CHAPTER FOURTEEN

That evening, I’m sitting in the kitchen staring at the walls, despondent and a little drunk. After manhandling a chef on live television (who actually wasn’t so upset about everything, I think he might have enjoyed the moment), I came home to find Matt, Gia, and the kids in fits of hysterics. Television gold, my dad texted me. Ben also rang to say Northern Chef had become his new crush. Who knew he was that well-endowed? Luella is not as upset as I thought she would be. It made for great television and the real reason we went on there, the risotto, was a success. I, however, feel rubbish. My plan was to be graceful, likeable, and elegant. Instead, reviewing the tapes, made myself out to be a cooking pervert. So now I drink. And to partake in the evening’s events, I’ve invited Luella, Donna, and Annie and a very big bottle of tequila.

‘Your mother-in-law made this? Shit, I should be her publicist.’

Luella drinks less, more interested in eating Gia’s braised veal leftovers. Annie is here to be an emotional prop, Donna to cheer me up. I hear the thunder of footsteps upstairs as Matt and Gia wrestle with the children in the bath. Luella continues to chow down and pours me another shot. I stare at it, before licking some salt off my thumb, downing it, and, because we have no real lemons, squeezing a squirt of Jif lemon into my mouth. Donna cheers. Annie shakes her head.

‘It really wasn’t that bad. If you’d spat it out then said it tasted shit, then that would be terrible, but it was an accident,’ she says.

I shrug my shoulders.

Luella intervenes. ‘She is right. People have been Tweeting about this all day and everyone thought it was very endearing.’

I pull a dazed and confused face as Luella hands me her iPad and shows me pages of people showing their support. Annie suddenly looks very excited.

‘Hey, we should get you on Twitter.’ Luella’s eyes light up as well. I shake my head.

‘I don’t know. It’s a bit much. I’d probably get like, two followers.’

Annie opens the Twitter page for me to have a look. I can do Facebook. For one, there’s a unique satisfaction you can get from stalking old school friends who used to be bitches in school, seeing how karma has left them single or with crow’s feet in their late twenties. But there’s also the way you can keep in touch with so many scattered across the country and globe, inspect their new-borns, weddings, birthday celebrations, and still feel you are part of their lives. It’s the lazy social option. Twitter asks for people to be interested in you, to be thrilled to hear you’re doing the school run or have just changed the sheets. Maybe the point is, I’m not sure if my life is interesting enough for commentary. Annie’s fingers dance around the keys.

‘There, I’ve signed you up. I’m going with a Campbells theme: you’re SouperMum. Here, see I’m your first follower. I’m AnnieTheLawyer.’

‘I will be your second. LuellaInc.’

They type so quickly, throwing the iPad between them, that I don’t have time to interject. ‘We could post recipes and mummy-style anecdotes and recommendations. It’s a good move, believe me,’ adds Luella.

Annie adds her husband as my follower to bulk out the numbers. Donna looks over and starts typing. I’m still trying to think what is relevant that people might want to hear. I read as she presses enter.

‘HAVIN IT LARGE WIV MY GIRLS! TEQUILA 4 EVRY1!’

My eyes widen as I see it there next to my name along with my avatar, which Annie has chosen as Marge Simpson. Luella and Annie laugh. I can see the headlines in the papers now. ‘Not only does she feed her baby tequila, she has it large! She can’t spell!’ Something in me can’t be urged to care. I leave it, knowing Annie and Chris are probably the only ones who’ll read it, moving my fingers about the touchscreen to read Annie’s Twitter updates.

‘Jus had appt with doc and my womb is inhospitable! Next time C’s up there, I’ll tell it 2 smile more and bake cookies! ’

Annie has got to the stage where she’ll talk about her fertility to anyone. Donna reads over my shoulder while Annie realises what we’re doing.

‘It’s something about my pH levels.’

‘Well, mate, here, squeeze a bit of Jif up there, that will change your pH.’

Luella spits out a bit of veal. Annie, who is the lightest of lightweights known to man, thinks this hysterical. Donna takes her cardigan off and I’m sure I can see a new tattoo across her left bicep of someone’s name.

‘Mate, what positions have you been trying? I swear every time I’ve got preggers has been when Dave has been going at it missionary and I’ve got my ankles round by my ears.’

Annie seems to be taking mental notes while I wonder why I didn’t introduce these two sooner. Luella is particularly blasé about everything.

‘You got kids, Lulu?’

‘Two. A boy and a girl.’

I swizzle my head around, realising I’ve never really even thought to ask Luella about her private life. She gets out a picture from her handbag.

‘There. Xavi and Clio.’

They sound like car names but I don’t tell her that. I just examine the photo and smile. They have the expected designer haircuts but behind them stands a very bohemian-looking man I assume to be her fabulous Frenchman.

‘That’s Remy.’

Donna looks over.

‘Oooh, a Frenchie. Bet he’s a good lay.’

