by Lucy Dillon
Nothing, according to the doctors. Apart from impatience.
‘Mother Nature doesn’t like timetables,’ the doctor (Dr Carthy, not Bill) had told her when she went to ask for some tests. He’d been rather dismissive, as if she was one of those pushy women who try to schedule their designer kids around their new kitchens.
It wasn’t a to-do list tick for Natalie: it was a rush of yearning that shocked her, that longing to hold her and Johnny’s baby in her arms. She felt as if the one thing missing now was their child, a melancholy ghost in their home. Natalie felt it so strongly she was almost embarrassed at how needy it made her sound.
She hadn’t always been so broody. Up until her twenty-ninth birthday, she would have completely freaked out if the test had gone blue, but at some silent point something had clicked inside like a timed safe opening, and the yearning had rushed out, knocking her feet from under her with its irrationality. Now whenever she walked into Starbucks her heart flipped at the sight of the buggies and tiny feet in tiny socks. When the babies smiled up at Johnny – which they did, he just seemed to charm them somehow – Natalie’s stomach churned with broodiness and fear and frustration that those women had managed something she couldn’t. Might not be able to.
Calm down, she told herself. Remember all the fantastic things you have to be grateful for: nice car, nice home, independence, holidays, eight hours’ sleep a night.
Natalie drove past the first few houses on their loop, drives parked up with Zafiras and CR-Vs, the yellow ‘Little Angel on Board’ shining smugly in her headlights, and she ached. She could remember what her dad had said at the wedding, seven years ago that June: she and Johnny were a happy family waiting to happen. Both of them loved kids. Between them she and Johnny had five godchildren – everyone, it seemed, had babies these days, apart from them.
Natalie reversed up their drive and parked. With anyone else but Johnny this would be a million times worse. He’d been so sensitive, right from the beginning, so optimistic and relaxed. At first, yeah, who wouldn’t complain about being dragged into the bedroom every thirty-six hours, but lately, when she’d started tensing up when they missed a ‘green day’ because of family visits or having a cold, he’d managed to keep a sense of humour about it all. If it wasn’t for Johnny, she thought, the whole process would be about as romantic as something from a vet programme.
They’d tried minibreaks, and yoga positions. Natalie had signed up for acupuncture and thrown away Johnny’s favourite old pants. And yet nothing. Each month, when her temperature fell and the inevitable period came, there would be a bunch of flowers at work, or a special meal cooked in the evening, and Johnny’s anxious eyes checking her crestfallen face, when he thought she wasn’t looking. And she’d have to pretend that she didn’t mind, because she didn’t want him to think it was anyone’s fault, least of all his.
It had been over a year. The next thing would be more tests. In case it really was someone’s fault. Natalie didn’t want it to get that far.
What if it was her fault? What if she couldn’t give him the two point four children he deserved? What then for their marriage that everyone thought was so perfect?
Natalie got out of the car and grabbed her briefcase and laptop bag from the boot.
Inside their house that smelled of hyacinths and uncluttered adult space, she took a pink shopping bag out of her briefcase and went upstairs to change out of her suit into her loose yoga trousers. When she’d brushed her hair into a ponytail, she hesitated, then took the new silky nightie out of the bag and slid it under the pillow, ready for later. She’d never worn nighties, until sex had stopped being recreational and become procreational instead. Now she had to dress it up, to compensate.
Then, before she forgot, she put her basal body temperature thermometer within easy reach of her bedside table, under a paperback where Johnny wouldn’t see it. She didn’t want him to know.
Natalie stared at the bed for a moment – the perfect bed, brass-framed, white pillows, very Mills and Boon – and sighed. The pillows now went under her bottom immediately it was all over, to ‘help’ the swimmers into her uncooperative tubes, as she hooked her toes over the brass rails to nudge gravity along. Funny how the most romantic details got lost.
Then she turned on her bare heel and went downstairs to blitz her reports so she could put them out of her mind and be seductive when Johnny got back from the pub.
4
Zoe Graham gazed in wonder at her tidy front room and wished she could spray it with Elnett so it would stand a chance of still looking like this in an hour’s time.
