Chapter 29
The following week, after an averagely exasperating morning, I arrive at the station on the day of the awards, buy a coffee and do a good impression of someone who has her shit together. I am booked onto a later train than the rest of the team, unable to join them due to my school drop-offs. Technically, I could have asked Mum to step in – and see for herself exactly how ‘lovely’ Leo is at eight in the morning – but they’re already staying over with my parents tonight so I wasn’t going to push my luck.
Ever since he overheard me telling my mother that he didn’t have what it takes to be a professional rugby player, he’s gone out of his way to be a nightmare. Which he really didn’t need to do because I feel guilty enough as it is. So much so that I phoned his rugby coach to dig into this, to make sure I wasn’t missing something and hadn’t been raising the next star England fly-half, entirely oblivious.
He actually laughed. ‘He’s a lovely lad and dead keen, but I think it’s a question of: don’t give up your day job.’
Clearly, I’m not going to break this to him. I’ve got other priorities after another detention this week. I sometimes feel as if he’s ruining his own future just to spite me, though I can’t be the only one facing this judging by the fact that, when I googled, ‘Why does my teen hate me?’ there was NO shortage of articles on this subject.
Anyway, travelling on this train at least means I can get some work done, instead of making small talk with Andrea, Krishna, various execs from post-production and . . . Zach. Yes, he’s coming. I thought he might be somehow, though confirmation only came when Andrea’s secretary included him on a group email about the hotel she’d booked for the team tonight.
I shuffle along the aisle to find my seat at a coveted reserved table. This is always my favoured position except for one memorable occasion when I was encircled by a stag party on a trip to Newcastle. They were very polite, if a bit noisy, inviting me to join their poker game and even offering me a couple of J?gerbombs. Given it was 9.47am, I declined, adding that I generally stick to gin and tonic for breakfast.
I open my laptop, put on my noise-cancelling headphones and dive straight into my emails, the first of which is from Jacob’s school, with the subject, ‘A gentle reminder for Year 6 parents.’
I open it up with a sense of impending doom.
Dear Parent, this GENTLE REMINDER is for those of you who have not yet sent in the required resources for tomorrow’s art project, when the class will be recreating a scale model of Gaudi’s Park Guell for Spain Day. This is a key date in the school calendar – introduced after our twinning with the Escola Sant Adria de Besos on the outskirts of Barcelona – and we would be grateful for your cooperation. PLEASE ENSURE YOUR CHILD ARRIVES IN SCHOOL TOMORROW WITH ALL OF THE FOLLOWING ITEMS:
- A toilet roll
- Six rubber bands (any colour)
- A newspaper (offensive or age-inappropriate pages removed please)
- A large cardboard tube, of approx. 7cm in diameter, used to package potato-based, stackable sharing snacks (i.e. Pringles)
- An empty cereal box (not Crunchy Nut Cornflakes or other nut-based brand please)
- An empty washing-up bottle
‘Shit,’ I mutter, wondering how I’m going to break it to my mother that – as well as collecting, feeding AND giving a bed to both of my children tonight – I need her to gather that lot together too.
I open my to-do list and add: ‘Grovel to Mum about Gaudi’ before moving onto my next few emails. I deal with them far more deftly than I would in the office, which is just one of the reasons why I love train travel. I get so much done. I think it’s the peace, the anonymity, the—
‘Hello, Darling.’
I look up as my heart slams into my chest.
Zach reaches up to place a bag on the overhead shelf, revealing the soft underside of his biceps. I realise my mouth has parted and am about to say something – mainly as a reminder to close it – when he beats me to it.
‘This is Mila.’
A little girl wearing bright red dungarees and a rainbow cardigan climbs into the window seat opposite me, just as the train begins pulling out of the station. Even accounting for the fact that four-year-olds are cute by definition, she is beautiful. Zach’s daughter has inherited those expansive eyes, the wide smile and that little dimple. She has thick, dark hair – with a kink precisely where a bobble once was.
‘Hello there,’ I smile, gently.
‘Hi,’ she says shyly, looking up from beneath long eyelashes. ‘Are you doing some work?’
I look at my laptop as Zach sits down next to her. ‘Well, I was , yes.’
‘Me too,’ she says. Then she takes a pack of crayons and a pad from her rucksack and sets about colouring in.
