You Can’t Fall in Love With Your Ex (Can You?) Read online

  When I was eleven I went off to boarding school, and I suppose Mum saw that as her chance to escape, so escape she did – all the way to Seattle with her new husband. I spent my summer holidays there for a couple of years, then put my foot down and started spending them with Sadie and Gareth instead. And when I was fifteen, Dad was killed in a car accident.

  So it was Sadie who gave me away at my wedding. She was the first person I texted when Darcey was born. Both our kids adore her, and she adores them, even though she and Gareth have remained happily child-free. And it’s her I blame for Darcey’s obsession with horses – terrifying death traps on legs, as far as I’m concerned. She’s my family, and I suppose my closest friend. I missed having a best friend, in some ways – but I’d learned the hard way to keep women at arm’s length.

  Three days later, I found myself lying on Owen’s bed, holding a book up above my head and getting cramp in my arms. It was the only way to read whilst lying, prone and immobile, next to my son. I’d hoped to flick through the final chapters after I’d read Owen his bedtime story, but he was having none of it, insisting, “No, Mummy, stay with me!” when I tried to sneak out.

  So here I was, hoping that Owen would fall asleep before the final page, so I could make my escape and not be late. Stealthily, I leaned over and brushed a kiss on to his cheek, but he didn’t move. Silently, hardly daring to breathe, I sat up, swung my bare feet on to the sheepskin rug, and crept silently out.

  “It’s nearly your bedtime, too,” I told Darcey, who was slumped on the sofa, transfixed by Charlie and Lola. “Daddy’s going to be home soon, and he’ll do your teeth and your story, okay?”

  “Mmm,” she said, her eyes not leaving the screen.

  I flopped down next to her and skimmed the last few pages of the book at lightning speed, in contrast to the meticulous, note-taking attention I’d paid to the first chapter. It had been ages since I’d read anything more challenging than Julia Donaldson’s latest opus, and to be totally honest I was finding this hard going. Even at the best of times, the plight of unmarried mothers in a Liverpool slum in the 1930s wouldn’t have been my thing, and I’d had to fit in the final chapters in between the children’s supper and baths.

  I dragged a comb through my hair, wound a scarf round my neck and put my coat on, then hovered by the front door, resisting the urge to hop from foot to foot like Usain Bolt on the start line. Where was Jonathan? He’d promised he’d be home early so I could embark punctually on my debut into Clapham society. I took a bottle of white burgundy from the fridge and stuffed it into a carrier bag along with my copy of The Hard Road Home. If Jonathan wasn’t home, like, five minutes ago, I’d be late, and my standing with the mummy elite would be in jeopardy.

  “Mummy!” Owen called from upstairs.

  Shit. I thought he was asleep. I waited, holding my breath, to see if he’d call again.

  “Mummy, I need to wee.”

  “Hold on, darling,” I said, just as I heard Jonathan’s key in the door. “Here’s Daddy. You need to take Owen to the loo, like, now. I’ll be back around eleven, I expect. Love you.”

  I kissed him and raced out of the door, fumbling my phone out of my bag and launching the map app to guide me to Amanda’s house.

  “Glad you could make it,” she said, quarter of an hour later. “We thought you’d abandoned us, didn’t we, ladies?”

  “Hi,” I said, waving feebly at the eight women assembled round the table in Amanda’s palatial kitchen. I glanced around, taking in the framed artwork on the walls, clearly produced by her children but far superior to Darcey’s daubs and Owen’s scribbles, the well-stocked wine fridge, the artfully mismatched chairs and the expanse of cream gloss units, miraculously free of sticky fingerprints. And where the hell was the clutter? There were no toys, no scooters, no discarded parkas or muddy wellies. Presumably Amanda had a playroom, a cleaner or most likely both.

  “Everyone, this is Laura,” Amanda said. “Her little girl, Darcey, has just started in Delphine’s class. This is Monica, Carrie, Faith, Helen, Jo, Kate, Sigourney, and another Helen.”

  “Hi,” I said, smiling and wiping my slightly sweaty palms on the leg of my jeans, relieved that no one appeared to want to shake hands and wondering how I was ever going to be able to distinguish one expertly contoured face from the next.

