Between You and Me

by Carol Mason

  It was a pivotal moment. I could get in the taxi, move on to some other phase of the day with the three of them, hope to correct a bad first impression. Or . . .

  ‘I think I’d like to walk,’ I said.

  He seemed so disappointed. ‘Please,’ he said, when I clearly wasn’t budging. ‘At the very least, let us drop you off somewhere.’

  ‘I really would just like the air,’ I said.

  Eventually he gave up. But his eyes reflected exactly what I was feeling: this was a let-down, not how we’d envisaged things would go at all.

  As I stood there alone and watched the taxi merge into traffic, it felt symbolic. This bubble we’d existed in until now was something we’d zealously constructed, negating, in the process, everything that fell outside of it. The bubble wasn’t real. Joe had a life I wasn’t part of. There was a side to him I’d never witnessed – Joe the father. Until now I was aware his children were a big aspect of his life, but they somehow felt peripheral to my idea of him.

  Now I saw it: as he had once tried to tell me, his children were who he was.

  A few weeks later, I spent my very first night at Joe’s place when he had the kids staying. We sat through a stiff dinner. Afterwards I got up to fill the dishwasher and Grace said, ‘Why are you always cleaning up? Are you auditioning to be our housekeeper?’

  ‘Lauren is a tidy person!’ Joe sent me a fond look. ‘You could try taking a leaf out of her book,’ he said, and gave me a playful wink.

  We went to bed. I got up around 2 a.m. to go into the kitchen for some water. We hadn’t made love. Joe said it felt too weird with the kids around. I hadn’t pushed it. I loved him enough to let him adapt to all this in his own time.

  When I walked into the kitchen, there was a banana skin lying in the middle of the breakfast table. It hadn’t been there when we’d gone to bed. I picked it up and put it in the bin.

  And there, lying on top of the day’s rubbish, was How to Be a Hepburn in a Kardashian World.

  Grace’s perfectly staged Fuck you.

  It’s late afternoon by the time I put my key in the door; finding something for Grace was more of a chore than I’d expected. They are playing Jenga. I can hear wooden blocks crashing to the floor, Grace clapping and cheering. No one hears me come in except Mozart who runs to me, offering up a gruff bark – something I’ve noticed he often does until he realises it’s me and not an armed robber.

  When I walk into the room, they are sitting on the floor among the rubble of their game. There’s an air of cosy domesticity the place lacks when it’s just the two of us. As though the flat has two distinct personalities and might favour this one.

  ‘Hi!’ Joe gets up and walks over to give me a kiss.

  ‘Hi guys!’ I say cheerily, even though I can feel the charge run out of their collective battery with my arrival.

  I go over to give Toby a kiss but he shrinks into himself. ‘No! Don’t touch me!’

  Grace messes with her phone. Not so much as a hello.

  ‘Grace, Lauren just spoke to you.’ Joe glares at the top of her head.

  She reluctantly glances my way, says a grudging, ‘Hi.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell Lauren what we got up to today, Tobes?’ Joe says, playfully nudging Toby with his foot.

  Toby scrunches up his face. ‘Because I don’t want to, that’s why!’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘Why don’t you guys play another round? I’m going to get some water.’

  A look of apology crosses Joe’s face. I send him one that says: It’s totally fine!

  I walk over to the kitchen area, a little relieved. Just as I’m noting the state of the countertops – food and rubbish all over the place; items on the bench that should have been put back in the fridge; an enormous uncovered block of cheese that’s on its way to becoming a dried-out barnacle – Joe comes up behind me. ‘Don’t worry about the mess. Grace and I are going to take care of it.’ He moves my hair to drop a kiss on the nape of my neck, obviously designed to make light of everything, and somehow it does. ‘How was your day? We missed you.’ Then he whispers, ‘My God, this has been never-ending! I was dying for you to walk in that door.’ Joe is not fond of the Sunday plan where I disappear for a few hours. ‘Doesn’t it matter that I want you with us?’ he pouted when I first insisted on it. But it didn’t. I was doing this for the kids.

  I smile, pour myself some water from the filter in the fridge. ‘It’s nice to be missed!’

