We’re onto the third verse and I’m enthusiastically hooting, ‘The horn on the bus goes beep, beep, beep,’ when I turn the corner – and beep in Michael’s
face.
‘Um . . . hi,’ he says.
Recently, I’ve taken great pains to avoid him – to the extent that I’ve even managed to get on the school run
early
, just so our paths won’t cross. Now, though,
I’m hit by an instantaneous flashback to his kissing me. It makes my insides melt, followed by a crunch of despair. ‘Hi,’ I reply, lowering my chin. ‘Come on, Ollie, we need
to get back.’
‘Hannah – have you got a minute? I need to drop off Nathan, then could we go for a coffee or something?’
I actually can’t believe the brazenness of the man – he’s dating Gill but still wants to go for coffee with me. Clearly a leopard doesn’t change its spots. ‘Sorry,
I’ve got to go.’
I make every effort I can to race to the car, but, given that Ollie wants to toddle off in every direction other than the right one, it doesn’t happen.
And, to my dismay, I spin round briefly to see Michael racing towards me, having dropped off Nathan. ‘Hannah, please – I just wanted to talk and—’
‘There’s nothing to say,’ I reply, truthfully. It’s only as I look into his eyes and feel a heartbeat of longing that I realise how upset I am about him and Gill.
‘Except . . .’
‘Except what?’ he asks. I don’t answer for a second and he can’t bear the silence. ‘Hannah, I know you’re engaged, but I . . . I really feel the need to tell
you . . .’
‘Tell me what?’ I ask defiantly.
He swallows and lowers his voice slightly. ‘You know I think you’re beautiful, so there’s no point in even saying it.’ He shakes his head. ‘And it sounds so
flippant, anyway. As if being attracted to you was only about how you look.’ He frowns and rubs his forehead, entirely dissatisfied with the way this conversation is progressing. ‘I
have feelings for you, Hannah. I know it’s wrong for me to say this and—’
‘Yes, it is.’ He looks up, silenced. ‘But I’m sure Gill will make you feel better when you go on your date with her.’
‘What?’
I spin around and pick up Ollie. ‘HELLLLLPPPPPPP!’ he shrieks.
Michael strides along next to me. ‘Hannah, that . . . the thing with Gill is not how it looks.’
‘Yes, I’m sure. So you’re not going out with her next week?’
‘Well, I am yes, but honestly—’
‘It’s fine, Michael,’ I say, clicking open the car. ‘I’m moving to Dubai, anyway. I’ve finally got a job there.’
He stops walking. ‘Oh.’
I open the door and lift Ollie up. ‘So it’s all fine. After next Friday you and I will never need to see each other.’
Suzy’s new childminder is so breathtakingly competent she should be running for prime minister.
Brigitte is twenty-two, German and, judging by her first ‘practice’ session with them at the weekend, the kids love her. Between the candyfloss-making sessions, the clay modelling
and her ‘circus skills’ lessons, she is a children’s entertainer, minder and (courtesy of the engineering degree) maths-homework expert, all rolled into one.
I’m obviously over the moon that Suzy’s found such an exceptional replacement. Even if I hope she forgets the swimming kits, at least once.
‘She seems amazing,’ I say, as I clear away the dishes after dinner while Justin explains to Leo why he can’t send off the plastic medal he won at football to a company
he’s seen on TV called Cash for Gold.
‘I’m sure she won’t be as good as you,’ says Suzy with a smirk.
‘Thanks for the reassurance. Can you convince me I’d win
Britain’s Next Top Model
next?’
She laughs. ‘Well, the kids did love having you around, that much is true. But it was never your vocation, was it? And at least you’ve got a proper job to go to in Dubai
now.’
I’ve never actually broken it to Suzy that my ‘proper job’ isn’t a job at all, at least not according to the usual definition – i.e. receiving hard cash in return
for my efforts. I don’t know why when we’ve always been so close. I suppose it’s a fall from grace too far and I don’t want her to judge me, or James, for setting it up.
Especially because he’ll soon be staying under this roof for a few days before I fly off into the sunset, having coordinated a series of UK meetings with helping me move to Dubai.
Suzy looks at a text on her phone. ‘I wonder if I’ll manage to fit in Pilates tomorrow night. It’s been ages since I’ve been. Diana’s been nagging me to come back
for weeks.’
I bite my lip. ‘It’s good she’s got back on her feet after what happened between her and Michael.’
