If You're Not the One (6 page)

‘No, not yet,' she agreed.

Minutes later as she finally put down the phone she swallowed hard.

‘Hey you, you OK?' said Aidan. ‘Don't let them make you feel like shit.'

But Jennifer's previous good mood had dissolved entirely. Every time she spoke to them it was the same. It stirred up so many mixed emotions, doubt, fear and anger at both their handling of the situation and her own.

‘Listen, fuck 'em. Just forget about them, babe. Now let's get up and head to the beach.'

‘I don't know,' she said flatly, wishing it were that
simple. ‘Perhaps we shouldn't be going today you know. Perhaps it would be more sensible to head down to that building site to see if we can get you some work.'

Aidan rolled his eyes. ‘You're such a killjoy you are. Don't let your parents ruin our day. Just because they want to be miserable buggers doesn't mean we have to be. I mean, look how gorgeous it is out there and you want to sweat into town because some idiot from the cafe says there
might
be some work going. That's hardly making the best of the day is it?'

Jennifer despaired. ‘I don't know to be honest. I mean, yeah, it is a beautiful day, just like it was yesterday and the day before and the day before that. But it would also be good to be able to tell Mum and Dad that between the pair of us we had a bit more money coming in. Besides, we're not in England now you know? We don't have to drop everything just because the sun's out. I suspect it will be a beautiful day tomorrow too, only by then, if there is any work going it will have gone.'

Feeling decidedly grumpy now, in that second Jennifer wished heartily that it would start chucking it down with rain. A bit of damp and drizzle might force Aidan into doing something useful and they could have a day off from feeling required to be on the beach. She only had a couple of shifts in a cafe every week and he was working as a bouncer every Friday but that was the sum of their income at the moment. They were totally skint and their lack of a ‘plan' bothered her greatly, though every time
she raised the subject Aidan didn't seem to understand what her problem was. As far as he was concerned, they were living in hot sunshine, near a beach and having a lot of sex so there wasn't anything else to worry about. His needs were pretty simple.

‘Look, I'll go tomorrow when you're at work. There's no point wasting a day when we could be together, hanging out,' he said.

‘All right,' she said, suddenly too hot and lethargic to protest. Besides, by now she was also keen to get out of the stifling apartment. She decided to make an effort to snap out of the mood which she knew deep down had been caused by speaking to her parents. She just wished they would be a bit more supportive. Aidan, who could see she was feeling tense and sad, came over and started to stroke her back in a way that instantly made her shiver with physical pleasure.

‘Hey baby, it's OK,' he soothed.

‘I know,' she said unconvincingly.

His hands carried on lightly travelling up her back and then around to her front where he gently rubbed her breasts. His touch was incredible and never failed to arouse her.

‘Is that nice?'

‘Mm,' she sighed, giving in to the sensations and reaching around to feel if he too was getting excited. He was.

‘Wow. We only had sex five minutes ago.'

‘That's what you do to me, little baby,' he whispered in
her ear before pulling her around and kissing her passionately and deeply.

They fell into bed and gradually her troubles faded away. There was no point stressing about anything too much, she supposed. She was in Australia so had to just make the best of it and to enjoy being with this amazing man who had the ability to frustrate and delight her in equal measure. Had she done the right thing? Who knew? Ultimately, she guessed, only time would tell but for now she was lost in the moment, and the moment felt unbelievably good.

Jennifer didn't exactly emerge from the tunnel. The sensation felt more like an expulsion, one which was sudden, brutal, and delivered with precisely no warning whatsoever. She was left feeling confused and utterly depleted. Her brain desperately needed time to rest and recover from what she'd just experienced, which was frustrating because there was so much she wanted to absorb, mull over and digest. But for now she was nowhere near capable. She needed to sleep. Before she surrendered to the grey ether however, she quickly glanced around and noted that the three tunnels all still existed, though the first was definitely shining ever so slightly less brightly.

She knew then that she would have another opportunity to visit each of them and was swamped with relief. She wanted to find out more about how things would have gone with Aidan. This was the most fascinating, terrifying, yet privileged gift she could ever have been afforded. For now though it was time to regain some strength and with that final thought she allowed herself to slip away.

