be no use whinging to Mum when I get there either. She didn’t manage to hold our family together – raising me, making ends meet and looking after Dad while working her cleaning jobs – by being soft. She’ll only be her usual sensible self and tell me that I’m overreacting. It’s not like Daniel is out every night or comes home pissed. You heard him. It’s a once-a-week thing at most. And the world won’t end because he didn’t fold our pants. I’m just overtired. Looking after the children is a lot harder than I imagined.
Says every parent in the world. Still, I wouldn’t trade them for anything. Well, maybe I would, just for half an hour so I could have a bath without an audience. I’d want them back, though, as soon as I was towelled off.
‘Good morning!’ I call into Mum and Dad’s house as I let myself in with my key. ‘You have a special delivery: two toddlers, fairly clean and ready to play!’
They’re all in their usual spots in the lounge – Mum and Auntie Rose on the settees and Dad in his old reading chair that Mum has tried to get rid of for years.
Dad’s face creases into a broad smile when he sees his grandchildren. ‘Come ’ere, me loves!’
It’s hard to unbuckle them with all the wriggling. They’re in Dad’s lap as fast as their little legs will carry them across the lounge floor. ‘There’s me angels,’ he murmurs as he kisses the tops of their heads.
‘Hah, you should have seen them at breakfast.’
‘They’re angels to me.’
He means it too. I don’t know what happened to the strict father I had to deal with growing up. He’s turned into a giant marshmallow of a man. ‘How come you never spoiled me like that?’
‘I would have if you’d smelled like biscuits,’ he says.
‘That’s not what they smelled like an hour ago.’
You’d have thought Mum and Dad had won the lottery when I asked if they’d look after the twins for a few hours a day till I can get the café ready to open. Mum had the whole house baby-proofed, including Dad. She saw her chance with his chair, reciting a litany of childhood diseases that might lurk in its nubbly striped fabric. But Dad offered to get it cleaned and she hasn’t thought up a way around that. If she ever does manage to get rid of it, I just know Dad’s going to go too.
He glances up. ‘How are you, love?’
‘Okay. Just tired, Dad.’
‘She’s burning the candle at both ends,’ Auntie Rose says. ‘It’s too much, if you ask me. Not that anybody ever does.’
Auntie Rose likes to say that, but she knows how important she is in our family. We joke that that’s why we keep her under lock and key. It’s not really the reason. It’s just nice to have a laugh about it with her. Otherwise it’s a bit sad. ‘You’re right, Auntie Rose, but I can’t stop now. Besides, it’s not for much longer. Mum and I are stripping the tables and chairs today. We’re nearly there.’
‘You’ll be just as busy after the café opens, you know,’ Mum reminds me as she goes to tidy up around Dad’s chair. She never sits still for long. ‘You keep talking like it’s all going to calm down suddenly. I just hope it’s not too much.’
Of course it’s too much, but Mum knows what it means to me to open this café. I didn’t spend five years getting my degree not to use it just because my uterus decided it suddenly wanted to play host to a couple of embryos. There’s a lot at stake. Not least of which is the wodge of my in-laws’ money that’s going into the business.
Being as rich as they are, they invest in all sorts of things, though Daniel doesn’t like to rely on them. We didn’t even accept help from them for our wedding. But that’s another story.
When they offered to loan me the money for the café officially, there was a lot of discussion about it before Daniel and I agreed. I thought it would be better to borrow money from family instead of an impersonal bank. Now I’m not so sure.
They’re not putting pressure on me or anything. I’d feel better if they did. But every time I promise to pay them back, Philippa waves me away with a cheerful ‘Don’t worry about that’, like they’ve already kissed their investment goodbye. Sometimes I think I should have risked the bad credit rating with the bank manager. At least I wouldn’t have to spend every holiday at his house worrying that he thinks I’ll never come good on the business.
I know I can do this. I’ll have to, won’t I? A year ago I wouldn’t have thought I could handle having twins and look at me now. Frazzled, exhausted and barely managing, but I haven’t screwed them up too badly yet.
When we hear the knock at the door, Auntie Rose says, ‘That’ll be Doreen.’
Mum opens it with the key from around her neck. I wasn’t kidding about the lockdown around here.
‘Where are the babies?!’ Doreen exclaims, not waiting for an invitation inside. ‘’Ere, for elevenses.’ She hands Mum a carrier bag full of biscuits. ‘They were on special, two-for-one. Ha, like these two!’
Doreen is one of Auntie Rose’s lifelong best friends. She smokes like a wet log fire and there are questions over exactly what happened when her husband disappeared back in the eighties, but beneath her over-tanned cleavage and lumpy wrap dresses there beats the heart of an angel. Just don’t cross her or try cheating at cribbage.
There used to be four of them, till my gran died eight or nine years ago. She was Auntie Rose’s sister. Now it’s Auntie Rose, Doreen and June, whose husband hasn’t disappeared, so she mostly does her visiting with everyone in the evenings at the pub.
Both twins scramble off Dad’s lap to see what Doreen’s got to offer. Oscar doesn’t come empty-handed, though. Shyly, he holds his stuffed duck out for Doreen’s inspection.
‘He’s just like you, Emma,’ Auntie Rose says.
‘Not Grace too?’ I say, though I’m just fishing for compliments. Greedy me, wanting credit for all the best traits of my children. But Grace has Daniel’s outgoing nature.
‘Nah, she’s a tearaway like your mother. It skipped a generation.’
Mum ignores my questioning smile. I love when Auntie Rose lets slip about Mum’s younger days. When I was a child it gave me useful ammunition against her rules. Now I’m just curious to know more about my parents.
Auntie Rose gathers Grace up onto her ample lap while Doreen settles next to her with Oscar, and Dad tries not to look too jealous that they’ve got his grandchildren. ‘Off you go now,’ Auntie Rose says to Mum and me. ‘That café ain’t opening itself. We’ll look after the wee ones.’
‘Okay, but we’ll be back at lunchtime,’ I say as Mum hands me a bag full of paint stripper and brushes. ‘I’ve got my phone if you need me. Mum does too.’
Mum manages to get me into the car after I kiss my babies about a hundred times and remind everyone about the nappies, bottles, extra clothes, extra nappies and the bottles again.
‘It’s only for a few hours, Emma,’ Mum reminds me on the short drive back to Carlton Square.
‘You were probably just as bad when
