You Can’t Fall in Love With Your Ex (Can You?) (20 page)

“Jesus,
Laura. Basically you’ve made scrambled egg in our u-bend. As soon as I ran hot
water through it, it cooked and solidified, and now… Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Looking
at the overflowing sink, bits of albumen swimming on its surface, I had to
admit he had a point.

“Sorry,”
I said humbly. “I didn’t know…”

“Didn’t
know what? That hot water cooks egg? God, Laura. Sometimes I wonder… Wait, I’ll
get a coathanger. If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to get a plumber in. Christ
only knows how much that will cost. As if I…”

He
stomped off upstairs. I fought back tears, and told myself not to be silly.
This was just a blip – I’d made a minor fuck-up, but it didn’t have to ruin our
evening. Resisting the urge to run upstairs after Jonathan and rally round
suggesting that one wire hanger might make a better weapon in the fight against
our eggy enemy than another, I cooked the steak, trying to preserve normality
as much as I could.

“Well,
that’s going to have to do.” Five minutes later, Jonathan was splattered to the
elbows with water and bits of congealed egg. “Our contribution to the next
fatberg news story – or rather, yours.”

He
looked at me so sourly I actually flinched.

“Darling,
I’m so sorry,” I said, cursing myself for apologising even as I did so. “But
look, the steak’s done and the chips are perfect. Have some wine, let’s eat,
and the béarnaise worked brilliantly, didn’t it, even though I blocked the
drain.”

Then
I looked back at the puddle of golden sauce I’d been so proud of, and realised
I’d left the bowl over the heat. What had been a perfect, smooth emulsion was
now a puddle of noxious vinegar in which swam yet more scrambled fucking egg.

I
stared at it in horror, feeling as if I might be about to cry. But Jonathan
burst out laughing. “Oh, Laura,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry I was
such a grouchy bastard. You tried to make something lovely for me and a tiny
thing went wrong and I was a dick about it.”

He
folded me in his arms and gave me a huge hug that soon turned into more than a
hug, and much later we ate the cold, soggy fries and overdone steak, washing it
all down with a bottle of ridiculously expensive red wine Jonathan said was a
gift from a grateful client.

When
we’d finished, I got reluctantly to my feet. “I’d better sort out the kitchen.”

“Leave
it a second, Laura,” Jonathan said. “I want to talk to you.”

I
felt a cold finger of fear run down my spine. Could it be about Felix? Had he
discovered something? But there was nothing to discover – nothing but the
shameful, persistent thoughts of him that kept pushing their way into my head.
Reluctantly, I sat down again, on the sofa this time, not on the carpet next to
Jonathan.

“Is
something wrong?” I said.

“Not
exactly,” Jonathan said. “But I was thinking, today, when you were off with
Owen and I was working…”

I
waited, but his words had dried up. “What? We had a lovely time, we just went
to the library and the park and had an ice cream.”

God,
why did I feel so horribly, obscurely guilty, as if he was about to accuse me
of something?

“I
know,” Jonathan said. “Owen told me. We hung out together a bit this afternoon,
except he kept wanting to help with work and I was worried he’d mess up my
spreadsheet so I stuck him in front of
Peppa Pig
for a quiet life.”

“I
always feel sorry for Daddy Pig,” I said. “It’s horribly sexist, don’t you
think, the way he’s portrayed as this hapless, incompetent male who gets
everything wrong around the house, and getting called fat and lazy all the
time. And Peppa’s such a precocious little madam. I’m sure she learns all those
snidey put-downs from bloody Mummy Pig. Such negative stereotyping.”

Jonathan
laughed. “You’ve clearly watched too much of it if you’re starting to analyse
its depiction of gender roles.”

“It’s
true though!” I said. “Have you seen the episode where… Anyway. I guess you
didn’t, if you were working.”

“That’s
kind of what I wanted to talk about,” Jonathan said.

“What?
Not
Peppa Pig
?”

