The First Time We Met: An utterly heart-warming and unforgettable love story

by Jo Lovett

  Sam looked at the door still vibrating slightly from Liv’s slam and at the top of Barney’s head. Who to tackle first in the limited time he had?

  Barney.

  He’d let Liv cool off and speak to her this evening. This was one of the times where he missed Lana. It seemed like Liv needed a mother. Someone who’d be able to get through to her better than Sam could, anyway.

  ‘I arranged another session with Izzy,’ he said.

  Barney actually looked up. ‘Can I do two sessions a week?’

  Wow.

  ‘Fine by me. I’ll ask Izzy.’ He’d better email her immediately. This felt like a big step forward. It was an imposition, but, if it would help Barney, Sam had no choice but to ask. He suspected she would say yes. She seemed like one of those people who couldn’t help being nice.

  She replied to his email within minutes, and, yes, she could do it – metaphorical punching of the air on behalf of Barney – she had painting on Wednesday, but would these times work? Sam was only too happy to confirm.

  Hey,

  Tuesday 9.30 p.m. UK time great. Thank you.

  Painting—intriguing. Naked person? Bowl of fruit?

  Sam

  Hi,

  I’m perfectly copying a famous painting in under three hours, apparently.

  All my friends clubbed together to buy me a series of ‘experiences’ for my birthday. Painting sessions are the first one.

  Trying to reserve judgement, and be extremely grateful for the lovely present, but hard not to remember that was truly atrocious at art at school and did not enjoy.

  Izzy

  Ha. Look forward to hearing how it went!

  S

  Ten

  Izzy

  Izzy turned the steering wheel with her right hand while she passed two cereal bars back to Ruby with her left. They should have got up in time for a proper breakfast. Although cereal bars were a big improvement on last Monday’s KitKat car-breakfast. And she’d got Ruby to speed-eat a banana and some blueberries before they left the house. Could be a lot worse.

  She was so tired.

  Adding two Barney sessions and one painting session a week into her life wasn’t going to help her sleep levels. But she couldn’t say no to Barney, and Emma and Rohan had gone to a lot of trouble to book the painting. She was just going to have to make the time.

  Her phone rang several times and then pinged as she turned into the road Ruby’s school was on. No parking spaces anywhere near the gate, obviously. She parked right at the end of the road, and checked her messages while Ruby got out of the car unbelievably slowly. All the calls were from Dominic. Must be something urgent.

  Hi Iz, Just tried to call you. Could we get together soon to discuss where we go from here? This weekend? You said Ruby had party? Meet at the Carter at 3? My treat. I could pick up from party and take Ruby out? Dom

  Not urgent, then. Odd, though. They hadn’t been out anywhere together since they split up. Maybe he wanted to meet to formalise their divorce. Maybe he’d met someone else. How would Izzy feel about that? And how would Ruby feel about it?

  ‘Is that from Daddy?’ Ruby was standing on tiptoes peering at the phone’s screen. Izzy’s heart squeezed as she looked at her daughter’s beautiful, innocent, little-girl face. It would be awful if Dominic re-married. Ruby would be so upset. Izzy would have to be very grown-up about things, even if she hated the other woman, for Ruby’s sake.

  ‘Yes, it is. Let’s run. We’re late.’ She put her phone in her bag and took Ruby’s hand.

  ‘Is he coming again soon?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Yay.’ Ruby’s beam nearly broke Izzy’s heart. Their split had been so bad for Ruby.

  She hassled Ruby through the school gates as fast as she could, gave her a big, squishy hug, sprinted back to the car, drove like a maniac to work, arrived four minutes late and did three one-hour appointments back to back before she had time to think and reply.

  No surprise that Dominic wanted to meet at the Carter. Izzy had never been but she knew that it was a very smart hotel in town, and Dominic liked a smart venue. She was obviously going to say yes. Ruby would of course love to see Dominic at the weekend. Izzy could think of a lot of things she’d rather do than have the Divorce Conversation, anything really, even cleaning the bathroom, but obviously at some point they were going to have to talk, and it would be too emotive having the talk in the house they’d once shared. So posh coffee at the Carter it was.

