by Matt Dunn
‘And how about those two delightful kids? I’m assuming you’ve not been trusted with them again?’
‘Well, actually, I’m babysitting them this evening.’
Emma raises one eyebrow. ‘Babysitting?’
‘Don’t look so surprised.’
She looks at me strangely, as if she’s considering something. We’re still stood in the doorway, and I have to move out of the way to let a couple of teenagers in. As they mumble what could be either thanks or a threat, I roll my eyes at Emma, and then move to walk out of the door, conscious of the time.
‘Will…’ she says.
I stop and turn around. ‘Yup?’
‘I was just wondering.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘Does that offer of a coffee still stand?’
‘I thought you didn’t like the stuff?’
She blushes a little. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘Sorry.’ I’m a little taken aback. ‘Yeah. Sure.’
‘Don’t sound so enthusiastic.’
‘No. I’m sorry. I mean, yes. I’d love to. Buy you a coffee, that is. Or any other drink of your choice. Soft or, er, hard. When’s good for you?’
Emma smiles. ‘Tomorrow night? Meet me here? Say seven o’clock?’
‘“Seven o’clock,”’ I say, as instructed.
Chapter 17
I’m sitting on Tom’s sofa with Jack to my left, Ellie on my right, some Disney film playing on the TV in front of me, and about two hundred assorted toys and games laid out on the floor in readiness for the end of the DVD. Barbara is upstairs getting changed, while Tom waits by the dining table, sipping a beer and agitatedly looking at his watch approximately every thirty seconds. He’s wearing his best suit, or rather his only suit, and it, like him, has seen better days.
After a while he stands up and starts pacing the room, probably as much due to the waistband of his trousers cutting into his stomach as Barbara’s apparent disregard for their reservation time, before making for the bottom of the stairs.
‘Come on, love,’ he shouts. ‘We don’t want to lose our table.’
‘What time is it booked for?’ I ask him.
‘Eight. But I’ve told Barbara seven-thirty. An old trick to ensure we get there in time.’
‘Does it work?’
He sighs, and looks at his watch again. ‘Apparently not any more.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you?’
Tom shakes his head. ‘No thanks, mate. We’ll get the tube. And besides, you’ve got the kids to look after, remember?’
‘That’s okay. I thought I’d just leave them here on their own, maybe with a box of matches and a packet of razor blades to play with.’
Tom smiles mirthlessly. ‘Very funny. Now, you know where everything is?’
‘Seeing as he virtually lives here, I’d be surprised if he doesn’t,’ interrupts Barbara, who’s come silently down the stairs. She looks fantastic, wearing a tight-fitting evening dress, black shoes, and a simple silver necklace that I helped Tom pick out from Tiffany’s the other afternoon.
As we stare at her, open-mouthed, and even the twins do a double take, she blushes slightly. ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ Tom and I say in unison.
‘It’s just…’
‘You look…’
‘Fabulous?’ suggests Barbara. ‘I’m still a woman under all those mother clothes, you know.’
‘Change of plan,’ I say to Tom. ‘You stay here. I’m taking her out.’
‘No fear,’ he says, picking up his keys and escorting his wife towards the door. ‘Now, you’ve got Barbara’s mobile number, just in case?’
‘Just in case of what? No–on second thoughts, don’t answer that.’
‘And don’t forget the naughty step,’ adds Tom, gesturing towards the bottom of the stairs. ‘If you need it.’
‘How could I? You’ve made me sit on it often enough.’
‘You’re sure you’ll be all right?’ says Barbara, although I fear this is a question directed towards the twins rather than me.
‘Of course. You kids enjoy yourselves.’
Tom’s already half out of the front door when Barbara turns back to face us.
‘Bye, Jack. Bye, Ellie. Mummy’ll see you later,’ she says, adding the word ‘hopefully’ and fixing me with a stern look.
As Jack and Ellie don’t even glance up from the television screen, I smile confidently at Barbara, before turning my attention back to the twins. Fortunately, they’re already in their pyjamas, so that’s one trauma I won’t have to face. In fact, all I have to do is occupy them for the next hour and, if possible, get them tired enough so they’ll go to sleep without any trouble.
