Nine Uses For An Ex-Boyfriend (60 page)

‘Why don’t we talk about this over Christmas?’ Hope suggested, imperceptibly nodding her head in the direction of Angela who was flicking through her diary.

‘Ah, I hate to bring pressure to bear, but it’s best to book now,’ Angela said, then gave them an almost playful, conspiratorial look. ‘January is my busiest time. You wouldn’t believe how many relationships break down over
the
Christmas holidays when families are forced into prolonged contact with each other.’

Hope could believe it only too easily.

‘We’re definitely coming back in the New Year,’ Jack said, turning to glare at Hope, so she decided to forbear. She could even put up with, say, six more sessions with Angela if she had to. ‘We really need this, Hopey.’

‘OK, fine,’ she agreed. ‘If you think it’s for the best.’

‘I’m so pleased.’ Angela beamed. ‘I’d really like to work with you as you rebuild your relationship. You’ve both made such a good start that it would be a great shame to let all that hard work go to waste.’

Jack was nodding again. ‘That’s what we think.’

‘You’re really learning to open up and communicate your needs and desires, Jack,’ Angela said warmly. ‘And, well, Hope, let’s make a commitment to
really
tackle those anger-management issues in the New Year.’

Hope could feel her hackles and her blood pressure start to rise, even though Jack now had his hand on her knee. ‘Easy, tiger,’ he whispered. ‘Easy …’

She gave Angela a tight, thin smile as the other woman looked at them both thoughtfully. ‘I’m sure this decision to reconcile is very exciting—’

‘We’re not reconciling. We’re thinking about reconciling,’ Hope interrupted, because no one seemed to be getting the message that she wanted to take this very slowly. Glacially slowly.

‘Hope, we need to do so much work on that impulse control of yours,’ Angela said reproachfully. She rearranged her cardigan. ‘As I was saying, it’s very exciting, but I advise caution. You both need to be certain that your relationship can evolve and take into account the changes that you’ve both gone through, so I’m going to set you some homework for the holidays. Why don’t you each write a list of the things you love about each other and exchange them on Christmas Day?’

Hope was tempted to make gagging noises, but then she felt guilty. She owed it to Jack to at least try and make a go of things, instead of snarking and bitching. She sat up straight and tried to look on board with Angela’s idea. Then she risked a glance at Jack, who pulled a face at her.

‘I think it will be very romantic.’ Angela was all but simpering now. ‘And I’ll let you decide how you wish to progress with your intimate relations …’

‘It’s OK,’ Hope said hurriedly, because intimate relations wouldn’t be happening. Not for months, and she had visions of a red-faced Angela handing over a series of instructional booklets complete with flowcharts and diagrams. ‘We’re all over it.’

‘Yeah, we can take it from here.’

Angela clasped her hands together and looked up at the ceiling as if she was asking for divine assistance. ‘In that case, I’ll just wish you both a Happy Christmas and
bonne chance, mes braves
.’

‘YOU WAIT TILL
you see your Christmas present, Hopey,’ Jack crowed for the umpteenth time that day, as they walked up to Highbury Corner and the little bar where Allison’s band, The Fuck Puppets, were having their Christmas party. ‘It’s going to blow your brain right out of your ears.’

‘I hope you haven’t spent a lot of money,’ Hope said carefully. ‘What with us being kind of broke.’

‘Money, schmoney. Anyway, you can’t put a price tag on happiness.’

Hope was pretty sure that you could, but she didn’t want to dent his buoyant mood. Jack had been stuffed full of good cheer ever since their counselling session three days before. He’d nod and smile every time Hope reminded him that they were taking things slow, but the words didn’t seem to be sinking in. He was constantly dropping hints about sleeping together ‘just so we can cuddle all night long’, and the evening before, when Hope was trying to wrap her Christmas presents, Jack had decided that the sofa could be put to much better use for an impromptu snogging session.

It was very hard not to be swept up in Jack’s optimism, and the more she resisted, the more Hope was aware that she had to cut Jack huge amounts of slack. He was trying to prove his love, and though Hope doubted his motives and his staying power, she had to let him try. Just like Jack had let her try to win him back, though if she’d been as annoying as he was, with his constant attempts to give her
backrubs
and gaze soulfully into her eyes when she was trying to read or watch TV or do the washing-up, even when she was putting the bins out, Hope was beginning to understand why she hadn’t been successful. All she wanted was time and space to marshal her scattered thoughts. She’d even had to write a hurried and apologetic Christmas card to Wilson while she was sitting on the loo, because it was the only time that Jack left her alone. And now she was back to feeling like an ungrateful bitch again.

‘You really don’t need to get me anything special. A handmade certificate saying that you’ll do the washing-up for a year would make me ecstatically happy,’ she said, and Jack laughed even as Hope frowned and wondered if all his good resolutions and promises to change would last for another year.

To banish these dark thoughts, in fact so she wouldn’t have to think at all, as soon as they reached the basement bar next to Highbury and Islington tube station, Hope set out on a single-minded mission to get as drunk as she could.

‘You’re caning it a bit hard, aren’t you?’ Jack remarked when Hope exhorted him to match her drink for drink. ‘If I kept up with you, I’d still be way over the limit for the drive back home tomorrow morning.’

‘Well, let’s go up the day after, then,’ Hope shouted over the cacophonous racket of The Fuck Puppets’ support act, an all-girl Sex Pistols tribute band.

Jack shook his head. ‘Hopita! That’s crazy talk. My mother would write me out of the will, and Caroline would probably banish you to the garden shed for the duration of our stay.’

‘Oh well, sod it. I’m going to get another drink,’ Hope decided, pushing past Jack so she wouldn’t have to look at his happy face for a second longer, because she should be happy too. But maybe she’d been unhappy for so long that she’d got out of the habit.

