15
That Wasn’t Meant to Happen
‘Oh, he was so funny. I didn’t fancy him, but he grew on me because I kept laughing at everything he said.’ Ali relived the wedding, while Grace clung to her mum like she didn’t trust her not to disappear again. We slouched in the Habitat chairs, the nest of oriental bamboo occasional tables topped with coffee, toast, Marmite, scrambled eggs and ketchup. I had spotted the tables in the Cancer Research shop window recently and just had to add them to my menagerie of bad-taste objects.
It was a grey October morning, similar to the one when Ali had barged in a year ago, paving the way for the Single Mums’ Mansion. How different things were now, yet somehow the same.
‘Why haven’t I heard of him if he reads the news?’
‘Because it’s on some financial channel. Bloomberg, where Justin works. They’re friends.’
‘Show me a picture.’
He was handsome in a suave newsreadery type of way.
‘What’s his name again?’
‘Dara.’
‘That’s unusual.’
‘Yes, he’s half Indian, half English. He’s so posh, too!’
‘God, you must be like some common oik to him then. You going to see him again?’
‘He seemed very keen and it would be nice to go on a proper date. I bet he doesn’t ring, though, so it will be a bonus if he does.’ Ali sipped her tea and crunched her toast. ‘Thanks for having Grace. I can’t believe she slept all night. She’s never done that.’
‘The magic of Reiki.’
‘And how was it with Woody?’
‘He’s Mummy’s friend,’ Isla piped up from the living room where my three were crunching Nutella on white toast. ‘He showed us how to make paper aeroplanes.’
‘She has bat ears,’ I hissed. ‘Be careful.’
‘Did you have fun with him?’ Ali called through.
‘Oh, yes. So did Mummy. We heard her laughing when they were downstairs.’ I almost choked on my tea.
‘What happened?’ Ali whispered.
‘You know…’
‘Did you shag him?’
I nodded, feeling vaguely seasick at the thought. And not because my vagina was clenching in ecstasy at the thought of the unbridled sex marathon and couldn’t wait for it to happen again, kind of sick (with extra butterflies and sweaty palms). This was nausea thinly disguised as creeping regret.
‘And? Are you seeing him again? Reveal all! Actually, don’t, wait until Jacqui is here and tell us both together.’
In the cold light of day with that bitch hindsight shining her smart-arse torch on the previous night’s activities, I wished I had never let him help.
‘Are you sure you want to do this here?’ Woody had asked me as we ripped each other’s clothes off like kids tearing Christmas wrapping paper, one ear trained on the door, listening out for the ritual crying that accompanied most bedtimes.
‘Would upstairs be better? Can you lock the bedroom door?’
‘No. Upstairs would be even more dangerous. They just come in my room whenever they like.’ Write ‘Buy lock’ on ever-present to-do list.
‘Right.’ He let out a laboured sigh, lay back against the sofa cushions and dragged his fingers through his tousled hair like he’d just asserted some kind of superhuman restraint.
Even though I knew this was a bad idea, I couldn’t ignore the fire within. Putting it bluntly, I wanted sex, and I wanted it now. It was almost irrelevant who it was with. My body had been in hibernation for so long I was practically a born-again virgin.
‘Just fuck me. I don’t care if they walk in. I haven’t had sex for so long.’
‘If the lady insists.’
‘Just get on with it.’
So he did.
His smell, unwashed as it was, stoked my desire to fever pitch until the inevitable fumble for the condom.
‘Where is it?’ I gasped, pressing myself against him, reason a thing of the past.
‘In my coat pocket in my wallet in the hall.’
‘For fuck’s sake, this is like The Crystal Maze. Have you got to find a time crystal before you can actually shag me?’
Woody burst out laughing. ‘Yes! And I have to run around the house collecting as many as I can before we have our allocated session.’
‘Well, hurry the fuck up and get on with it. I’ll go off the idea and you’ll have to start again.’
