You Can’t Fall in Love With Your Ex (Can You?) (38 page)

“I’ll
call a cab for you,” Zé said.

This
seemed like a sensible suggestion, but it turned out to be a mistake. Traffic
in the city was blocked solid – there was some protest march happening, and we
were diverted to Tower Bridge and then got stuck again.

“Let
me out here, please,” I said to the driver. “I’ll walk. It’s not far.”

But
I’d misjudged the distance. I walked for what felt like miles through the
streets, growing more and more anxious, the sun beating down on my shoulders
and reflecting off the pavement until I was a hot, sweaty mess.

“A
midsummer day’s nightmare,” I said to myself.

At
last, I found reached the building, an edifice of glass and steel next to a
huge roundabout. The noise was thunderous – traffic roaring past, horns
blaring. Poor Jonathan, I thought, staying here. How he must be missing home,
the garden, the children. But was he missing me?

I
felt as nervous as I ever had before going on stage. We’d tricked him to get me
here – he’d made it quite clear that he didn’t want to talk to me. He’d
probably slam the door in my face, and I’d have to go home and find some way to
tell the children that Daddy wasn’t coming back. I might as well give up, go
down into the Tube station, go back to Clapham and send him an email telling
him I accepted his decision – that it was all over, all my fault.

Then
a tall woman in a suit emerged through the glass doors, and I felt a blast of
air-conditioned chill. She held the door open for me, and my feet carried me,
almost without my bidding, into the chilly lobby. I’d sit down for a few minutes,
cool down, then make my way back.

But
I’d reckoned without the presence of the concierge, who smiled politely from
behind his desk and said, “How may I help you, madam?”

It
was too late – I was here, I’d have to go through with it.

“I’m
visiting number eight-one-one,” I said. “Jonathan Payne.”

“May
I take your name?”

Shit.
What if he refused to let me in? I was going to have to stick with the script
for now. “I’m from Faraday and Partners,” I said.

The
concierge gave me a raised-eyebrow scrutiny that said, quite clearly, that he
didn’t know what law firms today were coming to if their staff arrived to
appointments in flip-flops, sweating and scarlet in the face. But he picked up
a handset, pressed a few buttons, and said, “Your visitor from Faraday and
Partners is here, Mr Payne.”

“Thank
you,” I said.

“Through
the glass doors, the lift is on the right. It’s the eighth floor, last door to
your left.”

I
thanked him again and let my trembling legs carry me to the lift. As it swept
me upwards, I looked at my reflection in the mirror and confirmed that I looked
just as terrible as I’d imagined. Well, it was too late to do anything about
that now. If Jonathan turned me away, it wasn’t going to be because I had no
make-up on and the humidity had made my hair frizz, that was for sure.

I
waited for a long moment in front of the door, then lifted my hand and knocked.
Jonathan opened it almost immediately – he must have been hovering in the
hallway, waiting for his solicitor.

I’d
expected him to be shocked when he saw me, probably angry. But to my amazement,
he looked relieved.

“Hello,
Laura.”

“Hi.
I’m sorry about blagging my way in, but you weren’t answering my calls. We need
to talk,” I said.

“You’d
better come in,” he said. “Would you like a coffee?”

“Just
a glass of water,” I said.

Jonathan
gestured towards a white leather sofa. “Have a seat.”

Jesus,
I thought, this is awful. It felt like the worst kind of business meeting, when
you know the person you’re there to see doesn’t want to see you. Jonathan
hadn’t even touched me – even the most unwelcoming client would have shaken my
hand.

Jonathan
returned with a glass of water and put it on the glass coffee table in front of
me, then sat down on a twin white sofa on the opposite side of the room. He
rested his elbows on his thighs and stared down at his hands – or at the
hideous abstract design on the black and yellow carpet, I couldn’t tell for
sure.

“How
are the children?” he said.

“They’re
fine,” I said. “They miss you.”

“I
miss them, too,” Jonathan said, his voice catching in his throat. “I miss them
so fucking much. And you, too. I was going to come home, but then —”

I
sipped my water and waited for him to carry on.

