No-One Ever Has Sex in the Suburbs: A Brand New Very Funny Romantic Novel

by Tracy Bloom

  Ben furrowed his brow.

  ‘What exactly is melodic play?’

  ‘It’s play involving interaction with music and sounds,’ she replied.

  Ben thought for a moment.

  ‘A bit like singing and dancing?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, yes. You could put it like that.’

  ‘Except,’ said Ben slowly. ‘Babies can’t sing or dance.’

  Linda blinked rapidly.

  ‘Well,’ she said eventually, after a very long silence whilst Charlene and Abby sniggered and the rest of the mums looked uncomfortable. ‘They can move and make sounds to the music, and that’s what we are encouraging them to do during this class.’ She gave him a false smile then leaned forward and flipped some laminated pages in a file in front of her.

  ‘And we can sing and dance,’ chirped one of the other mums.

  ‘That’s right, Caroline,’ said Linda, beaming at her. ‘The mums, sorry, carers, have a wonderful time singing and bopping along, don’t you?’

  Forced smiles all round. Ben gazed at them, dumbstruck.

  ‘Are you serious?’ he gasped. ‘You’re expecting us all to sing and dance at ten o’clock in the fucking, oops sorry, ten o’clock in the morning?’ He turned to stare at Charlene in wonder. She’d never mentioned anything about him having to sing and dance . . . in the morning! What was she thinking?

  ‘I can’t do that,’ he continued, turning back to Linda. ‘We’re talking at least four pints, some seriously loud banging tunes and a room dark enough that no-one can see where I am, never mind what I’m doing.’

  There was silence around the room. Ben surveyed his co-carers, who were all looking anywhere but at him, clearly embarrassed by his outburst.

  ‘Why don’t we make a start,’ said Linda, ‘and then you can see actually what fun it is and you’ll get right into it.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Ben slowly. ‘Fine. Let’s do it.’

  ‘Good, good,’ said Linda, moving her hands into position on the guitar and smiling around at her audience. ‘Shall we start with the welcome song? After three. One, two, three.’

  ‘Welcome, welcome, welcome, everyone

  Welcome, welcome to a great new day

  Welcome, welcome, welcome, everyone

  Welcome, welcome, let’s see who’s come our way

  Welcome, welcome, here is . . . Archie

  Welcome, welcome to you today

  Welcome, welcome, here is Archie

  Welcome, welcome, let’s see who else has come our way

  Welcome, welcome, here is . . . Isobel

  Welcome, welcome to you today

  Welcome, welcome, here is Isobel

  Welcome, welcome, let’s see who else has come our way.

  Welcome, welcome, here is . . .’

  Ben stared back at Linda as if she had grown two heads when she paused in the song to allow Ben to insert Millie’s name.

  ‘Your baby’s name?’ urged Linda.

  ‘Seriously!’ exclaimed Ben, his eyes wide. ‘It’s ten o’clock in the morning and you expect me to sing this? Are you having a laugh? Are you winding me up because I’m new?’

  Everyone stared back at him in stunned silence.

  ‘You cannot honestly expect me to believe that anyone would pay to come and sit on the floor of some crusty old Community Centre, pretending to enjoy singing some pathetic, mindless tune to babies who are completely and utterly clueless as to what is going on around them.’

  There were one or two gasps from the room as everyone waited for Linda to respond.

  ‘Look,’ she said, putting her guitar down. ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t be here if you do not think you can participate in the worthy goals and aims of this class. Although I do think if you were to consult Katy she would agree that she and Millie gained a huge amount by attending.’

  ‘Katy came here and sang songs about welcome, welcome, drivel, drivel, drivel?’ asked Ben incredulously. ‘In public?’ Katy, who didn’t even dare tell anyone she preferred Radio 2 to Radio 1 these days.

  ‘She did,’ confirmed one of the mums. ‘Along with the rest of us.’

  Ben stared back at her.

  ‘But why?’

  No-one spoke; they all just looked at one another furtively.

  ‘Shall I go through the Music, Mummy and Me philosophy one more time?’ Linda offered.

  ‘No,’ said Ben, shaking his head vigorously.

