She pulled her feet out of the water to walk back over to Harriet, and she couldn’t help but smile.
‘Look at you all smiley. Does someone have a crush on the hot guy?’
‘Shut up,’ Nancy said as she plonked herself down onto the sun lounger.
‘I will not. I want to hear everything.’ She put her phone down.
‘I’m pretty sure you did – pretending not to hear and then making the rookie mistake of responding when we talked about you.’ She laughed and shook her head.
Harriet giggled. ‘I know! I could’ve kicked myself. But I didn’t hear everything; I was at the bar remember?’ Harriet picked up Nancy’s new sangria and passed it to her. ‘I think you’ve earned this.’
She took the glass, ‘What? For talking to some guy?’
‘Yes, for taking some time for you and enjoying yourself with a hot guy, something you haven’t done in I don’t know how long. It’s about time you forgot about that loser Pete and put yourself out there!’ She picked up her phone again and started tapping away.
‘Hari, I chatted to some guy, I’m not about to marry him. Or even date him. This isn’t an 18-30s holiday where I am looking to hook up and get my leg over. My marriage ended a year ago!’
‘Oh come on, you’re not exactly going to let Pete back in, are you? So why not explore your options?’
‘Hari, I am here for a holiday with my boy and my friend. Nothing else.’ She leaned back onto her sun lounger and pulled her sunglasses back down over her eyes. ‘And anyway, we’re too old for an 18-30s holiday.’
‘Hey! We aren’t that old! 32 isn’t old! 30 is the new 20!’
‘Still too old.’ She giggled and made herself comfortable. Just because she wasn’t going to act on anything with Cameron – didn’t mean she couldn’t fantasize about him.
She turned her attention to Jack who was still watching videos on his iPad. She hated how much time he spent on there but equally, she knew it was a source of comfort for him so she didn’t like to take it away. She shuffled on her lounger to be closer to him, placing her hand on his forearm. He looked up at her touch, his big blue eyes wide with interest. He slid off the head phones after pausing his video and waited for her to speak.
‘You ok, little man?’ She had really struggled with his meltdown earlier in the kids’ club but that must be nothing compared to how he must’ve felt.
He nodded.
‘Are you feeling a bit better now?’ She knew he didn’t really like to talk about it afterwards, but she tried anyway. He might change his mind one day, so she always kept trying. He shrugged. ‘What’s up? You feeling sad?’ Another shrug. ‘Didn’t you want to talk to that boy? He was just trying to be your friend.’
‘I don’t like it.’
‘What?’ she frowned. ‘The boy?’ No reply. ‘He was just being friendly.’
‘I don’t like it. I don’t know … he’s … I just don’t like it.’
She smiled at him. He looked so innocent, and with the sunshine beaming down onto his light blonde hair and making him squint just a little bit, he looked younger than his seven years. She didn’t know if it was just because he was her only child and because of the upheaval over the last year, but she felt so much more protective over him. He might be seven now, but he was still her little blue-eyed baby. She missed spending time together when life hadn’t always been so stressful. They had some great times together still, but a huge part of his everyday living – especially as he grew older and the social expectation of him – seemed to cause him more angst than happiness. She tried so hard to make his life easy, but she was still learning. It would take time, she knew this, but it was a hard pill to swallow.
She decided to change tactic. ‘What are you watching?’
‘A video.’ He seemed unsure. Nancy didn’t normally ask much about his iPad and what he was up to – mostly because she didn’t want to intrude on his down time and, if she was being honest with herself, partly because she was too stressed.
‘What’s it about?’
‘Building.’
Jack loved building programmes, and she smiled as she should have guessed that’s what he would be watching. She picked up her drink and shuffled closer to him. ‘Can I watch it too?’ she asked, hoping that he didn’t reject her. But instead he just shrugged and put his headphones back on.
