by Matt Dunn
As the twins jump up and down excitedly, I peer in through the window. Sure enough, there seem to be a few families inside, fraught parents trying unsuccessfully to read the papers while the kids climb over the chairs or stuff muffins into their mouths, sometimes at the same time.
I wonder for a second whether Tom’s ‘something to drink’ included coffee, but the kids seem to know where they’re going, so I push the door open, take the twins inside, and walk up to the counter.
‘What would you like, kids? Cappuccino?’
Jack wipes his nose on his sleeve. ‘Cappuccino,’ he repeats, although it sounds more like ‘cuppa China’.
‘Ellie?’
Ellie nods, although I’m not too sure either of them knows what a cappuccino actually is.
‘Three cappuccinos,’ I say to the barista behind the counter, adding as an afterthought, ‘and you’d better make two of those decaff.’
I feel a tug on my trouser leg, and look down to see Jack eyeing the cakes through the glass display cabinet. I shake my head, but when his lip starts to quiver, I make a quick decision. What’s worse–an angry Barbara, or me on my own in public with a crying child? It’s a no-brainer, and I hurriedly pick three giant chocolate-chip cookies up and put them on my tray. As I reach into my pocket for my wallet, Tom’s fiver not quite covering the bill, the barista asks if I want chocolate on the top of the cappuccinos. I don’t have to look at the twins to know what the answer will be.
I carry the drinks over to a table by the window, Jack and Ellie following obediently behind me, and the three of us sit down. And for the next ten minutes there’s an uncanny peace as the twins attack their cookies, or stick their fingers in the chocolate-dusted foam on the top of their coffees, or draw pictures on the table top in the piles of sugar they’ve emptied out of the small brown sachets that Jack’s collected from the counter. You see, I think to myself, it’s easy, this child-rearing lark. Nothing to it. In fact, I’ve obviously got a gift for it. Think how good I’ll be when I’ve got one of my own. And just as I’m congratulating myself, and sipping smugly on my cappuccino, Ellie decides to stand up on her chair and make an announcement.
‘Uncle Will?’ she says, tugging at my sleeve, and nearly spilling my coffee in the process.
I look down at her fondly, trying to ignore the chocolate fingerprints on my shirt. ‘Yes, sweetheart?’
‘I need a wee.’
‘Pardon?’
‘I need a wee!’ shouts Ellie, perhaps not realizing that in the adult world ‘pardon’ means ‘please repeat that’, rather than ‘shout it at the top of your voice’.
‘Oh. Right. Okay…’ I look around, trying to ignore the other customers whose heads have just swivelled towards us, and thankfully spot a sign saying ‘Toilets’ in the corner next to the counter. ‘Don’t be too long now.’
Ellie puts her cookie down on the table, her face crinkling in confusion. ‘But…’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Ellie can’t go on her own,’ says Jack through a mouthful of chocolate chips.
‘Ah. Okay. Well, off you go too, then, Jack. And make sure you hold her hand.’
‘No,’ says Ellie, tugging on my sleeve even harder and, rather worryingly, hopping up and down. ‘You have to take me.’
Ah. I stand up, and wonder what to do next. Jack’s sitting there, happily trying to remove a few chunks of chocolate that are stuck to the wrapper, but I can’t just leave him there while I take Ellie to the toilet. Or can I? Thinking about it, I can see the toilet door clearly from where Jack’s sitting, which means that from the toilet door, I’ll still be able to see him, which in turn means I should be able to keep an eye on both of them at the same time. Sorted.
‘Okay. Jack, you stay here. I’m just going to be over there with Ellie.’ As I point towards the toilet door, Jack just nods without even looking at me, as if I’m an annoyance keeping him from spreading more chocolate round his face. I hoist Ellie off the chair, and carry her past the counter and into the toilets, careful to keep the door propped open with my foot so I can still see Jack. Once inside, there’s a separate door for the Gents, and just opposite, another door that, not surprisingly, says ‘Ladies’, which thankfully is within reach of my outstretched arm. But when I nudge it open and try to usher Ellie inside, she stops in front of the doorway and peers in apprehensively.
