Can I Give My Husband Back?: A totally laugh out loud and uplifting page turner

by Kristen Bailey

  ‘It’s done. I’m here.’

  ‘This is huge, Gracie?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And the trip? So many questions.’

  ‘I have ones too. How’s Jag?’

  ‘Lucy told you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I can’t wait for you to meet him. And for the girls to meet their new cousins.’

  ‘And you? How are you?’

  ‘Alive.’ She says the word slowly, with meaning.

  I smile over at her. ‘You’re back.’

  ‘That I am.’

  We look over at Lucy tickling little Cleo, making her giggle. Grace knew these girls would have aunties, grandparents, all sorts of cousins to be a part of our clan. And for a small moment, I think about two little boys out there, Oliver and Louis. Boys who are not part of my biology but now are part of this wider thing I call family. I think about a sister here who has opened her heart up to love kids who need her. I am in awe. And shock.

  ‘And how are things with Simon? Did you talk to George?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And? What are we doing there? Did he get forensic accountants out? Are we going to take him for every penny he has?’

  I smile. Grace is serene but she also has the sister fire.

  ‘I haven’t decided yet. I have some communication with Susie, the other woman, and we’ll see what happens.’

  She looks at me intently. ‘You seem different, Ems. I like it.’

  ‘Different?’

  ‘Happier?’

  ‘Then, I’d say so do you.’

  She grabs my hand from across the way.

  What a couple of years we’ve had, kid. I’m glad we’re both here to tell our tales.

  ‘I need tea. Proper builder’s strong as tits tea.’

  I laugh and get up to make her a cup.

  ‘No, take Maya. I need to get up or the jet lag will kill me.’ She puts the baby in my arms and stretches her arms out. ‘Cleo, let’s see what Aunty Emma has in her cupboards? She always has biscuits.’

  Maya’s warm body curls into mine and a head of black curls nestles next to my chest. Oh my days, I have literally only just met you but I am going to love you forever, little one. As long as you don’t mind my big rather mental family then, welcome. I look over at Grace, my sister who was on the floor two years ago, not just broken but bruised and angry. Super Gracie is back, her heart refilled and replenished. I look down at Maya again. That warmth is a full nappy, isn’t it? I got this.

  Twenty-Two

  723 days since Dad told Simon to get out of his fucking house and my Dad never swears. Not even at Lucy.

  ‘Mummy, why is his willy so tiny?’ asks Violet.

  ‘Well, babies can’t be born with normal-sized willies, can they?’ Iris replies, rolling her eyes in embarrassment.

  I look down as Susie changes Louis and the girls look on. What is a normal-sized willy then? I am glad I didn’t have sons; the changing situation looks different. I hope this one doesn’t projectile urine over my rug. I watch as Louis’ little fist grabs on to Violet’s finger and she coos over his tiny babyness. Iris hands Susie wet wipes and I stand and watch it all. Is this weird? Louis is in my house and so is Oliver who’s kneeling at my kitchen table and demolishing the crisps I’ve left out, leaving speckles of potato crumb all over his face and hair. George, our lawyer, watches him curiously. I think he may have found his spirit animal.

  It’s a strange day. In the last fortnight, Grace has been back with us and I’ve seen a lot of my new nieces. They’ve hung out with their cousins, they’ve learned the joy of CBeebies and are partial to Kit Kats. They are a delight. Maybe it was down to meeting them or seeing Grace back, so serene having survived such heartbreak, that I felt inspired to do something I hadn’t been sure I was capable of doing. I’ve invited over Susie so I can meet her sons and they can meet their sisters. I didn’t know how today would pan out but this feels like a step in the right direction. That said, I’ve also bought in a Christmas quiche in case it all goes to pot.

  Susie and I still can’t define our relationship. She is neither friend nor foe at this point but I have a feeling that I will always need her onside. I see her pack her change mat away and I hand her the wipes and muslins she’s pulled out of the bag. How do you start a conversation with your ex-husband’s new ex-woman? Do you completely avoid asking about him? Do you joke about how he used to clip his toenails in bed? Or about the incomprehensible way he liked to watch action movies from the nineties? Lucy is not much better. She watches her quietly from the kitchen, still assuming Susie might be here with an agenda.

