The Man I Loved Before: A completely gripping and heart-wrenching page turner

by Anna Mansell

  ‘Please don’t get run over by a bus. I’d feel obliged to move in with Andy and raise your children as my own and whilst I love them all, I think we both know that couldn’t possibly end well.’

  ‘I suppose so. I’ll avoid buses.’

  ‘Besides, I’m gonna need you these next few months.’

  ‘Why? What else is up?’

  ‘It’s Mum.’ I haven’t said this out loud until now. Even talking to Mum, I haven’t had to say it. We’ve got the shorthand. ‘Her cancer’s back.’

  ‘No…’

  ‘Or maybe it never went away.’ We come out of a ginnel right outside the school gate. All my life I’ve lived here and I still get lost trying to navigate my way through the estate.

  ‘Is she okay?’

  ‘She’s being brave.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I mean, I should be, right? Given that she sort of is.’

  ‘But you’re not.’

  ‘I’m crapping myself.’

  We hang at the back of a group of mums sharing stories, laughing with each other. I’m grateful to Leanne for not thrusting me into the mêlée. Some of the women I recognise from school. One of them is good mates with a girl I used to share a house with.

  ‘To be honest, then it’s probably a doubly good time for the Mitch stuff,’ says Leanne, tucking one of Elsie’s toes back into the pram.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Well, if you’ve got more heavy stuff with your mum, you’re gonna need some light. There’s only so much of that that I can offer, what with all this.’ She motions towards Elsie and nursery.

  ‘Is that the right reason to start dating him?’

  ‘Of course not. The right reason is ’cause you like him. But you do, I can see it.’

  ‘He makes me feel strange.’

  ‘Strange?’

  ‘I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like, butterflies, I guess.’

  ‘Well, that’s good then, isn’t it? You want butterflies with someone new.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Look, it’s understandable that you’re a bit hesitant. You’ve had a heavy year with your mum. You’re still carrying some Ben baggage. You’re allowed to feel a bit uncertain about things, but feel the fear and do it anyway, right? Isn’t that what they say?’

  ‘They also say something about frying pans and fires.’

  ‘Mitch isn’t frying pan or fire. He’s a new opportunity.’ The doors to nursery open, and parents move forward to collect their small people. ‘Don’t stand in the way of your own happiness, Jem. You’ve done it all your life. You’re the self-destruct queen. Fear swallows you whole then spits you out. Don’t let it…’ She joins the queue to pick up Harley who launches himself at her from the doorway, and she swings him round, showering him in kisses. She takes him by the hand, suddenly no longer desperate for the freedom she mentioned before, and he toddles beside her chattering. I follow them, listening to his nonsense stories, admiring how she takes everything he says seriously, how she hears it all. How she chats back and affirms his three-year-old successes. She is the kind of mum I would have longed to have the capacity to be but know it’s just not in me. And she’s the kind of friend who’s only ever had my best interests at heart, even when I didn’t always reciprocate.

  Maybe she’s right about Mitch. She’s always been right about everything else… not that I’d tell her. I don’t need that kind of smugness in my life.

  20

  ‘So, what brought you back then?’ I ask, sipping at the large Sauvignon Blanc Mitch bought me, despite my protestation. Apparently it saves him going back to the bar too often.

  ‘It was my mum. Mainly. Me and Abby weren’t getting on well anyway, I don’t know what happened, we sort of unravelled. She changed. Maybe I did, it’s difficult to say. It was hard, and we hurt one another, trying to get things right, trying to work our way through stuff. It was pretty clear she no longer wanted to try and then Mum was given weeks to live and I just thought it’d be mad to stay where I was and miss out on whatever time we had left. I came back in April, Mum died at the start of May.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Yeah. It was. It is.’

  He sips at his pint. He’s composed. Remarkably so, given what he’s saying. I wonder where that strength of character comes from, that ability to talk about what must be the most painful thing in his life.

  ‘I mean, I’m lucky. I got to be there for her. There was nothing left unsaid, there are no regrets.’ He half smiles and I wonder what it really feels like to talk about it. About her. Now she’s gone. ‘It’s just hard to believe it sometimes, you know?’

