CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It’s 5a.m. in the morning. I’m sure I never used to think this time of day existed when I was young and studenty and could sleep like a warm, hibernating bear. Now twilight and I are good friends and I sit in my bathroom watching Millie in the bath because she decided in the middle of night to have a giant poo that not even wipes and concrete nappies could contain. A poonami if you will. But to be honest, dealing with excrement at such an hour is a welcome distraction.
Last night, when kids, husband, and mother-in-law returned to the house, things got slightly painful. Gia was impressively quiet with me about the coffee flinging. At times, she stared me out like she was angry and mumbled Italian under her breath. Other times, she seemed guilty and I was strangely reminded of toddler Ted’s ‘I think I might have pooed myself’ face. All in all though, we’re back to square one on that weird emotional plateau where all that links us is the fact I married her son. Matt, on the other hand, was being wonderfully mercurial in avoiding me, which is no small feat given how small our house is. When he got home, he ran to the children to avoid confrontation and even sat with Millie at dinner to not have to look at me. One day we will sit like adults and have a conversation over what could make a mild-mannered accountant turn into some fury-driven Neanderthal coffee flinger, but for now he just keeps quiet, spending that moment too long in the loo so we won’t even have to walk past each other in the hallway.
Now he sleeps, the ultimate way to not be near me while I try and entertain Millie, who doesn’t look wholly impressed with the world. Poor Millie. It’s been quite a month for her. I wonder if she sits there internalising everything, making lists over how this rates as a poor life moment. Does this rate worse than Tommy McCoy in Sainsbury’s? Worse than when I forgot to put a nappy on her one school run and left her peeing through her sleepsuit, car seat, and blankets? The boys pushing her around in a cardboard box pretending she was for sale? I owe this girl a lot more hugs and cheap plastic presents for what we make her endure. I slide my hand over her head and watch the curls flatten out before springing back into place.
By the time I wrestle her into a nappy, new pyjamas, and dry her hair it’s too late to get back to sleep, so we mooch into the kitchen where I give her a bowl full of her favourite raisins and Cheerios and check the kids’ schoolbags for signs of decaying food (Jake), small animals (Ted; one day I found a dead bird in a sock), and letters to tell me of events that happened last week (Hannah). No dead birds or biscuits but some interesting finds. According to Hannah’s pencil case: 1D for ever! Really? Already? I make a mental note to introduce her to an alternative music source. But there’s also a letter informing me that the end of year school play is coming up, ‘The Giraffe and the Dolphin’, and parents are in charge of their own children’s costumes. I scan down the page to see that in this ‘wonderful song and dance tribute to the animal kingdom that celebrates diversity and acceptance’ my twins have been cast as rhinos and my daughter is going to be a hula dancer. Costumes will be needed for three weeks’ time. I remember the time Dad used to give us tea towels to wrap around our heads so we could be shepherds/Joseph/innkeepers. Rhinos? Inside the boy’s bags, I find spellings for next week. Words beginning with the letter K. Kite, kettle, koala, and knife (there’s always a tricky one), some old remnants of paper planes, and a picture Ted has drawn of a rather good bus; he’s even remembered wing mirrors. Given there are six passengers, I assume them to be us. Ted is driving, of course. Jake seems to be some sort of navigator with a map. And a gun? Hannah sits to the back – she won’t like that. And Millie seems to be hovering in mid-air. That leaves myself and Matt in the back seat, our faces touching like we’re ‘having smoochies’ as the boys would say, but really it looks like we’ve been melded together in a horrible genetics experiment. I had a chat with them yesterday about the Pringle incident and they’ve been cavalier about everything. Jake told me there was no way I would kiss Mr Pringle because I was too old (a tad heartbreaking) and Hannah said it was nonsense because he’d just got married. So that ended that. I hoped.
The kitchen door creaks open as Millie and I sit in the semi-darkness and it’s Gia with a fleece over her pyjamas and her slippers with the giant velour bows.
