by Jane Fallon
‘Looks like it.’
‘Why don’t I at least phone up and enquire about it? Find out if it’s gone.’
‘It can’t hurt, I suppose,’ he says, handing the details back to me.
‘God, I’m sorry, Josh. This is a million times worse for you than for me. Obviously.’
I’m struggling to make eye contact with him. I don’t know whether I’m more worried he might think I was trying to make a pass at him or whether I actually would be. So I lean down and stroke the cat, who is now curled up by my feet.
‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘Things haven’t been the same since … you know …’
Really? Since you kissed me?
‘I don’t mean me and you …’ he carries on quickly, clearly concerned I might think he did. Which I did. For a second. Sue me. ‘Me and Sas. I started to look at her differently when I thought she was cheating on me, and then, even though I felt incredibly guilty for getting it so wrong …’
‘Or not, as it turns out …’
‘Or not. I tried – I really did – to throw myself back into it, but it was as if I’d allowed myself to see all her faults and then I couldn’t unsee them. How self-centred she is. How she thinks she’s above everyone else. How badly she treats people sometimes. I started almost wishing she had cheated on me so I had an excuse to leave.’
‘Why not just leave anyway?’ I wonder if he’s like Robert after all. Unable to leave one relationship without having another to fall into.
‘Because I’d promised her commitment. I stood up and said all those things like “Till death us do part” and “For better or worse”. You can’t marry someone and then just decide to opt out because you don’t like them quite as much as you thought you did.’
‘Sounds like a good enough reason to me.’
‘That’s why you stayed with Robert all these years?’
‘That was different. We had George.’
‘I just didn’t want to be that person, that’s all.’
‘Which is admirable. I’m not saying it isn’t.’
‘I guess part of me was hoping I might snap out of it. Like it was just a hangover from having convinced myself it was over.’
‘This is all so fucked up,’ I say. The understatement of the century.
‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘I thought you should know.’
We sit there in silence for what seems like a decade but is probably thirty seconds. My cat friend has wandered off, bored with the lack of attention, so I just stare off into space, wondering what to say next. Eventually, something hits me.
A light bulb flashes in my head. ‘She called him Robbie! She covered it up pretty well but I should have realized something was up then. No one calls him Robbie except Alice. So it’s not like she’s even ever overheard someone else calling him that and it just slipped out. That must be her pet name for him.’
He rolls his eyes. ‘She calls me Joshie.’
‘Lucky you. So what are you going to do now?’
He smiles a sharky smile. ‘Help you,’ he says. ‘Break them up. Kick them out. I’m done with being the nice guy.’
‘Are you going to throw her out of the house?’ I’m surprised. Josh was always adamant that this was something he would never do.
‘Only figuratively. When I say I’m done with being the nice guy, I mean I’m planning on being marginally less nice now than I was before. But that doesn’t have the same ring to it.’
‘Always speak in soundbites,’ I say, laughing. ‘Then you can qualify them afterwards.’
‘That’s always been my motto.’
I’m glad. Although I’m pleased that he’s going to stand up for himself more, it would have been a shame if this whole mess turned him into some kind of bitter, vengeful saddo. I’m only too happy to fulfil that role.
When I get back to the café – in my haste to get out of there to find out what Josh had come to say to me, I left the keys to the flat in the back room – Myra is all over me before the door is even closed behind me.
‘OK. Explain yourself,’ she says, stacking a pile of clean plates. The bakery is quiet. It’s too hot and humid for tea and cake. ‘What was he doing here, and why haven’t you set me up on a date with him?’
I flop down at a table. Gratefully accept the ice-cold can of Diet Pepsi she puts in front of me.
‘He’s found out it’s Saskia Robert’s seeing after all.’
Myra plonks herself down opposite me, ignoring the young woman with the toddler in a buggy who has just come in.
‘You are kidding me.’
‘Hardly.’
‘But …’ For once, she is lost for words.