She sat quietly with Jack as the video played, wondering how she was going to help him get through his life. Today had exhausted her and she feared that things were only going to get worse for them if she didn’t come up with a way to help Jack handle life better. She already felt like she had exhausted every avenue available to them to find solutions, strategies and coping mechanisms, but clearly there was a lot more work to do. Where was she to start? She wasn’t sure anymore.
As she rested her hand on his little back, she smiled at the fact that she couldn’t hear anything being said on the video, but at least Jack was letting her get close to him. It was a start. And everything has to start from somewhere.
Chapter 11
‘For crying out loud!’ Harriet slammed her phone on the counter and picked up her laptop.
‘What’s up?’ Nancy asked as she applied her make up.
They were both in Harriet’s room getting ready to go for dinner whilst the children were playing in Nancy’s room – the adjoining door left open so that they could keep an eye on them. Though children playing loosely translated to Harriet’s two playing and Jack sitting on the bed with his iPad. Standard practice now. Harriet’s two barely noticed Jack anymore.
‘Bloody work – as per frickin’ usual.’ She punched away at the keys as she logged into her laptop.
‘Was this holiday not supposed to be a break for you, Hari?’ Nancy raised her eyebrows and Harriet tried to not bite, because her stress level was currently at 98 per cent and she wasn’t about to take it out on her best friend.
‘I would love nothing more than to have a complete break from work but these idiots I employ seem to be incapable of making a decision without running it by me first!’
‘You know why that is, don’t you?’ Nancy replied as Harriet shook her head. ‘Because if it goes wrong, it’s their fault and you’ll fire them. If you take the responsibility of OK-ing something, it’s off their shoulders and onto yours.’
‘I wouldn’t fire them if it went wrong.’ Another eyebrow raise from Nancy. ‘I wouldn’t!’
‘Last year – Mr Yao?’
Shit. ‘Ok, well he deserved to be fired because his mistake was of epic proportions.’
‘And you were on your period,’ Nancy said under her breath, but Harriet heard.
She threw a pillow at her friend. ‘I was not! I am not that unprofessional!’
‘Hari, I know – I’m joking! Jeez!’
‘Sorry, I’m just a little stressed, that’s all.’ She turned her attention back to the screen and loaded up her emails and the spreadsheet for the company.
‘You are a good businesswoman – no one ever doubts that. You are the most successful woman I know and you work bloody hard for it. And it’s only because I love you that I am willing to overlook the fact that you invited me away for a girls’ holiday and have spent 90 per cent of our first two days here on your phone or on your laptop.’ Nancy didn’t move her eyes away from the mirror as she applied her mascara.
Harriet stopped and looked at her friend, a twinge of guilt settling into the pit of her stomach. ‘I know, I’m sorry. I just … need to make this work.’
‘It is working – your company won Essex Business of The Year last year after just four years of trading and you won businesswoman of the year. You’re totally smashing it, Hari; you just need to learn when to give yourself a break.’
‘Nance, if I gave myself a break, those awards wouldn’t have been mine. It’s because I work so hard that we got them.’
‘Being businesswoman of the year is great but what good is it if you don’t have friends or family around to share it wi
th?’ The air between them because instantly tense at Nancy’s comment, which Harriet took as a reference to her husband leaving her. Andy walking out had been the biggest kick in the teeth after Harriet had spent years building up her company so she could be a valid, contributing member of the family. She’d done it for them – for all of them – but he’d never been able to see that.
‘Low blow, Nance.’
Nancy frowned but then the penny dropped. ‘Come on, don’t be over-sensitive, I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘Yes you did,’ Harriet said, punching away at her keyboard without looking at her friend for fear of her eyes betraying how much that comment hurt. And it hurt because she knew it was true.
Nancy swivelled round on her seat. ‘I didn’t, I didn’t mean it to come out how it did. I just meant you deserve a break after all your hard work.’
Now it was Harriet’s turn to swivel round. ‘No, you meant that because I worked so hard my husband left me and our children and I lost a shitload of friends in the process. If I could call them friends – can’t have been very good mates if they were willing to drop me the second I couldn’t go out every weekend because I was too busy earning a living.’ It was a sore subject and Nancy knew it. ‘It’s a cheap shot, Nance.’
