The Secret of Happy Ever After

  ‘There’s no way I’m giving you slippers for Christmas. Ever. Not even when you are old.’

  ‘What about homebrew? Can I start doing homebrew? I don’t have to grow the beard.’

  Anna wanted to laugh, but she knew that if she did, she’d find herself agreeing with him. ‘Will you stop making out that we’re one step away from the Golden Moments Retirement Castle?’

  ‘But we have a daughter who’ll be able to vote this year. That’s old.’

  ‘You mean, you have a daughter,’ said Anna, without thinking, then realised what she’d said and mentally slapped herself. ‘I didn’t mean . . . I meant, we have a daughter, but I’m too young to have an eighteen- . . . I mean, you’re too young, really . . .’

  But her first words hung between them. Silence fell, except in Anna’s head, where all hell was being let loose.

  The turn-off sign to the airport flashed past, like a warning.

  ‘What?’ he said, sensing her staring at him.

  Had he noticed? Sometimes she was far more sensitive to these things than he was.

  ‘What I meant was, I’m still too young to have an eighteen-year-old, and really, so are you. But that’s the thing about being a bloke – it’s perfectly possible to have a daughter who can vote,’ she said carefully, ‘and have a newborn baby all in the same year.’

  ‘Now that does make me feel old,’ said Phil, but his voice had changed and he didn’t sound jokey any more.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The thought of wet nappies, and broken nights, and sick, and feeling like a zombie for months, and did I mention nappies? If you think Pongo makes the house smell, you want to have a close encounter with twenty nappies a day.’

  ‘You’d have your shed,’ she tried, in a light tone.

  ‘Oh, I see. Now the shed’s acceptable.’ He indicated into the left lane to take the airport turning and glanced at her as he moved into a space. His eyes seemed wary, and his fingers weren’t tapping the steering wheel in time to the music any more.

  Anna steeled herself. ‘Phil, you haven’t forgotten what we talked about when we got married, have you? About having a baby after we’d been married four years?’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten.’

  That wasn’t the answer she’d been hoping for.

  ‘Well, it’s this month!’ Anna paused, trying to summon up some lightness so he wouldn’t feel nagged. ‘And I don’t mean that you’re getting past it, I mean I don’t want you to get entrenched in the Radio 2, shed mentality, you old goat.’

  The traffic had bunched up as the cars queued to get into the terminal lanes. Phil turned to her and put his hand on her knee, a last caressing ember of the intimacy they’d shared over the past days. ‘Anna,’ he said, then sighed.

  Anna’s chest contracted at the honesty in his face. He looked wary, but concerned, and his eyes searched hers as if he already knew his words weren’t going to be what she wanted to hear.

  ‘I’d love us to have a baby,’ he said. ‘But I’m not being flippant about how disruptive they are. It’s amazing, obviously, and so rewarding, but your whole life completely changes. It’s like being abducted by this tiny alien. Nothing is ever the same again.’

  She flinched. ‘I am aware of that, yes.’

  If one more parent said this stuff to her – how you never understood love until you held your baby in your arms, how only a parent truly grasped the world’s horrors, etc., etc. – she would throw Becca’s violin case, the gym pile and bloody Pongo’s basket at them. Her life had already changed completely, and if she ever breathed a word of how hard it had been, how stressful to have all the responsibility without the magic parent love drug, then she was branded a selfish, father-stealing homewrecker who should have known what she was getting into.

  Phil didn’t seem to notice the sudden whiteness of her lips. ‘I know that. And you’re doing a great job. But things have changed, haven’t they? None of us were expecting Sarah to go off to the States. I don’t want to unsettle Becca when she’s stressing out about her A-levels, and Chloe . . .’ Phil pretended to squeeze his forehead in despair. ‘Every time she talks to me about this band I keep seeing the Pussycat Dolls in my head and I want to send her to a girls’ boarding school. And Lily . . .’

  ‘So what are you saying?’ Anna asked. Her stomach rollercoastered. But he’d agreed! ‘We can’t have a baby now?’

