The Other Child Read Online Free

this, he not only looks like his dad – even-featured, solidly built – he feels like him, self-contained and absorbed in something to which she has no access.
    ‘Maybe we should call your dad and tell him you’ve arrived?’
    ‘Is Dad coming?’ He looks up. ‘Today?’
    ‘Oh, no, love, not today, no. He’s working away, remember, he told you? But he’s going to come the moment he’s back – in about three weeks, he thinks. I know he can’t wait to see you. He wishes he could come sooner.’
    Joe’s face falls. She shouldn’t have said anything. Just because David is now based in New York does not mean that he is actually there. He will still spend most of his time travelling. She can’t even remember where he said he was going this time – Kigali? Mogadishu? Baghdad?
    ‘Greg’s plane gets in soon though,’ she says. But Joe is engrossed in his game again and does not even look up.
    Greg has decided not to be pushy, but she sometimes wonders if he is any different with Joe than he is with his patients. He is genial, kind and approachable, but always slightly detached. But perhaps that’s unfair – it’s early days and Greg has been away so much lately, criss-crossing the Atlantic, setting things up, finishing off at Great Ormond Street. It is too much to expect him to have bonded with Joe. But surely this baby will change that. This baby is their shared biological tie. When it is born it will knit them all together.
    A trilling sound fills the kitchen, making them both jump and look at each other, big-eyed. She spots a cordless phone next to the fridge. She didn’t know it was connected – Greg didn’t say; she doesn’t even know their number here. She picks it up. ‘Hello?’
    There is a hollow buzz.
    ‘Hello?’ She waits. ‘Hello?’ The back of her neck begins to tingle. She can feel someone there, behind the white noise, listening but saying nothing.
    ‘Greg?’ she says. ‘Greg? Is that you?’
    There is a click and the line goes dead. She replaces the handset.
    ‘Who was it?’ Joe asks.
    ‘Oh, nothing, nobody at all.’ She tries to sound breezy. ‘Just a wrong number.’
    ‘Can I have something to eat? I’m hungry.’
    ‘OK, I know, me too. Breakfast!’
    She shakes herself back into action, opening the cupboard above a shining Gaggia espresso machine that still has its tags on. The cupboard contains two plates, two cups, two glasses, a pouch of disposable cutlery and a new, serrated kitchen knife. A Post-it has fallen off the door – she picks it up.
    Bagels, butter, milk and jam in fridge.
     
    His writing is not a doctor’s scrawl; it is clear and neat with each line, angle and curl thoughtfully spaced. There are no kisses or ‘love you’s’ – but that doesn’t matter. He has thought of everything they’ll need for their first morning, until their belongings arrive. A small part of her love for him, she knows, is rooted in his no-nonsense practicality, his efficiency – perhaps in simple gratitude that he is so unlike David.
    David was useless in practical terms but prone to expansive, romantic gestures. Once, when Joe was eight months old, he showed up after six weeks in the Sudan with tickets to the Opera in Verona. They couldn’t afford the flights. Before Joe was born she would take this sort of thing in her stride, but at home with a new baby, the finances and practicalities throttled the romance and David’s absences began to feel wilful and irresponsible. Nell has teased her about choosing another man whose profession takes him away a lot, and perhaps unconsciously that is what she’s done. But Greg’s way of loving – generous, fiercely organized, protective – never feels careless, and his absences are usually brief.
    Sunlight pours through the French windows making the steel appliances gleam. She opens a few cupboards. There are, of course, no supplies yet – no herbs and spices, flour, baking powder, salt or pepper or cling film or paper towels or