Is This It?

by Hannah Tovey

  She smiled at me. ‘Another joke, Ivy?’

  ‘Sorry. I’ll stop now.’

  ‘Do you remember back in November, when we talked about the importance of finding your voice in the classroom?’ she said.

  I nodded.

  ‘What do you think of that now?’ she asked.

  I sat back and reflected on the question for a moment.

  ‘I’ve worked really hard at building relationships with the children,’ I said. ‘I think I’ve got better at recognising the warning signs.’

  ‘Where do you think that’s come from?’

  ‘Watching Mr Reid and Mrs Bell, reading a million and one books. Learning to listen, instead of reacting when they’re stressed or frustrated.’

  ‘I think, at the start of this, your problem wasn’t a desire to learn. It was confidence.’

  ‘That sounds about right.’

  ‘What I admire about you, Ivy, is that you’ve taken control of your self-confidence. You’ve taken actions to improve it and look where you are now.’

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘You’re a person who is worthy of respect. You have an inner self-belief, a quiet confidence that makes the children feel safe in your presence.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘This is a gift, Ivy. Now you’ve got that confidence, don’t lose it. Listen to that inner voice, let it guide you in the pursuit of happiness.’

  ‘I feel like I’m in therapy.’

  ‘Maybe you should be in therapy.’

  It wasn’t such a bad idea.

  She got up from her seat. ‘Right, it’s almost time for my PT session.’

  ‘Thank you, for what you said.’

  She shook my hand. ‘Never be anything less than magnificent, Ivy.’

  As soon as I was out of the room, I found a bin and threw my cigarettes in. Then I got my phone out and called Mia.

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve not seen you since brunch,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sorry for being so selfish.’

  ‘I need you to be more respectful of where I am in my life. Sometimes you make me feel like I’ve chosen my job – and Scott – over you.’

  ‘God, I’m sorry.’

  ‘I know things are different but that’s a good thing, in my eyes.’

  ‘It is good. I’m needy and spoilt, and you know I hate change. I’m sorry, Ivy.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. I should’ve told you this ages ago. I’m trying to be more honest.’

  ‘I’m all for that. You know I always want you to tell me when I’m being a dickhead.’

  ‘OK. Well, you’ve been a bit of a dickhead.’

  ‘We’re growing up, aren’t we?’

  ‘We are.’

  ‘Did you like the Mariah Carey gifs I sent you?’

  ‘They were inspired.’

  ‘What are you doing tonight?’

  ‘That’s why I called. Do you fancy going to an art class with me?’

  ‘I’ll do anything you want me to do, Ivy.’

  ‘Good, it starts at seven, I’ll send you the address.’

  ‘Can’t wait.’

  ‘Just so you know, Mia, we’re not going “out out”.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘And don’t offer me any cigarettes.’

  ‘Noted.’

  ‘I love you, Mia.’

  ‘I love you, too.’

  *

  I got out of bed at 6 a.m., shaved all the areas that hadn’t seen the light of day for three weeks, and tried to do an hour of mindfulness. I lasted two minutes before I gave up and put on Friends. There’s only so much self-improvement I can handle in one week.

  When I heard the knock on the door, I leapt up from the sofa and ran to let him in. Despite the ten-hour flight, his face was glowing from the Californian sunshine. He looked like he’d been on one of those luxury fitness retreats, whereas I looked like I’d been driving an open-top car in gale-force winds. Mam had tried to get me to buy a specific shampoo for my hair type, but I’d argued that it was reasonable for someone to just buy regular shampoo, not shampoo for dry hair that’s flyaway and often victimised by split ends. She said I was deluded, and as that morning demonstrated, she was right.

  ‘You’ve never looked better,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve missed you so much.’

  ‘Me too. You must be shattered; did you get any sleep on the plane?’

  ‘Not really. I feel a bit out of it.’

  ‘Do you want to have a nap?’

  ‘Not just yet.’

  He led me to the bedroom and we did what I’d been longing to do for the past three weeks.