  ‘I come,’ said Charlene, ‘because it fills that gap after Jeremy Kyle finishes and before Toddlers, Tiaras and Tantrums start.’

  ‘You come because you have nothing to watch on TV?’

  ‘Yes,’ Charlene nodded.

  Ben looked round the rest of the room.

  ‘I come because my husband takes the car on a Monday. I can walk here, and if I don’t come I might not have an adult conversation all day,’ ’fessed up another mum.

  ‘I’m a child-minder,’ said someone else. ‘I’m paid to come.’

  ‘Our heating’s broken,’ said another.

  ‘So let me get this straight,’ said Ben. ‘This is actually what you do in this class, sit on the floor and sing stupid songs?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charlene.

  ‘But none of you actually comes for the music or the educational benefits to your child?’

  ‘I really must ask you to leave now,’ said Linda, standing up and pointing at the door.

  ‘And do any of you actually enjoy it?’ asked Ben.

  There was a heavy silence as everyone looked at the floor.

  ‘Right, that’s enough,’ said Linda, raising her voice. ‘This is totally unacceptable. You are ruining my class.’

  ‘Sounds to me like the only one ruining it is you,’ said Ben.

  ‘How dare you?’ shouted Linda, finally losing her cool. ‘I have been doing this for eight years and you swan in here like you know it all, trying to tell all these hard-working mums what they should be thinking. I have never in my entire professional career had a complaint. Not one. These classes are an extremely positive experience for all, and maybe it’s just because you are a man that you can’t see that. Maybe there is a very good reason why these classes are called Music, Mummy and Me.’

  The entire class took a sharp intake of breath and turned to see Ben’s response.

  ‘Call yourself a professional?’ he said, getting up. ‘You’re delusional.’ He gathered Millie up in his arms. ‘I don’t need this, I don’t need you. I’m going home to play the Arctic Monkeys VERY LOUD.’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘There’s no answer,’ Katy told Daniel as he waited patiently in her office to go with her for a late lunch. She held her phone to her ear as it continued to ring.

  ‘He’ll be at the pub or somewhere,’ said Daniel. ‘I don’t know what you’re worrying about.’

  ‘But they should be home from music by now.’ Katy put the receiver down and chewed her thumbnail. ‘Where are they? He’s not answering his mobile either.’

  ‘Do you have any idea how boring you sound?’ Daniel got up and straightened his jacket. ‘Let’s go, shall we?’

  ‘One more try,’ said Katy, picking up the receiver and pressing the number redial button.

  ‘Boring, boring, boring,’ said Daniel, sitting down and pretending to go to sleep.

  ‘Do you think I should pop home and check everything’s okay?’ she said as she put the phone down again.

  ‘No!’ Daniel shrieked, getting up and striding around the back of her desk to forcibly lift her from her seat. ‘You will get your arse down to this fabulous new wine bar I have found so we can have a proper gossip about who’s shagged who in the office whilst you’ve been away.’

  Katy gave Daniel an incredulous stare.

  ‘I know,’ he nodded. ‘It’s shocking. I would never have put those two together. In the lightbox room at the end of a very long night preparing for a pitch, apparently.’

  ‘I cannot possibly go to a wine bar!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve not come b
ack to work to enjoy myself.’

  It was Daniel’s turn to give Katy an incredulous stare.

  ‘Then what’s the fucking point?’ he cried.

  ‘The point, of course,’ she replied, getting frustrated, ‘is to provide for my family. Not to swan about gossiping with you like I used to.’

  Daniel looked as though someone had slapped him in the face.

  ‘And to think, I was so excited to have you back. God, I wish Freddie were still here instead of you. He’d have come to the wine bar all afternoon if I’d asked him to.’

  ‘Of course he would,’ retorted Katy. ‘He’d have spread peanut butter on his stupid shiny bald head and let you lick it off, he was so far up your backside.’

  Daniel creased his brow as if considering it as a serious option.

  ‘That is a mental image I’m not wholly averse to,’ he declared eventually.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ spat Katy.

  ‘That’s the Katy I’ve missed,’ Daniel said after a pause.

  Katy nodded, feeling suddenly tearful. ‘Me too.’

