“Of course.” Alex jiggled her leg against the table. “And Patrick? You want to spend a weekend with him?”
“I’m sure he’s fine.”
Alex leaned forward. “He doesn’t have ‘a black hole of an anti-personality’?”
“I was being flippant. Claire likes him anyway, and she always had good taste in men.” Matt glanced at Alex’s face and held his palms up in response. “OK, not today. Sorry, Al. Not funny today.”
He stood up. “I’ll leave you to ponder. I know whatever you decide will be the right thing. Just give me a shout when you’re ready.”
He scurried upstairs, leaving Alex with the washing-up.
* * *
—
Alex emptied the lukewarm water out of the sink and refilled the bowl.
The water was too hot but she didn’t add any cold to the mix. The discomfort of her sweating hands was preferable to the more nebulous discomfort going on in her stomach.
Alex wished she was at work right now. It was easier to forget in the university lab, where there were readings to take and cells to study. In the lab, Alex could go hours before she raised her head and looked out of the window at the trees. Only then did she look down at her trainers on the scuffed floor, take in the sound of the tinny radio, and remember there was a world other than studying cells taken from diabetes patients.
But it was different at home. At home, it was just Alex and her thoughts.
She could refuse to go on the trip, of course. But that wasn’t satisfactory either.
She didn’t want to go—but she couldn’t not go either. She’d feel petty and churlish, which she definitely, actively—explicitly—wasn’t. Alex had always been very reasonable about the fact Matt got on with his ex, a fact that other people—people who were actually churlish—would have found difficult.
Alex had overcompensated, if anything. Kissed Claire on the cheek on the occasions they did the Scarlett drop-off swap. Always had something nice to say about Claire’s skirt, or her hair. Everyone had a past and nothing was personal. And Alex wasn’t a personal person.
Alex scrubbed at the burnt pastry on the rim of the pie tin.
Though it was only a month away, Alex hadn’t given much thought to the logistics of Christmas Day. She’d thought she’d see her parents, maybe, or see Matt’s—it didn’t matter. Alex didn’t care about Christmas. It was just a day when the lab was shut.
But this—this was different.
And Matt had known for ages and not told her.
Alex didn’t understand how he did it. Was he able to mentally compartmentalize awkward news? Or was he just putting off the inevitable?
Alex couldn’t test either hypothesis, which made the situation even more frustrating. Matt had an amazing ability to wrong-foot her, and she ended up agreeing to things she hadn’t meant to. Maybe this was why Matt did well in his job in sales, despite having what Alex considered a questionable work ethic.
Alex rinsed a plate; she stacked it on the drainer. She heard a scraping sound upstairs: a chair being dragged across the floor.
Matt was giving her some space. Ostensibly, busy upstairs. In reality, he was just staying out of her way.
* * *
—
After washing up, Alex looked through the online pictures of what she now thought of as the enchanted forest.
Not that it looked enchanted in the pictures. There might have been year-round fairy lights to go with the seasonal fake snow, but there were too many plastic barriers and warning signs for the place to look like a proper woodland wonderland.
Alex pushed her laptop away. She tried again not to look at the wine rack.
Don’t be silly, she’d said, when Matt suggested getting rid of all the alcohol at home. We can’t be the people everyone avoids because there’s no booze in the house. But some nights she felt more of a pull from the retained wine rack than others. Like tonight. The wine’s subtle pressure was multiplied by the jagged weight of a conversation unfinished.
Matt would be expecting her to talk about his suggestion tonight. Though he’d avoided the conversation for weeks, he would expect her to be decisive. They’d had an unspoken agreement in the two years they’d been together that bringing things to conclusion was Alex’s role in their relationship.
So. Should they have a row about the trip? It would take Alex’s mind off the wine, at least. But arguing about something to do with Matt’s ex-wife didn’t fit with Alex’s view of herself. It would just make her existentially depressed.
No. There was no way she was going to row with Matt about this. That was a given.
Which meant she had to actually go on this stupid trip.
2
After telling Claire that he had to go into work early to do some papers, Patrick went to the gym at five-thirty A.M. He went to the gym again at lunchtime.
Twice in a day was a nice balance. Weights in the morning; cardio at lunch. He even did a conference call with a solicitor while on the treadmill.
Here he was—a successful barrister, a forty-three-year-old father of two and an (inherited) half—and Patrick still wore his shirts slim-fit, bought from boys with groomed eyebrows in shops that were officially too young for him (but the staff couldn’t stop him, could they, if the clothes still fit?).
* * *
—
Patrick had stepped up his training regime that September. He’d been sitting at a high table in a coffee shop, drinking a superjuice in a domed plastic cup, when an ex-colleague’s familiar haircut floated past the window.
He hadn’t looked away in time.
“Patrick!” Tom put his case down on Patrick’s table. “How’s things?”
Patrick made himself smile. “Hi, Tom. I’m horrendously busy. The clerks at the new place are unforgiving with my diary.”
