JULY 1999, WEST WITTERING

We’re on the beach. Kites are flying. Dogs are chasing balls. Liv squeezes my hand. “Andrew,” she says, “would you like to have children?” I know instantly this is a huge, historic moment. I know I must respond like a man. So I ignore her. Suddenly, the wind is blasting sand against my legs. It’s overcast. I walk off towards the car. She follows me, saying: “You can’t ignore the subject for ever, you know.” She’s wrong about that. I reckon I can ignore it for two more years, at least. The trouble is, she keeps bringing it up.

JANUARY 2000, KENTISH TOWN

It’s a Saturday morning. I’m in heaven. The sun is streaming through the window. It’s catching in the steam of my freshly brewed coffee. I’m sitting at the table, working on my fantasy-league football team. I hear a whimpering sound from upstairs. Liv is calling me. I hate it when she does that. If she needs to talk to me, why can’t she visit me? I’m not a butler. I go upstairs and find her sitting tragically on the bed.

“What’s the matter?” I say. I’m instantly ready to help. “Doesn’t matter,” she says. “No, no. It does matter. Tell me.” “It’s, just ... ” She sniffs tragically. She stares at my dying bonsai tree. “It’s just , I’d like to have a baby, and ... ”

At this point, her voice goes squeaky. This is bad. She’s raised the very worst subject she could raise and she’s raised it in the very worst way: she’s actually crying. My every instinct is telling me to get the hell out of that room. I know I can’t. I compromise by staring out of the window at the small park we overlook. A staffordshire bull terrier is brazenly sniffing the arse of a red spaniel. The terrier clambers on and starts thrusting.

“What are you looking at?” asks Liv. “Two dogs having sex. Well, I think that’s what they’re doing. It’s possible the one in front is blind and the one behind is trying to push her round the park.”

Now Livy’s blotchy tearful eyes are staring right at me. I just know something awful is going to happen.

“But aren’t you going to say something?” she asks.

“About what?” “Having kids.” “What do you want me to say?” “Tell me the truth,” she says. Now that’s never a good idea. I disappear into the most secret vault inside my head. I’m thinking I definitely don’t want kids. Men never want kids now, because they know they can have them when they’re 90. When they’re rich, lucky or good at golf. I’ve always assumed I’ll be all of these things, as long as some woman doesn’t stop me. I consider what part of that I can actually say. I say nothing.

“Would you like to have kids?” she asks. Oh God, how can I possibly know that? First, I’d have to decide if I’m staying with Livy. Don’t get me wrong, I do love her, but there’s only one time when a man knows for absolute certain that he wants to stay with his woman for ever: when she’s just chucked him. The rest of the time, he’s not sure. I don’t say that either.

“What is your problem?” she asks. “Why can’t you talk about your feelings?” I hate it when she says that. “Oh, okay. Right,” I say. “Well, my feelings are, erm, terror.”

“Why?” “I’m struggling to have a career as it is. I don’t have any time to look after children.”

“But I’d do that.” “Well, would you? And I’m also quite scared of becoming a dad. Because I’m scared of turning into my dad.”

“But your dad had five children,” she says.

“But he spent all his time avoiding them.”

“Oh, come on. Your dad’s not so bad.”

I picture my dad. Okay, he’s funny. He gives a good hug. He can speak 10 languages. But he spent my entire childhood scowling at us from behind a pile of books about military history. If he did talk, he’d keep going for two hours. He’d speculate about careers he might have had if he hadn’t made the mistake of having children. The implication was always clear: it was because of us that Dad’s dreams were smashed. I don’t say any of this. I just stare at the wall.

“Andrew,” says Liv. “You don’t think there are any dads who want to be dads?”

“No, I don’t. That’s why they have sheds. That’s why they go out on pointless errands in the car. That’s why they fish. Do you really think people like fishing? It involves staring at a pond for hours and hours, with the odd break where you get to torture a small creature.”

Livy starts weeping again. “Sorry,” I say. I put my hand on her shoulder. She shrugs it off and her knuckles knock against my face. I think: “Oh God, she’s actually hitting me now. I knew I shouldn’t have talked about my feelings. Women never want you to talk about your feelings. They’ve got far too many of their own.”

“Get out,” she says. “ Get out.”

SUMMER 2001, KENTISH TOWN

Livy doesn’t want to find out the sex of the baby. She thinks it’ll “spoil the surprise”. I want to find out the sex because we’re having a nightmare thinking up names.

We go to have a scan. The nurse points to a monitor that occasionally shows a picture of a squirming tadpole.

“Your baby is beautiful,” says the nurse. I’m thinking she has a very weird sense of beauty. Does she have kids with giant heads and tails that flip around on the sofa? I don’t want an assessment on our child’s beauty. I just want to know the sex. I ask.

“Well, I can’t see any male genitals,” she says. “But I’m not certain we’d see them.”

“How dare you?” I want to say. “If my child was a boy, his genitals would be visible from space.” The nurse is pretty sure we’re having a girl.

