Men I've Loved Before

by Adele Parks

  11

  Natalie felt as though she was sitting an A level without having done any revision. She fought the feeling of dread and tried to enter into the spirit of the dinner party. If she could keep everyone off the subject of babies she was sure to have a great time. After all, these were their friends and she clearly remembered the heavenly days when they still talked about films, books, gigs and even politics. She wanted to believe they still all had interests in common but sometimes it felt as though everyone else was speaking a different language, perhaps while swimming underwater and wearing a mouth guard; certainly she struggled with communicating with them right now. She prayed the evening would be relaxing. Neil had made such an effort; despite having no practice, he’d cooked what looked like a delicious dinner, he’d splashed out on the vino and he’d bought flowers for the table. What was not to love?

  Tim and Ali arrived first. Tim practically knocked Natalie over as he shoved past her in the hall.

  ‘I’ve brought a bottle. Ali says I can have a drink tonight,’ he yelled from the kitchen, where he was already rattling around a drawer looking for a bottle opener.

  ‘Come in, can I take your coat?’ joked Natalie. Tim had perhaps been a little lacking in common courtesy but she was relieved to hear he was drinking, maybe that meant they were being less regimented about their approach to impregnation and there would be altogether less talk about babies. Nat hoped so.

  Alison leant into Natalie and gave her a hug in greeting. She grinned and gushed, ‘We’ve already done it today, so the pressure is off. That’s four times in three days in total. He’s done his duty. He’s off the hook for another month now. Maybe for longer if we get lucky. I have a really good feeling about this month.’

  Or maybe not.

  Tim was drinking but Ali wasn’t because of her ‘good feeling’. She said that she thought that last night’s session, ‘although efficient rather than leg-shaking’, had been successful. On hearing this, Natalie accepted the very large glass of wine Tim was proffering and, like him, she quickly knocked it back in an effort to subdue the feeling Ali’s shared intimacy had created in her, which was one of nausea. Ali and Tim were good friends but Natalie really didn’t want to think about them at it. It was just one step away from being reminded that your parents had a sex life. Neil emerged from the kitchen and started enthusiastically quizzing Ali as to exactly what she was eating to increase her chances of conceiving. Was there anything she should avoid in case her feeling proved founded? He’d already taken the precaution of taking the prawns out from the fish pie, he added solicitously and somewhat smugly.

  ‘She’s not even pregnant yet,’ muttered Tim. He looked pale and drawn. You could almost see the thumbprint on his forehead; it was where his hair used to be. Natalie shuddered.

  ‘I might be,’ said Ali in a sing-song voice. ‘Tim’s been a slave to the natural food diet that focuses on fresh vegetables, fruits, whole grains, fish, poultry, legumes, nuts, and seeds. He’s utterly eliminated processed and refined foods, junk food and sugars.’

  This was indeed true, except on Friday lunchtime when Tim nipped out of the office and bought a double Mac cheeseburger and fries.

  ‘He’s hardly touched a drop of alcohol or caffeine for weeks now and he’s been snacking on pumpkin seeds, as they are naturally high in zinc and essential fatty acids which are vital to healthy functioning of the male reproductive system. All of this is likely to shake up his sluggish spermatozoa,’ added Ali with a grin.

  Nat put down the bowl of crisps she was about to proffer. She didn’t know what to say. Ali was clearly ensconced in her own little selfish world and she was oblivious to the fact that she was making Natalie feel uncomfortable and Tim feel exposed. Nat was pretty sure that if ever Ali and Tim were successful in trying for a baby, Tim was the sort of man who would prefer to wait in the hospital corridor or, better yet, the pub until the messy bit was over and the cigars were passed around. Natalie tried to catch Tim’s eye. She wanted to share a conspiratorial grimace as Ali started to detail, once again, the issues behind a slow or low sperm count. He kept his head down.

  ‘If the cold showers and healthy diet don’t work then it’s IVF for us.’ Ali was trying to sound cheerful but she sounded terrifying and terrified.

  The doorbell rang and Nat ran to it, surprised at her own enthusiasm at seeing Karen and Mick. At least they would not want to talk about conception. Natalie flung open the door and then tried very hard to keep her smile pinned to her face, there was a serious danger of it sliding to the ground for her to slip on. Karen was carrying a baby in a car seat and so was Mick.

