Chapter 2 #2
He took care of their daughters for three days every week: Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
In her opinion, he didn’t do nearly as good a job of looking after them as she did, of course.
He forgot their homework, he didn’t make packed lunches, he lost socks, pants, hats and scarves, let them have far too much screen time, relied on Gwen to do the cooking – but Jo was determined not to whine about any of it.
On the plus side, he picked the girls up promptly from after-school club on Thursdays and Fridays and he spent all his Saturdays with them.
These were things he’d never done regularly during their married life.
So, Jo could see that shared care was the best way forward for them all.
On Sunday morning, seven-year-old Mel and three-year-old Annette came back to her so they were together for the best part of her two days off – Sundays and Mondays – and then her less frantic workdays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Jo now had three nights a week to herself, which was still a strange novelty.
No one had warned her how silent her home would be without the girls, how desolate the little pink bedroom would feel, especially if last thing at night she went in to check on them as usual, forgetting that they weren’t there.
She coped with those nights in another way now, staying in the office late. Then going out to renew a long-forgotten acquaintance with select nightclubs, the cocktail menu, the dawn taxi home and, for the past few weeks, she had been falling into bed with a young man that she didn’t know very well.
It wasn’t exactly healthy behaviour, but after ten years of marriage to a doctor, a little unhealthiness was an understandable reaction.
‘Let’s not talk about Simon any more,’ Bella decided. ‘I think you should tell me much more about Marcus. The new boyfriend…’
‘No, he’s not a boyfriend.’ Jo held up the wine bottle. ‘You want some more?’ she asked her friend.
Bella shook her head: ‘Well, what is he then?’
‘He’s a date…’ Jo tried.
But Bella wasn’t going to be put off: ‘He’s more than that! Please at least tell me that he’s a fantastic shag.’
‘He’s a gift,’ was Jo’s response and she couldn’t help smiling.
Because it still seemed too ridiculous. To be neck high in all this ‘D-I-V-O-R-C-E’ crap – she couldn’t think about it without breaking into Tammy Wynette – and yet to be granted the wonderful, distracting gift, there really wasn’t any better word, of Marcus: funny, scruffy, carefree, significantly younger, unstoppably physical, distractingly physical.
Marcus, who could single-handedly remind her of the meaning of the phrase ‘can’t keep their hands off each other’, who was unashamed about the three great loves of his life: cooking, eating and having fun in bed.
Yes, he could whip up a hollandaise just as easily as he could whip off his clothes. Or hers, for that matter.
‘Look at you, you’re blushing,’ Bella teased. ‘If your readers could see you now, the hard woman of Fleet Street, all smitten kitten for a handsome young chef.’
‘Ha ha.’
‘When do I get to meet him?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ Jo took a sip of her drink. ‘I’ve no idea what I’m doing with him—’
‘I think the rest of us know though,’ Bella interrupted.
‘It won’t last,’ Jo insisted. ‘The chef. Very soon he’ll melt away into the night… like ice cream. Mint chocolate chip, his favourite…’ she gave a laugh.
‘He’s obviously doing you good,’ Bella told her. ‘You’re losing that “fresh out of marriage” look, edging more towards “boy bait”. I like the day dress thing you have going on here. You never wore dresses before, did you?’
‘Oh God, am I so obvious?’ Jo asked, anxious about the new make-up and the shirtdress. ‘Should I just get a badge saying “I’ve dumped my husband” and be done with it?’ she asked.
‘No. No. You’re fine. What am I saying? You’re gorgeous!’ Bella soothed her.
‘I’m slightly worried that Marcus is…’ Jo looked up and met her friend’s eyes. ‘Bella, am I not doing what divorced men are supposed to do? I’m being totally mid-life crisis predictable.’
‘It’s a natural reaction,’ Bella assured her. ‘Simon got all sensible and boring. Your sex life withered on a stick and this is what happens when you’re set free. Anyway, Marcus isn’t that young,’ Bella reminded her. ‘You’re rejuvenating!’
‘Bella!’
‘Like in those Swiss beauty clinics where they inject you with sheep embryo. You’ve got yourself a cheap and much more fun-filled version of that.’
‘Please!’
‘Oh don’t be shy about him,’ Bella added. ‘He’s in his twenties, isn’t he?’
‘Twenty-six.’
‘Not even ten years younger than you!’ Bella exclaimed.
The phone began to ring. Jo took a glance at her watch and uttered the word: ‘Arse.’
‘What is it?’ was Bella’s response.
