Nine Uses For An Ex-Boyfriend (66 page)

Wilson obviously thought so. ‘You’d better bring your toothbrush just in case, then.’

Hope thought he might mention the possibility of one of them sleeping on the sofa, but he didn’t, and before she could broach the topic herself, he said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Enjoy the elderflower vodka.’

He rung off and Hope turned round to glare at the couple behind her, who were so up in her phone call that she was
almost
wearing them as earrings; then she folded her arms and tried to look prim and slightly despondent, as was appropriate for a woman who’d recently come out of a longstanding relationship.

It would have been more convincing if she could only wipe the sappy smile off her face.

IT WAS THE
oddest Christmas Day Hope had ever experienced. It was also the first one she’d ever started with a hangover, which would never have happened on her mother’s watch.

When Elaine had opened her front door to see Hope standing there with two bottles of Cava, a huge bag of tortilla chips and a brave smile, she’d looked rather put out. ‘But what on earth are you doing here, Hopey?’ she’d demanded. ‘You’re meant to be up North. And where’s Jack?’

Though she could have sworn that she’d been fine, Hope’s face had collapsed in on itself, and Elaine had let her cry all over her very expensive Vivienne Westwood Anglomania dress, and had insisted that she didn’t have to have any elderflower vodka, but unearthed a bottle of Stolichnaya and proceeded to get Hope good and drunk.

Little Sorcha’s mum, Polly, had arrived just in time to back Elaine up when she’d tried in vain to tell Hope that she’d be fine on her own and that it would be the making of her. Hope hadn’t been convinced, but at least Polly hadn’t begun drinking yet and had neatened up the ends of Hope’s crooked bob. After that it had all been a bit of a blur; Hope knew that she’d cheered up because she distinctly remembered Singstar being switched on and singing ‘The Winner Takes it All’ with Marta, and talking about breeding poodles with the drummer of a minor indie band who’d been
recording
their second album in Simon’s studio, but apart from that she wasn’t even sure how she’d got home.

Still, it was nice to come to at her own pace, without her mother pounding on her bedroom door at five-minute intervals to make sure she was ready to go to church. It was even nicer not to have to go to church, or try to explain to her mother that she was an apathetic agnostic.

At a very civilised one o’clock, Hope hopped over the garden wall with yet more bottles of Cava and huge chocolate Santas for Lottie and Nancy, who were appalled that she’d broken up with Jack, but had obviously been told not to mention it by Alice. Still, they made up for it by shooting Hope evil looks every time she caught their eye.

Apart from that, it was actually rather lovely to be a guest and not a beleaguered daughter who was only good enough to peel potatoes and de-vein prawns. Hope offered to help, but Alice asked her, through gritted teeth, to entertain her mother-in-law. Hope was expecting a battle-axe with a blue rinse, but instead Sophia was a dyed-in-the-wool leftie who’d marched at Aldermaston, camped out at Greenham Common, and had recently been kettled in Whitehall. They spent a pleasant hour drinking Cava with pomegranate juice and getting very angry about education cuts, library cuts, NHS cuts, and any other cuts they could think of.

Soon it was time to sit down for Christmas dinner, and it seemed that every family groaned at the jokes in the crackers and insisted that everyone wore their paper hats, and were more interested in eating the stuffing and the pigs-in-blankets than the actual turkey. Normally Hope loved Christmas dinner, she even loved Brussels sprouts, but she was too churned up to eat. It wasn’t just about Jack or her hangover, but also a lot to do with seeing Wilson in a few short hours, with toothbrush, which could only mean one thing. It was a thing that terrified and thrilled Hope in equal measure. Not that it was a thing that she could actively participate in, because it would be wrong and tacky when
she
and Jack had only just split up. But just the thought of the thing was enough to have her toes curling in her shoes, because having sex with only one person, for the entirety of your adult life, made the mere thought of a thing with someone else a little bit frightening.

‘You’ve barely touched your sticky toffee pudding,’ Hope heard Alice exclaim, as Lottie muttered to Nancy, ‘She doesn’t even deserve any pudding after what she did to Jack.’

Hope pushed her bowl away with a rueful smile. ‘Sorry, I’m absolutely stuffed from your roast potatoes,’ she said, even though she’d only been able to manage one, with was five less than she usually shovelled into her mouth. ‘Shall I make a start on loading the dishwasher?’

‘You will not,’ Sophia said with great force. ‘You’re a guest in this house and, anyway, it doesn’t take long to load a dishwasher. Not like doing the washing-up, which wastes far less water.’

It was another two hours and a viewing of
It’s a Wonderful Life
before Hope was allowed to leave, after she promised that she’d take half the turkey and a completely intact chocolate yule log with her.

It was six o’clock by the time she was safely back on her side of the garden wall, and all the panic and anticipation that she’d had to tamp down reared up again, and Hope found herself doing a complete circuit of the flat with arms flailing in all directions, which accomplished precisely nothing, when she had much to accomplish. Although she’d had a bath that morning, Hope felt the need to shower and shave off every extraneous hair on her body. It was also very important that she slathered herself in a fig-scented body moisturiser that she’d bought herself, rather than use any products Jack had liberated from the
Skirt
beauty cupboard.

Hope wasted ten minutes hunting for the knickers that matched her black and white polka-dot bra, not that Wilson was going to be seeing them, so it didn’t really matter
whether
they matched or not, and then she stood in front of her open wardrobe and steeled herself for the style dilemma that lay ahead. It was important she looked vaguely on trend but not especially sexy, as that would only send out the wrong message. Then again, Hope didn’t want to look as if she’d made no effort. After all, a girl had her pride.

