The House Swap: An absolutely hilarious feel-good romance

by Jo Lovett

  The lift was ancient and slow, and by the time its doors were open, they were both a little dishevelled.

  They almost fell out of the lift, laughing, and nearly knocked Anthony over.

  ‘Well, good evening.’ Anthony was smiling broadly when James had set him back on his feet. ‘I thought as much but Juliet was having none of it. I’m sorry to steal any thunder you may wish to keep to yourselves for future announcements, but I’m on my way up to see her now, and I shall be reporting this to her in great detail.’

  ‘Eek.’ Cassie screwed up her face and tried to un-screw up her top. ‘Nothing, really, to report, Anthony.’

  ‘That’s right. Absolutely.’ James was also making some clothing adjustments. ‘Best regards to Juliet.’

  ‘I hope you have a lovely evening, Anthony,’ Cassie said.

  ‘I hope you have a lovely evening, my darlings.’ Anthony did a pantomime wink and Cassie and James both winced.

  The corridor was wide and they both kept very carefully to their own side of it as they walked from the lift to the flat. Anthony was up there with a bucket of freezing water in the effective mood-breaker stakes.

  ‘Coffee?’ James said when they were both in the sitting room, still standing several feet apart from each other.

  ‘Great!’ Hard to stop yourself being over-exclamatory when you felt awkward. Probably best to address the elephant in the room. One of them, anyway. ‘I’m guessing you might be avoiding Anthony and Juliet for a while.’

  ‘Yeah. Or maybe not. Maybe better to tackle them head on. Deny everything. I mean, not that there’s anything to deny. Well, there is something.’

  Cassie nodded. There was something. And now they were probably going to get onto the bigger elephant.

  James took mugs out of the cupboard and began to fill them from his fancy boiling water tap.

  ‘I told you on Sunday that I love you,’ he said with his back to her. ‘I do love you.’

  Cassie really wished that they’d stayed in the restaurant and had pudding. Being too full for great sex would have been a lot better than bumping into Anthony and ending up having this conversation.

  ‘We don’t really know each other that well,’ she said.

  ‘I think we do.’ James turned round to face her. ‘You know, in a kind of quality-not-quantity way.’

  Cassie’s breath caught in her throat. The serious look on his face, and his words – had there ever been such a beautiful declaration of love? A love which almost certainly couldn’t go anywhere. Heart-rending.

  She had to reply, and she had to be honest with him.

  ‘I love you too,’ she said, not smiling.

  James took their mugs over to the island and sat down on one of the bar stools. Cassie joined him and perched on the other one, careful to sit far enough away that their legs wouldn’t touch.

  This was one of those conversations that you never wanted to have, but they were going to have to have it.

  ‘So obviously I live on the island and you live here,’ Cassie said. ‘And, obviously, we both know that I would love to have a baby and you would not, and so, really, I’d like to thank you for the most amazing weekend and the most amazing day today.’

  ‘And you’re going to go back home tomorrow and that’s that?’ James was staring at his mug and on about his fiftieth stir of it.

  ‘Well, I mean, I suppose so.’ Extraordinary to feel so devastated about saying goodbye to someone she’d known for, really, not that long. But, yep, he was right. Quality not quantity. They’d got to know each other very well, in a very unique way, in that short time.

  James looked up. ‘I really never thought… I mean, I’ve never felt this way before, and I’ve never believed that I would settle down.’ He let go of his spoon and put his hands flat on the island, one on either side of his mug. ‘That I would want to settle down. Turns out I’d just never met the right person before.’

  Cassie’s eyes were heavy with tears. ‘I can’t imagine ever meeting anyone I could love as much as I love you, even though we’ve only known each other a few months,’ she said. ‘And I feel as though you’re my perfect man. Except we aren’t perfect for each other, are we?’ So indescribably sad.

  ‘We could be?’