‘It’s work.’ Jo put her glass down. ‘Again.’
‘How do you know?’ Bella asked.
Jo didn’t answer, just shook her head and picked up the offending receiver. ‘Jo Randall,’ she said as crisply as she could manage.
‘Hi, Jo, Declan here,’ came an Irish voice on the other end of the line, as if she hadn’t already guessed.
By 9.50 p.m., her newspaper’s doggedly efficient night news editor would have had the first editions of tomorrow’s papers for about seventeen minutes, just long enough to speed-read every single one and start harassing reporters, even though it was only Monday night, still a full five days away from the next edition of their paper.
‘Just thought you’d want to know before the morning,’ Declan went on. ‘The Mirror has a fifteenth case of whooping cough confirmed, in a new area, so it’s starting to look like an epidemic.’
‘Hello, Declan,’ Jo pretended to gush. ‘Lovely to hear from you too. What about: “How are you? Did you have a good holiday? How are the girls?”’
‘Yeah, yeah, whatever. Glad you’re back. Your department’s crap without you,’ was all the graciousness Declan could manage.
‘Charming. Look, fifteen cases of whooping cough is not an epidemic,’ she reined him in. ‘I’ve already had a conversation about whooping cough cases with Rod and my verdict is, we’ll be over it like a rash in the morning, OK?’
‘Just thought you should know soon as,’ Declan said.
‘Much appreciated,’ she managed, although it totally wasn’t. She bade him goodnight, replaced the receiver and turned back to her friend.
‘Nothing urgent,’ Jo explained. ‘Where were we?’ Jo brought her attention back to Bella and for about the twentieth time that evening, wondered how her friend managed to keep it so together.
There she was, raven hair pinned up in one of those effortlessly stylish things she did, sophisticated brown and butter button-through summer dress, making the most of the honey tan her usually Snow White complexion had taken on.
Personal trainer-perfect stomach. Breezy, cheerful and funny, despite working relentlessly.
‘Where were we?’ Bella repeated, a smile breaking over her face.
‘We were deep in all the usual overworked women in the 21st century shit. How tired we are, how busy we are, how overworked and underpaid we are, our latest totally neurotic worries about our children, how our men never clean the sink—’
‘Your nanny cleans the sink,’ Jo broke in.
‘She does, God bless her,’ was Bella’s reply.
‘Anyway, we weren’t talking about all that.’
‘No,’ said Bella, ‘we weren’t, because it’s Monday, so I’m not too tired or overworked yet.’
‘Or underpaid,’ Jo couldn’t help adding.
‘No. Things are going well, at the moment, touch wood.’ Bella looked around momentarily for something to touch. ‘But it almost makes me worried when things are going well. I think I prefer to be dealing with a crisis and looking forward to the good times.’
‘Oh, don’t get all anxious,’ Jo told her. ‘Enjoy. You’ve got very good times ahead.’
‘There are no women in computing!’ Bella said in outrage. ‘The whole techie world is a glamour-free zone. It’s full of ugly geeks who couldn’t wow a conference if you employed Daniel Craig’s tailor and Tom Hardy’s hairdresser.’
‘I’m telling you,’ she said and drained her glass, ‘the techie world is mine for the taking. But anyway, you were about to tell me more about the chef.’ Bella’s eyebrow arched in a sly and teasing way: ‘The handsome, talented, outrageously good in bed young chef. Weren’t you?
’ Bella reached over to top up Jo’s glass.
‘Oh, wait—’ Jo’s eyes fixed on the telly, she felt for the remote and turned up the sound.
They caught the very end of the report: ‘— in the light of this news, the Chief Medical Officer is urging parents who have not yet had their children protected with the new Quintet vaccine to come forward as soon as possible.’ The bulletin cut to tonight’s footage of the Chief Medical Officer, on the steps of his building, telling the nation: ‘Quintet is the best way to protect your child against whooping cough and four other illnesses. All our research indicates that this injection is totally safe.’
‘Must be another kid in hospital with whooping cough,’ Jo said.
She turned to Bella: ‘Have your boys had the new vaccine yet?’
‘Quintet?’ Bella asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘Well… you know Don.’ Jo did know Don, very well.
She’d known Don, the news editor on her paper’s daily sister title, for about two years longer than she’d known his wife.
He was sound. Very good at his job. Straight.
Honest. An honourable man in a messed-up business.
Also, an inescapably attractive man. Hearts had broken right across London when word got out that Don had finally met his match and was marching her to the registry office before she could get away.