Falling in Love Again (17 page)

You wanted to know what happened. So here goes. After the dinner party, he was different. Chatty almost. But then, a week ago, he went back to being cool. I couldn’t do anything right. Why hadn’t I remembered to buy more light bulbs? How could I have forgotten?

Everything I do seems to irritate him.

So I go back to the old remedies. ‘How about a holiday?’ I said, looking up from the Saturday travel section.

‘I can’t take any time off work.’ His tone suggested I ought to know that anyway.

‘Just a three night break,’ I replied, handing him an article on  St Mawes.  We gave up going abroad years ago, as you know all too well.

‘All right,’ he said finally. ‘So long as it’s over a weekend.’

I am filled with a relief that lifts me up.

He’ll be all right when we get away. He always is.

Session Five: Don’t Make The Same Mistake Twice!

Most of  us like security.

And that’s why, without realising it, we sometimes go back to old patterns because they feel ‘safe’ – especially at Christmas!

That can mean finding someone else who’s just like our old partner.

Or it can mean repeating your mistakes – like being too needy.

Just warning you!

22

LIZZIE

‘Are you sure it’s wise to make your husband jealous?’ Karen had asked during the last meeting when she’d talked about her plans to get Tom back.

At the time, Lizzie had been certain she was doing the right thing but since that 8pm/8am phone call, he had failed dismally to question her about her private life and restricted communication to terse emails.

‘Why do you want him back after what he did?’ Mum kept demanding.

Simple! If Sharon hadn’t made a move (and Tom had sworn it had been that way round), nothing would have happened in the first place.

Meanwhile, time was going by – almost Christmas! – and Sharon The Slut was getting bigger. The thought made her feel violently sick. Somehow, she
had
to get him back. Make them into a proper family again.

The worst of it was that Jack and Sophie were acting
normally
which was a sure sign that they were bleeding inside! They didn’t seem at all put out that their dad only appeared once a week and then took them bowling or off to Alton Towers (something he’d never done when he’d been at home full-time).

Desperate measures called for desperate means or was it the other way round?  There was only one person she felt like asking for advice after Karen’s warning comment. Someone with plenty of experience.

‘Course I don’t mind you ringing me at work,’ Ed had said although he did sound a bit harassed. ‘If I was Tom, I might be feeling a bit panicky now about starting a second family. And with any luck, this Sharon woman might have loads of pregnant hormones flying around which could make her tricky to live with.’

Lizzie nodded, hoping no one else in her sixteenth floor office could hear what she was saying. Not that there were many people left, mind you. Most had been ‘let go’. At this rate, she’d be printing the bloody magazine herself. ‘The kids said she snapped at Tom the other day at Alton Towers.’

‘Great. So what you need to do is ask him round for a nice quiet family evening but without a pretend washing machine leak, this time. Show him what it’s like being part of a normal family. Make him miss what he left.’

So she left a message on Tom’s answerphone at work, asking if he’d like to come to supper later in the week ‘so the kids can see you properly’. This time, she told herself, she’d be organised. Get something in from the deluxe counter. Find proper napkins which were still probably lurking at the bottom of the linen bin with bits of mouldy food stuck on them from the last time they’d used them (Easter? Christmas?). What was it Ed had said again? Show him what it was like to be part of a normal family. If only she knew what that was.

Thanks, Tom had replied on her answerphone. Thursday would be great. He’d bring the children’s Christmas presents round at the same time.

Christmas presents? Wouldn’t he be there on the day to hand those over?

‘Don’t say anything now,’ Ed had warned when she’d rung again. (He really did sound harassed this time – perhaps she’d better stop bothering him.) ‘Wait till he gets there. Face to face is always better. Otherwise we just lie.’

Nice to know the male species was so reliable.

And now Thursday was here and she was still stuck at work despite her intentions to get away early and the phone kept bleeping with messages from Dad which she didn’t have time to open and Max, the editor-in-chief, had summoned her in for a ‘short meeting’ in his office to discuss her ideas for the next issue.

Shit. Sorry. Sugar!

Max was younger than her and was very keen to keep rising. He was also of dubious gender (the pictures editor had sworn he was male turned female and the subs were rooting for the other way round). He also used real handkerchiefs and not squashed up bits of loo roll. In other words, he was more grown up than she was.

