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

by Anna Mansell

  One day.

  30

  I can still smell Kouros from the last hug Mitch gave me as he bid me farewell down by the Civic. This time, as I weaved up Gosforth Drive, I didn’t analyse every road, house and significant place. Well, apart from a wistful memory of losing my virginity at a house on Garth Way. Back bedroom. Color Me Badd on the radio. ‘I Wanna Sex You Up’. The romance.

  By the time I’ve made it home, I don’t hate myself. Which is a novel state of affairs and I might even quite like it. I stumble in the back door, my head hot from too much sun, my shoulders red raw, but I don’t care. Maybe I’m okay.

  ‘I’ve been calling you!’ says Mum, her head poking out from another cupboard.

  ‘Oh, sorry!’ I pull my phone out to check it, seeing five missed calls and a text. ‘Damn, sorry, Mum! I didn’t hear you calling. I must have knocked the silent switch without realising.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Not because you were off with Mitch and didn’t want any interruptions,’ she says, winking.

  ‘No!’ I catch sight of myself in the painted mirror above the toaster. I’ve gone pink. I think that’s the sun too. Mum is grinning at me, on all fours, by a cupboard again. ’Are you okay? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong with me, love.’ She brushes off her apron, standing, sniffing in my general direction. ‘You smell like you could do with a cuppa.’ She points at the kettle, so I fill it up.

  ‘Ben sent the letter back.’

  She pauses, her shoulders drop a little, but she keeps faffing with stuff in the cupboard. ‘You okay?’ she asks, pulling out a couple of pretend-crystal sherry glasses before pushing them to the back of the cupboard. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  She has such genuine concern in her voice, which, by God, I love her for, but now is not the time. Despite all the things she’s got going on she still whittles about me. ‘I’m fine, Mum. Honestly. I just went out for a walk with Mitch to clear my head. We talked.’

  ‘A walk. To the pub?’

  ‘No. We walked through Kitchen Wood first actually. I’ve not been there in years, it was bloody lovely.’

  ‘So what about Ben?’ She passes me teabags.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Did he say anything? Has he read the letter? Do you feel better?’

  I drop some bread in the toaster, pushing milk and butter on the side as I dig around the back of the fridge for some marmalade.

  ‘Back, left,’ Mum says, directing me straight to the Golden Shredless she bought me because it’s always been my favourite.

  ‘I do feel better. Weirdly.’

  ‘Why weirdly?’

  There’s something that stops me sharing what Mitch did. I don’t think it’s ’cos of the Kouros or the rugby image. I think it’s just ’cos it’s mine. It feels authentic. And I’m not quite sure what to do with that really, because it’s also alien. He’d read some of that letter. He said I should forgive myself.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe I just needed to get the letter back. Drop it in the incinerator and watch the smoke twist into the sky. It’s time to move on, Mum.’ The toast pops up. ‘Oh my God, how good does toast smell?’ I pick it out, burning the tips of my fingers. ‘Oooh. Ouch.’ Blow. ‘You eaten?’ I slather it in butter before taking a pre-marmalade bite, my mouth watering at the taste.

  ‘I’ve eaten, yes, thanks.’

  She looks tired. And is she going a funny yellow colour or is that these godawful lemon blinds she insisted we put up when I first moved back because it’s like living in sunshine, Jem!

  ‘You want some help with those cupboards?’ I ask, as she opens a new one, slumping at the amount of lidless takeaway containers that tumble from behind the door. ‘I don’t know why you keep them every single time.’

  ‘It’s waste, Jem. We can’t just landfill the evidence of our Saturday nights in.’

  ‘True. Though I fear that cupboard is like our own miniature landfill.’ Behind her, I peer inside it. ‘Have you really still got a commemorative mug from when Charles and Diana married?’

  ‘It was commemorative. I bought it ’cos it was the same year you were born and I thought you might like the history of it. You drunk your first cups of tea out of that mug.’

  I wince at the memory of unnecessarily milky, two-sugared tea. ‘I’m probably not going to use it any more though, am I? Can barely fit a thimbleful in that tiny thing!’

  She picks it out of the cupboard, smiling at it sadly. ‘Time flies so fast.’

