CHAPTER THREE

Ted’s in my bed with some water, crackers, and CBeebies. I picked him up from school, my clothes drenched in sweat, my cheeks still on high blush so much so that the school secretary asked if I’d come from the gym. I may have laughed. But Ted did what he does best; he feigned being sicker than he was, asked me for sweets in the car, then came home and threw up on the WELCOME mat where I found out from the smell that he’d definitely drunk that white stuff in the fridge.

So now while that mat soaks in a bucket in the garden, I do my usual zip around the house. Dad’s been in. You have to love my dad, every morning after I leave he always lets himself in through the back with the key we’ve given him and potters about, does the washing up, hangs out the clothes. It’s like having a house pixie with a penchant for corduroy and muted autumnals. Today, he’s made beds, put pyjamas under pillows, replaced the empty loo roll holder, and left me a note:

Did a shark eat your recycling crate? Have rung Council to get you a new one. You also need milk and some white spirit for your garage. Dad x

Must remember that floor. Right, things I had to do, things I had to do? Put the phone back in the charger, change Millie, put crap in different places and pass it off as tidying. Vodafone bill. I open up the laptop and log on, skimming over the bill – the same every month – with me using up all our free texts to tell Matt to get milk, and Matt using all our free minutes to ask if we need anything else. I pay the bill then get on Facebook, viewing my Home page – something to quell the insanity of this morning. There’s nothing much today: Lewis Young (met in first week of halls; used to eat toasties together; snogged once at a Hallowe’en club night) has holiday pics up of his trek up Machu Picchu. Lots of ponchos and llamas. Helen MacDougall (summer job friend; WHSmith alumni; we stole pens together) informs me in her status that ‘Foo Fighters were ace last night! Thanks for taking me babe x x x.’ Joe Farley (went to primary school together; thick NHS glasses; now runs a used car dealership) is playing Mafia Wars and Farmville, encouraging me to help him buy a cow. Ben (younger brother; bound to our friendship by blood and genetics) is online. I message him, knowing he’s the sort who lives by his phone so may reply.

J: Whatcha doing?

He replies immediately.

B: I’m trying to catch a bus out of Acton. BIG NIGHT!

I scowl as I’m reminded how his social life buzzes even on a Sunday night when I was in ironing miniature polo shirts and watching the X Factor results.

J: Acton is near IKEA. Meatballs for breakfast!

B: One step ahead of you, sis. His name was Marcel.

J: Too. Much. Information. Stay safe. Pick me up a new colander.

And with that, he’s offline. I didn’t even get to share my McCoy news. I examine my wall and then scan local parents’ pages. Millie stares at me from the corridor, banging blocks together – go on, tell people; it’s vaguely interesting compared to your usual posts e.g. They’ve changed Jaffa Cakes! I swear they are less orangey now

Here goes …

Jools Campbell met Tommy McCoy in Saino’s this morning – what a dickhead. A chat box flickers open. Annie. University lawyer friend and saviour.

A: You met Tommy McCoy? You going to be on TV?J: Jesus, hope not. I looked a state. Think I might have been a little rude to him as well.

A: Hahahahaha :D What did you say?J: I can’t even remember. PMT induced ranting.

A: Good for you. Can’t stand him. You fancy a drink Friday night?

Annie always asks me this but knows me getting a babysitter or indeed having the time and energy to doll myself up, get a train into town, and sit in a crowded bar elbowing skinny office minnies out of the way is not ever going to happen. Still, she asks and keeps me in her loop which is why I love her.

J: Maybe. Or maybe come here and we can do a curry?

A: Sounds fab. I have to go – important stuff … we’re counting eggs today.

J: They usually come in boxes of six or twelve.

A: Nope, my eggs – hopefully there are still some of the buggers in there because the other option is that maybe I’ve reached menopause. Yikes!

J: I did notice a bit of a ’tache on you last time.

A: I was trying to channel your monobrow.

J: Har-de-hah!

I feel my fingers reach up subconsciously.

