No-One Ever Has Sex on a Tuesday (22 page)

‘Oh, thank you, God. Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ he roared.

‘Shhhh,’ hissed Daniel. ‘You’ll wake Millie up.’

‘But it’s brilliant news,’ Braindead insisted, making no effort to reduce his volume. ‘Ben is at the Brewery Tap and has demanded my company. It’s been lovely, Daniel, as always, but it seems as though my night is back on. Thank the Lord.’

Just at that moment Millie gave a wail, clearly wanting to know what all the excitement was all about.

‘Now look what you’ve done,’ said Daniel. ‘You can’t leave now. You need to help me.’

‘I’m very sorry, Daniel, but I think you’ll find I have a prior engagement,’ Braindead whispered loudly.

‘You can’t go,’ Daniel whispered back. ‘I won’t let you. Katy and Ben need time alone. You
can’t
gatecrash. And what the hell is Ben doing in the pub anyway? They’re supposed to be getting sozzled on cocktails.’

‘He must have made Katy see sense and taken her down the microbrewery.’

‘No, this is all wrong,’ said Daniel. ‘I’m so not happy about this. Text him back and say you can’t make it, and then you and me are going to try and calm Millie down.’

‘What? You can’t make me turn down a night out at a microbrewery twice in one night.’

‘I think I can.’

‘You can’t.’

‘I can.’

‘Oh no, you can’t.’

‘Oh yes, I can.’

‘What on earth is going on here?’ came a shout from the door. They both turned to see Katy standing in the doorway, Millie in her arms and half her mascara down her cheeks.

‘Did you wake her up?’ Katy demanded.

‘Sorry, Katy,’ said Braindead, looking at the floor.

‘What are you doing here?’ demanded Daniel.

‘Can I go to the pub now?’ said Braindead.

‘No,’ replied Daniel. ‘You can stand there until we know why Katy is here and Ben is at the . . .’

‘Microbrewery,’ added Braindead helpfully.

‘Where did you say?’ asked Katy, bouncing Millie up and down on her shoulder.

‘He texted me from the Brewery Tap, just now,’ replied Braindead.

‘Oh,’ said Katy.

‘I should definitely go and see if he’s alright, shouldn’t I, Katy?’ said Braindead.

‘Yes,’ she said as new tears emerged. ‘You should.’

Braindead slid out of the room like a snake escaping a basket, quickly and silently. Katy slumped on the bed holding Millie close to her chest, rocking gently backwards and forwards in between loud sniffs. Daniel lowered himself gently beside her and put his arm around her. He said nothing. Just waited.

‘He was so touchy,’ she said eventually. ‘He didn’t want to talk about anything. Didn’t want to tell me anything about what he’s been up to. It’s just not like him. He’s normally so open, isn’t he? He’ll tell anyone anything.’ She shifted a now calm Millie to her other shoulder. ‘Then I found a text on his phone.’

‘You don’t just find texts, Katy. You go looking for them.’

‘Okay, so I looked at his phone,’ she said guiltily. ‘And he’d texted someone called “A” and thanked them for yesterday. He told me he hadn’t seen anyone yesterday. He hadn’t been anywhere – and yet he had. He must have.’

‘It could be nothing, you know,’ said Daniel.

‘I asked him,’ sniffed Katy.

‘Asked him what?’

‘If he was seeing someone.’

‘Oh lordy, you didn’t, did you?’

‘I had to know, Daniel. But it came out all wrong. I didn’t mean, are you seeing someone, as in, you know . . .?’

‘Seeing
to
someone?’

‘Well yes. I didn’t mean that. I just meant, was he seeing someone. Not doing anything with them. But Ben thought I meant he was having an affair or something, and I didn’t mean that, honestly I didn’t.’

‘So what did he say?’

‘Oh Daniel, what have I done?’ she sobbed.

‘What did he say?’ Daniel repeated.

She scrabbled for a tissue in her pocket.

‘He said that I shouldn’t tar him with my own brush,’ she blurted. ‘Then he left.’

‘To go to a microbrewery,’ Daniel muttered.

They sat in silence until Katy got up to take Millie back to bed. Daniel waited for her to leave the room, then stood up to blow the scented candles out.

