Authors: Kate Eberlen
What I wanted to say was, ‘Please don’t stop being my friend!’
But she had bravely asked the question and I knew I had to get up the courage to answer it truthfully.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’
I couldn’t do the ‘I’m not ready’ excuse with Nash. And I was sure she’d get annoyed if I started on the ‘You’re a great person, but . . .’
thing.
There was a long, vacant pause before she drained her glass, and replaced it carefully on the table. I was sure she was going to get up and walk out of my life. Instead, she lit another
cigarette.
‘Well, that’s cleared the air,’ she said, blowing a tempting cloud of smoke across the table.
I was determined to keep the house for the girls to return to if they ever tired of the novelty of living with Charlotte. I don’t think she thought I’d manage to
keep up with the mortgage payments, but I did, finding strange solace in my work, as I always had done in the hectic world that is an Accident and Emergency department, because you have to exist
entirely in the present. As I’d feared, weekends with the girls grew further and further apart, because I didn’t want to insist on the custody arrangements, forcing them to upset the
new lives they were establishing.
I started running again. The quickest way to reach the park was through the busy bottleneck of Notting Hill Gate and straight along the Bayswater Road to the first gate. On summer evenings, the
pavements were hot, the air full of noise and reeking with the smell of cheap cooking fat; on winter mornings, when I’d finished a night shift, I sometimes felt like the only person awake in
the city, my footsteps pounding the concrete pavement, darkness surreptitiously giving way to cold, grey light.
With no set time of day, I never established passing acquaintance with other runners as I had done in Regent’s Park, where people I recognized by their silhouette or the colour of their
tracksuit would nod or say ‘good morning’.
The loneliness of the long-distance runner
, I sometimes thought, wondering if my father had been more perceptive about me than
I’d given him credit for, and whether he’d appreciate me getting in touch, but never quite finding the impetus to take the idea further than that.
On my days off, I’d shower after my run and walk down the Portobello Road to our favourite cafe, never tiring of the shell of burnt sugar over the creamy deliciousness of their custard
tarts. The Portuguese cafe owner and I exchanged words about the weather. I sat on a stool by the window with a newspaper, watching the world go by. Occasionally, I’d spot one of the mothers
who used to stand outside the gates of Flora’s school, and we’d wave, but friendship between adults was not what we’d signed up for. All we had in common was our children. Without
the girls, I wasn’t a single father, I was just single.
When a senior oncologist appeared in A&E to examine a patient presenting with a large lump in his thigh, I recognized him as my chess-playing fellow medic, Jonathan. Recently married to a
theatre producer, he didn’t yet have children and could find the time for a drink more easily than Marcus, who now had a boy and a girl of his own.
In a blatant attempt to matchmake, Jonathan and Miriam invited me to a dinner party with one of her colleagues, Gayle, who regaled us with her adventures in the world of Internet dating. She was
much more attractive than I’d assumed the candidates on dating sites would be. As we walked to the Tube together, I tentatively suggested having a drink sometime, but she said I had too much
baggage for her, and she’d learned to save a lot of time by being honest upfront.
Out of curiosity more than pressing need, I signed up for a month’s free trial and found Lucy’s sister Pippa looking for love. Weighing embarrassment against the possible pleasure of
seeing her again, I decided to send her a message. There followed a flurry of emails in which I learned that Lucy had married Toby and had three kids with a fourth on the way, but that Pippa was
now divorced, childless and living in Strawberry Hill. We arranged to meet up one Saturday afternoon outside the Friends’ Room on the fifth floor of the Tate Modern which has one of the best
views in London.
Pippa was as thin and brittle as she had been on her wedding day, when I had worried that giant Canadian would swamp her with his bulk and his bonhomie.
‘What was I thinking?’ she said, pushing a brownie around her plate with a fork. ‘He was so decent and nice and normal, for heaven’s sake! Screw-ups are much more fun,
don’t you think?’
I could tell she wasn’t interested in seeing the Paul Klee exhibition, though she said she’d be happy to if I was desperate. We wandered eastwards along the riverbank and had too
much Rioja in a tapas bar in Borough Market. As we walked back towards the setting sun, Pippa kept bumping into me unsteadily, and we ended up arm in arm, trying to piece together the lyrics of the
Kinks’ song, ‘Waterloo Sunset’.