  Afterwards, I left him in bed whilst I got started on our roast dinner. I went back in two hours later to find him awake, on his phone. He didn’t even look up when I walked in.

  ‘I’m making roast lamb,’ I said, sitting beside him on the bed. ‘With duck fat potatoes, your favourite.’

  He didn’t say anything.

  ‘Are you coming next door?’ I asked.

  ‘In a minute. I need to finish this message.’

  I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. I walked into the other room and poured myself a glass of wine. I drank it quickly and poured another.

  Scott came up behind me. ‘Can I get one of those too, please?’

  It seemed we both needed a little something to take the edge off.

  ‘That was my boss on the phone,’ he said.

  ‘Is everything OK?’

  ‘She wants me to come in early tomorrow morning to chat about the trip.’

  I looked at his face, and I knew.

  ‘You loved it over there, didn’t you?’ I said.

  ‘It’s incredible, Ivy. The beaches, the food – the weather. It’s better than I remembered. It’s perfect.’

  Perfect? How is being six thousand miles away from your family and your girlfriend perfect? I wanted to hit something.

  ‘You lied to me,’ I said.

  ‘What? How?’

  ‘You said we had options – that was a lie. I said I was fine with you going to LA – that was also a lie.’

  ‘We do have options. I want us to go there together.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They want me out there as soon as possible.’

  ‘Are you serious? What about my job? I haven’t even finished my first year of training.’

  ‘You could finish your training, then you could move out to LA, in the summer. I’ve started looking at teacher programmes for you.’

  I’d been telling Scott how proud I was of myself for how far I’d come. How I finally belonged somewhere, somewhere where I had a purpose. How had that translated into, ‘I want to move to another continent?’

  ‘When did you do that?’ I asked.

  ‘When they offered me the job. You said you didn’t feel at home in London; well, I want you to build a new home, with me.’

  He was looking at me with such hope in his eyes, but a fire had ignited inside me, and there was no way of controlling it.

  ‘What about my interviews for next year’s placement?’

  ‘You might not get accepted. Who knows what could happen?’

  I tried not to be offended by this. He should have said, ‘Of course you’ll pass your first year of training. Of course you’ll get accepted for next year’s placement. You can do anything because you’re amazing and I believe in you.’ But he didn’t, and I stood there struggling to shake the feeling that he hadn’t considered my future in any of this.

  ‘You can apply for training schemes in LA. We could live on a beach – you’ve always wanted to live on a beach.’

  ‘Yeah, but ideally somewhere a bit closer to home.’

  ‘It would be a perfect place to raise a family.’

  When had he turned into Jamie?

  ‘We’ve never even discussed where we’d want to raise a family,’ I said.

  ‘I’m discussing it with you now. You’ve said more than once that you
don’t feel at home here.’

  ‘But that was before … What about my life? I can’t pack it all in.’

  ‘I want you to think about it, please. That’s all I’m asking. I said before I went that we could look at our options together. I want to do this together.’

  Nothing about this conversation felt very ‘together’.

  42

  I was standing by the entrance to school, inhaling a bag of jelly babies, with Mam on the other end of the phone.

  ‘I called you four times last night,’ she said. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘I was with Scott.’

  ‘How is he? Did he miss me? How was Unol Daleithiau America?’

  ‘I take it that means America?’

  ‘Darling, did you pay any attention in school? This is God’s language, mun.’

  ‘You’re morphing into Gramps.’

  ‘I miss him very much this week. I had a little row with Linda yesterday. I’ll never know why he had it in for her, but then again, he was a fattist.’

  ‘What did you do this time?’

  ‘You know her son, Lewis? With the overweight fiancée? Well, she’s got herself pregnant, so now Linda is organising the baby shower and the wedding. I said I would help, but she said I steamroll. I said me, steamroll? You’re the one who wanted to put bows on the chairs at the Alien Hand Syndrome gala. I mean really, Ivy. What sort of person puts bows on chairs?’

  She started off again before I could muster a suitable response.

