Please Let It Stop (23 page)

Mostly we just take pleasure in mercilessly ripping each other apart and I actually find when I’m with her that my
wit is sharper. During our holiday in La Manga we were all in good form. After one evening filled with varying degrees of male attention she said to me, ‘I can’t believe you were talking to that Simon last night. He was such a tosser.’ ‘Babe,’ I replied, ‘I gave my tongue to that “tosser”.’ There was something about that particular trip that fuelled our desire for more girlie weekends. A couple of weeks later we boarded a plane to Barcelona and brazenly gatecrashed Sandie’s future sister-in-law’s hen weekend.

The girlie weekends were a great diversion from the indecision that now characterised my relationship with Dan. Having poured his heart out about how much he missed me prior to returning in July, we were now stumbling along, sometimes very happy, sometimes just existing. It was not, and is not, the way I want to live with the man I love, but I loved him. Were we marking time? Perhaps we were. There is a view that once you spend more time talking about your relationship than actually having it, you’re in trouble. One of the worst moments was when we’d gone out for dinner with Vanessa and Nick, and Sandie and her husband Graham. Afterwards we went to a nightclub. We were having a good time, or so I thought until I turned round to him and said, ‘Babe, I’d like to take you home and make mad, passionate love to you.’ He just said, ‘Why don’t you back off!’ I went into the toilet with Sandie, and, holding back the tears, told her what had
happened. When we got home I was still very upset as he had made me feel completely undesirable. He was drunk and went to sleep.

Somehow we limped along to Christmas 2005. The day itself seemed to give us a spark, which was good since we were hosting. I had decided that I was going to hold it at home and I went all out to make sure every detail was perfect. It was the first time I’d done a proper Christmas at the Barn and I really went for it. I love entertaining and I saw this as a great opportunity to use my artistic skills. We invited all of Dan’s family; in total there were twenty of us. With the help of Dan’s mum Lyn, his sister Lorna and Aunt Mary, I cooked a full traditional Christmas dinner. Even Dan’s dad, Roger, dressed up as Santa and delighted the children. I made chocolate place settings and baked Christmas cookies on to which I piped everyone’s name. We even had Santa’s footsteps going from the chimney to the tree! The house looked magical and everyone later said it had been a brilliant day. Dan’s nieces and nephews were there. They are so sweet and, although Dan adores them, he didn’t seem to find it easy to be around any children at this time. You could see it trigger a change in him within a few hours. When Boxing Day dawned, he was very withdrawn and things were pretty miserable. We went to Devon for New Year’s Eve with loads of friends. When we returned on New Year’s Day he came in to the lounge and burst into tears. He just looked at me and said, ‘I don’t love you the
same way I did three months ago.’ That was the first time he’d said it like that.

Dan left for good on New Year’s Day 2006. Even if you are expecting something to happen it doesn’t lessen the impact when it does. The thought that we were finally saying goodbye left me heartbroken. But I didn’t hate Dan. It’s hard to hate someone who reminds you of a wounded puppy. That night Sandie came to stay with me and I cried all night. In the morning I woke up to the full realisation that it was finished. It was time to get on with the rest of my life. He came around one day to discuss splitting up the house and possessions and he sobbed the entire time. I don’t know what he expected me to say. I asked him, ‘If we’d had a baby would you have stayed?’ He replied yes, of course. I said, ‘So your love was conditional, then?’

I don’t think Dan was a poor choice. If I met another Dan tomorrow, but ten years older, I would definitely get involved with him. We enjoyed each other’s company and doing the same things. The age gap indirectly became an issue for us both. Me because, when Dan was faced with problems in his life for the very first time, he was too emotionally immature to deal with them. And, from his point of view, I think the time clock issue challenged his ideals. It wasn’t just the stress of IVF, but also the philosophical difference in our attitudes towards having children. I was and am able to accept that if it doesn’t happen I will still have a great life. Of course, I would be
deeply disappointed but I am grateful for everything I have and determined to enjoy every moment of it. For Dan our inability to conceive when he wanted to suddenly meant that everything he already had in his life was suddenly less meaningful. His inability to live in the moment, and my desire to live every moment, was probably an even larger gap between us than our ages. I stayed in the relationship long after it was clear that I was no longer being true to myself – partly because I feared I had fallen short in some way and partly because I thought I could turn our problems around. What I have learnt though is that you can’t fix someone; they have to want to fix themselves.

