by Tracy Bloom
‘So he’d be Alison’s bit of rough on the side, then?’
‘No,’ said Matthew. ‘If you’d met Ben you’d understand. Can we just drop this angle, please?’
‘Okay. Up to you.’ Ian blew his cheeks out. ‘So what exactly are they doing together?’
Matthew shrugged.
‘He’s going round there today, apparently. She’s going to do him a schedule so he can work out how to look after the baby.’
‘Shouldn’t Katy be doing that?’
‘You’d think, wouldn’t you?’
‘Do you think she knows?’
‘No way,’ said Matthew. ‘She wouldn’t let Ben within a million miles of us, I’m sure. He’s doing this behind her back.’
‘But why?’
‘I don’t know!’ cried Matthew, turning round and kicking the sink cabinet. ‘I’ve been up half the night trying to work it out and none of it makes sense.’
Ian blew his cheeks out again.
‘Amazing how everything comes back to sex, isn’t it?’ he muttered.
‘How do you work that one out?’
‘Well, what I mean is that you had sex with Katy, she got pregnant, and it looks like that random shag will haunt you for the rest of your life. You had sex with Alison, she didn’t get pregnant and now you’re not having sex at all. However, you now have sexy toy boy entering the fray, which either might reignite the juices, or worse still, allow the whole random shag thing to come out, meaning no-one will be having sex ever again! I return to your initial statement: that lot would seem to indicate that indeed you are ‘fucked’. But actually not, if you see what I mean.’
‘What the hell do I do?’ begged Matthew. ‘You have to help me.’
‘Well, I would have thought that was obvious, isn’t it?’
‘No!’ cried Matthew. ‘That’s the whole point, nothing is obvious.’
‘As I’ve been telling you constantly for the past few weeks, you need to have sex with Alison. Simple as that.’
Matthew’s mouth dropped open.
‘But . . .’
‘But nothing. Woo her, seduce her, pull out the big guns, spend money, whatever switches her on, do whatever it takes, but you need to get back in that bedroom together, pronto. She needs distracting from that hunk of male testosterone, then telling that she hasn’t got time to be helping every waif and stray that walks through the door. If she’s got time to help out a father in need, then that’s you, not Ben. Yeah?’
Matthew stared back at Ian for some time before he started to nod.
‘Yeah,’ he said slowly. ‘I see what you’re saying. What’s she doing wasting our precious time on him?’
‘That’s it,’ said Ian. ‘Get back in charge of that family, kick Ben into touch and it’s happy families all the way, I’m telling you.’
‘I think you might be right,’ Matthew said.
‘I’m always right. Why is that you always come to Uncle Ian when you land yourself in it like this?’
‘Honestly, I have absolutely no idea. It must be something to do with the fact you have made such a success of your own marriage, I guess.’
‘All I can wish for is that you learn from my mistakes, my friend.’
‘Why is that not reassuring in the slightest?’ Matthew tugged down his jacket and strode purposefully out of the gents’ toilets. Next moment there was a crash as he fell over the Cleaning in Progress sign.
Chapter Seventeen
Ben winced as he heard the scrunch of gravel under the car tyres. Nothing heralded your arrival at a house brimming with wealth and success more than the sound of a deep gravel drive. He pulled up outside the glossy black door guarded by pillars and topiary and switched the engine off. It felt like a lifetime ago when he’d last sat there following his hasty exit from the dinner party, having spotted that Matthew had an identical tattoo to Katy. It had been a stormy night and he remembered watching two hanging baskets sway precariously on wrought-iron hooks as he waited for Katy to make her excuses and join him to explain herself. She’d admitted they’d been a couple, as teenagers, as they sat there with the wind howling around them. She’d explained that Matthew didn’t want Alison to know, as she was prone to jealousy. He’d accepted the explanation and moved on, right up until the hurt had exploded inside him on discovering they’d slept together just a few months previously. He’d never felt like that before. He was traumatised at how much pain her indiscretion had caused him. Finding out she’d slept with Matthew had woken something up inside his twenty-something laid-back self. Made him understand he had to grow up, admit he had feelings and deal with them. It had shocked him into realising that he was in love with her. A situation he’d never had to address before.
