The Dream Life I Never Had

by Terri Douglas

  I tried to be cheerful for the children’s sake but evidently I wasn’t doing a very good job as at bath time Kate asked me why I was so sad. ‘I’m not sad Kate’ I said smiling. She gave me one of those looks that said I know you’re lying and I said ‘I’ve just had a really busy day at work that’s all’.

  As she leaned back in the bath and I started rinsing her hair she said ‘Daddy was sad as well today’.

  ‘Well he’s got a lot on his mind’ I said.

  ‘About getting a new job?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes about getting a new job.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he sleep here anymore?’ she asked innocently as I squeezed the excess water out of her hair.

  ‘He’s staying with his friend Lenny for a while’ I said busying myself with helping her out of the bath and into a towel so that I wouldn’t have to look her in the eye.

  ‘Are you splitting up?’ She said matter of factly as she held the towel tightly round her and started shivering slightly.

  ‘Where did you hear that expression?’ I said as I rubbed vigorously trying to dry her off and warm her up at the same time.

  ‘Stacey said her daddy didn’t sleep at home anymore because her mum and dad were splitting up.’

  ‘Oh’ I said sitting on the edge of the bath while she finished the job of drying all by herself.

  ‘So are you?’ She demanded as she sat on the floor and started rubbing between her toes.

  What do I say now I thought? Part of me knew I should tell her the truth as harsh as it was and if I lied it would be twice as bad when she figured out that I’d been lying, but another part of me wanted to protect her. ‘We’ve decided to live apart in separate houses for a while, but you’ll still see Dad on Saturdays and other days as well if you want to.’

  ‘Is he going to marry someone else?’ She said now finished with the drying but she still had the towel wrapped round her as she leaned against me.

  ‘No, well maybe one day.’

  ‘Will you marry someone else?’

  ‘No I’m not marrying anyone else.’

  ‘Alex Fry’s mum ran away to marry someone else and now his dad looks after him and he doesn’t ever see his mum’ Kate said as if she were telling me something as mundane as what she’d had for dinner today.

  ‘Does Alex miss her?’ I said.

  ‘He says he doesn’t care but I think he does really.’

  ‘Well I’m not going to run away. Whatever happens I’ll always be here and so will your dad even if he doesn’t sleep here anymore.’

  Kate snuggled into me and I gave her a hug and kissed the top of her head. ‘Can we go to the play-park tomorrow and have a picnic?’ Kate said.

  ‘You know what, that’s a very good idea; if it isn’t raining we’ll go to the play-park and have a picnic tomorrow.’

  24

  The new dream life plan was short and simple. Stop crying so much and stop feeling so sorry for yourself.

  As ever the dream life plan was a non-starter from the off. Even when I wasn’t actually crying I’d well up at the slightest provocation like watching a cheesy advert on the telly or seeing an old couple out shopping together. Even Ben had noticed something was wrong and I’d told him I had a bit of a cold, but when he said he promised to be good and would try not to be so much trouble I cried even more. As to the feeling sorry for myself I just couldn’t seem to turn it off, I reminded myself over and over that this was my decision that I was the one who’d told Martin to leave and that we should get a divorce, but it didn’t help.

  Kate went to the summer play scheme and although I didn’t realise it when I left her there on Monday morning and couldn’t possibly have realised, this was to be a new chapter in my daughter’s life. This was the day she discovered love, the day she felt the pangs of her first crush on a boy, the day she met Julie’s youngest son Oliver.

  She’d been nervous about going which was understandable and when I’d mentioned it at work Julie had said she’d meet me outside with her two boys before I took Kate in and she’d ask them to keep an eye on her, at least until Kate had made some friends of her own. Julie’s two sons, Max who was ten and Oliver who was eight, took Kate under their wing as it were and said she could hang around with them. She bid a nervous goodbye to me and with the boys each holding one of her hands went inside. I’d had a brave confident ‘everything was going to be fine’ smile plastered on my face since she’d got up, but now that she’d gone I fell apart and worried myself ragged for the rest of the day wondering how she was getting on.

