IT IS A SUNNY summer’s evening a fortnight later and, incredibly, everything is running smoothly. The chicken is in the oven, the veg is chopped and ready to steam and Prosecco is chilling in the fridge. Lyla has even eaten fish fingers, mash and vegetables, so I feel like she’s well-nourished for once. She’d live off cheese on toast if she could. We’re on schedule for a perfect evening.
Theo is coming round. He’s driving over after work, and I want him to arrive to domestic bliss and see how lovely it would be to do this with me more permanently. He called me and we have thoroughly talked through the night he let me down on the phone, and he was so apologetic. Flowers have been delivered to the house, and lots of attentive and sweet messages and calls since. He says he’ll keep making it up to me until I feel better, and everyone has to have their first row. He is trying. That means something.
So, the grown-ups’ food is looking good (roast chicken with a lemon and herb jus) and Lyla is playing with her Female Scientists Lego – God bless the hours of entertainment Lego brings a child. I’m pottering around clearing up plastic, kiddie plates and shoving all her toys in the decluttered understairs cupboard – a slew of dollies, sets of Stickle Bricks and Peppa Pig don’t exactly scream romance. Then I light every candle I own. The house looks glorious. I take a deep breath and look around: this is how life is meant to be. I’m actually nailing it.
‘Come on then, Lyla Blue, let’s get you to bed.’
‘Why? Is your boyfriend coming round to kiss you?’ she giggles.
‘Ha ha ha, cheeky little thing!’ Shit, how does she know? ‘Yes, Theo’s coming over for dinner.’
‘Oohh, Mummy loves Theo! Theo loves Mummy!’ she sings.
Secretly I’d love her song to be true. He’s in love with me, I’m in love with him, then there’s a proposal, a new house and more babies for me to Facebook the shit out of like everyone else I know and feel jealous of! I’ll spend my life frequenting tiny cafés with scrubbed wooden tables, brunching on smashed avo on toast, which I’ll Insta the hell out of. I’ll laugh merrily with the other mums who, like me, have their shit together. It’s on the cards. I should probably rein it in a little bit, but a girl can dream.
‘Yep, OK, bedtime please.’ And off we go upstairs for our regular routine: fairy lights on; PJs pulled on; teeth brushed; face washed; story read and cuddles administered.
Once that’s done, I feel like I can relax. There’s something very wonderful about 7.30 p.m., now that Theo is (back) in my life. It’s no longer a lonely dinner for one with a cheap glass of wine and a night with no one to talk to, but some adult time to look forward to, some intimacy and warmth that’s not in the form of a lovely but sometimes sticky six-year-old. Kath said to be grateful for what I have and I totally am, but right now I want to be grateful for Theo. I want him to stay in my life. It feels like the day moves from mummyhood to having my own brain back again, and I can turn my full, undivided attention to my night with Theo.
We can’t go anywhere because I don’t have a babysitter (and I don’t want to go on bothering Kath, especially as I keep forgetting to ring her since my vow to check in a bit more and I feel like a bit of a crappy niece), but I’m going to show Theo how much fun we can have at home. I’ve preened, prepped and tweezed. I nip into the bathroom for a hot shower to freshen up. I’m just about to step into the steamy cubicle when my phone buzzes: Be there in two! from Theo.
Shit! No time for a shower, but I really do want to freshen up. I grab a flannel (really wish it didn’t have Cinderella’s face on it staring up at me), run it under the hot tap and give myself a little stand-up wash in my you-know-where. There’s absolutely no dignity in this, but needs must.
I fling the flannel (sorry Cinders) in the laundry basket and pull on a lacy black thong and my dark skinny jeans – the good ones, not the ones where the inner thigh area is wearing away. I hate thongs, but it’s imperative Theo continues to think I spend my life walking around in delicate matching underwear. I want him to be so enamoured by me he never stands me up again. He need never know that my pants of choice would be full cotton briefs with loose elastic.
Perfume spritzed, hair zhooshed, nether regions almost cut in two by undergarments: I’m ready for him.
