by Tracy Bloom
‘Are you not coming because Ben twatted Matthew at our wedding reception?’ demanded Charlene.
‘No,’ Katy said, too quickly.
‘Because Alison’s not bothered, you know. She knows he only did it because he was jealous of how successful Matthew is,’ stated Charlene.
So that was how Matthew had explained away the fisticuffs to his wife. That it was over money jealousy, not because Matthew had just told Ben that he and Katy had had a one-night stand at that damned school reunion. Katy looked over to Ben, who thankfully seemed to have zoned out of the conversation and was desperately trying to settle a fraught Millie.
‘We’re meeting next Monday, actually,’ Charlene persisted. ‘I’ll pick you up, shall I?’
‘No,’ cried Katy, thinking quickly. ‘I can’t. I go to a music class with Millie on Mondays.’
‘Oh, which one?’
‘At the Community Centre. Music, Mummy and Me.’
‘Coolio. I’ll come with you to that instead. Tell Alison to move the meeting. Actually, Mondays tend to be a bit boring. I’ll come every week. Brilliant.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Katy, but before she could stop Charlene from becoming her new mummy stalker friend, Millie let out a piercing wail from where she was lying in Ben’s arms. Katy knew the signs. Millie needed feeding. It was a disaster of epic proportions. They were in a public place and she had vegetation down her bra. Ben leaned towards her to whisper in her ear.
‘Do you think you need to get your tits out?’ he said.
‘Ben!’ gasped Katy, horrified. Sometimes the eight-year age gap between them was so evident it took her breath away. She tried hard to ignore these moments in favour of the ones that had her in fits of giggles at some inappropriate comment he’d made about one of his school colleagues, or his unique ability to make her see the funny side of the ridiculous world of advertising, preventing her from being the workaholic, nightmare career bitch she could have become without him.
She noticed that the cleavage with a name was still openly gawping at the buff body of her twenty-nine-year-old football-playing PE teacher boyfriend. She didn’t know whether to feel proud or petrified.
‘Well, do you?’ asked Ben, offering up a wailing Millie.
‘Just give me a minute.’ Katy shot off to find a loo so she could deposit her cabbage leaves in the bin. By the time she’d returned, Millie was beside herself. Katy began the tricky manoeuvre of unhooking a maternity bra and latching on a screaming baby whilst revealing the smallest amount of flesh possible. She’d tried and failed the nonchalant use of muslin draped over the shoulder, but it always fell off, and so she was reduced to the odd pointing of shoulders into the corners of rooms in an effort to maintain some dignity.
Silence descended on the room suddenly as Millie found her food. Katy looked up, grateful for the peace. Charlene and Abby were openly staring at her.
‘I couldn’t do that,’ pronounced Charlene.
‘It’s not that bad,’ Katy lied, wincing.
‘But how do you go out at night?’ asked Charlene.
Katy cast her mind back over the last six weeks. She didn’t know why – she knew she hadn’t been out at all during that time.
‘And you can’t drink, can you?’ said Charlene.
‘Seriously?’ said Abby, finally deigning to look at Katy. ‘Seriously?’
‘Oh yeah,’ replied Charlene. ‘That’s right. They expect you to spend nine months hardly drinking and then if you breastfeed you still can’t go out on the lash. We wouldn’t be going down the Pink Coconut every Friday and Saturday night if my mum couldn’t give Rocco a bottle.’
‘Friday and Saturday?’ said Katy, her jaw dropping open.
‘Yeah,’ nodded Charlene.
‘But,’ said Katy, ‘aren’t you, like, knackered?’
‘Not really.’
Katy felt every day of her thirty-seven years.
‘But . . . but . . . night feeds?’ she asked.
Charlene shrugged.
‘We’re living at Mum’s, so we take it in turns during the week and Mum does weekends.’
Katy thought of the night before when she’d felt like screaming as Ben slept next to her whilst she battled the tiredness to give Millie her feed. She didn’t blame him – there was nothing he could do – but it didn’t make it any easier.
