Twenty-four years ago….
It wasn't that Pete Tyler hated Vitex. It wasn't as if it wasn't an interesting product, a health tonic marketed to those out there who were conscious about calories and what they were putting into their bodies. It wasn't as if it couldn't sell under the right circumstances. It wasn't even a bad formula, as far as formulas went, he supposed. It just tasted like horse piss.
And that was why Pete was staring at a giant stack of bottles piled at one end of the living room in his tiny flat in the Powell Estates. The one he shared with his wife, Jackie, the very wife who was sitting across from him, curled on the couch, shuffling through a pile of bill. Her chequebook was at hand, and she cast occasional evil glares at him when she wasn't flicking an eye towards the events on the telly.
"Rents due," she muttered, eyes gliding up to him from the bills on her lap. "Just like every month."
"Yeah," he murmured, frowning at his own calculations on his yellow notepad, the kind with the wide spaces, big enough to doodle on. He had been jotting down figures and ideas for weeks now on Vitex, on how much it would cost to gain enough start up capital to just snag the recipe from the owner and set-up his own stake. Maybe make it better. Lord knows he barely drunk it now, and he sold the stuff. Maybe fruit flavors, or with some electrolytes in it, for the athletes, or sugar free for those watching their figures.
"You know we've been behind the last six months," Jackie continued, something cold and resentful gliding under her tired, casual tone. "Council's been pretty lenient up till now."
"We always work it out," Pete shot back without so much as looking up from his numbers. "Say we'll have it in a few days."
"I got to pay for the electricity in a few days."
"So, we use the grocery money for the electricity."
"I'm using that for part of the rent," she replied. On the telly a reporter gravely discussed the unusual nature of the massive stock market drop that day, catching Pete's attention, much more than the pointed glare he knew was being directed at his head.
"A bunch of rich toffs lose their shirts playing with Monopoly money, you perk up, but I talk about how to keep a roof over our heads, you can't be bothered?"
"It's bad that, Jacks, the economy taking a hit like that. Means hard times scrounging up folk who want to invest."
"Invest in what? Japanese cars and computer games?" She sniffed, pulling herself off the couch enough to grab the remote off their battered, paper covered coffee table and snap the television off right under Pete's nose.
"Oi, I was watching that!"
"I know! It's why I done it," she snapped, throwing the remote right at his face. He ducked, tablet flying as she stalked past his chair, the piece of plastic sliding down the back and into the cushions.
"What the bloody hell, woman, could have broken my nose!"
"What, afraid one of your girlfriends won't want you no more," was the bitingly airy reply from the kitchen. Scowling, he rounded on her, only to find her pointedly ignoring him as she puttered around the kettle.
"I'm working, Jackie, trying to get your rent money together. How many times I got to tell you that?"
"Maybe when you get me the rent money I will start believing you," she shot back with the practice ease of one who'd had this argument with him before. Many times, as a matter of fact. So many that even as she said it, her shoulders slumped and her head hung wearily as she leaned it against the cabinet. "Just...do what you can, Pete. We can't keep doing this. I can't keep doing this."
She looked utterly and completely defeated. And Pete found he hated that.
"Jackie," he drew her name out in a long, pained sigh as he rounded into the kitchen, to where she stood with the kettle, pretending to busy herself with a teapot, hiding the towel she was using to dab at her eyes. "I'll get it. We always make it through, right? Trust me!"
"Yeah," she sniffed, but without much conviction, even as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, pressing himself against her shoulders. It was always the same, every month, it had been for their near year of living there. Jackie would panic about the bills, Pete would reassure her it would be well, and they'd show up three days late with rent, and have to face the humiliation of disapproving glares from the woman at the management office. Every month, this same routine would begin again. And every month it was getting harder and harder to put a good face on it. Pete had a gut feeling if something didn't break in their way soon, something else would, and it would likely be their marriage.
"Come on, how about some tea, yeah?" He kissed the top of her head lightly, felt it move as she nodded, and smiled. "Put the bills away for now, just talk about other things. "How was your day?"
"All right," she shrugged as he pulled away, reaching around her to grab for a box of biscuits in the cupboard above her. "Got in at a salon in town. Nothing fancy, mind, but enough to give me a bit of work to cover things."
Again with money. He bit back a loud sigh as he opened the package and fished out a chocolate sandwich. "So you think you will like it there?"