‘Millie. Piccola! She is not well?’
I shake my head as I stroke her cheek. She looks slightly happier than half an hour ago. I think it’s the raisins. Gia starts rustling through the kitchen like she does.
‘She needed a nappy change so we got up early. Gia, it’s only 6ish. No one will be up for a while.’
She puts her hands up in defence.
‘No, no, no. I make light breakfast. Luella coming at 7 a.m. for training.’
Training. This makes me think I need to wear a tracksuit and put on Rocky. With the BBC thing looming tomorrow, Luella is ready to turn me into a one-woman foodie express prepared to strap McCoy to the tracks and run right over him. Well, at least we’ll be well-fed. I watch Gia with a slight mixture of admiration and confusion. She still seems nervous around me, as I am with her, but bless her for rising so early to entertain my guests. Seriously, who the hell gets up before the sun has risen to make breakfast? I figure the only time I ever rise out of bed to cook is on Christmas and even then it’s to put on the oven and get back into bed.
‘You like my pancakes, no?’
I nod. Pancakes in any form are always good. I watch as she breaks eggs with the one hand. How does she do that? Does she just have bigger palms than me? She then shakes sugar into the same bowl and starts groping the mix. No scales, no measuring. How do you do that? She then pours out the right amount of milk and whisks lightly like that’s what her hand was made to do. I’m waiting for her to toss the pancakes with her toes. But she doesn’t.
Soon after, the kitchen door swings open and Matt stands there in his stripy pyjama bottoms and an old Che Guevara T-shirt he kept from Uni. Gia tuts to look at it with all its holes, but I’ve known never to throw it out given it’s a piece of his political youth he so desperately wants to cling on to. In his hands, the morning papers, which he flings onto the kitchen table. Since McCoy we get them delivered to the house every day. If nothing else, having a wealth of Sudoku to complete every day keeps me on my toes. Gia comes and puts a cup of coffee next to me, seemingly whipped out of thin air. I sip and turn the first page of The Sun.
‘YOU WANT SOME MCCOYS WITH THAT?’ screams the opening headline. Apparently, Kitty’s run in the jungle is not going so well. Next to the fact most of the attention has been focused on a love affair between a fading soap star and Premiership footballer, Kitty has spent most of her time being needy and teary, which has not endeared her to the public who made her eat a wallaby penis as penance. Luella will like this. I make a note to keep the article for her. Matt sits opposite me with the Daily Mail and the computer open, his knuckles rested against his cheeks. He scrolls down then pauses. His eyes look up at me for a moment then down at the screen. Then up again. No smiles. He closes them and grips on to the edge of the table. Something’s wrong. Shit. Not frigging Richie. I can’t do Round Two just yet.
‘What is it?’
He shakes his head. Gia goes behind him, stirring her ricotta cheese. Her stirring gets slower, more laboured.
‘That is …’
‘Non adesso, mamma. Glielo diciamo dopo.’
I scrape back the chair to go over and see for myself what could be so covert it needs Italian to keep it from me. Matt tries to cover the screen. I pull his fingers back.
‘JOOLS CAMPBELL: HER MOTHER’S BATTLE WITH CANCER AND THE DAUGHTER WHO DOESN’T CARE.’
There was a time back in 2005 when I thought my life was near the point of implosion. The twins had just been born and went through bags of nappies, sucking on my nipples until they were raw and clogged, never sleeping in tandem, and providing enough washing to fill the Thames. Hannah was three and while she liked having real life dollies to play with, was going through a phase of wanting to be naked all the time and feeding the DVD player breadsticks. I used to cry rivers of tears at how bloated, unkempt, and tired I was. I used to feel as though my brain would seep out of my ears because it couldn’t take the noise, the emotion, the sheer pressure. It was a low point.
