How Not to Fall in Love, Actually

by Catherine Bennetto

  Joe helped Mum down, introduced himself as my friend-slash-lodger (as we’d taken to calling him) and went to put the kettle on.

  ‘Friend-slash-lodger?’ Mum said, a disbelieving look on her face.

  I waited as she tucked in her shirt. ‘Yes, Mum. Friend-slash-lodger. Friend-slash-lodger who sleeps in his own bed. And what the hell were you doing in the tree?’

  ‘My key wouldn’t work, and you weren’t answering your phone or the door,’ she said. ‘It’s a natural instinct to worry about your young – you’ll see soon enough.’

  Once inside with the blinds down to avoid having a larger role in another episode of Harriet’s Neighbourhood, I turned up the heating and started clearing away last night’s dishes.

  ‘What are you doing here at this hour, anyway?’

  ‘Just seeing how my daughter is. It’s not been the smoothest of sailing for you recently, darling. And I have an early meeting in Kingston and wanted to beat the traffic through town.’ Mum leant against the sink and watched Joe pad around half naked, making coffee. ‘So you two aren’t . . .?’ She raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Mum,’ I said through gritted teeth.

  ‘No,’ Joe said with a smile.

  ‘Oh, that’s good,’ Mum said. ‘Because I’m not sure sex is the right thing to be doing when you’re pregnant. Poor baby’ – she prodded my forehead with an index finger – ‘how would you like it?’

  ‘Stop it!’ I slapped her hand away.

  ‘Although . . .’ Mum lowered her voice. ‘By the look of him, it might be more like this.’ She banged her fist on my forehead with a smirk.

  A collection of ethnic-looking bangles tinkled on her tanned arm. I smacked her hand away and gave her my best ‘I will KILL you’ look.

  ‘Doctors say it’s fine to have sex while you’re pregnant.’ Joe turned to face us, heaping coffee into the pot. ‘It’s encouraged, actually. Something about the release of “feelgood” hormones being good for the baby. But we aren’t, are we, Emma.’ He smiled. ‘Just friends-slash-roomies.’

  ‘Well, that’s good to hear.’ Mum patted me on the tummy. ‘Look what happens when Emma has sex. Pregnant and single.’

  ‘Oh. My. God.’ I dumped a pot in the sink and stalked to my bedroom comprehensively mortified.

  I wasted time making my bed and tying and retying my ponytail. After a few minutes my chest loosened and I followed the smell of brewed coffee.

  ‘. . . the entire bank account. Empty! And then Emma had to get him to sell the ice cream van just to pay me back. I was going to call the police.’ Mum smiled as I walked into the kitchen.

  ‘Saying too much again, Mother?’

  ‘Probably, darling.’

  I poured myself a coffee.

  ‘Do you think you should . . .?’ Mum started, but I silenced her with a deathly look.

  ‘Embarrass me in front of a friend—’

  ‘Slash-lodger,’ she said with an impish dip of her head.

  I glared at her and continued. ‘Hang from a tree in the early hours of the morning in front of my elderly neighbours if you really must, tell the world I’m pregnant and single, but don’t stop me having a coffee when I want a bloody coffee!’

  Mum raised her eyebrows.

  She turned to Joe with a charming grin. ‘So what’s for breakfast?’

  Joe made bacon and eggs and we sat round the table, Mum and Joe chatting easily. Mum finished her last mouthful, put her knife and fork together in the centre of the plate and rapped her navy-painted nails on the side of her coffee cup.

  ‘So, Joe, what tragedy brings you to my daughter’s door?’

  ‘Mum,’ I chastised.

  ‘What?’ She feigned innocence and turned back to Joe. ‘So?’

  Joe grinned.

  ‘I’m sorry about my mother, she was born without a subtlety neuron.’ I shook my head. ‘You learn to love her.’

  ‘Oh, he loves me already, darling.’ Mum flashed a winning grin. ‘It’s a woman, isn’t it?’

  Sadness fell across Joe’s face like a sudden cloud over the sun.

  ‘You don’t have to answer her.’ I frowned at Mum.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Joe said. ‘Yes. A woman. My fiancée.’ He gazed into his coffee mug. ‘My ex-fiancée.’

  Mum nodded encouragement as I fidgeted with my mug. I’d not asked him anything for fear of him getting tearful, which would have made me feel terribly uncomfortable.

