Angie was pregnant within days of the wedding it seemed. It wasn't days, it was a couple of months, but fast all the same. Some people gossiped about it. Especially given Fred's general attitude and what have you. Knowing him as well as I did it meant I got the real story though. And, that's what it was with Fred - nothing but the real story. He could be almost dopey with honesty, so when I asked him if the preganancy was why they got married I knew he was being straight with me.
'Ha! I figured people would say this Ruk. Let them. We didn't get married because of this kid. We got this kid because of getting married. Pure and simple.'
I never asked him again. That's perhaps the one thing I can say about Fred above everything. He could come across really coarse and always enthused. However, you never, ever had the need to ask him something again. What he said the first time was right and on the nail. I'm not sure he knew how to lie in the way most of us do. That's why I got the commentary on Angie's pregnancy as vividly as I did.
'A pregnant woman is a mutant. Think about it. I know other animals do it and some a bit differently. Like what is pregnancy anyway? A bird, an alligator they pop out an egg - does that mean they are never pregnant? Have you also noticed how other animals don't get big like women do? When you see some nature programme and they say the lioness is pregnant, you believe them, but you don't see it - they don't get huge. I'm telling you though it's like she's swallowed a medicine ball.'
Angie was sitting next to Fred as he spilled all this. She looked at him affectionately though - she seemed satisfied when he spoke like that. Again, it was the honesty thing. If he went to these lengths to say something like all that to her then I guess she understood that when he said he loved it was true. It was true that he loved her. Not everyone was sure because of the way he spoke, but as I keep saying that was the trick - because he loved her he spoke that way sometimes.
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Fred did say something that worried me a little though. He started his next monologue with:
'To be honest...'
It was the first time I recollected him using that phrase. I wouldn't say that it was an odd phrase from other people. In fact it's one of those which most people use like anyone else does - it never means 'I am being honest here' really. That's the irony of saying it at all. When Fred said it it didn't mean that either. How can you say you're going to be something you already are. It's like reaching the age of twenty-one and saying 'I think I'll start breathing now.' That's how odd it sounded when Fred said it.
'To be honest the bump is just that for me.'
He was stroking Angie's belly.
'It's just an expansion of her body. I'll take care of the kid - do the right thing. But this growth on Angie is nothing more than that. I've felt him or her move legs in there and even then it's like violent indigestion to me. I cannot for the life of me get it into my head that there is a being that is half of me in there. I don't feel it yet. I hope I will, but I just don't feel it.'
He fixed his eyes on Angie for assurance. She looked back at him with that trust in her eyes again and his anxious look dissolved.
I think it was the first time for me that I worried about Fred. I, like him, couldn't see him as a father at all.
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