Between You and Me

by Carol Mason

  I’m just walking back to my station, wondering if I should check in here myself and put a gown on because my nerves feel shot, when my phone vibrates again. Oh, come on! But when I look at the screen, it’s not Meredith back for more. It’s Joe.

  ‘I’m home. Got your note,’ he says. ‘That’s fine. I’m going to Uber over there and get the car now . . . But just wanted you to know Meredith is pissed off that Toby got locked inside and she’s on the war path.’

  I tell him I know, we’ve talked, and that I’m super busy and have to get off the phone. Oddly, now I’m thinking maybe I did do something utterly reprehensible, and I’m waiting for him to lay into me too.

  But instead he says, ‘Ah . . . Sorry about that. It totally wasn’t your fault. I’ve had some issues with that fob for a while now. This morning I was in such a rush I forgot to mention it.’

  I’m just about to say, Okay, well, not to worry, and hang up when he adds, ‘It’s a shame Toby told his mother and it’s all been blown out of proportion. But I did warn you no secret’s safe when there’s a four-year-old in on it.’

  ‘Secret?’ I say it a little loudly, and one of the interns walks past raising an eyebrow. ‘There never was any secret, Joe. I wasn’t trying to hide anything. I was trying not to bother anyone with the ins and out of a situation I could manage.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it literally,’ he says, after a bemused pause.

  ‘Then why say it at all?’

  There’s a second where he doesn’t answer. And then he says, ‘Why are you being so touchy?’

  ‘Touchy?’ I feel like saying, I’ve had a bastard of a day, all because I was trying to help you and Meredith out with your screaming kid. You left me with a dodgy fob. I was almost late for work. Now I’m doing a twelve-hour shift from hell that I’m only going to survive by mainlining caffeine . . . How about we show a little appreciation here?

  But I think of what I identified in the Action portion of the Gibbs reflection cycle and, in an effort to keep it constructive, I tell him, ‘I really don’t care for your tone. And I didn’t care for your wife’s either. You both need to rethink how you speak to me.’

  There’s a hollow silence, then he says, ‘What did you just say?’

  So I repeat myself. I tell him it sounded like she was giving me some sort of warning.

  ‘Not that. The other thing . . .’ When I don’t answer he says, ‘You just referred to Meredith as my wife.’

  Before I can say, Did I? he says, ‘Jesus, Lauren!’ And then he hangs up on me too.

  When I arrive home at 7 a.m., I find him in the kitchen, making me breakfast.

  ‘Hi,’ he chirps, brightly, as though nothing ever happened. He’s at the Wolf stove, in jeans and a clean white T-shirt, a tea towel slung over his shoulder. He steps away and kisses me as I’m shrugging off my jacket. His stubble grazes the side of my mouth, which usually ignites a small flame of desire in me but right now leaves me cold.

  ‘How are you? You look pale.’

  ‘I’m really tired,’ I say.

  ‘No wonder! You’ve had an enormously long day and night. I bet you probably can’t even remember where it began.’

  ‘It’s been a long shift.’

  Soon after my phone calls with Joe and Meredith, a man came in bleeding profusely from his mouth. We tried for forty minutes to restart his heart. There was nothing I could have done to save him but for the entire way home all I could think was, Surely there was something. Normally I’d share this with Joe. We’d talk about it. He’d say the right thing – the grounding thing – and make me feel better. But all I say now is, ‘I’m going to get changed before I eat.’

  In our bedroom, I stare at the bed and just want to throw myself down and sleep like Rip Van Winkle. But instead, I take off my clothes, slip into my white fluffy dressing gown and scrutinise my haggard face in the dressing table mirror. There are new shadows under my eyes, like somebody’s punched me. And my hair, which was clean this morning, is lank and greasy. I suddenly feel utterly joyless, like the oldest twenty-nine-year-old I know. And more than a little sorry for myself, which I hate.

  ‘Okay?’ he asks sheepishly, when I walk back into the kitchen.

  ‘Fine.’

