The Story After Us: A heartwarming tale of life and love for modern women everywhere

by Fiona Perrin

  ‘I’m so glad you stopped by. I’ve been meaning to have a word about Finn eating the glue instead of using it to stick with.’ Mr Carter smiled.

  ‘I suppose it’s better than sniffing it?’ I said.

  Mr Carter cackled for a second and then stopped. ‘The latest thinking is that children need to be armed with a carrot to keep them orally distracted.’

  ‘Finn doesn’t like carrots,’ I said. Mr Carter wasn’t old enough to be a headteacher in my book: with his ‘ironic’ green corduroy jacket and gelled quiff he looked as if he should still be a student himself. He considered himself to be very progressive but he just talked a lot of crap.

  ‘And little Tessa – so creative,’ he said. ‘Creative’ was a euphemism for ‘weird’ but I wasn’t going to argue. ‘I absolutely loved the way she expressed her dissatisfaction with the nativity play.’

  He was talking about Tessa spending most of Christmas wearing a blue tea towel on her head pinned at the back with a clothes peg and telling everyone to call her ‘Mary’.

  ‘Well, was it really fair that Jemima got picked to be Mary for the second year in a row? Tess was a bit upset about it.’

  Jemima, Finn’s great love, had a mother called Nadine, who was queen of the Smug Mums – or the Smugums, as my school-gate mates and I called the patronising mothers whose lives seemed to revolve around making other women feel like deficient parents. Nadine volunteered to go on school trips to mop up puke from a coachful of kids with rabid travel sickness and spent three weeks hand-sewing costumes for World Book Day. Jemima was therefore a slam-dunk for Mary every Christmas.

  Mr Carter ignored my question, leant forward on his small chair and gave me what he thought was a sympathetic smile. ‘Is everything all right on the home front?’

  I tried to look anywhere but at him. Tears welled anyway and Mr Carter leapt up and grabbed a box of tissues.

  ‘It’s all quite all right; this is an open environment where everyone is encouraged to express their emotions.’ God, I hated his pseudo-enlightened bollocks.

  ‘I think my husband and I are getting a divorce,’ I whispered. Just saying it out loud seemed so final, so terrible.

  Mr Carter sat down on his own small chair and pushed the box of tissues at me. ‘Well, you’ll be pleased to know that all the teachers in the school have had training on supporting children through this. Can I call you Amelia?’

  I blinked. Really?

  ‘And you can call me Paul,’ he said. I resolved never to call him Paul.

  ‘We’ll have to keep quite an eye on Finn and Tessa,’ Mr Carter went on. ‘We don’t want too many repeats of the sort of episode we had last week, do we?’

  Last Tuesday, I’d taken Tessa right to her coat peg and helped her unbutton her coat for school when I’d realised that while she was wearing shoes, tights and a jumper, she somehow wasn’t wearing a skirt. Mr Carter and Nadine had been standing in the cloakroom when this happened.

  ‘It was very busy that morning,’ I said. ‘Tessa got dressed herself and put her coat on…’

  ‘Amelia,’ Mr Carter said. ‘It’s exactly the way that such a traumatic time expresses itself. There is just one other thing that raises concern. Tessa does seem to be unhealthily obsessed with death. But again, this is probably the current home troubles.’

  ‘It might be.’ Tessa had always had preoccupations that seemed to go a little deeper than other kids. Between the ages of two and four she’d adored boyband One Direction so much Lars and I had taken to calling them ‘One Conversation’ because she’d talked about little else. Then there was the Christmas fixation with being Mary. Her refusal to wear any other pants than red until I’d simply dyed them all that colour. This interest in death could be just the latest obsession.

  I really hoped it wasn’t down to the atmosphere at home – new guilt washed over me and I stood up.

  ‘Finn and Tessa will be OK, won’t they? I mean, all the books say that it’s better for the children if they don’t have to be surrounded by all that arguing… And this isn’t actually my fault…’

  ‘No, I’m sure it isn’t,’ Mr Carter said and shuffled from foot to foot.

  ‘I’m doing everything I can…’

  ‘I’m sure you are, Amelia. Perhaps you’ll sort it out.’

  ‘I hope so, I really hope so,’ I said, although at the moment I had absolutely no idea how.

