‘No. I didn’t swear on the Bible or anything like that. I told you, I’m not religious,’ she said, continuing to inch her chair away from him. ‘I just decided. Well, there are three of us. All off men. We’re supposed to be single for a year. We’ve come up with a charter.’ She was saying too much. She’d had too much booze. Next she’d be telling him all about the losers she’d dated. Or about Dave Holgate’s belly. It was tempting. Richard would laugh that delicious laugh. It was suddenly more important than anything else in the world, that he find her hilarious. It wouldn’t hurt, would it, to tell him she’d been enormously unlucky in dating?
‘A charter, hey? And there’s three of you?’
‘Three of us. Friends. Me, Grace and Frankie. We live in the same street. We’ve had enough of men. It’s not that unusual.’
‘Someone hurt you?’ he asked gently.
‘No, not at all,’ she snapped. ‘Just a long, long series of disappointments.’
‘The wrong kind of men?’
‘Men like you, actually. But I keep coming back for more, it seems.’
‘Ah, a pattern. I see.’ He looked amused, where she thought he might have looked angry. ‘So, I’m your next disappointment?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she muttered. Damn it. She’d said too much. The point was he was not disappointing, far from it. But she wouldn’t tell him that.
‘Hmm. Interesting. All these men…all these disasters…and you. Do you think there could be a common denominator here?’ He was teasing, but she was unnerved and terrified.
‘I haven’t made these men disappointments! They’ve done it all on their own, believe me.’
She was more than a bit annoyed. Good. Annoyed was good. It was better than being scared witless. Annoyed meant she could go. And she really should go. Make an exit. Get out while the going wasn’t good. What a shame she hadn’t eaten anything. Her appetite was back now, booze-fuelled. Those egg custard tarts had looked so delicious. She wanted to stay for pudding. She wanted to stay for Richard. God, he was bloody gorgeous.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she whimpered. ‘I don’t trust myself.’
She could have punched herself. No, don’t say that! It immediately shifted the balance of power. It told him she fancied him. That she really liked him. That she was under his spell, his control. Why, why, why did she say that? Ironically, she’d said it before as a casual line in seduction. When she trusted herself all too well, when she knew exactly what she was doing. It usually preceded leaping on someone with wanton abandon. Now she said it as bare fact, a fact that she was vulnerable and petrified.
‘I need to go,’ she repeated. ‘I’ve got somewhere I have to be… I…’
He grabbed the base of her chair and pulled it back towards him in one deft move. This time they were thigh to thigh. His turned his upper body to face her. His face, mouth, lips were close to hers, so close. She could smell his skin. She could see straight into his eyes. He leant forward, placed his left hand softly under the side of her face…and kissed her.
Oh. My. God. His lips were warm, almost hot. There was a heat coming off his face in citrusy wafts. He was kissing her. He was kissing her. He was kissing her. She never wanted it to stop. She’d never been kissed like this before. She was spiralling down a delicious tunnel to total oblivion. It was tender, it was teasing, it was tantamount to heaven. Richard…
Finally, his lips were gone from hers. She felt bereft. She could have kissed him all day. She opened her eyes to see him sat there, smiling at her. She smiled back, then, suddenly, she was horrified. This was wrong! So, so wrong. She was supposed to be off men. For a year! She was supposed to be a single woman, enjoying her freedom. She couldn’t fall in love with him. He would only end up breaking her heart. The type of man she’d always thought she was safe with was going to break her heart. She had to get out of here now, or she would never get out alive.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she said again, weakly.
‘Why?’ He looked…satisfied. Sexy as hell. ‘We haven’t even had dessert, or pudding, as you call it. Would you like to have some pudding before you go?’ He gestured over to the table. She glanced at it. The egg custards were glistening in the sun. How did he know she loved them? He was mocking her a little, she knew, but in a way she was frightened she really liked.
She was undone, all over the place. Oh my God, that kiss. So warm, so American, so amazing, so…hazardous. ‘I’ll take a custard tart for the road,’ she said, standing up and trying to get her voice to sound somewhere near normal.
