“Haven’t you forgotten something?” Rich asked as he and Paul enjoyed a pub dinner of steak, chips and beer.

Paul thought for a moment before his eyes went wide. “I forgot to pick Troy up from the taxidermists!”

Rich closed his eyes and shook his head. “I was thinking more, your wife reading the news, actually.”

“Oh fuck!” Paul gasped and looked over at the bar. The television above it was tuned to the news, but the sound was turned down. He scrambled to his feet and hurried across the dining room to the bar. “Could you turn the sound up please, mate?” The barman shrugged and did as asked. “Thanks,” Paul smiled and slipped him some extra cash before joining Rich again.

“So, how’s the Gina/Freya situation going?” Rich asked coyly, stuffing the last of his steak in his mouth.

“What situation? I threatened Freya with a restraining order.”

“I watched the news last night, you can see the tension just bubbling between them.”

“You only think that because you know Genie wants to attack Freya with a blunt object.”

“Bullshit mate. And I’d bet you’d be quite happy to see them tear strips off each other.”

“In jelly,” Paul grinned and then giggled into his beer. He refocussed his attention on the television where Gina was about to throw to the weather.

“Well it was a hot one today, so hot our weather reporter Freya actually arrived at work doused in beer. Was that an attempt to beat the heat or were you just involved in a wet t-shirt competition at the local pub?”

Rich choked on his beer and Paul fell open mouthed as Freya fought to hide the contempt on her face and prattle on about the UV rating.

“It’s only been two days,” Paul groaned.

“You’re a bad man, Paul. Look what you’ve done to that sweet, innocent woman.”

“Genie has never been sweet and innocent.”

“I wasn’t talking about her,” Rich laughed. “That’ll be one for the gossip columnists.”

“Get fucked.”

“‘It appeared last night that there was tension between hot new newsreader Gina Coleman and weather reporter Freya Stevenson. Coleman, who is married to comedian Paul McDermott, gave a cruel barb as she threw to Stevenson at the end of the bulletin…'” Paul chucked a coaster at Rich and it hit him in the face. “Ow, ya dickhead.”

“That’s not funny. What if Freya does confess all to the papers?”

“Don’t worry, mate,” Rich soothed. “Gina will kill her way before that happens.”

Fenny checked the vegetables that were bubbling on the stove. She’d decided to surprise Brad with a nice meal, but so far he was late, and if he didn’t get home soon he’d miss the taping he was scheduled for. Fenny readjusted the napkins for the fifth time when the door opened and Brad bounded in with Lilly on his shoulders.

“Where have you been?” she scorned, marching into the living room.

“It was getting late so Lilly and I stopped off for burgers,” Brad replied, returning Lilly to the floor.

“Burgers.”

“Yeah, you know, bit of meat in a bun?”

“I know what a burger is,” Fenny sighed. “It’s just I…”

“Is that the time?” Brad gasped looking at his watch. “I better get going to the taping.”

“Right,” she sighed as she felt all the effort she’d gone to go to waste.

“I shouldn’t be too late,” he smiled.

“Great,” she shrugged.

“Something wrong?”

“No, everything’s just dandy.”

“You sorted things with your mom, right?”

“Yeah. She’s still in denial but hey, what can you do?”

“It’ll work itself out,” he soothed and pulled her into his arms. He kissed the top of her head and then turned to Lilly. “You behave for Fenny while I’m out.”

“Yes Daddy,” Lilly sighed as he ruffled her hair and then dashed out the door.

“Bye honey, thanks for everything,” Fenny breathed as she felt a little hand clamp around her thumb.

“Can we paint?” Lilly asked with a small smile.

“It’s getting close to your bedtime,” Fenny countered as she crouched down.

“Please,” Lilly pouted.

“Okay, but then when I say it’s bath time you have to go straight away.”

“Deal!” Lilly chirped and raced off into her room.

“I used to have a life, now I finger paint on a regular basis,” Fenny mumbled. “I hope Gina has better luck with Paul.”

Gina arrived home and glanced around to see if Paul had done what she’d asked. The ceiling was still devoid of patches, and for some reason there was a great deal more of his junk stacked in his studio than before. She shuffled into the bedroom and switched on the small bedside light that like most things was residing on the floo,r and noticing he’d left her a note on her pillow. Gina dropped onto the mattress and grabbed it.

Gina dropped the note back on the bed and let out a heavy sigh. She’d been looking forward to coming home to Paul and dinner, and it seemed she was getting neither. She went to grab the note again when the doorbell gave its usual burnt out crackle.

“Why now,” she groaned, pulling herself to her feet and making no attempt to hurry. She answered the door to find a woman not much older than herself standing there looking nervous.

“Hi,” the woman smiled. “I’m Vicki, Scott’s wife.”

