60
Three months later
It was almost eight o’clock on New Year’s Day. Stella lay full length on her sofa in the Hammersmith flat, still in her nightie and blue-wool dressing gown, trying to summon up the energy to make herself another cup of coffee. She had been round to Annette’s swish new three-bedroomed flat in one of those wide Holland Park avenues – recently bought with some of the mega-million proceeds from the sale of her business – for a New Year’s Eve dinner. Then she’d walked home at around two in the morning, the large amounts of vodka she’d consumed keeping her warm in the freezing December night. It was an act of bravado for Stella: going out on New Year’s Eve, drinking too much, walking home in the small hours. She had been on the verge of cancelling from the second Annette invited her – her emotional state still fragile.
She had barely been out socially since the autumn, hiding away either at Eve’s or at home, where she tended to sink into a dismal lethargy that felt hard to resist. At her daughter’s, she functioned well enough. She felt safe in the Kent house and managed to fend off her darkest thoughts when distracted by Arthur or helping Eve with little Mairi. But when she was alone in London, the pall descended, and some days she found it impossible even to move from the sofa.
She had finally accepted the Joanie Trevelyan script Shami had been so keen for her to write, although in her current state she could barely string an email together, let alone a full-on television drama. She hovered between bouts of crying and spikes of anger at her spinelessness as she tried to chivvy her body into some action that didn’t involve lying on the sofa all day, listening to Leonard Cohen’s ‘Bird on the Wire’ on a loop. It was not like her, this apathy.
Her only success, as she saw it, had been her total avoidance of Jack and Lisa. When they were due to visit Eve, if Stella were around she would quietly make herself scarce, inventing an excuse – which Jack probably didn’t buy for a second – of needing to visit the shops, the castle, meet a non-existent friend, leave for London before she had planned. She had even celebrated Arthur’s birthday – which conveniently fell on a Wednesday – with her grandchildren and Eve and a pile of his favourite cupcakes, then rushed back to London before Jack and Lisa descended at the weekend.
‘Stay, Mum,’ Eve had said the first time a family lunch was imminent. ‘I know it’s really hard, but do you have to go just because Dad’s coming round?’
Stella had been tempted to block her daughter out, as she had so often in the past, and just go on pretending she really did have to be home for a non-existent meeting. But Eve deserved better, so she’d braced herself and said, ‘Honestly, sweetheart, I don’t think I can do it. I want to, for your sake, but I … I just can’t face a pregnant Lisa right now.’
Eve’s face had been full of understanding. ‘OK. No, I get it.’ But she sounded disappointed.
‘I’ll get over it.’ Stella gave a rueful laugh. ‘At least I hope I will.’
‘Oh, Mum.’ Eve had put her arms around her and given her a hug. ‘I’m so sorry things didn’t work out.’
Last night she hadn’t slept for more than a few hours before waking up shaking and sweating with fright. There had been no nightmare to set her off – none that she could remember, at least – just a visceral terror at the realization that this was the first day of a new year: a year that stretched emptily ahead of her. You’re on your own now, Stella Holt, she told herself firmly as she dragged herself out of bed. Get used to it and shape up.
As she stood by the windows, looking out on to a winter garden that was already suffering from Iain’s absence, her phone rang behind her on the worktop.
Jack? She stared at his name on the display, almost in a stupor. It was literally months since they had spoken. What the hell does he want? The temptation to find out was too great to resist.
‘Hello?’ she said, employing the tone she reserved for cold callers.
‘It’s me,’ he said.
‘I know.’
‘Happy New Year,’ he said, not sounding as if he thought it was.
‘And to you,’ she replied.
Stella was aware of her heart fluttering. She didn’t know what to say. Having not spoken for so long, they could hardly embark upon a jolly interchange about their separate Christmases – Stella with Eve and family; Jack with Lisa and her ageing father in Cumbria – swap stories about relatives and turkey and how knackeringly cold the weather had been up north. What does he want?
‘Can I come round?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean?’ she gulped, caught completely off guard by his request.
Jack sighed. ‘I just wondered if I could pop round for a cup of coffee or something?’
‘I’m familiar with the concept of popping round, Jack. I just want to know what you actually mean by it,’ she replied severely, determined not to yield.
