by Jo Lovett
And finally they’d gone, after what felt like only about a hundred more happy hugs from Emma, to a background of nice smiles and a couple of back pats from Rohan.
Normally, Izzy might well have told Sam about Emma and Rohan getting on again, but obviously she wasn’t going to be emailing him this evening.
She did hear from him late afternoon on Saturday, after a miserable day trying to be a happy mother for Ruby and then a happy therapist for Barney while Ruby watched Frozen 2.
Hi Izzy,
Thank you for Barney’s session. He enjoyed it as always.
He said that he forgot to ask you for another cake recipe and asked me if I could remind you on his behalf.
Best,
Sam
Yep. She should send a recipe. The kids shouldn’t suffer in this.
It occurred to her that she’d had exactly the same thought about Ruby when she and Dominic had split. This argument with Sam literally felt like a break-up, which was utterly ridiculous. She counted on her fingers. Yes. They’d met precisely six times ever. It didn’t exactly compare to a marriage. She should stop being so pathetic.
Hi.
Courgette and sultana loaf recipe attached. You might be sceptical initially but you’ll love it.
Izzy
There. Good email. Rising very well above the situation, dignity intact.
She checked her emails at least fifty times, not so dignified, before a reply came through a couple of hours later, a boring one, containing extremely mild humour. Izzy didn’t bother to reply.
Sam sent another email, on Sunday evening, as Izzy was getting into bed after a very dull day. Ruby had been out with Dominic, while Izzy did chores and tried not to cry. On the upside, she wasn’t going to need to do any housework for the rest of the week.
Just more recipe talk; nothing to get excited about. Like, say, an apology.
Izzy could barely be bothered to lift her typing finger to reply. But she shouldn’t be petty and Sam was clearly making an effort, albeit a small one, presumably for Barney’s sake, and she should too. She sent some brief-but-friendly recipe chat.
Sam pinged straight back. Apparently he was intrigued by her recipe suggestion.
Whatever.
Izzy’s phone started ringing as she dolloped a portion of their regular Tuesday veggie lasagne onto Ruby’s plate. Nobody she wanted to speak to ever called at five thirty in the afternoon. Probably someone to tell her that they knew she’d been involved in a car accident and could definitely help her sue someone for many thousands of pounds. She ignored it and started to load the dishwasher.
The phone started ringing again. She glanced over at it. It was actually Dominic. Odd.
‘Hi, Dominic.’ She wedged the phone between her cheek and shoulder and picked up two dirty saucepans.
‘Iz, hello. I’m calling with bad news, I’m afraid. There’s no good way to say this. My father died this afternoon.’
‘Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry.’ Izzy put the pans down to hold onto her phone properly and sat down hard on a chair at the table, opposite Ruby. ‘What happened?’ Dominic’s father was, or had been, she should say, in his late sixties and in seemingly very good health.
‘Heart attack.’
‘I’m so, so sorry.’ Dominic was an only child and very close to his parents. He was going to be distraught. ‘How’s your mother and where are you now?’
‘A neighbour’s with her. I’m at work, just finishing things up, because I’ll probably be out of the office for at least a week, and then I’m coming back. Could you tell Ruby for me?’
‘Of course.’
‘And could you bring Ruby for the weekend? To my parents’ house? And could you stay?’
‘Of course.’
* * *
Izzy finally sat down on the sofa to watch some mood-lifting junk TV at about 10 p.m., after explaining to a thankfully uncomprehending Ruby that her grandfather had died, and then, after much hesitation about whether or not she should, phoning Dominic’s mother Helena to say how sorry she was. She’d expected to be on the phone to Helena only very briefly, or perhaps not at all, if the neighbour was screening her calls for her, but in fact Helena had wanted to talk, and cry, to Izzy for a good forty-five minutes. It was, obviously, deeply sad speaking to someone who’d just lost their life partner. Helena had been only twenty when she’d met David, Dominic’s father. She was now sixty-five, with maybe another twenty or thirty years ahead of her, and it was hard to imagine how she was going to cope with all those years.