  * * *

  It was only during her call with Barney the next evening that Izzy linked meeting Dominic on Saturday to the fact that she’d already agreed their next speech therapy session then. Sam replied immediately to her email suggesting they make it later in the day. Efficiency was a very attractive quality, in Izzy’s view.

  Hey Izzy,

  Thank you for this evening’s session. It was another success from our side and I’m very grateful that you’ve fitted Barney into your busy life. I’m still at work (and likely to be here for the whole evening unfortunately) but have spoken to Barney by phone, and he repeated your statistic that over 1% of the population stutter and that Ed Sheeran is part of that number. Obviously he said Ed S is lame but probably some cool people stutter too.

  And yes he can do midday Saturday for the next session, thank you so much.

  Sam

  P.S. Enjoy tomorrow’s painting!

  Hi Sam,

  Great thank you – I’ll speak to Barney on Saturday.

  Ed Sheeran is not lame. He’s Perfect (song title pun intended – drawing to your attention as proud of self and not sure Ed big in the US and therefore you might not have registered my incredibly clever joke).

  Not convinced about painting…

  Hope you don’t have to work too late tonight.

  Izzy

  Hey.

  You don’t have to Take Me Back to London to make Ed song title puns. We Beautiful People in the US know him too.

  S

  Izzy spent a good three minutes trying and failing to match Sam’s pun compilation speed but then decided that she’d missed her moment. Best not to reply and walk away with her punning dignity intact.

  ‘Dominic’s found someone else. Obviously. He wants to tell you in person.’ Emma looked at what the artist had done on the demonstration easel and then did a massive streak of canary yellow across the middle of her canvas. ‘Christ, that’s bright.’

  ‘I think maybe if you put some water on your biggest brush and pull it across it’ll dull the brightness.’ Izzy mixed a bit of white into her yellow. ‘Yes, that’s what I thought. Another woman.’

  ‘I put too much water on. The yellow’s all dripping down into the blue now.’

  ‘Dab it with your paper towel. Quick. Dab harder. Okay, I’m doing mine now.’ Izzy’s big yellow streak was also very bright. She added some water to her brush and pulled it across. Not bad. No drippage.

  ‘You’re a yellow paint natural. This is a lot harder than I was expecting.’ Emma started mixing black, white and a tiny bit of red, to paint riverside railings onto her picture. ‘How are you feeling about the other woman?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Izzy genuinely didn’t. It was like her mind couldn’t process the concept. Would she have wanted to get back together with Dominic given the option? Maybe. At the end, they’d been more like slightly irritable housemates than lovers. They hadn’t done much together, both too busy, separately. When he’d said he wanted to move to Milan for work and Izzy had pointed out that Ruby was happy at school and she wouldn’t be able to work in Italy, they’d barely even discussed things further. And then he’d gone and Izzy had been miserable at first. But, with Ruby and her job, she’d been very busy, and when she didn’t think about Dominic she didn’t get upset. So it was simple. No thinking and all was well.

  And him with another woman was definitely too huge to think about. ‘I’m going in with the top of the railings.’ It was a lot more difficult than she’d have expected
to do a very long smooth swoosh.

  ‘A lot of people would say that you should think about dating again.’ Emma did her own, really wobbly, swoosh.

  ‘I know that. Some of those people might buy me the Kama Sutra for my birthday. But those people would be wrong. I don’t think I’m ready. I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready. It’s a lot easier being by myself.’ Izzy steeled herself, made sure there was definitely enough paint on her brush, but not too much, and went for the bottom of the railings. Hmm. Not brilliant, but could have been worse. ‘I don’t think I’d ever have the guts to move in with someone again. Now I know.’

  ‘What do you mean “now I know”? What do you know? Maybe this’ll look better when I’ve painted in all the actual railings.’ Nope.

