Nine Uses For An Ex-Boyfriend (12 page)

‘You only met her once,’ Hope reminded Elaine, and again she wondered why in all her rage at Jack, she still couldn’t manage more than annoyance at Susie’s actions. OK, she didn’t want to go down the same slut-shaming road as Lauren and Allison, but it took two people to drunkenly snog, so really Susie deserved just as much fury as Jack.

‘She has a very unfortunate manner,’ Elaine said, frowning like she was picturing the time that she’d bumped into Hope and Susie in Wagamama’s in Camden, and Susie hadn’t looked up from her BlackBerry but had just waved vaguely in Elaine’s direction. Then when she had finally finished tweeting, she’d told a very off-colour joke about the Japanese-style fish rolls. ‘Yes, she’s funny and glamorous and she has a way with her, but I got the impression that there wasn’t much to her. All surface, no depth.’

There hadn’t been so much as an apologetic text message from Susie, and though she knew that she shouldn’t, Hope missed her. Yes, despite the wickedness Susie had wrought, when you spoke to someone at least three times a day, constantly had texts and tweets winging back and forth, and shared pictures of animals in freaky outfits on Facebook, to have them suddenly gone from your life left a huge aching gap that felt as if it could never be filled. Talking of which …

‘I need to get over myself, don’t I?’ Hope asked tentatively, because even Lauren and Allison had told her that she only had a week’s cooling-off period before she had to let it go once and for all. ‘I mean, it was just one measly kiss. Jack swore on all his Beatles vinyl that it was nothing more than that.’

‘You’ve been going out since you were five, right?’

‘Well, since I was thirteen, but I’ve known him all my life.’

Elaine nodded. ‘And this is his first misdemeanour?’

‘Yeah, apart from the big fight in Barcelona about not getting engaged and the usual minor domestic squabbles. Like, he always yells at me for leaving the fridge door open for longer than ten seconds at a time, and he always breaks into my chocolate stash so that when I go to get an emergency bag of Maltesers, they’re all gone. Oh God, and there was this one time that he used an entire tub of my really expensive cleanser to get acrylic paint off his hands. I could have killed him.’ Even as she recited this list of Jack’s crimes, it occurred to Hope that it was a very short list, and that apart from his recent infidelity, Jack had always been an exemplary boyfriend. ‘And he has been really, really sweet the last couple of days,’ Hope added. ‘Or at least on his very best behaviour.’

It was true. He’d surprised her with breakfast in bed that morning, even though he’d had to get up before eight to present her with two pieces of toast and jam and the least
brown
banana from the fruit bowl. And he’d come home on Monday night with a huge bouquet of flowers and goodies purloined from the
Skirt
beauty cupboard – it didn’t erase the memory of him and Susie, but he was trying to make things all right again.

‘Sometimes relationships go through these patches when they’re more about tolerating someone and putting up with all their annoying habits,’ Elaine mused. ‘Other times, the magic and the romance comes back, even though you hadn’t even noticed they were missing. When Simon was in the band, he’d disappear off in a transit van for weeks on end,
and
he wore leather trousers, for God’s sake.’

‘You think he had groupies?’

‘I think that I wasn’t sitting at home twiddling my thumbs waiting for him to call me from the Newport Pagnell services. If he was out having a good time, then I was going to make bloody sure that I was too,’ Elaine said with a rueful smile. ‘Which didn’t mean I stopped loving him or he stopped loving me, but our relationship went through a phase. A phase when we shagged other people.’

‘But you’re all right now, though? ‘Cause you’ve talked it through and …’

‘… and he got dropped by his label and stopped touring,’ Elaine corrected. ‘We had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which worked for us then, but now, if he even thought of getting his leg over some other woman, he’d be walking funny for the rest of his life.’

‘I should probably give Jack a break,’ Hope decided, but she wished that she didn’t sound so uncertain. ‘I mean, I think we’ll be OK, and maybe we needed this to happen to show us that we both need to put a bit more time and effort into our relationship.’ Even as she said it, Hope wondered why relationships needed time and effort like lesson plans and redecorating the kitchen, which they’d been talking about ever since they’d bought the flat, but hadn’t got much further than picking up paint charts.

‘The course of true love never runs smooth, dearie,’ Elaine said, picking up the wine bottle and glaring at it as if its emptiness was a deliberate act of wilful behaviour. ‘Or love conquers all. Take your pick. I mean, you do love Jack, don’t you?’

‘Of course I love him. I don’t even want to think about what my life would be like without him,’ Hope said immediately, and there was no need for Elaine to be giving her the same funny look that she gave Dorothy when she was banging on about STPCDs, SIDPs, PPAs and the many other acronyms that littered her conversation, most of which Elaine and Hope didn’t understand. ‘So, that’s good, right?’

‘Of course it’s good. And it can’t do any harm to buy some new underwear.’ Elaine paused delicately, then lowered her voice. ‘Nothing crotchless or nippleless though, you wouldn’t believe the chafing.’

‘Eeewww!’ Hope squealed, even as she made a mental note to pop into M&S on the way home. Mopey, self-pitying alone-time was one thing, but maybe they should be having more sexy together-time. Her mind made up, she hauled herself to her feet. ‘I need to get going.’

‘To the bar?’ Elaine asked hopefully, holding up the ice bucket. ‘Same again?’

‘No, I need to buy tasteful but sexy underwear and get something nice for Jack’s tea. Are Marks still doing those dine-in-for-a-tenner promotions?’

‘But it’s early! It’s not even five, and these are our last precious moments of freedom until half-term,’ Elaine protested. ‘Have one more for the road. One as in bottle, not glass, in case you were wondering.’

