There was the real Christopher Marlowe, extant when the saint was still bone fide, dead correctly young, romantic and gay at twenty-nine, with three pages in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. His namesake was ten years older already, straight, and had written nothing memorable yet. This wouldn’t matter if he were a brain surgeon or a fireman or a happy housewife. It seemed to matter a great deal, because writing was Marlowe’s job. His parents should have resisted the temptation to saddle their firstborn with Christopher, but initially, it had certain merits, like the name of a famous father. Christopher Marlowe, enfant terrible, earned more than useful pocket money, freelancing at thirteen, writing poetry, latter day Chatterton. Fourteen, he had his own weekly column in the local paper. A year later, he was broadcasting, securing, through sheer audacity, a ten minute interview with the aged Tolkien. As a sideline, he edited the school magazine and passed ten subjects at G.C.E., all at grade one.

Then his career veered off-course. He sat the Oxford entrance exams, recovered slowly, if never completely from the shock of failure. Shy and insecure, he’d never taken success for granted, but the school and his parents had expected a scholarship, nothing less. A month later he accepted a place at a currently fashionable campus, fashionable, but definitely not Oxford. His school reserved the Honours Board for Oxbridge. Chastened, Marlowe learned to reinvent himself, made no mention of his illustrious past. Fairly soon, aided by the theatrical name, he attracted attention once more, campus hack and bar-prop by day, hard secret slogger by night. He was reading History and Politics. With a certain prescience, he made the Eastern Bloc his special option. He liked the mystery of his craft, made friends with very long names, like Wladislaw Sienkiewicz and Erzsébet Szent-Gyorgyi. In vacations, he contrived to explore forbidden Eastern Europe, returned suavely expressing a preference for Czech beer at 2p a pint and Czech women at an undisclosed price. Restored glory was confirmed the year of editing the campus paper. First class honours were an unexpected bonus. Congenitally nervous still, he hadn’t dared to apply for a B.B.C. traineeship. He liked attention well enough though, wanted his own part in changing an appalling world. Journalism was the obvious choice, his track record impeccable. Trained, decreed competent, he found editors willing to pay him. A column headed Christopher Marlowe commanded attention, even before people read what he had to say. He enjoyed a year or two in Manchester, moved on, uncertainly at first, to London and the posh broadsheets. This being all he’d ever wanted, he felt brave enough to fall in love and very nearly settle down.

This was a mistake. It showed, soon enough, in his work. The woman was difficult, cared altogether too much for her own more brilliant career. She wouldn’t, for instance, entertain the idea of marriage. Lapsed cradle Catholic, Marlowe suffered occasional pangs of guilt, though never of faith. Overlooked once too often, he moved to a new venture, hoping for a fresh start. He knew something was badly wrong when the milkman called him Mr Grey His worst suspicions were confirmed when he found himself described as Annabel Grey’s husband. Unfit for anything else, he tried working harder, hoping the pain would go away if he ignored it long enough. On the other hand, he was running out of time, pleading, O lente, lente, currite noctis equi. Success, Bel stated, came before thirty-five or not at all. She herself was well on the way, able to say such things without a qualm.

Marlowe wrote about life, the every day kind, all over Europe, including the East. He didn’t deal in political tantrums, domestic or international. He wrote best about the many pains and occasional pleasures of daily life, success, failure, poverty, life on the dole or in a Docklands penthouse. He was equally good at both and a smattering of the Slavonic languages gave him an entrée into those parts of Eastern Europe mere English or History graduates cannot reach. It was a decent enough career. He was by no means famous and his name proved all too easy to forget after all. Bel, Dr Annabel Grey was very close to fame. She was known. If she wrote for a magazine, it was her name and not the subject that went on the front cover. She’d published three very clever books, already prescribed texts. She’d been on Question Time, was consulted on Today and the World at One. She was also extremely beautiful and she refused to have him at the birth of their second and unwanted child. For a journalist of his ilk, this was a double blow, rejected as a birth partner and deprived of good copy at one blow. The birth of their firstborn, Luke, had been uplifting and a nice little earner too.

