Forty Things to Do Before You're Forty

by Alice Ross

  Annie’s jaw dropped. Several seconds passed before she croaked, ‘Another try? You’ve got to be joking.’

  Lance cleared his throat in the manner of someone very important, about to give a very important speech. ‘Look, Annie, I know I screwed up. Big time. And you’ve every right to tell me to sod off-’

  ‘Exactly what I’m about to do.’

  Lance ploughed on undeterred. ‘The thing is, I’ve been beating myself up for months. Ever since I last saw you both. But it’s only now I’ve plucked up the courage to tell you exactly how I feel.’

  Annie’s eyebrows lifted. ‘And how’s that?’

  He looked her directly in the eye. ‘I still love you, Annie. I’ve never stopped loving you. We were good together once, weren’t we? We could be again.’

  Annie shot back in her chair. ‘What?’ she demanded, her tone dripping with incredulity. ‘And pretend like the last five years didn’t happen? Pretend you didn’t walk out on me and your daughter?’

  He shook his head, his wedge swinging beautifully from side to side. ‘Of course not. I know it won’t be easy but we could do it.’

  Annie opened her mouth to tell him exactly what he could do, when he added:

  ‘Think how good it would be for Sophie having us together again. Being a proper family.’

  Ouch! That struck a painful chord. A chord in the tubby form of Thomas Mullen and his hurtful remarks to Sophie the other day. She stared at the unfinished Dino card and chewed her bottom lip.

  ‘What do you say?’ pressed Lance.

  Annie rolled her eyes. ‘For god’s sake, Lance, what do you expect me to say? You can’t just turn up here and expect us to welcome you with open arms. This is real life not some happy-ever-after rom com.’

  ‘I know. I know. But we’ve got time. Lots of time.’

  Annie narrowed her eyes. ‘What do you mean “we’ve got time”? When are you going back to Japan?’

  ‘That’s just it, Annie. That’s what I’ve been dying to tell you. We’re opening a new office in Leeds and I’ve been asked to head it up. I’m doing so well, they’re even talking about appointing me to the Board next year. I’ll be the youngest director in company history.’ He leaned back in his chair, puffed out his chest, and folded his arms across it.

  Expecting congratulations as he so clearly was, he was about to be sorely disappointed. His career path was of no interest to Annie – unlike his whereabouts. Leeds was only twenty miles away – a distance that suddenly seemed suffocatingly close.

  ‘I thought, in the meantime, I might stay here for a while.’

  Annie’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets. ‘Here as in here? At the cottage?’

  ‘Why not? It’s not like we haven’t lived together before.’

  At Annie’s dramatic thrust to her feet, Pip jerked upright in his basket and glowered at Lance. ‘I can’t believe you just said that,’ she exclaimed, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘You really are unbelievable. You turn up here, drop a bombshell, and expect us to fall into line with whatever you want. Well, there is no way we’re falling into line, Lance. And there is no way you are staying here. If you want to hang around, you’ll have to stay at the pub.’

  ‘Oh. But I thought-’

  ‘Then you thought wrong. You can say goodbye to Sophie and then I’d like you to leave.’

  He gazed up at her with doleful eyes. ‘Could I see you tomorrow?’

  Annie rubbed her hand over her face. Honestly. He’d been in the cottage a total of fifteen minutes and she was exhausted. ‘We’re busy tomorrow. You can come round on Tuesday evening for an hour at five-thirty.’

  ‘Great. I’ll do that then.’ He gave her a sheepish smile before mincing into the garden to give Sophie a goodbye, arm’s length ‘hug’.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  At the pub quiz the following evening, Jenny whipped a beer mat from the table and began fluttering it furiously in front of her face.

  ‘Heavens,’ she declared. ‘I don’t think I can take any more of these sexploits. As if it wasn’t bad enough that Harriet here is all loved-up with the local brief–’

  ‘I’m not loved up,’ protested Harriet, blushing to the roots of her newly-bobbed blonde hair – which took a good ten years off her. ‘We’re just good friends, that’s all.’

  ‘Yeah right,’ scoffed Jenny. ‘Good friends who are planning a weekend in Paris. And, as if that wasn’t enough for me to get my little head around, Annie’s ex has turned up. Where, I ask myself, will it all end?’