‘Oh, it’s all water under the bridge now. She did have a tough time of it at one time, though, that’s for sure,’ Suzy replies, glancing up. ‘I don’t remember
telling you about that.’
‘You didn’t – Sarah did at school. She said Diana had a nervous breakdown after Michael left.’
Suzy rolls her eyes. ‘Diana would be distraught to know that people were gossiping about it. She says now that it was her guilty conscience punishing her.’
I frown. ‘What do you mean?’
Suzy hesitates. ‘
Don’t
mention this to your mum chums, but Diana was having an affair for ages before she and Michael split up. Well before Cameron was born.’
‘Did Michael know about it?’
‘He did. I get the feeling the relationship had been dead for a while, but he wanted to try and hold it together for the sake of the kids. Diana was having none of it. She was “in
love”.’ She says the final two words as if she doesn’t believe them.
‘I . . . I had no idea – I thought it was the other way around.’
‘What – that
he
had the affair?’ she asks.
‘Well . . . that he was the one to leave.’
She shakes her head. ‘He might have moved out of the marital home, but it was Diana who did the dirty. And called time on the relationship. I don’t think the poor guy had much
choice.’
I pick James up from Manchester Airport on Monday morning. He walks through Arrivals looking entirely unlike someone who’s been on a long-haul flight, without a trace of the sweaty
dishevelment that afflicts me on an aeroplane.
He’s always managed this, as I discovered the first time we went on holiday together, to the Greek Islands. I left the airport crumpled, dehydrated and still discovering bits of flaky
pastry down my cleavage from the baklava I’d scoffed on board. James on the other hand looked so fresh-faced and smart, you’d think he was on his way to a cocktail party.
‘Hello, beautiful,’ he murmurs, opening his arms for me to slide into them. He kisses me on the head. ‘Gosh, I’ve missed you.’
I pull back, guilt sizzling up in me at seeing him in the flesh for the first time after my night with Michael. ‘I’ve missed you, too,’ I manage.
We start off in the direction of the car park, weaving our way through the hordes that have just spilled out of several charter flights and seem to consist solely of hen parties, stag parties
and people in a state of general rowdiness and inebriation.
‘Is it any wonder I haven’t missed the UK?’ he hisses under his breath, gazing upon them as if they collectively represented something sticky and unpleasant discovered on the
sole of his shoe. ‘It
would
be raining, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes, that is a shame – especially when the weather’s been pretty good lately,’ I reply, pressing the button on the lift to the car park.
‘It hardly compares with Dubai, Hannah. None of it does. You’ll never want to return to this shithole again.’
I let out a blurt of laughter. ‘Since when did home become a shithole?’
‘Since I saw how we
should
be living. Seriously, Hannah – the sooner you get out of this place the better.’
The conversation between James and me continues in this vein the entire way home, and I try hard to suppress my nagging irritation. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he’s happy in
Dubai, I’m glad he’s settled. But this goes beyond enthusiasm for his new home. He is just plain insulting about everything British, from the roads, to the weather, to ‘the
people’ – as if he and I somehow didn’t fall into that category ourselves.
And, although I’ve never considered myself to be excessively patriotic – I know the place is no utopian dream – by the time we’re at Suzy’s house I’m on the
verge of digging out a bowler hat, waving a Union Jack and singing ‘Rule, Britannia’ at the top of my voice.
Still, James has brought a haul of presents back for the kids, including dozens of sweets boasting foreign writing on the pack, which elicits more excitement than anything else. And, typically,
Suzy and Justin are both treating him as if he were their long-lost little brother within half an hour of his arrival.
Over the course of the day, between packing and saying a tearful goodbye to my mum and dad, I refamiliarise myself with everything about James, the things I knew about him from the very
beginning. His obsession with his body. His obsession with work. And the way he kisses me: hard and uncompromising, as if he’s read
Fifty Shades of Grey
and wants to prove he’s
every bit the gorgeous weirdo Christian Grey is (but he hasn’t read it, at least to my knowledge).
It’s as if he has his mouth on mine one night, a prelude to some between-sheets action on the sofa bed, that I start to realise something imperceptible and insidious has been happening since
he arrived.
I’ve hardly been thinking about James, at least not positively. I’ve been thinking about Michael. My chest clenches at the thought: given that I’m engaged to the former and the
latter is in the process of seducing Gill, this is very clearly an unsolvable problem.