Marlowe sat anonymous, reading his own words, written by a stranger. The paper was yesterday’s, left in the waiting room after some other drama. The scrawny boy opposite stood up, paced the room again, then rifled through the rack of magazines, unread, new-minted. No-one came here to read. The boy roamed again, stood with his back to Marlowe, staring out of the rain lashed window. There was nothing at all to see, only tarmac, a scatter of parked cars, and the clutter of signs, Greek to him; orthopaedics, paediatrics, pathology. He fumbled in the pockets of skin-tight pale jeans, turned to face Marlowe. There were tears in his pale green eyes, an explosion of acne around his mouth. Above a child’s lips, red and softly curving, there was the merest shadow of a moustache. He said, shy and uncertain,

‘Excuse me… Would you have any matches?’

Marlowe shook his head, pointed to the No Smoking signs on every wall, then added, compassionate,

‘Sorry. I don’t smoke. Would you like a coffee? There’s a machine somewhere.’

The boy shook his head, tried, furtively, to wipe his eyes on the sleeve of his leather jacket. The hospital allowed emotion. Marlowe extracted a tissue from the box of Kleenex Mansize on the coffee table. Shameless now, the boy helped himself to more, let the hot tears flow. Marlowe, detached, professional, allowed the child his privacy, read on. It was an account of his old friendship with Jerzy Zeromski. British born and bred, Jerzy had taken his M.B.A. and his equally Polish wife back to Poland, to retrieve his grandfather’s business in Gdansk. In his first letter, Jerzy had ended, wryly, that Polish has no real word for efficiency And Jerzy’s first child had been dressed in parcels of Luke’s Mothercare cast-offs. From anecdote, the article moved into real time, Jerzy’s anticipation of Baltic emancipation. Jerzy, no romantic, had timed his move well. Feliks now dressed in Benetton and other international uniforms. Baby Piotr still wore Mothercare, but Jerzy’s wife ordered it new.

Marlowe turned to the woman’s page, but it was tedious, unworthy, being only fashion. In another day or two, there would be letters from sour feminists, bewailing time and space wasted on such trivia. Bel would laugh at them, sneer gently, curling her carefully painted lips. Annabel had no pity for women so scared of their sex that they dressed in mere coverings. Annabel liked to be beautiful as much as she enjoyed being clever. This was one reason why she loathed pregnancy. It destroyed from within the female curving body she lived in. It invaded her, something alien, unsexed her into woman with child. After Luke, she’d said, cool and precise,

‘I don’t think we’ll have any more.’

Marlowe, astounded by his son’s perfect male body had pleaded for one more. He wanted a daughter, the miracle again, but another sex, his very own woman. Bel weaned their son, took her pills, went back to work and that had been that for thirteen years. She stayed with Marlowe from habit and because he met her standard for male beauty, being dark, lean, touching six foot, with grey eyes and a dislike of shaving that preceded designer stubble. At weekends, he never shaved. Bel reserved sex with him for weekends. Monday to Friday was her business.

Outside in the corridor, heels clacked and the door opened. A nurse with an encouraging smile peered round.

‘Alright?’

Marlowe nodded. The boy turned away, ashamed of his wet face. The woman smiled again, for both of them.

‘If you’d like to…’

Marlowe folded the paper, said, coldly

‘Thank-you, but Annabel doesn’t want me to be with her.’

The woman stared at him, dismayed, then said, in her nurse’s voice,

‘Some ladies do say that, but we find they don’t really mean it. If I come with you… It’s Mrs?’

‘Dr Annabel Grey. Before you say it, I’m not Mr Grey. My name’s Marlowe. Bel doesn’t use my name and we aren’t married.’

She patted his hand, officiously maternal.

‘It’s quite alright. We’ve moved with the times, you’ll find. One week, we didn’t have a single married lady in the ward. It’s all partners these days, if we’re lucky.’

