‘What time is Vincent picking you up at? And is he still single? Open to a bit of an illicit affair?’ Annie asked me, with a twinkle in her eye.
‘Gran!’ I feigned outrage. ‘He’s picking me up at nine and I’m a married woman!’
Her turn to feign outrage. ‘I know, dear. I was just hoping he might be interested in a wild fling with an older woman.’
I laughed so hard I almost dropped my tea. Visiting her tonight had cheered me right up. I tried to get over at least once a week, but with the twelve- and fourteen-hour days we’d been putting in, sometimes seven days a week, I didn’t always make it over. It had only worked this week because we were catering a fortieth birthday party in a very grand home in Wimbledon, not far from Annie’s little cottage. I’d left to come here as soon as the food was served, and Vincent had stayed behind to oversee the clear-up.
I had absolutely no idea what I’d have done without him. Vincent was the kind of guy who showed up. No bullshit excuses. No erratic crap. He pitched in. Made it work. Teaming up with him was the best business decision I’d ever made and it was beginning to pay off financially.
‘Seriously, I do like that boy. He’s got honest eyes.’
‘Gran, he’s thirty-one. But you’re right, he does have honest eyes. He’s a really decent guy too.’
‘Does Colm not get jealous?
‘Of what?’
‘Oh come on, ma love, there isn’t many that would kick that lad out of bed for making crumbs with his custard creams.’
I giggled. ‘You are so shallow but so right. And no, Colm never gets jealous. He was born without the capacity for jealousy, worry and cleaning dishes. Besides, he knows I have zero attraction to Vincent.’
‘Are you dead? Shauna, he’s gorgeous.’
‘Yeah, but I just don’t see him that way.’ It was true. Vincent made me laugh and I enjoyed his company, but he had zero effect on my libido. I appreciated the whole ‘Younger Ben Affleck On A Good Day’ thing he had going on, but I’d honestly never wanted to jump his bones.
‘He’s my friend, gran. He’s never been attracted to me and I’ve never been attracted to him. It’s called “platonic”. And “loving my husband”.’
‘Aye, well there was never anyone else for me but my Ernie, God rest his soul, but I might have made an exception for this one. Anyway, how’s my boy Colm doing?’ Gran loved my husband. They had that same irreverent, quick, dark humour. ‘If I was forty years younger and he needed specs…’ she said every time we discussed him.
‘He’s doing great. He’s thinking about setting up a company, going into partnership with Dan. A management consultancy.’
She paused, Bakewell Tart midway to mouth. ‘And what do you think of that?’
‘I think it’s a great idea. They work together now anyway so I don’t have any worries about their partnership. I know there have been warnings about the economy, but business in that sector is still booming. Only thing is that it’ll force our hand with the house. We’ve been renting up until now, but if we’re going to buy we’ll have to do it before he becomes self-employed or we’ll struggle to get a mortgage.’
Annie took this all in. ‘You’ll work it out and do the right thing, love. You always do. You’re the smartest of all of us, especially that feckless father of yours.’
‘Gran, that’s your son!’ I don’t know why I was protesting. She’d made her disapproval of my father perfectly clear to me my whole life. Like me, she kept everything amicable on the surface, but that congeniality floated on a pool of disapproval. Years ago, after a few too many sherries, she’d explained why. ‘Can’t stand the way he treats you, Shauna. Selfish. All he cares about is himself and that mother of yours. I don’t understand it. That’s not the way he was raised. His father was a decent family man, God rest his soul, and after he died I taught our Jeff better than that. Don’t know where I went wrong with him, but by God, I did.’
It was the one and only time she’d ever gone deeper than calling him a ‘useless lump that’s far too fond of himself’ and I never probed further. All that I cared about was that she loved me and I loved her back. She’d brought me up, been more of a mother to me than Debbie ever had. We had an understanding. A likeness. ‘Two peas in a pod, me and you,’ she always said. ‘But thank Christ you didn’t get my legs.’ Then she’d roar with laughter, lift her skirt above her knees and do a jig across the kitchen.
‘And what about, you know, the other thing.’
‘Gran, why can’t you say it?’
‘Because I don’t want to upset you.’ The situation upset me. Annie talking about it didn’t.
‘Thanks gran, but avoiding the word “pregnant” doesn’t make a difference when we’re actually talking about me not being pregnant,’ I told her, keeping my tone light as I helped myself to another square of her beloved Turkish Delight.
‘S’pose,’ she said, pensive, before starting again. ‘So. Pregnant yet?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘I promise you’ll be the first to know. After Colm. And the rest of my street, who’ll be alerted by the brass band and the Red Arrow display.’
She wasn’t buying my joviality. I could see the concern in her eyes. ‘Och, pet, it’ll happen. It took a long time for me too, and I only had the one. Makes it all the more upsetting that he turned out to be a useless lump that’s far too fond of himself.’