  ‘No.’ Phil ran a hand through his hair. ‘I’m not saying that. I’m saying that the playing field’s changed. If you hadn’t been here, there’s no way I could have coped with all this. I had no idea how stressful those three could be. I just . . .’ He took a deep breath. ‘I’m just more wary about adding in a newborn to the mix than I was when we only had the girls for alternate weekends.’

  ‘But Sarah’s coming back next year,’ Anna pointed out, trying to sound calm and rational even though inside she was howling with an unexpected, irrational fury. ‘It could take a few months, the baby might not arrive until after she does.’

  ‘That’s true. Anna, is this really the best time to be discussing this? It’s a big subject. I don’t want to say the wrong thing and have you brooding on it for days, just because I used the wrong word because I was trying to change lanes.’

  The traffic was starting to creep forward now, and she could almost see their time alone together slipping away like grains of sand in an egg timer.

  ‘I don’t know when else we’ll discuss it,’ she said, rushing to fit everything in before they arrived. ‘I thought we were going to start this month. It’s all I’ve been thinking about. I’ve been looking forward to . . .’ She chose her words carefully, ‘adding to our family.’

  Phil reached across and took her hand. ‘Anna. I love you. We’ll work it out, I promise. It’s just that I can remember what it’s like to be a slave to nappies and green poo and to be honest, these last few days have been a window into how thoroughly enjoyable life might be once we pack Lily off to college. Just you and me. I don’t want to share you.’

  Anna looked at him. She didn’t return the affable smile wreathing his face. Sod the bloody shed, she thought. And the bloody slippers. ‘Are you saying you’re looking forward to not being a parent, before I’ve even had the chance to be one?’

  ‘There you go,’ said Phil, withdrawing his hand to change gear. ‘I’ve said the wrong thing.’

  ‘Not if you meant it.’

  ‘We’ve got loads of time. Aren’t you always reminding me how you’re only just thirty?’

  He was joking now, but Anna wasn’t going to let him skim this one away. Not with less than half a mile to go to the short-stay car park.

  ‘I know I’m not old, but women reach menopause early in my family. You remember me telling you how my mum couldn’t have any more children after me? She wasn’t much older than I am now.’

  ‘Science has moved on, though. And my mum was forty when she had me. That’s another ten years.’

  ‘But look how that turned out!’ Anna bit her lip. Normally she’d have slunk under the seat in shame at saying something so tactless, but this was too important for her not to press on. ‘I want you around for ages yet. I want us to run around the park together and do mum and dad stuff.’

  ‘I don’t know how stressed out my dad was, but I can’t imagine he was any less stressed than me,’ said Phil stiffly. ‘And that was with just the one kid.’

  There was an awkward pause. ‘Sorry,’ said Anna. She reached for his hand again. After a moment’s hesitation, he let her curl her fingers around his.

  ‘I can’t wait to hear how amaaaazing New York was,’ she offered, trying to bridge the gap that had opened up between them. ‘Do you think Chloe’s hair will be the same colour? Do you think they’ve missed us at all?’

  ‘I bet they’ve missed you,’ Phil said, as he indicated his way across to the short-stay car park lane. ‘Sarah’s a terrible cook.’

  She shot a glance across the car and saw his eyes shining at the prospect
of seeing his girls again. To her shame, Anna felt a twinge of jealousy on behalf of their baby, out there waiting for its half-sisters to budge up and make room for it.

  The New York plane was late, and Anna watched as Phil paced and muttered. She took several deep breaths, trying to draw a line under the troubling conversation they’d just had. She told herself it would be great to see the girls again. Hearing Becca’s dry footnotes to Chloe’s melodramatic stories, listening to Lily’s burbling narration of the world around her. She’d even got round to missing Chloe’s habit of singing along to adverts as though talent scouts were hiding in the house.

  But she knew they wouldn’t have missed her for one second, and wouldn’t bother to pretend they had, either. Well, Becca might. Becca was sensitive enough to spot the moments when Anna’s smile slipped.

  ‘I think this is them,’ said Phil, bouncing on the balls of his feet to see over the crowd.

  A couple of business travellers strode out of the gate, pulling wheelie hand luggage cases, already checking their phones and searching the assembled faces behind the rope for their drivers.