  At five o’clock when I picked her up it was a different Kate altogether from the one I’d dropped off that morning. At first she didn’t say much when I asked how the day had gone and what she’d been doing, which wasn’t like Kate at all and I worried that she’d hated it. But seeing her in my mirror when we pulled up at the lights strapped in the back of the car next to her brother who for once she wasn’t getting annoyed with, together with the dreamy wistful look on her face I guessed it had something to do with a boy. Even though she was only five and I’d have thought in fact did think she was way too young for all of that, I instinctively recognised that look and knew the love-bug had bitten her.

  From the moment we got indoors it was Oliver said this, or Oliver did that, or Oliver likes Hero Turtles, or Oliver’s favourite is spaghetti hoops, and on and on until Ben and I had been well and truly Oliver’d to death. Kate’s last thoughts before falling asleep were ‘I want to wear my blue dress tomorrow Mummy’. I’d said it was a best dress and too good for messing about in at the play scheme with paints and stuff but she’d said ‘I won’t do any painting then, Oliver thinks it’s boring anyway. So can I wear my blue dress tomorrow?’

  I didn’t know if I was happy about this new development or not, I certainly hadn’t been expecting it but I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later; it’s just that this was a whole lot sooner than I’d counted on. I know kids grow up quicker these days, at least that’s what everyone says but do they grow up that quickly, that young . . . I guess maybe they do. On the upside it did take my mind off my own troubles for a while.

  The next morning I dropped Kate off wearing her blue dress and she barely managed a goodbye so eager was she to get inside. I dropped Ben at the nursery and drove to work planning on telling Julie all about it and asking her to ask Oliver to please be nice to Kate and not to get too annoyed with her, but Julie beat me to it.

  As soon as she arrived Julie launched into almost the exact conversation I’d planned on having with her except from Oliver’s point of view, and once we realised they were both as smitten on each other we breathed a sigh of relief and then smiled at the cuteness of it all.

  ‘I can’t believe my Oliver was so taken, he usually hates girls’ Julie said.

  ‘Kate’s worn her best blue dress today, she practically begged me to let her wear it’ I said.

  ‘He just wouldn’t shut up about Kate all evening.’

  ‘Or Kate about Oliver.’

  ‘His brother thought it was all a huge joke and teased Oliver unmercifully and Chris wasn’t much better when he got in from work and I had to tell them both to pack it in.’

  ‘I don’t know what Martin’s going to say.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Julie said.

  ‘Do we have to do something?’

  ‘No . . . maybe . . . I don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t think we should do anything, it’s nice that they’re friends and it’s not hurting anyone is it?’ I said.

  ‘Friends?’

  ‘Well okay more than friends, but you know what I mean.’

  ‘I suppose’ Julie said.

  ‘I remember my first crush, his name was Billy Sturgess and he was the school heartthrob’ I reminisced dreamily. ‘He was so cool but didn’t he know it and I don’t think he was aware that I was even alive. Course I was a bit older than Kate, about eight or nine I think, and Billy was eleven and in the top class so way out of my reach,
but I was devastated when he started going out with Linda Parvey and I carried my heartbreak round with me for the rest of the year.’

  ‘Mine was Michael Feeney and we were both eleven and in the same class and we told everyone we were going out together, but all that really meant was that we hung about together looking embarrassed and not saying much for ten minutes at lunchtimes and we held hands once for about five seconds’ Julie said laughing at herself.

  ‘I wonder what happened to Billy’ I said thoughtfully.

  ‘I know what happened to Michael, he got married to a girl he met at college and now he’s got five children and lives in Coventry somewhere; I still see his sister sometimes when I’m out shopping.’

  ‘D’you suppose Kate and Oliver will be childhood sweethearts and stay together?’

  ‘Maybe . . . maybe we’ll be related one of these days’ Julie said.

  ‘Or maybe it’ll all be off again by the time I collect Kate later.’

  But it wasn’t all off when I collected Kate. She was still as smitten as ever and evidently she and Oliver had spent all day taking part in the various play scheme activities together. For the rest of the week Ben and I listened stoically to the endless Oliver-isms that Kate found so beguiling, and Julie and I would compare notes the next day with a mixture of concern and gooey sweetness.