  ‘What’s in here?’ He mooches through the bags. I tell him I got a little something for Toby – and for Grace, of course.

  ‘Hey, Tobes,’ he hollers, ‘Lauren’s got you a present.’

  Toby rushes at me like a rocket, tries to grab the bag from his dad’s hands. ‘No snatching!’ Joe holds it aloft, out of his reach.

  ‘Sorry,’ Toby says, and stands still. ‘Sorry for snatching!’ He looks at me. ‘Can I have my gift, please?’

  I smile. Joe hands it to him.

  ‘What is it?’ He excitedly dives into the bag. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Toby has Godfrey already.’ Grace is suddenly standing right behind me.

  ‘I know,’ I tell her brightly, trying to ignore the fact that Toby looks like he woke up believing it was Christmas morning, only to learn it’s next week. ‘But now he’s got one for each house.’

  ‘That’s amazingly thoughtful.’ Joe puts his arm around me and pulls me in for another kiss. ‘A Godfrey for each home.’ He says it like it’s the most endearing thing he’s ever heard. He tells Toby to thank me for the gift and Toby rugby tackles me, almost sending me off balance.

  ‘I bought you something too,’ I say to Grace. ‘I hope you like it.’ I hand her the Topshop bag.

  She takes it without a word. Then, incuriously, she reaches into the bag and pulls out the red and black lumberjack shirt I actually spent over an hour choosing. ‘Thanks.’ She inspects it with the same disinterest. ‘Oh my God . . . this totally reminds me . . . I’ve cleaned out my wardrobe and have put some old junk in a bag for the charity shop. I’ll leave it down here in case anybody’s got anything to add to it.’ She flings the shirt on to the chair and sashays off towards her room.

  ‘Great thinking,’ Joe says. ‘I might have some shirts too. I’ll take a look in a minute.’

  ‘I think I’m going to take a bath,’ I tell them, not quite believing he didn’t notice her cheap shot.

  ‘You should,’ he says. ‘Then if you want, later, the three of us can watch a movie together.’

  I nod. ‘Sounds good.’

  In our bedroom, I scrutinise my face in the mirror, wondering if this might be what trying too hard looks like. As I prep my bath, I can’t help but think, Oh well, only one more hour until Toby falls asleep, and hopefully Grace would rather pluck out her own eyeballs and eat them than watch a movie with me. Then we’ll be one night down; two to go . . . then four days of freedom.

  As I lie there, my chin floating above the bath water, I hear a tap on the door.

  ‘Lauren?’

  For a moment I freeze. ‘Er . . . yes, Grace?’

  There’s a suspenseful pause then she says, ‘Dad wanted me to bring you a glass of wine. Can I come in?’

  Without waiting for my reply she opens the door and I lunge for the towel draped over the side of the tub. There’s a moment where she just steadily observes the sight of me hiding behind it, my head and fingers peeking over the top.

  ‘Where shall I put it?’ she asks.

  ‘Maybe just on the floor.’

  She sets the glass down like a listless waitress.

  ‘That’s kind of you,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ she replies. ‘Don’t forget it’s there and stand on it, or you know . . . you might glass yourself.’

  SEVEN

  When Joe said, ‘Meredith wants to meet you,’ it came out of the blue.

  We’d been introduced once before, when she’d come to drop the kids off and I’d slept over. ‘Meredith, t
his is . . .’

  Joe never did get my name out. Meredith’s phone rang. She said a curt, ‘I have to take this,’ then strode back down the path to her car.

  ‘She wondered if you might want to meet for a drink this Thursday,’ he said.

  It was early October. We had been dating almost six months, but in some ways it had felt like a lifetime.

  I had to stop myself from saying, ‘Er . . . why?’ But perhaps my face said it anyway, because he quickly added, ‘Don’t worry. She doesn’t bite. It’s just that, you know, it might not hurt if you guys get to know each other a little . . .’

  He left it hanging there. An implication of something he was perhaps hedging around articulating, which I was left to guess at.

  ‘Okay,’ I said.

  I was early.

  She was earlier.

