There was silence on the other end.
“Daniel?” I said dangerously.
“Yes, I was meaning to call you about that, Jones. I may have implied to Darce that, when you and I had our delightful thrust towards conception, I did not, as it were, dress for the occasion…”
“You WHAT? But you did wear a condom. You lied! You absolute bastard!”
“Come on, Jones. It’s only Darcy. Oops. Got to go, Monte Carlo on the line. Bonjour, les petites Monacaines! Bye, Jones.”
—
That’s it! That’s it, I thought, s
tanding by the tills in Tesco Metro as people bustled by, tutting, with their shopping. Mark is a man of honour and he thought that I had lied. On top of everything else, he thought I’d lied to him about the condoms. I have to call him immediately. Anything could happen. He could remarry Natasha. He could go back to the Maghreb and never return. He could have become a successful painter and at this moment be chatting up a gallery owner wearing a weird outfit and hat in Shoreditch.
3.30 p.m. Oh shit. Oh shit! iPhone has turned itself off. Cannot remember iPhone password.
—
3.45 p.m. Back in flat. OK. Calm and poised. I will let my upset mind settle like a glass of mud and…What the fuck is the password?
3.46 p.m. The baby’s due date? 1703? 0317? Nope. Also was not even having baby when put password in phone. OK: when I was thirty-two Mark was…no. When I am sixty-five Daniel will be…still a fuckwit. Oh God, oh God. I have to get hold of him.
3.47 p.m. I know! Will call Mark from good old-fashioned landline.
3.48 p.m. Oh. What is Mark’s phone number?
4 p.m. Maybe is in phone book on the computer.
4.05 p.m. Computer screen said: ENTER PASSWORD.
4.15 p.m. Baby? Mark. MarkDaniel? Cheese? Potato? Cheesy potato?
4.30 p.m. The baby has eaten every number in my head. Cannot remember Shazzer’s number, or Tom’s number, or Dad’s number. I have no cash. I have no brain.
5 p.m. Staring blankly at wall. Is not baby’s fault. Is technology.
5.30 p.m. Grrr! Hate technology. Wish technology had never been invented. When did it suddenly happen that you can’t do anything without remembering some sort of weird mixed-up name or number? Is exactly like car burglar alarms used to be when your car was more likely to be broken into if you had a car alarm because the alarm kept going off and annoying everyone so much that they simply smashed the window and broke it. Passwords are supposed to stop Russian hackers from getting into the computer—not stop YOU from getting into your own computer, or indeed anything, while the Russian hackers get on with hacking all your stuff.
—
6.30 p.m. Please, my child. Give forth thy passwords back to what is left of my brain, so that I might tell Mark that we love him and want him to be thy father, and—crucially—bring forth a cheesy potato that I might nourish thee.
—
Then suddenly, miraculously, it came to me:
5287
I checked the numbers and letters on the landline phone.
5287
J A U R
JUST AS U R
6.45 p.m. Lunged at the cellphone and found Mark’s number in contact. Hands shaking, I called him. I got his voicemail.