Twelve stone twelve and still thirty-six per cent fat. My descent has slowed right down now that my body expects exercise as part of its everyday routine. I don’t even care. I feel – and look – better than I have in years.
I’m filling Myra in on the baby news. I can’t get it out of my head. It’s hands down one of the worst things I think a woman could do to a man. Let alone to the new life they’d be bringing into the world.
‘Christ.’ She bangs a mug of coffee down in front of me. I’m sitting at one of the tables after my latest session with Chas because I can’t face going home yet. Robert has the day off and I’m at a loss as to what the two of us would do to pass the time. Even though I’m, strictly speaking, a customer at the moment, I still jump up to help every now and then if someone is waiting to be served.
‘Make sure you sort your divorce out before it happens, just in case he suddenly decides to start taking his parental responsibility seriously.’
‘Shh!’ I say, looking around to see if any of the customers are listening in. ‘He already does take his parental responsibility seriously.’
‘So there you go. You don’t want him trying to say you have to sell the flat and live in a hovel because he has a new mouth to feed.’
‘I don’t think … that’s not the point anyway. If he wants to have a whole other family, then that’s his problem. The point is, she’s doing it behind his back.’
‘Well, not all of it,’ Myra smirks.
‘You know what I mean. What kind of girl does that?’
‘A nasty, manipulative one. I couldn’t wish her on a nicer person.’
I pick up a napkin and wipe the table where my cup has left a mark. ‘They do deserve each other, I suppose.’
‘So Saskia’s going to drop her in it?’
I nod. ‘I didn’t ask her to, she volunteered.’
‘I’m starting to like Saskia.’ She flops down in the seat opposite me and then jumps up again when someone comes through the door. ‘It’s a clever move.’
‘It might just work,’ I call after her retreating back.
For the next few days I watch Robert for a sign that anything has changed. I’m extra nice to him, so that at the moment the scales fall from his eyes as far as Samantha is concerned he’ll see me and think, ‘That’s who I should be spending the rest of my life with.’ Or something like that anyway.
On the Sunday night, when we’re chatting about Georgia’s impending A-level results I hit him with the genius ‘Can you believe it’s been eighteen years?’ line.
‘Next week,’ he says, helping himself to a home-made truffle (his, half a pound of butter and enough sugar to satisfy a room full of slow lorises; mine, coconut oil and sweetener. Appearance – identical. I clock his tummy sagging a little over the top of his Ralph Lauren PJs and wonder how his heart is standing up to the assault).
‘I’ll miss it, won’t you? I don’t just mean I’ll miss her. I can’t even think about that. I’ll miss the whole motherhood thing.’
‘You’ll still be her mum,’ he says, patting my leg as if I were a horse. We’re slouched on the sofa, side by side. Close but not too close.
‘I know. And I wouldn’t want to do it all again from the beginning, truthfully. Not now. Not the baby and toddler years.’
‘Christ, no! Can you imagine? I don’t think we slept for three years, did we?’
I reward him with a laugh. ‘Something like that. And imagine trying to deal with an adolescent thirteen years from now.’
He shudders. ‘Are you trying to give me nightmares?’
I decide that I’ve pushed the point enough. Clearly, Robert isn’t on board with the idea of new fatherhood. I just have to wait for Saskia to work her magic.
‘Tell the truth, are you sad she’s decided not to have a party?’
In the end, George got too frustrated with the lack of a decent venue and decided that, rather than spend the next week or so stressing that her party would be rubbish, she wouldn’t have one at all. She’s chosen, instead, to go for a posh dinner, followed by a club with her eight closest mates. Bankrolled by us, obviously, but we’re only too happy to do it. Mostly because it means we don’t have to go, and we can just take her out for a meal ourselves another night.
‘ “Sad” doesn’t even come close,’ he says. ‘ “Relieved”, “thankful” and “grateful” would be more like it.’
‘Me too. Is that terrible?’
He takes a swig of his licorice tea. We’re both having a night off the wine in an effort to fool our livers into thinking we might be going teetotal so they should buck up their ideas. I’m on the lemon and ginger.
‘Dreadful,’ he says. ‘We’re awful parents.’
And he leans over then and puts an arm around me, pulling me a bit closer and kissing my head, just below the hairline. It’s hardly foreplay but it’s an unprompted gesture of affection, and that’s progress in my book.
I’m on eggshells waiting for Saskia to tell me what’s going on. Eventually, on Tuesday afternoon, she calls me.
‘Oh my God,’ she says before I can say anything. I’m just home from work and about to get in the shower. ‘You should have been there.’
‘You told him! Tell me everything!’
She leaves a dramatic pause. I try to be patient.
‘OK. I’ll have to give you the quick version because I’m going to get called any minute now. So, we were chatting between scenes. They were doing a re-light so we had to hang around for a while. I had to wait till it was just me and him, obviously, because I didn’t want anyone else running to Samantha and saying anything. Anyway, eventually, we were on our own so I just came straight out with it. Like I was concerned for his welfare …’
‘What, out of nowhere?’ I have to admit I’m in awe of Saskia’s front.
‘Sort of, but I kind of led up to it by saying something else about Samantha, something nice, about the fact that she’d done well in a scene or some such nonsense, I can’t remember, and then I said, “Oh, but there’s something I have to tell you. I might have got the wrong end of the stick or something, in fact I’m sure I have … but if it were me I’d want to be told …” ’
‘And …’
‘Of course, he couldn’t resist the bait. So I told him what I’d “heard”. His face, Paula! Obviously, he was trying not to give away too much, because there were people around, even though they weren’t in earshot, but it was all there to read if you knew what you were looking for.’
