When Life Gives You Lemons

by Fiona Gibson

  ‘Yes please,’ I reply eagerly.

  As she cuts tiny slivers for us, asking if we’d like wine, too – ‘Oh, go on then,’ Shelley says, as if she’s taken some persuading – I start to feel quite hysterical that the man with whom I shared my life for a quarter of a century now lives directly above a giant reeking Stilton wheel. If it weren’t for that – or my tipsiness – it might have felt awful to be confronted by the undeniable evidence that Andy really does have a home away from Izzy and me, and isn’t merely floating about in the ether like a kind of philandering spectre. But as it is, my seemingly bleak Sunday has turned out to be far cheerier than I could have imagined.

  ‘You know the flats upstairs from here?’ I venture as the young woman pours our wine.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Does the smell from the shop carry up there, d’you think?’

  She chuckles and hands around the cheeses and wine. ‘I’d imagine it must do. Maybe not so much to the top floor, but definitely to the one above. It was empty for years, actually. Someone only moved in a few months ago.’ She grins and passes around more samples. ‘They must love cheese, is all I can say.’

  ‘Yes, they must,’ I agree. We finish our samples and wine, and naturally, the chunk of Brie de Meaux I feel obliged to buy sets me back a few quid. But I shall relish every morsel, I reflect, as Penny and I share a taxi home.

  ‘Fancy coming in?’ she asks as we pull up at her block. ‘We could round things off with a G&T. I even have lemons. And ice!’

  Normally I’d have enjoyed ending the evening in her cluttered flat with the beaded curtains and twinkling chandelier, the shelves teetering with artefacts and hand-crocheted blankets strewn about. But our afternoon boozing has knocked me for six, so I thank Penny for her offer, deciding instead to take myself home and soak in a deep bath.

  There I wallow, inhaling the mandarin scent of my favourite bath oil and wondering if Estelle Lang enjoys her sojourns to the stinking love nest. Perhaps it adds a certain piquancy to their sex life? He swears they’re still not living together, so maybe she has a flat of her own in town somewhere, or is still living in Edinburgh. He hasn’t divulged, and I wouldn’t dream of asking i.e. giving any indication that I give a stuff about their domestic arrangements. But now I’m wondering: does he take the cheese smell with him when he visits her, stuck to his clothes and hair?

  These thoughts are immensely pleasing as I towel myself dry, pull on soft cotton pyjamas and climb into bed. Picturing Andy choking on Camembert fumes, I slide into a blissful, booze-induced sleep.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Wednesday, August 7

  Halfway through the week already, and still no hint from Rose as to what kind of new role she has in mind for me. Although, in her defence, she’s been crazily busy and hardly in the office due to all her meetings and press interviews and whatnot.

  Now, I’m starting to wonder if she has me earmarked for working with these new teams of youngsters in some capacity. Not as their mentor, not running these ‘platforms for innovation’, as she keeps calling them, but perhaps as an older, wiser (ha!) participant to help to keep things on track? There must be some benefits of not being young anymore, e.g. the accumulation of life experience. Being (fairly) unflappable when things go wrong. Maybe Rose sees me as the wide old sage who’ll inspire the youngsters to come up with innovative new product lines without tumbling into bickering and disarray.

  I like to think I’m pretty good with young people. After all, it’s not so long since Spencer was living here and I was having to deal with his teenagery behaviour. We rubbed along pretty well, apart from the brief period from when he was around thirteen to eighteen, which I realise now is not such a brief period. He was capable of being a royal pain in the arse, burning his French jotters in the garden and patronising me by patiently explaining the situation in Palestine, as if I had the mental capacity of a sea sponge. But we staggered through it eventually, and apart from that, I worked with numerous youth groups in theatres over the years. And if I learnt one thing, it’s that young people are generally fine – and can actually be lovely to be around – if you’re not their mum.

  Anyway, at least my prospects are looking hopeful, whereas Isla has just been given the startling news that the museum, where she has worked for fifteen years, looks set to close early next year, if visitor numbers don’t improve. She sounds terribly stressed, so I persuade her to leave her kids to their own devices for a few hours, and to come over to mine for the evening.

  She looks tired and drawn as I make us pasta and pour her a glass of wine.