The house hadn’t been this tidy since they’d moved in. The cushions were plumped in the corners of the un-squashed sofa, the Wii was in the big plastic trunk along with all the controllers and leads and games that usually littered the rugs, and everything smelled of fresh Hoovering. Even the beanbag where Spencer and Leo spent most of their time eating, drinking and squabbling in front of the telly was ketchup-free and inviting.
Zoe stood back and put her hands on her hips, and enjoyed the weird silence filling her home.
When it’s tidy, it’s a really nice house, she thought, almost surprised. When you got rid of the junk that went with two lads under eight, it almost looked like the house from the estate agent’s original details: feature fireplace, big bay windows, period mouldings. What made it feel like home, though, were the masses of framed photos of her and Spencer and Leo on the royal blue walls, and the shelves where their toys and DVDs were stacked up next to her own CDs and the paintings they’d done together. A family house. That’s why they’d bought it, for that family atmosphere, not that it had lasted very long.
Zoe shoved away that thought. It wasn’t the house’s fault that David had walked out; it was his colleague, Jennifer’s. And David’s, of course – it took two to tango off to pretend weekend workshops in Solihull. It was still a family home, she reminded herself, but that family was her and Spencer and Leo now.
Zoe pulled out her phone from the back pocket of her jeans, stepped into the doorway and took a photo of the unfamiliar show home she’d created, and texted it to her mum. Then she saved it as her wallpaper.
All done.
It was eerily quiet without CBeebies or simulated gunfire or the sound of squabbling, and Zoe found her brain was making up a fresh to-do list to distract herself from the nibbling curiosity about how much fun Spencer and Leo would be having with their dad. She knew she shouldn’t sink to that level, but it was hard not to. The first few weekends had been miserable for everyone – tears when they left, tears when they came back – but now they were starting to look forward to ‘Dad’s’ Friday nights.
But then, who wouldn’t, she thought, tidying away the remote control car Spencer had come back with last time. It was like they both now had twenty birthdays a year.
According to the access they’d thrashed out after the divorce, nearly a year ago, David had them every other weekend, plus half the school holidays, Christmas Eve, birthdays and bank holidays. Zoe’s solicitor had warned her that she was being a pushover, agreeing to David’s demands, but she’d wanted to make it as easy as possible for the boys, caught in the middle of what had turned into a nasty split. That was her way of trying to ease it for them. David’s way was to throw money at them. Money and the Haribo that she’d almost weaned them off.
Maybe I should scrub out the fridge, like Mum’s always telling me to.
Zoe stared at her dishevelled reflection in the mirror over the fireplace. Her hair was even madder than usual: brown corkscrew curls tightening up with the effort of cleaning. ‘Hello? What’s wrong with you?’ she said aloud. ‘Cleaning, on your day off?’
She ought to be relaxing, she knew that. This was rare and precious ‘me time’, that the other mums at the salon were always going on about in the wistful way that other people talked about lottery wins. Didn’t she spend every hour of every working day wishing she was putting her feet up at home? Didn’t every hairdress
er long to be horizontal and off their varicose veins?
‘Me time,’ she said aloud. Five more hours to fill before the boys came back – loads of time for . . . What?
Zoe’s mind went blank. It used to be so easy in the days before motherhood, when she still read glossy magazines for fun, and not because they were lying around in the consultation area. Her Sunday nights had been a strictly timetabled facemask leg-shave hair-pack routine, and she could talk about books, films, minibreak destinations – the lot. These days she still made lists, but they always seemed to feature ‘use up bananas’ and ‘wash sheets’.
She looked at her reflection again, and saw a sad woman, whose blonde streaks needed redyeing, whose eyebrows needed plucking, and who basically couldn’t cope when she wasn’t being frazzled to a crisp by two small boys.
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ said Zoe crossly, and went into the kitchen to help herself to the packet of Bahlsens she’d hidden from Spencer, who could smell a chocolate biscuit from across the street. They were her one secret treat, for the rare moments she got to indulge herself. It was the first time she’d actually eaten one before midnight.
