‘So, you were both amazed that the other could be interested in you. That’s . . . interesting,’ said Peter, taking off his glasses.
Oh God, thought Katie, here comes the devastating remark.
But as far as she could see, it didn’t come.
‘So, after that, you started dating?’ he went on.
Ross and Katie looked at each other, and hesitated. She saw a vulnerability in his eyes that made her feel protective – another old feeling. It was a bit weird, thought Katie, seeing Ross sitting there with her, but never being quite sure what he was going to say for once. A bit like dancing, when he danced with Jo and bothered to stand up straight, so he looked like a different man. A new man.
What if he pulls himself together, so you fancy him again, and then he decides to leave because you’ve been such a bitch in here? said a weaselly voice in her head, and she shook it away, speaking quickly, so the thought couldn’t settle.
‘Yes,’ she said, at the same time as he said, ‘It was complicated.’
‘Katie,’ Ross began, ‘that’s not completely . . .’
‘He was wearing a Pixies T-shirt,’ she gabbled. ‘And Converse All-star trainers. He looked like he could be in a band, or an American sitcom, or something. His hair was so thick, and so soft I wanted to put my fingers in it—’
‘She had a fiancé!’ shouted Ross over the top of her. ‘And she didn’t tell me that until our fourth date!’
An awful silence filled the room.
Katie could feel her heart beating up in her throat, while her underarms prickled with sweat. Hot flushes of embarrassment swept through her.
That’s it, she thought. I’m never going to recover from this in Peter’s eyes. I’m already a cold-hearted cow, and now I’m a cheat. Well done, Ross, have another victim badge.
But it wasn’t like that, wailed a voice in her head. It wasn’t . . .
She got a grip on herself, the way she did in meetings when Eddie tried to wind her up about maternity leave being women’s stealth holiday. Think. It could be worse, she told herself. At least Ross didn’t say that—
‘You didn’t tell him until our fourth date, either, did you?’ he added, suddenly.
Oh God. Katie froze.
‘Right, well, I can see how that would make the start of your relationship complicated,’ said Peter in his even, non-judgemental tone. ‘Tell me about that, Katie.’
Katie glared furiously at Ross. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t see what it has to do with our marriage.’
‘I think it has a lot to do with your marriage,’ observed Peter.
‘You can’t just ignore things,’ said Ross, sanctimoniously. ‘Get it out in the open, Katie. Admit that’s what you did. What’s the worst that could happen?’
Peter turned to him. ‘Of course, it must have been very flattering for you, having a woman dump her fiancé to date you. Hmm? We’ll come back to that.’
Ross’s mouth hung open, mid-platitude, but Peter had turned back to Katie.
‘Tell me about it,’ he insisted. ‘I think it’s important.’
Katie met his clear gaze with her own stubbornness, then, after ten seconds, realised she’d met a force even stubborner. Peter might give a good impression of a bearded muesli-eating do-gooder, but she could sense a will of iron beneath the Aran jumper.
And she was so tired. Too tired. So she closed her eyes, collected her thoughts carefully, like the sharp pieces of a broken plate, and said, ‘Steve and I had been going out since our first year of university. We got engaged when we graduated – his grandmother’s ring, very big deal. He had a good job in a law firm in Manchester, I’d started work, we were going to buy a house, but we hadn’t set a date . . .’ She bit her lip.
She hadn’t told Jo this. She wasn’t even sure she’d told Ross the entire story.
‘To be honest, when I met Ross, things had been rocky for a while, and I suppose I just wasn’t sure whether I was ready to get married. I was still very young. Steve was my first proper boyfriend and . . .’ She looked up – at Peter, not Ross. ‘Ross was very different. Meeting him made me realise that maybe . . . there were other options.’
‘People do change a lot in those years,’ agreed Peter. ‘It’s not a crime to break off an engagement.’
Katie twisted up her mouth. That wasn’t how Steve had seen it. Or Steve’s mum. Or her mum, come to that. Not that she said any of this aloud.
