LITMIR.BIZ

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peeked out at him. He was holding a tray with a bowl of something and a mug of coffee on it.’

      ‘You didn’t have to do that,’ she said.

      ‘Of course I did!’ Alfie said. ‘It’s your special day! Happy birthday, darling.’

      Claire groaned. She’d forgotten it was her birthday.

      She’d forgotten they had to go to the party at her dad’s house later.

      Claire sat on the bed in her childhood bedroom. It was a single bed with a pink-and-purple duvet cover. On the wall next to it were faint stains of Blu-tack from the posters she’d had up there – David Beckham, Robbie Williams, the usual teenage girl crushes. It was an hour until the party. Her hangover was gone – two ibuprofen and a mid-afternoon nap had seen it off – and Alfie had texted to say he was on his way. He’d been playing golf that afternoon. It was his new hobby, and he’d been spending a lot of his weekend afternoons on the golf course. He’d tried to persuade her to join him, but she couldn’t think of any way she’d less like to spend an afternoon than hitting balls around an over-sized garden.

      She’d been hoping the party would be a celebration of a little more than her birthday. Not that she would have announced the pregnancy to everyone this early, but she’d wanted her and Alfie and her dad to know a baby was on the way and to spend the day giving each other secret smiles, the knowledge too momentous to ignore. She’d pictured herself holding a glass of wine (but not drinking it), so nobody would suspect she was pregnant but the baby would come to no harm.

      It was not to be. It was a birthday party and no more.

      She’d learned her lesson, though. Don’t get carried away with the hope. It only led to disappointment, which was a new and unwelcome shock to her. She had never really had to face not having something she wanted. Her parents had come from humble backgrounds in the North East, but had managed to build up a chain of estate agents together. They had both worked long hours to do it and, in her mum’s case, developed unhealthy ways of coping with the stress. After her mum died, her dad threw himself into the business even more, assuaging his guilt at his absence from the home with extravagant gifts.

      And as the years had gone by the gifts had grown more and more extravagant, from the house in Fulham where she and Alfie lived, to the holiday they’d recently had in Cannes, to the Range Rover they drove. In truth, she found his generosity a bit uncomfortable. A few times she and Alfie had discussed telling him they didn’t need any help, but Alfie had persuaded her there was no harm in it. He also pointed out how happy it made her dad, so they kept accepting his gifts.

      Apart from in her career. That was the one area Claire refused to let him help her. She was a partner in a design firm, a world her dad knew nothing about, and she had worked her way up from the ground floor.

      But now, all pride aside, she would have accepted any help her dad could have given her, but there was nothing he could do. She had everything going for her: a loving dad, a wonderful husband, her career. She was smart, athletic, healthy.

      And she would have given it all to be a mother.

      But she couldn’t shake the feeling that being a mother was the one thing the universe was going to deny her. She felt almost as though she was in a fairy story, the lucky princess given everything, except the thing she wanted most.

      She knew she was getting sick with worry – she’d been losing weight – and it made her want to hide away from the world, but she’d have to put on a brave face for the party, would have to smile and say Oh, no, we’re so busy we haven’t even thought about it yet when people asked her whether she and Alfie were planning to start a family.

      She took off her jeans and sweater and opened a large cardboard box. It came from an internet company that sent new clothes; depending on what you kept and what you returned someone – although, according to Jodie, it was most likely not a person at all but an algorithm of some type, whatever the hell an algorithm was – figured out what you liked. Whoever or whatever was doing it, was uncannily accurate.

      She pulled out a sleeveless navy-blue dress. It had a one-shoulder neckline, and an asymmetric hem. She pulled it on and looked over her shoulder at the back.

      There was a knock on the bedroom door.

      ‘Hello,’ Alfie said, the door opening a crack. ‘Are you decent?’

      ‘Come in,’ Claire replied. ‘I’m trying on a dress.’

      Alfie whistled softly. ‘Wow. You look amazing.’

      ‘You like it?’

      He nodded, and moved behind her, running his hands from her hips to her buttocks, then around to her stomach. He pressed his lips to her neck.

      ‘Very much,’ he said. He reached down and pulled the dress up, stroking the backs of her thighs as he did so.

      ‘Alfie,’ she said, her voice low and breathless. ‘We can’t. I have my period.’

      He turned her round and kissed her.

      ‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘I want you too much.’

      ‘No,’ she said. ‘I want to, but no. It’ll only be a few days.’

      ‘Ok,’ he said. ‘I can wait. Let’s get ready for the party. I have a surprise for you.’

      ‘Really?’ She was not in the mood for surprises. ‘What kind of surprise?’

      ‘You’ll see,’ he said. ‘You’ll see.’

       Alfie

      Standing in front of the fireplace, Alfie tapped his glass – crystal, full of vintage champagne, he loved this stuff, he really did – with the handle of his fork – silver, antique – and watched as conversations died down and heads turned to face him. When the room was silent, he smiled and started to speak.

      ‘Thank you all,’ he said, ‘for coming to celebrate this very special day. My wife’ – he turned to Claire and smiled – ‘it’s still a thrill to call her that, even after three years, is celebrating her thirtieth birthday. I told her before the party that I had something special for her, and I do.’

      He gestured to Jodie, who moved to the front of the guests and handed him a guitar. It was a Martin D50 which Claire had bought him, after some not-too-subtle hints, for his last birthday. It was an instrument he had dreamed of owning all through his childhood, but which, until he met Claire, had been woefully out of his reach. Woefully out of most people’s reach.

      ‘Alfie,’ Claire said, ‘what are you doing?’ She looked at Jodie, eyebrows raised.

      Jodie held up her hands, palms facing Claire. ‘Merely doing what I was told,’ she said.

      ‘Thank you, Jodie,’ Alfie said, and then turned to Claire. ‘I wrote you a song,’ he said. He slipped the strap over his neck and held up his right hand. ‘I know, it’s soppy and over the top but I don’t care. I’m the luckiest man alive, and I want everyone to know it. So, here we go. It’s called “Since the Start”.’

      He strummed an E chord and started to sing.

       ‘Since the start

       Since the day I met you

       Since the start

       I have known I loved you.’

      He sang the rest of the song. It was pretty good, in a way. Highly derivative, basic chords, minimal musicianship required, but writing and playing and singing it would be far beyond most people, which was what mattered. When he finished, he could tell that the guests’ reactions were mixed: the women were touched at his display of naked emotion, the men looked faintly embarrassed for him.

      Which

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