You Can’t Fall in Love With Your Ex (Can You?) (2 page)

I
made myself breathe slowly and evenly, in and out, in and out, and felt my
shoulders relax. We hadn’t had a row – that was good. Jonathan and I almost
never rowed, and when we did – even though we’d talk things all over calmly and
sensibly afterwards – it left me with a sense of unease that lasted days. I’d
give Jonathan my full support in his new job, I promised myself. I’d chivvy the
builders and choose paint colours and design a kitchen worthy of
Ideal Home
magazine, even though I never cook. I’d love being a stay-at-home mum. I’d take
them to museums, pantomimes and – no, not soft play. I drew the line at that.

The
crash of the door knocker startled me, and I waited anxiously for a few minutes
to check that it hadn’t woken the children. Then I stood up and padded to the
kitchen to find Jonathan.

“They
brought extra garlic naan and pickles,” he said. “I’ve no idea why, but I
didn’t say no.”

“Of
course you know why,” I said. “It’s your irresistible charm, and the fact that
you always tip outrageously.”

“Come
on – it’s not outrageous! Poor guy, having to drive around in the pissing rain
and getting paid minimum wage if he’s lucky.”

I
slid my hand up under his shirt tails, which were hanging unevenly over his
belt, stroking the smooth skin of his waist.

“Not
outrageous at all,” I said.

“God,
Laura, your hands are freezing.” He pressed my fingers between his warm, dry
palms, then lifted them and kissed my wrists, his lips running gently down
towards my elbows.

“Let’s
eat,” he said. “Then let’s go to bed.”

Later,
as I lay next to my husband’s warm, sleeping body, I became conscious of an
unwelcome and lingering sensation that wasn’t just indigestion from the curry.
I felt as if I’d somehow been out-manoeuvred, manipulated by circumstances into
a place where I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to be.

“Is
your daughter the new little girl who started in Delphine’s class last week?” a
woman asked, falling into step next to me as I walked away from the classroom
where I’d left Darcey.

To
be honest, I felt more like the new girl than my daughter seemed to. She set
off each morning full of excitement about her day at school, while I dreaded
the curious stares the other mums directed at me from beneath their
immaculately shaped eyebrows.

Most
of them seemed to dress for the school run as if it were a significant social
event, requiring full make-up, swishy blow-dries and high heels. And even among
this glossy gaggle, this woman and her friends stood out – there was their
uniform of skinny jeans, cashmere jumpers and Mulberry handbags. There was the
way they chatted to one another, slightly too loudly, then suddenly very
quietly again, with outbursts of laughter. There was the way the other women
looked at them with a mixture of resentment and envy. In my leggings and
T-shirt, which, I noticed with shame, was smeared with banana from Owen’s
breakfast, I felt shabby and inadequate.

“That’s
right,” I said. “I’m Laura Payne. We’ve just moved here from Ealing.”

“Amanda
Moss.” She offered a perfectly manicured hand for me to shake. “Settling in all
right?”

“I
think so. The house renovation was a nightmare, but it’s great to be in at
last.”

“Oh
– so it was you who bought twenty-three Millhouse Road,” she said. There was a
subtle change in her manner – a hint of respect that hadn’t been there before.
“Congratulations! I heard there was a massive bidding war.”

“Not
really,” I said, knowing she was itching for me to tell her how much we’d paid.
“There might have been a couple of other offers. I can’t quite remember.”

“On
your way to work now, then?” she asked, with a slightly pointed glance at my
shabby attire.

“I’m
not working at the moment,” I said. “I’ve been a housewife for the past few
months. Literally – it’s felt like I’ve been married to the place. I’ve
certainly spent more time with the builders than with my husband.”

“And
what does he do? Your hubby, I mean?”

I
told her, and she gave the smallest of nods, as if I’d passed some sort of
test.

“You’ll
be wanting to get to know people in the area, of course,” she said. “Why not
come along to our book group? It’s just a small group of mums who meet at each
other’s houses, read a different book every month and have something to eat and
a few drinkies. It’ll help you to get to know people.”

