The Story of Our Life

by Shari Low

  ‘Hi m’darlin, how’s you?’ I’d been so deep in contemplation of Mrs Tower’s announcement that I hadn’t heard Colm come in.

  ‘Fed up with laundry, tired, short-tempered, sore back, overworked and irritated,’ I replied, smiling to dilute the moan.

  ‘Ah. I was just looking for “fine”,’ he said, grinning, as he put his hands around my waist and kissed me on the neck. After all these years I wasn’t sure if it was romantic, shallow or ridiculous that the minute his arms went around me the day got just a little bit better.

  ‘Daddy!’ Beth screeched, throwing herself at us to join the embrace. Our daughter didn’t do subtlety or patience.

  ‘Uncle Dan is here!’

  ‘Where?’ Colm replied, puzzled, before opening the fridge. ‘Is he in here?’

  Beth shrieked with laughter.

  ‘Nope,’ Colm went on, bending over to look under the table. ‘Down here?’

  ‘No!’ Beth giggled.

  ‘Ah, then he must be in here,’ he said, opening the oven.

  ‘He’s in the garage!’ Beth announced triumphantly, delighted to be a credible source of information.

  His eyes met mine in a questioning glance.

  ‘He’s come to visit for a little while,’ I told him in my best child-friendly, all’s well, run along, nothing to worry about, tone.

  He got the hint, sweeping Beth up and throwing her over his shoulder, then marching her back next door. I felt a huge pang of gratitude that no matter what, he always had time for his girl. He was never too tired for her, never too busy to listen to what she had to say. There was no doubt he was Fun Dad, the soft touch who couldn’t say no, while I was the one who handled all the practicalities. No surprise there then. But much as it sometimes needled, there was nothing I loved more than seeing them laughing together.

  Over the next couple of hours, I ticked off everything on my list, right up to the point where our dinner was on the table. There was silence from upstairs, so I guessed Colm had finished with his storytelling and was now probably asleep next to his daughter on her bright blue sleigh bed. Her choice. She was in a militant, anti-pink, tomboy phase.

  I trudged upstairs, and popped my head in the door to her bedroom. She was sound asleep, upside down, covers thrown to one side. I decided to rearrange her later when she’d had time to get into a deeper slumber.

  Colm wasn’t in our bedroom, so I headed to the smallest room, which doubled as a study. There he was, staring intently at the screen. That was unusual. He rarely worked from home, didn’t have Facebook or Twitter or any of the other social network websites that sucked up time.

  ‘Babe, dinner’s ready,’ I told him.

  ‘Okay,’ he answered automatically, his focus not leaving the screen.

  The fact that he was engrossed piqued my interest and I moved closer to see what he was staring at with such intent. It took a few seconds to work out that it was one of those medical self-diagnosis sites.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  He shrugged. ‘Och, I know these things are rubbish but I was just curious. Hang on, I’m almost done.’

  I scanned the list of questions he’d already completed, starting with ‘Headaches?’ He’d ticked that one, and several of the others down the list. I had time to read a couple of them. ‘Audio distortions.’ I knew about those. ‘Vision disturbances.’ I had no idea what that meant. Other than the weird sound stuff and the headaches, he’d never mentioned any other symptoms. I still wasn’t too concerned though. Didn’t migraines often come with flashing lights or strange zig-zaggy lines?

  He was at the last one and ticked ‘no’ in the box after ‘weight-gain’, then pressed ‘enter’.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this,’ I told him. Colm researching anything online was very unusual. ‘It’ll probably tell you that you’re pregnant. Or a hypochondriac.’ I wasn’t buying into this at all. Hadn’t I read a dozen articles that talked about how these websites were wildly inaccurate? Apparently, people were going in droves to the doctors after self-diagnosing life-changing illnesses on the internet. There was a name for it. I racked my brain. Cyberchondria. Yep, that was it.

  He pulled me down onto his knee. ‘I know, but it’s this or the doctor and I don’t have time for the doctor. I’m a busy and very important man.’

  I was still laughing when the computer pinged and the results came up on the screen.

