And Baby Makes Two (19 page)

I let them talk. It was like having a shower in words. They all ran off me and disappeared.

I nodded and smiled, but I wasn’t really listening to any of them. I was listening to the songs in my head.

It was true what everybody always said about things being darkest before the dawn. Here I’d been feeling down and lonely, and all the time every problem I had was about to be solved. The flat was mine! My very own! Now Les could move in and we could live happily ever after.

Nan held up her glass. “A toast!” she cried. “To the best of New Years.”

One song separated itself from all the others and kicked into stereophonic. “Just blahblah and me … and baby makes three… We’re happy in … my … blue … hea-vennn…”

I raised my glass. “To the best of New Years!”

Happy New Year to Us

I was almost tempted to go home with Hilary and Charley and stay with them till after Boxing Day. They wanted me to. Well, they wanted Shinola to. Even Charley. They couldn’t leave her alone. Here I was trying to teach her not to expect to be picked up every time she cried, and there they were, practically arm-wrestling over which one was going to hold her. But I had too much to do to waste time with them. I was full of plans and energy again. Hilary and Charley were coming to move the rest of her stuff in the week, but I said I’d start packing things up before then. I couldn’t wait to get started. The sooner she was really out, the sooner I was really in and my life could finally begin properly.

And, of course, there was Les to tell. He’d probably ring on Boxing Day to wish me a Merry Christmas, after his mother had calmed down from the excitement of having him home for a week. I was going to be there when he did.

I spent Boxing Day waiting for Les’s call, but it never came. I reckoned his mother must have dragged him off to relatives, so he never had a chance. The first thing the next morning I tied Hilary’s books in bundles and put everything that wasn’t breakable into black bin liners. I got so involved in packing that I didn’t realize Les hadn’t rung till ten o’clock that night, when I finally collapsed. I was lying there, surrounded by all the garbage Hilary Spiggs had collected over the years, imagining the flat the way it was going to be. The walls and the furniture were white. There was a set of those stackable glass and chrome tables beside the leather sofa. The coffee table was big and round and also made of glass and chrome. The lights had frosted glass shades and pointed at the ceiling. Les was in our blue and yellow kitchen, making us a nightcap. He sat beside me and handed me my glass. He kissed my cheek. He raised his glass. “Merry Christmas, baby,” he whispered. “And a Happy New Year.” That was when I realized that he hadn’t rung. I was almost too tired to care.

“He’ll ring,” I told myself as I pulled my new quilt around me. “Probably when Hilary and Charley are here.”

I pushed Les out of my mind. I knew what his mother was like. She was a clinger. Plus, she’d have about a million things for him to do in her house when he was there. Plus, he had a couple of aunts and uncles to see. He was probably too busy to get to a phone. Since he couldn’t use hers ’cause her income was fixed.

But I was busy, too.

Hilary and Charley came two days after Boxing Day.

“Well, you’ve certainly been busy,” said Hilary, looking round. “I hope you don’t dance on my grave as fast as this.”

Even though I’d packed up tons of her junk, it took the three of us the whole day to finish sorting all her stuff and loading the van.

Then I threw myself into cleaning the flat with every bit of energy I had left. I worked like a woman possessed, dusting, hoovering, mopping and hauling furniture. By the time I was done, I had blisters on my hands, two splinters and a cut on my forehead from walking into a shelf.

I’d literally just put the hoover away when the doorbell rang.

Tomorrow was New Year’s Eve. Which meant it couldn’t be Shanee. Shanee’d be running around getting ready for her party.

It had to be Les. That was why he hadn’t rung, because he was going to surprise me by turning up for New Year’s Eve.

I practically tripped over myself to get to the door before he could ring again and wake Shinola.

Shanee was standing on the doorstep with her arms full of shopping.

“Don’t look so happy to see me,” said Shanee. “I can’t stay for long.”

It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy to see her. It was just that I’d been about to fling myself into her arms. I put a smile on my face and waved her inside.

“Come on!” I cried. “You’re the first visitor to our new flat.”

Shanee waggled her eyebrows. “And to think I didn’t even know you’d moved. It’s been longer than I thought.”

“Wait till you hear what happened,” I said as I led her inside.

Shanee got as far as the living-room and stopped dead.