‘Lizzie. Come in.’

He patted the chair next to him. That was another of his quirks. No one sat opposite the ed-in-chief because they were ‘all in this together’. Instead, you had to sit next to him and breathe out as often as possible in order to avoid breathing in the eau de whatever that he always wore.

‘Nice ideas. I particularly like the one about how to make your man fall in love with you all over again. Impossible of course. But you’ll find a case history – you always do. That’s why you’re so good at your job, Lizzie!’

On any other occasion, she’d have glowed with the praise. Max didn’t always show such enthusiasm about his staff’s work but since he started talking about his  ‘new partner’, he was becoming dangerously pleasant. Everyone said so.

With any luck, it would mean he’d renew her contract which ran out in a couple of months. Lizzie knew she’d been dead lucky so far. After Jack had been born, she’d negotiated working hours which allowed her to work partly at home and partly in the office provided she delivered her copy on time. It didn’t go down too well with the childless brigade in the office but, thanks to the union, they couldn’t do anything about it especially as she’d agreed to oversee shoots when they’d made her editor.

Not that that was anything to be proud of. If anything, it meant her head was next on the block. That’s how it worked on magazines. Circulation down? Chop off the editor’s head. Re-invent the readership. Or the content. Or both.

Max fixed her with a perfectly formed smile thanks, no doubt, to some expensive orthodontist. How’s that piece going on
‘No Sex, I’m Pregnant’?
’

‘Great!’ She beamed, hoping it would reassure him. That one had been a bit of a tough nut to crack but she’d finally come up with someone who was prepared to be photographed (not in bed, obviously as the whole point was that IT wasn’t going on) for a fee. Even better, it wasn’t one of the women from school or someone else whom she’d had to become best friends with overnight in order to persuade them. It was a woman from a national single-parent group. ‘I was always too tired for sex and it finished my marriage,’ she’d told Lizzie during the interview. ‘He just couldn’t understand why I didn’t want it.’

Was that why Tom had gone, Lizzie had wondered while writing up the piece. Because she’d all too often been too tired for sex?

‘You all right, Lizzie?’ asked Kelly, when she returned to her desk after her Max meeting. Kelly was one of the subs (fresh from college; acrylic nails; orange streaks in hair) who sat opposite and who had been given the agony aunt page as soon as she'd started, to give the magazine  a ‘contemporary slant’ (again).

‘Yes. Why?’

The sub looked pointedly at Lizzie’s hands. How weird! They seemed to be  tearing up the photograph of Tom that she always kept on her desk. The one of him on their wedding day.

Kelly pushed her chair towards Lizzie’s and unwrapped something from a thin strip of silver foil. ‘Want to tell me about it?’

So somehow, Lizzie found herself breaking all the office rules and telling her everything. Tom, Sharon, the baby . . . And it was then that Kelly had come up with the brainwave. A far better one than Ed’s. ‘You say this Sharon is a bit of a flirt.’

‘She is! You ought to see her with the dads at school during parents evening. And the stuff she wears! Her chest gets more fresh air than her mouth.’

‘So,’ said Kelly slowly, chewing her gum thoughtfully, ‘how do you know the baby is Tom’s?’

Why hadn’t she thought of that herself?! All she had to do now was persuade Tom that Sharon had slept around (well she’d practically pole danced up the school gates in those ridiculously low-cut tops in midwinter) and get him to get her to take a test. The Slut would be so offended that with any luck they’d have an argument and maybe . . . well just maybe, coupled with the plan for next week, it would be all right again.

Shitsorrysugar. Lizzie groaned at the email that had just popped up from the chief sub.

‘Where is copy on
‘No Sex, I’m Pregnant’
?’

 Right. It was all fingers on the keyboard now until the end of the day (virtually night if you looked outside at the dark with all the other little glittering office lights). By the time she actually emerged from the building, it was gone 7pm.

Mum, thank heavens, was picking up the children – blast, she hadn’t texted Dad back – so now all she had to do was get them from Mum and Dad’s, persuade Jack to act out of character (e.g. behave); find something sexy to wear, heat up that M & S mend-our-marriage dish and persuade Tom to stay the night.