Today rates up there with that time. It is 8.23 a.m. and point in hand, this is what I have to do today:
I haven’t really thought too much about my mother since she sold her story to the papers and talked absolute shit about the circumstances under which she left. Bar Ben telling me she’d rang, I’d relegated her back into the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind where she’d always been, playing Frisbee with my thoughts over maternal matters. She wasn’t worth the time. But here she was again, in my face with stories of illness, toying with me yet again. I read the article over breakfast wondering how she had the gall to speak more lies. If she was ill, I didn’t know; if she was alive, I didn’t know. All I knew was that I cried over breakfast, thinking Gia had put far too much salt in her ricotta pancakes when really they were just flavoured with my briny tears.
Luella arrived at 7.01 a.m. with hugs, knowing how much the article would hit me for six, apologising that her radar hadn’t been big enough to stop the story going to press. Although she’d promised an entourage to style and preen me, she’s decided against it and instead has me brought five bags of clothes, shoes, and her own tweezers to attack the unsightly caterpillar-shaped things above my eyes.
Now I just stand in the hallway and the house has become that nest of activity where the children launch themselves at me, demanding to know the whereabouts of jumpers and asking me to fashion their hair into something presentable. I stand there as they waltz around me, not knowing what to do. I just bend down and grab the closest one, Ted, and hug him, stroking his hair and looking into his eyes.
‘Have I done something wrong?’
I shake my head. In the doorway, I see Matt looking on at this manic display of emotion, car keys in hand.
‘Kids, car, please. Daddy’s taking you to school today.’
There’s a chorus of whys and cheers as they clamour to the front door and Matt and I have a moment standing one metre apart where we stare at each other for five seconds.
‘Call me if you need me.’
I nod.
By 10 a.m., I don’t have to ring Dad or the brothers because they each show up at my house of their own accord, traipsing in with cakes (Dad), alcohol (Adam), and the greyest, saddest face I’ve ever seen (Ben). Adam, who has been drinking since he read the headline, is sprawled across my sofa, legs akimbo. Dad tries to force feed him some chocolate éclair.
‘Did you know, Dad?’
He shakes his head. Gia appears at the living room door with a tray of tea, cakes, and freshly baked biscotti. The boys sit to attention.
‘Gia, you shouldn’t have,’ says Dad.
She blushes and shakes her head. Gia has always liked Dad. I think single men of a certain age whether widowed, divorced, or abandoned always bring out the sympathetic edge in woman of Gia’s age. He is all the more attractive for having raised three children singlehandedly and for the fact he doesn’t sit like a lonely spinster at home eating pies for one. To be honest, I think she likes a crowd when she’s being the Italian Nonna. Ever since they arrived, all I’ve been able to smell is cheese and baked meat wafting through the house. Luella stays in the kitchen as chief taste tester, no doubt.
‘I can’t believe she’s gone and done it again,’ says Ben.
‘I can.’
Adam, fuelled by alcohol, is quick to respond. It’s very much Adam’s style. When Mum left us, I was very analytical about the situation even at the age of ten. I became obsessed with the reasons why she would have left and by the age of twelve was researching theories of maternal attachment. Eight years later, the psychology behind the situation still lingered enough in my brain to want to study it at university. Yet Adam’s reaction was the polar opposite. After she left, she no longer existed, she was merely a ghost. He used to badmouth her every occasion possible and would get riled to see her picture or come across an item that once belonged to her. Twelve years later when girlfriends and sex became a preoccupation, he always found it hard to nurture any relationship, instead depending on multiple liaisons with multiple woman. I cross my fingers one day he’ll find that girl to change his mind, to change the idea hardwired into his brain that women leave.
‘Seriously, we expected different? I for one am done with her. I really don’t care if she was sick or not. I really don’t.’
Ben’s bottom lip quivers. Ben’s reaction was always more skewed when it came to Mum’s leaving. His attachments still in their very rudimentary stages, they were never allowed to grow, like roots stuck in the ground unable to surface so stunted to live underground for ever. Ben attached himself to Dad, Adam, and myself at the time but he always looked a little lost, cried that bit more than Adam and I ever did.
‘But she … what if she had needed us? I think I would have at least liked to have known.’