Hope wavered. If she glugged down half a bottle of rosé in record time, she could still get to Marks and be at home in her new fancy undies with the smell of something delicious wafting from the oven by the time Jack got back from work. ‘Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter too much if I have a tiny little hangover tomorrow.’

‘Exactly! By the time they’ve written their names on their folders and told you what they did in the summer holidays, it’ll be time to go home,’ Elaine said, because she was a terrible enabler – almost as bad as Susie had been, but no, Hope wasn’t going to think about Susie any more.

‘I suppose another bottle wouldn’t hurt.’ Hope fished in her handbag for her polka-dot purse. ‘But we have to drink it really quickly and we have to ask Marta to join us. She looks like she’s about to burst into tears.’

‘Oh, she does. Poor little thing.’ Elaine sighed. ‘Bring her over on your way back from the bar, and I’ll also have a bag of salt and vinegar crisps if you’re buying.’

THREE HOURS LATER
, still damp from a hasty shower, Hope shoved the Ginger, Lime and Coriander Chicken in the oven, with the hasselback potatoes on the lower shelf. She had been planning to get a salad to accompany the main course but as the meal deal included a bottle of wine and a pudding, a salad seemed a lot like shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted.

Tomorrow, once the children were back at school and she could settle into a proper routine, Hope vowed to start eating healthily again and go to the gym regularly to lose the ten pounds she’d put on over the summer. As it was, she’d looked so lumpen in the changing-room mirror that, as well as buying a set of sexy underwear, Hope had bought a matching slip to hide her pot belly and the faint traces of cellulite cascading down the backs of her thighs. Also, starting from tomorrow, she had to stop spending huge sums of money.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow … it was time to be a grown-up again, Hope thought, as she got down the Russian tea glasses she liked to use as candle holders. They were back to eating dinner in front of the TV, but she could at least set the coffee table and establish a romantic, sexy vibe, because she and Jack, they were
so
having sex tonight. Preferably before ten, because Hope wanted an early night, but having sex would definitely get their relationship back on track.

As Hope arranged her candles on the coffee table and even re-polished the cutlery so it was especially sparkly, she could taste the fear and anticipation at the back of her throat. She couldn’t remember ever being this nervous about having sex, apart from their very first time, when she’d gone down to London to visit Jack when he was studying at St Martin’s and he’d booked a room in a sweet little bed and breakfast in Bloomsbury so it would be special and romantic.

Hope sighed a little at the memory of Jack hoisting her over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes so he could carry her over the threshold, just as she heard his key turn in the lock.

She hurried out into the hall in time to say, ‘You’re late,’ as soon as he walked through the door. She hadn’t meant to sound suspicious or a lot like the proverbial little woman worrying that the dinner would spoil, but that must have been what she sounded like because Jack’s face tightened, even as he held up a familiar green carrier bag.

‘I always make sure that I have a canvas tote scrunched up in my bag so I don’t have to pay five pence for a carrier,’ she heard herself say, instead of a husky, ‘Hard day at the office, dear?’

Jack dropped the environmentally damaging bag on the floor where something clinked promisingly. ‘God, I can’t do anything right, can I?’

It was all going wrong before Hope had even had a chance to make things right between them. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, padding forward to hug Jack, then losing her nerve at the last moment and gingerly prodding his arm instead. ‘I didn’t mean to be all confrontational as soon as you got home.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I didn’t plan on being confrontational at all.’

‘I didn’t mean to be late,’ Jack said a little less sulkily, and he looked so defeated and tired, in a way that had nothing to do with a hard day at the office and everything to do with
Hope
shutting him out while she had alone-time, then keeping him up most of the night as she fidgeted, ground her teeth and fretted. ‘I thought I’d make us something nice for tea as it’s your last few hours of freedom.’

Hope drew a circle on the sea-grass carpet with her toe. ‘I had the same idea,’ she admitted, and then she placed her hand on her cocked hip, pressed her knees tightly together and stuck her chest out in a pose that a hurried read of
Cosmo
had told her was textbook sexy. If it was, Jack didn’t seem to appreciate it, even though Hope had convinced herself that the silvery-grey of the slip was the perfect foil for her hair and made her skin look like alabaster rather than just pasty. ‘I even laid the coffee table.’

Jack brushed past her so he could glance at the sensual ambience that Hope had created. ‘You should put coasters underneath those candle glasses, otherwise they’ll burn rings on the table,’ was all he said as Hope glared at the back of his head.

‘So, what’s for tea, then?’ Jack asked, blithely unaware that Hope was giving him the stink-eye. ‘Did you get one of those M&S meal deals?’

‘Yeah,’ Hope muttered, heading back to the kitchen. Once she’d checked on dinner, she might just as well change into her PJs as the new sexy undies had been a total waste of money. ‘Some fancy lime and ginger chicken thing and hasselback potatoes, though I’m not sure how a hasselback potato differs from a normal one.’

‘Me too,’ Jack said, as he followed her. ‘Not just about the hasselback potatoes. I got the lime and ginger chicken thing too, but then I got a poncy bagged salad.’

‘I
thought
about getting the salad,’ Hope exclaimed with more enthusiasm than a salad warranted but at least they were talking, rather than her sniping and Jack getting defensive. ‘What did you get for pud?’

‘Duh! Chocolate soufflés, of course!’

Hope was already opening the fridge, so she could pull
out
her chocolate soufflés. ‘Snap! And did you get the Shiraz?’

‘I got the rosé, because I know it’s your summer drink of choice and it’s still officially summer until the hordes of snot-nosed urchins march back into school.’

‘I got the Shiraz ’cause I know you prefer red,’ Hope said, her smile unforced and genuine for the first time in ever.