‘Sure.’ He was smiling. Relaxed. He had just kissed her. As he walked over to the table, she examined his back view again. It was nice. Too nice. He wrapped a custard tart in a sky blue napkin for her. Nimble fingers. Lovely fingers. She wanted those fingers dipping in her custard. Stop, stop, stop! She had to get out of here, NOW!
She nearly ran to the door. She fled, without looking back.
The heavy office door shut softly behind her, like an anti-climax.
As she made her way back through the open-plan office, veering slightly but determined to look sober, her head was held unnaturally high. She was channelling all her favourite female television characters. Carrie Bradshaw walking through Vogue, Ally McBeal strutting through the law firm, Scully walking purposefully wherever it was she used to walk.
Several pairs of eyes looked up as she passed.
‘I love your shoes,’ said a woman’s voice from inside a grey cubicle.
‘Thanks,’ said Imogen. She felt obliged to stop. They were kick-ass shoes. They were the type of shoes you put on as soon as they arrived in the post, and then you sat on the sofa with them, holding one leg aloft in turn so you could admire them. The kind of shoes you kept by the side of your bed so you could see them as soon as you opened your eyes in the morning. They had been carefully chosen for her lunch with Richard. She had stuck them out one end of the white tablecloth to make sure he noticed them. He had.
She peered inside the cubicle. The woman looked friendly. Nice cardigan. Teal. She had photos of beaming children stuck all over her work station. A large box of tissues in a floral case. Imogen was transfixed. This was the feminine side of re-insurance. She was aware she was staring. Nosing. What would snooty reception girl say?
‘Lucky you,’ the woman whispered with a smile, over the top of her computer, and at first Imogen thought she was still talking about her shoes. ‘He’s lovely.’
‘Thank you,’ said Imogen, again. She didn’t know what else to say. She smiled at the woman in a way that she hoped said ‘poised, sober and lucky’, not ‘pissed, just been kissed and all over the place’, and walked a very straight, measured line through the office, past the impressive reception desk and to the lifts.
Once inside, with the doors closed, she looked at her face. She looked deranged, changed. She leant her cheek against the cool metal flank of the lift, and saw the London street loom larger and larger below her until she was level with it.
She’d fallen for him, hadn’t she? He’d kissed her and she’d fallen for him. There was no going back.
The door opened and she stepped out. As she click-clacked back over the marble floor and out of the revolving door into the breezy city street, she believed herself to be the weakest person she knew.
Chapter Fourteen: Frankie
A couples’ triathlon?
I’m washing my hair that night.
Ha ha. What about driving down to Southend and taking a jog along the seafront?
Maybe. But only if we get fish ’n’ chips!
There had been two more Couch to 5k meet-ups since Frankie and Hugh had snogged by the car park (she could only make alternate Sundays – she was going again tomorrow) and they had kissed goodbye – very energetically – both times. It was becoming a lovely habit. She’d got over her complete astonishment at it happening, that first time, and now expected it and looked forward to it. It was fun.
In between snogging meet-ups, they texted a lot. Hugh wa
s pressing her to go on a date with him, but so far, Frankie had resisted. Despite her eagerness to give him her number, once she’d really given it some thought, she’d decided she was reluctant. She’d only recently got rid of Rob and wasn’t sure if she wanted a boyfriend or any kind of new man. She was happy to kiss Hugh – really happy – and enjoy their textual flirting, but she wasn’t sure if she was ready for more. She relished the periods of time to fantasise about him; if she went on a date with him those fantasies might disappear in a puff of smoke. She really didn’t want another Rob.
Hugh was keen and persistent. This morning he was trying to pin her down to a day and time. They’d been volleying texts between them like tennis balls since eight a.m. and it was now quarter past ten. His text speak was appalling and he used lots of horrible things like ‘gr8’ and ‘TTFN’ and far too many ‘lol’s, but he was fairly amusing and he wanted to go out with her, and that made her feel good. Thinking about their delectably infrequent, frantic kissing at the edge of the car park made her feel really good.
She grinned as another text came through. Oh. It was from Rob.
