by Tracy Bloom
‘I’ll work it out.’
‘But . . . but what will you do with Rebecca whilst George is in the bath?’
‘I’ll work it out. She can lie on a towel or something.’
‘But you don’t know how to use the temperature gauge for the water.’
‘I’ll work it out, Alison.’
‘But what if you let it get too hot?’
‘I am not going to burn our children.’
Alison looked down at Rebecca and stroked her head.
‘There’s really no need,’ she said, looking back up at Matthew. ‘We can do it together. It’ll be quicker, then you won’t be late for meeting Ian at the pub.’
Matthew sighed. Only he could be married to a woman who could organise herself into not requiring any help from her husband with their twins.
‘Are you sure you don’t mind me going out?’ he asked, secretly hoping she might beg him to stay home. He missed the long evenings they used to spend together over her delightful home-cooked food and great wine, when they would talk about each other’s days and then plot and plan their future together. Alison was so preoccupied with the twins that her ability to focus on a conversation that didn’t involve nappies or sleep routines was non-existent. He dreamed of one evening having a conversation with his wife rather than just the mother of his children. He missed his wife terribly.
‘Of course I don’t mind you going out,’ she said.
‘I don’t have to, you know.’
‘Matthew, it’s the first time you’ve been out since the babies arrived. It’s fine, really. There’s nothing you can do here anyway. Everything is under control.’
‘So what do you reckon, then?’ asked Ian as they sat in the Green Man later that evening.
‘About what?’ asked Matthew, his chin resting on his hand as he stared at the bottom of his empty pint glass.
‘Her?’ replied Ian, nodding after Becki, who had just excused herself from the table to go to the bathroom. Matthew hadn’t expected that Ian would bring his latest girlfriend along on their first night out together in weeks. He’d actually been looking forward to man talk: sport, and possibly some work gossip, given that they both worked for the same financial advisory company. What he hadn’t expected was to be sharing his evening with Becki, a strapping twenty-five-year-old blonde call centre worker, who for some unbelievable reason thought that the sun shone out of Ian’s forty-two-year-old saggy, divorced backside.
‘She’s fucking unbelievable,’ said Ian. ‘I tell you, she cannot get enough of me. And I mean enough of me. I seriously think she might actually be trying to wear it out.’ He winked at Matthew. Ian’s abundance of sex with a twenty-five-year-old was certainly not what Matthew needed to hear right now. Ian leaned towards him and whispered in his ear. ‘She rang me at work yesterday. Told me what she was going to do to me that night. I couldn’t get up from my desk until I had stared at the HM Revenue and Customs self-assessment page for at least ten minutes.’
‘Where on earth did you find her?’ asked Matthew as he watched Becki shimmy her way back across the pub, barely staying in control of her towering spike heels.
‘Online, mate,’ Ian declared. ‘Finally the internet comes up with something truly useful. A way of disseminating signals from women before you even have to meet them. Saves so much time. And they have to put them in black and white, so it gets rid of all the guesswork. Becki’s profile clearly states that she prefers good-looking older men with life experience who can keep up with her energetic lifestyle. I think I fit that bill to a T, don’t you?’
‘What you sayin’?’ giggled Becki as she slid into her seat next to Ian.
‘I was just telling my good friend here that I knew instantly that we were going to be totally compatible . . . in every way.’ Ian raised his eyebrows at her.
To Becki’s credit, she blushed slightly. Ian put his arm around her and looked smugly over at Matthew.
‘I’ve bought a waterbed,’ he said, grinning proudly.
Matthew stared back.
‘Why?’ was all he could find to ask.
Becki’s eyes grew big and round.
‘Have you never done it on a waterbed?’ she exclaimed.
Ian and Becki’s eyes bored into him.
‘No,’ he replied.
‘Oh my God!’ cried Becki. ‘It is the best, seriously. We went away last weekend, didn’t we, Ian, just to Blackpool, and Ian booked a room with a waterbed.’
Ian was still grinning smugly.
‘It was amaaazing,’ continued Becki. ‘Honestly unbelievable. Anyway, Ian said we have to get one of these, and now he’s bought one. It’s coming next week. I’m so excited.’
