One Thing Led to Another (27 page)

‘Oh right.’ Jim sits up on the sofa and turns the TV off.

‘The thing is, Laurence and I weren’t just meeting as friends. We were dating, we were a sort of item. I know there was the house rule so I wanted to be honest with you. It’s been niggling at me ever since.’

Jim’s face is a blank.

‘What, even though you told him you were pregnant?’

‘I didn’t tell him – well, I did eventually, but not at first like I told you I did. I told him when we’d already been seeing each other for a while.’

‘Why? Oh…’ Jim gives a shy laugh, like ‘silly me’. ‘Of course, that would be suicide.’

‘I wanted him to fancy me, I didn’t want to scare him off. I thought we may even have had a chance.’

‘Seriously?’ Jim looks a bit shocked.

‘Yes. I mean, I know it sounds stupid, but the things he
told me about really wanting kids and wanting to get married, I really thought he’d changed and that maybe after the baby was born that we could take it slowly, give it a go.’

‘I see. So, what do you call seeing each other?’ says Jim ‘I mean, did you have?’

‘No! God no, although we nearly did. I went back to his house at one point, things got a bit fresh but something got in the way.’

Jim frowns at me. ‘Like, a baby I would presume.’

‘Yes, the baby. Of
course
the baby,’ I say, thinking I cannot believe that Sebastian Snail is etched more in my psyche of that moment than the bloody baby.

‘Anyway, that’s when I told him.’

‘And he couldn’t handle it, right?’

‘No, course he couldn’t and anyway, it turns out there was another complication.’

I tell Jim everything: about how Laurence told me he’d finished it with Chloe and how she was a total bunny boiler and how none of the above was true because all the time he was bloody engaged to her! I tell him how I was just a distraction, a last chance saloon at some no-strings fun, how he clearly spun me a load of crap just to get in my knickers.

‘He’s such a wanker Tess, you do know that don’t you?’ Jim says.

‘I do now!’ I say, smiling, ironically.

We don’t say anything for a while, I look out at the front garden, the leaves of the cherry tree blow prettily in the breeze.

‘So er…’ Jim starts to speak, I look at him, but he’s not looking at me, he’s staring intently at his finger. ‘Did you love him?’

And even though I sit there and think, no, I love you, you bloody fool. I say, ‘Yes, at one point, I really think I did.’

‘There was no way Mike was in denial. It was like we were both pregnant. If I wanted treacle pudding and custard in bed whilst watching
Sex and the City
, Mike would join me. If I scoffed cheese on toast in the middle of the night, so did he. We both put on three stone by the end. Problem was, I lost half of that when our daughter was born. A year later, Mike still looks four months gone.’

Steph, 28, St Albans

How did that happen? I’ve just woken up and looked at my I ‘heart’ the Algarve alarm clock and it’s 11.10 a.m. I sit up and push myself up against my pillows. Everything feels strange; silent and still like we’re snowed in outside, or like I’ve slept through my alarm and missed a flight somewhere fantastic that all my friends are on right now, singing and drinking beer.

I lie still for a while, the kick kick of our baby like the ticks of a clock, time ebbing away. Then I get up, knock on Jim’s door but there’s no answer, and when I go in the bed’s made so I figure he must have gone out.

I go downstairs in my nightie, stand in the kitchen not quite sure what to do with myself, the only noise, the low
purr of the fridge. Out of the corner of my eye I spot last night’s note about Vicky’s call. Bollocks, I didn’t call her back. Yet again I was so wrapped up in my own dramas I totally forgot. I ring my mobile from the landline and it immediately springs into action, rotating like an electrocuted rodent on the coffee table. I scroll through to V.

‘Hi, it’s me, are you alright? Sorry I totally forgot to call you back last night.’

‘Not to worry.’ Her voice is sing-songy, more relaxed than she’s sounded in ages. ‘It’s probably better you waited until this morning anyway.’

‘Why? What’s up? What’s happened?’

‘Hang on.’ Vicky mumbles something, obviously to Rich, I can hear Dylan chuntering in the background. ‘I’m just going next door.’

I hear a door close, then a big sigh, then: ‘It’s alright, we’ve sort of sorted it now, but Rich and I had a bit of a hoo-ha last night,’ she says. (This probably means they almost killed each other, Vicky always plays her own life down.) ‘You know my birthday party? You know how Rich went awol for ages and Jim had to start the speech and then when he did turn up he was pissed out of his head?’

‘Yeeah.’

‘Well, it turned out he was snogging some girl outside. He confessed to me yesterday.’

‘
What?!
Who?!’ (‘Whatabastard’ is on the tip of my tongue, but somehow I sense that would be inappropriate.)

‘Oh, God, I don’t know some bird, a friend of a friend of someone from my course.’

‘Yeah but, hang on.’ I put my feet up on the coffee table. ‘How come you’re so calm about it? I’m worried, are you drunk?’

‘No! Give over. Honestly, Tess, the sucking up and beating himself up about it all is doing my head in more than what
he was like before he confessed!’ she laughs. I don’t. Has she gone mad?