  ‘But I don’t see how. Obviously I don’t know whether or not I’ll ever have a baby, but I want one so much. And you’re here, and I really love you.’ She really did. So very much. ‘And I can’t bear the thought of ending up like Juliet and Anthony. That look that she gave him when she was talking about them not having had kids.’

  ‘They’re happy, though.’

  ‘I’d be so scared that I’d resent you, even just once, in the future.’

  ‘I think maybe I’d have a baby for you. I know you’d be a great mother. Maybe a baby doesn’t need two great parents.’

  Cassie shook her head. ‘You said at the weekend how awful it is not to be wanted by your father.’

  ‘But I love you.’

  ‘I love you too. But sometimes love isn’t enough, is it? If you want diametrically opposed things.’

  ‘I think I’d have a baby for you,’ James said.

  ‘I would want you to want to have the baby for the baby itself.’

  ‘Maybe I would.’

  ‘That isn’t true, though, is it?’

  James stared ahead for a few seconds and then shook his head.

  They both sat there, not speaking, for a long time. Then James stood up and poured their cold drinks down the sink.

  ‘We should probably go to bed,’ he said. ‘You have a long journey tomorrow.’

  They went to bed separately, which at the start of the evening Cassie would not have believed possible.

  In the morning, she felt like total crap from lying awake crying for so much of the night. James didn’t look a lot better. She should have had the bloody pudding in the restaurant and they could have had fat-stomached-person sex last night and had this conversation over breakfast and she could have cried on the plane instead.

  They ate croissants and compote very politely together and then James insisted on carrying Cassie’s bags from the bedroom out to the hall and then she suddenly said, ‘James. Please could we have a hug? I can’t bear you to look so miserable.’

  Unfortunately, the hug felt desperately sad. Unbearable to think that this was it.

  ‘I’m going to come with you to the airport after all.’ James said the words into her hair. ‘If that’s alright?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ While he was still there, with her, there was still the chance that maybe he’d have an epiphany and realise that he did want a baby. Or they’d bump into Juliet and she’d say how glad she was that she’d never have kids and Cassie would be able to bin this feeling that she had to try for a baby. Or something.

  They didn’t hold hands in the back of the cab but they did sit quite close together, their knees touching. They talked about London sights and history that Cassie had gleaned during her stay.

  At the airport they did the walking version of the same sad experience.

  Cassie’s last sight of him was him looking no longer his friendly rugby player type but like a serious, handsome City man again, all rigid jaw and drawn cheeks.

  Turned out she hadn’t run out of tears last night. She got through a lot of tissues on the plane.

  Cassie looked out of the window at two squirrels playing on her lawn. So gorgeous. Actually quite heart-rendingly gorgeous. She’d disturbed a bobcat tracking a squirrel last week. It was awful when animals preyed on each other. She sniffed and wiped a stray tear from her cheek.

  Four weeks on from saying goodbye to James, you’d have thought that she would have moved on from the tears phase. But apparently not. If anything, she was getting more emotional. Yesterday she’d cried because she’d run out of yoghurt and the island store didn’t have the flavour she wanted.

  She was starting to wonder whether she should just call him and tell him that she loved him more than she loved the
idea of a baby. Yeah, she probably should. It felt like it was true. Maybe she’d just needed a bit of distance to work that out.

  She closed her eyes for a moment. All the emotion was making her a lot more tired than normal. Very sluggish.

  Okay. She needed to shake this off. She really couldn’t work at the moment. Maybe she’d walk round to see Dina, see if she was up for a little coffee break. Or tea maybe. She’d been drinking a lot of herbal recently. She wouldn’t mind a ginger and lemon one this minute.

  She’d been struggling a little bit spending time with Dina since she got back, due to the guilt she felt over sleeping with James. Rationally, there was nothing to feel guilty about. Dina and James had never been together. Dina had told Cassie before she left for London that she knew that she and James weren’t right for each other anyway. Dina had had more hot sex with Amy’s professor. And Cassie and James weren’t really in touch any more. But it still felt bad. Really bad. And since she and James weren’t in touch – oh, God, just thinking about it she was welling up again – there was no reason to tell Dina about any of it, because the last thing she’d want to do would be hurt Dina. Of course, if she called James and told him she loved him and something happened, then she’d have to tell Dina. Something to think about later.

