The Trouble with Great Aunt Milly

by Alice Ross

  Bingo! She was sharper than he’d given her credit for. Now all he had to do was move in for the kill.

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you. And not only that, but this flat is costing us a fortune every month, much more than we’d originally thought. And then there’s the wedding-’

  ‘We agreed how much we’d spend on the wedding.’

  ‘I know we did. But all the little extras are adding up to more than we’d budgeted. Both our savings accounts are depleted and all the credit cards are up to the max. That’s why we really should consider the caveat in Great Aunt Milly’s will, Fran. One million pounds is a lot of dosh and it could all be ours. If only you’d think about having a baby.’

  Francesca said nothing. She buried her face in Mimi’s fur.

  Several minutes passed with Mimi looking at Matt, and Matt looking at Mimi.

  Eventually Francesca raised her head. ‘Okay.’

  Relief washed over him. ‘Okay? So you’ll have a baby?’

  ‘No. I’ll think about having one.’

  *

  ‘Guten Morgen, James.’

  Perched on the edge of the operating table engrossed in the morning paper, James jumped as Anya poked her head round the door of his consulting room. ‘Guten, er, morning, Anya.’

  ‘How are you this morning?’

  James furrowed his brow. Why on earth was she enquiring after his health? Normally all he got from her in the morning was a curt nod. And more to the point, why was she wearing that flowery dress? Anya didn’t do dresses – flowery or otherwise. Something was going on. ‘I’m, um, fine thank you. How are you?’

  ‘Very gut,’ she replied, twisting her lips into something akin to a smile. ‘Very gut indeed.’

  ‘Excellent,’ he said, hoping she’d now disappear. She didn’t.

  ‘You are having the busy day today?’

  ‘Er, not particularly,’ he blustered, wondering where all this was leading. ‘I’m popping up to Eric’s farm this morning to look at a couple of cows. And Mrs Gates’ poodle is coming in for its annual vaccination this afternoon, but that’s it so far.’

  ‘Gut. Then vee go for the lunch.’

  James’ brows shot to his hairline. ‘Lunch?’

  ‘Ja. At the one o’clock.’

  And with that, she swung around and disappeared.

  ‘Mandy, have you noticed anything strange about Anya today?’ ventured James a little later.

  ‘Other than her wearing a flowery frock, you mean?’

  ‘She’s asked me out for lunch.’

  ‘No? When? Today?’

  ‘Ah-ha.’

  ‘God, that is weird.’

  ‘Come with me. Please.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘I’ll give you a pay rise.’

  ‘Not worth it. Anyway, sounds like she wants you all to herself. Maybe she wants to talk business.’

  ‘I doubt it. When she wants to talk business she emails me an agenda.’

  ‘Hmm. Then it can only mean one thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That she fancies you, of course.’

  ‘So,’ began Anya, flicking a look around Luigi’s, the small Italian restaurant she’d decided upon for their lunchtime assignation. ‘This is nice, is it not?’

  James made a cursory glance of his surroundings. The romantic ambience and the intimate corner table tucked away from the other diners, were not helping his nerves at all. She was definitely up to something. But what? He had no idea, but whatever it was, this build up was making him extremely uncomfortable. He was only glad he’d arranged to meet her at the restaurant following his trip to Eric’s farm. The idea of sharing a car with her there and back had made him nauseous. He decided to bite the bullet.

  ‘Look Anya, was there something in particular you wanted to talk about?’

  She shook her head, her glossy black bob swinging from side-to-side. ‘Nein. I just thought it vould be nice for us to have the lunch together. That is vot the colleagues are doing, is it not?’

  James wasn’t convinced. ‘Well, some are. But we’ve worked together for four years and we’ve never had the lunch.’

  ‘Then it is the time vee are starting. I have just realised that vee know so little about each other. Now, tell me something about you. Or your family. Did I hear that your brother is getting married soon?’

  ‘He is,’ confirmed James, her sudden interest in his sibling’s nuptials doing nothing to ease his suspicions.

  ‘That is very interesting,’ she smirked, leaning back in her chair. ‘Then vee shall start there. Tell me more about him and the vedding.’