He leaped up and shoved the door wide. I could hear swearing as he rooted around in his coat. Please don’t let one of the kids come to the top of the stairs. His huge erection would scar them for life.
‘Ta da!’
‘Don’t rip it. Have you got any more?’
‘No, I don’t. I won’t!’
I always hated this race against time – can the man get the condom on before the desperate urge to procreate has died a sudden death? Luckily, Woody was adept at the condom game and we resumed play without incident. I forgot all about the usual everyday worries when you’re about to have sex for the first time in a trillion years: what if the kids walked in on us? Would I remember what to do or call him Sam by mistake? Would my fanny feel baggy after three children, and finally, would he even be able to find my vagina through the unkempt but lush vegetation that hadn’t been pruned since Tony Blair had been Prime Minister? It was splendid. He actually kissed me, something Sam had avoided in the last few years of marriage. Sam’s focus always seemed to be the end result. And it was always a good result – we were a perfect fit and had been from day one. There had been no getting used to each other, we had jumped straight in with fireworks from the word go. But over time, it had morphed into scratch the itch sex. Get it out of the way before the kids wake up sex. Something I had vowed would never happen to us, just like every parent thinks they will never shout at their kids. It’s as inevitable as night following day. I had forgotten how delicious kissing could be before and during sex.
‘You’re a good kisser,’ I murmured as we moved rhythmically now on the carpet instead of the sofa.
‘You’re not so bad yourself.’
‘Fuck me!’ he gasped after we had both synchronised our happy endings. ‘That was a surprise.’
‘What was?’ I lay there a bit stupefied, not used to having to chat after an orgasm. Rampant Rabbit wasn’t much of a raconteur.
‘Just all of it. The beginning, the middle and the end. It was pretty hot. You’re pretty hot…’ And he brushed my hair off my face and kissed me tenderly on the lips. And that was when remorse rushed in as desire exited stage left.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ I asked, shifting myself away from him so I could escape. He looked a bit put out and I felt dreadful. I leaned down and kissed him on the lips but it now felt perfunctory. ‘With biscuits, obviously.’
‘Is that a euphemism?’
‘Maybe. Or it could just be biscuits.’
‘Yes, please to anything.’ As I busied myself making tea in my dishevelled red and white stripy top and granny cardie, bare feet rammed into my Ugg boots, he slipped up behind me.
‘I’m off.’
I turned around and he was already in his coat, shoes on ready to go. ‘What about your tea?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll leave you to it. I know you’re going to be up in the night with Grace and I don’t want to get in the way.’
The words weren’t there; I couldn’t even half-heartedly dredge them up to reassure him he was wrong. He pecked me modestly on the cheek.
‘I’ll see you around.’ I stood there, soggy teabag suspended mid-air on the teaspoon, mouth opening and closing, fishing for the right phrase.
‘Yeah, OK. Thanks for helping me out.’
He didn’t turn round, just ploughed on towards the front door, and raised a hand in acknowledgement of my appreciation. As the door shut behind him, I guiltily sighed in relief.
*
Jacqui never did materialise the next day.
‘Do you think she’s all right?’ Ali asked.
‘I mean, she had that all-day date with Tim; she was so excited about it. You don’t think he murdered her, chopped her up into tiny bits and fed her to Alsatians, do you?’
‘No! Have you texted her?’
‘Yes, three times. You?
‘Twice.’
‘Shall I ring her?’ Ali suggested it, like using the phone to actually talk to someone was an absurd concept. Which, essentially, it was. You only ever rang your family (or in my case, family and Mel) or when you had serious news, or you suspected the person was dead and just had to make sure. I nodded.
‘Jacqui, it’s Ali.’ I could hear incoherent mumbling from the other line. ‘Neve, can you tell Mummy we’ll come now? Good girl.’
‘Christ, what is it?’
‘I don’t know, but Neve answered. She said Mummy won’t get out of bed and has been crying since they got home.’