  I sat on the empty chair between – I think – Kate and Jo, and accepted a glass of wine.

  “So, as I was saying,” one of them – it may have been Monica – said, “I went upstairs last night and found Xavier halfway through The Once and Future King. Totally unsuitable for a seven-year-old, but I do think it’s different when it’s a classic, don’t you? He’s so advanced for his age, I sometimes wonder how we ended up with such a bright child. I’m certainly no genius and Simon might be a merchant banker but he can barely write his own name.”

  There was a ripple of tinkly laughter around the table.

  “With Millicent it’s maths,” said one of the other women. Faith? Or one of the Helens? “She’s only five, but she made me explain fractions to her this afternoon. She says what they’re doing in class is so boring. She’s already doing long division. I had to download a tutorial online to work through with her because I’d completely forgotten how it worked.”

  “I always feel that social skills are so important at that age,” said Amanda. “Although Delphine’s diary is already far busier than mine! She’s got three birthday parties on Saturday – I have no idea how we’re going to fit everything in when she’s older and her friendship group gets even larger. She has such a wonderful ability to get along with people from other age groups and walks of life – she says her best friend is the lady we take out to tea sometimes, who we met through Age UK. Such a wonderful woman – the stories she tells about her childhood in Barbados are just fascinating.”

  “And tell us about your children, Laura,” said Monica.

  “Errr…” I’d been too busy working my way through the stipulated reading material to prepare a detailed script of humble – or not so humble – brags about them. “Darcey’s five. She likes dressing up as Elsa, and ponies, and tormenting her brother. Owen’s nearly three, and he’s an adorable little squidge when he’s not tantrumming the place down or shoving things up his nose.”

  There was a pause. I felt like I was on Pointless and the answer I’d just given had elicited a big red X on the screen. But there was no “Awww” of sympathy from this audience.

  “I’m concerned that school might be putting too much pressure on Millicent,” Faith went on. “She’s been working with a higher year group for maths for a few months now, and although she’s thriving academically I worry that the other children might resent the fact that she’s so bright. When you have a child who’s truly exceptional, it’s so hard to know where to strike the balance between their relationship with their peer group and one’s duty to make sure they fulfil their potential. But then I look at Warren, who went up to Cambridge when he was sixteen, and I think, being that little bit stretched doesn’t seem to have done her daddy any harm, so perhaps it’s the right thing for her, too.”

  Great – I’d inadvertently signed up for my début Competitive Parenting tournament and crashed out in the first round. I felt a surge of nostalgia for those rare nights out at the pub with my old colleagues, when we were all too busy bitching about our clients and whoever in the team wasn’t there at the time to even touch on our lives outside the Soho office.

  “Nibbles, anyone?” Amanda said, sliding a baking sheet out of her oven. It was the very same model I’d seen in the kitchen showroom a few weeks ago and coveted, until I showed it to Jonathan and he said, “How much? You’re joking, right? It’s not like we ever cook anything more challenging than oven chips and chicken nuggets.” Which I’d had to concede was a fair point.

  “Now, these are gluten-free, made with chickpea flour, so they’ll be fine for you, Monica. And I know you’re low-carbing, Sigourney, so I did some tuna sashimi and crab
and cucumber rolls. Top-up, anyone?” She passed round the bottle and I held my glass out gratefully.

  “So,” Amanda said, sitting down and crossing her legs, “I popped into Liberty the other day to buy some fabric – the lady you recommended, Helen, is making up a party dress for Delphine to wear this summer – and I almost literally bumped into Zélide Campbell at the Aesop counter.”

  There was an intake of breath around the table and Faith and Helen stopped talking about tutoring for the Eleven Plus.

  “Zélide Campbell!” Sigourney speared a piece of tuna and ate it. Her low-carb regimen was clearly working – she was model-slender in her black leather jeans. I felt a pang of envy and guilt as I remembered the slices of microwave pizza I’d eaten for supper with the children, and resolved to start drinking bullet-proof coffee the next day.

