Chapter 11
‘Mummy!!’
When Jo finally got to the door of Simon’s flat, both daughters were there to greet her.
She set the mountainous pink birthday cake, stored in a cool bag in her car all day, to the side and gave each girl a big hug before entering with a smile fixed firmly on her face.
There, that was sure to hide the teeth gritted behind it.
Gwen, Simon and her parents, as well as a handful of Mel’s ‘best friends’ from school, were all here, chorusing ‘hello’.
Simon stood up to greet her. In immaculate blue and white check shirt, chinos with an ironed knife-edge, Simon looked even lighter and leaner than on Sunday when she’d seen him last, and he was still sporting the beard she hadn’t got used to.
In the months since their split, it was as if Jo and her ex-husband were trying to obliterate their marital selves and transform into different people.
Make it clear there was no return. They’d gone through various forms of greeting over the years: passionate snog to start with, obviously, dutiful peck on the lips later on, then moving to frosty glares, disdainful handshakes.
Now, in an attempt at being civilised, one kiss on the cheek was settling into the way they said hello.
Jo leaned over to peck at him quickly; there was no other contact, no hand on arm or back, or any of that.
His new beard prickled against her cheek and he wafted aftershave. The strength of the smell made the back of her throat contract. She went over to kiss and hug her parents and then had to kiss Gwen too because otherwise it would have been odd.
Her parents moved to opposite ends of the leather sofa, so she took the invitation to sit between them. They were so sweet; obviously they thought she needed protection here in husband territory.
‘How’s work?’ her dad asked.
‘Oh busy… the usual,’ she told him. ‘The children have been good as gold,’ Jo’s mum told her. ‘Haven’t they, Steve? No fights, no rampaging. Absolutely nothing like your and Matt’s birthday parties. I’d be wiping cake off the ceiling by the end of the day.’
This made Jo smile as she remembered the year of the ‘jelly bombs’.
‘Are you OK?’ Jo asked her mum, giving her hand a squeeze. ‘I could come round on Monday with Nettie to see you. I’ve not had the chance to talk to you properly for weeks.’
‘Yes, do that. Come for lunch, you’ll still be back in time to get Mel from school.’
‘OK.’
Jo looked up to see Gwen hovering with a plateful of sandwiches.
‘The flat looks great, Gwen.’ Jo waved an arm about, taking in the table set up with pretty pink glasses, printed napkins and platefuls of already decimated party snacks and leftover pizza.
‘Oh, we’re getting organised. Books on the shelves, things on the walls,’ Gwen answered, holding out the sandwiches.
Paintings from Jo’s marital home, so familiar she could close her eyes and visualise them, were on these walls alongside ones she recognised from a rare visit to Gwen’s old flat. Jo registered the weirdness of this but tried not to dwell on it.
‘Bet this is your first children’s birthday party in years?’ Jo ventured.
‘Er, yes—’ Gwen smiled. ‘M she looked up at the ceiling where a hairline plaster crack was visible in the snowy white paint.
‘Crackie,’ she answered.
Uh oh… Jo hesitated, this joke was a loose cannon now, it could go anywhere. ‘Crackie who?’ she dared.
‘I like to pick my crack.’
Oh, good grief. What?! Time to hyperventilate.
Her dad’s eyebrows shot up.
‘Nettie, did you bring any toys with you today? Why don’t you bring them over and show me,’ Jo said.
‘Let me get you a drink, Jo,’ Gwen offered.
‘Juice or something soft would be great,’ was Jo’s response. ‘I’ve got the cake, by the way. Shall I put it on the table?’
‘Yes, of course!’ Gwen said.
When Jo took off the layers of foil wrapper, Mel and her friends crowded round for a look at Barbie plunged waist deep in the rippling cake waves of a vibrant pink flamenco outfit.
‘Wow, she’s amazing!’ one of the little girls exclaimed.
Nettie gasped, open-mouthed, even though she had seen the cake on the kitchen table this morning.
‘Mum’s boyfriend made it. He’s a chef,’ Mel said matter-of-factly, which led Jo to adopt an expression not unlike Nettie’s. How on earth did Mel know any of this?! Had she heard Marcus arriving last night… leaving this morning?
‘Hey, it was mainly me,’ she told her daughter, but then turned to see her parents’ expression of surprise. Somehow, she hadn’t quite got round to mentioning a boyfriend.