  She stood up. She was definitely going round to see Dina. Dina was a great, great friend and neighbour.

  ‘Hey, stranger. Haven’t seen so much of you the last couple weeks. Flat out with work?’ Dina hugged her.

  ‘Yep, very busy.’ If you could call it busy sitting at your desk staring into space and crying quite often and sleeping the rest of the time.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on. And I have pastries.’

  Five minutes later, Dina said, ‘Here you are,’ and put Cassie’s coffee down in front of her.

  ‘Thank you.’ Cassie hadn’t even got the mug halfway to her lips before she realised that Dina had made it far too strong. Dina was not an absent-minded person, but she must have absent-mindedly put about three times too much coffee in. Just from the stomach-turningly disgusting smell wafting out of the mug, Cassie could tell that it was undrinkable. In fact, she was gagging slightly just from the smell.

  She put the mug back down on the table and pushed it away as subtly as she could and leaned backwards in her chair to get away from it.

  Dina put a plate of pastries in the middle of the table and sat down opposite Cassie.

  Cassie took a plain croissant. The others looked too sugary.

  Now that did taste good. Lovely and carby. The coffee still smelled grim, though. She pushed it a bit further away.

  ‘So how’s Amy?’ she asked. She was a terrible friend. She should have been around more now that Dina was on her own. Oh no. Her eyes were misting over thinking about Dina being lonely.

  ‘She’s good.’ Dina leaned forward and looked closely at Cassie. Eurgh. Her breath. It stank of coffee. ‘Honey, are you okay?’

  ‘Yes. Great. Just got something in my eye.’ Cassie turned her face away from Dina’s and breathed only through her mouth. Should she warn Dina that she shouldn’t go out in public with such severe coffee-breath? Would that be really rude? Or would it be being a good friend?

  Dina’s coffee had to be mouldy or something. Cassie pushed her mug further away and inched her chair back from the table.

  ‘Something wrong with the coffee?’ Dina had a strange look in her eye.

  Honesty or a white lie? Honesty. She’d be doing Dina a favour.

  ‘Yes.’ Cassie raised her eyebrows, scrunched her face and nodded.

  Dina reached for Cassie’s mug and took a big sniff. ‘Honey, there’s nothing wrong with that.’

  Cassie was feeling really shaky from hunger and from the disgusting smell. She took another croissant.

  ‘Honestly, Dina, the coffee smells hideous. Vomit-level hideous.’ She did actually feel quite sick.

  Dina was studying Cassie with an even stranger look in her eye now.

  ‘What?’ Cassie said, munching her croissant.

  ‘Okay,’ Dina said. ‘Right.’

  ‘Seriously? What?’

  ‘Honey.’ Dina paused and Cassie gave her the evil eye. Like, just get on with whatever she was going to say. ‘Okay. I don’t want to say this because I don’t want to intrude.’

  What? When did Dina ever not want to intrude?

  ‘But I kind of feel I should say it because if it’s true and you don’t know then you really do need to know so you can look after yourself properly. And if it’s true and you don’t want to talk about it then I’m so sorry for intruding. And if it isn’t true, I’m also very sorry. But you’re very tired. You’re very emotional. You think my coffee’s off. Basically, do you think you could be pregnant?’

  ‘Pregnant?’

  Pregnant.

  Woah.

  Cassie put her elbows on the table and her head in her hands and thought.

  Yep. When she thought about how she’d felt in the early days of her first pregnancy and compared that to now, and thought about the fact that she and James had definitely been pretty stupid once or twice on the contraception front, and did period maths, there was a very definite chance that she was pregnant. Her period was really late. How had she not noticed?

  Pregnant. Woah.

