We make beautiful babies.
It was a very nice first text to have from him and it took a few goes but finally Leila replied to him.
We do.
Dinner was served and Leila discovered that she loved pasta and was delighted at a new use for her fork as she twirled spaghetti around it, like James did, pressing it into the spoon.
‘It tastes so good!’ Leila said. ‘Just so creamy and fantastic!’
‘And it comes in so many shapes and sizes too!’
His sarcasm was completely wasted on Leila; she just smiled. ‘Does it? I can’t wait to try them all.’
‘Well, while I’ve got you in such a good mood, I have two things to tell you. Do you want the good news first or the bad news?’ James offered.
‘The bad news,’ his back-to-front fiancée replied.
‘We have to go to dinner with my parents tomorrow night.’ He pulled a face. ‘Spencer will be there too. It will be awkward and uncomfortable and I just want to tell you up front that any tension has nothing to do with you—in public they’re fine, in private it’s a subdued hell.’
‘You really don’t like them!’
‘I really, really don’t,’ James said, and he chose to explain the strange dynamics to her. ‘My father, Michael, isn’t the sunniest person. They married young and my father, just like his brother, cheated...’
‘At what?’ Leila asked.
‘He cheated on my mother,’ James explained. ‘He had affairs, rather a lot of them. Anyway, he was always a bastard growing up, especially to Spencer, and recently we found out why. Well, I found out why. My other brother Ben found out when he was eighteen and it turns out that was the reason he left home...’
‘Found out what?’
‘That my mother had an affair of her own, and it turns out that Spencer isn’t my father’s...’
‘Your mother cheated too!’
‘She did!’ James matched her wide eyes. ‘You are so completely shockable.’
‘But it is shocking. Does your father know?’
‘Yep. There was a massive row a few years back and it all came out. He’d always guessed, which is why he was even meaner to Spencer. No one mentions it now though.’
‘They just carry on as normal?’
‘Hardly normal,’ James said. ‘You’ll see it for yourself soon. Anyway, I’m very sorry to inflict them on you.’
‘It’s fine.’ Leila shrugged. ‘What is the good news?’
‘I’ve found you a dressmaker,’ James said. ‘I’ve asked her to come tomorrow afternoon. You shall have new robes...’
‘And slippers?’
‘And slippers,’ James said.
He had found more than a dressmaker. On Monday he was starting Arabic lessons. Whatever James put his mind to he succeeded at, and he had no doubt, after intensive private lessons that, in a few weeks’ time, he would be able to speak with her father and explain the little that Leila wanted—for them not to take their anger with him and Leila out on their child. Not that he told Leila that. His father had been so demanding, so critical, that James never revealed anything till it was achieved.