Simple.

Crazy.

The train took ages – something about engineering works in a place she’d never heard of – and twenty minutes later than the ‘scheduled arrival time’, Lizzie spilled out at Amersham station along with hordes of other freezing commuters, furiously texting for their lifts. She and Tom had often talked about giving all this up and going somewhere warm like Italy or maybe France. And they would! They still could! Provided everything went well tonight!

‘At last!’

Dad, looking surprisingly smart in a canary yellow jumper and smelling of a lemony aftershave, was already waiting for her at the door. ‘Didn’t you get my texts? No. Don’t tell your mother you’re here. I need to talk to you first. This way.’

What was going on? Dad was virtually dragging her down the muddy garden path to his shed. ‘It’s freezing, Dad.  What on earth’s the matter?’ A horrible thought struck her. ‘Mum’s not ill, is she?’

‘That’s one way of looking at it.’

His eyes were bright but in a scary way. ‘It’s all Sophie’s fault. If she hadn’t shown us how, it wouldn’t have happened.’

Relief that Mum wasn’t ill made her snappish. ‘What wouldn’t have happened?’

‘George. That’s what.’

Not George!

‘Thought it was water under the bridge until Sophie got us onto Grandparents Reunited and there he was. Popped up like the little popinjay he always was. Can’t think what she sees in him.’

Sees? That sounded ominously like the present tense. ‘Only got him round to tea, hasn’t she? Sitting there, bold as brass, in my sitting room, drinking my beer.’

Beer?

‘Still. She’ll be sorry.’

Sorry?

Dad looked slightly bashful. ’Well what’s goose for the gander and all that.’

Sorry?

‘So I got hold of Marjorie.’

Marjorie?

‘Nice woman. Still lives locally, can you believe and just been widowed again. Seemed very keen to make my acquaintance once more. You wouldn’t believe how much we’ve got in common! We’ve both started going to Yoga for the Over Sixties together. I did ask your mum but she didn’t want to come.
And
Marjorie’s shown me how to Google the meaning of my dreams.’

Lizzie’s head was swimming. Parents weren’t meant to do stuff like this. Well they were at
her
age but not at Mum and Dad’s.

‘Come on in, love.’ He was taking her by the arm. ‘I’d like you to meet Marje.’

It was surreal. Totally surreal. There was Dad talking to some enormous woman whom she might have thought of as jolly, if she wasn’t a contender for Dad’s affections. And then there was  George, who was painfully skinny and wearing a thin moustache and maroon cardi. One or the other would have been bad enough.

‘This is an old friend of mine, Lizzie,’ her mother said, flushing like some teenager and reeking of the Rive Gauche the kids had given her last Christmas.

He had a cold, limp handshake and it was all Lizzie could do not to throw up. What the hell were her parents playing at?

‘Sorry I can’t stay. I’ve got to get back. Tom’s coming over for supper.’

‘Ah yes, Tom.’ George nodded soulfully. ‘I was so sorry to hear about your marital problems.’

Shooting her mother a look that said, ‘
I’ll talk to you later about that’
, she gathered up the children and bundled them into the car.

‘I hope you’re satisfied,’ she hissed.

‘What are you on about, Mum?’

‘Getting Granddad and Gran to go on Grandparents Reunited.’

‘I didn’t get them.’ Sophie’s eyes gleamed with indignation. ‘They made me show them. All their friends are doing it apparently.’

Great! Lizzie slammed on the brakes as a bus pulled out in front of her. If grandparents couldn’t get it together, what hope was there for
her
generation?

So far, it was going really well. She’d hidden the frozen lasagne packet and grated some fresh parmesan on top with a sprinkling of parsley to make it look real. Pity it was plastic (the stuff was so tough it had snapped the kitchen scissors) and she only hoped it didn’t taste of the fish tank (it was actually that fake weed stuff at the bottom) but she’d make sure to scrape it off before dishing it out.

Tom, who had seemed to enjoy it, despite Jack clinging to his knee exactly the way she’d instructed him to, was also lapping up the wine which Sophie was expertly (too expertly) pouring out.

‘Thanks. That was great.’