Free Hens Reunited by Lucy Diamond Page B

baby Aces.
    She stared straight ahead but she could feel her hands shaking in her lap. ‘I appreciate your honesty,’ she said. She felt very formal all of a sudden, as if she were speaking politely to a stranger. ‘And . . .’ She licked her lips. ‘And I think I need a drink.’
    What was it with blokes and their ‘marriage and children’? That was what Neil had wanted too. He’d got progressively more and more pissed off when Katie’s period arrived each month. Little did he know, though, that she’d been taking the pill non-stop, ever since she met him. She didn’t want a baby – no chance. Hadn’t she always had it drummed in to her from her mum what a burden children were, how they wrecked your life? She was only twenty, after all. She’d rather be back at college than pushing a pram.
    It wasn’t until Neil found the pill packets eleven months into their marriage that things got nasty. He was so angry that she’d deceived him. Furious. ‘Why couldn’t you just say in the first place, rather than lying about it?’ he’d yelled. ‘It’s like there’s a brick wall around you – you won’t let me through.’
    She’d congratulated herself on that brick wall in private later. Brick walls were good, weren’t they? They stopped you getting hurt when your husband went off and had it away with Linda O’Connor.
    ‘Told you so,’ her mum had scoffed, when Katie had told her that she’d left Neil. ‘Didn’t I say he was no good?’
    ‘Yes, Mum,’ Katie had replied. ‘And you were right. If I ever see him again, it’ll be too soon.’
    That Friday night, Katie and Steve had ended up getting royally smashed. Not in a joyous, celebratory kind of way, clinking glasses of bubbly and gazing lovingly into one another’s eyes. It was more of a let’s-get-through-this drinking session, where Katie found herself draining glass after glass of red wine as if it were some kind of medicinal broth that could take away the shock of Steve’s words.
    The subject of marriage and children hadn’t been referred to again, although it hung between them like a toxic cloud, ever-present in the atmosphere. They’d made small talk about work stuff but she hadn’t been able to concentrate on what he was saying. Then they’d had rather unsatisfactory sex in the enormous roll-top bath – not a fancying-each-other burst of passion, more a mercy shag where Katie felt she had to make things up to Steve and clambered on top of him, easing her wet body onto his. A guilt shag. A sorry-I-said-no shag. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking; the bathroom was dimly lit and his face gave nothing away.
    ‘I do love you, you know,’ she whispered when he’d come.
    He wrapped his arms around her, but said nothing. No I-love-you-too. She felt as if they were in a perilous place for a moment, as if he were building up to another marriage-and-children ultimatum, and sighed, sending a small skiff of bubbles sailing onto the black marble floor.
    Where to now? How did they navigate their way through these choppy waters? Was there a way back even, or was it straight on ’til Dumpsville?
    Her thoughts drifted to the house – if he’d want to stay there, or if he’d move out and demand some kind of recompense for all the mortgage contributions he’d made. Would she have to sell up to pay him off? God, she hated the upheaval, the sheer bloody hard work of it, the packing and unpacking, the . . .
    She stopped, sickened by herself. Why was she being so bloody practical, at a time like this? Why was she hard-wired to analyse everything so cold-mindedly, as if emotionally detached from it all? Maybe Neil had been right – maybe she was cold. Lying bitch, he’d called her when he’d found the pills she’d kept secret for so long. He’d thrown it in her face, the foil packet had scraped her cheek. For a split second, she was afraid of him: she actually thought he might belt her one, he seemed so clenched with rage.
    She sat up