When Life Gives You Lemons

by Fiona Gibson

  Sometimes, rather than crying, I want to scream and break things and physically hurt him. As it is, I have merely kicked a hole in a wicker waste paper basket, smashed his favourite mug and stabbed a hole in his ratty old gardening sweater with a biro. Thankfully, Izzy hasn’t witnessed any of this. The fact that she needs me to keep things rattling along has been something of a saviour.

  She’s in bed now – it’s just gone 9 p.m. – and Andy is here, taking far too long to remove his boxes of paperwork that have been clogging up the cupboard on the landing.

  Seemingly, he can’t just load them into his car and fuck off out of my hair. No, he needs to carry everything into the living room and sort through it painstakingly slowly without any regard for my feelings at all. I am fidgeting about, tidying up and straightening things unnecessarily, willing him to leave.

  ‘Can’t you do that at home?’ I ask tersely.

  ‘Yeah, I will,’ he mutters. ‘Won’t be much longer.’ He continues to flick through paperwork.

  If anything, my Sunday afternoon with Penny has ignited a fresh spark of anger in me. After all, when she was pissed off over some matter of the heart, she didn’t sit there feeling sorry for herself. Instead, she got drunk and egged someone’s car.

  She guzzled a cream horn in a bookshop café because she wanted one. Although it didn’t end well, the fact is, she didn’t worry about the possible consequences. I should be more like Penny, I decide.

  ‘I really don’t want you doing this here,’ I bark at him.

  ‘Oh.’ Looking startled, he starts to gather up his stuff.

  ‘Can I also ask you,’ I add, my heart thudding now, ‘if there’s some reason why you won’t let Izzy visit you at your flat?’

  He blinks at me in surprise. ‘Er, not really, no.’

  ‘It’s just, if there is, I’d rather you said why instead of spouting me a load of old shit.’

  ‘All right. Jesus.’ He shakes his head as if I am being entirely unreasonable. ‘There isn’t much space, that’s all.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really!’ Clutching a box crammed with papers, he starts to make his way towards the front door.

  I can feel one of those hormonal rages building up in me, the ones I have no control over, and I inhale slowly and deeply in an attempt to calm myself. ‘I don’t mean for her to stay overnight,’ I go on. ‘I just mean to visit, so she can see what your place is like. I think it’d be really good for her.’

  ‘Why?’ He frowns, almost comically.

  ‘To satisfy her curiosity of course. So she knows you’re living somewhere nice and that she’s welcome there.’

  ‘Well, yeah, but it’s really tiny,’ he says, raking back his neatly cropped grey-speckled hair.

  ‘She’s only four feet tall,’ I remark tersely. ‘I’m sure she’d manage to fit in—’ I break off as Izzy saunters into the room.

  ‘Honey, you’re meant to be in bed,’ I start, which she ignores.

  ‘We use centimetres at school,’ she announces. ‘I’m a hundred and twenty-two centimetres tall, exactly the same as Maeve.’

  ‘Are you? Andy blusters, getting up. ‘Wow. I had no idea you were as tall as that …’

  She plonks a hand on her hip. ‘Why can’t I come to your flat, Dad?’

  ‘Ohh …’ He darts me a thank-you-very-much-for-dragging-our-daughter-into-this look, as if it’s my fault. ‘I just need to sort things out, love, and make the place nice for you.’

  She frowns at him. ‘I don’t mind what it’s like.’

  ‘No. No, I realise that,’ he says, cheeks flushed and now seemingly in an almighty hurry to cart his stuff out to his car.

  I follow him outside. ‘Andy?’

  ‘I’m not really in the mood for this right now,’ he huffs, slamming the boot shut.

  ‘Not in the mood for what?’

  ‘For this interrogation …’

  I look at him, this man who created such a fuss about the unbuttered scone regime when people are starving in the world and would be bloody delighted with a plain pastry from a hospital canteen, and who lied to me horribly over months and months. Whatever possessed me to fall in love with him? Was I insane? ‘It’s only your daughter who wants to visit you,’ I snap. ‘Not the bloody Duchess of Kent—’ I turn on my heel and start to march back towards the house.

  ‘Viv!’ he calls after me.

  ‘What?’ I stop and glare back at him.