AUTUMN 2001, STOKE NEWINGTON

Liv’s girlfriends come round in a great posse of perfume and pashminas. They drink prodigious quantities of white wine in the kitchen and they repeat their birth stories like Vietnam vets going over their campaigns.

“I was in labour for two days,” says the competitive friend who has the amazing career. “And I didn’t even have an aspirin.”

“All my doctors were incompetent,” says the one who drives a Volvo. “The anaesthetist was drunk, the registrar was only 20 – he looked like he was tripping. They cut me open and gave me a caesarean through my back. Well, it felt like that.”

“The important thing is to relax,” says the third, a tense interior designer who’s on beta-blockers.

The result of all this is that Liv makes a decision: she will outdo all her friends. She will have no drugs. My job is to massage, play gentle classical music and back up all her decisions.

JANUARY 7, 2002, ELIZABETH GARRETT ANDERSON HOSPITAL

Everyone’s got on their blue coats, just like mine. I feel good. I used to be in the medical programme Cardiac Arrest, and I feel I know where I am. Any second, the cameras will roll, Helen Baxendale will do ballet just out of shot and everything will be normal.

It’s calm in the theatre. The radio is playing. To the doctors, it’s a normal Monday morning at work, but I’m worried about Liv. I’m holding her hand, and she looks very suffering. Then, one of the doctors is brandishing a ventouse – and he’s thrusting it into Liv as if her pipes are blocked with potato peel. I turn away to check the clock.

It’s 9.13am. Then I just look at Liv, and she looks beautiful, and suddenly her eyes relax, like she’s okay, and someone says: “Right. That’s done.” And I kiss Liv, then someone says: “Would you like to come and cut the cord?” I want to say “I really wouldn’t”, but that’s not the right thing to say. So the next thing I know, I’m cutting at this thing that looks like a long sausage filled with black pudding, then they’re wrapping the baby tightly and they’re giving her to me. And I take her ever so gently to the edge of the room and I can hear a tiny, tiny voice going “Ooo, ooo”, like a little scared mouse, as if she’s saying: “Daddy, daddy, will I be all right?” I whisper to her – “Darling, it’s okay. I’ll look after you” – and suddenly my legs are twitching like I’m drunk, and I’m weeping uncontrollably.

MAY 2002, STOKE NEWINGTON

Grace is five months old. People say that having a baby teaches a man his purpose in life: to provide (1) sperm, (2) cash and (3) free childcare. I’ve done the first thing, I can’t do the second, so I must do the third. Grace is five months old and Liv goes back to work.

My mum comes when she can. I’d like her to come more often, but she’s got her own life and we pay her. Liv says: “If you want her to come more often, you’ll have to earn more money.” So now I’m doing childcare and I’ve got no money, and I can’t get more money because I’m doing childcare.

It would be okay if I’d slept, but I’m up till 2am and I’m woken at 8am, and I immediately go downstairs to find Liv. She says: “You will remember to pick up my dry cleaning, won’t you?” Then she leaves for work. While at work, she calls me every time she’s in the toilet. She spends half her working day in the toilet.

On the phone, she complains she doesn’t want to be at work. She wants to be home with her baby. I complain that I’m with the baby. I want to be out working. Liv has a romantic view of childcare. She thinks it’s all about picnics in a field strewn with daisies. She’s wrong, I tell her. Childcare is 1% inspiration, 99% walking around the house hanging socks on radiators.

I try to talk to Gary, who’s my best friend. He hasn’t a clue what I’m talking about. He’s gay. His only commitment is going to the gym. He says to me: “Ah, you’re looking after your daughter. That must be so fulfilling.

I bet you’re great at that.” I want to say: “I’m a man. If I’m great at something, I expect an award. I expect cash. I don’t expect to be changing nappies at two in the morning.” But I don’t.

JULY 2002, STOKE NEWINGTON

Grace is six months old. Liv is 29. I’m 32. Sunday, 7.32pm. Grace is in bed. I’m lounging on the sofa, reading books about parenting. The microwave pings. I go over and fetch my curry. I slump on the sofa with The Sunday Times Culture section. I can’t leave the television alone. The television is like a dirty ex-girlfriend I can’t grow out of.

Liv arrives. She says: “Aren’t you coming to bed?”

“Erm.”

“If you don’t go to bed early, you’ll be bad-tempered in the morning.”

“But it’s only eight o’clock.”

“Well, I was thinking we could sleep together. We could have sex.”

“Oh. You strumpet.” In the privacy of my own head, I’ve just said the sentence: “Do we have to have sex?” I feel like I’ve just been set extra homework. My libido has been locked away in a little Tupperware box that’s also filled with sterilising pills. I’m a little flattered that she’s asked, though.

“Well,” she says, “I thought we wanted another baby.” Yes. We do. Sometime in the future. But Seinfeld is on now. Anyway, you don’t want to make love to me; you just want to conceive. I feel rejected.

“Well, what do you think?” I’m thinking: “Okay, I’ll forgo David Attenborough, but you can’t seriously expect me to miss Match of the Day 2.” I say: “Isn’t it a bit disloyal to Grace?”

