How We Met (27 page)

Mia has been coming to Portuguese classes for four weeks now. Learn a foreign language is one of her tasks from Liv’s List and it made sense to finally get down to mastering her son’s second language; it’s made her focus. And for the most part, she loves it. She relishes this chance to use her brain again. It’s just watching Emilia go through this, week in week out, trying to get even the most simple sentence into the thick heads of this lot, so stupefied by her beauty that they can’t absorb a word – it’s killing her.

Emilia asks the question again and, this time, as she does every week, Mia puts her hand up.

‘Yes, Mia?’ Emilia’s face is awash with relief.

‘
Espero ir às compras no sábado e depois aos amigos para o almoço no domingo. Possivelmente, também no parque
.’

(‘I’m hoping to go shopping on Saturday and then to friends for lunch on Sunday. Possibly, also the park.’)

‘Thank you, Mia. Beautiful use of verbs,’ replies Emilia, and they exchange their little eyebrow raise, their mutual understanding. Mia was never a swot at school but now she’s wondering why. It could be very satisfying.

‘Now, can anyone tell me what Mia has planned this weekend?’

Again, silence … just a phlegmy cough from Gerry: 61, retired truck driver; just met a Brazilian on the Internet.

The lesson eventually finishes. An excruciating hour of pain and torture – and that’s just me, thinks Mia. She makes her way to the door. Emilia is crouching on the floor, putting her things in her bag, her honey-toned hair covering her face. Mia hovers, deciding whether to say something or not.

‘Um, Emilia?’

Emilia is startled, she throws her hair back from her face in one dramatic sweep.

‘Yeah?’

‘I just wondered, you know, if you’re OK?’

Emilia stands up, dwarfing Mia with her six-foot frame. ‘Sure.’ She smiles. ‘You saved me, as usual. Thanks.’

Mia smiles shyly, and tries to ignore the fact that she only comes up to Emilia’s chest. A perfect 32C, in a white crocheted top that shows off a stomach, sleek and walnut-brown, like a beautiful violin.

‘So, what are YOU doing this weekend?’ she says, brightly. ‘Let someone ask you a question for a change. You must have a boyfriend? Beating them off with a stick, I imagine!’

Mia laughs but Emilia frowns. Must not use colloquialisms, she tells herself. Or sound like someone’s great aunty. ‘Not much.’ Emilia shrugs, fixing her with her languorous green eyes. ‘I mean, I know you live here, so I don’t want to sound rude, but what the fuck is there to do in this mother-fucking town?’

Mia snorts. It makes her laugh when Eduardo uses inappropriate idiomatic English too. Using ‘cunt’ when really ‘slighty irritating’ would do.

‘I’ve been here three months and I don’t have any friends, Mia. These English girls, all they want to do is get drunk, so drunk they look … they look, like this …’

And she puts her hands up like paws, flops her head back and mimics frothing at the mouth. It’s the first time Mia has seen her look ugly and she’s transfixed, before laughing. Emilia laughs too; a relieved, wide-mouthed laugh full of white, bright teeth.

‘Well, listen, if you want to hang out with me and my friends some time … we’re not wildly exciting. I have a baby, so I don’t get out that often …’

Emilia gasps. ‘You have a baby? I love babies!’

‘Brilliant. Well, that’s my sitter sorted then.’

Emilia’s face falls.

‘Oh, God, I’m joking … Look, let’s swap numbers.’ Mia roots in her bag for her phone. ‘And then next time I’m doing something vaguely exciting, I’ll invite you along, OK?’

‘Cool, thanks,’ says Emilia, getting out her phone.

‘It could be some time,’ says Mia, before being met by a very blank look and deciding that perhaps sarcasm, at this point, was wasted on Emilia.

Mia undoes her bike from its lock and makes her way across Market Square, towards Moor Lane and Williamson’s Park. It’s a clear, bright morning, but like all provincial towns on a week day,
the only inhabitants seem to be OAPs – rotund ladies with their tartan shoppers – and students. Oh, and pigeons, so many bloody pigeons! Mia flaps them away with her hand.

The date is 20 August 2008. Two years since Liv died, and Mia considers she has done well so far today. Not stopping to get maudlin, or tearful, or asking herself huge questions about the meaning of life and death – because, quite frankly, that way madness lies, and she doesn’t want to end up like Mrs Durham.

