You Can’t Fall in Love With Your Ex (Can You?) (35 page)

“What’s
happened, lovely?” I said. “What is it? Is there anything I can do?”

“There’s
nothing anyone can do,” she said. “I just needed to talk to someone. I’m so
sorry to invade like this.”

“Don’t
be mad,” I said. “Come on, tell me what’s wrong. Is Juniper okay?”

“She’s
fine. She’s asleep. Carmen’s there. I may as well make the most of her while I
can.”

“Is
it Rick, then?”

She
nodded, and a succession of nightmare scenarios flashed through my mind.
Another woman? But Zé had told me she’d suspected for ages that Rick wasn’t
faithful, and chosen to turn a blind eye. Could he be ill? Diagnosed with some
dreadful disease?

Before
I could speculate further, she said, “He’s been arrested.”

“Oh
my God. Is it a mistake? Sometimes that happens,” I said, trying to think of an
example to reassure her and failing.

“It’s
not a mistake,” she said. “They’ve got him bang to rights. The stupid, stupid
bastard. And I’m stupid too. I had no idea. Literally no idea at all that he
was…”

She
fumbled in her bag and took out a pack of cigarettes.

“Do
you mind? I’ll go outside if you like.”

“Of
course I don’t mind,” I said. “I’ll join you, if you can spare one.”

She
ripped the cellophane off the pack and tried to open it, but her hands were
shaking so much that she tore the cardboard flap. I took the pack gently from
her, extracted two fags and lit them.

“Sorry,”
she said. “My Mum always used to quote some guy who said watching a woman open
a pack of cigarettes is like watching a lioness opening an antelope. Who was
it, I wonder? Misogynist dick. But he had a point.”

I
laughed, feeling the nicotine rush to my brain. Even with her own life falling
apart around her, Zé had a way of making me feel better about things.

“So
what happened?” I said.

“It’s
been going on for months,” she said. “Years, probably. I just didn’t see it – all
those nights when he was ‘working late’ and I knew he wasn’t really, and I
thought there was another woman and I just didn’t give a shit. I wish I’d
called him out on it, but I didn’t. I just couldn’t be bothered, as long as I
had my nice easy life. I’ve only got myself to blame.”

“Don’t
be ridiculous,” I said. “Of course this isn’t your fault. You mustn’t even
think that way.”

I
found a saucer for us to use as an ashtray and passed Zé the roll of paper
towels to blow her nose.

“He
was gambling,” she said. “That’s what he was doing all along when he told me he
was working. Online and in private members’ clubs and even on those fucking
high-stakes terminals in betting shops. He lost more than a million pounds,
Laura. He stole from the firm and pissed it all away.”

“He
stole from the firm? How?”

“I
don’t know exactly,” she said. “I’m so thick, I don’t understand stuff like
that, and he won’t tell me. He’s just denying everything. But he’s been sacked,
and the police came this afternoon and arrested him. He’s going to go to
prison, Laura. I know he is. And I hope he fucking rots there, because we’re
going to lose everything. He borrowed against the house, too. I looked at our
bank statements after they’d taken him away. There’s debt everywhere, so much
of it. I’m so frightened, Laura. What are me and Juniper going to do?”

“I
don’t know,” I said. I put my hand over hers. Her fingers were icy cold.

“I
just let it happen,” she said. “I never asked him about work, about where he
was – I just turned a blind eye and carried on with my life. I never even
thought about the future – I just assumed that we’d carry on like this
indefinitely, and if he ever did up and leave me for someone else, I’d take him
to the cleaners and carry on as normal, without him. I even thought it would be
better that way.”

“But
maybe it will,” I said. “You’ve got a chance for a fresh start. You’re so
clever and amazing, and Rick wasn’t making you happy. Anyone could see that.”

“But
a fresh start where, Laura?” She took a gulp of wine and lit another fag. It
took her three tries before she could get the flame in the right place. “The
house will go. Carmen will have to go. We’ll end up in some horrible temporary
accommodation and I’ll have to find a job, and I’m totally unemployable. All I
know how to do is be a rich man’s wife.”

“But
you worked as a journalist,” I said. “And your blog…”

“Is
just a hobby to get me free clothes,” she said bitterly. “I haven’t worked for
ten years. I thought I’d never have to again. I thought the rest of my life was
going to be sessions with my personal trainer and going for manicures.”

