More Than a Feeling

by Cate Woods

  And if I didn’t say it out loud, I certainly thought it.

  The problem was, you could just tell that Luke was the type who went for sweet, uncomplicated girls with swishy ponytails, not big-mouthed Barbra Streisand wannabes who liked dancing on tables with drag queens. I had already dialled down my look since my parents died – the Barbra outfits were inextricably linked with my darling dad, and it was too painful to be reminded of him every time I looked in the mirror, plus the clothes suggested an inner flamboyance and confidence that I no longer felt – so I just took it to the extreme. I guess most of us are guilty of tweaking ourselves to a degree to become the person we think the object of our affections will desire. I packed away the headscarves and kaftans, toned down my eyeliner and made myself into the girl I knew Luke would fancy. And actually, I felt ready to say goodbye to Barb. This is just part of the growing-up process, I thought; I’d fallen hard for Luke. Two months after we started dating, I came to stay at his flat in Clapham for the weekend and never left.

  But while the new me – sweet, obliging Annie Taylor – might have ticked all his boxes, deep down I think I knew I wasn’t being true to myself. This wasn’t an issue to start with – when someone is falling in love with you, it’s almost impossible not to love yourself too – but as time went on and I gradually began to piece myself back together again in the wake of my parents’ death, this feeling became stronger. I started to miss Barb: her camera, headscarves, big gob and all – although by now she felt like a virtual stranger to me. And then I became a mum, which muddled up my identity still further, leaving me even more confused about who I am. I suppose you could say I was feeling a bit lost.

  Well, now I really am lost.

  Tabitha and her husband Jonathan move me and Dot into the spare room of their cottage in Fulham and instantly take charge. I spend the day in bed, wallowing in a swamp of teary self-pity, while Tabby force-feeds me toast and listens when I blather on about my life being over. Jonathan takes Dot for a walk and keeps her entertained. At some point that afternoon, waking me from a fitful doze, I hear the doorbell ring and moments later my sister’s voice, angrier and shoutier than I’ve ever heard it, shortly followed by the door slamming. She later tells me that Luke turned up asking to see me.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve seen Tabs so furious,’ Jonathan recalls; Tabby has forcibly ejected me from the bed and we’re now sitting in the kitchen having supper.

  ‘Well, I couldn’t believe he had the cheek to turn up on the doorstep!’ Tabby shakes her head. ‘I told him to eff off, obviously.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I mutter, pushing my food around the plate. ‘I’m just so sorry to get you both mixed up in this mess.’

  ‘We’re family, of course we want to help,’ says Jonathan, reaching for my hand and giving it a squeeze. ‘We’re here for you and Dottie, always.’

  I smile at him, tears prickling my eyes at his kindness; at least my sister landed a good ’un.

  ‘Annie . . .’ Tabby pauses, shifting in her seat, as if getting up the nerve to break bad news. ‘I know Luke has behaved absolutely appallingly, but you do know . . . you’re going to have to speak to him at some point, don’t you?’

  No fucking way, snaps a voice inside my head. ‘Mmmm,’ I say, vaguely.

  ‘He told me he’s desperate to make things right between you. He’s clearly feeling terrible about what he’s done. He doesn’t look like he’s slept at all.’

  ‘Good. Fucking arsehole. Sorry, Jon.’

  Jonathan comes from a very well-to-do family – I get the impression they own most of Gloucestershire – and is so well-mannered that I don’t like swearing around him, but he just smiles.

  ‘My dear, in the circumstances it is entirely warranted.’

  We eat in silence for a bit – well, Tabby and Jonathan eat, I brood. Then Tabby says: ‘I know it’s early days, but have you had any thoughts about what you’ll do?’

  ‘Well, I’m not going back to our flat any time soon, that’s for sure. Right now I don’t want anything to do with Luke ever again . . .’ I slump further into my chair. ‘Oh, I don’t know, it’s way too soon to make any decisions.’

  ‘I know, and that’s exactly what I told him,’ says Tabby stoutly. ‘And he does realise he needs to give you some space. But . . . Annie, he wanted me to make sure that you use your joint bank card – for anything that you and Dot need.’

  Anger erupts inside me. ‘I don’t want that arsehole’s money!’