I think about that word need, imagining some Picoult style situation where she may have needed a kidney or bone marrow. Would I have been willing to sacrifice that to a mother who abandoned me all those years ago? Would I have wanted to hold her hand on her death bed?
‘She’s a bitch, Ben. A complete bitch. I needed a mother and where was she? Now she’s using this to make us feel bad about her leaving. That’s really magnanimous of her.’
I hear tutting from the kitchen door as Luella says something to Gia. The door closes.
‘Adam. You shouldn’t talk about your mother like that,’ Dad says. Adam shakes his head.
‘I’m sorry. But my mother left me when I was seven. Whatever happens to her, that’s called karma.’
I am torn. Torn between a brother and his anger and another little brother who’s crying at the suggestion that we can be so heartless. I’m speechless for once, so just grab Ben by the shoulders and go to hug him. It’s always been Ben to be vulnerable and taken in by such emotional circumstances. He retrieves a crumpled newspaper from his shoulder bag and starts reading aloud.
‘Of course, I wanted my children with me. I wanted to make amends. The doctors told me I might have six months max so you think about putting things right and saying your goodbyes. You think about meeting your grandkids. Even if I hadn’t been ill, I still think about my grandkids every day.’
‘Fucking hell, Ben. I can’t believe you’d fall for her bullshit, her emotional blackmail.’
Dad is speechless. The wonderful thing about Dad is that he’s never said a bad word against the woman in all these years, well, not to our faces at least. Even when Adam was launching into one of his tirades when she’d forgotten a birthday or we weren’t celebrating Mother’s Day, Dad would be silent to look at him, his face contorted with rage. He stares at Ben a lot who’s a big mess of tics, tears, and general all out confusion.
‘But Adam, it’s been so long. And life is just too short for us not to …’
Adam doesn’t even let him finish.
‘What? Meet up with her? Play happy families? This article changes nothing. If she wanted to meet us and the kids, then all she had to do was show up, not go to the press.’
I have to agree with Adam here, but Ben slumps into his seat. His loyalty straying over the line, he can’t quite bring himself to say anything to Dad yet nor look him in the eye. I say nothing. Half my brain, the half that has coped so well thus far without a mother, thinks this is not my problem. We are as much family as I am related to Mrs Pattak next door. Yet there is that other half of my brain intrinsically linked to hers, still fit to burst with questions and conjecture over the sort of woman she is, dreaming of that one-to-one confrontation we were meant to have that would solve any wrongful effects from twenty-odd years of her not being there. Dad sits down and puts a hand on Ben’s shoulder while I look at Adam. If it were possible, this is where comedy fumes would come from his head. But he is angry, indignant.
‘What are you trying to say, Ben? You want to meet her?’ I ask.
Ben shakes his head and looks down at his hands.
‘I don’t know. I think so, yes.’
I look up at Dad, still looking at his socks to try and mask what he really thinks. Adam is so against the idea that he says nothing but leaves the room, slamming doors as he goes. Ben grabs my hand.
‘Jools, I’m sorry. I don’t want to start anything but this article makes me realise I know nothing about her. I just feel if I don’t talk to her, see her at least once, then I’ll always wonder. I’ll really properly regret it.’
Christ, he’s serious. He really wants to meet her. Dad is doing very well with the banal patting of the knee.
‘Dad, what do you think?’ I ask.
He again doesn’t look up but hopes his knees will provide the answer. I repeat Ben’s question.
‘Dad?’
He looks up.
‘At the end of the day, kin is kin. You’re a part of her. You’re an adult so I’m not going to tell you what to do.’
I look over at Ben. Little Ben. He can’t do this alone. She’d take advantage of him and his vulnerability, she’d turn him into a big ball of emotion. I take his hand, trying hard to make the words that are coming out of my mouth sound convincing on some level.
‘Well, I’ll talk to Luella. Maybe she knows who wrote the article and can get us in touch with her. Because if you’re going to see her, I want to be there too.’