Gina had to think for a moment before she remembered Scott was their next door neighbour. “Right, hi, Gina, come in,” she babbled and moved aside to let Vicki in.

“I wanted to apologise for Scott forcing your poor husband to talk about plumbing for three hours.”

“Think nothing of it, I’m sure Paul wasn’t listening anyway,” Gina yawned.

“Thanks,” Vicki paused. “You’re that newsreader aren’t you?” Gina nodded. “And he’s from…”

“Yeah, can you please not tell anyone?”

“Oh, I won’t,” Vicki gushed. “You’re such nice people I just couldn’t.”

“Do you want a cuppa?” Gina asked smiling, suddenly glad of the company.

“Fenny,” Lilly peeped and Fenny shook her head, not realising she’d been day dreaming.

“Sorry sweetie,” she breathed. “Oh, what have you painted?”

“That’s Daddy,” she smiled, pointing to a green blob. “And that’s you and me and Mochie.”

“Where’s Jag?”

“Hiding,” Lilly giggled.

“Hmm, we’ll make a surrealist out of you yet,” Fenny mused. “Okay, bath time.”

“Can we paint more tomorrow?”

“Course we can,” Fenny nodded as she led the paint-covered child to the bathroom and started running the bath. She squeezed in the bubble bath and then started to get Lilly undressed.

“What do you do with paintings?” Lilly asked as her socks were discarded.

“Well, if you’re really good they go in a big room called a gallery,” Fenny replied, helping Lilly into the bath.

“Are any of yours there?”

Fenny laughed, “No sweetie, they’re not.”

“They should be,” Lilly smiled as Fenny scrubbed the paint from her fingers. “Will you take me to a gal, gol, gali…”

“Gallery,” Fenny asked and Lilly nodded. “I can but you might not like it. Some of the pictures are a bit, strange.”

“Strange?”

“Yeah, they might scare you or upset you?”

“Cool,” Lilly grinned. “Like Uncle Paul’s troll pictures?”

“Trolls? When did he…No don’t tell me…”

Once Lilly was in her pyjamas, Fenny ushered her into bed. Lilly paused on her way there and grabbed her painting.

“You can have my picture,” she declared.

“I thought we were going to pin it on the wall?”

“No you have it, it might make you smile again.”

Fenny paused and looked straight into Lilly’s big brown eyes. She’d forgotten how children pick up everything, and Lilly was no different. Obviously she’d noticed Fenny’s long face more than anyone else, and it had never occurred to her how her actions had affected the child.

“Thanks sweetie,” Fenny breathed as she tucked Lilly in and kissed her forehead.

“I’m sorry we don’t have much at the moment, everything is kinda everywhere,” Gina apologised as she handed Vicki a mug of tea.

“Don’t worry about it, we’ve all been there,” Vicki perked. “You should try having two young boys.”

“I have a manchild, does that count?”

“We all have menchildren,” Vicki laughed. “So, you two are married?”

“Yeah, somehow,” Gina said coyly.

“I just wondered because you don’t wear a ring.”

Gina looked at her ring finger a moment. The memories of why she wasn’t wearing it were a little too painful to share with a stranger. “I didn’t want to get paint on it.”

“No kids?”

“No, I have Paul and his fascination with strange creatures,” Gina replied “He forgot to pick up the bloody mongoose,” she added.

“Mongoose?”

“Troy, it’s stuffed and it’s a long story I’d rather not go into.”

“Right,” Vicki nodded. “Anyway, be glad you don’t. What I’d do for a quiet night in with the hubby, if you know what I mean?”

“So palm the kids off on their grandparents,” Gina suggested.

“Tried it, Scott decided to go fishing with his buddies.”

“He gave up the prospect of sex for fishing?”

Vicki nodded miserably. “And the football, beer, oh, and polishing the car.”

“Do you have any balance in your relationship?”

“Do you?”

“Damn right, we do our own thing sure but we have our time, too. It’s all about communication, and I can safely say we’ve done a lot of it.”

“I can’t even get him into bed with me at the same time, he’s too busy watching the damn cricket,” Vicki pouted. “I have to ask, I’ve been a tad nosy and seen you and your husband together. You seem to be happy, I’m so jealous. What’s your secret?”

Gina thought for a moment. “He adores me and I adore him. That and no one else would have us. Oh, and the sex is constantly amazing…”

“Okay, now I hate you,” Vicki teased and Gina laughed. “I don’t even remember the last time I had sex.”

“So initiate it. Send the kids to their grandparents, make him a nice dinner, and then show him some new sexy underwear you bought. Make him beg for it, he’ll be putty in your hands.”

“You make it seem so easy,” Vicki gasped.

“It is when you know your man well enough to play him, and I don’t mean in a horrible manipulative sense, although that can be useful,” Gina mused.

