Chapter 4 Getting Schooled
Getting Schooled
AIDA
The beautiful chapel at Eton College is lit only by candlelight, and I can’t deny the effect its solemn beauty has on me.
Half of me is horrified Pip ended up at such an insanely elite school.
The other half laps this shit up. He’s walked along the same cloisters as the royal princes and half of this country’s former Prime Ministers and God knows who else.
It’s crazy. But it’s fun, too.
My husband is standing beside me, holding my hand and running the pad of his thumb over my wedding and engagement rings like they’re stress toys. Over and over. I don’t think he’s even conscious of doing it.
Reminding himself that I’m wearing his rings seems to be his favourite thing.
One of his favourite things.
I can’t believe Pip’s first term at Eton has almost drawn to a close. Next week, we’ll drive back out here to take him home for the holidays. I can’t wait to hug the heck out of him later, even if he’s taller than me now. But first, carols. Readings. Reflections.
As the school choir sings Once in Royal David’s City so hauntingly, so perfectly, I allow myself a glance around this space.
The stone vaulted ceiling is exquisite, as is the immense gilded organ.
Pip is singing along with the rest of them in the choir stalls, reading glasses glinting faintly in the candlelight and his red and white cassock pristine.
He looks so handsome, and not a little like his dad. Happily, John and Kit came along together for last night’s service, so we’re saved the presence of my ex this evening.
My gaze flits, as it so often does, back to my husband.
He’s gorgeous in profile, with his raked-back hair and sexy broken nose.
I now know it was indeed a rugby injury.
He’s absorbed in the beautiful carol, but he must grow aware of my eyes on him, because he glances down at me and grins.
The love in his eyes has me squeezing his hand harder, because I just cannot with this man.
If you’d told me two years ago that I’d be willing to give holy matrimony another shot, I would have laughed you out of town.
But Cal is one persuasive guy. He’s totally shameless about using every trick in the book to get his own way.
Often, those tricks involve body parts, but usually, he just goes on and on and on until he’s broken his victim down.
Callum Sinclair always gets what he wants.
And he wanted me.
I’m the luckiest woman alive.
* * *
It turns out, Pip is less excited about hugging his poor old mom than I am about hugging him. I get a couple squeezes when we hang out after the service in a beautiful hall, but they’re not enough. They never are. Cal, though, gets a great big man hug—probably because he’s way cooler than me.
‘How are you enjoying it so far?’ he asks, putting his hands on Pip’s skinny shoulders and bending a little to look him in the eye. ‘They treating you well?’
‘Yeah. It’s great.’
‘Food good?’
‘It’s fine. Breakfast is good.’
‘How’s your housemaster?’
‘He’s nice.’
Good. Nice. Fine.
I try not to sigh. Two-word sentences of single syllable words are par for the course with thirteen-year-old boys.
‘Glad to hear it. You think you’re finding your tribe?’
Cal had a pretty long heart-to-heart with Pip before he headed off to Eton in September.
By the sounds of it, Cal’s time at school was hugely successful.
I’m sure it helped that he was sporty, good-looking and easy to get along with.
Pip’s a lovely kid, but far more introverted, and Cal’s been well aware of how much my maternal heart has broken at sending him away to board.
If I had my chance, he’d be at a nice London day school so he could stay home with his mom, where he belongs. But Pip wanted this—badly—and Cal was determined to set him up to succeed. To persuade him be true to himself and his interests and to find his people.
‘Yeah.’ Pip’s face brightens. ‘The guys in my house are nice, and I’ve made some friends on The Florentia.’
‘Bloody awesome!’ Cal says. He holds up his hand for a high five and Pip smacks it hard. ‘Those journalism genes run deep.’
I smile, because The Florentia is Eton’s environmental magazine, and I love on so many levels that he’s gotten involved with it.
After the boys have been rounded up to head back to their houses, I sigh and allow myself a moment to lay my head on my husband’s shoulder.
‘My heart hurts.’
He runs his hands down my upper arms, and I can feel their warmth through my dress. ‘I know, baby. I know.’
I lift my head and blow out a breath. ‘He seems okay, right?’
‘He’s fine. More than fine. I was watching him when he went over to stuff his face with mince pies—they were all laughing and joking together. They look like decent boys.’
‘I know—he’s so quiet, though.’
‘With us. He’s quiet with us. He’s a teenager, for God’s sake. He was happy as Larry with those kids when I was spying on them.’
‘Okay.’ I nod, more to convince myself than for any other reason.