  Most likely cause? Number one – migraines. As predicted by Doctor Colm, and seconded by my extensive medical expertise gathered from watching Casualty on a Saturday night. There was a whole list of other possible causes listed below it – everything from concussion to head wound, to brain tumour. I could see why these sites had been accused of scaremongering.

  ‘Aw, not pregnant. Are you gutted?’ I asked him with mock sympathy. ‘My name is Colm O’Flynn and I’m a cyberchondriac.’ I told him, kissing him between words.

  ‘Come on. Let’s get dinner and then go make sure Dan isn’t lying in the mancave with a tub of ice cream singing Shania Twain break-up songs.’

  ‘Hang on, just want to do one thing…’

  With his free hand, he used the mouse to flick back to the previous page.

  ‘I noticed my jeans are feeling a bit tight on me,’ he said, as he changed his answer to the ‘weight-gain’ question. Tick.

  ‘That’s because you haven’t been out running this week,’ I said, standing and pulling him upwards. ‘Come on, you’ve a heartbroken pal to attend to.’

  He was already on his feet when there was another ping from the screen.

  The results had changed slightly.

  Number one on the diagnosis probability scale?

  Brain tumour.

  I stared at it for a second, long enough for a chain reaction that went something like ‘oh for goodness sake, how bloody ridiculous’ to ‘it couldn’t be, could it?’ Closely followed by a tiny niggle of fear and doubt, then a swing to ‘of course not, but let’s get it checked out anyway and get the problem sorted.’

  The next day, I called the surgery and made an appointment for him to see the doctor.

  6

  2001

  Shauna and Colm’s Third Date

  ‘ You’ve shaved your legs. That’s an admission of filthy intentions right there,’ Lulu’s cackles made the red wine in her glass slosh from side to side. She was lying on my bed in my tiny Twickenham apartment armed with vino, chocolate and a forthright opinion on my attire.

  ‘So what’s this, date four?’

  ‘Three,’ I corrected her. ‘We met last Friday, went out for a drink on Sunday, and then tonight.’

  ‘And you haven’t shagged him yet?’ she asked sceptically.

  I fired back with amused sarcasm. ‘I thought I’d wait until I know things like… ooh, his favourite colour. His star sign. Maybe even his surname.’

  ‘Dan told me that it’s O’Flynn. Now get on with it.’

  I tossed a hairbrush in her direction and she artfully ducked to avoid it.

  ‘You’re beyond shallow.’

  ‘I know,’ she agreed.

  After a quick rummage in my ‘best undies’ drawer, I pulled out a black bra and matching knickers. Lulu responded with a knowing nod as I pulled them on, then shimmied into my favourite black crepe shift dress.

  ‘Stop that. I’m not sleeping with him tonight. I’d rather get to know him, and that way, if the sex isn’t great, I’ll still know there’s something to work on.’ It was true. I was no prude – I couldn’t be with Lulu as a friend – but casual sex had never been my thing.

  She threw a square of chocolate up and caught it in her mouth. ‘That’s ridiculous. If the sex isn’t mind-blowing you change your phone number and if you see him in the street you pretend you don’t know him.’

  I zipped up my black suede knee-high boots, then added chunky silver jewellery.

  I had a horrible feeling there was a grain of personal experience in her theory, but there was no time to ask as
she pushed herself up on the bed so she could give me the head to toe scan.

  ‘Passable,’ she declared. ‘But it could be a bit tighter and there could be a bit more cleavage.’

  ‘In that case it’s perfect,’ I countered, earning a glare of disapproval that made me smile. She was absolutely incorrigible.

  I’d been planning on taking the train, but at the last minute hailed a cab instead, deciding that I’d had a long week and if twenty quid saved me from a train, a Tube and a walk at the other end in these heels in the rain, it was worth it.

  I was halfway there when my mobile rang. Annie. ‘Hi gran,’ I answered, smiling. It was impossible not to. Annie was my favourite woman on earth. I spoke to her most days and I’d like to say it was for her wisdom and profound philosophies in life, but the truth was that she delighted in being thoroughly irresponsible. She was the woman who had told me to punch a playground bully at school, then gave the teacher a piece of her mind when I got detention for it. She’d taught me to cook, to change a plug, and how to make a decent pina colada. She also threatened my first boyfriend with kneecapping if he ever hurt me or let his hand wander under my jumper. I never saw him again.