I wait a few seconds after the doorbell’s rung, just so he thinks I haven’t been stood here watching him pull onto the drive and get out of his car, which I totally have. I open the door with a smile.
‘Evening, gorgeous,’ says Theo at the same time as bending over and kissing my cheek. He’s clearly come straight from work, as he walks past me in his well-tailored navy suit, shirt already unbuttoned and tie in hand. Ugh, he’s actually perfect. The last traces of my anger after the Parents and Partners night melt away.
He hands me a bottle of Malbec and bag of Minstrels (see? Perfect), and I stand there still smiling and wishing I could think of something equally perfect to say. We’ve done this for nearly three months now, but I’m still overwhelmed when he arrives. It’s like that butterfly feeling but on steroids.
‘Hi.’ A good effort there. ‘Wine and chocolates, you certainly know how to please a lady.’
‘I know how to please the right lady,’ he quips back with a wink, and walks off with a swagger to investigate the kitchen while I stand there in shock. Did he just call me Miss Right? Yes? No? Maybe? I don’t know.
‘Something smells amazing, Robin, you shouldn’t have done all this.’
‘Oh, it was nothing.’ That’s a lie. I’ve spent the best part of the afternoon on all of this. Breezy-breezy; he doesn’t need to know that. ‘I love cooking, and it’s all the better when I have someone appreciative to cook for. Lyla doesn’t really care for anything that isn’t breadcrumbed and dipped in ketchup.’
‘Bless her. How is she? Tucked up in bed?’ I love how much he cares about her.
‘Yep; she asked if you were coming, and I promised she’d see you tomorrow. I’m so pleased she’s taken to you. I thought it might be a struggle, but I think you’ve really hit it off.’
‘Oh, good. Now, where are the wine glasses? This red needs to breathe.’ (I personally never bother, but this is the kind of man he is). As he opens and shuts cupboards until he finds them I start putting the veg in to blanch, check on the fingerling potatoes and I feel blissful. Just two happy grown-ups, making a meal, working as a team, enjoying the simplicities of life.
Before I can completely lose myself in the ‘Robin and Theo’ daydream, I feel Theo’s arms wrap around my waist and turn me towards him.
‘The green beans – I need to keep my eye on them,’ I protest.
‘Fuck the green beans,’ comes the response very, very close to my face with his brown eyes glinting mischievously. ‘I want to kiss you. It’s been a long week, and you look like you very much need to be kissed.’
‘Do I?’ I ask in between tiny kisses from him on my jawline, neck and ear. Oh my God, I am losing my mind ever so slightly.
‘Yes. On your neck,’ kiss, kiss, ‘on your cheek,’ kiss, kiss, ‘on your mouth.’
‘Mmmm … OK.’ And that’s it. The beans are overdone. I don’t care. I’d far rather be pushed up against the kitchen wall being kissed by the most perfect man in the world than have a good bite to my beans.
We stand there – well, I’m leaning because I can barely use my legs right now – kissing like teenagers until, just before it gets too hot to resist, I muster a shred of willpower, push Theo off and insist that the chicken needs taking out of the oven. I want this evening to be special and go the way I’d planned.
‘This had better be the best chicken in the world for tearing me off you,’ he protests.
‘It’ll be the most burnt chicken in the world if I don’t dish it up right now.’
‘Burn it, let me have you and we’ll order pizza.’ He sounds almost desperate. I quite like it, and although I’m toying with the idea, I’m going to make him wait. I love how much he wants me. Also I slaved hard over this chicken. Pizza, indeed!
Reluctantly he sits at my kitchen table (which, of course, I’ve cleared of unopened bills and debris) and I serve the food. We eat, and it’s delicious. Theo tells me vaguely of his latest acquisition (I try to follow along, but he gives no real details and I don’t really want to ask) and after a little while and a glass of red, we’re done. All I can think about is how uncomfortable this lacy thong is and how much I’d like to be out of it.
‘That was amazing,’ Theo says, putting his knife and fork down and breathing out heavily. ‘I forgot how much I miss home-cooked food during the week.’
‘Yes; eating out in great restaurants every night must be so challenging for you, Theo. I don’t know how you stomach it.’