  ‘Fucking bollocks, stupid fucker!’ shouted Ben.

  Millie was in the baby chair again on the kitchen floor, screaming her head off.

  ‘It’s coming, Millie, it’s coming,’ said Ben, raking his hands through his hair. ‘If I can ever get this stupid bloody machine to do as it’s told.’

  He glared at the innocent-looking steriliser before jabbing wildly at the buttons for the millionth time in the vain hope it would do something . . . anything. He cast his mind back to Katy showing him what to do. It was so simple he’d told her not to worry about getting any bottles ready the night before, he’d sort it the following day. No problem. He could master a simple steriliser, absolutely no worries at all.

  ‘You bastard!’ he shouted when the machine failed to respond to any of his manhandling. ‘You utter bastard. Which idiot designed this? All I need is a simple switch that just says ON. Not five switches with stupid symbols that mean bugger all to me.’

  Millie continued to cry.

  ‘Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger,’ Ben muttered, looking at the ceiling. He could sort this. He had to sort this. He couldn’t ring Katy on his first day and admit he couldn’t even work the steriliser. He suspected that Katy thought he wasn’t up to the job, that he would fail and be forced to admit it was a lot harder than he’d realised. He was determined to be a success and he wasn’t going to let a stupid blue and white machine trip him up on his very first day. He looked at the bottles lined up by Katy, ready to be sterilised. They looked clean enough to him. What if he used one without sterilising it? One couldn’t hurt, surely? He picked one of the bottles up tentatively then collected a teat, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger.

  ‘Fuck,’ he exclaimed, dropping it on the floor. He’d touched it with his bare hands. Had he washed them properly last time he went to the toilet? It was entirely possible soap may not have participated in the ritual. He may have just done a cursory run of his hands under water, never guaranteed to do the job properly. He may have just covered his daughter’s bottle teat in his own wee! Oh God, he was such a bad parent. He could have killed his own baby by making her drink his own wee. He should never have been allowed to be left home with her. His heart was racing now as the paranoia of being the sole responsible adult in charge of a helpless baby kicked in. He’d never felt like this before. He normally had back-up, he realised. There was always someone else nearby to take the responsibility. Now it was down to him. This baby would live or die because of him and only him. He needed back-up and he needed it fast. He reached for the only person he could think of who would be at home and available to help.

  ‘Braindead,’ he gasped into the phone, Millie balanced on his hip, still wailing.

  ‘Yo,’ his friend replied. ‘What is that you’re watching? Nightmare on Elm Street Three or Four?’

  ‘Come here now! To the flat. It’s an emergency!’

  Fifteen minutes later Braindead was staring at the steriliser poised with a screwdriver.

  ‘Do I have permission to go in?’ he asked. ‘It’s clearly faulty. Let’s open her up and take a look.’

  ‘But it was working perfectly fine yesterday,’ said Ben, bouncing Millie high in the air, which was distracting her for the moment.

  ‘But it’s not working now. You said so yourself. Come on, let’s have a look. I’d love to see how one of these work.’

  Ben gave a weary sigh and Millie resumed her distressed call.

  ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘You take a look but make sure you can put it back together, okay? If Katy comes back and finds it in bits she’ll go mental.’

  ‘You have so little faith,’ smiled Braindead as he turned the beast over and tackled his first screw.

  Ben watched, feeling zero confidence that anything like an end was in sight. There was nothing for it but to try a Plan B, which he didn’t hold much hope for either.

  ‘Charlene?’ he said when she picked up the phone.

  ‘Hiya,’ she replied. ‘You were epic this morning. Half the class walked out after you did. Linda was broken.’

  ‘Help me, Charlene, perleeease,’ he breathed down the phone. ‘I can’t work the steriliser and Millie needs feeding, listen.’ He held the phone next to her puce red face as she wailed down it.

  ‘Abby’s here,’ said Charlene when he put the phone back to his ear. ‘Can she have a word?’

  ‘Noooo,’ cried Ben. ‘Just tell me what to do if I’ve got no sterilised bottles and I need to feed her.’

  ‘Oh. Well, just pour boiling water over the bottle and teat. It’ll be fine.’