  On Saturday morning Julie and I swapped stories as had become the norm before any of the customers had arrived, and I reported that Kate had been lethargic and a bit tearful last night at the prospect of spending two whole days without seeing Oliver. ‘What’s she going to do when her time at the play scheme has finished?’ I said.

  ‘Well maybe they can still see each other, we could all meet at the play park or she could come to tea at ours one night after school or Oliver could come to yours, we could take it in turns’ Julie said.

  ‘Was Oliver upset last night?’

  ‘Yes . . . a bit. But you know what boys are like, once he started playing on his play station nothing else existed.’

  ‘Yeah, I don’t think they ever grow out of that do they?’ I said and we both laughed.

  Dianne arrived and while she was still doing up her tabard asked us ‘how’s the romance going?’

  ‘The engagement’s next week’ Julie wisecracked.

  ‘Speaking of engagements are you two still on for tomorrow night?’ Di said.

  ‘Absolutely’ Julie said.

  ‘Would you mind very much if I didn’t go?’ I said. ‘I’m just not ready for socialising yet.’

  ‘Yes she would mind’ Julie admonished. ‘It’s just dinner for goodness sake.’

  ‘I know but it’d be weird without Martin especially if everyone else is there with their partners.’

  ‘I could leave Chris at home if you like’ Julie said.

  ‘No you couldn’t’ I said laughing.

  ‘I could, trust me’ Julie said all wide eyed and pretending to mean it. She often moaned about Chris and how he drove her mad but we all knew that underneath all that she loved him and wouldn’t want to be without him for more than five minutes.

  ‘I thought the plan was to lock him up with Dianne’s Richard for a few hours so he could get a few pointers’ I said.

  ‘You don’t have to leave Chris anywhere, there’s other people coming to this dinner who’ll be on their own so you won’t be the only one’ Di said looking straight at me.

  ‘See, there’ll be other people on their own’ Julie said.

  ‘But . . .’ I started.

  ‘You’re coming Sophie even if I have to drag you there kicking and screaming’ Julie said.

  ‘But . . .’ I started again.

  ‘I really want you to meet my Rich’ Di said. ‘Just come for the dinner bit, you don’t have to stay you can sneak off at about ten if you’re really not enjoying it.’

  ‘Even if I wanted to I don’t have a babysitter’ I said.

  ‘What a load of cods, you know your mum will have Ben and Kate if you ask her.’ Julie said.

  ‘So you’re coming. That’s great’ Di said and walked out to the salon without giving me the chance to argue anymore.

  ‘Oh God, I really don’t want to go. Fine friend you turned out to be you’re supposed to be on my side’ I said.

  ‘I am on your side you dimwit and I think you should go’ Julie said smiling at my dismay.

  Greg came out the back with his usual ‘were you two thinking of doing any work today at all, or were you going to stay in here all day?’

  ‘Sorry Greg’ we both said together and followed him back out to the salon.

  So now I was going out to dinner on Sunday night with a few friends. It sounds like the simplest thing in the world doesn’t it? But for me it was a minefield of complication and awkwardness. It had been years since I’d gone anywhere on my own, work and shopping of course but that hardly qualified as going out did it?

  How I got through the rest of Saturday is a complete mystery to me.

  25

  I’d phoned Mum and Dad on Saturday night when I got in from work and said ‘how would you like to look after two very juvenile delinquents tomorrow night?’ And Mum had straightaway agreed of course and then proceeded to cross question me as to why she needed to and where I was going. ‘It’s just a meal out with the girls from work’ I explained and she said it was a good idea and that I needed a night out, and that Dad would pick Ben and Kate up around teatime to give me time to get ready.

  Ben was excited about staying over at his Nanny and Grand-dad Mallons for the night, but Kate although not actually opposed to the idea once I’d assured her she could still go to the play scheme the following morning, was not really that interested in anything except surviving until Monday when she would see Oliver again.

