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TANYA
‘Happy birthday to y—’
‘MAMA! Jasper’s being MEEEEEEEEEEAN! I haaaaaaaaaate him! I want to go shopping!’
‘Happy b—’
‘Whatever, Evie. You ugly anus pig face.’
‘Jasper! E-nough. Where did you learn that dis-gust-ing expression?’
Greg leans down and laughs in my ear. ‘His eye-wateringly expensive private school, probably.’
‘MAMAAAAAAAAAA! Owwwwww! Jasssssper! MY ARM! He’sgot my AAAAAAAAAARM!’
‘Happy birthday, dear Taaaaany—’
‘Can’t we go to the shops? OWWWWWWWWWW!’
This particular squeal is so blood curdling I drop my fork. One decibel higher and there could be potential perforation of an ear drum. Judging by the expressions (ranging from marked annoyance to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Child-Catcher-style loathing) worn by the other customers eating in The Croft’s alfresco area, they feel the same. Across the table, Maddie and Kian, look stoically—and a little smugly—at each other. Kian is bouncing their baby, Carter, on his knee. Carter has not murmured since we got here, whilst Suze’s children have not stopped swearing and screeching whilst locked in combat. Her eldest, Jasper (my godson), has always been rough with the younger Evie (Maddie’s goddaughter), to obtain information or his own way but, recently he’s started treating her way outside Amnesty guidelines, purely for fun.
‘Jasper! NO! I said, NOT shouts Suze.
‘Listen to your mother,’ adds her husband, Rollo, without much volume or losing focus on the remaining section of his cheeseburger. ‘Maybe I should put them in the car …’
‘Don’t be silly,’ I reassure him. ‘They’re only playing.’
‘… cut to Evie being disembowelled,’ says Greg.
Suze shoots him a look. But then, another squeal. This one more cochlea-penetrating than the previous. Suze jumps up from the table and marches over to where Jasper is yanking Evie across the grass by her left wrist. With one swift action, Suze separates both kids and drags them towards the car park, where they will stay until she ‘effing says so’.
‘How long is an effon, Mama?’ asks Evie, as they are shunted off. ‘I want new shoes. With a heeeeeeeeeel! Flatties make your legs look gross. You get cankles! FACT! Is an effon longer or shorter than a minute?’
‘You can work that out whilst you’re sitting in the car, can’t you?’ seethes Suze. ‘And by the time you have, we’ll be leaving.’
Jasper blows a nonchalant raspberry at his mother. ‘Like I care. Sooner we get out of this lame hole the better. Can we go to Nando’s on the way home? Food here is crap. I want peri peri chicken. To take away. I’ll eat in my room, then smash the shit out of Call of Duty.’
Greg bursts out laughing. ‘To be fair, I often think that when I come here to start my shift …’
I smile at my boyfriend again, relieved that he is not simply making light of the situation but actually enjoying himself and making sure everyone else does too. I know he wasn’t expecting to have a good time at my birthday lunch today. I noticed a box-shaped lump in the back of his jeans as he was tapping in the alarm code before we left the house. Cigarettes. Or as they shall henceforth be known: sperm destruction sticks.
Suze returns to the table with dots of sweat on her forehead. She dabs at her face—she has applied a fair amount of make-up today—and gives Rollo the type of look usually reserved for violent criminals in the dock.
‘What was that for?’ he asks her, dipping the last piece of his brioche burger bun into a pot of aioli. ‘I haven’t done anything.’ He swivels his eyes at Greg and Kian. ‘Did I do anything? No, m’lud, I didn’t.’
Suze claps her hands to her cheeks and makes a skew-whiff ‘O’ shape with her mouth, briefly resembling The Scream by Edvard Munch.
‘I think that may have been the issue, Rollo, mate,’ mutters Kian, chomping on his dressing and cruton-free Caesar salad (Maddie has put him on a diet) whilst goo-gooing at his five-month-old son. ‘Never ever admit to not doing something.’
‘Who taught you that?’ asks Rollo.
‘You. When Suze got preggers for the first time.’
Everyone laughs, even Suze. She sits back down at the table next to her husband and he puts his arm around her.
‘Sorry, sweetness.’ He squeezes her. ‘If it makes you feel any better, I too wish our son was not so sadistic nor our daughter so materialistic, and that we could leave them both at an enclosed educational institution all year round. As soon as such a place is set up—that is not strictly a prison and has flexi but not compulsory visiting hours—I assure you, you will never have to see them, unless you want to.’
Suze manages a smile back at him. ‘You promise?’
‘As I am also your barrister, I’ll get some legal papers drawn up.’