  He pours me a coffee, sets down a plate of eggs and I’m blindsided by a flash of gratitude for the way he always tries to take care of me. Maybe I overreacted because I was super busy, crazy stressed, and not thinking straight. I inspect the food. My stomach is queasy. Like you feel after you get off a ten-hour flight in a different time zone, not quite sure if you should be eating breakfast or dinner.

  He sits down next to me. ‘I’m sorry about what happened with the car and Toby . . . You were trying to help and it all backfired on you, didn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t want to rehash it.’

  ‘I know. I have no desire to do that either. But I needed to say it. When I’m wrong, I admit it. It was my fault, with the fob. Plus I shouldn’t have been so overprotective and should have let you take your own car.’

  I nod. I really don’t want to get into a heavy-duty conversation, but I find myself saying, ‘Sometimes I think she’s just waiting for me to screw up.’

  He looks askance – like he’s misheard. ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Is it? I feel like I’m on some sort of probation and she’s already decided I’m never going to pass.’

  He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know what to say to that bizarre statement, to be honest . . . She hasn’t got it in for you. She’s not like that. She’s just being a mother. This is what mothers do, Lauren – they fret and they overprotect. She doesn’t mean any harm. You don’t have to take everything so personally.’

  Everything so personally. Do I?

  He scrutinises my face, my hair. ‘Look, Meredith is not always subtle. Sometimes she speaks first and thinks later. She’s had a lot of crap to deal with and it’s left her with an inability to sugar-coat life . . . But it doesn’t make her a bad – or a vindictive – person.’

  This is not the first time he’s tried to sell me her good points. I wonder if he ever tries to sell her mine.

  I’m inclined to tell him this but he says, ‘Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like she wrote the book on perfect parenting.’ He then tells me that she once left Grace outside the airport in Turkey. Got in a taxi with her luggage and forgot about the baby in her stroller in the middle of the street.

  ‘Oh my God!’ I try to picture the scene, at the same time feeling something thaw between us. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Well, she remembered pretty damned quick, of course. Fortunately some kindly Turkish lady was with Grace and it all ended well.’ He smiles, in the way you only can when you’ve dodged a bullet. ‘But it could have been very different. Doesn’t bear thinking about, really.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘That does make me feel a little better.’

  Then he says, in a somewhat unreadable tone, ‘Well, then, I’ll have to remember to throw her under the bus more often, if it solves everything.’

  It should be a joke. I think it’s a joke. But somehow I can’t bring myself to smile.

  Once he’s gone off to his meeting, I’m so tired I don’t even make it to the bedroom. I must sleep solidly because when I wake the sun is streaming in through the window and I have a terrible crick in my neck from the sofa cushion. Looking at my phone I’m shocked to see it’s 3 p.m. – a couple of hours later than I normally sleep after a night shift.

  There’s a missed text from Sophie.

  Yes to dinner at Pig’s Ear! Late shifts all wk. Next wk? she says, though I can barely remember what day I proposed, or even what day it is today.

  I respond to what now sounds like a bit of a moving target rather than an enthusiastic plan. Could make Thurs or Friday.

  There’s a delay before she replies. Thurs is better. Friday is generally our ‘date’ night.

  Hmm . . . For us, Friday is usually change the beds, stock the fridge, plot activities in prepa
ration for the kids’ arrival, then flop out – knackered – in front of Netflix.

  Thurs it is! I say.

  I’m thinking that’s it – a plan, finally – when I get another ping. Oh shoot! Thurs actually won’t work! Shame you’re not free earlier in week, with having the kids . . . Let’s regroup after Easter . . .

  Fine, then. I try not to feel a little miffed that I have somehow been painted as the impediment to us getting together.

  I get up and let Mozart out on to the patio, still feeling a little battle-scarred from yesterday, and now a little disappointed in my friend as well. I stand there looking at the purple and pink petunias Toby and I planted a few weeks back, the shards of grass thrusting through the join in the stone slabs, thinking about the concept of family and home – and remembering that guy giving me his estate agent’s card.

