Yet, I know I should be doing the holistic stuff at my age, aimed at strengthening and suppleness. A bit like the collagen, oils and powders I should be knocking back, to balancehormones, suppress carb cravings and basically do everything a busy woman needs short of highlighting her hair. But I’m now too shattered to manage anything close to a warrior pose, so I swipe away the notification and vow that tomorrow will be the day I commit to the Pilates – and the start of the new, more supple and grounded me.
Daisy’s words suddenly pop into my head.
You’re not past it, Lisa.
It was clear she wasn’t talking about the flexibility of my joints, but about how hot I am – or otherwise. I don’t really think about that these days, at least not as much as I once did. I suspect I can still turn the odd head with a push-up bra and the right lighting, but that’s as far as I’ll go.
Someone like Daisy – who’s in her mid-twenties – might find it impossible to believe, but I am really not on the lookout for romance like I was at her age. On the contrary, I am not merely comfortable about the idea of being single for the rest of my life – I’m actuallyrelievedby it. The pressure’s off.
I did a little bit of dating before I met Brendan. It was fun, I can’t deny it – but it was also stressful. I can’t be alone in thinking this, surely? That I’ve devoted too much time over the years to over-thinking men’s behaviour, analysing their texts and worrying about whether I’m being ghosted. I’ve been there, done that. And while I refuse to beat myself up about anything in my past, including the two failed marriages, one thing is certain: there will never, ever,everbe another.
Chapter 7
Mistake number one happened when I was 22. Yes, I know. Far too young to get married. But you won’t be told at that age, will you? You are completely convinced that love conquers all and haven’t experienced enough slaps in the face to know any better.
I was the last person anyone expected to do something wild because I had been a shy child and an embarrassingly unrebellious teenager. My mother might tell a different story; I did slam a few doors and would argue at the dinner table about anything from Section 28 to whose turn it was to wash up. But there was no shoplifting of lipsticks from Boots, bunking off school or going behind the bike sheds to do whatever people did back there. While friends had experimented with smoking and in some cases soft drugs, the only illicit substance I ever recall buying was a sachet of Harmony Highlights.
Shortly after my 21st birthday and in my final year at the London School of Economics, I met Danny. He was studying Fine Art at Goldsmiths, trying to hide an upper-class accent and had a look of Michael Hutchence, with soft, curly hair and to-die-for brown eyes. He was gentle, sexy, romantic. The term ‘falling in love’ had never been more apt. I was like a supernova, or Alice plummeting down the rabbit hole: euphoric, a little scared and not entirely sure if any of it was real.
We were obsessed not just with one another but with the sheer wonder of being in love. He’d travel across London between lectures just so he could be with me for 20 minutes.We’d spend every spare moment in each other’s company and when he wasn’t there, all I could think about was him.
Trouble is, falling so hard for someone that young makes you a bit selfish. So I did the first truly shocking thing I’d ever done in my life, more than making up for anything that had gone previously. I tell myself these days that the marriage was a short-lived and ultimately harmless mistake. But I’m still not proud of the person I became at that time, so obsessed with him that I failed to think of anyone else. I don’t think it even occurred to me how upset my parents would be when we took off to a registry office one afternoon to marry, in secret, with just the two of us and a witness we picked up on the street – an Argentine exchange student who looked completely bewildered throughout.
I was too loved-up to stop and think, even if I distinctly remember a thought running through my head as I walked down the aisle, in clunky Top Shop heels and a bias-cut dress.This isn’t going to last.
But we moved in together and quickly proved the inevitable: that chemistry does not guarantee compatibility. For all his sweetness, Danny was also chaotic, lazy, entitled and frankly unhygienic. I did all the cleaning, cooking, laundry and household admin. I was the one who made us tuna bake every night (my signature dish). The one who changed the bedsheets, picked up his dirty underpants off the bathroom floor and fished his pubes out of the shower plughole. Not because he asked me to, admittedly, but because they’d have been there forever otherwise, a bad impression of a Tracey Emin’s bed exhibit at the Tate.
I told myself that none of this mattered because we were in love. Then I’d catch myself and think:Jesus, Lisa! You’re supposed to be a feminist. We’re heading towards a new millennium. This is not1959.
So I’d try to broach the issue and he’d accuse me of nagging, fireworks would ensue, we’d make up and the process was repeated, at first monthly, then weekly, then daily. After six months of marriage, I had literally no idea howanyonemade that institution work. If Danny and I couldn’t when we’d been so mad about each other, how did anyone else?
Despite knowing it wasn’t working at all, when he finally left, I was heartbroken. He left only a note, telling me that he’d always love me but this wasn’t meant to be. I couldn’t argue with that really. I felt the same.
For a time, I felt as if I’d been lanced in the gut. But I learned something all women discover, sooner or later. It doesn’t matter how bad something or someone makes you feel, you can’t stay at rock bottom forever. It’s not even possible. Whatever depths you’re in, at some point you’ll rise to the surface again, like it or not. The only question is whether you fight it or do as my mum liked to say: pull yourself up by your bootstraps and give it a helping hand.
In the intervening years between this and my next marriage, it’s hard to come to any other conclusion than the fact that I went from strength to strength. Singledom suited me – it always has. And, once the dust had settled post-Danny, I had the time of my life as a single woman. I had a fabulous job. A brilliant group of friends. I enjoyed my twenties to the full.
I didn’t see or hear from Danny for years afterwards. Only his mother had ever been in touch to reassure me that he was alive and well, working in a beach bar in Koh Samui and very sorry. As he never requested a divorce and I was not planning to marry again any time soon, it was ages before I thought I might as well send off the paperwork.
His family had been wealthy, so I was probably entitled to half of Bedfordshire, but I never even went to see a lawyer. I didn’t want his money. That marriage had not been real, I told myself.It should never have happened. When I finally did settle down with someone and start a family, it would be forever.
Ha.
Chapter 8
To-do list
Offer 1.5 x going rate to maths tutor to end Carroll Diagram misery
Take the sodding collagen – it’s not hard
