by Poppy Dolan
‘God, Eleanor. There’s more to life than fucking cupcakes.’
The credits roll on this awful show. Pete walks away and I’m in too much shock to think of my next line.
I hear the slam of the door as he walks out of our flat.
Chapter Forty-Three
‘Crap.’ Hannah stirs her coffee. ‘Holy fucking crap.’
I put my fingers under my red-rimmed, baggy eyelids, as if that will help.
‘Oh, hey. Sorry, Ells. I didn’t mean to make it worse.’
After I wipe my nose on a napkin, I clear my throat. ‘I don’t think anyone could. I’ve made a nice enough mess of it on my own. He won’t answer my calls. I don’t even know where he is. I think I should take out one of those bus-stop missing person adverts. I could negotiate my own deal on the space.’
The laugh goes dry in my throat.
‘He just needs time. He’ll be back.’
‘It’s been three days. And I’m too ashamed to call his mum and see if she knows where he is because I’ll have to explain what happened. They don’t have a TV, so I’ll have to run through the whole sorry thing. God knows what her advice will be. Rub hemlock under my nose, burn all my vanilla pods and dance naked along the A40, probably. And it’s no more than I deserve.’
Hannah is being a lovely friend, denying what is patently obvious. ‘You don’t deserve it. It was just a question of … timing. And omission.’
‘Ha. Laurie is obviously rubbing off on you. But I think it is clear I’ve been a douchebag, even by omission. If I’d just told him sooner.’ The flapjack sitting accusingly on its plate suddenly makes me want to hurl. I haven’t really eaten anything since Pete left.
Hannah chews her bottom lip, smudging her dark red tint. ‘Just keep trying. Don’t give up. Keep calling and texting. The way you guys were when we came round … well, I don’t think there’s much that can ruin that. He might just need time to get his head together. But it will happen, I just know it.’
‘If it doesn’t, can I come and live with you and Laurie? I could be your personal pastry chef.’
‘No. It’s hard enough explaining to our elderly Polish neighbours that we only have a one-bedroom flat because we sleep in the same bed. You’d be one lady too many, sorry Ells.’
I drink the last of my Earl Grey and almost feel it swish as it hits the bottom of my empty stomach.
‘I should get going. See if Pete has called the house phone and left a message.’
The lopsided smile Hannah gives shows she doesn’t really hold out much hope of that, either.
None in the Oven
Decision made.
Nope, I haven’t had a light-bulb moment. Little cartoon babies haven’t suddenly started dancing around my head like I just got hit by a frying pan in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. I know now that I won’t be having a baby, because I’ve almost certainly driven away the love of my life.
I took so long, procrastinated, tested his every nerve, mucked about like a teenager, even told stupid lies that he’s actually run away. I don’t know where he is. And it’s hard to get pregnant without your man in at least the same room, if not the same flat.
Without him next to me each morning, without his solid form there at night, it’s now blindly obvious what I already had: a family. We wouldn’t have been starting one; we would have been extending one. Except I ballsed it up.
So who cares if babies are expensive and career-draining and time-sucking and stress-inducing? It’s all a bit academic if you lose the only person you could ever imagine having one with. And what I maybe always knew somewhere inside, what I feel right down to my bones now, is that I wanted to make little hims. I just didn’t know exactly when.
So in all the worrying that I’d left it too late biologically speaking, I’d actually let something else wither away and grow stale – what was between us.
If I find him, I’m not making the same mistake twice.
Husbandless x
I hit ‘Post’ and sit back into the sofa cushions. But because this is traditionally Pete’s side, just moving the pillows behind me sends the faintest smell of him my way.
No messages on my phone. No missed calls. Not in the fifty-six seconds since I last checked. I’m going to call the only family member who won’t judge.
But Mike takes ages to pick up the FaceTime call. So long that I’m already semi-weepy with thinking what I’ll have to confess to. Eventually he picks up in a sombre tone.
‘Hey sis.’ I hear a door close in the background and Estelle’s muffled voice soothing one of the twins.