  Jonathan and Tabitha exchange glances. ‘Sweetheart, this is not just about you,’ says Tabby gently. ‘You’re going to need to support Dot, and Luke is her father. I know you want to punish him, but if you don’t accept his help, the only people you’ll hurt are you and Dot. This is really not something to be pig-headed about.’

  She’s right, of course. I’ve been carefully avoiding tackling the subject of where Dot and I will live – and, more importantly, what we’ll live on. Tabitha and Jonathan insist that I can stay with them as long as I want, but they have a baby on the way, so they certainly don’t need a self-pitying single mum squatting in their future nursery. That’s got to be bad baby karma.

  ‘Okay, I’ll use his credit card,’ I say eventually. ‘But only until I get back on my feet. And then Luke Turner can stick his fucking Amex up his cheating arse.’ I grimace. ‘Sorry, Jon . . .’

  *

  On Monday morning Tabitha and Jonathan go back to work (but only after making me promise to at least change out of my pyjamas) and for the next few days I stay in their spare room, marinating in self-pity. Time becomes a meaningless concept: I sleep during the day and lie awake at night, torturing myself with Luke and Sigrid’s betrayal. Breastfeeds are the only way I have to mark the hours passing. I keep my phone switched off, primarily to avoid Luke, but also because I’m still not up to speaking to my friends just yet. In amongst the toxic stew of emotions I’m currently experiencing – anger, hatred, fear – I also feel deeply ashamed, as if I’m to blame for what happened because I somehow failed as a girlfriend. It’s ridiculous, I know, but right now I’m too humiliated even to speak to Fi, Jessica and Claris. Tabitha has talked to them though, so at least they know Dot and I haven’t been kidnapped, and she’s assured me that they’re there for me when I’m ready.

  Thank God for Dot, who despite everything is her usual sunny, giggly self. Without her I’d most likely plunge back into depression. She’s the only reason I have for getting out of bed; I can’t allow myself to go full hermit when I’ve got her to care for. But in my bleakest times there are moments – and how I hate myself for this – when I find myself resenting my daughter. If it wasn’t for Dot, whispers a voice inside me, you could start a whole new life away from Luke. Because of her you’re trapped forever . . . These thoughts are mercifully fleeting, but my self-loathing peaks when they do creep out from under whatever dark stone they’ve been hiding.

  When I’m not focusing on Dot, I brood endlessly over what I should do next, and it takes me until Thursday to realise that I have two options. The easiest of these would be for me to move back in with Luke. Until he screwed it all up I was perfectly happy with him, and he is a good dad – do I really want to ruin Dot’s future over a little snogging? And perhaps a lot of blokes have such moments of madness after becoming a father: not a midlife crisis so much as a new-life crisis. In France this is probably an accepted rite of passage – in fact, it could well be so commonplace that there’s a name for it: ‘une liaison amoureuse de bébé’ or something; I’ll Google it. Yes, I should probably be more continental about Luke’s indiscretion: put it behind me, sleep with one of Luke’s mates to ‘even things up’, take up smoking and get back to what was admittedly a comfortable, happy life. But this option would obviously depend on me being able to forgive Luke; could I actually do that? Right now it feels as likely – and as welcome – as growing a third boob.

  The other option sends me cowering under the covers. This would basically involve splitting up with Luke,
moving out and getting a job. In other words: growing the fuck up. God, how I wish I still had just a fraction of my old self-belief! Barb would have never put up with this crap; she’d be out there getting shit done, fighting to make a fantastic new life for her and her daughter – not snivelling into her sister’s spare duvet . . .

  On Friday morning, Tabitha tells me that I’ll be going out that evening.

  I lift my head wearily from my porridge. ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Yes, you are. It’s not good for you to be stuck inside.’

  ‘I’ve been out! Dot and I went to the park yesterday. We fed the ducks.’ I sigh. ‘How I envy their simple, crust-fuelled existence . . .’

  ‘I mean out without Dot. The girls have arranged a quiet dinner at a place nearby. You don’t have to go for long, but you’re going to go. Your friends are desperate to see you and it’ll do you good.’

  I try to come up with a reason to say no but I know Tabby’s got me bang to rights on this one. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘You’re right, as always.’

  ‘I know I am,’ Tabby smiles. ‘Oh, and Annie? Maybe run a brush through your hair before you leave the house.’