  I don’t. I don’t know. And I don’t want to know.

  ‘Who knows how long it takes to adjust,’ he says. ‘Or if you ever do. Like, we barely spoke on the phone; we’d text, usually. Then when I visited, we’d talk. She was never a fan of phones, which was fine, I didn’t mind. And yet now, I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve picked the phone up to call and tell her something.’ He shakes his head, sadly, and I can’t imagine what it would be like to not be able to just pick up the phone. Or text. Or sit on the sofa and watch a film whilst she falls asleep… ‘Like the other week, when I dropped the last of her clothes at the charity shop, I went to call her and let her know. It’s stupid.’

  I shake my head. ‘It’s not.’

  ‘It’s just an autopilot thing. Weird, really.’

  ‘Clearing her stuff must have been hard.’

  ‘Yeah. Awful. But necessary. And it’s strange, when I go past I sometimes see an item of clothing in the window, or a pair of her shoes on display. Like today. What should be painful and horrible is oddly reassuring: a tiny pair of animal-print boots.’

  ‘They sound incredible.’

  ‘They’re down the cancer research shop if you fancy ’em.’

  ‘Hmm. Might be a bit weird.’

  ‘Yeah. I guess so. Dunno why she had ’em. She never wore animal print. Yet she had them. They were hers. And seeing them there, it’s weird, but it’s nice. Almost like she’s around and I can give her a wave.’

  ‘Until someone buys them.’

  ‘Yeah… I didn’t think it through…’ He half smiles again. ‘Maybe you should get them.’

  ‘I don’t know if I could do that…’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘No, not the shoes. I mean… clear my mum’s stuff out.’

  ‘You have to. If there’s nobody else to do it for you, you have to. And even if there had been, I don’t know that I’d have wanted them to. She was my mum. I wanted to make sure that I honoured her, honoured her belongings. I didn’t want to just scrap it all without making sure I’d checked it. I’d come across little notes she’d written. Affirmations and stuff. If someone else had done it, I might never have seen them. I wouldn’t have them now.’

  ‘That’s beautiful.’

  He sighs. ‘Not all of them. One of them was a shopping list. Must have been from years back. It included condoms.’ He shudders.

  ‘Awks.’

  ‘I know, right? Oh, I don’t know. At some point I need to decide whether to get the house on the market or stay there myself. I can get work wherever I am, computers see, it’s easy, but I don’t even know if I want to really. She’s everywhere and nowhere and that really fucking hurts. Plus, I don’t know where I want to be. It’s not like I love it here.’

  ‘No?’ I say that, but I sort of agree. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Dronfield. With the exception of the rickety train bridge that definitely has trolls living under it, it’s a perfectly lovely town. But it was never the plan to stay. And there are memories around every corner. And if my mum wasn’t here, I don’t know if I’d want to stay either.

  ‘I suppose I just never saw it coming. Being back here. Single. Parentless. Well, essentially parentless.’

  ‘We’d have bloody loved being parentless back in the day.’

  ‘Ha! You’re ri
ght. I could have played Spice Girls on full blast!’

  ‘Now you’re taking the piss.’

  ‘Spice up your life is a lyrical masterpiece.’

  I belly laugh. ‘Go on then, late nineties music: Aguilera or Britney?’

  ‘Britney!’

  ‘Wrong! It’s Aguilera.’

  ‘Actually, we’re both wrong. It’s Shakira all the way.’

  ‘Oh, boys! You’re all so bloody obvious.’

  ‘What can I say? I like breasts that are small and humble.’

  ‘Hahaha! Anything more than a handful’s a waste, is it?’

  He clinked my glass and knocked his back. ‘Come on, sup up. Don’t leave me hanging!’

  21

  He’s back with more drinks and I finish up my first wine having decided, whilst he was at the bar, that my breasts are neither small nor humble. What if he doesn’t fancy me?

  ‘Cheers,’ he says, clinking my glass. He looks at me and once again, my belly flips a bit. ‘And thanks, for listening.’

