by Rachel Marks
‘Will you bring us a present?’ Finn says.
‘Fiiiinn,’ Gabe says, elbowing him in the ribs. ‘You’re not supposed to ask that.’
I smile at my eldest son, so full of pride I can feel it coming out my pores. ‘It’s OK. Yes, of course I will bring you presents. Now, give me one last hug, please.’
I wrap my arms around both boys, squeezing them together, trying to bottle the feeling so that I can take it with me. Then I let go and stand up. ‘Now be kind to each other and look after Mummy. I’ll see you really soon.’
Forcing myself to turn and walk towards security is almost impossible. I have to do it in one swift movement and not look back. But I can hear the boys cheering, ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,’ like football supporters, as I walk towards the gate.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
On the plane, I ’m stuck in the middle seat, in between two young guys. Both of them stocky, the sheer width of them making me feel both squashed and insignificant. How do blokes even get that big? I reach into my bag for my headphones and happen across my mobile phone, which I pull out to turn off. I always worry – what if other people don ’t turn theirs off, or at least switch them to aeroplane mode? Do some people just idly ignore the warnings – and could that cause the flight systems to falter? Shouldn ’t someone be walking along and checking?
I try to keep calm and then, just as I ’m about to turn it off, my phone starts ringing, my heart doing somersaults as I see Mimi ’s name on the screen.
‘ Hey, I was just about to turn my phone off. They ’re going to close the doors any minute.’
‘ I ’m so glad I caught you in time.’ Mimi sounds breathless, like she ’s just been out for a run. ‘ I was going to leave it until we both got back, but then I thought, what if your plane crashes and you never get to hear what I have to say?’
‘ You do realize I ’m a nervous flyer, don ’t you?’ I whisper, conscious of the two very masculine lads sitting beside me.
‘ I ’m sorry. Your flight will be fine, forget I said that. I mean my flight, what if my flight crashed?’
‘ Not helping.’
I can almost hear Mimi smile. ‘ OK, forget about flights crashing. I just realized that when you have something to say to someone, you should just say it, not sit on it hoping for a better time. Because what if you wait and then the moment ’s passed and if you ’d just said it in the first place then things would ’ve turned out differently?’
‘ So are you going to say it, then? This thing that you have to say?’
‘ Yes. Sorry. Right. I love you. That ’s what I need to say. And that if the offer ’s still there, I ’d very much like you to spend the rest of your life making me happy, because without you I ’m not happy. And I don ’t want to be not happy forever.’
It feels like I ’m floating, like I ’m about to take off myself. ‘ The offer ’s still there.’
The bloke to my right coughs loudly and then turns to me to apologize. I shake my head and wave my hand.
‘ You ’re not sat on your own, are you?’
‘ No. I have a middle seat.’
‘ So come on then, tell me that you love me too. In fact, say, “ I love you so much, babycakes, and I can ’t wait until we get to snuggle-wuggle.” ’
‘ No.’
‘ Oh, go on, you know we ’re not going to see each other for months. You ’ll regret it if you don ’t.’
‘ I love you,’ I say under my breath, glancing over at the lads next to me, who are both pretending not to listen.
‘ Babycakes?’
‘ The stewardess is going to be along in a minute asking me to turn my phone off.’
‘ OK, OK, I ’m sorry. Have a wonderful trip and call me lots, won ’t you?’
‘ Of course.’
‘And you ’re sure you want to wait for me? I should be back around Christmas. I ’ll understand if it ’s too long.’
‘ I ’ll be there. Christmas present and all.’
‘ I ’m going to miss you so much. I don ’t even want to go now.’
‘ Don ’t say that. You ’ll have an amazing time. Enjoy it.’ Then I look from side to side and lower my voice. ‘ We have the rest of our lives to spend together.’
This time when I look at the guys beside me, they ’re smiling. Then I spot the air stewardess walking up the aisle towards me and I know she ’s going to tell me to end the call. It feels like there ’s so much I should say, so much I want Mimi to know, like how grateful I am to her for lifting me out of the gloom, for being willing to love me despite everything, but it ’s so hard to put it into words without it sounding trite or contrived and I ’ve only got seconds before I have to go, so I say, ‘ I love you, babycakes.’
And Mimi laughs her deep, throaty laugh, just like she did when we first met in the bar, and I know that she knows, that she could see straight through me from day one, that there ’s no need to explain.
I put the phone down just before the stewardess reaches me, turning it off and putting it in my bag. And once the safety demonstrations have been performed, we taxi towards the runway and it feels great to be finally moving forward.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’ve been lucky enough to work with a number of wonderful editors on this book – all who have helped to make it what it is today. So thank you to Tilda McDonald, Maxine Hitchcock, Clare Bowron and Clio Cornish for all your insightful comments and pointers.
Thank you, as always, to my wonderful agent, Alice Lutyens, for your endless support and belief in my writing, and for always making me laugh.
To my publicist, Olivia Thomas – publicity events never feel like work with you around!
To Sarah Bance – my copy-editor – for making the process so painless and for your kind words about the book.
To everyone at Michael Joseph – cover designers, marketing, sales – I’m so lucky to be part of such an amazing team.
To David Nicholls and Kodaline for the wonderful words/lyrics quoted in this book.