  ‘Can I carry him, Susie?’ asks Iris.

  Susie nods. ‘Of course you can. Make sure you support his head.’

  I watch as Iris cradles him tight and my heart skips in different directions. This was never what I wanted when I married Simon but what I see in front of me is perfect. It’s my girl connecting with someone who should be part of her life forever. I hope that happens. I hope he’s a Beth because I suspect the crisp gobbler at the table will be her Lucy. The kid’s not giving up until he eats that whole bowl. Lucy comes out with the cup of tea that was promised and gives Susie the eye. Her brief was to be civil and I hope she’s managed that much. I check the surface of the tea for foam.

  ‘Can I see you in the kitchen, Ems? I don’t know what to do with this quiche?’ Lucy says casually. I leave my girls and follow her through the door. Inside, she’s all arms and whispers as she glares at Susie through the crack in the door. ‘I hate her.’

  ‘We don’t hate anything, Lucy. We say we’re not keen.’

  She laughs. Those were my mother’s words when we grew up. Broccoli didn’t deserve to be hated, it had done nothing to you to deserve such words.

  ‘I don’t get you being so kind. She screwed you over, she knew exactly what she was doing. I couldn’t forgive that.’

  ‘Yeah… but look at the girls. It’s more than forgiveness. I don’t even know the word for it anymore.’

  She sees her nieces interacting with the boys and looks at me. ‘It’s called having a big heart. You really are better than me, eh?’

  ‘That’s stating the obvious really.’

  ‘I’m not available for any of her parties though. I still want to be the one who reminds her that what she did was wrong.’

  ‘Just civil, yes?’

  ‘Whatever that means. When is Satan getting here? And seriously, I thought we could just eat the quiche like this?’

  ‘Soon. Oven, 180, fifteen minutes and get some forks out.’

  She makes a face, realising she’s eaten cold quiche her whole life. I walk over to the dining room to chat to George who has all his paperwork out, paper clipped and an expensive fountain pen cued up next to some cough lozenges and a handkerchief. I like that this is how he conducts serious business.

  ‘I hear Grace is back. That must be a relief?’

  ‘Less a relief, more a joy. She’s doing well.’

  ‘Glad to hear.’

  He catches me looking over to the living room where Violet sits in Susie’s lap. I don’t know how I feel about that but he gets an idea and tries to distract me.

  ‘So, since our last meeting, we have a new joke in our office,’ he explains.

  ‘Oh…’ I suspect this won’t be as funny as I think it will be.

  ‘Well, occasionally we have a person in a divorce proceeding who is really quite awful. They may cheat or hide money and behave pretty despicably and now we have a code for them based on what your sister said last time?’

  ‘Lucy?’

  ‘We refer to them as the Tuesdays. It works particularly well.’

  I laugh.

  ‘Is Simon in that club then?’

  ‘Oh, he’s the chairman.’ Another joke, you’re on a roll, George. ‘Having spoken to Miss Hunter in depth, it’s been very interesting to find out how he’s manipulated you both – whether it’s financially or emotionally, everything
he’s done has been to serve his self-interest.’

  It’s not a surprise but maybe it’s a good thing that Susie knows everything. I look down, where there is a letter for Susie marked with a red stamp. I know that stamp as it’s an invoice for fees.

  ‘Give that to me, I’ll handle it.’

  ‘You will? But—’

  I shrug my shoulders. She’s just had a baby and a large legal bill is probably not what she needs right now. I put my finger to my lips urging him to keep it a secret. Maybe if this is going to start on the right foot then I need to put that foot forward.

  George smiles and the doorbell rings. I see Susie freeze for a moment. We’re really doing this, aren’t we? I go into the corridor and see his figure at the front door. Breathe Emma, breathe.

  ‘Dadddyyyyyy!’ squeals Violet as I open the door. She jumps into his arms.

