Julia Gets a Life (41 page)

            ‘Hello.’

            He then said ‘hel-low’ to which I said ‘hel-low-ee,’ to which he then replied ‘Well,
hello
, Mrs P.’

            I dare say we would have kept up this inane but merry banter indefinitely had I not become aware of the audience of two that were contained behind the stair rail, and that were quietly tittering.

            ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘Will you two please GO AWAY!!’

            Which proved that some responses are completely instinctive.

            ‘I’m sorry, ‘ I went on, realising I must sound like a fishwife. Oh God. ‘You know what they’re like.’

            Which proved likewise, and also my limited repertoire of repartee. He knew no such thing. Oh
God.

           
‘Where’ve you been?’ he said next.

            ‘I’ve been here. At home. Only my friend, who was staying, turned the phone ringer off, and then I found out on Thursday that the tape on the ansafone was full as well - her boyfriend prattling on at her - and well, here I am. How are you?’

            ‘Tired. Pissed off with all the promo stuff. Missing you. Why didn’t
you
call
me
, then?’’

            Oh, oh, oh,
oh
!

            I scanned the banisters.

            ‘I wanted to. I’ve been missing you as well.’

            I should be shot for understatement. And dismembered. And if they looked inside me they would find nothing but marshmallows and spun sugar confectionery.

            ‘You should have called then. So, can we get together? Soon?’

            ‘Well, I’m in London on Wednesday to go through the pictures for the book. Perhaps...’

            ‘I know. Me too.’

            ‘Are you? Really?’

            ‘Nigel thought we should. Though it’s all fucking crap of course. You know? I find it quite creepy, really. I mean, I know everyone wants to look like,
okay
, in photographs, but there comes a point when you realise what’s portrayed isn’t you. Just the way you looked at one moment when the light hit you right. You know? I have a whole life to live. I’ve got to grow up, grow older, do all that regular shit. I can’t stand that I might lose my sense of self before I’m even together about who I am.’

            ‘But you know who you are.’

            ‘I know who I am right now. Who I am in ten years is something else. Blows you away, doesn’t it?’

            ‘I don’t think I was sufficiently mature to question my identity when I was...’

            I
could not
say ‘your age’. I re-grouped. ‘But it’s been almost an obsession since my marriage broke up.’

            ‘You seem sorted to me.’

            ‘It’s a lie. I just seem so.’

            ‘You do. So you’ll be able to come home with me after? Stay over?’

            Uurrrgh.

            ‘I hope so.’ I know so.

            ‘You’d better, Mrs P. You cannot let me down.’

            ‘Or what?’

            ‘Or I’ll be really fucked off. Okay?’

*

            Get your head together.
Now
. This is just

                        A crush

                        An infatuation

                        A pre-menopausal hormone surge

                        A post-marital (not that again,
please
) response to a display of affection from a member (any member?) of the opposite sex

                        Selfish

                        Sex

            I’m lovelorn. That’s all it is really. I am a deserted woman and have fashioned this feeling out of old aches and pains that are nothing to do with the man I’m obsessed with, and everything to do with the one that left me. And,
yes,
I know that he didn’t
actually
leave me, but in one sense, he did, in that he felt so little for me that he followed the pull of his loins and without due regard for the marital consequence, took his sex drive and drove it home somewhere else.

            Isn’t it amazing? You can read, literally, dozens of books telling you otherwise, but it still all comes down to rejection in the end. At least,
that’s
what I keep telling myself. That’s precisely what I told myself when I called Richard and asked him to have the children overnight on Wednesday. Even managed to invoke it (this is my
career
, Richard, I think you at least owe me that...) when he whinged about presentations and meetings with local MPs. Even ran it by Howard when he called to see how things were. But he was having none of it.

            ‘Rubbish,’ he said. ‘You’re in love, Julia. Face it.’

            I snorted.

            ‘I’m sorry? Did I hear you right?’

            ‘Well, you must be. You’re far too old to be infatuated with anyone...’

            ‘Thanks a lot.’

            ‘But it’s true. And you have all the symptoms...’

            ‘I have...Oh, I don’t know. He’s just, so, so...oh, I just wish he was some egotistical fathead with nothing on his mind except the next shag. At least that way I would know where I stood...’

            ‘Lay...’

            ‘Exactly! At least then I could get on with feeling sorry for myself and regretful and cheap about shagging him and...’

            ‘I thought ‘shagging’ was the whole point.’

