by Lisa Jewell
‘The yummy mummy incident?’
‘Yes, that one. And he was just bizarrely friendly.’
Her sister raised an eyebrow in surprise. ‘Bloody cheek,’ she said. ‘Did he ask you what you did with the flowers?’
‘Yes.’
‘God, what did you say?’
‘I told him I’d put them in the bin.’
‘You didn’t!’
‘Well, yeah, I did. I mean if his whole thing with me was that he thought I was some incredible amazing person who wasn’t like anyone else then really he’d have been disappointed in me if I’d lied. That’s what he’d have expected me to do, to be all polite and tra-la-la with him. So I just told him bluntly and he laughed. He thought it was really funny.’
‘Blimey,’ said Lulu.
‘I know! He said, well, I’m not really sure what to make of it, but he said he’d been in a strange mood that day because of the, you know,’ she cast her eyes towards the crown of her daughter’s head, explaining her obtuseness, ‘the mother. She’s off the drugs, apparently, got a new boyfriend and now she wants custody of their daughter. He’d just finished talking to her when I bumped into him in the park. That’s why he was so stressed, that’s why he was so, you know, mean.’
‘But still,’ said Lulu, ‘everyone has bad days, everyone takes their shit out on people from time to time, but what he said to you, it was unforgivable.’
Jem shrugged. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘but actually, the more I think about it, the more some of what he was saying was true. I did give him the wrong impression. I was playing games with him. And I did even look at his shoes and hate them. Plus what he said really made me think. I have turned into this tedious urban mum, all caught up in doing everything properly, in getting an early night, in timings and schedules and, I don’t know, moaning about my husband and keeping myself to myself, and what he said, it touched a nerve. I knew what he was trying to say. He wasn’t saying I was a bad person. He was just saying that I wasn’t the person I thought I was. And he was right.’
‘And you told him this, did you?’
‘Yeah.’
Her sister raised her eyebrows and tutted.
‘No, honestly. It’s good.’
‘It is not good. Some bloody lunatic man has been stalking you, insulting you and sending you tacky flowers and you tell him that actually, you really appreciate it?’
‘Yes,’ laughed Jem. And it was true. She’d lost sight of the big picture and Joel had seen it. He’d seen the real Jem buried away underneath her piles of baggage and then she’d snatched it back and he’d been hurt and surprised.
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Lulu, ‘don’t tell me you like him again, now?’
Jem shook her head. ‘No, categorically not. And there was this rather bizarre moment when we were leaving the playground and I thought we were about to go our separate ways, so I was saying goodbye to him and he looked at me and he said: it means so much to me that you’ve forgiven me, you really are a great person. I’m really sorry if I ever made you feel bad about yourself, and then he hugged me!’
Scarlett looked up at them then and smiled. ‘He did,’ she agreed. ‘He did hug her. He did hug her really hard. And he did like this.’ She passed her sticky hand across Jem’s cheek. ‘And he was crying.’
Jem and Lulu looked at Scarlett and then at each other.
‘Crying?’ said Lulu.
‘Well, no, not crying exactly.’
‘Yes! He was! His cheeks was all wet!’ cried Scarlett indignantly.
‘Yes,’ agreed Jem, ‘his cheeks was all wet and it was all a bit, well, odd, I suppose. But, you know, clearly the man had had a bad day and then when he asked where we were going I told him we were off for a pizza, thinking, well, he won’t want to come because he won’t be able to afford it but he did come.’
‘And he let me eat his vanilla ice cream because he doesn’t like it.’
‘Yes,’ smiled Jem, ‘Scarlett was very impressed with the ice-cream incident. Has been talking about it rather a lot.’
‘You mean all these years of trying to win Scarlett’s affections and all I had to do was palm off some unwanted vanilla ice cream on her?’
‘Apparently so. Oooh, OW!’ Jem move Scarlett to one side and got to her feet. Theo had just fallen off his skateboard and landed on his chin. He scrambled to his feet and looked around desperately for his mother, suddenly a small boy again and not the prematurely teenaged skateboard supremo. Lulu pulled him into her arms and examined the grazed chin. ‘Ouch,’ she said, ‘that looks sore,’ She pulled a tissue from her shoulder bag and wiped away the gravel. ‘Oh, it’s fine,’ she said, examining it again, ‘just a scratch. Come on,’ she continued, ‘let’s go to Giraffe.’