‘Don’t think you’ll be needing these tonight after all,’ he said.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The mobile phone lay there like an unexploded bomb on the crisp white linen tablecloth next to the salad fork, as though it was part of the table setting. A stiff bishop’s-hat-shaped napkin sat on top of a plate which would be removed, unused, as soon as a complete stranger who you wanted nowhere near your crotch had laid the napkin awkwardly on your knee. Matthew knew that Alison loved all the unusual etiquette that came with a high-end restaurant. Napkins so rigid they slipped instantly to the floor, multiple sets of cutlery indicating that you would be paying at least a fiver a head extra for additional washing-up, and sombre waiting staff in impossibly fashionable attire who could dampen the mood of anyone who actually intended to enjoy themselves whilst eating in the said establishment.

Matthew was surprised that Alison thought it acceptable to have a mobile phone clearly visible on the table at such an achingly elegant restaurant. Being contactable, should a disaster occur at home, clearly overrode her usual high standards of social etiquette. She was, however, quick to explain her poor table manners to the waiter when he arrived to supply them with water out of a receptacle designed to make you think you’d already spent twenty quid, and you hadn’t ordered anything yet.

‘I have twins,’ she announced to the chisel-faced twenty-something whilst pointing at her phone.

He merely raised his eyebrows, forcing her to continue her explanation as to why she had her phone on the table.

‘They’re five months old,’ she said. ‘It’s the first time we’ve left them, so I need to be contactable.’ She stared at him, awaiting his approval.

‘Of course,’ nodded the waiter, clearly baffled as to why she was sharing this irrelevant information when he was used to the daily lunchtime clamour of mobiles ringing and people in suits getting up abruptly from tables to pace the room.

‘So our chef’s specials today are . . .’ he began, standing up straight and mentally preparing himself to reel off a list of dishes that sounded like a shopping list of food combined with spa treatments.

Alison put her hand up to interrupt him.

‘We are on rather a tight schedule this evening, so you can dispense with the list of specials and we’ll order straight away, if you don’t mind.’

‘Of course, madam,’ said the waiter with a curt bow. ‘What would you like?’

‘I’ll start with the calamari and then I’ll have the John Dory, please, but with new potatoes rather than the gratin potatoes.’

‘Of course. And you, sir?’

‘Calamari for me too, and then I’ll have the fillet, medium rare.’

‘Very good, sir.’

‘And please can I have French fries rather than the thick-cut?’

‘Of course. Now I believe you ordered champagne to be at the table,’ the waiter said, reaching behind Matthew to draw a bottle out of an ice bucket. He showed the label to Matthew and asked if he would like him to open it.

Matthew glanced up at Alison, who looked stony-faced but gave a barely perceptible nod.

‘Yes, please,’ said Matthew, grinning at Alison in an effort to get her to reflect it back. She didn’t. She looked away and picked her phone up for quick glance at the screen.

‘I can’t believe you asked for French fries,’ she hissed as soon as the waiter had left.

‘But . . . but . . . you changed your side order,’ he protested, champagne glass in mid-air, ready to raise a toast to their babies.

‘To something healthier,’ she protested. ‘I haven’t lost all my baby weight yet.’

‘So it’s okay to change to something healthier but not something that isn’t?’

‘Yes,’ she hissed back.

He hadn’t heard that rule before. He loved French fries. He was in a restaurant and he was having steak. What could possibly be wrong with that?

‘Sorry,’ he said, deciding to agree so they could get their evening into a better mood. ‘Now, can I propose a toast, please, to our beautiful children?’

She blushed slightly and reached for her glass, raising it to his.

‘To our family,’ he said simply, chinking his glass against hers. They held each other’s gaze, suddenly embraced by joy that they had at last
become a family. Matthew took a gulp of the fizzing liquid and reached for Alison’s hand across the table. This was more like it.

‘Our family,’ he murmured again, enjoying the sound of it. He watched as Alison bit her lip, trying to keep control of her emotions. He intertwined his fingers in hers and they clung together in a determined grip.

They were still looking intently at each other when the phone sprang to life, buzzing loudly and illuminating the dimness surrounding their candle-lit table in a highly intrusive manner. Matthew’s hand was dropped like a stone as Alison gasped and grabbed hold of the phone as though any seconds lost could be a matter of life and death.

He tried to read Alison’s face as she furrowed her brow, quickly swiping and tapping in order to access whatever message was coming their way. To his relief, he saw a smile emerge.

‘Yes!’ she said with a small fist pump. ‘I knew he could do it.’ She raised her eyes to Matthew, absolutely beaming. Perhaps this poorly timed text wasn’t the bad news it might have been.

