Effie grinned. After five minutes skating hand in hand with Smith, she’d let go and glided around the rink on her own. She’d wanted to see if she’d really got to grips with it, and if she was being honest, she needed to get away from him. Holding his hand had felt better than it should have, so much so that she hadn’t wanted to let go. From the moment he’d turned up at her wedding, she’d been abrasive towards him, but as they’d skated together, she found herself laughing at his jokes. It was all too familiar, and she didn’t want any part in it. And, she didn’t want Oliver to arrive and see them together. It turned out she needn’t have worried, because he’d decided to stay out with his friends and head into the West End. She couldn’t begrudge him a night out; he worked hard and rarely went out, but still. Somerset House was the perfect place for romance.
‘I’m just glad it wasn’t me on my arse. Some of those people were maniacs,’ Lou said.
As more people piled into the cafe, the smell of cigarette smoke breezed in through the door, and Effie sighed with longing. ‘God, I’d kill for a smoke right now.’
True to her word, she’d quit the day after the wedding, but the urge was overwhelming, and it wasn’t helped when Lou chucked a packet across the table.
‘I can’t,’ Effie said. ‘I’ve quit.’
‘Whatever,’ Lou replied and rolled her eyes.
Oliver would be so disappointed in her, but after a few seconds of internal debate, Effie shook a cigarette from the box and grimaced. ‘Not a word to Olly.’
Lou shrugged her shoulders and wrapped her hands around her mug. ‘A word about what? I’ll come for the next one. I’m still frozen to the bone.’
Effie shrugged her jacket on and ducked outside. As she leaned against the wall, she lit the cigarette and took a long, deep drag. She hadn’t realised how much she’d missed it until then. She knew it was bad for her, and she’d promised Oliver, but sometimes it was nice to just take a few minutes of time out. The nicotine rushed to her head as she blew out her second plume of smoke, and when she blew the third, Smith joined her.
‘You got a light?’ He held up his cigarette and Effie threw the lighter, aiming for his head. His hand shot up as he caught it effortlessly with a grin. She threw him an unimpressed look. Why did he have to be so annoyingly good at everything?
‘Did you have fun?’ he asked as he lit the tip of his cigarette.
She shrugged. ‘It was alright.’
‘What?’ He raised an eyebrow and blew his smoke out of the side of his mouth. ‘Ice skating too lowbrow in your world now, is it?’
Effie shook her head. ‘Don’t be stupid.’
He leaned against the wall and looked down at her. ‘So, lover boy Henry didn’t show. What a shame.’
‘Did you come out here just to piss me off?’ She glowered at him, wishing he’d disappear as quickly as the smoke trailing off the end of her cigarette.
‘You know, I’ve been trying to figure it out. I mean, nobody gets married that quickly after meeting someone.’
‘Let me save you the trouble: I love him.’
‘You said the same thing to me once. I’m not convinced you mean it this time round.’
‘Whatever.’ Effie flicked her cigarette into the road. ‘You have no idea how arrogant you sound.’
‘Oh, I dunno. I don’t think you’d react to me like you do if you didn’t still feel something for me. The way you yanked your elbow away from me earlier was like I’d just tried to kill you rather than help you.’
‘And you think that’s a sign that I’ve got feelings for you? Sounds like you’re a bit deluded to me,’ Effie replied.
‘No. It was the way you were holding on to me while we were skating that did it.’
How did he do that? How did he always manage to seem like he knew what was going on in her head? She looked up at him, expecting to see the know-it-all smirk, but instead all she saw were his eyes searching hers. She sighed and leaned back against the wall.
‘This conversation is irrelevant. We were never a real couple – you were pretty clear about that. And you left. You made your decision, and I made mine.’
‘It wasn’t like I had a choice.’
She pushed herself off the wall. ‘That’s exactly what I mean. You’re always surrounded by drama. You left, and you know what? It was the best thing you could’ve done, because I’m happy. I’ve got everything I’ve ever wanted. Love, happiness – stability.’