  ‘Ha. You’re probably the first person to say that to me.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve not really been all that good at listening in the past. But this is part of the new me.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what the old you was like, but this version is alright… I reckon.’

  Maybe it doesn’t matter about my breasts…

  He leans back, hands cradling his head. ‘So what else do you want to know? What can I tell you?’

  ‘What about your dad? Do you still see him?’

  ‘Nah. Not for years. Not since he left.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. I remember that now. They split up, didn’t they, your parents?’

  ‘Yup. Worst time of my life, fourteen. I was supposed to be getting inappropriate erections and taking an unhealthy interest in a Freemans catalogue.’

  ‘Lingerie pages?’

  ‘Obviously. Instead, I was judge and jury for Mum and Dad’s marriage breakdown. Which is a cheery thought.’

  ‘Sorry. I should have stuck to Shakira chat.’

  He lets out a groan. ‘Eurgh. Probably. Right then, Jem. Save me. Save me from myself before I twist into a pit of despair. Or find Spice Girls’ “Mama, I love you” on the jukebox.’

  ‘God no!’

  ‘Exactly. Come on then.’ He grins. ‘Tell me about you. Tell me what life has thrown at you these past few years?’

  ‘Oh sure, put the pressure on me to change our mood. Maybe I would like a bit of music after all.’

  ‘If it’s Aguilera, I’m leaving.’

  I narrow my eyes and half smile in a way that would definitely be seen as flirting, but stop because I don’t think I’m very good at it.

  ‘Tell me what you’ve been up to then, key things since school?’ he asks.

  ‘Ha! Where do I start? I too was not getting inappropriate erections or poring over the Freemans catalogue.’

  ‘No? We both missed out!’

  ‘I see that now.’

  ‘So, if not that, what else do the cool girls do?’

  ‘Cool girls?’ I belly laugh. ‘Of all the words you could use to describe me, cool is not one of them.’

  ‘Of course it is!’ He laughs. ‘You are. Well, you were, anyway. Maybe that’s all changed.’

  I nod, sipping at my wine. ‘If I ever was, I’m deffo not now. But thanks, I shall laugh at the very idea for many days to come.’

  ‘Okay.’ He grins again, his eyes crinkling at the sides. ‘So, what makes you not cool then?’

  ‘Apart from the elasticated waists on my trousers and the fact that I wear trainers because I’d be arse over in any kind of heel?’

  ‘That’s not uncool, that’s just practical.’ If Leanne could hear him now she would definitely agree, she loves an elasticated waist. I reckon she’d like him. ‘So… presumably you’re single?’

  ‘Given that I’m on Tinder.’

  ‘From what I understand, that’s not always a given.’

  ‘Oh, right. Yes then. I’m single. Very. No gossip to be had there.’ It’s possible the last bit comes out more forcefully than I intended.

  ‘Okay, clearly love-life chat is off the table. Tell me about work then. Weren’t you in recruitment at one point?’

  I wonder how he knows, has he asked around after me? Scrolled through my Facebook? Is that a good sign? That he likes me? Whatever the answer, it gets a bit hot in this taproom as I think back to the morning I lost that job. Two weeks after Ben left. I was a mess, pretending I was fine. I walked into the office in a new suit I’d bought from TK Maxx the night before because late-night shopping was preferable to going back to my place where Ben very much would not be. The suit was hot pink and pretty sharp. I think I almost felt strong, confident and in control, oblivious to the fact I was about to get fired. As I casually whipped off the form-fitted jacket my boss presented me with an email I’d mistakenly sent to him instead of Julie, my work colleague. The email in which I gossiped about bedding a contract business analyst we’d just placed at HSBC. £500 a day he was on. We spent the night in the Wig and Pen, celebrating his placement, on me. Before he took me to the Ibis for a quickie, which was horrible. And he wasn’t Ben. But I didn’t have to go home, so I rolled with it anyway. Then he left in the middle of the night, leaving me to foot the bill.

  A new suit from TK Maxx could not get me out of that one. Form fitted or otherwise.

  ‘Yes. Recruitment. For a while. Was glad to get out though.’

