The House Swap: An absolutely hilarious feel-good romance

by Jo Lovett

  James handed Juliet and Chloe their drinks and asked Anthony and Jack what they’d like. Juliet had finished talking about her mother and Anthony was now telling Cassie all about his latest wood carving.

  ‘He’s so talented,’ Cassie told James. ‘You should see his flat. All sorts of wood sculpture, everywhere. Beautiful to look at. So impressive.’

  ‘You’re flattering me.’ Anthony was beaming away.

  ‘I’d love to see them.’ James said. Anthony beamed even more.

  James couldn’t decide whether he adored Cassie for her ability to become very close to people, fast, or slightly put out that maybe he was just another friend; did she feel there was something special to their friendship, as he did? No, she must do; of course she did. He definitely hadn’t imagined the moments there’d been between them. Also, all these people had confided in Cassie but they didn’t really know a lot about her life other than the superficials. He was pretty sure that she hadn’t told any of them about her IVF cycle, for example.

  ‘And there you go.’ He handed Anthony and Jack rhubarb and ginger gin cocktails – Cassie had decided they should go fancy on the drinks – and sat down with the others.

  ‘It’s just so exciting. I keep buying more and more baby stuff. It’s all so teeny. And cute. And gorgeous. And lovable,’ said Chloe. She pointed to one of her scan photos again and said, ‘Look at its beautiful little face. I just can’t get over how perfect my little bean is. Pregnancy is the most amazing thing.’

  James glanced at Cassie on the other side of the table. Her normally animated face looked somewhat stone-like. Not surprising. At a guess, this had to be excruciating for her.

  For a sober person, Chloe was behaving with a remarkable lack of tact given that she and her husband were at a dinner party with four people, all older than them, all childless. Any one, or all, of the four of them might have wanted children. One of them might have just bloody had an unsuccessful IVF attempt this summer.

  ‘Very cute,’ he said, smiling at Chloe and standing up. ‘Can I get anyone some more pudding? More wine? Coffee? Tea? We have several herbal ones.’

  ‘I’d have liked to have had a baby. My mother would have liked to have been a grandmother. One of the great sorrows of her life is that she doesn’t have a grandchild.’ Apparently Juliet wasn’t going with James’s subject change. Her voice was harsh, really different from its usual softness. ‘But I didn’t meet Anthony until I was too old.’

  Anthony’s face dropped. ‘We’ve had a wonderful time, though, haven’t we, darling?’ He frowned. ‘All our travel? We couldn’t have done that with a baby.’

  ‘No, you’re right, you’re absolutely right.’ Juliet patted his arm. ‘Extremely right and extremely childless.’

  Okay. Subject change required.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ James said. ‘In case anyone does want tea or coffee.’

  ‘On the upside,’ Cassie said to Juliet, ‘we non-pregnant people can get as drunk as we like.’

  ‘Absolutely right.’ Juliet downed her wine and said, ‘Could you make mine an Irish coffee, James? We have had a lot of fun, haven’t we, Anthony? I think children would have ruined our sex life. I doubt you could safely keep sex toys in the house with young children around.’

  Good Lord.

  ‘Good night,’ they chorused one final time as Jack and Chloe got into the lift and Anthony led a now very giggly and tactile Juliet into his flat.

  ‘Wow. So these are the neighbours I’ve been missing out on all this time,’ James said when he’d closed and bolted the door.

  ‘I know. I wasn’t expecting that level of entertainment.’ Cassie started to carry plates from the table to the dishwasher. ‘It’s usually all very friendly. I think maybe we had too much pregnancy chat and too much alcohol involved this evening.’ Cassie herself hadn’t actually had that much to drink.

  ‘Is it, um, difficult for you seeing a friend like Chloe?’ he said, and then did an immediate internal eye roll. How was he going to finish that question without upsetting her? Are you jealous or upset because she’s pregnant and you aren’t? Obviously not. What an idiot.