It’s only then that Dad looks up and straight into my eyes. The same look he gave me when I first told him I was pregnant all those years ago. Not anger, not shock. Some type of resigned disappointment. I’m not going to fight you on this one. But I always thought you’d do things differently. It stakes through me to see those eyes again, my own glazing over to think he thinks I’ve betrayed him. I then watch as he gets up and excuses himself to go to the loo as I grab Ben and let him bury his head on my shoulder, all the while my tears dripping onto his chocolate brown hair.
By the time it gets to evening, conversations about my mother have formed a cloud over the house that refuses to clear, almost like that stale milk smell in the car. Adam left soon after for work, Dad after that. Ben stayed around to help Gia wash up but moved the sponge around slowly, the way he does when things prey heavy on his mind. Now it’s 7 o’clock and the kids are upstairs with them and Matt listening to stories, while Luella quizzes me on types of mushrooms and the benefits of eating goat. Luella has known not to pry too much about what happened earlier but she every so often squeezes my knee and puts two thumbs up at me. Either that or she stares at the raw space in between my eyebrows, studying her attempts at preening me. Not that it’s made much difference. Now I’ve spent the last two hours grappling with the twins and trying to get Millie to eat any dinner, I look like the Gruffalo. Had the Gruffalo liked to wear badly fitting denim and an old nursing bra.
‘So Jools? Did you know that forty-five per cent of children under the age of eighteen do not eat breakfast? What say you about this scandal?’
I’m staring at a browned patch of wallpaper below the sofa. It’s either a drink, a leaking radiator, or very possibly wee.
‘Jools?’
Luella looks up at me, doing her best BBC News presenter impersonation.
‘Oh, ummm, yeah, that’s terrible.’
She pulls her best fake smile and suddenly falls out of character.
‘A bit more enthusiasm, Jools? You need to have some witty opinions on the world. Spice it up a bit. The difference between you and McCoy is that you’re relevant and can be pretty funny when you want to be.’
I nod, cupping my head in my hands. Luella comes over and puts an arm around me.
‘It’ll be all right, you know? Ten-minute segment, nothing can really go wrong.’
She’s right. Yet if the past few weeks have taught me anything, it’s that a few seconds of a misplaced comment, an obscurely angled piece of body contact and it can turn into twenty inches of column space. Never mind ten minutes.
‘What about the kids? Getting them to school and stuff? I think I’m missing an assembly tomorrow?’
‘Gia and your dad have it covered. You shouldn’t worry.’
It’s like telling the sea not to be salty. It weighs heavy in my heart to think that I’m missing a recorder recital to take on a wanky TV chef. Will they remember such incidents and take them with them into adolescence to use against me? Luella looks just as fraught as me. When she hasn’t been cornering me today just to inform me about battery hens, she’s been holding clothes up to my slouched frame trying to cobble something together for me to wear. Even on the school run, she was trying to accessorise me as I drove the car.
‘You know, I’ve been thinking. You said before that McCoy paid Johnno Elswood to do some digging. You think he planned this too? To waylay me before the BBC thing.’
It was a thought which came to me today when I was thinking of how well timed this all seemed. Given all he’s done so far, I don’t think it’s beyond Tommy McCoy to stoop so low. Saying that, I’m now worried that he’d involve my mother in the conversation tomorrow so as to rile me and get a more virulent response. Luella shakes her head from side to side.
‘Kind of. The papers wanted to draw out the story with your mum a little anyway but I’m sure McCoy would have had a hand in the timing.’
‘Then why don’t we ever bring this up? I don’t get why we can’t just drag this bastard’s name through the mud.’
Luella looks up, sympathetic.
‘Because that’s not how to play things. Trust me, I have enough crap we can throw at the McCoys if we want but people have been far more impressed that we’ve been restrained and not been in the public’s face the whole time – nobody likes a try hard.’
I shrug my shoulders. My whole life feels like I’m always trying way too hard. Luella looks at her watch.