  ‘To cut a long story short, I ended up calling her cheap, and now she’s refusing to speak to me.’

  ‘Do you want me to teach you some of the conflict resolution strategies I’m working on with the children?’

  ‘If she’s not speaking to me by next weekend, you might have to. Anyway, tell me about Scott. It must be lovely having him home.’

  ‘It’s fine. It’s good.’

  ‘Can you diversify your vocabulary, please? You’re meant to be inspiring the next generation.’

  ‘Sorry, I couldn’t sleep last night so I made Layla a blanket for her bunny. I was up till two a.m. sewing the bloody thing.’

  ‘My darling, you’re such a visionary.’

  ‘It looks like a homeless person’s handkerchief, but at least I tried.’

  ‘All you can do is try. Back to Scott. I hope you put on some fancy underwear and new lippy for his arrival.’

  ‘I’m hanging up now, Mam. Love you.’

  ‘See you on Saturday, darling. I can’t wait.’

  That morning, we went to the Roald Dahl exhibition at the British Library. I thought having a conversation with Scott about the future of our relationship was going to be the hardest thing I did that week. I was wrong.

  It took over an hour to get everyone onto the bus, during which time I got kneed in the stomach and pushed into the sandpit. Questions on the journey included, but weren’t exclusive to:

  ‘Why can’t I eat soil?’

  ‘What do boobies look like on the inside?’

  ‘Why do you pee from your bum?’

  When I asked Kobe to stop jumping on his seat, he told me to, ‘Have a biscuit and calm down.’

  If only it were that simple.

  I sat down beside Layla and put on my most convincing fake smile. I had fake-smiled so many times that week that my face felt like it had severe windburn.

  The children were euphoric as we walked into the exhibition hall. It reminded me of that feeling you get when you first hit the dance floor on a night out, minus the illegal stimulants. There was a giant beanstalk erected in the centre of the room, with a gigantic puppet of Jack hanging from the top. Mrs Bell and I sat the children down with their snacks and a man dressed as the BFG came out and started to read to the room. The children were mesmerised as they gathered around the front of the stage, lying on their stomachs with their chins on their fists. Mrs Bell joined them on the floor and I watched her mouth move as she silently recited all the words. For the next half hour, they were blissfully quiet.

  I took a seat at the back of the hall and googled: ‘Are children in LA well-behaved?’ The first thing that came up was an article about underfunding and overcrowding. I then googled El Matador State Beach, in LA. Scott said he wanted to take me there; it had breathtaking views of the ocean and the sunset was meant to be the best on the West Coast. I scrolled through all the photos of Rhossili Bay on my phone, to compare them, but it was pouring with rain in every single one of them. Come to think of it, every day on the Gower is pouring with rain. I then googled rainfall in South Wales versus California but all I got were complicated graphs of precipitation weather trends. I ate the last of the jelly babies, by which time the show had finished, and it was time to put on my fake smile again.

  I got home and opened my laptop, ready to get started on my next essay. After two minutes I went on Google and searched, ‘What happens if the love of your life wants to move to LA, and you don’t?’ One hit read, ‘I moved to LA and I hate it!’ I slammed the laptop shut, vowed to never ask Google anything ever again, and lay face down on the bed. I grabbed the pillow beside me, put it over my head and screamed into it. Then I got up and poured myself a glass of wine.

  By the time I got to bed that night, I’d finished the bottle. The ‘self-medicating without alcohol’ thing was going well.

  Scott came over the next morning.

  ‘We need to talk about LA before we see your family today.’

  I sat beside him at the kitchen table.

  ‘This is the happiest I’ve been in years,’ I said.

  ‘Me too. I love you so much, Ivy.’

  ‘I know, which is why I’m a bit blindsided by this. We’re happy here – in London. We have a great life together.’

  ‘But you said you didn’t feel attached to London.’

  ‘I never said that. I said I didn’t think of it as my proper home.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But that’s only because Wales is my home.’