Jonathan
reached over and stroked my bare calf. “Not Peppa bloody Pig, Laura. Although
it’s kind of apt. No, I wanted to talk about work. I was thinking today, when
you were off with Owen – I barely see the kids these days, or you. It feels
like you’re doing all the parent stuff on your own, and we… I don’t know.”

He
splashed more wine into our glasses.

“It’s
okay,” I said. “We kind of knew it was going to be like this, when you got the
promotion. It’s one of those things. I wish you were around more, obviously.
But you mustn’t worry about it. You’ve worked so hard for it – it’s what you’ve
always wanted, for as long as I’ve known you.”

I
knew I wasn’t being entirely honest. This was my chance to tell him how lonely
I felt, in the hours between the children going to bed and him getting home – and
even when they were awake. How bored I got and how resentful I sometimes felt.
But moments like this, moments when we were alone together, had become so rare and precious. I didn’t want to sour our calm closeness by
saying anything that wasn’t calculated to reassure him. And I didn’t want to
have a conversation that might lead to my saying something about Felix.

“Yeah,
it’s what I’ve always wanted,” Jonathan said, although it sounded pretty hollow.
“Anyway, I thought… Hold on.”

We
could both hear it – the insistent buzz of Jonathan’s phone ringing in the
kitchen.

“That’s
going to be Peter calling from the New York office,” he said, uncurling from
the floor. “Hell. On a Saturday fucking night.”

I
heard him answer the call, then say, “No, no problem. Nothing important. Just
let me get the figures in front of me.”

Jonathan
went upstairs and I heard his study door open and close. I waited a few
minutes, then gave up and began to stack the dishwasher.

He
was still talking when I got into bed – I could hear the low hum of his voice,
but I couldn’t make out any words. Clearly our conversation, whatever it had
really been about, was over. I turned out the light and pulled the duvet over
my shoulder, chilly without his warmth next to me, even on this warm summer
night.

I
was almost asleep when Jonathan came into our bedroom and said abruptly, “I’m
going to have to go to New York for a week in August,” he said. “More time away
from you and the kids.”

I
sat up, blinking in the light from the hallway. “Why don’t I come too? It’s
school holidays – Sadie and Gareth can have the kids. It’ll be fun.”

“That
isn’t exactly the word I’d use,” Jonathan said. “I don’t even know how much
time we’d have together.”

“Go
on,” I said. “It’s my birthday next week – you can give me the trip as a
present. We’ll be able to do some stuff together, won’t we? And I love New
York.”

I’d
only been once, and seen nothing much beyond the inside of a dance studio, but
it had been enough to convince me.

“I’ll
see what my work schedule looks like,” Jonathan said, and with that I had to be
content.

My
birthday that year fell on a Monday – hardly an auspicious start to my
thirty-seventh year. It was official, I thought gloomily as the alarm clock
went off at its usual horrible hour – I could no longer claim to be in my early
thirties. Middle age was fast approaching, it was raining, and I’d plucked
several grey hairs from my eyebrows the previous night. I wished for a moment
that I could turn back the clock – or even just opt out of the whole process of
growing old, keep my children the ages they were, just press pause on the whole
depressing business.

But
Darcey and Owen were too little to look on birthdays as anything other than
exciting opportunities for presents and cake. With Jonathan’s help, they’d
assembled a little pile of gifts on the breakfast table, together with a
slightly battered carrot cake and a vase of overblown roses from the garden.
The state of the cake was explained by the Co-op box I spotted in the
recycling, a large orange ‘reduced to 99p’ sticker on it.

“Open
presents, Mummy!” Owen said.

“I
will in a second, just let me make some coffee first. And you’re not allowed
cake at breakfast time, you’ll have wait for tea this afternoon – and so will
I.”