I
said, “Let me talk to Jonathan. He’ll know what happened with Rick at work,
anyway. Once you’ve got all the facts, it’ll be easier to decide what to do
next. Nothing will happen for ages, anyway, will it?”

“I’m
meeting Rick’s lawyer tomorrow,” she said. “Apparently he’s shit-hot and gets
people off who’ve done far worse things. But shit-hot means expensive, and
there’s no money to pay him. Where is Jonathan, anyway?”

I
thought about pouring out the sorry story of my own stupidity, Jonathan’s anger
and his coldness, how he’d walked out with his bag two hours before and I
didn’t know if he’d ever come back. I wanted to confess to her everything I’d
done with Felix. But her own problems were so huge and frightening – it would
be unfair to add to them by making her worry about me.

“Away
with work,” I said. “But I’ll talk to him as soon as I can,
I promise.”

“Thanks,
Laura,” she said. “God, what a mess. I suppose I’d better go home and try and
get some sleep. I’m meeting the lawyer at stupid o’clock tomorrow – Carmen will
stay with Juniper. I haven’t told her what’s going on, poor girl. And I’m going
to have to tell Juniper, too.”

The
thought made her start to cry again. By the time she’d stopped, and we’d
finished the wine and almost all the cigarettes and evicted the kitten, who’d
fallen asleep in her handbag, and hugged each other goodnight, it was after
midnight.

But
I didn’t go to sleep. I switched on my laptop and found my CV, which I hadn’t
looked at for more than six years. It was time to update it now – time to start
thinking about the future. If it wasn’t going to contain Jonathan, I was going
to have to find a way to manage on my own. I couldn’t just wait for him to see the
truth – I needed to take charge of my own life and the children’s. It was time
to stop sleepwalking through my life, time to stop dreaming, however alluring
and seductive my dreams had been. I was going to have to make a plan, and it
would need to be a good one.

“Ouch!
Bloody hell, those claws of yours might be tiny but they’re sharp, Elsa.”

The
kitten’s pounce on my toes, which I’d unwisely allowed to poke out from under
the duvet, jerked me from sleep. I sat up, groggy with hangover and feeling
none of the determined optimism I’d managed to summon up the night before. A
glance out of the window told me that there’d be no fun outdoor activities with
the children – grey sheets of rain were battering the pavement and I could hear
minor tidal waves swooshing up from the tyres of every passing car.

Not
bothering to get dressed, I went downstairs in search of coffee and managed to
drink two cups before the children woke up. I’d definitely ruled myself out of
contention for any good parenting awards anyway, so we spent the day on the
sofa together, Owen watching CBeebies and Darcey and me playing with the
kitten. We found an app that made little fish swim around the tablet screen,
and Elsa was transfixed, batting it with her paws, whiskers bristling with
frustration.

I’d
like to say that we moved on to a plethora of stimulating and fun rainy-day
activities over the next two days. I wish I could claim that we made a tent
under the kitchen table, or baked biscuits, or went outside and splashed in puddles.
But we did none of those things – like I say, in the parenting league table, I
was precisely bottom. Even at the best of times, the kids liked nothing better
than slumping in front of screens, and it was about all I had the will for too.
And besides, I wanted us to be there, if Jonathan came home.

But
he didn’t. He didn’t even call. All that weekend, we didn’t leave the house. We
lived on cereal and takeaways and watched mindless crap on YouTube. The rain
fell, and we waited.

By
Monday, even the kitten had cabin fever. The kids were beginning to complain of
being bored (when I say “beginning”, they’d been whining about it
intermittently since Saturday night) and I was going out of my mind with the
need to see something beyond the walls of our house. For the first time since
we’d left New York, I blow-dried my hair properly, put on make-up, and dressed
in something that wasn’t pyjamas. I made cheese on toast for our lunch, but
Owen announced that he wasn’t hungry.

“Do
you want something else? Cereal? Banana?”

“Ice
cream,” he said.

“You
can’t have… Oh, all right,” I said, conceding defeat and opening the freezer.
But we were out of ice cream. We were, in fact, out of just about everything
except a bag of peas buried under a mountain of frost, a chicken carcass that
had been there for months waiting for Jonathan to turn it into stock, and one
lone fish finger in a squashed cardboard box.