‘Stability? You’re twenty-five, not forty-five. Is that why you got a ring on your finger? Did he promise you a house and two-point-five kids? Yearly holidays to the Bahamas?’
A house, kids and holidays. Yes, it was what she wanted. She wanted stability. She needed it, and Smith leaving had made her realise that he could never have been the one to give it to her. Like fate, she’d met Oliver a month later, and he’d offered to give her everything she’d ever wanted. At the time it had felt like pure romance, but now Smith was back, gazing at her with that look of his, the one that always made her feel like he was undressing her with his eyes, Oliver’s romancing suddenly felt like the dullest thing in the world.
‘I would have given you all that. You know I would. Screw the Bahamas, I’d have given you the world.’
‘I’d like to know how, exactly, when you couldn’t even bring yourself to call me your girlfriend?’
‘Don’t do that, Eff.’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t make out that what we had didn’t mean anything. I know you, and I know you don’t belong in some rich boy’s la-la land. I know he can’t make you happy.’
‘And why is that?’ she replied with her hands on her hips.
‘Because, Effie, he’s not me.’
The way he said her name made her flinch. It had fallen from his mouth like molten gold, and she wished she hadn’t noticed, just like she wished she could pretend her skin wasn’t burning as he ran a thumb across her cheekbone and down to her lower lip. Why was she letting him do this? Her heart was beating so hard, it almost tripped itself up, but she jerked her head away. She was over him. She didn’t want him. And she was married – he was stepping way over the line.
‘Stop it, Smith. I mean it. You can’t just come back and derail my life.’
‘I’m not derailing anything; you’ve done that yourself. We might not have been conventional, but we worked, and you know it.’
‘No, we didn’t. You’re right about one thing, though. Oliver isn’t you and that’s why we work better than you and I ever did.’ She barged past him and stopped by the door, looking at him with as much bravado as she could muster. ‘Stay away from me, Smith. I don’t need your shit in my life anymore.’
5.
A few days later, Effie swore as she untangled the set of fairy lights at her feet. Last year, she’d put up her artificial tree and hung pound shop ornaments on it. This year, things were different and altogether classier. At least, she hoped it would be. She’d spent an hour in John Lewis, trying to decide which decorations to buy, staying as far away as possible from anything with even a hint of gaudiness about it.
After untangling the lights, she strung them up around the windows and looked outside, watching a plastic bag being pushed along the pavement by the wind. The sky was a depressing shade of grey, and their honeymoon in sunny Thailand felt like a million years ago. Oliver had worked late almost every night since, and she tried to shake the feeling of loneliness that had settled over her for the past few days.
She hung the silver and blue baubles on the eight-foot Norwegian spruce standing in the corner of the living room, before looking at the small, wooden nutcracker princes next to the white candles on top of the fireplace. Would Oliver like it? She’d gone for the most tasteful decorations she could find, knowing that he hated anything that could ever be described as remotely tacky. Effie looked around the living room again. She’d done her best, and that was all she cou
ld do, so when she heard his key in the lock earlier than usual, she pushed her doubts out of her mind and went to greet him at the door.
She threw her arms around his neck. ‘What are you doing back so early?’
He grinned, his trademark cheeky grin that had beamed at her from across a packed-out bar and changed her life forever.
‘I was let off early for good behaviour.’
She melted as his lips met hers.
‘Now that,’ she replied between kisses, ‘I find hard to believe.’
He grinned. ‘Court was adjourned early, so I thought I’d come back and keep my wife company.’
It was music to her ears, and Effie smiled before leading him into the living room. ‘Dinner’s already cooked and . . . it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.’
‘Well, aren’t you the perfect little housewife?’
If it had come from anyone else, it would have sounded condescending, but she knew it was a compliment. Since their wedding, she’d tried her best to keep the house perfect and dinner ready for when he returned from a hard day at work. She wanted to be the perfect little housewife, and she hoped the decorations would do her efforts justice. She pulled at her little finger and held her breath as he shook off his long black overcoat.
