DARLING JAMES

                                 By Alison Clink

 Darling James. How I adored him. From the hem of his designer jeans to the tips of his chocolate brown curls. I loved James more than anything. More than anyone. And when he asked me to marry him I was in heaven. 

     Almost.

     There was one thing about James that worried me. One thing that made it blindingly obvious I should never have agreed to the marriage. James was obsessed with families. He wanted us to have babies. Lots of them. James’s  idea of bliss was a houseful of children. Our children. 

      Don’t get me wrong, though. I was aware of his wish to be a father long before he asked me to be his wife, but I hoped he might change after we were married. But men never do change, at least not the type of men most women like.  The weedy types who wear anoraks, or cardigans with zips and carry umbrellas –  they might be easy to mould. But James? Not so easy.

     Drama was my best subject at school. I was good at acting but I didn’t intend to lie to James, although a little harmless pretence wasn’t out of the question, after all, the last thing I wanted was to lose him. So I made out that a family the size of the Waltons was my idea of paradise too, that I also longed for a life dominated by prams, nappies and nights padding the floor with our very own screaming brat, although in reality I would rather have been sentenced to twenty years in jail than give birth to anything. I didn’t like deceiving James, but I’d pretended for so long that by the time we were home from honeymoon it was too late to admit I wanted to monopolise James, all to myself, for ever more. 

     I had spun my web of deceit and I was trapped inside like a dead fly.

    “Which would you like first, darling,” James asked me one evening over dinner. “A girl or a boy?”

      At first I didn’t realise what he was talking about. He was sitting opposite me still in his work clothes, his tie at half-mast, and the top button of his shirt undone. His hazel brown eyes looked tired and he had a shadow on his chin where he needed a shave. There was something quite perfect about James when he was slightly dishevelled.  I gazed at him for a second without grasping what he was saying.

   “Twins would be nice.” James carried on, smiling fondly at the thought. “Are there any multiple births in your family, darling? I’ve never thought to ask!”

    A mouthful of the red wine I had just swallowed found its way into my windpipe and I began coughing. James tenderly rubbed  my back.

     “And you’ll have to give this stuff up,” he said gently,  indicating  my glass of wine.

    “Of course, darling,” I spluttered. “Of course I will.”

To make matters worse, James had a sister, Louise. Louise was married to George, a rotund man with hair the colour of cornflakes and a flat nose, like a boxer’s. George worked in the ticket office at our local train station, so we saw him most mornings on our way to work. James and I  travelled to the station together, even though James caught the express  to London and I went in the opposite direction to my job in an advertising agency.          

       “How are Louise, and the kids?” James asked George one morning when we were buying our tickets. There was a queue of people behind us looking at their watches, shuffling and sighing loudly.

        “Right as rain and just as shiny!” 

        “Good,” said James, “You must come over.  We’d love to see the children, wouldn’t we, darling?

         “Yes, darling,” I replied limply, as the image of a row of runny-nosed, carrot-topped replicas of George squeezed between the arms of our new white two-seater sofa flashed through my mind.

 Louise and George were one of those couples who seem to think it their sole responsibility to maintain the population density of the northern hemisphere. They had so many children that last time there was a Census they had to send away for  extra forms to get all the names on. As we were about to leave George’s window with our tickets, he leant forward until his nose almost touched the glass.

         “By the way,” he said to James, even though a man in a suit behind us was snorting with frustration, “there’s another one due.” James looked baffled for a moment and I wondered if this was some kind of railway business George was mistakenly involving us in. Then he started winking and nodding in a strange way until James said,

        “Ahh. Another one? You mean Louise is pregnant again? That’s wonderful news George! Did you hear that, darling? Isn’t that fantastic news?”

         “Yes,” I said cupping my arm through James’s elbow and leading him towards the platform. “Yes! Absolutely. Fantastic news.”

        “We’d better get a move on,” James said to me as we stood together by the sweet kiosk. I looked up at the station clock.

        “We’re not late are we?” I asked, thinking James was worried about having enough time to buy his daily paper.

         “No, no,” James replied, digging into his trouser pocket for some change. “I mean get a move on - with our family. George only has to look at Louise and she’s popped. Just think, five kids already – and soon they’ll have six!”

          “Five?” I replied, as the Intercity blasted its way into the station. “Is that all? I thought they had more than that.” 

           It certainly seemed like more.

I kept my contraceptive pills on top of the bathroom cabinet, behind a dusty bottle of mouthwash. They weren’t exactly hidden, but it was a handy place to leave them. James hadn’t asked me if I was on the pill and naturally I would have come clean if he had. He did take me by surprise once when I was balanced on the loo reaching for them, but I pretended to be dusting the top of the cabinet.