And there it was. When I’d stopped laughing, I got back to the subject of the discussion. ‘I’m thinking of trying IVF. It’s been almost four years since I came off the pill and nothing. Don’t get me wrong, I love the twins, but I want one of my own, gran. Does that make me selfish?’
‘No, of course it doesn’t, love.’
We’d had this conversation a hundred times before so I knew her answer, I just needed to hear it again. That was the toughest thing about this whole process – I struggled to find anyone else to talk to about it. My mother wasn’t in the least interested. I didn’t think it was fair to wallow over the subject with Rosie, when she too desperately wanted kids but couldn’t get past the relationship that lasted longer than two years stage. Lulu and Dan were absolutely resolute about not wanting children because Lulu claimed, in her words, that she was having ‘no part of anything that required the wearing of clothes that didn’t need dry-cleaning’. Yes, she was glib, but her sentiment was honest. Kids just weren’t something she was interested in. She trotted out dismissive lines for people who asked her at dinner parties, but the truth was, she’d announced when we were about twelve that she didn’t want children, in case she ‘fucked them up the way our lot had fucked with us’. I wasn’t sure that that angry young girl had ever left Lulu’s soul.
I realized my gran had asked me something that I’d missed.
‘Pardon?’
‘You said “I’m”.’
‘What?’ I asked, not understanding.
‘You said, “I’m thinking of trying IVF”, not we.’
Wow. She was like the granny division of the CIA – chief interrogator, using the powers of observation, tea and Turkish Delight.
Her laser-strength perception, as always, cut right through the facts and went straight to the heart of the problem. Colm. Colm, who I loved with all my heart. But who, I’d also learned, had absolutely no capacity to dwell on things that weren’t going well. He didn’t get it. He just didn’t understand my longing, or my monthly disappointment. However, what hurt the most was that, as much as he tried, he couldn’t make it matter to him. It wasn’t on his list of life-wishes, therefore if it didn’t happen that was okay.
In my world, it wasn’t.
I tried to condense and minimize all that for my gran.
‘Did I? Oh. It’s just that… well, he doesn’t mind so much. It’s different for him. He’s got the boys, he’s happy. There’s no biological clock deafening his ovaries. Sometimes I think he’d be happier if I stopped thinking about it and things just stayed the way they are now.’
It was true. It was also consistent. He’d had the same point of view since that day in Bali when we’d first discussed it.
Annie thought about that for a moment. ‘Shauna, if this is important to you then don’t let it go. And if Colm doesn’t see how much it means to you, you’ve got to help him understand it. And no, you’re not being selfish. It’s about time someone else cared about your happiness. God knows those useless lumps of parents never did.’
She was off again, but thankfully, before she could get into full rant mode, a horn beeped outside.
‘That’ll be Vincent,’ I said, grabbing my bag off the floor, then kissing her as I headed to the door. ‘I’ll be back over next week, gran.’
‘Great, love. And don’t forget to ask him if he likes older women!’
I was still shaking my head with amusement when I climbed into the van. It was a new investment, a shiny white Fiesta van with Constant Cravings written in jaunty green letters on the side. It had taken us ages to come up with the company name and we still lived in dread of a letter from K.D. Lang’s copyright lawyers.
‘What’s funny?’ Vincent asked, checking his side mirror as he pulled away from the pavement.
‘Annie wants to know if you’d consider a fling with an older woman.’
‘Only if she takes me to the bingo,’ he retorted.
We both knew that it was hilarious because it was about as far from the truth as you could get. If Colm was a down-to-earth, grounded bloke, Vincent was his metrosexual opposite. Back in catering college we’d been best mates, a relationship that worked because he was easy-going, uncomplicated, and – mostly – because it was only ever going to be platonic. He wasn’t my type and I definitely wasn’t his. I liked quirky guys and upfront humour, while he paid his way through college by modelling, and only went for the tall, gorgeous girls he worked with, all of whom inevitably fell in love with his chiselled dark looks and gym-buffed body.
His suggestion to join the two companies together had come over a beer at our annual catch up, and I saw immediately that it made sense. Our collective company revenue had increased tenfold, mainly because his involvement gave me time to focus on marketing and expansion, while his ideas were brilliant, his food was sublime and he was so damn good-looking we were getting tons of repeat business. Sod political correctness – if the objectification of my partner led to more profit for us, it was all right by me.
The debrief on the job he’d just left took us halfway to Twickenham, and discussing the bookings for the next couple of days took us the rest of the way. We were getting close to home by the time we got onto personal stuff.
‘Crap, I’m sorry, I haven’t even asked you how things went with Carole today.’
Carole. Vincent’s girlfriend. Lingerie model. They’d had a lunch-time meeting that day to discuss their future and he hadn’t had a chance to give me the update.
‘Ah, it could have gone better.’