‘Hey, my husband left me too! I’m not judging you for it!’
‘This isn’t a fucking competition, Nance – who has the shittiest husband!’ Harriet’s heart was racing now as she battled to keep the tears at bay. She didn’t do crying – it was a sign of weakness and she wasn’t weak. She was a lot of things – shit at being a housewife, a lame mother at times, a rubbish cook and a workaholic – but she wasn’t weak.
Nancy stood up and walked back into her room, slamming the door behind her.
Harriet sat for a minute looking at the screen of numbers and Excel spreadsheets trying to blink away the moisture that was filling her eyes. After a moment she slammed the laptop lid closed and walked into the bathroom. If she was going to do this crying lark, she needed to do it in the shower where no one would see her.
She threw the bathroom door shut and leaned onto the sink, looking at her face in the mirror. Her perfect hair was still in place and her outfit today screamed Milan catwalk, but inside she was broken.
She took a tissue and dabbed at the corners of her eyes where tears were threatening to spill over. ‘Damn emotions!’ she sniffed. ‘This is why I like business meetings – no fucking emotion involved. Just get the job done and get out. None of this stupid crying malarkey. I mean what is that about?’ She paused and looked at herself in the mirror again. ‘And this is why you’re single, Hari – you need to stop talking to yourself!’
She sat on the closed toilet seat and shut her eyes, taking a few deep breaths as her racing heartbeat slowed to a steady pulse. It wasn’t even that mean a comment from Nancy, Harriet had had worse said to her. The fact that she overreacted to this conversation didn’t go unmissed by her. But she was already feeling exposed about the situation and whilst most of the time she pushed all the thoughts and feelings associated with her ex to the back of her mind, occasionally they seeped out and consumed her. It wasn’t enough that she felt stressed and inadequate as a mum, she also missed Andy. A lot. She’d been devastated when he’d left but she’d masked her true upset. Now it was too late to reconcile with him as he had moved on and had nothing to do with Harriet or the children. That alone told her he wasn’t worth it – it didn’t stop her missing him though. Missing the times they’d had. Before the children and prior to Harriet starting up her own company, the two of them had had lots of fun together. They just weren’t strong enough to grow into adulthood together. And as for the friends, well, who needed loads of friends anyway? She had Nancy and the people at work, and they all understood. It stung when she stopped getting invited out to things, but she soon learned to get over it and concentrate on what really mattered. It was much easier to throw herself into work than to address why people didn’t want to be around her anymore. She didn’t like the person she had become – she didn’t need others telling her they felt the same too.
She shook her head and straightened up. Hissy fit over, she had some emails to send.
Chapter 12
‘Listen, I’m sorry about earlier. I was out of order and I shouldn’t have said what I did.’ Harriet waved off Nancy’s comment. ‘I didn’t mean it, you know, I just hate seeing you so worked to the bone – I don’t want you to burn out, that’s all.’
‘It’s fine, I shouldn’t have shouted at you. Just a bit stressed that’s all.’ The response was clipped, it clearly wasn’t OK.
Nancy speared a potato onto her fork ignoring the finality in Harriet’s voice. She couldn’t have things strained between them whilst they were away. ‘But that’s what I mean; you’ve been stressed for the last four years – when do you give yourself a break?’
‘A company doesn’t get off its feet if the owners want to take a break every five minutes. You get out what you put in.’ Harriet didn’t take her eyes off her plate, making herself look far too busy with cutting up her food. It was obvious she was doing it as a distraction.
‘Yes, true, but when the owner is sending emails from her hospital bed after having just had a baby, there’s got to be a line drawn, surely?’ Nancy remembered the day she visited Harriet after she’d had Tommy and was shocked to see her have a complete work desk set up in the hospital. Laptop out, phone next to it and a coffee on the side as Tommy slept in the cot next to her. The nurses must’ve thought she was crazy, Nancy sure had. ‘You were like a woman possessed; tapping away on emails with one hand, your phone going between your ear and your shoulder and I’m pretty sure you had a conference call at one point over the course of that day too. I mean, that’s just crazy. You have to learn when to stop and breathe.’