“Bastards.”
“And I’ve moved in with Claire now.” Patrick wondered why he was telling Tom this. “You know Claire Petersen, the solicitor?”
“Claire Petersen, really?” Tom shook his head. “Punching above your weight again.”
Patrick knew it was meant to be a compliment, but he didn’t appreciate being reminded who he’d last “punched” with. That Tom saw Lindsay at his chambers every day.
Tom looked at Patrick’s superjuice. “Why are you drinking the contents of a compost heap?”
Patrick stirred the drink with his straw, feeling the satisfying heft of the whizzed-up vegetables. “I’m doing an Ironman next year.”
Patrick hadn’t even known it himself until then. Yet, as he said goodbye to Tom, he found himself taking up more space at the table.
* * *
—
Two months later, Patrick still hadn’t worked out how to tell Claire. He knew she thought over-exercising a particularly shallow form of vanity.
He hid it well, until he happened to be doing some research on his tablet one evening, at a time he thought Claire was upstairs. So when she came up behind him, saying, “Patrick, have you seen the big extension plug?” he flinched.
He clicked the screen off.
She grabbed the tablet. “What are you hiding?”
“Claire, come on! Have some respect.”
“Let’s see what kind of porn floats your boat.”
“Can’t we just have some privacy?”
Claire switched the tablet on and looked at the screen.
Patrick couldn’t help following her—hardening—gaze. The gritted-teeth celebrations. The wetsuits; the goggles. The picture of the man in sunglasses, holding up his overly defined arms in self-approval.
Claire let the tablet fall against her leg. “You want to do an Ironman?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Dan Smith did an Ironman.” Claire arched an eyebrow like that should resonate.
>
Patrick knew he wasn’t always the best listener. “So?”
“Don’t you remember what Heather said? All day cycling on Saturdays. All day swimming on Sundays. The kids barely saw him, and he was always checking out his torso in shop windows. None of them could stand him by the end.”
Claire left a pause for Patrick to reflect.
Patrick chose not to. “Everyone’s different.”
“Heather said she couldn’t sleep with someone who fancied himself more than she did.” Claire held Patrick’s gaze. “Dan ended up taking a six-month holiday at the Travel Inn on the ring road.”
“I feel like a change.”
“And what about Amber and Jack?” Claire said. “Lindsay makes it hard enough for you to see them anyway.”
“It was just an idea.”
A good idea, Patrick thought.
But stealth exercise would soon be unnecessary. Because a few days ago, as the two stood in puffed-up jackets watching Scarlett play on the climbing frame in the park, Claire gave Patrick the golden ticket.
She wanted a weekend away. With her ex-husband.
Patrick spotted the opportunity right away.
“Really?” Claire turned to face Patrick. “Really?”
“I said fine, didn’t I?”
Claire widened her eyes. “You really don’t mind?”
Patrick shoved his hands in his pockets. “You’re not the only one who wants Scarlett to be happy.”
She touched his arm. “I’m pleased, that’s all.”
“What did you expect me to say? It’s clearly something you want to do.”
“I thought you’d think it was a terrible idea.”
Patrick did think it was a terrible idea. “I’ll always support you in something you want to do. Even if it means being away from my own kids at Christmas.” He paused. “And those holiday villages have big swimming pool complexes, right?”
The sex they’d had that night had been particularly enthusiastic.
So Claire might have been lukewarm about Patrick’s exercise habits. But if he did this—well. The next discussion about Ironman would have to go more smoothly. And Patrick had to register in the next few weeks if he was going to make the next Ironman.
More pressingly, he needed to find another chair in their lounge. This one was clearly ill-judged: too close to the door. Because here she was again, looking over his shoulder at his tablet.
“Archery lessons? But why…?” Claire tailed off.
Patrick straightened the coaster on the side table. “I want to learn what it feels like to shoot something.”
“This is about Christmas.”
“I’ve never shot anything before.”
Claire laughed. “If you’re going to try to get competitive at Christmas, you won’t have much luck with Matt.”
Patrick had learned a lot about Matt over the last two years. The Xbox; the T-shirts. The ridiculous new passion for skateboards. And with each thing he learned, Patrick studied Claire, with her buoyant solicitor’s practice and expressive eyebrows, a woman with a whole wall of personality. He didn’t get it.
“You won’t be the best at shooting anyway, even if you have lessons.” Claire grinned. “Unlucky. I shot loads as a child on the farm.”
Claire squeezed his knee and left the room. Patrick turned back to the screen.
Deliberately not stopping to think, he flicked onto the Ironman website and clicked the book now button.
3
Alex decided to call Claire before the trip to understand the plan. There was always a risk of error when plans funneled through Matt.
Like that time she’d turned up to Matt’s family party to find it was a pool party—a fact Matt had forgotten to mention, along with that he had a family posh enough to own a swimming pool: an even bigger surprise for Alex.
Matt, of course, stripped off gamely and dived into the pool in his boxers. Alex thought about the underwear she had on and decided to stay on land.
