And Baby Makes Two (16 page)

“I’m sorry,” I said, before she could say anything. “Shanee and I went for a coffee after the film.” I casually squeezed past her. “God, I’m tired.”

“You drank coffee till nearly five in the morning?” asked my mother.

I took off my jacket. “We were having such a good time that we went back to hers. Since it’s the weekend.” I hung my jacket on a hook. “It was really great. I haven’t had a chance to really talk to Shanee in
ages
.” I gave her a smile. “Thanks.” I turned towards my room.

“Not so fast,” said Gruppenführer Spiggs. “I rang Shanee’s at midnight. Her mother said Shanee’d been home for nearly an hour.
Alone
.”

I laughed. “You know Mrs Tyler. There are so many people in and out she never knows
who’s
there.”

Hilary Spiggs snorted like the old hog she was.

“Well,
you
weren’t.”

I looked her in her beady eyes. “Yes, I was.”

“No, you weren’t. Lucy went and checked. Shanee was sound asleep.”

“All right, all right … I ran into some friends I hadn’t seen in ages, and I went with them. Shanee didn’t want to come.”

She smiled. “Oh, really?”

I kept looking at her, but I got ready to make a quick retreat.

“Really.”

“And might one ask why you’ve got your dress on inside out?”

I went numb for a second. I didn’t have to look down, though, to know that she was right. I could feel the seam of my dress with my hand.

“It’s not inside out. It’s meant to be this way.” I said it like I thought she’d lost her mind.

And then she did.

She knew where I was. I was out with
him
. Wasn’t one baby enough for me? Did I want more? Couldn’t I see that he was only using me?

That was when
I
lost it. “You don’t know anything about it!” I screamed. “We happen to be in love.”

“Love?” she screamed back. “You think this is love? If he really loved you he’d do more than take you to bed when he fancies.”

“Shut up!” I wanted to shake her. “Shut up and mind your own business for a change.”

She went dead calm. “Fine,” said my mother. “I’ll mind my own business. Because I’ll tell you one thing, Miss All-grown-up: I’m not going to mind your brats while you tart yourself around town. If you want to play house, you can play house on your own. I’m moving down to Charley’s for a while. You’re sixteen now. Sort yourself out and then you’re on your own. I’ll leave you housekeeping money in the blue teapot and I’ll talk to you in a couple of days.” She looked like she wanted to shake me. “Don’t ring me; I’ll ring you,” and then she banged past me and into her room.

Shinola started crying the second the door slammed shut.

Home Alone

When she lived with us, Hilary made me get up when she got up for work, even if I’d been awake half the night with Shinola. She said it was so she could see I had a proper breakfast, but I knew it was just to torment me and make me suffer like her. If she had to get up at seven, then I had to, too. The first thing she’d do when she got back from work was check to see that I’d done everything she thought I should’ve done in the day. “Did you do the washing… Did you tidy your room… Did you do the washing-up?” Nagnagnag. Supper was at seven-thirty, unless I hadn’t got round to starting it, when it was more like eight. Tea and biscuits were at ten, bed at eleven. Which is another example of how much living with Hilary Spiggs was like being in prison.

But now she’d gone I didn’t have to live by
her
schedule. Except for being on twenty-four hour call for Shinola, there was nothing I
had
to do at or by a certain time. I could have cereal for supper or eat breakfast at noon if I wanted. I could stay up watching telly till it shut down. I could fall asleep on the couch. I could do the housework when I felt like it. I could do as I pleased.

Which wasn’t all that much. We’d watch the morning kids’ programmes, and then we’d go out if it wasn’t raining too hard – down to the shops or the post office or whatever – and then the rest of the day we just mooched around. I always had either the telly or the radio on, just so I could hear adult voices. When Shinola had her afternoon nap, since I had nothing else to do that wasn’t a chore, I had one, too.

The ringing of the doorbell finally woke me up. The room was dark. I reckoned it must be Shanee on her way home.

I started to sit up, but Shinola kind of grunted and shifted.

I didn’t want her to wake up. I wanted Shanee to myself for a change. The last time I saw her I hadn’t heard anything she was saying, I was so busy with Shinola.