  ‘You mean because she’s pregnant? Yes and no. Yes, I did go through a phase of struggling not to be, I don’t know what, not envious – or not in a bad way, because I’d always be happy for a friend – but, yes, I suppose in some ways envious. And that is not good. It makes you feel like a bad person.’

  James knew all about the envy thing. When he was young, he’d been envious of his friends’ families. Especially the ones with the mother, father, two point two kids set-up. A father who acknowledged and was remotely interested in his children. A sober mother. Food on the table provided by an adult instead of one of the kids. He’d been happy for them, but he’d have liked that for himself and his sisters too.

  ‘And no,’ Cassie continued, ‘because actually I really am happy for her and she should be able to be bubbly and excited and obsessive about her pregnancy, of course she should. Really, it was a lot worse seeing Juliet. Maybe I’m scared that I’ll be bitter like that in thirty years’ time. Anyway—’ she pulled the cutlery rack and started loading it, fast, like she wanted a physical outlet for her feelings ‘—that’s a lot of blether about me. What about you? Have you ever wanted kids?’ She straightened. ‘Sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. That’s a very personal question.’

  ‘No, it’s okay.’ He really didn’t want her to feel bad on top of everything else. ‘We’re friends. It isn’t too personal.’ It kind of was. He really didn’t talk about this stuff. Maybe he should. ‘No. I don’t want kids.’

  Her eyes widened, a lot, and then she blinked, hard, but she didn’t say anything. Instead she took a dishwasher tab and put it into its compartment and pressed the ‘on’ switch.

  ‘I guess that’s unusual,’ he said, walking over to the sofas.

  Cassie followed him, but keeping her distance.

  He suddenly really wanted to explain. ‘But, no, I don’t. I suppose I don’t have a role model. My parents were only together very briefly. I do know who my father is and he has no interest in me. And my mother was great from the maternal love perspective but not so good in practice because she was an alcoholic so she wasn’t brilliant at looking after us.’ Wow. He’d just told Cassie about his parents. He never told people. It felt okay. Good, even. ‘My older sister, Ella, is two years older than me.’ Now he wanted to tell her about Leonie, but he couldn’t get the words out. How no way was he going to have kids because it was like he and Ella had brought Leonie up and he’d totally failed Leonie and she’d become an addict like their mother, and died. He just couldn’t talk about that at all.

  Cassie’s eyes had filled and she had a hand stretched towards him. No. He couldn’t deal with sympathy.

  ‘I’ll tell you something funny about my father,’ he said. ‘He’s fallen on hard times financially since, but he was quite a famous singer in the early eighties, before he met my mother. You might have heard of him. He did quite a well-known Christmas song that still gets played. Dougie Finegan.’

  ‘Dougie Finegan is your father?’ Cassie gave a tiny, muffled snort. Yes. A very successful change of topic. ‘He’s got a lovely voice.’

  ‘Yep. I inherited my musical abilities from my mother.’

  ‘Wow.’ Cassie had her lips pressed really hard together like she was trying really hard not to laugh.

  ‘You thinking about me singing?’

  She laughed out loud. ‘Yes.’

  He kind of wanted to tell her about singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to a hostile audience at Emily’s party, except he didn’t want to remind her about Emily.

  Wow. Emily and Cassie. So different from each other.

  Cassie was different from any woman he’d ever dated, actually. She was still sniggering a little, her eyes alight. He was laughing too, just because she was.

  She looked beautiful, sitting at the end of the sofa, her feet curled under her, in a soft blue dre
ss this evening, more muted than the bright colours she usually wore but great against her warm skin tone.

  James really wanted to sit down next to her.

  He sat down at the opposite end of the same sofa.

  Why had he bought such large sofas?

  He really, really did not want to go to bed right now. Not alone, anyway. And obviously he wasn’t going to go to bed with Cassie.

  ‘Some late-night TV? Maybe a film?’ he asked.

  ‘Sounds good.’ She really did have the most stunning smile. He loved it when it grew gradually, like it was doing now as he watched her.

  ‘Great.’ He looked around for the remote.