She gathered her elder son and her younger son and the six of them made their way across the crowded walkway towards the restaurant.
Now that Scarlett was out of earshot, Lulu asked her: ‘So, what is going on? Are you going to have an affair with this man?’
Jem threw her a look of astonishment. ‘No!’ she said, ‘of course I’m not. I don’t even like him. I told you, he’s odd. And clearly his life is a mess. Why on earth would I want to get involved with a man like that?’
‘Because you’re looking for something?’
Jem threw Lulu a look. ‘What do you mean?’
Lulu paused and licked her lips. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied circumspectly. ‘You’ve just got this aura about you.’
‘Aura?’
‘Yes, you know, that thing that people get sometimes when they’re … up for it?’
‘You mean I’m like a bitch in heat?’
‘No! Just that you seem … available.’
Jem looked at her sister, aghast.
‘No, no, that’s not what I meant. I can’t explain it. But if I didn’t know you, I’d say you were single.’
Jem let out a shot of ironic laughter. ‘Ha,’ she said, ‘when, in fact, I’m thirty-eight, I’ve got two kids and I’m about to get married.’
‘Yeah,’ said Lulu, ‘I know.’
They walked to the restaurant forecourt and joined a lengthy queue for tables. Scarlett wandered off to look through the windows and Jem turned to Lulu. ‘Ralph said no to sex,’ she whispered.
Lulu widened her eyes at her in reply.
‘Yes, last night. I instigated it. He said no.’
‘But why?’
‘I have no idea. He was all mumbly and incoherent. Just said he couldn’t, he was too tired.’
Lulu nodded and grimaced. ‘You don’t think he’s a bit freaked out by the, you know, losing the baby, do you?’ She whispered the last word.
Jem threw her a look. ‘God, no, I don’t think so. I think he’s fine about that. Well, at least I assume he is. I mean, he said he wanted the baby, and he did turn up at the clinic to try to stop me but I think he was doing that for me, you know. I think he thought that I’d regret it if I went through with it. I don’t really think he wanted a third child, not really, not deep down, and he was probably as relieved as me when it didn’t happen. Anyway, no, I’ve been thinking about it and my theory is that he’s just trying to pay me back, for all those times I turned him down.’
‘But why? Why would he be so petty? I thought you two were getting on really well at the moment?’
‘Well, yes, we are, but, I don’t know, Ralph’s been a bit strange the past couple of days, even before the no sex thing. A bit distant.’
‘Yes, well, Ralph’s always been a bit distant.’
‘No, but more than that. I don’t know. It feels,’ Jem began, ‘it feels like he’s drifting away. Which is ironic, given that he’s never spent more time with us as a family and he’s physically so present, but emotionally …’
‘You’re not going to split up, you two, are you?’ Lulu bit the corner of her lip.
‘God, no, of course we’re not. We’re getting married! Of course we’re not going to split up. Why did you even say that?’
>
‘I don’t know,’ said Lulu. ‘It just seems like the pair of you keep taking two steps forward and one step back.’
‘Yeah, but two steps forward, one step back. You get there in the end. Don’t you?’
She turned her head away. It suddenly occurred to her that she might cry and she did not want to cry, not here, not now. Something bad was happening to Jem and Ralph. Something worse than resentment about the division of labour, something worse than resentment about lack of sex, something worse even than complacency. It felt like they’d reached some invisible fork in the road and Ralph was striding away from her without a backward glance.
They reached the head of the queue and a waitress showed them to a table. The conversation got squashed by the perusal of menus and the placating of children and the distribution of crayons and colouring kits. Jem ordered herself a cocktail and ignored Lulu’s look of surprise. It was summer. There were men outside playing steel drums. She’d had a stressful journey getting here. She wanted a cocktail, with fruit in it, and rum. She wanted something to alleviate the discomfort in the pit of her stomach.
She had two cocktails that day, but no lunch.
She didn’t quite have an appetite for it.
Five nights later Jem went out with her sister and some of her friends from the local area. Lulu had had children at school for six years and had built up quite a gang of mothers in her neighbourhood who liked to go out drinking. Jem had never been out with them before. Jem and Lulu were close but their social circles rarely bled into each other. Jem knew these women by name and had met them on occasion if one of them had had a child over at Lulu’s house for a play-date, but beyond that they were not a part of her life. But Lulu had persuaded her that it was time to get involved.
