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

  “Are you in the show, then?” Zé said. “How exciting. We loved it, it’s the best thing I’ve seen for ages. Rick’s gutted he missed it.”

  “This is Felix Lawson,” Anton said. “Meet my very dear, very old – well, not old at all, my apologies, darling – friend Zélide. And you must be Rick, about whom I’ve heard so very much. And…”

  He gestured towards Jonathan and me in a vague, fluttery sort of way.

  “My new friend Laura and her husband Jonathan,” Zé supplied.

  I shook Anton’s hand and reached for Felix’s, my face still arranged in a polite smile, but my thoughts spinning wildly, ricocheting like a ball in one of the computer games Felix had loved to play, back in the day. All I had to do was say, “Yes, we know each other, actually.” But the words didn’t come.

  Instead, Felix said, “Lovely to meet you, Laura, Jonathan.” And he shook my husband’s hand and kissed both my cheeks as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

  I’ve never been more grateful for the etiquette of seating arrangements, which placed me opposite Anton and next to Zé, while Felix was on her other side, opposite Rick, and thus almost invisible to me. Even so, as we ate oysters and discussed whether the pâté or the asparagus would be a better bet to start with, I felt as conscious of his presence as if a live electric current were running between us. In the noisy restaurant, I could barely hear anything he said, but the timbre of his voice and the quality of his laugh were unmistakeable. I found myself straining to hear what he was saying and tuning out poor Anton.

  “Don’t you think, Laura?” Anton said, catching me off guard.

  “Oh, yes, I completely agree,” I said helplessly, wondering what on earth he’d asked, and what I was agreeing with.

  I was saved by the arrival of our waiter and the need to actually read the menu, instead of staring blankly at the sea of swimming words it contained. By the time we’d sorted out whose filet mignon was to be rare and whose well done, ordered sides of buttered spinach, pommes frites and heirloom tomatoes for the table, and witnessed a clash of wills between Rick and the sommelier, I’d more or less recovered my poise. But still, when Zé nudged me and murmured, “Fancy a fag?” I felt giddy with relief, and ignored Jonathan’s disapproving frown.

  We edged out between the tables and made our way towards the exit, but before we reached it, Zé thrust her pack of Marlboro and lighter into my hand and said, “I’m just going for a wee, see you out there in a second.”

  I pushed the heavy glass door aside and stepped out into the night, taking relieved gulps of the cool air and, in short order, the blissfully welcome nicotine. I had three courses to get through, probably followed by dessert and pudding wine, if Rick’s initial bout of showing off over the wine list was anything to go by. And then coffee. And maybe brandy. The main thing, I told myself, was not to get pissed, and not, whatever happened, to move any closer to Felix. If I didn’t talk to him, it would all be fine. Jonathan would know nothing, and my life could return to normal.

  I felt a gust of warm air from inside the restaurant and turned to greet Zé. But, of course, it was not her but Felix.

  “Smokers’ corner,” he said, extracting a rollie from his pocket. Almost against my will, I handed him Zé’s slim, silver lighter and watched as he cupped the flame and touched it to the paper, exhaling a cloud of smoke in a way that was utterly, agonisingly familiar.

  “Why did you pretend not to know me?” I blurted out.

  “Because that’s what you wanted me to do,” Felix said, smiling. “I don’t know why, but I could tell. So I did. Haven’t you told your husband about us? He seems like a decent bloke.”

  “I… he is,” I said. “And I would have told him. I could have done, it would’ve been fine. But now you’ve gone and fucked it all up.”

  Felix laughed. The street lamp overhead lit up his shining dark hair, shorter now than it had been when he was younger, but no less glossy. His teeth shone too – I didn’t remember them being so white and straight. Even though I was the same height as him in my high heels, I felt as if I was looking up to him.

  “You can say I’d forgotten, if you want,” he said. “We can go back in there and be like, ‘Oh my God, we do know each other, after all. It’s just we’ve changed so much, we didn’t recognise each other.’”

  “You haven’t changed,” I said.

  “And neither have you,” said Felix. “Your friend’s coming. Dial my number, quickly, so I have yours.”