  ‘I’m not sure management have it in them to change the way we do things,’ she says, swirling tagliatelle around her fork at the kitchen table. ‘They’re so set in their ways, and we all know we can’t compete with the big, exciting temporary exhibitions – the crowd pullers like Coco Chanel, Frida Kahlo or a Tyrannosaurus Rex. And so we end up just pottering along, the way we always have done. I can’t imagine that changing.’

  ‘Yeah, I can see that. God, Isla. It’s so sad, though.’ I picture the natural history department, which she oversees, and which consists mainly of stuffed animals from Victorian times. It’s dated, yes, but charming; like stepping into a bygone era with its reverential atmosphere and smartly uniformed staff. Spencer used to love it whenever I took him there, and Izzy does too, although she used to find the stuffed animals a little scary when she was very young.

  ‘I do realise taxidermy isn’t sexy,’ Isla adds. ‘It can actually make people angry these days. We try to explain that the animals all died of natural causes and have historical value but there’s no appeasing them sometimes.’

  My kind, gentle friend seems pretty worked up, and I feel powerless to help.

  ‘What about some kind of fashion event?’ I suggest. ‘Could the costume department pull something together, get the place talked about again?’

  ‘Actually, I suggested that,’ Isla says. ‘The trouble is, the really popular stuff tends to be mid-Fifties onwards and we don’t have much from that era. The collection’s mostly Edwardian and Victorian, and I know plenty of people love that too. But it just doesn’t have that mass appeal.’

  ‘Well, maybe Penny could help?’ I add. ‘She probably has a few original pieces stashed away, and she definitely has the knowledge and the expertise. And I’m sure she’d be happy to at least come in for a chat …’

  ‘I’ll talk to management,’ Isla says, perking up a little now. ‘Fashion would be great. We really need some kind of event to bring in younger visitors.’ She smiles. ‘Let’s face it, taxidermy probably has a bit of an image problem. No one’s excited by an ancient beaver with moth-eaten ears, clinging to a tree stump.’

  ‘Is Tinder really that bad?’ I ask.

  She laughs. ‘It’s just not what people are looking for on a day out. If they’re into natural history they expect biospheres and simulated volcanic eruptions. And if it’s history they love, they want to be transported through reconstructed Pictish villages with authentic smells of early latrines.’ She takes a big swig from her glass.

  ‘That sounds fascinating. Even Spencer would come home to see that. Remember when I took him to that museum in Edinburgh and he saw a pickled human penis in a jar?’

  ‘God, yes!’

  ‘He talked about that for about three years afterwards. For a while it felt like part of the family. I suggested we should start sending it a Christmas card.’

  ‘That’s it,’ Isla sniggers. ‘That’s exactly what we need. A severed member to bring in the crowds …’ She grins at me, and we do that telepathy thing that only close friends are capable of.

  ‘I wonder where we could get one?’ I muse, getting up as my phone starts ringing. I show Isla the name displayed: Andy. She splutters as I accept the call.

  ‘Hi,’ he says, ‘is this a good time?’

  ‘Actually, Isla’s here at the moment.’

  ‘Oh. I won’t keep you a minute—’

  ‘We
were just talking about severed penises. Peen-eye. What is the plural, anyway?’

  ‘Huh?’ A sharp exhalation. ‘I was hoping to talk to Izzy, but I’m guessing she’s still away?’

  ‘She’s back on Saturday,’ I say, thinking: I’m sure I told him this.

  He sighs. ‘So, how she’s getting on? Have you heard from her?’

  ‘Yes, of course I have. She’s having a great time.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Andy pauses. ‘So, she’s having lots of fun?’

  As I’ve just stated, yes. ‘Sounds like it. She’s loving being in the caravan.’

  ‘Ah, that’s good. I’ve missed her, though.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m missing her too,’ I say briskly, eager to finish this call. It always puts me on edge when Andy slips into this ‘can we be mates?’ kind of tone, which I’ve noticed creeping in recently.

  ‘I’m hoping to nip down to see Spence soon,’ he adds, ‘but he’s always so busy …’

  ‘Yes, I know he is.’ Stop trying to elicit sympathy, idiot. ‘So,’ I add, ‘how are things up there at the loch? Are your parents okay?’ I know he loves it up there normally; bracing waterside walks are very much his thing.