‘Now I have to go. I am confident this will be fine tomorrow. Please trust me. Just remember about those cooling eye-pads for tomorrow. You think people won’t be able to see but HD is a real sod.’
I don’t want to tell her that they’ll probably be useless given I will hardly sleep tonight. She also points to a carefully stacked mountain of literature on the coffee table.
‘And if you have the time, please. As much as you can. Great articles there on the great organic hoax and something to keep you up to speed on Tommy’s work with pigs. I just don’t want him to bring all this stuff up and have you not knowing what to say.’
I stare at the pile and back at her in disbelief.
‘I will send a car for five in the morning. Just dose yourself up on caffeine but not too much. Last time you were all jittery.’
She’s packing Tupperware into her bags because Gia has taken it upon herself to cook for everyone involved in my life at the moment. Luella is more than glad to take it and slings her bag over her shoulder. Her hair still remains very fixed in style and doesn’t seem to frizz into a huge mane during the day like mine.
‘You’ve got the Spanx?’
I nod, accompanying her to the door.
‘Then one less thing to worry about. Look, I have to get back to my bambini so tell everyone I said bye and … you can do this tomorrow, I know you can. I have every faith. Bye, bye, bye.’
I close the door on her and take a deep breath. Like a huge hyperventilation of air, my will to live seeping out of me as I exhale, hearing small twins upstairs leaping off bunk beds. I back onto the door and curl up into a small ball. Like a small distressed hedgehog. Suddenly, I look up. Matt stands at the top of the stairs and sees me. He edges his way down and comes to sit next to me. We say nothing for two whole minutes. Then he points to the dress hanging on the living room door.
‘Is that what you’re wearing?’
I nod. A black tea dress with some canary yellow shoe boot things that will apparently draw the attention away from my misshapen hips.
‘What do you think?’
Matt eyes them up curiously.
‘You’ll look like some large fashion-forward cooking elf.’
I punch him in the arm and for the first time, we laugh. Together.
‘I like the casual look on you. Trainers and jeans and stuff.’
He looks down at his hands. It was very me at Uni. My Converse and jeans were like a second skin, the stomach was flatter, the hoodies a little trendier. My hair used to be bundled atop my head stylishly, unlike now where most of the time it looks like a small squirrel’s drey. Not sure Luella would let me get away with such scruffery. There’s a moment of silence between us before I speak.
‘We need to talk, eh?’ I’m not sure why I say this now. Sleep, a long bath, and a bottle of rosé would be nice. To pick at a scab that is still raw and bleeding is not going to be productive. Matt buries his head in his hands.
‘I didn’t want to if you were still fretting over your mum.’
His courtesy jars with me a little, to suggest our relationship was less of a priority.
‘How are you over that? Ben mentioned something about youse all meeting up with her.’
I shrug my shoulders and stare at him. I want to tell you so much, I want to pour my soul out to you over my mother but I can’t. I’m not sure why.
‘I’m sorry I threw that mug.’
I shrug it off. If a broken IKEA mug is a measure gauging my husband’s reactions, then it’s a small price to pay. I’d drive over to Croydon and buy a whole case load of crappy porcelain if it meant he got to air his true feelings with me.
‘I should have told you Richie got in touch. I’m not sure why I didn’t.’
Knowing the conversation might drift upstairs, Matt gets up off the doormat and walks into the living room. I follow him reluctantly.
‘What did you talk about?’
‘Stuff. He was sorry about the article.’
‘Did you … I don’t know, Skype, swap photos … you know …’
My response is impressively quick. ‘No! Jesus, it was just talk. He brought up all that stuff about you hitting him. I told him it was a load of crap.’
Matt turns to face me, his expression looking exactly like Jake’s when he’s about to own up to something monumental. Though I suspect this has little to do with joining up his sister’s freckles like a dot-to-dot puzzle. He fiddles with the loose threads on the end of his Kings of Leon T-shirt then looks up at me, square in the eye.