  *

  As I sat on another small chair for the next hour with the other parents all I could think about was how I had to do everything I could to protect Tess and Finn. I vaguely heard Mr Carter instructing us all to count to ten with our children in mandarin every night and could see my gate mates, Parminder and Julia, rolling their eyes every time Nadine joined in with another Smugum remark.

  ‘The importance of being fucking earnest,’ said Parminder as we left. ‘Have you ever met anyone so high on his own supply as Carter?’

  Parminder was a mindfulness teacher for time-poor professionals. I’d tried one of her classes but found it was quite stressful as she barked out the breathing exercises with military precision: ‘in: one, two, three, and out: one, two, three, and in: one, two, three’ and so on, but apparently that was the kind of mindfulness the modern executive wanted. I’d only ever seen Parminder in exercise clothing – she shopped, cooked, worked, exercised and chilled out in stretch patterned leggings and Lycra-based tops.

  ‘World citizen? Seriously? Toby can’t even blow his own nose,’ said Julia. Tall and blonde, she was in charge of something quite serious to do with our country’s finances and a single mother with two boys from a man she referred to only as ‘the turkey baster’. The three of us had become friends through a shared horror of all things Smugum.

  ‘Jemima can probably already count to a hundred in mandarin,’ I pointed out as we wandered towards the car park.

  ‘You all set for Finn’s party?’ Parminder asked. ‘Need me to do anything? I’m teaching a class so can’t be there, sorry. Julia’s going to drop the kids off.’

  Julia looked vaguely horrified that she was being volunteered as an extra hand at the party. ‘Umm… I’ve got a date on Saturday night,’ she said. ‘Thought I’d better get a hairdo and all that while the party’s on if you don’t mind, Ami? Luba will help, won’t she? And Lars?’

  ‘Hairdo? Is that getting your woohoo waxed?’ Parminder teased.

  ‘The hair on my head.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said, trying not to think about having twenty kids running round the house high on sugar, while I reached a new low. ‘Lars will get there later…’ I paused as I wasn’t sure I was ready to tell them my new single-mother status yet. I didn’t want the pity – however well meant. And if Lars came back that meant no school-gate gossip. ‘Luba will be there and maybe my mother.’

  Julia looked relieved and Parminder said, ‘Who’s the date with, then, Jules?’

  ‘Hopefully a banker yet not a wanker. I met him online on a site for people from the City.’ I thought about a time when I might have to be out there like Julia, swiping right and left, and shuddered. Neither of my friends noticed.

  ‘You going Brazilian or Hollywood?’ Parminder went on as we reached our cars.

  Julia laughed. ‘If you don’t stop, I won’t include you in my latest cake stash.’ Julia stockpiled cakes in her freezer from any bake sales she came across, buying up whole tables from the WI, for example, and then bringing them along to every school event where she was required to provide something cooked in her own kitchen. She let Parminder and I join in and it was a great way of looking Smugum without actually ever turning on the oven.

  ‘Hmm, but that’s really useful currantsy,’ said Parminder, getting in her car.

  ‘Oh, your jokes, my flour,’ said Julia, getting in hers.

  I sniggered a little as I drove the short way home and it was only as I pulled up outside my house and saw just a light coming from Luba’s room in the loft that I remembered with a thump that Lars wasn’t just
away on one of his trips.

  This time he wasn’t coming back.

  3

  ‘Flip it,’ said one of the books I’d read on keeping your marriage together. ‘When you feel that you’re unable to go on, flip it and, instead, decide you can cope with anything.’

  Every day I went to the office and phoned everyone I knew, looking for work. Marti was away in Australia and when he came back there was every chance he’d call me upstairs and pull the plug on Brand New.

  On Wednesday I read in Campaign that Campury, the ancient, luxury Italian handbag brand, was looking for a new agency and cursed; it was my job to know about this stuff before it hit the press. Still, I read on. Campury had just appointed a new UK brand director by the name of Ben Jones, who was pictured looking large and scruffy for a man in the fashion industry: dirty blond hair, a strong, laughing face; even though he had a suit on, he looked as if he should have been throwing bass bins around a stage rather than working with handbags.

  ‘Look at this,’ I said to Bridget. ‘I’d love to launch bags for Campury. I mean all that old school glamour but the brand’s got lost. Imagine relaunching them for a younger market. Making them cool again.’

