The Story of Our Life Read online

  In fact, if there was a stray band of celibate monks roaming the streets of London that night there was a fair chance I’d be up for joining, as long as they had beer on tap, a pool table and a subscription to Sky Sports.

  Still, Dan was the guy on the sales team who was always up for a laugh, always the life and soul of the party, and right now I could do with a bit of nonsense. I was divorced, not dead.

  I’d envisaged a night in the city centre; maybe hit a couple of clubs. Did people even say ‘hit’ a club anymore? My grasp of trendy vernacular was slim, since I’d settled for married life in a Victorian terrace in the not-as-posh end of Notting Hill. Jesus, just past mid-twenties and I was already out of touch. Probably just best settle for a few pints and keep my mouth shut if anyone under twenty-five was in hearing distance.

  Anyway, seemed that Dan had a different idea of a night on the town, dragging me way out to Richmond, because his latest girlfriend was out there. Brilliant. First night out in years and I was going to play third wheel to a work colleague and a woman he described as ‘100% babe’. Again, Jesus. I’d already decided that if she was twenty-two and took the piss out of my dated chat, I was bailing and heading home.

  My mind changed the minute I saw Shauna. I don’t go for all of that ‘love at first sight’ rubbish, but there was just something about the combination of the messy blonde hair, the cute freckles and the completely contagious smile that made me want to just stand there, staring like a lemon. It was a special person that could open a discussion with cystitis and still come over as adorable.

  There was some kind of row between Dan and his girlfriend, Lulu, but to be honest, it didn’t matter to us. Shauna and I started talking and ended up being the last two people still standing, huddled together so tightly that we didn’t care that the temperatures had dipped to bollock-shrinking cold. No uncomfortable silences. No awkward comments that betrayed the fact this was the first time I’d chatted up a girl in years. I don’t even remember anyone else leaving.

  When the bar staff got fed up of sweeping around us, we finally left, and I walked her home, over Richmond Bridge, to her flat a few streets away on the Twickenham side. She invited me in, making shushing gestures so that we wouldn’t wake her flatmate, and then, with cups of coffee in our hands, we headed to the tiny concrete balcony off her kitchen.

  This was all new. The girl, being in someone’s flat, and sure, I was pretty much out of my depth, but I figured if I could just keep her talking there was less of a chance she’d toss me out or – worse – fall asleep in my scintillating company.

  ‘So you’ve never been married? Engaged?’ I asked her, really hoping the answer was no – and not just because I wanted to check that some bloke wasn’t going to storm in and lamp me at any moment. I’d never been much of a fighter.

  She shook her head, making even more wavy blonde curls collapse out of her hair. ‘I was engaged,’ she admitted, almost sheepishly. ‘We broke up a year ago.’

  ‘Am I allowed to ask why, or is that too forward?’

  Her laugh was low and raspy after a night of shouting to each other to be heard over the riot of sound in the pub. ‘You’re sitting on my balcony in the middle of the night. I think we can take “too forward” off the table.’ She took another sip of her coffee. ‘It just didn’t work out. Realized I’m a bit of a commitment-phobe. The thought of the whole “one person forever” thing makes me uneasy. I change my mind about the wallpaper in the hall every six months. Clearly I have long-term commitment issues.’

  She was smiling but even at my non-perceptive best, I could see there was a chink of sadness in her smile.

  ‘What about you?’ she asked.

  Ouch. I’d led the way straight into that one. Twenty-seven and already one failed marriage under my belt. Wasn’t the best reference, was it?

  She mistook my hesitation for something else and looked searchingly at my left hand. ‘Oh shit, tell me you’re not married. I should probably have checked that before I asked you back here.’

  I shook my head. ‘Nope, not married.’

  ‘Oh thank God.’

  The sensible part of me was demanding that I leave it at that. I could fill in more details later, when we knew each other better. Start slow. Take it easy. Not too much too soon. Unfortunately, the sensible part of me wasn’t having much of an influence on what was actually coming out of my mouth.

  ‘But I was. I’m divorced. It was all finalized a month ago.’