‘You’ll really like them,’ she’d said that afternoon on the South Bank. ‘Some of them are a bit painful, but en masse, you know, it’s fine. And we always have such a laugh.’
Ralph had been strange when she’d mentioned it to him.
‘Sorry, you’re going out with who?’
‘Friends. Of Lulu’s. Just some local women.’
‘OK,’ he’d said, ‘and why?’
‘Because Lulu invited me.’
‘Right. And where are you going, you and Lulu and her mates?’
Jem had shrugged. ‘Don’t know yet. Probably somewhere local. Or one of them’s a member of Soho House, we might go there.’
He’d raised his eyebrows at her.
‘What?’ she’d demanded.
‘Nothing,’ he’d said. ‘Just, I can just imagine the type of woman who lives round here, who has a child at Theo and Jared’s school and is a member of Soho House.’
‘Well, yeah, so can I, and Lulu did say that some of the group are a bit painful, but I don’t really care. I just want to go out. I just want to have some fun.’
Ralph had sneered slightly and sighed. ‘Good,’ he’d said, ‘that’s good. I hope you have it.’
He’d been offish with her for the rest of that day. It was very unlike Ralph. Sulking and brooding were not his traits and he’d always been happy to see Jem going out to enjoy herself in years gone by, particularly since they’d had children. Jem couldn’t quite see why the prospect of her going out after dark with a few local mums should have unsettled him so much, but she ignored his mood and waited for it to pass. She had not been out drinking since before she was pregnant with Blake. If Ralph wanted back the girl he’d fallen in love with all those years ago, and she suspected that he did, then he would have to accept that her independence was all a part of it.
On Wednesday night she wore her vintage chiffon blouse again, with skinny jeans and high heels. She wore her hair down, with a diamanté clip holding it out of her eyes and she wore more make-up than she normally wore, including a smudge of something from Benefit that turned her lips post-coital red. And then, with a flourish of liberation, she removed the obligatory packet of wipes and spare nappy from her handbag and dropped them on the bed.
Ralph was downstairs on the sofa with Blake on his lap and Scarlett curled into him in her nightie and a dressing gown. Scarlett let her thumb fall from her mouth when she saw Jem walk into the room.
‘Mummy,’ she said, ‘you look very beautiful.’
Jem smiled and hugged her. Ralph looked at her with a tersely raised eyebrow. ‘Very pretty,’ he said, and lowered his gaze back to the TV. Jem kissed her daughter and her son and then she kissed the dry cold side of Ralph’s face that he presented her with when she attempted to kiss him on the lips.
Chapter 18
Jem felt a warm buzz of vitality that evening as she crisscrossed the damp streets of Soho to find the small door in the wall of Greek Street, which was the only outward sign of the exclusive club within. She had not walked alone through Soho at night for many a year. She took the long route, although it was cool and wet. She retraced the journeys that she and Ralph used to make, the Chinese restaurant on Lisle Street where they used to share a crispy duck, the sex shop on Brewer Street where they’d stared at all the customers in awe one night when they were stoned, and an anonymous door on a street corner in Chinatown they’d once passed through to get to the flat of a guy called Pete from Manchester who’d invited them in for a beer and a smoke about a thousand years ago.
Lulu’s friend Sam was the member at Soho House and had put their names on a list at the door. Jem made her way up the narrow staircase to a room on the second floor and saw her sister sitting on a sofa with three other women. There was a bottle of champagne already open and chilled by the side of the table and Sam – terribly tall with the sort of geometric and sculpted hair usually seen in the windows of unfashionable hair salons – rustled up an extra glass and poured one for Jem. Jem drank the champagne so fast that she barely had a chance to register the fact that she was drinking champagne, an activity she often daydreamed about during long, mundane afternoons alone with her children. Another bottle appeared and very quickly Jem had finished three glasses and was feeling thoroughly comfortable in her environment and with these three new and slightly forbidding women. Ingrid – who looked like her name – had four children, including a baby the same age as Blake, and hadn’t worked since she was twenty-five. Diana – small and busty with thick yellow hair – was divorced with a nine-year-old daughter called Tansy and sold organic babywear from her own website. Sam had twin boys in Jared’s year and a daughter in Theo’s year, and was the marketing and publicity director for a women’s celebrity gossip magazine.
