Stand by Your Man

by Gil McNeil

  Bugger. He’s very sweet.

  ‘Don’t you think we might have enough to cope with, without a puppy as well?’

  ‘I know. But Ezra and Alfie both wanted one so much. It seemed so mean not to let them. And I really will do all the work – you won’t even know it’s here.’

  ‘I’ll be holding you to that.’

  ‘It is rather sweet, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And look at Alfie’s face.’

  ‘I know. Charles, you know that thing they put on those car stickers: “A dog is for life not just for Christmas?” ’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I rest my case.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And you’ll be the one out with a shovel clearing up the lawn, right?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve already got one, actually, and a proper bucket thing. You bury it in the ground and put chemicals in and the whole thing biodegrades.’

  ‘Oh how lovely. Well, that’ll be a nice feature for the new garden, won’t it? We can include that in our plans for the new lawn. And then we can leave the lid off and one of the children can fall in.’

  ‘It’s only a small bucket. Nobody could actually fall into it.’

  ‘Want to bet?’

  ‘Yes. Well, I’ll make sure the lid is on at all times. I promise.’

  ‘Charles.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re a twit, you know that, don’t you? A nice twit. But a twit nonetheless.’

  ‘There is one other thing I should mention.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lola hates dogs. They make her nervous. She’s not that keen on puppies either.’

  ‘Right. Well, yes, that does help, slightly.’

  Lola arrives rather late for tea, with Julian, who does something that earns him amazing amounts of money in the City, and who wears impeccable suits, even at weekends. I can’t imagine him ever being crumpled, or slightly grubbed up after a session in the garden. He probably has absolutely spotless wellies, if he’s got wellies at all.

  Lola’s got so many presents for Mabel and Ezra that they have to make four trips to the car. She’s also brought Alfie a jigsaw and a book, and she’s got me one of those expensive-looking books that are full of beautiful pictures, on how to arrange flowers properly. I don’t know why this is so annoying, but it is.

  I’m in the kitchen making another pot of tea with Charles, who’s still trying to recover from opening his present and being confronted with a pair of enormous white fleece pyjamas with sheep all over them. Mabel thinks they’re lovely. But then she also likes Lola’s new giant slipper. We couldn’t get yellow so we went for shocking-pink.

  ‘Oh good, I wanted to get you both on your own for a bit. Marvellous decorations, by the way, very home-made-looking, although I think you might have got the lights slightly wrong. And I’m not sure about all that tinsel.’

  Does she imagine we’re entering some sort of Christmas-decoration competition or something? How can you not be sure about tinsel? I wish I could think of something annoying to say back. Good. I’ve just thought of something.

  ‘Oh the children love all the tinsel. But not as much as they love the new puppy, of course. He’s so sweet, isn’t he?’

  ‘I just hope they realise they can’t bring it with them when they come to us for the weekend. We’ve just bought some very expensive Persian carpets. And I hate dogs, you know that.’

  Charles smiles. I think he’s quite enjoying himself now.

  ‘That’s why I didn’t buy a puppy for you, Lola. He’ll stay here with us, and Alfie. After all, he’s Alfie’s dog too.’

  ‘Yes, I know that, Charles, thank you. I just thought I ought to make it clear, that’s all. Anyway, I’ve got some good news, well, wonderful news really. I’ve just been offered a fabulous new job, CEO and President of the London office. It’ll be a huge challenge but it’s going to be brilliant. And also – and Julian and I are really thrilled about this so I hope you will be too – we’re going to get married, in June probably, or possibly July. I haven’t decided yet.’

  She pauses with a rather nasty look on her face, for the full shock-value of her announcement to sink in.

  ‘Marvellous, isn’t it? We’ll be buying a bigger house, of course. We thought possibly Islington, or maybe somewhere more central – we’ll have to see. And we’ll need to talk about how to tell the children, because I’ll want them to play a big part in the wedding. I thought Mabel would make a lovely flower girl, although I’m not too sure about Ezra. Maybe he can be an usher or something. And then I’m thinking about another baby – I thought next spring might be nice. Julian adores children.’

  You could have fooled me.

  ‘Though obviously I won’t say anything to the children about that just yet. I mean a new brother or sister might make them feel terribly jealous at first, but I’m sure they’ll be thrilled once they get used to the idea.’