‘What’s wrong?’ I say.
‘Who’s going to do dabby-dabs?’
‘Dabby-dabs?’ I don’t know what dabby-dabs is. I can guess, but I don’t really want my answer to be correct. ‘Can’t you do your own, er, dabby-dabs?’
As Ellie shakes her head slowly, I look back over to where Jack is sitting. ‘I can’t come in there with you, Ellie.’
Ellie’s eyes start to mist up. ‘Daddy always takes me in.’
‘Does he?’ As Ellie nods, I realize that ‘well, I’m not your daddy, am I?’ probably won’t get me off the hook here, and that I’ve really got no choice but to take her in. And maybe it’s okay. Perhaps places like this are child-friendly, and expect this sort of thing. ‘Okay, then. Just wait here for a second.’
I walk quickly back across to the table where, despite it being the size of his head, Jack has miraculously managed to finish his cookie, although there still seems to be a good third of it plastered around his mouth.
‘Now you be a good boy and promise me you won’t go anywhere while I take Ellie into the toilet, Jack.’
Jack looks up at me mischievously, and then eyes the rest of my cookie, which, after a moment’s consideration, I slide across to him, reasoning that by the time Barbara starts worrying about his lack of appetite later this evening, I’ll be long gone.
I hurry back to where Ellie is waiting patiently outside the toilet door, push it open and make my way gingerly inside. I’ve never been in a Ladies before, and I’m momentarily jealous that they get their own cubicles plus what even seems to be proper hand wash and paper towels. It’s a far cry from the Gents, which by this time of day usually looks like the Somme.
‘This is different to the one Daddy takes me into,’ says Ellie, looking around as I steer her into one of the cubicles.
‘Different? How?’
‘There’s no thingies on the walls.’
‘What sort of thingies?’
‘White thingies,’ giggles Ellie. ‘With yellow cakes in them.’
‘What do you mean, yellow cakes?’
It takes me a moment or two to realize what Ellie’s talking about, and, too late, it occurs to me that while Daddy does in fact take her into the toilets, it’s usually the Gents. Too late, because as I’m nervously holding Ellie’s cubicle door open, there’s a flushing sound, and a pretty blonde woman emerges from the one next door. She’s about my age, and by the way she’s slipping a green apron over her head and tying it around her waist, she obviously works here, but when I raise my eyebrows at her in a what-can-you-do kind of way, she looks like she’s about to scream.
‘What are you doing in here? It’s the Ladies.’
‘I know. I’m just watching this one.’
I try and give what’s intended to be a long-suffering parental smile, but the woman doesn’t return it. Instead, she peers past me and into the cubicle, where Ellie is climbing precariously up onto the toilet, even though she’s forgotten to pull her trousers down first.
‘Yours, is she?’
‘Oh, no,’ I say, before suddenly realizing that that gives me absolutely no excuse whatsoever for being in the Ladies. ‘I mean, yes.’
The woman looks at me suspiciously, and then pushes past me and kneels down in front of Ellie. ‘Is that your daddy?’
Ellie looks up at me and laughs. ‘No.’
The woman’s face darkens as she wheels round to face me.
‘Well, she’s not mine, exactly, but I am looking after her. For a friend.’
She stands up and places her hands on her hips. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. In fact, I�
��m looking after two of them. See?’
I take a step back to the main toilet door, push it open, and nod back towards my table. But just as I’m about to justify my last statement, my heart skips a beat. I can’t see Jack.
I shout, ‘Back in a sec,’ to the woman, and then sprint off through the café, concerned slightly that she’ll think I’m making a run for it, but more worried that something might have happened to Jack. I hurry towards the table, dodging through the obstacles of buggies and pushchairs, but when I get there, there’s no sign of him. I can’t have lost him–Tom’s going to kill me. And then, more worryingly, so is Barbara. Frantically, I peer over to the door, then through the window into the street outside. He can’t have gone that far in such a short space of time, surely, particularly weighed down by so much chocolate?
As I look around, desperately trying to spot him, the woman from the toilets appears next to me, carrying Ellie in her arms. But instead of helping me search for him, she just puts Ellie down and nods towards the table.