  She was silent for a few seconds and I mentally gave myself a good boot in the defrosted bollocks. Score zero for honesty. She was bound to want shot of me now. Who needed the hassle of being the person who picked up the pieces after a divorce?

  I made one last bid for clarification. ‘Look, I know that’s not long ago, but I’m not an emotional disaster. The divorce was definitely for the best.’

  That was true.

  ‘And there are absolutely no regrets, and it wasn’t a messy break-up.’

  That wasn’t true, but hey, cut a guy a break.

  ‘So…’

  I braced myself for ‘it’s been nice meeting you and show yourself out’.

  ‘…Are you sworn off marriage for life?’

  Oh God, here we go again. Truth or not? Truth or not?

  ‘Pretty much,’ I admitted. Truth.

  She looked over and her blue eyes met mine as she laughed. ‘Then I think we’ll get on great.’

  I wasn’t sure what had just happened but I wasn’t on my way out the door so I was going with it. She disappeared into the kitchen and came back out with a coffee pot and refilled our mugs. Right, no more revelations. Everything else could wait until I’d succeeded in not fucking up, and she’d agree to see me again.

  I changed the subject. ‘So what made you start your own business?’

  She shrugged. ‘Just wanted to run my own life. It’s a kind of loose ten year plan – slog to build up the business now, so that I can bring in other people to run it if I suddenly wake up one morning and decide to travel, or have a family or maybe join a cult. You know, the usual stuff. I don’t ever want to be dependent on someone else or end up being one of those women who are totally exhausted because they’re juggling high-pressure jobs, long hours and kids.”

  Alarm bells rang. This girl was way too smart and sorted for me. I’d never met someone with a life plan. I had to get one of those, but in the meantime, I pulled every amusing story out of my past and hoped I could distract her from my lack of focus and depth with nonsense. It seemed to work. I’ve no idea how much longer it was when she gestured skywards.

  ‘First plane of the day. I love watching them come in. Like shooting stars coming to land.’

  I looked up to see soundless flashing orange lights crossing the sky and realized we were underneath the flight path for Heathrow. Against the backdrop of the sun coming up, and if you ignored the sight of all the bins on the ground below, this felt like the perfect place to be.

  After being with the same person for years, I was way out of practice with this stuff, but I was pretty sure this was one of those moments in which I could do what I’d been wanting to do all night.

  I bottled out and went for clarification first. ‘So I really want to lean over and kiss you and I’m just checking that would be okay with you?’

  ‘Did your wife divorce you for lack of romance?’ Shauna asked, eyebrow raised, cheeky smile on her face.

  ‘Nope, it was because she was intimidated by my stunning good looks,’ I joked back

  ‘Ah, I can see why that would be a problem.’ Her expression was completely deadpan, which had the opposite effect on me and I creased up laughing, only stopping when I realized that she was on her feet. She took a couple of steps towards me, then twisted and sat on my knee, before leaning down and kissing me. That answered my question, then.

  I’d love to say it was the most romantic moment of my life. It absolutely could have been – if the rickety wooden chair beneath us hadn’t chosen that v
ery moment to commit chair suicide, and crumble to the ground taking us with it.

  We’d already ascertained that I wasn’t gifted in the areas of romance or suave moves. But as we lay there, laughing while waiting for the pain receptors to deliver the bad news, I couldn’t help thinking that there was no way any of those hundreds of people flying above us had ever had a moment as brilliant as this.

  5

  2015

  Shauna and the Self-diagnosis

  ‘So have you heard from her today?’ Rosie asked, her voice echoing from the depths of my fridge. Before I could answer she emerged clutching a strawberry yoghurt, then headed to the cutlery drawer for a spoon. Today she was wearing a forties style pink tea-dress, with a short red cardigan and navy kitten heels. It should have been all wrong and yet it looked great – a very glam contrast to my old jeans, grey gym T-shirt, bare feet look of zero grooming.

  ‘No, nothing. I called but she didn’t pick up and I texted her a couple of times but no reply. She doesn’t make it easy for herself, does she?’