  ‘We couldn’t get a sitter at such short notice. Neil said it was no problem bringing them.’

  ‘Erm, no, no, none at all,’ Nat managed to mutter, before ushering them into the hall and closing the door on the cool night.

  ‘Where shall we put them?’

  ‘Erm, upstairs.’ Nat managed not to add, ‘Out of the way.’

  She glanced at Milo and Lily as they were whisked past. She had to admit they were cute-looking, especially when asleep, but their presence was unlikely to restrict the baby conversation. The opposite. Ali had already nearly torn a ligament in her haste to follow the twins upstairs, ‘just for a peek.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Neil who had sneaked up behind Natalie. He rubbed his hands up and down her bare arms and she felt her body erupt into goosebumps. How was it possible that she could fancy him while being livid with him?

  ‘The babies won’t be an inconvenience tonight. I remember I once got a text from Mick saying that they were both sleeping through nights.’

  Neil kissed her neck and she could feel his smile. Despite the fact that he was cooking a three-course meal for six people, was in charge of wine and the music selection, and his team had lost three nil this morning, he looked remarkably serene. At peace. They pulled apart and he beamed at her. The crinkles around his eyes were speaking to her. ‘Isn’t this cosy?’ they seemed to ask. ‘Look, babies don’t have to cramp your social life! Even with twins you can still see your friends and go out for dinner.’

  Bastard, her glare replied.

  It took a while for everyone to sit down. Mick wasn’t happy with putting the kids in Natalie and Neil’s room because their cat was asleep on the bed and cats were notorious baby murderers. Natalie reluctantly offered to kick the cat out for the night. She wasn’t keen to do so, she always worried when Kitty roamed the busy London streets. Luckily she didn’t have to follow through on her offer as Mick said that he thought Lily had a slight allergy to cat hair and so it would probably be best to find the room that the cat visited least often.

  ‘That would be the bathroom,’ Natalie deadpanned.

  Neil led Mick into the spare bedroom which didn’t actually have a bed in it. It had a desk (so Natalie could work from home whenever the need arose), a basket with a pile of ironing that looked scarily like the leaning tower of Pisa, and now the three boxes that Natalie had brought back from her parents. After Mick erected a makeshift black-out curtain, Natalie moved the boxes again and Neil cranked up the heating. At last the room was considered baby appropriate. They squeezed in the travel cot (scraping it down a wall) and then laid the babies side by side. Natalie was just beginning to enjoy a feeling of satisfaction and relief when Milo rolled over in his sleep, bashing into Lily who let out a blood-curdling scream.

  Karen managed to get to the table by 8.45p.m. She came down the stairs waving two little parcels of crap which she put in the kitchen bin. Natalie leapt up from the table and hauled the black bin bag to the outside bin. She made a mental note to carry the contents of the cat’s litter tray to Karen’s house next time she visited; she could put it in their wastepaper basket perhaps.

  Mick and Karen acted like jack-in-the-boxes all night, constantly running up and down stairs to check on the babies. Natalie didn’t get it. It was unlikely either child would light a spliff or shimmy down the drainpipe to dash over to King’s Cros
s for an all-night rave in a warehouse, no matter how above average their cognitive development was.

  Natalie valiantly tried to stay on plan. If she could steer the conversation away from babies, she was sure she could have a decent evening.

  ‘What did you get up to today?’ she asked the table.

  ‘Baby massage class,’ replied Mick promptly.

  ‘Really, how fascinating. What does that involve? Tell me all about it,’ gushed Ali, instantly dropping her hand to her uber flat stomach. She wasn’t even taking the piss.

  Natalie couldn’t allow that line of chat to develop. She cut in. ‘Neil played football, then mooched around the farmers’ market.’ She was trying subtly to point out the benefits of a childfree day to Neil.

  ‘The farmers’ market at Belmont Primary School?’ asked Karen.

  Oh crap, Natalie hadn’t seen that coming. There was only one way this conversation could lead now.

  Predictably, Neil asked, ‘Have you put the twins’ names down for any schools yet? I understand it’s always a struggle.’

  ‘I visited my parents,’ added Natalie, determined to stay on track.

  ‘Do any of your siblings have kids?’ asked Mick.

  ‘They’re still kids themselves.’

  ‘Does your mum ever hint she wants to be a granny?’ asked Ali.

