‘You’re my princess,’ he told her.
‘Princess is not such a good thing where I come from. It’s a pejorative term, for a woman who wants her own way all the time,’ Rebecca told him.
‘Like I said,’ replied Julius. ‘You’re my princess.’ And she laughed.
He knew his mother, Debra, would be tolerant of the situation, because Debra was broad-minded and he didn’t think she had told him off, ever, in his life.
They drove up to London and Debra took them out for lunch at a wine bar in Kensington. The walls were covered in a mural of grape vines, and they ate chicken cacciatore and chocolate fudge cake.
Rebecca was fascinated by Debra, with her strings of amber beads and endless St Moritz cigarettes and her husky drawl. Debra had a world-weariness about her. You got the sense she had seen and done everything, even though she now lived a very tame existence. She wasn’t in the least intimidated by Rebecca’s fierce IQ or force of personality or brazen dress sense. They were a match for each other in their own inimitable ways.
When Rebecca went to the loo at the end of lunch, Debra lit another cigarette.
‘Be careful, darling,’ she said. ‘The bubble won’t last forever.’
Julius told himself his mother was just being protective. Which was odd, because she hadn’t been when he was young. She’d left him to get on with it much of the time. He wondered what had changed.
He sighed. ‘Better to have loved and all that.’
‘I just don’t want to see you hurt, if things go wrong.’
‘What can go wrong?’
Debra blew out a plume of smoke. ‘Any number of things.’
Julius was determined not to be unsettled by his mother’s warning. And when Rebecca came back to the table and put her arm around him and called him her guardian angel, he smiled at Debra as if to say ‘See?’
‘Your mum is so cool,’ said Rebecca as they trundled back down the A40.
Julius rolled his eyes.
‘My mum’s never had to worry about anyone except herself,’ he said, trying to shake off the sense of foreboding Debra had given him. He was cross: just because she was world-weary didn’t mean she had to spoil it for everyone else, did it? ‘She doesn’t care what anyone else thinks.’
‘She’s the exact opposite of mine, then,’ said Rebecca. ‘My mom cares what everyone thinks. Right down to the mail man.’
Debra was right, though.
Julius supposed he should have seen it coming. But then – why should he?
The thing was, all the girls he’d ever dallied with had been on the pill. It was almost a given – most girls put themselves on it when they went off to university, if they weren’t already. A quick trip to their local doctor and they were covered. It had never occurred to him that Americans might be different. That Rebecca might have landed on English soil without organising contraception before she left. Of course, everyone at Oxford was pretty casual about sex. There was a fair amount of bed-hopping. Julius had been as guilty as anyone, but not once he met Rebecca. He knew the love of his life when he saw it. Yet he’d forgotten the key question.
So when she sat up one morning, looking green at the gills, then bolted to the bathroom, he was shocked into silence when she told him why.
‘I think I’m pregnant.’
‘Aren’t you on the pill?’
She shook her head.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ He was appalled – at both his negligence and hers. ‘I just assumed … Surely you realised this might happen?’
She put her face in her hands. ‘I guess I just hoped.’
‘Hoped?’
‘For the best.’
‘That’s not the most reliable form of contraception.’
‘No.’ She looked utterly forlorn. She sat in the middle of the bed, holding her stomach.
‘Well, I suppose we should go to the Family Planning Clinic.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s where you go for contraception. Or, um …’
She held up a hand.
‘Don’t say it. Don’t say that word.’
He didn’t want to say the word. ‘They can arrange … things for you.’
She stared at him. ‘It’s out of the question.’
He blinked. It hadn’t occurred to him that wasn’t the route she would want to go down. ‘Oh. Right. OK. Um …’ He scratched his head. ‘So what is the plan?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You want to go to university. We live in one room. We don’t really have any money.’
She lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. ‘We don’t have any choice. I’m not getting rid of it. I’m not getting rid of our baby.’
Julius wasn’t sure what to think or feel. This was an eventuality he hadn’t prepared for. He didn’t really know anyone else who’d been in this situation. He knew a couple of girls who’d been caught out, but they’d sorted things quickly and quietly and learned their lesson. He certainly didn’t know anyone who’d gone ahead and had a baby. But he wasn’t going to force Rebecca into anything she didn’t want to do.