‘Thank you. Oh, and remember you also promised to drive back.’ She kisses him on the cheek then takes a restorative gulp of white wine. ‘Right, shall we try and sing “Happy Birthday” to Tanya again?’
I wave my hand at them all. ‘No! God, really, you don’t h—’
‘Yeah,’ agrees Greg. ‘Probably not the best idea. I think it’s safe to say the rest of the beer garden know we’re here now.’
Suze glances across the table at me, eyes narrowing. I pretend I haven’t seen her.
‘… so, what are you lot doing next Friday?’ continues Greg.
‘Erm, that’s when we’re round at my parents’ house for their anniversary. You reminded me the other day.’
He pulls a face. ‘Oh, shiiiiit, yeah. Only, there’s a band playing in Camden I wouldn’t mind having a look at. A sort of experimental indie collective with a retro-seventies Hendrix feel.’
I pull a face back at him. I’ve been to gigs with Greg before, where the boxes marked CAMDEN, EXPERIMENTAL and COLLECTIVE have been ticked. And you can guarantee if they have been, so will the ones marked HOT, SWEATY, NOISY, SMELLY AND ABSOLUTELY JOYLESS. But with the addition of the word HENDRIX? That’s a fresh kind of hell that I have not even visited in my darkest nightmares. Suddenly, sitting across the table from my father for a couple of hours feels more appealing.
Greg clocks my expression. ‘Don’t panic, I meant a boys trip.’ He nods at the guys. ‘We could get up there early doors, have a few drinks, do the gig, go to a club … stay overnight. It’s been God knows how long since we all went out on the lash. What do you reckon?’
Like highly strung barn owls, Suze and Maddie’s heads rotate round towards their partners.
Rollo laughs. ‘Well, I think that’s your answer, mate. Sounds great, but it’s the aftermath I can’t handle … that noise you heard earlier, imagine that when you’re hungover. All day. It’s torture.’
‘I hate to tell you,’ Suze adds, ‘next weekend it will feel more like an actual torture chamber. Eves and Jasps are having a sleepover weekend at ours with four pals. Imagine the first Saw movie with elements of Hostel thrown in.’
‘Oh, sweet Jesus, no …’ moans Rollo.
‘You’ll have to count me out too, Greg. Sorry …’ Kian apologises. ‘Obviously, I can’t leave Maddie overnight.’
‘What with her being a fully functioning adult and all that,’ jokes Greg.
I don’t laugh as I know Maddie is staring at me.
‘He means leave me with the baby,’ she says. ‘It’s still early days, and besides, Greg, the last time Rollo and Kian went out with you overnight, Kian came back with a black eye, his arm in a sling and a cracked tooth.’
Greg sighs. ‘Come on, that was an isolated incident.’
‘It wasn’t that bad, Maddie,’ I add, sticking up for Greg. ‘They didn’t leave him on the pavement. A night in Casualty and Kian was good to go.’
‘Good to go straight back to bed, where he remained for two days,’ says Maddie. ‘And he couldn’t do a feed either.’ She nods at Kian. ‘Forget it, you’re not going.’
‘Jesus, you’re so pussy whipped, mate.’ Greg laughs.
‘Yep,’ smiles Kian, quite happily. ‘That pretty much sums it up.’
‘What about Jez?’ I suggest. ‘He’ll want to go …’
‘Nah, not his thing. Too edgy. Jez doesn’t like to veer too far from the status quo. The concept or the band,’ he mumbles.
I can sense he is getting irritated.
‘Tell you what,’ I suggest. ‘Why don’t you go to the gig and stay over? I’ll go to my parents on Friday night, then meet you in London on Saturday morning, and we can spend the weekend there … do something fun. By “fun”, I mean something in no way involving trippy guitar music. And nothing experimental or, heaven forbid, experiential.’
He smiles at me. ‘Yeah … why not? You’ve got yourself a date, babe.’
I smile back. If there was ever a perfect time for us to have The Baby Talk it will be on a ‘mini-break’ (not that I would call it that out loud because I hate all that couples parlance). I’ll splash out, book us into one of the luxury suites at The Rexingham, that posh hotel where Noelle did her book launch. Greg and I will be in our room—which will be a textbook lover’s playground of squishy pillows, his’n’hers dressing gowns, a fully stocked mini-bar and a remote-control docking system—lying in bed after having ‘nookie’ … and start talking. I will pre-empt the conversation by saying that at no point during our future life as parents will we be like them. ‘Them’ being Suze and Rollo, Maddie and Kian or any other couple who reproducing has turned nuts. Or boring. Or both. He will laugh. So will I. And we will both know that we are in this together. It will be as far removed from what happened before as it is poss—
I jolt.
