At least she had not only bought but wrapped Keira’s birthday present. It was sitting on Roxanne’s dressing table, so pretty in owl-patterned paper (Keira loved owls) next to the gift box she had made for Sean’s brandy snaps. Roxanne changed her ‘I am depressed’ grey sweater for a perkier pink top – the sun had broken through, the sky had turned bluer – and inspected her face. Her cheeks looked lightly sanded and her eyes were veiny and swollen from all the crying; not the preferred look for a ninth birthday party. She splashed her face with cold water and made a mug of tea specifically for the purpose of preparing two wet teabags to place over her closed eyes, for de-puffing purposes. She lay on the sofa, trying to transform herself into godmother mode, as the PG Tips took effect.
It seemed to work – or at least, she looked marginally less frightening. She applied sufficient make-up to appear partyish, as opposed to looking like she was about to hurl herself off a bridge. With her tender heel padded with loo roll and Keira’s present stashed in her bag, Roxanne pulled on lace-up pumps and set off on foot, grateful now for a reason to leave her flat. She had friends to see, things to do. She was not plummeting into a mushroom-soup sort of life. The air was warm, the shopfronts cheery, the streets busy with people out shopping and meeting for coffee, enjoying the day.
Oh, but she loved her local neighbourhood. Yes, it was insanely expensive now, and lots of people thought it too twee and smug, not ‘edgy’ enough – but who wanted edgy at forty-seven years old?
Roxanne had stretched herself to buy her minuscule flat twelve years ago – magazine journalists weren’t paid nearly as much as people assumed – and never looked back. What was wrong with being able to visit a different cafe every day for a whole month, if you wanted to? There was the canal, the cinema, all the quirky boutiques, tons of welcoming pubs and green spaces, should you want them – like Highbury Fields, where she was now, picking her way between children kicking footballs about and adults sprawled out enjoying the sunshine. She spotted the birthday gathering in the distance and quickened her pace.
‘Hey, gorgeous!’ Amanda enveloped her in a warm hug, and she was soon besieged by Keira and her little sister Holly. The girls seemed to regard Roxanne as an exotic aunt. They were fascinated by her access to what seemed like the world’s most beautiful clothing. Many of the child-friendly freebies that came Roxanne’s way – jazzy scarves, feather boas and glittery face paint – were dispatched straight to her favourite girls.
‘This is lovely,’ Roxanne exclaimed, plonking herself down on one of the madras-checked throws, among the wicker baskets of party food and scattering of gifts. She gave Keira her present and was introduced by Amanda to the mothers she hadn’t met at previous parties.
‘Mum, look!’ Keira yelled, ripping the paper from her gift. Roxanne had given her an extravagant jewellery-making set that she herself would have loved as a child. ‘Can I make something now?’
‘Another time, darling,’ said Amanda. ‘You’ll lose all the little pieces in the grass.’
‘We can do it together,’ Roxanne added, ‘next time I visit.’
‘Yeah, you can help me.’ Keira hugged her, and Roxanne reassured herself that perhaps she wasn’t so awful after all, at least in godmotherly terms. When you didn’t have children, people sometimes assumed you preferred not to be around them, that you found them noisy and unpredictable, but Roxanne enjoyed their company very much. She took Amanda’s girls on outings to the zoo, the cinema and theatre and never forgot birthdays – well, almost never.
‘Did you bring the balloon blower-upper, Roxanne?’ asked Julie, one of the other mums whom she remembered from a previous gathering.
She clasped a hand to her face at the realisation that she had forgotten something else. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’
Amanda smiled, and Roxanne tried to ignore a quick glance between a couple of the other women. ‘Never mind. We can just blow them up ourselves …’
‘But you said we’d have a blower thing,’ Keira started to protest.
‘Auntie Roxanne was at a party last night,’ Amanda added, giving her a wink, as if that excused her omission. In order to redeem herself, Roxanne grabbed a handful of balloons and started to puff away.
Although rather light-headed by the time they had been blown up, Roxanne felt her spirits lifting. She had always believed that there was very little in life that a beautiful spring day in London couldn’t put right, and the gathering was already doing a sterling job of shaking off her Sean-related gloom. Initially rather reserved, as groups of mothers often were, the other women began to thaw as Roxanne quizzed them with genuine interest about their children.