  ‘Please don’t storm off like that. Can we talk for a minute?’

  ‘I’m going inside. Izzy should be in bed.’

  ‘I really do mean just for a minute.’

  I sigh heavily and plod back towards him at his car.

  ‘Look …’ He pauses. ‘I’m sorry about all this. I will ask her over, but just not at the moment, okay?’

  ‘Whatever,’ I huff, maturely.

  ‘But, um … I did want to ask you something.’ He pauses again. ‘D’you mind if I take her away for a week—’

  ‘A week?’ I exclaim. ‘You mean a whole week?’

  He nods. ‘Er … yeah. I haven’t mentioned it to her yet, obviously. I wanted to check with you first.’

  ‘Oh.’ I feel hollow. So this is what we do now, I realise; we take our daughter on separate holidays. Of course we do. What did I expect? ‘Well, um, yes. I suppose that’s okay. Where are you thinking of going?’

  ‘Just to Lewis and Nina’s. They’re having a bit of a gathering up there.’

  ‘A gathering for a whole week?’ Lewis is Andy’s youngest brother. He and his wife run an acclaimed restaurant perched on the shores of Loch Fyne. People often imagine that the Highlands are all about fish and chips and pie suppers, basically carbs dowsed with ketchup and vinegar, but The Nest is terribly chi-chi – all samphire and edible flowers served by bearded hipster types. As a family we’ve had many happy trips there over the years, staying at their pretty white cottage, and messing around with their rowing boat on the loch.

  I try not to think about those blissful days as Andy goes on: ‘Remember they were building those chalets? Sorry, eco-lodges, I should say …’

  ‘Er, vaguely.’ Although I have to admit, I’ve had more pressing matters on my mind.

  ‘Well, they’re finally finished. The idea is, everyone’ll stay for the week and it’ll end with a big party in the restaurant.’

  ‘Everyone?’ My heart seems to twist.

  ‘Yeah, Mum and Dad and the whole rabble …’

  With everything that’s happened, it hasn’t yet sunk in properly that my relationship with his parents will change dramatically. I’m extremely fond of them, and I know they are of me. But what will happen now?

  ‘Seems like Nina’s put a lot of effort into fitting them out,’ he goes on. ‘She’s had quilts made – bespoke quilts – and there are log-burning stoves and sheepskin rugs …’

  ‘It sounds amazing,’ I remark flatly.

  ‘Better than camping, anyhow,’ he rabbits on. ‘You know how bad the midges can be up there—’

  ‘Andy?’ I cut in.

  ‘Yes?’

  Shit, I think I’m going to lose it now. ‘She’s not going with you, is she? To this gathering, I mean?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know who I mean. You’re not taking her, are you, on your family holiday with Izzy?’

  ‘Christ, no!’ he exclaims, looking aghast. ‘No, Viv, I promise you …’

  ‘If you were, I’d want to know.’

  ‘Of course she’s not coming,’ he says firmly. ‘We’ve agreed, haven’t we, that I’ll tell you when – if I feel it’s okay for them to meet. But that’s not happening anytime soon.’

  Why not? I want to ask, conscious of my Penny-inspired bravado dwindling rapidly. Does a tiny part of you wonder if you’ve made a mistake? What made you want her anyway? Apart from her obvious beauty, intelligence, amazing career and impeccable dress sense, what caused you to choose her over your neurotic, perpetually worrying wife who works at th
e nerve centre of extruded snack pellets?

  But I don’t ask these questions. I don’t ask anything at all. I just bark, ‘That’s fine. About the holiday, I mean.’ And I rub at my hot face as, blinking rapidly, I turn and march back to the house.

  Chapter Eleven

  Thursday, July 25

  Well, I handled that well, I decide as I drop Izzy at holiday club and set off on the drive to work. I really held it together brilliantly last night, snapping at Andy in the street while Tim’s wife, Chrissie, who happens to be beautifully, serenely pregnant, glanced out from next door, twiddling with their blinds, pretending not to be watching us.

  My God though, he’s taking Izzy away to have a wonderful time with his parents and siblings! They’re scattered all over the country and only get together very occasionally. Will she ever want to come back? They’ll have so much fun, she might decide she wants to live with her dad permanently. I know I’m being crazy, and that it’s unlikely; for one thing, he would never agree to buy her pomegranate syrup. But even so, it’s disconcerting, the thought of him whisking her away for a whole week.