  9

  I can think of very few instances where the maxim ‘quality over quantity’ doesn’t hold true – in fact, nail varnish may be the only one I can come up with: better a dozen bottles of Rimmel than two Chanel, as regardless of price they all chip within twenty-four hours – but nowhere is it more apt than in the case of friends. So you have 1,837 Facebook friends? Good for you! You are truly #blessed. But how many of these people would drop everything and come over if you needed help unblocking your U-bend? How many of them even know where you live?

  I am lucky enough to have three girlfriends of the very highest quality. Five-star, premium, A-grade mates, all of whom would be there like a shot for plumbing-related or indeed any other emergencies. Although I’ve collected them from different places over the years – I met Claris at school, Fiona through an ex-boyfriend while at college and Jessica on a sambuca-fuelled night out at a karaoke bar – we have melded together into a gang so seamlessly it’s as if we were put together for a Netflix Originals series: ‘So we’ve got the loud Irish one, the glamorous cougar, the serious yet sensitive entrepreneur and the tragic single mother – TV gold!’

  So as much as I feel like hiding in Tabitha’s spare room for the rest of my life, if anyone can make me feel brighter it’ll be my friends – and I think I’ve just about got to the point where I can talk about what’s happened without crying.

  For some reason, Claris has booked dinner at the sort of place people go to for hen parties because no other establishment will have them. It’s only 7 p.m., but there are already two bouncers at the door and the bar is rammed with people, an impressive number of whom are already drunk enough to be dancing. ‘Gangnam Style’ is playing on a loop and we spot our first set of comedy plastic boobs within seconds of arriving.

  Claris, whose idea of a wild night out is a Beckett play at the National, a small glass of Merlot in the interval and then a taxi home, is mortified at her poor choice of venue.

  ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry, I had no idea it would be like this!’ She has to shout to make herself heard. ‘I don’t know this area at all, so I looked up local restaurants in Time Out and saw the name of this place and assumed it would be a nice old-fashioned pub, where we could sit by the fire and drink mulled cider. I thought it would have a cosy nook!’

  Jessica snorts with laughter. ‘Oh yeah, cos “Dick’s Halfway Inn” certainly puts you in mind of cosy nooks.’

  ‘I know! I didn’t get the joke!’ Claris looks close to tears. ‘I was in a rush when I booked it, it wasn’t too far from Tabitha’s and it sounded . . . homely.’ She looks over to me, desperately. ‘I’m so sorry, Annie, this must be the last place you want to be right now. Do you want to go somewhere else?’

  ‘Please don’t worry, it’s fine,’ I bellow, as a woman in a bridal veil riding an inflatable penis staggers past. ‘It’s got, um, character.’

  ‘Come on, let’s sit down,’ yells Fi, forging a path through the crowds. ‘It looks a bit more civilised in the restaurant.’

  It is not. We are seated next to a gang of blokes who are celebrating Geoff’s divorce with a fancy dress bar crawl. Even in my self-absorbed fug, I register that their costume game is strong: Geoff has come as a giant prawn, one of his mates is a man-sized Heineken bottle and another is dressed in a sequinned gown, make-up and Miss World sash.

  Geoff and pals are clearly in a ‘chatty’ mood; thankfully Fiona, who has a voice like an Ulster fishwife, booms, ‘NOT INTERESTED, LADS’, and that seems to do the trick.

  Our waiter arrives bearing enormous laminated menus that are sticky with the fingerprints of stags and hens past.

  ‘Hey there, ladies, and welcome to Dick’s! How’re you doing tonight?’ He says it in a way that implies he’s used to getting frenzied whooping in response. ‘My name’s Craig,’ he goes on, unfazed by the tepid reception, ‘and I’m here to get the fun started! Yeah!’

  ‘I think we’ll just order some drinks for now, thank you,’ says Claris with a tight smile.

  ‘Cocktails?’ grins Craig, eyebrows raised, as if suggesting cunnilingus.

  ‘Now you’re talking,’ purrs Jess, angling her cleavage in his direction. ‘What would you suggest?’

  ‘For you, I’d recommend the Leg Spreader,’ smirks Craig. ‘Or perhaps you’d prefer a Screaming Orgasm?’

