‘There’s nothing to discuss,’ he practically yelped. ‘We both know it’s over, so what’s the point of dragging up stuff that doesn’t matter any more?’
‘But what attracted you to each other? It wasn’t just the sex, was it? It was obviously stuff you weren’t getting from me.’
‘I think what Hope is trying to say, is that she really needs some closure in order to work through this transition in your relationship,’ Angela summarised helpfully.
Although Hope didn’t think ‘transition’ was really the right word to describe the way that Jack was intent on destroying everything they could have been, she still nodded in agreement. ‘I have tortured myself every day this last week trying to understand what it is about Susie that you can’t live without,’ Hope snapped. ‘You say that we were having problems – but why was it Susie? Why wasn’t it one of those hot thin fashionistas from Skirt? Why was it her?’
‘Why do you need to know?’ he asked. ‘It’s not going to change anything.’
‘Because not knowing is killing me, and if you were getting some kind of, I don’t know, emotional nourishment from her that you weren’t getting from me, as well as fun sexy times, then that’s something I need to work on for next time.’ Hope paused. ‘Not that there’s ever going to be a next time, because I’m done with relationships. I couldn’t stand to feel this fucking terrible ever again.’
Jack looked up at the ceiling. ‘If you really must know, well, Susie was always so enthusiastic about everything. We’d talk about art and design, and she encouraged me to work on my own creative projects.’ He looked a little sheepish. ‘And well, we talk about stuff that doesn’t involve what we’re going to have for dinner, or what needs doing around the flat, or our parents. When I’m with her, everything we do is new and exciting.’
Well, wasn’t that just lovely for him. ‘You could have talked about art with me,’ she said bitterly.
‘But you never ask,’ Jack said.
‘That doesn’t mean if you’d wanted to talk about it I’d have refused to listen.’ She ran her fingers through her hair, which really needed another comb-out. ‘You can’t have it both ways, Jack. Being part of a long-term couple does mean having to do boring stuff like menu-planning and DIY, but that’s not all it has to be.’
‘It was more than that, Hopey, but you don’t want to go there,’ Jack warned, but she had to go there. No matter how much it hurt, not knowing hurt even more.
‘Tell me,’ she commanded. ‘Just tell me.’
‘OK, it was the sex.’ The words burst out of Jack’s mouth as if they were jet-propelled. ‘It wasn’t like I expected us to be hanging from the light fittings every night, but mostly it was just once a week, if that, during term-time – and I’m sorry, Hope, I don’t think either of us was ever so up for it that we were literally ripping each other’s clothes off in places where we were likely to get arrested for ripping each other’s clothes off.’
Hope was all set to deny Jack’s accusations in the most vehement way that she knew how, which involved a lot of shouting and swearing, she even opened her mouth, but all that came out was a ragged exhalation of breath, as she scrolled back through all the many different times and ways that she and Jack had had sex. How nervous and excited she was for the first year, when having actual sex seemed like the most shocking, transgressive thing you could ever do with another person, even though it had taken a good few months before she’d actually worked out how she was meant to have an orgasm.
Then the student years of having sex with Jack in bedrooms of shared houses or halls of residence, when they were both too drunk or stoned to really get down with their big bad selves, especially as they had housemates who loved to bang on the wall every time the bed squeaked.
Then there was setting up their first home together, the squalid studio flat in Whitechapel. By then sex had become familiar and without any mystery, but mostly sex had been fun. Hope had thought it was a measure of how close they were, that they could giggle and take the piss out of each other even when they were lying naked in bed, but apparently it meant that they’d been doing sex wrong.
And then she got to the time they’d been having sex on the sofa a couple of weeks before going to Barcelona. Or they’d started to have sex, because it had been a couple of weeks and as Jack put it, ‘If we don’t do it now, we might forget how to do it altogether.’ Hope hadn’t really been bothered either way, but she’d decided to take one for the team, and about halfway through, when she had the TV remote digging into her shoulder blade and Jack kept threatening to slide off the sofa on to the floor, they’d stopped.
