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

by Fiona Perrin

  ‘Hello, darling,’ she said to me, then turned to Dad. ‘Another egg, William?’

  ‘I always say one egg is an oeuf.’ He winked at me as he repeated the childhood joke.

  I grinned and remembered how I’d run to climb into the midnight taxi, shouting thanks to Jane and Maurice, Ben still holding my hand and kissing me very firmly goodbye. He’d promised to come to see me that evening when I returned to London.

  ‘I am fucking nuts about you, woman,’ he’d said gruffly as he’d finally shut the taxi door.

  So, Ben was going back to Italy rightly, for his kids – I could get on a plane every second weekend and go and see him if I could get the cash together. We’d walk around Milan together hand in hand, eat pizza in tiny corner restaurants and then rush back to his apartment – I imagined it being all shiny polished minimalism – and tumble into bed where he would make love to me over and over again. My tummy flipped with the memory of those kisses last night, the groans from both of us as our bodies came together through our clothes, desperate to be closer still. And he’d told me how much he wanted me, how beautiful I was… And that sweet midnight hour of kisses had gone like seconds.

  He’d come and see me that evening and we’d decide that, though whole countries separated us physically, nothing could really come between us. He would need to come to the UK for work and I could visit him. Would that be enough? I convinced myself it was.

  I didn’t let myself think about Lars except to remember what he’d told Thor. I’d hardly slept – instead I’d allowed myself to dream of a sort of future with Ben. I bit my lips and remembered how he’d kissed them and all I could think about was how he was going to kiss them again.

  So, I hugged my children and beamed at Mum and Dad.

  ‘We’re going to clean out the pond with Papa,’ Tessa said. ‘And then we’re going to the pub.’

  Finn told his granddad about the wonders of Jemima. ‘She’s got yellow hair like Nana had in the olden days,’ he said.

  We sat and drank coffee; I told my parents the less salacious bits of my evening and Dad told me precisely why the UK’s modern artistic output was beneath contempt.

  It was all quintessentially English.

  *

  The phone rang. Mum darted towards the dresser and threw papers around until she found the receiver and then immediately coloured.

  ‘Well, hello, Lars,’ she said, looking at me. ‘How lovely to hear from you.’

  It was like a wrecking ball coming into my conscience. Smash. Smash again.

  Dad met my eyes and then picked up the colour supplement.

  ‘Yes, the children and Ami, all here, all very well, having a lovely weekend, thank you,’ Mum went on.

  ‘Is that Daddy?’ said Tess from the dog basket.

  Dad sat up. ‘I’ve a mind to have a word with him.’

  Oh, good God. ‘Dad, please, I’d rather you didn’t.’

  ‘Now, Coco.’ He was on his feet and his face had taken on the familiar darkness of anger. ‘Give me that telephone.’

  ‘Dad!’

  But it was too late. Mum sighed and said, ‘Lars, William wants a word while you’re on the phone. I know you rang to talk to the children, but he wants to talk first.’

  Dad grabbed the receiver from her and slammed out of the kitchen door where his raised voice could be heard demanding, ‘So isn’t it about time you told me what’s going on?’ before a further crash of the door that led to the dining room. The children looked worried and looked at Mum and I for reassurance. The old guilt came flying back.

  Mum leapt in. ‘Tess and Finn, you’d better get your wellies on if we’re going to do the pond.’ As they went from the room, her face was haggard. ‘Now Papa may not feel like it, but we’ll do it together.’

  When we were alone in the kitchen I put my face in my hands as Mum said, ‘You can’t stop him. He has to have his say.’

  In fact, Dad’s say did not last long. He was back inside the kitchen within three or four minutes, a frown set in his forehead, his hands ruffling his hair. He threw the phone back onto the dresser.

  ‘Says he’s been spending quite a bit of time with the kiddies.’

  ‘I told you – he’s got so much better,’ I said, colouring again.

  ‘Says he wants to come back but you won’t let him,’ Dad went on. That felt very unfair: Lars knew that he was with me because of our family but he’d either not told Dad that or Dad had chosen not to listen.