  ‘Stop! Come on, give it here.’ I reach in, taking it from her with a nudge to her hip because melancholy isn’t allowed. ‘Cats Protection love this kind of tat. Pop it in that box and step aside, I can see you need someone with a bit less sentimentality to make any headway in these cupboards.’

  I shovel the last of my toast in, wiping crumby hands on my jeans before bending down to survey the hoarding evidence. Mum backs away, perching on a kitchen stool by the makeshift breakfast bar that we only ever use for wicker baskets full of cables and plugs and the sort of stuff you don’t really know what to do with so hide in a wicker basket.

  ‘Go on then. Pull it all out. Let’s see what we want to keep and what we can sling.’

  I find another couple of commemorative plates and mugs from various royal weddings right up to Harry and Meghan. ‘I had no idea you were such a royalist.’ She shrugs non-committally, so I place them all carefully in the cardboard box with a wry grin. Then I move my attention to pile after pile of vintage plates. White ones with that blue willow pattern on them.

  ‘They were your nana’s,’ Mum says, fondly. ‘Her pretend posh set. If you look closely, you’ll see where the picture has slipped because it was a transfer not hand-painted.’ I pick through a couple, finding some that are perfect and several that are fuzzy and misshapen. Which makes me like them all the more. ‘They’re all fakes. Your nana wanted the proper willow stuff but couldn’t afford it, so bought these off Dronfield Market. She bloody loved ’em. Brought ’em out every Christmas.’

  ‘Well, you can’t get rid of these then.’

  ‘What am I going to do with a thirty-two-piece fake willow dinner set?’

  ‘Bring ’em out for Christmas!’ There’s a pause, then she gets up and heads out into the dining room and through to the lounge. ‘Mum?’ I call out after her but I can hear her, sniffling. ‘Mum? What’s the matter? Mum!’ I take her in my arms, pulling her close. Her head barely reaches my chin and she feels tiny. Belly aside, there’s not much of her any more. I don’t think I’d realised, beneath the shoulder pads and bulky cardigans she wears, even though it’s peak summer. ‘Mum, come on, what’s the matter?’

  ‘What if I’m not here for Christmas, love? Eh? What if I’m already on borrowed time?’

  ‘Mum! You can’t think like that, not yet. Not now. We can’t be defeated. Just because it’s back, it’s going to be fine. They’re going to sort it. You’ve got bags of time yet! You can’t go anywhere. We’ve got stuff to do. You’ve a bucket list that we’ve barely scratched the surface off.’

  ‘I had lobster the other day.’

  ‘Ooh, was it good?’ We’ve both always wanted lobster.

  ‘It was bloody gorgeous!’

  ‘There you go. And there’s still another fifty odd things to do yet. And you are definitely not going anywhere until we’ve been to Knowsley Safari. Leanne says she wants to take Harley and we can go through the monkey bit in her car, not mine. Not having them nimble-fingered little bleeders nick Petula’s rubber beading.’

  Mum laughs and sniffs at the same time and I realise how quickly the tide can turn. How this afternoon it was me, in Mitch’s arms, desperate for reassurance. And here, now, it’s Mum’s turn. And for maybe the first time in our relationship, I’ve made it. I’ve done it. I am being the strength that she needs, when she needs it. Did Mitch help me get here? Is it because of him that I feel like I can finally do this? I can be the daughter she deserves. I can get my life together. And she’s go
ing to be fine, she just is. ‘You’re going to be alright you know, Mum. I promise.’

  ‘You can’t promise anything.’

  ‘I can. And I am. So come on. Wipe your face. Stand as tall as your skinny legs will carry you. We have a cupboard to empty. We have fake blue willow to wash and dry and put back in the cupboard in time for our massive Christmas dinner. Okay?’

  She nods.

  ‘Okay.’