Matthew nodded at Becki and Ian.
‘I’m very happy for both of you,’ he said sarcastically.
‘You can so borrow it, can’t he, Ian?’ cried Becki. ‘You have to try it, seriously.’
‘Alison would be well up for it, I reckon,’ Ian offered.
‘Alison has just given birth to twins. Having sex on a waterbed is not high up on her list of priorities at the moment, I can assure you.’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Ian. ‘Might be just the thing to get her back in the saddle again.’
‘Look,’ said Matthew, slamming his fist on the table and making Becki jump so violently that her breasts threatened to break out of her too-tight top. ‘Can we get off the sex talk, please?’
An elderly gentleman stared over from the next table and tutted.
‘Calm down, mate,’ said Ian. ‘Just because you’re going through a dry spell, there’s no need to get angry. I remember what it’s like when kids arrive; I’ve been through it, remember. My advice is to get back in the swing of it as soon as you can before one of you forgets how to do it.’
‘You have no idea what it’s like with the twins in the house,’ said Matthew. ‘It’s fine. I’ll wait until Alison’s ready.’
‘When was the last time, mate?’ asked Ian.
‘What?’
‘When was the last time?’
‘You can’t ask me that,’ said Matthew, looking nervously at Becki.
‘I just did.’
Matthew thought for a minute, though he didn’t really need to. He knew exactly when the last time he’d had sex was.
‘With Katy,’ he muttered. He picked up his pint glass and went for a swig until he realised it was empty.
‘You have got to be kidding me!’ exclaimed Ian, leaning back in his chair, his eyes wide in amazement.
‘Katy?’ said Becki. ‘I thought you said your wife’s name was Alison?’
‘It is,’ said Ian, raising his eyebrows at Becki.
‘So . . . er . . . who’s Katy?’ asked Becki, looking from Ian to Matthew. Matthew slumped back in his chair and debated whether to make a run for it.
‘You’ve not had sex with Alison since that almighty cock-up with Katy?’ demanded Ian.
‘Well,’ said Matthew, running his fingers through his hair. ‘Alison realised she was pregnant just after . . . you know . . . me and Katy slept together, and she was so focused on that, and I guess I was all screwed up and feeling guilty about Katy, and then the twins arrived, so we sort of never got round to it.’
‘Fuck me, mate,’ declared Ian, for once looking genuinely concerned. ‘That’s bloody tragic.’
Becki was staring at Matthew open-mouthed.
‘It’s not what it seems,’ he somehow felt compelled to tell her. ‘It was just a one-night stand, that’s all. At a school reunion. I’d not seen her since we went out together as teenagers. It should never have happened.’
Becki continued to stare at him.
‘That’s nearly a year,’ she eventually breathed. ‘You haven’t had sex in nearly a year!’
‘And the last time wasn’t even with your wife,’ added Ian.
Matthew had nothing to say on the state of his sex life.
‘You have to sort that out,’ declared Ian, shaking his head. ‘I mean, serious
ly concerning.’
Chapter Four
‘So when’s Katy going to start coming to the pub again?’ Braindead asked, as Ben placed three pints on their usual table in the Whitlocks pub. ‘I miss her.’ He stuck out his bottom lip. ‘I need her to tell me what to say to that new woman bouncer at the Blessington Carriage. My usual chat-up lines aren’t working.’
‘You’ve got chat-up lines?’ exclaimed Ben. ‘Really?’ That’s as likely as Rick not wanting to spend all night showing off about how amazing his honeymoon in the Maldives was.’
‘Wasn’t going to mention it, actually,’ muttered Rick, gulping his pint in the fashion of a man who’d endured cocktails for a solid three weeks.
‘Good,’ said Ben. ‘So you coming to the pub on a cold, wet, miserable Leeds night wearing cut-offs and a white T-shirt is nothing to do with showing off that disgusting brown colour you’ve turned, then?’
Rick licked his lips. ‘Only thing that was clean,’ he grinned.
Ben sat down and picked up his pint.
