by Jane Fallon
‘How’s Ivan?’ I ask, to change the subject.
She breaks into a huge smile. ‘He’s well. Lovely, actually.’
‘He’s happy about the baby then, I take it?’
‘Delirious.’
Good old Ivan. I can only assume he’s behind her change of heart towards me too. Either directly or, more likely, indirectly. She’s finally met a decent bloke and it’s occurred to her that it would be nice if they were all like that.
‘We’re buying a flat together. Mine’s not big enough for the three of us so I’m selling it, and, of course, he’s been living on site …’
‘That’s brilliant,’ I say. ‘Where?’
‘Southgate. It’s so much cheaper than Islington, and it’ll be nicer for the baby …’
Alice, voluntarily living in the suburbs. Well, practically. Worrying about the cost and whether it’s a good place to bring up a child rather than if it fits her image.
‘It will be,’ I say encouragingly. ‘And it’s still on the tube, at least.’
‘Come round. When we move in.’
‘I will,’ I say, and I mean it. ‘Try keeping me away from the baby.’
‘You’ll always be its auntie,’ she says. ‘Because Georgia will always be its cousin. I hate calling it “it”, don’t you? I can’t wait to find out.’
The lift deposits us on the sixth floor.
‘I’m trying to remember everything,’ Alice says as we walk towards the reception desk. ‘How I feel, how I stand, how I walk. Just in case, you know, I get cast as a pregnant woman in the future.’
‘Every experience is method in the bank,’ I say, parroting one of Robert’s and my former teachers. I’m actually bizarrely pleased that the old Alice is still in there somewhere. Just – hopefully – without the nastier bits.
‘Exactly! Oh … did I tell you I went for an audition …?’
I don’t get home till nearly six. Even so, I change and go out for a run, having checked – as subtly as I can – that George is home for the evening. By ‘subtly’, I mean I say, ‘Are you in this evening?’
At the moment, she seems to be sticking to her promise only to go out at weekends. She volunteered that, by the way. I didn’t insist. With Eliza gone, she has made a new group of friends, who seem nice enough, and I’ve made the effort to get to know their mums, just in case we need to compare stories in the future.
‘How was Auntie Alice?’ she says as I’m lacing up my trainers.
‘Good. Like Alice, but nicer. She’s happy, I think.’
‘Did you tell her I’m going to audition for the dramsoc play?’
This is news to me. ‘Are you? Since when?’
She shrugs. ‘I just thought I’d give it a go.’
‘Gosh,’ I say. ‘Well.’
‘It won’t interfere with my work if I get it,’ she says defensively.
‘No, it was just … I didn’t know you were interested in acting.’
‘I don’t know if I am, do I? Not till I try.’
‘Whatever makes you happy,’ I say.
I say a silent prayer that she’ll decide it’s not for her. I’m not sure I could take another actor in the family.
‘Dad said he’ll help me prepare.’ Georgia sees her dad all the time. He’s living in a rented flat in Maida Vale while he looks for somewhere to buy. Close enough that she can visit easily. Not so close that I keep tripping over him every time I go out. I let him stay in our flat for a couple of weeks while he looked for somewhere and while we negotiated our way around telling our daughter that we were separating. She took it surprisingly well, once we convinced her that we were still going to be friends (we’re not, by the way, but we are going to be civil enough to each other so that she will think we are), and that neither of us was running off with someone else. There’s no need for her ever to know about Saskia.
‘Thank fuck that’s over.’
Saskia looked down at her hand, now back in her own lap and no longer being held. Josh scooted away to create a space between them.
‘Joshie?’
I could feel the shift in the air. Saskia was looking at Josh like a lost puppy. Robert kept turning to me as if I might hold the answer, but I had no idea what was going on.
‘Of course we’re not going to make a go of it,’ Josh suddenly said, and only then did he flash me a big smile. My stomach flipped. ‘Of course Saskia and I aren’t going to stay together. It’s over. I just wanted the truth to come out. I wanted Robert to see exactly what you were like, Sas. How you’d drop someone like a hot brick if it suited you.’
Saskia’s face crumpled. Except for the bits that had had Botox, which stayed defiantly where they were. She turned to Robert.
‘He begged me to stay with him. I felt sorry for him, that’s all. It doesn’t change anything between us.’
‘Ha!’ Robert let out a big guffaw. And I knew then that we’d done it. We’d broken them up for good.
‘For the record,’ Josh said, looking at me, ‘I didn’t. I think, Sas, that everything for you is a competition. You didn’t want to stay with me because you wanted me, you wanted to stay with me so you could make a point that I chose you over Paula. Well, I didn’t, OK?’
I couldn’t look at her then. I could feel she was glaring daggers at me. I tried to suppress the smile that was trying to take over my face.
‘So you’re really going to be with her now?’ She made the word ‘her’ sound like something she’d found at the bottom of a very smelly pond.
Josh smiled at me. ‘I don’t know. If she’ll have me, then yes, I’d like to give it a try.’
The smile won, took over my face whether I liked it or not. ‘Let’s take things day by day,’ I forced myself to say, even though I didn’t really mean it.