‘I’m gasping for a fag,’ says Suze. She puts her knife and fork together and glances up at her husband. ‘Can you go and check on the little shits? They might be hot wiring the Range Rover. Greg … cigarette?’
I scan his face for a vague hint that he could be considering it, but he doesn’t flinch.
Suze looks at him. ‘You’ve given up?’
‘Yep, it’s all behind me now,’ he says. ‘I’m a reformed character.’
‘That’s … good. Good for you,’ mutters Suze, pulling a Marlboro Light out of her pack. ‘I’m the only one still up for it, then?’
‘Looks that way,’ he confirms.
I stop myself from looking too pleased.
‘D’you mind not having one at the table, Suze?’ Maddie grimaces at Suze. ‘I know we’re outside, but with Carter here …’ She reaches over and strokes her baby’s cheek. ‘Actually, we’re going to need to make tracks soon. My precious boy needs a nap.’
‘Yeah, I’m exhausted,’ says Kian, downing the remainder of his pint.
Maddie tuts at him. ‘I meant Carter, you idiot. I hope he doesn’t go bananas again when we put him in the car seat. It’s the only time he really screams. You don’t mind if we sneak off, do you?’ she asks me.
‘Erm … no, of course not.’
‘I mind,’ says Suze. ‘Not all of us are ready to leave yet.’
I tap her arm. ‘Relax, it’s fine, Suze … we can stay.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘It’s always the end as soon as someone leaves,’ she snaps. ‘Jesus, Maddie, if you go slightly off schedule for one day, Carter is not going to grow up to be a serial killer.’
Maddie looks wounded and says nothing.
‘Why don’t you go for a cigarette?’ I suggest to Suze, to diffuse the situation. ‘Let me say goodbye to these two and I’ll catch up with you. Greg, you don’t mind, do you?’
‘Nah, I’ll go and help Rollo.’
Suze eyeballs him. ‘Why would you want to do that?’
‘Because it’s fun watching over-indulgent middleclass parents being relentlessly poked at and abused by their own offspring.’ He grins at her as he wanders off. ‘It’s a modern and far less upsetting form of bear baiting.’
After watching Maddie buckle a suddenly inconsolable Carter into the back of the car, I find Suze at the bottom of the beer garden next to the pond.
‘What was all that about?’ I ask her.
She drags on her Malboro Light. ‘I thought we were going to be making a day of it, that’s all.’
‘No, not that. Getting at Maddie.’
‘Oh, right … she’s bugging me at the moment. It’s as if she’s produced the first baby to crawl the earth and everyone has to be reminded of this every second of every day. When I first had Jasper I was not like that. I was a lot more relaxed …’
‘You were stoned, plus you had your sister and your mum—a hugely experienced GP!—on hand twenty-four hours a day to help.’
Suze pulls a sheepish face. ‘Yeah, okay, I hear you. Hey, maybe the reason why my children are so out of control now is because I was too effing chilled out then? They’re rebelling against their incense-infused, Portishead sound-tracked babyhood.’
I smile. ‘Nah, they’re going through a phase … one which I have to say, you’re dealing with incredibly well. I’d blow a gasket if mine started acting like that.’
‘Oh, I’m only dealing with their behaviour thanks to Philip Morris and endless boxes of picnic wine from Lidl.’ Suddenly, she stops. She is making her Munch face again. ‘Sorry, what did you say? ‘If mine started acting like that …’ T, you’re not pregnant?’
I shake my head. ‘No, no, god no … but …’
‘Thank fuck for that … I mean, th—’ She stops herself again. ‘Sorry! Sorry. I was only thinking about what it would be like, erm … for me … to have another one. So … you’ve decided you want a … baby?’ She drains her glass and swallows hard. ‘Are … you … are you sure?’
‘Uh-huh. Pending on everything working downstairs—I’ve had tests at the hospital and I’m seeing your mum for the results, so I need to wait and see. I’m sure everything will be fine. It was so long ago that … but, yeah, I’d like to get pregnant as soon as possible.’
‘But …’ begins Suze. ‘B—’
‘Oh, I know …’ I interrupt her. ‘I do not want to be one of those women who act as if it’s like organising an Ocado delivery slot.’
‘No, that’s not what I was going to say …’
‘What were you going to say?’ I peer at her. ‘Suze?’
She stares at me for a few seconds then gazes out over the pond. ‘Are you really ready though, aft—’
I butt in again. ‘Yeah, I am.’
‘But even a few years ago, you still didn’t know what you wanted, and now … you’re sure?’
‘Yes, I’m sure. I’m not a mess any more. Not a single part of my life is. Everything about me is in order. My home, my job, my friends and most importantly, the man I want to have children with.’
‘You mean Greg?’