“I
want ice cream,” Owen demanded.

“There
isn’t any, sweetie,” I said. “Look – you can see there isn’t.”

“Yoghurt,”
he said.

I
sighed. “There isn’t any of that, either. We’re going to have to go to the
supermarket.”

“I
don’t want to,” Darcey said. “It’s so boring.”

“I
know it is,” I said. “I feel your pain, Pickle. Believe me, the last thing I
want to do is drag the two of you round Waitrose, but it’s that or starve.”

“I
want Daddy,” Owen said. “Where’s Daddy?”

“Daddy’s
working,” I said. “He’ll be home in a couple of days, and maybe he’ll take you
to McDonald’s.”

“I
want Daddy now,” Owen said, starting to cry.

I
picked him up and tried to cuddle him, but he was having none of it, his feet
thudding against my thighs, his entire body rigid with rage. He could probably
sense that all was not well, I thought, a fresh wave of guilt and misery
battering me. My poor babies – how many more days and nights would there be
when they wanted their father and he wasn’t there? And how many years did I
have ahead of me, coping alone with the house, the children and a job if I
eventually managed to find one?

Owen
was still yelling when my phone rang. I prayed it would be Jonathan, but it was
Amanda.

“Oh
dear, someone sounds cross,” she said.

“Just
a bit,” I said. “Actually we’re all going a bit crazy. This rain!”

“It’s
like bloody Groundhog Day over here too,” Amanda said. “That’s why I was
ringing. I’ve given in to the relentless demands for soft play, and I was
wondering if you wanted to join us?”

“I’d
love to,” I said, crossing my fingers, “but I’ve realised we’re absolutely out
of food and down to our last roll of loo paper, so I really need to do a
supermarket run. Is there any chance you could…?”

“Believe
me, any distraction right now will be welcomed with open arms,” Amanda said.
“Drop the kids off here and go and do your shopping. I’ll take care of them.
Hopefully not by drowning the lot of them in the Thames.”

She
sounded surprisingly human, I reflected, bundling Owen and Darcey into their
macs and heading out into the street. If even Amanda, the model parent, was
going crazy with school-holiday inertia, I could feel a bit better about my own
laxness.

We
hurried through the drizzle to Amanda’s house, and it wasn’t without a certain
sense of relief that I handed the children over.

“I’ll
drop them back off at yours around five, okay?” she said.

“Fantastic,”
I said, thrusting two twenty pound notes at her. “Let me know if that doesn’t
cover whatever you do. Take them to a Michelin-starred restaurant, casino,
whatever, it’s fine.”

The
word casino made me think of Rick, and Zé, and I wondered why she hadn’t been
in touch. I’d texted her to say I was thinking of her, and had no reply, and
assumed things were just too hectic. I resolved to call her as soon as I got
home, or even drop round.

Then
Amanda said, “So who was the man I saw coming out of Zé Campbell’s house
earlier? I only caught a glimpse but he looked vaguely familiar.”

Shit,
I thought, it must have been a police officer. Poor Zé – already people were
gossiping about her, waiting for her downfall.

“I
think she mentioned she was having someone to stay,” I lied. “Juniper’s
godfather? Rick’s cousin? Something like that.”

“Hmmm,”
Amanda said. “Anyway, good luck with the shopping. See you later.”

“Bye,”
I said. “And thanks so much again.”

After
being cooped up at home with two stir-crazy children and a bonkers kitten, the
prospect of grocery shopping seemed like a blissful opportunity for me-time – the
stay-at-home mother’s spa day, I thought, as I untethered a trolley from its
fellows and pushed it into the vegetable aisle. I remembered the last time I’d
come shopping here, how I’d imagined buying groceries for me and Felix. Now, I
knew that would never happen, and to my surprise I felt relieved. I wasn’t
shopping now for an imaginary Felix, nor for Jonathan, but just for me and my
children. It was strangely liberating. Salad, fruit, cheese, bread, loo rolls,
yoghurt, ice cream, fish fingers, a few random treats, and I was done. This
would see us through until I got around to doing a proper online order,
involving all the dull and heavy things like tinned tomatoes and dishwasher
tablets.