Year of Being Single (7 page)

Rob looked flabbergasted. ‘You choose this life; you
chose
to be a mum and housewife!’

‘I didn’t choose to be a baby-making slave! We were supposed to be a
team
. But we haven’t been, have we? Not at all. I may as well have been a single mum!’ An indignant, Ready Brek glow was turning her face all red, but she didn’t care. ‘So now I’m going to
be
one. And…and how dare you use a word like “housewife”!’ She spat it, with scorn, as though it were the worst insult he could throw at her. ‘Nice little housewife? That really says everything I need to know.’

‘What’s wrong with the word housewife?’ Rob asked, in all innocence, and she could have killed him. ‘You really are losing the plot, Frankie! You’re a nutter.’ He shook his head, as though she were an errant child who needed a nice sit down with a drink and a biscuit. Then his voice softened. Oh, here it comes, she thought. ‘Perhaps you just need time,’ he said. ‘Some headspace. More chill-out time.’

What on earth? This wasn’t 1990, the Second Summer of bloody Love! It had been one of his favourite eras. Did he think she just had to put on some Happy Mondays and sit in a field with a load of people waving glow sticks and she’d be fine?

‘You used to be such a laugh,’ he said. She had been, she knew. They’d
both
been such a laugh. Had such a laugh. He still was, probably. Except now he laughed on his own.

‘Maybe I don’t find anything funny any more.’

‘No.’ He grimaced. Yes, it was an actual grimace. He hates me almost as much as I hate him, she thought. ‘Maybe you’ll let me come home when you come to your senses.’

She shut the door on him. ‘Maybe I already have.’

Chapter Six: Grace

‘Happy Valentine’s Day!’

‘Happy Valentine’s Day!’

The women clinked their glasses together.

‘Pretty good way to spend it,’ said Imogen. ‘Better than being knee to knee with fifty other couples at a restaurant, all paying over the odds for beef in a pink sauce and heart-shaped cheesecake!’

‘Oh absolutely!’ declared Frankie. ‘Or sitting at home staring at your joke Valentine’s card, which depicts you as a cartoon harridan in curlers, and wondering where it all went wrong.’

Grace smiled and nodded but she didn’t share their sentiments. She was not relieved to be single on Valentine’s Day. She was not happy to be out with the girls instead of at home in the warm with James, a huge bouquet of flowers in the silver crackle vase on the sideboard, a card professing his undying and everlasting love on the mantelpiece and a Marks and Spencer’s Meal Deal for two on the coffee table in front of them. He would have run her a bath with candles and Jo Malone; she would be in a perfect dress and heels and ready for a kiss. It was always perfect. She would have done anything to be stuffed in a restaurant with loads of other couples, even if most weren’t speaking to each other. She would have done anything to just have her nice husband back – the one who hadn’t yet cheated – but he was now doing lovely Valentine’s stuff with another woman.

She’d had to be dragged out. Imogen had popped round the other night and told her that as Valentine’s Day was on a Friday this year, they should have a girls’ night on the town. Stuff all the happy couples and all the saccharine rubbish, she’d said, they should celebrate being single and fabulous. Grace had muttered something non-committal about it sounding lovely, but hadn’t planned on actually going. She didn’t want to celebrate being single; she hated it. She missed having a man and missed being in a relationship. But Frankie and Imogen had her sussed and had turned up at six o’clock tonight, in their going-out finery and a bottle of plonk, and had practically pushed her out the door.

Now here she was, in a bar festooned with red balloons, while a DJ played a souped-up version of ‘Love is in the Air’ and a load of singles who had no one to go with dinner with pretended they were about to enjoy themselves.

‘Well done, girls,’ said Imogen. ‘One month single! And it’s been a walk in the park, hasn’t it? I’ve absolutely loved it,’ she sighed happily.

‘Hear hear,’ said a grinning Frankie. ‘It’s been
bliss
.’

Grace grinned too but she wasn’t feeling it. All she could think about was James in a nice shirt, feeding her a mouthful of M & S scallops over a flickering vanilla flame and some Norah Jones. She couldn’t bear it.

‘Right,’ said Imogen, taking a large sip of her bubbly. ‘Remember what I said. We’re implementing a Don’t Talk to Men rule. The first rule is, if a man approaches and tries to talk to you, you do not respond. You turn your back if you have to. Got it?’

‘Got it!’ said Frankie.

‘Grace?’