This
was my moment, I realised – my chance to break into the school gate A-list.
Somehow, I didn’t feel as honoured at the prospect as I was clearly expected
to, but, put on the spot, I couldn’t come up with an excuse that was even
vaguely plausible. Anyway, Amanda was right, I supposed, I did need to get to
know the mothers of the friends Darcey would hopefully make, now that she’d
been torn away from her old school and the fledgling network of party inviters
and play-date havers we’d begun to develop there.

And
my own social circle was limited, to say the least. When I was working, I’d
occasionally go to the pub with my colleagues, but more often than not I’d have
to bow out because Jonathan was working. The few women I’d met through NCT
classes and nursery were the parents of my children’s friends, not my own.
Apart from Sadie, who rang for a chat once a week.

Sadie’s
eleven years older than me, and although my mother never said as much, I’m
pretty sure she and Dad had intended to stop at one child. By the time I came
along, their marriage was a bit like the Cold War – complex negotiations
followed by long silences, and the threat hanging over us all the time that it
could all go bang.

Sadie,
understandably, left home as soon as she finished school, and soon after that
she met Gareth, and the two of them have lived in happy chaos on their
smallholding in the Cotswolds ever since, surrounded by chickens, ducks, horses
and an assortment of cats and dogs.

When
I was eleven I went off to boarding school, and I suppose Mum saw that as her
chance to escape, so escape she did – all the way to Seattle with her new
husband. I spent my summer holidays there for a couple of years, then put my
foot down and started spending them with Sadie and Gareth instead. And when I
was fifteen, Dad was killed in a car accident.

So
it was Sadie who gave me away at my wedding. She was the first person I texted
when Darcey was born. Both our kids adore her, and she adores them, even though
she and Gareth have remained happily child-free. And it’s her I blame for Darcey’s
obsession with horses – terrifying death traps on legs, as far as I’m
concerned. She’s my family, and I suppose my closest friend. I missed having a
best friend, in some ways – but I’d learned the hard way to keep women at arm’s
length.

Three
days later, I found myself lying on Owen’s bed, holding a book up above my head
and getting cramp in my arms. It was the only way to read whilst lying, prone
and immobile, next to my son. I’d hoped to flick through the final chapters
after I’d read Owen his bedtime story, but he was having none of it, insisting,
“No, Mummy, stay with me!” when I tried to sneak out.

So
here I was, hoping that Owen would fall asleep before the final page, so I
could make my escape and not be late. Stealthily, I leaned over and brushed a
kiss on to his cheek, but he didn’t move. Silently, hardly daring to breathe, I
sat up, swung my bare feet on to the sheepskin rug, and crept silently out.

“It’s
nearly your bedtime, too,” I told Darcey, who was slumped on the sofa,
transfixed by Charlie and Lola. “Daddy’s going to be home soon, and he’ll do
your teeth and your story, okay?”

“Mmm,”
she said, her eyes not leaving the screen.

I
flopped down next to her and skimmed the last few pages of the book at
lightning speed, in contrast to the meticulous, note-taking attention I’d paid
to the first chapter. It had been ages since I’d read anything more challenging
than Julia Donaldson’s latest opus, and to be totally honest I was finding this
hard going. Even at the best of times, the plight of unmarried mothers in a
Liverpool slum in the 1930s wouldn’t have been my thing, and I’d had to fit in
the final chapters in between the children’s supper and baths.

I
dragged a comb through my hair, wound a scarf round my neck and put my coat on,
then hovered by the front door, resisting the urge to hop from foot to foot
like Usain Bolt on the start line. Where was Jonathan? He’d promised he’d be
home early so I could embark punctually on my debut into Clapham society. I
took a bottle of white burgundy from the fridge and stuffed it into a carrier
bag along with my copy of
The Hard Road Home
. If Jonathan wasn’t home,
like, five minutes ago, I’d be late, and my standing with the mummy elite would
be in jeopardy.

“Mummy!”
Owen called from upstairs.