I cringe to hear Donna be so comfortable with those she’s just met but Luella doesn’t seem to mind the inquisition. She just laughs, knocking her head back.

‘Il est magnifique!’ Donna snorts with laughter. Annie looks over at me.

‘You mean the positions are important? What about you, Jools?’

The tequila has left me warm, a little like I might take off because I can’t feel my feet. I turn to Gia’s veal, hoping the tomato sauce licked off my fingers might be able to soak up some of the booze.

‘Ummm, well you know about Matt and me. Condom broke the first time. Can’t remember the life of me what the position was?’

‘Means his little swimmers were busting to get out. Broke through the sodding rubber.’

I smile but Annie knows talking of Hannah’s unplanned birth always hit a nerve, like to mention how random it was means it was less important in any way.

‘Those sperm knew that they were meant to be with that egg and create the most beautiful little baby girl I’ve ever seen,’ she adds. She grabs my shoulder.

‘You all right? C’mon. More tequila. This will erase today completely.’

I fake a smile and look down at my drink, thinking about what she said. That in the greater scheme of things, Matt and me were just meant to be. Our inner workings decided our fate for us and made us a baby. Like magnets, it was a force uncontrollable. I think about that. And I think about Richie Colman.

‘I spoke to Richie the other day.’

I’m not exactly sure why the words leave my mouth but all I feel is relief when they do, to be able to share without too much judgement. Luella looks over inquisitively on hearing his name. Donna rubs her hands together in preparation for gossip. I guess she’ll know as much as was in the papers but she can see there’s more to tell. Annie goes a bit quiet to hear his name. She was always very supportive of me at university, always on my side, I thought. When we were together, even though she found the idea of childhood sweethearts a little trapping and thought we would never last through the slalom course that was university, she allowed us to be. She then turned ape-shit on him when he dumped me and poured all her efforts into liking Matt even though she knew I was diving into everything head first, fully clothed.

‘Just via Facebook. We had a little chat thing going on. I just, he said some things. I don’t even know.’

Annie pushes a shot glass towards me.

‘I read the article. Did Matt really hit him?’

Luella closes her eyes.

‘You know, I haven’t even brought it up with Matt. With all the stuff with my mum and the cooking stuff, I pushed it away. It just didn’t seem important, but he’s just … niggling away a bit …’

Everyone looks over inquisitively.

‘Was he a total shit to you?’ asks Annie.

‘No, he was apologetic, just wanted to explain himself … take a walk down memory lane. To be honest, it was all a bit of a non-event.’

But it wasn’t. It triggered something inside this brain of mine, that much I know, which is probably why I’ve brought it up. I see Annie looking slightly worried, anxious about what I’m about to say.

‘I hope you told him he was a cock. Those kiss and tellers who are in it just for the money get on my tits,’ adds Donna. Annie agrees. You get a sense that is how Luella might make some of her living so she’s quiet. They still all turn to me, expectant that this story will have a more interesting ending.

‘I didn’t know what to say. It was at the end of a crazy day after that article about my mum came out and it got me thinking.’

Annie looks like she’s on edge. Thinking and me don’t really mix too well.

‘He was a first love. Plus he was harping on about the past and the what ifs, it just stirs up questions.’

Annie grabs me by the hand when I say the first love thing. She knows my relationship with Matt wasn’t founded on some strong, intense love but has since gained momentum and four kids later still exists. I hope she’s not drunk enough to pass comment like last time. Luella interrupts.

‘Hon, we all do that. We’ve all got a Richie. I always say it’s healthy – past relationships are what shape you, what move you along. You’d be crazy not to think about them occasionally.’

I smile at her, knowing all too well who her Richie is. She gives me a look that suggests it needs to stay secret for now. I raise my glass to her as she smiles and downs the red wine in hers.

Donna pipes in. ‘Freddie Lyle. Squaddie who went off to Afghanistan. Wrote him a letter every week when he was gone but turned out he’d been shagging my cousin Felicia the whole time.’

Luella nods along, glad someone’s half reinforced her point. Annie nods her head slowly.

‘Mark Cadbury.’

I grab Annie’s hand. Tall lawyer who rowed boats and had blond, floppy hair like a golden retriever. Broke her heart to search out the more dynamic social/work scene in Hong Kong where he ‘needed to be single’ but got there and married a society girl called Pearl Amoy within four months. She grabs back.

‘There’s always that one who gets under your skin. But you and Matt are solid, right?’

Solid in a sort of dependable, unmovable way. Like an Ashford and Simpson song, solid like a dependable, if rather uneventful, rock. I bob my head about to Donna’s unease.

‘Hold on, I saw that bloke in the papers. Matt’s much better looking than him.’

Luella grabs her iPad and starts typing. Suddenly my Facebook page opens and she scrolls down to find Richie’s name on my friends list. Profile open, everyone ogles the page – Annie bursting into hysterics.

‘Jesus Christ, he got old. Is that a paunch?’