‘Yep,’ said Grace miserably.

‘The second rule is, we all help each other to enforce the rule. The third rule is, if a
group
of men approach, we deflect them en masse and send them on their way. If we’re going to be single for a year, we have to be serious about this. Clear?’

‘Clear!’ shouted Frankie, as though she were doing CPR in an episode of
ER
.

‘Yay,’ said Grace, weakly.

‘Come on, Grace,’ entreated Imogen. ‘Get with the programme! We don’t
want
men, remember? We’re going to be single for a year and
love
it!’

‘Okay, yeah!’ said Grace and punched the air in a salute. She knew Imogen would only keep going on if she didn’t swear her allegiance to the cause. Frankie grabbed her raised fist and shook it triumphantly.

‘Good girl!’

‘Yes, that’s my girl!’ said Imogen. She made them chink their glasses again and down their drinks in one.

It was quite funny at first, when the men were bald and ugly idiots with not an ounce of charm between them. It was easy to send them packing. A man would approach. He’d be ignored or told to go away and he’d
go
away. It was no loss to anyone. Certainly not to Grace. Then a really gorgeous man started looking at her from across the bar.

Tall. Dark blond hair. Lovely eyes. Nice white shirt. She looked back; he looked back. He looked over; she looked over. Eventually, he walked across to them. He stood directly behind Grace and tapped her lightly on the shoulder. Imogen, like a hawk, spotted his hand and slapped it down.

He scowled at Imogen but was undeterred. He tapped Grace on the shoulder again and said, ‘All right?’

‘Hello,’ Grace said, smiling at him.

‘We’re not talking to men,’ said Imogen, cutting in and planting her face in front of his. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to bog off.’ This man was obviously not used to such treatment. He cocked his head to one side in amusement and apparent disbelief then pulled at Grace’s arm, trying to get her out of the circle. Imogen had to step it up.

‘She’s not interested. Crawl back to your hole, there’s a love.’

His face was a picture. It was not a picture Grace liked.

‘Lesbians!’ he said, shaking his head at Grace as if to say, ‘Your loss’, then he walked back to his mates, in a bowling gait he hadn’t employed on the way over. She saw him laughing with his friends and immediately scouring the bar for fresh prey; he wouldn’t be wasting any more time.

Grace plastered a bright smile on her face.

‘Thanks, Imogen,’ she said, but internally she sighed a deep, highly disappointed sigh. She was gutted. Okay, he was a bit of a wally saying that about lesbians, but he was
gorgeous
. And just her type. Tall, dirty blond hair, a naughty grin. How unfair!

She tried to tell herself Imogen was right to dismiss him so smartly. That he was a man and it could only end in disaster. What would be the ultimate best that could happen? He would be wonderful, they would date, fall in love, he would ask her to marry him, then, eventually, he would cheat on her… Still, she wished Imogen hadn’t.

No other man dared approach. After plenty of vodkas had been consumed and they hit the dance floor, they were a ring of steel. Many a man tried to infiltrate and many a man was repelled; Imogen had somehow acquired the dual superhero powers of elbows of titanium and a threatening stiletto heel. Frankie once laughingly tried to have a little boogie with an eager young pup in a suede jacket but he was shot down in flames.

‘It’s only a laugh!’ shouted Frankie.

‘Never give in! Never surrender,’ Imogen yelled back, over Calvin Harris. And she was almost unbearable when Beyoncé’s ‘Single Ladies’ came on – wagging her finger, wiggling her backside, giving it all that. Grace just went along with it. Imogen
was
right, though, she thought, looking round the packed dance floor. These men
were
all no-hopers: men who hadn’t got a valentine either, who were out on the prowl, on the pull, to see who they could get. She still
hated
being single, though.

‘Can I get you a drink?’ a man suddenly said, from her right. He was young. White T-shirt. Floppy hair. Killer smile.

‘No, thank you.’

‘Why not, gorgeous?’

‘I’m not interested.’

He laughed. ‘I’m not used to women saying “no” to me.’

‘Well one is now.’

He shook his head, still laughing. ‘I suppose a shag’s out of the question then?’

‘Please go away.’

And he was gone, with that killer smile and a shrug, moving on to try someone else.

Her hangover wasn’t too bad. Daniel was at James’s this weekend so she didn’t have the full-on Saturday packed with activities she now did to make up for the weekends she missed with him. She’d spend the day watching trash TV and nibbling on things.