‘Cheers,’ he announced, holding up the glass. ‘Good to have you back.’ And it was. Although it all felt a bit awkward. It was the first time the three of them had been together properly since Ben had become a dad, Ricky had become a husband and Braindead . . . well, Braindead hadn’t changed, that was something you could always rely on. And it was the first time in a while that they were in a pub together without Katy.
‘It was like a gift from God, wasn’t it, really?’ asked Braindead, picking up his pint. ‘Katy getting pregnant.’
‘Not sure God actually had anything to do with it,’ Ben said.
‘I know, but having someone in your crowd of mates who couldn’t drink and therefore had to drive. How amazing was that? We could literally go to any pub in the whole of Yorkshire. It was like a dream come true, really, wasn’t it?’
‘Good times,’ Rick nodded.
‘We have seriously been looking for a mate like that for years,’ Braindead declared. ‘Little did we know that all we had to do was get Ben to knock someone up, and hey presto, pub crawl heaven every weekend.’
‘Yeah, Katy’s fine, thanks for asking,’ Ben responded.
‘But I don’t just miss her for her driving prowess,’ Braindead continued. ‘I actually miss her.’ He shook his head in bewilderment, as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying. Braindead had come to treat Katy like an older sister, while she had attempted to give him some insight into the female perspective. In his opinion, his inability to grasp the inner workings of a woman’s mind was the only thing stopping him from getting a girlfriend. Everyone else knew his total lack of a filter when he spoke had more to do with it.
‘She’ll be able to come out soon, hopefully,’ said Ben. ‘She’s finally decided to ditch the breastfeeding, so the Millster is going on the bottle, which will give her a bit more freedom. As long as we can get a babysitter, of course.’
‘Breast . . . feeeeeeding,’ Braindead pronounced slowly.
‘Yeah, what about it?’ said Ben.
‘I was just thinking . . .’ Braindead started.
‘You had a brain transplant since I went on honeymoon?’ asked Rick.
‘Will you stop going on about your honeymoon?’ said Ben.
Ricky thumped him on the arm.
‘I was just thinking that we only ever say breastfeeding. Never boob-feeding or bosom-feeding or tits-feeding or even jubbly-feeding. Why is that?’
Ben and Rick stared back at Braindead.
‘Well,’ sighed Ben, knowing he needed to nip this in the bud quickly or else Braindead would be stuck on the subject for hours. ‘Because it doesn’t sound right, does it? They’re words you might use when talking about sex, I guess. And believe me, there’s nothing sexy about breastfeeding.’
Braindead furrowed his brow. Ben knew they were on dangerous territory. Braindead’s lack of sensitivity on such matters could prove disturbing. For once he was glad that Katy wasn’t with them in the pub.
‘So is there, like, an off switch, then, or something?’ asked Braindead.
‘For what?’
‘The milk stuff. How does the milk know not to come out when you’re, you know, doing it?’
Ben looked over to Rick, who grinned inanely back at him.
‘Would you like me to tell you about my honeymoon now?’ he offered.
‘No, seriously,’ continued Braindead. ‘How?’
‘I didn’t get any of these questions on my absolutely brilliant honeymoon in the Maldives where I got this blinding tan,’ Rick interrupted.
‘I need to know,’ continued Braindead, ignoring Rick completely. ‘What stops breasts leaking during sex?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ben finally shrugged.
‘So they just go back to normal when you’re having sex, despite the fact they create enough milk to fill an entire baby every day.’
‘I said I don’t know,’ Ben repeated. ‘We haven’t got around to testing if they’re leak-proof during sex yet. Okay?’
‘Oh,’ said Braindead.
‘Shall we drop it now?’ said Ben.
‘But you’ll let me know,’ Braindead persisted.
‘Let you know what?’
‘When you find out?’ Like you said. If they leak or not?’
‘No,’ replied Ben.
‘Why not?’
‘Because no-one ever has sex when they breastfeed . . . probably.’
‘Oh,’ said Braindead. ‘Right.’
‘We had lots of sex on our honeymoon,’ said Rick.
‘That’s just brilliant, Rick,’ said Ben. ‘Thanks for that.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Rick grinned, slapping Ben on the back ‘Anyway, won’t you be getting hitched soon? You’ll be all right then. Normal service resumed.’
Ben picked up his pint and took another slug.