‘Look, I’m not really in the mood,’ Hope remembered herself saying. ‘Shall we just watch MasterChef instead?’
Jack hadn’t even put up a fight. ‘God, yes,’ he’d said. ‘Shall I put the kettle on?’
Hope liked sex. She liked having sex with Jack, but if someone said to her, ‘For the sake of the future of the planet, you must never have sex again,’ she’d cope. Though if they substituted alcohol or chocolate for sex, then as far as Hope was concerned the world could go up in flames.
‘It wasn’t just me,’ she said after what seemed like hours, but couldn’t have been that long, because there’d been no subtle prompts from Angela or pointed looks from Jack. ‘You never, ever once said that you wanted us to be going at it 24/7, or having sex in public places or, like, dressing up in rubber, so it’s a bit rich to make out like I’m completely devoid of passion.’
‘Oh, I’m curious that you—’ Angela started but Hope never discovered what she was curious about, because Jack was cutting right across her.
‘Well, you were certainly passionate about getting engaged,’ he said shortly, like he’d given her fair warning that he was going to get brutal, and now Hope would just have to deal with the consequences. ‘You were obsessed with getting engaged even though there was no need to.’
‘There was every need,’ Hope argued. ‘We’d already bought a flat together and getting engaged was the logical next step. I don’t know why you had to turn it into a such a big deal.’
‘You were the one who made it a big deal!’ Jack shot back. ‘Why were you so desperate to get engaged?’
‘Why were you so desperate not to get engaged?’ Hope demanded.
‘Because we’d get engaged and then, a few months down the line, being engaged wouldn’t be enough and you’d want to get married, and then it would be kids, and within three years, my life would be over,’ Jack stated like it was an absolutely unassailable fact.
‘But getting married and having kids doesn’t mean that,’ Hope said, as she shook her head. ‘Sure, it’s the end of certain aspects of your life, you can’t really pull an all-nighter any more, but it’s also the start of something really wonderful.’
‘So, you do want to get married and have kids? I knew it!’
‘Well, yeah, one day,’ Hope said, and now she was confused and shot a helpless look at Angela, who gave her one of her encouraging smiles but didn’t seem inclined to leap into the fray. ‘Not right now. Yes, I wanted to get engaged. There’s nothing terrible about that, considering how long we’ve been together. Why are you trying to make me feel guilty for wanting to get married and have children at some stage in our future? If people didn’t have children, then the human race would die out.’
‘But I don’t want children. Not in a couple of years’ time. Not ever!’ Jack snapped as Hope and Angela both turned to stare at him. ‘There are so many things I want to do in my life that don’t involve children. Maybe I want to work in New York … why are you snorting at me?’
‘I’m snorting at you because when I suggested moving to Brighton or Manchester you had a panic attack. You’re never going to live in New York, Jack, so stop fooling yourself,’ Hope shouted, because she’d got over her shock at having to listen to all the things she’d never wanted to hear, and now she was furious that Jack was implying that getting engaged was the first step in her master
plan to bind him to her for ever by podding out child after child, when he’d much prefer to ponce about lower Manhattan. ‘That whole weekend we were in New York you did nothing but moan. You hated the subway. You said the whole city smelt and that it was impossible to get a decent cup of tea.’
‘I was just using New York as an example,’ Jack protested. ‘It could be Berlin—’
‘Huh! Berlin!’
‘Or Boston. I’m just saying that we want different things in life—’
‘No! This isn’t about your career, or wanting to live in some hipster paradise – this is about you shagging Susie right after we got back from Barcelona and the big fight we’d had about getting engaged. And you can try and blame me for driving you away, but the truth is … the truth is you’re just a selfish arsehole who doesn’t think of anyone but yourself.’
‘That’s not fair, Hopey.’ Jack turned and tried pat her arm but Hope slapped his hand away.
‘Don’t talk to me about being fair,’ she said. ‘The way you’ve acted is hardly fair.’
Jack nodded slowly. ‘You’re right. I know you’re right.’
