Rory made a sympathetic noise that was neither yes, no, and she hung up, feeling less happy than she should have been, given how annoyed she’d been by Stuart’s earlier demands.
Then she felt a warm sensation on her left hand and realised Buzz was discreetly licking the croissant flakes off her fingers with his pink tongue. Something about the uncharacteristic naughtiness of it touched her. He’d never dared do anything so cheeky before.
When Buzz realised she’d noticed, he stopped, and reverted to trying to seem invisible. Gina almost wished she didn’t have to hand him over to Rachel. It’s good, she told herself. I’ve helped him a little way along the road. I didn’t let him down. That’s enough.
‘Time to go,’ she said, before she could let the little voice whispering in her ear get any louder. She picked up the bag with his bowl, his rug and the other junk Rachel had dropped off with him, then led him across the road to the shop and his new life.
At two o’clock, Gina reconstructed the painful collapse of the Horsfield marriage in dry legal phrases in Rory’s office, then took the rest of the afternoon off. She spent an hour or so in the biggest supermarket, buying herself the most luxurious food she could find to celebrate the official independence now set in motion.
It felt good at the time, dropping treats into the trolley, but when Gina stared at her pile on the conveyor-belt, the chocolates piled next to the bottle of champagne, the smoked salmon next to the gourmet ice cream, it looked like an indulgent night in for a couple.
The check-out girl smiled conspiratorially at her as she scanned the luxury bath soak, and Gina had to force an answering smile, feeling like a fraud, but it was better than looking like a sad singleton having a binge.
She was on her way back with her bags when Rachel texted to ask if she wanted to call by the shop on her way home. Gina assumed she must either have left something in one of the bags or that Buzz had already found a home, but when she pushed the shop door open, Buzz was sitting there in a new collar, his coat gleaming from a fresh wash.
‘Don’t say anything yet,’ said Rachel, but Gina had seen the happy flick of Buzz’s whippy tail, and immediately felt terrible. He thought she was coming to collect him, and she wasn’t. She was abandoning him, like his last owner had done. And the one before that, probably.
‘Why? Doesn’t he know he’s going to a lovely new home?’ she asked, joking to cover up her churning stomach.
Stupid divorce. Stupid ice cream for one. Stupid . . . everything.
‘Well, that’s the thing. Do you think you could be an angel and have him back for just a few more days?’ Rachel’s face was pleading. ‘Honestly a few days this time. I’ve got a foster place for him in Evesham but they can’t take him until the middle of next week. Please? It would be so much less disruptive for him to stay with you.’
Gina let out a long breath. ‘Fine,’ she said, pretending she was going to say yes anyway. ‘But just for this weekend. Definitely just this weekend.’
‘Definitely.’ Rachel’s eyes twinkled. ‘Come on, I know someone who wants to show off his new collar to his lady friends in the park.’
‘How are things going with the ex?’ asked Rachel, as they took Buzz and Gem into the park, and Gina found herself telling her about Stuart’s unexpected change of heart.
It started off as an anecdote, about the patient manner in which Rory had translated her overwrought statement about Stuart’s adultery into stiff legalese, but something about the sympathetic way Rachel listened coaxed out more and more, until Gina was admitting how stupid she felt, never knowing what emotional reaction would spring out of her next.
‘And I should be glad,’ she confessed, ‘but I’m not. I don’t understand how he’s gone from being super-picky to rolling over, in the space of a week.’ She stared up the gravel path, towards the hill where other dog-walkers were strolling in warm fleeces. ‘That’s what’s so . . . weird. I don’t even feel I know him well enough now to say, “He’s doing this to be nice.” I have no idea what he’s thinking. It feels like I never did.’
‘Maybe it’s the new girlfriend pushing for a quick divorce,’ said Rachel. ‘Have you met her? Maybe she’s holding out, Anne Boleyn-style.’
Gina shook her head. ‘I don’t know much about her at all. My best friend Naomi’s husband plays football with Stuart, but Jason’s taken some sort of vow of silence about what’s going on. You know what it’s like when mutual friends split up.’
‘Awkward.’ Rachel nodded sagely. ‘Who gets custody of the mates, and all that.’
