13

6 November

The kids were at their dad’s, so Lisa went to bed early. She had to think what she should do next. She rubbed her stomach so that the poor little thing felt OK. She didn’t want the baby to have any idea of the trouble that would be coming with it. Lisa was a single mum of three kids – what did one more matter? But it did matter. Lisa didn’t want to do this on her own. She wanted her baby to have the best in life and, she thought, maybe Mark was that.

Why hadn’t she thought that last week? The timing would have been so much more handy!

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinng! The doorbell woke her up. Confused, Lisa pushed through the fog of sleep. She went downstairs to answer it. It was probably Kerry. Maybe she’d forgotten an eyeliner or something.

It was Mark.

Mark stood on the doorstep. Suddenly he seemed taller and broader than ever. Lisa stared at him. Somewhere deep in her mind and her heart she admitted something to herself. Mark looked safe. He looked like someone she could trust. He also looked quite sexy. Well, OK, very sexy. It was probably her hormones. But maybe not. He looked safe and sexy. How had Lisa let him slip through her fingers?

Had she? Why was he here now? Surely he’d come to make up. Or maybe he’d just come to collect his toothbrush. No, that was unlikely. He could buy another toothbrush. Lisa didn’t know what to think.

‘Gill called me,’ he said.

‘Of course she did. Rent a gob,’ Lisa said. But really she was happy that her friend had made the call she had wanted to make, but hadn’t dared to.

‘Were you going to call me?’ Mark asked.

‘Eventually.’ Lisa could not look at him. She looked at her feet.

‘When? On our child’s eighteenth birthday?’ He sounded cross. Lisa felt nervous. This sounded like he was just here for his toothbrush, not to get back together.

‘I’d have told you before then. Come in, we can’t talk about this on the doorstep,’ said Lisa.

Mark followed her into the house, but he stood in the hall. He looked out of place and that was a shame. Normally he looked so relaxed in her home that you’d have thought it was their home.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ said Lisa.

He followed her through to the kitchen. It was a total mess, worse than usual. Lisa had lost all interest in tidying the house since she’d lost Mark. She hadn’t made the connection until he was standing there. Now she wished that just once in the last week she’d flung a bit of Fairy Liquid at the odd teacup. She was ashamed of the mess. As if she didn’t have enough to be ashamed of already! She put the kettle on and started to clear the pots.

‘Leave that,’ said Mark.

‘I’m just making space for us to sit down.’

Lisa moved plates, cups, newspapers, magazines, a loaf of bread and the ketchup. That was just from one chair! Mark still didn’t sit down. It was as though he was making a point. He didn’t live here any more. He never had, officially. But they’d all thought of him as one of the family. Lisa hadn’t realized it until she’d lost him, or pushed him away. It depended how you wanted to look at it.

‘How are you feeling?’ Mark asked.

‘Pretty sick. But that will probably only last a couple more weeks.’ Lisa answered the question knowing Mark was talking about the baby. She also knew that the sickness would last a lifetime if he didn’t come back to her. But Lisa didn’t add that. It sounded a bit keen.

Mark asked the questions everyone asked. Had she done the test? How many weeks pregnant was she? Was she eating well? He asked all the questions with a serious face. But then he asked a new one.

‘Do you wish this baby was Keith’s?’

‘What?!’ Lisa nearly dropped her teacup. ‘God, no… yuk, yuk!’ She could not imagine the idea of her and Keith doing the necessary to make a baby, not any more. She’d done it for years – obviously. But now the idea was alien to her. Lisa pulled a face, as though she was trying to spit out a funny taste.

Mark looked amused.

‘OK, OK, I believe you. So why do you hate the fact you are having a baby with me?’ he asked.

‘I don’t! Why do you think that?’ asked Lisa. She was surprised.

‘Well, for weeks you couldn’t even face the idea. When you did finally do the test you kept the result a secret from me. Lisa, you are always pushing me away. You won’t even call me your boyfriend. After a year! You forget to invite me to family parties until the last minute. You even picked a night class to make the point that you didn’t need my help around the house.’

Suddenly Lisa saw things differently. She saw them how Mark saw them. Oh God, she felt terrible. She’d been terrible.

‘No, no, it wasn’t like that!’ said Lisa. ‘I didn’t know what to call you. I was worried boyfriend was a bit… young.’ She wanted to add that she’d have happily called him husband. But again it seemed a bit pushy! ‘And I picked a DIY course because I thought you wanted to leave me! I was trying to make that easy for you.’

‘You wanted to make it easy for me to leave?’ Mark looked confused.

‘Well, yes, if you wanted to go,’ said Lisa. It sounded silly now. But at the time it had seemed logical!

‘But why would I want to go?’ asked Mark.

‘I don’t know.’ Lisa stopped. She took a deep breath and then said, ‘Keith did.’ There! Lisa had spat out her fear at last.

Mark could have reacted in one of two ways. He might have shouted that he was not Keith. That he was sick of being punished for Keith’s crimes. Or he might just pull her into his arms and tell her not to be a daft cow – which is what he did. But he said ‘daft cow’ in a nice way so she knew everything was all right. After all, he was male and not able to make long romantic speeches. But Mark was grinning from one ear to the other.

Since he took that so well, Lisa carried on. ‘I didn’t want you to feel trapped. Everyone has been going on about how old I am. You’re younger. I didn’t want to make you feel you were stuck with us all. We come as a package deal. Me and the three kids.’

‘Four kids now,’ said Mark. But he didn’t look worried.

They moved through to the front room. They cuddled up on the sofa. Mark put on the TV. He’d clearly done enough talking for one night – probably enough for a lifetime.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t call you straight away,’ said Lisa. ‘I should have.’

‘Yeah, you should have,’ said Mark, and he smiled. ‘You know I’m good at fixing stuff.’

The feelings of fear and loneliness began to fade. It seemed that Lisa had got it wrong again. She’d thought Keith was for life but she was wrong about that. Then she’d thought Mark was a stopgap or the rebound. But maybe she was wrong about that too.

‘What do we do next?’ asked Lisa.

‘There’s plenty of time to think about names,’ said Mark. ‘Put your feet up. I’ll make you beans on toast with Cheddar melted on the top, your favourite. There’s plenty of protein in that. It’s good for the baby.’