  Even before Andy left me, our family felt pretty unbalanced. On his side we have his mum and dad (a sparky and active couple in their late seventies) plus his two brothers and three sisters. At the last count, the Flint siblings have produced fourteen children, including ours. His side of the family is enormous with everyone squabbling constantly but adoring each other really. Perhaps I’m a little envious that there’s always so much going on.

  And on my side? Well, it’s a little quieter, to say the least. I am an only child. Both of my parents died thirteen years ago, when Spencer was nine and way before Izzy was born. Dad passed away from complications due to his diabetes, and Mum lost her life to oesophageal cancer a few months later. Both were in their early sixties and I was blindsided by grief.

  Although I can hardly bear to think of it now, Andy was fantastic during this time. With no siblings to turn to, I leant on him heavily and he was there at my side, helping with the arrangements, the funerals, the eventual clearing out and sale of their modest terraced house in Glasgow’s Southside.

  I’ve relied on him so much, I realise now. Perhaps I took it for granted that he would be strong and always there for me, no matter what.

  His parents were marvellous too. ‘You still have us,’ Cathy, my mother-in-law had said as she hugged me after Mum’s funeral, which struck me as remarkably perceptive. She found me in tears in our garden a few days later. ‘What is it, Viv?’ she’d asked gently.

  ‘I never appreciated them enough,’ I replied.

  ‘Everyone feels like that. That’s just normal, love.’

  ‘Yes, but I never imagined they’d be gone soon.’ As we sat together at our garden table, I told her how my mum had misguidedly booked me in for a make-up session in a long-defunct department store for my sixteenth birthday. If it had been one of the cool, youthful brands, I’d have been delighted – but, being oblivious to make-up trends, Mum had chosen the counter frequented by demure older ladies. I hadn’t wanted to hurt her feelings by saying I didn’t want to go.

  ‘You look lovely,’ she’d said, with genuine enthusiasm when she’d returned to collect me later. Off we went to meet Dad at an old-fashioned restaurant (as a family we only ate out about twice a year) where the desserts arrived on a trolley and I had to sit there with my caked-on panstick foundation, my frosted blue eye shadow and shimmery pink lips. One of my teachers was sitting at a nearby table, and when she spotted me and waved I wanted to die.

  ‘I was so embarrassed,’ I told Cathy that day. ‘I hated that my parents wanted to spin out the meal with coffee and petits fours. All I wanted was to rush home and wash off my face.’ Cathy had nodded and held my hand. ‘I’d give anything to have coffee with them now,’ I added. ‘I wouldn’t mind the shimmery blue eye shadow either. I’d have my whole face frosted if I could see Mum again.’

  Cathy had seemed to understand. As a mum to three daughters, she knew all about a teenage girl’s horror of ‘standing out’. We’d even giggled over how she had made her eldest daughter a jumpsuit from curtain material and expected her to wear it, happily, to the school dance (‘I found out later that the poor girl had changed outfits in a phone box! What on earth had I been thinking?’). Now, of course, everything is different, and when Izzy talks about ‘our family’, she really means her father’s family – which feels utterly separate from me now. That’s just the way it’s going to be, I remind myself firmly as I pull into the work car park.

  I’m trying to convince myself that it’s ridiculous – and selfish – to ‘mind’ Izzy going away. After all, it’ll be good for her to run wild with her cousins in the countryside. She loves them all, and they always have tremendous fun together. And while she’s away, I shall put my time to good use by arranging my first life coaching session with Jules. Before Andy left me, I’d wondered whether she might be able to help me to figure out where I was going in life; for instance, how I might move on from being a PA at Flaxico. At this point, leaving my job is the last thing on my mind (I’ve had quite enough dramatic changes in my life recently). However, Jules insists that coaching could still be ‘illuminating’, so I should give it a go.

  I stop outside the main door of our office building and pull my phone from my bag, poised to text her. But instead, I spot three messages from my boss:

  Seen Twitter etc? Major damage limitation work needed this week.

  Then: Now on all news sites. Meeting for all asap, please don’t be late!

