Lessons in Duck Hunting

by Jayne Buxton

  Yes, I do think.

  “And by the way, I know about Mel. I know you said she shouldn’t tell me but I’m glad she did.” It hit me like a rocket through my gut then. I knew I wanted what she had so badly I’d do anything to get it.

  “AL, I CAN’T believe you’re doing this.”

  I’m sitting a sofa draped in what look like props absconded from the set of Easy Rider. Jack’s been using the back of the sofa as a horse, and has dressed it up with a makeshift saddle (a piece of cardboard he rescued from the recycling bag), reins (four shoelaces tied together), a blanket for cold nights, and a saddlebag stuffed with juice boxes and chocolate mini rolls for his imaginary journey. Under no circumstances is any of it to be moved.

  David is sitting opposite me on the coffee table. He’s leaning toward me and we are so close that I can smell the lunchtime beer on his breath mingled with the faint remains of soap.

  “Don’t think it’s easy for me, because it’s not. But I know in my heart that we can’t start over. I don’t want to start over.”

  “How can you say that!” he shouts in disbelief, sitting back on the table with his hands on his knees.

  Then he relents, leaning toward me again and slipping his hand under the bottom of my shirt where it finds some bare skin. I feel a familiar rush of something, but I push his hand away.

  “David don’t. I love you. But I don’t love you like I did.”

  Sensing that the power of sex isn’t going to work its magic this time, he tries another tack. The power of guilt.

  “Al, don’t you feel just a little compelled to try again, for the kids? We have two great kids together, and life would be better for them if we were together. We can work out the other stuff.”

  “No. I don’t think so. The other stuff, as you call it, it’s too big. It’s not just that you betrayed me. It’s that I don’t think I could ever really know that you wouldn’t betray me again. But it’s not just about that. I don’t want to be the person you need to keep you on the straight and narrow, or to give you the life you miss. I don’t even want to be the one you’ve decided you fancy quite a lot when all the rest haven’t worked out. I don’t want to back into a relationship, do you see? I want to be chosen.”

  I’ve got to hand it to David. He doesn’t give up easily, and when guilt doesn’t work he has one more crack at sex. As we stand at the door, he pulls me toward him and slips his hand around my back and under my shirt. Then he gives me a long, searching kiss that just about breaks my will.

  “You’re making a mistake, Al. Think about it,” he says before walking out the door.

  I think about a lot of things in the minutes after he’s gone, not least of which is the fact of how awkward the weekend handovers are going to be for the next long while.

  “JESUS, THAT WAS hard. I don’t know how I did it,” I say to Clara afterward.

  “You did the right thing, honey. Hang in there. All things pass, and that wretched self-doubt will be no exception.”

  I don’t call Mel because I’m not sure she’ll give me the advice I need. She’s always had a soft spot for David, and that, combined with her general devil-may-care, see-how-things-work-out approach to life, and she’d be all for my carrying on a highly secret, no-strings affair with David until the thing between us had truly run its course. And I don’t want to hear that.

  CHAPTER 42

  MARKING TIME

  David is avoiding me. I’m not sure if it’s a tactic intended for his own protection or to win me over. He sends his friend Chris to collect Jack and Millie when it’s his weekend, muttering something about how they are all going to spend the weekend together (Chris is also divorced, with two boys). Millie thinks it’s a bit strange, but she’s not alarmed. She knows Chris. Jack is overjoyed at the prospect of spending a weekend in the company of two older boys.

  Not wanting to think about Tom and David, and with no seminar homework to keep me busy, I allow marmalade to fill the days. It’s not too difficult, because everything is coming together. The new ad campaign for Seville Sunset is ready and the launch program is fuller than I could have wished for. Retailers are crying out for tasting packs and in-store promotion material. The zest clumping problem for Pure Gold now resolved, we are making up for lost time and rectifying stock shortages by trying to shift double the normal volume of jars through the warehouse.