As the door slams behind Barbara, I pick up the remote control and hit ‘mute’. Jack and Ellie continue to gaze at the screen for a few seconds before turning round and staring at me.
‘So come on, kids. What do you want to do?’
The twins look at each other, and then back at the TV. ‘Watch television.’
‘I’m serious. Don’t you want to play a game or something?’
‘We want to watch television,’ demands Ellie. ‘Now.’
‘What about I-Spy?’
Jack looks suddenly interested. ‘What’s I-Spy?’
As I educate the twins in the finer points of the game, before running through a couple of examples, it doesn’t take me long to realize that there’s a fundamental flaw in trying to play I-Spy with a couple of five-year-olds who have the spelling ability of, well, five-year-olds, particularly when they don’t get the concept of ‘something beginning with’. As their attention drifts back towards the TV screen, I rack my brains for other games to play.
‘What about hide and seek?’
Ellie sighs, as if I’m the child and she’s humouring me. ‘All right, then.’
‘It’ll be fun,’ I say, although the twins don’t look convinced. ‘Tell you what–I’ll hide, and you count to twenty and come and find me.’
Jack and Ellie look at me and nod, rather reluctantly, it has to be said.
‘You can count to twenty?’ I take the twins’ silence as confirmation, and stand up. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Go!’
I leave the two of them looking blankly at each other, and then hurry excitedly out of the front room and up the stairs. After a moment’s deliberation, I decide on the perfect hiding place–under Tom and Barbara’s bed–and, congratulating myself smugly on my brainwave, cram myself in under the bed frame, trying hard not to sneeze at the dust I disturb. Despite a muttered ‘fuck’ when I bang the top of my head on one of the handles of Tom’s rowing machine, which seems to be where most of the dust is coming from, I make sure I’m completely concealed, and lie in wait.
After a minute or two, and with no sign of either Jack or Ellie, I wonder if I should perhaps leave a foot sticking out, or some other clue as to my whereabouts. After five minutes, I’m thinking that it’s taking them an awfully long time to count to twenty. And after ten minutes, I’m doubting whether five-year-olds can actually count that high. And then, above the asthmatic wheezing sound that I’m shocked to discover is actually my own breathing, I realise that I can just about make out the sound of the television.
‘Kids?’
There’s no answer, and so I squeeze myself out from under the bed, managing to bang my head in exactly the same spot in the process, and make my way back downstairs, brushing the dust off my trousers as I go. When I walk into the front room, I find Jack and Ellie sat in front of the television again, transfixed by what I’ve heard in the background enough times to know is The Lion King.
I squat down between the two of them. ‘Couldn’t you find me?’
‘No,’ says Ellie, without even taking her eyes from the screen.
‘How hard did you look, exactly?’
Jack and Ellie exchange the briefest of glances. ‘We looked everywhere,’ insists Jack.
‘Well, why don’t you two go and hide now, and I’ll—’
‘We don’t want to play any more games’ interrupts Ellie.
‘Well, what do you want to do?’
‘Watch TV,’ they chorus.
I look at the two of them in disbelief. On the screen, a hyena who sounds suspiciously like Whoopi Goldberg has just burst into song.
‘What’s happening?’
‘Shh!’ says Ellie.
I give up, help myself to one of Tom’s beers from the fridge, and flop down on the sofa behind them. But it’s not until I’ve read the paper from cover to cover, and even got halfway through the crossword, that the magical words ‘The End’ appear on the screen.
‘Right,’ I say to the two of them, checking the time, and noticing with a start that it’s gone nine. ‘Bed.’
‘But it’s not time for night-night yet,’ says Ellie, her forehead creasing into a frown. Beside her, Jack is nodding furiously, before realizing he perhaps should be shaking his head, which results in some strange head-circling movement.
‘Well, what time do you normally go to bed?’
‘Bedtime,’ says Jack.
‘Very funny,’ I say, although the irony is lost on Jack. ‘Ellie?’