‘Polly and Eadie need to get out and burn off a bit of energy,' announced Jennifer.

‘Take them to the park then,' said Max, finishing the last bit of his toasted bacon sandwich, and only narrowly saving himself from being swatted with a copy of
The Sunday Times
by winking, to make sure his wife knew he was joking. ‘Come on then, let's take them to the swings now, and then perhaps we should go out for lunch, so you don't have to cook?'

Jennifer acknowledged that this was a kind thought but couldn't help but wonder what was preventing him from rustling anything up.

‘Or should I say, so you don't have to buy in any revolting stuffed chickens that don't actually look or taste anything like chickens.' Another wink.

‘Ha bloody ha,' said Jennifer, laughing despite herself. ‘OK, that sounds good. And there's a pie in the fridge which we can all have for early dinner but not much more than that so hopefully it'll be quiet at work tomorrow, so I can do a shop in my lunch break. Otherwise I'll have to go later.'

‘Good,' said Max, who didn't really care. Food was his wife's department as far as he was concerned. ‘Right, Po-lly, Ea-die, come and get your shoes on, we're going to the park,' he yelled in the general direction of the kitchen door, getting up to put his plate in the sink.

‘Let's aim to wear them out as much as possible,' said Jennifer.

‘Definitely,' Max agreed. ‘Then we can plonk them in front of a DVD this afternoon totally guilt-free.'

‘Sounds good to me,' said Jennifer, wondering hopefully if that meant that he was thinking they might be able to sneak back to bed for some canoodling.

‘Because I hope you don't mind,' added Max, looking sheepish, ‘but there's a footy match on that I really want to watch this afternoon and I told Ted he could come round and watch it here. He still doesn't have Sky Sports at his.'

‘Oh…right,' she said feeling crestfallen and bored already.

‘You don't mind do you?'

‘No,' she lied.

Later that afternoon, despite having been run out in the park all morning, like dogs, Polly and Eadie were still full of energy. They usually got on pretty well but today were directing it all towards fighting with one another, forcing Jennifer to act as both bouncer and mediator. When she wasn't stopping them from killing each other over, of
all things, a broken Barbie, she was putting on washing, taking it out or shoving it in the mountainous ironing pile. All in all not the most riveting of afternoons and, as she took out load after load, she thought wistfully of pre-children days when Sundays meant lying in bed with a hangover, which would eventually be cured by a Bloody Mary and a roast dinner at the pub, followed perhaps by a movie and some lovely sex. God, she was becoming obsessed. This must be how people felt when they came out of prison, or the army.

‘Come on, you two,' she said now, or rather yelled, because by this point both her daughters' whining had developed into full-blown wailing. ‘Eadie, bash your sister again and I'll bash you.'

Of course she would never bash her kids in a million years so the threat was rather empty which Eadie could tell.

Eadie eyeballed her mum through the wonky brown fringe Jennifer had gifted her with only the week before, as if weighing up how much trouble she'd be in if she ignored her. Then, obviously having concluded she could handle whatever was flung at her, proceeded to whack Polly again.

‘Right,' growled Jennifer, who had now officially had enough. ‘That's it, up to your room.'

As Eadie burst into noisy sobs, Jennifer sighed heavily, sick to the back teeth of all the squabbling but partly blaming herself for it. No doubt her children had picked up
on her generally unenthusiastic mood? Perhaps if she'd been perkier today and more inventive in finding ways to entertain them, they'd be behaving fine but frankly she just wanted to be able to leave them to their own devices for more than five minutes. She was tired and would like nothing more than to get into her pyjamas and zone out to a bit of crappy afternoon telly.

Max scampered into the kitchen.

‘All all right in here?' he said, charging to the fridge to get a couple more beers. ‘Did I hear wailing?'

‘Yes you did,' snapped Jennifer. ‘They're behaving like a couple of deranged chimps. I've sent Eadie to her room for bashing Polly.'

‘Yeah Daddy, she hit me really hard,' said Polly, rubbing her arm to demonstrate how much it hurt.

‘Er, it was the other arm, Pol,' said Jennifer wryly.