Marlowe left his hand where it was, strangely grateful for any human contact now. The nurse must be in her mid-fifties, his mother’s age when she died. He managed to find courtesy, an explanation she would understand.

‘It’s not my choice. If she’d have me, I’d be with her. Bel didn’t want me to see her in labour again.’

‘Then it isn’t your first…?’

Marlowe closed his eyes, remembering, the first cry, then that little moving body. His son. He wanted Luke here now, for comfort, but that was taboo. The hospital considered itself modern, came out well enough in The Good Birth Guide They did water births, stools, bean bags, birthing rooms, but they had to draw the line somewhere. Thirteen year olds watching second stage labour wasn’t on, yet. They’d allowed a Burmese cat once. Bel had chosen this place via friends and the Kitzinger bible. Marlowe found his eyes closing again, forced them open. The nurse was still with him, definitely maternal now.

‘If you could get some sleep… If she really doesn’t want you around, why not go home to bed? We’ll ring as soon as there’s any news.’

Marlowe checked his watch. It was four fifteen, ten minutes and fifty seconds since last time. Almost, he could hear Bel, sarcastic, mocking, the day the little band of blue confirmed this pregnancy.

‘Yes of course you want the bloody baby. You would. All that shared pregnancy crap. All those bloody pathetic tears. Turn down Vivaldi, pass the camcorder and a right tear jerker for the paper before they’ve even cut the cord. The bilge you came out with when Luke was born made me want to throw up. I had a baby, for godsake. Most women can. I’m sick to bloody death of men going on about the most beautiful moment of their lives. You try nine months of throwing up, feeling vile, looking worse. Piles are a pain in the bum. Backache’s not a few twinges, more like a knife through to your guts. One idiot gynaecologist says the kicks don’t hurt. Luke near enough broke my ribs kicking. On bad days, near the end, you throw up because the little bastards work out on your stomach. Anyway, I’m not having it. If Murphy turns agonised papist on me, I’ll go private.’

He’d won, or he wouldn’t be here now, waiting for this unwanted birth. He’d pleaded with her, proud of her beautiful clever body that made babies for him. After Murphy refused to sanction the abortion, Bel booked a clinic, but Marlowe had used low cunning, played devil’s advocate, disturbing her own moribund conscience.

‘You’d better get fixed quickly, before it starts to look human.’

Bel, as he intended, had brought out the pictures of a ten week foetus, completely, transparently human, and she’d carried this second child full term. Now, she was giving birth as she intended, alone.

Looking up again, Marlowe discovered that the nurse had gone. The boy sat, facing him, staring bleakly at the posters on the wall. Two condemned smoking, before or after birth. The rest proscribed most other pleasures. Marlowe thought the Aids poster skull slightly tasteless for this venue. On the far wall, there were advertisements for cervical smear tests and breast examination. There were free leaflets on a stand. He’d read most of them in the first hour. All found some reason for diagrams of the female reproductive organs. The boy, who looked illiterate, had helped himself to a few, said, suddenly,

‘Turns you up, doesn’t it? If they really looked like that… I heard you talking. Mine doesn’t want me with her either. I wanted to be there with her, see the kid born, but…’

He stopped, lost for words, fighting tears again. Marlowe, amused by his own prejudice, had expected a sub-Cockney accent and no grammar, but the boy’s voice was neutral, classless, no glottal stops, no mid-Atlantic whine. He had very clean, deeply grooved fingernails. He was in control now, the tears a shared secret. Marlowe, on impulse, said,

‘How old are you?’

The boy smiled, looked, for a fleeting moment, almost proud.

‘Sixteen. Seventeen next month. So is she, but three days before me. I go for older women. We’re both doing A levels. You see fewer social workers if it wasn’t under age sex. One thing less they can get you for. Her parents are keeping the baby. Rabid Catholics, the pair of them, so they can hardly whinge about birth control.’

Marlowe smiled back, aware that he was old enough to be the boy’s father.