At the station, my tentative move towards her cheek resulted in a lingering snog, full of regret and promise. Her body was sinuous and lithe under her flimsy summer dress.
‘Are we mad enough?’ she whispered, her lips raspberry-red from kissing.
The territory we were entering felt dangerous and sinful and sexy.
‘What are you looking for?’ I asked.
‘I’m looking for my for-ever person.
I thought of Nicky’s face.
Really, Gus?
‘I don’t think I can be that,’ I said.
‘No. I don’t suppose you can.’
‘We’ll keep in touch?’
‘Of course!’
We kissed chastely on both cheeks and I waved her down the platform, knowing that I’d never see her again.
‘I still think you should train to be a chef,’ Nash said one day in July, just before the girls arrived for their summer holiday.
We’d seen a film at the Gate and she’d come back for supper. She was on the Dukan diet to lose weight for a big audition, so I made us a hot Thai-style salad of tofu on top of
radishes, cucumber and spring onions.
‘It’s about as realistic as daydreaming about what I’d do if I won the Lottery,’ I said, shaking up a citrussy dressing of lime juice, finely sliced ginger and chilli in
a jam jar.
‘Do you do the Lottery?’ Nash asked.
‘No! That’s my point.’
She took another forkful of her salad.
‘Actually, you don’t have to have a lot of money, these days – you just get people to come to your home. You call it a Supper Club, you get a reputation on social media, it
becomes the coolest thing, and you charge what you like!’
‘But you have to know people,’ I said.
‘Honestly, Gus, you are A FUCKING NIGHTMARE!’ Nash suddenly screeched. ‘No wonder Charlotte bolted! You’ve got an excuse for everything. Why can’t you ever just
launch in?’
‘I’m not making excuses!’ I protested. ‘I
don’t
know many people!’
‘But I do, don’t I?’ said Nash. ‘I’ve got fifty thousand followers on Twitter. You’ve got a bijou house in the coolest part of town, with a great big kitchen
table which is ideal for supper parties, and you’re a great cook!’
‘And I’ve got a full-time job, and a very small repertoire of dishes.’
‘OK,’ said Nash, pushing back her chair. ‘I give up. I actually give up, and I won’t mention it again in case I end up killing you.’
‘Are you going?’ I asked.
‘Yes. I’m fed up with you, Gus.’
‘But you will come and see the girls?’
I was suddenly nervous that they’d be bored. Nash always took them to Primark, which seemed to be one of the biggest attractions of London now.
‘I’ll see how I feel,’ Nash said. ‘At the moment, I just want to strangle you.’
Charlotte was getting jittery about the London property boom.
‘I keep seeing articles calling it a bubble,’ she said when she delivered the girls from the airport. ‘And bubbles pop!’
London was in the midst of a heatwave, so I’d set up the paddling pool in our garden. In the past, Flora would have stripped off and thrown herself straight in, but at nine she was more
self-conscious. In the three months since I’d seen her, her face had lengthened in the process of changing from the pretty child she had been to the beautiful woman she was going to be. Bella
had also shot up, but she was still a freckly imp with cascades of ginger curls. I gave them hugs and they went upstairs to see if they could find their old swimming costumes. I was surprised that
Charlotte had accepted my invitation to stay for a coffee, which I’d issued only as a formality. Perched on the edge of the sofa, she sipped iced water, while I put on the espresso
machine.
Apparently, she and Robert were prepared to offer me a deal. If I sold the house, after the mortgage loan was repaid, they would offer me half the equity, which at current prices was probably
just over half a million pounds and considerably more than the share I’d put in.
The look on her face told me that she expected gratitude for this generous offer.
‘I’d probably be entitled to that anyway,’ I told her coolly. ‘Given the length of time we were married and my contribution to the girls’ upbringing.’
One of Charlotte’s eyebrows arched in surprise.
‘Anyway, I’m not selling,’ I said.
Now, Charlotte’s eyebrows flattened and the bridge of her nose puckered into a frown.
‘Don’t you think three years as wronged husband is long enough?’ she asked wearily.
