You Can’t Fall in Love With Your Ex (Can You?) (5 page)

“Can’t,
I’m afraid,” Jonathan said. “I’ve said I’ll play golf with Rick from work.”

“Golf?
You don’t play golf.”

“Yes,
I do,” Jonathan said. “Well, I can, anyway. Haven’t hit a ball for years – not
since before I met you. But I used to play with Dad, most weekends. And there’s
a client golf day coming up that I can’t miss, so I need to get my eye back
in.”

“But
we were going to take the kids to Legoland.”

“But
now you’ve had a better offer,” Jonathan said. “We can go another day, and you
can take the kids to this party thing instead.”

“No
I can’t,” I said. “Turning up at parties with a sibling in tow is apparently
the worst kind of faux pas imaginable. Owen’s not invited. Darcey is.”

“They
won’t mind, surely,” Jonathan said. “Or just drop her off and take Owen out
somewhere, like we used to do.”

“Yes,
but… it’s her first party here. She hardly knows the other children. What if
they’re horrible to her? She’ll need me to be there.”

And,
I thought, what about me? I needed to make friends, too. If I was going to cast
my lot in with Amanda and her gang, then I needed to be there, drinking wine
and nattering with them, not turning my back and allowing them to talk about me
behind it.

“So
what are the other mums going to do, then?”

“Their
husbands will look after the other kid,” I said. “Or the nanny will, or
whatever. I don’t know – we’ve always sorted it out between us, before. But we
can’t do that now, can we? I’m not being unreasonable, Jonathan – if you can’t
look after Owen, Darcey and I can’t go.”

“But
you didn’t much want to go, did you? Seventh circle of hell, you said.”

“Darcey
will want to go. She’ll be desperate to go.”

“She
doesn’t know she’s been invited yet, does she?”

“No,
but she will. All the little girls will be talking about it, you watch. And
she’ll be gutted if she thinks she’s been left out. And I’ll have to deal with
the fall-out while you bugger off and play bloody golf.”

“Laura,
it’s a work thing,” he said. “It’s not like have a choice.”

“Yes
you do. You said you know how to play – so turn up at your work thing and play.
You don’t have to spend a Saturday afternoon working on your swing or
polishing your putting or whatever. And I bet there are going to be drinks
afterwards, and you won’t be home until stupid o’clock and I’ll have to do
bedtime on my own. Again.”

“Laura,”
Jonathan sighed. “Okay, there are going to be drinks afterwards. But I can come
home early – I’ve hated missing putting the kids to bed, you know I have. You
get to have them all day and I get a phone call in the evenings. Do you think I
like that?”

“Do
you think I like it?” I countered. “I’m knackered, coping with both of them on
my own with no help.”

“I
have to go into a meeting now, Laura,” Jonathan said, and that was that.

Furious,
I stomped away and crossed the road towards home. Blinded by annoyance, I
didn’t see the cyclist until it was too late – somehow, my mind just didn’t
make the connection between the ‘LOOK RIGHT’ sign on the pavement and the
possibility that there might actually be approaching traffic.

Apparently
time is meant to go into slow motion when something like this happens, but the
reverse was true for me. Everything seemed to speed up, terrifyingly, to a
blinding jumble of primary-coloured Lycra, and my hands on the buggy, frozen,
receiving no command from my brain telling them whether to push or pull.

He
missed me, but he ploughed into the buggy, somersaulting, and landing on the
pavement at my feet.

To
his credit, he didn’t start shouting at me straight away. The first thing he
did, once he’d scrambled to his feet, before even surveying the buckled wheel
and scraped paintwork of his racing bicycle, was to look inside the buggy, his
face white with dread at what he might see there. But there was no child – Owen
was at nursery. My only passenger was Green Rabbit, who Owen insisted must be
allowed to come along for the ride to nursery.

“Jesus
Christ,” he said. “What were you… You stupid fucking bitch. You didn’t even
look where you were fucking going. What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you
drunk?”

Mute
with shock, I could only shake my head.