  He moved a bit nearer the front – pointlessly, since there wasn’t much of a crush. Anna had meant to tell him how good he looked today, in the Paul Smith jumper she’d bought him for Christmas, but she realised that while she’d nipped off to the loo, he’d taken it off, so the shirt Becca and Chloe had given him was visible under his jacket.

  He glanced back and grinned at her, and Anna grinned back, quickly, tightly, seeing her husband disappear and their dad re-emerge. And inside, she felt utterly shabby for noticing.

  This is why I want a baby, she thought, digging her nails into her palms. So I can share that feeling. So I can feel wanted, and missed, and loved too. Is that so unreasonable? It wasn’t as if there was a finite amount of love to spread around the family, and that her baby would steal from the others.

  Anna was standing at a different angle, further back, and she spotted Chloe first; it was hard not to – her mane of blond hair seemed bigger and blonder than when she’d left, and she seemed to be walking in her own spotlight. She was also wearing sunglasses and staring down at the floor, but as she rounded the corner and came into clear view, she shoved the sunglasses onto her head and a different expression crossed her face when she saw Phil standing in the crowd.

  ‘Dad!’ she yelled, and broke into an end-of-movie trot towards the barriers, one hand gripping her wheelie case, the other stretched out towards him. Phil stepped forward to meet her and pulled her into a big hug.

  ‘Hello, Chloe-oey!’ he said. ‘We’ve missed you!’

  ‘I’ve missed you too!’ Chloe said, her voice muffled in his shoulder.

  Anna moved firmly through the shifting crowd, back to Phil’s side where she hovered awkwardly, waiting for the right moment to hug Chloe herself.

  The hug went on and on. Anna wasn’t going to step forward and risk crowding their moment, but neither did she want to look stand-offish. It was so hard.

  Meanwhile, Becca’s tall figure had appeared in the next batch of passengers; she was pulling a big case and holding Lily’s hand. Lily looked small and worn out, and was rubbing her eye with a fist. Anna waved, directing Phil’s attention to them, and grabbed the chance to open her arms to Chloe.

  ‘Hi, Chloe!’ she said with a big smile. ‘Welcome back!’

  Chloe had turned to look for her sisters, but glanced back at her. ‘Hi, Anna.’ Her accent had gone very mid-Atlantic in the short time they’d been away.

  Embarrassed, Anna started to drop her outstretched arms, just as Chloe evidently decided she ought to make a gesture. The result was a semi-showbiz kiss on one side, and a half hug on the other.

  Ouch, thought Anna. But she hitched her smile up again. ‘How was the flight? Did you get any good films?’

  ‘No. They were lame.’ Chloe yelped and moved over to Phil as he led Lily and Becca away from the gate, Lily on his shoulders, her hands in his hair and a beatific expression lighting up her tired face. Even with purple circles under her eyes she looked like a woodland fairy who’d lost her toadstool.

  The couple behind Anna actually said, ‘Ah, how lovely!’ loud enough for them all to hear.

  ‘Great! Do you want to go for a coffee before we go?’ she asked, too keen. ‘Or should I grab us one? A latte? Chloe? Becca?’

  ‘Daddy, we went to the biggest shopping mall in the world, and it was full of cars that were so big they needed a step to get in them, and Mum’s car is enormous. She says it wouldn’t fit in our garage,’ Lily was saying, at the same time as Chloe started to show Phil some new dance step she’d learned ‘from Mum’s personal trainer’.

  Becca looked over towards Anna and gave her a sympathetic eye-roll. ‘Happy New Year, Anna,’ she said, and Anna could have hugged her with gratitude. ‘But I don’t think they need any more caffeine.’

  Anna kicked herself. ‘No, course not.’ Another parenting error. Coffee was what you’d offer your best mate after a flight. Not kids. Even Becca knew that.

  The talking continued without a break as they made their way to the car park, Phil wheeling the biggest cases, with Chloe and Lily hanging off him, and Becca and Anna following with the random jumble of extra carriers. Becca answered Anna’s questions with her usual politeness, but she was monosyllabic with weariness – not surprising, Anna thought, if Chloe had been like that all the way back.

  They piled into the car and Chloe insisted on plugging her iPod straight into the stereo, to listen to some new boy band album she’d downloaded while she was away.

  The chattering from the back seat started up even before Phil had got out of the car park.