I was determined not to let our break up get to me. Perhaps prematurely, I decided to take myself on holiday to Barbados, in January. It was awful and I could not enjoy myself at all. I don’t know what I was expecting. I remember there were many times when my friend Val rang me and said, ‘Jaq, give me the word and I will be on the next plane out to join you.’ I declined and ended up coming home early. Val is another one of my closest friends. We first met when I was looking at new fit-outs for our shops. Val has her own design business of which shop fit is a component. Like me, she frequently goes abroad for business and we will often organise our meetings for Mondays so that we have an excuse to go away for the weekend – as if we needed any! Val has been married and has two grown-up
sons. To say she is glamorous, elegant and sophisticated is not an exaggeration. She’s also utterly loyal, with excellent powers of reasoning. If you talk to her about your problems she’ll generally come back to you with something very incisive.

A couple of months after breaking up from Dan, Val orchestrated a trip for us to Helsinki. She had a meeting during the week so we had a weekend to play. Val is a great planner: she had looked up all the hot restaurants and clubs, and had visualised a big night out for us. Our first stop was a restaurant and club she’d found. Val had sensibly instructed me to bring my trainers and boots in order to navigate the ice and snow, but I couldn’t help it and had to bring my Jimmy Choos. Val put on trousers and boots and still looked very glamorous but appropriate. I, on the other hand, thought, ‘Bugger it, dressing up is what I love and I’m going to wear my Jimmys with my jeans.’ I figured we were getting a taxi so what was the problem? When we arrived, all the women had Ugg-type boots on. I was the only woman with strappy high heels on but I felt good.

We sat down to eat in this fabulous restaurant which was attached to a club and life was looking good. There were quite a few men looking at us so we were happily contemplating the attention to come. Suddenly Val puts down her fork and says, ‘Oh my God!’ ‘What’s wrong, Val?’ I asked, thinking she might have forgotten something. ‘I’ve broken
my tooth … the front one.’ It was actually one of the teeth to the side of the two front ones, but that didn’t make it any less visible as the whole cap had come off, revealing the peg underneath. It was so funny that I just burst out laughing while Val sat there looking utterly dejected. I laughed so much it hurt. Val was unimpressed with my reaction so I composed myself and switched to my default problem-solving setting.

‘We’ll get some chewing gum, you can chew it and then we’ll use it to stick the tooth back on for the night.’

‘Jaq – even if that worked, I can’t do it.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’ve swallowed the tooth’

I burst out laughing again and couldn’t stop. Val looked perplexed. ‘Are we going back to the hotel?’ she whined.

‘No, we’re not. We’ve come all this way and we are going to enjoy ourselves, with teeth or not!’

Val looked cross and went to the ladies’ – probably to get away from me. As far as I was concerned, Val’s tooth problem was a minor hitch in the evening. While she was in the toilet I went to the bar. As I’m walking to the bar I felt something go from under one of my feet. It was the heel of one of my shoes. I looked down and it was completely broken. By now I’m halfway to the bar so I continued walking on tiptoe. There were lots of guys standing around looking very friendly. The men in Helsinki reminded me of a cross between Bart Simpson and Arnie
Schwarzenegger and they are incredibly forward, which is no bad thing.

I went back to the table and Val joined me. ‘Val,’ I said, ‘you’re not going to believe what’s happened to me. The heel on one of my Choos has broken.’ Now the laugh was on me and I could see her thinking, ‘Yes, there is a God.’ We were definitely not going back to the hotel. Val couldn’t smile. I couldn’t dance. But we were determined to see our evening through. We went to the club area where there was a separate check-in. At that moment a tall Bart Simpson lookalike comes around the corner. In his robotic English he tells the person at the entrance, ‘These two girls are with me.’ Well, that’s that sorted, we thought. He turned to us and said, ‘You are coming into the VIP lounge.’ When he said VIP he said it as a word rather than the letters, which made it sound very silly. Neither of us fancied him but he seemed to have claimed us. He was obviously quite wealthy and, accordingly, lavish with the champagne. As we were sitting there someone he knew came over and he introduced us saying, ‘This is my friend. He is an arsehole.’ Spoken in his broken Icelandic English, it came out sounding like a bad Schwarzenegger line. I assumed he was joking but I wasn’t sure and said to Val, ‘I’m not sure if I want to stay here.’