‘Welcome to 21st-century family life,’ she said, not really wanting to have the boyfriend conversation here or now.
‘Nettie’ – she scooped up her little daughter, needing to move swiftly on – ‘how are you? Have you had lots of supper?’
Nettie shook her head.
‘Well, what about you and Mummy have some tasty sausages.’ Jo pulled out a chair, sat down with Nettie on her knee and picked up one of the three remaining cocktail sausages.
She popped it into her mouth, ‘Mmmm.’ She held another one out to her daughter, who bit off a big mouthful.
‘Here’s your drink.’ Gwen came over and put a glass of orange juice down beside her.
Jo was halfway down the drink when she registered that the rhythmic rasping noise was coming from her daughter on her lap. She swivelled Nettie round so she could look at her face: she was bright red and gagging.
‘Oh my God,’ Jo cried, ‘She’s choking!’
Quickly she leaned Nettie forward and prepared to do back blows.
‘Simon!’ she shouted. Even wanker doctors had their uses.
But before Simon could make it over, Nettie turned to the plate on the table in front of her and half retched, half spat the mouthful of sausage out.
‘Yuck!’ she exclaimed, when her mouth was empty, ‘So hot. So hot.’ There was water squeezing from the corners of her eyes. ‘Need a drink.’
Jo held out her orange juice, Nettie put her chubby hands round the glass and took a long drink.
‘Don’t know what that was,’ Jo explained to Simon who was beside them now. ‘Don’t think it was a choke.’
Nettie took three more big gulps, set the glass down and said: ‘Pepper.’
‘Oh dear,’ Jo sympathised, patting Nettie soothingly on the back.
‘Was it?’ Simon picked up the offending regurgitated mouthful and nibbled a piece of it. ‘Hmm, I think she’s right. Ooops. Must have been a mixed pack.’
‘Never mind,’ Jo said to Nettie, cuddling her tight.
‘Ouch, my arm,’ was Nettie’s response.
‘Oh dear, what’s wrong with your arm?’
Nettie, wearing her short-sleeved plum party dress and matching velvet shoes, pushed her little chiffon cap sleeve up and revealed a small red welt.
‘I had a jection.’
For a moment, Jo was stopped in her tracks.
‘Ow,’ she soothed and held Nettie close against her chest, where now she could feel a wave of annoyance.
She did not need to ask what the injection was.
Simon must have picked Nettie up early from nursery today and taken her to the doctor’s for a Quintet shot.
And it was true, she had said she would do it this week and she hadn’t organised it.
But she still felt furious. He should have at least told her.
The feeling that now they were no longer a family, there were all these areas of her children’s lives that she wouldn’t know about, wouldn’t be a part of, felt overwhelming.
And he was just standing there, a piece of mashed sausage in his hand, looking at her in a way she could only interpret as defiant.
‘She’s my daughter too,’ he said. ‘This is the sensible thing to do.’
‘But you could at least have told me, beforehand.’
‘What and listen to some of the crack-pot scare stories you write up for that rag you work for?’
Jo glanced over her right shoulder and saw that Mel and her friends had retreated to the bedroom to play, then she did something she’d never done before in all the years she’d been married.
She stood up – Nettie in one arm, chin hooked over her shoulder – and she slapped Simon so hard that his face swung round and a bright red palm print sprang up on his cheek.
The loud ‘thwack’ drew both her parents’ and Gwen’s attention immediately, but the strange thing was, although there was a stunned moment’s silence as they realised what had happened, they quickly looked away and began talking to cover up.
Her father asked her mother loudly if her drink needed topping up and Gwen hurtled off in the direction of the kitchen.
Simon rubbed his cheek as he and Jo weighed up the pros and cons of screaming at each other, here at Mel’s eighth birthday party right in front of her grandparents… friends… little sister…
‘I don’t think our lawyers will like that,’ Simon said perfectly quietly and calmly to his former wife.
‘How dare you,’ Jo hissed back. ‘If you want to start a custody battle, you’re going the right way about it.’
Simon continued to rub his face: ‘This is not the time or the place to talk about it,’ he said.
‘No. I’m too angry to talk to you.’ Jo was actually shaking with rage. She was going to kill him, tear him limb from limb when she got the chance. How dare he?
‘Why don’t you bugger off into your kitchen and let me try to calm down?’ she said in as low and controlled a voice as she could muster.
He turned on his heel and followed Gwen.