  ‘And that’s okay, is it?’

  ‘It’s what I do sometimes, and Rocco doesn’t seem to be suffering. He’s a right little fatty.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah. My mum says there weren’t these fancy sterilisers about when she had babies and it never did us any harm.’

  ‘Right, right, okay,’ said Ben. ‘Brilliant, that’s what I’ll do. Thanks, Charlene. Look, gotta go feed Millie. Thanks again. Really. Bye.’

  ‘Braindead – step away from the steriliser. Put the screwdriver down. Down, Braindead, down. Good, good boy. That’s it. Now put the kettle on and let’s get a bit of peace.’

  Katy had intended to leave work bang on time at five p.m. Her coat was on and her computer was switched off but then her phone rang. She hesitated before picking it up. She couldn’t be late home on her first day. She knew only too well what it felt like when Ben drifted home a mere ten minutes after he said he’d be back. She was prone to an apoplectic meltdown such was her desperation to be near another human being and no longer the sole carer for their bundle of helplessness. However, the number flashing showed it was the Group Marketing Director for Family Cereals, who oversaw the Crispy Bix brand. She’d been trying to get hold of him all day to salvage the account they were teetering on the edge of losing due to Daniel and Freddie’s digression into a literary rebranding. She picked up – she had to. Her boss had told her in no uncertain terms to do whatever it took to save the lucrative account.

  There was no exchange of pleasantries. Richard Makeney’s tone was stern, clearly indicating that the relationship between client and agency had turned very sour indeed. Before Richard could even begin to launch into a tirade of exactly what he currently thought of their level of service, Katy stepped in. She took him through a mentally rehearsed spiel on what action she had already implemented to steer the latest campaign back onto a sales-winning course. By the time she had taken him through the new brief she’d written, shared some of the initial idea’s they’d brainstormed in a meeting that day and explained how she’d adjusted the timescales to make sure they still came in on time and on budget, Richard’s tone was entirely different.

  ‘I know that our Brand Manager is keen for us to revisit the Crispy Bix chipmunk, and I really like your idea for how we can do that in a new way. I think it could work.’

&n
bsp; ‘Well, it so ties into your core brand values,’ replied Katy, feeling the old jargon coming back to her as if she’d never been away. ‘The Fifties were all about Mother being the centre of the family and caring for her children. We want mums to feel that by feeding their children Crispy Bix they’re as good as any of those pinny-wearing homemakers around then. We do a Fifties retro campaign with the Crispy Bix Chipmunk at the centre of it – we get all those great home values in one.’

  ‘And are the creative team on board?’ asked Richard. ‘They seemed to be the ones who were choosing to ignore the brand essence.’

  ‘It was the Creative Director’s idea,’ she lied. She and Daniel had had a stand-up row during the brainstorming about the loss of the Shakespeare idea. A row not so much because they disagreed, more because they so loved shouting the odds at each other in front of the junior creatives, who cowered in the background. The retro slant had been her idea, knowing it would appeal to Daniel’s desire to do something different. However, by the end of the meeting it was of course totally down to Daniel’s genius that a solution had been found to suit all parties.

  Katy smiled at herself as she put the phone down. The adrenaline rush of winning someone round, solving a problem, having a proper adult conversation, seemed at that moment like the best feeling in the world.

  Then she saw the time. ‘Shit!’ she exclaimed, jumping out of her chair and grabbing her bag. It was already five-thirty. The witching hour in any household containing young children, when all hell could break loose and any sane rational thought would be thrown out the window. She had to get home fast.

  ‘Leaving early?’ the receptionist called to her as she ran out of the lift.

  ‘Fuck off,’ she muttered under her breath to the time-happy singleton.

  ‘Hi,’ said a tight-lipped Ben as she walked through the door.

  ‘So sorry I’m late,’ gasped Katy, taking Millie out of his arms immediately. ‘Hello, baby, how are you?’ she said, clutching onto her and showering her with kisses. ‘Richard from Crispy Bix called and I’d been waiting to speak to him all day because they were about to ditch the agency. I’m so sorry. So how have you been? Everything okay?’