‘You seem very hard on yourself, Katie. You’re very worried about getting things wrong, when all you’re doing is learning, like everyone else,’ he went on, mildly. ‘Sometimes we don’t do things we’d like to imagine we could . . .’
‘I didn’t want to cheat,’ she gabbled. ‘It honestly wasn’t like that. But I didn’t want to throw away what I had with Steve because of some passing crush either. So, I . . .’ Katie stopped, then rephrased what she was about to say. ‘I didn’t tell Ross about Steve until . . . Until I knew I couldn’t go back to Steve and be happy.’
Katie was conscious that Ross was looking intently at her but she didn’t want to meet his eye.
‘So, in a sense, you gave up one very different kind of life to be with Ross?’ said Peter. ‘You chose the man you felt would make you happier. And you did it very carefully, and thoughtfully, because you didn’t want to cause unnecessary hurt.’
She looked up, surprised that he hadn’t twisted the knife.
‘I guess so.’
‘Are you still in touch with Steve?’
‘No, but my mum still is, with his mum. They do Christmas cards. He’s married now, and living in London – Hampstead, I think. With three children. They always send those awful cards where the kids are on the front instead of a robin, and they’re all skiing somewhere expensive and all you hear about is the new house and . . .’
This time Katie caught Ross’s wince, and she stopped, mid-sentence.
Peter took off his glasses. ‘Don’t you think it’s time you let go of Steve?’
Katie started to say, ‘I don’t feel guilty about . . .’ but Ross interrupted her.
‘Hear bloody hear!’
She looked at him crossly. ‘What? I haven’t spoken to Steve in years.’
‘You don’t have to speak to him. I see the way you look at Jo and Greg’s life. You look at Greg and you think, if I’d married Steve I could have a house like that.’
‘What? That’s such bollocks! If you’ve got some kind of inferiority complex, then . . .’
Peter coughed and they stopped, like guilty schoolchildren.
‘I think you’re both using this as a way of making the other one feel bad, actually. It’s not as unusual as you think, letting old relationships take on a much more significant role in the current one,’ he said, easily. ‘Katie, you’ve been hanging on to the guilt, but in fact all you’ve done is keep an irrelevant benchmark in your life, as to where you could have been by now, if you’d stayed with Steve. You don’t know how things would have turned out – he could have changed jobs, or not wanted children, anything. But you proved that Steve wasn’t right for you, when you left him for Ross. And Ross, did you ever meet him?’
He shook his head.
‘So how do you know what sort of life he could have given her? And does it matter? You’ve made a life together.’
‘I don’t want you to think I was measuring them against each other,’ insisted Katie. ‘That makes me sound really calculating, and cold.’
‘I don’t think that.’ Peter put his glasses back on and blinked. ‘You really shouldn’t worry so much about what people think.’
‘Yeah,’ mumbled Ross.
‘What?’ Katie glared at him, still smarting from the Steve humiliation. ‘Come on, Ross. If you’re going to be personal, at least have the guts to say it to my face, instead of mumbling to yourself, the way you always do.’
He shrugged. ‘You’re doing it now. Spinning things to make yourself look better. I don’t know why you can’t just relax, instead of letting e
veryone else decide whether you’re happy or not. It’s stupid. And kind of insulting to me too, actually. You’re obsessed with what other people think but you don’t give a toss about how I feel.’ He pushed his hair back with one hand.
Still thick, thought Katie, but why can’t he wash it more often?
‘Can you give an example of that, Ross?’ asked Peter.
‘Yeah, she’s constantly agreeing to work late to impress her boss at work, but she won’t even consider flexible hours so she can spend time with her children. And maybe give me some time for myself.’
‘That’s so unfair and not true!’ Katie flashed back. ‘I can’t win! If I leave the office on time, I get more grief than you can imagine for being a woman with a family, and if I leave late, I get grief from you! It’s easy for you to say “come home early” when you’re the one slobbing around the house all day, doing sod all, while I—’
‘Doing sod all?’ Ross’s mouth dropped open. ‘Doing sod all? I’m looking after our children!’