  She was typing on her phone, thumbs flying, head bowed in concentration. It gave me a chance to compose my features into something that resembled ease. As I approached, she looked up, like she sensed me. Neither surprise nor acknowledgement.

  ‘Sorry.’ She glanced vaguely in my direction. ‘I have to take this.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, a little stymied by the lack of eye contact.

  I perched on the stool next to her, pulling it slightly out of her personal space.

  Her dark blonde hair was fashioned into a well-cut bob that went askew at the back due to an annoying natural curl, much like my own. Her fingernails were short and painted red, with a dried smudge of colour on the thumb pad. And beneath the sleeve of her oyster pink silk blouse, I caught a glimpse of one of those watches that probably cost as much as my father had ever earned in a year.

  Through a hearty spot of googling, I knew a lot more about Meredith than I’d ever let on to Joe. I knew she was an outstanding interlocutor who rarely lost a case, that she was passionate about family law and always fought for the underdog. That her father was Sir William Baxter, a former chief executive at the Bank of England. That she went to Marlborough College, where the Duchess of Cambridge studied, then Oxford, where she achieved a first-class degree in law. I believed, too, that she had recently become a QC – the highest achievement and accolade in the legal profession. Joe said something about it being a lifelong ambition.

  I doubted she’d have afforded me the same curiosity.

  ‘Done.’ She finally clicked off. ‘Oh my God, I’m in a trial right now and it’s utterly consuming me. Terrible case of malicious mother syndrome. This evil little bitch is claiming her ex-husband sexually and physically abused their kids – all because he met someone else.’

  She plucked the cocktail stick from her martini glass, pulled off a fat green olive with her front teeth, then lowered her face and slurped unselfconsciously. And in two seconds flat I could already tell what would have attracted Joe. She was sexy, confident, and she didn’t give a shit. Oddly enough, the opposite of me.

  ‘Malicious mother syndrome? Is that an actual thing?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s a thing . . . and more common than you’d imagine.’

  ‘And you’re convinced he didn’t do it?’ I wasn’t sure if it was wrong for me to ask.

  ‘One hundred per cent. The entire case is premised on two key pieces of evidence: the mother saying she was aware of the abuse, and the testimony of her friend who claims she told her about it – right before both women went off to Barcelona and the friend left her own children in his care!’ She met my gaze with those serious, soulful, almost woeful eyes that were so brown they were almost black. ‘You don’t understand . . . this man has lost his job, his family, friends. Not to mention that he’s facing game-changing legal bills. And for two years he hasn’t been able to see or talk to his children.’ She looked at me as though she was only just seeing me for the first time. ‘Can you imagine subjecting innocent kids to intimate examinations? The humiliation they suffered at school? Forcing them to lie and choose one parent over another? Their young minds grappling with what they know versus what they’re being told . . . Can you imagine doing that, as a parent, to your child – out of revenge?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘How awful.’ The insufficiency of my response sat there. It seemed odd she would divulge so much. Wasn’t there lawyer/client confidentiality?

  She fished out the remaining olives from the glass. ‘Anyway, enough of this.’ She flourished a hand my way. ‘Lauren . . . look at you. You’re young, beautiful and a doctor. My God, what are you doing with Joe?’

  She said it with a certain vapid affection, neither a compliment nor a disparagement, but it still threw me. Even without really knowing exactly why their marriage broke down, I couldn’t imagine she was oblivious to the fact that Joe was a catch.

  It was a little icebreaker, though, so I laughed, oddly admiring her straight way of talking. ‘I don’t know how I’m supposed to answer that! I don’t always feel young, and I’m just a very, very junior doctor for now.’

  I had tried to imagine how she might see me: the younger woman he met poolside on a business trip, before he was even divorced; someone he’d introduced to his kids already. I was sure she must recognise the anomaly – Joe was spontaneous in life’s little things, but not normally in the big. She might feel extremely mistrustful of me.

  ‘By the way,’ I said, to change the subject. ‘Congratulations! I think Joe mentioned you recently became a QC!’

