Chapter 10 #3
Gayle had laughed: ‘I don’t think so. Well, it’s not compulsory yet anyway.
Why don’t you meet our health editor for a drink?
Start with what you know best. Have a specialist subject and start writing about it.
God knows, we could do with some good contacts up at the Royal.
We could probably put you on the payroll for that alone. ’
The health editor had advised a night course in shorthand; even better, the health editor was pregnant and planning a long maternity leave, so there was a temporary job coming up.
‘Write me some sample stories,’ the health editor had suggested, ‘I’ll see what you’re like, give you some pointers and we can take it from there.’
Jo, who had gone along in a spirit of curiosity had suddenly found herself seriously considering a future job offer, a career change… before she’d even had the chance to breathe a word of it to her husband.
Well, OK, she’d decided not to mention a word of it to her husband – not even the Chief Executive and his wife story – because she knew exactly what her husband would say.
He would tell her she’d lost her mind.
He would remind her what a ‘nice little job’ she had. Emphasis on the words ‘nice’ and ‘little’.
It was probably talk of her nice little job that had sent her whirling off in the direction of journalism in the first place.
She had eventually, after much debate with herself and her incredulous husband, gone on the shorthand course then taken the job, sealing the rumours that she’d tipped off the Echo about the Chief Executive and his wife, but not making it any harder to break many new stories kindly provided by the people she’d spent so many years working alongside.
When Simon had finally landed the plum London hospital post he’d been longing for, she and Mel had moved too.
She’d taken a pay cut to go and work for the South London Press with her eyes now firmly on the prize of making it as a national news reporter. Because she knew she was good. Despite all the cracks Simon had made about her ‘joke’ profession.
Just coincidence that when she finally got her national newspaper job Simon suddenly wanted to talk about more children?
She wasn’t so sure now. The pregnancy and post-natal time with Annette had been the busiest in Jo’s life.
She had worked ten and twelve-hour days, rushing around England in her car, flying abroad on foreign jobs, feeling like an important reporter, yes, feeling like a guilty, absent mother too.
Her children had been in full-time nursery care until Jo’s parents had decided to move down to help.
Meanwhile Simon had worked very hard too.
Not difficult to see when the marriage started to fall to pieces.
By the time Annette was six months old – where was Simon?
Who was Simon? He was the increasingly distant Dr Daddy figure.
The man who came home very late every night and spent the weekends he wasn’t on call wanting sleep, peace and quiet, a round of golf or an evening in front of the TV.
Slightly shocking to realise you’ve got a baby just a few months old who you adore and you can’t stand her father.
Jo hadn’t known what to do with the feeling.
She was in denial, hoping things would somehow improve.
But she didn’t seem to have even a single opinion in common with him any more.
Whatever she’d seen, whatever she’d been so in love with, it wasn’t there.
Who was this person? The father of the small baby in her arms and she didn’t know him.
It was usual to feel strange for months after giving birth, she knew that; maybe it was best to wait, not do anything drastic.
Not do what she wanted to do – run from the house screaming – until at least a few more months had passed.
She had to make sure this wasn’t some hormonal hell she would recover from.
Simon still looked good: a well-proportioned handsome face, blondish hair in a collar-length cut, his rangy body kept trim with gym visits, tennis and golf.
He was a grown-up grammar school boy. All doctors were though, weren’t they?
They were good at school, sensible, a bit sporty, dedicated hard workers.
A little bit self-sacrificing and a great big chunk of smug.
OK, not all doctors, but Simon and most of Simon’s colleagues.
How had he seemed to her when she was twenty-three and in love with him?
Handsome, charming, clever, energetic, in a hurry to do well, to make people better, to make love to her, to marry her.
Their romance had been wrapped up with the hospital.
It was about flirting on shifts, trying to keep their minds on the job, not on what they’d done to each other the night before, it was about joining the rest of the gang in the bar that night, at lunchtime… whenever they came off duty.
It hadn’t been a private romance. It had been a group one.
She remembered how oddly dislocating their honeymoon had been.
Their first holiday alone together, the first time they’d spent hours and hours alone with each other.
After only a few days, they’d made friends with two couples in the hotel and joined them for dinner and sightseeing trips.
And Simon, who’d been so quiet and lethargic when it was just the two of them, had come back to life again in the group.
That was when Jo had made her first entry in the ‘T’ for Troubling section of the marriage filing cabinet.
He was the oldest son of a doctor father and traditional doctor’s wife.
He had some puzzling, old-fashioned ideas about how their married life was going to be.
He didn’t exactly say he wanted Jo to give up her job when they had children, in fact, he always seemed quite glad of her income, but he had an ingrained image that men worked hard, had the main job, had priority.
Women did the children thing. Jo, brought up by two egalitarian, lefty teachers, couldn’t have come with more different perceptions.
She’d thought they were two individuals together, both able to fulfil their own potential, both able to parent.
Nothing about splitting up from Simon had been easy.
In the early days, she had agonised about whether they were doing the right thing, but now she was trying to make peace with her choice and focus on the good that had come from it.
There was nothing wrong with Gwen, Jo tried to tell herself, apart from the fact that the woman had moved in with Simon, so had also moved into the lives of Jo’s children three days a week.
For that reason alone, Jo found it hard not to resent her.
She hated the way Gwen fussed over Simon, cosseted him, massaged his neck and his ego, doted on him, ironed his shirts and made his supper.
She hated the way Gwen fussily kept house, all ironed tablecloths and daily vacuuming, and neatly folded rugs on the arms of the sofas.
Even the girls, when she got them back on Sunday, seemed to have been Gwen-ed.
Their hair was shiny, their tops had been ironed, their shoes polished.
It was probably well intentioned, but supremely irritating.
Still, Jo couldn’t help herself from thinking about Simon and Gwen’s sex life. Did the silk blouses and sensible skirts clothe a simmering cauldron of passion? What was it exactly that her ex-husband saw in their rather frumpy friend? Jo was distracted from her thoughts by her mobile.
‘Mum—?’ Mel’s voice filled the car. ‘Where are you?’
‘Hello, precious. I’m nearly there, just ten minutes away.’
‘We need the cake. We’ve eaten everything apart from the disgusting pizza Gwen made.’
‘Mel. Be nice to Gwen. No kind of pizza is disgusting! Just hang on for me. Ten more minutes, I promise.’