  ‘You’ve not lived in Wales for years.’

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘What is the point? This massive opportunity has come along, and you won’t even consider it.’

  ‘You keep saying massive opportunity, but what does that even mean? It’s more money and a nice relocation package, but is that it?’

  ‘It would be an adventure for us.’

  ‘I don’t want an adventure, I want to keep my life here. My family are here—’

  ‘Your family do your head in.’

  ‘Everyone’s family does their head in!’

  It was unfathomable to me that he didn’t get this. How could I leave my mother when she’d only just lost Gramps? What would I do without Anna? I’d miss so many milestones with Eleanor, and all because my boyfriend liked white sand and cucumber juices. He might have wanted this, but what about what I wanted? What about the life I was trying to build for myself in London? Didn’t that matter?

  ‘You keep thinking about the negatives,’ he said. ‘You need to open your mind to how great it could be.’

  There was a low-level river of rage running through me. I thought I was articulating myself, so how come it felt like we were on different planets?

  ‘Can we keep up appearances in front of my parents, please? I haven’t told them about LA, and I don’t want to bring it up on Anna’s birthday.’

  ‘Whatever you want, Ivy.’

  Mam and Dad had arrived that morning and decorated Anna’s house with balloons, bunting and banners. At least on this occasion, there was actual reason to celebrate.

  ‘Why is Eleanor refusing to nap?’ Anna said. ‘Doesn’t she know it’s my big day?’

  ‘Anna, she’s a baby. You can’t control her,’ Mam said.

  ‘Last week you were telling me I needed more of a routine.’

  ‘Was I?’

  Anna raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I am sorry for interfering,’ Mam said. ‘You do whatever’s best for you, darling.�
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  ‘She’s lucky she’s so cute,’ Anna said, putting Eleanor in the Jumperoo. ‘She’s much prettier than any of the other babies in our NCT group.’

  ‘Don’t hold back,’ I said.

  ‘Ivy, you have no idea. Some people have such unfortunate-looking children,’ Mam said.

  ‘So, we’ve been talking more about Center Parcs,’ Anna said. ‘I’m keen to get it booked.’

  ‘I won’t say this again,’ Mam said. ‘Over my dead body am I going to Center Parcs.’

  ‘Listen to this review,’ Anna said, grabbing a copy of the Guardian.

  Mam had walked into the house before Anna could even open her mouth.

  ‘You’ll never win her over,’ I said.

  Mam came back out with a bottle of champagne.

  ‘Tony, help me open this, please?’

  ‘Mags, is there an occasion that doesn’t require champagne?’

  ‘It’s Anna’s birthday!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Mark said, ‘I bought this one.’

  ‘Tony, I was thinking we should go to LA,’ Mam said. ‘We could do a little road trip. We could rent one of those cars they had in Thelma and Louise. Oh my God, imagine if we met Brad Pitt!’

  I picked Eleanor up, and she giggled as I kissed her dimpled hands.

  ‘She hates it when I do that,’ Anna said.

  ‘That’s because I’m her favourite,’ I said.

  ‘I think you are. Mark’s worried her first word is going to be Ivy.’

  Mark pulled a face and I laughed. I felt Scott’s eyes on me.

  ‘Darlings, when are you coming to Wales?’ Mam asked.

  ‘I’m back at Clerkenwell next week, but hopefully half term?’ I said.

  ‘I’ll do an itinerary. We’ll show you the true Cymru, Scott. The Gower is full of English people these days, but don’t you worry, I know where all the Welsh hide out.’

  Scott smiled, an expression I’d not seen on him since before New Year’s. I got up and kissed him. When our lips parted, I sat down on his lap, and we both held on to each other for dear life.

  Later that afternoon, Mia arrived. She ran in wearing denim hot pants and a green crochet top that left little to the imagination. She was wearing Noah’s dead aunt’s cowboy boots – the ones she’d tried to pawn off on me for my first date with Scott.

  ‘Anna! Penblwydd hapus!’ she said, sashaying into the room.