  It makes me think of a comment Joe made before we married – a casual remark about how divisible assets were one reason why he thought married couples were better off renting until they felt fairly sure their relationship was going to work for the long haul. And how I’d thought, But who gets married if they’re not sure it’ll work? It seemed uncharacteristically jaded – for Joe. And yet he’s never once mentioned us buying a house together – one that might be more appropriate for a family. A place we could fully call ours.

  Am I on probation not just with Meredith, but with Joe too?

  Once Mozart has had a couple of pees and a few minutes’ sniff around, I go back inside and put on a pot of coffee, trying to let these thoughts go. I don’t want to poke holes in the fabric of us. Maybe second time around, Joe has a right to be cautious. Also, I think of Joe saying Meredith isn’t perfect, she’s just a mother, and I try to remember I’m as much of an unknown quantity to her as she is to me. We are both feeling our way around new roles – and each other. It’s bound to be tense at times.

  I decide to text her, hoping she’ll take it as the olive branch it’s meant to be.

  How is Toby today? I type, before I get cold feet.

  The message is delivered. I get a read receipt. I watch for the little moving dots.

  Nothing comes.

  TWENTY

  Over the Easter break, Meredith takes the kids to her father’s country home that I’m told is in the Bordeaux region of France.

  ‘Will her father be there?’ I ask Joe while we eat our dinner. Her father rose to the heights of banking power and became a Sir, and yet no one ever seems to talk about him. ‘Will the kids enjoy spending time with their granddad?’ I poke. I can’t say I’ve heard Grace mention him much.

  There’s a moment where he doesn’t seem to want to engage, then he says. ‘No. Meredith only goes when he’s not there. They don’t exactly have the best relationship.’

  ‘So the kids don’t see much of him, then?’

  ‘Not really.’ Then he adds, ‘It’s not like he’s ever made a tremendous effort to be in their lives either.’

  ‘It’s sad,’ I say. ‘Your folks are in Chicago, Meredith’s mother is dead and her father isn’t really in the picture . . .’

  ‘The kids often talk on FaceTime with my parents,’ he says, defensively.

  Often? I’ve known them do it once.

  ‘So what happened between Meredith and her father, for there to be this discord?’

  He sighs. ‘It’s a long story. He’s a rich, attractive, powerful guy who was a bit of a shit to be honest . . . not exactly the most morally upstanding man on the planet.’

  I’m reminded of what Sophie and Charlie implied about Joe.

  ‘When Meredith was in her early twenties, he left her mother for a girl Meredith’s own age. Some assistant at the bank.’ He smirks. ‘Bizarre timing. It was exactly one week before he got knighted by the Queen.’

  I think about this. ‘It’s hardly uncommon, though, is it? Successful, attractive man chasing a younger woman.’

  Part of me still cringes at Sophie and Charlie implying Joe was some sort of sugar daddy. Despite them knowing I’m an independent feminist on track for the top tax bracket, they still managed to insinuate I was on some mission to become a kept woman. It was bonkers.

  ‘No, it’s not uncommon in the ways of the world,’ he says. ‘But that doesn’t make it okay when it’s your family, your father, your mother he’s fucked over.’

  ‘No,’ I say, feeling like we might be on thin ice. I always remember thinking Joe had great family values. His parents have been married forty years. No one in his family has divorced. I remember him saying, ‘They’re all either the happiest, most compatible people in the world, or they’re having affairs left, right and centre and keeping it all under a cloak of dirty secrets.’

  ‘It did a lot of damage to her,’ he says. ‘To her faith in her father, but her faith in men in general . . .’ He meets my eyes. ‘There she was, this young, beautiful, supremely intelligent woman embarking on a legal career, and at every turn she was being hit on and propositioned by older, senior barristers. And then she found out her own father was just like the very types she despised.’

  ‘That’s awful,’ I say. Did he have to call her beautiful and supremely intelligent?

  ‘Your parents can have a huge impact on how you see the rest of your life, you know. People fuck around and think it’s nothing, but the damage lives on . . .’ He looks wistful for a moment. ‘A father has a massive obligation. Everybody will try to screw you over but you need to be able to count on your dad.’