16
The Mask Slips
‘He’s engaged.’ Jacqui’s eyes were open wounds. We rarely saw her without her face on; she wore it like armour, protecting against persistent childhood memories of bad acne. ‘It makes me feel like me,’ she once told me. ‘I think I look horrendous without it; I have appalling skin.’ The fact that she was easily the most stunning woman of everyone I knew said otherwise, but I understood what it was like when you can’t see past limiting beliefs that have their roots securely embedded in childhood taunting. I’m not clever; I’m not good at maths; I’m rubbish at sports; I’m not creative; I’m not funny; I’m not brave; people think I’m boring; I’m fat; I’m ugly; my ears stick out (a particular favourite self-imposed belief from my own private collection). The list of what you are not could stretch into eternity. Beardy Weirdy lore would say burn that list and make a fresh one of all the things you really are, and make it good.
Neve peered gravely round the door frame of Jacqui’s bedroom, earwigging.
‘Can you go and check on the others for me, Neve?’ I asked her. ‘I need you to help me here and be in charge. Can you do that?’
‘Yes, sure,’ she smiled, her face lighting up. ‘Do you want me to get everyone some snacks?
‘That would be fab, thanks.’
‘She’s always listening at doors,’ Jacqui said sadly. ‘I don’t think she can wait to grow up and escape being a child after what happened. She still begs not to go to Simon’s, always asking what age she can make her own choice.’
‘That’s so shit!’ Ali cried. ‘She’s only eight. She should be able to enjoy being a child.’
Grace was crawling across the floor and nosing in the understated and stylish monochrome en-suite bathroom while we flanked Jacqui on her bed of pain, heroines from a Jane Austen novel. The shutters were only half open and a few empty coffee cups lay abandoned on the white shabby chic bedside table.
Ali and I had only been inside Jacqui’s house about three times; she always insisted on coming to ours. It was a beautiful semi-detached Victorian villa that teetered over three floors. She had bought it already done up to a high standard, ready to move straight in, but the whole house still felt rather transient. The sprawling basement kitchen was the only room where things were mostly unpacked. Boxes littered the corners of the other rooms, taped up in case their contents opened up a dialogue with any painful memories.
‘What’s up?’ I probed gently. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been in bed since it happened.’
‘I have. I’m pathetic, aren’t I?’
‘Noooooo!’ we both chimed at the same time.
‘It’s OK, I know I am.’
‘So, how did he tell you?’ Ali asked carefully.
‘I met him at two in the Bishop and he was weird from the first moment. Kissed me on the cheek, instead of on the lips. He looked like he wanted to blab something before he got the drinks; he wouldn’t let me get them, insisted he paid. Anyway, he said he had something to tell me.’
‘Did you have any idea?’ I asked while Jacqui steeled herself.
‘No,’ she squeaked. ‘None whatsoever. He just came out with it: “I’m engaged.” Like it was normal. I thought it was a joke at first and laughed, and when he just sat there silently looking like he was shitting himself, I knew it was true.’
‘What a wanker,’ Ali cried. ‘How can he be engaged when he has been going out with you for a few months?’
‘More than a few months,’ Jacqui lamented. ‘I mean, I know it wasn’t serious, like as in, let’s move in together. And yes, I snogged a few other boys on other crap internet dates – we had huge gaps in between seeing each other. But every time we did meet up, we got on really well. I hoped maybe it would get serious, the longer we hung out.’
‘So who’s the person he’s engaged to?’ Ali wanted to know.
‘An old girlfriend. They had just broken up when I met him at Ali’s party. But she got back in touch when I was in Australia during the summer holidays; they dated a bit and then when I came back, he kept me on as he didn’t know where it was going with her. Said he couldn’t make up his mind.’
‘Huh! Wanted his cake and to eat it!’ Ali huffed incredulously.
‘Then he said he was busy for ages, when he was actually at a wedding with her, and being at the wedding made him realise he wanted to get married… To her! “Brought it all into focus,” was what he said…’
‘Oh, Jesus, does she even know you exist?’ I asked.
Jacqui shook her head.