It was 8p.m. Grace poured herself a glass of wine – a little hair of a small dog would help no end – and got down the laptop from the bookshelf. She popped some Adele on the music system, stretched her legs out in front of her and placed the laptop on top of them. Time for some mindless surfing.

She flicked through this and that. Fashion blogs. ASOS. Facebook. Ugh. Why had she opened Facebook? She hated it. It was a mocking reminder of the life she thought she had.

Before James had gone, she’d been one of those smug, show-offy Facebook mums, constantly sharing photos and happy news with her one hundred and four friends, mostly other mums from Daniel’s posh school. She’d post photos of the three of them on days out, on holiday or at home in the garden, on idyllic weekends. She’d share photos of meals they’d had in restaurants or ones that James had cooked. He was quite an accomplished husband, when he was one; there had been lots of pictures of him smiling proudly over a plate of tuna steaks and chunky chips, piled in a Jenga grid, like they’d seen on the telly.

Daniel’s achievements had also featured prominently in her Facebook photos. Daniel in his Taekwondo outfit, doing a high kick or whatever it was called; Daniel with a fish he’d caught at Hanningfield Reservoir; Daniel at sports day. She’d even posted nauseating photos of her and James with corny captions such as ‘My best friend, my soulmate, my everything,’ while she grinned cheesily and he smiled that lazy, sexy smile of his. Sometimes, to her now extreme horror, she’d even said she felt ‘blessed’.

In the post-James days, she posted nothing on Facebook. Nothing at all. She just scrolled through other people’s stuff, getting angry.

Family life was gone. It was no longer to be celebrated. And, despite opportunities to temporarily drown her sorrows with her friends, the weekends without Daniel were awful. James was making sure of it.

He was purposely unreliable with pick-ups and drop-offs. The very first weekend he’d had Daniel, he’d been two hours late picking him up on the Saturday. Then on the Sunday he’d, without notice, brought Daniel back three hours early, which hadn’t given her enough time to get rid of the hangover from that girls’ night in at Imogen’s. She’d hated greeting them both at the door with a still-puffy face and unwashed, dandelion-clock hair.

She remembered that, despite his premature arrival and the fact she may have still smelled a little bit boozy, she’d fallen on Daniel in relief. Her boy – she’d missed him. Daniel had looked mildly horrified, shrugged her off and bounded upstairs to his Xbox, leaving James on the doorstep, attempting to give his famous grin as an apology. She’d ignored it. She’d quite enjoyed throwing him a curt ‘goodbye’ and shutting the door in his face.

Later, she’d asked Daniel how it had gone.

‘Fine,’ he’d said, giving all the usual detail boys of ten like to give.

‘What did you do?’ asked Grace.

‘Not a lot. FIFA 15 and we got a takeaway.’ Informative. She didn’t dare ask if Daniel had met ‘that woman’. She’d made James promise that when he had their son he wouldn’t see her, but who knows? He could have bribed Daniel not to say anything. She’d rifled through Daniel’s rucksack for new Match Attax cards but found nothing.

Her ex’s timekeeping had remained purposefully awry since. Just to wind her up. Grace sighed, re-adjusted the laptop to a more comfortable position and sipped her wine. She’d probably get the same tomorrow, when James was due to bring Daniel back. Oh, so much to look forward to.

Work had been a nightmare as well. Gideon had been
horrible
.

When she’d heard, just before her job interview, that the owner of Hats! hat shop was gay, she wasn’t expecting a camp, gossipy and ‘fabulous daaarhling’ cross between Gok Wan and Jack from
Will and Grace
, but
she hoped, if she got the job of course, they’d get on well and have a laugh together – she’d always wanted a gay best friend. Grace got the job, but unfortunately, Gideon disappointed: he was sour, dour and grumpy and totally lacking in charm. Grace often thought he was in the wrong trade: he would tell a woman she looked downright awful in a hat and he swore too much in front of the customers and not in a manner that was remotely hilarious… She still remembered the faces of three rather genteel-looking women when Gideon had emerged from the stock room one time, a cardboard box in his arms, and had announced in an over-loud voice, ‘Oh, pissing hell, isn’t life all such a fucking
drain
.’

Still, his bluntness was, in a strange way, very good for business. Women left his shop in exactly the right hat, often a complete departure from the one they came in for. If something suited them, he made sure they had it. And the hats were gorgeous, so that helped.