Millie was gurgling in her car seat in the back, oblivious to the history that was playing through his mind as he revisited the place where he’d sat nearly six months ago at the moment when his life had started to unravel. They’d got through it, though, hadn’t they? They’d kept it together, and here he was now, engaged to Katy and the father of a beautiful baby girl. So what was he doing here taking this risk of blowing it all up again? This was wrong. This was a massive mistake. He scratched a non-existent itch on his head, trying to work out how on earth he had got himself into this position. He unclipped his seat belt and leapt out of the car, leaving Millie safe inside. Time to put a stop to this before it got out of control.
He knocked firmly then took a step back from the door. He cleared his throat, glancing back at Millie to make sure she was okay. Half a minute and he would be back in the car and on his way back home, having thanked Alison for her kind offer of support but he’d decided it wasn’t fair on her.
He heard the clicking of several locks and then there stood Alison, a screaming baby in one arm whilst wails could be heard coming from somewhere behind her.
‘You’re late,’ she said, thrusting wailing baby number one into his arms. ‘You’ll have to wait whilst I feed them now. Just hold on to Rebecca whilst I get George. If you go in the kitchen there’s a rug with some toys on it.’
Ben stared down at Rebecca in his arms. Why me? he mouthed. He turned to get Millie out of the back seat, which involved an interesting balancing manoeuvre with Rebecca, then he hustled the two babies inside, slamming the door behind him.
He thought the kitchen must be at the back, since that was the only room he hadn’t been in when they’d been there for dinner. They’d eaten some minute excuses for starters in the twenty-five-foot lounge listening to Matthew’s amazing stereo system. The main course had been served in a highly civilised manner in the dining room until Matthew had chucked boiling coffee down his shirt, forcing him to remove it rapidly and reveal the incriminating tattoo.
He peered behind the half-open door to find an immaculate kitchen which displayed none of the chaos he’d left their own kitchen in earlier. Surfaces were clutter-free and domestic appliances appeared coordinated, rather than like they’d landed from Mars and no-one knew quite what to do with them. Even the laptop that sat open on the large island in the middle of the kitchen looked like a styled accessory rather than a functional but untidy necessity. No messy wires spewed out of its backside. Alison clearly liked her machines charged and free from entrails. The only randomness that appeared to exist in this kitchen was a chopping board laid out with a carrot, a peeler and a small vegetable knife, along with an ice cube tray. Perhaps Alison was following a recipe on the internet, although what could involve a carrot and an ice-cube tray he dreaded to think. Something concocted by that Heston Blumenthal, no doubt, who annoyed Ben intensely with his unnecessary desire to mess about with perfectly good food.
A charming seating area had been created next to the large bay window. A rose-covered sofa with coordinated scatter cushions (although clearly never scattered) stood on a large, furry rug complete with pastel-coloured baby gym and several toys. Ben put Millie’s car seat down on the floor and carefully laid Rebecca under the baby gym. Her arm leapt out and ba
shed a plastic ring dangling above her and all was quiet. He heaved a sigh of relief. Someone else’s baby successfully undamaged whilst in his care. Now it was time to make a getaway.
‘I thought you were coming for nine-thirty.’ Alison had arrived back in the kitchen with George on her shoulder.
‘Well, er, it took me a while to find clean clothes for Millie and then I couldn’t remember where I’d left the baby wipes.’
‘Rule one. Always pack the nappy bag the night before for the following day,’ said Alison. ‘You can do it after they’ve gone to bed so you’re not trying to look after them and find all the necessary equipment you might need at the same time.’
‘Right,’ said Ben. ‘Yes, good idea. Look, Alison, I don’t think I should be taking up your time like this, really.’ He glanced over to her then hurriedly looked away as he realised that she had settled herself on the sofa and was busy breastfeeding George. ‘Oh God, sorry. Look, I’ll go, this really isn’t a good idea,’ he gasped, picking Millie’s car seat up.