  “She seriously needed her roots doing,” Amanda said. “I always thought her colour wasn’t natural, and that harsh black is so ageing. But of course she’s botoxed to the max.”

  “It’s the shiny forehead that gives it away,” Monica said.

  “Iranian, my arse,” Amanda said, and everyone except me giggled.

  “Who’s Zélide Campbell?” asked one of the Helens, to my relief – I wasn’t the only one without a clue, and I hadn’t had to reveal my ignorance.

  “She lives just a couple of doors down from you, Laura,” Amanda said. “So I expect you’ll encounter her soon enough. Her and her precocious daughter – what’s she called again? Jennifer?”

  “Juniper,” Sigourney said, making a face like she’d bitten into an off piece of sashimi.

  “Yes, of course, that’s right,” Monica said. “So pretentious.”

  Which was a bit much, I thought, coming from someone who’d called their child Taleisin. I found myself feeling a bit sorry for Zélide, whoever she was.

  “What did she do?” I asked.

  “Constantly disruptive in class, acting out, major meltdowns like you’d expect from a two-year-old, not a girl of eight,” said Monica.

  “I meant her mother, actually,” I said.

  “We don’t really talk about it,” Amanda said.

  I was intrigued. Was this woman some sort of suburban witch who’d initiate me into a cult? Or a cougar who’d try and seduce my husband?

  “Why?” I said. “Is she going to try and rope me into selling Younique or something?”

  “Frankly, I wouldn’t put it past her,” Amanda said.

  There was a ripple of laughter, then another awkward pause.

  “Now, if we’ve all got something to eat,” Amanda said, “why don’t we move on to our book of the month, The Hard Road Home? What did everyone think of it? Jo, you go first.”

  The rest of the evening was given over to literary criticism, more wine, a cheese platter and coffee. Disappointingly, there was no more scurrilous gossip, although there was another bout between Monica and Kate over the benefits or lack thereof of Kumon maths tuition. At last, everyone said their goodbyes and spilled out into the night, and I practically ran home to my messy house and my wonderful, ordinary, sleeping children.

  Jonathan was still downstairs when I got in, sitting on the sofa with his laptop, a pile of greasy takeaway cartons on the floor next to him.

  “How was it?” he asked. “The local Thai place is pretty good, by the way, we should go there sometime.”

  “It was okay,” I said. “No, actually, it was grim. Individually they might be okay, maybe, but as a group – ugh.”

  “Turns out my colleague Rick lives on our road,” Jonathan said. “Their kid goes to Darcey’s school, but she’s a couple of years older. He’s asked us to come round for a drink some time.”

  “Rick who?” I said.

  “Campbell,” Jonathan said. “His wife’s got some weird name, starts with Z.”

  “Jonathan, we have to go. Will you sort it out tomorrow?” I was suddenly very eager to meet Zélide Campbell.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Jonathan said. “Coming to bed?”

  “In a bit,” I said.

  I poured myself a final glass of wine and retrieved my iPad from its hiding place on top of the fridge, safe from Darcey and her lethal attraction to technology that cost five hundred pounds as opposed to fifty, and sat at the kitchen table.

  A brief scan of Facebook told me that my former colleagues were planning a night out next Friday – “Survivors of the axe – we’re off to the Woodsman”. Lucky them, I thought. Briefly, I considered inviting myself along, but there was no point – I was ancient history, I wouldn’t understand any of the office gossip any more. And then, as I’d done so often, I did a search for Mel’s name.

  Her security settings were hopelessly lax, I thought. But then, she used her Facebook profile mostly for work, it seemed. That suited me – I didn’t care that much about her private life. It was her career I was interested in, her public persona that kept me checking up on her, month after month, year after year, even though it made me feel sick with loss, anger and envy to do so.

  “Lovely article in the New York Times,” her most recent post said. “So awesome to meet a journalist who really gets it. Thank you, Erin Brady, for the amazing interview, and even bigger thanks to Annie Leibovitz for the gorgeous photos – I don’t look like this in real life, I promise!”