‘How could you miss that, you bloody idiot?' Ted yelled from the front room at which point Max literally ran back out of the kitchen, bottles of lager in both hands and one under his arm, skidding on the wooden floor of the hall in his socks. As he disappeared he yelled over his shoulder, ‘Be good for your mother.'

‘Come on you, let's get some colouring stuff out,' said Jennifer to her youngest, ‘but hurry up because I need to go and make sure Eadie's OK. And don't think I'm massively happy with you either, Madame,' she added, noting Polly's smug expression as she gloated over how much trouble her sister was in.

Later, after thirty minutes spent with Eadie in her bedroom, who by now had worked herself up into such a state she'd needed soothing and stroking, despite the fact it had been her who had been in the wrong, Jennifer decided to join the boys in the lounge. That way if the children wanted anything their father might be forced to do something.

‘Hello,' Max said, looking distracted and surprised to see her standing in her own front room.

Max was on one sofa and Ted was on the other. Both were sitting wide-legged on the edge, beers in hand.

‘You all right? Second half's just started. Why don't you see if there's a nice movie on upstairs? There might be a rom com or something.'

‘Because Eadie's watching
Tangled
on our bed and as much as I actually quite enjoyed it the first time round I can probably live without seeing it again,' she replied, flopping onto the sofa that Ted was sitting on. He shuffled up, slightly reluctantly, to make a bit of room, his eyes never leaving the TV.

‘All right, Ted?' she asked.

‘Yeah, great thanks,' he said, reminding her of when Eadie's friends came round to play and answered her questions about school politely, with enough clues in their tone to suggest they'd rather not be talking to her at all.

‘How's Annabelle? Is she well?' she continued, not really caring if Ted didn't want to talk. She did. She was bored.

‘Not bad thanks. Bit stressed. Callum's been off school with tonsillitis but other than that OK.'

‘Good,' she said, flicking through
Style
magazine.

‘Hey, have you seen your ex's latest chart position in this year's Rich List?' said Max, throwing the supplement in her direction.

‘Oh god.' Jennifer rolled her eyes. ‘Go on then, let's feel sick for a second.'

‘reUNIon floated this year,' Max informed Ted, almost proudly. ‘He's worth a billion now.'

‘You are having a laugh,' said Jennifer, though soon she knew it to be true for there it was in black and white, accompanied by a picture of him. Tim Purcell. The ex-boyfriend she'd put up with for two and a half years, now worth a billion quid. She scrutinised the picture of him. His blond hair was slightly silvery around the edges, but only slightly. He was a little more jowly but on the whole looked remarkably similar to how he had done fifteen years ago. He was good looking in a Nordic sort of way and had always had incredibly good skin, though his blue eyes were flinty and rather too deep set and his nose was a little too sharp. His face couldn't have been more different to the one she'd eventually married. Max's mop of brown hair and friendly face may not have been anywhere near as chiselled but it was one that overall she far preferred staring at.

She wondered what it would be like to see Tim now, after all these years. Would they get on? They'd had a
strange relationship really. She'd always felt as if more than anything she'd
amused
him. She'd known he'd found her funny and sweet but she'd never got the impression that he massively fancied her. Then again, for her, it hadn't necessarily been a relationship based on physical attraction either. She'd just been so terribly impressed by him, by his flair, and had liked being associated with someone who everyone on campus was aware of. If she did ever meet up with him again she'd love to ask him what he'd seen in her. She doubted they ever would though. They were hardly likely to bump into one another. They mixed in totally different circles. Plus they'd never kept in touch due to the fact that they'd broken up on such desperately bad terms, which ironically was the one time he'd demonstrated that actually she had got under his skin. Or had it just been his ego making him so angry and upset when she'd told him she wanted to split up?

‘What I'd do with a billion quid,' mused Ted.

Buy yourself a Sky Sports subscription hopefully, Jennifer thought to herself, smiling blankly at him.

‘Perhaps I should get in contact with Tim and ask him if I can have a thousand pounds that I could use to get the tumble dryer fixed, pay some bills and have a splurge in Whistles eh? It would be pocket money to him,' she joked.