“Geez,” said Shanee. “It looks like you’ve been robbed.”

“Hilary’s moved out for good,” I told her. “The flat’s officially mine!”

Shanee’s eyes moved from one corner to the next. “What’s left of it,” said Shanee.

“Oh, please… It’s not done yet, is it? Wait till I paint it all. It’ll look really brilliant. And once I save some money I’m going to go really modern.” Hilary was too cheap to even buy a toaster, but I was going to have an all-electric kitchen. “You know, with those hobs that don’t look like hobs, and an electric kettle, an electric coffee-maker and an electric toaster. And a microwave, of course.”

Shanee kept nodding and looking around.

“Everything will be colour co-ordinated eventually.”

Shanee gave me a look. “So does this mean that Les will be moving in?”

“Of course,” I said. “It’s what we’ve been waiting for.”

“Well, that’s really great.” Shanee let go of her carrier bags and gave me a hug. “Then he’ll be coming with you tomorrow night.”

“’Fraid not. He’s been held up at his mum’s.”

Shanee was looking at me the same way she’d looked at me when the socks fell out of Shinola’s blanket.

“But you’re still coming, aren’t you?” she asked. “You have to come.”

“I know… I have to meet Guy.”

Shanee waved Guy away with one hand. “Not any more. Now you have to meet Andy.” She laughed. “I met him on Christmas Eve at Edna Husser’s. He’s a friend of her brother’s.”

I had to laugh, too. “You’ve changed a bit. You never used to go out with blokes at all and now you’re running through men like they’re traffic lights.”

“You know what they say,” said Shanee.

“Make hay while the sun shines?” I guessed. It was one of my nan’s.

“No,” said Shanee. “You’re only young once.”

I spent most of New Year’s Eve day debating whether to go to Shanee’s party or not. Should I? Shouldn’t I? Should I? Shouldn’t I? At about nine o’clock, when everyone on the telly was gearing up for the big hour, I decided that I should. Madonna would have.

But the minute Shanee opened the door I knew that I’d made a mistake.

“Lana!” she shrieked. “I can’t believe it! You actually came.”

Already I didn’t know why I had. One minute I was sitting there on my own in my new, empty flat with nothing to do, listening to the echoes, seeing Les in his yellow shirt dancing like John Travolta. And the next I was getting me and Shinola into our velvet dresses.

“I didn’t realize it was casual,” I mumbled. From what I could see, lots of the girls were in jeans or leggings with see-through or sequinned tops. And almost all of them were wearing black or grey, or some combination of black and grey. Red was obviously not the in-colour this season.

“You look beautiful,” Shanee assured me. “Very
mature
.”

I took this to mean “old”.

Shanee was wearing a dress for a change, but it didn’t have a lace collar and cuffs. It didn’t have any collar or cuffs. It was long and gauzy and in layers. The top layer was black but underneath it was purple and, underneath that, red. It was very sexy in a quiet sort of way. I’d never seen Shanee look sexy before. It was a bit of a shock.

“You look pretty mature, too,” I said.

Shanee grabbed my arm. “Come on, let’s put Shinola in my room, then I’ll introduce you to everyone.”

“Right,” I said. “Brilliant.”

I followed her through the mob. A couple of people looked at me as if I was carrying an orangutan and not a human baby, but mostly nobody seemed to see me. Nobody waved hello or anything. I recognized a few faces, but not as many as you’d think.

“You’ve certainly made a lot of new friends since I left school,” I joked.

“Yeah,” said Shanee. “I suppose I have. There’s so much going on.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I know.” There was a lot going on in my life, too, only it all seemed to be going in a circle.

Shanee giggled. “Who ever thought growing up would be so much fun?”

“Not me,” I said.

Shinola, of course, was not about to go to sleep just because I wanted her to. She was in play mode.

“I have to get back to the party,” said Shanee. She made a face. “The responsibilities of the hostess. Come and get me when she’s asleep.”

“Sure,” I said. “If I can still recognize you by then.”

I sat on Shanee’s bed while I waited for Shinola to nod off. A boy and a girl I didn’t know poked their heads in once, looking for the snogging room, but other than that we were on our own.