  She fixes him with a kittenish smile. ‘Well, if you’re offering, I’ll take one followed by the other.’

  They both laugh, while Fiona puts her head in her hands. ‘Jess, are you literally trying to become Samantha from Sex and the City? Because that’s what’s happening.’

  She shrugs. ‘I can think of worse role models.’

  ‘But we’re here to support Annie,’ whispers Claris. ‘She’s delicate right now.’

  ‘Oh tsk, I’m just having a bit of fun.’ Jess turns to face me. ‘Annie, is my behaviour offending you?’

  ‘Honestly guys, I’m fine.’ I give them a reassuring smile. ‘I’ll be up for a glass of red if anyone else is?’

  Fi scans the menu. ‘Okay, let’s get a bottle of the Shiraz and a couple of the sharing platters.’

  ‘Meat or veggie?’ asks Craig.

  ‘One of each, I think.’

  Craig jabs his finger at his tablet. ‘Awesome, so that’s one bottle of Giddy Creek vino, one “Fancy a Porking” meat platter, one “Lettuce Turnip the Beet” veggie platter and a Leg Spreader.’ He pockets his tablet and collects up the menus. ‘Back soon, ladies. Don’t miss me too much!’

  When he’s left my friends turn to me, their faces uniformly concerned (apart from Jessica, who is still watching Craig’s disappearing behind).

  Claris reaches for my hand. ‘So, how are you holding up?’

  ‘Not very well.’ I feel myself welling up and take a deep breath to stay in control. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t call you after it happened, I just . . .’

  ‘Don’t you dare apologise,’ says Fi. ‘We’ve just been so worried about you. Do you feel up to telling us what happened?’

  As it turns out, it’s actually a relief to talk about it, to relive the events of that fateful Saturday for an audience, because the story’s been stuck inside my head for so long that it feels a bit like the plot of a film rather than my actual life. I manage not to cry too much – just a bit of snivelling, no sobbing or gnashing of teeth – but then it’s hard to have an emotional meltdown when there’s a giant crustacean downing sambucas at the next table.

  When I finish recounting what happened, Fiona reaches over and gathers me into a hug, her face steely.

  ‘I’m gonna kill that fecker,’ she says. ‘And then I am going to telephone whoever the feck regulates doulas and report that witch for misconduct. And then I’ll feckin’ kill her too.’

  Jessica exhales slowly, as if winded. ‘I always feared Luke might have it in him to
be a bit of a prick, but really, he’s exceeded all expectations.’ She shakes her head. ‘What a total shit-bag.’

  I nod grimly. ‘He told Tabby he wants me to move back into the flat. Apparently he’ – I make quote marks in the air – ‘doesn’t want to lose me and Dottie.’

  Fiona and Jess snort with indignation, but Claris shushes them.

  ‘And are you maybe . . . considering that as an option, Annie?’ she asks gently.

  I sigh; it’s difficult to give a straight answer because I change my own mind so often.

  ‘After it first happened, I just assumed that I’d leave Luke. I couldn’t ever imagine forgiving him, let alone trusting him again. I’d just be waiting for it to happen again. But as time has gone by, I’m wondering if my initial reaction might have been a bit, well, over the top.’

  Jess’ eyes go wide – and they were already saucer-like thanks to all the Botox. ‘You are kidding, right? He cheated on you weeks after you had a baby! In the ranks of arsehole behaviour, that’s just below shagging your mum and then blaming it on you for being fat.’

  ‘But is kissing someone actually cheating?’ I persist. ‘Is it really worth splitting up over?’

  ‘Arguably not if it’s a one-off drunken snog, but what Luke did – a premeditated, calculated seduction – in my book is a clear-cut case of cheating,’ says Jess. ‘And, as you said yourself, the pair of them would have definitely ended up shagging at some point.’

  I’ve been tormenting myself with the vision of Luke and Sigrid having sex, and the mention of it makes me feel sick.

  ‘But Luke and I aren’t the only people involved here, remember,’ I say.

  ‘I don’t think Dottie would want you to be unhappy,’ says Claris.

  ‘But who’s to say I would be unhappy? Luke says he’s desperate to make things right. The bottom line is that he’s Dot’s dad. Don’t I owe it to our daughter to at least give it another go?’