“We wouldn’t be doing it for her sake,” says Liv. “We’d be doing it for ours.”

I look into her eyes. She looks into mine. It’s the first time we’ve really looked at each other for a while.

“And we’d be doing it for her sake,” says Liv. “The baby, I mean.”

“Assuming she’s a girl,” I say. “Which she probably would be.” “Why?” She seems to be suggesting I’m so unmanly, I could never produce a boy. She’s suggesting I have effeminate sperm. She’s suggesting that inside my balls, it’s one big princess party.

“Because,” she says, “we’ve had one girl already. There’s medical research about this. Women all have a tendency towards one of the sexes. It’s to do with the acidity in the vagina.”

“Hang on, you’re saying you’ve got an acid fanny and it produces girls?”

“Sort of.” “Well, now you put it like that, I can’t wait to get to bed so I can see this acid fanny for myself. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so aroused in my life.”

I’m not against a new baby. But I feel a little hurt at the absolute plainness of the seduction. I’m a man; I want to be wooed.

I go upstairs and shower till I stop feeling ugly. When I reach the bedroom, Livy is sitting up in bed, penning a report called Socially Responsible Investment: The Quiet Revolution. I’m delighted about Livy’s Quiet Revolution, I just don’t want it in my bed. And Liv’s looked better, in all honesty, than she’s looking now: a stone heavier, smelling of milk and baby sick, and looking as if she could cry at any moment.

I tidy up the place. I remove Calpol. I remove tissues. I remove loads of those packets of wet wipes with the aloe vera moisturiser that smells like poo. I turn the light out. I notice that, unusually, there’s someone lying in the bed next to me. She leans over and kisses me. I don’t want her to kiss me. She’s making my lips feel wet. And she’s blocking my good nostril, and I can’t breathe, but she keeps on kissing me, and I catch her smell, which is like jasmine on a rainy June evening. My body begins to fill with hormones and I start to feel different.

NOVEMBER 2002, STOKE NEWINGTON

Grace is 10 months old and can sit up. She topples sideways like a drunk falling off a bar stool, but she can sit up. She doesn’t crawl. She bum-shuffles. She’s doing great. But everyone else is suffering. The dog is looking permanently worried. As well she might. Liv is pregnant again, though she’s hiding it from work. She’s developed an incredible sense of smell and has suggested that the dog might go and live elsewhere.

I’m still doing a hell of a lot of childcare.

I’ve noticed that, if I try to work, Grace gets angry and the whole place gets even messier. So I don’t work. I don’t exercise. I see nobody except a baby, a dog and some domestic appliances.

That evening, Liv comes home from a conference in Amsterdam. I want her to tell me about it. She wants to switch off from thinking about work. She says: “How are you?” I say: “Well, I’m not getting any writing done, and it’s driving me mad.”

And she says: “I want to be at home looking after Grace. The least you can do is try to be grateful. I’m giving you a gift. Why don’t you enjoy it?”

I realise she’s become the husband and I’ve become the naughty wife. I try explaining this to her, and she says: “If you’re not making any money doing your comedy and your writing, maybe you should do something else.”

And I say: “Yeah, like what?” “I don’t know,” she says. “Find out what you’re good at and make money from it.”

“The problem is, I haven’t any time to work because I’m looking after a child.”

And she says: “Look. I’ve been at work all day. Will you stop shouting at me?”

“I’m not shouting at you. Don’t say I’m shouting.” “You’re shouting now. Listen. I’ve really got a headache.” “Fine,” I say. “I’ll go and sleep on the mattress upstairs.”

As I lie there, I indulge my new fantasy: one of Livy’s girlfriends approaches me at a party. She says: “Andrew, I’d like to have your baby.” Of course, I politely rebuff her, but I’m still deeply flattered that she sees me as a Sperm Lord, an outstanding provider of quality seed.

I sleep a fevered, angry sleep. Suddenly, the sun is on my face. We have no curtains in the upstairs room. It’s 10am. I hear a noise, a shuffling noise. It’s the sound of Babygro on carpet. It’s the sound of a baby coming up the stairs to see me. I crawl from bed. I look over the banister and see her making her way towards me like a chubby salamander. I say: “I can heeeear you.” I can hear baby chuckles, which is the finest sound on this earth.

Eventually, a huge grinning head appears at the top of the stairs. It looks like the sun coming over the horizon, but it’s bigger. And sunnier. In her mind, she’s just climbed the north face of Everest. She thinks I am an angel whom she sees on the summit. I’m better than that. I’m Daddy. And I think: I’m proud to be a stay-at-home dad, but I can think of a better title. I shall think of myself as a Trophy Husband.

NEXT WEEK Andrew and Liv get married; Andrew gets a job; Grace and Cass learn about fairy tales Dad Rules by Andrew Clover is published on May 29 (Fig Tree £14.99). To order for the reduced price of £13.49 (inc p&p). Call The Sunday Times BooksFirst on 0870 165 8585 or visit timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst

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