Why the fuck had he said that?
Oh, God, she was back now, padding towards the bed, naked except for a pair of lacy, black knickers that had largely disappeared up her behind and clutching her massive, Christ, GIGANTIC breasts. Fraser sat up, pulled the duvet right up to his chin and arranged himself in the most asexual, un-come-to-bed position he could muster. But she got in anyway, so he moved right up against the wall.
‘So,’ he said, brightly. ‘Coffee?’
Brilliant. There was no better feeling, decided Mia, ten minutes later, than sitting down with a half of Carling and a baby still asleep – even if it was minus five and blowing a gale. This is how she got through the week, these days, by finding the odd little pocket of time to herself and guarding it with her life. At least there was that about being a single mother – you really got to appreciate your own time. What on earth had she done with it all before she had a baby? Work and drink she imagined. And lots of face-packs.
Sometimes, Mia dreamt of her old life, before she’d moved in with Eduardo in Acton – not one of her better ideas – and Liv had moved in with Fraser to start her new teaching job in Camden, when she, Liv and Anna had shared a flat in Clapham and she was working all hours God sent for Primal Films as an art department assistant.
She’d wake up when it was still dark, thinking she was back in her old bedroom on the Ikea futon and that she had ten minutes to chuck on some clothes before jumping in the car and driving through the silent city to Shepperton Studios for another thirteen-hour day. She’d loved those days. She loved the exhaustion she’d felt, an excited kind of exhaustion, totally different to the tiredness that comes with motherhood.
Barely conscious, she’d then imagine the noise she could hear was Liv and Anna making a racket downstairs in their gloomy Victorian kitchen with the huge table all six of them had spent so many hours drinking at. Then she’d come to, realize it was Billy crying and that it was just the two of them, alone in their boxy new-build flat in Lancaster with its woodchip and ubiquitous laminate.
Still, things had improved lately. Yes, definitely, things had improved. She still wondered occasionally if her son didn’t rate her that much, or wasn’t that impressed with the whole set-up, really, what with it being just the two of them in a poky flat and a dad who only turned up when he felt like it.
She still didn’t really know how to talk to him and found herself stuck for words when it was just him and her. She marvelled at mothers who seemed to be able to coochie-coo so naturally in public, whereas she just felt like a dick a lot of the time. Then Billy would get that look of wounded entitlement on his face as if to say, ‘Seriously, is this all you’ve got?’ And she’d wonder if she was really cut out for this motherhood thing at all.
But at least the panic had gone. She didn’t worry about him dying every night any more, which was something, and now Melody and Norm had moved back up North to Lancaster, they sometimes offered to help, which was really sweet, even if Melody drove her mad by suggesting single motherhood was somehow ‘romantic’, that Mia was like J. K. Rowling, writing an award-winning film script in a freezing cold flat she couldn’t afford to heat, when in reality she wasn’t writing anything at all, was reading OK! magazine and tucking into the wine in a flat she couldn’t afford to heat and feeling thoroughly guilty that her brain was probably half dead by now.
Mia put her hood up, took a sip of her lager and took her mobile out of her pocket so she could text Fraser to see if he was still on track for tonight, and check he was surviving the day so far. When she looked at her phone, however, there was a text from Anna:
was at a party in Kidderminster last night so there’s a SMALL chance I might be late but WILL BE THERE I promise. Start without me.
Spanner x
Mia rolled her eyes; she knew ‘a SMALL chance’ translated as ‘am still in Kidderminster and will be two hours late’, and composed her message to Fraser, wondering whether she had time for another rollie.
Then her mobile went. It was Eduardo. Her heart sank. Do not do this to me, she thought. Please, please, do not do this to me. Not tonight. To add insult to injury, him calling had also woken Billy.
She picked up.
‘Hi, Eduardo.’
‘It’s me.’
‘I gathered that.’
She told herself to keep the tone neutral, but it was hard – so very, very hard.
‘What’s going on?’ he said.
Oh, fuck off, she wanted to say. Why did he always have to use that accusatory tone?
‘Nothing’s “going on”.’
‘Why is Billy crying then?’
Because I’m strangling him, what the hell?! He was a baby. Babies cried. He’d know that if he spent any time with one.
‘Where are you?’ said Eduardo, sharply, before she had time to answer.
‘At the pub.’
He snorted.
‘The pub?’
Yes. We’re having a pint – three in fact – and we might follow that with a tequila chaser. She thought better of it. She wasn’t in a position to piss Eduardo off. She needed him, that was the most galling thing of all.
Eduardo sighed, in that martyred way he did. She knew just from that sigh what was coming next.
‘Anyway, look Mimi …’
Mimi? Stop calling me bloody Mimi.
‘… work have just called and—’
‘Er, NO.’ Mia felt the rage rise like bile in her chest. ‘Come on, Eduardo, you are not doing this to me.’
Billy was wailing now, rubbing his eyes. Mia pushed the buggy back and forth.
‘You know how important tonight is, what day it is today, you’ve known for ages.’
Silence.
‘Mia, this is not about choice, is it?’
She hated how he did that. Always put ‘is it?’ on the end of everything, so subtle and yet so successful in making her doubt herself. ‘I need the money. I’m late on my rent, I’m fucking desperate here, I don’t have the luxury—’
Luxury? HA! Don’t fucking talk to me about luxury, thought Mia, you total lying, manipulative bastard, but she stood there, the wind howling, Billy crying now, and she knew it was pointless.
‘Whatever, Eduardo,’ she said. ‘I can’t be arsed any more. Go. You go to work.’
Then she hung up, tears of frustration already running down her face. And what she really wanted to do was to call her best friend, but of course she couldn’t.
Where were those fags? He could have sworn he’d hidden a couple in here. Fraser was now in his freezing