Harry forgot his homework.
Oh no! Can’t he do it when he gets home tomorrow?
He said it’ll be too late. It’s maths. I can help him with it. You’re useless.
Thanks! Can’t you print it off the internet?
No. He needs his textbook.
Ah, okay.
Can you bring it over? You can see where I live.
Frankie stared at the text. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see where he lived. Rob’s flat, house, home, place, pad whatever. It would be a bit weird. How long had he lived there now? Three months? Where he lived was now a world apart, his place had nothing to do with her.
A text from Hugh arrived:
We can do fish ’n’ chips. Then a 2k run to burn it off ;)
She sent a quick reply.
I’ll think about it. Got to go out now. Speak to you later x
She put a kiss because she felt bad, but she had to think about whether or not she would go to Rob’s flat. She had often wondered what it was like. It was strange and often horrible not to know where her children were sleeping every other weekend. She couldn’t picture them there, asleep at night, and it was weird. Their bedrooms, their pillows, their duvets. They were unknowns and she didn’t like it.
She’d cried last night, actually, out of nowhere and into her pillow, panicked that she couldn’t picture Alice’s face because she was unable to visualise her sleeping. She’d had to get out of bed and fetch the photo she had of all four of her children, from her dressing table. She’d examined them all. Traced over their faces with her finger. Perhaps she should go and see their bedrooms at Rob’s. Witness where they spent all that time. And, if she really admitted it to herself, she did have the tiniest, tiniest desire to go and have a nose at his flat.
Okay. Text me the address. The lady will help me find it.
Rob would know what she meant. The ‘lady’ was the satnav lady. Frankie liked to talk back to her, thank her for her instructions and call her a ‘dozy bint’ if she sent them the wrong way. She’d once forgotten her satnav (it was one of those stick-on ones) when driving Josh to a camp at Mersea, and Rob, at work, had looked up the route on Google Maps and spoken to her on loudspeaker as she drove, in satnav lady’s lilting Irish accent. It had been really funny.
As she pulled up outside a new-build row of terraces, featuring four storeys of windows with little balconies, she could see why Rob had chosen to live here. It was walking distance from an Asda and right up his street: quiet, clean and with no work needing doing to anything. Rob had been pushing for a new build when they’d moved to their house in New Primrose Road. He thought one would be less ‘grief’, as he’d put it. He’d been over-ruled; Frankie had wanted a rambling doer-upper and she’d got it. On the other hand, he’d made her move not far enough away from her parents, so it was a kind of payback.
Rob’s own parents had lived in an ancient, ramshackle farmhouse, up until his dad died and his mum moved into sheltered housing. It had constantly needed work doing to it, work that Rob was often roped into helping with, even as a kid. He was painting bannister spindles by the age of ten and regrouting by thirteen. When he grew up, he dreamed of owning a brand spanking new place that needed zero work: uPVC windows that never needed painting; walls that didn’t crack in the same places every year no matter how carefully they were filled in; rooms that were warm, but Frankie had come across the 1930s house in central Chelmsford, Rob’s required area, and thought it perfect. She liked a period feature, a tiled fireplace and a dado rail or two; she was partial to large rooms, good ceiling heights and a garden that was larger than a handkerchief. She persuaded Rob that it had the space and potential they needed and he spent the next two years with a power tool or a paintbrush in his hand.
He hadn’t always been a lazy git, thought Frankie ruefully, as she got out of the car. At one time, he’d made a real effort. He’d worked really hard on their house. So, where had it all gone wrong? she wondered. At what point exactly had he turned into an idle, good-for-nothing slob?
Rob loved Chelmsford. He loved living there. He always declared that he was a Chelmsford Man. Strictly speaking, though, he wasn’t. The ramshackle farmhouse he grew up in was in Danbury, a village five miles away. He and Frankie had met in the village, at The Ram pub and restaurant. She’d been on a girls’ night out, with work; he was out for a family dinner with his mum and sister. They’d seen each other at the bar, when he’d let her get served first, and later, she’d literally bumped into him in the narrow beamed corridor as they were both coming out of the toilets. Romantic!