“You
– I could have killed your kid. What were you doing? I could have killed your
kid because you weren’t looking where you were fucking going.”

He
was shouting now, his face no longer pale but almost puce with rage. In the
face of his fury, I found I had nothing at all to say in my defence. My eyes
and nose were streaming, and my hands were still clenched in front of me, my
knuckles white, as if they were still gripped fast to the buggy’s rubber
handle.

“Don’t
just fucking stand there! Say something!”

I
opened my mouth, but no words came out. 

Then
I felt a hand on my arm, and heard a calm voice say, “Can’t you see she’s in
shock? Stop shouting at the poor woman. You were going far too fast, you were
riding like an idiot. Don’t you know this is a school?”

“She
needs to looks where she’s going. Stupid cow.”

“I
could say the same about you,” the voice replied frostily. “And I shall, when I
take this photograph of you to the police.”

“You…what?”
The cyclist suddenly seemed a little less confident.

I
turned around to look at my rescuer. She didn’t look like your stereotypical
guardian angel – unless guardian angels had changed their uniform to ripped
skinny jeans, over-the-knee boots and pistachio-coloured leather jackets, and
replaced their harps with iPhone 6s.

“Yes,
I intend to report this,” the woman said. “This road is a death trap, the way
people drive and park. I live here and I see incidents like this all the time.
It’s a wonder a child hasn’t been killed.”

“Well,
at least no one was hurt,” the cyclist said. “Look, I’m sorry, I probably was
going a bit fast but I was running late for work, and…”

“Best
you get on your way then,” the woman said dismissively, then turned to me. “You
look like you could do with a cup of tea. Want to come in?”

“Yes,
please.” I realised my knees were trembling violently, and if I didn’t sit down
I’d fall down.

“It’s
this one right here.” She guided me through her front door and into a space-age
kitchen, all stainless steel and skylights, and gestured to a canary-yellow
sofa. “Here, have a seat and I’ll put the kettle on. Unless you’d prefer a
brandy? That’s meant to be good for shock.”

“Thanks,”
I said. “Tea would be lovely. I’ve done my bit of irresponsible parenting, I
don’t want to start drinking before ten in the morning or someone will call
Social Services on me for sure. God, what was I thinking? If Owen had been in
the buggy…”

“But
he wasn’t,” she said. “No harm done. Would you rather builders’ with sugar or
herbal something with honey?”

“Herbal,
please,” I said. “Thank you so much for this, I really appreciate it. My name’s
Laura, by the way.”

“Zélide.
Call me Zé, all my friends do. Now, chamomile’s good for sleeplessness so I
reckon it’ll do the job. I did a herbal medicine course ages ago but I’ve
forgotten most of it, and I suspect it was mostly bollocks anyway.”

If
she didn’t quite look the part of a guardian angel, Zélide was stunning
nonetheless. Her dark hair hung in two straight wings on either side of her
oval face; her lips gleamed with gloss; her fluttery eyelashes were just too
long to be real. She sat next to me on the sofa and crossed her slender, booted
legs.

“Thanks
so much for this,” I said. “I’m really sorry to mess up your morning – were you
on your way out?”

“Just
back from the school run,” she said. “Same as you.”

“I
wish I looked like that for the school run,” I said, glancing down at my own
jeans, which the label had promised were ‘boyfriend’ but were really just
shapeless, and battered converse.

Zé
laughed. “I have a fashion blog. I post every day, and include a selfie. Talk
about making a rod for my own back! I spent less time getting ready in the
mornings when I worked at
Tatler
. But now I’ve kind of got into the habit, and
if I slack off I’ll lose readers. What about you – what do you do?”

“Nothing,”
I said. “Well, being-a-mum nothing. We only moved here a few weeks ago. I used
to work in PR as an account-handler. I expect I’ll look for temp work at some
point but I haven’t got around to it yet – you know what it’s like.”

“Hardest
job in the world, innit?” She raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow.