  ‘It’s not that simple,’ I said as calmly as I could. ‘We’ve agreed that we can’t just get back together without making sure we get it right and—’

  ‘You’re choosing to live without the father of your children. You’re ruining the lives of these kiddies. I’m not sure there is anything more to say.’ With one final glance at me, Dad quietly turned on his heel and went out of the back door.

  *

  Later I couldn’t remember how I got through that terrible Sunday lunch when Dad refused to sit down at the table, disappearing with his dogs instead. The children were miserable because they’d been promised a trip to the pub. Mum busied herself with ensuring we ate as much as possible but said very little. As soon as I could, I stuffed the children’s clothes into their bags and Mum raised only a small wave at the door before rushing back to do what she could to save Dad from himself.

  Up the motorway, I played I Spy and Farmer Went to Market out loud while inside I wrestled with myself. Eventually I put on a CD of James and the Giant Peach and Tessa and Finn listened in silence.

  I thought of my father, about to tumble back down into depths only he knew; rationally I knew it wasn’t my fault, but I couldn’t ignore it when Mum was so overwrought.

  Being with them had brought it all back – how I’d spent all my life trying to have a family that wasn’t like the one I grew up in. But mostly how I’d vowed that my children would always feel protected, wanted and included; that they’d never creep around worried about upsetting someone.

  I pictured the children smiling up at Lars as he sat on the floor of the playroom. How he’d spent months and months now trying to prove he could be the father to them I’d asked for.

  That thought again: it was only me standing in the way of us all coming together. I looked at the kids and the thought of making their lives difficult again ripped me apart.

  I’d acted as if I were a free woman. Kissing a man who… well, a man I needed to forget about.

  I’d never wanted to get divorced – I’d been so certain of that. Lars was the father of my children.

  My husband. For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad.

  Forsaking all others.

  *

  Back in Crouch End I made the children ravioli, stirring the saucepan furiously. I put plates down onto the table and then into the dishwasher ten minutes later.

  When Tessa and Finn went to bed I paced up and down the hallway until at last, there he was – the shape of Ben behind the stained glass of the door.

  I walked bleakly towards it and opened it. He carried a huge bunch of pale pink roses, fat with summer, and his smile was so big the rest of his face seemed to disappear under it.

  I burst into tears.

  ‘My God, what is it?’ Ben threw the roses onto the hall table and pulled me into his arms.

  ‘It’s my dad,’ I sobbed into his big shoulder. ‘Lars rang up and Dad grabbed the phone and Lars told him he was doing everything he could to get us all back together. Dad hit the roof – told me I was ruining the children’s lives. Oh, Ben, it was awful.’

  Ben took my hand and pulled me into the sitting room. He sat down heavily on the sofa and dragged me down next to him.

  ‘And maybe he’s right. What am I doing? Kissing you. Pretending that I’m not married any more. That there might be a chance for you and me…’

  Ben’s face was stricken. ‘I should never have said anything.’

  ‘But I…’

  ‘Yes, an
d me too,’ he said. ‘But I was wrong… I should’ve left you alone.’

  ‘It’s the children.’ My tears were streaming now. ‘And the idea of our family. When I look at them all playing together now, those three sets of bright eyes staring up at me… how can I do that to them?’ Sitting beside him, I wanted to say the complete opposite of what was coming out of my mouth.

  ‘Maybe you can’t. Look, Ami, I… I was wrong to go near you and I’m sorry, really sorry.’

  ‘You think I should go back to Lars too?’

  Ben seemed to be staring somewhere beyond himself as he said very quietly, ‘If there is remotely the chance that you can make the relationship with the father of your children work, then you should give it every possible go.’

  And there was a chance. There was still – despite everything – a chance.

  He stood up and went towards the mantelpiece, picking up a frame with a picture of Lars, me and the children, which had been taken shortly after Finn was born.

  ‘I should never have…’ Ben shook his head at the photograph and replaced it onto the mantelpiece.