  ‘Never!’

  ‘Mine is knitting.’

  ‘They made me clear out a whole load of junk. Boxes full of old books and letters. Gosh, just picking through that sort of stuff brings back so many memories,’ Natalie persisted.

  ‘I had exactly the same experience when I was nesting. I had to throw out box after box of tat,’ said Karen. Bloody hell! Was there any subject that didn’t somehow circle back to babies? Then, when Nat thought there was no hope, Karen looked momentarily dreamy and added, ‘I’d kept cinema stubs and boxes of matches from various bars.’

  ‘Where you had hot, meaningless encounters,’ laughed Mick, winking at her.

  ‘Exactly,’ beamed Karen. And for an instant Natalie saw what she’d been looking for all night. She saw Karen. Karen, tall and triumphant, giggly and carefree, wearing fashion brands not baby spit.

  ‘The Met Bar?’

  ‘On Brewers. I remember!’

  ‘Do you remember the Globe Club?’

  ‘God, yes!’

  ‘And the Atlantic.’

  ‘The nights we had there.’

  For a moment the table erupted into wide beams and dizzy laughter. They all remembered sweaty, often drunken encounters. Different ones, separate ones but all the same in a way, all bursting with possibility and challenge, all confirming their youth and invincibility. But then, in an instant, the bonhomie was sloshed away as quickly as it arrived and Mick said, ‘Still, I wouldn’t go back.’

  ‘No, never swap that for what we have now,’ agreed Karen vehemently.

  ‘Done all that,’ added Ali.

  ‘Finished with,’ muttered Tim.

  ‘You have to move on,’ threw in Neil. He turned to Natalie and looked right at her, almost boring a hole through her. Natalie glared back and reached for the wine. Who were they trying to convince? Themselves? Her? Well, she wasn’t convinced. Ali turned to Karen and asked where she bought her maternity clothes from. Mick was explaining to Tim the importance of introducing babies to music while they were still in the womb. Why, were the twins going to take grade 4 violin next week? wondered Natalie. Or perhaps the harp? Natalie felt she had only one option. She was going to get wasted and hope that tomorrow, when she woke up, she’d discover this entire evening had been a bad dream.

  She grabbed bits of salami with her fingers and crammed them into her mouth, swallowing without chewing or tasting. She slugged down the best part of a bottle of wine before the fish pie was placed in front of her and by then had lost all interest in the food, preferring to stick to liquids that didn’t require any digestion. The drunker she got, the harder she warred with the urge to tell them all that they were boring, blinkered and desperate. That she thought it was pathetic that they were abandoning their own lives and living through their kids, kids that in Ali and Tim’s case weren’t even conceived yet! In Neil’s case, never would be.

  It was a good thing the doorbell rang at 10.30p.m.

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Natalie carefully, over-pronouncing the words in an effort not to slur. She opened the door and was whipped by a surprisingly chilly blast of autumn night air; summer seemed well and truly behind them.

  ‘Jen?’ Natalie knew it was her friend but her unexpected presence and her obviously distraught state meant her greeting was more of a question than a welcome.

  ‘God, sorry, Natalie, I didn’t think you’d have company,’ said Jen as she heard gentle laughter and supportive murmurs coming from the front room. Nat imagined someone must have made an incredibly original comment such as they loved the smell of newborns’ heads.

  ‘It’s not company. It’s Ali and Tim and Mick and Karen. Come in, what’s wrong?’

  ‘I think Karl is seeing someone else.’ With this, Jen burst into a tsunami of tears and so Natalie ushered her into the hallway.

  ‘Come and have a drink.’

  On seeing Jen’s distress, Karen and Mick immediately made their excuses and said it was late, they had to head home; after all, they would be woken at 6a.m. the next day by the twins. Natalie wanted to believe that they were being tactful and solicitous but she couldn’t help but surmise that they just didn’t give a toss. True, they didn’t know either Jen or Karl as well as Ali and Tim did, but Natalie couldn’t imagine ever getting to the point where a tale about break-up or infidelity (whatever it might turn out to be in Jen’s case) was no longer compelling enough to justify a late night. How dreary.

