The Time of Our Lives (40 page)

‘Wow. So there’s time for you yet,’ I tease.

He goes to say something, then stops himself. We both carry on walking.

‘So with this boyfriend on the scene, do you feel like you’re no longer needed?’ I ask.

‘She didn’t put it quite so bluntly, but that seems to be the upshot.’

‘And how do you feel about that?’

‘Obviously, part of me feels a bit odd about reversing the whole plan and staying in London just because some new bloke is on the scene. But, as you’d probably guessed, I never
wanted to leave London anyway, and she’s absolutely determined that life’s just grand back home without the benefit of me around the corner.’ He stops walking and turns to me
again. ‘Imogen, I don’t want anything from you that you’re not ready for. Except perhaps this.’ I realise I’m holding my breath. ‘I’d like to get to know
you.’

A smile twitches to my lips. ‘You would?’

He nods. ‘What do you think?’

I can barely process the implications of all this; I simply blurt out what instinctively I know to be the case. ‘I think I’d like to get to know you too. Very much.’

At that, he reaches round my neck and draws his face closer to mine. As our lips touch, happiness races through me.

I have no idea where this thing between him and me might go – it feels horribly and beautifully risky, and I’m completely out of my comfort zone. But there’s one thing I do
know: for the first time in as long as I can remember, I’m ready to find out.

Sunday, 1 September 2012

I’m laying out Florence’s school uniform in her room and trying to stop Spud from leaping onto her bed when David phones.

‘Are we all fired up and ready to go?’

‘Absolutely. Parents have to stay for an hour after the official school start tomorrow, then I’ve got a cab booked to bring me straight to the door of the office. If my
timing’s right, I should be there ten or twelve minutes into your presentation.’

‘I didn’t mean the presentation. I meant Florence’s first day at school. Big day for anyone – I remember it myself. Golly McMolly, I was nervous. Near-enough incontinent
for a week as I recall . . .’

David and I run through the final details of his presentation, as well as the schedule for tomorrow. He manages to hold it together, at least enough to keep up appearances.

‘It sounds like we’re all on top of things,’ he concludes. ‘So I’ll see you tomorrow, shall I?’

‘Yes, see you then. And, David . . . are you okay?’

For the first week after Carmen officially kicked him out, David slept on an old school friend’s sofa, until his wife, quite reasonably, decided she wanted the sofa back. So he checked
into a hotel round the corner from work, where he lives an Alan Partridgesque existence in which his only distractions are collecting miniature soaps and pressing his trousers in the Corby
3000.

The tremble in his voice says more than his words. ‘Been better, I’ll be honest.’

‘Is Carmen still not returning your calls?’

‘Not one. The only person who’s phoned is Lydia.’

‘Oh, well, that’s something.’

‘It was to tell me she hates me.’

‘Oh.’

‘And that Carmen slept with a paparazzo.’

‘Oh, dear.’

‘It was one of the ones camped outside our house. According to Lydia, she gave him an exclusive – and then carried on giving. They all blame me. And they’re obviously
right.’

When I’ve finished on the phone, I pack a picnic and Florence and I jump on the Tube. We emerge from Hyde Park Corner into brilliant sunshine and walk towards the Serpentine with her hand
in mine.

I’ve deliberately arrived an hour before everyone else to do something with my daughter that I’ve been meaning to do for ages.

I’m aware that the pedalos on offer would be more practical for a woman with as little nautical expertise as me, but I want to do this properly. So I opt for a little blue rowing boat, one
bigger than we really need but which is perfect for our purposes.

I pay the man at the side of the lake and he helps Florence in, leaving me to an ungainly boarding in which I almost capsize the lot of us.

It takes about forty of our allocated sixty minutes before I’m significantly proficient with the oars to propel us further than six feet, but Florence doesn’t seem to mind: every
time I come close to dropping the oar or crashing into a pedalo, she collapses into fits of giggles. Eventually I rest the oars in the boat and allow my shoulders to absorb the sunshine.