  I waved the children goodbye and went back indoors to an unnaturally quiet house. It was unnerving and almost spooky without the children which was stupid I know, I mean I spent all of every Monday in the house on my own and wasn’t spooked at all. But this was Sunday night and the reason I was on my own was not because the children were at school, I’d got rid of them on purpose so that I could get ready to go out, and that was freaky.

  I washed up the dinner things and made myself a cup of tea and then sat drinking it at the kitchen table incapable of any further movement as my brain was in such a dither. I made a small plan to organise the practicalities of getting ready. ‘Okay shower first and wash my hair, then dry my hair, then make-up, then dress. No dress first and then make-up’ I said to myself still without moving from the table.

  Would my black dress be alright or should I go for something a bit more casual? Mm tough one that I thought. I liked my black dress and it is the unwritten law after all when in doubt to always choose the little black dress, but it was a bit low cut and I didn’t want to turn up on my own and look like I was out on the pull or something. Maybe I should stick to jeans and an unflattering button up to the neck shirt. I decided to phone Julie and see what she was wearing.

  ‘Wear the black dress’ Julie had said when I explained my dilemma.

  ‘You’re sure; it is a bit low cut you know?’

  ‘How low, push up bra going to an awards ceremony low or just a bit of cleavage low?’

  ‘No not awards ceremony low, just a bit of cleavage. But I don’t normally do cleavage and this is supposed to be friends going out to dinner not single mum trying too hard, do you know what I mean?’ I fretted.

  ‘I know what you mean Soph but I think you’re getting yourself in a stew over nothing, everyone flaunts a bit of cleavage nowadays when they go out, in fact you’d look a bit odd if you didn’t’ Julie said with authority.

  ‘Now I know you’ve just made that up. What are you wearing?’

  ‘Black skirt and pink glittery top.’

  And will you have cleavage?’ I said.

  ‘Yes I will . . . a bit I will.’

  ‘See, oh everyone flaunts a bit of cleavage nowadays’ I mocked sceptically. ‘No they don
’t, you’re not going to for one.’

  ‘Yes but that’s because I don’t have much of a cleavage, if I did I’d flaunt it whenever I could at every opportunity, even when I wasn’t going out to dinner. Your black dress sounds fine I’m sure you won’t be flashing that much boob or you’d never have bought the dress in the first place would you?’

  ‘Okay’ I sighed, reluctantly admitting defeat. ‘I’ve got a bolero cardigan thing I could wear over it.’

  ‘Sounds perfect. Right I need to go as Chris’s niece is babysitting for us and she’s just arrived and I haven’t even had a shower yet. Stop worrying, wear your black dress and I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Thanks Julie, sorry to be such a pain. I’ll see you later, bye’ I said and hung up. Hmm I thought, I could go with the bolero cardigan or I think I’ve got a blue scarf pashmina type effort that Martin’s mum bought me one Christmas, that might work.

  Eventually at a quarter to seven I dragged myself off the kitchen chair to begin getting ready, I’d dithered and prevaricated for long enough it was time to do this thing.

  An hour later I was as ready as I was going to be and gave myself a final check in the mirror and actually I didn’t look that bad even if I do say so myself. I’d gone with the bolero cardigan over my dress which didn’t exactly hide my cleavage but it did cover my shoulders and sort of distract from the ‘here’s my boobs’ look; at least I hoped that’s what it was doing. At the last minute I changed my shoes from the strappy high heels to a pair with lower heels and that were more sensible, it didn’t look quite as glamorous but that was a good thing and I felt slightly more comfortable about any impressions I might be creating.

  I drove myself to Finney’s restaurant and parked in their car park and then stayed sitting in the car trying to work up the courage to walk in to a posh venue like this on my own. I’d never been here before so was unfamiliar with the layout and would have looked totally gormless and gauche wandering about while trying to work out where I was going, in fact when I thought about it this place didn’t even exist ten years ago when I was young, free and single and playing the field. What if no-one else had arrived yet then what was I going to do, hang around at the bar all by myself until someone did show up? No, better to be late than have to do that.