Katie knew she’d gone too far. ‘That’s not what I meant,’ she said hurriedly, glancing up at Peter. ‘I didn’t mean that looking after the children is nothing, I meant that the laundry never gets done, the kitchen’s filthy . . .’ She regrouped her thoughts, trying to make it as fair as she could. ‘I mean, he’s never had to deal with the sort of office politics I have to. If I could be at home with the kids, while he went out and put the bread on the table, I would. In a flash. But I can’t.’
‘Yes, let’s get back to you,’ muttered Ross.
‘But you’ve just told me that his creative job was one of the things you found most attractive about Ross when you met.’ Peter smiled, not unkindly. ‘And you liked it so much that you split up with a man who had the same kind of job as yours. Isn’t that right?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘But he was working then, and being creative. I do love his creativity. But now—’
Ross cut her off with a bitter look. ‘Well, I’m sorry I’m so busy with childcare that I don’t have time to open up Photoshop. Selfish me.’
‘Ross . . .’ Katie protested.
Peter stepped in before the row could escalate. ‘Katie, Ross – I honestly feel there are a lot of positive things we can draw from where you are here,’ he said. ‘You might not be seeing them right now, but I want you to think about what we’ve discussed, mull it over, maybe try to have an honest conversation about some of the things we’ve touched on. It’s good that you’re airing some of these feelings.’ He peered at them over his glasses. ‘I get the impression some of this is coming out for the first time?’
Katie nodded.
‘It’s not about what people think,’ he added. ‘No one has to be in your marriage apart from you. Oh, I meant to ask!’ Peter clapped his hand to his forehead. ‘How’s the hobby going? What is it you’re doing together?’
‘Ballroom dancing,’ said Ross.
‘And?’ He looked hopefully between them.
‘It’s going pretty well,’ said Ross. ‘So far.’
Katie glared at him, but couldn’t bring herself to contradict him in front of Peter.
Peter took off his glasses and cleaned them carefully. ‘Good,’ he said, and Katie thought he seemed to be choosing his words. ‘Good.’
11
On the other side of the river, in Chestnut Grove, Lauren’s plan to cook a lovely supper, over which discussion of her new ideas for a Cinderella-themed reception might go more smoothly, was vanishing faster than the packet of chocolate digestives sitting between her parents on the coffee table. Her dad was pretending not to eat them, about as convincingly as he was pretending to be looking forward to her shepherd’s pie. Lauren wasn’t a great one for cooking, but this was an attempt to make up for letting her mum slave over every meal since she’d moved in.
Plus, it was Chris’s favourite, and she couldn’t wait to see him, and tell him about the ‘guests’ video memory book’ Irene had told her about. Or, rather, she had been looking forward to seeing him, at six. It was nearly ten past seven now. Lauren checked her watch. Quarter past seven.
He should have phoned if he was going to be late. She frowned. Chris always let her know if he was going to be late when they were living together. It wasn’t like she minded being at home with her mum and dad, but it was beginning to feel like she’d gone back to being sixteen – phoning home if she was going to miss supper, tidying her room – while Chris had rediscovered his single bloke social life, without her. It didn’t seem totally fair.
‘What time did Chris say he’d call?’ Bridget asked, as delicately as she could. ‘I’m not sure the shepherd’s pie can wait much longer for him in the oven. It’s already looking a bit . . . parched.’
‘Like me,’ said Frank, holding out his mug towards Lauren for a tea refill. ‘Top me up and save these creaking hips, eh, love?’
‘They’re not creaking,’ said Lauren. ‘They were looking pretty swivelly when you were doing the foxtrot with Angelica the other night.’
‘That woman could make a rocking horse swivel,’ sighed Frank, stretching out his long legs and turning his attention back to the new camcorder on his knee. ‘Good partners do that, they make you dance better than you knew you could. Although she’s not a patch on your mother,’ he added with a side look at Bridget.
Bridget pretended not to be flattered. ‘That won’t get you extra pie,’ she said.
‘But I know something that might,’ replied Frank, making a sort of shuffle with his feet that obviously meant something to Bridget, who dissolved into giggles.
‘God! Stop! I don’t want to know!’ Lauren put her hands over her ears.
