Free Mr. Commitment by Mike Gayle

biggest crime in the world, but I’ve got a news flash for you—real people think about the future every day. I’m thinking about my future and your future—our future, to be exact. I’m not talking about having them right now. I’m just talking about them, okay?”
    “What’s it called?” I countered.
    This time she avoided my gaze. She pretended not to know what I was talking about, but it was my turn not to let it lie. “Okay,” she said resignedly, “so I did imagine our baby. That’s not a crime either. We called her Ella. After Ella Fitzgerald.”
    “Ella’s a nice name,” I said. “We’ll have a baby one day. But not yet. And when we do we’ll call it Ella. Okay?”
    “Okay.”
    With this sorted, Mel fell strangely silent, and so I gave her a hug because I think we both saw that this one was a draw, and we made our way to join Charlie and Vernie.
     
    L ater, having lain in the sun all afternoon, using the various sections of Sunday newspaper for nothing other than shading our heads, the four of us walked back through the woods. Vernie and Mel peeled off after a few minutes, hastened by the need to go to the loo, leaving me and Charlie to lag behind and talk about the sort of stuff Mel accused us of not talking about.
    “Mel says that Vernie wants kids.”
    “Oh, yeah, who with?” Charlie laughed. His smile soon evaporated, to be replaced with a kind of philosophical grimace. “Yeah, it’s true.” He shrugged. “She’s been on about it for ages. I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this one.”
    “You never know,” I said encouragingly, “you might have a low sperm count.”
    “I’d be surprised if any of the little fellas could count,” said Charlie feebly. “Although they’re bound to be reasonably intelligent, if their manufacturer is anything to go by.”
    “Mel was asking me about kids too,” I said. “I don’t think she was serious, though. Merely speculating, if you get my meaning. I don’t quite understand why me and her have got to talk about babies just because you and Vernie are in discussions.”
    “Women like doing things in pairs, don’t they?” said Charlie, only half joking. “Going to the loo in nightclubs, supermarket shopping, buying shoes—”
    “No,” I interrupted. “Mel always buys her shoes on her own. Too many opinions cloud her thought processes apparently. That said, she still buys shoes that are half a size too small in the hope that she’ll be able to squeeze into them, but at least they’re always the right color and style.”
    “Well, you get my drift.”
    We stopped and stood out of the way while a jogger holding a tangle of dog leads raced past us down the hill followed by three Highland terriers.
    “Do you think you’ll give in?” I said, once the last of the dogs had passed.
    “I don’t know,” said Charlie. “I mean, it’s not like I don’t want to have kids: a little girl to play footie with, a little boy to hate me when he’s a teenager, but you know . . .” His answer trailed off. I nodded sympathetically. “Thing is, the minute we have kids that’ll be it—everything will change. Nothing will be the same. No more just the two of us. No more throwing a couple of bags into the back of the car and clearing off somewhere for the weekend. No more sitting in the Haversham with you and Dan. No more . . . I don’t know . . . no more fun. It’ll be nappies and feeding times . . . and breast pumps . . . and bright green baby poo . . . and getting up in the middle of the night . . . and baby seats . . . and my mum and dad coming to see us every other weekend . . . and pushchairs . . . and then one day she’ll want another baby because one’s never enough.”
    “I see what you mean,” I said weakly, still somewhat shaken by the thought of bright green baby poo.
    “Do you?” said Charlie skeptically. “Because I’m not sure I do. I think they’re just a big bunch of excuses. I think at the end of the day if