  Behind him stands the well-groomed Miss De Vere who is a vision in camel. I pray that a child here attacks her with Ribena. I lead them through to the living room where Iris stands holding Louis, and Oliver plays with a car on the floor. Where the hell is Susie? I scan the room to see George at the end holding his hands up in the air. Seriously? Simon stops at seeing his son and smiles at Iris.

  ‘Is this…?’

  ‘This is Louis, Daddy.’

  He cradles the baby in one arm and is silent as he looks at his face for the very first time. ‘Hello there, little man.’

  I don’t say a word. I’ve seen that hold, that face before. Simon was many things but I don’t deny he is a good father. He’s attentive, involved, and our girls adore him. He would love this boy. He loves him already. I see Oliver curl around his leg and this little team of children surrounding him and I’m stunned into quiet.

  ‘Where’s Suse?’ he asks.

  Suse and Ems: he refers to us so casually like we’re some sort of pop duo.

  ‘She’s helping Lucy in the kitchen,’ George answers.

  She legged it. Did she run out the back door?

  Lucy enters the room, shaking her head. ‘He’s like a cuter version of you, Simon.’

  ‘Lucy.’

  She eyeballs me. ‘Your quiche is burning, Em.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you take it out of the oven?’

  ‘The other quiche.’ Oh. ‘I’ll stay here and keep watch. Now kids, do any of you know what the three smallest bones are in the human body?’ She grins as Simon pretends to ignore her.

  In the kitchen, a pale, limp quiche lies on the counter and the utility room door is ajar. I go inside and see a pair of legs hanging out of the coat rack.

  ‘Remind me never to have you on my team for hide and seek.’

  She doesn’t reply. I close the door and lean against the countertop, looking down to see a tub full of Lucy’s used knickers. I shake my head and throw them in the washing machine with a tablet. Susie peers through to see what I’m doing.

  ‘I’m sorry. I just heard his voice and I couldn’t bear to see him.’

  ‘I get it. You’re not sure if you’ll just burst into tears or—’

  ‘Stove his face in?’

  ‘Exactly. So you left Louis with Iris and ran in here?’

  ‘That was bad form, sorry.’

  I don’t respond. I put my hand in the tub of laundry next to me and start to fold some school uniforms. I always tell Lucy to do this as soon as it comes out of the dryer. Does she listen? No. Like she doesn’t listen when I tell her not to toss her dirty knickers in the sink. Susie emerges to give me a hand.

  ‘Is that a mermaid outfit?’ she looks at me confused, as I certainly don’t look the sort.

  ‘It’s my sister’s. She does kids’ parties at the weekend. This is her Ariel look. She has a wig and travels with a man who dresses like a crab.’

  She laughs quietly. I don’t think that costume was machine washable but she came back covered in some sticky substance that she said was ice cream. One never knows with Lucy. We come to the giant pile of tights and cardigans that the girls get through in the week.

  ‘I haven’t bought the uniform for Oliver yet? For St Catherine’s. Is it a lot?’

  ‘There’s a stupid amount that you have to buy but we have some bits we can pass on. They have a second-hand sale day too. We could go together.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I bury through a pile of socks and she hands me one so I can create a matching pair. She looks slightly murderous and I hope and pray she doesn’t take it out on me. Could she kill me with a mop?

  ‘How do you do it?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘You see him all the time, twice a week and you just get on with it. You don’t want to throttle him? I just don’t know what I’ll do when I’m out there. I don’t trust myself.’

  ‘How would you kill him?’ She looks at me curiously. ‘I have fantasies about gutting him, a slow knife to the stomach and then watching him bleed out,’ I reply. That could have been too honest and I’m conscious that we are not quite on the level of friends yet. I hope she doesn’t report me to the board.

  ‘I was thinking something even more drawn out. Poisoning. Every night in his dinner. Some poison that would maybe cause alopecia. Because we know how much he likes his hair.’

  I smile at her. She’s at that point of the separation. The angry, enraged part where it just feels like every one of your cells is fizzing with emotion.

  ‘I fantasised about hiring a hit man once. I wasn’t sure how I’d have found one though?’ I say.

  ‘Phone box, no?’