Eventually, she wriggled into a teal-blue lace shift dress, with long sleeves and a high neckline, even if the hem hovered at mid-thigh. Still, thick woolly tights made the short skirt look a lot less come-hither, and she went easy on her eye make-up – just a quick up and down with her mascara wand, before dusting her face with powder and applying some Rose Salve lip balm.

Hope was now running late. She zipped herself into her black knee-boots with the sensible heel and quickly packed a bag with toothbrush, vitamins, pyjamas and a spare pair of pants, only because she
might
have to stay over. If it got really late and Wilson was drinking and she couldn’t get a cab without taking out a second mortgage. Then she grabbed the two bags she’d packed with yummy treats and alcohol, and headed out into the frozen, deserted streets of N7.

The frost made everything glitter like the Christmas decorations Hope could see when she glanced idly in at people’s windows. She turned off to walk past Holloway Prison, where she hoped the inmates were having a nice Christmas (apart from the serial killers, obviously), then wended her way through the back roads to get to Kentish Town. It was usually a good forty-minute walk, but she was striding along at great speed, and not just because the sooner she arrived, the sooner she could get indoors where there was central heating, but because the fizz of anticipation was quickening both her blood and her step.

As she hit Kentish Town Road, which was deserted apart from a gang of teenagers gathered outside the one
convenience
store that was open and trying to persuade people to buy them alcohol, Hope’s phone beeped. She reached for it with bumbling, gloved fingers, the fizz fizzling out as she braced herself for a text from Jack or, worse, her mother, which would make all her good cheer evaporate and her conscience kick in, so she’d be forced into an abrupt U-turn and a cold walk home.

Hello, Miss Delafield. You still coming? Shall I meet you halfway? Wilson

Hope’s good cheer returned in full force as she pondered why the thought of meeting Wilson halfway seemed rather saucy and suggestive. The fast walk had upped her heart rate, and Hope suspected that she wasn’t filled with good cheer so much as raging horniness. Not that there was anywhere open at quarter past eight on Christmas night where she could buy a quick dose of bromide. She really must remember not to drink too much, because that was when all her best intentions fell flat, Hope decided, as she adjusted the strap of one of her jute bags.

No need
, she texted back.
Only five minutes away. Please crank up the central heating
.

It didn’t seem like five minutes, but no time at all before she was standing outside Wilson’s building and pressing the buzzer.

‘Is it you?’ asked Wilson.

‘No, it’s burglars,’ Hope replied. ‘Burglars whose fingers and toes are turning into little icicles.’

Wilson laughed in the split second before he buzzed her in. She began the long trek up the stairs and as she reached the third-floor landing, she heard a door above open and when she rounded the next corner, Wilson was heading down the stairs to meet her.

‘Happy Christmas,’ he said. ‘Kettle’s on.’

‘I have half a turkey, a whole chocolate yule log, cashew nuts and a tin of Quality Street,’ Hope informed him, and she was sure that it wasn’t the long march from Holloway
and
the stair-climbing that made her sound so out of breath. ‘And posh bubbly and cheap bubbly.’

They came face to face on the fourth landing and Wilson didn’t say anything, just stood one step above her – and all of a sudden, Hope felt ridiculously shy. She also felt like quite the brazen hussy, with her toothbrush and a spare pair of knickers stowed away in her handbag.

‘Hey,’ she croaked and raised her eyes timidly to see Wilson smiling down at her. Wilson wasn’t given to smiling much, which was a pity, because when he did, he looked almost silver-screen handsome, and Hope felt her frozen limbs begin to thaw out. ‘Have you had a nice day?’

‘Well, I discovered that Brussels sprouts taste much better when they’re fried in bacon fat. Here, let me take some of this stuff,’ he added, relieving Hope of both of her jute bags. ‘And I was forced to play football on the Heath with a gang of under-sixteen-year-olds who had no respect for the offside rule.’

‘Well, at least you worked off some of the bacon fat,’ Hope said, as she followed him up the last flight of stairs, and found herself in the perfect position to ogle – no, not ogle – appreciate Wilson’s long legs and the firmness of his arse. Christ, she needed to nip the appreciating in the bud, because they were just two friends having a Christmas drink. Though could you really be friends with someone when you’d already given each other an orgasm and had a nagging suspicion that a Christmas drink might lead to more of the same?

‘How about you? What kind of day did you have?’ Wilson asked as he shouldered open the door to his studio and ushered Hope through.

‘Mostly I talked about political protest with Alice from next door’s mother-in-law,’ Hope said, as they walked across the room together. Then she walked up the spiral staircase first and wondered whether Wilson was staring at her legs and what he could make out of her arse through
her
bulky winter coat. ‘I wish our Brussels had been done in bacon fat ’cause they tasted a little swampy.’

She was finally on Wilson’s home turf, where it was cosy and warm, and all the lights had been dimmed. He’d even lit tealights in votive candle-holders and lined them up in rows on the windowsills. Hope couldn’t decide if it was festive or seductive.

Wilson was unpacking the gourmet treats she’d brought with her, as Hope slowly unbuttoned her coat. It felt like she was performing a striptease, especially when Wilson lifted his head, looked straight at her and began to walk over from the galley kitchen to where she was still standing by the door. He held out his arms for her coat, then waited as she unwound her scarf and pulled off her hat.

‘Oh, Hope, you cut your hair,’ he said sadly. ‘Why would you do that?’

Her hand shot up and kept going, because each time she went to touch it, her hair was so much shorter than she remembered. After Polly’s repair job, Hope didn’t think it looked so bad – there was something of a flapper vibe to it, and it had a slight wave now it wasn’t weighted down by its own length. But maybe she’d just been kidding herself, because Wilson had angled his head so he could see her new do from all sides and was looking distinctly underwhelmed.