baby.”
“Congratulations.”
“No, wait—which is crazy because I’m not even in love or in lust or
anything.
I mean, isn’t that wrong? Shouldn’t a baby like—I
don’t know—grow out of love?”
“Meredith, babies grow out of stem cells. The love part comes later.” She could hear his head shift against a pillow.
“Do you think I could do it on my own?”
“I don’t know you well enough to say one way or the other, but let me ask you this. Of all the other things in your life you’ve
set out to do on your own, which ones have you failed at?”
The train rocked her from side to side. “None, I guess,” she whispered. “But sometimes I wonder—”
“Daddy?” A girl’s voice in the background. Muffled noises, then Joe’s voice saying gently,
Go back to sleep.
“Hi. Sorry, you
were saying?”
Meredith lowered the phone and stared at the digital mini-screen on her handset. She watched a timer ticking off the seconds
of contact.
“Hello?” came his voice from somewhere on the other side of the ocean. “Meredith? Meredith, I think I’m losing—”
The windows went black as the train was sucked underground again.
Hello? Hello?
said the passengers on the train, as Meredith stared at her screen. A new message flashed on it: SEARCHING FOR SIGNAL .
9
Barnaby Shakespeare stood at the bar drinking his second pint of lager and vowing to pace himself. Tomorrow morning he was
driving back to the Cotswolds and he didn’t want a hangover. On the last trip back from London his hands had been so shaky
on the wheel he had nearly swerved into oncoming traffic while changing gears on the motorway.
Overall, he was a much better driver the night before than the morning after. Although he tried not to make a habit of driving
pissed in the city (he’d been done twice for operating a motor vehicle under the influence already—the next time they would
take away his licence and throw him in the hole), in the countryside it seemed unavoidable. Everybody simply
did.
Barnaby was not one of those lushes whom no amount of liquor seems to slow or sicken. He invariably woke up shattered the
morning after. The trick was predicting when the devil was coming to visit so he could clear off the calendar for the following
day. Not that he generally had anything much to do—living, as he did, in the country, without an occupation or a wife. Unfortunately
there never seemed to be any rhyme or reason to his benders. Unlike other people, he did not drink to celebrate his triumphs
or kill his woes. He simply drank. And, for reasons that remained a complete mystery to himself, on some days Barnaby drank
significantly more than on others. The problem of predicting his own behavior was getting worse as he got older (he turned
thirty-three last December).
He vowed to begin keeping a diary of his daily movements starting tomorrow. His father, Nigel Shakespeare, a nonpracticing
barrister, had kept a diary religiously his entire adult life. After brushing his teeth and before turning off the light in
the evenings, Dad would jot down exactly what had happened that day in point form. The outcome, Barnaby discovered when he
unlocked his father’s nightstand the day after his funeral and flipped through the small leather-bound books (there were stacks
and stacks of them), was impressive. Mundane details of daily chores or digestive complications were given equal weight with
events of massive personal significance. The result, Barnaby thought, was a terrible, inadvertent joke. One entry in particular
stayed with him: “June 15th, 1975. Kippers for breakfast. Popped in at the motor shop. Rosa in labour upon my return. Girl—stillborn.
Cook’s half day—scrambled egg for dinner.”
Barnaby, however, planned to keep quite a different sort of diary, one with far more colorful anecdotes and jokes and even
the odd sexy bit. His diary would be read aloud at his funeral, and everyone would
“Congratulations.”
“No, wait—which is crazy because I’m not even in love or in lust or
anything.
I mean, isn’t that wrong? Shouldn’t a baby like—I
don’t know—grow out of love?”
“Meredith, babies grow out of stem cells. The love part comes later.” She could hear his head shift against a pillow.
“Do you think I could do it on my own?”
“I don’t know you well enough to say one way or the other, but let me ask you this. Of all the other things in your life you’ve
set out to do on your own, which ones have you failed at?”
The train rocked her from side to side. “None, I guess,” she whispered. “But sometimes I wonder—”
“Daddy?” A girl’s voice in the background. Muffled noises, then Joe’s voice saying gently,
Go back to sleep.
“Hi. Sorry, you
were saying?”
Meredith lowered the phone and stared at the digital mini-screen on her handset. She watched a timer ticking off the seconds
of contact.
“Hello?” came his voice from somewhere on the other side of the ocean. “Meredith? Meredith, I think I’m losing—”
The windows went black as the train was sucked underground again.
Hello? Hello?
said the passengers on the train, as Meredith stared at her screen. A new message flashed on it: SEARCHING FOR SIGNAL .
9
Barnaby Shakespeare stood at the bar drinking his second pint of lager and vowing to pace himself. Tomorrow morning he was
driving back to the Cotswolds and he didn’t want a hangover. On the last trip back from London his hands had been so shaky
on the wheel he had nearly swerved into oncoming traffic while changing gears on the motorway.
Overall, he was a much better driver the night before than the morning after. Although he tried not to make a habit of driving
pissed in the city (he’d been done twice for operating a motor vehicle under the influence already—the next time they would
take away his licence and throw him in the hole), in the countryside it seemed unavoidable. Everybody simply
did.
Barnaby was not one of those lushes whom no amount of liquor seems to slow or sicken. He invariably woke up shattered the
morning after. The trick was predicting when the devil was coming to visit so he could clear off the calendar for the following
day. Not that he generally had anything much to do—living, as he did, in the country, without an occupation or a wife. Unfortunately
there never seemed to be any rhyme or reason to his benders. Unlike other people, he did not drink to celebrate his triumphs
or kill his woes. He simply drank. And, for reasons that remained a complete mystery to himself, on some days Barnaby drank
significantly more than on others. The problem of predicting his own behavior was getting worse as he got older (he turned
thirty-three last December).
He vowed to begin keeping a diary of his daily movements starting tomorrow. His father, Nigel Shakespeare, a nonpracticing
barrister, had kept a diary religiously his entire adult life. After brushing his teeth and before turning off the light in
the evenings, Dad would jot down exactly what had happened that day in point form. The outcome, Barnaby discovered when he
unlocked his father’s nightstand the day after his funeral and flipped through the small leather-bound books (there were stacks
and stacks of them), was impressive. Mundane details of daily chores or digestive complications were given equal weight with
events of massive personal significance. The result, Barnaby thought, was a terrible, inadvertent joke. One entry in particular
stayed with him: “June 15th, 1975. Kippers for breakfast. Popped in at the motor shop. Rosa in labour upon my return. Girl—stillborn.
Cook’s half day—scrambled egg for dinner.”
Barnaby, however, planned to keep quite a different sort of diary, one with far more colorful anecdotes and jokes and even
the odd sexy bit. His diary would be read aloud at his funeral, and everyone would
Similar Books