‘You tease, but seriously it’s not as good as you think. There’s something much more real about eating with you, at your kitchen table, with food served out of dishes you’ve used a hundred times and Lyla’s paintings all over the fridge. It just feels like proper home food, like being a kid again. Mother was never very maternal, but before I went away to school we had this amazing nanny called Isla who used to cook every night and sit with me at the big oak table, and I loved it. I miss dinners at home like this.’ Wow, I didn’t know he felt so intensely about it. I’d have thought eating out every night was the dream.
‘Do you miss being part of a family?’ I ask, adjusting myself in my chair so I can listen to his answer without my thong cutting off the blood circulation to my groin.
‘Yes and no. I’ve lived alone my entire adult life, but I do miss home life, or as much of a home life as I had with my parents both working a lot and me being mostly with Isla or away at school, I suppose. But then, I like my space and my tidy environment and the perks that come with that,’ he muses, sitting back and taking a big sip of his Malbec. He looks so vulnerable when he’s talking quietly about his family life like this. He isn’t showing off or being the big shot in town, and I feel like I’m actually seeing a glimmer of his heart.
I’m not sure what to say to him, really. I’d like to go back to his apartment. Is it odd that he only ever comes to mine? I’m mostly just glad I hid all the toys and put all my junk away. I’m surprised he’s lived alone his entire adult life, though. How has he not had a long-term girlfriend or something? When do I ask a question like this? Would he want to have a scatty woman and her energetic six-year-old running around his minimalistic glass and steel tower? He looks a bit forlorn, so this probably isn’t the best time and I don’t want to spoil a lovely evening. Plus I’m wearing a thong that I swear is slowly getting tighter and cutting off the circulation to my legs – so the sooner that comes off, the better.
‘Shall we go through to the lounge? All the candles are lit and I can put a film on.’
‘Why don’t we go through to the lounge and skip the film?’
‘That sounds like my kind of plan.’ So very, very glad I violated Cinderella’s face now.
Half an hour later and the Thong of Pain is a distant memory, as are all of Theo’s clothes. We kissed again like we did in the kitchen, but this time more passionately, more boldly. The weight of Theo on top of me was so welcome. He makes me feel appreciated and protected when his arms are wrapped tight around me, and I like it. After a good while of kissing things get a bit heated, and with no struggle at all he deftly flips us over so I’m on him and he’s lying down. His hands are in my hair and I think I’m about to have the best head massage of my life, judging by all the skills he’s ever shown with his hands, but no; he’s being quite clear with what he wants, pushing my head south.
I’m very generous. Twenty minutes and extreme jaw ache kind of generous. Theo, at this point, is a very happy man and I hope my generosity and its outcome aren’t the finale, but despite my best efforts at hinting for more, it appears it is. I squash myself sideways between him and the back of the sofa and I nuzzle into his neck. He smells great. I don’t know what his aftershave is but the crazy in me wants to buy it so I can smell it during the day and think of him.
I look over at him and he’s closed his eyes. He looks so content. I’d quite like to look content too, but it seems like that’s off the cards. He’s had a long week, though, poor thing.
You should be glad just to have a man here at all, Robin.
Realising we can’t sleep naked on the sofa all night – imagine Lyla walking down to see that? It’d be far more mentally scarring than the dating app incident, and I’m still hung up on that – I heave myself out of my uncomfortable position and pick up all the strewn clothes.
‘Theo,’ I whisper. ‘Theo, we need to go upstairs.’
‘What?’ he mumbles, clearly half-asleep.
‘We need to go and sleep upstairs. Lyla can’t wake up to find naked people in the lounge.’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ he says under his breath, hauls himself up and walks past me to the stairs without so much as a half-arsed kiss on the forehead.
Not exactly how I’d hoped the night would end, but he probably has a lot on his mind. I’m sure he’ll be cheerier in the morning.
I follow him up, nip to the loo and then get into bed with him. He’s already asleep, facing away from me, so I scooch up to him and be Big Spoon until, finally, I fall asleep too.
When I wake up, he’s already left.