  ‘Honey. Have I upset you?’ Dina pulled her chair next to Cassie’s and put her arm round Cassie’s shoulders. ‘Did you do IVF again? I’m so sorry if it didn’t work out or if you’re feeling this way because of the drugs and you’re waiting to do the test. I’m so sorry for being so insensitive.’

  ‘Not IVF,’ Cassie said through her hands.

  ‘You haven’t done IVF? So do you think you might be ill? Should you see a doctor?’

  Part of Cassie really wanted to pretend that she thought she was ill. Actually, most of her wanted to pretend that. Also, a little bit – the sane bit, if she was honest – knew that she should tell Dina the truth. Except, oh God.

  ‘I think I might be pregnant,’ she said, still through her hands.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I misheard. I thought you said you didn’t do IVF. Oh my God, Cassie. This is so exciting.’

  Cassie took her hands away from her face. ‘I think I might be pregnant but I didn’t do IVF.’

  ‘What? You mean?’ Dina gaped. ‘An actual penis was involved? For basically the first time in four years?’

  Cassie winced. ‘Yep.’

  ‘Whose actual penis?’

  Oh shit. Cassie screwed up her face. She couldn’t say it. She should say it.

  She couldn’t say it.

  ‘Oh my God. Did you have sex with James?’

  Twenty-Five

  James

  James hunched his shoulders in response to the November drizzle that had just begun. Rain was the wrong weather for today. He was pretty sure that he was taking a positive step and when you took a positive step the sun should shine.

  God, he wasn’t looking forward to this. It was one of those things where you really wished you could fast forward to afterwards.

  His phone vibrated. Hopefully it was Ella saying she couldn’t make it after all. They could perhaps do it next weekend instead. Or in a few weeks’ time. Years maybe. Maybe just never.

  It was Cassie.

  Ridiculous, and uncomfortable, how his heart leapt at the sight of her name. It was a month now since she’d left and they’d spoken once in that time, when he’d called to check properly that she’d got back safely. It had been so excruciating that he’d decided not to call again for a while, and she hadn’t called him either.

  In the meantime, he’d decided to carry on trying to sort his family life out. It felt like something positive – not just, frankly, heartbreak – should have come out of the house swap experience.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  ‘Hello.’ Pathetic that just the sound of her voice sent a little thrill through him. He should really be doing better at getting over her.

  ‘How are you?’

>   ‘I’m well, thank you. How are you?’ She actually sounded a little odd.

  ‘Yep, also well. I’m doing something pretty huge this afternoon.’ Cassie’s call felt quite serendipitous, given that she was the only person who he’d ever talked to properly about his background and was the one who’d encouraged him to talk properly to Ella again. He had a sudden overwhelming urge to confide in her now. ‘I’m on my way to meet Ella and we’re going to visit Leonie’s grave together for the first time.’

  ‘Oh my goodness. Oh, James. That’s huge. I should go. I’ll call another time.’

  ‘No, don’t go. I’d like to talk. If you’d like to.’

  ‘Of course I would. So you and Ella…?’

  ‘Yes. It’s hard. When my phone rang I was almost on the brink of bottling it.’

  ‘You know what? I totally get that it’s scary and that you’d probably like anything, like sudden vomiting or a minor injury, anything, to happen to get you out of it. But, actually, I’m sure that it will be a very good thing to do. Cathartic.’

  ‘Yep. You’re right that I would like to do pretty much anything else, and, yes, you’re probably right that it’ll be a good thing to have done. But right now it feels like an almost insurmountable step. I can’t really imagine getting from here to later in the day. Like I might have to walk away.’

  ‘No. You can do it. Break it down. Just one thing at a time. At the moment, you’re on the phone to…’ she paused ‘… a friend. And you’re walking somewhere. I can hear the noise of the traffic. So you’re just going to carry on with that walk. And then when you get there, you’ll say hi to Ella. And so on. You can totally carry on walking while you talk to me. One step at a time.’

  ‘You’re right. I can do that.’ God, he missed talking to her every day. Maybe they could start doing that again in due course.