  And I found myself holding my mobile, urgently punching out the digits he recited, then ending the call, immediately and furtively, the moment his phone bleeped in his hand and Zé opened the door.

  “So that must have felt like a blast from the past,” Jonathan said as we walked home. We weren’t holding hands any more – I was clutching his arm, because I’d ended up drinking loads more than I meant to and I was feeling decidedly unsteady on my towering heels. I felt my hand involuntarily tighten on his elbow.

  “What do you mean?” I said, relieved that it was too dark for him to see how violently I was blushing.

  “Just – you know. Being with those arty types. It must have reminded you of when you were dancing.”

  “Oh.” I was appalled by how relieved I felt not to have been caught out in the fiction Felix and I had played out for the rest of the evening – that we were strangers, that we’d never met before. Okay, it was more than a fiction – it was a lie. It was the first time I’d lied outright to Jonathan – lies of omission didn’t really count, as I’d told myself countless times over the past ten years. “Dancers aren’t arty. I wasn’t, anyway. I was more like – I don’t know, a netball player, or something. An athlete. And not a very good one. And it was ages ago, anyway. Ancient history.”

  “But that actor guy was saying he used to be a dancer,” Jonathan said. “It’s funny the two of you never met.”

  “No it isn’t.” Through the haze of wine, I realised I was furious with Felix. What the hell did he think he was doing, dragging me into some stupid game, making me play along with his pathetic deception? “It’s not that small a world.”

  “Do you think he’s sleeping with that producer guy?” Jonathan continued. “He didn’t strike me as gay but I could be wrong. Or maybe he’s just stringing him along, keeping an eye on the main chance.”

  Gay men had always fancied Felix, I remembered. Anton would be no exception. And a rich, older man who could be admired and pandered to, flattered by the idea that he’d still got it, would be fair game. I was stung by the accuracy of Jonathan’s analysis.

  “I have no idea,” I said, more irritably than I intended. “I don’t know why you’re interested, anyway. It’s not like we’ll ever see them again. Let’s talk about something else, for God’s sake.”

  “Are you okay, Laura? You seemed distracted tonight. I thought it was a fun evening – it’s good to get out and meet new people.”

  “I’m just tired,” I said. “It’s been a long week, that’s all. And the kids will probably be up at some ungodly hour in the morning.”

  “We’ll pay the babysitter and go straight to bed,” Jonathan said. “I still want…”

  He didn’t finish his sentence, because we’d arrived at our door. But I knew what he meant – what he wanted. To resume what Carmen’s arrival had interrupted. And although, earlier, I’d wanted it too, my earlier mood of carefree arousal had dissolved. Felix had spoiled it.

  I stood in the bathroom a few minutes later, painstakingly removing my make-up, flossing my teeth, spinning out the process of getting ready for bed in the hope that Jonathan would fall asleep and I’d be left alone with my thoughts. But when I emerged into the bedroom he was propped up against the pillows, his tablet in his hands. As soon as he saw me, he put it aside.

  “Come here, my gorgeous wife,” he said.

  “I’ll just check on the kids,” I said.

  “I already did. Completely sparko, the pair of them. Come on.”

&n
bsp; I took my necklace off, put it in my jewellery box and stepped out of my shoes. My heels felt raw, and I suspected I’d have blisters. My ankle ached, my mouth felt sour from all the wine I’d drunk, and I knew I’d have a hangover in the morning, when it was Jonathan’s turn for a lie-in. In short, I felt about as unsexy as it was possible to feel.

  I reached up to undo my dress, but the zip caught and jammed.

  “Fuck,” I said, tugging at it.

  “Don’t,” Jonathan said. “You’ll make it worse. Come here.”

  I sat reluctantly on the bed and waited while he eased the zip down. So, he was undressing me after all – getting what he wanted as he always did. I knew how I must look, in my black lace bra and pants and the hold-up stockings I’d put on for no particular reason other than that my only pair of sheer tights were in the wash and opaques didn’t work with the dress – like a woman who wanted to seduce her husband. Earlier, I had wanted to. And although I didn’t any more, I didn’t want to say no, either.