‘Well, I know you’re gutted, but look at it this way: would you want to be his fiancée? If he can do this now, what will he be like later on? Who knows what else he won’t admit to?’ Ali said.
‘I know. I know all that, but it doesn’t stop the fact that I wasn’t good enough.’ And she burst into fresh tears. ‘I feel like I’m the consolation prize, the idiot who everyone thinks they can just fuck over.’
‘You’re not, it just hurts because it feels the same as Simon leaving, the same as the way he treated you. It’s almost immaterial that you and Tim weren’t serious. It’s an echo of what went before so it’s bound to regurgitate old feelings that haven’t really ever gone away.’
‘I know. I’m so scared of being on my own. You two have each other to bolster you up day to day. When the door shuts here, it’s just me and the kids. That’s why I would always rather be at your house. It feels like a home. This isn’t my home.’
‘You have to make it a home,’ Ali insisted. ‘We could help you unpack, put pictures up, make it feel more cosy. Your life is still in boxes.’
‘It’s not just that. I’m tired of feeling broken. And, yes, I’m sick of shagging men, realising it makes no difference.’
‘No difference?’ Ali asked. ‘To what?’
‘To how I feel. While I’m with them, the fear, sadness, all the other shit, goes, but it’s just putting it off. It’s still there. I just want it to go away!’
‘But being with someone in that way isn’t going to help long term,’ I said prudently. ‘No matter what we do to avoid grief, it always has a way of catching up with you.’
‘I’m so bored of feeling like they just moved on and we’re here, picking up the pieces.’
Ali and I nodded in agreement.
‘You know I read on one of those fucking divorce websites that it takes four years to get over one. Four fucking years! We’re only just over a quarter of the way through that. How are we going to keep going for another three years?’
‘We have each other,’ I said, grabbing her hand. ‘We can all be fucked up together. And please, don’t hide away here. It’s OK to be pissed off about it all, like Ali and I are. Keeping things stored up will only make you ill.’
‘Single Parents Alone Together!’ Ali chanted. ‘Remember, from About a Boy?’
‘Ah, yes, SPATs,’ Jacqui smirked. ‘That’s us, we’re SPATs now.’
*
The next day, as I lifted Grace out of the Sainsbury’s trolley and into her car seat, I felt an almost audible click happen, like the shutting of a door. I had the uncanny sens
ation something was about to happen, something big. My Beardy Weirdy radar automatically switched on and scanned the universe for signs of latent activity. My guts churned up: I just wanted a calm week where this didn’t happen. I scrutinised the car park like a meerkat in the Savannah, checking for potential predators as I hoisted a wriggling Chug out of the seat next to Grace. The horizon looked deceptively clear.
I texted Mel as soon as I reached the house.
Something’s going to happen… I can feel it. Not sure what though.
I occupied myself with getting Chug and Grace some lunch, though the act itself seemed futile, both of them expert food dodgers. I had been known to uncover fossilised pizza being ingeniously utilised as a mini duvet on the double bed in the dolls’ house.
When Grace was napping and Chug was curled up brainwashed in front of a digger DVD, I checked my phone.
Have a proper look and see what you think it is.
I started texting another long-winded missive and abandoned mid-sentence.
‘Can you talk?’
‘Yes, but I have to go out in about ten minutes. Meeting with potential stockist in town.’
‘London? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because what are the chances you can dump all three kids and escape up there for a ten-minute coffee?’
‘Yes, I know. Sorry.’
‘We could pull some cards over the phone, see what’s going on?’ she suggested.
‘Yes. I can feel something bad in my stomach, a kind of dread.’
‘Go get the cards then.’
I ran to my bedroom and rummaged round my fold-down desk. I stowed the Tarot cards in a special triangular zip-up bag guarded by a plethora of cleansing crystals. I shuffled them while sitting on my bed, Reiki pulsing out of my palms at the same time.
‘What are you asking?’
‘What’s about to happen.’ I shuffled the cards and tried not to second guess what it might be… ‘Oh, shit.’
The Single Mums' Mansion Page 11