‘Listen, what are you up to today?’ she says.

‘Er, me? Nothing. Jim’s gone off somewhere, I’m just skulking around like a bush pig.’ The pneumatic drill starts up on Lordship Lane again.

Vicks laughs. ‘Do you want to meet? Rich has got Dylan all day and evening – for obvious reasons. Gina’s going to come too, I could tell you all the gory details then?’

‘Oh, OK.’ I don’t sound convinced.

‘Don’t worry!’ she laughs. ‘Honestly, it’s not as bad as it sounds, I’m kind of glad it happened, actually. Anyway, are
you
OK?’

‘Yeah, yeah I’m fine, well there’s things to tell you too.’

‘Sounds ominous, let’s meet. We’ve clearly got ground to cover.’

We meet at JACK’S bar underneath the railway arches near Southwark station. Everybody’s sitting outside amongst the hanging baskets and enormous spider plants. Laidback Ibiza chill-out tunes float from the speaker. For a second, when I spot Gina and Vicky, already tucking into a bottle of white wine I ache for old times, for last summer, before life got so bloody
grown up.

I can hear Vicky’s flat Yorkshire tones from a mile away.

‘Thing is,’ she’s saying, ‘he was so wasted he can’t even remember who she was. She’s irrelevant, anyway, as far as I’m concerned. It’s why he did it that’s important.’

Gina listens, aghast.

‘But he got off with someone, and you’re married – don’t you feel a
bit
fucked off?!’

‘Hiya.’ I put my bag down and swing my legs over the bench, rather ungainly what with the bump, so I’m sitting opposite them. ‘I caught that last bit but you might have to rewind, go right back to the beginning.’

So she does. She tells me how Richard had been acting really strange for ages and how everything came to a head last night. They had a huge row about the fact that the dishwasher had been broken for weeks (she was making a stand against doing anything about it because she always sorts everything to do with the house out, apparently. Rich didn’t even notice she was making a stand…) Then it transpired that Rich was also making a stand, in his way, against being constantly nagged.
Then,
in the heat of the argument, he dropped the bombshell that he’d snogged someone at Vicky’s party and that he had been racked with guilt and self-hatred ever since, which actually was the real reason he couldn’t face her. Then, he burst into tears.

‘He actually got down on his knees at one point,’ Vicky says, half laughing, half crying. ‘He was so obsessed with this notion that it meant nothing and that I believed that and you know, I know it might sound strange but I really do.’

Gina and I nod in unison because actually, come to think of it, the thought of Richard snogging someone else other than Vicky and it meaning anything is totally preposterous. And we just know him, we can feel what he felt when he sobered up the next morning and remembered. He probably cried then too, sobbed like a baby then signed himself up for some public stoning. It’s just not Richard. Rich is many things, but he’ll never be a philanderer.

‘Anyway,’ continues Vicky. ‘I blame myself, partly.’

‘Really?’ I say. ‘How’s that?’

‘Well poor Rich,’ she says. ‘He must have felt pretty shut out since Dylan was born. I’m so obsessed with being the perfect mum and not ballsing it up like mine did, he probably just wanted some attention. I seem to have turned into a nag, which I vowed I would
never
do. And I just think, I don’t cut him much slack. Just because I’ve had to work out how to do everything, had to develop such heightened life skills – out of necessity and survival more than anything – I
expect him to too. But really, I never married a man who would earn a lot, or be good at DIY or paying the bills, or mending the goddamn dishwasher did I?’

‘And, I’ve been so ungenerous about the script writing thing. I mean I know it’ll probably come to nothing but he’s proud of it, and it’s a creative outlet for him and to be honest, I’m just bitter and twisted and jealous because I no longer sing, I mean, why do I no longer sing?’ she says, exasperated with her own lack of initiative.

I watch Vicky as she talks, that wide open face, the broad smile that comes often and easily, the clear blue, make-up-less eyes behind which lie no secrets, no mind games and I think how much I admire her. She looks in the mirror and she sees who she really is, and I wonder, do I do that?

We chat, the sun shines high and the barman brings me a virgin Mary and I imagine I am, actually, sitting with my mates at Café del Mar and I forget about me. Then Vicky slaps a hand to her forehead.

‘Oh my God! Tess! There’s me banging on about me and I haven’t even asked about you, so what’s happened?’

‘Shit, yeah.’ Gina’s spine straightens. ‘What’s happening re Laurence?’

‘Oh God.’ I drape myself dramatically across the table then go through the whole story. Vicky, bless her, has the decency never to say ‘I told you so’ or even look like she’s thinking it, but I know she is. Gina just hides behind her sunglasses, but I can tell by the way she’s twirling her hair and kind of pouting, like an embarrassed teenager, that she feels partly responsible, just for being an acquaintance of his – even though I don’t blame her at all.

‘Ah,’ she grimaces when I’ve finished, ‘so it turns out, he’s still a total shit, then, that he hasn’t changed one bit.’ Which I appreciate, because I know the effort it’s taken her to say that.

