Chapter 55
‘Hi Jules, lovely to hear from you. Wow, it’s been years!
So happy to hear things are going so well for you work-wise and that Frankie is having such a great time.
She was always such a sweetheart. I can’t believe you’re heading back to London!
I’m excited for you! This is slightly embarrassing and probably a sign of how long it’s been, but John and I actually relocated to the Cotswolds eighteen months ago.
Took me a while to settle into country life but I love it now.
If you fancy a visit, let me know! Are you still in touch with Gina?
I’m on Facebook with her and I think she’s in Edinburgh now?
Anyway, take care and let’s make sure we’re better at staying in touch from now on! Lots of love, Maddy xxx’
I had sent the text in the hope that I could meet up with some of the old gang from Balham next time I was in London.
But it seems Maddy isn’t the only one who’s left.
Everyone has. The only person who is available is Ed’s mum, Terri, which suits me fine because she is one of my favourite people on earth.
So we arrange to meet when I’m in London next week for a crucial meeting in which Jacinta and I will be standing side by side to deliver a major presentation to the Barisian board about The Neutral Company rollout.
Half the time, I feel slightly sick to my stomach to be so heavily involved with a process that has already put so many colleagues out of work. But what else can I do except pull on my big girls’ pants and remind myself that this is business? No, frankly – this is survival.
I take the same approach to my house sale, which obviously I jinxed the moment I said it was going well.
‘I have spent every day this week chasing the woman doing the conveyancing,’ I tell Jeff, as he hands me a cocktail. ‘She literally never answers her emails, so I phoned the office. She was dumbfounded, appalled that I wanted to have an actual conversation.’
‘Was she young? Gen Z hate making phone calls. I was reading about it in The Times the other day. Brings them out in hives.’
‘That’s what Frankie said! Or, to use her exact words: “You didn’t phone her, did you? That’s such a boomer thing to do.”’
He chokes on his drink. ‘Excuse me? We are Generation X all the way. Though apparently, that’s nothing to be proud of these days.’
‘Why, what have we done?’ I ask.
‘Gen X are regarded as cynical, closed-minded and prone to terrible parenting choices,’ he tells me. ‘If you ask me, they’re just jealous because we’ve got the coolest name. So what did this young solicitor have to say in the end?’
‘She’d actually done more than I gave her credit for.’
He closes the fridge with pursed lips. ‘It’s definitely going through then?’
‘Yes,’ I say, ignoring his disapproving tone.
‘The searches are complete. Buyers are all ready to go. We exchange contracts on 20 August – which means there will be no going back – then complete the sale on 6 September, which is the day I’ll move out.
Initially, they wanted me to move at the start of August, but that’s out of the question.
Not least because the final match of the season is then. ’
‘Last one ever for you, isn’t it?’
‘Exactly why I can’t miss it. What’s in this cocktail, by the way? It’s amazing.’
‘Champagne, cognac, two dashes of Angostura bitters and a maraschino cherry.’
‘Sounds expensive. And also very alcoholic.’
‘Well, given it’s the last time we’ll ever do this, I thought I’d better push the boat out,’ he says, with a dramatic sigh.
‘Jeff, I’m only going to London. I can come back and visit. And you can stay with me. A ready-made mini-break whenever you want it.’
He glowers at me. ‘It won’t be the same and you know it.’
‘Still taking this move well then?’ I murmur.
‘Oh, I don’t care,’ he says, breezily. ‘We coped without you beforehand, and we’ll cope afterwards.’
‘Touching.’
‘Well, I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m still in shock that you dumped Sam.’
‘I’ve told you, it wasn’t my decision,’ I say, irritably. ‘It was the other way around.’
‘Well, you must’ve done something to piss him off. He was mad about you.’
‘The distance is an issue for him, that’s all,’ I tell him, nonchalantly. ‘And I can’t disagree. It makes sense to just cut all ties. Now I can focus on my future.’
Jeff looks like he’s about to turn and go back to his tagine, but he hesitates and turns to look at me.
‘That’s the problem though, Jules,’ he says, in a tone I don’t like at all.
‘What is?’
‘You don’t think about the future at all. Not really,’ he says, accusingly. ‘All you really think about – to a frankly unnatural degree – is the past.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘It’s true,’ he says, forcefully. ‘All we ever hear is how much happier you were twenty-odd years ago. And I know you loved Ed and then you lost him, but your head is stuck in the early 2000s.’
‘This is absolutely—’
‘You are the only person I know still watching Ally McBeal,’ he snaps. ‘Literally.’
‘Just leave Ally out of this.’
He crosses his arms, looking almost as enraged as I am. ‘I hate to break this to you, but this business Sam told you about the distance . . . it’s an excuse.’
I scrunch up my nose. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I think it’s far more likely that Sam got the ick about you.’ There is a sly look in his eyes that I do not like one bit.
‘Now you’re just being deliberately horrible,’ I say, fizzing with anger. ‘Stop it.’
‘Or what? You’ll tell Mum?’
‘Oh, you are such a pain, Jeff,’ I hiss. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t like that at all with Sam.’
‘If you say so!’ He throws me a mock pitying look. ‘It happens to the best of us. Not a biggie. You didn’t let him see you in those awful angora socks, though did you?’
I ignore the question, not least because I think I might have, on that day he came and sat at my breakfast bar.
‘I’m sure he’d have said if that was really the issue,’ I say, through gritted teeth.
He shakes his head. ‘I doubt it. He’s too nice. He wanted to let you down gently.’
I am monumentally pissed off with my brother now. Frankly, I feel murderous. ‘If this is your idea of some kind of reverse psychology, then let me tell you—’
I stop when I take in the look on his face. I feel a bolt of alarm. ‘Jeff ?’
He doesn’t respond.
I know things are bad when I can’t rely on my brother for another sarcastic comment. Instead, he turns off the hob and comes to sit in the chair next to me. He exhales sadly.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, quietly.
I’m momentarily speechless. Jeff and I have always been of the same school of thought as Ali McGraw in Love Story: ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry.’ And frankly I could scream at him right now because just the sight of him being this upset nearly breaks me.
‘You do know it’s only because I’m completely gutted about all this, don’t you? That this is physically hurting me. Here.’ He thuds his fist against his chest.
‘That’s very dramatic,’ I whisper.
‘Well, it’s true. You are a seriously irritating person, but I love you. I can’t deny it.’
‘You are so ridiculous. And I love you too,’ I sniff, as my lips tighten and heat springs behind my eyes, at the precise moment Bella appears at the doorway.
‘Dad,’ she says. ‘One of the dogs has done a wee in my bedroom.’