I smiled.
‘Why? What happened?’
‘She says she wants a commitment.’
‘Ouch.’
‘Exactly.’
‘And what do you want?’
‘Am I being too shallow if I say the love of a good woman and incredible sex?’
‘Not if you do it in that order.’
‘Then that’ll do me,’ he laughed, but I could see the tension around his eyes.
‘So what’s the problem?’ I probed, gently.
Without pretension or thought, he ran his fingers through his dark hair, then over his two-day stubble.
‘I’m not there yet. Not ready to go to the next level,’ he said, then rolled his eyes, ruefully as we stopped at a set of traffic lights on the outskirts of Richmond.
‘She says I have commitment issues. It’s not exactly a newsflash, is it?’
I instinctively railed against the picture he was painting of himself. This wasn’t some flighty guy who messed people around. He was solid. Reliable. Decent. And if he wasn’t ready, then it wasn’t because he had issues, it was because he was being honest. ‘Don’t be hard on yourself. Sometimes it takes one person a little longer to get to the right place.’
‘I don’t seem to remember that happening with you and Colm.’
I laughed. ‘Touché. But we were young. Crazy.’
‘I remember,’ he said, smiling.
‘So what’s missing?’ I asked him. ‘Love?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I definitely love her, I just don’t know if it’s enough. You know, that thing you had with Colm, where you couldn’t live a day without him? I’m not feeling that. God, I sound like a girl. Can you check if my testicles are still attached?’
I punched his arm. ‘Eh, avoid the sexism please.’
‘Sorry,’ he grinned. ‘I’m much better with cars, sport or the pricing structure of a finger buffet.’
‘You’ll die a sad and lonely old man,’ I teased. ‘Watching rugby on the TV with a fridge full of sausage rolls.’
‘Don’t mock. There are worse ways to go than death by sausage roll.’
As we reached the centre of town, the Richmond streets were still busy. I decided it was too early to call it a night. Colm was away and I wasn’t ready to go home to an empty house. Besides, Vincent didn’t often open up about stuff, and I wanted to know more while I had him on a roll.
I had a quick look at the clock on the dashboard. ‘Do you want to go for a quick drink?’
‘Absolutely,’ he replied, needing no persuasion whatsoever. ‘Do you want to phone Colm and see if he wants to come meet us?’
‘No, he’s in Manchester with Dan tonight – group training session tomorrow – so I’m home alone. That sounds like a good title for a Joe Pesci movie.’
Vincent shook his head. ‘Your jokes are beyond lame.’
‘They are,’ I agreed. ‘That’s what makes me adorable.’
‘Indeed. So where to?’
‘Why don’t we just head to the bridge and choose when we get there.’
Instead of turning into my street, he kept going straight, over Richmond Bridge and then slipping into a free parking space just as we turned onto Hill Street.
Jumping out, I gestured to the Pitcher and Piano.
‘Let’s go there. Haven’t been in for years. That’s where I met Colm, you know.’
‘If you’re going to get all dewy-eyed about Mr Wonderful, I’m not coming in.’
‘Okay, I’ll get dewy-eyed about your relationship issues instead. How does that sound?’
‘A tad sad, but acceptable.’
He put his hand on the small of my back as we crossed the road, always so gentlemanly. Colm’s level of chivalry was to shout, ‘Run!’, and hope we made it to the other side.
The pub was still busy, despite the fact that it was ten o’clock on a Sunday night.
One of my favourite songs, Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’, was playing on the sound system as we made our way through the crowd to the bar. I’d forgotten how much I loved this place. It represented so much that was special to me: my twenty- something youth, a thousand nights out with Lulu and Rosie, meeting Colm.
‘What would you like?’ Vincent raised his voice over the sound of the music.
‘Gin and tonic, please. And crisps!’ I hadn’t eaten all day except from Annie’s home-made scones and Turkish Delight.
While he ordered, my attention flickered to the open doors that led out on to the balcony, to the exact spot that I’d been standing in when I met Colm seven years before. Seven years – yet it felt like we’d been together our whole lives. What would have happened if I hadn’t gone out that night? Or if I’d left five minutes earlier as I’d been planning to do? It horrified me to think we could have gone through this life without meeting. Or perhaps that wasn’t how it worked. Maybe in any life we’d have found each other and…
I lost my train of thought, distracted by what I was seeing now through those same doors. The image wasn’t computing. How could that be?
‘Shauna,’ Vincent said pointedly, interrupting my thoughts and taking my attention. ‘Here!’ He thrust a drink into my hand, then asked, puzzled, ‘Are you okay?’
‘No. Look.’
I gestured to the open doors, but he was at a different angle from me and struggled to get an adequate view. ‘Can’t see their faces, but do you mean the couple kissing?’
I nodded, wearily.
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘The problem is that’s my friend. And the guy she’s with isn’t her husband.’