His friend sat down to talk to him. ‘Would you like to go for a dance and see the rest of the club?’ he asked. We established between us that we would do so without him and then enthusiastically agreed. It was our chance to
escape. As we left he said, ‘I have a gun in my pocket so you must come back otherwise I will shoot you!’ We didn’t come back to find out if he would or not. We continued into the night and didn’t get in until after three in the morning. I danced. Val smiled. And we walked back to the hotel with ice on the ground. Who needs sturdy boots?

My resolve, however, was sturdy. It had to be since Dan was calling me saying he regretted splitting up. But this time there was no going back. While I was missing him, the year had begun well, with my speech at the Oxford Union being a major highlight. In May Sandie, Vanessa and I made what is now our annual trip to La Manga, and then in June we were off to Marbella to stay at our favourite hotel, the Puento Romana, just outside Puerto Banus. This luxurious hotel is one of the Leading Hotels of the World and a hotel that Vanessa and I have stayed at on many occasions. Once you pass through the hotel foyer, the bedrooms, built in the style of an old Spanish village, meander all the way down to the beach with a picturesque river running through the grounds. Our room, which the three of us were sharing, was about a five-minute walk from the foyer.

I’ve always said that one of the best things about a girlie night out is getting ready. Our luxury room was spacious and easily accommodated our three beds along with a large couch, dressing table and chair. At the end of the room were double doors leading on to the balcony which
overlooked the stunning pool area. Our clothes were laid out, our make-up ready to go and there was a fine bottle of rosé chilling in the ice bucket. The only thing left to do was plug in my iPod on which I have set up multiple playlists. As is our way, we drank, chatted and sang as we got ourselves ready. Then having decided we all looked gorgeous, we made our way through the grounds of the hotel back to the foyer. We were catching a cab to the port. The three of us had tended to be wine drinkers in the past, rarely deviating to drink anything else – except champagne. This was the holiday we all decided that vodka and cranberry was our drink. It was refreshing and tasted so much like a fruit cocktail that, assisted by the intense Spanish heat, we may have drunk far more alcohol than usual.

As it was the time of the World Cup, the atmosphere in the port was buzzing more than usual. Surrounded by a mixture of nationalities, we drank, chatted and laughed our way from bar to bar. One thing that none of us lacks is confidence, and having been single a few months now, I felt that I was ready to abandon myself to the world once again. It was a great ego-boost to have all this male attention and I was feeling very positive about myself. In the early hours of the morning, worn out by alcohol, fun and our high heels, we made our way back to our hotel.

I still don’t know what got into me. Maybe it was my symbolic gesture but I then did something that left Sandie
and Vanessa completely stunned. As we passed through the foyer, I found that my feet were hurting so I stopped at the top of the steps to take my shoes off. Sandie and Vanessa were following me across the old Roman Bridge. Without pausing, and much to their surprise, I then pulled my top over my head and continued to walk at the same pace in front of them. Vanessa says what really amused her was that I neatly folded my top over my arm. I did exactly the same with my jeans. I then removed my bra and my thong and continued to walk to the room naked. By the time we had neared our room I had even removed my earrings and false eyelashes, which I was carefully holding with the tips of my fingers. I reached the room before Vanessa and Sandie and turned to see the looks of disbelief on their faces. When they asked me why I had removed all my clothes, I gave them the honest answer: ‘I was getting ready for bed, of course.’

Vanessa said later that she and Sandie were incredulous. They had seen that I was brimming with confidence on this trip but the idea that I would do something like that totally caught them by surprise. They particularly loved that I did it so deliberately and folded my clothes as I went! None of us can understand how I managed not to be seen by a single person in or around the hotel!

The following night we once again found ourselves in a lively bar at the port, and as we sipped our new favourite drink we were entertained by a magician. He came over to
where we were standing and selected me, plus a good-looking guy who was flirting with me, for his magic trick with some playing cards. He asked Vanessa and Sandie and some English guys in the crowd to write down a word on their card without him seeing it. While the boys predictably wrote ‘Manchester United’, Vanessa and Sandie wrote ‘PEACHES’. On finalising the trick, and with our card mysteriously reappearing out of the centre of an orange, ‘PEACHES’ was there for all to see. The guys got the joke and were in no doubt who Peaches was, and to this day Vanessa still has the naked proof of my bare bottom on her mobile phone!