‘Put that car seat down,’ Alison commanded.
Ben put it down. How could you not follow the demands of a mother mid-breastfeed?
‘Go and look at that laptop,’ she said, pointing to the computer on the kitchen island.
He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t look at her again to plead his escape: he might see her breast. He trudged over to the laptop, trying to plan his next move.
‘I’ve done you a simplified spreadsheet of our timetable,’ she said as he looked down at the immaculate grid on the screen. ‘It’s colour-coded. Green for feeding time, red for playing time, yellow for sleeping time, purple for activities outside the home and blue for Daddy time.’ Ben let his mouth drop open just slightly. ‘That gives you something basic to aim at so that you can feel in control of everything. Makes life so much easier. Then I thought for today, because you mentioned that Millie might be teething and you’re terrified of the whole weaning thing, that I’d just show you how to purée basic vegetables and then freeze them so that you have them readily available when the time is right.’
Ben couldn’t help but look up at Alison in awe, breastfeeding no longer the most amazing thing she was currently achieving.
‘You are a machine,’ he declared in admiration.
‘What do you mean?’ she blinked back whilst unhitching George and tossing him over her shoulder to burp.
‘How do you do all this?’ he continued, looking at her as though she was some alien from another planet. ‘How do you know how to do all this?’
‘You just have to be organised, that’s all,’ she replied, rubbing George’s back gently. ‘Bring the laptop over here and I’ll talk you through it. You can get Millie out and put her down next to Rebecca.’
It was all too seductive. It was peaceful, it was quiet, and it was calm. Alison must be some kind of baby whisperer, since her kids seemed to do exactly what they were supposed to when they were supposed to. That’s what he wanted. That’s what he needed. Before he could stop himself, he unclipped Millie and laid her down next to a gurgling Rebecca then lifted the laptop from the kitchen counter and sat down at a respectable distance from Alison’s feeding breast and allowed her to talk him through the ins and outs of her colour-coded baby chart.
‘ . . . and so if you do it that way, you see, it means that on most days you should get at least one hour to yourself, which of course is of enormous benefit to you. Means that when you’re dealing with those difficult times, when they cry for no reason whatsoever, you are so much more relaxed and able to deal with it. Now I want you to tell me if you can remember the three most important things you need to do in that forty-five-minute morning nap time?’ asked Alison a little while later, when she had finished going through the chart and Rebecca had also had her feed.
Ben smiled to himself. Alison may not be a teacher but her background in human resources and training had taught her all the necessary tools on how to drill knowledge into other people. Repeating instructions back to him was a standard technique he used in his PE classes to get even the densest of students to listen.
‘Sterilising, shower, change of clothes prepared,’ replied Ben.
‘Excellent,’ said Alison. ‘And what do you do after Millie has had her forty-five-minute nap in the morning?’
‘Wake her up. If she sleeps longer she won’t sleep at lunchtime and I won’t get to play online poker.’
‘If that’s what you choose to do with your Daddy time, so be it. I’ve been using my Mummy time printing photographs and putting them in an album of their first year.’
‘Good for you,’ said Ben, entirely confident he wouldn’t be following suit. ‘But what happens if she doesn’t sleep at all in the morning?’ he asked, feeling slightly sceptical that Millie would be the type of magic baby Alison appeared to have cultivated.
‘Well, to be perfectly honest, because Millie hasn’t been following a routine since day one, it will be a bit of a struggle to start with. You just have to be firm and stick to it, no matter what, and eventually it will fall into place.
‘But what if it doesn’t?’
‘Ben, you are in control. Remember that. You can make this happen. Take it day by day and set yourself some small objectives first.’
‘I know, but this is not a rational human being we are talking about. This is a baby who wouldn’t understand a small objective if it came down in a baby bouncer twirling dummies around its head.’
