There’s something wrong with Mia, I can sense it. She hasn’t come out and said there’s a problem, but for the last few days, she’s been distant with me. I’m well practised at hiding things from her, but she’s usually pretty vocal if something’s pissing her off.
We’re now eleven weeks into the renovations, but it must feel like an eternity for her, as she’s the one juggling a full-time career and an evening job managing the money. The thing is though, I know that her enthusiasm is waning – if it was ever totally there in the first place – while mine has done a one-eighty. The first thing that crosses my mind when I wake up in the morning is no longer What the fuck have we just done? Instead, I’m thinking about what I need to do today to help us inch towards the finishing line. I see it like this: we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to turn this place into something special. And the more time I spend working my arse off toiling over each pipe, fitting, floorboard and brick wall, the quicker it is going to happen.
I’m watching Mia from the end of the aisle in the tile warehouse. She’s turning the display boards as we try and settle on a design to use above the sink and the range cooker now the kitchen is closer to being fitted. I want those timeless, white Metro-style tiles, but she has her heart set on a colourful Moroccan design she saw on Pinterest. She’ll win. She always does. My mates take the piss out of me,
saying I’m so henpecked that I might as well build myself a roost in the garden. If Mia wants to think she wears the trousers and knows everything about me then I’m not going to try and persuade her otherwise. I have bigger fish to fry.
She’s very different from anyone else I’ve dated. It was a big jump, moving from the girl I was with throughout my teens and early twenties and knew inside out, to someone completely new. But that was part of the appeal. Emma was sweet and kind and would do anything I asked of her, but our relationship was claustrophobic. She insisted we did everything together, which I know is important, but not 24-
7. I was already looking for a way out the night Mia and I met. She was a funny, confident force of nature and drunk as a skunk. Oh, and as fit as you like.
There’s something special about a girl who won’t follow the crowd, refuses to jab herself with Botox and lip-fillers and doesn’t only eat salads to stay Instagram-skinny. Mia doesn’t care that she’s not a size six. And that blonde hair and blue eyes still light something inside me that burns all these years later. She also values her own space, which means I get time to myself and that suits me down to the ground. I have a life away from my marriage.
I’d never heard of her before we met because I don’t read celebrity gossip magazines, but my mates’ girlfriends recognised her immediately. Her ex was a soap actor when he won Strictly Come Dancing and became a household name overnight. It meant Mia was also thrown into the spotlight. I googled her recently and it was weird seeing a younger version of my wife on the cover of magazines. She and Ellis were all set to get hitched when he was caught out dirty-dancing behind Mia’s back with his professional partner. Mia dumped him and his loss was my gain.
Mia picks up a box of tiles but the cardboard base can’t have been secured properly because they fall to the floor and shatter. Swearing, she sets about picking them up, then cuts her finger and curses again, sucking on the bleeding
tip. I’m carefully picking the rest up when I notice she’s been silently crying. It can’t have hurt that much.
‘It’s okay, they’re only tiles,’ I say.
‘I’m pregnant,’ she blurts out. I’m thinking I must have misheard her but she doesn’t give me time to consider what else she might have said. ‘And I know that it’s bloody awful timing as we have so much work to do on the house and living with your parents and everything, but . . .’ Her sobs return, and this time she can’t keep them quiet.
This is the last thing I expect to hear. ‘How long have you known?’ I ask.
‘About three weeks,’ she replies wetly. ‘I went for a scan at the hospital yesterday and the sonographer says I’m twelve weeks gone.’
She knew about this for weeks and didn’t tell me? Perhaps she’s better at keeping secrets than I’ve given her credit for. ‘Why didn’t you say anything? You shouldn’t have gone for the scan on your own.’
‘I didn’t want to get your hopes up in case there was something wrong with it.’ She backhands her nose clear and takes a deep breath. ‘I couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in your face again.’
‘And is everything, you know, alright with it?’
Only when Mia nods do I give up my smile. ‘It’s perfect,’ she replies, and places the palm of her hand on her stomach. ‘It’s absolutely perfect.’ Then she reaches into her handbag and pulls out a black-and-white ultrasound photograph. She has to point out precisely where the baby is because, to me, it resembles a blob in an ocean.
She rises to her feet while I remain literally and figuratively floored, trying to figure out what this means for us. ‘So what do you think?’ she asks.
I stand up and draw her head closer to my chest. ‘It’s absolutely brilliant.’
The timing is going to be tight, but there’s no better motivation for completing a house than not wanting your
newborn baby living on a building site. We make our way to the car having made no decision about tiles. She’s talking, but I’m not listening. Instead, I’m trying to get my head around the news that she is going to make me a dad. I’d come to terms with children not being on the agenda for us. And if I’m being honest with myself, it didn’t take that much doing. It was always Mia who was desperate to start a family, much more so than I was. Not that I ever told her that.
As exciting and life-altering as this news is, it’s going to stretch me thinner than tracing paper. And it’ll mean I will need to keep my eye on the ball, much more so than I ever have before. Because if I don’t and I slip up, Mia will never forgive me.