  ‘Somewhere not very pleasant, knowing me and Lance.’ Annie picked up her glass and knocked back a large slug of red wine.

  ‘But why?’ asked Jenny. ‘You loved him once didn’t you?’

  Annie set down her glass, leaned back in her chair and cast her mind back. ‘Do you know, I really can’t remember. I suppose I must have – at some point.’

  ‘Then maybe you could again,’ said Harriet. ‘Although, I must admit, Annie, I did have high hopes for you and Jake. There was something in his eye when he looked at you …’

  ‘Grit?’ offered Annie, her stab at humour designed to detract from the sick feeling in her stomach every time someone mentioned Jake’s name.

  ‘No. A glint of something,’ Harriet continued. ‘I can’t quite put my finger on it.’

  ‘Well, I for one would have liked to have put more than my finger on Jake Sinclair,’ said Jenny, sounding like she’d had one too many G&Ts. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t fancy him, Annie?’

  Annie’s cheeks turned the same colour as Jenny’s crimson top. ‘He was, um, okay, I suppose.’

  ‘Okay? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man that good-looking. Anyway, there’s no point us harping on about Jake. He’s gone, whereas Lance is very much here. So … what we should be asking is … do you want to give it another go with Lance, Annie?’

  Annie took another mouthful of wine and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’

  Lance turned up at precisely five-thirty on Tuesday evening, wearing white jeans and a pale pink silk shirt. Annie briefly wondered if he’d turned gay but, by the lascivious way he looked her up and down, concluded he hadn’t – unfortunately.

  ‘Those shorts look great on you.’ He handed her a carrier bag containing two bottles of wine. ‘I always loved seeing your legs.’

  Annie didn’t bother taking the wine out of the bag. She set it down on the kitchen bench, then returned to her ironing, battling the compulsion to whip the cover off the board and wrap herself in it. Instead, she made a mental note to wear a pair of baggy trousers or, better still, a burka whenever Lance was within a five mile radius.

  ‘I popped into the shop earlier,’ he said, resting his buttocks on the edge of the kitchen bench. ‘You weren’t there.’

  ‘No.’ Annie set down the iron, folded the jeans she’d been ironing, and draped them over the back of the chair alongside her. ‘I wasn’t.’ She whipped up one of Sophie’s school pinafores from the pile of crumpled clothes on the table and slotted it over the end of the ironing board.

  ‘Who was that old bird?’

  ‘What old bird?’ Was that expression still in use? She hadn’t heard it since about 1982.

  ‘The one serving in the shop.’

  Annie rolled her eyes. ‘That lovely old lady is Mrs Mackenzie. One of the sweetest people I have ever met.’

  Lance gave a scornful snort. ‘Sweet? When I told her who I was, she looked like she wanted to chew my head off.’

  Annie flicked him a beatific glance. Mrs Mackenzie had told her exactly what Lance had said, but she wasn’t going to let him know that. ‘And who did you say you were, exactly?’

  ‘Sophie’s father of course.’

  ‘Nothing else?’ she asked, knowing full well he’d declared himself ‘Annie’s partner’.

  ‘Of course not.’ Looking decidedly guilty, he bustled over to the fridge and began scanning the patchwork of papers on the door. Annie felt a stab of resentme
nt. She didn’t want him looking at anything, or touching anything, or resting his buttocks on anything in her home. But then again, she chided herself, she had invited him. She was supposed to be giving him a chance – for Sophie’s sake. And it wasn’t like there was anything of importance on the fridge door. It was a muddle of silly notes, fading postcards, Sophie’s paintings and–

  ‘What’s this?’ he held up the list from the magazine Portia had stuck there a few weeks ago. Damn. She’d meant to get rid of that after Jake had looked at it. As if that hadn’t been embarrassing enough, she’d now have to suffer Lance’s sardonic comments.

  She adopted a banal tone. ‘It’s a list of things to do before you’re forty.’ Going back to the pinafore, she watched out the corner of her eye as Lance perused the list.