‘Ben managed to get Millie to sleep by seven forty-five. I knew he could do it. He really struggled last night but I told him to hang in there, she’d learn. And lo and behold, there she goes, a whole three quarters of an hour earlier than normal. Brilliant.’

She looked back down at her phone and started to tap back a reply to Ben’s message. Matthew couldn’t believe his eyes. Before parenthood, if they’d been out for a meal, Alison would have demanded that his phone stay in his pocket at all times. Texting at the table? Alison? This was unheard of.

‘Can’t you reply later?’ he had to ask. If it had been him sitting there texting, he knew Alison would quite likely have grabbed the phone out of his hand and dumped it in the ice-filled champagne bucket.

‘Won’t be a sec,’ she said, without looking up.

Matthew grasped his hands together in his lap tightly. He hadn’t planned this whole evening to spend it watching the top of Alison’s head whilst she texted some other bloke, least of all Ben. He reached for his glass and downed the rest of his champagne, then lifted the bottle out of the ice bucket, spraying ice-cold droplets of water onto the crisp white linen.

‘More?’ he said abruptly, in an attempt to divert Alison’s attention. She shook her head, still not looking up. He topped his own glass up and slammed the bottle back in the bucket.

‘You’ll knock it over,’ she said, without looking up.

Matthew sat and seethed. Alison put the phone back in its position next to the salad fork and looked up at him grinning.

‘I’m so proud of him,’ she gushed. ‘And he sounds over the moon.’ She clapped her hands together in glee. ‘What must Katy be thinking? I bet she never thought Ben would take control like this.’

‘Harrumph,’ Matthew grumped. ‘I can’t actually believe that Katy is leaving the childcare to that idiot.’

Alison was about to reply when the starters arrived in front of them and her frown disappeared momentarily, morphing into a grateful smile.

‘I think that is utterly unfair of you, Matthew,’ she said the minute the waiter was out of earshot. ‘He just needs guidance, that’s all. And he really listens when he knows it’s important. Do you know, he actually filmed me on his phone showing him how to purée carrots so he didn’t forget how to do it. That’s how seriously he’s taking it.’

‘I’m sorry. What did you say?’

‘I said he filmed me puréeing carrots so he could watch it back again and make sure he got it right.’

‘You let him film you?’ asked Matthew, putting the knife and fork back down again for fear of actually wanting to throw them at something.

‘Yes,’ she replied, inserting her first mouthful of calamari. Matthew watched her chew and empty her mouth before she continued. ‘He actually said I should think about doing some more videos and put them online to help other stay-at-home dads. He said I was really good at it, thanks to my background in training.’

Matthew leaned back in his chair, raking his hands though his hair. Ben had filmed his wife, in his house? There was something very wrong about this latest revelation, but he couldn’t quite grasp what it was or how to articulate his displeasure. He took a few breaths, unsure of his next move, whilst an image of Ben leering behind a phone whilst Alison performed in front of him, disturbed his brain.

‘You won’t be doing it again, will you?’ he said rapidly. All he wanted now was for this nightmare to be over. He was even more confused as to what Ben’s motivations might be for re-entering their lives. One thing was clear: he needed to eject him as quickly as possible.

Alison was shaking her head and chewing, waiting to empty her mouth before she spoke.

‘No,’ she said, lifting her napkin up to dab the corner of her mouth. Matthew breathed out. That was all he needed to hear. ‘No, I actually think he needs to come back weekly to update me on how he’s doing with Millie’s routine. He’s started well but he has to stay strong, or else he could be back to square one before he knows it. I need to keep him motivated. We also need to go through other weaning foods.’

Matthew stared at her, his eyes wide, his food so far untouched.

‘No,’ was all he could finally squeak out, shaking his head from side to side.

Alison paused, her fork midway between plate and mouth.

‘No,’ he repeated. ‘He won’t want to come back.’

‘Why do you say that?’ she asked.

‘Well, he’s probably got his own friends to hang out with, hasn’t he? Can’t believe he wants to spend his days with you.’

‘What are you saying?’ she demanded. It was her turn to put her knife and fork down.

‘Can’t you see he’s using you?’ he said quickly. ‘He’ll get what he wants then you won’t see him for dust. And anyway, shouldn’t he be asking Katy about all this? Not taking up your time. You’ve got enough to cope with without holding his hand every step of the way.’