‘We should do some introductions,’ Zach says. ‘Mila, this is my friend from work. She’s called Lisa.’
Her crayon stops and she looks up. ‘Like in the Simpsons.’
‘That’s right,’ I laugh.
Her eager little face prompts a wave of nostalgia for the time when my own kids were that adorable, all squidgy cheeks and bubbly giggles. While there’s a part of my brain that does remember the odd tantrum, picky eating and – in Leo’s case – a frequent desire to try to give me the slip in supermarkets, I refuse to think of those years in anything other than a blissful, rosy haze.
‘Mila’s with us until we get to Stafford,’ Zach says. ‘Her aunt lives in the Midlands. She’s been desperate to go and stay with her cousins overnight, haven’t you?’
‘They have a ping pong table,’ she explains.
‘Well then, I don’t blame you for wanting to go.’
‘Do you play ping pong?’ She sounds like one of those impossibly cute American children they cast in the movies at a young age, promptly ruining their lives.
‘Both of my boys love it, especially my eldest, Leo. Every time we go on holiday . . . vacation . . . I have to choose somewhere with a table so he can play all day long.’
‘I’d be friends with him then,’ she decides and, while my first response is to laugh, I quickly remember that, no matter how vile Leo can be towards me, he’s never anything other than sweet to his little cousins.
‘I think you probably would,’ I decide, as she goes back to her picture.
‘So have you been to these awards before?’ Zach asks.
‘A few times,’ I say. ‘Don’t expect the Oscars, but it’s fun enough.’
I’d fully intended to use this journey to finish off a presentation, catch up on emails and work out exactly where I can advise my mother to get hold of six elastic bands (any colour). In the event, I’m distracted. Because every time I try to focus on my laptop, my eyes are drawn to Zach as he helps Mila colour in a little pony and play repeated games of noughts and crosses. I find myself sneaking glances at his forearms, the direction of hair that feathers upwards into the sleeves of his shirt, and watching the trembles of his face as he laughs and kisses her on the temple.
This is the first time I’ve properly spoken to him since our kiss, unable this time to dive away and hide behind a potted plant. While in my head this forced proximity should – and indeed could – have been excruciating, in fact, it’s something else. As uncomfortable as this is, it’s also mildly electrifying, a sensation enhanced when I accidentally brush my calf against his and both of us jolt into eye contact, at which point a smile seems to soften at his mouth before I glance away.
‘Will you play “I Spy” with us, Lisa?’ Mila suggests, when we’re not far from Stafford.
‘Oh no, sweetie, Lisa’s working,’ Zach says.
‘No, it’s fine, I don’t mind,’ I say, deciding it’s easier not to explain that I’ve barely managed to get a thing done since they got on.
‘I spy with my little eye,’ she begins, ‘something beginning with E.’
‘Hmm. Let me think,’ I say before Zach and I suggest envelope, then ears, then everyone .
‘Noo!’ she giggles. ‘It’s . . . an elephant!’
Zach looks around. ‘Where’s the elephant? You’re meant to be able to see it!’
The smile is wiped off her face. ‘Oh.’
‘Well, I saw an elephant earlier when I went to buy a cup of tea,’ I say, defiantly.
Zach smirks. ‘Oh you did, huh?’
‘Yes,’ I say, crossing my arms, ‘so Mila wins.’
Her face lights up, before she looks out of the window and starts waving frantically. ‘Daddy! It’s Ollie and Violet!’
Mila’s drop-off – safely into the hands of her aunt and two little cousins – is a rapid-fire affair. Zach helps her off the train, gives her a huge kiss and a squeeze, then jumps back on and takes his seat opposite me, his eyes following her on the platform. He’s clearly desperate for her to wave, but she’s already holding the other children’s hands and hasn’t given him a backward glance. The train pulls away.
‘Huh. And here was I worrying that this was going to be painful because she’d miss me so much.’
I turn to look behind me out of the window, in time to see her running towards the exit, laughing along with the others.
‘She looks like she’s coping.’
‘Yeah,’ he smiles, looking back at me as his eyes soften.
‘She’s gorgeous, Zach,’ I say.
Pride seems to filter into his every pore. ‘I think so too,’ he confesses.