No-One Ever Has Sex on a Tuesday (7 page)

‘Are you sure?’

‘Sure.’ Katy nodded vigorously then got up, determined to actually make it to bed this time. ‘You go for it. I’ll call work in the morning.’

‘Good,’ said Ben. ‘That’s all sorted then.’ He watched Katy leave the room, not feeling the relief he’d thought he might. Something in the look Katy had given him made him think that the swap wasn’t going to solve as many problems as he’d thought.

Chapter Seven

‘Matthew, Matthew,’ cried Alison. ‘Look, Rebecca’s face!’

Matthew peered round at Rebecca’s face to see what on earth was bothering Alison so much. A tiny bit of dribble was creeping its way down her chin and was about to drop onto her pristine sugar-pink dress with white ribbon trim. He was just about to shove a finger in its path when a tissue appeared out of nowhere and spirited it away. Matthew grinned at Alison, who was sitting next to him on a plush green velvet Chesterfield outside the studio of Leeds’ best family portrait photographer. As she smiled back, he caught sight of someone he’d not seen in a very long time. Her face lit up, and suddenly he saw the beautiful, confident Alison he’d fallen in love with all those years ago before they began their difficult journey to having children. Before the disappointment of her failure to get pregnant followed by the relentless rounds of fertility treatment had turned her into a worn-out rag with a face as long as the wait they’d had for these two miracle babies. Today she shone. Groomed to the hilt and still showing a hint of baby weight, which totally suited her, the old Alison was back, and he couldn’t help but let out a small sigh of relief.

‘I’m so glad you wore a tie,’ Alison told him. ‘You look just perfect with Rebecca.’

‘Well, if I can’t dress up for my daughter, then quite frankly, who can I dress up for?’ Matthew planted a kiss on Rebecca’s head.

‘I never thought this day would come,’ he heard Alison say, suddenly emotional.

‘I know,’ he said, reaching over to take her hand.’

‘We’ve been through so much,’ she gulped.

‘We have,’ Matthew nodded. ‘But we made it. You made it. You had it the worst. I want you to know I’m so proud of you, Alison.’

She looked at him, but then had to look away and swallow hard. She fanned her eyes with her hand to try and prevent tears from ruining her perfectly applied mascara.

‘He’d better get a move on,’ she commented, trying to distract herself.

‘What time are we booked in for?’ he asked, looking hopefully at the heavy oak doors that separated them from the inner sanctum of Calvin McDonald.

‘Any minute now,’ she replied, looking at her watch and stroking George’s hair down simultaneously. ‘We need to begin soon, or else they’ll start to get hungry and crabby and not at their best.

‘I’m sure he’ll be out soon,’ Matthew said soothingly. He knew she desperately wanted the perfect family photograph, and he wanted it to be perfect, for her sake.

‘Although we are running slightly behind schedule ourselves. Did I tell you that Charlene called and asked me to cancel our antenatal gathering at the last minute and changed all our plans this morning?’

Matthew raised his eyebrows. His wife’s continued contact with Charlene never ceased to amaze him, given their opposite personalities. You never would have put them together in a million years, if it wasn’t for the fact that they’d met in antenatal classes and had been encouraged to support each other beyond giving birth. Although Matthew did secretly suspect that Alison enjoyed playing the role of baby expert to Charlene’s apparently clueless efforts.

‘You will not believe why she cancelled,’ Alison continued. ‘Honestly, I don’t know why I bother with her sometimes.’

Neither do I
, thought Matthew. Charlene scared him.

‘She bumped into Katy at the registry office, apparently, and Katy asked her to go to a music class with her. Can you believe it? She cancels for Katy, of all people, who’s never once bothered to come along to one of our meet-ups. Honestly, the cheek of it.’

Matthew froze. It had been a while since Katy’s name had been mentioned between them. Alison had thankfully given up trying to entice her to come to their post-birth gatherings. He’d heaved a huge sigh of relief and assumed that Katy was now firmly back in the past where she belonged.

‘She tried telling me that Katy was in a bad way, that she wasn’t coping and needed someone to talk to,’ Alison went on.

‘Oh,’ was all Matthew could think to say without giving away his inner turmoil.