‘Bet you wish you'd stuck with him, eh Jen? Instead of hooking up with this here loser,' said Ted.

Jennifer smiled and shook her head. ‘Not at all, Ted. He may be rich but he was a bit of a cold shit really.'

‘Bloody clever though,' said Max, ‘I mean, who hasn't been on reUNIon at some point or another? Apart from my parents, who are literally the only people I can think of.'

It always struck Jennifer as slightly strange when Max went on about how clever Tim was. It was almost as if he was proud of the fact she'd gone out with him yet she'd have preferred it if he was a little bit jealous. As it was she suspected he'd probably love to meet him, have dinner with him, be able to discuss his career with him. In fact, given the choice, these days it wouldn't surprise her if he were to choose going to dinner with him over dinner with her.

Jennifer's phone beeped. It was a text from Esther, saying she was round the corner at the park with Sophie and could she pop in for a cuppa.

Jennifer phoned straight away. ‘Please come round. Max and Ted are here watching footy and I would love to see you. Also, Sophie can sort my two out and give them something more interesting to do than killing each other.'

Bored rigid of the swings, Esther was round in minutes.

‘I am so glad to see you,' said Jennifer flinging her arms round her friend as soon as she'd opened the door. ‘Hi Sophie, how are you sweetie?' she asked her goddaughter.

‘Good,' said Sophie.

‘Go on then, Eadie's upstairs and ah…here's Pol. Have you finished colouring?'

‘Yes,' said Polly, looking delighted to have a playmate that wasn't Eadie.

As the girls scampered upstairs Jennifer ushered Esther into the kitchen.

‘Am I glad to see you? What a dull weekend I've had, bloody hell.'

Esther giggled. ‘Why? What have you been up to?'

‘Ugh,' groaned Jennifer. ‘Well, we didn't have the kids Friday night but we managed to totally waste that window of opportunity to have some fun by doing jack shit. Then on Saturday we had Judith and boring Henry round for lunch.'

‘Oh god,' said Esther, who had heard enough about them to imagine what that would have entailed.

‘Quite, although I did nearly give them food poisoning which added a very small frisson of excitement. Then today I thought we were going to have a nice family day but it's ended up being a day of sport watching and beer drinking with good old Ted.' This last bit she said in a hushed tone.

‘All sounds joyous,' laughed Esther, slipping off her jacket. She looked great as ever, but today she also looked tired. Under all those freckles she was pale, though as ever her naturally strawberry blonde hair was shiny and brushed and no matter how tired she'd always look attractive. She'd aged really well and always dressed in a way which made other women want to know where her clothes were from. She always bothered to add accessories and put outfits together in a way that told you she hadn't just picked up whatever was on the floor and thrown it on.
Today her printed scarf and Alex Monroe gold bumblebee necklace were the items Jennifer was coveting.

‘Sounds like you need a good night out with the girls.'

‘I do,' agreed Jennifer. ‘You know we're going out on Tuesday don't you? Only to the Hare and Hounds but perhaps then we can get our diaries out and arrange something proper. Something which involves cocktails and dancing. Love that scarf by the way.'

‘Thanks, it's River Island and yeah, I do know about Tuesday, although I'm not a hundred percent sure I can come yet,' said Esther. ‘I still need to get a sitter sorted out.'

Jennifer suspected at that point she definitely wouldn't be coming then. Such a shame and it grated ever so slightly that she wasn't making it a priority.

‘Tea?'

‘Yeah please.'

‘Anyway, enough of my boring weekend, how's yours been?'

‘Not bad actually,' said Esther, a sly grin lighting up her face.

‘Go on,' said Jennifer getting mugs out of the cupboard, happy that her friend was round. Her proper friend. It had restored her equilibrium.

‘Well, Jason and I are pretty skint at the moment and we've been in loads, but on Friday my mum babysat so we went out and got hammered. I'm talking properly pissed and when we got home and Mum had gone, we
ended up…' Esther grinned and started shaking her head ‘…doing it in the hall. And then we actually did it…' again she had to stop while she snorted with laughter at the memory ‘…in the downstairs loo.'