  Anna is pleased. Thinks the Sunset print campaign is inspired. The best she’s seen in a long time. I have Anna to thank for an idea that I’ve had. When I told her how much I enjoyed doing the research about marmalade she said, in an offhand way, “Well, you should think about doing more of it. Life’s too short to not do things that you enjoy.”

  I’m not sure exactly what she meant by that, but one evening I was slumped glumly in front of some mind-numbing property show when I glimpsed C. Anne Wilson’s name amidst a pile of old Vogues on the coffee table. I reached under the mess and pulled out The Book of Marmalade. Its brown and orange cover struck me as rather plain, which I hadn’t noticed before. And it’s really not a very weighty book at all, I thought. Considering what you could do with the topic.

  And that is how I ended up marching into Anna’s office with a proposal for a large, full-color coffee-table book about marmalade. My plan was to have everything in it—historical anecdotes, recipes, full-color spreads of marmalade sauces and puddings and orange groves, close-ups of the people whose every breath goes into the making of marmalade. A magnificent book about a magnificent tradition. Something to really put Cottage Garden Foods on the marmalade map. Something to revive marmalade in the public’s imagination. And to give me a project I can really sink my teeth into.

  Anna thought it was a great idea. She’s volunteered an assistant to help with the copy, and agreed to a budget large enough to secure the services of a quality photographer. Now the challenge is to produce a template of sufficient quality to tempt a mainstream publisher to support the project and smooth the way into book-stores and cooking shops. Nicki is thrilled, as the project promises to lend a certain glamour to days that would otherwise be filled with budgets and agency contact reports.

  So I’ve spent a lot of evenings on the Internet, researching obscure websites, looking up the details of small UK marmalade cooperatives we can go to for interviews. Millie sometimes sits with me doing her own research, which consists of re-rereading the St. Georges prospectus and student handbook. With the Easter holidays in full flow, it’s just over a week until she starts there. Her new uniform is carefully laid out on the floor underneath her desk, the socks tucked neatly into the shoes.

  Jack is moving too, of course, but he seems blissfully oblivious to the fact. He’s so out of tune with school as a concept that it doesn’t much matter to him which one he goes to at this stage. School, any school, involves the reading of unbearably long books and the consumption of unappetizing school lunches, so it’s best not to give it too much unnecessary consideration.

  Clara and Mel do their best to keep me chirpy. Mel has suddenly been overwhelmed by all-day nausea. (“Who was the fucker who called it morning sickness, I’d like to know?”) Clara seems, I don’t know, serene. She’s always been a tower of strength, solid as a rock and all that, but lately she seems to have taken on an air of tranquillity as well. True to her word, she’s requested a sabbatical from Peters and Young and ridden the storm of their objections (of which there were many). Now she’s winding down and handing over and preparing for her new life, renting out her and Jonathon’s flat and looking for something smaller for a while. She even gave two pairs of her Ferragamos to her P.A. when she realized that normal-size closets couldn’t possibly contain her entire collection. Once she took that first step it’s as if a whole new world opened up to her. Or the possibility of a whole new life.

  Amidst all of this, I can just about convince myself that I’m all right. Before school broke up there was the tombola stall, for which I eventually managed to rustle up 265 spectacular-looking jars and which resu
lted in a handsome profit of £56.40. Now, I’m so busy being inspired by Clara’s new lease of life, researching remedies for Mel’s morning sickness, trying to enjoy the lunches Anna suddenly wants to have with me, planning outings for the school holidays, and beavering away at my spectacular book of marmalade, that I almost don’t have time to think about what I’m missing.

  But I am missing something. And at night, lying in the middle of my queen-size bed in the aching silence, I miss it most. What is it I miss most? What’s gone?

  Possibility has gone. I don’t miss Marina’s advice or her seminars or all the efforts I made, all that activity. But I do miss the sense of possibility I had for those few weeks. A sense that life was moving somewhere, toward a better place. And the thrill of anticipating.