      “Just doing a little housework,” I explained.

     “Come here,” he’d said, lifting me down by my waist. “Do you fancy an early night?” He brushed his lips against the side of my neck sending a shivery feeling down my insides.

      “Alright, darling,” I replied.

Louise’s baby was due the following month. I’d been promoted at work because my boss was impressed by my ‘imaginative ability’. I still had to churn out as many advertising slogans for stairlifts, wedding magazines, cars, cough remedies, and … nappies, but although promotion meant more money it also meant longer holidays to fill.

       “Louise’s baby will be born soon,” James said one evening whilst I was flicking through a winter skiing holiday brochure. “She’s going to need a lot of help.”

       “She’s got George,” I replied, immediately sensing I was going down a different route than James.

        “Yes, but George! I mean - be serious, darling! He’s at work all day and what Louise really needs is a woman’s help.”

        “She should get someone in,” I said. “I would if I were her.” 

        “Exactly what I thought,” James replied. “And so I’ve offered your services, darling. I hope you don’t mind, after all you have got extra time off work.”

         The skiing brochure slid between my knees and flopped onto the floor.

        “But I’d just get in the way. I’d be a nuisance,” I struggled.

        “You’ll be wonderful. I know you will, and it’ll be good practice. And George said you could use their Family Rail Card. You can take the kids on day trips. You’ll have a great time.”

I arrived outside Louise’s house just one week later, resentment festering behind my artificial smile. Poor James. If only he knew how I hated playdough, SpongeBob, sticky sweets, and lengthy games of Scrabble or Monopoly. I knocked at the front door and then suddenly there they were - like the cast of a school production of Oliver - elbowing each other, grabbing at my clothes, snatching my bags and burying their runny little noses into my pockets.

         “Where’s James, where’s Uncle James?” one of them asked, looking behind me for the car and then grabbing my suitcase and trying to unfasten the clip. 

          “He’s not here,” I said, snatching back my case. I honestly think they expected me to have James folded up in the bottom of my bag.            

          For dinner Louise served up fish fingers and Frozen pasta shapes. Louise ate hers as if she was preparing for a hundred year famine. Her stomach was the size of a hot air balloon - I don’t think she could actually sit down. She ate the whole meal standing at the table beside me. Dinner, chocolate sponge pudding, and then all the leftovers from the kids’ plates. The fish fingers I’d just eaten, added to the thought of all that food juggling for space in Louise’s insides was making me feel queasy. So I slumped down on the sofa in the sitting room just in time to catch the beginning of Eastenders. It was getting to a good bit where Shirley and Phil were preparing for a big night out in the Queen Vic when the door flung open and three of Louise’s children burst into the room.

         “Eastenders! We love this. Move up! You’re taking all the sofa.”

         As I shuffled towards the edge of the sofa, I noticed a strand of chewing gum attached to my trousers. The more I tried to move away from the stuff the more it grew, turning into sticky white threads like strings of elastic.

         “Hey! That’s my Orbit,” the largest child said. He picked as much of the gum as he could from between the sofa and my backside and slid it into his mouth.

          I could see Louise moving about behind the kitchen door. She was holding a washing up brush in one hand and rubbing the lower half of her back with the other, when quite unexpectedly there was a loud thump and her huge frame toppled to the floor.

         A middle-sized child jumped of the sofa and yelled up the stairs, “Dad! Mum’s fainted again.”

        The largest boy helped George lift Louise into the living room leaving a puddle of water in the hallway.

    “The waters have broken,” George said. “I’ll take her straight to the hospital. You’ll be alright with the kids, won’t you?” he said turning to me.

       I watched as they lugged Louise out to the car and lay her on the back seat.  I tucked her feet inside the door and closed it for her. Then George and Louise sped off into the night.

      Back inside one of the children was crying for Mummy.

     “Don’t worry, she’ll be back soon,” I said, sounding, I thought, quite impressively like Mary Poppins. I went over to the whimpering child and lifted it up and rubbed its forehead, wondering to myself why I had never applied for a place at RADA.

    “Don’t worry, she’ll be back soon.” One of the middle-sized children was mimicking me, which caused an explosion of hilarity from the occupants of the sofa. The child I had in my arms began to cry even louder.

     “Here, you take him,” I said handing the one I was holding to one of the girls.

     “Here, you take him,” the mimicker repeated, by which time there were tears streaming down all their cheeks.

       The boy could hardly speak from laughing. “It’s not a ‘him’- it’s a ‘her’!” he said, simultaneously doing a head-over-heals off the sofa and kicking a glass of orange squash from the coffee table.

        I left the room to phone James and tell him what had happened to Louise. He said he’d ring the hospital to find out what was going on.