  Charles smiles at me. And I know just what he’s going to say.

  ‘It will be a new half-brother or -sister, actually, not a new brother or sister. We’ve been talking about it quite a lot recently. Because you see we’ve got some good news too. Well, more than good really. Fantastic.’

  ‘What? Honestly, Charles, I wish you’d try to make a bit more sense sometimes.’

  ‘Our baby, Alice’s and mine. Due in early June, actually, isn’t it, darling?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Lola looks absolutely furious.

  ‘But where will you live? I thought Alice was still in her cottage.’

  ‘Oh she is, in her cottage, I mean. We think we’ll keep both places, for the moment anyway. We think it’s probably better for the children, and we both like our independence. But at some point I’m sure she’ll move up here, and we can use the cottage for guests, or rent it or something. And Alice has some wonderful ideas about work she wants to do to the house, changing the bedrooms round, and moving the playroom downstairs, that kind of thing. We thought we might extend the kitchen too. I mean we’ve thought about moving and buying somewhere bigger, but the children love this house and anyway there’s the garden. It means too much to both of us to move. And we were thinking, we might even go in for a swimming pool – it would be so lovely in the summer.’

  I think he might have overdone it a bit with the swimming pool. Lola looks like she might be about to explode.

  ‘Have you told the children yet?’

  ‘About the baby, yes, a few days ago, but we’re keeping it fairly low-key. They seemed quite pleased though.’

  ‘I do think you might have consulted me, Charles.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps I should have. I didn’t think you’d be that interested, to be honest.’

  She glares at him.

  ‘Well, I’ve been thinking, and I’ll want to see the children more, for proper weekends, that sort of thing, when I get the new house ready. I know I’ve had to cancel a few times lately, but I’d like to get into more of a routine in the new year.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘So we won’t be able to carry on like things are, with me coming down here to see them, you know. It’s madly inconvenient.’

  ‘I’m sure they’d love that. And you can always drive down here and collect them, for the whole weekend, any time. Because we won’t be able to drive them to you, because we’ll be busy with the new baby, so it would be madly inconvenient for us too.’

  I think she might be going to hit him in a minute. But he has got a point, because over the past few months she hasn’t spent more than a couple of hours with them.

  ‘I thought you were looking a bit fat, Alice, but I didn’t like to say anything. I thought it might be that jumper.’

  ‘No. It’s all me. I’m really looking forward to that bit.’

  Actually, I’m not, but I’m not telling her that. I didn’t mind the getting fat bit, although I don’t remember being quite this big so early on last time, which is a bit worrying. But I did get fed up with not being
able to bend down or get out of the car, or sleep properly. Still, it’s all part of the deal, I suppose, and I’m so pleased, so deep down seriously delighted, that I don’t really care. My only worry was Alfie, but he seems quite pleased. I’m sure he won’t always be, but I think he’s big enough now to be able to cope with it, and I’m going to try really hard to make sure he never feels left out.

  So far the only person who’s had a major problem with it is Patric. He started saying something about how he supposed I’d be moving into the big house now, and he had no intention of paying me maintenance if I was living with someone else, but then he remembered he doesn’t actually pay any maintenance, so he just sulked.

  But I think he was really narked because Cindy’s getting keen on having a baby, and has been talking about it a lot recently. She even asked me for advice last time they were down, which is a bit ironic if you think about it. I said I thought she should go for it, as long as she was ready to go solo if Patric bolted like last time. And I said that being Alfie’s mum is definitely the best thing I’ve ever done, and I thought she’d make a lovely mum. She seemed quite cheerful when they left.

  Lola leaves straight after tea and says she’s off to Barbados for a week with Julian, because they’re both exhausted and need a break, and then she’ll call us when she gets back. Nice work if you can get it. Mum and Dad are dozing on the sofa, with Mum cuddling Mabel, who’s now fast asleep. She got a bit upset when Lola left, but soon cheered up when Mum offered to read her a story.

  Charles and I take the boys and the puppy out for a quick walk down the lane before supper.

  ‘Mummy, when the new baby does come will you do swearing?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ezra says when the baby’s born the mummies do lots of swearing, and they say the F word and everything. He seed it in a film.’

  ‘Oh I don’t think so, Alfie. I think I’ll just be happy. What about you, Ezra? Do you think you might be a bit happy?’

