‘You never liked him, did you?’ she announces, hazel eyes brimming with tears as she turns to me. ‘Sorry, Lauren. It’s been lovely meeting you but we’re going now. Miles,’ she commands, ‘call us a taxi to the station.’ She grabs her jacket from the hook at the door and pulls it on.
Charlie looks at me open-mouthed. I exhale and shrug. What can I say?
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ James says firmly.
No, it’s fine, let them go …
‘Miles,’ I start, ‘it’s Sunday. There are hardly any trains from—’
‘We’ll wait for one, then,’ he announces, glaring round at all of us. There’s a moment of confusion as he pulls his phone from his pocket, pushes back his thinning, suspiciously dark hair and looks at me. ‘Um, so where are we again?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
JAMES
It didn’t help that I managed to dissuade Miles from calling a taxi, herded everyone into my car and drove us all back to London instead.
What a jolly drive that was, in grim near-silence, a cloud of disdain filling the car that wouldn’t dissipate, even when I turned on the radio and opened a window to let in a blast of chilly October air. Just two sentences were spoken during the entire journey, both by Esther: ‘Can you turn the radio down?’ and ‘I’m cold.’ Miles just sat there, smug and mute with earphones in, having bagged the passenger seat again.
As a young child, I’d been obsessed with ejector seats. In films and cartoons, people (usually baddies) were propelled out of vehicles with pleasing regularity. James Bond, Batman, Scooby-Doo, all my favourites back then; you wouldn’t have long to wait before some troublesome individual would be pinged into oblivion via the jab of a button. But my car doesn’t have a button. At least, not one that does that. And Miles isn’t a cartoon baddie but my daughter’s boyfriend who’splanning to get her pregnant, for crying out loud.
Of even more immediate concern was the fact that I’d wrecked Lauren’s lunch. Not single-handedly, obviously – Miles had kicked things off, and Esther had behaved pretty badly – but I should’ve known better than to react in that way. There’d I’d been this morning, driving out to Hertfordshire with a heart full of hope, even with Miles tapping irritably on the dashboard, thinking we could somehow have a perfectly nice time like normal people.
I’d really hoped that Esther would show her best side, and that she and Lauren would get along. Not to be best buddies – that had seemed like too much to wish for – but to be relaxed with each other and find some common ground. After all, they’re both creative and drawn to beautiful things – Esther with her social media, Lauren with her photography.
I can’t see that ever happening now and, for the first time since we met, I wonder how it’s going to pan out with Lauren and me. Whatever must she think of my daughter now? Esther didn’t use to be like that, I want to tell her: causing a scene and demanding to go home. Before her TV fame – and certainly before Miles – she was a lovely, smart and sunny girl who people had always been drawn to. Outgoing and chatty, she’d never been one to shy away in a corner. Yet she’d also been inclusive with others, and never unkind. I’d have honestly said she didn’t have a mean bone in her body.
And now I’m not so sure.
Had she really wanted to know where the moon went during the day? Or had she been quizzing Charlie for her own amusement? As I really couldn’t tell, it had seemed more sensible to chat away to Kim and Lorenzo rather than wading in. And then, when I had stuck my oar in, about Miles being on Saturday morning kids’ TV; well, that had been the end of it.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I’d muttered to Lauren as we’d left.
‘It’s fine, it’s fine,’ she’d muttered quickly, virtually shooing us out. She looked stressed and upset and had closed the front door before we’d even pulled away.
What a shitshow. We should never have forced everyone to meet, I decide now, back home alone on this gloomy Sunday evening, having dropped off Esther and Miles in near-silence. We should have kept our family lives firmly locked away in two separate boxes and never flung them together like that.
At least we tried. We had to at least once; Lauren was right about that. I try to occupy myself by attempting to compose various messages to her, deleting them, then switching to taking the cafetière to pieces and thoroughly cleaning each component.
It won’t screw back together properly. How is it possible that I’m capable of removing a trapped chicken bone from a Dobermann’s large intestine, yet I can’t fit the steel disc and little screw-on bit back onto the plunger? Am I an idiot? Yes, according to my daughter. I can’t even keep a cactus alive. In irritation I dump the cafetière pieces into the sink and try again to compose messages to Lauren, veering from serious and apologetic to attempting to make light and even a joke out of it. But nothing feels right and, again, I delete them.
No word from her so far.
Really sorry about today,I fire off quickly.
Still nothing.
Of course that wasn’t enough. Things can come across abruptly in messages and that was definitely abrupt.
I type:I shouldn’t have said that thing to Miles. He was being a prick but I shouldn’t have reacted. It’s all my fault.Did that have a hint of martyrdom about it? Too late, I’ve sent it now. That’s the thing with messages; you can’t grabthem back. The whole messaging thing, in the way Lauren and I do it, is new to me anyway, although I have to say I soon got the hang of it; of being affectionate and telling her how much I’d loved our weekend together, how much I was missing her, all that. My ex, Polly, and I rarely texted, and whenever she did, her style was somewhat to the point:Film tonight? Odeon 7.30.And that would be that. There were none of the ‘x’s that Lauren and I scatter liberally on our messages to each other.
Or rather, we did.
Sod it, I’m just going to call her. We need to talk this out. But it just rings out and now, at 10.27 p.m., I’m figuring that Kim and Lorenzo, who were still at Lauren’s when we left (looking shocked and appalled, obviously) are probably still there now. They’ll be hanging out, finishing the wine and picking at French cheeses in Lauren’s homely kitchen amidst the jugs of garden flowers, the mismatched china, the old kitchen chairs gleaned from charity shops: that lovely relaxed vibe she’s created, like Camille’s beachside restaurant in Corsica.
As I pour myself a large glass of wine, I picture them agreeing what a messed-up family we are; that Esther is spoiled and Miles is a nightmare. And Lauren will wonder what on earth she was thinking, getting involved with me.
It was just one of those holiday things, she’ll decide. Pity it didn’t translate into real life.