‘Have you got children, Jem?’ asked Sam, who was the only one of the three mothers that Jem had not met before at Lulu’s house.
‘Yes,’ she nodded, ‘a girl of three and a half and a little boy of six months.’
‘Ah, so you haven’t hit the school years yet, then?’
‘No,’ she agreed, ‘I’ve got all that to come.’
‘And what do you do?’ asked Sam. ‘Do you work?’
Jem nodded, shook her head, nodded again. ‘Kind of,’ she said, and explained about the celebrity arm of the theatrical agency she’d been given to develop as an alternative to maternity leave by her much-loved boss. ‘I’ve only got the two clients,’ she continued. The women looked at her curiously, greedy, it seemed, for some juicy celebrity names to get their teeth into. ‘Karl Kasparov,’ she offered apologetically. The women nodded, encouragingly, as if to say, better luck with the next one. ‘And Philip Samuel.’
‘Ah,’ Sam nodded, ‘the little guy from, what’s that soap called?’
‘Jubilee Road?’
‘Yeah, that one. He’s cute.’
‘Yes, he’s been with the agency since he was fourteen. He was in Oliver!, and then he transferred to the TV and now, well, he wants me to make him famous. But not until his contract’s up for the current run of this show. So, yes, in the meantime, I haven’t really got much work to do. I guess when the baby’s a little older and when my daughter’s at full-time nursery …’
‘Well, look,
when you’re ready and when little Philip’s ready, you should come and have lunch with me,’ said Sam, ‘I know all sorts of people in the industry. I could definitely get you talking to some very helpful people.’
Jem smiled at her words. She was grateful for the offer of lunch. It was nice to have someone take her job seriously. And it was thrilling to think that in a couple of months’ time she would be back inside this world, this glossy, frivolous, exhilarating and gilded world of work, properly.
‘And you’re married?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Jem’s getting married next month,’ said Lulu, proudly.
The women all looked at Jem happily.
‘And this is to the father of your …’
‘… children, yes,’ said Jem. ‘Finally, after eleven years together.’
‘Oh, congratulations,’ said Ingrid, holding aloft her champagne glass. ‘That’s wonderful news. Cheers!’
The five women clinked their glasses together and Jem smiled happily. The sun was going down in Soho and the pretty room was bathed, briefly, in a wash of pomegranate light. The lead singer of Kasabian was sitting behind them and over there in the corner was Fearne Cotton, deep in conversation with someone else who looked familiar but Jem couldn’t quite put a name to her. This room, four walls, a few chesterfield sofas, powered-down lighting, low tables bearing snacks and drinks and discarded newspapers, it could have been a room anywhere, but it wasn’t, it was a room in Soho House, a room that only a select few would occupy, a room with its own potent energy. This place was alive. Pretentious – slightly, yes. Swollen with a disproportionate sense of its own importance – definitely. But a place she’d like to be a member of? Well, it didn’t matter much to Jem what any dead comedian might have to say on the matter, yes, she would like to be a member. She would like to belong here. She would like to sail through the reception area and have that pretty girl behind the desk say, hello, Miss Catterick, how are you this evening, Miss Catterick?
Jem ordered herself a cocktail and when it arrived she drank it very quickly, urgently needing to feel some kind of oblivion descend upon her. She went to the toilet then and engaged someone much younger and more sober than herself in a conversation about the hand soap. She smiled as she sat on the bowl in the cubicle. She felt like a grown-up. She wanted to get back to work, she wanted to plug herself back into the world. She wanted to make a success of herself. She smiled at her reflection over the sink as she washed her hands. She looked fine for an old lady of thirty-eight who’d had one too many to drink. She’d always sworn she wouldn’t get drunk over the age of thirty, remembering her parents’ friends at their vaguely sordid dinner parties, swaying and hooting, stained teeth and florid open-pored cheeks, usually with their arms around someone else’s husband or wife. Drunkenness, like most enjoyable things, was best left to the young. But in the muted light of the toilets at Soho House, Jem concluded that she looked fine. In fact, more than fine. She looked good. She was going back to work. She was getting married. She and Ralph would find a way forwards, of course they would. She fixed a smile to her face, straightened the placket on her chiffon blouse and headed back to the bar.