‘Well, not complete crap.’
My eyebrows, raw and pink like carpaccio, arch into my forehead.
‘He did come around when he heard you were pregnant, he was worried and wanted to see you.’
I am speechless, a little tired, a little confused. So they did meet? Well, at least the universe didn’t implode.
‘He said youse two had unfinished business, all sorts of things about having history and I was just this bloke you’d met. He was so cocksure, so bolshy. It kind of blew up.’
‘Blew up how?’
I picture fisticuffs over our paisley sofa and mismatched curtains, a lot of swearing.
‘He was adamant that you and I were just some passing phase. He came in checking me out like he still had power over you, like he still had feelings for you, that you did for him. I panicked. I …’
I wait for the punchline, quite literally.
‘I had words with him. I told him to sod off for a start but he was pushing to see you. So I did what I thought was right at the time. I mean, you know I’m not a violent person, I don’t hit people. And even then it was only his nose …’
‘You did what?’
At this point, my mind is fuzzy with disbelief. I’m trying to get my head around Matt hitting someone and the fact I stood up for him against Richie looking like some stupid, clueless wife.
‘I just, I mean, he just left after that. He didn’t report it to anyone so I left it and we never saw him again so …’
This is where I should say some word of disbelief, but air just pours out of my mouth.
‘Did you apologise?’
Matt gives me a similar look of disbelief and shakes his head.
‘I told you what he said, I panicked. It was a moment of madness.’
I think about Richie and his broken nose, not that I’m actually too bothered about that, but there is something inside me that is also extremely hurt.
‘But you thought … what made you think I’d choose him? Or go off with him? What the …? Matt, I was pregnant with your baby. I would never have … you thought I would have left you … for him?’
His eyes glazed over, he looks up at me.
‘I was confused. I was young, I knew you’d dated for quite a while, right? It was just the thought of you going back to him was so …’
‘Never going to happen. I can’t believe you had that little faith in me.’
Matt nods. I want to sleep, I want to throw up, I want to throw something heavy at my husband. I slump myself on the sofa while he stands by the window watching stationary cars.
‘Well, I was fighting for your honour, I wanted to be with you. Some women would be flattered by that.’
‘Some women would wonder why you’ve hidden this information from them for nine years. Why did you never say anything? Why did you never tell me he came back?’
‘Well, what was I supposed to think? This man knew you far more than I had did at that point. I didn’t know you well enough back then.’
Then we both pause, looking at each other. No, he didn’t. All I knew was that he was a cute Scotsman who had good taste in coats. I was a Southern girl in a hoodie without a mother. Nine years together, something happened. I just can’t tell what it was – nothing and everything changed and looking at my husband now, and everything we’re deciding to bring up, I wonder if we’ve just had nine years of telling each other the rubbish needs taking out.
‘Everyone thought that, not just me.’
I pause realising who he’s really talking about.
‘By everyone, you mean your mother. Is that what we were jabbering on about with her the other morning?’
I semi-translate what she must have been saying. I tried to see past the fact she was a harlot with cooking skills nowhere as good as mine but I was obviously right! I always have been!
‘Can we just leave it? I really don’t want to talk about him.’
And this is where I stand up, indignant.
‘Well, I want to. If it’s something that pisses you off, then it’s something we need to talk about. Did you even read the article? It was a load of crap.’
‘I read your Facebook messages.’
‘You what?’ My face acts offended but to be honest, I’m almost a little glad that he can see they are not as salacious as he might have thought.
‘You’re not happy?’
‘I never said that.’
‘You never said you were.’
I pause to look at his face, so defeated, so serious.
‘So this cooking thing, you think this might make you happy. It could give you something me and the kids aren’t giving you?’
I shake my head. ‘That wasn’t what it was about at all. I resent that you think I don’t know how lucky I am.’
‘But your life could have been different. You could have been with him.’
‘Or not? I might not have ended up with either of you and joined a cult and changed my name to Steve.’
‘Stop it.’
