Do it" Louie cried down the telephone to Brian, he had picked up the receiver with a smile after his secretary had told him the caller's name, but now his ears were burning, she wanted him to organise a lawyer for a divorce.

"Louise, I don't think you've thought this through"

"Oh yes we have, it's a mutual decision, this is. What's the problem Brian I'm invisible anyway" Louise paused thinking about hanging up, she had used John as he wished and she would be forever in his debt, his noble self letting her survive pregnancy with her head held high as a married woman and given her the ability to keep her child out of foster homes or being adopted out completely. "If you don't have someone I'll sort it myself with the firm in Liverpool" Mister Bartlete would be flabbergasted if she had to explain 'everything ' to him.

"No, no give me a few hours" Brian rang off, brushing a hand through his hair then patting it flat again, this was unsuitable indeed, maybe he should have a word to John... John would most likely rip his head off. Paul, yes Paul, always level headed and has some sort of rapport with Louise.

Paul stood on Louise's doorstep twenty three minutes later, slightly panicked but not overly concerned, this was what the deal had done.

"Oh, he sent you did he" Louise walked back into the room and shushed Paul when he tried to say 'hello'  "I just put her down for a nap" she whispered.

Paul and Louise hadn't been intimate since before the baby was born, she just let John think that they had been. She never corrected him, it was easier that way she presumed.

"Well Brian was rather pedantic about my being the one to talk sense into you" Paul walked in the kitchen and Lou stood by the counter to make tea.

"Why? Brian should be pleased. His favourite boy properly single and fancy free. Should think he'd be celebrating the fact"

"You don't get it, do you?" Paul studied Louise as she tossed sugar in the cups not caring where it ended up. Now she was just angry, peeved at the way this was ending "You do have some power you know" She swung round knocking the biscuit tin over, biscuits flying everywhere. They continued the conversation crawling around on the kitchen floor retrieving Monte Carlo's and Scotch Fingers.

"Oh, he likes my making his breakfast- lunch- dinners, cleaning his toilet, picking up all his shit and clothes, but he also very much enjoys that I have no holds or dare I say, sexual tension with him"

The last Monte Carlo biscuit came into view and they met under the table. Paul grinned his award winning 'I'm your man' grin to deflect the anger Lou was emitting. She was certainly a hothead when the mood took her, just like Lennon, Paul idly thought. Scooting crumbs into her hand Lou scowled at Paul's, as usual, happy demeanour.

"I want to make a suggestion, to both of you" Paul awkwardly crawled out from under the table between the high chair and the table leg then stood up dusting his hands and knees off, crumbs falling back to the floor. "I want you both to tear up the deal, together. Start again, reset everything"

"It wouldn't work- how could it. I've given him carte blanche since the word go. Make him monogamous, huh, yea right" Louise swiped at crumbs on Paul's dark grey sweater, it was very soft she rolled the material through her fingers as she studied his tie "Make John and I something together, properly ..... It's gone that boat, sailed long ago"

"He's so jealous don't you see that when I come over, when I kiss you goodbye, when Nate visits for the check-up's with Evie. There's got to be something causing that"

Louise studied her tea, thinking over the times it was just her and John alone.... the way he wanted her to care as he shoved her back against the door frame.

"Do you care Louise?" Paul tipped her chin to look in her eyes, such a great girl. He felt more than a slight guilt over how he used her or she him... though it was more physical, very physical, less emotional their unions. "Louise?"

"I don't know, we have moments but then I see the deal looming over his smirking head and close my mind to anything but"

*****

Louise sat on the couch waiting for him, it had now gone two in the morning and she was falling asleep intermittently but still she persisted and now walked about the dark house to stop the sleepy feeling fall all over her.

She wouldn't..... couldn't just toddle off back to Liverpool without a word. She wasn't that person to run without the altercation which is stupid really, much more easy to yell, curse and hate someone down a telephone line.

*****

"Louie" John shook Louise, he found her curled on the couch and wondered why "Louie Louie, oh no, Me gotta go, Aye-yi-yi-yi" He sing-songed as he sat beside her, the words saying so much that he didn't know.

The song was an original, Richard Berry, was he related to Chuck? hmmm have to ask someone, John queried silently to himself. Having got the single from a Liverpool music store in early '58 it was a different version to the one that now played in the charts. It was Richard Berry's single but her name was written all over it he mused.

