Free The Importance of Being a Bachelor by Mike Gayle

anecdotes about his time in the navy. It was some time after four as the kids’ batteries began to wear down and people started to make their excuses that Luke and Cassie finally said their goodbyes before heading back out towards the M62. Luke slipped on a compilation CD that he had made specifically for the journey. It was full of stuff he knew they would both love singing along to and was a hit from the first track onwards as they both gave their all in tuneless harmony to every song from ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ to ‘Billie Jean’. Half an hour from the outskirts of Manchester (and directly after Bonnie Tyler) Cassie had turned off the music and they had segued into the kind of light-hearted conversation that was their staple: daft observations about the places they were passing through, jokes about the day they had enjoyed, gentle teasing about each other’s foibles and then, seemingly out of nowhere, Cassie turned to Luke and said: ‘I want us to start a family.’
    ‘You want us to do what?’
    ‘I said I want us to start a family.’ She clarified her position. ‘I don’t mean right now. I mean after we’re married. Very soon after we’re married. I want us to have kids.’
    ‘What brought this on?’
    Cassie didn’t reply and Luke knew the reason. No matter how even his voice, the question had sounded like an accusation. To all intents and purposes it had been. Luke kept his mouth shut, willing the subject to just go away. Maybe she didn’t really mean it. Maybe she was saying the words out loud to hear what they sounded like. He thought how much fun they had been having and how carefree they had been. He wanted that feeling back. He didn’t want it to disappear and be replaced by reality.
    Luke prided himself on the fact that he had been honest with Cassie from the start. If it hadn’t been on their second date then it was definitely by the time of their third that he’d said: ‘I think there’s something you should know about me. I never, ever want to have more children and I’m never going to change my mind about it. I can’t do it. I won’t go through all that again. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh but it’s the way it is.’
    At the time Cassie had said that she understood. She knew all about Jayne and Megan and the hurt that Luke had endured but even so she had listened patiently as Luke had recounted relevant parts of the story. The love he had for his daughter, the hurt that his ex-wife had inflicted, the tears shed every year by his mum around the time of Megan’s birthday. He was firm in his intention. No matter what happened in the future, no matter how deeply they fell in love, he wasn’t going back there. Not now, not ever.
    ‘Why does this feel like I’m letting you down?’ asked Cassie. Her eyes were fixed on the road ahead. ‘Why does this feel like it’s all my fault?’
    Luke didn’t utter the words but his immediate thoughts were there all the same: ‘Probably because you are letting me down,’ came the internal voice. ‘Probably because this is actually all your fault.’
    Time and time again Luke had gone against his deepest instincts for self-preservation in order to revisit the subject and allay his fears that Cassie might have simply been telling him what he wanted to hear. On their six-month anniversary he took her for a weekend in Prague and raised it as they waited to board the flight back home. Her response had been to laugh and tell him that she knew the rules: ‘No babies!’ and then she had kissed him passionately, oblivious of the passengers who surrounded them. Months later when the first of Cassie’s group of friends became pregnant Luke had asked if she was having second thoughts as they stood in Mamas and Papas in the Trafford Centre searching out a set of lilac baby blankets and she had assured him it was nothing of the kind. The last time had been a little under six months ago when Cassie had come to him in tears, clearly suffering from a