‘What?’ I say, half shouting. ‘Where?’
‘Underneath,’ she says calmly.
I drop to my knees to find Jack sitting contentedly under the table, munching on the rest of the cookie that he’s evidently dropped and gone down there to retrieve. A wave of relief washes through me, and I grab him gratefully and stand up, banging my head painfully on the edge of the table as I do so.
As I rub the lump that’s starting to appear above my left ear, and Jack starts to giggle, Ellie tugs my sleeve again. ‘I need a wee,’ she says, and by the look on her little face, she needs it rather quickly. I stare at her as she crosses her legs, then look at Jack, and back at Ellie, and just stand there helplessly.
‘Don’t worry,’ says the woman. ‘I’ll take her in, if you like.’
Funnily enough, there’s nothing I’d like more in the whole world at this moment. ‘Would you mind?’
‘Not at all.’ The woman shrugs. ‘Bit of a handful, two of them, I’d guess.’
As she takes Ellie’s hand and leads her back into the toilets, I collapse onto the chair next to Jack and down the rest of my coffee, then nearly spit it out again when I discover that Jack’s emptied at least five of the sugar sachets into it when I wasn’t looking. I’m contemplating telling him off when he spots Ellie’s half-eaten cookie, and looks at me out of the corner of his eye.
‘Go on, then,’ I say, past caring now.
After a minute or so, and by the time Jack’s munched most of the way through his third cookie, the toilet door swings open and Ellie runs back towards the table. I start packing up to go, but just then Jack hops down from the seat next to me and starts to march away from the table.
‘Jack?’ I call after him. ‘Where are you off to?’
He looks back towards me. ‘Toilet.’
‘Jack can go on his own,’ announces Ellie proudly.
‘Shame his sister’s not the same,’ I say, tweaking her nose affectionately.
As he walks away, I notice that he’s still holding what’s left of the cookie, so I get up and follow him to the toilet door.
‘Don’t take food in there, Jack.’
Jack frowns. ‘Why not?’
‘It’s, er, not clean.’
Jack stares at the cookie, and then at the toilet door, as if he’s trying to work out which of his needs is greater, before finally putting it down on the floor outside and pushing the heavy door open.
‘Well done, Jack. That’s much more hygienic,’ I call after him, picking the cookie up and depositing it in a nearby bin before going back and sitting down next to Ellie, where I can keep an eye on the toilet door.
Five minutes later, when there’s still no sign of him, I’m beginning to get a bit worried. I tell Ellie to stay where I can see her, walk over towards the toilet and push the door open, only to find Jack on the other side, crying softly.
‘Jack?’ I say, picking him up. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Couldn’t…’ he sobs. ‘Door…’
As Jack blubs on my shoulder, I see what the problem was. While pushing the outside door open to get in is relatively straightforward, even for a five-year-old, pulling open the actual door to the Gents is another matter entirely–particularly when you’re too short to reach the handle.
I put Jack back down on the floor. ‘Haven’t you been yet?’
Jack shakes his head miserably. ‘No.’
Checking that Ellie’s still sitting safely at the table, I pull open the men’s toilet door for him, and he disappears gratefully inside. Thirty seconds later, he reappears, pulling his trousers up by their elasticated waistband.
‘Did you wash your hands, Jack?’ I ask him.
Jack stares at his palms, which are still encrusted with chocolate and God knows what else, and then looks up at me with his big blue eyes. ‘Yes.’
I peer in through the toilet door. If he couldn’t reach the door handle, he’s even more unlikely to have been able to reach the sinks. Or the hand dryer, come to think of it.
‘Come on,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll help you.’
I pick him up again and carry him back into the toilet, holding him over the sink and helping him wash his hands, then suspending him under the automatic hand dryer, which he thinks is the greatest game in the world. After a minute of this, my back is beginning to hurt, but when I put him down to wash my own hands, he decides to walk over to one of the urinals and pick up the bright-yellow toilet disinfectant block. I’m just fast enough to stop him before he puts it in his mouth.
‘No, Jack. That’s not nice.’