  31

  The house is quiet. Mum’s gone off to her Pilates class. To her real one, not the fake one she used to hide the fact she was at the doctors. She wasn’t sure about going back but I think I managed to persuade her of the benefits. Not least the hour to herself without having to listen to me complain about work. Or lack thereof. Three clients I’ve got at the moment. Three clients who require a combination of typing work, a bit of social media updating, and one who thinks that the thirty pounds they pay me to trawl through their bank statements and tick off every direct debit payment they’ve received is both profitable and interesting. In fact, that particular job is the one I hate the most. When those statements come through, I sigh. Heavily. Because apparently switching it all to a spreadsheet to auto check in five minutes is not effective. Still. It’s work. I am grateful, I am happy, I am at one with my life choices.

  That’s the new mantra Leanne suggested I repeat. She bought me rosary beads from the hippy place down the lanes in Meadowhall… the least hippy place on earth, but still. At least I can say yes, I’ve done it, to the text she’s just sent me.

  Have you done your mantra?

  God, I love her.

  ‘Yes, I’ve done my mantra,’ I declare when she picks up my call. ‘Have you done yours?’

  ‘If only. Not had a chance to scratch my arse yet this morning. I’ve done four loads of washing; the house looks like a laundrette ’cos the line’s already got the bed sheets on.’

  ‘You wanna take the weight off your slingbacks, love. Shall I pop over this afternoon, give you some respite?’

  ‘Obviously I’d love that but it’s the annual water-birth baby gathering so I’ll be out with Harley and Elsie all afternoon.’

  ‘This is the one where you all had babies at the same time and are now inextricably linked for all eternity?’

  ‘That’s the one. Christ knows what we’ll talk about. They’re all very good mums who do not leave all the washing to the last minute and who probably still cook every meal their child eats from absolute scratch.’

  ‘You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life.’

  ‘I know, right. One of them can’t make it because she’s skiing and I swear to God she offered her apologies by pointing out that it was essential her son learned to ski. We live in Dronfield. Sheffield ski slope’s not even going any more. We’re not living in Val d’Isère.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Anyhow, that’s not what I was ringing about. It’s my great-aunty Vi’s ninetieth this Saturday and it turns out they’re having a big do up at the Miners Arms. Apparently someone told me but I forgot because of children and life, and do you wanna come?’

  ‘Well, as inviting as you make the whole affair sound, whilst I’d love to because I adore Aunty Vi––’

  ‘Who doesn’t?’

  ‘I’m supposed to be seeing Mitch.’

  ‘Tell him you can’t! Tell him this might be Aunty Vi’s last and you’re on duty with the open sandwiches.’

  ‘If it’s potted meat I am definitely not on open sandwich duty.’ I recoil.

  ‘Of course not. We’ve got cheese, ham, and egg mayo.’

  ‘Eurgh. Egg mayo.’

  ‘Worse, hot egg mayo. Hot egg mayo that’s being kept at room temperature by the strip lighting in that function room.’

  ‘Oh God. Don’t.’ I grimace. ‘My twenty-first birthday party was in the Miners Arms function room. Half the party went off with food poisoning because Mum made the egg mayo sandwiches too early and it was July. And red hot. And nobody ate the egg mayo until they’d either drunk too much and didn’t care or smoked too much and ate everything in reach.’

  ‘Like you’d be able to remember anyone’s twenty-first birthday party, least of all your own. Bets on you were three sheets to the wind before you even got there!’

  ‘That may or may not be true, but I do remember snogging Tony Parker up against the fire doors.’

  ‘Oh my God! I had forgotten about him! You were obsessed.’

  ‘Nah, he was,’ I chip back.

  ‘Why don’t you bring Mitch along? You know, if you can’t live without him for a night.’

  I give a sarcastic laugh. ‘It’s not that I can’t live without him. It’s just that he bought us tickets to see a show at the Lyceum on Saturday evening.’

  ‘What show?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. It’s a surprise.’

  ‘You hate surprises.’

  ‘I know. Can’t be ungrateful though, can I?’ I was quite taken aback when he said he’d got the tickets. I’ve never said I like the theatre particularly; I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it as such, I’ve just not had much experience of going. ‘Do you have to dress up? For the Lyceum?’

  ‘Well, I don’t suppose you have to go full-on evening dress. No need to drag out the taffeta. Why don’t you dress smart casual and swing by us first? The party starts at four. Bring your mum too, if she’s up for it. Aunty Vi would love to see her, and I would too, for that matter.’