"Maybe. Seems all right enough." He watched her busy herself with tea making, measuring leaves and waiting for the kettle to boil. "Otherwise caught up with Mo, saw Mum and Dad. They said we're to come for dinner on Sunday."
Pete was glad her back was turned so she couldn't see his eyes roll to the ceiling. "Sure, fine. Sounds lovely." He hoped it sounded civil. Even if it didn't, Jackie didn't appear to be in the mood to argue it.
"Sarah and I tried to catch up with Evie. You remember her?"
Pete really had no head for most of Jackie's friends. She seemed to have a pack of them around, "the chav pack" as they seemed to laughingly refer to themselves. Most were girlfriends or wives of his mates, a few were ones that had gravitated in and made themselves at home, mostly to harass Pete as far as he could tell. Whenever he turned up and the brood of them sat around, clucking about, they'd all go silent when he wandered past, shooting him expressions that varied from disapproval to knowing, none of it added up to good. He tended to avoid them at all cost.
"Which one is she, then," he faked, hoping to get Jackie to jog his memory without admitting he couldn't tell the difference between them.
"She's the pixie like blonde who shacked up with Marty from the bowling team."
He think he did have a vague recollection of a girl meeting that description. About twenty, dishwater blonde, hair up in a perpetual ponytail, tended to wear nothing but jeans and oversized t-shirts, with a cigarette always out of her thin lips. "I didn't know her and Marty were a thing."
"Yeah, started months ago. How come you didn't notice?"
Pete avoided Jackie's dubious frown with a shrug. "Honestly, men don't talk about those sorts of things."
"What? You not comparing notes on your latest conquests?"
He ignored the subtle jab at his own suspected infidelity. "Marty don't seem to care one way or the other who knows about her."
"He better start caring soon." Brittle disapproval hissed like the kettle as the water came to a boil.
"And why is that?" He watched her jaw work tensely as she poured water over the leaves with all the air of anger that she usually reserved primarily for him. She waited till she put the lid back on before she answered him.
"Evie's got herself knocked up." By the sound of it, Pete couldn't tell who Jackie was more annoyed with, Evie or her partner. "She admitted it to me and Sarah today. Has been off the pill for months but never told him. And then never used rubbers, mind, so that's what happens."
Pete only blinked mildly. "Yeah, I'm aware how that works, thanks. Evie pregnant? And she's sure it's Marty's?"
He knew the minute the words left his lips he'd regret it, but he couldn't stop them any more than he could stop the flashing, blue storm that was Jackie's expression the minute he did. Her mouth, already turned up in disapproval, now curled into a full-blown sneer directed at him. "Isn't that typical, she gets pregnant and you have to assume your buddy didn't do the deed?"
"I didn't mean..."
"Typical, you all stick together, you lot, all useless."
"Jacks," he hissed, though it did no good. She merely whipped around again, snagging mugs and slamming them on the counter. "Okay, that was badly worded, I didn't mean it. I just meant...look, you and me, we both know Marty. All right bloke, but can't find his own arse with a roadmap and two hands. Not exactly the sort of lad I'd suggest to any woman to father her kids."
This seemed to mollify Jackie somewhat. "Yeah, I guess." She splashed hot, fragrant liquid into each cup, before spooning a bit of sugar into one of their old, brown chipped mugs and handing it to him without a glance. "Neither of them has enough sense to get themselves together, and now they will throw a baby into all of this. I told her she was stupid for it, Sarah and I both did, and she only cried and said she was going to keep it."
"Well, I suppose there's that." Pete sipped at his steaming mug thoughtfully. Hot, strong, and sweet, it was just how he liked it. No one made a cuppa like Jackie, not even his late mum, God rest her soul, not that he'd tell her that. For all of Jackie's harping, there was a lot that made him happy too, and her tea was one of them.
"It's strange," he considered, pulling from his mug again, thinking on the tall, lanky, wild-haired Marty who'd been a drummer in the band Pete had been in until he had an accident falling down a flight of stairs and broke his arm. "Marty's always been so...gormless."
"You mean strange he's having a kid?" Jackie took up her own mug, with two sugars and a splash of milk, and leaned against the other counter. "Yeah. Knowing his luck he'll leave the little mite somewhere like the bowling ball rack."
"Or the cigarette shop in the courtyard," Pete snickered, imagining the Middle Eastern fellow who ran it staring at some random baby left on the counter there. "What about Evie? She got enough sense to change a baby from time-to-time?"