To all the big-hearted men in my life that helped me to write Noah – I’m not suggesting any of you are as flawed as him (!) but I feel very privileged to be surrounded by men who aren’t afraid to cry or express their emotions, who show me the type of men I want my boys to become – Dad, Pete, Carl and my late Granddad, I’m talking about you.
To my parents – I really struggled to write the dedication to this book because it’s impossible to express in one line how having you as parents has helped me. You are my biggest supporters, my best friends, my confidantes. Thank you for loving me so fiercely.
To my ‘village’ who keep me sane on a daily basis – you know who you are and I love you all.
To my writing friends for the coffees and the lunches – there’re some things only fellow writers can truly understand.
To all the bloggers and reviewers who supported my first book – I hope you enjoy this one just as much and thank you so much for sharing the love and helping to get the book to as many readers as possible.
To my husband, Carl, for loving me despite my flaws and putting up with me when I moan at you. I do love you to bits really.
And last but not least, to my children – Jacob, Dylan and our latest addition, Coco. You are my reason for everything and make me happier than I ever thought possible. In the words of Jerry Maguire, you complete me.
NOW
* * *
LUCY
The Split
‘You know this has to happen, don’t you? That there’s no alternative.’
We are lying in bed eating croissants, sharing the same tray – leaning towards each other so as not to spill crumbs on the quilt – our foreheads nearly touching, and in many ways it feels just like any other Sunday morning. Radio Two is blaring out of the radio in the kitchen – we spend our lives with Jamie turning it off and me turning it back on – him enjoying the silence and me needing background noise. He has covered my croissant in Nutella, just how I like it, neither too little no
r too much, and drowned his in jam so that it constantly spills out the sides and runs down his fingers. Normally once he’s finished, he’ll chase me with his jammy hands because he knows how much I despise being sticky and I’ll run away and threaten him with a sex ban for a month if he touches me, so reluctantly he’ll stop.
But I don’t think that will happen today. Because today I am leaving our relationship, the best relationship I’ve ever had in my life, knowing that it will be the relationship I will compare all others against. That one day I will walk down the aisle and there will be another man standing at the end waiting for me and amidst the joy I will feel a flutter catch in my chest as I picture Jamie there and wonder ‘what if’.
‘There’s not no alternative. The alternative is that we don’t split up.’
We’re talking about it as if we might discuss a story in the paper or on the evening news, both calmly presenting our argument, using well-thought out examples to back ourselves up, listening to each other’s point of view while knowing we are never going to agree. I’m a complete nightmare for backing down – we both know that – and he loves me anyway for which I love him immensely. I know that this conversation will probably go the same way as all our others do – with me storming off in frustration that he won’t accept that I’m right and then, when he needs space, me following him around not understanding why he can’t just see my side. But at the moment all is reasonable and calm.
‘So we don’t split up and you spend your life regretting it, resenting me …’ I can hear the emotion filtering its way into my voice and take a deep breath, trying to remain measured so that he knows that I’m not just jumping on some spur of the moment worry and blowing it out of proportion. That I’ve thought this through for the past three months or so – well, in many ways, since the moment I met him and realized how amazing he was. I’ve tried it every which way in my head, listed all possibilities, all outcomes, and I know that there is no other way.
‘If I’m making the decision then I’d never resent you. That wouldn’t be fair.’
I push the tray onto his lap and stand up, putting on the joggers and T-shirt that I left on the floor beside the bed when I took them off last night. He hates that I scatter my clothes around the bedroom floor, spending his life picking them up and dumping them in one huge pile, as if that’s somehow making the room tidy.
‘You wouldn’t do it on purpose. Resentment isn’t something you choose, or something that you can choose not to feel. It creeps up on you slowly and eats into you until it eats the love too.’
‘Like a monster? Or a moth?’ A hint of a smile creeps across Jamie’s lips and I know exactly what he’s doing – trying to remind me of all the wonderful things about him so that I change my mind and stay. But I don’t need reminding. And I can’t allow myself to soften.
‘You’re not taking me seriously.’
His face falls suddenly. ‘I am. I just don’t want you to be right on this occasion.’
I want to sit back on the bed, to take his face in my hands and kiss him.
‘What if I promise to let you be right about everything else for the rest of our lives and you just let me have this one thing?’ he continues, looking up at me with his big brown eyes, his hair a beautiful mess, as it always is after he’s woken up, and I wish I could let him be right about this. I wish with all my heart that he was right, but I know that if I climb back into that bed with him and pretend that everything is going to be OK, I’m going to ruin his life. And Jamie is not the type of person whose life you want to ruin. Some of my exes, maybe, but not Jamie.
‘I’m going to move in with Amy for a bit. You keep the house for now and, when you’re ready, I’ll help you to sell it.’
‘Lucy.’
‘It’s for the best.’
‘So why does it feel like the worst day of my life?’
He looks so sad and I wish that he’d just shout at me, storm off into his man cave (the bathroom) and slam the door. Why does he have to be so bloody adorable? How am I supposed to leave him when he’s like this? I try to think of something I can say to provoke him. But at the same time, deep down I know this isn’t just another argument. There will be no make-up sex later. And I don’t want our ‘last moment’ to be us screaming at each other.
‘It’s going to be OK. I know it is.’
I say it as much for myself as him. Because the longer I stand here, the less sure I am that it’s true.
THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
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Penguin Life is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published 2021
Copyright © Rachel Marks, 2021
The moral right of the author has been asserted
ISBN: 978-1-405-94010-8
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