‘D’you have any kids?’ asked a rosy-cheeked woman in a Breton top and black jeans.
‘No, it didn’t happen for me,’ she said, with a quick smile: her stock response.
‘Ah, right.’ The woman paused. ‘So that’s why you look so young.’
‘Oh, I don’t think I do,’ Roxanne replied with a quick shake of her head.
‘But you don’t have that knackered look,’ another woman chipped in, ‘like we all have.’
‘Hey speak for yourself!’ Amanda said, laughing and running a hand through her short dark hair.
‘You can always tell a childless woman,’ remarked the woman in the Breton top, ‘because she has that youthful skin and no mum-line between the brows.’
Please stop overcompensating, Roxanne mused, noticing Amanda fidgeting uncomfortably now.
‘You’re supposed to say “child-free”,’ another woman added, at which point Amanda caught Roxanne’s eye and grimaced.
‘Anyway!’ she announced, leaping up. ‘Shall we have the hula-hoop contest now?’
‘Great idea,’ Roxanne said, thankful to have a role to play – i.e., dishing out hoops and encouraging the children, not to mention indulging in a little hula-hooping herself, despite still feeling slightly fragile. More games followed, expertly marshalled by Amanda, and once again Roxanne experienced a wave of relief at being part of something on an otherwise lonely Saturday afternoon. The children’s laughter and chatter continued until, gradually, mothers and daughters started to drift off home, leaving just Roxanne, Amanda and the girls lying on a blanket, eating ice creams they’d bought from a nearby van.
‘Sorry about earlier,’ Amanda murmured.
‘What do you mean?’ Roxanne asked.
‘Come on, you know. All that “child-free” stuff. It’s mortifying.’ She shook her head.
Roxanne smiled. ‘It’s fine. I’m used to being pitied.’
‘Oh, Rox, they didn’t pity you …’
‘I’m joking,’ she laughed. ‘Honestly.’
Amanda studied her face. ‘They’re just jealous because they know all about you and your fancy job.’ She paused. ‘So, how was Sean’s party, anyway?’
‘Uh, not so great, actually.’ As they gathered up the picnic, and the girls ran off to fuss over a passing Labrador puppy, Amanda gently coaxed out the details of recent events. The fire brigade, the Tina announcement, the swigging of too much champagne, and Roxanne and Sean breaking up: as it all tumbled out, she was conscious of it all sounding so silly and juvenile. She looked at her friend. ‘When will I grow up?’
‘You are grown up! Look at what you’ve achieved, how respected you are. I know loads of women who’d love your life. Who else could do your job like you do?’
Roxanne shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Plenty of people, probably. Who cares about all that stuff anyway?’
‘You do,’ Amanda said, squeezing her hand. ‘Of course you do. Don’t you?’
Roxanne opened her mouth to speak, but Holly scampered back over and cut in: ‘Auntie Roxanne, can we go to your flat, please? I need the loo.’
Amanda looked at Roxanne. ‘Is that okay? I’m sure it’s just an excuse. They love going to your place.’
‘Mummy, I’m bursting,’ Holly exclaimed, doing a little need-to-pee dance. So the picnic baskets and presents were loaded into Amanda’s car, and onwards they walked to Roxanne’s flat, where she made a pot of tea, apologising several times for the lack of orange juice or fizzy drinks. ‘They’re full of soft drinks anyway,’ Amanda declared, as Roxanne found paper and pens for them to draw with. Soon she and the girls were sprawled on her living room rug, sketching fashion models in a myriad of outfits, while Amanda flopped out gratefully on the sofa.
‘We’ve totally gatecrashed your day,’ Amanda said when, much later, Roxanne phoned for pizzas.
‘Not at all,’ she insisted truthfully; although she couldn’t bring herself to admit it, she still didn’t want to be all by herself, and their presence had stopped her from checking her phone to see if Sean had texted. His photography book still sat, barely touched, on the coffee table. Sick of the sight of it now, she stashed it away on a shelf.
