Chapter 8
8
Drew was gutted. Sarah’s response to his suggestion that she rediscovered her creative nature through the means of writing erotic fiction had been the antithesis of what he had hoped. It wasn’t about the money. He didn’t expect the pair of them to make the same type of money that Naughty Nanny did, not at first at least, but even a little bit would help. Maybe with a couple of hundred pounds extra a month in the bank, Sarah wouldn’t feel so inclined to whinge about the house the whole time. They could get the credit card debt sorted a lot quicker too.
She hadn’t even wanted to entertain the idea. And from the look she had ended their conversation with, he knew there was no point in broaching the subject again for a while. The problem was, he just couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Three days later, while on his commute to work, Drew’s mind was still mulling over the idea of how to convince Sarah that the enterprise was a good one. Confidence, he decided. That was the issue. Sarah just wasn’t confident in her ability to write that type of story. But if he could show her, if he could convince her that it really wasn’t that hard, then maybe she’d get on board. Maybe then she would give it a try. Then again, what did he know? He had never even read any of these books. The train jolted to a stop at one of the stations, causing his phone to tumble out onto his lap. As he stared at it, a small glimmer of light flickered on in his mind. If he was serious about the pair of them giving it a go, then he was going to have to start somewhere. Nerves bubbled through his stomach.
One minute later, and twelve minutes into his fifty-minute commute, Drew downloaded his first erotic fiction novel.
It was hard to settle into the storyline. Every second line, Drew looked up, convinced people with x-ray vision could see through the back of his phone to read what was on his screen. He swore he could see their disapproving looks and hear tongues tutting, and he knew full well that his cheeks turned crimson when he reached the first particularly explicit paragraph. Still, despite his continual nerves, Drew came to the conclusion less than one chapter into Naughty Nanny and the Night Nurse , that his initial instincts had been correct. They could do this.
The writing wasn’t bad as such, but he hardly expected to see it shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Phrasing was repetitive, and the vocabulary no more elaborate than that of an average secondary school standard.
With chapter one quickly under his belt, he carried on reading. Sarah could easily write something just as good, if not better than Naughty Nanny. Heck, he could probably even give it a try. Of course, it wasn’t like he had much time with work.
‘You look focused.’ A voice at the door brought Drew’s head up from his computer. ‘What are you reading? Looks engrossing.’
Blushing, Drew minimised the tab on his computer screen. Lunchtime had just come to an end, and rather than heading out and stretching his legs, Drew had been looking at the earnings of the top erotic-fiction authors. His head spun at the numbers. There had to have been a mix-up in the decimal places for some of these writers.
‘Polly.’ Drew’s eyes went down to his computer once again to double-check for digital evidence. ‘Is everything okay? What can I do for you?’
She smiled and stepped inside the room. ‘It’s fine. I just had an email from Casper about the Christmas projections. Have you seen it?’
Closing the internet tab completely, Drew flicked open his emails. That was one of the reasons he respected Polly; it was the fact that she never flaunted her relationship with the CEO. He was never Uncle Casper, or Casp, simply Casper. Sometimes he had even heard her refer to him as Mr Horton.
‘I’ve got it,’ he said, bringing up the message on the screen. ‘Don’t worry, I can see to it. If you want to send me through the rest of the team’s data, that would be great.’
‘And Barry,’ she lifted her eyes upwards. ‘What about his?’
The pair looked through the window to where Barry was scratching the inside of his nose with the writing end of a biro.
‘Don’t worry. I can sort that,’ Drew said. He had grown used to Barry’s chaotic way of almost working. No doubt he would find half the figures he needed on the back of a Tesco’s receipt. Or else, hidden in some encrypted folder on his desktop with no idea how they got there.
Polly smiled, lifting her cheeks just a fraction. ‘You do way too much for him. You know that, right? You’re a great boss,’ she said.
Drew gave a short, one-breath laugh. ‘Technically, I’m just his line manager, and I’m pretty sure a great boss would have made him better at his job by now.’
‘You’re not a miracle worker,’ Polly laughed back. Halfway out the door, she turned back. ‘Oh yeah, Stu asked if I could grab the accounts drive for him.’
Unable to hide his disdain, Drew unplugged the sleek external hard drive. Stu was the office weirdo. The one man at Home Crew who made Barry look like a member of the social elite.
‘This is ridiculous,’ he said, handing the hard drive to Polly. ‘Who does he think will hack his work emails, for goodness’ sake? How does he communicate with people in the outside world? Come to think of it, how did he even get this job?’
‘I think it’s sweet,’ Polly replied. ‘Think how much less complicated your life would be without all the palaver that comes with using social media. Not to mention the news. It must be great not to be greeted by bad news every day.’
