by Sue Watson
Twelve months later
8
Love, Lemon Cake and Ladies’ Night
On the morning Dan left for the airport, I’d returned home to begin my life as a single woman. I put all my mementoes of him in an old hatbox of my mother’s and hid it in the back of the wardrobe. I packed away the photographs of our weekends in Italy and Spain, pressed the blossom confetti we’d collected in the Parisian park and locked our last weekend in Paris in my heart. Then I deleted his number from my phone and pressed restart.
He’d been gone a year and I was now absorbed in studying for my finals and taking care of Rosie. I tried to look forward and not back. I told myself and everyone else that I was fine, but even now my heart hadn’t caught up with my head. I often cried myself to sleep – I missed him so much. He’d texted a few times at first, and despite deleting his number from my phone, when a message from him popped up I realised I knew it by heart anyway. So much for deleting him from my life.
He’d only been in Australia for three weeks when he called me to tell me his brother had died. I almost offered to fly out there and comfort him, but I resisted. Nothing had changed: Emma was still fully committed to her career, I was knee-deep in my course and there was Rosie. If I’m honest, the selfish part of me wondered if his brother’s death might change things, that he might decide to leave Australia and come back to me – but he didn’t. He told me he was glad he’d been there at the end, that his decision to go back was the right one, even though he missed me every day.
Not long after, he texted to tell me he was opening the café in Sydney Harbour with his friend. Apparently, his brother had left him some money, and things were looking up for him. It was only then I finally began to face it that he wasn’t coming back, he’d put down roots in Australia now and he wouldn’t just be able to walk away. The next call came a few months on and he left a voicemail to say the café was doing well and he wished I could see it. ‘There’s an open invitation for you here at Lemon Myrtle,’ he said. Just hearing his voice gave me a pang.
I googled the café and the homepage showed a lovely plate of pale coral salmon, pink shrimp, fronds of seaweed garnished with lemon myrtle. Then I clicked onto the café itself and it was just as I’d imagined: a small, but fashionable eatery in Sydney, with exposed brickwork and hanging copper ceiling lights. My heart did a little dance. I was genuinely happy for him. He’d achieved his dream – something he would never have done if he’d stayed here with me.
I recalled the lemon cake he’d once made for me, his mother’s recipe with the secret ingredients: love and lemon myrtle. He couldn’t find lemon myrtle in the UK so just used love and lemon juice instead, and it was always delicious. I began to text him to ask if he’d thought of me when he named the café, and then realised that way madness lay. I couldn’t ask such a loaded question, so deleted the message without sending it, and when he called again I didn’t pick up. I put his number on silent, hoping that in time my heart might also be silenced, and after a few months he stopped texting and calling completely. I knew it was for the best, but it felt like I was losing him all over again.
I threw myself into everything so I could try and forget him. Writing essays on romantic novels, I tried not to think of my own romantic story and the blossom paths in Paris. Sitting in the park with Rosie on a sunny afternoon I’d try to forget how the evening sun had melted over us as we’d sat in a bar by the Mediterranean. I’d pass the deli and wave to his aunt, but I couldn’t bear to go inside and talk to her because then I’d think of him. I had to erase him, or I’d weaken and who knows what fresh heartache I’d be inviting in?
I had lots of friends and family giving me support and advice throughout this time. ‘Mum, for Christ’s sake, just call him, you’re unhappy without him,’ from Emma. ‘Nana, for Christs you need to get a new boyfriend because Dam isn’t bruddy here,’ I was told by my now four-year-old granddaughter. I knew she missed him almost as much as I did, but she couldn’t yet vocalise her own loss. And then there was Mandy’s advice, which was to, ‘Go to the Funkin’ Fusion in a low-cut top on Ladies’ Night, get on the mic and shout “Hello, boys!”’ Apparently, they would ‘come flocking’. Whoever ‘they’ were, I doubted they’d hold a torch to Dan, and I definitely didn’t want them to come ‘flocking’ down the Funkin’ Fusion. Sue, of course, was full of advice, mostly regarding the world being mad because Mercury was ‘in reprimand’, by which I guess she meant retrograde. Her final words on the subject were to move on, find a nice toy boy on Tinder and ‘illiterate’ him from my memory.