‘Stop what?’
‘He was your first love. That means something.’
‘It means nothing.’
I say that knowing that, despite any frisson of emotion I may feel for him, a past love means nothing when you’ve made the decisions I have. You don’t turn your back on four children because you picked the wrong box. You don’t doubt that life is far more important than a whim about someone you once loved.
‘Then why be friends with him on Facebook?’
‘It’s Facebook. He’s not my friend-friend. You know how it is.’
‘I know it’s you stalking him to see how differently your life could have been.’
Damn you, reading me like a book. Thing is, it’s a lie. I stalk everyone on there, not just him.
‘Jools, play it down all you like but that bloke’s always going to have a hold over you and I’m entitled to feel a little jealous. I mean, supposing you and I hadn’t got pregnant when we did. Supposing we’d just been shagging casually and going out. You think we’d still be here?’
I freeze. It’s that question: the one that always niggles in the back of my brain like a little gnat. I hate him for bringing it up. I hate that I have to pause to answer it.
‘And supposing two, three weeks into going out, he rocked up and said he wanted to be together again. I think we might not be here. That’s what I think.’
His face is sullen and serious. I shake my head.
‘You’re talking crap. That’s what I think. In an alternate universe, I could be with Simon Seabrook who I snogged at my Year Five disco.’
Matt gives me a look as if to tell me I should be taking this more seriously. I interject.
‘You think I don’t know about alternate universes? I’ve known people who’ve disappeared into theirs following the supposed loves of their lives.’
He pauses.
‘Are you saying Richie was the love of your life?’
I think about what I just said, my head swirling slightly.
‘No. I was talking about my m …’ But he cuts me off.
‘Jools, I just know all too well the circumstances under which we got together. We were pissed, we were young. I was stoned half the time. It’s just …’
All these half-finished sentences make me want to hit him.
‘Your life could’ve been very different. You could be with Richie, you could have worked and got a good job. I see all this celeb stuff and I think about whether you’re happy just being here, whether you’re always thinking about …’
‘The what ifs?’
I freeze again to hear those bloody words. The fact is, life sent me down this path, and even though the past weeks have seen me wondering about how I ended up here, nothing would ever see me leaving the family I have now. I’m not sure whether to feel hurt. I’m not sure what to feel.
Matt turns from his window to go and sit on the leg of the armchair. I don’t think I’d be with Richie now. No. Of course, Matt will feel some discomfort from my relationship with him. I knew Matt for a matter of months, Richie I’d known since I was five years old. My love for Matt was different; it did not come swooping in and envelop me because I still had feelings for Richie that were not going to dissipate overnight. That love faded, another was certainly entered into unexpectedly but it matured and developed and children were made and born. And for so long it’s been Matt and I and four little people who have come along for the ride, and it’s fit together so perfectly.
Matt and I are like a well-oiled machine (well, maybe not so well-greased from my end) – we run a house, we are great friends, we have embarked on this business of a young family, and been attempting to keep our heads above water. I know he will always be there for me and vice versa. But sometimes you question it. You question whether this is a relationship built on any semblance of raging passion, whether love has fallen into some realm of practical necessity. We’re not a perfect couple, we’re far from it. But we work on a very practical and sane level, devoid of mad wild man on the moors-style passion that any Brontë or Shakespeare will tell you is just a lust-riddled recipe for disaster.
‘I just wondered whether you and I …’
‘You and I what?’
‘Whether you and I were supposed to end up like this.’
And the answer here should be simple. I should stand up and say both matter-of-factly, yes, Matteo George Campbell, this is it, the best it’s ever going to get. I fricking love you. Maybe even give my husband a kiss. But I say nothing and stare at the floor, at which Matt gets up to leave.
‘I just want you to … just … shit, Jools. I don’t want to fight. I just want …’
Because to fight would mean energy, would mean fire that we’re too tired to exude right now. I wonder what he wants. He doesn’t finish his sentence. He just stares at me for a moment too long then leaves.