  ‘Dad, I need to get a Saturday job,’ Chloe announced over the top of Lily’s interrogation about Pongo’s exact movements while she’d been away.

  ‘What for? You get pocket money.’

  ‘I need hair extensions. Me and Bethany have got it all worked out – we’re going to get Saturday jobs at Kit, and then if we save up enough by Easter, I can put my Easter money in as well and maybe get my teeth whitened too.’

  ‘You’ve been talking to Bethany while you were in America?’ said Phil, in panicky tones. ‘Not on your mobile, I hope?’

  ‘No. On Facebook.’ Anna caught the muttered, ‘Most of the time,’ but she wasn’t sure Phil did.

  ‘Why hair extensions, Chloe?’ she asked over her shoulder. ‘You’ve got gorgeous hair.’

  Chloe had formed a girl band called Apricotz with three of her friends from cheerleading. They sang to backing tracks on Spotify in the garage, while performing painstakingly precise choreography, and had a band logo that Bethany’s dad had had printed onto stickers which now covered every available surface. Apart from Chloe’s best friend Bethany, the other two members changed on a near-weekly basis.

  Chloe’s main career focus now, apart from winning the Lottery, was Breaking into Showbusiness.

  ‘It’s going to be our look. Tyra, she’s our stylist, she says we need to have a distinctive thing, so we’re each going to have a long plait, but with a different colour streak in it. Mine’s going to be blue – don’t freak out, Dad, that’s why they’re extensions, so we’re not actually dyeing our hair.’

  Anna looked in the rearview mirror: Lily had dropped off, her head nodding like a heavy flower on a thin stem, but Becca was wide awake, staring out the window, her lips moving as she recited something to herself. Chloe’s attention was fixed firmly on the back of Phil’s head, but she was texting at the same time, without even looking at the phone.

  It’s like they’ve never been away, she thought.

  ‘Who’s Tyra?’ asked Phil, going for the easiest question first. ‘Do I know her?’

  ‘Tyra from cheerleading,’ said Anna. ‘The one who got kicked out for not wearing her underskirt shorts for the Longhampton Leopards match, and bringing the school into disrepute.’

  Phil’s hands clenched the wheel.

  Becca seemed to come back to
life. ‘Is Kit the one with the Perspex shoes in the window?’ she asked suddenly. ‘I didn’t know there were so many strippers in Longhampton that they needed their own shop.’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Shut up, Becca, like you’d know. You get your clothes from Oxfam because none of the real shops stock boring librarian clothes. No offence, Anna.’

  ‘None taken,’ said Anna, as mildly as she could.

  ‘I don’t know if I want you working in that shop,’ said Phil. ‘Isn’t there anywhere else?’

  ‘Imagine the staff uniform,’ Becca went on. ‘You’d end up wearing less than when you arrived, not more.’

  ‘Shut up, Becca,’ snapped Chloe, then whined, ‘Daaaaad, it’s really important for the band that we look distinctive, Mum says she knows someone who works on American Idol and she reckons we can get on the auditions for that too and they’d love us because we’ve got English accents and Bethany looks a bit like Kate Middleton.’

  ‘But your exams start in—’

  ‘And Mum says it would be good for us to have Saturday jobs. She said we need to start thinking about our university applications, and jobs show we’re responsible and goal-focused.’

  ‘And how did she square that with her last directive about you all working hard and using your weekends for revision?’

  Chloe pouted. ‘I knew you’d say that.’

  ‘I’m not being a killjoy, I just don’t want you spending your whole weekend in some tacky clothes shop,’ Phil began, and Anna felt the atmosphere in the car charge with pre-argument static.

  ‘Well, I know somewhere you might be able to get a Saturday job,’ she said, before she had time to weigh it up properly.

  ‘Where?’ said Chloe and Phil at the same time.

  ‘Well, Michelle’s opening a new shop . . .’

  ‘OMG!’ squawked Chloe, clapping a hand to her chest. ‘Michelle’s opening Home Sweet Home Two? I totally heart that shop. It’s literally my favourite place in the whole world.’

  ‘Apart from the major mall,’ said Lily. ‘And that karaoke bar Mum took us to. And . . .’