Tizz curled her top lip. ‘So it’s a proper thing now?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Kitty felt the swirl of teenage angst in her gut.
‘And you’re doing proper grown-up sex and everything?’
‘Yep.’ She nodded. ‘And it’s wonderful. When I’m with him, I feel like everything is okay. And I like how that feels. This relationship is like a gift that I had no right to expect. It’s companionship, friendship… it’s love! I didn’t know it was waiting for me and I didn’t know I was capable.’ She looked up at her friend. ‘As you know, I’d sort of assumed that I had this flaw when it came to giving and receiving love, and I figured that was why Angus picked me. Turns out I’m not flawed. I’m good at loving and being loved – in fact I’m great at it!’
Tizz gave her a long, hard stare. ‘Oh, that’ll wear off. Do the kids know?’
‘Not yet.’ She sighed. ‘Please don’t tell anyone. I don’t want anyone to know until they do. Although I have told my dad,’ she smiled recalling his joyful reaction, ‘and he is absolutely over the moon. But with the kids, I can’t seem to find the right time to tell them, but I know I need to. It’s getting ridiculous. The other day, Olly called to see if I wanted to go to a fundraiser at the hospital with him and Victoria and I was reading on the sofa next to Theo. I ended the call and Theo’s phone rang and it was Olly to ask him the exact same thing. I felt guilty he was having to pay for two calls.’ She sipped her Pimm’s.
‘Yes, because that is what you need to feel guilty about, the cost of your son’s mobile phone bill and not the fact that you are shagging his sister’s dad, someone he knows and loves, and you are doing so in secret!’ Tizz banged the table.
‘Who’s shagging who?’ Ruraigh called from the patio.
‘No one. Are those cabinets finished yet?’ Tizz hollered back.
‘No! I told you, I think there are bits missing. Bloody things.’ He sounded quite exasperated.
‘Useless.’ Tizz tutted. ‘So, you are going to tell the kids?’
‘Yes, of course!’ Kitty ran her fingers through her hair. ‘And I need to tell them soon. Theo is thinking of selling his house in Barnes—’
‘And moving in with you?’ Tizz said loudly.
‘Who’s moving in with who?’ Ruraigh called out.
Tizz rolled her eyes. ‘Ignore him.’
‘Yes. I mean, we’re only talking about it, but we aren’t getting any younger and the fact we’re talking about it means I need to tell the kids.’
‘Oh, you think? Or you could just make him hide in the wardrobe every time they come home. Leave a bottle of pop in there and some crisps so he is comfy. Christmas might be a bit of an issue though – the kids tend to stay for days and he can only sit in the dark for so long.’
‘You are not funny!’ Kitty laughed.
‘You look great. You look happy.’
‘I am.’ She beamed at the admission. ‘Properly happy.’
‘I am glad for you, for you both. You deserve it.’ Tizz squeezed her arm.
‘Who deserves what?’ Ruraigh came over to the table.
‘Kitty and Theo are in love, they are doing sex and everything, and he is thinking of moving in with her.’
‘I told you not to tell anyone!’ Kitty shouted.
‘I won’t! But Ruraigh doesn’t count!’ Tizz flapped her hand.
‘Thanks a bunch!’ Ruraigh swigged from the beer bottle on the tabletop. ‘I am not surprised, Kitty, and for what it’s worth, I really like Theo, and so does Uncle Stephen, we all do.’
‘Thank you, Ruraigh. That means a lot. And it will to him too.’
‘So what do the kids think?’ he asked casually.
She pulled a face. ‘I haven’t told them yet.’
‘That’s what we were talking about before you interrupted us,’ Tizz said. ‘And we need those cabinets, Ruraigh!’ She banged the table top. ‘You can’t be out here building them in the dark!’
He lumbered back to the job in hand, scratching his head and turning the instruction sheet this way and that.
‘I think he’s struggling.’ Kitty nodded in his direction.
‘Well, he will without these.’ Tizz pulled four large bolts from her pocket and placed them on the table.
‘You are a terrible person!’ Kitty chuckled.