‘Very well organised,’ she muttered. She looked away, not trusting herself to not let an exhausted tear slip down her cheek.
‘You should come out with us,’ said Abby.
Katy snapped her head back up, shocked at the ludicrous request. She realised immediately, however, that the suggestion wasn’t directed at her; it was aimed at Ben. Abby was blushing slightly, and she appeared to be opening and closing her eyes very fast in a fluttering motion.
‘I mean, if she can’t,’ she continued, nodding her head at Katy without looking at her.
Un-fucking believable, thought Katy angrily. This child was hitting on her boyfriend whilst she was sitting next to him breastfeeding their baby.
‘I don’t think that would be fair on Katy,’ said Ben.
Katy smiled at Ben before turning smugly to Abby.
‘The Pink Coconut isn’t really my scene either,’ he added.
‘Shame,’ said Abby, licking her lips. ‘I really think you’d have a good time.’
‘Perhaps when Katy’s finished breastfeeding and we can get a babysitter, then maybe we could all go,’ said Ben diplomatically.
‘Awesome idea,’ said Charlene, bouncing up and down in her chair. ‘That’ll give you the chance to lose the rest of your baby weight as well, Katy.’
Katy turned to stare at Charlene, her mouth open.
‘I’ve been so lucky,’ Charlene continued. ‘It’s just dropped straight off me.’
Abby smirked at Katy. She could have sworn the girl leaned forward just a fraction to give a better view of the cleavage.
‘And how many children have you got, Abby?’ asked Katy.
Abby threw her head back and laughed, then fixed Katy with a steady stare.
‘I’m way too young,’ she said. ‘Besides which, I haven’t met the right man yet.’
Katy held her stare.
‘We got engaged,’ she said after a long pause. She took hold of Ben’s hand and smiled at Abby.
‘Wow!’ shrieked Charlene. ‘That is so cool. When did that happen?’
‘Ben asked me in the labour room,’ Katy told her.
‘Amaaaaazing,’ said Charlene. ‘Show me the ring.’ She held out her hand. ‘I bet it’s massive,’ she whispered loudly to Abby. ‘Katy is loaded.’
‘Oh, we haven’t got round to buying one yet,’ said Katy.
‘What!’ exclaimed Charlene. ‘You’ve had ages.’
Katy looked at Ben, who stared blankly back.
‘We want to take our time,’ said Katy. ‘I’ve no idea what kind of ring I want and my fingers are still like sausages at the moment, and I just want to plan, you know, get it right, but we haven’t had the time with the baby. And we need to save up, don’t we, Ben?’
Ben screwed his face up and said nothing.
‘Okay,’ nodded Charlene. ‘So when will you get married? We’ll come, won’t we, Abby?’
Abby looked down at her knee-high black leather boots.
‘Oh God, not yet,’ said Katy. ‘I can’t think about planning a wedding at the moment. Maybe the end of next year when Millie’s a bit older.’
‘Well, don’t leave it too long,’ said Charlene. ‘The minute Luke asked me I was on the phone to the Social Club booking our reception in. I didn’t want him changing his mind, did I? You know what men are like.’
Katy looked over at Ben. His head was bent, checking football scores on his phone, ignoring the female battlefield going on next to him. There was plenty of time to get married. There was no rush. They had enough to deal with at the moment being parents, never mind becoming husband and wife. Ben was happy to wait until the time was right.
She was sure of it.
‘So can you give me the full name of your child, please?’ said the registrar, who had the gentlest voice Katy had ever heard. She had talked them both through what registering a birth entailed in super calm tones, and now they were actually doing it. Registering their daughter with the world. Ben looked at Katy.
‘You tell her,’ she said, taking his hand.
‘Millie Freya Annie Chapman,’ Ben announced.
Katy gasped. ‘That wasn’t what we agreed,’ she told the very calm registrar. She felt like crying. This wasn’t supposed to be the tough bit.
‘It is!’ exclaimed Ben. ‘Millie, because that’s what we call her. Freya Annie because we wanted to name her after your gran, but you can’t call the poor girl Fanny, so I came up with the idea of Freya Annie, then she can always sign herself Millie F. Annie Chapman, so very cleverly we have hidden the name Fanny in there. Genius, if you ask me.’