I ache to see his picture again. A sort of ache like a blinding migraine – that maybe if I see his picture again it might hypnotize me into thinking things I shouldn’t about a man I don’t really give a monkeys about.

‘He’s balding, Jools. That’s not good hair genes,’ adds Luella. Donna continues to scroll through the pictures.

‘Good lay?’

‘My first.’

Everyone turns to face me. I think back to walls covered in posters of Lamborghinis and teen girl insecurities. Everything was done under the duvet so we spent the first half hour thinking we’d had it down when really he’d been dry-humping my inner thigh. The ladies realise what this means. Yep, along with Matt, I’ve only ever slept with two men. My frame of reference is sorely lacking compared to the double digits I suspect at least two people around this table are on. Donna continues.

‘So pretty shit then?’

I laugh and raise my eyebrows. Not that it got better, being turned over like a side of meat when he wanted a change of position, looking over a bony shoulder as it jutted into your cheek. He was young, my pleasure was a mere afterthought, oral was misaimed and lasted as long as he could be bothered, orgasms were what I read about in magazines. Then Matt came and changed everything. I mean, it didn’t go all Fifty Shades crazy but he’d look into my eyes and would spoon me and cup my face like it meant something. When did we last have sex? Maybe a month ago, before all of this happened; I was paranoid that Millie would hear everything so we did it in the bathtub which proved a good move given we could clear up much easier afterwards. And it was the sort of sex we had become used to. One could say it scratched an itch. He was satisfied, so was I. We held each other for thirty seconds after with the I love yous then smiled at each other through the mirror as we brushed our teeth. It was and always is with Matt, we get the job done.

‘Pretty much.’

We all laugh, when suddenly a text box pops up in the corner of my computer.

R: Hey hon. We must have got cut off the other day?
How’s it going?

Donna’s eyes open up into Frisbee-sized saucers and she grabs the screen. To say I freak out is a slight understatement. I grab the computer in time to read:

J: Husband and his big cock lured me to bed.

Luella is in fits of hysterics as Annie goes ashen to read it.

R: Ummm, OK. RU drunk?

I am. We all are. But I have enough sense to know that this sort of talk should not be encouraged. I try and grab at the screen but I must be drunker than I thought as I end up grabbing at air.

J: Pissed up on Cristal. That’s wot I drink now I’m famous.

R: Ummm, is this you, Jools? The Jools I knew would prefer to get pissed on tequila shots.

I let go of the glass in my hand as Donna taps the screen to make sure it’s not attached to some sort of webcam. I grab the screen from Donna.

J: Yeah, it’s me. Sorry that was a friend messing about.

R: Thought as much. You never guess who I bumped into yesterday. Pete from A Level Biology ;) ;)

Three pairs of eyes glare at me to explain the winky emojis.

‘It’s just from something he mentioned the other day.’

This is not enough.

‘We had sex in a lab at school. He just …’

Annie’s face goes from ashen to cadaver white. Donna laughs while Luella seems to eye me curiously over how that might have come up in conversation.

‘Were you sexting each other?’ asks Donna.

‘Christ, no!’

My fingers move over the keypad with impressive speed.

J: Yes, it was highly inappropriate. I’m married.

R: To Mafia Matt.

Annie sucks air through her pouted mouth while Donna grabs the screen back from me.

J: 2 some1 without a jalfrezi gut nd who still has all his hair.

Luella laughs, slightly inebriated, slightly goading Donna on in a rabid mob way. Annie smiles. I grab the screen back.

J: To someone I love very much.

R: Your mate again?

J: Maybe.

R: Tell her this is none of her business.

Ooops. This is enough to set Donna off. She jumps out of the kitchen chair trying to grab at me. Luella and Annie are in hysterics.

‘Come here! Fricking needle pricked, up his own arse wanker – none of my business? Give me that iPad.’

The kitchen door swings open as Donna half mounts my back and Matt appears with a pair of wet pyjamas and Millie cradled in his arms.

‘Ladies, I see we’re feeling a bit better about things?’

Donna straightens herself out and I stand to attention, half guilty, half with an ache in my back that makes me think my body is too broken to give a grown woman a piggy back ride. Luella smiles to see Matt, given he’s all trendy in his old Ramones T-shirt and frayed jeans, like to question a relationship with someone so fashion forward is insane. Annie decides to escape the awkwardness of knowing we’ve just been talking about Richie by grabbing the baby. Do I feel a bit better about things? I feel drunk, that’s for sure.

‘So who’s a needle prick?’

The room freezes. A lump forges itself in my throat like a golf ball.

‘Who else? McCoy!’ says Luella. I look over and see how easy it is for her to lie. I, on the other hand, am going a light, sun blushed tomato red.

Matt shrugs his shoulders.

‘Well, maybe next time Jools can feel his crotch up and find out.’

And everyone laughs except me as the iPad glows in the corner of my eye and Richie’s picture looks up at me.