It had been the same when I was with David; wherever we went, women gravitated towards him and I hated it. I was constantly plagued by the fear that he would find someone more appropriate, and more than once he did. He was never bold enough to pick someone up when I was with him but he would turn his body away, not much but enough to signal that he could be taken. That might have been why I was drawn to Dylan, who was handsome but without the energy that projects raw sexuality. When I met him, I no longer wanted that, but perhaps things had changed. Maybe I was bored of playing it safe. We walked without aim until we reached a canal-side cafe.
‘Want to keep going?’ Frank asked.
‘Absolutely not,’ I said. The air had eased my queasiness but I didn’t want to push my luck.
‘I like that you don’t pretend,’ he said.
‘I like that you tell me what you like about me,’ I replied. Frank squeezed my hand before letting go to pull out my chair.
‘What else do you like about me?’ I asked.
‘Aren’t we the curious one,’ he said. He watched me for a few seconds before pulling out a cigarette and lighting it with heavy inhalations. I thought about dismissing what I had said, picking a new subject and allowing the sentiment to be hidden behind verbosity, but I took a gamble. If he was honest about liking my lack of pretence, he would appreciate my directness, and after our aborted night together we didn’t have time for games.
‘I’m not curious. I need to know. I’m risking a lot even being here.’ Frank took another deep drag on the cigarette.
‘Risks lead to reward.’
‘No,’ I said, pointing my finger at his face. ‘Don’t give me your guru shit. I need to know why. Why you’ve chosen me?’ I hated sounding insecure; from what I could remember about dating, revealing your vulnerabilities was a massive blunder. But this wasn’t dating, this was something else. ‘I don’t want to be a number on a list of your silly mistakes.’ I felt my hand shaking, partly because I was weak and I needed to eat, but also because my body had sensed how important the moment was. Frank was still for a few seconds before he erupted in laughter.
‘Stop! It’s not funny!’ I cried, but I couldn’t help smiling. He stopped immediately, but I could tell he was holding in more and that started me off. ‘Was I a bit dramatic?’
‘A bit, but it’s great. You’re great. There’s nothing silly about this and you’re certainly not a mistake.’ He stubbed out the cigarette and rubbed his chin. ‘I haven’t done this before.’ I looked at the table. It was covered in wet rings left by the drinks of the previous occupants. ‘I like the way you think about questions before you answer. I like when you’re nervous or embarrassed and your bottom lip twitches. I like that you’re open but you’re not a pushover.’
‘You don’t know I’m not a pushover.’
‘I know. I like you. I don’t entirely understand why, and maybe that’s what makes you so fascinating.’ I looked at him.
‘When you know you know,’ I whispered.
‘I take the piss out of people who say that,’ he said. ‘Or maybe I used to. Look, I understand if you don’t want to see me again,’ he continued. ‘I won’t be happy but I’ll understand.’ I desperately needed a drink, but the thought of having one made my stomach heave.
‘I want to see you again but I don’t know if I can handle …’ I stopped speaking because the end of the sentence was too difficult to express. Frank reached across the table and interlocked his fingers with mine. We sat like that for a minute; twenty different questions raced through my mind.
‘I want to get to know you,’ Frank finally said. ‘I know that might be asking for trouble but I think you’re worth it.’
I did what I was good at and rebranded what I knew was about to unfold. We were destined to do this; there was no choice. We were the right people meeting at the worst time; that might mean some pain and discomfort, but we would call them challenges and growth. Spending time together wasn’t a choice but how we would go about it was. I think I convinced myself that an affair might actually help my marriage, that I would understand myself better; perhaps the guilt that was already an accompaniment for every other emotion would force me to treat Dylan and the girls with more patience and greater compassion. Looking back, I’m astounded by the deftness of my mental gymnastics.