* * *
—
Alex rang Claire’s number. She looked at her fingernails and flicked at a bit of jagged nail, wondering why she was visually simulating nonchalance in an empty room.
When Claire answered the phone, Alex paused.
“It’s Alex. Alex Mount.” She paused. “Matt’s partner.” Then, excruciatingly: “Matt Cutler.”
“Hey, you! Lovely to hear from you! So, how’s tricks?”
“Tricks are good. So…I’m really looking forward to the trip!”
“Are you?” Claire’s voice carried a hint of a laugh. “You don’t think it’s a bit much?”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“Well, I thought about it, after Matt suggested the Happy Forest. And if barking royals like Prince Andrew and Fergie can manage it, we should be OK. We’re all normal, right?”
“Right.”
Claire paused. “And if it’s a disaster, we never speak of it again.”
Alex forced her voice upbeat. “It will be lovely, I’m sure.”
“I know,” Claire said. “I shouldn’t be so skeptical.”
“Will Posey be joining us for the trip?”
Claire paused. “It’s inevitable, I’m afraid. If you’d told me before how much effort it would take to accommodate an imaginary rabbit, I wouldn’t have believed you.”
“I have noticed.”
“Do you think we should shut it down?”
“I think…you know best.” Alex had learned that imaginary rabbits required a surprising level of diplomacy.
“Patrick thinks we should shut it down,” Claire said. “But Matt and I have decided we’d be concerned if Scarlett was thirty-five and ordering an extra coffee at Costa, or cueing Posey up to do a double-act in the boardroom. But she’s seven.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” Alex deliberately kept her voice neutral. “Posey does seem to have developed in character in the time since I came on the scene.”
“Hasn’t he just.” Claire sighed. “And he goes way further back than that, you know. He was originally a real soft toy that Scarlett took everywhere—she was devastated when Matt left him in a hire car in Tenerife. But then Posey came back, imaginary. He looks just the same, apparently. Though he’s a hundred times bigger. And invisible, of course.”
“Right.” Again, perfectly neutral. “So, this trip away. Is there a plan? Matt was vague and…you know, Matt.”
“No plans, we just chill. We’ll have to book a few activities in advance, of course, but Patrick’s sorting that. And I’ll cook some meals—I love cooking, I find it so relaxing on holiday—but we can go out for other meals. Just chill.”
“Matt said you’re super-organized.”
Claire laughed. “Erm—no. Compared to him I am. But Patrick thinks I’m a slacker. I think it depends on your starting point.”
“Can I do anything to help?”
Help. Alex hadn’t meant to say it. She had cast herself in the role of sub-adult, and she wasn’t even at the lodge yet. This always happened around parents: like there were proper grown-ups in charge and Alex was an understudy, only a whisker of maturity away from sitting at the children’s table, flipping plastic bacon on a thigh-height Fisher Price stove.
“It’s all under control, Alex, you just use the trip as a chance to relax. You deserve it.”
Alex looked down at her feet in their slipper socks, both resting on the ottoman. She’d been in her pajamas since getting in from work at seven. “If you’re sure. I feel a bit pointless.”
“We’re all good. You could make a Christmas cake, if you want? Or not. Whatever.”
“I’ll do the cake. If you’re sure that’s all that’s needed?”
“Alex, just chill. You don’t need to be bothering yourself with the tedious parenting st
uff. You work so hard.”
The two said goodbye, and Alex looked at the games console across the room, the buttons on the controllers worn down from the tennis and bowling games she and Matt played in the evenings.
Did Alex work hard?
Claire was clearly being kind, but Alex wasn’t sure that phrase applied to her. Was it just one of those things people say to get others onside? Like politicians always referring to hard-working families, because everyone in the world felt they needed more sleep?
Was Claire over-nicing Alex?
Alex found Matt in front of the TV in the bedroom. “Matt, do you see yourself as hard-working?”
“That’s a loaded question.” He looked up from what he was watching: an endurance-based competitive eating program. “What did I forget to do?”
“It’s just what they say, isn’t it?” Alex said. “Everyone thinks they work hard.”
Matt rolled onto his side on the bed. He looked up at Alex, eyes disarmingly blood-lined from that angle. “I’m a lazy arse, Al, you know that. If I’m dressed by lunchtime on a weekend, I’m giving myself a high-five.”
“You sound proud. You know that’s the wrong way up, right?”
“I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Why everyone has to say they are busy all the time. I mean, what are they atoning for?”
And there it was: one of the things Alex most adored about Matt. A comment that made her wonder if he was the only person who had life in perspective, all along.
Matt rolled back into his original position and gestured at the telly. “Come and watch, Al. He’s eaten two trays of sausages already and he’s about to vom.”
Alex sat down next to Matt; he pulled her sideways on the bed in an affectionate chokehold. She watched the man on telly try to force down more sausages, dabbing his mouth with a napkin to stem the outward-flowing juices.
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