Except, that’s not right, is it? It
is
solvable, if I can just grow up and focus on what’s important: commitment, long-term love, not being distracted by some fly-by-night
doctor who’s left me temporarily giddy.
Okay, James isn’t perfect, but
nobody
is. I read once that it’s impossible to be happy with someone 100 per cent of the time and any expectation that you will be is
unrealistic and unachievable. If you’re happy with someone 80 per cent of the time, then you’re probably very well suited; there will always be another 20 per cent when you don’t
see eye to eye. What James and I have is surely within the boundaries of these statistics. Or have I just been doing too much Key Stage 2 maths lately?
‘Is everything okay?’ James asks me the following morning as we sit in the Tavern on Smithdown Road, eating a breakfast of kings. I brought him here because he told
me when he first moved out here that he missed a full English. And this, unquestionably, does the best full English around: big and hearty, with exquisitely cooked eggs and thick sourdough wedges
of toast.
‘Oh . . . yes, of course,’ I look up, almost choking on my organic sausage. ‘Just thinking how much I’ll miss places like this.’
‘I assure you, you won’t,’ he laughs. ‘Wait until you try the food in Dubai. And the service. It’s all amazing – everywhere you go.’
‘The service has been pretty good here, too,’ I say.
‘It took two goes to get my flat white just right.’
I take a sip of tea and decide to change the subject. ‘Did you enjoy your workout this morning?’
Suzy signed him up for a guest pass at the gym where she’s a member. It’s a gorgeous club, with membership fees that’d make your eyes water, and when James lived here he was
always desperate to join but could never afford to.
‘It was all right,’ he replies. ‘Nice to get some exercise after sitting on my backside for two days. Place itself was a bit of a shithole, though,’ he adds, as I wonder
if there’s anything left at all in this corner of the world that that description doesn’t apply to.
On Thursday afternoon, as I’m flying out tomorrow morning, I ask Brigitte if she’d mind if I picked up the boys from school one last time. I know that in the
pecking order of surprises it’s not much, but I am at least intending to take them all for ice cream afterwards.
‘Can’t you stay for one more day, Auntie Hannah?’ asks Leo.
‘One day isn’t going to make a difference,’ I point out as we walk back to the car.
‘It is,’ Noah protests. ‘It’s sports day tomorrow. We wanted you to do the sack race. We thought you’d be the funniest.’
‘Oh, what an accolade. Well, your mum’s taken the afternoon off work so you don’t need me.’
‘We do!’ replies Noah. ‘Auntie Hannah, I don’t want you to go.’ His big brown eyes look up at me and I squeeze his hand, my throat tightening.
‘Neither do I,’ adds Leo. ‘Auntie Hannah?’
‘Yes, Leo?’
‘If you die on the plane, will you leave me your iPad in your will?’
I suppress a smile. ‘How very pragmatic of you, Leo. Of course I will.’
I glance up from this touching conversation as Noah starts berating his brother for suggesting such a thing – and realise that Caroline Rogers is marching towards me like a human tank.
‘Hannah, I can’t stop, I’m running late.’ She glowers at me. I take a step back. ‘Did you get my email?’
‘Um . . . no.’ She narrows her eyes, clearly under the impression that I’m telling porkies. ‘I am completely happy to pay for the damage to the car, though. I mean, that
goes without saying.’
‘Fine,’ she says, looking deeply unimpressed with this offer. ‘Sorry, I need to run, I’m late to collect Ceri.’
As she sprints ahead, I pull out my phone from my bag and scurry to the car, logging on to my email as I walk. There’s nothing at all in either my inbox or spam. I’m absorbed in my
panic about how much that one bloody incident – the first time I’ve crashed a car in my life – might end up costing, as the kids and I approach the section of the road where we
need to cross.
‘Do you think Norman will give us a sweet today?’ asks Leo.
‘You’ll have to wait and see,’ I reply, but I glance up at the exact, hideous moment when it becomes apparent that sweets are not our lollipop man’s priority right
now.
He is instead focused on getting out of the way of a Fiesta driver, who’s clearly unhappy about having to wait fifteen seconds for twelve children to cross, and is beeping at Norman
furiously. He glances up anxiously and, ushering the kids over first, he scuttles across the road as fast as it’s feasible for a man who’s seventy-eight years old with a gammy leg to
go.