There was a short silence, then Jack said, ‘I haven’t set eyes on you for months, Stella. Every time I go round to Eve’s, you’ve done a runner.’ He paused, and when she didn’t speak, he continued, ‘Eve says you’re fine. But she won’t talk about you to me. And Lisa is always there. I just want to know how you are.’ He seemed desperate to make her understand.
Stella didn’t reply, her thoughts churning.
‘So how are you?’ she heard Jack ask again.
‘Eve’s right. I’m fine.’
‘Really?’
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Stella …’
‘Don’t come round, Jack.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You can’t come round.’ Her voice sounded impressively firm – firmer than she felt by a mile – and she was proud of herself.
Silence, then a low groan.
‘God, I know. I’m sorry, Stella, I shouldn’t have asked.’ He paused. ‘I just miss you like hell.’
‘Still in Cockermouth, with her dad.’
She listened to him breathing. ‘I can’t see you,’ she said and quickly clicked the call off, before she changed her mind. Then she went back to the sofa and lay down again, heart racing, still clutching the mobile in her hand. She knew she had done the right thing. Not just from a moral perspective – although that also would be true – but for her own self-preservation.
As she lay there on the chilly January morning, still shaky from the call with Jack, Stella found herself unwillingly reviewing the disaster she’d made of her relationships. She and Jack should never have split up, that was the first disaster. There seemed no other option at the time, but later, couldn’t she have been kinder to him? Did she really have to treat him as Public Enemy Number One throughout Eve’s childhood?
That they couldn’t get back together after the break they’d needed was the second disaster. Jack had tried, he really had. He’d asked her round for supper; or to join Eve and him for a day out; hovered on her doorstep hoping to be asked in more times than she cared to remember. But she had been so childishly adamant that she needed nobody; terrified, basically, of being even the slightest bit vulnerable to loving someone again.
Poor Eve, she just had to make do: the third disaster. Stella understood, not for the first time, how incredibly lucky she was to have had another chance with her daughter. She didn’t really deserve the closeness they now shared.
And then there was disaster number four: Iain. She had well and truly messed that one up. He hadn’t spoken to her since the night she’d told him about Jack. It said so much about their relationship, Stella thought sadly, that after seven years together there was absolutely no need to speak. They had no shared assets, no children, no Labrador, cars or favourite paintings they’d bought together in a moment of holiday madness: nothing that linked them together at all.
Her phone rang, her heart leapt. Jack again? But it was Annette.
‘Well, missus, you were certainly a big hit last night. Especially with old Perry. He said you were the most “delightfully feisty” woman he’d met in a long while.’
‘Must have been the Black Cow.’ There had been much hilarity at the dinner about the vodka being distilled from pure milk. Stella didn’t even know that was a thing. ‘I had a great time,’ she added. ‘Thank you.’ Which was true, once she’d made the effort to get dressed up and force herself out.
‘So what did you think of Perry?’
‘I thought he was totally charming, a brilliant dinner companion. Gay, surely?’
Annette snorted. ‘I know, you’d think. But he insists not. And I can’t see why he wouldn’t come out if he were. Maybe you should give him a run around the block and find out?’
‘Maybe I should,’ Stella said, almost serious.
‘Hey, are you OK? You sound a bit down. But then, if my head’s anything to go by, you’re probably barely conscious.’
Stella let out a weary sigh. ‘Jack called.’
‘What did he want?’ Annette’s tone was instantly suspicious.
‘To pop round for a coffee?’
‘Ha! I hope you told him to sod off.’
‘Yeah, of course.’
‘So, what news of the pregnant wife?’
‘Still pregnant, I imagine. I didn’t ask. She’s up north with her dad, he said.’
Her friend harrumphed. ‘So he thinks he can slink round for a snog as soon as her back’s turned?’ Annette had said, ‘I told you so,’ when she heard about the pregnancy. ‘Bloody cheek,’ she added now.
Jack didn’t sound like he had that in mind, Stella thought. But she wasn’t going to argue. Jack didn’t deserve to be defended.
‘So you might be pleased if I give Perry your email?’
Stella laughed. ‘As long as he doesn’t fancy me, Annie. I’m not in the market for any more relationships. I’ve fucked up enough on that score for a couple of lifetimes.’