I
remembered how, as a small child, I would have thought that cake at
breakfast-time was the ultimate in heady indulgence. Now, the idea made me feel
slightly queasy. When did that happen, I wondered? There must have been a day,
perhaps at some point in my teens, when the prospect of cream cheese icing at seven
in the morning ceased to seem like a good idea – perhaps round about when I
went through my brief phase of eating nothing but apples and rice cakes with
fat-free cottage cheese. I’d grown out of that, certainly, but never quite
regained the idea that sugary food was a treat rather than something to be
regarded with suspicion that bordered on fear.

Sipping
my coffee, I turned to the small pile of presents. There was a pair of cashmere
socks from Sadie, a card and a Selfridges voucher from Mum and home-made cards
from the children, Darcey’s encrusted with glitter and Owen’s with pasta shapes
stuck to it. More works of art to add to the collection on the fridge, I
thought. When the children weren’t looking, I’d have to get rid of some of the
older, more curly-at-the-edges paintings to make room for these.

Jonathan
said, “Hadn’t you better open mine now?”

“I
was saving it for last.” I ripped the wrapping paper off the small box, and
opened it to find a pair of simple, beautiful pearl earrings.

“Thank
you,” I said, kissing him and sliding them into my ears. “I’ll do the school
run in style this morning.”

“Don’t
forget the card,” Jonathan said.

I
slid a knife under the envelope flap and took out a shiny card with pink roses
on it, and “To my wife” in squirly gold writing. I suppressed a giggle – Jonathan
had always had appalling taste in cards. Then I opened it and unfolded the A4
printout inside. It was a booking confirmation for a return trip to New York.

Inside
the card, Jonathan had written, “We’re staying at the Waldorf Astoria. I’ve
upgraded to a suite – you deserve a treat. Happy birthday. I love you.”

I
felt tears sting my eyes and a lump fill my throat.

“Why
are you crying, Mummy?” Darcey demanded, her eyes huge with concern.

“Because
I’m happy,” I said. It was the truth – but not the whole truth. This time last
year, a holiday with my husband to the city that never sleeps would have seemed
like the best idea ever. It still did – but there was a nagging sense of doubt
and guilt overshadowing my excitement.

“Right,
I’d better be off.” Jonathan straightened his tie and put his jacket on. “I’ll
try not to be too late tonight. If I can get away, I’ll take you out for dinner.”

“Great,”
I said. “Try and let me know in good time, though, so I can get a babysitter
sorted, okay?”

“Of
course.” He kissed me and wished me happy birthday again, and I thought, not
much chance of that, is there?

“Right,
come on, you two – time to get ready.”

The
specialness of the day forgotten, I launched into the morning routine – getting
the children dressed, attempting a French plait in Darcey’s hair, hunting for
book bags and hats and raincoats, which always seemed to get misplaced no
matter how hard I tried to find reliable homes for them.

The
children dropped off, I knocked on Zé’s door, but there was no reply, and I
remembered that Monday was the day she worked out with her personal trainer.
Disconsolately, I walked home again and made myself another cup of coffee. The
day stretched before me – special in name, but in every other way just like
every other Monday – and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and…

I
fought back tears again, and checked my phone for birthday messages on Facebook
to cheer myself up, thanking the magic of social media for allowing people to
let you believe they were thinking of you, even if all they’d done was set up
an app to send each of their friends an identical “Happy birthday, have a fab
day x” once a year.

I
went upstairs and put on some make-up, suddenly determined not to spend the day
mooning about at home and desultorily doing housework. I’d go into town, I
decided, and wander around the make-up counters like Mel and I always used to
do, trying endless samples of products and walking out looking as garish as
clowns. Maybe I could spend Mum’s voucher on some miracle snake oil or other
that would promise to make me look five years younger overnight. 

So
I got the train to Waterloo and then the Tube to Bond Street, and was hovering
eagerly outside Selfridges, waiting for a gaggle of tourists to make their agonisingly
slow way through the doors, when I felt my phone vibrate in my handbag.

It
was a text from Felix. My heart hammered when I saw his name on the screen.

“Happy
birthday, Laura. Your challenge for the morning is a treasure hunt. Text YES if
you accept.”