Frank had another espresso and I drank a couple of mint teas. The tables around us emptied and refilled, and the waitress hovered impatiently and cleared our cups noisily, unable to hide her frustration at the loss of potential tips. We talked about our hopes for the future, the sort of world we wanted to help build for our children. Did I consider what it might be like to be together? Of course, every woman does. To assess a man as a mate is part of our basic biology. The world is always changing but that remains the same. And the more we talked, the more it felt like he would be a good fit for me; he’d bring out the best of me and quell the darker parts. I don’t know what Frank was thinking, but I didn’t want the morning to end.
Frank was staying another night but insisted on walking me to the station. The guard let him down on to the platform even though he didn’t have a ticket. Our parting was like the movie scene I had imagined, only much more pensive. Frank stayed on the platform with his hands in his pockets as the train pulled away. I stared out of the window until I could no longer see him.
Dylan insisted on collecting me from Hackney Central, even though I told him I’d be fine walking. He arrived with both girls in tow.
‘Welcome home,’ he said as I put on my seatbelt. Chloe blew me kisses from the back seat. Ruby sat next to her in thundering silence.
‘Hi, Rubes, good weekend?’
‘It was, until Dad ruined it.’ I pretended to look for something in my bag, a ruse to hide my smile. One weekend of solo parenting and Dylan had become the public enemy.
‘I’m sure he didn’t manage to ruin it entirely,’ I said. I snuck a look at Dylan, but his eyes were fixed firmly on the road.
‘I only wanted my friend to stay over. We were going to study together.’ I leaned forward to catch Dylan’s eyes. He seemed to be concentrating on the traffic lights.
‘Well, it is a school night,’ I said. With no communication from my husband, my only option was to provide a half-hearted cavalry.
‘Yeah, but we aren’t going to stay up late and we’ll go in together. We’ll motivate each other.’ I glanced at Ruby in the rear-view mirror; her face was the picture of innocence. We’d had a chat about motivation a few weeks prior, and by ‘chat’ I mean that I had lectured and Ruby had rolled her eyes so violently I’d been concerned she’d do herself an injury. Perhaps despite her dismissiveness it was all gently sinking in.
‘Right?’ I looked at Dylan. We’d always encouraged the girls to have friends over. We strategized that it was better to keep them where we could see them. Well, I had strategized and he had agreed. ‘I mean, that sounds OK … I guess …’
‘See!’ shouted Ruby. ‘I told you she’d be fine with it.’
‘Woah, woah, woah,’ I said. I twisted round in the seat to look at her. I noticed that the skin around Ruby’s eyes was swollen; the debate had clearly been going on for some time. ‘Can someone break this down for me? Quietly. I have a headache.’ I sat back in the seat properly and closed my eyes in preparation to analyse the problem – analyse, evaluate and sort it all out, as usual.
‘I told you last week I wanted Dom to stay, and you both said it was fine and at the last minute you say no. You’re always doing this to me.’ I opened my eyes.
‘Dom?’ I turned towards Dylan and he nodded ruefully.
‘Tell me that’s short for Dominique.’
‘What’s the problem?’ roared Ruby. ‘He’s my friend!’
‘That’s great,’ I said in an angry whisper. ‘I’m really glad you have so many friends.’ I faced forward and said in a louder tone, ‘But you can’t have boys stay the night.’
‘Why, though? That makes no sense! Eloise stays over
all the time. What if we were lesbians?’
‘But you’re not, are you?’
‘I don’t know, yet. I might be.’ I checked her in the mirror again. Her arms were folded, her face cold and obstinate. In fairness, she could be right.
‘In that case, I suppose no one can stay over,’ said Dylan.
‘God!’ shouted Ruby. Chloe covered her ears with her hands. ‘You’re actually trying to ruin my life! What do you think we’re going to do? God! You two are gross.’
‘He can’t stay, it’s not up for debate,’ said Dylan, his voice edged with weariness.
‘Listen to your dad,’ I added.
‘You literally don’t understand anything,’ Ruby muttered. ‘You’re never even here anyway, you’re always working.’