J: Text me after your appt, tell me how it goes. Campbells love Aunty Annie x

A: Speak later Missus x

Millie crawls under the kitchen table, cruising in between our assortment of chairs, stools, and high-chairs, resting her head by my knees. Lovely Millie. I reach down and stroke her hair. Facebook sits there quietly, waiting for me to get sucked in, quietly judging me for having nothing else interesting to say. Tommy McCoy’s name looks up at me and I look at my box of mini scotch eggs on the kitchen table. Instant pangs of guilt dart through me. So I resort to carbs, E-numbers, and unidentifiable meat products in times of crises and personal lows? I pick up a pear from the fruit basket in the middle of the kitchen table. It’s also about balance. I flick open my mobile to call Matt. He answers after three rings like clockwork.

‘Matt Campbell?’

‘It’s me.’

Matt’s voice always relaxes when he hears my voice. His throat opens up and his voice goes a Scottish semitone deeper – the same voice that lured me into bed the second we met. Scotland has a lot to bloody answer for.

‘How goes it?’

‘Rough, rough morning. Ted’s at home – threw up at school.’

I can hear Matt’s chair roll away from his desk.

‘Tummy bug?’

‘More a dodgy breakfast combination. He’s in bed with Mr Bloom. The other two are fine. Anyway, had an even more surreal moment this morning in Sainsbury’s. You’ll never guess who I ran into?’

‘Who?’

‘Guess.’

Eight years of marriage tell me he’ll never play this game with me.

‘Tommy fricking McCoy.’

‘Hope you told him he was a talentless prick.’

‘Pretty much.’

‘What …?’

‘He was trying to recruit me into that programme of his and I went off at him. It was actually a bit embarrassing.’

‘And the accounts manager will be in the office on Sunday. You could talk to him then?’

‘Boss?’

‘Yes. I could call you later to confirm the details.’

‘Yes, that would be most satisfactory. Love you.’

He’ll never say it back, not at work at least. ‘Yes, thank you for calling.’

I smile. Then I receive a text from him two minutes later:

<In meetings til 5. Want details. Big hug 4 Ted. Pay that bill, buy milk. Sky man coming before 2. Don’t shag him.>

I reply.

<Sky man coming? I’ll put on my best knickers.>

Best knickers? Do I still own a pair of those? Black, lace, French. The last time I wore them was probably when I met Matt. Matteo Campbell. My rebound sex man. The man I ended up marrying.

It had been 2001 at Leeds University. I never wanted to go up North and had hoped to stay closer to family but I followed then-boyfriend Richie Colman who was studying civil engineering and who I thought I’d marry and have babies with. Richie thought differently and unceremoniously dumped me after our first year to shag a blonde biochemist called Dawn. To ease the distress, I went to the cheesiest night Leeds had to offer and got very, very drunk. Matt would be in that club. Of course, I can’t tell you how and when we met but my then-housemate Annie told me our meeting pretty much went as such; it was the end of the night and having drunk my own weight in B52s and Slippery Nipples, I had my arms linked with a group of people I didn’t know, Matt being one of them. Annie remembers when the lights came on our faces were attached to one another, our lips locked and intertwined like cod fish. When she tried to detach me from him to drag me into a cab, I held on to Matt’s hand and brought him home with us. I don’t remember the sex but Annie does because she heard it, with the bonus of listening to me throwing up shortly after. She always tells this story with a smug air, but she also took someone home with her that night – a rugby player with arms like hocks of ham who came into the kitchen the next morning in just his pants scratching his undercarriage right before rifling through our drawers for a teaspoon.

Yet my one-night stand turned into something more. Matt left that morning but I’d bump into him the following night at the same club. I was in mourning for Richie, I wanted to mask his loss with fruity alcohol and messy snogs. Matt spied me from across the bar, came over, and boom, the sweet Scottish voice and he was back in my bed again. From there in, he became, and I cringe to call him this, a booty call. He started buying me tubes of Munchies and sharing spliffs with me. He was studying Social Policy and Philosophy, I was a psychologist. He had so many ideas about the world, global development, and changing things one person at a time. He wore beanie hats and in the mornings I’d find him hidden under the duvet, his sandy hair all fuzzy like a lost hamster, his slate grey eyes a little bleary from the weed and snakebites. He was completely likeable. Completely. But I’d spent the last four years with Richie Colman, I needed distractions, space, time. He was just the rebound guy – so I knew in the back of my mind that even though Matt was pleasant enough, our dalliance would have an expiry date. We were both twenty years old, our biggest concerns being cheap alcohol and scraping through modules. Then everything changed; the condom split.