  *

  Matt hung up the phone grinning from ear-to-ear. He’d only gone and bloody done it. Secured the chance to pitch for what could be, no – what would be – the largest account Wiltshire & Harrison Executive Advertising had ever handled in its twenty-two year existence: Petticoats - the biggest lingerie chain in the UK with massive plans to expand into Europe next year. Ha! Thought he was past it, eh? Well, think again, boys.

  Sexy Sasha, today attired in a skirt so short it verged on the pornographic, slinked over, smiling seductively.

  ‘Looks like somebody’s had some good news,’ she purred through luscious crimson lips. ‘Maybe we should go out for a drink to celebrate.’

  Matt felt a familiar stirring in his loins. She was up for it. Well up for it. All he had to do was say yes.

  ‘Sorry, Sash,’ he replied, twisting his features into a rueful expression. ‘Washing my hair tonight.’

  *

  ‘Good session at the gym this morning?’ asked Mandy, rifling through her desk drawer.

  Anya allowed herself a secret smile. She had indeed had a good session at the gym - an excellent session, involving Jakov and a couple of exercise balls. The memory caused her to stumble slightly.

  ‘Ja. Danke,’ she replied.

  Ignoring Mandy’s questioning look, she scurried into her consulting room, closed the door and leaned against it. Her lips stretched into a satisfied grin. She was extremely pleased with herself. Her Implementation Phase was now well underway. Not only had her contraceptive pills been consigned to the bin – at her most fertile time of month - but she now had all the information needed to deal with one of the potential obstacles to her plan. She hadn’t wasted a moment implementing a solution. A couple of phone calls the previous evening, and the eradication of minor problem number one was already underway.

  Chapter 7

  James’ day had not started well. On his way to work, he’d nipped into the village store to pick up some milk and had come face-to-face with Alex Corr. It was the first time he’d seen her since the supper evening when he’d drunkenly ran away from her.

  His first instinct that morning, the moment he’d set eyes on her back as she rummaged through the fruit basket, had been to run again. He was on the verge of doing just that when she swung around. Their eyes met. She looked faintly bewildered.

  ‘Oh. Hello,’ she ventured.

  ‘Hi,’ he muttered.

  An awkward silence ensued, broken by Alex saying: ‘Just getting some, um, bananas.’ She proceeded to hold up said bunch.

  ‘Good. Bananas are good.’

  ‘Er, yes. Yes they are. Well, I’d, um, better be getting on. Busy day and everything.’

  ‘Yes. Me too.’ And with that, he’d whisked around and hared out of the shop.

  ‘Where’s the milk?’ asked Mandy as he hurtled through the door of the clinic.

  ‘Sorry. Forgot.’ Incapable of further explanation, he headed directly for his consulting room. Slamming the door behind him, he leaned against it, gulping down huge breaths in an attempt to calm his racing heart. What the hell was happening to him? He couldn’t recall ever feeling so nervous. He was acting like a total prat. Heaven only knew what Alex must think of him. It wasn’t even as if she was the first attractive girl he’d encountered since his vow of celibacy. He’d encountered plenty. But none had affected him quite like t
his. He’d at least managed to string a sentence together in their presence. Well, apart from robbing him of the power of speech, there was nothing special about Alex Corr, he reasoned. And besides, whatever he thought about her was completely irrelevant. The girl couldn’t have the slightest interest in him given his adolescent behaviour. So there was absolutely no reason for him to impersonate a tongue-tied schoolboy every time he set eyes on her. No, the next time he met her, he resolved, he would act perfectly normally.

  *

  Since being propositioned by Sasha, Matt had been as horny as hell. Not that he’d dared mention anything of this condition to Francesca who was clearly still off-limits.

  In order to divert his mind from matters of a carnal nature, he’d come up with a first-class plan. He’d popped out for a sandwich at lunchtime and bumped into an ex-Wiltshire & Harrison colleague - Jonty Sinclair. A couple of years older, Jonty had started at the agency two years before Matt. A good-looking Oxford graduate, oozing confidence, style, money, and sporting prowess, Jonty had had it all – including a never-ending stream of gorgeous babes. He’d been the undisputed King of the Office, the man everyone wanted to either sleep with or be seen with – or both. For the fresh-out-of –university Matt, he’d been something of a hero.