  ‘I phoned your house first,’ she opened, her Scottish accent still detectable even after decades in London. ‘And Lu tells me your dress should be tighter and show more cleavage. Dear God, you’ll be single forever.’ Her woeful tone made her words even funnier, especially because they were coming from a woman who resolutely refused to even entertain the idea of a relationship. Widowed over twenty years before, she regularly declared herself an “independent woman who had no desire to wash a pair of men’s socks ever again.”

  ‘Now have you given Lulu the address so that if you don’t come home we can storm the building?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Right then. Better to be safe than sorry. Have a lovely time though. I’m fairly sure it won’t be a situation that’ll end up on Crimewatch. Right, I’m off to bingo. Love you, lass.’

  ‘Love you too, Gran.’

  As I closed my flip phone, I realized the taxi was coming to a halt.

  Colm’s house was in Notting Hill. Not the gorgeous, multi-million quid, Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant Notting Hill, but the slightly less salubrious Portobello Road side. Still nice, but the old homes had been divided into flats that – unlike the posh bit - came with a monthly rent that was less than the price of a Ferrari.

  The cab dropped me off outside a red-painted front gate, which matched the red door of the Victorian terrace house Colm shared with two other guys. As I walked up the path I realized I was grinning. If there was a manual for playing it cool, I really needed to read it. For the first time ever, my stomach contained a full swarm of butterflies and, either I was about to suffer some kind cardiac ailment, or my heart was thudding out of my chest from pure excitement. I had absolutely no idea that I had an inner love-struck teenager, but now that she had somehow surfaced at the age of twenty-four, I gave her a stern talking to and grounded her for the rest of the night.

  How ridiculous was this? Lenny and I had been a couple for two years, and nothing had made me feel like this: not meeting, not our first kiss, not when he suggested we move in together, and not even when he went down on one sunburned knee on a romantic first night in Zante, presented a beautiful sapphire and silver ring and asked me to marry him.

  And yet, here I was, fighting my way through an Amazon of overgrown rhododendrons to see a guy I’d met only twice in my life, and I was close to requiring resuscitation. I feared that if we ever did get to the sex stage, I was going to need a medivac team on standby.

  The door opened before I even reached it, and there he was, languidly leaning against the door frame in jeans, a black T-shirt and bare feet. ‘Okay, so I know I’m supposed to be all cool and wait until you actually ring the doorbell, but…’

  I didn’t let him finish. In a spontaneous action that came with zero warning and zero control, I stepped forward and kissed him, a long, slow, incredible snog that I only cut short when I realized that all my physical symptoms – the butterflies, the excitement, the beating heart – had given way to a weakness of the legs that could leave me, buttocks-first, in the rhododendrons.

  Laughing, he gently tugged me inside by the lapels of my coat, kicked the door shut with his foot and we took up where we left off, this time pressed against the wall in his hallway.

  My hands found their way into his hair, his slipped around my neck, and we kissed and touched and breathed together, until a bang from the other side of the door finally broke the spell of the moment.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, his breath still hot on my face.

  ‘Hi,’ I answered.

  ‘That noise was my flatmate, Doug. Can’t fecking do anything without causing a riot.’

  ‘I bet your neighbours love you,’ I teased.

  ‘Oh they do. They’ve only called the police twice this week.’

  In a moment of perfect comic timing, the door opened and out walked an unusually tall guy wearing a full police uniform.

  ‘Right, I’m off,’ he announced, before sticking out his hand. ‘Doug.’

  ‘Shauna,’ I replied.

  ‘Ah, thank God you’re here. He’s been checking the window every ten seconds for the last hour.’ So it wasn’t just me then. That thought made me like him even more.

  ‘Just when I couldn’t get any less cooler,’ Colm interjected, feigning desolation.