Last year – the first year – everyone made a pilgrimage to Peterborough to visit Liv’s grave before calling in on Liv’s parents the day after to pay their respects, which by all accounts was a bad idea. At that point, Liv’s mum, Ann, in particular, found it very hard to see all her friends and, even though it was never said, there was the feeling that she blamed them in some way, or resented them at least. After all, they were alive, her daughter wasn’t.

Mia couldn’t go – Billy was only six weeks old – and she spent possibly the worst twelve hours of her life that night, alone, weeping catastrophically, the reality of everything that had happened coming down on her all at once in a wall of darkness. She’d never been more pleased in her life to see the sun rise the next day.

So she was determined that this year would not be like that: it would be business as usual and a personal, quiet celebration of Liv’s life, remembering the quite brilliant friend and woman she was.

They have all called each other this morning, of course, just to check in, to check nobody has descended into a black hole or is drinking alone and, so far, they seem to be dealing with things admirably: Anna was about to go off on one of her ‘silent weekends’ with Steve to a Buddhist monastery; Norm … well, it wasn’t altogether clear what Norm was doing, but Melody called up this morning, saying she was going to be alone for the day and could she join Mia at Liv’s bench in Williamson’s Park? Where she’s heading now, picnic supplies in her rucksack; And Fraser? Ah, Fraser. He sounded odd when she finally caught up with him, just before she went to Portuguese. Not down exactly, but stressy and clipped, as if he was desperate to get off the phone. But then Mia is getting used to Fraser’s erratic behaviour and today, anything goes … Probably just holding hands with Karen on the sofa. Being mute.

So here she is, cycling through the streets, the sun bouncing off the sandstone buildings, a golden city; full of memories. She feels in her top pocket for the folded-up piece of notepaper, soft and dog-eared now from six weeks of being carried around. Mia’s noticed a shift in herself of late; she’s come over all self-confident and feisty and she suspects Fraser’s letter has something to do with it. No, she
knows
Fraser’s letter has
everything
to do with it.

He said she was an ‘amazing mum’; nobody has ever said she was an ‘amazing mum’, or even a ‘good mum’, come to think of it. She’s never had feedback of any kind and it’s given her a boost and made her see things differently. OK, so sometimes she has to lock herself in a room for a few seconds, just so she can swear at the wall, but she’s doing her best and if she is a good mum, then she deserves better from Eduardo. She doesn’t want to be like
her
mum, settling for this idea that all men are shits so you may as well get used to it. And so, for the first time in their relationship, she has laid down some rules for Eduardo; she is getting tough:

1. He will look after Billy at set times in the week rather than when the mood takes him. So far, one weekend night, one night in the week and, now, Friday until 2 p.m., so she can go to Portuguese lessons, then have a little ‘me’ time.
   
2. He will give her £30 a week for Billy – it’s less than the CSA requirement of fifteen per cent of his salary, so Mia considers she’s being generous as it is.
   
3. He will be generally more considerate, cleaning up after himself if he looks after Billy at hers, replacing toilet roll, buying milk, noticing when he is wearing 3–6 months’ clothes and buying some new ones. He isn’t Billy’s childminder and you can’t ‘babysit your own son’.
   

This is her new mantra and she’s very proud of it. She doesn’t know why she hasn’t thought of it before.

The thing is, Eduardo doesn’t disagree. So far, he seems to be playing by the rules, and it’s freaking her out.

She freewheels down Cheapside, the warm breeze enveloping her, reading in her head the words from Fraser’s letter that she knows off by heart now.

There’s no doubt it’s been the catalyst for changes going on, but it’s also probably the first nice, deep thing he’s ever said (or written) to her in his life. Fraser has said many nice things over the years, but always drunk and she could never take him seriously. But this, this was genuine, from the heart, and she’s been treasuring it.

Before Karen, before this year, in the immediate aftermath of Liv’s death, she and Fraser spent lots of time together, lots of time, just the two of them and Billy, and she misses him; she misses that closeness, and perhaps the letter is compensation for that. It’s like a little bit of her friend, on her person at all times, which she can get out when she feels shaky, like a bottle of Rescue Remedy.