‘But is Hope right, Jack?’ Angela suddenly piped up, her eyes gleaming. ‘I think a lot of this is due to the flawed dynamic in your relationship; I hear a lot of talking but no real communication. Hope shouts to get her point across, and Jack, you back down without listening because you have an aversion to confrontation.’
Hope couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Was that all Angela had to say to them? ‘I’m shouting because I’m angry and I have every right to be angry. I’d rather feel angry than feel as vile as I have done all week.’
‘I don’t see an angry person, I see a very scared and unhappy person,’ Angela offered, her voice dying to a croaky whisper as Hope bared her teeth. ‘Well, anyway, we need to wrap this up.’ She scribbled something down. ‘Really excellent work in this session. Well done! I’m assuming that you won’t want to book any more sessions together for the new year? Though I think you could benefit from coming to see me on your own, Hope, so we can work on some techniques for your anger management. I take it that the elastic band isn’t that effective any more?’
Hope was all ready to shout that she’d rather gouge out her own internal organs with a fork and a pair of pliers before she booked any more sessions with Angela, but she didn’t need to say anything because Jack could tell that she was one breath away from a full-blown temper tantrum. ‘Let’s talk about that next week,’ he said, as he began to grab Hope’s coat and bag as she sat there muttering and shaking her head. ‘It’s really important to both of us that we end our relationship on good terms.’
‘Oh, that reminds me – homework. I’d like both of you to think about where you see yourselves in ten years’ time,’ Angela informed them, surreptitiously checking the clock on the wall. ‘And Hope, we’ll talk about what your next steps should be. I think you could really benefit from some meditation techniques so …’
Hope opened her mouth, then realised that she had no words and might have to start screaming instead, but Jack clamped his hand around her arm in a vice-like grip. ‘We’ll talk about that next week,’ he repeated quickly, as he pulled an unresisting Hope up off the sofa. ‘We have to go. We’ve got dinner plans.’
As soon as they were outside, Hope burst into tears, and Jack could also tell that when she cried with that much intensity and that much snot, it was because she was absolutely, utterly, murderously furious.
‘Come on, Hopey,’ he said softly, as he guided her down the road. ‘Angela was only trying to help.’
‘I only shout when I really have to.’ She was shouting now, and a couple walking towards them suddenly veered off across the street. ‘Is that why I drove you away? Because I shout all the time and I’m shit in bed?’
‘You’re not. I’ve been a selfish dickhead,’ Jack said frantically, taking Hope in his arms so he could shower her tear-soaked face in kisses. ‘Honestly, Hopey, I’m being harsh with you because I don’t want you to think that there’s a chance that I’ll change my mind. I know you hate me for it, but you’ll hate me more if I keep getting your hopes up like I’ve been doing. I think that’s the cruellest thing I’ve done.’
‘I just can’t deal with this anymore,’ Hope sobbed. ‘It never gets better. It just keeps getting worse and worse.’
Jack pressed his lips to her clammy forehead. ‘Look, I’ll stay with you the next few days so we can go home for Christmas and tell the parents together.’
They were done. Over. Finished. Up to their ankles in the painful business of breaking up. She knew that. She did, but … Jack was giving her two more weeks, and anything could happen in those extra days. By the time the combined power of two sets of parents had wheedled, emotionally blackmailed and beaten Jack down, then maybe they wouldn’t be so over. Sure, Jack might have long talks about art and design and hot sex with Susie whenever he wanted it, but those weren’t the ties that bound two people together, not like a Christmas in Whitfield with two mothers who could bring pressure to bear like North Korea.
Hope wiped her wet snotty face with the ends of her scarf. ‘Do you promise?’ she asked between hiccups.
Jack looked down at her as if he was looking at the most beautiful woman in the world and not a girl who had a red, blotchy, scrunched-up face. ‘Absolutely promise. I even promise to come to the Winter Pageant, and I wouldn’t do that for just anyone.’
IN THE END, when it felt as if everything she held dear was circling the drain, Hope decided it was easier to focus on simply getting to the end of the week. Or getting to approximately seven thirty on Thursday evening, when the Winter Pageant would be over and she’d be on her way to the Midnight Bell with Marta and Elaine (and respective partners) for their unofficial Christmas dinner.