She moved but only to slide a little. Pulling her back from tumbling on the floor he again wondered what the hell he had been thinking when he proposed the deal to her and what the hell was she doing, thinking to agree.

Evie the little angel from the ashes, that's what, John had been worried about what would greet him in the maternity room that day she was born. Instead of fire and brimstone he was captured by sweetheart lips and dark eyes like her mumma. Such a little person with a huge stranglehold on his heart.

"Oh, you're home" Louie sat up and rubbed her eyes, she'd been crying as she waited and wondered about the next step, her eyes red and sore a testament to the fact. She was no closer to a decision when she focused on Johns face, Johns slightly drunk face, but not overly, not plastered fall over yourself drunk. She secretively sniffed the air between them, no perfume, thank goodness although that may have been easier, a better excuse.

"Was Evie playing up, colicky?" John inquired, that's what happened here, nothing between them only Evie.

Louie shook her head no and went to stand up, John made her fall on his lap instead.

Why? He had no idea.

"Hello there"

"Hi"

"John, ummm I don't....."

Don't- what a shit word.

Don't do this, don't do that.

I don't think ....

Don't- they both agreed in silence they hated the word.

"You want to go back to Liverpool"

Louise looked blankly at him, she expected a fight, something, anything. But he was opening the door to her.

"Well this was temporary wasn't it, our deal. Done. Over. Kaput" John stayed straight, rigid, no feeling just words in the near darkness.

"Yes, I suppose. It's done the job. I mean to say it's worked hasn't it. I got to stay with family, keep Evie" Lou spoke calmly into the night.

"Family? You were with me?" John was confused, what family?

"Well you're family silly"

"Oh right, that's alright, family. Brother, Sister and little brat Georgie" John grinned thinly, pulling a cigarette from the packet in his top pocket as she leaned on him, he slipped it in lips holding it there, he wasn't allowed to smoke inside, so didn't light it.

"I could hop on the train next week, perhaps Monday. Are you free to run us to the station?" Louie asked awkwardly. She hated, absolutely hated this but it was so useless to hover in limbo when she could be getting settled back in her hometown, perhaps get a part time job and John, well John would be free like he wanted to be.

John muttered a yes and stood suddenly, Louie somehow landing on the couch, she watched him walk away, so quickly was it done that she herself was in a spin.

Why was it so hard to say what was really happening, what they, what she really felt ..... because what if he doesn't feel the same, her inner voice reminded her.

John lay upside down on the bed, head over the end looking around his room from the strange angle. It freed his mind when he lay like this, a different perspective, a different outlook on what the world around him was doing currently.

He stared at the blade of light that slipped under the door for a long time whilst listening to her shuffling about in the next room. Evie would most likely wake soon, Lou wasn't being terribly quiet and, as if to state the fact, she slammed a door in the hallway cupboard.

John almost stood up, almost walked into the hall, almost opened her door to ask what was the matter, almost bothered to try and be nice, almost inquired if he could help.

But he didn't.

Perhaps she was packing already, so keen she was to escape his flat and him.

My flat, John looked about and spotted three new pictures, new curtains and a pile of folded washing, his boots buffed, he thought, too.

Her flat, it was all her this, little touches, clean, tidy, home, photographs of them, all the boys, Evie, me. ...Smells nice too.

****

She caught the late train -the red eye overnight-er, although it wasn't really overnight just four hours but being from two a.m. in the early hours to around six when she would arrive at Liverpool station it would work perfectly .....

Evie would sleep. Lou's parents could meet her before they left to visit Manchester for an elder cousin's funeral and John....

Well John could stand on the platform by the doors and talk to her til the train signaled.

And he could walk alongside as it progressed, slow at first, from the station.

And he could stand there, alone, as he watch them disappear into the night.

She called him as soon as she got settled and for the next few weeks they would alternate on whose turn it was to call.

Evie soon learnt the phone was her papa and when it rung she slapped her pudgy hands up and down and laughter would brighten her world, and her mothers.

It was an excuse too, to hear the others voice but neither, again, could admit it. Always using the baby as a shield, a way to deflect the pain and truth of missing the other.