‘Doesn’t look like it will be anytime soon,’ he sighed, nursing his glass in his lap. ‘Katy’s too exhausted with looking after Millie to even think about organising a wedding. She barely gets round to getting out of her pyjamas these days. Reckons she’s flat out all day.’
‘Doing what?’ asked Braindead.
Ben shrugged.
‘You know, baby stuff. Feeding, nappies, washing. I go to work and she’s sat in front of breakfast telly feeding Millie, and I get home and she’s sat in exactly the same spot, watching reruns of Location, Location, Location and feeding Millie.’
‘Sounds like a doddle,’ said Braindead. ‘I could happily spend all day watching Kirstie Allsopp get stroppy.’
‘Didn’t you actually do that once?’ asked Rick.
‘Oh yeah,’ said Braindead. ‘You’re right. I did attempt a whole day of Kirsty Allsopp once. Unfortunately she didn’t appear to be on anything between two and three p.m. Had to resort to Sarah Beeny.’
‘I think I’d call that welcome relief,’ said Rick.
‘So if I had a baby I could have Kirsty Allsopp all day every day if I wanted,’ Braindead said to Ben. ‘That’s like the best job in the world.’
‘I think there’s a bit more to it than that,’ said Ben.
‘Like what?’ asked Braindead. ‘They can’t talk, they just dribble. They can’t go anywhere. In fact, they’re the perfect audience for daytime telly. And you have to be there with them because they can’t be left on their own. This is a genius plan dreamed up by women to be able to have a legitimate excuse to watch continuous reruns of Bargain Hunt.’
‘I think if Katy were here she’d have something to say about that,’ said Ben. ‘She’s certainly not acting as though spending the day with Kirstie Allsopp day in, day out is the best thing that’s ever happened to her.’
‘Do you know what I’d do if I had to be at home every day looking after a baby?’ said Rick, slowly nodding his head as if he’d been contemplating how he would handle the issue for some time.
‘I’m not sure I want to know,’ Ben replied.
‘Online poker,’ Rick announced. ‘I
got into it on honeymoon.’
‘That’s a crap honeymoon if you spent it playing cards with a computer,’ said Ben.
‘Actually, there was a casino attached to our resort. I went a few times to watch the high rollers play, but I didn’t dare join in myself, so I thought I’d have a go online to get some practice in. I’m so addicted now, I can’t tell you. I actually won some money last week. Imagine being able to stay home all day and play poker? Awesome.’
‘Mmm,’ Ben nodded. ‘Maybe I should suggest it. We could do with a windfall. We’re supposed to be saving up for the wedding, but I don’t know how. Katy’s maternity allowance is so much lower than the whopping wage she was getting paid at the agency. Not sure how we’re going to pay the mortgage, never mind a wedding. And I know she’d really like to move out of the flat and buy a house with a garden, you know, for Millie when she’s older. Somewhere like Chapstead, but we’re never going to be able to afford a place there on the pittance I get paid.’
‘Chapstead,’ said Braindead, screwing up his nose. ‘You’re going to live in Chapstead?’
‘Not if I can’t work out how to win the lottery.’
‘You can’t live in Chapstead, mate,’ said Braindead, looking agitated. ‘You may as well give up. Nothing happens in Chapstead. There’s nothing in Chapstead apart from rows and rows of dull, boring houses where dull, boring people live. Ben . . . it’s the suburbs!’
‘I know,’ said Ben. ‘But that’s what happens when you have kids. You move out of the city into the suburbs so you can afford a garden. That’s just how it is.’
‘You’ve changed,’ declared Braindead.
‘How do you work that one out?’
‘The old Ben would never live in Chapstead.’
‘I’m a dad now. I’m going to get married. My priorities have changed, that’s all. Back me up, eh, Rick?’
‘No-one ever has sex in the suburbs,’ said Rick, shaking his head. ‘It will not help your lack of sex issue, believe me, if you move to the suburbs.’
‘Yes, they do.’
‘Have you seen the people walking round Chapstead?’ asked Rick. ‘They’re not getting any, you can tell. It’s full of knackered parents and pensioners. Stay in the city, mate. Give yourself half a chance.’
