Chapter 7
7
ONE MONTH LATER
There’s a hammering on the door and I know with complete certainty who it will be.
Sure enough, when I open it there’s Kirstie, standing in the bright sunshine of a warm April day, hopping impatiently from foot to foot. She’s top-to-toe in running gear and looks infuriatingly fit and healthy.
‘I haven’t got long, I’ve got a client in about twenty minutes, but I’ve come to tell you that this is your last chance to change your mind, otherwise I’ll never speak to you again.’
‘But I?—’
‘God, woman, I’m only kidding.’ She finally stops bouncing and I can see myself reflected back in her mirrored sunglasses. ‘I haven’t managed to change your mind so far, I’m hardly likely to today, am I?’
‘Sorry.’ I grin sheepishly.
She shakes her head. ‘Fuck me, M’rand, you’ve done some crazy shit in your time, but I genuinely think this takes the biscuit.’ Before I can reply she pulls me in for a hug and holds me so tight I might suffocate if she doesn’t let go soon.
Finally she releases me and I can breathe easily again, but she’s still watching me intently. ‘Promise me you won’t do anything stupid, and make sure you find a place big enough for me to come and stay once you’re settled, okay?’
I nod. Tears are burning the backs of my eyes and I want so much to tell her I’ve changed my mind, that she’s right, this is a completely mad idea and I’m not going after all.
But it’s too late. I’ve let my house out for a minimum of three months, which means that from tomorrow, a family of four – mum, dad and five-year-old twin girls called Remi and Lori who have moved to London and are looking for somewhere to buy – will be living here, while I’ll be in a small, two-bedroom flat I’ve only seen online in the arse-end of Newcastle-upon Tyne trying to work out how to find Jay. Or James. Or Jason.
Oh God. What the hell am I doing?
‘I’m going to miss you so much,’ I say, my voice wobbling.
‘You don’t know how much I’ll miss you.’ Her voice doesn’t sound quite like her either and I see her swallow. ‘But listen, in a month’s time you’ll realise you’ve made a terrible mistake and you’ll come back and everything will be back to normal.’
‘Well, this place is rented out…’
She wafts her hand in the air. ‘Details, darling. If you want to come back before that, you just stay with me – problem solved!’
‘Thanks, Kirst.’ I smile, but before it reaches my lips I feel a tear trickle down my cheek. I swipe it away.
‘Right, I’m really sorry, my darling, I’ve got to go. Otherwise Rachel will be furious about not getting enough squats in, but I love you, you’re crazy, and I hope this brings you everything you ever wanted.’ Then she turns, trots to the end of the short path, blows me a kiss, and is gone.
I stand on the doorstep for a moment, looking out at the street. I’ve lived in this house for more than twenty-five years, since before the children were born, when Nick and I were young and in love and excited about the future. We’d barely been able to afford it, and we mortgaged ourselves up to the eyeballs to get it. Since then though, prices in this part of London – in every part of London – have rocketed so much I wonder how anyone, my own children included, can ever afford to buy somewhere to live, to bring up a family. Not that either of them are even close to thinking about it. At twenty-two and twenty-four, Joe and Zara are fiercely independent, living the lives I’d always hoped they would with the whole world at their feet.
I’m so proud of them, but it doesn’t mean I don’t miss them every single minute of the day. My babies.
I turn and look at the hallway, empty of all the clutter which has gone into storage, and try to picture how it used to be: full of life, toddlers running around dropping toys everywhere, school-children dumping bags and shoes and coats and leaving the place looking like there had been a controlled explosion; teenagers bringing home friends and boyfriends and girlfriends and hormones and laughter and – oh! Tears are running down my face now and I drop onto the bottom step and let them come. I’m being silly and sentimental, I know, but I’ll indulge it for a few minutes. Then I need to pull myself together and get the last few things into the car and set off.
A few minutes later I’ve rallied and just as I stand and straighten myself out I hear the front gate squeal open. I hurry outside.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ Sophie says, bustling up the path in yet another kaftan, this time in a pale, shimmering gold. ‘Like it?’ she says, and does a twirl.
‘It’s really lovely,’ I say.
‘Pete thinks I look like a Roman emperor, but I love it. Kaftans are totally my new thing; I’m going to buy one in every colour.’
‘I can see that.’ I flash her a smile and she throws her arms around me.
‘Good grief, what am I going to do without you?’ she sobs, tears soaking into my shoulder.
‘That’s exactly what Kirstie just said but you’ll both still have each other, and anyway, I’m not flying to the moon,’ I say, pulling away gently.