  ‘We’d been having trouble planning the wedding.’

  ‘Well that’s not a good start—’ I said before being silenced by a quick slap on the hand by Mum.

  ‘Go on,’ she said.

  With a small smirk, Joe continued. ‘I guess it all started when I hid a T. Rex in the “save the date” invite.’

  I cracked up. ‘You didn’t? That’s hilarious! What—’ I dropped my wide grin at Mum’s severe glower. ‘Um . . . What happened?’

  ‘I didn’t get why we had to do a “save the date” in the first place,’ Joe said, his face earnest. ‘A year in advance? Seriously? Can’t you just pick a date, book a venue and send out an invitation?’

  ‘You know what a “save the date” really is?’ Mum said. ‘It’s a note to say, “Start dieting, I don’t want fatties in my wedding photos”.’

  Joe smiled and nodded his head in a ‘guess you’re right’ kind of way. ‘Katy chose a picture of us on a beach for the “save the date”. Stylish and, you know, boring. It was all getting too serious. I wanted to have a bit of fun. Weddings should be fun, right?’

  Mum and I nodded.

  ‘So I hid a T. Rex behind the palm trees,’ Joe said, his hands releasing his coffee cup and turning upward.

  ‘Awesome,’ I whispered.

  Mum mouthed a noiseless tut.

  ‘Katy didn’t even notice at first,’ Joe said, his eyebrows rounded and innocent. ‘But then one of her friends spotted it and uploaded the invite to Instagram and Katy just lost it.’ His shoulders sank. ‘We had a few heated discussions about me not taking the wedding seriously enough, nothing I thought we couldn’t work our way through, then we started arguing about where we would buy a house, if we would get a dog or a cat and all this other stupid stuff that was way in the future. Then one morning,’ he chewed his bottom lip, ‘she said that she didn’t think she wanted children.’ He rubbed a hand across his forehead. ‘I was floored. I always assumed we’d have kids.’

  Silence descended on the table. Joe twiddled with his fork.

  ‘You’d never discussed it?’ Mum said, her voice gentle.

  Joe shook his head, thoughts racing across his gloomy face. ‘We organised to have a quiet dinner in that night. Have a proper discussion. No yelling. Then we went to work.’ Joe sat back in his chair and gave a sad, lopsided smile.

  ‘But I thought you . . .’ I faltered, wondering whether to bring up what he’d drunkenly mentioned that first night. About her ‘paddling a kayak’. ‘Didn’t you walk in on her . . .?’

  Mum raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Yes,’ Joe said quietly. ‘I felt awful. I wanted her to come home and know that . . . that none of it mattered as long as we had each other.’ He paused and rubbed his chin. ‘So at lunchtime I bought her favourite flowers, tulips, and went to our flat to drop them off before going back to work.’

  I leant forward in my chair, as much as my pregnant belly would allow.

  ‘But when I opened the door I saw the skirt she’d been wearing that morning on the sofa. And her shirt and bra in the hall.’ He swallowed. ‘I went into the bedroom and she was on top of this guy from her office. Naked except for the red high heels I’d bought her at Christmas.’

  ‘That’s horrible.’ Mum shook her head. ‘Which red heels? The Alaïa ones from last seas . . .’ She trailed off at my look.

  Joe was deep in his own thoughts. I toyed with the salt and pepper, adjusted and readjusted my cutlery. Mum watched him.

  Eventually she spoke. ‘Trollop. And quite clearly has terrible taste. Tulips?
Yech.’

  Joe looked up, startled. Then cracked into a surprised grin, which Mum returned tenfold.

  Half an hour later Mum thanked Joe for breakfast, stood, hugged him tightly and made him promise to call her any time he felt like talking, gave me a brief hug and declared I needed some anti-frizz for my hair and headed down the hall.

  ‘Now call your sister, Emma, she’s having a terrible time with her future mother-in-law. No taste, that Lucinda. All the money in the world cannot buy taste; it’s either in your blood or it’s not. Did you know she wants Alex to arrive in a carriage? And I said—’

  ‘Mum, don’t you have to be going?’ I didn’t want to get into a discussion about how I’d started ignoring my sister’s calls.

  ‘I am going, darling, but not because you so rudely suggested. I have a meeting, my shipment from Argentina has arrived and I’ve swatches to return. Houndstooth! Honestly, when was the last time you saw curtains in houndstooth?’ She looked at me expectantly. I looked at her blankly.