  ‘Won’t they be worried because we’re so small an agency?’ Bridget asked.

  ‘We’ll pitch as part of the Goldwyn Group,’ I said. ‘Can you get some details, Bridget, please?’

  She tapped away furiously for a few minutes.

  ‘Ben Jones is apparently some sort of hotshot from Italy…’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Was at Pucci to start with and then he was part of the team who did the accessories launch at Gucci with the crocodiles.’

  ‘Oh wow,’ I said. No one had missed that campaign – early dawn Thai rivers, the faux-crocodile-skin belts, bags and shoes floating on reed rafts, the near-naked models cowering in fear as if they were real crocs. ‘But that campaign was done by Gorgeous.’ I was talking about Goldwyn’s arch-rival agency. ‘He’ll go to them, surely.’

  ‘Don’t be defeatist,’ said Bridget. ‘He’s lived in Italy for the last few years and is only here for the relaunch because he’s got to go back for his kids. That’s what it says on FashionPolice.’

  ‘Have you got his phone number?’

  ‘Yes. Not his mobile yet but I’m on it.’

  ‘Give me the landline one and I’ll have a go.’ I picked up the phone and punched in the number.

  ‘Ben Jones’ office,’ sang plum tones on the other end of the fibre-optic cable.

  ‘Hello, this is Amelia Fitch from Goldwyn. Please would you put me through to Ben?’

  ‘Let me see if he’s available.’ The posh voice sounded doubtful. I would leave a number and hope that the Goldwyn name counted enough for him to phone back.

  There was a click on the line and then a male voice, with a hint of the north in it, drawled, ‘Well, that was quick.’

  I shook my head in confusion. ‘Sorry – is that Ben Jones?’

  ‘Yes, it is. And you’re the famous Amelia – sorry, Ami – Fitch?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure about the famous bit.’ Why did he sound as if he was teasing me?

  ‘I wasn’t expecting your call. I was going to ring you but thought I’d leave it a few days. And then here you are.’

  ‘Oh! Were you going to call us – Goldwyn – in to pitch?’

  ‘I was hoping to talk to a number of agencies…’

  I raised my thumbs to Bridget. ‘Well, we’d love to be part of your list. When can we meet up and get a brief?’

  ‘You are very efficient,’ Ben said, as if he was not surprised. I shook my head – there was something very strange about this conversation. ‘Well, workwise I’ve got a huge amount to get my head round and we’re still working on what agencies we want to include but…’

  ‘It would be great to tell you about us.’

  ‘I already know quite a lot about you,’ he said. Was there a slight emphasis on the you? Was he flirting?

  ‘It would be good to meet, I mean, and give you our credentials pitch.’

  There was a big laugh from the end of the phone. ‘And very businesslike, just as I was told.’

  I glared at the receiver: definitely flirting, if in a really odd way. Well, maybe he’d heard about me. I’d won a few awards; the formation of Brand New had been in the trade press.

  ‘I hope so,’ I agreed. ‘Shall we make an appointment?’

  ‘I’ll put you back through to my assistant in a minute,’ he said. ‘But what about meeting up other than that? You and me? I know it’s an unusual way to get to know each other but shall we have lunch?’

  I wanted to laugh out loud at the sheer brazenness of the man. First of all, he must assume he’d had a huge load of publicity about arriving in London. Second, he was terminally unprofessional trying to mix business and pleasure – probably influenced by having lived in Italy for so long. Still, he was in charge of a huge wodge of money that needed spending with an ad agency and I wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of that.

  ‘I’m not sure we can’t cover the same ground at a meeting,’ I said.

  ‘Well, at least I knew you’d be difficult to persuade to move on,’ Ben said.

  What was he talking about? He wasn’t just flirty – he was deluded. Was he drunk at 11 a.m.? ‘I’ll make an appointment with your assistant,’ I said. ‘If you could put me through?’

  ‘Well, shall I call you at some other time?’

  ‘I’ll leave my number. Thanks so much for taking my call. It’ll be great to meet you.’

  ‘OK, then.’ Now he sounded confused. ‘Goodbye, Ami Fitch.’

  I shook my head at Bridget, said goodbye and then at the click of the phone made an appointment for a presentation the following Wednesday.