  ‘Now I know that successful long-term relationships are all about whether you can live together practically. Love, passion, all of that, they don’t mean you can actually be great housemates. I like living with Ruby, just the two of us. I really don’t want another relationship break-up, ever. I don’t want to fall in love with someone, move in together, discover that we can’t actually live together because, for example, one of us wants to be in Milan and the other in London, or because we like different food or music, and then have to split up. And it was awful for Ruby having to come to terms with us living separately and I don’t want her to experience anything like that again. So I’m going to stay single. Simple.’

  ‘Simple as painting lots of straight railings closer and closer together for perspective.’ Emma had unfortunately started her railings on a slight tilt, and the tilt was getting more pronounced as she went backwards up the canvas.

  ‘Simpler, I think.’ Izzy was awestruck by Emma’s painting. This was literally the first thing Emma had done badly in the entire time they’d known each other.

  ‘I think you might be wrong. I think that maybe the whole point is that if you really love each other, all the toothpaste-squeezing stuff shouldn’t matter.’ Emma put her head on one side. ‘I’ve totally messed up my railings. Bugger me, I’m bad at this.’

  ‘I loved Dominic,’ Izzy pointed out. ‘And the toothpaste stuff did matter. You aren’t bad at this. We haven’t finished yet. Remember, she said at the beginning that we might doubt ourselves along the way.’

  ‘It’ll take a miracle to sort my railings out. Anyway. What are you going to wear on Saturday?’

  ‘That’s a tricky one. Obviously, if he is with another woman, I would like to look as though I’ve made no effort to impress him, but I would also like to look good on principle as the spurned and still-single ex. And also to remind him that the mother of his daughter is someone he used to be in love with. But that in itself is difficult in that what I like and what Dominic likes can be two different things.’ Dominic’s tastes were a lot more conservative than Izzy’s. She’d always suspected that he might only have started talking to her the first time they met because she’d been wearing a dress of Emma’s. Emma had had an Audrey Hepburn kind of vibe going since they were about twenty. Izzy and Audrey Hepburn shared pale skin and a liking of the lipstick colour Audrey had worn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and that was pretty much it.

  Emma nodded as she painted vertical grey rectangles that were supposedly going to metamorphose into recognisable constituents of Tower Bridge. ‘That’s true. Remember the navy dress he bought you for that party. It was like a strange kind of Through the Looking-Glass experience. You looked amazing, like a film star, but you’d never have chosen it yourself, so you also looked all wrong. You’d have looked a lot more like yourself in bright red velvet or something. And equally good.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Izzy smiled at Emma. She was a very good friend. She mixed some water in with her grey and started tracing triangles at the top of her two rectangles. ‘And, yes, exactly. So do I wear something that I think I look good in, or do I wear something that Dominic will think I look good in, which will involve shopping for something that I’ll never wear again? And would be pandering to the taste of a man I am separated from?’

  ‘I think you have your answer right there. Don’t waste any shopping time or money. Also, you look amazing, all the time, in your own choice of clothing. Maybe decide what you’d wear if you were going out for afternoon tea with some close friends this Saturday and wear that?’

  ‘Mmm, think you’re right.’ Izzy concentrated hard on painting little dots on top of her triangle roofs. Then she put her brush down. ‘God. I can’t bear the thought of having to tell Ruby that Daddy has a new partner.’

  ‘I’m so sorry that it’s all been so hard for her. But young children are very adaptable. Better to split up when they’re her age than when they’re older, I think.’ Emma put her brush down and gave Izzy a quick hug. Then she squinted at Izzy’s painting. ‘Izzy. Your roofs. Now I’ve seen it I can’t un-see it. They look like boobs with very Well-hello-there nipples.’

  ‘Emma.’ Yep, she was right.

  ‘What about if you just slap some more sky colour on top of the curved bits and the nipples?’