‘Who’s a terrible person?’ Ruraigh called, just out of earshot.
‘No one!’ they yelled in unison.
*
It was the following weekend and Kitty and Theo had made a plan of sorts. She was going to tell the kids and he would arrive a bit later to mop up any emotional spills, provide support and help navigate the aftermath. It had all felt perfectly reasonable when they were discussing it; now, however, as Kitty sat at the dining room table with the double doors thrown open, she felt more than a little nauseous, and it was nothing to do with the prospect of Greg cooking her supper.
She chuckled at the sound of squabbling coming from her small courtyard garden. Sophie, who looked beautiful with her enormous bump, was barking instructions at Greg and Olly, who seemed to be taking an age to light the barbecue.
‘Let me do it. I’m training to be a doctor!’
‘Really? You’re training to be a doctor? Gosh, Olly, thank God you said that, because I hadn’t heard you mention for five minutes the fact that you are studying medicine – and I had almost forgotten!’ Sophie clicked her tongue. ‘And yes, you are training to be a doctor, not a chef or a barbecue-pit master, so sod off! Greg can do it.’
‘Greg’s not a chef or a pit master either, he’s a lecturer, in modern languages!’ Olly yelled.
‘Again, thank you for your valuable insight. Dork.’
Olly pulled a face and mimicked her stance.
Kitty always found it quite remarkable that no matter how old her kids got, how impressive their achievements or even the fact that one was about to become a parent, after mere minutes of trying to complete any chore together, they reverted to being toddlers.
Greg grabbed the matches but appeared to be quite clueless as to how to get the flames to jump and light the coals. Sophie now looked bored by the intense, almost scientific discussion about the best point at which to start cooking, should they ever get that far, and had started to pull tiny weeds from the crevices in the wall.
Kitty smiled at them from the dining table as she sat back and sipped her chilled glass of white wine, admiring the honeysuckle around the French windows, its slender tendrils taking the opportunity to snake into the room like a nosy creature. Her pulse quickened as Sophie came inside.
‘Don’t sit in here all on your own, come outside! We have sunshine, I ordered it especially for you.’ Sophie stood behind her and placed her hands on her shoulders.
Kitty turned her head to the left and kissed the back of her daughter’s hand. ‘Thank you, Soph, that was kind. If you could summon up some rain for later on, it’ll save me having to water my tubs.’
‘I’m on it!’ She laughed. ‘You look miles away. Plus you’ve got your booze glow on.’
‘Have I?’ She touched her cheek and felt the warmth.
‘Yep.’
Kitty smiled at her girl. ‘Well, touché, and you have your baby glow on, as Tizz would say. I’m quite happy here, having a good old think.’
Sophie pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘What are you thinking about?’
She noted the crease of concern above her daughter’s nose and felt a spike of love for her.
Now, Kitty! This is the time. This is the moment…
‘I’m thinking about your dad, actually.’
‘Dad-Angus or Dad-Theo?’
Kitty laughed at the somewhat ridiculous need to clarify. ‘Dad-Theo.’ She took another glug of the cold, dry wine whose citrussy tang was just what she needed on this hot day to help ease the words from their hiding place.
‘Theo is one of those people who has always just been there,’ she began.
‘Because you met at school.’
; ‘Yes, but more than that. The day I met him, I felt…’ She exhaled, trying to find the right words. ‘I felt connected to him. I must have met dozens of people on that first day at Vaizey, but there was something about him and me… As I say, a connection.’
‘It’s good to be such old friends, nice to have that shared history. It’s lovely for me. And it will be lovely for this little one too.’ She cradled her bump. ‘You will both be its grandparents, after all.’
‘Yes, we will. And that’s the thing – I love him, Sophie,’ she whispered.
‘Aww, bless you, Mum! I know you do. He loves you too.’ She smiled.
Kitty shook her head. ‘No, Soph. I love him love him. Like proper love.’
The smile slipped from Sophie’s face and she laid her hands flat on the tabletop. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean things have changed for me. For us. You know that moment when you cross the line in your mind and someone goes from being just a friend to the possibility of something more? It happened to me.’