‘It looks great.’
A satisfied smile pulled at her mouth, and she silently sighed with relief. She’d been right to go with the blue and silver colour scheme. The white fairy lights gave a warm glow to the room, contrasting with the darkness outside, and the scent of cinnamon-scented candles on the windowsill wafted through the air. A bottle of wine with two sparkling glasses sat on the coffee table, and she’d draped the freshly washed woollen blanket over the impossibly large mocha-brown sofa.
‘Not sure about the lights on the window, though,’ he said, throwing his coat on the sofa. ‘Looks a bit . . .’ – he scrunched his nose up – ‘tacky, don’t you think?’
Effie looked at the window, and her body sagged. Tacky. It was the one word she’d been trying to avoid hearing him say. She thought it looked nice and homey, but she had noticed that only two other houses on the street had done the same.
‘I wasn’t really sure,’ she said, ‘but I think you’re right. I’ll take them down.’
‘You can do it later.’ He kissed the side of her head and pulled at his tie as he walked into the kitchen. ‘What time’s your mum coming tomorrow?’
‘About seven,’ Effie replied, following him.
‘I’ll make sure I’m back in time. I’m looking forward to it.’
She took two plates from the cupboard and laughed. ‘Why can’t you despise your mother-in-law like a normal husband?’
‘Because, firstly, it’d be hard to despise someone I’ve never even met, and secondly, she can’t be any worse than the mother-in-law you’ve been landed with courtesy of me.’
‘But your mum’s lovely.’
‘Okay, she can’t be any worse than your stepmother-in-law then. Now, enough about your mother. What do you say to us eating this dinner, and then I’ll run you a bubble bath?’
Effie grinned and lifted the lid from the saucepan. Just when she thought he couldn’t get any more perfect.
‘Hello, Sweetpea,’ Penny said, pulling Effie into a hug as soon as she opened the door.
Effie stiffly hugged her back. ‘Hi, Mum. Did you find the house alright?’
‘No problem at all.’ Penny unwound the chunky scarf around her neck as she stepped inside, and Effie tried not to sigh when she took her coat off.
Of course it was silly to have expected her mum to make an effort for dinner, but she was wearing dark green Aladdin pants and a long-sleeved hemp sweater that looked like it had been picked up in a flea market somewhere. In fact, it probably had.
‘Couldn’t you have at least put a bra on?’ Effie asked, screwing up her face.
‘Why? You know I don’t like them. Anyway, I had my nipple pierced, and I don’t like the way it rubs.’
Effie’s jaw fell open. Could her mum get any more embarrassing?
‘Oh, Sweetpea. Close your mouth. You know your face will stay like that if the wind changes.’
Effie shook her head at Penny’s girlish grin and looked up at the ceiling. This was the woman Oliver would walk through the door to be greeted by for the first time. God help him.
‘Just don’t go mentioning that to Olly. He’ll be home soon.’
Penny shrugged. ‘I don’t know why you’d think I would. I wouldn’t even have told you if you hadn’t commented about my lack of a bra. I know how prudish you can get.’
‘I’m not a prude. I just don’t need to know about your intimate piercings.’
Couldn’t her mum act like a normal forty-five-year-old?
‘Oh, stop.’ Penny tutted and linked her arm through Effie’s as if it hadn’t been years since they’d last seen each other and months since they’d spoken. ‘Come on – I’m sure you’re dying to show me around.’
Thankful to get away from the impossibly embarrassing thought of her mum’s piercings, Effie showed her mum around the beautifully decorated three-storey house, proudly pointing everything out. She’d devoured decorating magazines for ideas and gone to great pains to make sure the coffee table was the right shade of oak to match the floors, and she’d spent two hours deliberating over which colour to paint the bathroom. It was duck-egg blue. Oliver had said it looked elegant and fresh, and she completely agreed with him. Everything had been thought through, right down to the last little detail.
‘Do you really need this much space?’ Penny asked as they stood in the kitchen.