  ‘I guess I could. Yeah, okay, let me check with Mitch and Mum, but I think that sounds like a plan. I’ll text you to confirm. You know. For the buffet.’

  ‘You’re basically just coming for the buffet, aren’t you?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Well, whatever your motivation, it’ll be nice to have you there, and to see Mitch for that matter. I want to check out this person you seem to be spending so much time with. Make sure he’s not still a weirdo.’

  ‘He’s not a weirdo!’

  There’s a pause and I can practically hear her working up to the stealth enquiries. She’ll be acting nonchalant in the kitchen, pretending she’s not about to sniper me with a question. ‘So, is Saturday a date-date, or just another let’s go out and chat and be mates date?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, of course you know.’ I imagine her dropping a hand on her hip in exasperation.

  ‘I mean, I like him…’

  ‘Like him how? Like, like ooh, what a lovely new friend, or like, like phwoar, I’d love to rip your pants off?’

  Such a way with words. ‘I don’t know.’ I laugh. ‘It’s hard to say. I like him, but I don’t know that he’s ready for anything new.’

  ‘He was on Tinder, what more evidence do you need?’

  ‘Seems to me, Tinder’s just for hooking up. I’ve had more dick pics than I care to remember.’

  ‘Show me!’

  ‘I’ve deleted them!’

  ‘Boring.’ I roll my eyes, even though she can’t see me. ‘Alright, so you don’t know what he wants, but what about you? What do you want?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m trying not to be frightened because I like him, but I don’t want to make another mistake.’

  ‘Who says you will?’ I think about the awkwardness that arose over the letter and how we had to sidestep that. ‘Look, Jem, maybe swiping right was a metaphor – for you to start saying yes, and moving on with your life.’

  ‘You swiped right!’

  ‘Well, let’s not overanalyse. Look, do you fancy him?’

  I pause. Because whatever I say to this question will be brought up as evidence for all eternity. My God can she remember a fact. The thing is, I do fancy him. I really fancy him. He’s hot and charismatic and really seems to get me. He makes me feel a bit fizzy inside when we talk, or meet up, or when he texts. But I’ve been in love with Ben for so long… even when I was screwing things up, I loved him.

  ‘You’ve taken too long. Which means you totally do.’

/>   ‘What science is that based on?’

  ‘The science that says, I am your best friend and I can read you like the proverbial. You would like him to do rude things to your nethers and you are pretending that is not the case because you don’t want me to know. Which, frankly, is offensive. I am your best friend. I can be trusted.’

  ‘Didn’t you once tell Victoria Williams that I loved her brother?’

  ‘I was fifteen and you were drunk on Bacardi. Besides, we weren’t really mate mates then. I would never… EVER… tell Victoria Williams anything any more.’

  ‘That’s because you don’t like her.’

  ‘Correct. She reads Hello! magazine without an ounce of irony.’ We both laugh, but I still don’t answer. ‘Look. I’m not going to ask again. I shall simply scrutinise your body language when you turn up looking smoking hot for his benefit at Aunty Vi’s do.’

  ‘Okay. But whatever you think you do or do not see, say nothing. I like him. I don’t want it to get all confused and messed up. I am a broken woman, Leanne. I do not need complication.’

  ‘You are not broken. And complication or no, we all need a bit of sex. Love you, bye!’

  She’s gone, cackling, before I can counterclaim. God, she’s infuriating.

  32

  ‘You nearly ready, Mum?’ She’s running late, having lounged in the bath with a book and The Beatles blaring out of her new, upstairs Echo Dot. Because why not have multiple Amazon smart devices dotted round the house, so they can cater to your every whim.

  ‘I’m coming. Hang on, I’m coming. Alexa – stop!’

  She clatters down the stairs, out of puff but beautifully made up. ‘Mum, you look gorgeous.’

  ‘This old thing?’ she says, looking down at the navy-blue jersey dress, dolled up with a sequin bolero jacket and a touch of makeup on her cheeks. ‘Thanks, love.’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t mind me tagging along. I can get a cab, or I can drive myself.’