“So tell me,” Vicki grinned. “How do you play your man.”

“I’ll let you in on a secret,” Gina smiled and leaned in closer. “I don’t have to.”

Fenny had decided after Lilly was asleep that she’d just have to take things into her own hands even further and try and rekindle the romance in her relationship. Firstly, she was forced to store the dinner she’d worked so hard on in the fridge, and as she pulled the plastic wrap tightly over a bowl of carrots, she decided seduction was her best bet. She showered to remove the smell of cooked food from herself, and then pulled on her best and sexiest underwear. If that didn’t make Brad fall all over her, nothing would. Just to drive her point home, Fenny hunted out all the candles she could find to give the room a soft glow and put some soft music on quietly. Now all she needed was Brad to come home. By midnight she was starting to doze off, it didn’t look like he was coming home anytime soon. She changed into her pyjamas, blew out the candles and slid into bed.

“So much for romance,” she grumbled.

A short while later Fenny was startled by a bang and then “sorry door.” Brad was home and appeared to be quite drunk. There was a bit of clattering as he tried to get undressed and then ungracefully fell into bed.

“Fen, you awake?” he asked, the smell of alcohol wafting over her.

“No,” Fenny grumbled.

“Was there a power cut or something?”

“What? Why?”

“All the candles?”

“Idiot,” she grumbled and turned over away from him.

He didn’t seem to take the hint and kept talking. “The taping was good, Greg’s so gonna get bleeped for telling Drew to fuck off, and Colin had everyone on the floor when he started singing about colostomy bags.”

“Go to sleep, Brad,” she sighed.

“And then we went for drinkies,” Brad cooed as he slid toward Fenny, a hand groping for her thigh.

“Really, hadn’t noticed,” Fenny grumbled and slapped his hand away. “I’m tired after looking after your daughter, I just want to sleep.”

“You’re no fun,” Brad huffed and rolled onto his back.

“Makes two of us then,” she spat and clamped her eyes shut. He looked angrily at the ceiling and wondered if Fenny was just premenstrual.

Gina was flumped on the mattress bed reading when Paul waltzed in, his cheeks rosy from the alcohol he’d consumed.

“You drunk?” Gina asked, not looking up from her book.

“Unfortunately no,” Paul replied and dropped onto the mattress beside her. “Whatcha reading?”

“It’s about serial killers. Did you know there are 52 loose in the US at this very moment.”

“And yet there’s still so many yanks,” Paul mused.

“That’s not funny, people died,” Gina giggled, closing her book and putting it on the floor. “How was Rich?”

“Yeah, fine apart from his darling child’s fear of going to bed in case there’s monsters in his closet. I mean only Rich’s kid could possibly have got scared of Monster’s Inc. ”

“This from a man who’s paranoid about cockroaches.”

“I’m not paranoid, I just think all the little fuckers need to die,” Paul grumbled. “How was your evening.”

“Well apart from returning home to no husband, having a bonding session with the neighbours, and taking a trip to McDonald’s, it wasn’t too bad.”

“Which neighbour did you bond with?”

“Vicki, Scott’s wife.”

“Scott?”

“The guy who you chatted to about plumbing.”

“Oh right. Was she nice?”

“Yeah, she was,” Gina nodded. “So, what’s this thing your agent wants you to do?”

“Oh,” he grinned. “I’m going to host Am I Good in Bed. It’s like that national sexy survey thing.”

“Oh my god, they’re letting you host a sex show,” she gasped.

He nodded. “Scary what they get me to do, isn’t it?”

“You’ll be great, you always are.”

“Aw, flatterer,” Paul mused and propped himself up one elbow. “By the way, did you get berated for your throw to Freya?”

“You saw that?”

“The whole pub saw it,” he scorned. “You can’t go insulting people on national television.”

“You do,” she countered.

“I wasn’t reading the news!”

“Yeah you were.”

“Okay, bad example. The point is if you do that it gets into the gossip columns and reflects badly on both of us.”

“This from you, huh?”

“See, this is why I don’t have children,” Paul huffed, getting to his feet. “I can’t lecture them.”

“Aren’t you coming to bed?”

“Yeah, I’m just going to have a shower, I stink.”

“Want me to sponge you down?” she asked with a coy smile.

“Nah, you’re already in bed, no point in getting up,” he smiled and headed to the door as she felt all her expectations sink through the floor. He stopped and turned around.

“The mongoose!” the said together. “You forgot it.”

Paul shook his head and giggled all the way into the bathroom.

Brad woke with the feeling that something was trying to burrow out of his head. He decided then and there to never drink again, but then he did that every time he woke with a raging hangover.

“Fen!” he called, but there was no response. He stretched out his arms and his hand brushed against a piece of paper. He looked at it blearily and it took several seconds before he realised it was a note from Fenny.