Izzy needed some sharp and vulgar TV humour before she went to bed. As she pressed Menu on the remote, her phone pinged. So selfish, but please let it not be Dominic.
It was an email from Sam. Izzy put her phone down without reading it and focused on the television.
Okay, this was supposed to be cheering her up but she couldn’t concentrate. She might as well just read whatever the arse had to say.
Izzy. Hi.
I wanted to apologise for the way I spoke to you in the pub on Thursday evening.
Sam
Izzy clicked off his message, very carefully, and leaned her head against the back of the sofa. Her eyes were stinging. One tear escaped and then another. That was a crap apology.
An actual, proper, apology would have been something along the lines of ‘Hey (not Hi, because before he’d always Hey-ed her) I’m so sorry about Thursday, I don’t know what came over me, I think it’s because you hit the nail on the head, I took out my stress on you, and I’m really sorry. Here are a few lovely, caring questions about what you’ve been up to and now here are some little stories and jokes about what I’ve been doing. Sam xx. And P.S. That kiss was out-of-this-world amazing and it definitely meant something but it won’t impact on our friendship in a negative way at all because neither of us will let it, will we?’
For heaven’s sake. She could hardly see now because of the tears. So stupid. She was going to sniff hard, not reply, watch some great TV for an hour, not think about Sam any more and get a good night’s sleep so that she’d be on good form for Dominic this week.
She realised mid-week that she’d have to email Sam to let him know that she couldn’t do Barney’s session at the weekend. She stuck in an acknowledgement of his apology, and an apology of her own for having interfered. He replied within minutes.
Hey Izzy,
No apology necessary.
I’m so sorry to hear about the passing of Dominic’s father.
We completely understand, and Barney will look forward to his next session with you whenever you’re ready.
I agree that it would be great for him if we could start to reduce the frequency of the sessions.
He tells me that the recipe looks “weird but awesome.” Thank you.
Our very best,
Sam
Once Barney didn’t need any further sessions, there’d be no reason for Izzy and Sam to stay in touch. This would have been like a silly holiday romance that had slightly broken her heart. Honestly, pathetic. Actually, it was a good thing that she and Sam had argued. Now she could get over her childish crush once and for all and get on with real life.
Sometimes one day could drag on for an incredibly long time.
By the time Izzy was reading Ruby’s bedtime story on Saturday evening, breakfast that morning seemed like a far distant memory. And there were at least another two or three hours to get through before she could reasonably go to bed herself.
Breakfast had been as normal and then things had gone downhill.
Packing for the weekend had been difficult – should you wear sombre clothing when it was going to be a funereal atmosphere? Izzy didn’t own a lot of sombre clothes. She hadn’t felt as though she should wear her normal bright colours; it felt disrespectful to David’s memory and to Helena’s grief. Helena was very big on people dressing appropriately for the occasion and Izzy suspected that, even when suddenly bereaved, she’d notice what her ex-daughter-in-law was wearing.
The first nasty surprise had been the price (huge) and the second, during her service station car park change, had been that the top was more cropped than she’d thought, so unless she breathed in uncomfortably hard and hunched a bit, she was flashing an embarrassing amount of untanned slight tummy roll above her, thankfully, very high-waisted cigarette trousers. Unfortunately, the top she’d swapped it with was a primrose yellow t-shirt with the word HAPPY printed on the front in rainbow colours – what had she been thinking when she got dressed – so she had no choice but to go with the navy one.
The traffic had been bad, which would have been fine, because selfishly Izzy had no wish to arrive early and see Helena and Dominic for longer, except Ruby had whinged non-stop from literally before they’d even got onto the motorway about the fact that Izzy had forgotten to charge her iPad or bring a charger.