They ate pizza, watched TV and even played Monopoly until, finally, Amanda said they really should go. Roxanne was conscious of fixing on a stoical smile as she saw them downstairs and hugged each of them in turn. She stood on the doorstep, watching and waving as they wandered back towards Highbury Fields, a tired but happy little gang of three. And when Roxanne stepped back into her flat, and gathered up the pizza boxes, she realised her eyes were all wet again.
Roxanne spent much of the next day employing various strategies so as not to call Sean.
She stashed her mobile in the bottom of her favourite bag – which she had yet to clean out properly – in the hope that ‘out of sight, out of mind’ might work for her. When it didn’t, she took herself out for a walk along Upper Street and deliberately left her phone at home. However, any pleasure she might have derived from stopping for coffee and reading the Sunday papers was marred by the fact that someone might be trying to contact her.
Sean, for example. Sean might have been calling to say he loved her and that he deeply regretted not tipping her off about Tina’s appointment. She tried to savour her coffee from the window-side bench in a small and busy cafe, but she couldn’t help imagining her mobile ringing and ringing in her flat. Now, in her mind’s eye, her landline – that dusty old thing, a relic from a bygone era – was trilling too. Never mind that Sean was no more likely to call it than send her a telegram.
She sipped her muddy Americano, aware that she had played the whole business over in her head so many times she had lost any perspective on whether she had overreacted – or perhaps under-reacted? – to the whole Tina Court business. As for that snippet of conversation she had overheard at the party – ‘Everyone thought it’d just be a fling, ’cause you know what he’s like’ – she still hadn’t fathomed out what that implied exactly. Yes, Sean was flirtatious – but then, in the fashion world, that was virtually the law.
Roxanne trooped home, meeting Henry and Emma on the stairs as they were heading out.
‘No more burning incidents, Roxanne?’ asked Henry with a snort.
‘Nope, although I haven’t tried to cook anything since then,’ Roxanne replied with a terse smile.
‘Hmm, that’s probably for the best,’ Emma remarked. ‘So, what are you up to today?’ She was all prominent front teeth and wide, trembling nostrils, faintly equine.
‘Um, just having a quiet day,’ Roxanne replied, and a distinct look of pity flickered between Emma and Henry. Ah, poor lonely, middle-aged Roxanne. ‘I was at a party on Friday night,’ she added quickly, ‘and another one yesterday so I’m having a lazy Sunday …’
‘Gosh,’ Emma exclaimed. ‘You have a far more exciting life than we do!’ And off they trotted, leaving wafts of expensive fragrance in their wake as Roxanne stomped upstairs, jammed her new key into the lock and burst in to grab her phone and check it for missed calls.
There was just one – from an insurance company who’d called to tell her how to claim for an accident she had never had. She glared at her mobile, as if her current situation was all its fault. Whatever happened, she must not call Sean. After the way he’d treated her, she would not lower herself by getting in touch.
Now Roxanne was on her hands and knees, delving through the tatty old sideboard in her living room which acted as a sort of holding tank for everything that didn’t have a proper place. As she burrowed into its depths, it struck her that this was yet another zone of disgustingness – like her favourite handbag, the bottom of her wardrobe and her desk drawer at work. At the back of the sideboard, her hand brushed unexpectedly against a clump of something soft and papery. She tugged it out and examined the small mound of shredded paper, trying to figure out why she might have put it there – then realising it hadn’t been put there at all, but made there. It was a nest. So this was what things had come to; she was sharing her home with mice.
Still, at least she wasn’t alone.
She continued to dig around in the sideboard, a little more cautiously now, finally finding what she’d been looking for: a block of fluorescent Post-it notes. DO NOT CALL SEAN, she wrote on the top one, tearing it off and sticking it to her phone. She wrote out a few more and plonked them on her fridge, bread bin, bathroom mirror and bedroom door: DO NOT CALL SEAN!!!
What would Della make of her behaviour now? She would think she had lost her mind – or at least reverted to being seventeen years old and in the throes of some crazed infatuation, which perhaps wasn’t so far from the truth.