Sophie’s breath quickened. ‘Did it happen for Dad?’
‘It did.’
Sophie ran her fingers over her mouth. ‘So I’m not sure what you’re saying – do you, like, want to have a relationship with him?’ She said this with a chuckle that carried the faint echo of disbelief.
‘I am having a relationship with him.’ She levelled with her girl and felt relief and fear in equal measure.
‘Shit, Mum!’
‘Is that “Shit, Mum, good!” or “Shit, Mum, bad!”?’
Sophie shook her head. ‘I’m not really sure.’
Kitty stared at her, waiting for the words that would give her a clue as to how this was going.
‘How long has it… have you…’ She rolled her hand in the air.
‘Erm, about six months, since the night of your engagement and baby announcement at the pub. But if I’m being honest…’ She ignored the little humph noise her daughter made, suggesting she had been anything but. ‘… I think it was probably in the background for a lot longer than that.’
Sophie exhaled. ‘This is… it’s weird for me.’
‘What, the fact that your mum might have fallen for your dad?’ She tried to lighten the mood.
‘Yes! Because you have always been Dad-Angus’s wife, ex-wife, despite everything, and you and Theo were friends. I know I was made in love, I get that, but it was hardly from a stable, long-term thing, and Theo and I are really close and it feels strange for me that you and he might—’
‘Might what?’
‘I don’t know… It sounds ridiculous even to me, but I feel a bit odd about you going behind my back.’
Kitty let out a small burst of nervous laughter.
‘I told you it sounded ridiculous.’ Sophie looked down.
‘No, it doesn’t, darling. I understand. I think it might be a case of old-fashioned jealousy and I understand that completely, more than you know, but I can absolutely assure you that no matter what happens between Theo and me, you are our focus, you and Olly and Greg and the new baby. Nothing changes.’ She looked out into the garden at her boy, who was now fanning the barbecue coals with the lip torn from a cardboard box.
‘But that’s not possible. It changes everything! It changes the whole dynamic of how we function as a family, and if it all goes tits up, it changes it even more!’
‘I am hoping it doesn’t all go tits up.’
‘Well, of course, as I am sure you did with Dad-Angus, and he did with Nikolai, and every couple does with every other bloody relationship that hits the rocks and disintegrates! No one plans for failure, but we kind of have to, because we’re all linked.’
Kitty considered this. ‘I don’t think that’s any different from any family the world over. If things go wrong, the ripples are felt far and wide, of course. But we’re not entering into this to fail and we are not doing it lightly.’
‘I don’t want you or Theo to get hurt. And it would be doubly hard if it was the both of you hurting each other. How would we deal with that?’
Kitty stared at her daughter. ‘So do you think it’s safer not to try? Do you think we should nip this happiness in the bud and go back to being lonely and alone? That can’t be right, can it?’
‘We need help out here, Soph!’ Greg called through the French windows.
Sophie stood slowly and spoke softly. ‘No, but I have hated being in the middle of you and Angus, and Angus and Nikolai, and you and Angus and Richard. Even though you all kind of get on, it’s not been easy, for me or Olly, and the relationship I have with Theo, despite the rather odd beginning, is one of the most straightforward. I can talk to him, just talk without first having to filter my words in case I say the wrong thing, mention the wrong event, pick off a scab of hurt about something that might have happened a long time ago. He and I can just chat and I like how easy it is.’ She sighed. ‘I’m scared of losing that.’
‘You won’t lose that. What you and Theo have is very special. He’s your Theo,’ she admitted, and smiled.
‘I don’t want things to become difficult or complicated. I’ve had enough of that – we all have.’
Haven’t we just.
‘I want you both to be happy, Mum, I do, but there’s something else…’
‘What, darling?’
‘I don’t know if I should say.’
‘Go on, Soph, you know you can say anything to me.’
Sophie looked skywards, as if mentally selecting the right words. ‘I can only think of Theo and Anna. Anna and Theo. They were a great love story, and they worked.’ She shrugged. ‘And I don’t want you to be a poor second. That’s not fair on either of you.’