Very, very slowly and carefully, I rolled myself off the bed. Once I was safely on the floor I peered over the mattress. Her eyelids were kind of twitching but she wasn’t crying. Which meant she was still asleep.

Holding my breath, I crawled towards the door, keeping as low to the carpet as I could. When I was hidden behind Shinola’s cot I stopped. The door, thank God, was open. I took a deep breath and made a dash for it.

Shanee nearly knocked me over getting into the hall.

“For God’s sake, Lana. What took you so long? I thought I was going to drown out there.”

“Shh,” I whispered. “She’ll hear you.”

Shanee looked puzzled. “You mean Hilary’s back?”

“Not her. Shinola.”

“Oh,” said Shanee, and she tiptoed into the kitchen behind me.

“I did come round yesterday,” she said as I shut the hall door. She dumped her bag and her wet jacket on a chair. “But you never answered.”

“Babies really take up a lot of time,” I replied. “It’s not like school. You don’t get a lunch break. I must’ve been busy and didn’t hear you. Unless I was out.”

“Or sleeping,” said Shanee.

I didn’t like her tone.

“What’s that mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything. I was only joking. You just never seem to be around when I call.” She removed a pile of stuff from another chair and sat down.

“Babies are also very exhausting,” I said. “It’s like being on guard duty twenty-four hours a day.”

“Well, you’re not doing such a brilliant job of guarding it,” she said. “The place looks like it’s been bombed.”

I glanced around. It had looked a little like something in a magazine when I’d finished de-Hilarizing it, but that was weeks ago. Shanee was right. Now it looked like something in a war zone.

“That’s Shinola,” I said. “I never get to finish putting anything away.”

“Speaking of work,” said Shanee. “Guess what? I got a part-time job!”

“Do you want tea?” I was already filling a pan with water.

“What happened to the kettle?” asked Shanee.

I shrugged. “It broke.” It burnt itself to a crisp. “You know Hilary, she only buys cheap junk.”

“And what about her nice blue teapot? Don’t tell me that broke, too.”

“Yeah,” I said. It broke when I threw it across the room. It was either the teapot or Shinola. “Everything’s breaking.”

“So, anyway,” said Shanee. “I got this part-time job!”

I told her that was brilliant.

“I know.” She hugged herself. “I am sooo excited. I’m working at that new gift shop with all the candles and the inflatable vases and stuff. They’ve taken me on for Christmas, but if I do OK I can probably have it for good.”

“I’ve got an appointment with the housing next week,” I said. “That’s pretty quick.”

Shanee nodded. “That is quick.” Without stopping for breath she went on, “It was such a piece of luck. There was a sign in the window so I got all my courage up and went in and asked. The woman said I had the right look.”

“You mean second-hand clothes and hair like a squirrel’s nest?”

Shanee laughed. “Fashion’s catching up with me. Black and purple and your cousin’s old motorcycle boots are considered very
in
this season.”

Shinola had made it through the doorbell, but the sound of adult laughter was too much for her. She couldn’t stand the thought of me being happy without her for three seconds.

Shanee was on her feet. “Do you want me to get her?”

“Just mind her head,” I said. “Her neck’s still a little wobbly.”

“Thanks for reminding me,” said Shanee.

When she came back with Shinola, she was telling her all about her new job.

“So, I’ll be able to get you something really special for your first Christmas,” she was telling her. “But that’s not the best part. The best part is that I’ve seen some really cool guys in there, buying incense and stuff.”

I loved the way she talked more to Shinola than she did to me.

“Do you think she’s grown?” I asked. “I think she’s grown a lot. Half her clothes don’t fit her any more.”

Shanee leaned her head close to Shinola’s like they were conspirators or something.

“In fact,” she told her, “there’s even a very cool guy who works there. He came in as I was leaving.”

“The doctor said I can start her on solids soon.”

“Your pan’s boiling.” Shanee sat down with Shinola. “And I get paid for being there and I get a discount as well. I can’t believe my luck.”

I stared into the fridge. The fridge could’ve been in a war zone, too.

“I’ve run out of milk,” I announced. And everything else. There was nothing in the fridge but an egg box (without any eggs), a couple of bendy carrots, half a tin of spaghetti and an empty bottle of ketchup.