Still, drinking made Hope happy, even if it was a
temporary
fix, and hanging out with Lauren and Allison made her happy too, because she hadn’t seen either of them in ages. Lauren was all loved up and in the first throes of romance after the success of the first date, and all the subsequent dates after that, with the man she’d been eyeing up on her morning bus for
months
. Allison, however, was not loved up, and consequently was annoyed with both of them. ‘I’ve almost forgotten what the pair of you look like,’ Allison complained, just before she disappeared backstage to get into her stage outfit. ‘But at least Lauren replies to texts and Facebook messages – unlike a certain person with red hair who, unbelievably, seems to be back with the guy who shagged around behind her back.’

These were all fair points and serious obstacles to Hope getting happy. She tried to explain about the Winter Pageant and the counselling, and that working through their relationship issues had taken quite a bit of time, but Lauren and Allison were both unimpressed.

‘Love Jack, I really do,’ Lauren said, once Allison had gone to get ready. ‘But I have a zero-tolerance policy on cheating. How on earth do you come back from your bloke fucking another girl? He
lied
to you for months. That night that you had the dinner party, he looked me right in the eye and swore there was nothing going on between him and Floozie. I’ll never feel the same way about him now, and I’ve known him since I was three. I just don’t understand how you could take him back.’

‘It’s not as black and white as that,’ Hope argued. ‘He thought he was in love with Susie, and no matter how much it hurts, you can’t really blame him for falling in love with someone who isn’t me. It’s one of those things that no one has any control over.’

‘Don’t they?’ Lauren folded her arms. ‘How about keeping your dick in your jeans? It’s not that difficult to do. It’s what separates us from the animals.’

‘Yeah, but things weren’t that good between us, we were
having
problems, and anyway, maybe I’ve done some things I shouldn’t have, too.’

Lauren’s elfin face was all eyes. ‘What kind of things? Things with someone else? With someone else’s penis?’ Hope would have thought it wasn’t even possible, but Lauren’s eyes widened even further. ‘It wasn’t Floozie’s boyfriend, was it? The snarky one with the glasses? What was his name again?’

Hope had to down her vodka and cranberry in one before she could answer. ‘Wilson?’ she answered, which was as much as she could say without incriminating herself. She made her own eyes go wide. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘I don’t know. Just that he always used to stare at you without blinking. Was never sure if that was creepy or sexy.’ Lauren tried to stare at Hope without blinking but it ended up as more of a squint, and Hope realised that Lauren was somewhere between tipsy and squiffy, and if she could distract her with drink, then Lauren would forget what they’d been talking about altogether. She always phoned Hope after a night on the sauce to have the blanks filled in. ‘Have you ever touched a penis that didn’t belong to Jack, Hopey? It would be kind of weird if you hadn’t.’

‘Yeah, but it would be kind of weird to just randomly touch random penises, or penii. Whatever. Shall I go to the bar?’ Hope asked a little desperately. ‘Come on, let’s do some shots.’

‘I swore off shots after the time I ended up in Theydon Bois at three in the morning.’ Lauren was wavering. ‘But it
is
nearly Christmas.’

‘And there’s no school in the morning.’ Hope nudged Lauren. ‘Tequila, vodka, Sambuca, all of the above?’

‘Let’s start with vodka and see how we get on.’

Despite the night’s shaky start, the addition of vodka shots meant that by the time The Fuck Puppets took to the stage dressed as slutty Christmas trees, both Hope and Lauren were long past squiffy and heading straight for good,
old-fashioned
drunk, and needed very little encouragement to get on stage for the encore and shout their way through ‘Winter Wonderland’ and ‘Jingle Bell Rock’.

Usually when Hope was this drunk, Jack disowned her. Or kept warning her that she ‘was making a right show of herself’, but this night, he didn’t seem to mind at all. On the contrary, he was complicit in keeping Hope’s alcohol levels topped up, even though he switched to root beer so he’d be able to handle the long drive back to the mother country in the morning. After the bands had finished, Hope persuaded the DJ to play ‘Twist and Shout’ and Jack even took to the dancefloor with her. He didn’t dance so much as shuffle from one foot to the other with his arms tight around Hope, but he was dancing. More than that, he was trying really, really hard to get them back to a happier place.

Hope knew she’d been putting up walls, but she felt something inside her come tumbling down when she glanced up at Jack’s face and saw it pitted with effort, hair falling into his eyes, his bottom lip caught between his teeth as he jerkily propelled them around the tiny dancefloor.

‘I do love you, Jack,’ Hope murmured, but he couldn’t hear her over the music so she had to bellow it, which wasn’t very romantic, but Jack’s eyes lit up and he gave her a goofy, elastic grin that she hadn’t seen for a long, long time. Hope hadn’t realised how much she’d missed it, how much she’d missed Jack when he was being loving and silly and not trying to be cool. Looking up at him now, Hope was sure she could see the boy she fell in love with. She just needed to find a way back to him.

Even having to wait for the bus home while it tipped down with rain couldn’t dent Hope’s newfound sanguinity or the effect of all the spirits she’d drunk. Once they were home, she was going to throw herself heart, body and soul into reconciling them. She was going to show Jack that she was in. She was
so
in. They were going to have intimate relations tonight, if it killed her.

‘Put the kettle on and make me a cuppa, there’s a love,’ she begged Jack, as soon as they got through the front door and were still dripping on the hall lino. ‘I’m going to put on my black lace knickers.’

‘Does that mean what I think it means?’ Jack asked, snuggling up behind Hope and nuzzling through damp hair until he could kiss her neck. ‘And why put them on if they’re going to be taken off after five minutes?’