  But mostly I just miss him. Funny, I’ve not really known him long enough to miss him, but I do. What was that he said? I’d won him over? Well he’d won me over too. It feels like I love him. All that realness, packed into such a short time. It’s hard to give that up.

  I know Clara is right. I know that I will, one day, meet someone. I’m not really afraid of being alone. But I hate the thought of being without him.

  CHAPTER 43

  CHORUS LINE

  By the beginning of week three (in the calendar in my head, time is measured out in days since I was standing in his kitchen), I’m not despairing anymore, not exactly. More like quietly melancholic. And resigned. Resigned to the fact that I’m not likely to see Tom again. He’s not going to call, or drop by, or put another note under my door. And I don’t have the heart to hang around Waitrose in the hopes of running into him. What would be the point of that? He’d only take it for another manipulative stunt, and it’s clear what he thinks of all that.

  I know all this. Which is why it’s such a shock when I peer out of my bedroom window, just like that morning all those weeks ago, and see him walking up the street toward my house with Grace in the stroller. My heart skips a beat and my immediate reaction is to pull the shutters across the window and stand with my back to them. I’ve waited all this time to see him, but now I can’t face it. What if he were to look up on his way by and see me standing there like some pathetic, lovesick teenager?

  But that’s what I am. Not pathetic perhaps. And definitely not a teenager. But lovesick. And seeing him has suddenly reminded me of just how lovesick I am. Surely I owe it to myself to try it one more time. How bad would it be if I chased him this one last time and tried to persuade him that what I did was not so terrible after all? What would it take to run down the stairs and out my door and after him?

  Not much, because I’m already dressed. Jack is playing with his plastic car wash in the kitchen, and Millie is creating a masterpiece with her rainbow art set. They could easily be left alone for the five minutes it will take me to run up the street, have my say and come back.

  I sprint down the stairs, slip on the loafers that are by the front door, and shout to Millie that I’m just going out into the front garden for a minute. (None of us see anything strange in calling the five-foot-square repository of two dustbins and a couple of shabbily adorned window boxes a garden.) Then, breathless and with a heart that feels as though it’s about to burst, I open the door, and walk with a thud into a chest that turns out to be Tom’s.

  He’s standing with his hand poised just above the doorbell. Grace is behind him in her stroller. She leans out of it and beams at me from behind Tom’s legs. After a second, he beams at me too.

  “Hi there. We gotta stop doing this or someone’s gonna get hurt.”

  I’m momentarily speechless, but I manage something I think resembles a pleased expression.

  “Well, are you gonna invite me in, or shall I head straight out to that climbing frame in the hopes that you’ll follow me?”

  I stand back from the door and gesture for him to come in. It takes me another few seconds before I find my voice, and when I do it doesn’t sound anything like the one I used to have. This one’s all quiet and tentative.

  “Would you like me to follow you to the park? I thought you disapproved of such behavior?”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about that. A lot. And I came around here specially, to tell you what I’ve been thinking. If you’ll let me.”

  I feel my body relax, and my voice box regain some of its strength. “Come in then. I’ll put some coffee on.”

  Then I bend down to help Grace out of her stroller. “Millie, Jack. Tom and Grace have come for a visit.”

  Millie rushes up the hallway from the kitchen, then comes to a sudden, shy halt in front of Tom and Grace.

  “Mill, would you take Grace into the kitchen and share your paints with her while Tom and I have a chat?”

  Millie glares at me. Her paints are brand-new and precious and obviously not to be shared with an almost-three-year-old.

  “Or maybe you could find her those crayons of Jack’s and give her some paper?” I try again.

  At this suggestion, Millie manages to find her gracious hostess expression, and takes Grace by the hand. Tom and I follow them to the kitchen, where I fill the kettle. It’s only a ritual really. Just something to do. I don’t want any coffee.

  “I’ll make that in a minute,” I say. “Shall we go in the other room?”

  “Sure, just as soon as I’ve said hello to my rugby pal. How’re you doing, Jack?”