‘Hey, brother. How are things?’ I try, chirpily.
‘Cool, cool. But how are you? How are you holding up?’
Somehow he already knows. ‘Did Mum tell you?’
‘Ah, no. Well, yes. She’s freaking out, Smells. Seeing you on a TV show without any warning, apparently up the spout to some random. It didn’t do much for Dad’s blood pressure.’
I gulp back the lump in my throat. ‘Well that helps, thanks. I can add “Almost killing Dad” to my list of fuck-ups for this year. Shit – are the twins around?’
‘No, they’ve all just gone out to the park. Estelle, I mean, and the twins.’
‘Right. Then I can let rip with the swears. Fuckety fuck.’
Mike rubs a hand over his jaw. ‘Yeah.’
‘Um, any advice here? I’m a bit of a wreck. Pete won’t answer my calls. What if he’s gone and got drunk, been in a fight? He could be lying in a gutter , or in a ditch, or by a loo somewhere.’
‘He isn’t.’
My voice goes squeaky. ‘But how do you know?’
‘Look, you find out your wife has been filming a reality show, and you’re not part of her reality. The “new friend” you imagined to be a mousey librarian or something is actually more like a black Rock Hudson – though worryingly not gay but very flirty. And then you hear she had a pregnancy scare and she didn’t even tell you. That’s the kind of thing we men like to be part of, Smells. Wallpaper samples, periods, Downton Abbey plots: No. Potential bun in the oven crises: yes.’
Something niggles at me. I didn’t tell Mum about being pregnant with Paul Hollywood. And I definitely didn’t phrase it in that exact way, or I just would have started a whole other scandal. She’s lying low at the rotary club because of the strange looks as it is.
‘Hang on. Mum doesn’t know that. Have you spoken to him?’
‘Who?’
‘Pete!’
Mike’s eyes drift to his living room door. ‘Ummm.’
‘Oh my God, he’s there, isn’t he? Fuck’s sake, Mike! I’ve been going crazy these last few days. Can you put him on? Pete? Pete!’
‘Whoah there. He’s gone to the park with Estelle, he thought it would be best when he saw you were calling. I wanted to tell you – and Estelle told me I should – but I could see he needed his time. To quote Nan, “He doesn’t know if he’s Arthur or Martha right now”. I honestly would have told you by Friday if he hadn’t let you know.’
‘Oh, thank you very much. Nice to know my own brother is on my side.’ I am so indignant, I want to throw my phone against the wall like an arrogant movie star. But then I definitely wouldn’t get to speak to Pete.
‘Look, Jesus, Ells, he turned up on my doorstep two days ago. What was I going to do? He said he wanted to be far away from London, and he couldn’t bear his mum’s sanctimonious looks.’
I fight it, but a shred of satisfaction comes alive in my heart as I hear this. Apart from that, the rest is still icy and fragile.
Mike is gesturing wildly. ‘He wanted a neutral ear. Someone who knows both you guys, and that he could really trust. I wasn’t going to break that trust by ratting him out. And time to cool down is always a good move in these things.’
I smile and fiddle with my thumbnail. I have picked the skin right back until it’s bleeding, but I can only half-feel it. I shut my eyes and say, ‘Tell me what to do.’
‘Well, don’t stop trying.
Every time you call or text he has to pace up and down the carpet and ruffle his hair before he can sit down again. It’s fucking up our carpet, but it must mean he is thinking about you. Maybe email him. Maybe that way he can take in what you’re saying, in his own time, and you’ll have said everything you want to.’
‘OK. I will.’ I was really hoping for some big brother magic, some wink of the eye and all of a sudden Pete would fill the screen, telling me it’s all a stupid misunderstanding. But it’s not like this is the 1988 case of the missing She-Ra and Mike is going to find Pete stuck up my parents’ oak tree.
‘And don’t call Mum for a few days. Just let her simmer down.’
‘Right.’
‘And,’ Mike holds up a finger, ‘if Richard Curtis has taught us nothing else, it’s that big gestures go a long way. Estelle hadn’t seen Love, Actually so she thought I’d invented that big white card thing.’