‘Then he should just stay off Facebook and the BBC. He could use the work intranet for crying out loud.’
‘Apparently not,’ Polly replied. ‘Anyway, thanks.’ She smiled, a hint of amusement glinting in her eyes, before she turned around and headed back towards the door. ‘I’ll see you later,’ she called back.
On the train back home, Drew shuffled deeper into his seat, pulled out his phone, and started where he had left off. By the time he arrived back home, he had already read all seventeen chapters of Naughty Nanny and the Night Nurse, with book two, Naughty Nanny and the Nasty Neighbour downloaded and ready for tomorrow’s commute. The next time he mentioned writing these types of books to Sarah, he was going to make sure he was totally prepared. That way, there would be no chance she could say no.
It was ridiculous how one week could blend into another with nothing on the to-do list ever getting ticked off. George had already completed his first month in Year One, and the bump was well on its way to having its own gravitational field. Having managed without a tumble dryer for over five weeks – and with the warmth of summer well and truly gone – Sarah had bitten the bullet and gone online to order one before they all ended up in frozen jumpers for winter.
‘What the hell?’ she said, as the credit card was declined for the third time. ‘Is this one maxed out, too?’
Drew squinted away from his phone to look. He winced. ‘I had to buy my new travel card last week. It’s for the year, though.’
‘Great,’ Sarah replied. ‘You can travel to work in wet clothes.’
Drew grunted some response, barely even bothering to look up from his phone.
George was preparing for the Christmas play – despite nine weeks to go – and every day, it felt like Sarah was being sent home with yet another piece of the set or costume that she was required to either make or buy. Not to mention various notes about charity raffles and other such obligatory philanthropy she could barely afford.
Eva had managed a total of two consecutive nights in a row in her bed in the previous four weeks. The sleepless nights that resulted for Sarah made for zombie-like days, which had led to numerous errors, including sending George to school with an entirely empty snack box and walking Eva out of the house with no shoes on. Twice.
Drew seemed happy, though. He still spent most of the evening on his phone, but bizarrely, instead of playing the various shoot em up/car chase/football manager games he had been addicted to since getting a smartphone, he had gone back to reading for the first time in years. At first, Sarah assumed it was some fad, and the annoying waste-of-time apps that made her irrationally angry would be back any day, but a month in and reading was still his chosen activity for the evenings. Drew’s passion for books was something that had first attracted her to him all those moons ago. Especially when he devoured her own amateur efforts. She spared a moment to wonder what might have been if she had pursued writing rather than going into the more financially stable field of translating. As such, it was with sweet nostalgia that she watched him so absorbed in the text.
A newly ignited love of literature wasn’t the only change in Drew. Something about him felt more relaxed. Like the way he had come in and kissed her when he got home after work every day that week. And the way he gazed at the bump too, with excitement. She couldn’t remember him doing that before, not properly, and not with this one. Then there was the other thing too. The other thing had definitely changed.
‘We can easily do it on the sofa,’ he said, having become abnormally frisky during an episode of Strictly Come Dancing . ‘If you just sit with your legs like that…’ He took her left leg and attempted to lift it up onto the arm of the sofa.
‘You actually think I can sit like that?’
‘I’m sure you can, can’t you?’
‘You do remember I have a baby inside me?’ Sarah objected as she lifted her leg back down and pulled his hand away from her thigh.
‘You just need to give it a try. What about if we just…’ He attempted to manoeuvre her back between the cushions.
‘Will you stop? It’s not happening. You’re going to wake Eva and George. And I’m not dealing with them. Not today. Eva spent all morning pretending she was a unicorn. She even put her lunch on the floor and ate it from the bowl on her hands and knees.’
‘But she ate it?’
Sarah nodded contemplatively. ‘Yeah. That’s a good thing, I suppose.’
In a last-ditch attempt, Drew wrapped his arms around her waist. Sarah slipped away from his grip.
‘Honestly. How can you want to do that now? When I look like this?’
Drew frowned. He moved forward and put his hands back on her waist. Sarah wanted to move them off her. She could feel the tension building down her spine. Maybe if she’d had time to change her underwear and put some makeup on. Or better still, switch the lights off.
‘You look perfect.’ Drew said, frown still in place. ‘You know that, right? You look incredible. You always look incredible.’
The tension in her spine rose to a quivering in her lips. She hated feeling like this. She absolutely despised it. She wanted to be body confident and proud of her curves, the way she used to be. Not terrified of what her husband might be faced with when he pulled down the elasticated waistband of her jeans.
‘I’m a bit tired now,’ she said, slipping out of his grip for the second time. ‘Maybe later in the week, when we’ve both had some proper sleep…’ With that, she turned around and left before she could see the disappointment in his eyes.