‘Are we really going to do this at dinner or can we enjoy it? I’m not working right now, am I? Yet you seem set on talking about work!’
Nancy was taken back by her abruptness. ‘I’m not having a go—’
‘Could’ve fooled me.’ Hari snapped back.
‘Hey! I’m just saying this because I care. Why don’t you take a step back for a second? You have employees working on stuff, you said yourself that things are quieter at the moment before your next big contract comes in – I don’t understand why you have to be going at 100 miles per hour every second of every day. It makes me tired just watching you.’ Nancy laughed to try and lighten the mood.
‘Can we just change the subject please?’
Nancy shrugged and continued eating her dinner. She certainly hadn’t planned to come away on holiday and row. It was supposed to be fun. Harriet was overreacting but there was no point in trying to talk about work with her whilst she was still in a mood. It was definitely something that Nancy was not going to give up on though. Harriet kept saying how Nancy had had a tough year and needed a break – the truth could be said about her too. She was just too bloody stubborn to admit it. But this was a conversation for another time, maybe after a few cocktails. ‘So what’s the plan for tomorrow?’
‘Waterpark!’ Isla shouted and banged on the table.
Tommy saw his sister do it and started repeatedly banging on the table in response. Isla giggled and joined in, chanting waterpark, waterpark, waterpark.
Jack clutched at his ears – Nancy had managed to pry his iPad and headphones away from him so he would eat something.
‘OK, OK, that’s enough you two. Look, you’re upsetting Jack.’ Harriet pointed to Jack and Isla looked over.
‘Sorry Jack,’ Isla said, and looked guiltily at Nancy.
‘It’s OK, sweetheart, he’s fine.’ Nancy hated it when other children’s fun was cut short because it upset Jack. He didn’t like loud noises, new people, being touched … the list of triggers was only growing, and she was becoming more and more aware of how difficult life was for him.
‘I’m up for the waterpark if you are Nancy?’
Nancy looke
d at Jack. He was never going to like it, but why should the others suffer because he didn’t want to go? Maybe he would try it – although she didn’t hold out much hope. ‘Jack?’ she said, placing a hand on his forearm gently so he knew she was talking to him. He looked at her with his big blue eyes. ‘Shall we go to the waterpark tomorrow? It will have slides and a swimming pool and it will be lots of fun.’
Already he was shaking his head.
‘Come on, just give it a try?’
‘I don’t like water.’
‘You don’t have to go in – just dangle your feet like you did earlier today in the swimming pool?’
‘When the boy came to talk to me.’ It was a statement rather than a question and Nancy felt a small bolt of elation as she realised he had probably taken more notice of Aiden when he came over earlier than he let on.
‘That’s right. That little boy was called Aiden. He wanted to be your friend.’
‘I don’t like friends.’
‘Of course you do – everyone likes to have friends.’
‘Not me.’ He picked up a piece of plain pasta and put it into his mouth.
‘Why not?’ Nancy pressed. She always tried to push conversations with him when he was in a talkative mood. She had no idea why he was so chatty tonight but she kept going, afraid that if she stopped, he would too.
He shrugged.
‘Because it’s OK to speak to new people. That’s how we make friends.’
‘But I don’t know who they are.’
‘That’s how we make friends, we get to know them. We can ask questions about what they like, and they ask us questions and—’
‘I don’t like questions.’
Nancy suppressed a groan. She hated it when he disliked everything she said, but she was adamant about keeping her happy face on – if he saw she was frustrated then he would just close off and she needed him to keep opening up or he would never make any progress.
‘But Mummy and I ask you questions and you answer us,’ Harriet said, decanting some more of her dinner onto Tommy’s plate.
Mums Just Wanna Have Fun Page 7