“But... what haveyougot to fall out about?” says Tash helplessly, as though she thinks people simply cease having feelings or any brain function at all once they hit a certain age.
“We want different things,” Dad says. “And our love life—”
“No!”Tash and I squawk in unison, putting up our hands to cut him off. And after that we all just sit in our little circle around the breakfast bar, staring down at it in silence like the world’s most dysfunctional group therapy session.
I’m struggling to remember a time when I’ve ever felt quite so blindsided by sadness. I tug at a loose thread on my cardigan, wonder if I could unravel the whole thing right here, if I just pulled hard enough. I feel Caleb glance across at me, and I wish we could be transported away suddenly, to a place where he could be wrapping me in his arms, telling me he loves me, whispering reassurance into my hair.
Tash is first to speak again. “You’ve been married forthirty-fiveyears. You can’t chuck all that away because... you’re going through a rough patch.”
I think about Simon and Andrea, and about Caleb and Helen. And then I look at my mum and dad sitting in front of me, self-professed soulmates who we all thought were destined to be together.
They’ve been my role models my whole life. They made me believe in the kind of love that’s fated to last a lifetime. How can this be happening?
“Is there... anyone else?” I look between them, searching for telltale hints of sheepishness. The thought appalls me, but I have to ask.
“No,” Mum says, sipping her tea. “But of course we’ve discussed the idea that... there might be, one day.”
It’s so ageist and unkind, I know, but the thought of my fifty-something parents joining Shoreley’s dating pool makes me recoil far more than any of the PDAs they’ve subjected me to in the past.
“You always used to tell us you were destined to be together,” Tash says, like she thinks they might need reminding. “Was that a lie, then?”
“Of course not,” Dad says, glancing at Mum again. He’s hardly touched his tea. “I believe we were destined to meet, because wonderful things have come out of that: you, and Lucy, and building a life together. But now it’s time for a new chapter.”
Mum nods. “We don’t see it as the end, more as a fresh beginning. We’re choosing to look forward—not back. The retreat helped enormously with that.”
“Some marriage retreat,” Tash says, “where you come away planning to divorce. I assume you’ve asked them for a refund?”
And then, despite ourselves, we all smile, and soon we are laughing, and before very long we are wiping away tears of both mirth and sadness as we hug each other. I’m pretty sure we’re all already wondering exactly what our future will look like as a family now, since everything we thought we knew has gone up in smoke.
Go
I’m jolted into consciousness in the small hours of Monday morning. Max and I have only just gone to bed. A brunch in Battersea yesterday afternoon turned into an evening bar crawl that ended up in Belgravia via Chelsea. Olly was there, and Dean Farraday, and a couple of people from Max’s work. And Jools brought Nigel. They’ve been seeing each other for nearly six months now—almost since the day I moved out of the house—and they’re the kind of besotted where they’ll break off midsentence to kiss, and forget the rest of us are standing there, wondering how long we should wait before edging away. It’s been pretty special, watching Nigel fall in love with Jools. And the best thing is, he knows how lucky he is. I was able to stop worrying within days of her meeting him that he’d ever be the kind of guy to take her for granted.
Sal and Reuben tagged along too last night, and some Supernova folk. At one point, one of our group—Nicola, I think her name was, a senior associate at HWW—congratulated me on “bagging the most eligible bachelor in London.” Jools was standing next to me at the time, and we both just about kept our faces straight before turning to each other with bulging cheeks as she started chatting to someone else, pulling that face people do when they’re trying not to throw up in public. But—much as she’d phrased ithorribly, and I could never actually admit it out loud—I privately agreed with Nicola. Maxisa catch: I’ve always felt that way, ever since we were students in Norwich and people flocked around him in bars like he was famous. He’s always just had that... aura about him.
Living with Max, just the two of us, has been everything I hoped it would be. Six months on, we’re still making each other late for workseveral times a week, unable to bear leaving the bedroom. We take showers together and pin love notes to the fridge and message each other to rush home. We eat our body weight in takeaway sushi and I’ve taught him to cook my famous paella crowd-pleaser. At first, I even joined him on the odd morning run, though my enthusiasm has slightly dropped off now. We’ve done so many of the tiny, trivial things we said we would over a decade previously, and every one of them has been worth the wait.
Perhaps it’s even better now than it would have been back then. Because maybe now is our time. Our careers are on an upward trajectory, we know who we are and what we want. This is the life we’ve chosen, not one we arrived at by accident.
And yet, somehow, I occasionally catch myself not quite recognizing the life we’re living—the show-home flat and our flashy jobs and increasingly expensive tastes. Maybe it’s because we broke up as students, and a part of me still thinks of us that way. Or maybe it’s ever since finding out about Tash, because nothing after that has turned out quite as I always thought it would.
But even if Tash hadn’t happened, and we’d stayed together all those years ago, I know we still might not have made it. Perhaps we’d have moved to London together, hearts full of hope, and parted ways six months later. Because life is complicated. Best intentions get buried beneath work, money, social lives. Love falls victim to circumstance.
“That yours or mine?” Max murmurs now. He’s spread-eagled on his front, face wedged between the pillows like he’s been dropped there from a height.
The sound of my phone is about as welcome as a pneumatic drill. I pick it up, praying it’s not Zara calling me to the office early for an emergency pitch meeting. I worked until midnight three days last week. Ineeda reasonable start time this morning.
“Hello?” I croak, alarmed to realize I sound as though I chain-smoked my way into bed.
“Lucy?”
I sit up. My hair is all over my face. I push it back. I need water and an open window, to breathe in some fresh dawn air. “Mum?”
“Oh, darling, thankGodyou’re okay.”
Dread spreads slowly through me like treacle. “What... What do you mean?”
“There’s been a fire.” Her voice cracks on the last word.