Katy didn’t know where to start. She looked at the registrar in desperation.
‘Would you like to come back when you have agreed on a name?’ she asked, showing early signs of exasperation.
‘No,’ cried Katy. She couldn’t go through all this again. ‘Just give us one moment.’ She turned to Ben and attempted a private conversation, with the registrar sitting right in front of them.
‘We talked about this last night,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘It’s Amelia, not Millie. I know we call her Millie for short, but having Amelia gives her the option.’
‘But I don’t like the name Amelia,’ said Ben. ‘I told you that. It’s just a bit poncey.’
‘But you can call her Millie.’
‘So what’s her name, then?’
‘Amelia.’
‘What’s the point in giving her a name we’re not going to use?’
‘So she can choose.’
‘She can’t speak. She can’t choose. We get to choose, that’s the whole point. Besides which, I have Ben on my birth certificate. It could have been Benjamin. Can you imagine? Do I look like a Benjamin? I’d have disowned my parents if they’d landed me with a name like Benjamin.’
Katy glanced back at the registrar, who was pretending to write something.
‘I thought you were joking about the Freya Annie thing?’ she continued.
‘Why? It’s genius. You get to honour your gran without having to call her Fanny, and you wanted Freya as her middle name anyway. So all we’re doing is adding Annie, which was also on our list.’
Katy decided to try a slightly different tack.
‘She should really take your surname, not mine.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Of course. When we get married we all want the same surname, don’t we, so we might as well start her off with yours. I’m keeping my maiden name as my professional name, though.
Ben looked stunned for a moment. He took her hand and swallowed before he managed to get any words out.
‘I just thought . . . I don’t know . . . I just thought, because we’re not married yet, that she’d have your name.’
‘No. I want her to have your name.’
‘So you’ve come in here thinking we’re calling her Amelia Freya King and I think it’s Millie Freya Annie Chapman,’ he said.
Katy nodded.
‘What about Amelia Freya Annie King?’ he said.
Katy thought for a moment. Then nodded. She turned to the registrar. ‘Please can you write down Amelia Freya Annie King?’
‘Are you sure?’ the registrar asked.
‘Yes,’ they both replied.
‘Just write it down,’ urged Katy as she watched the pen hover painfully above the paper.
‘You can always go away and come back when you’ve had the chance to talk it through properly. This is a very big decision. I would hate that you might do something either of you might regret.’
‘Write, it, down,’ said Katy firmly. She was beginning to feel claustrophobic. The sooner they got out of there the better.
She watched, mesmerised, as the registrar wrote the name out slowly and carefully, checking for spelling as she went along.
‘So can you now give me the full name of the father?’ the woman asked, glancing up and directing her question at Ben. Ben hesitated and Katy felt as though time stood still. She nudged Ben, who looked over to her, panic clouding his face. She couldn’t ask him what was wrong. She knew exactly what the problem was. They were about to make it official that Ben was Millie’s dad, and given everything that had happened during the lead-up to her arrival, that was a pretty big deal.
‘I’ve just realised something,’ Ben said to Katy.
‘What?’ she gasped. What could he possibly have only just realised at this very moment?
‘I’ve never told you my middle name before.’
‘Oh,’ she said, confused and relieved.
He turned back to the registrar, looking a little pale.
‘It’s Ben Barry King,’ he said quickly.
‘Can you repeat that?’ the registrar asked. ‘I’m sorry, I missed it.’
‘Ben Barry King,’ he said again, turning back to Katy, looking slightly flushed.
‘It’s okay,’ she shrugged. ‘So your mum and dad were big B.B. King fans. That’s pretty cool, actually.’
Ben shook his head. ‘Barry Manilow, I’m afraid. The B.B. King thing was an accident.’
Katy couldn’t help but start to laugh.
‘You’re named after Barry Manilow?’ she managed to splutter out.