  It was a shame that the after-effects of an unravelled marriage couldn’t be solved as easily as boob-shaped roofs.

  ‘Wow. They’re amazing. You’re real-life artists.’ Rohan was looking genuinely impressed. They’d waltzed into Izzy’s kitchen holding their – not as identical as they should have been – paintings up for him to admire, both on a high from the evening.

  ‘It was so good. Thank you both so much for booking this. And thank you, Rohan, for babysitting Ruby. Honestly one of the best evenings I’ve had in a really long time. Even better than my birthday.’ Izzy tried to imagine how it would have been coming home to Dominic with her painting. It would probably have been a bit flat because he wouldn’t have got why she’d loved it. She was definitely going to put the painting up somewhere. Maybe in the kitchen. It wouldn’t go well in the hall or sitting room where some of Dominic’s investment art pieces still hung.

  ‘Pleasure.’ Emma propped her canvas up on Izzy’s work surface and hugged her. ‘Shame there were no men there. But you can’t have everything.’

  Izzy hugged her back. ‘It was fab. No interest in having men there.’ She pulled back and looked closely at Emma. When they’d arranged all these experiences, were Emma and Rohan, or maybe just Emma, trying to get her to meet someone as well as branch out activity-wise? Well, whatever. No-one could actually make her start dating. ‘I’m really looking forward to the next one. We’re previously undiscovered art geniuses. So cool.’

  Cups of tea drunk, Rohan stood up. ‘Drop you home on my way, Emma?’

  ‘Great, thanks.’

  Izzy hugged them both and watched them out of the door. She felt a little lonely, but that was ridiculous. It was just nostalgia for her marriage, because of all the Dominic chat. She was fine.

  Izzy dolloped their Saturday lunch fish pie and broccoli onto plates and told Ruby to sit down at the table.

  ‘Mummy, are you sad?’

  ‘No, munchkin, I am fine.’ Damn, had Ruby had seen her frowning at the thought of her impending conversation with Dominic?

  ‘You look sad.’

  A ping from Izzy’s phone was a welcome distraction. It was an email from Sam confirming Barney’s session later, and asking about her evening. One of those emails that made you feel fuzzy inside because someone was interested in your life. Even though she hardly knew him, really. As she pressed Send on a reply attaching a photo of the picture, she was hit by a sudden, heart-lurching memory of Sam smiling lopsidedly at something she’d said when they’d had coffee, and how warm that had made her feel.

  Hey,

  Ruby’s right about the genius—that’s seriously impressive! Can see why you enjoyed. I’ll be interested to hear about the next one.

  S

  ‘Mummy, now you’re smiling at the fish pie,’ Ruby said.

  Izzy hated revolving doors. They brought back memories of a GCSE museum visit when her skirt had got caught in some and exposed her over-large kni
ckers to at least half her class. The only saving grace had been that she’d successfully done a full-leg fake tan for the first time the weekend before. The Carter’s revolving doors were particularly speedy ones, so it took her some time to summon the courage to take the plunge.

  Safely inside and her heart rate returning to normal, she looked around and saw Dominic a few feet in front of her, dressed in a suit and tie. He was such a familiar sight. Her throat felt a bit lumpy when she thought about the end of their marriage.

  ‘You look nice.’ He looked as though he meant it, even though Izzy was wearing a sundress with yellow sunflowers on deep purple fabric, accessorised with a large gold tote and gold flip-flops and big yellow jewellery, all brighter than his choice would be. The other women here were mainly middle-aged-to-elderly women, who’d ignored the heat today and were dressed in sombre-coloured, Chanel-style suits, accessorised by pearls, neat handbags and neater court shoes, and elderly, retired-military type men.

  ‘Thank you. You too. And hello.’ She held her hand out to him just as he went in for a kiss on the cheek. He took her hand and carried on with the cheek kiss, as though they were barely more than acquaintances. Really quite awkward considering that they used to have sex a lot, at the beginning of their relationship anyway, and had a child together.