‘Is she still here?’ She looks around hopefully.
‘No, she had to dash off. But she came to say goodbye at least, even if she still doesn’t approve of what I’m doing.’
‘Course she did. She loves you. We both do.’ She bustles past me towards the house. ‘Anyway, what else do you need help with? Is there anything else to put in the car?’
‘Just these last couple of boxes,’ I say, indicating the two small cardboard boxes stacked beside the front door.
‘Right, come on then.’ She lifts the top one and carries it to my car, and I take the other and follow her dutifully. Once we’ve squeezed them into the back seat of my tatty old Ford Focus she leans against the car door and turns to look at the house.
‘It’s going to be so weird walking past here every day and knowing someone else is living in it,’ she says.
I shake my head. ‘I’m trying not to think about it,’ I admit. In an ideal world I would have left the house empty until I was ready to come home. But the stark fact is, even though I’ve lined up some cover work in a state secondary school in Newcastle, I need the rent to cover the mortgage payments.
Sophie puts her hand on my shoulder. ‘I’ll make sure they look after the place, don’t worry,’ she says.
‘Thanks, Soph.’
We stand like that, just staring at my home for another couple of minutes. Then without saying anything else, we both know it’s time for me to go.
Sophie gives me one last squeeze, then I watch as she walks down the road towards her own house a couple of streets away. She turns one last time before disappearing round the corner, gives a wave, and then she’s gone.
I check the house over one last time – the family who are renting it are arriving first thing tomorrow so I’ve left a few of the small upstairs windows open to stop it getting too stuffy, and a bottle of wine and a note on the kitchen table. But then I can’t bear to be there any longer, so I scoop up my handbag, lock the door behind me and climb into the car.
North London traffic is as bad as always, and it takes me half an hour to crawl round the last section of the North Circular before finally being released onto the M1, ready to head north. It’s warm inside the car, the air full of fumes and humidity, and I’m glad when I finally pick up some speed and feel the air rush through the open window, cooling my damp skin. The temperature has risen, and it’s already over 15°C outside, warm for April.
I switch on the radio and let the DJ’s voice wash over me as I focus on the road ahead. The tarmac flashes by beneath my wheels and the clock ticks on as I pass road signs indicating name places that are familiar to me at first – Edgware, Bricket Wood, Watford, St Albans… then on to Dunstable, Milton Keynes, Northampton. Past the Watford Gap services, on past Rugby and Kettering, the names feeling more remote now, and I try not to think about how far away I’m soon going to be from home.
Finally, desperate for a wee, I pull into Tibshelf services. There’s still a long way to go, but from here on in it feels different, heading into the north where the vowels are broader and flatter, the landscape lusher, greener, the people friendlier. At least, that’s what they tell me. I’m a London girl through and through, and although I’ve visited the north – weekends in the Lake District with the kids, a long weekend in Edinburgh with Nick – it’s always been somewhere distant, unfamiliar to me. A place where other people live.
But now I’ll be living there too.
I buy myself a large Costa latte, a smoked salmon sandwich and a family-sized packet of Maltesers, then climb back into the car. Motorway driving has always bored me. When Nick and I were married and the kids were young, he did all the driving, and I spent long journeys with my feet up on the dashboard, reading or sleeping or playing silly I-spy games with Zara and Joe. Since it’s been just me, I’ve tended to take the train for journeys longer than an hour, and filled the time with reading, listening to podcasts, or sending emails. Driving has always felt like a colossal waste of time.
But I hadn’t wanted to leave the car at home, so here I am.
I switch on an audiobook and try to focus on the story, a fast-paced thriller about a woman receiving threatening letters, but even that can’t hold my attention and my mind keeps wandering, so I switch if off again.
Then the thoughts begin to crowd in: the doubts and hopes and worries and dreams and expectations, all of them jostling and clamouring for attention.
At the front of my mind is the terrifying fact that I’ve just thrown my whole life up in the air for a pipe dream; the hope that forcing something to happen in my life rather than sitting around waiting for it to happen might bring me the joy that’s been missing for so long. Plus, of course, there’s the fact that I’m also planning to search for a man that doesn’t know I exist, who I know almost nothing about, and who may not even live in Newcastle. But it’s an adventure, isn’t it?
At least, that’s how I’m framing it. A couple of weeks ago, I finally contacted my ex, Nick, to tell him what I was planning to do. Not that I needed to – what I did was none of his business and hadn’t been for more than twelve years, and vice versa. But we’re friends, of sorts, as well as co-parents, and it felt weird to just leave London for an undetermined amount of time and not let him know. So I’d summoned the courage and sent him a text, asking if I could pop round.