‘Exactly,’ Josh said. ‘Let’s do it right this time.’
Robert stood up. ‘I think you should both leave now.’
‘Of course. I’ll drive you back to the house,’ Josh said, standing and looking down at Saskia, who was sniffling on the sofa. She looked older suddenly. ‘You can stay there and I’ll get a few things and move into the flat. Just for now. Till I can find somewhere else.’
‘Do you want me to move out?’ Robert said quietly.
‘Yes. But not today. We need to put on a show for George. Break it to her gently. Make her think it’s not going to be too bad.’
‘Thank you,’ he said gratefully.
Saskia walked out without looking at either me or Robert. Good riddance. There was no reason our paths would ever have to cross again.
As he went to follow her out, Josh gave me a hug. I allowed myself to lean into it, not caring that Robert was there. ‘Sorry I had to put you through that,’ he said into my hair. ‘I couldn’t even look at you in case I couldn’t pull it off.’
‘Nice work,’ I said. ‘Good plot twist.’
The short version of what happened next goes like this. Robert, to give him credit for once, agreed that we should speak to Georgia calmly and rationally on her return. We would cite our having grown apart. No big drama. He would start looking for a flat to rent right away. She and I would stay where we were, in the home that I love. Like I said, she took it remarkably well. Maybe she’d been picking up on the signs for years but hadn’t felt she could say anything. Who knows, maybe in some ways this was a relief for her? Either way, she has no idea there was anyone else involved for either of us, and we’re both going to make sure it stays that way.
I imagine things chez Farmer Giles were a bit awkward on the Monday. Josh told me that he made a point of going around the people who had seen him and me together at the party and trying to make light of it. We had had a glass of champagne too many. It was a stupid spur-of-the-moment thing and we both felt like the worst kind of idiots. He asked them not to spread the gossip, for Robert and Saskia’s sakes, and, though I’m sure they must have all laughed about it behind closed doors, it’s never leaked out any further, in so far as I know. Not even when
the papers picked up on the fact that both Robert Westmore and Saskia Sherbourne had split from their spouses within weeks of each other.
No one even linked the two of them in the press. Mostly, I think, because they were never seen together, but also because their reputation for loathing each other was suddenly stronger than ever.
And then, of course, there were those pictures in the tabloids of her and Jez sitting outside a restaurant, even though it was nearly November, leaning in towards each other, his hand holding hers. I can only imagine what Robert thought when he saw those.
I’ve gone full-time in Myra’s. I like it. It keeps me occupied and it pays the bills. One of these days, I’ll think about what I want to do with the rest of my life. Chas has been hinting that, with my dedication, I could eventually get some qualifications to become a trainer myself. I could inspire my clients with my own story of reinvention. I’m not sure I’m ready to be a role model, though. Not while I’m still a work in progress myself.
Josh and I agreed on a three-month cooling-off period where we could sort out our home lives and make sure we really did think there was a spark between us. My suggestion. I didn’t want to be sneaking around, hoping George or a random journalist didn’t spot us. And I didn’t want to enter another relationship and then realize further down the line that one of us had done it just because we were scared of being on our own, or as a two-fingered gesture to our faithless spouse.
We talked all the time on the phone, don’t get me wrong. I was the first person he called when he found out he’d got the One Night job. He was the one I phoned when Myra told me she and Chas had had a one-night stand and I didn’t know if I was going to be able to look either of them in the eye ever again. (Just for the record, he got a bit clingy, wanted a rematch; she saw it totally as a bit of fun with a (much) younger, good-looking bloke and had zero interest in anything more. I felt horrible for having introduced them in the first place, and I had to endure several training sessions where he banged on about how he thought he was in love with her before he finally, thankfully, came to his senses.)
That three-month period is up today. We are going on our first official date. That is to say, I’m going down to the flat in Marylebone (he completes on a new place in a couple of weeks. Still in the same area. He likes it) and, even though we’ve talked about going out for dinner, we both know that’s not going to happen. We haven’t set eyes on each other for nearly twelve weeks. I think eating is the last thing on either of our minds.
I’ve told George I have a date and I’ve been honest about who Josh is. I’ve just left out our history.
‘Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want me to find out about,’ she says with a big smile as I wait for my Uber.
Josh is standing at the door to the flat as I get out of the lift. He’s smiling at me. I inwardly breathe a sigh of relief that he still looks like the Josh in my head.
‘What if we take one look at each other and think, Yuk??’ I’d said in an email the other day. ‘Maybe we were just attracted to each other as a reaction to what was going on.’
‘I don’t think that’s going to happen,’ he said in his reply. ‘And, to be honest, at this point I’d probably still go for it anyway. It’s been a long time, just saying.’
‘Haha!’ I wrote, and then I deleted that and put, ‘Very funny.’
It’s my first time in the nest, and the irony isn’t lost on me. We’re surrounded by the things Saskia chose so painstakingly but never got to enjoy herself. The elegant white sofa, the rich dark wood coffee table. The bed.
‘Drink?’ he says.
‘Definitely.’
‘No, I mean, what?’