Shit.
I thought he was asleep. I waited, holding my breath, to see if he’d call
again.

“Mummy,
I need to wee.”

“Hold
on, darling,” I said, just as I heard Jonathan’s key in the door. “Here’s
Daddy. You need to take Owen to the loo, like, now. I’ll be back around eleven,
I expect. Love you.”

I
kissed him and raced out of the door, fumbling my phone out of my bag and
launching the map app to guide me to Amanda’s house.

“Glad
you could make it,” she said, quarter of an hour later. “We thought you’d
abandoned us, didn’t we, ladies?”

“Hi,”
I said, waving feebly at the eight women assembled round the table in Amanda’s
palatial kitchen. I glanced around, taking in the framed artwork on the walls,
clearly produced by her children but far superior to Darcey’s daubs and Owen’s
scribbles, the well-stocked wine fridge, the artfully mismatched chairs and the
expanse of cream gloss units, miraculously free of sticky fingerprints. And
where the hell was the clutter? There were no toys, no scooters, no discarded
parkas or muddy wellies. Presumably Amanda had a playroom, a cleaner or most
likely both.

“Everyone,
this is Laura,” Amanda said. “Her little girl, Darcey, has just started in
Delphine’s class. This is Monica, Carrie, Faith, Helen, Jo, Kate, Sigourney,
and another Helen.”

“Hi,”
I said, smiling and wiping my slightly sweaty palms on the leg of my jeans,
relieved that no one appeared to want to shake hands and wondering how I was
ever going to be able to distinguish one expertly contoured face from the next.

I
sat on the empty chair between – I think – Kate and Jo, and accepted a glass of
wine.

“So,
as I was saying,” one of them – it may have been Monica – said, “I went
upstairs last night and found Xavier halfway through
The Once and Future
King
. Totally unsuitable for a seven-year-old, but I do think it’s
different when it’s a classic, don’t you? He’s so advanced for his age, I
sometimes wonder how we ended up with such a bright child. I’m certainly no
genius and Simon might be a merchant banker but he can barely write his own
name.”

There
was a ripple of tinkly laughter around the table.

“With
Millicent it’s maths,” said one of the other women. Faith? Or one of the
Helens? “She’s only five, but she made me explain fractions to her this
afternoon. She says what they’re doing in class is so boring. She’s already
doing long division. I had to download a tutorial online to work through with
her because I’d completely forgotten how it worked.”

“I
always feel that social skills are so important at that age,” said Amanda. “Although
Delphine’s diary is already far busier than mine! She’s got three birthday
parties on Saturday – I have no idea how we’re going to fit everything in when
she’s older and her friendship group gets even larger. She has such a wonderful
ability to get along with people from other age groups and walks of life – she
says her best friend is the lady we take out to tea sometimes, who we met
through Age UK. Such a wonderful woman – the stories she tells about her
childhood in Barbados are just fascinating.”

“And
tell us about your children, Laura,” said Monica.

“Errr…”
I’d been too busy working my way through the stipulated reading material to
prepare a detailed script of humble – or not so humble – brags about them.
“Darcey’s five. She likes dressing up as Elsa, and ponies, and tormenting her
brother. Owen’s nearly three, and he’s an adorable little squidge when he’s not
tantrumming the place down or shoving things up his nose.”

There
was a pause. I felt like I was on
Pointless
and the answer I’d just given
had elicited a big red X on the screen. But there was no “Awww” of sympathy
from this audience.

“I’m
concerned that school might be putting too much pressure on Millicent,” Faith
went on. “She’s been working with a higher year group for maths for a few months
now, and although she’s thriving academically I worry that the other children
might resent the fact that she’s so bright. When you have a child who’s truly
exceptional, it’s so hard to know where to strike the balance between their
relationship with their peer group and one’s duty to make sure they fulfil
their potential. But then I look at Warren, who went up to Cambridge when he
was sixteen, and I think, being that little bit stretched doesn’t seem to have
done her daddy any harm, so perhaps it’s the right thing for her, too.”