‘In our case, Stuart did. They were mainly his mates to start with, so I can’t really complain.’
Rachel and Gina had reached the top of the park, where a grassy space was enclosed as a free dog run. As usual, Gem sped off as soon as Rachel gave the sign, leaping and bouncing into the air with a small Jack Russell. Buzz slunk obediently into the paddock, but he stayed near Gina and Rachel, sniffing the grass.
‘Just ignore him,’ said Rachel, seeing Gina follow him with anxious eyes. ‘My husband thinks he might have been abandoned up here before or he’s got bad associations with running or something.’
‘A greyhound? Bad associations with running? Don’t they love it?’
‘Depends what happened when they ran. Or after.’ Rachel’s face told her that she wouldn’t want to hear the details, and Gina’s heart contracted.
Rachel turned back to the dogs. ‘Just ignore it, and let him get used to the fact that you’re not going anywhere.’
‘That’s what I feel bad about,’ said Gina, watching Buzz pacing nervously, tail between his powerful haunches. ‘He’s going to get used to me, and then he’ll have to go again.’
‘Don’t think of it like that. You’re teaching him to trust,’ said Rachel. ‘Really important. Now, throw this ball for Gem, and tell me more about your ex’s midlife crisis. Do you think he’s found God? Some of them do, you know. Or do you think he’s got some new thing? The mid-thirties are a dangerous time for motorbikes and facial hair.’
‘He’s not into facial hair. Or motorbikes.’ Gina hurled a manky tennis ball and Gem bounded off to catch it. ‘He might get a tattoo, I suppose. If the tattoo parlour could produce all their hygiene certificates and qualifications.’
‘Or, of course, the new girlfriend might be . . .’ Rachel trailed off.
‘She might be what?’
Rachel looked as though she wasn’t quite sure whether to say what she was thinking, then said it anyway. ‘She might be pregnant. Happened to a friend of mine – divorce was grinding along very slowly until suddenly it all went full speed ahead because he needed to put a deposit down at the Portland.’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Gina.
‘Why not?’
She opened her mouth to say that Stuart didn’t want children, and realised it wasn’t as simple as that. The stark truth didn’t show either of them in a good light, if she could find it underneath all their excuses and reasons.
Gina stared down the long slope of the park. Until she’d come up here with Buzz she hadn’t realised that the domed building in the centre was a bandstand. For some reason – maybe because until a few days ago she had never ventured there – she’d always assumed it was a war memorial.
There was a man at the bottom of the hill pushing a pram, a small dark woman walking beside it. He had tawny, ruffled hair, like Stuart. For an irrational second that made her stomach lurch, Gina wondered if it was him. If maybe he already had a child.
Rachel seemed to be waiting patiently for an answer, and Gina realised it was about time – for herself – that she actually formulated one, instead of ignoring it.
‘We never seemed to get round to it while we were married,’ she said.
‘Men never would, in my experience.’ Rachel prised the tennis ball from Gem’s jaws, and flung it with a powerful overarm lob to the back of the paddock. ‘George still claims he prefers puppies to babies. But then,’ she added, ‘to be fair, I
never thought I wanted kids until I found I was pregnant with Fergus. I think I’d have been perfectly happy if I hadn’t had children because I was already pretty happy with George, and I wouldn’t have known any different. I was lucky it was wonderful in a different way.’ She pulled a face. ‘Although life’s never straightforward, is it? What makes us happy this year might not cut it next.’
Gem bounded up with the ball in his mouth. He looked as if he was smiling. Rachel fondled his ears and chucked it again. Buzz didn’t move. He stared intently at the ground, tail pressed anxiously between his legs. Gina noticed a man walking past with a terrier on the other side of the path, and she slowly moved so she was between him and Buzz.
After a second, the tail lifted a fraction and Gina felt her own relief mingle with Buzz’s. She turned her attention back to Rachel, before she thought too much about it.
‘Were you and your husband trying for a long time?’ she asked. Rachel had to be in her early forties, as was her husband, and their son couldn’t be more than three.
