by Carmen Reid
‘Anyway, Dave will be here,’ Dinah pointed out, ‘he’ll keep me right.’
Ed had to laugh at this because there was a touch of the serious watchman about Dave. He was always looking at the twins anxiously and barking when he thought they were heading off in the wrong direction.
‘What about the roof?’ Ed asked, thinking of another reason why he should stay at home. ‘As Al was getting into the ambulance, he promised me someone would be round.’
‘Janucek is coming first thing tomorrow morning—’ Annie began.
‘Oooh,’ Dinah couldn’t help interrupting; she’d heard about this phenomenon. ‘Can I come round then too?’
‘Shhhh!’ Annie said. ‘Let’s not make Ed jealous.’ Then, casually, she added: ‘Janucek and a couple of guys are going to replace the rotten bit of beam, put back the tiles and replaster the ceiling.’
‘No cupola?’ Ed sounded surprised.
‘No, babes. No cupola,’ Annie confirmed. She’d finally admitted to herself that this was an expense too far. The cupola was going to be returned and the roof was going to be repaired as simply as possible.
‘Hallelujah!’ Ed exclaimed, hugging Annie round the waist. ‘Swedish windows?’ he risked asking.
‘On a lorry, making their way to the ferry port right now … allegedly.’
‘This is the best news I’ve heard all year!’
‘Go get dressed,’ she instructed him again. ‘I’ll make the plans for this afternoon. You are just to relax, rest and be pampered.’
‘Be pampered?’ he asked cautiously. ‘You’ve not booked me in for some dodgy beauty treatment or something? Annie, I’m not going to spend the afternoon getting my fingernails filed or mud masks or …’ His face took on a look of deep anxiety ‘… my buttocks waxed?’
Annie and Dinah both cracked with laughter at this suggestion.
‘Go! Dress!’ Annie exclaimed and threw a sofa cushion at him for emphasis.
‘Now this is nice,’ Ed had to agree, ‘this is very nice.’
He was sitting opposite Annie in a cosy little booth in one of the achingly stylish restaurants in Selfridges department store. They were both eating something complicated and apparently ‘Asian-fusion’. Ed was drinking jasmine tea and Annie had a glass of a khaki-green and slimy concoction in front of her which was apparently ‘very cleansing’.
‘Remember me?’ Annie asked Ed with a smile.
‘Remember me?’ he answered back.
‘Remember you? I can barely recognize you,’ she told him with a wink.
Their first stop, once they had slipped away from home and their twins, had been a fancy gentleman’s barber where Ed’s curly brown mop had been washed, combed, snipped and styled, before he’d been laid back in the chair for a hot towel shave. Even his eyebrows and all those unruly bits of man hair – nostrils, ears, back of the neck – had been dealt with as Annie flicked through magazines, answered emails on her phone and tried not to let work interfere at least for a few hours.
‘So what else have you got planned for me?’ Ed wondered. ‘We seem to be in a big shop,’ he pointed out. ‘I can’t think why you’d take me to a big shop – unless maybe you had shopping on your mind.’ He bumped his knee against hers playfully.
‘Do you remember the first time we went shopping together?’ she asked him, bumping right back.
He nodded with a smile in response to this. It was years ago now, before they were even together. Long, long before the joint house purchase and any thought of babies, Annie had helped him to pick out an interview outfit, just as ‘a friend’, doing him a favour.
And Ed, who’d only started to have an idea of just how much he liked her, had found every moment of her careful personal shopping attention totally, totally intoxicating.
‘I’ve not been shopping—’ he began.
‘For ages,’ she told him. ‘I know. Your white T-shirts are all stained and yellowy, there are dodgy crotch holes in two of your jeans and, baby, you know I love you, but most of the time you look like an unmade bed.’
There was something of a pause before Ed said: ‘Oh.’
‘No, it’s not that bad,’ Annie corrected herself quickly.
‘An unmade bed?’ he repeated. ‘But the babies love me,’ he added, pulling a face.