The boy laughed, looked younger still, fledgling, and nobody’s father yet.

‘It was supposed to be safe sex. Like it says on the old death’s head over there. Rubber johnnies landed us right in it. Could have been worse, of course.’

He paused to gauge Marlowe’s reaction. He too had measured the years, but women had made them equals. Seeing a faint smile still, he laughed again, glancing at the Aids poster.

‘Holy Mother Church got it right after all. One faithful partner for life, complete with the blessing of Her Majesty’s Government. I won’t risk a rubber johnnie again. A baby’s one thing… Anyway… There wasn’t anyone else, only her. Now she doesn’t want to know. Won’t even speak to me, won’t let me buy things for the kid. Someone at school told me she’d come in.’

Marlowe, trapped, saw no way out of it. Besides, the boy had honoured him with equality. Anywhere else, the very young regarded their elders as barely human. They moved in other space, arrogant.

The electric clock jerked down onto the half-hour. Bel had been in labour since yesterday morning, about half past eight. Close on twenty hours of pain… He couldn’t imagine it, failed even in the attempt. After Luke’s birth, she’d tried to describe it, but no words evoke pain, except for the sufferer. He said, gently,

‘How did she feel about the baby?’

‘Sick. Sick with fear, then sick as a dog for months. They said it would stop, but it didn’t. Even last week, she was still throwing up. You feel a right bastard for landing them in it.’

Marlowe thought of Bel, removing the long mirror from their bedroom, dressing in the bathroom, disguising the swollen body with all the artifice her money could buy. In no way did she look pregnant, until the seventh month. Then, she’d been so beautiful, a child’s clear skin and a woman’s lovely rounded body. The fierce kicks delighted him, watching and touching unseen movement. This second baby was more vigorous, kicked harder, had made Bel sicker, heavier. She’d suffered more from the diseases of pregnancy, backache, piles, swollen ankles and the wretched sickness. Because she was Bel, defying even her own body, she’d stayed at work until the day before yesterday. She’d left in the middle of tutorials to be sick, sat up writing lectures or marking assignments through stabbing backache. At weekends, when they should have been free, she worked longer hours still, on her own data, writing papers into the small hours. Levy, her professor, was moving on to a chair at his old Cambridge college. Bel’s track record was good. She was the obvious choice, a respected teacher, but she hadn’t published quite enough, taking too much time out, before and after Luke. This second, unwanted child wouldn’t be allowed to wreck her chances. Marlowe wondered if she suffered more for rejecting it so wilfully; her body or the child’s exacting revenge. As for the baby… He’d read somewhere that the mother’s hostility could be communicated, affect the child for years after birth. He’d had a bad pregnancy too, nightmares that left him sick and shaking, stillbirth, cot death. There was another too, that would haunt him all the next day; the small broken body, purple in death, and Bel, laughing.

‘Penny for them…?’

Marlowe looked up, saw the clock; quarter to five. Surely it must be soon now? They didn’t allow long labours these days… No Queen Jane lay in labour / For nine dayes and more… He said, dry-mouthed, hoarse,

‘Only wishing it was over… Shall I get those coffees?’

The boy nodded, grateful

‘Black, please. One sugar.’

He offered a handful of coins. Marlowe shook his head.

‘My round.’

When he came back, the room was empty. He left the plastic lid on the boy’s coffee, hoped that the news had come and was good. Bel wouldn’t agree, her position on this score stubbornly Malthusian, laced with guilt. The score was bad, both births unplanned, unwanted. Bel’s guru as a student had been Paul Ehrlich, modern Malthus, The Population Bomb her bible. She’d once, on Channel 4, applauded the Chinese one-child family. Population figures were her favourite numbers game. She wrote and lectured with fervour, convinced nine tenths of her own students. She had, moonlighting in one of the posh glossies promoted Luke as her chosen only child. Marlowe, remembering, marvelled again that he had been able to talk her out of an abortion. Correctly, as it happened, he decided that the choice had been hers after all. Bel, strictly logical, argued that she could do what she liked with her own body. The baby was not her own body, therefore she had no right to destroy it; Q.E.D. Bel had given up religion more thoroughly than most, didn’t come even when he took Luke to church at Christmas. Marlowe suspected her insatiable curiosity. She couldn’t resist seeing what would happen if… Nor was she a quitter. This pregnancy, a paper toiled over in the small hours, or even their long years together. Closing his eyes again, Marlowe remembered, with love, the first lyrical days.