“I
was too ashamed,” he said. “After what happened.”

“You
were what?” I said. “But you’ve done nothing wrong. It was Rick who stole the
money.”

“Yes,
it was. But I let it happen.”

“How?”
I demanded. “Of course you didn’t.”

“He
put all the fake claims through the DBMG account,” Jonathan said. “Remember, I
told you about it? It’s been dormant for years. I should have shut it down, or
at least kept an eye on it, but I didn’t. It all came out when I was in New
York. Rick was putting through travel expenses on his personal credit card,
allocating them to that account, then cancelling and claiming the money back.
If I’d been doing my job, it would never have happened. That’s why I’ve
resigned. It’s over, Laura. I don’t have a job any more.”

“But
they’ve decided not to prosecute him,” I said stupidly. “I don’t understand.”

“Because
I persuaded them not to,” he said. “Not that it took much doing – they were
pretty keen to close ranks and avoid the scandal. But someone had to take the
hit, and it was me. It was thinking about Darcey’s friend that made me decide.
That little girl – what would her future be like if her dad went to prison?”

“You
did the right thing,” I said.

He
shook his head. “I did the only thing. But now – don’t you see, Laura, what this
means for us?”

“What,
you not having a job? You’ll find another, won’t you?”

“Not
in this industry,” he said. “I’m a marked man now. And to be honest, I don’t
want to do this any more. I fucking hate it – I’ve hated it for years. The
hours, the corporate bullshit, the immorality, the dick-swinging
competitiveness, never seeing you or the kids. It’s a miserable life. I’ve been
miserable.”

“Why
didn’t you say?” I asked, but I didn’t need to.  I remembered that he had once
tried to tell me, and anyway – I knew.

“Once
you’re in it, you can’t get out,” he said. “Not the job, the whole life. The
house, the holidays, the car, you being able to stay at home… I couldn’t let
you all down, Laura. And I couldn’t talk to you about it, because – well,
because we haven’t exactly been talking about stuff, have we? And now I have
let you down, and I can’t even give you all those things. Maybe you’d be better
off with that smarmy actor anyway.”

“Jonathan,”
I said. “Look at me.” And for the first time, he did. His face was haggard with
tiredness and stress, and I understood for the first time how heavy the burden
was that he’d been carrying, all alone, unable to put it down or share it with
me.

“None
of that matters,” I said. “I don’t care about the house. We were happy before
we moved there and we could be happy somewhere else. And I hate not working.
I’ve been bored stupid. That’s why this thing with Felix happened – not that
anything actually did happen. You believe that, don’t you?”

He
nodded. “I’ve thought about it over and over,” he said. “I was wrong to doubt
you, Laura. I know how you feel about us – about me and the children. I know
you wouldn’t chuck it away. And I so nearly did, because I was jealous. I’m
sorry.”

I
said, “I’ve been thinking about it too. It wasn’t about Felix, really – it
could never have worked between him and me. I knew that all along. I never
wanted to leave you, not for one second. But I thought I could somehow get my
past back. That never works, does it?”

Jonathan
shook his head. “You can’t get the past back,” he said.

“And
I don’t want to,” I said. “What good is the past to me? It didn’t have the
children in it. It didn’t have you. You’re what I want.”

“You
know what I want?” Jonathan said.

“What?”

“I
want to take you out to lunch. I’m starving.”

“Don’t
be mad,” I said. “We’ll only end up doing the bloody dance of lunch.”

Jonathan
said, “But there’s this fab street food place that does burritos…”

I
said, “Or how about the raw food bar up the road?” There wasn’t one – I was
just making shit up. But it was worth one last, tiny lie to see the expression
on his face – he’d rather eat his own feet than raw food, but he wanted to make
me happy.

“Um…
Or maybe sushi,” he said, throwing in his last bid.

“Jonathan,”
I said. “We’ve got the rest of our lives to argue about lunch. How about now we
go to bed?”