‘Yup.’
I fake an enthusiastic thumbs up and say goodbye to my brother. I sit on my sofa, staring at the blank phone, for the next two hours. But at least I realise the email I need to send.
To: [email protected]
From: Eleanor Redford
Subject: Best Dishes – retraction
Hi Zoe,
I’m really sorry to do this to you but I’m withdrawing my consent to feature in the show. There was a misunderstanding along the way and now it’s caused me great personal upset. I imagine Joe will still want to be part of it, so definitely keep him in. He’s a talented baker and a lovely guy (but not my boyfriend, sorry if that came across wrong. And I’m not pregnant. Also a misunderstanding).
Thanks,
E x
To: Eleanor Redford
From: [email protected]
Re: Best Dishes – retraction
Hi Eleanor,
I’m really sorry to hear this. There’s nothing we can do if you withdraw consent, but it’s of course massively disappointing to us personally. And to our budget.
Apologies that we didn’t give you more notice about the trailer going out so soon. The material we had was so good that the decision came down to get the pilot out sooner rather than later.
It sounds like you’re having some troubles there. Good luck with sorting those out.
Zoe.
Chapter Forty-Four
February is no warmer than January but I take the wind’s whipping chill at my face as suitable punishment. Mike tells me Pete’s been working remotely from their home office for the last two weeks, sleeping in the tiny summer house, and he’s at least reading my emails. Just not replying to them yet.
I hate being in the flat on my own. I even went ‘home’ home last week, ate a lot of my mum’s lasagne, watched Countryfile with her and commuted into London during the weekdays. Anything to avoid the huge gaping chasm in my flat which is the Pete Sinkhole. All happiness gets pulled in there and I can’t so much as look at his calculator without wanting to weep into my dressing gown. Still, my Crumbs chin has well and truly gone. Mum tried her best to bite down on her criticisms. But we both knew what hung between us in the air: You Brought This on Yourself. Luckily, she was being kind enough just to say it using Mum Telepathy and not actual words, so we could bury the truth in conversations about the bird feeder, what Mrs Keegan’s daughter is up to in Sydney and what we’d have for tea.
Lyds was letting me help out at the stall on Saturdays to distract me and it was a happy, bustling place to go, though catching sight of Guy and Lydia sharing a secret, smoochy little look, or holding hands when they thought no one could see, made my stomach spin. This Saturday, I’m checking my phone on the minute, as I’d sent Pete a humungous ‘this is why I love you’ email late last night and I was hoping to get a response. The Tourette’s-like phone twitching is getting under Lydia’s skin, I can tell. Because she’s just snatched my phone out of my hands.
‘Honestly, Ellie. That is hardly helping. And I haven’t seen you eat anything all day. Go and get a crepe, or a hot chocolate, or both.’
‘God, sorry, Mum.’ I give her my best stroppy teenager exaggerated sigh.
‘Well get me one, at least. I’m rewriting the fashion bible by getting fatter the longer I work in this industry. If I ever get to London Fashion Week, they’re going to have to winch me out of my house to be there. Go, go!’
She shoves a tenner in my hand and body-checks me towards the road.
The queue for crepes is a long one, but this gives me plenty of phone-staring time. Maybe if I stare at it long enough, some super smart bit of the iPhone brain will hypnotise Pete into calling me back. There must be an app for that, right?
I get in line behind a tall bloke and refresh my email a few more times. The line shuffles forward.
‘Two banana and chocolates, please.’
I know that voice. My fingers freeze on my phone. Maybe if I just stay really still …
‘Cheers, mate.’ There’s a pause, when I think I might get away with it. ‘Hey, Eleanor?’
Dredging up a smile, I look. ‘Hi Joe.’
‘Hi. So, haven’t seen you for a bit. You haven’t been at back at the class. Hannah said you’ve been too busy?’
I nudge at the kerb with my Converse. ‘Yeah, really big projects at work. So, I thought I should drop out of the show early too, as I couldn’t commit, you know, fully to it.’