  As soon as Jen repeated her suspicions to the gang, Neil and Tim said that they would do the washing up and vanished like rabbits up a hole. If Jen had been a more distrustful type, or even a more alert type, she might have interpreted their actions for what they were – proof positive that Karl was playing away and that Neil and Tim were privy to the fact. Instead she wailed, ‘Seeeeee. There are some nice, thoughtful, decent men out there! Men who marry you and do the washing up too. Why can’t Karl be more like that?’

  Nat and Alison didn’t reply but quickly established the facts of the night’s drama. Jen had been at Karl’s house that evening, doing his ironing, when the phone rang. Because she didn’t officially live with Karl she didn’t pick up, but let it go through to the answer machine. The caller was a woman, who was clearly in a bar and a bit tipsy. The woman had said, ‘Where are you, baby? You’re late. Oh, there you are! I can see you. You are sooooo handsome. Bye. I mean hi.’ And then she laughed a lot, there were kissing sounds and she hung up.

  ‘Oh. My. God,’ said Ali.

  ‘You do his ironing but you daren’t answer his telephone,’ commented Natalie.

  ‘Do you think he’s having an affair?’ asked Jen.

  Nat and Ali both thought that Karl probably had numerous affairs, or flings or dalliances. Call them what you will, they amounted to the same thing. Betrayal. They’d thought this before Jen had told them about the tipsy woman’s telephone call. The issue was, could they tell their friend the truth? Would she want to hear it? Really hear it? Was it their place or even their responsibility? It was difficult to know for sure. It might be that Jen had come to them hoping that they’d offer a reasonable explanation to the phone call, other than the obvious one. It might be that she knew he was having an affair, knew it better than they did, but didn’t want to believe it or have it confirmed.

  ‘Did you call 1471 and make a note of the number?’ Ali asked. Clearly she was buying time, making up her mind about what a judicious response might be.

  ‘Withheld.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Have you called Karl?’ asked Nat.

  ‘His phone’s switched off.’

  ‘Where is he supposed to be tonight?’

  ‘Out having drinks
with a big gang of uni friends.’

  ‘She might be a university friend,’ offered Ali half-heartedly.

  ‘Maybe. But why would she call him handsome?’

  ‘A term of endearment between friends?’

  ‘It sounded more than that.’

  It sounded like treachery, duplicity, disloyalty. The girls all reached for their glasses and gulped back the wine which slipped too easily down their throats. Nat poured refills. Jen began to cry again. Big, fat, silent tears slipped down her face and splashed on to her lap. Ali and Nat shared desperate glances above her head.

  ‘Why didn’t you go with him to meet his uni friends?’ asked Natalie gently.

  ‘He said I’d be bored.’ Yes, she’d definitely have much more fun staying in doing his ironing, not. ‘I want him so much, you see. All I think about is our wedding day. I know I shouldn’t, since we’re not even engaged or anything, but I can’t help myself.’ Jen started to sob again. ‘It’s all I want. He’s the one I want. He’s my One.’

  ‘Really? You’re sure?’ Natalie doubted it. How could feckless, hopeless, faithless Karl genuinely be lovely, sweet, trusting Jen’s One? Besides, she was pretty sure she remembered Jen saying exactly the same thing about Christopher Shaw, her ex. Nat didn’t really understand Jen’s obsession with getting married. It wasn’t like marriage magically solved everything. Did she think that being married to Karl would definitively pin him down? Nat doubted it. She feared that Karl would continue to go to ‘reunions’ with his ‘uni friends’ even after he’d said his vows.

  Bloody hell, Natalie wished she’d never introduced Jen to Karl. She hadn’t been actively matchmaking, she’d just happened to have a spare ticket for the Scottie Taylor comeback gig at Wembley Stadium and she’d offered it to Karl on the off chance. Now she wished she’d just taken a hit on the fifty quid. But how could she have guessed that Jen would be taken in by Karl’s obvious charm? Yes, of course she’d seen countless other women fall for his wily ways, but she’d thought her own pal would be as impervious as she herself was. She thought they’d all have a laugh and that Jen would roll her eyes in exasperation when Karl recounted tales of his womanising days or tried to hit on someone else in the crowd. But Jen had found him unutterably sexy. Compelling. Compulsive. It had been quite embarrassing, actually. Jen and Karl had practically had sex in the car on the journey home and probably would have done if Neil hadn’t kept coughing so hard that he gave the impression he was coming down with bubonic plague.