‘Yes,’ he nodded, trying desperately to hold on to his mortified expression but eventually forced into joining in with Katy’s mirth. Soon they were both roaring with laughter, until tears were rolling down their faces.
The registrar gave them a few moments, then stepped in. ‘Shall we continue?’
‘Let’s,’ said Katy, taking a huge breath and looking away from Ben to stop herself laughing. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered as the woman gave her a stern look.
‘So could you tell me the father’s occupation next?’ the registrar asked.
Ben cleared his throat and forced a serious expression onto his face.
‘Singer at the Copacabana,’ he replied. Katy collapsed into giggles again. Ben fixed his serious eyes on the registrar, who was eventually forced to crack a smile. Katy leaned over and took Ben’s hand in hers. She should have known that he would turn the whole potential nightmare of registering Millie’s parentage into a comedy showcase.
‘Why don’t we just book ourselves in?’ said Ben later as they passed through the reception for the second time. Fortunately, Charlene and Abby were nowhere to be seen.
‘What for?’ asked Katy.
‘To get married,’ he replied. ‘Let’s just see when they’ve got a slot free, shall we?’
It was all too much for Katy. Registering Millie had been more fun than she’d ever dreamed possible, but now she just wanted to get out.
‘We’re not getting married here,’ she announced, casting a disparaging glance around the shabby interior. ‘Somewhere more fitting, more official. More . . . more a sense of occasion.’
‘Oh. Right,’ said Ben, obviously confused. ‘I see.’
‘You want that too, don’t you?’
‘Well, yeah,’ he shrugged. ‘Kind of. If that’s what you want, then yeah, that’s what we’ll go for. Of course.’
He didn’t look convinced.
‘We don’t need to decide now, do we?’ she said, brushing past him to open the door, eager to get home. ‘Anyway, we need to save up first. We can’t afford to get married anywhere at the moment. Not whilst I’m on maternity leave.’
‘I know,’ said Ben. ‘I know.’
Chapter Three
‘I mean, really, Matthew, how insensitive can a man be?’
Alison was sitting on the sofa, a pillow wedged on each knee, nestling her twin babies as they efficiently tucked into their evening snack of breast milk.
‘He suggested the pill!’ she con
tinued as Matthew took off his suit jacket and draped it over the back of a dining chair. ‘He clearly hadn’t consulted my notes properly. Why would you ever suggest a drug to prevent pregnancy to a woman who’s spent the last five years of her life taking every drug available to encourage pregnancy? Why, Matthew, why?’
‘I don’t know, Alison,’ he replied wearily.
‘I said to him,’ she continued, ‘I said, we have fertility problems – a major contraceptive in itself – and we have six-week-old twins. When exactly does he expect we’ll be having sex anyway?’ The kitchen timer, balanced on the sofa arm, suddenly sprung to life. Alison carefully lifted George and placed him on her shoulder to wind him as Rebecca continued to feed. Checking her watch, she reached over and with one hand reset the digital timer. ‘Another eight minutes should do it,’ she said, adjusting Rebecca slightly to make her more comfortable.
Matthew watched Alison in her calm, ruthless efficiency as advocated by the baby-rearing guru Gina Ford. Eight minutes would be fine, he thought to himself. Eight minutes would do. Five minutes, actually, would probably be more than enough.
‘Does Gina’s regime not timetable sex?’ he muttered. ‘Surely she’s thought of that in her grand plan.’
‘She covers that in a different book,’ Alison told him. ‘I’ve not ordered it yet.’
‘I’ll get it if you like,’ he offered. ‘Let you know what she says.’
‘No, it’s okay,’ she replied. ‘I’ll get round to it. Do you want to take George upstairs and start to run the bath? I’ll be up in a minute with Rebecca.’
Matthew took George from her, gently planting a kiss on top of his head, feeling the fine hair tickling his nostrils.
‘I’ll bath them and put them both down if you like,’ he offered. ‘Seeing as I’m off out later. You have a break.’
Alison looked up at him.
‘You won’t manage it on your own. Not with two of them.’
‘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.’