  We hadn’t had sex for… I counted back in my head. More than two weeks. I’d had my period, Jonathan had been working late, I’d been out – it just hadn’t happened. Two weeks was too long, I told myself firmly. Two weeks felt like the beginning of a slippery slope, one that might lead to not having sex for months, then never. And besides, I didn’t want to hurt Jonathan, and I knew that rejection did hurt him, just a bit, every time it happened.

  So I stepped out of my dress and hung it in the wardrobe, watching him watching me, and I smiled at him and came to bed without taking off my underwear. I made my body relax, tried to empty my mind and enjoy the familiar, skilful movements of his hands over my skin. And it worked. Soon I felt the first stirrings of pleasure, faint at first, then more insistent and intense. He knelt over me, peeling down my knickers, and kissed my thighs above my stocking tops, and I heard myself gasp with longing. Then his fingers and tongue were inside me, quickly making me come.

  I laughed up at him, and pulled him down on top of me, relieved that I was able to take the pleasure he so loved to give. But when he started to fuck me, the image of Felix’s face came unbidden into my mind, and I found myself imagining that it was his cock inside me, not my husband’s – his face above mine in the golden light of the bedside lamp. Not Felix as he had been fifteen years ago, but the man I’d met tonight; the man who’d pretended to be a stranger. I remembered how I’d obeyed him, instantly and without question, when he’d told me to dial his number. I imagined giving my body to him in the same way, not coerced but somehow compelled. The idea was electrically exciting, impossible to resist. I closed my eyes, giving myself up to the fantasy, and came again seconds later.

  I couldn’t look at Jonathan afterwards. I turned my back to him, letting him wrap his arms around me, feeling his kisses on my neck. We fell asleep that way, almost as if everything was normal.

  Chapter 8

  “Yes, it’s all very well to say ‘cover the buttercream in desiccated coconut,’ you smug cow,” I muttered at my iPad screen, “You don’t mention that you cover the entire fucking kitchen with it, too.”

  It had seemed so simple – a white rabbit cake to fit in with the magic theme of Darcey’s birthday party. There were loads of tutorials on YouTube, and I’d watched several, wondering airily what could possibly go wrong. Just about everything, I was beginning to realise. I’d burned the first cake and had to start again, then the corner shop had run out of golden caster sugar and I’d had to waste a precious half-hour on a trip to Waitrose. Now I had just forty-five minutes before I needed to leave to fetch my daughter from school, and the cake was still nowhere near done.

  “Fuck.” I threw my palette knife into the sink and grabbed a handful of coconut from the bag, pressing it into the icing and praying that it would stick. It did – but the warmth of my hands melted the buttercream and I soon had a sticky, gritty mess coating both hands. And then, of course, my phone rang.

  Over the past few weeks, the lurch of nervous excitement I’d felt whenever I heard its trill had dulled – none of the calls had been Felix, and this wasn’t going to be, either. I glanced at the screen – Jonathan.

  “What is it?” I picked up the phone with my fingertips, leaving a greasy, coconutty smear on the screen.

  “Hey,” Jonathan said. “Is this a bad time?”

  “No, it’s perfect,” I said. “I’m in the process of spackling the entire kitchen with cake decorations, I’ve got to leave in a few minutes to fetch the kids and I’ve got a zillion things to do before tomorrow. You couldn’t have picked a better moment.”

  He didn’t laugh. “Listen, Laura, I’m actually calling about tomorrow. There’s been… There’s a problem.”

  “What kind of… hold on.” I put down the phone, washed my hands, and picked it up again. “What’s happened?”

  “Laura, you’re not going to like this. So let me get the apologies out of the way first, because it’s not my fault and there’s nothing I can do. Okay?”

  “What?” I said. “Don’t tell me you have to work tomorrow, because you can’t. You promised. End of.”

  “It’s not work, Laura. Well, it is – it’s Royal Ascot. Remember we discussed it, I told you we have a box for a client hospitality day, and we decided I couldn’t go because of Darcey’s birthday.”

