Nine Uses For An Ex-Boyfriend (57 page)

‘I can’t believe that you’d throw that back in my face.’ Jack wiped the face in question, and if he wasn’t crying then it was only through a superhuman effort. ‘What I did with Susie was completely different.’

The only way that Hope could see that it was different was that at least she’d resisted that wicked little voice in her head egging her on. And she might have finally given in, but that was only because in the deepest, darkest part of her heart, she knew that Jack was never coming back to her. She could have had sex with Wilson weeks ago, for that matter, but she hadn’t because she’d wanted to do the decent thing by Jack. Whereas Jack hadn’t even considered doing the decent thing. He’d met up with Susie to buy Hope’s birthday present and ended up getting his rocks off like a free gift with purchase of a pair of Stella McCartney shoes, which Hope had now given to the local Cancer Research shop. That was how it was different.

But she wasn’t going to drag this up all over again, because there was no point any more. Jack had already chosen his future and Hope … well, her future was shadowy and undefined but least she had
options
. Even so, she didn’t want it to end like this, with rows and recriminations and bucketloads
of
regret. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and she meant it. ‘I am so sorry that I’ve hurt you. It wasn’t my intention.’

‘Well, it sounds like I was the last person you were worrying about,’ Jack said, dragging himself to his feet. ‘And your “sorry” means fuck all. You can’t just say sorry and think it’s all squared away. It isn’t.’

Hope began manically chopping chocolate. ‘I know that, but I am sorry, Jack. And yeah, I suppose my timing was a bit off.’

‘You went out and threw yourself at the first bloke you could find,’ Jack said savagely. ‘And I’ve spent all bloody night worried sick about you.’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ Hope said and she was crying now, tears plopping into the bowl of chocolate that she was trying to melt over a bain-marie. The plan had been that after she’d made the frosting, she was going to make icing so she could put everyone’s initials on a cupcake, but fuck that. Why did she always have to make everything so complicated? ‘I’ve been really selfish and thoughtless and I’m sorry.’

She dropped her wooden spoon, even though she was meant to be frantically stirring the melted chocolate so it wouldn’t go lumpy, to go over to Jack standing in the doorway, because he was hurting and Hope still loved him, which was why she wanted to take the hurt away.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, because if she kept saying it, then eventually he’d believe her. ‘I’m so sorry.’

She went to touch his arm, but he flinched and it wasn’t because her fingers were sticky with butter, sugar and chocolate. ‘Don’t,’ he bit out. ‘I don’t want you near me right now. I can hardly bear to look at you.’

Hope shut her eyes, and when she opened them she wished she hadn’t, because Jack had never looked at her like that before, like she was a dog turd that he’d found smeared to the sole of his favourite pair of limited-edition Converses. ‘I forgave you,’ she said in a low voice. ‘And I agreed to let you go.’

‘No, you didn’t. You’d never have done this if you really had forgiven me. What were you thinking? That you could go out and shag someone else and we’d be even?’

‘We can get past this,’ she insisted. ‘We got through everything else. We both know that we’ll still be friends when this has all blown over, so will you
please
stop looking at me like that?’

‘Fine! That I can do,’ Jack said and strode out of the kitchen and down the hall.

The front door closing behind him had an awful note of finality in its loud thud.

HOPE WASN’T QUITE
sure how she made it through the day without bursting into tears.

She was sleep-deprived, that was a given, and the hangover kicked in as she walked into school with her cupcakes and their lumpy frosting – only to bump into Elaine who proceeded to give Hope a tongue-lashing that rivalled anything that Caroline Delafield had ever come up with. She was ‘selfish, feckless and any fool, even Marta, could see that you’re self-sabotaging your relationship with Jack because you don’t have the guts to break up with him’, Elaine told Hope, after she’d frogmarched her into the staff toilets.

‘It’s not like that,’ Hope said, although she could see that to someone who hadn’t been told that Hope had been dumped by Jack a fortnight before, it might look that way.

‘And what about poor Wilson? Lovely bloke. Doesn’t deserve to be treated like that,’ Elaine continued, shaking her head and tutting. ‘I have to say, I’m seeing a whole new side of you, and I don’t like it very much.’

There wasn’t much that Hope could say in her defence, not even that Wilson had been very happy to be treated like that, but the bell rang while she was stuttering her way through a half-hearted defence of her reprehensible actions and she had to scurry off to her classroom.

Blue Class refused to be quiet in deference to Hope’s fragile state. They had three and a half hours before they
were
done with school for three weeks, and they wanted to tell Hope exactly what they were getting from Father Christmas, at great length and in excruciating detail. They also wanted to discuss how much they’d rocked the Winter Pageant, and what on earth Timothy meant when he said it was statistically impossible for Father Christmas to deliver presents to every child in the world – even allowing for different time zones, and the fact that Santa could change reindeer every hour. ‘And, Miss, how do reindeer even fly, anyway? How do they get up in the sky and stay there?’

If Hope hadn’t had a headache before they started on the never-ending questions about reindeers and aerodynamics, then she definitely had one now. Eventually she could take no more, and stuck
Kiki’s Delivery Service
in the DVD player, and within five minutes there wasn’t a sound coming from anybody and Hope could get on with writing out Christmas cards.

Rather than brave the staffroom and Elaine’s wrath at break-time, Hope went out into the blistering cold, this time in wellington boots and two pairs of socks, to wander around aimlessly and try to decide what she was going to do with the rest of her life, now she’d finally accepted that Jack wasn’t coming back.