‘Oh Jarvis,’ sighs Vicky. ‘You’ve really been through it
this past month haven’t you, eh? Life’s had it in for you.’

‘All my own fault no doubt, the muppet that I am. But you know the worst thing about all this?’

‘No what’s the worst thing?’ they say.

‘I think I’m in love with Jim.’

The squealing and hitting me over the head till I have to almost cower to protect myself goes on for at least a minute. Gina has to have a fag to celebrate.

‘Oh my God, I knew it!’ Vicky wags a finger at me. Her eyes light up with knowing delight. ‘I knew that face of yours, that smile, every time anybody ever spoke about him!’

‘Yeah,’ adds Gina, taking a drag, ‘and that look of love when he got wasted at the barbie and everyone else thought he was acting like a knob end.’

‘Er, actually,’ I correct, ‘I did not love that.
You
didn’t have to mop up his wee when he missed the toilet bowl later that night.’

‘Oh will you listen to her!’ laughs Gina, ‘
how
married?!’

Despite myself I blush, with happy embarrassment, but then the reality of the situation wipes the smile of my face.

‘Anyway,’ I say, ‘it doesn’t really matter what I feel because it still ain’t happening.’

Their faces fall, ‘Eh?’

‘Jim doesn’t feel the same way, I know he doesn’t. There was a time, we had this day in Whitstable, right, and it was glorious and wonderful and I thought, maybe, he did feel something but since then, honestly, he may as well be camping outside that solicitor’s he’s so desperate for the flat to go through…’

‘What do you mean?’ says Vicky, her whole body deflating.

‘Well, I only put an offer in because Jim was so enthusiastic about the idea. And then you should have heard him, he would have been down there decorating if I’d have let him this weekend. He wants me out, asap.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ says Vicky, shaking her head.

Gina takes off her sunglasses.

‘That’s because it’s bollocks,’ she says.

‘How are you so sure?’ I say. She’s looking sheepish now and I’m a bit unnerved.

‘I just am.’

‘Er, like how? Gina? You can’t say something like that then not say anything else.’

‘Look, promise you won’t be mad with me?’ she pleads, getting hold of my hand. ‘Because if I had known then what I know now there’s no way it would have happened.’

My heart is pounding. ‘No, I won’t be mad at you.’

‘That night, when you went out with Laurence, basically, well…’ She looks away, embarrassed, I’ve never seen Gina like this. ‘I made a move on Jim. Oh God! I was so drunk!’

I gasp, not out of horror, but just shock. Jim’s the last person I thought Gina would have gone for!

‘I’m sorry Tess, I had no idea you felt like you did I thought…oh fuck.’

‘Yeah, oh fuck Gina,’ mumbles Vicky, shaking her head in disbelief.

‘But listen,’ she says, I sit there, open-mouthed. ‘nothing happened, I swear nothing happened, do you know why?’

‘No, why?’

‘Because he wants you. Only you, Tess! He said if he was going to kiss anyone, it would only be you. The thing is, I’ve always fancied Jim.’

‘OhmiGod,’ squeaks Vicky. This is getting farcical now.

‘When you two were attached to each other at the hip all the way through uni I was so fucking jealous.’ I’ve never seen Gina so transparent before, it’s like she’s turned on a light and we can see right inside her head. ‘I used to fantasize about going out with someone like Jim – so caring and funny and
creative,
properly creative. Not a pretend creative which
is all I ever seemed to get. But I knew even then he was in love with you, it was so bloody obvious. Then, when you got pregnant, I was kind of mad with you, you know? Because it seemed such a waste. You didn’t even want him and now nobody could have him – least of all me!’

Vicky looks at Gina, gobsmacked. I just sit there wondering if I’m dreaming.

‘OK,’ says Gina, when we don’t say anything. ‘You can both stop looking demented now. Tess, it’s OK, I’m in no way a threat. Jim and I would never work, I’m too intolerant, he’s too laidback and anyway, I’m totally in love with Simon, but I’m telling you, Tess…’

I look at her now and I find myself smiling.

‘I’m telling you because I love you. I love you guys to bits, you and him. And I want you to know the truth and to sort it out, and –’ she lifts her hands in exasperation ‘– to fucking get it together. Like, come on!!’

I sit there and I feel, I don’t know what I feel, an explosion of joy, I suppose, and of gratitude. I get up, go round to the other side of the table, and as I do I sense just a twitch of a flinch from Gina – my God, she thinks I might hit her! But of course, I don’t. I take her glass from her hand, sit down beside her and wrap my arms around her bare, tanned shoulders. ‘Thanks Gina. Thank you,’ I say, ‘I love you too.’

I am practically sprinting – well running as fast as my condition will allow me – along Blackfriars Road, planning what I’m going to say in my head. The sky is clear, my head’s clearer than it’s ever been. I’ve got my hand over my mouth, I feel like I might overflow with happiness. I get my mobile out to call Jim, to ask when he’s coming back. I want to see him – but as I do, my mobile rings. It’s Ed, my brother. ‘Tess? he says. ‘Can you come home? Like, right away? It’s dad.’