Читать книгу The Baby Diaries - Sam Binnie - Страница 31

If that’s how she wants to play it, that’s how we’ll play it. After finding a half-used box of floss in today’s calendar, I resolved to sneak over to Susie’s at 7 tonight, knowing – with Pete away on some travel agent job somewhere around the world – it would be the most frantic time for her. Between helping her bath the Twins and Frida, finding their pyjamas, telling them stories, brushing their teeth and getting them down, I managed to swap tomorrow’s parcel out of her calendar, replacing it with a similarly wrapped burst balloon. I would be the worst poker player – I could barely contain my glee when I went back downstairs to find Susie putting all the toys away and tidying up the kitchen.

Susie: Thanks so much, Keeks. When Pete’s away this part of the evening is always so unbelievably exhausting.

Me: [feeling slightly bad] But practice makes perfect?

Susie: More like familiarity breeds contempt. Oh, not for them, you shocked face, just for this bloody life. I’m so tired. Yes, they all sleep well and eat well and I love them dearly, but I’m going mad, Keeks. When I wave Pete off on another trip these days, my blood boils. It boils.

Me: Do you tell him?

Susie: Tell him what? That I wonder if we married too quickly? That I wonder what I’d be doing now if I hadn’t got knocked up that night?

Me: [feeling a bit sick] Do you regret it?

Susie: [looking at me] Oh, no, of course I don’t regret it. And your life isn’t my life, and my decisions aren’t your decisions, and you aren’t married to Pete. I’m glad he loves his job, but I wished he loved a job slightly closer to home, so he could put his children to bed more than twice a month, and tidy the house, and remember their school projects and the new socks they need.

Me: [putting an arm around her] Are you happy, Suse?

Susie: [silence] Not really at all, these days. I’m so tired and bored and angry that my emotional resting state is permanently somewhere in the red. Sometimes I just think – maybe I could just go, one day. Just go on holiday and come back after a few months, and see how Pete had got on. He knows what to do. If he had to, he’d be absolutely fine.

I’d not heard Susie talk like that before, although I’ve suspected for ages that’s how she felt. I almost had a guilty twinge for sabotaging her advent calendar.