  ‘So all these circled in red are on your list are they? Stand on your head, learn the merengue, put the bin out in your undies, run a marathon - Hah! Run a marathon? That’ll be the day. The only thing you’ve ever run is out of shampoo.’

  ‘Actually,’ began Annie, relieved he’d stopped there. ‘I’m training for a race in a few weeks’ time.’

  Lance snorted with laughter. ‘Now, that I would like to see.’

  Over my dead body, Annie resisted saying. But before she could compile something else to detract him from the list, he turned immediately back to it.

  ‘So,’ he muttered. ‘What else is on here …? Ah, yes. Number thirty-three – have a screaming orgasm. Now that –’ he said, with a triumphant smile. ‘–is much more achievable.’

  With a lot more force than was required, Annie pressed a button on the unsuspecting iron. At the great puff of angry stream it snorted out, Lance’s eyes widened and Annie deemed no further words necessary.

  Through the teeming rain, Jake made an impressive dart from the taxi to his front door, completely forgetting about the pond-sized puddle which formed in the middle of the path in such conditions. He ploughed straight into it. Muddy water splattered halfway up the legs of his jeans, soaking him to the skin. But Jake didn’t care. It wasn’t worth a second thought compared to what he’d witnessed over the last week.

  The key already in his hand, he unlocked the door, pushed it open and stepped out of the rain into the hall. He’d only been away a matter of days but the house felt strange, alien to him, and deadly quiet. Most likely because it was a million miles away from the world he’d just left behind – a world of chaos, devastation, noise and despair. An Indian Ocean island to which nature had donated so much beauty, and then blithely whipped it away.

  Sri Lanka had always held a special place in Nina’s heart. The moment she’d qualified as a doctor, she’d joined the international aid effort there, spending months at a time putting her skills to invaluable use. After her death, Jake and her parents had determined to do something to not only commemorate her selfless work, but to carry it on. The foundation they established – to which Jake donated every penny from the sale of his business – had done just that, vastly improving living conditions for hundreds of people. But, ten months ago, an unexpected typhoon had wrenched the soul out of the island, robbing it of lives, livelihoods and entire communities, without a hint of apology. For a few weeks, intense media coverage ensured money poured into the country, along with an army of charity workers. But then other disasters had occurred in different parts of the globe. The world’s fickle eye moved on and so too did the donations and the practical help. Sri Lanka had been all but forgotten.

  From the photographs Nina’s mother had sent Jake last week, it was clear that progress had stalled. Funds, he’d discovered, were exhausted, leaving a mountain of work still to be tackled – no place more so than the village which had been particularly special to Nina. Jake had seen for himself just how grim conditions there were. They desperately needed more housing, a new medical centre and a school that consisted of more than a tin roof and a dirt floor. But all of that required money. Serious money.

  Jake kicked the door shut with his foot, dumped his rucksack on the hall floor and wandered into the kitchen. The only noise was of rain hammering against the windows. The whole house seemed grey and … sad. It felt more like November than June. He flicked on a couple of lights and the radio. Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk spilled out – the song he’d heard twice blasting from Annie’s iPod. Jake’s breath caught in his throat. His head began to swim with memories of Annie – her sunny smile, the way she chewed her bottom lip, those gorgeous legs … He plumped down on the sofa and ran a hand over his chin. It met with three days’ stubble. What would Annie do in this instance? Annie, who, alone with a new-born child, had picked up the pieces and got on with her life. Unlike him. What had he done since Nina’s death? Nothing but wallow in self-pity, that’s what. Terrified of being discovered and exposed as the architect of the fatal accident, he had hidden himself away in a selfish bubble, where he and his guilt floated around day after monotonous day. Well, Jake had had enough of it. Five years of introspection was long enough. Particularly when there were so many others out there who didn’t have time for such self-indulgent luxury. No, there was no way, with so much to be done, that Annie would sit around contemplating her own navel – however delicious that navel might be. And there was no way Jake was going to sit around contemplating his either. He dug his mobile out of his pocket and scrolled through the address book until he found the number he was looking for …

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ gasped Portia. ‘How dare he turn up like that? I hope you’ve told him where to go.’