She laughed. ‘No, quite the opposite – we didn’t try at all. I only met George when I was nearly forty. Fergus was a complete accident. I’d just come out of a ten-year car-crash of a relationship, and George and I had only been on a handful of dates, if you can call them that. The relationship came later. Totally the wrong way around.’
‘Really?’ said Gina, before she could stop herself. That wasn’t at all what she’d have guessed, from Rachel’s outwardly together appearance. She looked like the sort of cake-baking, Range-Rover-driving modern mother, in her skinny jeans and padded gilet. Apart from the blue nail varnish. And the streaks of grey in her glossy black hair that weren’t dyed away.
‘I know.’ Rachel’s face creased in self-deprecating horror. ‘In fact, our entire relationship is based on the sort of irresponsible behaviour you’d lock up your daughter for, but you know what? I’m not pretending it was sensible, but it turned out to be the best thing I could have done. Sometimes you’ve got to throw caution to the wind.’
‘Yeah, if you don’t mind what blows back in your face,’ said Gina. It was always confident people who went on about leaping into the unknown and taking a chance on life. ‘Sorry,’ she added. ‘I didn’t mean to sound so rude.’
Rachel paused, weighing the soggy tennis ball in her hand. ‘No, that’s fair enough. Risks go both ways. But I’d never have chosen this life. If you’d told me at thirty, thirty-five even, that I’d be married, with a son, living in the middle of nowhere, I wouldn’t have been surprised, I’d have been appalled. I was a Londoner. My boyfriend was married to someone else. I had a career in PR. But things change. Sometimes it’s easier when it’s out of your control because then you’re just surviving. There’s no sense of feeling you’ve chosen a potentially disastrous road . . .’ She caught herself. ‘Sorry, we were talking about you, not me. Did you want children? Was it just your ex who didn’t?’
‘I thought I didn’t, then I did. Now I don’t know.’
Gina knew she was being evasive, but she didn’t know what the answer was. Every time she peered into herself, other people got in the way – Janet’s nagging for a grandchild; the instinctive affection she felt for Willow; Stuart, and what a good dad he’d be. Above it all, her own ugly suspicion that life wasn’t something you could rely on enough to bring a child into it.
‘You’ve still got time,’ said Rachel, encouragingly. ‘You’re, what? Thirty?’
‘Too kind. Thirty-three. To be honest, I don’t actually know if I can have children. I had chemotherapy about six years ago – I haven’t really investigated what effect it might have had.’
‘Oh,’ said Rachel, abashed. ‘Well, that’s totally different. I’m so sorry I sounded flippant about the girlfriend having a baby.’
‘No, it’s fine. It’s something I should think about.’ Gina stared out across the neatly maintained gardens. The first green shoots were turning into leaves, and the beds looked like bright makeup palettes, with splashes of red tulips and yellow primroses. She made a mental note to get a window box for her wide gallery window and put some bold colour outside the white flat.
‘I suppose,’ she said slowly, ‘if I’m honest, I am a bit torn about how I’ll feel if Stuart does get his new girlfriend pregnant. If he decides to have a family with her.’
And not me. That the baby who would have been born with his eyes, his nose, his feet will now have another woman’s hair, her smile, her chin. Not mine. Another window to look into and see someone else with my life.
‘I’d be feeling sorry for her if she were,’ said Rachel. ‘Having a kid with a man who’s still married? That’s never a good start.’
‘I wouldn’t make it hard for them,’ said Gina, decisively. ‘I’ve got a list of clichéd things I swore I wouldn’t do during the divorce, and being vengeful is right at the top.’
Rachel chucked the tennis ball one last time for Gem. ‘Did your ex make a list, though? Because from what you’ve said it sounds like he’s working through a cliché list of his own. Has he got a leather jacket yet?’
‘No.’ Gina considered: Stuart in a leather jacket. ‘But it’s only a matter of time.’
Rachel turned, raking her hair back with a hand. ‘My advice, for what it’s worth, is to let it all go,’ she said. ‘Be as kind as you can bear to be, and let karma take care of things. You can’t grab hold of new opportunities if you’re clinging to the past. You need those hands wide open.’
Gina reckoned Rachel had spent too much time amid the fridge magnets in the charity shop. ‘You think?’ she said.