  ‘Never,’ Rosie agreed. ‘She’d be great at providing storylines for soap operas though.’

  ‘You’re right. Do you think Dan has an evil twin he can produce at short notice?’

  On the surface of it, it probably seemed like we were being unkindly blasé about our best friend’s marital woes, but in our defence, we’d been here so many times before we were probably just slightly inured to the situation.

  ‘So how’s the romance of the year coming along then?’ I asked, while folding the pile of towels I’d just dragged out of the washing machine.

  ‘If I say it’s great, do you think I’ll jinx it?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘Definitely not.’ Or at least I hoped not. I was cautiously optimistic and hopeful that Jack would prove to be the guy Rosie had been waiting for, the one she would settle down with, who’d give her everything she deserved.

  ‘In that case, it’s great. Like, strangely so. I keep waiting for the hitch. You know, the “I’ve got a criminal record” convo or the “I’m only going out with you so that I can scam your bank account and leave you destitute” one. I’ve seen them all on Jeremy Kyle.”

  ‘Rosie, he’s a life coach from Kew. I’ve never seen Jeremy Kyle, but I’ve watched every episode of CSI and I can tell you life coaches from Kew are not the usual demographic for serial killers and scammers,’ I told her over the top of a huge navy bath sheet. ‘Since when did you become cynical and jaded?’ I paused in a moment of realization. ‘That should be Lu and I’s nickname. Cynical and Jaded.’

  Rosie laughed. ‘Years of defeat have worn me down. It’s a battlefield out there. Anyway, like I say, Jack has passed all the tests so far. Own hair, own teeth, a real job.’

  I took her checklist a little further. ‘No porn addiction or previous restraining orders? And did you Google him and check there are no images of his penis anywhere online?’

  ‘I did. No penis pictures. And he’s lasted six months so far, so he’s obviously not just after random hook-ups. With all that and a pulse and no plans to take off in the near future, he’s practically perfect.’

  It was great to see her so happy. I was a big believer that no woman needed a man to define who she was. A few of my friends were single by choice and loving the lifestyle and freedom that gave them, but Rosie wasn’t one of them. She would never take the easy way out and settle with the wrong man, but she definitely wanted to meet someone who would stick around. She’d had a rough run of luck. Over the last two decades there had been many relationships, each one self-destructing around the twenty-four-month mark. The two-year curse, she called it. There was Mark, who decided to go off trekking in South China to find himself. Zak, the roadie, who’d got a job as a tour manager for a band and had never been seen again. Jason and Colin, who both called it a day because they weren’t ready to commit. And who was that guy she was seeing when I met Colm? It took me a moment. Paul. Yep, that was it. He moved north to work in a zoo and Rosie had decided he loved wildlife more than he loved her. She always chose guys who were, like her, a little bohemian, then was surprised when they went off and did something… well, bohemian.

  Touch wood, Jack, the life coach, seemed like he might have staying power. Even if Colm claimed it was a whole load of ‘psychobabble crap’, and he did give me a slightly creepy feeling that he was analysing me and planning a schedule of improvements every time we spoke.

  Rosie had met Jack when he popped into her café for morning coffee. After a decade of temping and saving her cash while she tried to decide what she wanted to do with her life, she’d finally stumbled on a tiny café that was closing down just off Chiswick High Road. In an inspired moment of spontaneity, she’d rented it, before going on to refurbish and reopen it as a forties retro café called Doris’s Day. It was all doilies, big-band music and tables that looked like they belonged in your granny’s front room, and while it was never going to make her a fortune, it was doing well and she loved it. If things worked out with Jack, then her life would be pretty close to perfect and I’d be thrilled for her – just as long as she still found time to come sit here in my kitchen and discuss life’s joys and stresses. And Lulu.

  The banging of the door announced a new arrival and, checking the clock, I realized it was too early for Colm. He was over in Canary Wharf running a training course for a software company today and I didn’t expect him home before 6 p.m.

  My money was on Lulu, but it was Dan who walked in the kitchen door, accompanied by a fairly large holdall. This couldn’t be good.

  He opened with a rueful, ‘Hi.’