‘Ruby.’ I paused to harness my irritation. ‘I’m working so you can have nice things, things like the phone you broke within five minutes of having. I’m working so you can have fun with your friends, friends who your father and I are pretty cool about letting you hang out with. No parent would let their teenage daughter have a male friend over to stay. We are not being unreasonable, so stop treating us like we are.’
‘You’re totally unreasonable. You’re always unreasonable,’ said Ruby. ‘You’re such a …’ Her unfinished sentence hung menacingly in the air. This was the happy family life I was fretting so much about?
‘Pull over,’ I said. Dylan shot me a confused look.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Pull the car over,’ I said. We were on the high street, a couple of minutes from home. I took off my seatbelt and got out of the car. I could hear my family calling me as I walked away but I refused to go back.
20
SHE TOOK SEVERAL minutes to answer the door, so I knew my mother was already well into her evening bottle of wine. She greeted me warmly but not too energetically, not with the exaggerated enthusiasm that would suggest it was too late for her to hold a conversation.
‘What a wonderful surprise, darling.’ Her breath was heavy in my ear as we embraced. I was surprised to find that it was still a comfort to be held by her. Only there in her arms did I realize that I was seeking the knowledge that I could be close to someone I had once thought of as a complete bitch.
Mum ushered me into her living room. Even though it was June, the heating was on and the room – a riot of knick-knacks and cushions – felt claustrophobic. Mum left and returned with a glass of red wine. My stomach wasn’t ready for alcohol, but I reasoned it would be responsible to consume some of her stash.
‘What’s he done?’ Mum asked, as she settled down with her own glass.
‘He?’
‘Your husband.’ I pulled off my shoes and fell back against the sofa.
‘Nothing – he’s great. I mean, he’s fine. It’s Ruby. She’s … she’s doing my head in.’
‘They tend to do that … daughters,’ said Mum. Her wine glass didn’t quite hide her grin as she lifted it to her mouth.
‘Would it have been easier if I’d had boys?’ I thought of all the messes Henry had dragged our parents into, parties that led to bitter confrontations with neighbours, yo-yoing back home after every failed attempt at adulthood.
‘I reckon so,’ said Mum. She leaned forward to top up her glass as she often did when needing to give something consideration. ‘Henry ran me ragged but he was simpler, men are. If he had a problem he told me about it, not like you who would brood and sulk for days and days. Do you remember—’
‘Fine, I wasn’t always perfect,’ I snapped, ‘but we didn’t have it the easiest in the early days.’
‘No,’ Mum said, ‘and I was partly to blame for that. I knew the man who made you was no good, but I had to be the one to change him.’ It was an odd kind of blame taking, only accepting responsibility for failing to recognize another’s shortcomings.
‘He wasn’t around long enough to make that big a difference.’ Mum laughed. When she stopped the silence was acute.
‘No, he didn’t help, but I never got better at making good choices.’
‘Eddie’s a good man. You had your problems but he’s still there for you, for all of us.’
‘Being a good man isn’t always enough. Sometimes good is the last thing on the list.’ There are many conversations that remain unspoken between a parent and a child. You spend so long showing your child they can rely on you, and in order to do that you have to hide a lot of who you really are. Growing up, I had wished that my mother would make an effort to hide more; she would tell me about men she dated and subsequently how they let her down. She didn’t have many girlfriends – she said they didn’t trust her with their husbands and, were this to be true, I’m not sure I would blame them. In many ways I was an awkward substitute for friendship and a partner. Even still, despite her candidness, there were chapters of my mother’s history that remained closed to me and that I wasn’t necessarily ready to open.
‘Do you think if you could have your time with Eddie again you would do it differently?’ Mum waved her free hand about in front of her face.
‘That’s a pointless line of enquiry. You can’t do things differently. You do the things you do because of who you are.’ I knew that when I had been with Frank earlier, I hadn’t felt like myself very much at all, and that it had been terrifying but pretty wonderful.
‘Who are you?’ I asked. I knew who she was to me – complex, troubled and a massive pain in the bum – but I genuinely wanted to know how she saw herself.