‘Haven’t you imposed enough disruption on their lives?’ I countered.
I should have known that I would pay for the buzz I got from that little exchange. It would have been far smarter to tell her that I’d think about it and wait until the last day of the
holiday to give her my decision.
What I hadn’t anticipated was her willingness to manipulate the girls, although I had no proof that she had put words into their mouths.
‘It’s such a big house just for you, Daddy,’ sighed Flora, almost the moment we’d waved Mummy off down the street.
‘Aren’t you lonely here all by yourself?’ asked Bell.
In the past, they had played in their old bedroom with shrieks of delighted rediscovery; now their reaction was muted.
‘At home, we have our own rooms,’ Flora informed me.
‘I’ve got Hello Kitty wallpaper,’ said Bell.
They were growing up, and I was happy that they were happy in their new lives. There’s a saying, isn’t there, that you’re as happy as your unhappiest child?
I handed them both glasses of pink lemonade I’d made.
‘Sarp!’ said Bell.
I liked the fact she still used the family word we’d all adopted for something we didn’t quite like the taste of.
‘If you want, we can redecorate your room while you’re here?’ I suggested. ‘You can choose the colours and the curtains and everything.’
When that didn’t elicit a reaction, I upped the offer.
‘You could have a room each? We’ll turn Mummy’s old bedroom into a room for Bell . . .’
‘Is there much point when we’re only here for a week?’ Flora asked.
‘A week?’
‘I’m sure I mentioned it,’ Charlotte said, when I called her mobile to protest. ‘The girls were so keen to go to summer camp with their friends. I didn’t think for
a minute that you’d want to stop them.’
I wondered whether I’d have got my three weeks if I’d agreed to Charlotte’s deal, but it was too late now to clarify the rules.
At least there was no danger of us getting bored with each other, although my daughters weren’t as easy to communicate with as they used to be. We Skyped regularly, but it was hard to
remember the names and nationalities of best friends I would never meet, especially since at that age they changed so frequently.
Flora was now more interested in looking at the tattoo designs in the window of a shop next door to the cafe than she was in the custard tarts.
‘You’re much too young for a tattoo!’ I said.
‘But these ones wash off, Daddy!’
The thought of Charlotte’s horror when she caught sight of her daughters inked was irresistible.
Flora had a dolphin transferred onto her shoulder and Bella a star on her tiny wrist.
‘We’ve been all the way down to Greenwich on a boat, we’ve been on the cable car over the river, we’ve been to Christ Church College, Oxford, to see
where
Harry Potter
was filmed,’ I told Nash, when I spoke to her on the phone. ‘But mostly they just want to WhatsApp their friends.’
‘Stop treating them like tourists,’ Nash advised. ‘They probably just want to spend some normal time with you. It’s lovely weather. Take them to Brighton for the day and
get them to leave their phones at home. Tell them phones and sand don’t mix!’
‘Brighton beach is pebbles, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, somewhere else then!’
I knew a place where the sand was soft and golden. As I no longer had a car, we took the train to Lymington, changing at Brockenhurst in the New Forest.
‘Where are we going?’ Flora asked.
‘Across the sea!’
In Yarmouth, we ate sandwiches in a pub garden looking out over the Solent, where the little yachts and giant cruise liners were like mismatched children’s toys in a bath of perfectly blue
water.
Maybe it’s because it’s an island that the Isle of Wight feels like a bit of a time warp. The shops still sell buckets and spades and little paper flags to stick in your sandcastle,
and coconut ice and boxes of fudge with scenic views on, and ninety-nines with chocolate flakes that always taste just slightly stale. It had hardly changed since my own childhood.
As I hadn’t thought to bring towels and the good beaches were a bus ride away, we bought lines and a packet of streaky bacon and spent the afternoon crouched on the little jetty near the
pub, pulling unsuspecting crabs out of the water until our bucket was half full.
‘What do we do with them now?’ Flora asked.
‘We let them race back to the sea,’ I said.
‘How do you know which one is yours?’
‘You keep your eyes on your own crab! No cheating allowed!’
Unless you’re a parent. Every time Flora got ahead, I made sure that my winning crab somehow became Bell’s. The final score was Flora and Bell on six each and Daddy on three.