‘Brilliant. And what did he say?’
‘He asked me a few things, like was that really exactly what she said, and did I think she was actually trying to make it happen or was it just a flippant thing? He was making little quips like it was all a big joke but I could tell he just wanted details. And then we got called back, so that was that. I could tell he was rattled, though. His concentration was way off after that.’
‘Genius,’ I say. ‘I owe you one. I can’t wait for him to come home today now, see if I can spot anything.’
‘I saw them in a huddle at lunch and she didn’t look very happy. I hope he doesn’t drop me in it with the make-up girl, but hey, what can you do. I’m on a mission, haha!’
‘Thanks, Saskia, that was above and beyond, really.’
‘Well, let’s hope it works.’
‘Even if it doesn’t make him see sense right away, it’s a nail in their coffin, surely.’
‘If it isn’t, then I don’t know what we have to do.’
I promise to update her on Robert’s state of mind later. Then I pace around, wondering what to do with myself, until I remember that I need to look as appealing as I possibly can when he gets home fresh from – hopefully – a fight. So I have a shower, wash my hair and blow it out. I moisturize everything in sight, put on a new pair of jeans that have been waiting for just such an occasion (size fourteen, I’m not even joking. I could have wept when I tried them on and they fitted) and the floaty-top thing I bought on my first shopping expedition. Then I touch up the polish on my toenails (this involves having to take the jeans off again because I can’t bend down in them. There’s fitting and then there’s fitting, if you know what I mean) and put on just the right amount of make-up so I look good but not like I’ve got made up for him.
All of this takes me over an hour, and then I start pacing again. I never know what time to expect Robert home on filming days. Sometimes he’s only in the first scene, so he can be finished for the day by nine thirty. Earlier, even. They shoot fast on Farmer Giles. Today, I seem to remember, he’s in most of the scenes, so I probably won’t see him till half past seven, or even later, if he decides to stay behind and argue with Samantha. It’s still only five so I could have several hours of sitting around in my finery, waiting.
I pass the time by baking more treats. Puffy cupcakes, one batch with sugary cream frosting on top, one with frosting made with sweetener. It’s a bit grainy but it still tastes delicious. I decorate mine with a P in protein-enriched sugar-free sprinkles (yes! There is such a thing! Who knew? And who would have thought I would care till now?) and Robert’s with an R in the all-calories and no-redeeming-qualities-whatsoever version. Then I mix them up on a plate and set them to one side under a cloche.
By the time I’ve cleaned up there’s still no sign of him so I decide to give Georgia a ring to pass the time. She’s due home from another festival jaunt in a few days, and she’ll be here for a couple of weeks, which will encompass both her birthday and the arrival of her A-level results, so that could be an emotional rollercoaster. If that rollercoaster only had one giant up and then another, even more giant up, that is.
She’s in a field, she tells me, when she answers. She’s always in a field these days so that doesn’t really give much away. She’s in the middle of a thirteen-hour shift, showing people where to park their cars so that any of them have a hope in hell of ever finding them again.
‘Honestly, Mum, I’ve never argued so much in my life. No one wants to park where I tell them to.’
‘What do you care?’ I say. ‘You won’t be there when they leave. Let them all block each other in.’
She laughs. ‘Is that one of your life lessons? Don’t care about doing a good job if you won’t be around to see the consequences?’
‘Just this once. They’ll all be off their heads anyway, probably. They won’t even see cars, just giant frogs or something.’
I can practically feel her rolling her eyes. ‘This isn’t Woodstock.’
‘Just for the record, I wasn’t even born when Woodstock happened. And it was in America. But I take your point that festivals aren’t the same as they were when I was your age.’
‘What I meant was, this is a book festival. There are seven tents serving tea and cakes. And a glass of white wine costs thirteen pounds. No one’s getting off their heads.’
‘So, when are you heading home?’
‘Day after tomorrow. Hold on …’
I hear her barking out directions to someone in a tone of voice I’ve never heard before. It’s as if there’s a whole different, more grown-up, version of my daughter out there in the world. Which, I suppose, there is. I should be proud. It means I’ve done my job. Then she’s back.
‘Sorry. Just had to stop some idiot blocking an exit.’
‘Maybe you should consider a career as a prison officer. Or a football referee?’
‘I’m going to ignore that. I should go, really, we’re not meant to be on our phones …’
‘Of course. Love you!’
I hear a click as the front door opens. ‘Oh, hang on, George. Dad’s just walked in. Let him say a quick hello …’
I head out to the hall, holding the phone out to Robert. ‘It’s George.’
His face lights up, as it always does when there’s an opportunity to talk to our daughter, so it’s hard to tell what kind of mood he’s really in. He looks the same. Not as if he’s spent half the afternoon arguing with the love of his life.
‘Hi! Let me guess. You’re in a field …?’
I leave them chatting happily and go and open a bottle of wine. When he comes in he has a big smile on his face.
‘Sounds like she’s having a great time.’
Nothing about him says he’s had a tough few hours. I pour him a glass of red.
‘She’s loving it. You have a good day?’
‘Great, actually, yeah,’ he says, and he looks as if he means it.
‘Why so good? Anything special?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘Just one of those days, you know.’
Someone give that man a BAFTA.