I could phone Mum, Zoe thought, putting the newly descaled kettle on. Or Cal. But even as she thought it, she knew she didn’t want to talk to either of them. Her mum and her best mate seemed to have joined forces in their campaign to get her ‘back in the saddle’ – a phrase that Zoe thought summed up the romance of post-divorce dating pretty well – and every conversation seemed to come back to the theme of when Zoe was going to start dancing lessons or going to book groups or whatever else you had to do to find yourself a date, second time around.
She told them that Spencer, Leo and Dr Who were the only men she had time for now, but if she was being honest, the whole idea of going out there again made her want to crawl into a hole and hide. David had crumpled up what little self-confidence she had, and as for the minefield of introducing a new man to the boys – if she got as far as finding one . . .
The kettle boiled and Zoe jumped. ‘Me time’ was all about tarting yourself up to find a new bloke. Right now, she preferred the idea of cleaning her house. That was what her inner ‘me’ really wanted: a carpet with no lurking Lego and a ring-free bath.
As it turned out, Zoe solved the problem of filling in the rest of the afternoon by falling asleep in her chair in front of Come Dine With Me, passively enjoying the sight of other people knocking themselves out over a social life she didn’t have.
Some sixth sense nudged her awake at ten to seven, however, and she nearly bounced out of her chair at the distant sound of a big car engine at the end of the street.
‘I think that’s them,’ she said aloud. It was weird, not having anyone around to talk to. She couldn’t quite get out of the habit.
With one last, wistful look at her tidy sitting room, Zoe got up and began flapping round the kitchen, yanking off her pinny and checking the fridge. They’d need feeding immediately; David always took them to McDonald’s, and then filled up the remaining spaces with sugar in as many forms as he could find.
The thought of David made her nervous too. Not that she still fancied him. God, no. The magic had worn off long before the unpleasant scenes at the solicitors’. But since bloody Jennifer had become a permanent fixture in his life, with her transatlantic accent and her bloody charity marathon-running, he’d started looking at Zoe with fresh pity in his eyes when she appeared, hassled to death, on the doorstep, and that made her feel smaller than any outright insult. Zoe had only met Jennifer once, at a work party, but she could tell she was the sort of woman who got up at six to go to the gym in full make-up. One of their friends let slip that Jennifer had insisted her husband keep the kids when she walked out. It made sense.
The car hooted at something at the end of the street, and she knew from the impatient tooting that it had to be David.
Damn, damn, damn, she thought too late, if only I’d put the facepack on while I was watching telly, I could have had intensive moisturisation and a hygienic kitchen. She ran her hands through her hair, then gave up and stuck a clip in it, and threw on the Domestic Goddess pinny her mum had given her as an ironic Christmas present. It hid the coffee stain on her t-shirt.
Zoe hurried to the front door in time to see David’s huge new Chelsea tractor pulling up outside. Spencer, looking older than his seven years, got out almost at once, while David was still on the phone. Leo, just seventeen months younger, struggled a bit to get out of his belt, then jumped down onto the pavement after his big brother, and they scurried round to the back of the car, fizzing with excitement.
Zoe’s heart swelled up with love at the sight of Leo’s too-big ski jacket falling over his hands. As soon as she opened the door, Leo and Spencer stopped getting their bags out of the boot and hurled themselves into her arms, almost knocking her over in their excitement.
Until that moment, Zoe had thought she’d missed them, but in fact had had no idea quite how much. Just seeing them again was like stepping back into full colour, at top volume, and immediately she felt complete again, back to normal. They’d only been away a day; David had to ‘be somewhere’ on Sunday. Somehow he’d used that to get them next Saturday too.
‘Hello! Hello!’ she said, over the top of their gabbling about go-karting and burger bars in London, and – her heart swelled – how much they’d missed her.
‘Don’t go overboard, lads – you’re making it look like we didn’t have a great time!’
Zoe took a deep breath and looked up to see David unloading their bags with a triumphant expression.