  ‘I had a mate in recruitment, always sounded very boozy.’

  ‘Very. Which, don’t get me wrong, was fun. And you could earn decent enough money. I bought my first house ’cos of that job. Just up from Climax.’

  ‘The nightclub? Didn’t it shut?’

  ‘You’ve not seen it?’ He shakes his head. ‘Fishing tackle shop now. They couldn’t be arsed changing the name.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘I know, right.’

  ‘I thought you lived with your mum, though?’

  ‘Ah, yes… I don’t have that house any more.’

  ‘You sold it?’

  Of course. Having once had a house and now not having a house. And living with your mum. ‘Not exactly. If you were after inspiring success stories, I’m afraid you knocked on the wrong door.’ He cocks his head to one side. ‘It was repossessed three months ago.’

  ‘Oh. Shit.’

  ‘Yeah… about the same time I went bankrupt.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Didn’t I do well?’ I force a grin, trying not to let the feeling of shame swallow my mood like it normally does. ‘It’s all a bit embarrassing really. I’ve kind of made a hash of things.’

  ‘It happens. None of us are exempt from that.’

  ‘No. Shame really.’

  ‘I guess it doesn’t take much for everything to go pear-shaped.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  Three months in fact. That’s all it took. I lost my job, spunked my savings up the wall in a fit of how dare they fire me, how dare Ben leave me idiocy. It was a dark time. He doesn’t need to know all the details.

  ‘I had no work, no savings, and I had been living very much beyond my means. Mum was ill and I was trying to hold things together and care for her. It didn’t take long before people were chasing me for money I didn’t have. I wasn’t in a great place. Just couldn’t see how to fix it. So, I filed for bankruptcy, posted my keys through the letterbox and went back to Mum’s, where I was practically living by then in any case. Not my finest hour but there we are, I guess. So now, I do a bit of admin for people. Like, online secretarial work.’

  ‘Interesting?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Pays the bills?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘So why are you still doing it?’

  ‘Aaahhh… why am I doing it.’ I give his question a moment’s thought because nobody’s really asked me that before. Leanne’s just glad I’m being proactive. Mum’s prou
d I’m still standing. Am I doing it for them? ‘Partly to prove I’m capable of being a grown-up and partly because I don’t know what I want to do. I don’t know where I want to be. And it’s handy because I get to work from home which…’ I pause. I can’t evade this with more Shakira banter. ‘My mum’s still not well,’ I say, draining my glass.

  ‘Oh no.’

  ‘Yeah. I mean, she was bad, then she got better – or so we thought, and now it seems… well, it looks like things have taken another turn.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. Do you want to talk about it?’ I shrug, because maybe I do. He drains his own glass, reaches for mine and stands. ‘Let me get us another. Then you can tell me everything. You know, if you want to.’

  ‘No, no. It’s my turn. I’ll get these.’ I reach into my bag, wondering how much I’ve got in my bank account. That trip to Cornwall turned out a smidgen more expensive than I anticipated.

  ‘Put your money away. Let me. Might as well put the inheritance to good use.’ He’s joking I’m sure, I guess sadness does that. ‘Look, I can afford it and I’d like to.’ I fight back a sudden lip quiver because I feel sad for him and embarrassed for me. ‘Same again?’

  ‘Same again. Thanks.’

  * * *

  Five hours. That’s how long we spent together, and it flew by. We didn’t stop talking. I told him everything about Mum and even managed to find humour amongst it all. Then we talked about other stuff, I can’t even remember what. I laughed. He did too. It was light and easy and fun. He walked me home. We chatted more, sat on my doorstep, whispering so as not to wake Mum. And then he stood, and there was that moment of whether or not to kiss someone and I sort of wanted to, but sort of didn’t because I’ve always rushed into everything in the past. And as he walked down the drive I kinda regretted being standoffish because I don’t think I want him to think I’m not interested, even if I still don’t know what this is. Or if I’m interested in a romantic way. Or how I feel about anything… anyone… at the moment.

  I’ve never been one for uncertainty when it comes to men… Maybe it’s a good sign. This is different to anything I’ve known before.