  Mum stared back then stalked down the hall shaking her head. ‘I don’t know why I waste my time. Couldn’t tell a plaid from a paisley. I must have a womb to a parallel universe.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  My phone rang while I waited in a long-but-worth-it queue for a lamb burger. Alex. I flicked it to silent and adjusted a heavy bag filled with spoils from a two-hour trawl through Borough Market. I had a family dinner that evening and was supplying dessert; maple-poached, organic, Kent-grown, spray-free pears (from a family-run orchard with happy hives of pollinating bees) with hazelnut-encrusted yoghurt balls (the yoghurt from the milk of ethically raised, stress-free cows who dined on wild grasses and were allowed to come inside and watch TV with the farmer in the evenings). I was fourth person from the front of the queue and starting to salivate in an alarming fashion when a man I recognised turned away from the grill holding a freshly made burger.

  ‘Emma? Hi!’ Andrew gave a surprised smile showing impeccably straight teeth that matched his impeccably straight shoulders and impeccably straight jaw.

  ‘Hi.’ I angled my cheek to meet his kiss. ‘What’re you doing here?’

  He held up his burger. ‘Been thinking about these all week.’

  Andrew stayed and chatted while I ordered.

  ‘Do you want to get a drink at that little bar back there?’ he said as the man at the grill handed over my burger.

  ‘Oh, ah . . .’

  ‘Oh, right.’ He glanced at my belly. ‘You can’t drink. Care to watch me drink one then?’

  We leant against a wine barrel eating our burgers and sipping on drinks, a couple of beers for Andrew and a sparkling elderflower for me. Andrew told me about the film he’d been on before this one. A spy film set in the Austrian Alps. And I chatted about Ned and the baby, hoping to provide just enough info to let him know I was available and interested but not desperate and pathetic. A fine line, which may have been crossed when I mentioned how any new suitor would need a double-jointed jaw to get their mouth round my manhole-sized nipples.

  ‘Is that the time?’ I said, catching a glance at Andrew’s sporty watch. ‘I’ve got to get home.’

  I was due at Sinead and Uncle Mike’s in a couple of hours with my yoghurt already balled.

  ‘I’ll see you on set,’ I said with a smile I hoped was cute and void of stuff between my teeth.

  ‘Sure will.’ He picked up my groceries and handed them to me. I felt a girlish thrill as my fingers brushed his hand.

  ‘Cute and a cook,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye. ‘You’re a catch.’

  Back home I peeled pears, hung yoghurt and toasted hazelnuts. Joe pottered around reading my poems aloud. I kept running You’re a catch over and over in my head. Did that mean he thought I was a catch for him? Or just to someone who was open-minded/foolish enough to take on another man’s baby and me? Was he being kind, or was he flirting? Of course he wasn’t flirting. What kind of idiot are you? So many kinds – let’s not go into it. I was so distracted I kept burning the hazelnuts.

  ‘Here, what’s this one about?’ Joe cleared his throat while I burned my finger on a hot nut.

  ‘I found a little thimble, a thimble, a thimble

  I found a little thimble

  Under mother’s bed’

  I gave Joe a cautionary growl.

  ‘I gave the little thimble, the thimble, the thimble

  I gave the little thimble,

  To my Uncle Ted’

  He crossed the kitchen and leant against the bench while I stirred bubbling maple syrup like a madwoman.

  ‘Joe, could you . . .?’ I indicated an oven mitt with crazy-person flapping hands. He handed it to me without removing his eyes from my diary.

  ‘Uncle put the little thimble, the thimble, the thimble

  Uncle put the little thimble

  In Aunty Jane’s purse

  I’ve lost my little thimble, my thimble, my thimble

  I’ve lost my little thimble

  Where is it? said the Nurse.’

  He peered over the top of the pink floral diary.

  ‘Now what’s that about?’ His eyes gleamed.

  ‘It’s about a fucking thimble. Now would you grab that recipe book and read out something useful.’

  ‘OK, OK, keep your pinny on,’ Joe said, swapping my diary for Grandma’s recipe book. ‘You know, some of those poems are actually quite good. Sort of A. A. Milne-ish. Maybe you could publish them.’

  ‘Be quiet.’ I grabbed the soggy, yoghurty muslin and jabbed at the recipe book. ‘Now tell me what it says to do with these balls.’