‘The sort of woman who couldn’t resist the lad that worked in Eastern Promise.’ Despite my dodgy stomach, I drank the wine.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well,’ said Mum, and she shuffled towards me like we were schoolgirls sharing secrets on the playground. ‘I couldn’t resist him. I don’t know why. I think it was his eyes, so sad … And, well, Eddie said he would forgive me but really, truly he never did, and I guess that cow from down the road was there to comfort him.’
‘So, you’re saying you cheated on Dad? With the guy from the curry place?’ Mum roared with laughter.
‘Don’t you remember all the kormas we were getting?’ When she saw that I hadn’t found the comedy in this, she covered her mouth with her hand. ‘Darling, darling, I’m sorry. It’s in the past. Don’t be angry.’ I shifted away from her.
‘You told me it was him. You made me think it was him.’ Mum reached over and stroked my hair.
‘Yes, but that was just me. What he did was so unlike him, that’s what made it different.’ I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands.
‘Let me be clear. What you’re saying is you’re the sort of person who can’t control yourself, and because of that you weren’t in the wrong.’
Mum looked to the ceiling for a few seconds before saying, ‘Well, yes. I suppose I am.’ She slapped my thigh. ‘Ancient history, my love. What will be will be. Let me see if I have any snacks.’ I watched her make a wobbly exit, and tried to push away the thought that what was happening wasn’t meant to be, it was down to who I was, who she had made me.
I woke in the corner of the bed with Dylan’s body curled against mine, preventing escape. I lifted his arm from my waist as gently as I could, but he stirred.
‘Come straight home from work,’ he croaked. I busied myself in the bathroom as he and the girls got breakfast, and then hid in the bedroom until they were ready to leave the house. Dylan called, ‘See you later, Nibs,’ up the stairs.
At work, I busied myself with research for Nush’s campaign. She had sent a series of emails with ideas clearly typed as she conceived them. Some simply consisted of one word such as ‘Fun!’ or ‘Magical!’ I found that the intense desire to avoid my own whirling questions was brilliant fuel for my productivity. Every time the weekend or the problems it raised threatened to invade my brain, I would complete another task. I worked through lunch and, when reception called late afternoon to say I had a package, my only thought was I hope that it’s edible. It wasn’t. On the glossy
white desk was a bouquet of pink peonies, so fresh that drops of water still clung to their petals. There was no note but I knew they were from Frank. I rang him to say thank you.
‘Let’s meet on Friday,’ he responded.
‘I can’t keep spending time away from … home.’
‘Tell them you have a new client. It’s true.’
I tried to ignore the low buzz of anxiety about how easily that had come to him. I could feel someone watching, and turned to see Annie’s eyes swivel towards her monitor. ‘Let’s talk about it tomorrow. I’ll call you.’
‘Bye, Tiny Dancer.’
‘Nice blooms,’ said Bettina. ‘They from your new client?’
‘Yeah, have them. They’d look perfect in your flat.’
‘Don’t be stupid – you earned them. Do you wanna try and look happy about it? It’s a good thing.’
‘I’ve got a lot on my mind.’
‘Should we go have a chat? And by chat I mean gin.’
‘No, thanks. I’m on a roll.’ I did want to talk, but I couldn’t share the only thing I wanted to speak about. Also, I didn’t want to leave the flowers behind and have Bettina question me about it. That’s the problem with lying: it’s never just one. I kept working on a plan that might somehow encompass all of Nush’s whims. It was going to be a long day.
‘Where are you?’ asked Dylan. I wedged the phone receiver between my chin and shoulder, so that I could finish the email I was drafting to a company claiming to supply unicorns for events.
‘Working,’ I said. He was silent. I thought about filling it by asking about his day, but resisted – it would only drag out the conversation.
‘I asked you to come straight home,’ he said. He sounded wounded. It was unusual to hear him veer away from his comfortably affable state, and I experienced a wave of sympathy.
More Than a Mum Page 14