If he wasn’t such a git, she thought, he’d be a properly handsome man. Divorce suited David. He’d either been on holiday already or Jennifer had a sunbed – his face was glowing and his light brown hair was shorter than he’d worn it before, though the speckles of grey had miraculously vanished. Gone was the scruffy jumper and jeans weekend uniform he’d worn for the years they’d been married, and in its place he wore a fine dove-grey cashmere jersey over a t-shirt, and, yes, those were definitely Chinos and deck shoes. In February.
David had become a yummy daddy, just as he’d offloaded his childcare responsibilities. How ironic, thought Zoe.
‘Hello!’ she said tightly. She had an agreement with herself that she could be as foul as she liked about him in her own head, so long as Spencer and Leo didn’t hear it.
‘Hello!’ he replied, leaning casually on the car. ‘Been cleaning?’
‘Yes.’ Yes, you bastard, although how would you recognise that particular activity? You never even so much as turned on the dishwasher for years. Zoe’s smile intensified.
David lifted an eyebrow and looked amused. ‘Wow. Things have changed.’ Then he frowned. ‘You’re not thinking of selling the house behind my back, are you? Because . . .’
‘Mum!’ Spencer tugged her sleeve. ‘Mum, Dad’s given Leo the best present ever.’
‘Yeah!’ agreed Leo. ‘You’re never going to guess what it is, it’s so cool!’
Their faces were shining with excitement, and even as she smiled down, pleased to see them so happy, Zoe’s heart sank. David’s presents usually involved a lot of cleaning up for her. She hoped it wasn’t going to be something that made them sick, damaged the house or turned her into Scrooge Mummy in comparison.
‘Let me guess!’ she said, making a reasonably good show of pretending to furrow her brow. ‘Is it . . . a Tardis?’
‘No!’ howled Spencer and Leo.
‘Is it . . . a Dalek?’ Zoe cast a furtive glance over the car towards David. She half-thought it might be; she’d investigated hiring one for Leo’s sixth birthday party the following week, only to discover she could get NASA to build her one for slightly less. It would be just like David to upstage her cunning cardboard approximation.
He shook his head dismissively. ‘I don’t think it’s useful to buy into all that branding at their age. We need to talk about that, by the way. This Dr Who party business.’
Aaaarrrrrrrggggggghhh, shut up, you po-faced bastard. ‘Too late,’ she said. ‘I’ve already ordered the cake.’
‘No, Mum!’ said Leo. He was nearly bouncing with joy, his round face beaming up at her. He looked like a mini David, but with her brown eyes. Her heart twanged. ‘Guess again, guess again!’
‘Better than a Dalek,’ said Spencer, scornfully.
Zoe hoped it wasn’t a bike. Please, not a bike. Or a mini Ferrari or something.
‘Is it . . .’ She pantomimed putting her finger on her chin and looked at Leo with one eye closed. ‘A speedboat?’
‘No!’ he cackled, unable to hold it in any longer. ‘It’s a puppy!’
Her jaw dropped, and this time there was no pantomime involved. ‘Not a real one, though?’
‘Yes a real one!’ Spencer butted in, nearly knocking Leo out of the way. In the last few months he’d grown noticeably bigger than his brother, starting to look like a real boy. ‘Look, let’s get him out! He’s in the boot. His name’s Toffee and he’s just like off the telly and he’s going to sleep in my room during the week, and in Leo’s at the weekend.’
‘My bedroom!’ howled Leo. ‘He’s going to sleep on my bed, Spencer! He’s my dog!’
‘No, I’m the oldest . . .’
‘He’s both yours,’ insisted David in a calming, caring-and-sharing tone that made Zoe want to strangle him. ‘Be gentle, Leo, Toffee’s probably very scared after his journey.’
As the boys slipped into their habitual squabbling over who would get the puppy out, Zoe straightened up and glared over the top of the car. ‘David. I can’t believe you’d be so irresponsible!’ she hissed. ‘We talked about this at Christmas. You knew I’ve said they can’t have a dog! It’s impossible!’
He raised his hands. ‘Nothing’s impossible, Zoe. It’s a question of what’s convenient. We all have to make compromises and I really think it’ll be good for them. Give them a sense of routine.’