‘Customer,’ I say, waving at the toddler, who smiles and flaps a hand back at me. The mother looks at me gratefully. I remember what it was like when George was that age and taking her anywhere induced looks of horror from all the people whose day she might potentially ruin with her out-of-control noise levels. Why anyone ever thought glaring at a small child was going to help keep them calm and quiet I don’t know, but you’d be surprised how often it happens.
Myra doesn’t engage in any of her usual small talk as she makes the mother a tea and hands the little one a box of juice. She can’t wait to get back and hear what I have to say. I fill her in on the whole sorry situation and she sits there, wide-eyed.
‘Well, I can see why you liked him,’ she says, as if that has anything to do with anything.
‘What? I don’t! I mean … I did … it’s so irrelevant at this point …’
‘You can always pass his number on to me.’
I ignore her. ‘Can you believe she’s been playing me this whole time?’
‘Telling you he’s shagging someone else is pretty shitty, I must admit.’
‘She made up that whole thing about Samantha secretly trying to get pregnant! I could have made such a fucking idiot of myself. I could have confronted her …’
‘She knew you wouldn’t, though, didn’t she?’
‘She still took a risk. I mean, God, how desperate.’
I glug back the last of my Diet Pepsi. I may have broken the record for fast fizzy-drink downing. ‘So, what now?’
‘Now you truly do have the upper hand,’ Myra says. ‘Now you know everything and she knows nothing.’
‘I don’t know if I’ve got the energy.’
‘Of course you have. Deny them their happy ending. It’ll make you feel better, I promise.’
I give her a hug before I leave.
‘Oh,’ she calls as I’m about to go out the door. ‘Can I put that “Sadskia” picture up on the wall now that we don’t like her again?’
33
Before he left, Josh promised to stay in touch. I think we’ve both learned from the last time that random nastiness doesn’t suit us. There will be no more petty revenges with hurtful storylines or leaked photos to the papers. We have a goal: to split up Robert and Saskia once and for all, and that’s it.
It makes sense for me to keep up the pretence of my friendship with her. I don’t want to alert her to the fact that anything is wrong. And, besides, there’s still the possibility I might glean some interesting bit of information that she accidentally lets slip. So, I am intending to keep my Bikram appointment – Saskia has already texted me to tell me she has reserved me a place – although I am now no longer prepared to make an arse of myself in the name of friendship. I download a video of the moves and I practise them every morning and afternoon. OK, so I’m not going to suddenly become lithe and supple in less than a week, but I can at least make sure I don’t look like a total idiot.
I also squeeze in a spray tan after my Chas session on Wednesday. If I’m going to have to stand next to Saskia dressed in Lycra, I want to make sure I look as good as I can. I don’t want to be there just to boost her already massive ego.
Chas gets the calipers out. Pronounces me thirty-five per cent fat, and the scales tell me I’ve lost another three pounds. To celebrate, I brave Sweaty Bett
y to find myself the perfect yoga outfit (by which I mean the one that I’ll look best in, not the most practical), and I’m beside myself when I come away with everything in a medium. Cropped leggings and a fitted sleeveless top that shows off the muscles Chas and I have been working on. When I show the clothes to Georgia she makes me model them for her. I can see by the look on her face how proud she is of me.
‘You look fucking brilliant, Mum.’
‘Language, young lady,’ I say but her obvious pride in me gives me a huge boost. I’ve told her – and Robert – that I’m trying out yoga for the first time on Saturday morning, but not that it’s Bikram or that Saskia will be there, obviously. And as a dedicated yoga bunny herself, Georgia’s been giving me tips.
She’s off to another festival for the weekend herself – as usual, half-work, half-play – but, even though none of us is mentioning it, we all know that tomorrow is THE BIG DAY. The day all A-level students both dread and look forward to in equal measure. Tomorrow is the day she’ll find out if she’s got the three As that she needs to take up her place at Bristol. I have never doubted for a second she’ll ace it. She couldn’t have worked any harder and still retained her sanity.