  We approached Sinead and Uncle Mike’s front door, crunching across the white loose-pebbled drive, Joe holding some pink roses from the garden in one hand and the tray of yoghurt balls in the other and me carrying the tinfoil-covered pears.

  ‘You have to have stuff ready to talk about so whenever it looks like my uncle is going to ask about the movie, you swoop in’ – I motioned the swooping-in and nearly lost my pears – ‘and say something.’

  Joe shot me a sceptical look.

  ‘Keep it fast-paced.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No breaks!’ I said. ‘No gaps in the conversation. You have to be a gap-stopper. Tell stories.’

  ‘But I don’t have any stories.’ Joe looked concerned.

  ‘Oh come on. All that crap you ring and tell me! Just do that all night.’

  ‘Which ones in particular?’

  ‘I don’t know – I barely listen to you.’

  We arrived at the front door and ding-donged our presence.

  ‘Why am I doing this?’ Joe asked.

  I lowered my voice at the sound of approaching footsteps. ‘Because Uncle Mike will never speak to me again if he knows his son is acting in a zombie guts-and-bra romance.’

  Joe shook his head. Uncle Mike swung open the leadedlight door and I plastered on a beatific grin. We exchanged hugs, handshakes, roses and tinfoiled pears and moved inside, Joe behind me muttering, ‘This is never going to work.’

  Joe chatted cheerfully with my inquisitive family. He sidestepped questions about why he wasn’t married from Alice; Mum quizzed him about the décor in his Shoreditch loft (where his ex was still living); Sinead wanted to know at what age he was sent to boarding school and Jess wanted to know if he could armpit-fart.

  Towards the end of dessert, Uncle Mike turned to me.

  ‘So, my dear, how is the young lad doing on this movie?’ He sat back in his chair and took a sip of wine. ‘It’s something to do with the afterlife, I gather?’

  I glanced at Joe, attempting a ‘you’re up’ eyebrow action, but was met with a look of stage fright.

  ‘More wine, dear?’ Sinead attempted a distraction.

  Uncle Mike waved the offered bottle away and looked across the table with mild enquiry.

  ‘Um . . .’ I fussed with a yoghurt ball. Sinead squirmed.

  Archie raised his arms, made his hands into claws and manifest
ed the countenance of an attacking zombie. ‘There are—’

  Sinead kicked my shins. ‘CATS!’ I yelled. Uncle Mike sloshed wine out of his glass. ‘Ah . . . they’re ghost cats,’ I muttered, rubbing my throbbing leg.

  Archie frowned and opened his mouth.

  ‘And chihuahuas,’ Sinead nodded, her eyes wide.

  ‘And—’ Archie began, his claw hands up once more.

  ‘But they’re pretending to be cats,’ I offered.

  ‘I thought—’ Uncle Mike started.

  ‘There’s some comedy,’ Sinead faked a jolly laugh.

  Archie tried again. ‘And—’

  ‘And romance,’ I said.

  ‘Not between the cats and the dogs, though,’ Sinead frowned.

  I shook my head. ‘Noooo, that would be wrong.’

  ‘And weird.’

  ‘And it’s definitely not a weird film.’

  ‘No; there’s no weirdness,’ Sinead intoned.

  ‘None,’ I reiterated.

  Uncle Mike frowned. ‘But—’

  ‘It’s a perfectly normal film about ghost cats—’

  ‘Played by dogs—’

  ‘Who are definitely not romantic with the cats,’ Sinead said.

  I looked to Joe for help, but was met with blind panic. I launched a hazelnut.

  ‘Ow!’ He threw his hands over his face.

  ‘Oh, bugger!’ Sinead said, purposely knocking over her wine.

  ‘Sinead!’ Uncle Mike mopped at the wine with a linen napkin.

  Mum watched the spectacle, her fingers clasped together in rapt fascination.

  ‘Daddy, there are—’ Archie began.

  ‘Joe, don’t you . . .’ I said, giving Joe a warning stare of forthcoming pain.

  ‘Has anyone seen the Russian cartoon Masha and the Bear?’ he endeavoured, holding one hand over his eye.

  I shot him a disparaging look.

  Sinead flew out of her chair and clattered a few plates together. ‘OK, I’m stuffed. Let’s clear the table. Coffee, anyone? Tea? Whisky, I’m having a whisky. How about we retire to the music room and Jess can play the violin for you all. She’s shocking at it. Up you get!’