  ‘As tempted as I’ve been, I actually haven’t,’ said Annie. ‘I’m trying to be nice for Sophie’s sake. So she gets used to him being around. Not that she seems remotely interested in him. In fact, she seems positively miserable whenever he’s here.’

  ‘Sensible girl. Obviously knows he’s pond life.’

  ‘But he’s still her father,’ countered Annie. ‘And now I feel bad that I haven’t given them a real chance to get to know one another. Whenever I’ve arranged to meet him in London, it’s always been somewhere with loads of people.’

  ‘Only because you’ve wanted to diffuse a potentially awkward situation.’

  ‘I know. But it doesn’t help the fact that they’ve never really bonded.’

  ‘And whose fault it that? Certainly not yours. You’re not the one who ran off to Japan.’

  ‘Well, anyway,’ sighed Annie. ‘I’m trying not to make a big deal of it and am hoping things will settle into some kind of routine.’

  ‘You shouldn’t make yourself so available. He can’t just turn up and expect to pick up where you left off. Why don’t you pretend you’re having a mad passionate affair with that dishy mate of Jasper’s?’

  At the reference to Jake, Annie’s heart skipped a beat. She hadn’t said anything to Portia about her feelings for Jake. And now certainly wasn’t the time. Lance turning up was enough to deal with. ‘Jake’s gone back to Scotland,’ she said, in what she hoped was a neutral tone. ‘He had some … urgent business there.’

  ‘Shame,’ huffed Portia. ‘I had high hopes for him.’

  Not half as high as I did, Annie almost added.

  The following evening found Lance in a particularly animated mood. Annie and Sophie were at the kitchen table colouring in when he bounded in through the open door wearing turquoise jeans and a Hawaiian type shirt.

  ‘I’ve some great news, girls,’ he announced.

  So taken aback was Annie by the shirt that at first she couldn’t reply. She made a mental note to Google men’s fashions. Perhaps it was just her who thought Lance looked like a trussed up Christmas tree. Sophie, though, appeared equally dumbfounded – if not on the verge of tears.

  ‘What’s this great news then?’ asked Annie, regaining something of her equilibrium, and resuming her rummaging in the crayon tin.

  Lance steepled his hands in front of him. ‘My boss is coming over from Japan on Sunday the twelfth and would like to take us all out for the day.’

  Annie s
napped up her head to him. ‘What? As in us as a family?’

  Lance beamed at her. ‘Of course. We are a family, aren’t we? And they’re very keen on that in Japan, you know. All the board members are big family men and–’ He broke off, the guilty pink tinge over his yellow cheeks turning him a strange shade of tangerine.

  A rather large metaphorical penny dropped with an almighty clang, right next to Annie.

  ‘I see,’ she mused innocently. ‘And I don’t suppose all these board members being Big Family Men has anything to do with your sudden appearance in Buttersley?’

  Lance gave a hollow laugh. ‘Of course not. Don’t be silly.’

  Annie pinned him with her gaze for several seconds, enjoying his evident discomfiture.

  ‘Well, it’s a real shame, Lance, but I’m afraid you’ll have to count us out. The twelfth is the day of my race.’

  Lance’s jaw dropped. ‘Your race? But surely you can miss that, Annie. This is much more important.’

  ‘Not to me it isn’t.’

  She watched out the corner of her eye as Lance shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, clearly wondering what to say next.

  ‘There’ll be other races, Annie, but there might never be another opportunity for me to–’

  Annie leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her eyebrows. ‘Another opportunity for you to what?’

  He diverted his gaze from hers and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Thing is, there’s another guy in the running for the board as well as me and–’

  ‘–and don’t tell me.’ Annie placed her forefinger on her chin and raised her eyes to the ceiling as if giving the matter a great deal of consideration. ‘He’s married with children.’

  Lance’s jaw dropped. ‘Well, actually he is, but … but that’s neither here nor there.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘No, it isn’t Annie. And I don’t know what point you’re trying to make here.’

  ‘Oh, I think you do. But please carry on.’

  Lance cleared his throat and contorted his lips into what passed for a smile. He addressed his next comment directly to Sophie. ‘And if Daddy does get appointed to the board, we can all go and live in Japan.’