‘Yeah, and they’ll be the only ones if you don’t make just a teeny, weeny bit of effort. Ed, you’re going to be back at work in four months,’ she reminded him.
‘Oh!’ He seemed surprised at this news. ‘Four months?’
Annie nodded, and then she watched as Ed’s eyes slid down towards his plate.
‘I was wondering about extending my leave a bit,’ he began, ‘I’m really enjoying being with them and I don’t know if I’m ready to go back yet.’
At first Annie wasn’t sure how to react to this. She felt a little surprised and yet she understood. Ed was suffering full-on new-parent guilt at the thought of leaving his precious children with someone else.
He couldn’t yet work out how he was going to marry his new life with all the other parts of his old life that had been paused for parenthood.
But this was just where Annie was going to have to help him. ‘You have to go back to work, babes,’ she said gently.
‘No I don’t,’ he told her, ‘you earn loads of money, more than enough for the two of us. I can always get back into teaching when the babies are older. I don’t have to go back.’
Annie was nodding and for a few moments, she didn’t say anything.
Then she told him: ‘You have to go back and the sooner, the better.’
‘Why?’ he asked. She didn’t like the almost pleading tone in his voice.
‘Because you need the other parts of your life back,’ she said. ‘You absolutely loved your job and the kids you taught. And we have to be practical, babes, what if I don’t get signed up for the next series?’ At these words she felt the clench in the pit of her stomach. ‘I need you to have a job, Lana and Owen get discounted fees because of your job and the school won’t hold it open for you for ever.
‘Our babies are going to be absolutely fine,’ she went on, ‘like all the other children of hard-working parents. We’ll find someone fantastic to look after them. You can rush home after school to be with them every day, you can have them all to yourself every single day of the school holidays and seriously, Ed, you have to do it. I know I have to push you here. Because …’
She stopped, wondering how to say the next things carefully. How did she tell her lovely man that he’d got just a little over-domesticated? That he was in danger of becoming a bit boring, because he’d forgotten about his friends and how to have fun. How could she point out that, on the admittedly rarer moments when she did feel attracted to him, he was generally too tired to do anything about it?
‘You used to have a cool life,’ she reminded him. ‘You were a pretty cool guy. You had us, but you also had school and you had so much music going on. I’ve not seen you pick up a guitar for ages. You never buy any new music, and when did you last go to a concert? You used to go all the time. Twice a week? And what about camping? You’ve been promising Owen a camping trip as soon as the weather warms up, but now I don’t know if I can trust you to go on it!
‘Ed, you’re – in the nicest way possible – a bit over focused. There are other people in this family, not just the babies … I mean Lana moved out while I was away and I’m not sure if you even noticed!’
‘Annie!’ Ed protested. ‘It was one night, the house was freezing …’ He trailed off and took a drink from his cup.
Annie put her lips to her straw and sipped up some of the wheatgrass / aloe vera sludge. She couldn’t help pulling a face.
‘We should have had wine,’ Ed said, trying not to laugh at her expression, ‘then we’d have been much more friendly.’
Annie stuck her hand up in the air: ‘Hello there,’ she said to the passing waitress, ‘we’d like two large glasses of white wine, please.’
&nbs
p; ‘After we’ve drunk those, I’ve got a much better idea than shopping,’ Ed offered.
‘I’m not sure I realized how much of an Abba fan you really were,’ Ed said, having to lean right in against Annie’s ear to be heard over the strains of ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’.
‘I’d forgotten,’ Annie told him, realizing with some horror that she had just drained her third large glass of wine that afternoon. ‘Oooh oooh oooh oooh oh oooh …’ She couldn’t help joining in the chorus.
He’d led her out of Selfridges and up and around several side streets to a tiny traditional pub, deadly quiet post-lunch hour. They’d been drinking wine and playing cheesy tunes on the jukebox for nearly two hours now.
All sorts of songs Ed had forgotten how much he loved had been playing, alternating with the entire Abba back catalogue.
‘ “I Had A Dream” … listen to this,’ Annie insisted, ‘this is brilliant!’