He’d been a makeweight at the Cambridge ball, fifth columnist, there to expose gilded youth, throwing up in their hired finery. Bel, Primavera, in gauzy green had agreed to be quoted and photographed. Bel allowed the camera to record in calculated detail the rose and white of her perfect breasts. The same night, or rather, in grey and drizzling dawn, she’d taken him to bed. Unasked, he would never have presumed. Bel chose all her lovers, then and now. A year or so later, though, it was Bel who suggested they move in together. Fidelity, let alone monogamy, had never been part of the deal, but Bel, like any other human creature, needed somewhere she could feel safe. For two or three extraordinary months, they’d both been in love, until she became pregnant with Luke. Pregnant, she’d turned on him, catlike, appalled by the assault on her beautiful body. Female though, she wanted a safe place for her child. He was that safe place. It was as simple as that. There were invitations, veiled or direct, from several women, some men. He ignored them, wanted only Bel. Luke must have been about six months old when Bel said, in her detached, clear-sighted way,

‘I’ve stopped loving you. At least, I’m not in love with you any more. I care more about Luke.’

For him, the process had taken longer, many years longer. Luke, growing from infancy to wounded childhood failed to understand, then understood all too well. Bel liked and enjoyed sex very much. They still made love now and then. Which was why he was here. Bel could have had the pregnancy terminated, but had chosen to see it through. He admired her still for that, for her courage, her honesty, her ferocious intelligence. There was also the small matter of her exquisite body. Most men would have endured a good deal to share Bel’s bed, even occasionally. Sometimes, they’d made love regularly, two people, getting through life together.

He hadn’t heard the boy return, turned round only as the brown plastic cup was lifted from the table. There were tears again and at first, no words at all. Marlowe held the boy in his arms, let the tears wet yesterday’s shirt, the night’s sweat.

‘She’s alright…’

In his arms still, the child trembled, struggled to check sobs. Marlowe made him sit down, made him drink. The coffee had been scalding, was still hot enough. Only now did he register the boy’s fear. After silence, he said,

‘The baby…?’

‘A boy. Three kilos something… I can’t remember. A son. I’m a dad. A dad…’

He began to cry again, freely now, past caring, his face red and blotched like a child. Marlowe finished his own coffee, afraid now for Bel, who had been in labour too long. Presently, there was a knock at the door and a woman came in. She stood there, uncertain, then came straight over to the boy, held him close. There was no likeness. She must be the girl’s mother, only mid thirties herself; their story and nothing to do with him. Marlowe withdrew to stand in the chill corridor, lit only by two dim overhead lights. He walked to the far end, stood by glass doors, watching the night. Here he could see the wraith shapes of naked trees, moving too much in a night of wind and rain. There was a pool of water by the doorway, starting to seep through, soaking the coir doormat stamped with the hospital logo. He should tell somebody. Outside, a slate crashed to the ground, then another, with a sound of shattering glass. Outside, too, a car arrived at speed, braked sharply, sweeping up a great wall of water. Watching, he saw the dark shape of a man run to the front entrance, hammer on the door. A nurse came out, followed by a porter with a wheelchair. They covered the swollen woman with blankets and wheeled her in. Marlowe, voyeur, recalled Bel’s incoherent fury. She loathed the passivity of childbirth, raged when it was said, of some gravid female, they’ve taken her in. Bel had driven here, grimacing through the pains, walking in herself, walking to the labour ward, alone.

A nurse approached, fair, too young.

‘Mr Grey?’

Marlowe agreed. It saved time.