“You
know what, it really bloody is. When I was working it was hectic juggling
everything, but things seemed to just sort of work, somehow, amid the mayhem.
And my husband wasn’t working such mad hours, which helped. But how, being with
them all the time, it seems as if there’s just no let-up. Even when Darcey’s at
school and Owen’s at nursery shit just appears to fill the time and then I have
to pick them up again and I’ve got nothing done.”

“Fab
names. Darcey and Owen, lovely,” she said, and I felt a little glow of pride.

“When
I was growing up, I always said I wanted to name my daughter Darcey, after the
dancer, obviously. I changed my mind later on, but I mentioned it to Jonathan
when I was pregnant and he said he loved it and I hadn’t the heart to veto it.
Owen’s after Jonathan’s dad; he died when Jonathan was a teenager, so that one
was a given. And your daughter – Juniper?”

“I
suppose it’s pretentious as anything, but I don’t care,” she said. “It was a
chance to wind up my bitch of a mother-in-law, and I love it, and Juniper loves
it, so it works for both of us. Although Rick’s mother still
passive-aggressively refers to her as June when we talk on the phone. Which,
thankfully, doesn’t happen often. More tea?”

The
honeyed chamomile tea was actually pretty foul, but I realised I was enjoying
Zé’s company more than I’d enjoyed anyone’s for a long time.

“Yes,
please,” I said, kicking off my shoes and tucking my feet underneath me on the
yellow sofa. “You don’t mind?”

“God,
no. Shoes on, shoes off, feet on the sofa – whatever. Make yourself
comfortable.” She switched the kettle on again and opened one of the sleek
white cupboards, rummaging around a bit before producing a duck-egg blue tin of
biscuits. “Elevenses?”

It
wasn’t yet ten o’clock, but all I’d had for breakfast was half a banana off
Owen’s plate. “Yes, please,” I said.

“So
your husband works with Rick?” Zé said. “Small world. Rick went for promotion
at the same time as he did, but he didn’t get it. He’s pretending not to be
bitter about it but he so is, and it’ll mean him working even longer hours than
usual. We barely see each other as it is.”

She
didn’t sound like she minded that a bit, I thought, intrigued.

“How
did you two meet?” I asked.

“At
a dinner party,” she said. “I’d been single for ages, my mid-thirties were
slipping away and I wanted a baby. He seemed like a decent enough option.”

She
grimaced ruefully, took a second biscuit and ate it in two bites. “We’ll pay
for this tomorrow, I suppose. But now, fuck it.”

I
reached for another biscuit too, one with a chocolate coating, and caught her
eye as I bit into it. The chocolate melted against the roof of my mouth and the
buttery crumbs stuck to my lips. We exchanged a small, complicit smile, and I
knew she was feeling just the same way I was.

In
return, I told her the relatively simple, humble story of how I’d met Jonathan
when I was twenty-six and in my first job out of uni, because I’d been a mature
student, and he’d come to do the annual audit at my work. I told her how all
the women in the client service department had fancied the pants off him, and
how elated I’d been when it was me he emailed a week later to invite out for a drink.

“I
didn’t think I was even in the market for a relationship,” I said. “But there
was this whole rivalry thing going on between the other girls, and when I got
that email I was suddenly the queen of the department for a day. So I couldn’t
say no. And then he was so lovely, and made me laugh so much. And then I went
out with him again a couple of times, and suddenly we were an item, and then we
moved in together and a bit later he proposed and I said yes, and we had this
amazing wedding and two years later we had Darcey.”

I
paused for breath and ate another biscuit.

“You
must feel very lucky,” Zé said, but the way she said it made it a question.

“Oh,
yes, I do!” I said. “I love him to bits. I love my children. I’m very lucky. I
never expected to have all this.”

“Why
not, Laura?” Zé said. “You’re exactly the kind of woman who has all this – all
that. Look at you. You’re so pretty, and you’re kind and bright. I bet Amanda
Moss has had you over for her book group, right? They’re super-selective, they only
pick the elite.”