‘Come for dinner,’ he’d replied. ‘Josie would love to see you too.’
My heart sunk. We got on reasonably well, but I would never not find it weird to see my ex-husband with another woman. And even though Josie was perfectly lovely and they had two children, Emmy, who was seven, and four-year-old Frank, I still preferred to deal in text messages or short phone calls. But of course I said yes.
My first thought when I arrived was that Josie looked tired. When they’d met three years after Nick and I split up, Josie’s mere presence made me feel insecure. She’s a decade younger than me and looked it. But these days, with two young children to look after and a full-time job in marketing, she looked, quite frankly, completely frazzled and – well, quite a lot older. I tried not to feel smug as I wafted in, my hair curled and my make-up expertly applied, to find her with bags under her eyes and her hair scraped back in a scruffy ponytail.
She greeted me with a perfunctory hug, and Nick did the same. As we sat down at the table with our bowls of pasta he looked at me with concern.
‘So, what’s up, Mazza?’ He could never call anything by its proper name, and Mazza was the name that had stuck since our second date (even the kids were Za-za and Jo-jo. Why couldn’t he leave anything alone?).
I chewed my mouthful of linguine slowly, trying to work out what to say. I couldn’t tell him the truth, of course, he really would think I’d lost it.
‘I’m going away for a while,’ I said, washing my mouthful down with a swig of wine.
‘Away?’ He twirled pasta on his fork, his forehead more lined than ever in the late-evening sunshine.
I swallowed again and attempted to look confident. ‘I’m going to live in Newcastle for a bit.’
He tipped his head to one side and studied me more closely.
‘Newcastle? For work?’
I shook my head. ‘I just…’ I trailed off, the confidence seeping from me like water from a leaking pipe.
I was about to mumble something about wanting a change when his eyes had lit up. ‘Oh, you’ve met someone, haven’t you?’
I wasn’t sure how I felt about the fact he seemed so happy about it. But then I guess it had been a long time since we’d meant anything romantic to each other – and let’s face it, I hadn’t had anyone serious in my life since. Maybe he genuinely was just happy for me.
‘I… sort of.’ Oh God, this was excruciating.
‘Ooh, tell us more!’ Josie said.
‘I…’ I put my fork down and picked up my wine. ‘There’s not much to tell. He’s called Jay, and he lives in Newcastle.’ Even saying those words out loud made me feel like a fraud, as if I was claiming to know him.
‘How exciting,’ Josie said, her eyes shining. ‘How did you meet him? Online?’
‘Yes,’ I said. The easiest explanation.
‘And have you met him yet? You know, in real life?’
‘Yes… well, no.’ God’s sake, Miranda, pull yourself together. ‘We met once, but it’s about more than that,’ I said. ‘I just feel like it’s a good time to try something different. Try and work out what I want in life.’
‘Well, it sounds very romantic,’ Josie said, sighing.
Before I could correct her, Nick spoke. ‘But what about work? And what are you doing about the house?’
Damn him and his concern. Why couldn’t he be more like other ex-husbands and not care a jot what I did?
‘I’ve got some supply work lined up until the summer, and I’m renting the house out for a few months,’ I said. ‘It’s nothing to worry about, honestly. I have thought this through.’
Nick didn’t say anything else, and we spent the rest of the evening chatting about the kids, and work. But as I went to leave, Nick followed me to the door.
‘Are you really okay, Mazza?’ he said.
‘Course I am. Why?’
‘You just seem… I don’t know. A bit frantic. Like you haven’t slept properly for a while.’ He studied me for a second, then shook his head. ‘I just feel as though there’s something you’re not telling me.’
I shook my head, suddenly desperate to get out of there.
‘Honestly, Nick, I’m fine, I swear. The kids are on the other side of the world, I’m eternally single, and my job’s gone up the swanny. I just fancied a change. And this seemed like the ideal opportunity to do something different. You know, kill two birds with one stone.’
‘And this guy, Jay. You’re not pinning all your hopes on him, are you?’
‘No, I’m not. I promise.’ I lay my hand on his arm. ‘But thank you for caring.’
‘I’ll always care about you,’ he said. ‘I just want you to be happy, Maz.’
‘I know.’ I hitched my bag onto my shoulder. ‘Anyway, I’d best be off. Please thank Josie for dinner.’
Then I’d let myself out and hurried down the road, not daring to look behind to see whether Nick was watching me.