  Of course Jonty hadn’t stayed at W&H long. He’d been head-hunted and moved on to bigger and better things. The last Matt had heard of him was that he’d been poked on Facebook by an old university girlfriend he hadn’t seen for a decade. Eight weeks later they’d tied the knot. Despite the fact that said girlfriend was rumoured to be a petite, foxy red-head with an IQ of two-hundred-and-sixteen and a mega-bucks job, everyone who knew Jonty had been completely flabbergasted. “It won’t last,” they’d predicted. But it had. Three years on, Jonty was still married to the petite, foxy, red-headed Carmen and … to Matt’s complete astonishment, with a baby.

  ‘And another on the way,’ Jonty had proudly announced.

  ‘Wow,’ Matt gushed. ‘That’s amazing. Fran and I were just talking about having kids the other day. Fran’s not too keen.’

  ‘Best thing you could ever do. You should bring her round for dinner one evening? Let her see Ben. He’ll melt her heart and she’ll go away broody as hell.’

  Spotting an opportunity, Matt seized it with both hands. ‘Great. Love to. How about this Saturday?’

  Jonty had looked slightly taken aback but, to his credit, had phoned Carmen immediately and agreed the date.

  Francesca, just as Matt had predicted, was not quite so keen. ‘How could you?’ she moaned. ‘I’m not up to seeing anybody at the minute. I look awful.’

  ‘No you don’t,’ he said, snaking his arms around her waist. ‘You could never look awful.’

  He moved in for a kiss.

  She pushed him away.

  But despite the rebuff his spirits remained high. What better people than a super-intelligent, successful, hip, cool and trendy couple like Jonty and Carmen to demonstrate that having a kid didn’t mean the end of the world? That even post-baby, you could still have a successful career, a social life and a flat stomach? Okay, so maybe Jonty’s stomach hadn’t looked quite as flat as it used to, and perhaps he had looked a little … frayed around the edges, like he’d lost some of his polish. But that didn’t mean it was anything to do with marriage and the baby. Did it?

  Jonty and Carmen lived in a large Victorian terraced in Crouch End. Matt and Francesca stood on the step and rang the bell. Matt was bursting with anticipation. This was it: the turning point. After tonight Francesca would be begging him for a kid, a million pounds would be winging its way to his bank account, and the suffocating pressure he’d been under the last few weeks would be well and truly off.

  After what seemed like an age, the door was pulled open and Matt found himself confronted by a bulging tummy encased in a grey T-shirt and Indian print skirt. Several seconds later, the owner of the tummy appeared - a short woman, with long, red, unkempt hair, which looked like it hadn’t seen a brush for several weeks, a hairdresser for several years or a hair care product in its entire life.

  ‘Hi,’ she gushed. ‘Sorry to keep you hovering outside, but you know how it is with children. Do come in, please.’ She stepped aside to allow them entry.

  Matt didn’t move. He was frozen to the spot. He looked past the bulging belly at the floral wallpaper lining the walls, and the jumble of toys, pushchairs and clothing strewn about the floor. Was this the right house? He’d imagined a sleek designer pad - white minimalism showcasing original Victorian features and the odd splash of accent colour. He could not, by any stretch of the imagination, envisage the super-cool Jonty living somewhere with floral wallpaper. And this … this …woman with her hideous stomach and untamed hair could not be the gorgeous, foxy Carmen. There must be some mistake.

  ‘Er, is Jonty here?’ he ventured, hoping desperately the reply would be something along the lines of “Jonty? Oh no, he lives next door”. But it wasn’t.

  ‘He’ll be down in a minute,’ breezed the woman, who, obviously having had enough of hanging around, was now waddling down the hall. ‘Do shut the door behind you. It sticks a bit so you’ll have to give it a shove.’

  ‘Right.’ Matt’s spirits dipped a degree lower. This was not a good start. He slanted a look at Francesca. She looked completely pissed off. Shit! What could he do? Humour! And quickly. ‘Would you like to shove the door, Fran, or should I?’ he asked, with a cheeky wink.

  The withering look she gave him as she stepped past required no verbal accompaniment.

  Eventually succeeding in closing the door, Matt picked his way through the assorted items on the floor until he reached the lounge - exactly the same as the hall, only bigger.

  ‘Goodness, don’t you look lovely,’ remarked Carmen, as Francesca handed over her cream silk jacket – the perfect match to her cream silk dress. ‘I’m afraid I must look an awful fright.’

  ‘Not at all,’ lied Matt. ‘You look positively … blooming, doesn’t she, Fran?’