“S’all right,” said Shanee. “I never take milk at home because there’s always pieces of spat-back food in it.”

I gazed into the tea caddy. I seemed to have run out of tea, too. When had that happened? I was sure there’d been tons left. Shinola and I had done a shop at the beginning of the week. Hadn’t we? I remembered walking down the high street. I remembered looking in the windows of the clothes shop and the shoe shop … but I didn’t remember going into the supermarket.

“And guess what else?” said Shanee.

There weren’t any cups.

I mean, there
were
cups, but they weren’t all in the kitchen, and the ones that were in the kitchen weren’t really clean. I yanked a couple from the sink.

“I can’t guess,” I said. “My brain’s geared for baby things.”

Plus, I was distracted. I was having trouble rinsing the cups because there were a few other things in the sink and there wasn’t much room.

“Amie’s brother’s going to take driving lessons,” said Shanee. “Then they’re going to save up for a car.”

I stood in front of the cups so she couldn’t see me using one old tea bag for both of us. “Really?”

I took down the tin we kept the biscuits in, but there was nothing in it but a handful of crumbs. I couldn’t have done a shop.

“Then maybe next summer we can all go to her parents’ cottage in Suffolk for a week. All on our own,” Shanee went on. “Won’t that be brilliant?”

I could tell that when she said “we” she wasn’t including me. Which was fine. I wouldn’t be able to go anyway. Even if Les didn’t mind – since by then we’d have our own flat and be together – I wasn’t going to be the kind of mother who went off with her friends the way Hilary used to go off with Charley whenever she liked.

I put the mugs on the table. “I think I’m going to teach Shinola to swim in the summer,” I told Shanee. “The baby book says infants can learn to swim painlessly.”

I couldn’t really swim myself. But I liked wearing swimsuits. I wouldn’t mind sitting by the edge of the pool, watching Shinola amaze everybody by being able to swim before she could walk.

“I’ve heard—” Shanee began. But as soon as I sat down Shinola started whingeing and she broke off. “I think she wants her mum,” Shanee finished.

She blew on her tea while I struggled with Shinola. “Anyway, we might even go to France for a day, as well. If they get a car that can go that far.”

Shinola was wide awake by now. I tucked her against my hip so I could more or less hold her steady.

Shanee fished something out of her mug.

“So, what’ve you been up to?” she asked. “I thought you were going to ask me to mind Shinola when you wanted to go out.”

“I don’t really feel like going out,” I lied. I did feel like going out, and Les asked me to go bowling and stuff like that, but he never gave me enough notice to ask Shanee. Not that I was going to admit that to Shanee. She was always probing about Les, as if she didn’t like him or something. Which was really stupid, since she’d never met him. “My domestic side is taking over.” I fished something out of my mug. “Les says he can’t believe I’m pretty
and
a mother type.”

Shanee smiled. “We’re all going ice-skating on Saturday if you want to come.”

I gave her a look. “With Shinola?”

Shanee shrugged. “I thought maybe Les could look after her for a couple of hours. Give you a break.”

“I don’t need a break,” I said quickly. “I’ve never been happier.” I bounced Shinola on my knee. “As far as I’m concerned, this is what life is all about. Anyway, Saturday’s no good for Les. He’s really busy at weekends.”

Shanee stopped staring into her tea to see what else was in there and stared at me.

“Well, what about Saturday night?” she pushed. “Gerri’s parents are away for the weekend and she’s having a party. Shinola could sleep in one of the bedrooms.”

The thought of being at a party
with
Shinola was even worse than the thought of being at a party
without
Les.

“What about New Year? My mum and her new bloke are taking the brats to Wales straight after Christmas and I’m allowed to have some friends over.”

I laughed. “
Your
mother has a bloke?”

I’d never seen Shanee’s mother with her hair combed, never mind make-up. Who’d be interested in
her
?

Shanee grinned. “It’s wild, isn’t it? But you know what the best part is? Derek’s a dentist. Can you believe it? They met in an Oxfam shop. They were both after the same jacket.”

I couldn’t believe that a dentist would fall for a woman with four kids whose idea of getting dressed up was to wear a flannel shirt over her T-shirt and jeans.

I sighed. “Christ… Things don’t always turn out like you think they will, do they?”