She grimaces and peers down. ‘Whatarethey?’
‘Um, nests. I mean clusters. Chocolate clusters...’
‘Oh.’ Her sleeves, which until a second ago were as puffed up as airbags, seem to have deflated a little. Then someone calls her name and she brightens. ‘Scuse me, Kate. I think I’m needed,’ she announces, and swishes away across the park.
I turn back, about to gather up the sorry items so I can bin them and pretend this never happened. But already a terse-looking woman has grabbed the hand of a little boy.
‘Don’t stand in that, Casper,’ she barks at him. Then, seemingly to no one in particular: ‘On festival day too, withchildrenhere. How hard is it to pick up after your dog?’
CHAPTER TWO
It wasn’t always like this with Vince and me. We met when I’d just turned twenty-four and I fell completely head-over-heels in love.
Tash and I had gone along to an open mic comedy night. We’d endured a succession of braying male comedians all projecting rock-solid self-belief. It was like being shouted at by one man after another, and we were on the verge of going home when this skinny guy with a shock of dark reddish hair shambled onto the stage. Immediately I knew he was different. In black corduroys and a maroon crew-necked sweater, he looked like a probationary geography teacher.
If he had been a teacher, his class would have sensed weakness in him and made his lesson hell. And indeed, the audience soon identified his nervousness.
‘Get off, mate!’ someone yelled.
Vince struggled on gamely. However, I caught the haunted look in his eyes that reminded me of my little brother, when he’d come home from school at twelve years old with a bruised face and his smart leather music case gone. A bunch of boys had attacked him, stolen his case and burned his piano music with a cigarette lighter.
I’d never been so angry in my life.
And now, in this scruffy basement club, I wondered if this Vince Weaver who was up there, dying on stage, had been bullied as a kid. Because there was definitely a vulnerability there – even though his material was original and very funny. And I wondered, is that why he’s doing this? As a way of telling his bullies to fuck off?
‘Enough, mate! You’re shit!’ yelled the man next to us.
Incensed, I swung around and snapped, ‘Would you shut the hell up?’
‘What’s it to you?’ he shot back.
‘You’re being a jerk, all right? That’s what it is to me. Give the guy a break.’ I turned back to the stage and caught the comedian’s eye.
For a moment, he held on to my gaze like a lifeline as I tried to project a message:You’re good. You can do this. Ignore the twats.He had lovely eyes, I noticed: deep brown, kind of intense. And a great smile too, because now hewassmiling, and as he carried on with his act he seemed to grow in stature and belief in himself. The heckling had stopped and he was owning it, as people say now. But a quarter of a century ago it was just, ‘He’s actually pretty good! Don’t you think?’ That was from the girlfriend of the heckling guy. She caught my eye and smiled.
After the gig, Vince found Tash and me by the bar, and insisted on buying us drinks – not to be flash but because he wanted to thank us, he said.
He didn’t say what for. But I knew.
*
We met again the next night, and the one after that. Just the two of us, obviously. No Tash. At twenty-nine Vince was five years older than me, and I liked that, after dating guys my own age. He just seemed a bit more worldly, and on our third date he told me that he was the father of a little girl. ‘That’s amazing!’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you say before?’
‘Didn’t want to put you off,’ he replied with a shrug.
‘It wouldn’t have put me off,’ I told him. ‘Now I know you must have a responsible side buried somewhere in there too.’ I grinned at him and he laughed.
‘Don’t know about that.’
It was true, though. I was thrilled by this new information because I loved babies and kids. As soon as I’d been old enough I’d been expected to play a part in taking care of George, because Mum worked all hours and simply couldn’t do it all herself. I was delighted to meet my new boyfriend’s daughter, and hoped I’d be able to get to know her – because I was crazy about Vince. He was such fun, and so handsome with those conker-brown eyes that hinted at adventure and naughtiness.
After we’d been together for a few months he’d kind of grown into himself, and his confidence had blossomed. I loved being with him, kissing him deeply as we wrapped ourselves around each other. He made me feelcomplete. And gradually I got to know his daughter, Edie – an adorable toddler who saw her dad on the weekends. The rest of the time she lived with her mum, Roxanne, a former model and still a dedicated party girl, by all accounts.
A year after we’d met, Vince decided that Edie would have a more stable life with us, just for the time being. Roxanne didn’t put up any resistance, and for Edie, moving from her mum’s ramshackle farm in Kent to a flat in London seemed like a wonderful adventure.
Did I mind? I absolutely didn’t because Edie was an adorable girl who needed to feel settled and safe, just as I had. The fact that Vince cared so deeply about her made me love him even more.
Of course, ‘just for the time being’ turned out to be a permanent arrangement as Edie started nursery, and made friends, and we found a fantastic childminder (actually,Ifound Fatima) and we became a proper little family. Vince was gigging as much as he could, as well as doing shifts in our local pub. My clerical work was hardly scintillating but it paid reasonably well and we managed to get by. We moved to a bigger flat, and Edie started school and had her dance classes and drama club and Brownies. I took her to all of those and got to know the other mums, even though they were all so much older than me.
