The Sister Swap. Susan Napier
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did in Hunter Lewis’s company. It must be infectious.
‘Anne was my grandmother’s name,’ Hunter Lewis said unexpectedly, a taunting amusement lightening his expression as he watched Rachel try a second time to edge her fierce little friend away.
‘I suppose you’re going to tell me she was tough as old boots and as mad as a snake,’ said Anne darkly, shrugging off the tug at her elbow.
‘Actually she was a darling, a sweet little lady with a heart as soft as butter.’
Anne waited warily for the punch line but it didn’t come.
‘Yes, well, I’m sure any grandmother of yours wouldn’t dare be anything else,’ she told him stubbornly. The expression in his eyes was masked as he glanced down at his watch and she added sarcastically, ‘Oh, please, don’t let us keep you. I’m sure there must be other people who actually have appointments to be intimidated by you.’
She was faintly appalled at the way she was carrying on but he merely gave her a sardonic smile. ‘Are you saying I intimidate you, Anne?’
She had to tip her head back a long way to look him boldly in the eye. ‘No.’
‘I didn’t think so,’ he said drily. ‘Then you won’t be upset if I tell you that next time you leave anything behind in the washing machine I’m going to put it through the office shredder. Thanks to your carelessness I now have three pink shirts.’
Her red T-shirt! Anne put a hand over her mouth to stem a sudden giggle. She had wondered where it had gone after the last wash. Because it was a cheap one the unreliable dye meant it had to be separately washed in cold water and she had thrown it into the machine after having done Ivan’s nappies on a hot cycle and scurried back to her loft to hang the nappies on a makeshift drying frame she had rigged up in front of her window. They took longer to dry than they would have flapping on the clothes-line outside the rooftop laundry-room but Anne couldn’t risk using that any more than she dared leave them in the glass-fronted dryer.
‘Perhaps you can use them to soften your image,’ she said in a stifled voice.
‘And perhaps I can just bill you for three new shirts.’
‘And pigs might fly,’ scoffed Anne with the insouciance of one who knew there was no blood in a stone.
‘You were right.’ He paused for Anne’s puzzlement to register before he added smoothly, ‘Your ignorance of porcine behaviour is evidently woefully complete.’
‘Porcine behaviour?’ Anne began to giggle again. ‘Your pomposity is showing, Professor. You seem to have quite an interest in piggy—sorry, porcine activities. Is it a particular hobby of yours? What is it exactly that you’re professor of anyway? Oh, that’s right—piglitical studies…’
She went off into gales of irresistible laughter and Rachel began to laugh too, after first making sure that the volatile Professor Lewis wasn’t going to explode on the spot. Instead he chose to leave, with a succinct comment about the declining standards of undergraduate humour.
‘God, I thought you were begging him to blow his top, but you do know each other from somewhere, don’t you?’ giggled Rachel. ‘You’re not…? Well, he made it sort of sound as if you were…well…’
‘Living together? We are—sort of.’ Anne gave a heavily edited version of her rent-free accommodation arrange- ments, only vaguely referring to a grant. Then she hastened to impress on her friend the need for discretion.
‘If he asks you anything about me, don’t tell him. Especially don’t mention Ivan.’
‘He doesn’t know you have a baby next door?’ Rachel was astonished. ‘Does it negate the terms of your grant or something? I know I made Hunter sound a bit like Attila the Hun but he’s not actually on permanent staff here, just holding a visiting lectureship, so it’s not as if he was part of the stuffy university hierarchy or anything…’
‘I’m not really sure,’ said Anne, uncertainly answering all questions simultaneously. She hadn’t read the fine print of the grant but presumed it was probably legal and binding. All she really had to go on was what Katlin had told her and Katlin wasn’t exactly noted for her strict attention to detail.
‘Just…be careful what you say, that’s all. Not that I expect he’ll be interested enough to ask,’ she added hurriedly, seeing the speculation twinkling in Rachel’s laughing eyes.
Later that afternoon, struggling up the stairs with Ivan in his push-chair, she rather regretted the pride that had made her refuse Rachel’s standing offer of a lift to the nearest supermarket. She had caught the bus and on the way back it had rained, and although she had a plastic rain-shield on Ivan’s push-chair she had had no cover for herself or the paper shopping bags on the uphill walk from the bus station.
She used her back to open the self-closing door beside the parking bay that led to the stairs, struggling to hook the laden push-chair up the concrete step after her. Inside the tiny bottom landing she paused to check the letterbox and stuff a letter into her damp pocket before unloading the two soggy shopping bags from the wire tray on top of the push-chair and placing them at the bottom of the stairs. After a quick check up the stairwell she picked up the push-chair containing Ivan and began to hurry up the stairs. She had found it easier to carry them both together than to take Ivan out and fold up the push-chair and then juggle them both, the folded push-chair being an unwieldy length for one of her height, invariably banging painfully against her ankles or trying to trip her up.
‘Lucky for you, my fine fat friend, that I spent all that time sheep-chasing otherwise I wouldn’t be able to manage this,’ she panted at the second landing.
Ivan’s dark eyes almost disappeared into his chubby cheeks as he favoured her with his peculiar, slit-eyed grin and sucked mightily at his fingers.
‘Oh, yes, I know you’re hungry. Aren’t you always? Well, you’ll just have to wait until I can go back down and get the food. I only have one pair of hands, you know. A pity we can’t ask the bad-tempered professor to help, isn’t it? I saw him today, and do you know what he had the gall to say…?’
She told him all about it as she unlocked the loft and carried him in, colouring the encounter by describing how she had felt and what she had wanted to do rather than what she actually had done. Ivan was a dream listener. He never interrupted her or tried to contradict her. His innocent baby ears were her diary into which she described her days. It eased her occasional attacks of loneliness and homesickness to have someone to chatter to. She just hoped babies didn’t have total recall. She wouldn’t like to think that in twenty years’ time Ivan would throw it all back at her.
She took him out of the push-chair and strapped him into his slanting baby-bouncer to keep him safe while she raced down to get the supermarket bags.
She was trying to cut down her shopping trips as much as possible but she was limited by the amount that she could carry at any one time.
Hugging a limp paper sack under each arm, she slogged back up the stairs, going ever faster as she felt the paper fibres beginning to collapse.
When she reached the last landing she stopped to readjust her cargo and suddenly became aware of a swift, almost noiseless step behind her. She whirled around, just in time for the man hurrying up the stairs behind her to cannon straight into her burdened arms.
Anne let out a soft shriek as she felt one of the soggy sacks split completely and watched in horror as a cascade of groceries poured down Hunter Lewis’s chest. Fortunately they were all packaged goods and none broke open on impact, but Anne heard him swear under his breath as several cans bounced off his shoes.
There was a small silence punctuated by a staccato series of fading thumps as a can of baked beans rolled away down the stairs. Then Anne felt the bottom of the other bag begin to give and automatically clutched it tighter, one hand cupping the disintegrating packages at the same moment that Hunter reached forward with an impatient growl.
‘Allow