‘I can well imagine, actually. She never struck me as the most maternal of people. Never really looked like she was looking forward to being a mother.’

‘Mmmmm.’ Matthew nodded, pretending to study Rebecca’s ribbon around her tubby little waist.

‘She never really listened in the classes, either. Always looked totally preoccupied. As if she wished she were somewhere else entirely.’

She did, thought Matthew. As far away from him as possible.

‘I told Charlene to give her my love, though,’ Alison said. ‘And that no-one will think badly of her if she wants to start joining in now. In fact, it would be really good to have her back. There is only so much celebrity gossip with Charlene that I can handle.’

Never going to happen
, thought Matthew. Katy had more sense than to walk back into their lives.

‘I’m sure Katy will do what she needs to do,’ he said. ‘She’s probably fine. You know what Charlene’s like. She’s probably not seeing Katy at all – more likely to have found out there’s a sale on at Primark or something and needed an excuse to get out of meeting up.’

‘She better not have done. I’d made brownies and everything. Now what am I going to do with them?’

‘I’ll eat them,’ he offered.

‘You can’t eat all of them.’

‘Why not?’

‘You’ll start getting middle-aged spread like your dad.’

Matthew instinctively sucked his waist in.

‘I’m nowhere near middle-aged yet,’ he said.

‘Well, you’ll look it if you eat too many brownies. I’ll put them in the freezer. We’ve rearranged for next week, so I’ll save them for then, just in case Katy decides to come along too.’

‘Don’t’ get your hopes up,’ said Matthew. ‘She’s probably got her own group of mums to hang out with by now.’

‘I bet she’s still embarrassed because Ben knocked you out at Charlene’s wedding.’

‘He didn’t knock me out,’ said Matthew defensively.

‘You were out cold for at least two minutes and you had a bruise the size of a grapefruit on your chin.’

‘It was nothing, just a misunderstanding,’ he muttered.

‘I know,’ said Alison. ‘But I can understand if that’s why Katy’s been avoiding me. She’s probably still mortified. Maybe I should call her, tell her that you’ve forgiven him. Or why don’t you call her? It would be better coming from you. She’ll have to believe you’ve forgiven him if you tell her. And you’ve got history.’

‘What do you mean?’ exclaimed Matthew, getting more alarmed by the second.

‘Well, you went to school together, didn’t you?’ Alison said. ‘So technically she knows you better than she knows me. I’m sure she’d appreciate a call from you.’

‘No,’ said Matthew sharply, causing Alison to raise her eyebrows. He couldn’t believe they’d moved on this far and yet now they were somehow back skirting around the lies again. Alison had never discovered that he and Katy had actually been more than classmates and were involved in an all-consuming teenage romance until Matthew had broken Katy’s heart. These were facts that needed to stay in the past, just like Katy did. Future harmony depended on there being no contact between the two couples whatsoever.

‘Just let it drop,’ he tried to say as calmly as possible. ‘If Katy had wanted to be friends she would have been in touch by now. It’s not down to you or me to call her. She should be the one doing the running.’

Alison didn’t respond for a moment.

‘You’re right,’ she agreed eventually. Matthew tried hard not to show his physical relief. ‘It’s her boyfriend who hit my husband. She knows where I am if she wants me. Neither me nor you should go crawling to her.’

‘Absolutely,’ said Matthew, squeezing her hand. ‘You’re worth more than that.’

‘Thank you.’ She smiled back at him gratefully, just as the large oak doors opened and out trotted a young couple with a bright red, screaming baby.

‘Call my assistant and we’ll try and fit you in next week to see if he’s in a better mood then,’ said a man dressed in tweed trousers and a waistcoat
who’d poked his head around the door. He turned and addressed the group waiting patiently on the Chesterfield.

‘The Chesterton family?’ he asked.

‘We most certainly are,’ said Matthew, getting up quickly to leave behind the conversation they’d just had. He hoisted Rebecca onto his shoulder and offered his free hand to Alison so he could escort his wife into the studio to have their first official family portrait taken. ‘All four of us,’ he said to her with a relieved smile as he watched her eyes well up for the second time.

