Babyville Page 0,12

had said that his ideal New Year would be to invite the two, or three, couples to whom they were the closest round for dinner and crack open the champagne at midnight.

Julia was horrified. She wanted to throw a party. A huge bash open to all and sundry, to really see in the New Year with a bang. She wasn't going to give way, so Mark had to, and even as he conceded he was rethinking the prospect of togetherness for the rest of their lives.

But he had already planned Barbados. Already planned the holiday. The proposal. Even the ring. Yet sitting on the terrace, watching Julia's face through the flame of the candle, he knew he couldn't do it. He loved her but he wasn't sure. He loved her, but he wasn't sure that love was enough.

He would wait. Not long, but the ring in his pocket would stay in his pocket, and who knows, maybe next year things would be different, maybe even next month things would be different.

Four years on, nothing is different. Mark and Julia have found a way of living in the same house, sharing the same bed, leading ever more separate lives.

As he sits at the breakfast table and reads The Times, the pile of bills pushed to one side with the offending Visa statement on the top, Mark decides that they are going to have a nice day today, they are going to enjoy themselves.

Today is Adam and Lorna's wedding. They are getting married in Blackheath, a proper white wedding in an old-fashioned church.

Adam and Lorna are Julia's friends. Mark has to make this distinction because so few of their friends cross over. They never have. Julia finds his friends nice but too straight for her, too dull, while Mark has never really understood female friendships, with their gossip and secrets and giggling.

Many's the time he's walked into the kitchen to find Julia sitting at the table deep in conversation with two or three of her girlfriends, mugs of coffee and glasses of wine littering the table, ashtrays overflowing with Silk Cut Extra Low. Their voices are always lowered, they invariably start teasing Mark, which makes him uncomfortable, even though he tries to smile and go along with it. He tends to help himself to whatever it is he needed, before leaving them in peace and disappearing up to his study for the rest of the evening.

“Why can't you make more of an effort with my friends?” Julia asked when she went to bed, much much later that night.

“Why don't your friends make more of an effort with me?” Mark replied in self-defense, although what he meant was, Why can't they understand me? Why don't I understand them?

Mark has retained his friends from school and university, as men tend to do. He speaks to them more than he sees them these days, is adept at catching up with news via e-mail. They meet up from time to time, generally when Julia is away. On the few occasions when Mark tried to bring Julia into the equation it was an unmitigated disaster.

Julia tried to be nice. She tried to like them. But she really had nothing in common with them—less than nothing—and found each meeting more exhausting than the last. Eventually she told Mark she loved him but not his friends: He'd have to see them on his own. Mark pretended to be offended; in truth he was relieved. It was as much a strain on him as it was on Julia.

Now they have their own friends, lead their own lives, but on occasions such as today the two will converge, and the truth is that Mark has always quite liked Adam and Lorna. In fact, with the exception of Sam and Chris, they are probably the people he likes most in Julia's circle. Adam and Lorna have been living in Brighton this last year, he has hardly seen them, but they are coming back to Blackheath, where Lorna was brought up, for the wedding.

Mark likes weddings, has always liked weddings, as indeed has Julia, so perhaps wishing that this will be a nice day is not so unrealistic after all, and to start off the nice day he will bring Julia breakfast in bed.

“Mmmm.” Julia slowly props herself up and stretches with a lazy smile as Mark places the tray carefully on the bed. She eyes the tea and toast, dipping a finger into the pot of honey and licking it off, for