  ‘It’s here.’ Cassie leaned forward and picked it up from the coffee table. James applied superhuman effort and kept his eyes above where the low neckline of her dress gaped for a moment. She pointed the remote at the TV.

  ‘Oh, of course. Obviously you know how to work it.’ Really, it was so strange to think of her having been here in his flat for several months. Also, nice. Intimate.

  ‘To be honest, I don’t totally know how to work it. I always thought there was some interaction between it and your Fire TV stick, and I never really worked out exactly how to do it, so I had relatively limited viewing options while I was here.’

  ‘Yeah, I can imagine. I struggled with it myself initially, and I had the instructions. Yep. I should have left you some instructions.’

  ‘You should.’ She smiled at him. ‘At least I had you writing lists by the time we swapped back.’

  ‘Yep, you listed me into submission.’ He was sure the word submission had sexual connotations. Pretty much everything did right now. They should really switch the TV on and get watching something.

  He shifted along the sofa to take the remote and she moved towards him. Their hands touched briefly when he took it and he caught a sharp intake of breath from Cassie. That should really not have made him want to smile so much.

  She reached up and gathered all her hair into a high ponytail for a moment, exposing the delicate line of her neck.

  She glanced over and saw him looking at her. ‘It’s a bit hot in here.’ She sounded a little breathless.

  James nodded. He was feeling hot himself.

  She let her hair down and stretched.

  James swallowed. ‘So what do you fancy watching?’

  ‘I’ve seen a lot of films on planes recently.’

  ‘Yeah. Me too. What about a classic film?’

  Astonishingly, Cassie had never seen a single Hitchcock.

  ‘What? That’s insane,’ James told her. ‘You have to watch one.’

  ‘But aren’t they scary? I don’t want to get frightened.’

  ‘You’ll be fine. I mean, I’m here. It isn’t like you’re on your own.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Okay. What about a deal? You let me introduce you to the master of cinema this evening and when you come back on Wednesday evening we’ll watch the least scary film of your choice.’ He put his hand out. Cassie looked at him, eyes narrowed, for a moment, and then shook it.

  ‘We’ll be watching something very different on Wednesday evening,’ she said. ‘Maybe a cheesy nineties rom-com.’

  ‘And I will watch it with a very open mind. Right. Psycho. I’m thinking lighting down for the full movie experience.’

  ‘Oh-kay.’

  ‘We can turn the lights on if you get scared.’

  ‘Okay. You’re on.’

  ‘You’re going to love it. It’s so well crafted. There’s a reason that films become great classics.’ James sat back with his arm along the back of the sofa behind Cassie and prepared to enjoy the movie.

  ‘No, no, no, no, no, oh my goodness.’ Cassie was pressed right up against his side and was holding his knee as though her life depended on it. James hadn’t expected her to have this level of terror. If he was honest, he’d had more than the odd moment where he’d thought about some close contact with Cassie but none of his fantasies had involved her being terrified.

  ‘We can stop now?’

  ‘No! I need to know what happens. But could we have a light on?’

  When the credits rolled, and Cassie had calmed down, she was still pressed right up against him. He had his arm round her shoulders and she was gripping his hand genuinely painfully.

  ‘Oh. My. Goodness,’ she said. ‘Amazing.’

  ‘I knew you’d love it in the end.’

  ‘Love it? I hated it. There’s a reason that normal people don’t like horror movies.’

  ‘What? Normal people do like horror movies. Especially well-constructed ones like that.’

  Cassie shook her head. ‘No. I’m never going to sleep again. I’ll dream about it tonight.’

  ‘I’m kind of feeling as though I should apologise. But also I’m sure you’ll look back on this evening and be grateful. You know, when you’re in the pub and someone refers to this film and now you’ll know what they’re talking about.’

  She let go of his hand and turned within the circle of his arm to face him. ‘Firstly, I was very happy in my Hitchcock innocence and secondly, I’m thirty-seven years old and no-one has ever talked about the film Psycho in front of me before.’

  ‘How is that even possible?’