  “Fine,” says Jack, without lifting his gaze from the red Ferrari he is pushing up the ramp of the car wash. At some point I must teach him some social graces, but now doesn’t seem like the most appropriate moment.

  When we reach the sitting room Tom stands in the middle of it and turns to face me with his hands on his hips. It’s just like that moment in his kitchen, only without all that shock and disapproval polluting the atmosphere. He doesn’t wait for me to speak, or try to fill the air with introductory pleasantries.

  “Look, I wanted to come and say something,” he starts. “That last time, I think I might have overreacted a little. I know I did. I just wasn’t ready to hear all that. But then I got to thinking.”

  I watch his lovely face as he pauses and tries to think what to say next and how to say it. It’s a serious face, but not a hard one.

  “And what I thought was that the thing between us is very new, but it’s too good to throw away just like that. I’ve been lucky enough to have it happen to me for a second time, and I don’t want to throw it away. I meant all those things I said to you. The days after I met you it felt like a light had gone on. Then you were gone and it felt dark again and I hated that.”

  He closes his eyes for a brief moment and scrunches up his face, as if the effort of saying these things has exhausted him. Then he opens his eyes and stares at me intensely. “It feels like I love you. I do love you. Don’t ask me how I know that, but I do.”

  I know it’s my turn to say something, but I’m a bit stunned so nothing comes out. He smiles. A wide, twinkling, beautiful smile. “If you think about it, relationships are a bit like a good marmalade, aren’t they? Bitter and sweet at the same time, bright and golden but full of dark patches, mostly smooth but with the odd lumpy bit that gets stuck in your teeth. Well, the way I figure it, we’ve already got a real big lumpy bit out of the way, which has got to be a good thing. Should be all smooth sailing from here.”

  Then a pause before he adds, scrunching up his face again, “And if you have to work stuff out with David, I will have to live with it until you do.” Then he smiles again. “Just tell me one thing. You were dragged to those seminars, right? You didn’t actually want to go?”

  “God no!” I say overanxiously. “I hated the idea. I just got kind of carried away. But once I met you it wasn’t really about that anymore. I went to those places because I hoped I’d see you. I know that’s kind of childish, but it isn’t reprehensible, is it?”

  “No. No, it’s not.” He smiles again and steps toward me. When he pulls me against him, the warmth of his chest is intoxicating. I can feel his breath
on the top of my head and the gentle touch of his fingers behind my neck as he holds me close. Inside me, relief and joy are all mixed up together, swirling around and making me light-headed. I could happily stay like this for hours, silently breathing him in, but there’s something I need to make absolutely clear.

  I look up. “There’s nothing to work out with David anymore. I worked it out. Honestly. That doesn’t mean he won’t be coming around here, because he will. He’s Jack and Millie’s father after all. And it doesn’t mean he’s totally comfortable with things yet. With just being their father, I mean. Things are still a bit raw and messy. But he’ll get used to the idea. The important thing is, it’s my idea.”

  “Message received,” he says. He’s about to kiss me when the doorbell rings.

  “What a fabulous piece of timing,” he says with a pained look on his face.

  I’m on my way to the door when I am affronted by a loud wail from Jack.

  “I’ll get the door. You go see what’s up,” says Tom.

  Jack has scalded his hand, having turned on the tap to refill his car wash. I run it under the cold tap then apply some antiseptic cream and give him two club biscuits from the tin. Millie and Grace are oblivious to the whole episode, having gone out into the garden with a skipping rope. Grace, who is far too small for skipping, is standing with the rope tangled around her ankles while Millie looks on giggling.

  As I walk back to the sitting room I can hear the low murmur of male voices. One is Tom’s, obviously. The other is the voice of a visitor, who has evidently been invited in. I realize whose voice it is before I walk into the room, but it doesn’t help to assuage the acute anxiety I feel when I see him.

  “David! What are you doing here?”

  As uncomfortable moments go, this is pretty bad. It’s bad enough for me. Perhaps it’s worse for the two of them.

  “That’s not much of a greeting,” says David with a very small laugh.