  I study him closely. They hardly sound like the beliefs of someone who is, himself, a cheat.

  ‘Did her mother try to get him back?’ I ask.

  He shakes his head. ‘Meredith always said she died from a broken heart soon after her father walked out on her and tried to screw her financially.’

  ‘Stress cardiomyopathy,’ I say. ‘When the heart is under such intense emotional or physical stress that it causes the muscle to rapidly weaken.’ While it’s possible you can die from it, you usually don’t. I suspect Meredith’s conviction about this was driven less by medical fact and more by her anger and disappointment.

  ‘It made her determined to never be in a relationship with a man unless it was clear that he loved her more than she loved him.’ He says it so casually. As though I’m a close confidante, rather than his wife. I doubt he even realises what he’s just revealed.

  Then he adds, ‘Until I met her, she was pretty much a man-hater.’

  ‘I see,’ I say.

  I’m rather sorry I asked.

  The next ten days without the kids are nothing short of paradise.

  No one coming to stay. I can wander around the flat on my day off while Joe is at meetings, and not have to speak, not have to make an effort or watch how I tread. These are ten whole days where Joe and I don’t so much as talk about the children, let alone see them. It’s almost like they don’t exist.

  We eat, we drink, we slob out. We sleep in on Sunday until eleven o’clock. We have sex like children weren’t even invented, and could never be conceived.

  And then the holiday is over and they return.

  Feeling better about things, I try to approach this as a reset. A fresh start.

  On Monday night I say to Joe, ‘I thought once I pick up Toby from school, we might meet Grace and go for tea somewhere. You know, given you’re not going to be home until late.’ Joe is going to a work function. One of those fancy evenings he’s told me about where a group of his business associates – all men – hit a pricey steak house and then afterwards some sort of high-end private members’ club.

  ‘What a charming idea!’ He places a hand on the back of my neck as I stand there in only a bath towel, drops a kiss in the hollow of my neck.

  ‘I have them once in a while.’ I feel quite pleased with myself.

  As he pulls on one of his crisp white dress shirts, he says, ‘Why don’t you take them to a hotel for scones and cake?’

  For a down-to-earth American guy, Joe has a strange fixation with fancy hotels
and English high teas – as I remember all too well. ‘Actually, I was thinking of a really cool cake shop near Sloane Square where they make cakes in the shape of cars and buildings and people.’ It’s near Grace’s school, and I have to go to Peter Jones because my mother texted me a list of things she’s missing from home that she wants me to send to her. I tell him this.

  ‘Can’t she just order them online?’

  ‘She could. But she won’t. I think them coming in a box I’ve had to pack with my own fair hands is part of the charm.’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve got it all organised then.’ He smiles.

  Given I don’t feel like dealing with central London traffic, I pick Toby up from school and we get an Uber X to Sloane Square where I do a quick scoot around Peter Jones, picking up most of what I need. Grace has grudgingly agreed to meet us outside, at the main entrance, at 4 p.m.

  At precisely four, we go outside and wait. And wait. And wait. Double-decker buses and black cabs fly around the central square that houses a charming Grade II listed fountain of Venus and a complex elongated roundabout system, hacking pollution into the late afternoon sunshine. Toby is restless. I hang on to his little hand and voice text Grace. Where are you?

  She responds immediately. Here.

  I turn and she’s right there.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she says, like she actually might indeed be semi-sorry.

  ‘No worries,’ I say. I watch her muss the top of Toby’s hair. ‘Shall we go and eat? I’m sure we’re all ready for something.’

  But she just stands there, twirling a strand of honey blonde hair. Perhaps because we’ve stood a while in the shade of the building, it’s starting to feel chilly.

  ‘The thing is . . . I sort of badly need a haircut.’ She pulls the strand through her fingers, inspects it for split ends. ‘Can we do that instead of going for tea? Or maybe do it first then go for tea later?’

  I’m hungry as I skipped lunch, but that’s not my main concern. ‘We could . . .’ I say. ‘Only I’m not sure there’s much in that plan to keep Toby amused.’