But there’s something else, she thinks, as she crosses at the traffic lights, something she is less easy with, that’s been playing on her mind since Billy’s birthday. Everything was fine when Fraser was being an idiot, when Fraser was calling her up from Vegas, hysterical, swearing at her down the phone and being a ‘narcissistic baby’. She knew what to do with that, she could come over all parental and self-righteous – babysitting him meant she was distracted from her own feelings. But now he’s started to be reasonable, get on with life and take responsibility for his feelings, and there’s a vacuum – a very definite blank space – where she is forced to confront her own emotions and ask herself what she feels.

She pushes her sunglasses up onto her head as if this might give her more clarity. She felt jealous. No, not jealous exactly – YES, jealous exactly! – when she saw him and Karen together at the barbecue. It came as a shock, a thump in the chest: the way their hand-holding made her feel, that kiss she witnessed, the way Fraser had tenderly got an eyelash out of Karen’s eye; her whispering in his ear – their secrets. She realized something had grown between her and Fraser since losing Liv – perhaps something that’s always been there, deep down.

Mia is trying not to hark back to the past, obsessively – the present is hard enough to navigate. But lately, she’s been thinking back to when they met, when they used
to hang out together as students in Asda, before Moussaka
Night; before it all sort of went wrong before it got a chance to start. There was something special then between them, at least she thought so. Did that ever go away? Or has she just buried feelings for him because Liv was with him? But then, she and Fraser had been friends for ages before he eventually got together
with Liv, a year after they graduated in the autumn of 1999.
If they’d been destined to be together, they would have, surely? No, he was with Olivia and that was just the way it was.

But now Fraser has Karen’s shoulder to cry on, now he sits with her at parties and spends the day with her on Liv’s anniversary, she feels … well, bereft if she’s honest. The letter has taken on more meaning than just a friend’s kind words. She knows it off by heart, for goodness’ sakes. And now she’s on her way to talk to Liv, her best friend, Fraser’s girlfriend.

Oh, God. She cycles faster.

‘Mr Mor-gan?’

It takes Fraser at least five seconds of staring blankly at Demetrius, leaning across the counter, enormous, hairy arms bulging from his T-shirt, to remember why he’s here.

‘Oh, right, yes, sorry, Demetrius; away with the fairies. I’ll have some ciabatta, some of the Parma ham, a small tub of the anchovy-stuffed olives and, er …’ He stares at the cheese but he’s not registering the cheese.

‘Some of the usual? The manchego?’

Fraser blinks, slowly.

‘Yes. Sorry. A lump of that.’

Fraser pays. ‘Get some sleep, my man,’ says Demetrius, patting him on the shoulder as he ushers him out of the deli with a ring of the shop bell.

Fraser stands on the street, plastic bag hanging from his hand, aware he doesn’t want to go home.

He was determined today was going to go well. He was going to show Mia and Karen that he had come a long way from the wreck who sat sobbing at the bar this time last year. He was going to show Anna that none of her weird talk of karma, or messing with his head, was going to get to him.

Fraser had waited a few days before calling Anna after that truly bizarre evening when she launched at him, partly because he was so shocked
– she’d never said anything about fancying him before! And also, wasn’t she with Steve? Like, obsessed with Steve? However, she’d cut him dead before he could even open his mouth: ‘Forget it,
Fraser. I was shit-faced. I had no idea what I was doing.
’

It didn’t take away from the fact she’d been bonkers that day, mad as a bag of snakes with her karma and her intense questions about Liv and whether she was happy the day she died. Even so, she’d got under Fraser’s skin. This morning, when he’d woken up, he’d promised himself he wasn’t going to let it get to him, but right now, he is wondering if that’s possible.

Karen was ridiculously sweet this morning, which, of course, is part of the problem. When he opened his eyes, she was already looking at him. Already smoothing the hair from his face as if he was a child with a fever.

‘It’s all about you, this morning, sweetheart. Whatever you need to do, wherever you need to go …’

And Fraser thought, Drink. In the pub, which didn’t bode well.

Then she instructed him to sit up whilst she massaged the knots from his neck to the soundtrack of the washing machine going mad.

‘If you wanna look at photos of Liv, or go for a walk, or be alone …’

(Or at work? Why the fuck had he taken the morning off work?)