  PC Doug made a swift exit and, taking my hand, Colm led me into an open-plan space that was a stark contrast to the Victorian exterior. The distressed wooden floors went from the lounge area at the front to the open-plan kitchen at the back. It was undeniably a guys’ space. Not because there were lad mags or Y-Fronts on the floor (there were neither) but because one wall was punctuated only by a huge TV and three full-size men’s racing bikes, the latter dangling from metal brackets.

  ‘Those are Jamie’s, the other flatmate,’ Colm answered my unasked question. ‘He’s a mad cyclist. Does it for fun, even when beer and football are offered as an alternative. I don’t get it.’

  Slipping behind the wooden breakfast bar, he pulled two glasses from one of the black gloss units. The butterflies had subsided, leaving me with just a tingle of pure happiness. I liked this. The flat. The friend. The guy. The smile.

  ‘Shall we have a drink before we go out? Wine or beer?’ he asked.

  ‘A beer would be great. Bottle is fine.’

  ‘God, you’re perfect.’

  ‘I know.’

  After taking two bottles from the fridge, opening them and handing one over, he pulled a wooden stool out from under the worktop. I did the same.

  ‘Since I’m already clearly uncool, is it okay if I tell you that I’m glad you’re here?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’m pretty glad I’m here too. In a cool way, though.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  There was a momentary silence and I saw that a tiny frown line had appeared between his eyebrows. I had a sudden feeling of impending doom.

  ‘Look, I was going to tell you this later, but I need to just do it now because I’m fairly shite at keeping secrets…’ he blurted.

  Oh bugger. Here it was. He was getting back with his ex. He’d never left. He was a serial killer. He didn’t want a relationship. He was leaving the country.

  The butterflies returned and this time they were on a sinister attack.

  ‘I have children. Two boys. Twins. Davie and Joe. They’re four. And I should have told you sooner but I….’

  He stopped and was looking at me searchingly. ‘I didn’t know if it would make a difference, and I didn’t want to find out if it did.’

  I took another gulp of the beer. Out of all the things I’d expected him to say, announcing he had twins didn’t make the top hundred. Twins. Kids.

  A tidal wave of relief flooded through me. Okay, he wasn’t a serial killer and he wasn’t leaving the country. We could work with this.

 
I realized that he was still looking anxious and waiting for a response.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ I was calm. Curious. Let’s face it, it wasn’t insignificant news and he’d had plenty of chances to impart this on date one or two.

  He shrugged, embarrassed. ‘Honestly? I’ve met a couple of women who were horrified by the thought of spending every second weekend with two crazy energetic kids. But they’re great boys, they really are. I mean, they have their moments. Joe put my shoes down the toilet last week.’ The way he smiled when he said it told me that he thought it was more amusing than naughty. His gaze was directly matching mine now. ‘I just wanted to get to know you better before I scared you off.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Another pause. He was first to break it.

  ‘So are you? Scared off?’

  The truth? If anyone had told me a week before that I’d be feeling like a love-struck teenager over a bloke with two kids, I’d have been highly doubtful. I knew how hard it was to come into a ready-made family. One of Rosie’s ex’s had children and it had been one long negotiation, with plans regularly getting changed by an ex-wife who still controlled his actions, and by default, Rosie’s too. They’d booked holidays, only for them to be cancelled at the last minute because the children were suddenly coming to stay. A huge chunk of his salary went on maintenance payments. Rosie had spent her birthday alone because one of the kids was sick. And the things that made him a great dad, made him a difficult boyfriend. Rosie had given up after six months, and I didn’t blame her. In all honesty, it wasn’t something I was ready to jump in to. That whole commitment-phobia thing? Applied to children too. Because if it didn’t work out with the dad, then there were little hearts at stake too and I wasn’t ready for that kind of responsibility. So, no. Going into a relationship that was already complicated? A week ago I’d had said I’d have avoided it if I could. Now, though, I couldn’t. I suddenly had a vision of two mini-Colms, with curly hair, big blue twinkly eyes and mouths that were quick to smile. Two kids? If he came as a package deal, then bring it on.

  ‘I think I can handle it,’ I told him with total surety.