  Enough with the false modesty, I thought, clicking on the story. “Melissa Hammond is a truly phenomenal talent… at the height of her powers at thirty-six years of age… Brings both exuberance and gravitas to the…”

  God, what a load of sycophantic bollocks. I could hardly bear to read it – but I did, anyway. I read every overblown, flattering word, and then I spent ages looking at the photos. Mel in her apartment, standing by the window cuddling a Siamese cat, the light falling on her curtain of blonde hair and perfect bone structure. Mel radiant, smiling triumphantly over an enormous bouquet of lilies, her husband next to her, oozing pride. Mel working, lean, focussed and unencumbered. Mel having it all – having what I’d wanted and worked for.

  She’d never had Felix, of course. That’s where it had all gone wrong.

  But I wasn’t going to think about Felix. That was a habit I’d resolved to break when I married Jonathan. Jonathan – the perfect man. A catch, all my friends said. And they were right. Why on earth would anyone married to someone as handsome, successful, funny and kind as Jonathan spend time hankering after Felix? Not me. Although, if I were honest with myself, it had been gloating as much as hankering. Unlike Mel, Felix didn’t have a Facebook page to show off on. When his name came up on Google, it revealed a series of near-misses, a peripatetic succession of new starts all over the world, chasing a dream he could never quite reach. Not that I searched for his name often – it was an occasional, guilty indulgence that caused pain and pleasure in equal measure, like picking the skin off my feet.

  There was no doubt about it: in life, I’d succeeded where Felix had not. My life might not have worked out quite as I’d expected, but now I was a grown-up, and I’d nailed it. Felix was a permanent man-child, living a life devoid of stability, responsibility, family – all the things that really mattered. As far as I knew, anyway – there was no reason to suspect that any of that would have changed since I’d last Googled him. Perhaps now I might just have a quick look…

  Almost without my volition, by fingers moved over the keypad. Open quotes, Felix Lawson, close quotes, enter.

  Just as the list of search results appeared on my screen, I heard Jonathan call from upstairs, “Coming, Laura? It’s late.”

  I felt a rush of guilt and I closed the browser window, then closed Facebook too.

  Chapter 3

  March 2001: Class

  It was a Monday morning, the day after our day off, when I first saw him. I should have been feeling as fresh as the winter sunshine that flooded the studio with light, but I wasn’t – I was dull and sluggish, my thighs still throbbing with a residual ache from Saturday’s double show. My stomach felt heavy and sore
, a weight like liquid metal where there should have been lightness and space. It was only my period, probably – that and the cappuccinos and blueberry muffins I’d been mainlining all the previous day in the grip of a sugar craving.

  I gave the top of my baggy tracksuit bottoms a couple of extra turns to hide the bulge I could feel around my waist, which I was sure everyone else could see, gulped down two painkillers with a mouthful of water, and took my usual place between Mel and Roddy.

  “Oh my God, I’m, like, totally broken,” Roddy said. “Did you hear me come in last night? Or this morning, rather. It must have been after four, no word of a lie.”

  “It was three thirty,” Mel said. “And you woke me up, crashing around like a herd of bloody buffalo in the kitchen. And you left your eggy pan in the sink. You’re disgusting, Roderigo. It’s like living with the boy who was raised by wolves.”

  Roddy’s deep olive skin made it impossible to tell if he was blushing, but he ducked his head and grinned contritely. “Sorry, Melba-toast. But they do say you need protein before bed after a heavy session, to avoid a hangover.”

  “Clearly it didn’t work on this occasion,” I said.

  “How do you know? I might be feeling worse if I’d gone straight to bed. Although I can’t imagine feeling worse than this.”

  “Want some of my ibuprofen?” I offered, but before I had a chance to rummage for them in my bag, Anna arrived and the roar of conversation dwindled to a hum and then stopped.

  “Good morning, boys and girls,” she said. “If you’re all ready, let’s begin.”

  Mel blew her nose and tucked the soggy tissue into the sleeve of her cardigan. Roddy yawned hugely. Around us, the rest of the company sipped water, dropped woolly hats and scarves into their open bags, and finished whispered conversations as they hurried to their places.