  ‘Twitter, I thought. I imagined the ways I could have made it an accident. How I would have sat at his funeral. I even wrote him a eulogy. Is this weird?’

  ‘No. In my fantasy, it ends with me walking across a London bridge in the black dress I wore to his funeral and throwing something he’d given me in the river.’

  I laugh and look at her. Would I ever really hurt him? No. Sometimes the emotion felt that way, it was so raw, simmering inside me and turning me inside out. But after all that hate boiled away into nothing, these little people were still here and the world kept turning.

  ‘You know he’s done it again?’ I say, my hands smoothing over the creases of a school cardigan.

  ‘Done what?’

  ‘He’s out there with all our babies and we’ve been relegated to a glorified store cupboard.’

  Susie is quiet and tackles the impossible task of trying to pair all the dark socks. I think about the scene that’s probably outside this sanctuary of ours: Lucy sitting there with a string of snide comments to Simon and his lawyer. The kids running riot. George sat at my kitchen table fiddling with his paper clips and eating the last of the snacks.

  ‘We need to be out there.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘But isn’t the idea that we do this together? Strength in numbers?’

  ‘There’s only two of us.’

  ‘And one of him? If you go for the nuts, I’ll take his eyes.’

  She smiles.

  ‘What was he like with Oliver? Did they get on?’ I ask.

  ‘He’s very good with him.’

  ‘Maybe focus on the very few positives. My girls adore him. He does right by them. If he ever treated them in the same way that he did me then I’d floor him. I’d literally run him over and reverse back over him several times.’

  ‘I’d act as your alibi. ‘

  ‘It’s OK, I have four sisters for that.’

  ‘You don’t think he’s evil then?’

  ‘Define evil. Like Hitler? No, he’s screwed up in plenty ways. He is selfish and a liar and plenty of narcissism sits in his soul. I just have to make sure my daughters never see any of that. I need to make this whole situation less awful for them.’

  ‘What if his lawyer comes at us with something today? What if he tries to take my boys?’

  ‘Then I’ll attack him with that quiche.’

  ‘I need to say something to you,’ she says.

  ‘You do?’


  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t think anyone sets out to be the other woman. My own mother hates me for being that much.’

  ‘We were all other women.’

  She picks up a pair of knickers that are literally just pieces of string bound together by seams.

  ‘Those are my sister’s,’ I blurt out.

  She doesn’t look convinced.

  ‘Seriously, that looks like it would garrotte my lady parts.’

  She chokes a little on her own breath. ‘I hate him.’

  ‘Reserve your hate for people who really need it.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘You’ll be joining the school gate soon. Trust me.’

  It’s strange. Little fibres are starting to poke out of the fabric and connect us to each other. We are suddenly a family of some description. I think of sisters who I never chose, whom occasionally, I don’t quite get on with, but who are part of me. Who am I to say what a family looks like? But Susie and I are bonded by a sisterhood of being wronged by the same man. Maybe that’s how it should be. I open the door to the utility room.

  ‘Please, before Lucy actually kills him.’

  She stands rooted to the spot.

  ‘For the four of them in that front room. We get this sorted and then we can move on.’

  ‘Move on to where?’

  ‘I can’t answer that for you. But just out of my utility room for a start.’

  ‘Miss Hunter can’t afford those fees on her own but she is happy to pay for a small part.’

  ‘Mr Chadwick does not contest this. He is happy to pay for tuition if she can pay for uniform and sundry items.’

  ‘Define sundry items?’

  ‘Clubs, trips, equipment and scholastic items.’

  Susie nods at George. She hasn’t dared looked at Simon through the whole debacle. When she went into my living room, the tension in the air was viscous. I was unsure whether she was going to launch herself at him like a wildcat, swoon into his arms or fall to the floor in a flood of emotion. She stood glued to my side watching as Simon did what he does best. He laid on the charm to the kids, he made the baby smile. Those sorts of small actions used to make me ache with confusion. I hoped Susie wouldn’t fall for it. Their greeting was muted as soon as she saw Cat too. I should have warned her about her.