Chapter Eight

Katy was grateful that she could finally look at her reflection in the long mirror in the bedroom. She and Ben had agreed to get Christmas over with and then Millie would be shipped out of their room and into her own next door. It was a relief to be able to see herself in the mirror, her first morning back in a business suit, without the baby paraphernalia in the background reminding her of the significance of what she was about to do.

She looked okay, she decided. Admittedly, body-shaper tights had been roped in to create the illusion of a tummy unaffected by being blown up to three times it’s size before being deflated to a saggy shadow of its former self. She turned to take a side-on view and was pleased to see that her ankles no longer looked like they’d been clad in bread dough, though they were already protesting at the indignity of being put back in high heels after so many weeks of the blessed relief of Uggs. As for her upper arms, they had never looked so good. Who knew that hours spent parading the flat trying to bounce a baby to sleep, lugging the dead weight of a car seat around everywhere, and the constant collapsing and the uncollapsing of a pushchair could have this effect? It was probably the best thing that had ever happened to her triceps. She leaned forward and added a last dab of lipstick, then automatically sniffed at her jacket lapels to check for baby sick. Satisfied she looked the part, she picked up her bag and went in search of Ben and Millie to face her first goodbye as the breadwinner off to work rather than the parent left holding the baby.

As she walked down the corridor to the lounge she couldn’t quite believe the day had come. It was over two months since Ben had got her out of bed in the middle of the night and proposed the swap. He’d left without a word the next morning and she wondered whether he would return that night and announce he’d made a huge mistake and regretted everything he’d said. But just after lunch she received a text from him telling her he’d had an informal chat with the Head, and he’d said as long as they could recruit a replacement he would be able to leave at the end of the Christmas term if he wanted to. Did she want him to? She’d stared at the text for a long time. She put her mobile face down on the counter whilst she tidied up the kitchen then
fed Millie. She left her mobile at home whilst she went out and walked around the park, hoping Millie would drop off to sleep and give her headspace to think this thing through. Eventually she settled and all was quiet, so Katy headed home, intending to compile a list of pros and cons for Ben’s grand role-swap plan. She’d just got the pushchair through the door and was taking her coat off when she heard a snuffle. She knew what was coming and wanted to scream. She needed to think, but Millie was having none of it. She wanted out of the pushchair and she wanted input, whether in the form of a nappy change, or a bounce on a knee or a jiggle on a shoulder or a swing in the air, anything as long as she had the undivided attention of her mother. She valiantly battled her tiredness with toe-curling wails for over an hour, successfully preventing Katy from even going to the toilet. Eventually Katy snatched up her phone and texted
Do it
in reply to Ben’s message before she could even stop herself. Of course Millie chose that exact moment to calm down and snuggle into Katy’s chest, her eyelids slowly and gently closing.

Katy stared at her phone, a mixture of euphoria and dread swirling around in her head. As she sat there with her little angel sleeping contentedly in her arms, she mentally listed all the reasons why her going back to work didn’t make her a bad mother –a list she would refer to every day in the weeks leading up to her eventual return to work.

She was a good mother and going back to work was a brilliant thing to be doing because:

- Millie and Ben could bond properly.

- She could earn more money in fewer hours than Ben, meaning that they could spend more time together as a family.

- They could save up for a house with a garden, then Millie wouldn’t be the only child without a trampoline.

- She was setting a very modern example to her daughter that women’s careers are just as important as men’s, and there is no reason why a mother shouldn’t work and a father be the main carer.

- She and Ben would start having sex again – surely?

- They could save up and have the wedding they both dreamed of.

This list was rotating around Katy’s mind for the hundredth time when she entered the lounge to find Ben in his pyjamas, lying on the sofa with Millie sound asleep on his chest whilst he watched a recording of
Match of the Day
. He turned to smile at her, his mouth slightly obscured by the bright ginger beard he’d been cultivating over Christmas. She couldn’t tell if it was an encouraging,
don’t worry
smile, or a slightly smug,
look, this is a piece of cake
smile. She’d tried throughout the holidays to tell Ben anything she thought he might find useful once he was left alone for hours on end with Millie. She feared, however, that her lack of confidence in her own maternal skills made her a poor teacher, and he’d only half listened to her mutterings about the chaos of a normal day with a baby.