Joe scratches the back of his neck. ‘Zoe said there were some problems. I went back in to redo the bread thing on my own and actually … I don’t know how to say this, I’ve been meaning to call you … but – basically – she said the team thought you were pregnant? And that we were together.’ He frowns.
I feel a deep, heavy guilt on my chest. ‘Ah ha. Weird, right? But it explains the editing of that trailer, at least. So weird.’ My jolly laugh limps along like a deflating balloon.
Joe smiles sadly. ‘Funny, ‘cause to me the baby bit was weird. But I mean, I know we only went out for one drink, but I did think … you know. Something.’
Oh God, I remember this guilt: from Christmas Eve, when I hadn’t bought Pete’s present. It wasn’t guilt over poor shopping skills: it was guilt over very bad wife behaviour. In a deep, dark pit of my soul, I knew I had been flirting with Joe, giving him the wrong idea. But I did it anyway. The evidence is in a trailer now filed somewhere in the BBC under ‘Scrapped material – due to hysterical woman’. The feeling is hot and grotty and sticky in my stomach.
‘Oh no. Oh, Joe. I’m sorry. I thought we were just mucking about, flirting in the banter way, not the come to bed way. I mean, you get that all the time, right?’
He blinks rapidly. ‘Um, no. If someone flirts with me over a protracted length of time, I tend to think they like me. But, you know, whatever.’
How could I have been so reckless? How could I have taken such a stupid risk, basically putting my whole life on the line for a few stupid giggles over some cake mixture? It’s not like me; it’s not like the Eleanor who saves Observer recipes in a special folder and has a drawer of greeting cards, ready for any occasion. The Ellie that batted her lashes at Joe is a complete stranger. And I don’t like her. I hope she chokes on her illicit cupcakes.
‘I’ve been a massive dick.’ My voice breaks a little. ‘I’m actually married, and my husband saw the trailer …’
‘Shit.’ Joe, bless his big socks, looks worried for me. ‘I could call him? Say it was nothing?’
‘God, you’re just … lovely all the way through. No, this is my mess. I made it. And I’m really sorry I messed you about too.’
He takes a deep breath, then actually shrugs. ‘Well, what can you do? Look, take care, yeah? I’ve got to get going. There’s someone waiting for this.’ He holds up one of the crepes and gives his big grin.
Yeah, I think he’ll get over it. Whether I will is another story.
But the market had to close, and I had to go home again, to the cold and dark and Peteless flat. To the Magimix that poked fun at me with its judgemental little feeding tube.
The only thing waiting for me is a letter. Containing our confirmed tickets to Bruges in a week’s time. Oh, triffic. Because I hadn’t thought about my missing husband for at least seven seconds.
I flick through my Twenties Leaver’s Book, the one Pete made me for my birthday. I saw that list on my birthday and panicked that I hadn’t done the young Ellie justice. But if she could have looked into the future, saw the amazing bloke I’d managed to marry, I’m sure she would have happily skipped the penthouse and New York trips. I only let down sixth-form Ellie by taking him for granted.
It is time for another email, but please God make it the last one I send.
Dear Pete,
I know I’ve done enough to make you give up on me. But I know what I want my future to look like now. Please come and see me, so I can tell you. I can’t do this on email, and I don’t think you can either.
I’ve quit that show – it was all a horrendous mistake and I’m so sorry. I did flirt with that guy like a stupid teenager. But there was nothing to it. Nothing. It was just the stupidest way to run away from the things that are scaring me. I’m sorry. I’ll never stop being sorry.
I’m sending your ticket to Bruges over to Mike’s on a courier. If you want to talk, meet me on the platform at St Pancras at noon. I’m not saying we have to get on the train and go to Bruges. We could. But it’s also a good place if you just want to walk away – people say goodbye at stations all the time. I won’t look like such a knob then, if you walk away there. Though I’ll still feel like one, a huge one.
I really am so sorry. I love you. I love you, Pete. I just can’t sit here and wait any more – it’s killing me.
E x