  ‘Yeah, everyone’s fine.’ He pauses. ‘But the set-up hasn’t been quite what I expected.’

  ‘In what way?’ Now my interest is piqued.

  ‘Well, you know there are these new lodges, and me and Izzy had been allocated one?’

  ‘Yep.’ The bespoke quilts, the log-burning stoves and all that.

  ‘Somehow, there’d been a mix-up with numbers and when it turned out to be just me, without Izzy, I was put in a tent in the garden and you know what the midges are like up here.’

  ‘Oh.’ A smile tweaks my lips. ‘So, you’ve been bitten, then?’

  ‘Eaten alive,’ he bemoans. ‘Scratching all night. Can you believe I only brought shorts with me? Stupid, I know. I’ve tried all the lotions but you know what I’m like, how I react so badly. Once I’m bitten I get the wheals and the blisters …’ What a pity, I muse, that Estelle isn’t up there to witness her lover, clawing at himself in a tent.

  ‘Couldn’t you just come home early, if it’s that bad?’

  ‘The party’s tomorrow. It’s a huge deal to them and I’ve promised to help with the barbecue.’

  Ah, of course. He does enjoy showing off at the coals, grappling sausages in his manly way. ‘Ah, I see. Well, like I said, Isla’s here so I’d really better go.’

  ‘Okay but, um, I wondered if we could talk for a moment—’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘It’s just, I’m feeling pretty bad, you know. And I just thought maybe—’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not about to drive up to Loch Fyne with calamine lotion,’ I cut in. ‘Borrow some trousers or wrap yourself tightly in cling film. Can midges bite through that?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he mutters. ‘But, Viv, I just wanted to tell you—’

  ‘Bye, Andy,’ I say quickly. ‘Goodbye.’

  Friday, August 9

  Home and shattered after a full-on working week. It’s so tempting to fall on my laptop, tip wine down my neck and spend the evening googling Estelle Lang. But I shall resist. Instead, I make a pot of virtuous mint tea and google: Can midges bite through material?

  Happily, the answer appears to be, ‘Yes, unless it is extremely thick.’

  Monday, August 12

  Izzy is back from the Lake District, brown as a biscuit and full of the joys of the World’s Most Disgusting Caravan (™) which, by all accounts, is a little piece of Paradise in the Lakes. Sadly for me, she has also gone back to school today, so I haven’t had much chance to hang out with her, apart from to supervise a brief episode of Izzy Cooks! last night, as she was keen to demonstrate Jules’s home-made sourdough pizza method. As I swept up scatterings of flour she told me all about the friends she and Maeve had made at the caravan park, and how they were appalled to discover that Scottish kids return to school a month earlier than their new (English) mates. Of course, we started the holidays a month earlier than they did, but that did nothing to assuage the huff she was in this morning.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ she muttered as we strode along to school. Despite Penny’s insistence that I should look at the lollipop man ‘in a different way’, I could only look at him in an awkward way today, which I suppose was different to how I used to look at him – only not in the way she’d meant. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to look at him neutrally again?

  And so to work. As Rose is perennially involved in back-to-back meetings I still don’t know what she has in store for me. Maybe she’s forgotten that she sort of promised me something? Or has she changed her mind? ‘You mentioned we should have a chat, a little while back?’ I venture, taking her a coffee when she reappears briefly at her desk.

  ‘Yes,’ she says, nodding, ‘and I promise I’ll clear some time at some point.’

  Which hardly sounds like it’s going to happen anytime soon. So, after my initial excitement, it’s a bit of a comedown really.

  I try to stay perky, I really do. But the sky is a flat wash of gloomy grey, the summer holidays are over, Izzy and I haven’t been away together and it doesn’t look as if anything thrilling is about to happen at work. On top of all that, I seem to be having one of those perpetually-on-the-brink-of-blubbing days. They still happen to me, sometimes with no obvious trigger – although today I’m all too aware that it’s my mother-in-law Cathy’s birthday (being a wife, such dates have been indelibly inked into my brain). And although I have sent a card from Izzy, Spencer and me – conscious of it virtually pulsing with the omission of Andy’s name – I’d usually call her too.

