Babyville Page 0,77

to me. The last thing I want to do after work is go out and live it up. But ssshhh,” I whispered, “don't let my secret out. Meanwhile,” I continued, “I love being at home, by myself, being totally selfish and not having to compromise for anybody. Whereas you, on the other hand, are a completely different kettle of fish.”

“What do you mean?”

“Someday, Mark, you'll make someone a wonderful wife.”

“Only if ironing isn't written into the marriage contract.”

“Oh, so you mean there is something you're not good at?”

“I didn't say I wasn't good at it. I, naturally, am God's gift to ironing,” he said, grinning, “but it's the one thing I can't stand, the one thing I pay someone else to do.”

“Together with a cleaner, a gardener, and God knows how many others it takes to help you look after this palace.”

“A cleaner, yes. I'll grant you Lizzy, who comes in twice a week, but gardener? Absolutely not. See these fingers?” He extended his hands and they were really very nice. Big hands. Strong hands. Oooh. Imagine what those hands could do (for I had forgotten what those hands had already done). A shiver ran through me. No, Maeve. This was the very last thing I needed.

I nodded, still staring at his fingers.

“Alan Titchmarsh has nothing on these fingers. My fingers are so green they're practically in bud.”

I started to laugh.

After lunch I collapsed onto the fabulously squishy sofa in the living room, while Mark tried to froth some milk for my decaf cappuccino.

And then I woke up.

The lights were dim. It was dark outside, and for a moment I was completely disoriented. And then I saw Mark, sitting on the sofa opposite me, reading the Sunday Times. A fire was crackling and I sat up quickly, embarrassed by having fallen asleep, horrified at the rudeness, at the thought of having dribbled all over his cushions in my unconscious state. Or worse.

Mark glanced over the top of his paper at me and smiled.

“Hello, Sleepy. Or should I say Grumpy?”

I was in no mood to smile back. I know what my hair looks like after I've fallen asleep on a sofa. “Tea?” he said, and I nodded gratefully, watching him as he walked out of the room and wondering idly why on earth a man like him hadn't been snapped up years ago.

Not that I was interested. I didn't feel anything more that afternoon than I did that morning. I'd had a lovely day, and he was everything I thought he was (except he didn't learn violin at school, it was the clarinet, and his first car was neither an MGB nor a Triumph Stag but an E-type Jaguar); however, I wasn't interested in him in that way.

But the one thing I did have to concede, as I fought off the tiredness driving home later that evening, was that it had been lovely being looked after all day. I hadn't ever been looked after before. Only by Viv, and I wasn't sure that really counted.

Oh and one other thing. I agreed to go for a scan.

Just to be on the safe side.

17

I'm still not altogether sure why I agreed to have the scan. I was tired, it had been a long day, and I felt so comfortable, so nurtured, I didn't want to spoil it all by having an argument.

And I really could see that Mark would be a wonderful father.

Which helped.

I suppose I'd never thought of the reality of the situation before; had only thought I'd be saddled with a child I didn't want; that I'd turn into a stressed-out single mother who tried desperately to juggle her child with a career and a string of unsuitable boyfriends.

But after that day at Mark's, after seeing what he was like, where he lived, how he lived, I could see that I wouldn't be on my own, and more than that I could see that it wouldn't have been fair to deprive him of what he so desperately wanted.

We could share a child, I started to think on the way home. Maybe Mark would have the child during the week and I'd have it on the weekends. A picture of a little girl, looking just like me, forced itself into my head. A little girl wearing those cute little OshKosh dungarees (for no child of mine would be made to wear frilly pink dresses), a little girl so sweet and good that everyone would stop to smile at us, marvel at how