No-One Ever Has Sex on a Tuesday (2 page)

‘Glad to hear it,’ smiled Katy. And she was. She stepped forward to kiss him on the cheek. It was at moments like this that she knew exactly why Ben was the perfect man for her. Whatever crap was going on in her life, whatever inner turmoil she was feeling, it was Ben who reminded her not to take life so seriously. To have fun. She sincerely hoped it was a trait Millie would inherit from her father.

He held her gaze for a moment as she pulled away.

‘You ready for this?’ he asked, looking serious for a moment.

‘Oh yes,’ she replied. She held her breath, fearful that Ben might say something to remind her how lucky she was that he was standing there at all, given what had happened. But he said nothing, just looked at her with his big grin and twinkly eyes, then wrapped her in his arms in a hug so generous and committed that it brought tears of joy to her eyes.

‘Right,’ he said when he finally released her and bent to pick up Millie in her car seat. ‘Shall we go and agree to keep her then? I’ve got used to her now, and I don’t think you can get a refund after twenty-eight days.’

A council worker in polyester and NHS glasses directed them to a waiting room lined with worn-looking chairs and worn-looking people. Clearly it was an exhausting business being related to the newly born or the newly dead. There was no hint of tiredness, however, on the faces of the two girls in their late teens who were sitting right opposite the entrance. One of them leapt out of her seat and flung herself at Katy the minute she walked in, her mass of blonde hair smothering Katy’s face.

‘Oh my God, look who it is!’ she screeched. She was gripping Katy so tightly that she thought her breasts might explode, whilst her spiky false nails cut into her arms.

‘Hi, Charlene,’ she said, once she’d been allowed to come up for air.

Charlene bounced up and down in front of Katy with excitement.

‘Wow, Ben!’ she shrieked, catching sight of him behind Katy. ‘This is brilliant. It’s like a reunion. Abby, look,’ she said, turning to the girl she was with, who was openly staring at Ben through make-up of the shovel variety and over the top of a cleavage that was demanding attention like an emerging new talent. ‘It’s Katy and Ben from our antenatal class. Remember? They came to our wedding party. Ben was the guy who knocked out that bloke in the middle of the dance floor.’

Abby stood up from her chair and took a step forward, still openly gaping at Ben.

‘Oh, I remember,’ she said, looking him up and down very slowly.

‘How’s Luke?’ Ben asked Charlene, trying to draw his eyes away from Abby’s cleavage but failing.

‘Fine,’ replied Charlene. ‘He’s at work, so Abby said she’d come with me to get Rocco registered. Can you believe it? No-one told us we had to come and register him ourselves, did they? We thought the hospital sent a form or something, and we were in the pub the other night, weren’t we, Abby, and I was telling this bloke who was trying to chat me up to get lost because I had a baby and he wouldn’t believe me. Anyway, he thought I was messing with him and asked if I had his birth certificate to prove it and I suddenly went, fuck me, didn’t I, Abby? Fuck me, we haven’t got Rocco a birth certificate. So as I said to Luke when I got home, it’s a bloody good job that that bloke tried to chat me up or else baby Rocco might not exist.’

Katy stared at Charlene, open-mouthed, before saying feebly, ‘We just never seemed to have had the time before now.’

‘Is that why you haven’t come along when the antenatal class meets up, then?’ demanded Charlene.

‘Er . . . yeah,’ Katy replied, looking over at Ben, who raised his eyebrows. He took an empty seat next to where Charlene had been sitting and began to get Millie out of her car seat. ‘Just been too busy,’ she said to Charlene. ‘You know how it is.’

‘You not coping?’ asked Charlene. ‘Because we’re all in it together, you know. You should come along. And you should see Alison and Matthew’s house. It’s amaaaaaaaazing.’

Nooooooo
, Katy wanted to scream. The last place she wanted to hear Matthew’s name mentioned was here. Not now, just as they were about to officially declare that Ben was Millie’s dad. Neither Ben nor Katy had let his name pass their lips since Ben had proposed. It had been such a ridiculous piece of bad luck that they’d ended up in the same antenatal class as Matthew and his pregnant wife Alison. Traumatised, Katy had realised she could no longer avoid the niggling doubt that Matthew could be the father of her unborn child. Secret meetings between the two of them had led to an agreement to ignore the slim possibility. But then it had all started to unravel when Ben had twigged that Katy and Matthew had been childhood sweethearts.

‘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.’