"Seriously, her first response was to wail she was going to get fat and she couldn't keep smoking cigs no more." Jackie snorted, grabbing a biscuit from the package Pete had snagged earlier. "She has no clue what she's in for. Not just the getting fat and laying of the smoking and drinking, but then there's the labor, and then when you get it here, there's poopy nappies, and crying all night, and no sleep, and screaming. She's going to be a wreck in a year."
Pete's experience with babies admittedly was limited. He'd been an only child, and he'd had only a few cousins to speak of, and none babies. Mostly it was his friends kids, and they seemed all right. "I don't know. I've not seen it ever be so bad."
"It's awful." Jackie seemed to ignore him as she crunched on a chocolate sandwich, shuddering as she did. "Spent a summer as a kid helping in a nursery. Screaming, crying, wetting, everything. And every one of the girls I knew who got knocked up never looked the same again. Before, they all cared about themselves and did their hair and wore clean clothes. The minute they had kids they wore nothing but pajamas and no make up to be seen. Right nightmares, they were, and they didn't see nothing wrong with it."
"Raising kids isn't easy, Jacks. Can't blame them if they focus on other things."
She shrugged, finishing her biscuit. "I guess." She didn't sound convinced.
Pete only in that moment realized that up till then he had no idea his own wife's ideas about children and families. Admittedly, he had always assumed that Jackie would be just like every other woman, want to settle down and have a family. He'd actually looked forward to it. It had never occurred to him when he had proposed to her with his cheap little ring that she might not want the same thing he did.
"So, about kids," he stumbled, awkwardly, hesitantly eyeing her over the rim of his mug. "I mean...you and me, we're married. Not like Marty and Evie. And we've never talked about..."
He trailed off as a worry line creased in between Jackie's dark brows. "You saying that you want to have kids?"
"Well, I mean, I'd like to, one day." He busied himself with staring at the mug in hand, watching the way the kitchen light filtered through the amber liquid. "I mean, I always wanted maybe a little girl to spoil rotten...or a son, someone I could teach to play footie."
"You're rubbish at football," Jackie shot back softly, but fondly. "You've wanted kids?"
"Yeah," he admitted finally looking up at her. "I mean, I guess I just assumed you would too."
Her expression tightened. "Yeah, I guess we didn't ever discuss that much, did we?"
"No," he admitted, chuckling. "We were too busy doing other things."
That at least drew a faint blush across her cheeks. "I guess we should have. I at least should have. I mean, not every woman even likes kids."
"And you?"
"Don't know," she replied, though he felt she was simply just avoiding giving him a far more honest answer. "I mean, I suppose I might, someday."
"Someday," he pressed, knowing it for the stalling tactic it was. "Someday we'll be too old to have kids."
"You mean you'll be too old. You've got twelve years on me, old man."
He wasn't about to be baited by her teasing. "Jacks, you know what I mean."
"I do." She set her mug aside to cross her arms across her faded t-shirt. "But let me ask you this? You are talking about kids, and there I am, sitting there, trying to figure out how to put a roof over our heads. We can't pay rent, Pete, let alone take care of a baby. And they take money, a lot of it, for nappies and food and clothes. And what if we lost the place? What then? We can't just live out of car with a baby. Can't bunk up with a friend, or even my parents. Wouldn't be right foisting a newborn on to them."
"You act as if we'll be in this spot forever," he muttered, staring sourily at his quickly cooling tea. "One day, Jacks, you'll see, I'll make a good living for us, a proper one. I can take care of you and we can have a baby, and they'll be taken care of too. If I could do that, you'll consider, right?"
A variety of thoughts seemed to play themselves out in Jackie's expression, before she decided to settle on something soppy, like the look one gives a particularly cute puppy who's done something clumsy but been adorable at it. "You always were a dreamer, weren't you?"
Pete could only smile sadly at her.
"It's why I married you, I guess," she sighed, leaning over to plant a kiss on his cheek before patting it softly. "I'm going to shower and go to bed. Will you clean up the tea things?"
"Sure," he replied, forcing himself to nod reassuringly as she shuffled off. As the door to the bath closed, he felt himself sag against the counter. Pete Tyler knew an argument he wasn't going to win. And he had a feeling this was one of those Jackie would dance around for years with no resolution.
Still, he considered, as he poured the rest of his tea down the drain, a son would be nice...or maybe a daughter.