  I remembered the conversation well, as it happened. When I say conversation – it had been more of a row. Yes, definitely a row, when Jonathan had been home after ten every night for two weeks running, and I’d finally snapped and said I didn’t know how much more of this I could fucking stand, and he’d pointed out that he was doing his best to dial it down, including saying he wouldn’t be available for the social highlight of the firm’s year, because it was his daughter’s birthday, and did I think he wasn’t doing his best, did I think he liked being stuck in the office until stupid o’clock every night? And I’d said, did he think I liked coping with the kids on my own every night? And things had escalated from there, as they do.

  “You’ve got to go, haven’t you?” I said. “Jonathan, I don’t fucking believe this.”

  “I know,” he said. “But Myles’s wife has gone into labour, and Rick’s had to fly out to Singapore and… well, there it is. I’m the only partner who’s available, and I have to go.”

  “You’re not available,” I hissed.

  “I’m more available than the person on a plane to the Far East or the person holding the gas and air in the Lindo Wing.” I heard him sigh, a weary, defeated exhalation. “Come on, Laura, please don’t make this worse than it already is. Don’t be…”

  “Unreasonable,” I finished for him. “Okay, I won’t be unreasonable. I’ll be the good little corporate wife and say it’s all fine, and explain to our daughter that her daddy isn’t going to be there for her party, which she’s been looking forward to for weeks. It’s all completely okay.”

  He must have heard the sarcasm dripping from my words, but he chose to ignore it. “Thanks, Laura. I’ll talk to Darcey tonight. I’ll be home early. Sevenish, in time to put them to bed. Okay?”

  There was nothing more I could say. “Okay.”

  “Love you. Bye.”

  Defeated and seething, I turned back to the cake. It needed the rest of its coating to be applied, then the bunny’s face to be piped on, then there was the black top hat to be covered in the fondant icing that had refused to go any darker than a dreary charcoal, and the glittery stars to be scattered artfully over the board. And there was no time to do any of it. I’d have to wait until tonight, when the kids were in bed. And then there were the wand biscuits I’d planned to bake and ice, the party bags to assemble, Darcey’s presents to wrap… I’d be up until two in the morning, as I’d been before every one of my children’s birthday parties, and I’d be a frazzled wreck tomorrow, as I always was.

  Still, at least I didn’t have to worry about keeping twenty-five six-year-olds entertained. This year, instead of preparing lame treasure hunts and games of pass the pa
rcel, I’d thrown money at the problem. When I’d dished out the invitations at the school gate, Monica had said, “I don’t want to interfere, Laura, but if I can make a suggestion…” and pressed a business card into my hand with the air of a woman passing on her trusted coke dealer’s mobile number.

  And so Magical Larry was booked. Magical Larry, who drove a top-of-the-range white Merc with the vanity plate M8GIK and hadn’t stopped staring at my cleavage when he’d come round to deliver his sales spiel and exorbitant quote, but whose website was packed with rave reviews from ecstatic parents saying they’d never bother booking anyone else again, ever. Thank God for Magical Larry, I thought, swathing the cake in bin liners and hiding it in the cupboard under the stairs. He was costing a bloody fortune – more than the rest of the party put together, including Darcey’s new bicycle (a poor substitute for a pony, but cool nonetheless) but he was going to be worth it. I’d be able to be a gracious hostess, take lots of photos and if it all got too much, get stuck into the gin.

  Jonathan didn’t get home at seven. He sent an apologetic text saying that a client meeting had dragged on and he had a mountain of paperwork to get through and was expecting a call from San Francisco so couldn’t leave his desk, so I put the two overtired, overexcited, cranky children to bed on my own, poured a massive drink, turned on the radio and carried on cooking. By this stage, I’d passed through the pissed-off stage and was resigned to my fate. But it didn’t help that the phone didn’t stop ringing. First, Carrie called to say that her little boy was coming down with chicken pox so she wouldn’t risk bringing her daughter to the party. Then one of the Helens – I wasn’t sure which – rang to ask if I’d like her to come early and lend a hand. If it had been Helen Markham, whose only child was a beautifully behaved, solemn little boy who seemed permanently glued to maths games on his iPad, I’d have said yes – but there was the chance it could have been the other Helen, whose twin daughters I’d nicknamed the Visigoths, and of course by that stage it would have been rude to ask, so I declined graciously.