Brad read the letter twice and was concerned by how angry Fenny sounded. “Must still be premenstrual,” he shrugged and dropped the letter on the floor as he got up. He found Lilly perched in front of the television with a selection of cuddly toys.

“Morning princess,” he perked, rubbing his stubble.

“Not morning, lunchtime,” she pouted.

“Is it? Must have slept in.”

“Ass,” Lilly grumbled.

“Lilly, you have to stop saying that, it’s not a nice word!” Brad scolded her as he joined her on the couch.

“You made my Fenny-Mom sad.”

“I did what?”

“I heard her crying and talkin’ I don’t think you’re very nice to her.”

He looked startled at what his child was saying, “I’m sure Fen is…”

“She’s sad!” Lilly said defiantly. “You have to make her happy again,” she added, climbed off the couch and marched into her bedroom.

“I’ve just been told off by my own child,” Brad said to no one in particular. He switched off the television and tried reason with his own conscience as to why Fenny might even be vaguely sad. He knew Lilly took up most of their time, and he had thought abstaining was a good move. He pulled himself up and sauntered into the kitchen. He didn’t particularly feel like eating, but opened the fridge to scour the contents anyway. He was surprised to see an entire meal wrapped up in plastic wrap on the shelves.

“She made dinner last night, no wonder she was livid,” Brad groaned and rubbed his face. “I am a heartless bastard, I did make Fen sad.”

“Ass!” a small voice piped up and Brad looked down to see Lilly standing there with her arms crossed.

Fenny stirred the mug of tea in front of her and looked blankly out of the window. Her client was due any second, and she couldn’t have felt any more miserable if she’d tried. Her relationship with Brad had had more ups and downs than the stomach of a supermodel, and it had been going perfectly until Lilly was dumped on their doorstep. Had she been a stronger person she might have stated her objections, but the truth was that she was willing to go out of her way to make Brad happy and he was just, in the words of Lilly, an ass. She felt her mood slipping further when her thoughts were interrupted by the beeping of her cell phone, which she pulled from her bag and was surprised to see she had a message from Brad. It simply read ‘I’m sorry, I love you, Lilly keeps calling me an ass.’

“Excuse me, Fenella Grey?” a woman asked, appearing at the table.

“Yes, sorry, distracted,” Fenny smiled as they shook hands. Brad was safe for now — he had the ability to pull out the sweet card when he needed to.

“I’m Carol, I have kind of a strange proposition for you.”

“Strange huh?” Fenny mused and pondered what Carol’s idea of strange was.

“I run a night school not far from here and I’m looking for a life drawing teacher.”

“I don’t have any teaching qualifications.”

“You’re an artist, aren’t you?”

“Yeah but…”

“And you have an improvisation background.”

Fenny’s mouth fell open; Carol had certainly done her homework. “That’s right.”

“So are you interested?”

“Well, I ah…” Fenny babbled. “If you don’t mind me asking, why me?”

“I’ve heard great things about you. I dabble in a bit of art myself.”

“So why don’t you teach it?”

“Because I want you to.”

“You’re not going to let me talk myself out of this, are you?” Fenny asked.

“You have talent, girl, and I’ll be damned if it’s going to get wasted on movie posters!”

“Thank you, I think,” Fenny breathed and pondered a moment. “Okay, I’ll have a go at teaching, can’t be any worse than what I do now.”

“Fantastic, lunch is on me,” Carol grinned and motioned for a waiter.

“Where are you going?” Gina yawned as she shuffled into the kitchen where Paul was doing up his shoes and working on a mug of tea.

“I’ve got to talk with the Am I Good In Bed people,” Paul replied.

“How long is that gonna take? I don’t have to be in until like five.”

“Who knows. I’m hoping I can get back by the time the guy with the formica arrives.”

“I bet that’s a sentence you never thought you’d utter.”

“That’s true,” Paul sighed.

“You’ve got to pick up Troy, too, and you never called the council about the bloody possums.”

“I’m kinda getting used to them,” Paul mused.

“I’m not comfortable with them watching me go to the toilet.”

“Oh, where’s your inner exhibitionist?”

“I left it in Amsterdam.”

“Don’t go there, not at this hour,” Paul yawned. “How do I look?”

“I’m sick of that suit, and your sideburns are shaggy,” Gina shrugged.

“And on the good side?”

“You smell pretty.”

Paul closed his eyes and shook his head. “Go back to bed and I’ll call you when I’m on my way home.”

“Deal,” Gina sighed as they shared a quick kiss and Paul hurried out the door as the waiting taxi driver beeped his horn. Gina wandered back into the bedroom and crawled back under the covers. Just as she got comfortable, the doorbell crackled and the phone rang at the same time.

“Nooo!” she whined, pulling a pillow over her head.