Finally she’d had the chance to tell him all about her Paris adventures. Yvette singing ‘Super Trouper’ had inspired the first foray into the available Abba selection and now Annie couldn’t stop.
They were snuggled together in a dark corner, arms around each other, stopping every once in a while to kiss. It was so unusual to be alone together, more than a little tipsy, on a weekday afternoon …
‘This is nice,’ he told her. ‘I haven’t had you all to myself for ages.’
‘You haven’t wanted to,’ she reminded him. ‘You’ve been too wrapped up with the little people. Even I’m jealous of how much time you spend with those babies and I’m their mummy!’
‘I’ve been very, very tired,’ Ed told her. ‘I’m not sure I even realized how tired I’ve been.’
‘I know.’ Up against his ear Annie whispered the words: ‘The babies need their own room. They’ll sleep better, we’ll sleep better … we’ll all feel better.’
‘I know,’ Ed whispered back. ‘It just makes me feel sad.’
‘Why?’ Annie wondered.
‘Because they’re growing up. They’re not so tiny any more,’ he replied.
Annie would have quite liked to giggle at him, he was so sweet.
Instead, she slid her hands down under the waistband of his chinos and promised: ‘I brought a few things back from Paris just to cheer you up, but you only get to see them when the babies have moved out!’
‘Really?’ He kissed her neck fondly. ‘Why don’t we—’
‘Oh no,’ she interrupted him, ‘you’re not going to ask me the big question again?’ She moved her head away from his.
‘Shhhh,’ he reassured her. ‘I understand,’ he said, although he wasn’t quite sure if he did, but he outlined his new plan: ‘I’m not going to ask again until I know you’re ready to say yes.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Minnie’s morning wear:
Pink Babygro (Mothercare)
Striped cashmere cardie (Brora)
Large beige blob (old banana)
Total est. cost: £85
‘Waaaaah!’
The trill of her mobile woke Annie from a deep sleep. Groggily, she raised her head and looked around the room, trying to locate the phone.
The bedroom looked so different. There were no cots, no babies … and down there on the floor was still the tumble of French lingerie which had been peeled off in a serious hurry last night.
The underwear had definitely been appreciated to the full. It may have been a romantic night, but it had still been an interrupted night. The babies, in their new room, had slept fitfully.
Annie pushed back the duvet and got out of bed. Spotting the phone on the floor, she picked it up to answer and saw two things: it was 8.20 a.m. and it was Tamsin calling.
‘Hi,’ Annie answered, stifling a yawn.
‘Oh, I’m not too early, am I?’ Tamsin asked.
‘Not usually, but this morning, it’s strangely quiet,’ Annie replied. ‘They were up so many times in the night they’re probably sleeping it off.’ As she talked, she headed out of the bedroom and towards the tiny room next door where the twins had been installed. ‘So what’s up?’ she asked.
‘I’ve just got into the office to find an angry letter on my desk from some camping company. Do you know anything about this?’
‘Uh oh!’
In a rush Annie remembered about the camping company, their phone call and her promise to sort something out. Then there was the fact that she had … er … forgotten.
‘What does it say?’ Annie asked.
‘In a nutshell: they’ve been trying to get their things back and unless you return their stuff to them, in its original condition, or feature it on the show, they’re going to take legal action. As publicly as possible. Do you know anything about this?’ Tamsin asked.
Annie could hear voices coming from the other side of the twins’ bedroom door. She pushed it open gently and was surprised to see Owen sitting on the floor as he read Micky a story. Minnie was still asleep in glorious pinkness in her cot.
Sweet. Annie couldn’t help thinking to herself. But she closed the door again because she had to concentrate on this horrible problem.
‘Annie? Do you know what these people are talking about or is this some kind of mix-up?’ Tamsin asked.
With a sigh of regret, Annie replied: ‘No, I know … well, I know something about it, but I’m sorry, I went to Paris and I forgot.’
‘Oh dear,’ was Tamsin’s response.
When Annie had tidied up the bedroom on her return, the two thick sleeping bags on the bed had caught her attention. She hadn’t seen them before and they were so new that they still had labels attached to their zips … that’s when the penny had dropped.
