while she knew it might not be so simple. But the clinic offered advice and counselling on how to deal with it. She would meet that problem when it came. She leaned forward in her seat. “Come on, Lucy. This is what I want. Be pleased for me.”

“I am, but...”

Scepticism remained on Lucy’s face. She looked at Kate for a moment longer, then relented. “I am. Ignore me.”

She gave a wry grin. “Anyway, I thought you hadn’t decided anything yet?”

Kate smiled but said nothing. Lucy stood up. “Come on. Let’s go and stop Jack from burning everything.”

They left the shade of the laburnum and went over to the barbecue. Jack had given up fanning the charcoal and was regarding the tray of sausages and marinated meats with a dubious expression, a spatula in his hand. They were still pink and raw.

“Is it hot enough?” Lucy asked, as they came up behind him.

“It should be. I’ve spent long enough fanning the bloody thing.” His sparse dark hair was plastered to his forehead.

“Why don’t you put some of that fluid stuff on?”

He gave Lucy an exasperated look. “I have.”

“Well, I should put some more on, if I were you. It’ll be dark at this rate.”

He held out the spatula to her. “Do you want to do this?”

Lucy threw up her hands. “No, thanks, I cook every day. Having a barbecue was your idea. And don’t let Angus get too near, he’ll burn himself.”

Jack sighed and steered his son away from the bricks.

“I hear you’ve got refinancing from the bank,” Kate said, hoping to divert a family squabble. “Congratulations.”

He smiled. “Yeah. I was sweating there for a while. Ten grand down and another three thousand just gone on new hardware. It was looking a bit grim.” He stopped, suddenly self-conscious. “Thanks for offering to help out, though. Lucy told me.”

“I’m glad it didn’t come to that.”

“Probably as well it didn’t,” Lucy cut in. “Kate might need refinancing herself now, Jack.”

He looked at Kate, surprised. “I thought the agency was doing well?”

“I don’t mean the agency,” Lucy said, giving him a look.

“No? Oh, right!” His face lightened. “So you’re going ahead with it, then?”

Annoyed at the way Lucy had introduced the subject, Kate just nodded. Jack grinned at her. “Good for you.”

“You don’t know how much it’s going to cost,” Lucy said, pointedly.

“So what, if it’s what she wants?” He winked at Kate. “It’s your life. You go for it.”

He turned back to the barbecue, rubbing his hands together. “Right, let’s sort this out.”

He picked up the plastic bottle of barbecue fluid and, holding it at arm’s length, squirted it liberally on the charcoal. Nothing happened. He took a box of matches from his pocket and struck one. “Stand back.” There was a huff as a sheet of pale flame shot into the air. They flinched from the sudden heat. Jack made darting grabs for the wire tray to lift it off as the fire engulfed it, but after a moment he gave up, blowing on his burnt fingers.

“Do you think you put enough on?” Lucy asked, and they began to laugh as the air above the barbecue shimmered, and the meat started to blacken and curl in the flames.

They ate green salad and takeaway pizza at the table under the laburnum tree. The remains of the barbecue, charred and foul with the taste of the fluid, lay untouched above the still-hot embers. Angus had become tired and fractious and had gone to bed in tears, while Emily sat on Kate’s knee, almost asleep herself. The sun had gone down, but the evening was still warm. Several beer bottles and a bottle of wine sat on the table by the plates. Kate moved slightly, easing Emily to a more comfortable position. The little girl stirred and yawned, hugely.

“Time for bed, young lady,” Lucy said. Emily gave a half-hearted moan of protest. Lucy ignored it. “Kiss Kate goodnight. Daddy’ll take you.”

“I want Kate to take me.”

“No, Kate’s going to stay with Mummy.”

Lucy motioned with her head at Jack. He took the hint and stood up with a crack of knee joints. Rubbing her eyes, Emily allowed him to pick her up. Her breath was sweet with Cherryade when Kate kissed her.

Lucy waited until they had gone inside. “So have you thought about who you want to be the donor?” she asked, out of the blue. “Assuming you decide to go ahead, obviously,” she added, ironically.

It was a question that Kate had been avoiding. “No, not yet.”

“Any ideas?”

“Not really.”

Lucy pushed her glass around on the table with her finger. “You must have thought about it.”

Kate had started nudging her own glass around, smearing the wet rings on the table top. She took her hand away. “I haven’t got that far yet. I’ve been too busy trying to find out if I could have it done to worry about anything else.”

“Surely you’ve got some idea, though?”

“Lucy, I don’t know, all right? Why are you going on about it?”

Lucy was watching her with a strange expression. “Not Jack.”

“What?”

“Not Jack. I don’t want you asking Jack.”

Kate stared at her. “Lucy, I... I’d never even considered it!“ But as she said it, she knew she had. She liked Jack and, more importantly, trusted him, and the thought of using him as the donor must have been loitering at the edge of her subconscious. It was enough to redden her face now. Both she and Lucy looked away from each other at the same time.

“I’m sorry, but I’d got to say it,” Lucy said, abruptly.

“It’s okay.”

“I know it’s selfish, but I just couldn’t handle that at all.”

“It’s all right, really.”

A silence built between them. Lucy cleared her throat. “So are you going to make a list of possible candidates?” she asked, with forced lightness.

“I suppose so, yes.”

“Who—” Lucy began, then stopped when she remembered they had already gone over that. “I mean, do you think you’ll have any trouble finding someone?”

Kate was as keen as Lucy to leave the brief awkwardness behind. “I don’t know.” She felt obliged to add more. “I suppose the problem’s going to be that I don’t know that many men when it boils down to it. Not well enough to ask, anyway.”

“What about Clive? I’d have thought he was an obvious choice.”

Kate had begun sliding her glass around on the table again. She put her hand in her lap. “He would be, but I don’t think it’d be a good idea.”

“Because the baby would be mixed-race, you mean? I wouldn’t have thought that would bother you.”

There was a faintly arch note in Lucy’s voice. Kate ignored it. “It wouldn’t, but having to work with Clive again afterwards would. And if I asked him and he said no, that’d be almost as bad.”

“Isn’t there anyone at the gym?”

“No one I’d want to ask.”

Lucy sighed, though whether in sympathy or exasperation it was difficult to tell. “Looks like you’ve got a problem, then, doesn’t it?”

“What problem?” Jack asked, coming up to the table. Neither of them had heard him approach.

“Kate can’t think of a donor,” Lucy said, and Kate tensed, waiting for him to make some joke about himself.

“Just don’t pick anybody with ginger hair,” he said, sitting down. “Wouldn’t be fair to the kid.”

He poured himself a glass of wine. “Who’ve you got it narrowed down to?”

“Nobody, yet,” Kate admitted.

“Spoilt for choice?”

“Hardly. The only people I can think of, I either wouldn’t want to ask or I can’t because it’d cause too many complications.”

She had meant Clive, but realised as she spoke that this last point applied equally to Jack. Lucy gave her a sharp look. “Which really makes a mockery of the idea of a known donor, doesn’t it?” Lucy said, with a slight edge.