Babyville Page 0,9

always goes at some point?” she says without feeling. “Sure, it was great in the beginning, but doesn't it always wear off after a while? Mark thinks that trying for a baby has made it mechanical and boring, but I'm sure the passion would have gone anyway because it always does. We've been together four years, and you really can't expect your sex life to be fantastic after four years.”

“But you're not even married,” Sam says, suddenly looking serious. “Are you sure about this baby? Are you even sure about . . . Mark?” She chooses her words carefully, tentatively, for she is voicing things Julia doesn't want to think about, let alone hear. “Julia, all I'm saying is that I don't think it's fair to bring a child into the world if you're not sure you're with the right—”

“Okay, okay.” Julia stops her mid-flow. “I'm sorry, Sam, but this just isn't something I can talk about. You know how much I want this child. How can you say these things?”

Julia knows exactly how she can say these things. Sam is only saying all the things Julia thinks when she wakes up in the middle of the night with a pounding heart, almost suffocating with the panic, the need to escape, only bearable because she knows normality will return with daylight. And how can she trust these night fears anyway? How can she trust them when they leave in the morning? If they were real, if she were supposed to be listening to them, then she'd have them all the time, wouldn't she?

Wouldn't she?

“I'm sorry.” Sam is contrite. These are difficult words to say. Even to your best friend. “I just worry about you.”

“I know,” Julia sighs. “I worry about me too.”

3

Mark is, as always, the first to wake up. He turns to Julia, still dead to the world, mouth open, hands clenched tightly into fists, pulling the duvet up around her ears, and he leans down to kiss her softly on the cheek. When she is like this, so soft, so innocent, he knows exactly why he loves her, why he is still with her.

He places his feet on the floor, stretches his arms to the ceiling, and yawns before padding quietly out of the room, slowly shutting the door behind him so as not to wake her.

Mark has been working hard. He has been staying in the office late, trying to get everything done, forgoing the gym as there's too much to do. He has stopped eating lunch in the canteen, instead grabbing a sandwich and eating it at his desk, piles of legal papers his lunchtime reading.

He feels tired these days. Always tired, but there's so much to think about, so much to do, that a lie-in is not on the cards. Not that he doesn't want one, but his mind is always racing. Getting off to sleep is fine. Easy, even. But most nights he is awake in the early hours. He lies there, listening to Julia, knowing that she's also awake, but unable to reach out to her, and he thinks about his work, his life.

And he is so used to getting up at 6:45 A.M. for work that even on the weekends he wakes up automatically, at precisely that time, which is ridiculous given that Monday to Friday he needs an alarm clock to wake him. Monday to Friday he stumbles groggily to the bathroom, wishing for more sleep, but Saturday and Sunday he positively bounces out of bed.

Mark goes downstairs and puts the kettle on, placing The Times on the kitchen table as he pulls two slices of bread from the plastic wrapper and sticks them in the toaster.

Crash. The noise of the post tumbling through the letterbox and landing on the doormat startles him. He groans as he bends down to pick up the letters, and shuffles through looking for anything interesting as he goes back into the kitchen and tips some fresh coffee into a cafetiere.

Nothing exciting today. Junk mail, junk mail, more junk mail, and bills. That time of year when all the bills come in. He opens the Visa statement and reads through it quickly, stopping to go back and read it again because he can't quite believe what it says.

Now Mark knows that Julia loves cosmetics, toiletries, girly things. He accepts that Julia cannot pass a chemist's without going in, and he knows that, once in, she will happily browse for hours, spending fortunes on pastel-colored bottles of