‘I know,’ said Rachel, and hurled the ball – ‘One last time, Gem!’ – into the bushes. The collie raced joyfully after it.
Chapter Fourteen
ITEM: pair of hand-blown champagne flutes
Longhampton, June 2008
Gina sits at the table in the gastropub and tries to focus on all the sweet things Stuart is saying about her. His voice is rising and falling, and he’s injecting a lot of effort into his delivery, but it’s not really going in, mainly because everyone is looking at her and trying not to cry.
‘. . . special woman . . . Knew as soon as I tried her cottage pie . . . For better or for worse . . . Matlock . . .’
I should be remembering this, Gina thinks, through a muzzy haze of pink champagne (she shouldn’t be drinking but, come on, it’s her wedding day). She stares at the flute in her hand, smooth and so fine she’s scared she’ll snap it. I won’t forget how the bubbles in this wine are so perfect. Fragile but determined, directing drunkenness into her bloodstream while Stuart rambles on, filling up the gaps where Terry’s speech would be, and where his best man’s speech would be, if Olly had had time to get back from his holiday in Australia.
It still feels like it’s happening to someone else. Even though she’s had the operation to cut the cancer out. Technically, it’s gone. Realistically, it’s only starting.
She waits for Stuart to come to the end of his speech, then rises to kiss him, to drink in the too-loud applause, and excuses herself to go to the loo.
Gina gets about ten seconds of peace before the door opens and Naomi comes in. There’s a pinch between her threaded eyebrows that not even her new fringe is hiding. ‘Are you OK?’ she asks lightly. ‘You’re not feeling sick or anything?’
‘I’m fine. Why are you looking so tense?’ Gina asks recklessly. ‘Is it because I’ve had a civil wedding and you’ve had to wear a fascinator?’ Weirdly, she doesn’t feel any compunction about being so direct with Naomi. Normally she bites her tongue, considering all possible offence, but now she’s just saying exactly what she thinks to people. They seem to expect it – and it gives them something to forgive, some concession to make towards an illness that turns everyone she tells white, then blank with internal shock.
Naomi stares at her, and the ostrich feathers tremble on her head. They really don’t suit her, and say more about Naomi’s state of mind than anything else. Stuart??
?s whistle-stop organisation hadn’t given her much time to find the wedding outfit she’d dreamed about shopping for ever since they were teenagers. It feels like no time has passed since they were shopping for Gina’s bridesmaid’s dress, but it’s already in a different chapter of Gina’s life.
The appropriately mournful honking of Adele filters in from the bar as someone pushes the door open and goes into the Gents opposite. Gina doesn’t blame Naomi if she’s pissed off about her hat. The Vivienne Westwood suit isn’t what she’d have chosen to get married in either, and she can’t imagine she’ll ever wear it again, but the assistant talked her into it, and for a second, it was exciting to be someone else, the sort of woman who blows eight hundred quid on a suit because why not? This is the best she’s going to look for a while.
‘I can’t believe you can even think that!’ Naomi smiles too brightly. ‘Today’s all about you. I don’t care about my fascinator!’
‘Then why have you got that face on you?’ The champagne has gone straight to Gina’s head; she probably shouldn’t have had it. ‘Please try to look happy. I feel like I’m at a party before the Battle of the Somme. Everyone looks as if they’re about to burst into tears.’
‘No, they’re not!’ Naomi’s determinedly shiny mood is making everything she says come out with an exclamation mark. ‘They’re thinking about what a great couple you and Stuart make! Because you do!’
‘They’re not, Nay,’ says Gina. ‘They’re trying to work out how happy it’s polite to be in the circumstances. I don’t blame them. Maybe this was a mistake. It’s hard enough for me and Stuart. I mean, maybe it’s easier for me and Stuart. At least we know what’s going on.’
Naomi starts to speak, but her words come out as a gulp. She blinks, struggling to maintain the encouraging expression she’s been wearing all day. In the salon, in the car, doing everyone’s makeup round at Janet’s – Naomi’s been the one taking happy snaps, dishing out the compliments, cheering everyone along. It’s not the elaborate wedding they’d planned as teenagers, but Naomi’s done her best to keep up her end of the deal as chief bridesmaid.