‘We must stop meeting like this,’ he’d said.
‘Yes.’ She’d laughed. He looked nice. Jeans, a short-sleeved shirt. Short, fair, curlyish hair. Not fat, not skinny. Cute.
As they’d passed each other, he’d turned and called back to her. ‘We’re going on into town tonight,’ he’d said. ‘Well, me and my sister Beth are – I don’t think my mum can be persuaded.’ He laughed, showing all his teeth. ‘I know this is a bit cheeky, but I’ll be in The Schooner if you fancy it.’
‘Oh, right,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’
She didn’t know if the girls would be going into town after the meal or not, but by the time they’d polished off dessert and the last of the seven bottles of red, Frankie definitely was. She’d been glancing at Schooner man, over at the other side of the restaurant. He’d been laughing a lot. His mum and sister were laughing a lot, too. He left the restaurant at half ten. By eleven o’clock Frankie was drunk enough to call a taxi for herself and head into Chelmsford.
Rob was alone at the bar of The Schooner and the rest, as they say, was history. A whole lot of history.
His modern, low-maintenance flat was on the top floor. Frankie supposed Rob would have to buzz her in, but a girl in a denim jacket was heading in through the heavy glazed door in the centre of the block so she skipped in behind her, into a stark white communal hall. There was a pushbike there – wasn’t there always, in these places? It wasn’t Rob’s. His was still in the garage at home, flanked up against the wall next to the kit car.
She went up the grey, concrete stairs. Four flights. She counted along the blank white doors to Number 54 and rang the bell. There was a shout of ‘Mum’s here!’ and Harry came to the door.
‘Mum,’ he said. He didn’t look ecstatic to see her. He looked wary. Almost suspicious. It must have been as strange for him to see her here as it was for Frankie to be at the door of her husband’s unknown home. ‘Dad!’ he yelled, as though calling for backup, in the way that fathers who answer phones to their children always call for their wives. Then he took the text book Frankie was proffering and hopped back into the flat.
Rob appeared. He had an apron on. An actual apron. It wasn’t even a comedy one with boobs on. It was a proper, serious apron. With blue and white butcher’s stripes and a wholesome smear of flour a
cross the front. Alice was balanced on his hip, her chubby legs wrapped around him. She reached out for Frankie with a huge toothy grin and Frankie grabbed her with near relief and took her in her arms.
‘Hello,’ she whispered, into Alice’s perfect, pink ear. ‘So this is where you are.’
‘Come in!’ Rob said, all jolly, like Abigail at Abigail’s Party, welcoming her guests. ‘Excuse the pinny. Tilly and I were just making some fairy cakes. Or cupcakes, or whatever they call them these days. Come on in,’ he said again. Frankie followed him down a short hall and into an open-plan living room that had a kitchen shoehorned at one end, behind squeezed-back concertinaed doors. A lovely vanilla-y smell was wafting from a very clean-looking built-in oven.
‘Hi, Mum,’ said Tilly distractedly. She had an apron on, too, and was sitting on the sofa next to Harry. They were watching cartoons.
‘Hi, darling,’ said Frankie, going over to kiss them both. ‘You both okay?’ Her eyes were filling with tears and she felt ridiculous, but it was just so weird seeing them here.
‘Yeah,’ they said, in unison, without taking their eyes off the television.
‘Where’s Josh?’
‘Playing outside,’ said Tilly.
‘Oh.’
‘He’s out on the communal lawn,’ said Rob, ‘with some of the neighbours’ kids. He’s made loads of friends.’
‘Especially Jonathan,’ said Tilly in a sing-song voice. ‘And Daddy is friends with Jonathan’s mum.’
‘It’s just one of the neighbours,’ said Rob, shrugging and looking slightly sheepish. ‘Jenny. No biggie. We’ve been to Kaper Kids together.’
‘You don’t have to explain,’ said Frankie, but she was quite taken aback. Rob had a new friend? A Jenny? How was she supposed to feel about that? She didn’t know, but she supposed she didn’t have a right to feel anything about it. She sort of had a Hugh.
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