‘Oh. Red wine. Sorry. Nervous.’
‘Me too.’
‘I’m out of practice at this … kind of thing …’
He laughs. ‘What? And you think I’m not?’
He hands me a glass and I take a big gulp. ‘Shall we just get it over with?’
‘That,’ Josh says, ‘might be the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.’
‘I’m just being honest,’ I say, and I take his hand and lead him into the other room.
Acknowledgements
Huge thanks to Myra Jones, who bid so generously to have a character named after her in this book and helped raise money for Clic Sargent, the charity for children with cancer.
www.clicsargent.org.uk
Part One
1
‘I should get going,’ Patrick says. I’m hardly going to argue.
I pull my red hoody on. Zip it up. Cross my arms to form a barrier.
Patrick is adjusting his clothing too. We are both looking everywhere but at each other. To be honest I can’t get him out of the flat fast enough. He’s fumbling about with his shoes and I have to stop myself from leaning over and helping him tie his laces. Keeping my distance is probably a good idea at this point.
‘Michelle …’ He stops himself, but the word hangs there like a flag fluttering in the breeze.
‘Of course.’
I should explain. Michelle is my best friend. Has been for twenty-odd years. More even. Twenty-five. Patrick is her husband.
And what just happened was a terrible mistake.
For the sake of my own sanity I have decided I am going to make a Bill Clinton-esque distinction. ‘I did not have sex with that man.’ Yes, there were tongues and hands and heavy breathing involved. Clothing rearranged. Sound effects worthy of a cheap porno. OK, so I had sex with him. But, thankfully we stopped short. Came to our senses before we – technically – went all the way. It’s not much of a consolation, but at the moment it’s all I’ve got.
Pretty much the worst thing I could ever do, I think you’ll agree.
But it’s not how it sounds. Actually, if you look at the bare facts I suppose it is. Strictly speaking it happened. It’s just that it wasn’t meant to. I didn’t set out to do it and, I’m fairly certain, neither did he. There was no big seduction, no making eyes across their distressed oak kitchen table the last time I spent the evening round at theirs and Michelle turned away to pour us both another glass of wine.
It’s not like I’ve ever even thought about it. Never had a guilty fantasy that left me unable to look Michelle in the eye the next day. Not since before they met anyway. It simply didn’t occur to me to view Patrick in that way. He was – is – my best friend’s husband, end of story. And yet here we are, at a quarter past seven on a mundane work-day Tuesday evening, entwined on my cream sofa with bits of my clothing where they shouldn’t be, and I’m trying to make sense of what just occurred. But my mind is fogged by the wine I’ve drunk and the enormity of what just happened.
‘Shit,’ I say.
‘I know,’ Patrick mutters. Who says the art of conversation is dead?
I feel as if I should say something profound, but I can’t find the words that would be adequate for the momentousness of the occasion. I want to tell him this isn’t like me, I’m not the kind of person who would ever do what we have just done, but apparently that’s exactly who I am now. I’m that woman. So I keep quiet. Wait. Maybe he can make some sense of it.
On the scale of how meaningful things are, this rates higher than the day I set up my own production company. Or when I first got Ron, my rescue fox terrier/Jack Russell/something-hairy cross (who I now notice is sitting in a corner of the room staring at me judgementally, his big sad eyes letting me know that I’ve let him down in a hundred more ways than even I can imagine). Or the time one of the shows my company makes got nominated for an award. OK, so it was for Best Sound Editing, which is hardly prestigious, and the awards were the Television Technical Awards, which no one has ever heard of, and in the end it didn’t even win, but still, that was a good day in the office.
Today will not go down in history as such a good day.
I feel the need to explain myself. To go back to the beginning and try to put into words how I ended up here. I know I started out with good intentions – whic
h is the story of my life, by the way. I meant well. Michelle needed my help and I have never not been there to help her. At least I thought she needed my help. Maybe that was my first mistake. Lesson One: leave well alone. You really don’t need to interfere, to take over and try to sort out someone else’s life for them.
But that’s the way it’s always been. I’m the decisive one, the doer. Michelle is more easy-going. She’s happy for me to take charge.
I’m completely aware that my need to create order in other people’s lives is some kind of diversion from the fact that my own personal life is chaotic, to say the least. It’s the waving handkerchief that’s meant to ensure you don’t notice the magician is palming your card. I’ve left a string of disastrous relationships in my wake. Sometimes it’s me, sometimes it’s them. Actually, technically, it’s always me because I could avoid the bad ones if I wanted to, but convincing me of the merits of that would be like trying to persuade a heroin addict that he would be better off having a nice cup of tea.
Nothing I have ever done comes close to this though. I’ve never been a husband-stealer. Not my worst enemy’s, let alone my best friend’s.
‘You won’t tell her, will you?’ I turn back to Patrick who half raises an eyebrow at me.
‘No. Of course not,’ he says and I breathe a small sigh of relief, although I didn’t really think he was going to suggest Face Timing her right now and staging a re-enactment.
Anyway, back to my attempt to justify the unjustifiable. Here goes.
Give me a chance. At least hear me out.
THE BEGINNING
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