‘We go to bed at ten o’clock,’ says Ellie triumphantly, as if she’s been saving this particular trump card.
‘Oh really?’ I know for a fact that Barbara and Tom always put them to bed at eight. I lean forward from my position on the sofa. ‘Well, look at my watch. Do you know what time it says?’
The twins both stare blankly at the Breitling on my wrist.
‘It’s not bedtime yet,’ insists Ellie.
‘Can you actually tell the time?’ I ask her. She shakes her head, and turns her attention back to my watch, twisting the dial and enjoying the clicking sound that it makes. ‘How about you?’ I say to Jack.
‘No,’ he admits, biting his bottom lip.
‘Well, I’ll teach you. You see the big hand is pointing to the number two?’
Jack nods. ‘Two.’
‘And the little hand is pointing to which number?’
Ellie concentrates hard on my watch. ‘Nine?’
‘Well done, Ellie. So that means it’s what time?’
Jack and Ellie look as if they’re about to burst. ‘We don’t know.’
‘Ten o’clock,’ I say. ‘Which I think you said was bedtime, Ellie.’
She grabs me by the hand. ‘Please, Uncle Will. Can we stay up a little more?’
‘Please,’ says Jack, grabbing hold of my leg.
I look down at them fondly, cute little buggers, and although I’m now worried that I’ll be sent to the naughty step for real when Tom and Barbara get home, I cave in.
‘All right. Five more minutes. I don’t want your mummy telling me off because you’re too tired in the morning.’
But by ten-fifteen, neither Jack nor Ellie is showing any signs of being tired whatsoever, and in fact it’s me who’s starting to flag. We’ve watched another DVD, played hide and seek with the lounge curtains, and even built what’s surely the world’s tallest Lego construction in the front room, narrowly avoiding breaking Barbara’s favourite fruit bowl when Jack decides to play demolition.
In a vain attempt to relax them a bit so I can get them ready for bed, I switch the TV on again, and sit the kids up next to me on the sofa. I can’t face another Disney film, and so rifle through Tom’s DVD collection, but decide that the Die Hard movies aren’t exactly suitable viewing, and as tempting as Tom’s compilation disc of his own acting parts is, I’m sure the twins have seen the five commercials and his walk-on in Doctors more often than all their copies of The Lion King, Finding Nemo and Narnia put together.
Instead, we settle for some twenty-four-hour cartoon channel that I find somewhere on Sky, and the kids snuggle up against me and settle down to watch. And as I sit there, my attention focused more on the two of them than on the action on the screen in front of us, I realize absolutely that this is what I want.
The next thing I know, it’s eleven-fifteen, and I’m startled awake by the front door closing, and I’m still trying to get my bearings when Tom and Barbara walk into the lounge. Jack and Ellie are asleep either side of me, although Jack seems to have wriggled himself upside down, and Ellie is hanging precariously off the end of the sofa, so Barbara places a finger on her lips and shushes me before she and Tom pick the twins up and carry their still-sleeping bodies upstairs to bed. A couple of minutes later, Tom comes back down and walks into the lounge, where I’m trying to put half a ton of Lego back into the toy box, and wondering why, when I saw it all come out of there, I can’t seem to get it all back in.
I look up at him from my position on the floor. ‘Good evening?’
‘Good evening to you too,’ he says, slurring his words slightly.
‘No–good evening, as in did you have one?’
Tom nods. ‘Yes thanks. For once Barbara didn’t call home every half an hour to check on the kids. Which is a first, to be honest.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘Don’t. It’s only because she couldn’t get a signal on her mobile in the restaurant.’
‘Ah.’
As Barbara comes back down the stairs, I survey the mess. ‘I’ll give you a hand to clear up, if you like?’
Tom and Barbara exchange slightly squiffy glances, before Tom puts an arm around my shoulder and escorts me to the door.
‘Thanks, Will, but no need.’
‘No, I don’t mind.’
‘We’ll do it in the morning,’ says Barbara. ‘Honestly.’