‘It’s not that big.’
True, it was larger than average, and at a cost of over half a million pounds, it was more expensive than average, but Clapham wasn’t a cheap place to live, and the whitewashed Georgian houses on their street were highly sought after. Oliver had only been able to afford the deposit himself thanks to the trust fund his parents had set up.
‘Rented?’
Effie shook her head. ‘I emailed you, remember? Olly bought it. We moved in a few weeks before the wedding.’
She searched her mum’s face for any ounce of recognition. Despite their irregular relationship, Effie had sent her a long email, offloading her excitement at moving into the physical embodiment of her dream home, but clearly Penny couldn’t remember reading it, if she’d read it at all. She’d probably been too engrossed in her downward-facing dog or saluting the sun, or whatever it was she did in the ashrams she visited.
‘For how much?’
‘Four hundred,’ Effie replied, picking up the knife from the side to make a start on the salad.
‘Thousand?’ Penny’s voice rose an octave. ‘Euphemia Willow Abbott, that’s ridiculous. Vulgar, even.’
‘It’s London.’ Effie shrugged, ignoring the way her mum used her full name to get her point across. ‘And I’m not an Abbott anymore, remember?’
She was glad she’d shaved a hundred grand off the real figure. Otherwise, her mum’s voice would’ve shattered the windows. Half a million pounds was a lot of money, but the house was worth every penny.
Their clean, quiet street was surrounded by delicatessens and Parisian-style coffee shops serving delicate patisseries. When her mum had left, Effie had stayed in hostels until getting her own council flat in Kennington, and though it wasn’t far away, it might as well have been another world. Communal metal bins and gangs of kids with hoodies and dogs had been replaced by recycling boxes and kids on skateboards, wearing skinny jeans. For as long as she could remember, she’d wanted a house of her own, and now she had it. It wasn’t a caravan with random waifs and strays camping outside, and it wasn’t a shared house with backpackers and hippies.
‘I love this house,’ she said, more to herself than her mum.
‘I never would have though
t you’d want something so conventional.’
Effie gripped the knife in her hand as she cut up the lettuce. Conventional wasn’t even worthy of a dignified definition in her mum’s world, and Effie had been brought up without a shred of it. Sure, there were times when it had been great. There’d be parties and late-night music sessions, and none of her school friends came back from the summer holidays with stories of listening to a live folk band playing under the stars in Tuscany, or cooking a fish they’d caught that day over an open fire in Greece, like she did. But then again, they didn’t come back with stories of having their phone stolen by a shifty traveller or waking up to see a different man emerging from their mum’s bedroom on a frighteningly regular basis either.
Penny ran her finger across the worktop. ‘I suppose it’s pretty in its own way, but it’s not really yours, is it?’
Effie frowned. ‘Of course it is. I live here.’
‘You might live here, but it’s not yours.’
True, it was Oliver’s name on the mortgage and not hers, but she was the one who had made it a home. If it had been left up to him, there would be barely any furniture, no pictures on the walls and only the absolute basics in the fridge.
‘Are you paying for the mortgage too?’
‘Of course,’ Effie replied.
‘Can you even afford it? Being a receptionist doesn’t pay enough to live in a house like this. Or at least it didn’t in my day.’
‘Well, that was, like, a hundred years ago.’ Effie flicked her eyes up to the ceiling. What was it about her mum that made her revert to a petulant teenager? ‘And I’m not a receptionist.’
‘Admin, receptionist – same, same.’ Penny waved her hand. ‘What did you say Oliver does again?’
‘He’s a barrister – high profile too. He earns well. We can manage.’
‘I don’t doubt that you can. You’ve always been resourceful.’
‘That’s because I’ve had to be.’
Penny looked away and flicked through the copy of Grazia that Effie had left out, with her lips pursed. Effie tutted. She was the one who’d been left on her own. Her mum had no right to sulk, but somehow she’d made Effie feel like the bad one.
Love You Better Page 4