  She studied me through a long-held pause. Then she said a rather blunt, ‘I think you need a drink.’ She raised a hand and immediately commanded the young barman’s attention, which I sensed was probably a good indicator of how Meredith moved through life.

  ‘I always enjoy watching them make cocktails, don’t you . . . ?’ she said, focusing on the young guy’s toned torso rather than the drink. ‘The almost conceited way they thrash that ice around the shaker . . .’

  I was convinced she was about to poke fun at him, but she just looked back at me and asked if I wanted what she was having or something else.

  For ease I said, ‘What you’re having sounds great.’ As she ordered for us, I felt relieved just knowing that alcohol was on its way, so I told her how I’d passed this hotel a million times and never realised how beautiful it was inside.

  ‘I know! I’ve been coming here for years. I used to pop in often when we lived in our first house in Brighton, many years ago, if I’d missed a train. Then after that I’d usually end up missing three of them.’

  She managed a short laugh, and I noticed something unusual. She was way more attractive when straight-faced. When she smiled she showed quite a lot of upper gum and her eyes didn’t smile with her, which made her look slightly ghoulish, though I felt rotten for thinking that.

  ‘That doesn’t sound like a bad way of ending a day,’ I said, trying not to see a picture in my mind’s eye of her and Joe excitedly putting an offer in on their very first house. The thrilling moment when they were handed the keys. Their first cosy night under its roof.

  ‘Anyway, you were telling me about yourself,’ she said. ‘Joe says you like to write. You were writing some sort of story the day he met you by the pool.’

  ‘Yes, I was,’ I said, a little disappointed he’d have shared what felt like rather personal details with her – our moment. ‘It was for a competition run by the GMC. The topic was on regrets. I didn’t win, so clearly my regrets couldn’t have been all that profound.’ My attempted humour fell flat.

  We held eyes briefly and then she said, ‘Well . . . let’s hope they never are.’

  I rattled on about how I was from the small market town of Alnwick in Northumberland, but she already seemed to know that too, that my mother was a nurse and my dad a telecom service technician. That I was an only child, that five years ago my parents retired to an ex-pat community in southern Spain. The alcohol on a near-empty stomach must have been what made me also blurt out that I’d had two serious relationships – one with a great-looking loser, and one with a decent guy who was just the wrong one for me.

  ‘
And now you’re involved with a much older man, with two children.’

  I was about to say I never really thought of Joe as twelve years older, maybe because he was energetic and fun, and passionate about life and his achievements – and everyone else’s, for that matter. But I didn’t know if that would go down well, so I settled for, ‘Children can be very rewarding!’

  ‘Mine?’ She looked like she was going to cough up an olive. ‘Have you ever been involved with a man with kids before, Lauren? Because that comment makes me think you haven’t.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ’I’ve mostly dated in my own age group, and they tend not to come with ready-made families. But I love kids. What woman doesn’t?’

  ‘Plenty. Me, sometimes. Me, a lot of the time, in fact.’ She wagged a cocktail stick at me. ‘But I can tell you one thing. It’s way easier to love your own than someone else’s.’

  ‘Well, I suppose I’ll have to take your word for that!’ I tried to laugh it off but there was an awkward strain in the air. ‘Look, Meredith . . .’ I said. ‘And I hope I am not getting ahead of things here, but whatever happens with Joe, I will be going into it with my eyes fully open.’

  ‘I’m sure you will,’ she said, after a hesitation, like she wasn’t sure of any such thing. I couldn’t tell if she was being genuine or a little pillorying.

  ‘What I mean is, I know things won’t always . . .’ I didn’t know how best to put it as it felt so premature. ‘I mean that anyone getting involved with someone who has children has to know that the children will always be a priority. They won’t have the luxury of everything always being just about them.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You can say that again.’

  My palms had broken a sweat. I discreetly clutched my skirt. ’What I mean is, I love Joe, so if we do end up . . . I know I can love his children, and—’

  ‘Great sentiments.’ She waved the bartender over and asked for some water.

  Clearly I’d over-schmaltzed it. Over-egged the pudding as my mother was fond of saying.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘While we seem to be going down this path, I suppose there’s a few things I’d like you to know, too.’