And Baby Makes Two

from cover to cover, dozens of times. I picked out the pots and pans and bath towels Les and I would have. I picked out the furniture and the curtains. I imagined having people round and them admiring what we’d done with the flat.

“Lana did it all,” Les would say proudly. “She’s the perfect wife.”

I was happy.

I was finally a woman; why shouldn’t I be happy?

Not that everything was all rosy, cosy. My nan always said there were flies in every ointment, and there were definitely flies in the ointment of my love.

The biggest flies were my mother and her boyfriend. Hilary and Charley always had a big fight before Christmas, when they broke up once and for all. They’d been together for six years, and for six years they’d been breaking up forever at Christmas.

“This is it!” she’d shriek. “I never want to see him again!”

And she’d take all the presents he’d given her (except things like the telly and the stereo, of course) and put them in a box and leave it in the hall for him to collect. He never bothered. They usually made up in time to go out for New Year’s Eve.

This year was just like the ones before. On the tenth of December (a little earlier than usual) my mother announced that she and Charley had broken up for good, and asked if I wanted to go to the cinema with her that night.

The row between my mum and Charley really messed up my new love life. Since Hilary hardly ever went out unless she dragged me with her, Les couldn’t drop round any more. And I couldn’t come and go as I pleased, either – not without making up some place to be going and someone who wasn’t Les to go there with. Without Charley to occupy her, she watched me like a hawk.

I was just getting used to all that when Christmas itself came. Les was going up to Norwich for a week to see his mother. He took me to his house for the first time the night before he went away. There was no one else at home, since they’d all gone away for the holidays. At least we’d have a chance to do it again.

Les’s house looked like all the other houses on the road, comfortable family houses, a bit on the posh side. There weren’t any council flats on Les’s street.

Inside, though, it was different because there wasn’t even a living-room, just five bedrooms and a kitchen. The only room I saw beside Les’s was the kitchen. It was incredibly tidy for five guys living alone, but Les was a very tidy person. Even when he made us tea, he washed the spoon and put it in the drainer before we took our cups upstairs.

Les’s room was the smallest. It had a telly and a mattress on the floor and a computer.

“Well?” asked Les. “What do you think?”

It was tidy and everything, but it was kind of bare. I could see it needed a woman’s touch.

“It’s nice,” I said. “But it could do with a couple of pictures. You know, to make it look more cosy.”

He grinned at me affectionately. “I’d never have thought of that.”

I gave Les a really gorgeous jumper from Covent Garden. He reminded me of Kevin Costner in it. It cost so much I had to give everybody else chocolates.

Les gave me a gold charm bracelet from Argos. It had one charm, a tiny hamburger, plated in gold.

“It reminded me of you,” said Les. “Do you like it?”

It wasn’t a gold heart, but I definitely liked it.

“I love it!” I cried. “It’s the best present I’ve ever had.” I hugged him hard.

But that was the only thing that did get hard that night.

We rolled around on his single mattress, banging our knees against the wall and whacking each other with elbows, but nothing happened except we knocked over the teas.

Les apologized. He said it was because he lived with so many other people. It made him selfconscious. Even though they were away he was expecting one of them to burst into the room at any minute. That’s what his flatmates were like.

I took it in my stride. This sort of thing was always happening on TV.

“It’s OK,” I assured him. “It happens to everyone.”

“You’re wonderful,” said Les. He kissed my forehead. “And very mature for eighteen.”

Maybe I wouldn’t’ve been so mature if I’d known it was going to be our last chance to be together for weeks and weeks.

I’d always liked Christmas, especially when I was little, but that year it was a drag. Everybody went to Charlene’s, as per usual, since she had the kids. And, also as per usual, Nan ended up doing most of the cooking while her daughter and grand-daughters (with one glaring exception, of course) all got sloshed. Every year Dara made us sit through the entire Phil Spector Christmas album at least a dozen times, and every year everyone begged her not to. Hilary spent about eight hours in the kitchen, crying about Charley. Every time I opened the door because I’d been sent to get something she was saying the same thing. “This is really it … this time there won’t be a next time…” and slobbering into her wine. Only she was always saying it to someone different – Charlene, Dara, Charlene’s boyfriend, Justin, Dara’s boyfriend, Mick, Nan, even Drew and Courtney, Charlene’s kids… Once, I actually caught her telling the fridge. Charlene’s boyfriend and Dara’s boyfriend got into a fight about football. Charlene and Dara got into a fight over whether or not Charlene’s children watched too much telly. Charlene’s kids were always fighting. I tried to ignore them all by pretending that I wasn’t really there.

I pretended I was at home with Les. He’d left his mum’s straight after dinner to surprise me. I’d come home on my own from Charlene’s and there he was, waiting for me. He’d bought an artificial silver tree and decorated it with red balls and tiny green lights that looked like wreaths, just like the one I saw in Paperchase. There were about a million presents under it, and they were all wrapped in shiny paper, not the cheap stuff Hilary bought in the market, ten rolls for a quid, and half of them said Happy Birthday or For Your Wedding Anniversary. These were really beautiful and elegant, and they were all tied with real satin ribbons not those plasticky stick-on bows favoured by doctors’ receptionists. Me and Les sipped champagne while we opened our presents. Les was just trying on one of the presents I’d given him – a silk Armani jacket – when I realized that my nan was shouting at me. It was hard to hear her because the telly and the stereo were blaring, and, besides everybody talking and the kids shrieking, Charlene and Hilary were arguing now.

I blinked. “What?”

Nan knocked back her sherry.

“You’re very quiet today. You coming down with something?”

If only I was. Then maybe someone would drive me home and I really would find that Les had left his mother and was waiting for me. At least I’d have some peace and quiet so I could think about him.

“It’s because I’m practically an adult,” I informed her. “Your daughter doesn’t realize it, but I’m not a child any more.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said my nan. “Then you can be in charge of the washing-up.”

Not only did Les not come home early, but he got sick the day after Boxing Day and couldn’t come home at all.

“You’re joking,” I said. “What have you got, the plague?”

“Flu,” croaked Les. “The doctor says it could take a couple of weeks. Maybe more.”

“God…” For me, two or three weeks without Les was like two or three weeks without water. Plus, I’d read of people dying from the flu. “Maybe you should come back to London. I could come over and nurse you.”

Les sighed with pain and fever. His voice was low and strained.

“My mother wouldn’t hear of it,” he said. “Besides, I’ve got the car. There’s no way I could drive.”

I asked him for his mother’s number, so I could ring him when she was out.

“She won’t let me out of bed to talk on the phone,” said Les. “I’m only ringing now because she’s gone into town. And if she knew I was making a long-distance call on her phone… She’s on a fixed income, you know. She counts every penny.”

“Well, give me the address then.” I’d write to him every day. Letters and postcards. Little presents to cheer him up.