The rest of the day had been worse. Helena and Dominic were both, unsurprisingly, wearing their grief very visibly, Helena in pretty much permanent tears, and Dominic looking drawn and much older, haggard really.
Helena had snapped out of her tears for long enough to say, ‘Interesting choice of top, Isobel,’ and that was it. Straight back to the tears. Understandably.
They’d spent the whole day together. The rest of the morning. Lunch. The afternoon. Early dinner with Ruby. Crying. Talking. Crying. Reminiscing. Crying. Panicking about a future with no David in it. Crying. And now it was 8 p.m. and when Izzy went downstairs she was going to have to endure more of it. Obviously, she was evil incarnate but she really wanted a break from Helena and Dominic.
She decided to read another chapter of The Magic Faraway Tree to Ruby.
Eventually, Ruby nodded off and Izzy was reading to herself. She was going to have to gird her loins and re-join the others.
Maybe she’d be lucky and Helena and Dominic would like to have some time to themselves. Maybe she could just go and read in her room and leave them to it.
‘Isobel, darling.’ Helena had obviously been weeping a lot more while Izzy was upstairs. She had new tear streaks through the powder on her cheeks, underneath the panda rings a mixture of all-day-crying and non-waterproof mascara had given her. Izzy hugged her, again. She’d hugged her a lot today. However annoying someone had been as a mother-in-law, you could only feel sympathy for them when you saw them in this state. ‘I thought that it would be good for Dominic to be able to talk, get things off his chest. Why don’t I babysit Ruby while you and he go for a walk, or to the pub?’
Really?
Izzy turned to Dominic, wondering which of them should tell Helena that, honestly, he’d rather stay at the house with her.
Dominic was nodding and smiling at her.
Okay. Izzy was going to have to go with it.
‘Absolutely,’ she said. ‘Great.’
‘Pub?’ Dominic said when they got outside.
‘If you like?’ Izzy had a very clear memory of the day her grandmother had died. She definitely wouldn’t have wanted to go to the pub, and Dominic had loved his father a lot. But everyone was different.
‘Yes, I think so.’
The pub was one of those very old ones, with a lot of tiny rooms. They sat in one of the two booths in a miniature room, where no-one could see them, and Dominic talked and talked about his father and his loss, and how worried he was about his mother, and Izzy listened and felt very sad for him. Basically, an extension of how the day had been, minus Helena.
‘We should probably go back.’ Dominic looked at his watch, with obvious and understandable reluctance. ‘It’s eleven o’clock.’ He had to deal with the stress of seeing his mother like that on top of his own grief. Awful.
It was dark now. Outside the pub, Dominic flicked the torch on his phone on. The village had no street lights and a lot of potholes.
‘Could we go the long way round?’ he asked.
‘Of course.’ This was clearly not the moment to mention that she was wearing suede pumps, which would probably be ruined by walking over the field on the long way. Izzy shouldn’t even be thinking about her shoes at a time like this.
As they walked, Dominic took Izzy’s hand. She nearly jumped when their hands first touched. It was such a surprise. It was okay, though. Familiar, and clearly for comfort.
In the middle of the field, he stopped, turned to face her and put his arms out. Izzy hesitated for a moment and then stepped forwards and hugged him.
He just stood there, hugging her really tightly. And, actually, it was quite pleasant. His body was, or had been, so familiar to Izzy. She wasn’t completely comfortable, because her feet were getting wet and she knew that her shoes were getting more ruined by the second, although obviously she should so one hundred per cent not be thinking about footwear. She should just focus on comforting Dominic. It was comfortable.
Until he reached his hand out to cup her chin.
Did he want to kiss her?
No, no, no. Not the moment for it. If anything was ever going to happen between them again, she needed to be prepared for it and it needed not to be when his father had just died.
She moved her chin away from his hand and shook her head. ‘I don’t think it’s the right time. For you. Now. This week. With your father.’