Jack looks at the collection of toilet blocks in the urinals, as if staring at the pick ’n’ mix at Woolworth’s. ‘But they look like sweeties.’
‘No, Jack. They’re not sweeties.’
A look of disappointment crosses his face. ‘What are they, then?’
‘Well, they’re cakes of disinfect—No, not cakes, exactly,’ I correct myself hastily, as at the mention of the word ‘cake’, Jack’s eyes have lit up again. ‘Come on. Let’s go and find your sister.’
After I’ve made him wash his hands again, we head back out and over to the table, where, thankfully, Ellie’s still sitting, good as gold, but with the woman from before.
‘I thought I’d better keep her company,’ says the woman. ‘Seeing as she was here all alone.’
‘Oh. Right. Jack and I were just…I mean, he had to…’ I stop talking, realizing that I’m about to blame my irresponsibility on a five-year-old, which would be childish, in both senses of the word. ‘I didn’t get a chance to thank you before,’ I say instead, noticing again how pretty she is. ‘I’m Will. Will Jackson.’
She holds out a hand, and I shake it. ‘Nice to meet you, Will Will Jackson. I’m Emma. Ness.’
‘Emma Ness?’ I say. ‘Like the—’
‘Shop?’ She rolls her eyes. ‘I get that all the time.’
‘The shop? I was going to say monster. You know–from the Scottish, er, loch…’ I stop speaking again, suddenly aware that that’s probably not the most flattering comparison to make.
Fortunately, Emma smiles. ‘I get that all the time too.’
‘You work here?’
Emma looks down at her green apron and shrugs. ‘No, I just happened to put this combination on this morning. Terrible coincidence,’ she says. ‘Still, while I’m here…’
And as she picks up my empty coffee cup and heads back towards the counter, it takes me a second or two to realize that she’s joking.
When I eventually drop the kids off, Barbara’s waiting anxiously by the door. She picks Jack up first, and then Ellie, inspecting them for any signs of damage or loss of limbs before ushering me into the kitchen, where Tom, evidently in the dog house for entrusting me with the twins in the first place, is midway through cooking the dinner.
‘Listen, Will,’ she says, once she’s plonked Jack and Ellie down in front of the television and joined us in the kitchen. ‘I feel a bit bad about Sund
ay. I didn’t mean to, you know, suggest that you weren’t…’ Apologizing has never been Barbara’s strong point. But then, according to Tom, that’s because she’s always right. ‘And the twins seem to be in one piece, so…’
‘What?’ I say, nudging Tom, who’s obviously enjoying her discomfort.
‘So, if you’re absolutely set on going through with this, then perhaps I can help.’
‘Really?’ I say, suddenly all ears. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, there’s this woman. Julie. At work. She’s single. Loves kids. And desperate–to settle down, that is. So I thought you and she might want to, you know, meet up?’
I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. ‘You want to set me up? On a blind date? What’s she like?’
‘She’s very nice. In fact, we’re all mystified why she’s been single for so long.’
‘Oh.’ I slump against the fridge. ‘Right.’
‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic.’
‘Sorry, Barbara. It’s just that, if she’s been single for “so long”, however long that is, then it’s probably for a reason, which means either a) she’s ugly, b) she’s fat, c) she’s got no personality, or d) all of the above.’
‘None of the above, actually,’ snorts Barbara. ‘She’s really very nice. About my height, short dark hair, pretty, nice figure.’
‘It’s true,’ says Tom, stirring a pot of something unidentifiable that’s simmering away on the hob. ‘She’s just your type.’
‘You’ve met her, have you?’
‘Well, no, but…’
‘And she’s desperate to have kids?’
‘Absolutely,’ says Barbara.
I look at the two of them, standing there as if they’ve done me the biggest favour in the world, and let out a resigned sigh. ‘So when do I meet this Julie?’
‘Tomorrow,’ says Barbara triumphantly. ‘It’s all set up. Three o’clock. That new Starbucks next to your office.’
Oh great. ‘And how on earth will I recognize her?’
Barbara smiles. ‘She’ll be pushing a pram. An empty one.’