Eventually I stopped listening and decided to take my own advice: work hard for my finals, take care of my granddaughter and her potty mouth and do my job without yearning for unavailable horizons. Emma seemed happier – she told me she’d met someone at work and this ‘someone’ turned out to be Richard, an accountant who worked in the Edinburgh office. As the weeks went by, I noticed she laughed more, had a lovely glow and I was pleased she’d found someone to spend time with who made her happy. It was just what she needed. Even though he was based in Scotland, he came to stay a few times and Rosie liked him, as did I. He was divorced, intelligent, caring and great with Rosie. What was not to love?
Emma was doing really well, but worked long hours. Fortunately, my granddaughter was there to take care of me – even though it was supposed to be the other way round. Yes, she bossed me about on a daily basis. ‘Come on, Nana, we have to go to uniwersity today,’ she’d shout, bouncing on my bed and doing a great impression of a too-vigorous alarm clock at 5.30 a.m. most mornings (even when ‘we’ didn’t have ‘uniwersity’). I’d pretend to refuse to get out of bed, which gave me a few precious minutes under the covers while Rosie yelled and tried to tickle me. I’d leap up and tickle her back, which made her scream with shock and delight – the mornings were raucous and hilarious. Emma said Rosie was the more sensible grown-up of the two of us and I had to agree. She was the one who told me not to eat too much sugar as I bit into a doughnut, and at the supermarket would remind me that we had to have ‘five a day, Nana’. I wasn’t sure if she actually knew what it was we needed in this particular quantity, but she’d announce this in a rather earnest voice. It was, I suspected, the same voice the nursery teacher had used when informing her class about the magic number of fruit and veg.
I was discussing Rosie and me and the whole role-reversal thing with some of my student friends after a seminar later that week. One of the girls (Kate – seven facial piercings, a back full of tattoos, midnight hair and black lipstick) was saying how she felt like she was the sensible one with her mother these days. Looking at her outward appearance, I wasn’t convinced.
‘My mum’s gone bloody mad,’ she said. ‘She’s having actual sex… I mean, like literally, with a man,’ she said, pulling a face that indicated sheer revulsion.
‘What’s wrong with your mum having sex?’ I asked.
‘Oh my God! It’s disgusting…’ She threw her hands in the air, almost knocking over her peppermint tea. She curled her lip as the others sitting around the canteen table curled theirs in unison. ‘I mean, she’s forty… so fucking OLD.’
I covered my smile. And you’re so fucking young, I thought, recalling myself at her age when I believed women over forty should be seen and not heard.
‘Your mum’s probably enjoying herself,’ I said. ‘She’s earning her own money, living her life, and there’s nothing wrong with sex in your forties,’ I added, aware these kids saw me and my kind as sexual freaks. ‘And I’m not just talking about sex in bed with your nightie rolled up,’ I laughed, warming to the theme as their faces grew pale with horror. ‘You aren’t the ones who invented blow jobs and sex toys and…’
The girls were mesmerised (or scandalised?), gazing at me as I went on to list various acts in ludicrous positions. Their faces were a picture, and I hoped I was making them realise how alike we all were, that being forty-something was just like being twenty-something – without the flexibility. God, these kids were n
aive – I really was amazed at the way they reacted, like bloody Victorian ladies.
Continuing with my masterclass on ‘Sex for Ageing Mothers’, I went back in for a final thrust, as it were: ‘Hey, and let me tell you, blow jobs aren’t just for the young, neither is the back of a car – and even these forty-something thighs can still take a knee-trembler!’ I laughed, slapping my own legs for endorsement, but the girls looked even more horrified, if that was possible. In fact, Kate was doing something strange with her eyebrows, and then I heard a faint cough behind me, and to my horror turned around to see Dave Bronson, my tutor.
‘I’m glad to know that, Faye,’ he said, seriously. ‘About the knee-tremblers. Bravo!’ He was standing by my side – he’d heard everything.
Everyone was open-mouthed, clearly trying not to laugh, but losing the fight.
