Shopping With the Enemy by Carmen Reid Page B

was a snuffling sound and then Annie saw Micky’s great big blue eye pressed against the other side of the hole.
    ‘Micky!’ she said, smiling with relief.
    ‘Mummy?’
    He sounded smiley too.
    ‘Can you help?’ Annie asked in her most encouraging voice. ‘Do you see the funny knob with the stick on the floor?’
    Micky’s eye moved away from the hole.
    ‘This will not work,’ Ed hissed.
    ‘It’s got to be worth a try.’
    ‘Stick,’ Micky declared. This was followed by a heavy clatter against the wooden floor.
    ‘What was that?’ Annie asked.
    Ed smacked his hand against his forehead: ‘Probably the doorknob falling off the spindle.’
    ‘The spindle? You’re very technical for someone who’s made a complete balls-up of fixing our door,’ she snapped.
    ‘You can take this all out on me later, but right now it is not helping,’ Ed whispered fiercely.
    ‘Later? Later as in when the fire brigade are here trying to work out how to open this door? Do we even have a phone in our room so we can contact them? Where will Micky be by then? He’ll probably have gone down to the kitchen and turned on the gas.’
    ‘Not helping …’ Ed reminded her.
    Annie put her eye to the hole to see what Micky was up to and immediately gave a yelp of pain.
    ‘Owwww!’
    She pulled her head away, hand clutched over her eye.
    The spindle plopped through the hole and on to the carpet.
    ‘Clever boy!’ Annie managed, despite the tears streaming from her poked eye.
    ‘I don’t believe it!’ Ed exclaimed. ‘Are you OK?’
    ‘I think I’ll be fine,’ she said, hand over her eye again.
    Ed slotted the spindle halfway through the gap and turned it. The catch pulled back and the door popped open.
    ‘You clever boy,’ Annie cooed, ‘you clever, clever boy!’
    There stood Micky in his blue babygro with an unusual, concentrated look on his face. Before Ed or Annie could quite register what it meant, he opened his mouth and hit them with a gush of projectile puke.
    It was almost an hour later when Ed and Annie finally fell back into bed, soggy, still smelling slightly of toddler puke and far too tired for any romantic rekindling.
    ‘You know some time ago you promised me a mini-break, far away from the domestic mayhem,’ Ed complained. ‘A mini-break, Annie, where is my mini-break?’
    ‘I did. I totally did, babes. We will go on a mini-break. Just you and me to a lovely place far, far away from the madness.’
    ‘When is this happening? And where?’
    ‘I will book us a mini-break. I promise.’
    ‘Please do …’ Ed turned and landed a kiss on her forehead, ‘because it may be our only chance to have sex this decade.’
    He turned out the bedside light but just as they settled down to sleep, he remembered: ‘What was the favour you wanted to ask?’
    Annie hesitated. It was one thing to ask your husband for a huge massive favour when he was all blissed out and contented post-sex. It was quite another when dogs, puking babies and general exhaustion had got in the way of the big romantic reunion.
    ‘Well … I dunno …’ she began, ‘it’s a crazy plan. Don’t know if I’m even close to pulling it off. In fact, let’s not talk about it now.’
    ‘What? Tell me,’ Ed insisted.
    ‘Well, it’s just Svetlana … she knows I’m on a forced holiday, and she’s offered to take me on a spa break with her but you know … it’s really not fair … there would be too much to organize if I went away.’
    ‘When? Right now? While you’re off?’
    ‘Oh honestly, I don’t think it’s going to work. This weekend-ish. Well, in fact, leaving on Friday morning.’
    ‘Friday?!’ Ed sounded incredulous.
    ‘It was a very last minute offer. But she has said she’ll pay and it’s a very famous place. Legendary, in fact.’
    ‘Go,’ came the simple reply.
    ‘Go? But how? But who?’
    ‘Dinah and I will share it out between us,’ Ed replied, ‘but there are two conditions.’
    ‘OK …’ Annie wondered