The camping company that had delivered equipment to her home address had obviously been acting on Owen’s orders. But she’d not had a chance to speak to Owen since then.
She took the phone downstairs, so she couldn’t be overheard.
‘I think it was my son who ordered the camping gear,’ she told Tamsin. ‘I’ve not spoken to him yet.’
It was Tamsin’s turn to sigh now: ‘OK,’ she said, ‘well, these things happen. Why don’t I just phone the company, tell them it’s all been a mistake, we’ll return the stuff to them in perfect condition and ordeal over.’
Perfect condition? Well, the sleeping bags had looked OK, but then she’d not exactly checked for baby snot with a magnifying glass, had she?
‘Look, Owen’s up, he’s just next door. Why don’t I go and ask him about it, then I’ll call you straight back?’ Annie suggested.
As soon as she’d hung up the call, she headed back to the twins’ new room.
‘Owen?’ she asked, pushing open the door. ‘All the stuff you got from Everest Camping … ?’
Owen looked up at her with an expression of guilty surprise on his face.
‘It has to go back. Today,’ Annie went on. ‘In perfect condition. And then we’ll have to have a talk about how out of order you were.’
Owen, still with Micky in his lap, began with an: ‘Errr …’ This was followed by: ‘How do you know about it?’
‘Well, Owen,’ Annie said with more than a hint of exasperation, ‘when camping companies hand over hundreds of pounds’ worth of equipment for free, they usually like to know when it’s going to be featured on the programme. They take an interest, you could say.’
‘Errr …’
Micky put up his arms to show that he wanted to be with Mummy now and Minnie’s eyes opened at the exact same moment as her mouth: ‘Waaaaaaah,’ she called out.
Annie loaded herself up with the two babies, then she looked Owen straight in the face. ‘Well? You do still have all the stuff, don’t you? I saw the sleeping bags in the bedroom. What else did you get?’
‘Ermmm … we’ve used some of it. To keep us warm, you know, because it’s been so cold.’
‘I think the bags might be OK; at least you’ve left the labels on them.’
‘Yeah, but I might have sold the stove.
’
‘Sold it?’
‘Mmmm. On eBay.’
‘What on earth did you do that for?’
‘I didn’t think we needed it.’
‘Well, no, but it belongs to someone else.’
‘I didn’t think about that. I’ve used the hiking boots … and so has Milo. He’s used his,’ Owen blurted out.
‘Oh, good grief!’
Owen hung his head and looked very sorry, which was why Annie didn’t have the heart to feel annoyed.
‘Owen,’ she sighed, ‘please don’t do this again. Is there anything else I should know about that you’ve ordered in my name?’
Owen was quiet for a moment; he had to think. After some hesitation, he decided it would probably be best to be honest: ‘I might have asked a guitar company for a look at a sample product or two.’
‘Owen!’ Annie exclaimed.
‘But I’m sure it’s not too late to cancel, nothing’s due to arrive till next week. Then I just need to make sure that Milo hasn’t—’
‘OWEN!’ Annie exclaimed, much more loudly this time.
‘Tamsin?’
Annie had woken Ed, handed over babies, cross-examined first Owen and then Milo and was now back on the phone.
‘OK, here’s the thing,’ Annie began. ‘I think I’ve had a good idea. You know my joke about hill walking in heels?’
‘Uh oh.’ Tamsin sounded wary.
‘Lots of viewers have been in touch about that, haven’t they? Daring me?’
‘Lots? Yes, I think you could say four thousand emails is quite a lot.’
‘Well, what if I did do a hillwalk in heels? We could do it for charity, and we’d be able to feature—’
‘Some of the Everest equipment your son no longer has in perfect condition?’ Tamsin ended the question herself, understanding the situation perfectly.
‘You’ve got to admit it’s an idea.’
‘Why not just pay Everest for the equipment?’ Tamsin suggested.
‘Yeah, well, but they’re still not going to be happy with me though, are they? They’re always going to think I ordered those things for myself with no intention of paying or putting them on the show.’