  ‘The man is completely weird – I think he was flirting with me,’ I told Bridget when I put the phone down.

  ‘I expect you’ve had lots of chauvinistic men chase you?’

  ‘The thing is, Bridget,’ I said, ‘never let it cross the line between personal and professional.’

  *

  The week crawled on.

  My mother-in-law, Ulrika, rang me from her latest trip visiting the haunts of dead authors – she was at the City Lights bookshop in San Francisco, where, with her arse-length white hair, she probably did a good impression of having hung out with Kerouac. ‘Oh, Ami,’ she said through the slight delay on the phone, in her light Scandi voice. ‘I have been feeling blasts of ice in my soul at the news.’ Lars had not just told her he was going to stay at her house in Finchley, then, he’d told her about the divorce – one more decisive move on his part. ‘What can I do? Shall I come home? How are the children?’

  It was hard not to notice that she volunteered to rush to my side when my own mother didn’t, but I tried to push the emotion to one side. I was in bed because of the timezone. ‘No, of course not, Ulrika. We’ll be fine and see you in a few weeks.’

  ‘You must do what is right, of course,’ she said, as if I’d had a part in the decision-making.

  ‘It’s not me,’ I said. ‘You know how hard I’ve tried.’

  ‘Oh, I thought so.’ She said it without judgement on Lars. Ulrika was nothing if not in perpetual balance – she even wore her widowhood with stoic acceptance, her beloved husband having died of a stroke, although she’d told me once that her ‘soul had died with him’. She gave out calm, measured advice from a wise perspective: what I’d grown to think of as her ‘Ulrika moments’. ‘Tess and Finn? How are they? I miss them so much.’

  ‘They miss their Grandie Sweden too, but they don’t really know any difference yet about what’s going on,’ I told her, rolling over in bed and aching for her resourceful presence. ‘How’s California?’

  ‘Hot,’ Ulrika said. She kept her house at a temperature of sixteen degrees in all weathers. I wore extra layers of clothing when we visited but found it hard to sit still as my fingers turned white over lunch. I’d asked Lars why,
what with being Swedish and therefore up on heating and insulation, and he’d said it was her belief in consistency. ‘When I complained of being cold when I was a kid, she always told me to “relax into it”.’

  ‘Who can relax into being bloody cold?’ I’d asked.

  Now, we discussed her return in a few weeks after a visit to the Steinbeck memorial in Monterey and I promised to look after myself for her. ‘I’m here for you. We can walk this forest of confusion together,’ she said, and I cried after we put the phone down. I tried to call Lars after that but his phone was switched off. I didn’t even know if he was in the country.

  Liv rang every day. She didn’t say much about the accessories launch she’d been to – simply that she had an enormous hangover and had woken up to find carpet burns on her knees, which was annoying because she couldn’t remember any of the details of the sex she’d had with her latest lover, Matthew. ‘There was something I needed to tell you, though,’ she said. ‘I’m sure I’ll remember it. But, darling, much more importantly, how are you?’

  I also got a voicemail from Thor, meaning that Lars had picked up the phone to him in Seattle, where he was now trying to set himself up as a tech deal-maker, and given him the news too. ‘Christ Almighty, gorgeous,’ he said in his gruff message. ‘I hope you are OK. Lars has told me news that is making me very sad. I hope we can change this.’ I didn’t ring him back because what could I say? That the woman he’d been so charming to whenever he was in the UK on one of his whirlwind trips had turned out not to be good enough for his childhood friend? That Lars hadn’t been batting out of his league at all?

  When Mum rang, with little hope, I asked her to come to London at the weekend and help with Finn’s party, but she said she couldn’t. ‘Your dad needs me,’ she said and went on to tell me that Dad hadn’t eaten but had drunk several bottles of whisky since he’d found out about the divorce.

  But I need you too, I thought. Still, I didn’t blame her – instead, what I felt was weary sympathy. She’d married him when she was very young and only as they’d grown older had it become apparent that, instead of getting a husband, she’d got a patient who refused to recognise he was ill. She believed she’d signed up for ‘in good times and in bad’ – and if quite a lot of them ended up being bad, that, she considered, was her lot in life. After all this time, I’d stopped begging her to drag him to a doctor because she said it was hopeless.