He smiles at me, those brown eyes glowing with the warm light of affection. ‘My trophy wife is looking particularly beautiful tonight.’
I roll my eyes, but I don’t mean it. The trophy thing is kind of a joke between us. He knows I want to hate it, and he also knows I fucking love it.
Fuck my life.
‘My trophy husband is hot as fuck,’ I whisper back, letting my teeth snag on my bottom lip in exactly the way I know drives him wild, and his eyes narrow in response.
‘Nah. I’m no trophy tonight. This isn’t my crowd. Too pompous.’ His fingers make circles over my biceps. ‘But they’ve all got a hard-on for you. Even the women. And I thought that old bore would never let you go.’
I laugh. He’s referring to some dad who cornered me about my interview with the Chancellor last week. ‘He was fine,’ I say. ‘It didn’t bother me.’
‘Yeah, but it bothered me.’ He takes a step closer, his voice dropping. ‘You know how it makes me when everyone goes feral for you.’
I do know. I know very well. When I get attention, my husband gets a kick out of it. He gets all smug and possessive, and it’s slightly obnoxious and extremely hot.
‘Tell me,’ I say. I lick my bottom lip, and his eyes track the movement.
‘How about I show you?’
My eyes flit nervously around the room and back to him. ‘Can’t you at least pretend to be appropriate for one night? We’re at Eton.’
‘And where’s the fun in that?’ he asks. ‘Humour me. Let’s just go for a little wander. Explore these fine buildings.’
Someone needs to be the grownup here. ‘No way,’ I tell him. ‘I know what your definition of a little wander is.’ I really do. He’ll find the nearest disabled bathroom, or worse, someone’s study.
He huffs, and it’s the huff of a little boy who’s been told no. ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘The car it is. Why don’t you go powder your nose and follow me out? I’ll get the seat heaters cranked up.’
* * *
CAL
It’s not the first time I’ve been to Eton. I played rugby here enough times when I was at school. And God knows my own school, St Ignatius of Loyola College, was pretty spectacular.
But this is something else.
My heart broke this evening, seeing how much Aida misses Pip.
At thirteen, I was raring to go away to board, and I know Kit will be exactly the same.
He’s fucking dying for it. At breakfast this morning, he was full of chat about how cool it was to see Pip’s dorm last night.
He’ll be fine when he comes here in two years’ time.
But Pip’s a different matter. He’s bookish and cerebral, like his mum, but without her confidence. I didn’t know thirteen-year-old Aida, but I bet she had swagger. I bet you didn’t mess with her, even then.
Every instinct I have tells me Pip’s as close to thriving as we could hope for, given we’re only one term in.
I watched him like a hawk tonight. He had colour in his cheeks and a spring in his step—all the clichés that tell a parent their kid isn’t drowning.
And I’ve really rated his housemaster the couple of times we’ve met him.
This parenting shit is weird. To say I was apprehensive was an understatement, but I made a decision not to overthink it endlessly. I approached being an adult in Pip and Kit’s lives, and then being their stepfather, in the same way I approach most things: optimistically and enthusiastically.
I thought the painful part would be the obvious stuff.
You know, dealing with tantrums, having arguments about homework, giving up lazy mornings in favour of Saturday football.
And yeah, some of that is fucking dull, but some of it is actually very cool.
Especially taking Kit to football. He’s seriously fast.
But what I mean is that the parts I find the most painful are the emotional tugs.
Obviously, I’m not their parent. But I love their mother, and I’m committed to spending the rest of my life with her, and part of that means loving her boys and being a positive force in their lives. A bonus adult, if you like.
So when we drove Pip to school for the first time in September and helped him unpack in his dorm and then waved goodbye to him?
Fucking brutal.
When Kit got smacked badly on the hand by a fast football one Saturday morning and I took him straight to the paediatric A&E at Chelsea and Westminster?
Also fucking brutal. Even though he’d only broken a couple of fingers and not, as I feared, his wrist.
I’m invested, I suppose. I’m invested in Aida, and in her happiness, and in the happiness of the two little people she’s brought into the world.
And the whole thing is a royal head fuck, because it’s emotional and demanding and exhausting and rewarding on a level I couldn’t have fathomed before I dove head first into this thing we’re doing.
I’m happy, too. Like, really fucking happy. I feel… purposeful, maybe? Because the three of them seem to be as happy to have me around as I am to be there. I’m that guy now. Saturday football guy. Farmer’s market guy. School carol concerts guy.