‘Well,’ said Alison, getting up and carefully folding a muslin before putting it back in the nappy bag. ‘If you think there is a better way, then you do it that way.’
Ben tapped his fingers furiously on his knee. He had no other way and she knew it.
She bent to pick up George and put him in a baby swing to the side of the sofa. ‘You ready for a bit of action, Georgie?’ she cooed, flicking a switch on the top, causing the swing to sway gently backwards and forwards whilst emitting an irritating tune. ‘So,’ she said, standing up with her hands on her hips. ‘Shall we proceed to weaning? Let’s purée, shall we?’
Millie was happily chewing on some sort of ring and smiled up at him. Three babies, all contented. Unbelievable. He almost daren’t move in case he set one off. He’d watch the carrot-cooking thing then he’d go. He’d learned enough to set himself up. Even having not put any of it into practice, he already felt more in control than he ever had. Perhaps there was something to be said for Alison’s way.
‘So you sit on that stool there in front of me,’ said Alison, as he approached the island where she had gathered her essential items for the cookery demonstration. ‘Then Millie can see you and you can see her.’ Alison was busy washing her hands in the shiniest sink Ben had ever seen. Not just rinsing, really washing, including attacking her nails with a scrubbing brush. After this ritual was completed she reached for an apron out of a tall cupboard and wrapped the pretty floral number, which matched the sofa, around her. She cleared her throat and placed her hands on the bench, assuming a serious expression. Ben giggled.
‘What’s so funny?’ she demanded.
‘You,’ he replied. ‘You’re taking it so seriously.’
‘Do you want me to help you or not?’ she threw back.
‘Yes, of course I do,’ he said, feeling instantly bad. ‘But . . . but we can have a bit of a laugh, can’t we?’
‘Not sure what there is to laugh about when it comes to the nutrition of your child, Ben.’
‘Of course, you’re right, Alison. From now on I will have my serious face on.’ He frowned back at her. ‘And I will not mention that the carrot you have selected for this demonstration is unusually deformed in a manner that makes it appear to be growing a penis.’
‘It’s organic,’ said Alison, without missing a beat or smiling.
‘An organic penis. I see,’ replied Ben. ‘So no supplements have been added in order promote growth?’ he enquired.
‘Do you have to be so juvenile?’ asked Alison.
‘Do you have to be so serious about everything?’ asked Ben. ‘Who can take a carrot growing a penis seriously?’
‘I can,’ said Alison, picking up the carrot and slicing off the orange protrusion in one fell swoop. ‘Do I have your attention now?’
Ben sat with his legs pressed tightly together, screwing his face up.
‘I think so,’ he said in a very high-pitched voice.
‘So, first things first, do you have the necessary equipment?’ asked Alison.
‘I thought I had until you started waving that dangerous weapon about.’
Alison gave a big sigh and raised her eyes to the ceiling.
‘I will not continue until you take this seriously,’ she announced.
‘Sorry, sorry, I am now in the zone, I promise,’ said Ben. ‘Hit me with it.’
‘Good. So let’s start again with equipment. You will obviously need a knife and peeler, but do you have a vegetable steamer?’
‘A what?’
‘A steamer. One of these,’ she said, reaching behind her to take from the stove top what looked like a very tall saucepan.’
‘I have never seen one of those before in my life,’ he declared proudly.
‘Well, I suggest you buy one. Order one online this afternoon.’
‘Right, okay,’ he nodded.
‘Do you think you should write this down?’ she enquired.
Ben looked at her in panic. Clearly the whole carrot cooking thing was not going to be as easy as he’d envisaged. He’d need to remember stuff, domestic stuff, which had never been his forte. He stared at the steamer, trying to commit it to memory, then he came up with a brilliant idea.
‘Can I film all this on my phone? That way I won’t forget what to buy and how to use it.’ He was already reaching into his pocket to pull out his phone.
‘Er, well,’ said Alison, her hands instantaneously flying up to her hair. ‘You can, but I’ll need to just check my hair and face first.’ She was already untying her apron and dashing towards the door.