Still, on Thursday, I’m grateful that I’m working, because it would be hard to concentrate on anything else while I wait for her call. I know she and Eliza are heading into school at about eleven and I have to stop myself from looking at my watch every thirty seconds from ten o’clock onwards. Myra tries to distract me by making me serve everyone who comes in. It doesn’t matter. I might be smiling and making small talk but, inside my head, all that’s going on is me willing my mobile to ring. At five past eleven, when I accidentally give someone a slice of cheesecake instead of triple-chocolate gateau, Myra steers me towards the back room.
‘Try her,’ she says. ‘Put yourself out of your misery.’
The first two times it rings until it goes through to voicemail. They’re celebrating, I tell myself. They’re all screeching and screaming in that way only teenage girls can. I try again and I’m relieved to hear the repetitive ringing stop halfway through.
‘Mum?’
I was right about the celebrating. I can hardly hear her for the high-pitched hysteria.
‘Hi, sweetie. I couldn’t wait …’ I close my eyes. Wait for her to say ‘Three As’ or even ‘Three A stars’. I’m jolted back down to earth by what sounds like a wail.
‘I didn’t get them!’
‘You …? What do you mean?’
‘I got a B and two Cs.’
In my day, that would have been fine. Cause for celebration. I know that things are very different now. Everyone and their mother gets As. Georgia was slated to sail through easily with the top grades. I don’t understand what’s gone wrong.
‘What? Sweetie, are you sure you’ve read the right thing?’
‘I know I’m obviously thick, Mum, but I’m not that thick.’
‘You’re a million miles from thick. Do you want me to come and get you? We’ll figure out what to do.’
‘No, it’s OK. We’re going to go to Tinseltown.’
‘We need to ring the uni as soon as we can, don’t we? See if they’ll still take you?’
‘They’re not going to take me now. I’m miles off. Not unless everyone in the world messed up too.’
‘We should still call them.’
‘Jesus, Mum,’ she snaps. ‘Just let me have a few hours for it to sink in.’
I know I’m right, that if she has any hope of somehow overcoming this obstacle we do need to get on to it right away. Hundreds of other parents around the country will be scrabbling around at this moment doing exactly that. Ensuring their child doesn’t miss out on the future they hoped for. But I also know I need to give her a bit of space. What harm is a couple of hours drowning her sorrow in milkshakes with her friends going to do?
‘Of course. I might make some preliminary enquiries. Then we can get on to them later. Don’t worry. Everything’ll be OK.’
I don’t want to sound as if I’m checking up on her but I can’t help adding, ‘Is Eliza with you?’
‘Yes,’ she sniffs. ‘She got two Bs and a C.’
Eliza is supposed to be going to Leeds to study chemistry. Clearly, that’s not about to happen now. I want to say, ‘There must be a mistake. You must be looking at the wrong list.’ I’m so confused about how this has happened. They’ve been studying together pretty much every evening. Or, at least, that’s what Georgia told me. Shit.
‘Don’t be late, OK. We need to sit down and talk, you, me and Dad.’
Of course I call Robert immediately. There’s no reply and I can’t help imagining him and Saskia sitting there looking at my name on the screen, laughing about how hilarious it would be if she answered instead of him. Even though I know that, in reality, he’s probably in the middle of filming a scene, I’m overcome with anger at him. I need to talk to him and I need to talk to him now.
I bite the bullet and call the production office, tell the very friendly boy who answers that I need to speak to my husband as soon as is humanly possible. He tells me he can see Robert on the monitor in the office, sitting in Farmer Giles’ kitchen, but that he thinks they’ll probably break for lunch once this scene is completed.
‘I can get a message to him then.’
‘No one’s died,’ I say. ‘But it’s still an emergency.’
Myra is hovering when I finally emerge from the back room.
‘Shit,’ I say when I see her. ‘Fuck.’
I fill her in. Thankfully, she doesn’t try telling me that everything will be all right in the end or list the people who went on to be rich and successful but who failed to gain any qualifications at school.