She didn’t remember her parents being this lovey-dovey before she moved out. Had they reined it in while she was living at home? Or was it Dad’s retirement and the dancing sending them into some kind of second honeymoon nostalgia phase? Or was it just the fact that she and Chris now had to compress their entire sex-life into about half an hour twice a week that made her hyper-sensitive to it in other people?
Whichever, it was great that they still got it on after, like, a million years together, but your own parents . . .
‘I don’t know where he’s got to,’ she said, pushing the idea out of her mind. ‘I know he’s not having dinner with his mum because today’s her Italian class, and he’s not answering his phone.’
‘Well, I’m getting peckish, Laurie . . .’
‘Oh, let’s eat.’ She got up, unwittingly dislodging Mittens the cat from the back of the chair, where he had been sleeping peacefully for ten minutes. Bridget watched as he slunk off towards the radiator, and sat licking his paws disconsolately.
Lauren paused at the door, like the teenager she’d only just stopped being, and added melodramatically, ‘It’s not like Chris ever bothers to have an opinion about anything to do with this wedding. But he’d better turn up to dancing this week or else he’s totally dead.’ Then she stomped off towards the kitchen.
Bridget exchanged a quick glance with Frank, who shrugged in a ‘don’t ask me’ way and pointed the camcorder at Mittens, zooming in on his ominously wagging tail.
‘Woah!’ he exclaimed, reeling back. ‘This gadget’s amazing, love. You can see dirt invisible to the naked eye.’
‘It should be for what it cost,’ said Bridget. She’d come back to find Frank had bought it on impulse for the wedding; it had been on special offer, he explained, and if he practised with it ‘in good time’, it would save money on hiring a professional videographer, which Irene was insisting they looked into, at huge expense. Plus, he’d gone on, obviously repeating verbatim whatever line they’d spun him in the shop, they’d have it to take on holiday. So it had been a bargain, spending money to save money. It would be a hobby too, he said, now he had more time on his hands.
Bridget suppressed a little flutter of nerves, as the cash register in her head rang up another thousand pounds. She wasn’t used to spending money like this, and even less used to it be
ing on credit cards.
Calm down, she reassured herself. It’s not mounting up. It’s all going to be paid off when the 0%-interest period finishes – and that’s when you can cash in the secret savings account. It fits together perfectly. It’s going to be fine.
If Bridget’s mother had given her one useful piece of advice, it was that husbands never missed twenty quid here and there. And that there’d come a day when you’d be glad of those twenty quids. Over the years, Bridget had been tucking them away like a squirrel in a secret emergency-only account – and thanks to Lauren’s fancy ideas, that emergency had now arrived.
Not, Bridget reminded herself, that she minded splashing out on Lauren’s wedding. It was what she really, really wanted, and when you thought about what some people’s children put them through, with drying-out clinics, and unexpected babies, and university fees . . .
Frank pointed the camera at her. ‘Do you want to go and see what’s up with Lauren, then?’ he said. ‘And do you know you’ve got hairs growing out of your—’
‘Much more of that, and you’ll have to watch out for your own hair,’ said Bridget, and left before he could work out how to turn it off.
In the kitchen, Lauren was looking daggers at her mobile phone, but as soon as Bridget walked in, she tried to put on her usual smile. It didn’t work on Bridget, who’d seen it before. She was touched, though, that Lauren bothered to pretend she wasn’t furious in front of her.
‘What’s up, love?’ she asked, as Lauren got a can of Diet Coke out of the fridge. ‘Has something happened at the surgery? Have you had words with Kathleen again?’
‘No.’
‘Well, what? You’re not yourself.’ Bridget rubbed Lauren’s arm affectionately. ‘Tell your mum.’
Lauren bit her lip, and Bridget’s heart bumped as she saw the frustrated little girl in her face. ‘It’s just this dancing. Irene called me today – she wants to talk about music for our first waltz, and whether we’ll need a spotlight, and I just think . . . we’re never going to be good enough!’
Oh well, if that’s all it is, thought Bridget and smiled.