‘But the question on my lips,’ he continued with a wry smile, ‘is this. Tell me, Faye, can those forty-something thighs climb out of the back of that car and make their way to my room, where we can begin the tutorial which was due to start twenty minutes ago?’
I died. On the spot.
‘Oh, Dave,’ I started, blushing furiously. ‘Oh… you must have thought I meant… me,’ I said, putting my hand on my chest in a way that hopefully indicated surprise at the mere suggestion I was talking about my own sexual adventures. ‘No, I wasn’t talking about me. When I said, I have sex in cars, I don’t… Sex? Me? No.’
This caused a ripple of stifled laughter and even Dave now had a twinkle in his eye. Throughout this encounter I’d been struggling to pick up my rucksack, which I hadn’t realised was caught under the chair, and in my embarrassment was saying far too much, as always.
He smiled. ‘You may want to stay here and talk about sex while fighting a chair for the remaining forty minutes we have left of the tutorial, but if you’re aiming for a First, might I suggest we go and discuss the works of Shakespeare instead?’
I nodded, and the girls snickered as I heaved up my rucksack with brute force, knocking several drinks over.
‘Yes, I’m coming now,’ I said, rushing to catch up with him after turning to pull a silent screaming face at the girls, who were now hysterical.
‘Dave, can I just clarify…? When I say forty-something, I wasn’t referring to my own thighs, I was trying to explain that young people – well, they didn’t invent sex, did they, Dave?’ I kept on going, when I knew I should have stopped and moved on. ‘The knee-trembling thighs was theoretical, Dave… in theory.’ I’d finally caught him up as he reached his office, but rather than go in, he stopped and turned towards me. Despite being a mature student, I still reacted to teachers like a child in kindergarten and felt quite intimidated by this brilliant man. I wanted him to like me, to respect my work – I didn’t want him to think I was a nymphomaniac grandma with a penchant for sex in cars. But Dave was oblivious and keen to get on.
‘Shall we?’ he said.
‘Shall we what?’ I asked, wondering why he was now facing me.
He looked at me like I was mad and gestured towards his door. Oh, of course! I moved and let him open it, following him into the room. Now I was hot, very hot and sweating, which was partly my age and partly the situation I’d got myself into.
Dave’s office was very small, and we had to sit quite close – I just hoped I could stop sweating for the next forty minutes. I also hoped that I could stay calm enough to discuss my essay like an adult and prevent the phrases ‘knee-trembler’, ‘blow jobs’ or any kind of ‘juice’ from leaving my lips for the duration of my tutorial.
‘So, are we doing a feminist perspective of The Great Gatsby, or that other profound literary work, Fifty Shades of Grey?’ he asked.
I laughed uncomfortably and told him (again, unnecessarily) that sadomasochism wasn’t ‘my thing’. Then spent the rest of the tutorial in agony, wondering why I’d felt the need to point this out. To my tutor.
*
An agonising forty minutes later, when the words ‘juices’ and ‘knee-trembler’ had inexplicably escaped my lips while discussing aspects of the great American novel, I looked at my watch and said I had to go. Apart from the obvious, it had been an enjoyable tutorial, especially after I’d calmed down and Dave seemed to be warming to the theme. He was leaning back, spouting on about Shakespearean anti-heroes with quite some passion, but I had to cut him short. I hated having to rush off, but I was due to pick up Rosie from the crèche, so I made my apologies and left, running along the corridors, scared to be late. Rosie was not pleased if she was the last child left at nursery and had been known to reprimand me severely with hands on hips, much to the amusement of the nursery staff.
I loved studying, but this was my favourite time of the day, when I opened the door of the little nursery building, taking in the scent of warmth and sawdust, talc and paint laced with overcooked cabbage. It sounds revolting, but if you could bottle it, every mother everywhere would want a bottle to sniff at when her kids were grown.
Rosie and I had all kinds of adventures together, from jumping in puddles all the way home to dancing with umbrellas, chasing our shadows down the lane and singing our favourite songs. That particular evening we put fish fingers in the oven then produced a live version of The X Factor with a furry camel as ‘Simon Cow’. He proved to be quite a hit with Rosie, especially when I made him dance from his judging chair.