Dominic looked at her for ages, and then said, ‘You’re probably right. Thank you. Always wise. I’ve missed you, Iz.’ She smiled at him. When she thought about it, she’d definitely missed him too in certain ways. He was a nice man.
He put his hand out again for her to hold. She took it, and they started walking. This time it felt quite normal and companionable.
Her shoes were completely and utterly soaked and mud-stained beyond repair by the time they got back to the house.
Helena, in the midst of more crying, nonetheless looked at them and said, ‘Oh dear.’ Really, Izzy should be proud that her inappropriate top and footwear had provided Helena with brief respite from full-on grief.
Izzy left the shoes at the back door and she and Dominic went into the sitting room with Helena. They sat with her for another hour of crying and comforting, at which point Helena said that she thought they should all go to bed. Yessssss. Finally. A break from the crying.
‘You two are in the blue room,’ Helena told Izzy and Dominic. What? No. Surely not. If in the midst of her grief Helena could function sufficiently to register what Izzy was wearing, surely she could function enough to remember that Izzy and Dominic were separated and therefore put them in separate rooms. Her house was large, six-bedroomed and several-bathroomed. There was definitely no need for them to share. Izzy would happily make a bed up for herself if necessary.
Standing behind Helena, she shook her head and did some you-tell-her eye signalling at Dominic.
Dominic, standing in front of Helena, twitched his head a very small amount at Izzy, smiled at his mother and said, ‘Great, thank you.’
This was unbelievable. It would be like a clichéd scene from a rom-com if Dominic were the hero in Izzy’s life.
And maybe he was. Maybe it had been a mistake splitting up, maybe they’d just needed to find a way to rub along more comfortably. Maybe they’d just needed to make a conscious effort to spend quality time together. And, sure, it was a long time since she’d really fancied him. But maybe that was the same with all couples, the familiarity-breeds-contempt thing. Although, could she ever stop fancying Sam? Christ. Why was he in her head now?
Anyway, whatever. She and Dominic had split up and they should not be sharing a bedroom.
But Dominic was in the hall, picking up Izzy’s bag and walking up the stairs with it. Wh
ich meant that Izzy could either point out to Helena herself that they shouldn’t be sharing, or just follow Dominic.
She looked at the quietly crying Helena and couldn’t do it. ‘Good night,’ she said. ‘I hope you manage to sleep.’
In the blue room, door closed behind them, Izzy whispered, ‘Why did she put us in here together and why didn’t you say anything about it to her? She does know we’re separated, surely?’
‘I think she thinks it might have been temporary.’ Dominic was screwing his face up, like a small child lying.
‘What?’
‘I think I might have told my parents that. Not to upset them. People in our family don’t get divorced.’
Izzy made a very big effort and didn’t shout What the hell were you thinking? She could see why he’d done it. His parents would obviously have wanted a long and successful marriage like their own for their only son. And, like many people, Dominic didn’t like difficult conversations. And being in Milan he could easily have explained away not seeing them together all year.
‘Right. Well, we can’t share a bed, can we? We’re separated,’ she said, still managing not to shout.
‘Of course we can. We were married for eight years. We know everything about each other.’
‘Everything?’ Izzy couldn’t help asking. Something made her say it. Even though it was so very much neither the time nor the place. Dominic’s eyes shifted sideways and back again and he looked her very carefully in the eye.
‘Yes.’ And then his eyes shifted again and then he made a clear effort to re-look her in the eye. Wow. Blatantly lying. Wow. He must have slept with someone – maybe several people – since they split. Or maybe even before. No, she was sure he hadn’t been unfaithful before they split. Wow. Did it hurt? Yes, it did. But should it? They were separated, currently, even if they might get back together in the future. It wasn’t like she hadn’t snogged the face off Sam, and, if she was honest with herself, of course she’d have slept with him at that point, if they’d been in a room with a bed in it, or no bed actually, she’d have totally done it on a sofa or on the floor.