‘This is what your daddy used to do with his granddad when he was a little boy,’ I tell her.

‘On this lake?’

‘No, in Italy. Your daddy loved it. He wanted to do it with you.’

She smiles. ‘Then he’ll be happy up in heaven that I’m having a go.’ She says this entirely matter of factly, but the thought makes my eyes hot.

‘There’s no doubt about it,’ I reply. ‘He’ll be extremely proud of you. And he’ll be watching over you tomorrow when you go to school for the first time. His
big girl.’

When we’ve finished in the boat, we lay out our picnic blanket at the edge of the lake as we wait for the others to arrive, my stomach rippling with nerves.

It’s Nathan I spot first, with Adam in one of those baby rucksacks as he swings Meredith’s hand, a beaming smile on his face. As they approach, it strikes me how unfeasibly glamorous
she looks considering Adam is apparently awake for half the night.

‘Oh, the night time thing’s fine,’ she tells me. ‘I just wake up to breastfeed him then go back to sleep while Nathan does his nappy and burps him. We’re a pretty
good team, aren’t we?’ She grins as Nathan kisses her on the cheek looking, I can’t help but notice, significantly more exhausted than his girlfriend.

Nathan carefully removes Adam’s pudgy pink legs from the rucksack and the baby’s eyes briefly flutter open. It strikes me how much he’s grown in the seven weeks since he was
born. He didn’t stay in hospital for long; he thrived right from the beginning, and the doctors seem confident that his prematurity won’t affect him in the long term.

‘How’s your mum after the accident?’ asks Nathan.

‘A lot better, thanks. And Florence has promised
never
to run across the road again, haven’t you?’ I throw her a meaningful look, which she tries to ignore.

‘When’s your friend getting here, Mummy?’ she asks instead.

Meredith suppresses a smile.

‘Soon,’ I reply. ‘He had to work today but he’s finishing early to come and meet you.’

‘He’s your boyfriend, isn’t he?’ Florence says, clearly fancying herself as a junior sleuth. ‘Do you think you’ll get married?’

I rustle around in the picnic bag and find a sausage roll to put in her mouth.

‘What a shame Nicola isn’t here too,’ Meredith says. ‘It’d be like a Barcelona reunion.’

Nathan turns to me. ‘Did you manage to enjoy your holiday? It sounded quite eventful – for all of you.’

‘Well, yes. We still had the time of our lives, though,’ I reassure Meredith. ‘I’ve no doubt Nicola will say the same when I go and see her next week. We’re going
over to her mum’s for a barbeque on the Saturday. And so’s Jess, apparently.’

She clears her throat with zero subtlety and I look up to see Harry approaching us.

He has a present for Florence under his arm. I’d told him he didn’t need to buy her something, but he insisted that he was prepared to try every cheap trick in the book to make sure
this went smoothly. I was happy to concur, although I drew the line at the pink hoover.

My pulse quickens as I glance from him to Florence and a series of anxious questions flutter across my brain.

Will she like him?

Will he like her?

Should I have left this introduction a little while longer?

It’s the last thought that’s thudding in my head when Meredith leaps up and removes her sunglasses. ‘Well, look who it is!’ she says, grinning as she gives him a
flamboyant hug. She then introduces him to Nathan and Adam who, technically, she says, Harry’s already met after, as she delicately puts it, she’d ‘squeezed him out in the back of
the limo’.

Eventually, Harry turns to look at me and Florence, who’s been scrutinising him silently. He smiles and kneels down, kissing me on the cheek self-consciously enough to make me realise
he’s nervous too. As he pulls back, he turns to my daughter. ‘You must be Florence. I’m Harry. And this is for you.’

He hands her the present and she gasps. ‘THANK YOU!’ Then, ‘You know what,’ she continues, ripping off paper and barely pausing for breath. ‘I think my mummy loves
you.’

He catches my eye and I stifle a smile.

Because I think she might be right.

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