‘Nan, he’s not dancing… he wants to wee,’ Rosie squealed with delight as I crossed his legs, which made her scream with laughter. I smiled to myself, thinking how mad and wonderful my day was. I’d gone from chatting about sex with a group of students to being overheard by my tutor, to having an hour’s conversation about anti-heroes in Elizabethan literature. And now I was cooking fish fingers and making a celebrity cow pretend to go to the cow toilet. You couldn’t make it up.
I remembered playing crazy games with Emma when she was Rosie’s age and when she grew up so quickly (as they do), I’d missed our time together, never realising that I would be given a second chance so soon. Rosie was my bonus, another opportunity to weave precious childhood memories. Emma’s work was taking her all over the country, but that wasn’t a problem because I was there. And when she started seeing more of Richard, I was happy to step in at the weekends and be with Rosie. I felt like the luckiest woman in the world.
9
We Need to Talk About Gatsby
Sometimes at night when I couldn’t sleep I googled Dan’s café and it seemed to be going from strength to strength, with great reviews and an extended eating area. So Dan was becoming the man I knew he could be and following his own path, alone. But as I curled Mrs Bennett’s hair for the Social Club Barn Dance, and twisted and plaited the chignons of the prom queen wannabes who I’d known since they were babies, I was sometimes filled with overwhelming sadness. Nothing was the same here without him.
There were moments when I wondered if I should just call him to say hi, but I had to be strong for both of us. I’d told him we needed a clean break, and he’d respected that. I hadn’t heard from him in months – so when, at work one day, I saw a text from him, I panicked. I was colouring Judy Mack’s hair and she was looking a little pale under all the ‘Violent Violet’. I didn’t want to put my glasses on and read Dan’s message while I was applying her colour – she was clearly worried enough about the resulting shade without me scrolling on my phone while she turned purple (damn those Lithuanian hair products!). So I threw my phone to Mandy, who happened to be passing through on her way to the laughingly named ‘Heavenly Spa’. There was nothing heavenly about the way Mandy attacked a person’s eyebrows, or attempted a ‘heavenly treatment’, like a wrestler on steroids, kneading and pummelling at her clients while discussing her latest sexual exploits with ‘Jase’.
‘What the f—’ she started, looking from me to the phone. Then she seemed to remember that she was the owner and she wasn’t allowed to say the f-word in the salon.
‘It’s from Dan,’ I hissed. ‘He’s text
ed me, but I can’t answer it. It’s like I’ve got some extra-sensory perception, I just know when he’s texting.’
‘That’s because you’ve put him on vibrate, you daft cow,’ she laughed. ‘Hey Jude, every time Bruce texts her, she starts vibrating!’ She slapped Judy on the back, which quite frankly, was the last thing Judy needed. Not only was she acclimatising to the apocalyptic purple of her hair, the woman was a slave to her bowels and had just been to hospital for an exploratory. God only knew what one of Mandy’s harsh slaps could have unleashed below the waist.
‘So,’ I grimaced, looking into the mirror at Judy. One could only pray she was going to leave the salon with a human shade of hair and bowels firmly closed.
‘So what?’ Mandy said, leaning on the mirror, looking at the same head of purple and curling her lip.
‘What does the text say?’
‘Oh…’ She started scrolling. ‘He says… he wants to have you every way he can until your legs… One word… operation! He says you will need an operation after he’s finished with his…’
‘Stop it, Mandy, just tell me,’ I said, knowing she was winding me up – Dan would never be texting me with stuff like that. But I was desperate to know and irritated now: why would he suddenly text after months of silence? Was he going to sell up and move back here to live with me after all? Stupid, I know, but this was one of my daydreams. Despite splitting up, I hadn’t even begun to move on. ‘TELL ME!’ I said a little too loudly. And okay, aggressively. Poor Judy flinched and went scarlet – who knew the strain this was causing on those flawed and fragile bowels?
‘Okay, calm down. He says, “Call me. It would be good to meet, don’t want to discuss over a text – need to talk about Gatsby.”’
I felt my heart thump slightly in my chest. It was a signal, this message was his way of getting me to go out there. Suddenly, I didn’t care about Judy’s hair, I had to ask Dan to stop doing this. My heart couldn’t stand another goodbye.