Being in Shanee’s room was like going back in time. She still had every photo we’d ever taken of ourselves stuck around her mirror. And she still had the picture of us with her mum and the kids standing in the rain at Thorpe Park. And the traffic cone we found in the road. And her James Dean poster on the wall. I thought about how many hours of my life I’d spent looking at that poster while me and Shanee talked. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. I could actually
see
us sitting there. We were eating biscuits and spraying crumbs everywhere when we laughed.

Shanee was in a clinch in the kitchen when I finally found her.

She didn’t even look embarrassed.

“Lana,” she gushed. “This is Andy. Andy, this is Lana.”

Andy was possibly the most gorgeous bloke I’d ever seen in real life. He wasn’t my type – he had a long ponytail and a nose-ring – but he was incredible to look at. Like a film star. Like Johnny Depp. He had to be at least twenty.

Andy said, “How’s it goin’, Lana?” And ran one hand down Shanee’s side.

“I’ll be right out,” Shanee promised. She kind of bumped her hip into Andy’s hip. “I came in for more food. Amie and Gerri are out there. Ask them to introduce you to anyone you don’t know.”

“OK,” I said. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

I couldn’t get Amie’s attention. She was laughing her head off with two boys I didn’t know. They didn’t go to our school, that was for sure.

I couldn’t get Gerri’s attention either. She was in the snogging room.

I wandered round, picking at the snacks and smiling as if I was having a good time. I got a beer and tried to mingle. I stood on the edge of a group of people and listened with a smile on my face. But they were all talking about people and things that had nothing to do with me. I got another beer. The beer made me feel a little better. I stood myself in a corner and kind of swayed to the music, like I was waiting for someone to ask me to dance.

And then I spotted Gary Lightfoot over by the drinks table. He used to be in my form. He’d always been a bit gawky and stupid, but he was a friendly face, so I gave him a smile. It was like waving a red flag at a bull. He was beside me so fast I bumped into the wall.

“Lana,” said Gary. “Long time no see. How’s it goin’?”

I said it was going great. How about him?

“Brilliant,” said Gary. “So everything’s all right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Everything’s great.”

He was smiling at me like he was posing for a photograph.

“So,” Gary cleared his throat. “Did you have the kid?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I had the kid.” I nodded towards the hall. “She’s sleeping in Shanee’s room.”

“Brilliant.” Gary nodded. “So what’s its name?”

“She’s a girl,” I said. “Her name’s Shinola.”

Gary’s smile started to quiver.

“You what?”

“Shinola. It means beauti—”

“Shinola?” Gary’s smile was all over the place. “You mean like the shoe polish?”

“Shoe polish?” I wasn’t smiling at all. “What are you on about, shoe polish?”

“Shinola,” said Gary. “It’s a shoe polish.”

“No, it isn’t.” Not only was I not smiling, I was hardly moving my lips. “It means beautiful morning. In African.”

Gary gave up trying not to laugh. “No, it doesn’t. It means shoe polish in American.”

I was still trying to explain that it meant beautiful morning or something like that in
some
language when he suddenly grabbed a nearby boy and dragged him into the conversation.

“Jake,” said Gary. “Isn’t Shinola an American shoe polish?”

Jake grinned. “Can’t tell shit from Shinola,” said Jake.

Gary started cracking up but I just stood there, looking blank.

“It’s a saying. It means you’re really stupid,” Jake explained. “So stupid you can’t tell shit from Shinola.”

“I suppose that means it’s brown,” I said.

Gary spluttered. “Is your baby brown?”

“No,” I said. “Not last time I looked.”

*  *  *

I didn’t feel much like partying after that. I watched Gary and Jake stagger off, still laughing. It’d take them about two minutes to make sure that everybody knew I’d named my baby after a shoe polish that looks like shit. I got Shinola and went home.

I walked through my front door just in time to hear Les say, “Well, Happy New Year! See you soon!” And then the answering machine started to whirr.

I couldn’t believe it! I’d been at home practically every minute since Christmas Day and the one time I leave the house he rings! I stood there holding Shinola, staring down at the answering machine. A couple of tears slid down my cheek. But then desperation inspired me and I did something I’d never even thought of doing before. I picked up the phone and dialled one-four-seven-one.

It went so fast I wasn’t sure I got the number right. I hung up, got a pen and a piece of paper, and dialled it again.