  ‘Because my friends have great taste in films?’ She smiled up at him and it felt like his heart actually lurched inside him. Suddenly, his powers of speech were gone. His entire mind, and body, were focused now on where they were touching, his arm round her shoulders, their thighs pressed together.

  Her expression got more serious and her lips parted slightly.

  This time James was all out of willpower. He pulled her in closer with his right arm and his left hand found her face, while she put her hands on his chest. He cupped her cheek very gently and lowered his lips to hers.

  She tasted of raspberry pavlova and peppermint tea and the weird cocktail that they’d concocted at the end of the evening, and she also tasted perfect and right and like he was home, and he was lost.

  James woke up before Cassie did. He raised himself on his elbow and lay watching her for a few moments. He really couldn’t remember ever waking up feeling more contented. Which was possibly a little stupid, because this felt complicated.

  Cassie stirred and rolled. The duvet fell away from her bare shoulders and James nearly groaned out loud with lust.

  Cassie opened her eyes and smiled at him. Maybe he had in fact groaned out loud. Her smile was slow and then wide, and definitely inviting.

  ‘I don’t think I’m going to have time for brunch. I’ll miss my flight.’ Cassie scrabbled around next to the bed. ‘I can’t find my phone. Maybe I left it in the sitting room?’ She’d almost certainly left it in the sitting room. They’d left a lot of their clothes there. ‘What time is it?’

  James checked his watch. Apparently he hadn’t had time to take that off. ‘Wow. Twelve fifteen.’

  ‘No way. Oh my goodness. Wow.’

  They grinned at each other like complete idiots for a few moments and then James reached for Cassie again.

  ‘I really can’t,’ she said between kisses. ‘Those flights to Glasgow get really booked up. I can’t miss it.’

  ‘You could stay another night?’

  ‘Mmm. I would really like to but I’m having a family dinner this evening. And I really want to go to Glasgow again. You know. Facing my fears and all that.’

  ‘You haven’t told me what it is about Glasgow that’s so bad. Is it because of your ex?’ They’d spent the whole night having sex. He could ask that question.

  ‘Well.’ She’d taken a long time to start her answer. ‘Simon was awful. Basically, he was rubbish when I was pregnant, he didn’t come to the scan where I found out that the baby had died, and when I told him, he seemed almost uninterested, certainly not particularly upset, and, within a few days, he said oh, by the way, could I move out because he wanted to move someone else in.’

  ‘Tosser. Tosser. Unbelievable.’ James
wanted to punch something, or someone, but right now he had to hold Cassie. ‘Cassie, that’s so awful. You did so well to leave him.’ He wrapped his arms all the way round her, as though he could protect her like that.

  ‘Tosser’s right. After I left, he kept trying to get in touch with me through friends, a serious case of only wanting something when you can’t have it. And then I discovered this summer that the other woman – who he’s now married to and who presumably would not be happy if she knew he’d tried to get in touch with me – must also have been pregnant then, when I was.’

  James held Cassie even more tightly. ‘I’m beyond furious with a man I’ve never met,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you’re now able to go back to Glasgow. One man’s terrible behaviour shouldn’t stop you from visiting your hometown.’

  ‘It wasn’t actually entirely because of him that I left or couldn’t go back. I got my book deal around the same time, and left my old job, so I could work anywhere, and I just had a big urge to go and live somewhere else. A lot of it was because I couldn’t bear being around my family and friends who were all grief-stricken for me, and there were just too many memories.’

  ‘I get that.’ James nodded. That was pretty much why he’d avoided Ella for so long. ‘And for what it’s worth I think you’ve been incredibly brave.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She smiled at him and then she reached up and kissed him again. ‘No, I shouldn’t have done that. I have to go soon.’

  In the end, James accompanied Cassie into the shower, so they didn’t even have time for lunch before they dived into a taxi.

  ‘Are you sure you want to come all the way to the airport?’ she asked.

  ‘Yep.’

  They held hands and talked about nothing and everything in the back of the cab.