‘So,’ she says, sitting me down and pouring me a coffee. ‘You ring them and beg, is that it?’
‘Basically. But she’s so way off and it’s such a sought-after course.’
‘So then what? You try other unis? Other subjects?’
‘I suppose so. I don’t really know how it works because I never bothered to find out.’
‘Well, it wasn’t exactly on the cards.’
‘Do you think she’s been lying to me all this time? That she and Eliza weren’t really studying? I mean, it’s a bit of a coincidence, them both getting such low grades.’
Myra shrugs. ‘Why don’t you speak to Eliza’s mum?’
‘I hardly know her,’ I say. ‘But yes, I will. Where the fuck is Robert?’
An elderly lady nursing a tea and an eclair whips her head around to see what the drama is.
‘Sorry,’ Myra calls over to her. ‘Family emergency.’ She drops to a whisper. ‘Nosy old bat.’
‘I need to tell George she can’t go off to that festival tomorrow,’ I suddenly remember. ‘She needs to stay and sort this out.’
‘You can tell her tonight. Let her have a couple of hours blowing off steam.’
Robert finally gets me when I’m on my way home, stomping down the hill, barging past anyone who gets in my way.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ is the first thing that comes out of my mouth.
‘I only just got your message,’ he says. ‘They left a note in my dressing room but I didn’t go back there.’
No, too busy fucking Saskia in hers, I think.
‘What’s happened? Is George OK?’
‘She’s missed her grades. By miles. B and two Cs.’
‘Jesus, Paula, I thought she’d had an accident or something.’
‘I told them to tell you no one had died.’
‘Poor baby. Is she OK?’
‘Yes. I think so. She’s with her friends. Do you think she’s been lying to us all this time about how much she was studying? Do you think she and Eliza have been going out every night?’
Robert sighs. ‘Probably. They’re teenagers …’
‘What, and that makes it all OK?’
‘No. Of course not. I just mean it doesn’t make her bad. All teenagers lie …’
I can’t help interrupting. ‘I wonder where she gets that from …’
If he registers what I’ve said, he pretends he doesn’t. ‘The important thing now is that we help her sort this out. Not that we give her a hard time for it. If she has been sneaking around, then I’d say she’s learned her lesson. It’s her future she’s in danger of messing up.’
He’s right. I know he is.
‘What time’s she getting home?’
‘I don’t really know. She probably doesn’t want to face us.’
‘I’ll speak to Josh. See if I can get released early. They might be able to move stuff around.’
‘It’s OK. She might not be back for hours. Thanks, though.’
By the time Georgia arrives home – looking a bit teary-eyed and a lot sheepish – my anger has burnt out. Robert was right. It’s her future that’s at stake here. Whatever she’s been up to, this is way worse for her than for us.
‘Come here,’ I say when she lets herself in, and I pull her into a hug. She sobs into my shoulder.
‘I’m really sorry, Mum.’
‘It’s OK. You can tell me what’s been going on later. Let’s make a plan first.’
‘There’s no way anyone’ll take me for Medicine now,’ she says, and she looks so heartbreakingly sad it almost kills me.
‘No’, I say. ‘Probably not. So you have two choices. Retakes and try again next year, or try and get into another course somewhere that’s not so demanding.’
‘I don’t want to do anything else.’
Even though I feel so bad for her, I still have to stop the words, ‘You should have thought of that before’ coming out of my mouth.
‘What happened, do you think?’ I’m not going to accuse her. For all I know, she and Eliza really did spend hours studying and they’re just not as academic as everyone believed. And I want her to tell me the truth. I don’t want to force it out of her. She needs to learn that being honest pays off. At least, with me it does.
‘I don’t know … they must have told us to revise the wrong stuff or something.’
‘Right. God, so everyone’s grades were down in those three subjects?’
I wait. I can see in her face that she’s struggling with what’s the right thing to do. Weighing it up against what might get her in the most trouble. I have to force myself not to bail her out.