Baby Blues and Wedding Shoes (35 page)

Marcio found he was forced to stand by
helpless while another man attempted to woo his girl from under his
nose. He didn’t know whether to laugh at the man’s audacity or
simply punch him. In the end he did neither, but instead responded
to the silent message in Helen’s eyes, and made an excuse to leave
them alone. He had to trust in her love for him.

Once Marcio had left, Daniel steered
Helen to a sofa in the quietest part of the lounge. Helen found
that her body responded to his domineering behaviour even while her
mind screamed at her to snap out of it and tell the bastard to get
lost.

“Darling, please tell me you forgive
me. I was an idiot. I don’t want our children growing up without
knowing their real father. You won’t deny them that.”

Part of Helen marvelled at the skill in
his words. Of course she wouldn’t deny her children anything. They
had a right to know their origins, even if she didn’t approve of
them. If he sincerely wanted to know them, which she doubted, she
couldn’t say no. He probably had a legal right to access for all
she knew. Some of her earlier fear, that Daniel would try and
portray her as an unfit mother, would try for custody, came back
into her mind. Anything would be better than that.

“I won’t deny you access,” was all she
said, “But it will be on my terms.”

“Of course.”

Marcio finally located them in the
corner and headed towards them with drinks. Daniel seemed to decide
it was opportune to quit while he was ahead. His demeanour was
meek, but Marcio could have sworn he saw a victorious glint in the
man’s eye that left him feeling slightly nauseous.

Any desire to be sociable departed with
Daniel’s retreating form. By mutual consent Marcio and Helen agreed
to head back to her apartment and see the New Year in together,
just the four of them.

Chapter
Seven

He was loath to admit it but meeting
Daniel at the party had rattled Marcio. While he was still a
shadowy form from Helen’s past he hadn’t seemed much of a threat.
In Marcio’s mind he had taken on the role of the pantomime villain,
the evil person Helen had fled from, to find happiness in his
arms.

Now, however, he was too real. Marcio
had felt his writer’s instinct flare up in the short time he’d been
around the man, and every nerve screamed heartless bastard.

I wouldn’t trust the man to give me the
right time of day.

He had to admit, however, that Daniel
hadn’t come across as a villain. He was tall, good-looking,
charming, well dressed. Marcio was conscious of a sense of
fear.

Helen was equally subdued after the
meeting. Marcio’s stomach twisted painfully as he recalled how Mia
had gone quiet, before the wedding. Was Helen having second
thoughts too? Was she regretting leaving Daniel? Did she imagine
the life they could have together, bringing up their babies in
their luxury apartment, every necessity catered for? It ate away at
Marcio, consuming him, until he thought he might go crazy.

“She says it’s because she’s scared
Daniel might try and sue for custody.” Marcio explained one night
on the phone to his sister Benita.

He needed to talk to someone and it
didn’t seem right talking to Helen. He realised that, despite being
his best friend, there were things he couldn’t share with her
yet.

“Do you think this man might try and
take the children?” Benita sounded sceptical. “Did he not suggest
she terminate them?”

“People can change. He certainly got
very cosy with her at the party.”

“Did she respond?”

“I left them to it. I can stand many
things, but not watching another man try and seduce my girl.”

“Maybe you should have stayed to fight
for her?”

“Do you think I needed to?”

Visions of Helen leaving him for Daniel
swam through his mind. It made him feel sick. It seemed like
history repeating itself all over again. Only worse. Even though
they had known each other for only three months, Marcio already
felt closer to Helen than he ever had with Mia. The babies too.
When he felt them kick, his heart beat with joy at impending
fatherhood. But he wasn’t the father. Daniel was.

“Do you think so?”

Marcio was initially confused at
Benita’s words, having lost the train of the conversation within
his own dark thoughts.

“Do you think you need to fight for
her?” Benita clarified, when Marcio didn’t respond.

“I think Helen loves me. Certainly she
tells me, every day. I just worry that Daniel has more to
offer.”