  ‘But I… I really am crazy about you.’ I needed him to know that. Less than twelve hours ago I’d been fantasising – I saw it so clearly now – about managing to be with him.

  Ben pulled me to my feet and held my arms to my side. ‘Shush. Look, Ami, we’ve got to forget about last night. I shouldn’t be here now. Your husband is doing everything he possibly can to show you that he can be a better man…’

  I felt compelled to tell him the truth. ‘But he doesn’t want me any more – he’s just had a massive wake-up call about losing his family. There was a big episode with the kids – the au pair left them alone and Finn could have suffocated – and it’s only since then, he’s been trying everything to be a better dad.’

  ‘OK,’ said Ben cautiously.

  I rushed on with the injustice of it all. ‘His best mate was here and I heard him talking. He said he didn’t love me in the same way any more…’ It was still difficult to say it out loud, but I pressed on. ‘He said it was about doing the right thing.’

  ‘Christ, poor you.’ Ben held me and the size and smell of him made the tears start all over again. But he went on, ‘You’re not ready to move on either. This isn’t just because of your father. You’ve always said you didn’t want to get divorced; that the kids came first.’

  ‘I could’ve been… I could’ve been with you…’

  ‘Divorce isn’t pretty, Ami – you know that. It creates complications – massive complications.’ He grabbed my hands though while he said it. I could feel his pulse, beating like a mad metronome. ‘If you can stay married, if there’s a chance… I can’t come in the way of that.’

  He was right and I hated him for it. It was like Humphrey Bogart being noble in Casablanca all over again. He stepped towards the door. ‘I’m so sorry. Last night was wrong. But now I’m going to leave you alone.’

  ‘But, it was…’ I rushed towards him.

  ‘Don’t say it,’ he said then, putting his finger gently in front of my lips. ‘There’s no point, Ami, no point at all. I’m trying hard to do the decent thing here. And, well, we both know, even if we were together – God, that would be so great – I’m in one country and you’re in another. We wouldn’t be a proper family. I would’ve bust a gut to make it work but…’

  I’d pictured the every-other-weekend but I hadn’t pictured the everyday, home on my own, missing him. How cruel to put plane-rides between us.

  ‘I have to let you go to make up your mind.’ He said it through determined lips and looked at the floor.

  ‘You really think I should go back to him?’

  ‘Come on. The last thing I’m going to tell you to do is go back to another man. You’re in no fit state to decide what you want to do. But you need to look after yourself for me.’ He moved towards the door. ‘It’s probably best if I go and…’

  ‘But…’ I started.

  He came forward and put his finger over my mouth again. ‘Don’t.’

  ‘But…’ I tried again.

  ‘No.’

  And then he replaced his finger with a single kiss.

  ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye,’ I said and he walked out of the door into his future while I was left with mine.

  Part Three

  38

  ‘Isn’t this wonderful, älskling?’ Lars beamed as we hung over the balcony and watched the true blue of the sea clash with the false hue of the swimming pool.

  Tessa joined us. She seemed skinnier, bonier, older lately. ‘There are four swimming pools,’ she told us. ‘I’m going to swim in them all every day.’

  ‘I’m not going in any of them,’ Finn said, coming out too. ‘The water will make you ill. They told us that on the bus.’

  ‘They only mean the tap water, not the swimming pool water,’ Lars said and we shared a laugh.

  We’d told the kids that we were going on holiday all together because Daddy and I were friends again.

  ‘Are you going to live here now?’ Tessa had asked Lars.

  In the moment when he’d been trying to frame an answer, Finn had piped up, ‘Sometimes you didn’t really live here before because you were in other countries.’ Lars and I had both given a nervous chuckle before our son had added, ‘So it’s good now really.’

  I’d looked at Lars and raised my eyebrow. ‘Well, the point is that Daddy is here all the time now and we both love you very much,’ I’d said, ‘and we thought we could have a great holiday all together.’ The kids had gone on to talk about how you got ‘free shampoo and lots of creams’ in hotel rooms. They hadn’t asked any more questions.