  Right from the start, from when Andy first took me to Inverness to meet them, his parents were always welcoming and kind. Cathy fussed over me, unable to rest until I had sampled both her lemon drizzle cake and her cinnamon buns, and his dad, Will, used to jokingly call me ‘Vivacious’ (‘That’s what Viv’s short for, right?’).

  Our visits to their place were always fun, with wine flowing, and everyone talking over each other in that effusive way the Flint family has. They’re quite loud, aren’t they? my mum murmured, looking startled, after the first time our parents had all met.

  To give her credit, Cathy has phoned me from time to time since Andy left, and I’ve done my best to stay in touch. It’s all very delicately handled (‘We do hope you’re okay, Viv. We’re very sorry …’), with both of us clearly doing our utmost to pretend that there’s no awkwardness. Whilst Cathy has said that she doesn’t understand why Andy ‘did what he did’ (she can’t even bring herself to specify what that was), she adores all six of her children and, naturally, that’s where her loyalties lie. These days, I always detect her relief when I pass the phone on to Izzy so she can have a nice, relaxed chat with her granddaughter.

  In the work canteen, I pick at a soggy apple turnover and scroll to Cathy’s mobile number. Ridiculously, I am wondering whether Andy remembered her birthday, and managed to navigate Marks & Spencer to choose a blouse for her. Christ, does he even know her size? Does he know she shuns pastels and short sleeves? Would he be able to name her favourite fragrance (J’Adore by Dior) if someone pointed a gun at his head? Probably not, as I took care of roughly ninety-eight per cent of all gift buying for his family during our years together. The one time I rebelled, when I was up to my eyes with a Christmas production, he manfully took the reins and genuinely thought it would be okay to give his parents a sole joint present – of a tin of biscuits with a picture of Father Christmas on the lid. ‘I thought they’d like them,’ he’d said, looking hurt.

  ‘If you ever give me biscuits, it’s over,’ I’d warned him, to which he quipped, cheekily: ‘What, even dark chocolate digestives?’

  Pushing such unwelcome thoughts from my mind, I make the call. Cathy answers, sounding pleased, but a little taken aback, to hear from me. ‘Hello, Viv. How are you?’

  ‘I’m good, thanks, Cathy. Just wanted
to wish you a happy birthday.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you to remember.’ Of course I remembered. I’ve remembered for twenty-odd years!

  I clear my throat. ‘Are you enjoying your day?’

  ‘Yes, very much, thanks. We’re just about to go out for lunch, actually.’

  ‘Oh, I won’t keep you …’

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ Cathy says quickly. It feels like a punch, the realisation this awkwardness between us isn’t just a temporary thing in the wake of the break-up. Of course, everything has changed, and it would be naive of me to expect us to be able to chat away, like in the old days, when she’d almost seemed like a surrogate mum. (‘The old days.’ Is that what they are already? If I’d known I’d have appreciated them more!) I can hardly believe I cried in her arms after my own mum died thirteen years ago. It strikes me, too, that this is a new and undoubtedly difficult situation for her; out of the six siblings Andy is the only one whose marriage has failed. By all accounts, everyone else’s is blissfully happy.

  ‘Did you have fun up at Loch Fyne?’ I ask, in order to fill the lull.

  ‘It was lovely,’ Cathy says. ‘We did miss Izzy, though. Everyone did. Such a shame she couldn’t come …’ She seems to catch herself then and tails off. I nudge the pastry crumbs together with my finger on the plate.

  ‘I know, and I’m sorry. But she’d set her heart on going to her friend’s caravan.’

  ‘I understand that,’ she says, and another pause settles over us. Did you miss me too? I want to ask, like a needy kid.

  ‘Is she there now?’ Cathy asks brightly. ‘I’d love to say hi—’

  ‘Who, Izzy? Um, no, she’s at school—’

  ‘Oh, of course she is. How silly of me. The holidays whiz by so quickly, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes, they really do!’ It’s clear now that this is how we have managed our conversations, since the split: muddling through the preliminaries before I’ve passed the phone to Izzy and everyone can relax. Whatever possessed me to call her from my work canteen?