  Then: Bloody Kirsty Mitchum’s been waiting to land one on us. What a fuck-up this is … WHERE ARE YOU?!!

  My heart rate quickens as I step inside. Although I’m not late, clearly Rose reckons I should have been here already, and up to speed with whatever drama is going on. As I wait for the lift I flick through the news sites on my phone. First impressions aren’t good:

  Global food company pushing RABBIT PELLETS on kids …

  If it’s good enough for bunnies … here’s a tasty treat for your TOT!

  Major mix-up means PET PELLETS sold to PEOPLE …

  Oh, bloody hell. There must be some kind of misinformation out there – fake news – as, understandably, certain journalists are suspicious of the products we make. I mean, I am. Obviously, they’re perfectly safe to eat – everything’s highly regulated – but there’s something about witnessing the whole process, the gigantic churning machines and thousands of gallons of beige slurry being pumped around that makes the final puffed corn snack seem … kind of less than enticing.

  I’m less than happy that Izzy loves some of the snacks that started off in our factory. For the most part, I try not to think about it. The finished products bear little resemblance to what we produce anyway. However, I’m aware that Kirsty Mitchum, a big-shot journalist, thinks about it a lot. As the one who seems to have broken the so-called ‘story’, she takes a keen interest in food production and, as Rose had stated, she’s been waiting to ‘land one on us’ for ages now.

  Maybe she’s gained insider info and deduced that the ingredients for rabbit pellets and human-edible snacks are eerily similar. Perhaps there’s a mole lurking amongst the pellets and we’ll all be quizzed at length? Although it seems disloyal to admit it, that might be quite thrilling. More thrilling, anyway, than my usual daily rigmarole of tending to Rose’s travel bookings and emails, plus the sourcing of birthday presents for her cleaner’s daughter and a man to jet-hose her patio and all the other non-work-related stuff she has me doing for her.

  As I ride up in the lift I have already decided that similar-ingredients scenario is what’s happened here, suggesting nothing more sinister than, say, if Izzy used her Turkish tomato filling to stuff a courgette. However, when I cross the vast open-plan space and spot Rose in her glass-walled office in the far corner, sipping her coffee glumly, it’s clear that the situation is altogether more serious.

  ‘Come in, Viv,’ she says, flapping a hand in my
direction. ‘Shut the door. Sit down.’ She indicates the chair opposite and I bob down onto it. Her stability ball has been consigned to a corner with a jacket draped over it.

  ‘I’ve read the headlines,’ I start. ‘What on earth’s happened? I mean, is it true?’

  ‘Yep, Kytes were supplied with the wrong product from us. That’s about the size of it.’ She grimaces. ‘What can I say? It went right through production all the way to retail and it’s out there being sold as a human-edible snack.’

  I take a moment to process this. ‘Oh, my God. That’s terrible.’

  ‘Yes, exactly. Oh-my-bloody-God. Look at this lot.’ She delves into the tan leather bag at her side and tosses an array of newspapers across her desk. My gaze drops to a headline:

  Watership CLOWNS: Why was bunny food sold to humans?

  ‘Which products are they?’ I ask.

  ‘We think it’s limited to Crunchy-Bites …’

  ‘My daughter has those!’

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ Rose says blithely. ‘Nothing to worry about at all.’

  I’m aware of a sick sensation in my stomach. ‘But what’s in them?’

  She has the audacity to look irritated. ‘D’you really need the ingredients list right now?’

  ‘Yes please,’ I say tightly.

  Rose sighs and taps at her keyboard: ‘Okay. Wheat, bran, vegetable protein, vegetable oil, vitamin C, mineral premix …’

  Hmm, not ideal, obviously, but nothing too hideous-sounding there.

  ‘Limestone,’ she continues.

  ‘Limestone?’ I exclaim.

  ‘And, er, mould repellent and that’s pretty much it …’

  ‘Mould repellent!’ I realise it’s not helpful, repeating the ingredients back at her, but I’m in a bit of a state. Why do I give in and buy Izzy these disgusting snacks? Jules bakes her own beetroot and sweet potato crisps for Maeve. A hell of a faff, I’ve always thought, but preferable to feeding your child limestone and mould repellent. What kind of mother am I really?

  ‘Will it harm her?’ I bark. ‘Please be honest with me.’