“Such as what?”

“Money. Which we will need, with twins
to care for. Helen’s getting work now, but that will stop soon. I’m
not sure I can support us both on my wages, and still pay off my
debts.”

“Then Mia should help with the debts.
You know my thoughts on that.”

Marcio did, it was an argument they had
had before. He needed to change the subject.

“It will be different. When we have our
new place together. A fresh start. It’s hard, of course, not
spending every night together.”

Benita was silent for so long Marcio
wondered if the battery had gone on his phone. Eventually she said,
quietly, as if fearing to upset him.

“Be careful, brother mine.”

Marcio was indignant that Benita felt
the need to caution him. Helen wasn’t going to hurt him, not like
Mia had. Still, he understood the root of his sister’s words, and
his only response was, “I will, Benita, I will.”

Chapter
Eight

Helen felt goosebumps rise along her
arms as they approached the front door. She looked at Marcio and
his face mirrored her feelings. Helen could tell that Marcio was
trying not to get excited, but this was by far the most promising
start. The house was old, Victorian at least, with red bricks
glowing in the weak January sunshine. The apartment was ground
floor, which Helen would once have dismissed as unsuitable. Now the
risk of being accessible to burglars had to be weighed against
buggy logistics and garden access.

As they waited for someone to answer
their knock Helen could see the apartment had its own front door
and she, too, felt her excitement rise.

With the due date looming there had
been no time to lose in finding a place where they could live
together. They had discussed it at length on New Year’s Eve, almost
as a way to drive out Daniel’s presence and his attempt, deliberate
or otherwise, to ruin their night.

They were agreed that the perfect flat
would have to wait. If the babies decided to come early, as Rachel
had said they might, they only had a couple of weeks to find
somewhere and move in. It was a daunting prospect, and the
practical part of Helen knew they should wait until later in the
year. However, unbeknownst to her, one of the many hormones
released into her body by the pregnancy seemed to come with a
nest-building urge that was hard to subdue. She found that, almost
overnight at 30 weeks, she had an overwhelming desire to create
order around her, to ensure that everything was ready for the
babies’ arrival.

Thus it was with an uncharacteristic
zeal that she began scouring the internet and the property pages
for a three bedroom flat to rent that was even vaguely in their
price range. They very quickly agreed that a 2-bed would be fine,
for the six months they were intending to rent, as the twins would
be in their room for that time anyway, so the second room could be
a spare-cum-nursery. Helen was sure her mum wouldn’t mind yellow
walls and a changing table in the corner.

By the time they had traipsed around
the tenth flat and had dismissed it out of hand, Marcio and Helen
were resigned to staying put in their respective places until the
spring. Helen made a deal with herself that, if this last place
they had lined up to see was no good, she would give up quietly and
concentrate on relaxing before the birth.

Eventually they could hear footsteps
along a tiled floor, and the large white door swung open to reveal
a lady, bowed with age but with a twinkle in her eye that suggested
mischief.

“You’ve come about the apartment?” She
opened the door wider as they nodded, and ushered them inside.

“Hello, I’m Muriel, I live upstairs.
The apartment has been empty for a few weeks, so you can come
straight in. Have you come far? You must be tired.” She eyed
Helen’s bump with warm approval.

They explained that Helen’s own flat
was actually only a few streets away, and that they knew the area
well.

“It is a good area.” She showed them a
cloakroom by the front door, before taking the other exit from the
hallway, which led straight into a sunny kitchen. Her clogs
clip-clopped on the quarry tiles.

“Good for children,” she continued,
with a nod at Helen. “When is he due?”

As she took in the details of the
kitchen; the warm red and yellow tiled splash-back which
complemented the red floor, and combined with the pine units to
give a farmhouse feel, Helen answered absently, “They’re due in
February.”

“Twins?”

Helen nodded, nervously.

“How lovely.” Muriel beamed at them
again.

Helen was relieved; some landlords and
fellow tenants had balked at the idea of two tiny babies.