        “I’m sure George won’t be gone long,” he told me. “And I expect you’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you, darling?”

         “Of course I am, darling,” I said.

So there I was, imprisoned with George and Louise’s children who it seemed disliked me as much as I did them. Before long James rang me back.

       It was wonderful to hear his voice again. Wonderful, that is until I heard what he had to say.

       “Darling?” he said cautiously.

       “Yes, darling?”

       “Darling?” His voice sounded shaky.

       “Yes?”

       “Are you sitting down?”

         I looked around the hall for a chair, although, since my recent encounter with the  glob of Orbit I had made a point of remaining upright.

      “Darling, something awful has happened,” James went on. “Something terribly, terribly awful.” His voice was breaking up with emotion. “There’s been an accident, darling,” he said. I stood rigid with shock as James described the collision Louise and George had had with a lorry on their way to the hospital. The roads were sheeted with black ice and George had been driving too fast. They were  pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital!

        My hand shook as I finished the call. I looked round and there were five ginger heads stacked at the side of the sitting room door. Five pairs of identical green eyes staring at me.

       “Uncle James is on his way,” I told them. “Go and get into your pyjamas, all of you,” I said quietly but sternly. Maybe they sensed something was wrong. They trailed past me in a subdued little queue. The four older ones first and then the toddler, crawling up the stairs on her hands and knees. I thought James should be the one to break the bad news to them. 

Afterwards James didn’t seem able to do anything. I made the funeral arrangements and organised with the Social Services for the children to be taken into care.   Poor Louise and George. Although I hadn’t particularly liked them in life, in death I couldn’t get them out of my mind. And my poor, darling, James. He really did seem forlorn.  I brought home more brochures for holidays and luxury cruises, but nothing seemed to cheer him up. He’d even stopped talking about planning our own family - so I guess at least some good had come out of all this.

 James had bought me a diamond eternity ring for our first anniversary but that year I was beginning to wonder if he was even aware that it was our anniversary.  On the big day he said nothing all morning and so I kept quiet. I’d taken the afternoon off to cook a prawn risotto - his favourite - as a surprise, but he hadn’t come home at his normal time. 

         At seven I heard his car stop outside the house and watched as he came up the path to the front door. There was something different about him. I could have sworn he skipped across the flower beds. It was such a long time since I’d seen him looking even remotely happy; I rushed to the door to greet him. He was holding a large box under his arm, which I immediately identified as a present for me.  Probably a huge box of chocolates with a mixture of soft centres and nuts.

       “Darling!” James encompassed me with his spare arm. “I’ve got the most wonderful news and I’ve been keeping it for today. I’ve been with Louise’s solicitor all afternoon. Apparently, Louise and George had specified in their will that their children should remain together if anything ever happened to them and named me as the person they’d like to bring them up!” 

       “You, darling?” I queried, realising as I spoke that the box clamped beneath James’s arm was in fact emblazoned with that dreaded word, Monopoly.

       “Yes, - well, us, of course, darling. And I’ve got all the kids in the car. Isn’t this wonderful? I knew you’d be so pleased.”

        I looked at the car, and now I could see them all quite clearly. The owner of a squashed freckled nose pressed against the window of the front passenger seat had his tongue poked against the glass. A small ginger head was visible just above the steering wheel, which was being violently manoeuvred by a diminutive pair of hands. In the back of the car the toddler, who was strapped into a baby seat appeared to have been sick down its coat, whilst the two monsters next to her were kneeling backwards on the seat and arranging bits of green chewing gum into patterns over the rear window.

    James kissed me on the cheek. “Happy wedding anniversary, darling,” he said.

  “Err… James…darling!?” I began, but he’d already gone back to the car to let the children out.  

       “Make yourselves at home,” James told them, as they came tearing into the house. One of them had hooked up a computer game to the television before I’d even had a chance to speak. The toddler had thrown up again all over the kitchen floor, two  others were climbing up James’s legs and the tallest one had the lid off the pan containing my prawn risotto.

     “Ugh! Yuk. That is gross!” he called out to the others. “Come and look at this!”  They all crowded around the cooker and James sat down at the table with a blissful smile on his face.

       “Isn’t this just too good to be true, darling?” James asked me.

       “Yes darling, I can hardly believe it,” I said, going back to the hall to close the front door and just managing to stop myself from slipping on a small yellow card that was lying on the carpet. I picked it up. It had the words COMMUNITY CHEST written on the top and underneath it said, GO TO JAIL. I realised it must have fallen out of the Monopoly box James was carrying when he came in. I looked at it again. Above the words was a picture of a prison window with some iron bars across it. 

        Five of them.

   2,999 words                                                        Alison Clink 2020.