Now she’d have to figure out who Hope Delafield was, when she wasn’t one half of Hope and Jack. Or HopeandJack, which was what everyone called them, like their names were just one word and that they were one being, instead of two separate people.

Being single was hard work, and Hope wasn’t even thinking of Lauren and Allison’s tales from the dating frontline. She was thinking of having to go back to living in a shared house, like she’d done when she was a student. And deciding who’d get custody of the car and the washing machine in the split, and winding up their joint bank accounts, and cooking meagre meals for one, and living
every
single day without someone who was sunk into the very marrow of her bones. Who knew what mood she was in before she even opened her mouth. Who’d shared every bad thing and every good thing that had happened to her in the last thirteen years. Who communicated with her in their own private language of in-jokes and looks and hand gestures.

It wasn’t just about finally letting Jack go. It was about letting a part of herself go with him, and maybe she wouldn’t be on her own for ever, and maybe she’d even fall deep in love again, but it would never be the same. Jack had had the best of her, and whoever Hope might love in the future would love a woman who was a little bit less than what she used to be.

Remarkably all her soul-searching had only taken fifteen minutes. Hope trudged back to school, inwardly dreading the last ninety minutes of term, when Blue Class would give out their cards and presents and, as a special treat, perform their Lady Gaga medley all over again. As she walked through the playground, sticking to the edges so she wouldn’t be spotted and immediately have several small children clinging to her, her phone beeped.

It was a message from Wilson.
Is everything OK? Even if it isn’t, you’ll get through this. You’re made of strong stuff
.

It was sweet of Wilson to think so, because Hope felt as if she was made from something weak and insubstantial like blancmange or bubble wrap. She didn’t know what was going to happen between them, and she didn’t want to be one of those pathetic girls who couldn’t be on their own and
had
to be in a relationship, but Hope was curious to see what Wilson and her could be. Even just ‘a series of consecutive one-night stands’ might be fun, judging from his performance a few hours ago.

I am OK
, she texted back.
Apart from a demonic hangover. Thanks for everything you did last night. All of it. I’ll be in touch once the dust settles
.

And that was all Hope could write, because there wasn’t anything else to say, but just as she got to her classroom, her phone beeped again and her heart did an unexpected little skip and a jump – until Hope saw that she had a message from Jack.
I’ll see you at counselling tonight. Don’t be late
.

Her heart stopped skipping and jumping in favour of plummeting to the floor. It wasn’t just Jack’s uncompromising prose style, which told Hope in no uncertain terms that he was still furious with her, and likely to stay that way for quite some time. She also didn’t want Angela there to witness Jack’s fury and listen to all the gory details, her eyes darting back and forth behind her smeary glasses as she judged Hope. Or judged Hope even more than she already had.

The incipient dread cast a gloom over the rest of the day, even though it was spent with Blue Class exchanging cards and gifts. Hope hadn’t been left out either. She received many home-made cards – her favourite was Javan’s, which featured Father Christmas being slaughtered by a squad of ninja assassins – and soon her desk was obscured by a huge pile of presents. As well as several tins of Quality Street, Roses and Celebrations, there were gift baskets from Boots and the Body Shop, mugs, teapots, cookery books and scented candles, and Stuart’s mum, Saskia, had gone all out with a bottle of Moët and a hamper from Carluccio’s, which didn’t make Hope like Stuart more, but she did feel even more guilty about not liking him. However, her favourite present was the hat, scarf and gloves commissioned by Sorcha and Luca’s mums and knitted by Timothy’s mother, who usually sold her woollies in a very posh boutique in Camden Passage.

Her cupcakes and cards seemed like a paltry offering compared to the generosity of their parents, but Blue Class received them with rapturous delight, apart from Stuart, who apparently was now dairy- and gluten-intolerant and had a nut allergy, too.

By the time the bell rang at one, Hope was exhausted, mentally, physically and emotionally, and it was a miracle on the level of the Virgin Birth, which all of Blue Class were intrigued and confused by, that she’d managed not to burst into tears.

She did almost cry when Elaine presented her with a crate of home-made elderflower vodka and the offer of a lift home. Although the lift home meant that Elaine could give her a stern talking-to both in the car and after Hope had half-heartedly invited her in for coffee and cupcakes.

‘So, are you regretting the way you behaved last night?’ Elaine asked, once Hope had presented her with a mug of black coffee and two misshapen cupcakes that hadn’t passed her stringent quality control. It was a welcome change of subject. On the way home, Elaine hadn’t stopped telling Hope that she was having a mid-twenties crisis.

‘Elaine, you don’t understand.’ Hope was sitting bolt upright in the uncomfortable armchair that had a spring loose where her left buttock cheek liked to rest. She knew that if she sat as she usually did in a slouch/sprawl combo, she’d be fast asleep within minutes. ‘Jack and I had a talk the weekend before last, well, mostly he talked, and he’s chosen Susie. He loves her and he wants to be with her, so I don’t know why he’s quite so angry with me. Yeah, I stayed out all night and I should probably have called him, and he caught me kissing Wilson on the doorstep this morning. But, really, he needs to lay off the wronged-lover routine because he’s not my lover any more.’

‘Kissing? This morning? Did you spend the night with Wilson? What have you been doing?’ Somehow Elaine managed to sound both disapproving and as if she’d die if Hope didn’t confess everything at once.

Hope didn’t confess everything. She confessed right up to the kissing and then faded to black, because no matter how ashamed she was of her duplicity of the night before, she wasn’t ashamed of what had happened on Wilson’s sofa,
because,
as she’d told Jack that morning, it had nothing to do with anyone but her and Wilson.