And
he stood up from the sofa opposite me and we sort of flung ourselves against
each other, and I felt what I hadn’t felt when Felix hugged me the night
before, hadn’t felt for the longest time, actually. I knew I was in the arms of
a man I loved and trusted completely, a man who’d make a dangerous, difficult
choice because it was the right thing to do. I knew that this was the right
place for me to be.

It
sounds weird, I know, but we had a tiny honeymoon in that horrible, sterile
corporate flat. And when we surfaced a couple of hours later, the sheets sweaty
and tangled around us, I felt that we’d changed the place, as well as
ourselves.

“I
should drop the keys off downstairs,” Jonathan said. “It’s time to go home.”

I
said, “We’re already here. Anywhere you are is home.”

“Zé
Campbell’s looking awfully pleased with herself lately, isn’t she?” Amanda
said, as we dropped off Darcey and Delphine, who were bundled up in their
winter coats, scarves, woolly hats and the mittens that constantly seemed to be
getting lost.

“Isn’t
she?” I said. “It’s wonderful that she’s so happy.”

I’d
realised that the way to deal with Amanda’s attempts to drive a wedge between
Zé and me was simply to pretend that she wasn’t. I knew full well, though, that
in her view I’d backed the wrong horse – picked the wrong friend. In Amanda’s
world, a woman like Zé, a woman who’d recently divorced her husband, sold her
house, moved into a two-bedroom flat and been reduced to buying her groceries
at Tesco, ought to be looking devastated and ashamed, if she dared show her
face at the school gate at all.

But
Zé hadn’t obliged. She turned up looking as gorgeous as always, thanks to the
fact that her blog was garnering more free clothes than ever (even if she did
have to flog them on eBay after a couple of wears). A new warmth and energy had
replaced the brittle languor she’d had before. She glowed with contentment. And
Juniper, too, seemed utterly unfazed by their changed circumstances.

Just
the other night, when I was kissing Darcey goodnight, she’d said to me, “Mummy,
Juniper says being poor is the best fun. Will we ever be poor?”

“Juniper
isn’t a bit poor, Pickle!” I said, horrified, and embarked on a lengthy lecture
about food banks and child labour and what poverty actually was, and how
Juniper and her mother’s perfectly comfortable life bore no relation to it at
all. I was still going strong when I realised my daughter had fallen asleep.

I
must have been smiling at the memory, because Amanda said, “And you’re looking
very cheerful yourself, Laura. We’ve missed you at book club, so it’s nice to
see you doing the school run for a change, instead of your hubby. Has he – I
mean, is he back in work again?”

“He’s
at a meeting this morning,” I said. “A new client. It’s amazing how much demand
there is for advice on ethical management. He’s having to turn work away,
because he likes being around at home for the children. And the kitten, of
course. She’s much harder work than they are.”

Amanda
sniffed. “Well. I’m delighted it’s working for you… I know how difficult it is
when men find themselves suddenly cast in a caring role. It’s so emasculating
for them.”

“Is
it?” I said, unable to suppress another smile at the memory of Jonathan and me
last night, on the sitting room floor, when I’d got home slightly pissed after
meeting Zé in the pub. The meal he’d made for us had ended up burnt to fuck,
but we didn’t care. “I’m not sure whether Jonathan feels emasculated. I’ll have
to ask him.”

“Yes,
do,” Amanda said. “It’s so important to keep the channels of communication open
in a marriage.”

She
was preaching to the choir there, I thought. Over the past few months, Jonathan
and I had talked and talked until it felt as if we had no words left, and then
we’d cried, and after that we’d talked some more. We’d endured a few sessions
with a relationship counsellor, complete with more talking and more tears.

It
had all made me understand a lot of things a lot better. I understood why Zé
and Juniper were so much happier without Rick, even though when he was there he
mostly hadn’t been. I understood why, in spite of his flaws, Juniper went off
eagerly for her weekends with her father (although Zé had promised to tear him
limb from limb if he so much as looked in the window of Ladbroke’s on those
weekends).