  Now, as we went back into our small suite, Lars said, ‘Fabulous hotel for the money.’

  Yes, but not very authentic, was my immediate thought, and then I told myself off for being negative. I’d committed in our weekly counselling session, now that we were going on a family reunion holiday to Greece, to try hard to be more positive.

  ‘How can we make a future together if you won’t forgive the past?’ Lars had asked during last Wednesday’s session and Sasha, our Relate counsellor, obviously impressed by the new, improved Lars, had nodded her agreement and asked me to concentrate on ‘looking forward’. I was trying very hard to do that. I didn’t mention Lars’ conversation with Thor, for example, even to the counsellor, instead concentrating on what was most beneficial for the children: structure, routine and parents who didn’t argue. This holiday was the next step forward.

  But the weeks since Ben had gone seemed like decades. I almost looked forward to the bus ride to Finsbury Park so that I could wallow in my misery and relive our kissing on the carpet of flowers under the stars. I got on the Tube and told myself to pull myself together – that it had been an aberration, a momentary lapse. But at work I missed him too, for not being part of my daily world any more – the phone calls about work, his teasing; and I missed hanging out with him. We had weekly teleconferences but these were formal team sessions, focused on the campaign and its results and, aside from cheerfully saying hello, there was never a moment of intimacy.

  I stopped myself ringing him by sitting on my hands; wrote emails but managed to never press send.

  If only I hadn’t kissed him, I thought, and then, thank God I did. Was it better to have loved and lost? I couldn’t say I was really sure about that.

  But on days like today, with my children and their devoted dad next to me, as we settled down at our family hotel, I knew it was crazy not to thank the lucky stars that would undoubtedly twinkle above me tonight.

  Tessa struggled into her swimming costume while I got all the bottles of shampoo and body lotion out of Finn’s bag and put them back on the bathroom shelf. Lars unpacked his clothes into the wardrobe we’d share in one of the bedrooms. He winked at me as he flung a T-shirt down on one of the pillows of the twin beds that could be pushed together to create one giant one, but he didn’t suggest closing the gap yet.
However, knowing that we would sleep together again on this holiday if things went well, I tried to remember what it felt like to wrap myself around Lars’ hard body. It would feel familiar and it should feel right.

  ‘What a lovely family,’ the receptionist had exclaimed as we’d checked in and there we were, two generations, balanced by gender, everything that the modern family should aspire to be. ‘You’re going to have such a wonderful holiday.’

  It was all down to me. I blew up Finn’s armbands and smiled back at the man who’d so recently nearly been my ex-husband.

  *

  That first night, Lars crawled into his bed and reached a hand out across the gap. ‘There’s no pressure,’ he whispered. ‘Let’s take our time.’

  I whispered, ‘Thank you.’

  He said, ‘It’s lovely being here with you all though – goodnight.’

  I held his hand for a while and eventually felt it go limp in mine, still warm and now rhythmically moving as he fell quickly into deep sleep. I let myself fall asleep too.

  In the morning, I opened my eyes to see a tray beside my bed wafting hot coffee and pastries and a note in his scrawl with the extra Scandinavian loops.

  We thought you might want a lie-in – see you at the pool, love Lars, Tessa and Finn

  It was later that day when Lars, seemingly out to prove that he could put no foot wrong, had taken the kids to play mini golf on the other side of the complex, and I was lying on a sunbed by the pool, that Liv rang.

  ‘Liv? It’s lovely to hear your voice.’

  ‘Aren’t you having a fabulous time?’

  ‘Of course I am. Absolutely brilliant. Fab weather, the hotel is fine, the children are in heaven. Lars is being lovely – he’s taken them to play mini golf.’

  ‘How horrendous,’ said Liv. ‘Is it really sexy being back together again?’

  ‘We haven’t got to the sex bit yet. I’m kind of working up to it. Probably tonight. We’ve got a dinner on our own in the beach restaurant. Lars has booked a babysitter.’