  Francesca gave a tight smile as she removed a half-eaten digestive from the armchair she was about to sit down on.

  ‘Gosh,’ chuckled Carmen, swiping away the biscuit. ‘Please excuse the mess and, for that matter, the entire state of the place. We intended doing it up when we bought it two years ago, but we haven’t got round to it.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t bother,’ chipped in Matt. ‘It’s full of, er, character, isn’t it Fran?’

  ‘Full of it,’ replied Francesca with a meaningful undertone.

  ‘Well,’ carried on Carmen, scooping up a pile of laundry from the sofa and dumping it on top of another pile of laundry on the sideboard. ‘I’m afraid there aren’t enough hours in the day when you’ve a little one.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ said Matt, making a sudden dash to the sideboard to stop the laundry pile toppling over. Too late. He bundled up the items from the floor and did his best to pile them up again.

  ‘And I’m afraid dinner will be a while yet,’ she apologised, swooping multi-coloured plastic bricks from the coffee table and depositing them in a battered box. ‘I haven’t had time to prepare anything.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right. You don’t have to go to any trouble on our behalf,’ said Matt, ignoring the rumbling in his empty stomach.

  ‘Oh, but we want to,’ she countered. ‘It’s lovely to have you both here. Jonty doesn’t see anyone outside work now. I’m afraid that’s what happens when you have children.’

  No, no, no prayed Matt. Don’t mention the lack of social life.

  ‘I bet you wouldn’t have it any other way though,’ he piped up.

  ‘Oh, of course not,’ she agreed. ‘Not for a minute.’

  A satisfied Matt beamed at Francesca. Francesca didn’t beam back as she removed soggy Weetabix from the sleeve of her cream silk dress.

  Just then Jonty appeared and, with introductions and greetings exchanged, announced he would be “rattling something up” for dinner.

  �
�I’m afraid it’s just mushroom pasta and garlic bread. Sorry it’s nothing more exciting, but it’s all we’ve got in.’

  ‘My favourite,’ enthused Matt, who’d broken out in hives the last time he’d eaten mushrooms – when he was eight.

  Carmen chuckled. ‘You wouldn’t believe I got a first from Oxford and used to be CEO of an engineering company would you? Now I’m so dippy I can’t even remember my own birthday. That’s what pregnancy does to you. Turns your brains to mush.’

  No, no, no. No negatives, please.

  ‘But you look so … so … radiant.’

  ‘Radiant? Enormous, more like.’ She ran a hand over her bulge. ‘And there’s still six weeks to go. I was even bigger than this with Ben, wasn’t I, darling?’

  Please stop now, prayed Matt. Please don’t mention bulging stomachs, or childbirth or-

  ‘You were, darling,’ confirmed Jonty, kissing the top of her head. ‘But I still love you just as much – big or small.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be small again. Especially not my boobs. They’ll never recover from breastfeeding two babies.’

  No, no, no. Not saggy tits. Please not saggy tits.

  ‘Breast is best,’ declared Jonty, before he and Carmen broke into a raucous fit of giggles. Matt and Francesca did not join in.

  Matt began to panic. This was not going at all how he’d planned. In a desperate bid to change the subject he piped up, ‘I heard you two had a lovely wedding.’

  ‘Oh, we did,’ cooed Carmen. ‘Best day of our lives. Well, apart from the day we were blessed with Ben, of course.’

  ‘There’s a photo somewhere,’ said Jonty, his eyes hopelessly scanning the room.

  ‘Try under that pile of letters, dear,’ said Carmen, pointing to a sprawling pile of paperwork on the sideboard. ‘Or did I see it yesterday in Ben’s blue toy box? Or maybe in the drawer in the kitchen dresser?’

  After much rummaging, the photo was produced and handed to Matt.

  ‘Isn’t that the most beautiful bride you’ve ever seen?’ declared Jonty proudly.

  Matt’s mouth dropped open. That was the most beautiful bride he’d ever seen. But surely it wasn’t Carmen. It couldn’t be. This gorgeous creature with sleek red hair, encased in ivory silk and antique lace, looking the epitome of sophisticated style could not be the same woman sitting alongside him now. Was this what marriage and children did to you? He couldn’t let Francesca see the picture. She’d freak. He attempted to pass it back to Carmen.