The lady continued, “I live above you
and my hearing isn’t so good. You need not worry about any noise.
Besides, I’ve seen it all before. I had nine.” She sighed, “They’ve
all flown now.”

Nine!
Helen could only imagine,
although Marcio, being one of seven, was nodding as if that were
perfectly normal.

Leading off from the kitchen was a
sun-drenched lounge, with original wood flooring, two battered but
comfy-looking red sofas, and a large sash window overlooking the
street.

Marcio gestured at the open fireplace
and murmured, “Perfect for getting cosy in front of when it snows.”
He winked, and Helen blushed, hoping Muriel was as deaf as she made
out.

The main bedroom was at the back, with
two windows onto the garden. The garden door was in the second
bedroom. Helen wasn’t sure about having outside-access into the
nursery, but she bit her tongue. There was no way she wanted to
find fault with this gorgeous flat. Time enough to worry about that
when the twins had moved out of the master bedroom.

“The garden is just for this flat. It
made sense to me to have it that way, as I never go out there, and
the top flat has a single lady in it. She works in the city, we
barely see her. She is going to wear herself out, poor dear, but
she seems happy enough.”

The garden was tiny, a bare patio no
bigger than the room they were standing in. It was surrounded by a
high white wall trailing ivy, providing shelter whilst still
allowing the sun to enter.

Turning to Marcio, Helen’s face shone,
and he came over to take her hand.

“I’m afraid there’s no bath,” Muriel
was saying, as they stuck their head round the shower-room door
before heading back into the lounge.

“We’ll buy a baby-bath,” Helen said,
again not wanting to find anything wrong. She shared a look with
Marcio, and he turned to Muriel.

“We’ll take it. When can we move in? As
you can see, time is of the essence.”

“Today, if you like,” Muriel said,
gesturing for them to sit at the small pine table that nestled
under the bay window. “Once I have your deposit, the place is
yours.”

Helen and Marcio smiled at each other
in relief. Even though there were a few weeks until the babies were
due, they didn’t want to still be moving house with tiny babies to
care for.

“The flat is partly furnished, as you
see. You are welcome to keep or dispose of the furniture; it was
left by the previous tenant who returned overseas. Do you have much
to bring?”

Helen thought about her cluttered flat,
and all Marcio’s books. They would need to avail themselves of some
storage.

“We have, but most of it can be packed
up and stored.”

“There is a cellar you can use for
storage. It is already quite full, but it is dry. Any space you can
find is yours.”

Helen felt she might have to pinch
herself. To go from all the things they had seen, to suddenly
finding this place. She gave a small prayer to whichever deity
might be listening, and then sat back contented while Marcio made
all the arrangements.

He planned to bring the bulk of Helen’s
things over the following weekend, so she could get herself settled
and everything organised for the babies. He could bring his own
things, most of which would go in boxes into the cellar, in the
evenings and around his assignments. His flat was further away, but
they had borrowed a car for a few weeks as Helen was getting too
tired to manage the tube, and taxi fares were too pricey to be a
permanent solution, so shuttling belongings around wouldn’t take
long. Thankfully neither of them had a great deal of furniture, and
nothing that couldn’t be disassembled and strapped to the
roof-rack.

As they left, Marcio caught hold of
Helen’s hand and kissed it, before pulling her close. Standing
outside the front door after Muriel had closed it, he looked down
into her eyes, his face suffused with wonder.

“Well, Ms Morley, our first place
together. Are you happy?”

“More than you can possibly imagine, Mr
Thomson. Are you?”

His response was to lean down and brush
her lips gently with his, then her eyelids, before kissing a trail
down her cheek and behind her ear, where he knew she was
ticklish.

Helen giggled and pulled Marcio tighter
for a proper kiss. Time stood still as Helen lost herself in the
moment. The babies began to kick in response to Marcio’s contact
with Helen’s stomach, causing Marcio to pull away in mock
protest.