            ‘It
was
. But now I’ve accepted I’m not psychologically capable of strings-free casual sex, it would be so much better if he
was
a bastard and told me to sod off. Wouldn’t it?’

            ‘Would it?’

            ‘Of course! Then I wouldn’t have to waste another moment in fruitless daydreaming about some utterly ridiculous relationship, would I?’

            ‘Utterly ridiculous only because you perceive it to be so. There was a time when I felt the same about me. Look, is this about you and him, or about Richard and the children and how they would feel? Because if you are really decided that there is no future in your marriage, then unless you elect to remain celibate forever, the problem is not going to go away. Only the person will change. The bottom line is that, whatever happens, you can take something positive out of what you have here.’

            Which was sufficiently obscure a collection of concepts to ensure I maintained a total sensory deficit in relation to the repeat of
Inspector Morse
I’d been meaning to watch, and that I neglected to note that Max was still playing Sarcophagus Slammer on the Playstation a good hour after he’d been sent to bed. Parenting, I decided, would be a whole lot easier if the emotional temperature of the parent(s) in question was essentially tepid, with the occasional rumbling of luke-warm. Children needed the comfort and security of knowing that whatever maelstroms their own biological clocks had in store, their parents had nothing more pressing afoot than the odd skirmish about the football versus the BAFTA Awards. They didn’t deserve this complete flake of a mother.

            Howard telephoned again late that evening. His mother, he told me, had just passed away. And that he couldn’t decide whether to go up to the hospice, or, as they’d advised, to wait until morning. He apologised for calling so late in the evening but said that as Nick was away overnight (an Earth Patrol Consciousness Raising Mini-Conference -
bastard
) he needed to talk to a friend.

            He wouldn’t drive over. He didn’t want to be a nuisance. And alone with the children, I couldn’t drive over to him. We talked for a while but I felt unable to comfort him. He needed a physical warmth, someone to hold him. But I couldn’t persuade him. I wished I could have.

Chapter
27

            Butterflies. Big time.

            I rang Rani. I told her I needed some time off and asked what she thought. She said ‘you’re living dangerously in the middle of August with the
Captured for Christmas
event in full flood. How much time?’

            ‘Only two days. Wednesday and Thursday. I’m still owed some leave.’

            The week I’d been saving for autumn half term. For a trip to my Mum’s. The kids would be ecstatic.

            ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Well, I wouldn’t rate your chances.’

            ‘He can’t stop me.’

            ‘That’s true. But he can make life hard for you. And he will if he can. He’s as jealous as hell.’

            The first of the series of
Kite
features came out in
Depth
on the Sunday. There was a flurry of phone calls, all complimentary, and an air of mild celebration in the house. Though Max and Emma strove to maintain a pubescent-appropriate rather grudging enthusiasm, they were, I realised, actually quite proud of me. And Richard called too. To let me know that he’d seen it.

            ‘Your pictures are very good,’ he said. ‘You haven’t lost your eye for composition.’

            ‘I hope not. But you know, it was really so easy. They’re all so photogenic - and not in the least camera shy, of course, and stadiums and crowds lend themselves so well to this sort of thing. And I was able to just follow them around and take what I wanted. I shot rolls and rolls of film...’

            ‘Well, I’m sure you’ll get lots more commissions now...’

            ‘It’s very nice of you to say so. I really hope I do. I’m getting so fed up at Time Of Your Life now. It’s like I’ve been given a glimpse of what I could be doing and now I can’t bear the thought that I might not get to do any more.’

            ‘That Colin friend of yours (the contra of ‘that dickhead husband’) is clearly impressed by you. And he’s come up with the goods, hasn’t he? Now he knows you’re interested in doing more freelance work, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t put some your way, is there?’

            I agreed that there wasn’t. Then he coughed and went quiet. And then suddenly said,

            ‘Julia, look, you don’t have to answer this. But, I don’t know...I get the feeling you’ve...Look, have you found someone? I mean, someone, something.... you know,
serious?
’

            Oh, God. But he was right. I didn’t have to answer it. Wasn’t sure how I felt about answering it. Wasn’t even sure what it was that I’d found. I said, without hostility,

            ‘What’s it to you?’

            ‘I need to know where I stand. The lease on my flat runs out in a month. And I don’t want to renew it. I hate it here. I need to know what I should be planning. Plus I need to know if there’s....’

            I stopped him. I really couldn’t handle one of these conversations right now.