Would it count if she just called to hear his lovely, sexy Irish tones on his voicemail message? Yes, it would – as the real Sean might pick up. She paced from room to room, then spotted her laptop lying on her bed. For want of anything better to do, she perched beside it and logged onto Facebook, regretting it immediately as, naturally, the first thing she saw on her newsfeed was an album of photos of jolly, happy, smiling people having the time of their lives at Sean’s party.
They were casual shots, taken by Louie. Roxanne hadn’t even noticed him photographing anyone, possibly because she’d been fixated with Marsha and Tina and then too sozzled to notice what was going on. There were pictures of Britt with her skinny brown arms thrown around Sean. There was the whole crew of make-up artists and models, all raising glasses and grinning and seemingly not inebriated. Roxanne spotted Marsha, smirking in front of the DJ booth. There was even a picture of Tina, grinning malevolently in her skintight blue party dress. Roxanne studied each photo forensically. She didn’t appear to be in any of them, which was something of a relief. At least she hadn’t been snapped cavorting on the dance floor.
Ah – but here was one of her. She was standing alone by the Indian food stall, hair askew, with her mouth wide open as she tipped a cone of bhel phuri into it. Roxanne shut down the page, disgusted with herself, and with Facebook, for making it obligatory to post party pictures everywhere. Hey, look at my fantastic life, everyone!
Aware that she was becoming irrationally bitter, she snatched her phone. She would call Sean – just once. After nine months together it was ridiculous to finish so abruptly. They had to talk things through calmly, at the very least. Her heart seemed to stop as the phone rang and rang. Roxanne knew she should end the call, but she couldn’t. She was incapable of rewiring her brain, or her heart or whatever it was, that caused her to be in love with him. Attempting to shut off those feelings was like trying to walk past her favourite shoe shop without at least peeking in. She was physically unable to do it. The day she had bought those heel-scouring shoes, she had been running late for her tooth-whitening appointment. Her dentist was terribly churlish if she wasn’t on time, but even so, she had found herself being pulled into the shop by a powerful magnetic force, her own sandals removing themselves from her feet, seemingly without her having anything to do with it, and the delectable patent beauties being tried on and duly purchased.
With a jolt now, she realised Sean’s voicemail message had finished. At a loss now of what she wanted to say, she hung up. Her instinct was to call his number again, just to hear his voice one more time – but no, this had to stop. She was a grown woman, for goodness’ sake. Roxanne imagined her sister’s face if she could see what she was doing now, moping over a boyfriend on a tragically empty Sunday afternoon. She pictured Della and Frank, and Frank’s son Eddie, doing something wholesome like going for a country walk with Stanley, the rescue terrier Della has adopted a few months ago. How lovely to be with people who didn’t judge you and find you lacking.
Hungry now, Roxanne peered into her fridge. There was a block of ageing feta, but she didn’t have any bread or crackers to put it on, and nibbling it straight from the block seemed too sad, even for her. The kale was still sitting there too. Really it wasn’t a salad drawer she had there, but a compost heap. Roxanne pulled out the bag of slimy leaves and stuffed it into her kitchen bin, along with the cream she had intended to whip up to fill those ill-fated brandy snaps. Perhaps it was just as well that she had never got to the filling part. She didn’t own such a thing as a piping bag, and her plan to use a carrier bag with a hole cut in it would probably have resulted in a less than professional look.
Perhaps it was also just as well that she had got drunk and wobbled home in the rain and made Sean mad – because now she could see what a sanctimonious twerp he really was, not to mention a music snob, and who needed a ruddy great seafood bar anyway? It was a birthday party – not Selfridges food hall. Was half a mile of crustaceans really necessary? She suspected that the whole, ‘Oh, I’d have been happy with a dish of Pringles’ thing was just a smokescreen because he liked to play Mr-Down-to-Earth.
Stuff Sean – and stuff Tina Court. Tomorrow would be a new start, Roxanne decided, knotting the bin bag tightly and lugging it downstairs to the wheelie bin at the back of her block. She would breeze into work, a model of poise and decorum and, if she didn’t like the way things were going, she would … well, she wasn’t quite sure what she would do. But she was sure she would think of something.