Hope worked until eleven each night with only a brief respite from the never-ending Winter Pageant preparations on Wednesday evening, when she worked on Blue Class’s school reports instead, but that was almost like fun. Apart from Sarah from Year Six, all the staff gathered in the staffroom with a huge quantity of pizza and wine and pooled their resources and their expertise in writing the passive-aggressive double-speak that Mr Gonzales expected from them, rather than the plain, unvarnished truth.
‘How do I say that Stuart is a vicious bully who’d rather belch and fart than spend even five seconds paying attention to me?’ Hope asked the room at large.
‘Oh, just say, “Stuart continues to experience some challenges learning in a classroom environment but I’m confident that with the right home support, we’ll see a distinct improvement in his knowledge retention and interaction with his classmates,”’ said a laconic drawl from the corner of the room where Sunil, who taught Year Five, was leafing through his old reports so he could recycle his greatest work.
And then it was Thursday morning. Hope was up at six to bake fifty cupcakes, which she’d frost and ice when she got home, and present to Blue Class tomorrow. Then she packed frock, heels and make-up bag for the night’s festivities before she approached the slumbering lump under the duvet, whom Hope assumed was her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend.
Jack had also been working like a dog and getting home either just before or just after Hope. There had been the faintest niggling doubt lodged at the very back of her mind that Jack was up to no good, until a motorcycle courier had come round at midnight on Tuesday with a Cromalin that had to be re-checked and sent back to the repro house. She got it: he really was working late.
Last night, he’d arrived home at two a.m., but the February issue of Skirt had been put to bed, and Jack had no intention of going into the office this morning, but was heading straight to the art department Christmas lunch at St. John Bread & Wine, where they’d spend the afternoon drinking away the pain of all the late nights. Jack had promised not to get too drunk and embarrass Hope by rocking up to the Pageant completely rat-arsed. He’d also promised to pretend they were still together because Hope couldn’t deal with telling
Elaine and Marta the awful truth. Not tonight. Not when she’d most likely burst into tears and beg Jack not to leave her.
Hope quickly left Jack a scribbled note reminding him of his obligations, unpeeled the edge of the duvet so she could plant a kiss on his ear, because some old habits refused to die, then hurried out.
Blue Class were already so over-excited that Hope half-wondered if she needed to talk to the dinner ladies about cutting down their sugar intake at lunchtime. They spent the morning making Christmas cards for their parents, grandparents and primary care-givers, and after lunch, Hope shepherded them to the assembly hall for the dress rehearsal.
An hour later, Hope was sitting in the back row, rocking from side to side with her head in her hands.
‘Buck up, Hopey,’ Elaine said, patting her back. ‘You know what they say about a bad dress rehearsal.’
‘Yeah, it means an even worse opening night,’ Hope whimpered. She lifted her head so she could stare mournfully at Elaine. ‘I wrote left and right on everyone’s hands in indelible marker pen, so why do they all still insist on going the wrong bloody way?’
‘Frankly, you’re a lightweight,’ Elaine informed her. ‘You organise this Pageant for five years on the trot, and then you can come moaning to me about how primary-school children can’t take any direction. Five years!’
‘But you never had to do the junior school as well,’ Hope protested hotly. ‘I swear, Sarah’s right at the top of my list, and she’s going to stay there for quite some time.’
Elaine actually chortled. ‘I’m sure she’s quaking in her Russell & Bromley boots.’
‘You know, she’s not the only one on my list,’ Hope said pointedly. ‘I’m pretty sure I saw your name on there too.’
‘Am I on this famous list?’ said a voice behind her, and Hope twisted round, almost giving herself whiplash in the process, to see Wilson standing there with his camera bag.
‘What are you doing here?’ Hope asked in surprise, her voice breathless against the sudden slam-dunk of her stomach at the completely unscripted sight of him. ‘I was expecting Dylan.’ She looked at her watch. ‘About half an hour ago.’