  Beth chose that moment to pop her head through from the dining room, her huge messy mass of blonde curls appearing a couple of seconds before the rest of her. ‘Uncle Dan!’ she bellowed, running towards him and jumping just in time for him to catch her and swing her round. Colm aside, Dan was her very favourite man.

  I waited until she was back on the floor. ‘Right, honey, off and finish your dinner, then it’s bath time.’

  ‘I’m getting to eat my dinner next door!’ she announced to Dan, like it was a proper achievement. Which, in her world, it was. I usually insisted we all ate at the table but had decided that censoring the conversation with Rosie would be too difficult after last night’s events. At five, Beth was probably too young to learn the words, ‘affair’, ‘infidelity’ and ‘betrayal’, so her favourite sausage and spinach pasta while watching Frozen won – or saved – the day, especially now that her favourite uncle had wandered in with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  She beetled back off humming ‘Let It Go’, the song from the movie that she chirped on a repetitive loop all day long.

  There was a highly pregnant, slightly uncomfortable pause before I gestured to Dan’s huge bag. ‘Is Lulu in there?’

  He at least managed to muster something approaching a smile as he sat down across from Rosie at the table. There were lines of weariness etched into his handsome face. I wanted to help. I may have known Lulu for longer, but my loyalties were split, because I loved Dan too. I automatically poured him a coffee from the pot that was permanently brewing on my kitchen worktop. My whole adult life had been conducted to the aroma of medium roast.

  ‘I was tempted, but no. Look, I know it’s an imposition but…’

  ‘It’s fine. You can stay. You don’t need to ask.’ Over the years he’d crashed here many times after fights and fall-outs. I decided not to acknowledge that this time felt a lot more serious.

  A few of his lines eased as relief took over. ‘Thanks, Shauna. We can’t even be in the same bloody house together. It’s done this time. I’m seeing the lawyers on Friday.’

  Rosie leaned over and rested her hand on his. ‘Are you sure? Maybe it’s a mistake, or a…’

  She stopped, realizing how ridiculous that sounded. We all knew it was highly unlikely that it was a mistake. This was Lou we were talking about. It wasn’t her first adulterous rodeo.

  ‘Thanks Ro
sie, but you know how it is.’

  We did. That’s what made it so sad and bloody infuriating. What do you do when it’s your closest friend that’s in the wrong? And how many times over the last thirty-odd years had I been torn between wanting to hug her and kill her? Too many to count.

  I took a key off the tiny gold hook next to the back door and handed it to him. ‘Here’s the key for the flat. There’s fresh bedding in the cupboard. If you need anything just shout,’ I told him.

  ‘Flat’ was probably an optimistic term. Colm had converted the garage into a man cave, with a sofa bed, TV, tiny kitchen area and bathroom. ‘Studio’ was probably a better term. I preferred ‘claustrophobic demonstration of sexist maledom’. Over the years, Dan and Lulu had stayed there many times after dinners or parties, but for now it could be Dan’s home. Hopefully it wouldn’t be long before they sorted this out and he was home again.

  Rosie got up and lifted her cherry-red satchel from its dangling position on the back of the chair. ‘I need to head off. I’m meeting Jack at 7 o’clock and there’s some serious grooming to be done. Dan, if you need anything just call me. And if you get kicked out of here, there’s always my couch.’

  Her efforts to inject some levity into the conversation almost made the whole situation sadder. God, poor Dan.

  He got up at the same time, kissed me on the cheek and headed back out the door, key for the flat in hand. I made a mental note to pop in on him later and see how he was doing… after I’d put the laundry away, poured a coffee, had a snuggle with Beth, bathed her, made Colm and I’s dinner, and planned the schedule for a lunch I was catering the following day for a baby reveal party. Seriously. This woman was inviting fifty of her closest friends round to reveal that she was pregnant with her third baby. As with her previous two children, in twelve weeks’ time, there would be a ‘gender reveal’ party. Then a baby shower. Then a christening. Yes, she was definitely milking the experience for maximum attention and gifts, but hey, it made her a fantastic client.