  ‘I might. If it’s not a girl. I hate girls.’

  ‘You do not. You love Mabel, you know you do.’

  ‘Sometimes. I suppose.’

  ‘And I’ll still be your best boy, won’t I, Mummy?’

  ‘Yes, Alfie, you’ll always be my best boy.’

  Ezra suddenly looks quite nervous. He’s such a sweetheart under all that bluster.

  ‘And what will I be?’

  ‘You’ll be my special big boy, Ezra, and the baby’s biggest brother.’

  He smiles and looks at Charles for a bit of extra reassurance.

  ‘And you’ll be my best boy Ez. You know that, don’t you? You’ll always be my best boy.’

  ‘Yes, Dad, I know that. I was asking Alice, actually.’

  ‘I’ll be counting on you quite a lot, Ezra, to be honest, because babies can be pretty boring, you know. I’ll want to be playing with you and Alfie all the time but I’ll have to take it for walks in the pram instead. Do you think you might be able to help me out with that?’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘That would be great.’

  Ezra puts his hand in mine. God, this is complicated. Alfie doesn’t seem that bothered, but you never know.

  ‘Alfie was a lovely baby. I hope the new baby is half as nice as he was.’

  ‘I spect it won’t be. Nana says I was a delight.’

  Good old Mum. He wasn’t such a delight in the middle of the night, that’s for sure, although I’ve been trying not to think about that.

  ‘Have you two decided on the puppy’s name yet, by the way? Only I’m not sure about Merlin – I think it’s quite a grown-up name for such a little puppy.’

  Merlin’s their favourite so far, but there are lots of other contenders, including Bilbo, because Ezra’s been getting heavily into Lord of the Rings. I’m secretly lobbying for this because I think it will serve Charles right having to march round in public yelling Bilbo.

  ‘Race you to the gate and back?’

  ‘Here, Dad, hold the lead for a minute. All right. Ready. Steady. Go.’

  And they race off down the lane. ‘God, I’m knackered.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘And I’m hungry.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right. Let’s get them home and I’ll make you some supper. You don’t think there’s any chance it might be twins, do you? Only my mother reminded me this afternoon that twins run in our family.’

  ‘That’s not very funny, Charles.’

  ‘I’m not joking. They really do. I’d sort of forgotten.’

  ‘Sort of forgotten?’

  ‘Sorry. I suppose we’ll know soon enough, though, won’t we? When’s the scan again – next week?’

  ‘The week after next.’

  ‘Well. They’d show up on that, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘They? Less of the they, if you don’t mind. Jesus Christ, you certainly know how to put a girl off her food. I don’t feel quite so hungry now, for some reason.’

  ‘Not even for toasted cheese?’

  ‘Oh well, maybe toasted cheese. With lots of ketchup. That might be quite nice.’

  We walk back to the house. The boys have run ahead, carrying the puppy because he got fed up with walking. I’m definitely going to call him Bilbo and see if they get used to it. Charles is walking along whistling. I really do fancy some toasted cheese now. I wonder if I can get him to speed up a bit. The fairy lights are twinkling through the hall windows. It’s really cold, and slightly foggy, and the light is fading quickly now.

  I’m trying not to panic, but it’s no use. Christ. Twins. Oh. My. God.

  Acknowledgements

  With thanks to Dad, Jane, Jo, Katie, Mary, Minna,

  Mum, Rose, Ruth, Sarah, Sheila, Vicky, and everyone

  at Bloomsbury, Brunswick Arts and PiggyBankKids.

  A Note on the Author

  Gil McNeil is the author of the bestselling The Only Boy for Me, In The Wee Small Hours, Divas Don’t Knit and, most recently, Needles and Pearls. The Only Boy For Me has been made into a major ITV prime-time drama starring Helen Baxendale and was broadcast in 2007. Gil McNeil has edited five collections of stories with Sarah Brown, and is Director of the charity PiggyBankKids, which supports projects that create opportunities for children. She lives in Kent with her son and comes from a long line of champion knitters.

  By the Same Author

  The Only Boy for Me

  Editor, with Sarah Brown:

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  Divas Don’t Knit

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  By the Same author

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  First published in Great Britain 2004

  Copyright © Gil McNeil 2004

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