As I look at him uncomprehendingly, Tom smiles. ‘Will, for once, the kids are fast asleep, and there’s only one thing we want to do. Which is why we appreciate your kind offer, but we’d really just like you to leave, so we can have…’
I stand there, confused, before realization dawns. They’re going to have sex. The moment I leave, they’re going to pounce on each other like…like…I don’t want to think about it. Tom and Barbara are the closest I’ve got to having a brother and sister, and the thought of them…
‘Please, Tom,’ I say, holding my hands up. ‘Spare me the details.’
‘…a decent night’s sleep,’ he continues.
‘What did you think we meant?’ asks Barbara.
‘Well, you know, sex,’ I say.
Tom starts to chuckle. ‘Will, haven’t you been listening? Nowadays, for us, sex is like the Isle of Wight. We remember it being a nice place, but we don’t go back there very often.’
‘More’s the pity,’ says Barbara, giving me a hug. ‘Thanks again, Will.’
I return the squeeze. ‘You are most welcome.’
‘So, same time next year, then?’ says Tom.
I look at him, expecting him to be joking. ‘You’re kidding, right?’
Barbara shakes her head. ‘Will, you have so much to learn.’
‘Why? What’s wrong with going out once in a while?’
‘This is once in a while,’ says Barbara. ‘It’s like we said. And it’s not that we don’t want to. We’re just too tired the rest of the time. Or we know we won’t enjoy ourselves, because we’re too worried about how the kids are. And to tell you the truth, most of the time, we’d rather be with them, and stay at home knowing they’re safely tucked in upstairs.’
Tom nods. ‘That’s parenthood, Will.’
‘Well, it won’t be the way I do it.’
And five minutes later, as I’m letting myself in through my front door, I can still hear them laughing at me.
Chapter 18
I spend most of the morning in a state of nervous excitement, and I’m sitting in my office wondering where to take Emma this evening when the phone rings. It’s Jen.
‘Will, there’s a journalist waiting to see you. Something about you putting yourself on eBay?’
A journalist? ‘Tell him…’ Bollocks. Tell him what? ‘Er…tell him I’m busy.’
‘It’s a her.’
‘Well, tell her I’m busy, then,
’ I say, a little exasperatedly.
I hear a muffled exchange and then Jen’s voice comes back on the line. ‘She says she’ll wait.’
‘Fine. Well, she’ll have a long one, then.’
I sit down at my desk, and hurriedly log on to eBay, and when I click on my listing I’m shocked to see it’s been viewed approximately twenty times. What’s more, there are a series of messages, and when I open them I find they’re all from the same woman. Probably the same woman who’s waiting outside for me now. ‘We’re very interested in what you’re selling,’ is the gist of them, ‘and we’d like to do a piece on you.’
I chew the end of my pen anxiously, not quite sure what to do. This has all suddenly got out of hand. I consider asking Jen to sneak me out of the back door with a blanket over my head, but then I realize that I’m overreacting and, actually, this could even work in my favour. Speak to the press now, get it over and done with, and what’s the worst that could happen? On the plus side, I might get a bit more exposure, and if it’s not quite as flattering as I’d like, then today’s news will be tomorrow’s chip wrapper, as Tom always says–unless it’s one of his acting reviews, which I know he always cuts out, laminates, and keeps in a special box in the attic that only he has the key to.
I pick up the phone to buzz Jen back, and tell her to let the reporter in. A couple of seconds later, there’s a knock on my door, and a young, bleached-blonde woman comes in. She’s wearing a pin-striped business suit, and carrying a large bag over her shoulder.
‘You don’t look like a journalist,’ is all I can think of to say.
She smiles, and hands over her business card, which identifies her as Victoria Baker, freelance. ‘What were you expecting?’
I blush immediately. ‘I’m not sure, actually. I mean, I just thought that all hacks would be, you know, grizzled, lecherous, chain-smoking old—’
‘That’s me at the weekend,’ she laughs, taking a pair of glasses out from her inside pocket and putting them on. ‘But during the week I like to dress up for the job.’
I ask Victoria to take a seat, but, unfortunately, my office only has the one chair, and the couch for consultations, so I don’t know quite where to put her. ‘Do you want to lie down?’