Kitty felt the force of her daughter’s words like a punch to the chest, hitting her precisely where she was most vulnerable. ‘A poor second… The great love story…. Theo and Anna. Anna and Theo.’ It left her winded. She could only nod at Sophie, who headed back outside.
Kitty stood and made her way on wobbly legs up the stairs to her bedroom. She slipped onto the bed and turned her face into the soft down pillow. You fool, Kitty. You bloody fool. How could you be so blind? Blind all over again. Her tears were muffled and her heart ached. Sophie’s right, of course she is. Anna and Theo – two people, one love…
*
She must have fallen asleep, because when she woke, the sky had darkened and the smell of barbecued meat permeated the air. She sat up and looked at the clock: an hour had passed. She heard the sound of conversation in the courtyard and then the boom of Theo’s laugh. Shit! She had quite forgotten that he was coming over. And he would already have spent time with Sophie, whom she’d told, and she would surely have mentioned it to the boys… Kitty buried her face in her hands. The situation was already a knotty mess. She lay back on the pillow and wished again for the sweet oblivion of sleep. She closed her eyes for a few minutes.
‘There you are, sleepy head!’ Theo burst in and sat down hard on the side of the bed where his cufflinks, cologne and Classic Cars magazine nestled secretly in the bedside drawer. ‘I came up earlier, but you were dead to the world.’ He leant over and kissed her. ‘Sophie and the guys are happy! I’m happy!’ He lay down next to her. ‘I’m giving you fair warning, but act surprised – they’ve put a bottle of bubbly on ice and are planning a bit of a toast.’
Kitty couldn’t stifle the sob that left her throat.
‘Oh no!’ He propped himself up on one elbow and looked at her face. ‘Why are you crying? It went well – we can relax! The cat is out of the bag and we can relax, finally! It’s a good, good day.’
Kitty shook her head, sat up against the pillows and grabbed a tissue from the box on her night stand, which she balled and dabbed at her eyes and under her nose.
‘What on earth’s the matter?’ He held her hand.
‘I didn’t plan on having these feelings for you, Theo.’
‘I don’t think feelings like this can be planned,’ he replied, clearly confuse
d about where this might be heading.
‘There has always been a strong link, a friendship…’
‘Yes, always.’ He squeezed her hand inside his.
Sitting up even straighter, she rested against the headboard and shrugged her hand free of his grip before wrapping her cotton cardigan around her middle. ‘I love you, Theo. I do.’
‘I know. And I love you.’ He kissed her hand.
Kitty recalled the way Angus could never comfortably say those words to her, and this made her sob even harder.
‘I love you very much,’ he repeated, ‘which is why I am finding it hard to fathom the tears!’ He stared at her and it was difficult to read his expression.
Kitty swallowed, dry mouthed, hating the feeling of vulnerability and something approaching shame that pulsed through her. Her cheeks flushed. ‘Sophie said something that has made me think. It made sense.’
He looked concerned. ‘What did she say?’
‘She said that you and Anna were the great love story – Theo and Anna, Anna and Theo – and she’s right! Anna was your one, and you had something perfect.’ Her tone was purposefully neutral, to deflect her embarrassment. ‘And I don’t know why I thought there could be anything between us other than the friendship we have shared for all these years – and Sophie, of course. But we need to forget everything, we need to go back to how it was because I don’t want to be anyone’s poor second choice.’
‘What on earth are you talking about? Where has this come from?’
‘I told you, it was something Sophie said and she’s right. It’s Anna and Theo, that’s the way the universe intended it, not Kitty and Theo!’ She let her tears fall.
Theo took her into his arms and the two sat in silence until her breathing had found its natural rhythm and her tears had ceased.
‘We shouldn’t waste this life, Kitty. This one short blip of a life, it goes so fast.’
‘It does.’ She pictured her once lively mum ensconced in the prison of her choosing with one eye on the window and her fingers clutching the sheet, white-knuckled with fear.
‘We shouldn’t waste us,’ he said. ‘That would be a tragedy.’
‘Do you think so?’ she whispered.
How to Fall in Love Again: Kitty's Story Page 28